Two Spirits Manifest

Dylann Roof goes on trial today in South Carolina.

He was the young man who shot and killed nine people at a church' Bible-study.

Roof is white, and his victims were black, gathered at their black church. As hard as it is to believe (especially in Charleston, the mother-city of the Confederacy), his victims welcomed Roof to join them. Shouldn't God's people welcome all who desire to join them ?

They doubtless offered prayer, with Roof among them, that God would illuminate His word to their hearts; and opened and read the Bible together. Shouldn't God's people welcome all who desire to pray with them, all who desire to hear God's word ?

As hard as it is to believe, Roof spent an hour in fellowship with his victims, hearing God's word. Then he began to shoot them and kill them, one by one, hunting down and murdering those who attempted to flee.

It is hard to understand how, and especially WHY, a human being would act as Roof did. He was reportedly much influenced by white-supremacist ideas. If so, he was deceived by ideas which are lies in themselves, and of deeply evil intent.

But I'd riff on Brother Tim's spiritual insight on politics: "Race relations aren't really about race relations."

Human events...ultimately all human events...are about spiritual warfare.

God's Spirit is continually present in this world, and working among us. The spirit of the enemy is also continually working among men, opposing God. We human beings live on the battlefield of that warfare, and we are participants in that warfare...whether we recognize it or not.

It's not always easy to tell which side people are on. Human beings (ourselves included) are always of such mixed motive and purpose that it's impossible for any but God to judge rightly what spirit a person is acting in. We are people ourselves, and not always certain which spirit we are acting in. Hence scripture's command to us, to "Examine yourselves !" and "Test yourselves." (II Corinthians 13:5).

We arrogate to ourselves God's moral wisdom when we call some particular person (as we frequently do) "good" or "evil." And Jesus Himself forbade us to do so, saying that "God alone is good" (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19: my emphasis).

But in so saying, Jesus also gave us a foolproof way to identify God's Spirit...even when He manifests Himself in men's imperfect obedience. Those who do good are unmistakably acting in God's Spirit...for "God alone is good." And scripture's thumbnail theological I.D. for "good" is simply that "God is Love" (I John 4:8).

Jesus also absolutely identified the spirit of the enemy, who is a "murderer," and "the father of lies" (John 8:44).

The acts men do in the pervasive spiritual war of this world may be hard to read. Men themselves certainly are. But the warring spirits are unmistakable in their manifestations.

There could not be a more clear manifestation of that spiritual war than when a man with hate-filled heart enters a church to murder people gathered to study the Bible. They were gathered by and in God's Spirit. He came against them in the spirit of the enemy.

The point is that we too are human beings, like the murderer, and like his victims. The point is that we must examine our own divided hearts: because we can, as certainly as each of them, choose which side of this spiritual war we join.

Which spirit do we, and will we, act in ?

There could not be a more clear manifestation of the spiritual war in our divided nation and world than this: the violent rage of a man whose heart is filled with lies and hatred toward those who love God, love Jesus "The Truth," love His word, and love His children.

Our world...and especially today, our country...faces the same question in this spiritual warfare that every individual one of us faces.

In which spirit does our country...and, our special concern at this time...will our country act ?