“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me…”
(Rom 7:24a, NKJV)
The well-known psychologist, Dr M Scott Peck, writer of The road less traveled, as a professional person, was confronted with an academically and scientifically unexplained force that played a far greater role in the lives of his patients than any other influencing factors. The presence of this unknown but clearly discernable influence in his patients’ lives could not be attributed to genetic, psychological or social elements. This force became a more striking part of their personality in the advent of trauma, exposure to certain things or relationships and various other dynamics, reaching a point of seemingly controlling the patient. It especially manifested in confusion, an imagined concept of reality, a constant latent angst, and a propensity for lying. This led to him writing the book People of the lie, which is centred around what he terms “the psychology of evil”.
After extensive research his conclusion brought nothing to the table that was not already known to general counselors or individuals engaged in spiritual deliverance, but did create an academic foundation for the problematic reality of evil within the lives of individuals. But no one encapsulates it more clearly than Van Wyk Louw, in his poem, Ballad of the Evil One, where Satan is speaking – “Too many imagine / they know my face, / but I dwell too glorious / too close to the light, / and when they warn and / discern their thoughts, / already then I reverberate / in the echoes of every word they say; / … and where they try to flee, / I carry them with / in the grey white grooves / of every nerve. / I am in you / braided, intricately twined / like a root / in the darkened earth / … / I am your being’s / deepest shadow / and I follow your trail / like a loyal dog. / … Oh where will I flee / on which ship shall I sail? / the earth is grounded / only stones lay dross / or if you will flee / out of the city on fire / I’ll run off with you / like a wife clinging to your hand. / Do you now know me? / Have you seen the mirror, / and do you know yourself?” (Freely translated.)
Scott Peck makes this incredibly accurate observation – “We become evil by attempting to hide from ourselves. The wickedness of the evil is not committed directly, but indirectly as part of this cover-up process. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the efforts to escape it.” This leads Martin Buber, in his book Good and evil, to saying “Since the primary motive of the evil is to disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church.”
This imagined reality and accompanying lie which is lived (also within the Christian walk) render us people of the lie. In John 8:44 Jesus spelled it out as follows – “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” All who are born, everyone with a navel, fall within this category – We are all people of the lie.
If this self-realization of your terminal condition does not grip your heart with distress and deep sorrow you have never desired salvation. Then you have probably never truly come to the bronze altar of the cross.
Have you seen the mirror, / and do you know yourself?
- Sela: Ask the Holy Spirit to make 2 Cor 7:10 a reality for you.
- Read: 2 Chr 36; Job 35; Isa 16
- Memorise: Isa 16:5
