Hello, and welcome to the Christian Worldview. My name is Matthew J. Coombe. I'm the vice president of the Institute of Biblical Defense. With me is the pastor of Trinity Bible Fellowship and the president of the Institute of Biblical Defense, Dr. Phil Fernandez. Doc, always a pleasure. It's great to be here, Matt. Looking forward to another good night tonight. I am too, and either people out there really, really like CS Lewis, or they really, really like us, because we really got a lot of downloads from this last week when we finally uploaded it. I think it's more of CS Lewis. I was going to say, I think they like CS Lewis. We haven't been this successful ever, ever before. But over a thousand downloads in just about a week's time. on that one message on C.S. Lewis' non-fictional work. Now tonight we're going to be talking about his fictional work, and so I'm going to be punting to you on most of this because I'm just the kind of... It's like I told you, I was actually a good artist growing up in New Jersey, and I used to write poetry. But I never really enjoyed it. I used to write songs. And so I always told people if I had a second life to live that would be the creative one. But the fact of the matter is I'm on the rational side. It's not something I feel like I'm bragging about. I feel sad about this. And I wish I had more time to devote to my creative side if there is one left. But C.S. Lewis did have that creative side. And I've always told my students that I can teach you philosophy and theology but that's not going to impact the world unless you use your creativity and figure out a way to take these awesome truths and bring them into a medium that will get out there to the masses. And so C.S. Lewis was able to do both. Very few people are able to do that. And you know he definitely did. You see also the wide variety of his works. I meant, some of his stuff, you know, you can have a sixth grader go and pick up it, read it, and find it fascinating. Some of his stuff, like even when I was working on my master's degree, one of his books was one of our textbooks. So that he does have not only a unique ability to be very creative, but he also writes in such a way that is challenging for anybody who comes across it. Yeah, I was always puzzled by my professors who talked about Lewis's ability to break things down because I actually, reading his philosophical stuff, I actually found some of his stuff to be so profound that I have to read it three or four times over and over again until eventually it sunk in, whereas like a Francis Schaeffer was a lot easier for me to understand. But then for that guy to turn around and say I'm going to write children's books like Chronicles of Narnia and things of that sort shows that he was willing to do both to cover the gamut. And so I think it really sets an example for us in that this profound thinker also had the desire and the ability to break things down even for little children with his Chronicles of Narnia. Now certainly some of his fiction goes way beyond beautiful, simple truths for little kids, and I'm sure you're going to be talking about that tonight as well. Yeah, let's start off with the Chronicles of Narnia. I think it's probably his most well-known work. The thing is, I remember in one of his, in his book, Letters to Children, he was talking about the Narnia series. I think it was in this, where he said this, and he says that, you know, in this world we have Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, and that's how God chose to save humanity. In this world, he's like, I'm telling that same story, but from another perspective. He's like, in this story you have this lion, who is Aslan, who is this Christ-like figure, who likewise dies a sacrificial death, one of atonement, basically as a means for salvation. So you do see that he even says, this could have been a way that God could have redeemed us, or could have redeemed any other planet. So I really like this idea of looking at salvation as something that is definitely sacrificial in nature, But yet there's so many different venues in which it could have occurred. Yeah, and that's an area where I kind of would differ a little bit from Lewis. When I deal with what I call the logic of salvation, I side more with Anselm on that it could have been no other way. And so it's also one of the reasons why I don't believe in the possibility of life on other planets, whereas Lewis himself was open to it. But the important thing for me here is the fact that Lewis says, I can teach you about reality through fantasy. And that we can write these fantasy books and bring glory to God, and educate people about the Lord Jesus Christ, and I appreciate that so much. There are radical fundamentalists, and believe me, I hold to all the fundamentals of the faith. I classify myself as a conservative evangelical just because the fundamentalist movement has been hijacked by many times people who add to the essentials of the faith. And then sometimes people will downplay, sometimes people who call themselves fundamentalists will bad mouth education and academics and things of that sort. And yet, if God was anti-intellectual, why in the world would he choose the Apostle Paul? to write a large portion of the New Testament. And so I really don't appreciate when fundamentalists will slam on C.S. Lewis. disagreements with him on theology, but as far as getting the message out there and using fantasy to do it, so that when he talks about witches and good magic versus bad magic, look, he's talking fantasy, this is literature. He's not, C.S. Lewis was not the guy who'd go home and play with the Ouija board, okay? He's not an occultist, but, oh, forgive him, he had an imagination. It's a sin for a Christian to have an imagination, and that's unfortunate. And you know, when you read these books, you cannot help but sense his deep, and love, not just love, but just respect. for the creativity of God. You see the way he writes about Aslan and how the people in these stories respond to him? It is so beautiful. You know, we talked about before when we were talking about Augustine, and you could see how much in Confessions he was just in love with God, and his apologetic methodology was love. And you see that in these Narnia books. You see the way that, like you said before, Aslan is brilliant character. Very brilliant. Always, you know, asking a lot of questions, making people come to their own conclusions. But you see the respect that these characters have for him. And the whole time I'm reading it, I'm thinking, this guy who wrote this book is totally in love with God. And you can tell that just by the interactions, the devotions. Now I'll tell you one of my favorite stories in in all of the series. My favorite book of the series is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And probably my two favorite stories are from this one. Hopefully we'll get to talk about both of them tonight. But this one has always caught my attention. I remember the first time I read it, I started crying. It was so powerful to me. They were deep in this voyage, and obviously Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's a ship. They're going to Aslan's country, and So as they're on the ship, they had been going for some time, and they were not sure what was going on ahead. And they were like, well, maybe we should turn back. Maybe we shouldn't go any further. And then it's kind of, it's like one of those things that no one wanted to say it, but everyone was kind of thinking about it, and they're like, Yeah, we really don't know what's out there. And you see this in our own lives. God asks us to do something. And we start to do it, and then we're like looking, and we're like, well, did I really have to do this? Did God really want me to do this, put myself in danger or something like that? So they're almost like reaching this point. There's this one character, and he's one of the most noble characters in all the series. His name is Reepicheep, and he is the head of the talking mice. And he's a very valiant swordsman. And he's just quiet this whole time. And they look at him, and they're like, what do you think? And he's like, there's no debate with me. He's like, I will continue to sail towards Aslan's country. He's like, and if this boat fails me, I'm going to get out and I'm going to get in a canoe and I'm going to keep on going towards that country. He's like, if that fails me, I'm going to get out and I'm going to swim. And he's like, if that point, if I haven't gone over some type of giant waterfall or have drowned, if I get to that point where I have to stop, he's like, I'm going to sink with my nose facing in the direction of Aslan's country. And it was so funny, and it was just like, the way he said it too, he was like, do we have any other choice? And you know, when I read that, I started crying because I'm like, how many of us have this devotion to see our Savior, to have that intimate fellowship with the Savior, that they would be saying, listen, I'm gonna go in a boat. If this boat fails me, I'm getting in a canoe. If that fails me, I'm gonna swim. If I die, I'm gonna die facing the direction of my Savior. It's like Jesus said that, you know, no disciple is worthy of him if they look back. You know, once you grab that plow, you don't look back, you just keep pressing on. And that's, I mean, if there was ever a time when America needs to hear that, American Christianity needs to hear that message, it's now. We don't know, you know, two words we don't know, commitment and perseverance. and we say the sinner's prayer and we think we're Christians, and then we just go about our business and act like obeying Jesus is an option. And Lewis understood that the Christian walk is, you know, God didn't call us to a picnic. He called us to a war. And yes, godly men and godly women are going to feel like throwing in the towel, but we've got to continue to press on. And so I just like the fact that Here's a guy who's pretty solid in his theology. Yes, he's not a theologian, he's not a philosopher, but he's willing to use his imagination to proclaim these eternal truths to us, much like his good friend Tolkien did. Yeah, and even in this, I think you brought up that quotation of Jesus. I think the full quotation is what really is vital. He says, No man, having put his hand to plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven. And it's like you think, so what he's saying is that the essential quality or attribute is, if you put your hand in a plow, you're going to plow. And I love the fact that you brought up talking about, you know, he didn't call us to a picnic, he called us to a war. And I love that imagery that C.S. Lewis puts across. I mean, they come across some major battles. You know, obviously, not all Christians are ever going to have to pick up a sword, but, you know, Jesus says, hey, you're going to have to carry a sword. You're going to have to prepare for this battle. The other story I want to talk about, you know, I was even thinking about today, Doc. There's so much good stuff that we could talk about, not only his fictional and non-fictional work. I mean, I don't see why we couldn't do several lectures, not in a row, but, you know, throughout time, we talk about more of his non-fictional work and more of his fictional work, because I could easily talk about one of the Narnia books for a whole session. So that's something we should definitely think about. But my other one is from the same book, and there was this kid who had become a dragon. He kind of shows up one day and he had no longer turned into a dragon, he turned back into a boy. And they asked him, what happened? How did you stop becoming this dragon? And he's like, well, let me tell you this story. And he says, I remember I was sitting and I saw upon me a lion came into my camp. And obviously right away you know that this is Aslan, the Christ-like figure. And Aslan said, follow me. And he followed him and it took him to a well. And he saw this water, and the kid, his name was Eustace, he said he looked at this water and he really wanted to cleanse himself in this water. He had sustained an injury on his arm as well, and he was like, if I could just dip my hand in this water, I could be cleansed. And so he goes to get in, and Athlen stops him and says, no, before you go in, you have to undress yourself. He's like, I dress myself, what are you talking about? I'm a dragon, you know, I don't have any clothes on. But then he looks, he's like, well wait, dragons are like snakes, snakes are scaly, they shed their skin, maybe I have to shed my skin. So he begins like scratching at his stomach and arms and stuff, and scales start falling off, and eventually he rips off this outer layer of skin, and underneath him is this bright, shiny, brand new coat. And he's like, OK, sweet, I've addressed myself now. I can go and get this soothing cleanse now. And so he goes to continue on, and Aslan stops him again and says, no. You're still not totally addressed. He looks down, and his once bright, shiny armor has become all dirty again. And he's like, OK, so two layers. I've got to go through two layers. Does the same thing. Rips off another layer. then underneath is this bright, shiny thing, and he's like, okay, now I can cleanse myself. He goes to get in, Aslan stops him again, and he says, no. He's like, you don't understand. The only way you'll be fit to go in the water to receive this cleansing is if I undress you. And he said that he looked at Aslan's claws, and they looked fierce, and so Eustace agreed. He said that when Aslan plunged his claws into his chest. He said, it felt like it punctured my heart. And he ripped, ended up ripping off the entire dragon's skin. And he was able to clean himself. And the thing that I love so much about this is, again, Lewis, nailing down the fact of you are in need of a savior. And we look at our lives and we think, you know what? we can point out these worst areas of morality, like, oh, I'm not so bad, look at this person, look how many people they've slept with, that's way more than me, or look at this, and then in a sense we're cleansing ourselves. But it's just this superficial second skin. And Atman says, if you want to cleanse, you have to let me address you. And so he says, okay, I will come to you and have the only type of repentance that makes me good enough to the point where I can be cleansed. And it brings up the point, too, is that true repentance is painful. When you turn from your sin, it is painful. You know, one of the imageries I love, see, I don't know if you've seen this movie, but it's in the third Spider-Man movie. And in him, he has this alien on top of him, Spider-Man, and he's trying to get it off him. And he's just ripping at it, just tearing at it, trying to get this off of him. And I remember thinking, this is what repentance needs to look like. You are infested with this sin. You are unable to remove it yourself. And you must have the figure of Christ, such as with Adeline, to rip it off for you. And I think too, with Paul, where he says that, in Philippians, that we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and the reason for the fear and trembling, he says, is because it is God who is at work in you. And, you know, Lewis, you know, just when he was, you know, this guy's, like you said, you know, he's tearing the dragon flesh off of himself. And then Aslan says, no, I got to do it for you. Well, you would expect, OK, now it's going to be this real gentle, you know, because of the free gift of salvation. Salvation is a free gift. And Lewis knew that. But Lewis being Lewis realized, you know something, when I got saved, I had tremendous joy. I had some really big hurts. And that goes throughout my walk. Anytime I get closer to the Lord, and you know, you mentioned yesterday, when you were preaching on spiritual disciplines, how that, you know, sometimes it's good to leave church feeling rotten, feeling bad, saying, you know, I'm not where I need to be. Lord, I need to be closer to you. I need to be more intimate with you. I need to love you more. But sometimes Christianity just plain hurts. And very rarely do we grow in our walk with the Lord feeling good the whole way. I mean, the growth pains, I think, are more common in the spiritual realm than they are in the physical realm. And so it is God who is at work in us, and God is serious. We had better be serious about our walks. But yeah, repentance is painful. Dying to self is painful. And conforming to the image of Christ is painful. And I think Lewis through his imagination, gets that point across very well. Yeah, he really does. And I just, I love the imagery. A lot of times when I speak to youth, I like to tell that story. And this idea of, you know, you want to cleanse yourself. Good luck. You can pull off a layer or two, but if you want to be undressed and really changed, transformed by Christ, it's going to feel like... Yeah, that kind of... That kind of pierced my heart when you said that when you talk to youth, you liked it because we're lying to our kids. We're lying to quote-unquote Christian youth and we're just begging them to leave the churches once they turn 18 or go away to college because we're teaching them an easy Christianity. A fun, easy Christianity and we are lying to them because we're not giving them this message that Lewis gave them that You know, that expression, love hurts. Well, love with a capital L, divine love, really, really hurts because it messes with our world. Things aren't the way we want them to be and they can't be that way because God loves us too much to allow it to be that way. But yeah, just the fact that you said that you used that illustration for youth, because we're lying to them and the evangelical church in America, that's a shame. Yeah, and it's true though. We preach Christianity as a path of least resistance. And I've experienced that with my limited church type stuff I went to in Europe. I was so disgusted at what I saw there because Christianity had literally become nothing more than the path of least resistance. And it was like, okay, how do I hold to this view of God, but I am going to remove anything that might somewhat get in the way of my life, or what I want to accomplish and whatnot. And like you said, like, true repentance is painful. And I'll tell you the truth, Doc, I did not know what it felt like to be helpless until I knew Christ. I mean, I thought I had a rough life before Christ saved me, but I'll tell you what, I did not know helplessness and I did not know fear until I knew Christ, and that was because only then did I really know what love is, what hope is. So only then could I really understand the antithesis of those things. Yes, the American church has turned the Christian walk, which should be self-denial, into self-help. and everything is just twisted around and I appreciate that C.S. Lewis can actually address issues. Now they might have faced these issues in Great Britain when Lewis was alive, but we're facing these issues right now in America, but so often Lewis was addressing problems that weren't weren't going to arrive on the scene until 40, 50 years after his death. Like you said, he's definitely something of a prophet, not necessarily a biblical prophet, but has that role. Okay, so let's move on. I could talk about the Narnian this whole day, but I do want to just at least give these people an introduction on his works. Next is the Space Trilogy. Now this one, again, kind of aimed towards, not necessarily kids, but it definitely, you know, very strong narrative, not incredibly difficult read at all, but I wouldn't say it was a children's book. This is a story about a man named Ransom and his adventures in space and him coming to meet the god of this universe that happened to rule these other planets. One thing I want to briefly mention, it's probably my favorite part from the first book, and then I want to discuss a theme, and I want to know what you think about this. The one thing I want to discuss, and you see this constantly in Lewis's works, he often talks about reality, talks about real things. We'll talk about this a little bit more in Screwtape Letters and Till We Have Faces, But even in Narnia, he's always talking about what we think is real, or what we perceive to be real. Everyone wanting to turn back, like in the Narnia, everyone wanted to turn back because they perceived that was the right thing to do. And that one guy was like, no, this is real, this is what we know to be right. He often talks about things like this. And one of the ransom the main character from the space trilogy. In the first book, he sees this angelic-like being, and it's able to pass through walls. And he's so confused by this, he's like, how is it that these beings can pass through physical objects? And he was kind of laughed at, and he's like, these beings are so real, that these so-called physical objects, you think, they're like mist to them. They're like fog. And it's so funny because we think that this physical surroundings that we are so entrenched in is real. We don't realize that we are created for fellowship with the Lord, for intimate fellowship with the Lord. And that type of fellowship is impossible on earth. And so, you think of what it means to be real. Real is fulfilling what we were made to do, which is have fellowship with the Lord. Now, these beings, these angelic-like beings, were on that similar type of realm, where they had a closer interaction with reality than these people thought they did. Because what they thought to be real, these physical things, they passed right through them, because they were like myths. And I love that C.S. Lewis was pointing out, like, You think you know what reality is, you don't. Yeah, and if you take Lewis in a wooden, literal fashion, then you could accuse him of being platonic, that the physical realm is less than fully real. But that's not what Lewis is doing. Lewis is using his imagination and writing fantasy to bring across the point that God calls us, commands us to walk by faith and not by sight. And so our circumstances may tell us, okay, give up. You're no good. You can't do this or whatever. I mean, my circumstances told me when I was a new believer that God wouldn't want me to preach. That certainly God has other guys who didn't have the messed up background that I had, and God could use these other guys to preach, why would he need to use me? And I was content not to preach just because I thought that God wouldn't call me. And I wasn't living by faith, I was living by sight. I was just accepting what the world told me that Phil Fernandez was. That I was trash, that my people I used to hang out with were trash, and that I wasn't really going to be anything powerful, but as I learned to live by faith and not by sight, I saw that God gave me the desire to preach his word, and so I realized that was the reality, not what the world was telling me. Our circumstances do not constitute reality God is in control of our circumstances. He's the ultimate reality and he tells us to trust in him and his promises even when the world tells us, and their circumstances tell us that it's not going to come out the way God has said. We've got to trust God at his word, and then when he calls us and guides us and leads us, we've got to go where he calls us to go. Absolutely. And we're not at all advocating that you can't really know reality or something like that. I think most of reality is very obscene in its existence. I mean, most of the things you know, like whether we're sitting here and stuff, there's so much obvious. What we're trying to say is, not that we doubt all of reality, but you need to be in fellowship with the Lord to the point where you know the voice of your shepherd and that you act upon it. Yeah, even before we fell, we were created finite. So right off the bat, we weren't infinite in our wisdom and our knowledge. We were finite, we were limited. Only God is infinite. But now we're fallen, so we're finite and we're fallen. So even though we can know reality, we can only know reality to a certain degree. I mean, we can't exhaustively, we're not infinite, so we can't exhaustively know everything that there is to know, only God can. But even what we do know, we only know to a limited degree, a finite degree. God exhaustively is the only one who exhaustively knows every truth. each truth that we know, we only know to a limited degree. Now, a lot of people might say, wow, that sounds too skeptical, you're too much of a skeptic or you're post-modern or whatever, which I'm definitely not. But basically, I'm paraphrasing Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas gets slammed for being too rational. Well, that just shows that the people who slam him for that don't read him. But Aquinas argued that not only do we not know God exhaustively, but even the truth that we know about God, we don't exhaustively know any of those truths. Each of those truths is like an arrow heading towards a target, but never quite gets there, but we know it's getting closer and closer. And so I think what Lewis is pointing out is that our humility, that we need to be humble and acknowledge that we're fallen and that we're finite, But praise God, we can know truth, but the only reason why we can know truth is because God is the revealer of truth. If God didn't reveal anything to us, whether through nature, or supernaturally through His Word, or through miracles, we wouldn't know anything. A little bit later on in the series, the second book, Ransom meets this woman, And it's very, it's almost like a Garden of Eve scenario. And he says, hey, let's go and spend the night over on this land and sleep there in this dry land, because it's mostly like this water world type scenario. And she says, no, we are forbidden by God to sleep on the land. And you see ransom going in his head. being like, I've never even thought about this before, but God could command one thing to a certain people and not necessarily command it to another certain people. And he's not talking about relativity of truth. What he's talking about is these different universes. But the reason why I bring this up is this is a struggle that Lewis had towards the end of his life. He didn't know whether, and we had Habermas talked about this last time we had him up, he didn't know whether something was good because God said it was good, or that he commanded something because it was intrinsically good. And I think that brings up a good point. I mean, Christians love to cling to the fact that only through the Bible do we have objective morality. but everyone would agree that God is a person, or God is a subject. So in a sense, it's not really objectivity, it's subjectivity. Now, the subjectivity of God is beyond anything we would need for objectivity, but that brings up a good point. So I ask you, does God command us to do things because they are intrinsically good, or when he commands it, does it make it good? Yeah, this is the essentialist, voluntarist debate. The voluntarist would say that God can will whatever he wants, and it arbitrarily becomes good because he wills it, and it arbitrarily becomes evil because he doesn't will it, and so God's will is subject to nothing. And so that's the voluntarist. Now the problem with that of course is then that God could have willed murdering innocent people to be good and he could have willed feeding the hungry to be evil. And I think the other position and most certainly most classical theologians do as well, the essentialist position that God's will is only subject to his essence or to his nature. And God is by nature good. So it's not like, if you just say, well God can only will what is good, it makes it sound like good is a standard that is above God, and then God isn't really God because he has to submit to the standard that's above him. But once you understand that God is the standard, God is his nature, and God's nature is good. So God doesn't... God's will doesn't submit to something outside of God. God's will is only subject to God's own good nature. And so yes, it is intrinsically good, but it's intrinsically good because it flows from the good nature of God. That's one thing I always like to explain to people. Like, the difference between animals and humans are animals can live consistently with their nature, but they lack freedom. Humans can't live consistently with their nature because of their freedom. Now God is opposite than both animals and humans, because while being free, will always choose to live consistently with his nature. And his nature, as you said, is that of goodness. And there's some Calvinists that would disagree, like Jonathan Edwards, that even humans can only act consistently with their nature, so since we're fallen we can never act in any way, we couldn't freely accept Christ because we're fallen, we can only act in a way to move away from God. But then the question comes up, well how could Adam and Eve with unfallen natures and Lucifer with an unfallen nature choose to do the good thing? How could they fall? And so the Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards would say, well that's a mystery. No, it's not a mystery, it's a contradiction of your principle, and that is that you can only act in accordance with your nature. So, whatever the case, I do think, now the scriptures are clear, true freedom is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin. At the same time, I do think, I am a big proponent of human free will, and so was C.S. Lewis, and so I really appreciate him, but C.S. Lewis I don't want to get too far off, but he could say that he came kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God, because he realized that even though he had the freedom to say yes to Jesus, he had to be under heavy divine persuasion before he would reach that point. But even with him though, he was intellectually compelled towards it. That was the same thing with me. When I got to a point where I threw out all these reasons why God was not calling me into fellowship with him, And I would always... I almost felt like I was having a debate with God in my head. That he was the antagonist in my thoughts. And I kept on throwing these out, until I got to a point where I was like, I don't have any more defenses. I was like, this is the most logically consistent thing I've ever come across. And it was, in a sense, I was intellectually compelled and had no other choice but to submit to these things because they made so much sense. Yeah, and with me it was, I reached a point where I knew Jesus was real and, but I also knew that I was doing some pretty rotten stuff and didn't really want to stop doing that rotten stuff and so I just kept putting off this issue until eventually I was, I was asked to except Jesus as my savior and I said no, there's some things I want to clean up in my life first and then the guy told me, an ex-convict told me, no matter how much you clean yourself up, you'll never be clean enough for heaven. You need to come to God just as you are and then he'll make the changes and that's what I remember is like I ran out of excuses and I kind of yielded. to God and accepted Christ as Savior, but it was not something that I, you know, it was like God wore me down. The grace of God wore me down to the point where I just, I surrendered, I just threw in the towel. But I would agree, I think that Lewis would agree with me, I didn't have to throw in the towel. That doesn't mean, that doesn't give me any glory or any boasting. It's, you know, the fact that I freely chose to accept Christ as Savior doesn't mean I earned salvation. I still deserve the flames of hell as much as when I first accepted Christ. Or as much as when I was unsaved. And so it's all of grace, but the free gift of salvation, we have the freedom to accept that or reject that. And I really appreciate Louis's view on that topic. Again, I'd like to stay on this for a little bit longer, but we gotta press on. Next, I want to move on to the Screwtape Letters. What a fantastic work. This was my first introduction to the works of C.S. Lewis. And I remember being just blown away by this book. If you're not familiar with it, if you've got $10 in your checking account, go down to Barnes & Noble and buy it. That's how good a book this is. It's relatively short, but it's very thick. What I mean by that is the content. He can say more in a page and a half than most people can say in ten pages. This one is about an older demon writing to a younger demon, teaching him how to tempt humans. It's very perverse. Everything in there is opposite. When they say our father, they're talking about Satan. When they say the enemy, they're talking about God. When they say our house, they're talking about hell and whatnot. But this work is so fascinating. I'll tell you, one of the best things about Lewis is his powers of observation. He can look at these daily struggles that people go through and the problems, these common problems that people have. And he can write about him in such a way that when you're reading this book, you're like, this is me. I've done this. I've had this battle of thoughts in my head. I've been confused about this, and I got pushed in that direction. And he does such a good job of portraying, it's obviously things that he has occurred in his life, and making it seem like, oh my gosh, this has occurred in your life as well, when you read it. The one thing I want to talk about today, I originally was going to talk about two sections, but I'm just going to talk about one, because we're getting kind of deeper into time. This is by far my, not only my favorite quotation of screw tape letters, but possibly my favorite C.S. Lewis quotation of all time. This one has really gotten me through some tough days as well. I don't remember what chapter it's in or what letter it was in, because the chapters are arranged by letters, letters to the younger demon. But he says, our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending to do our enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." Here it is again, our cause, the cause of tempting, is never more in danger. He's saying, you can't get any worse than this. It's never more in danger than when a human no longer desires, to serve God, no longer desires, but still intends to do the will of the enemy. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do the will of the enemy, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of him, every trace of God, seems to have vanished. The man asks why he has been forsaken, but the man still obeys. And I'll tell you, for me, this immediately makes me think of Job. And here's a guy who is... few people in scripture are described as Job, one who fears God and shuns evil. And here's a guy who has no idea why these things are happening to him. But he still obeys. And his friends are saying, you must have sinned against God. He's like, no, I haven't sinned against God. I have been faithful. I have done the things that I am supposed to do. He goes on to say, for he knows the way that I take, and when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. 23rd chapter, Job. So even there, he says, he has no idea what's going on, but he says, God knows the way that I take, and when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. And so I'm looking at these demons, Satan, if he's doing this to Job, they would be looking at this, if C.S. Lewis' quotation is correct, and I really feel it's very accurate, when this is going on with Job, they were cringing, being like, this is the worst possible thing that could ever have happened. Yeah, and it's, and Job's an excellent example, too, of walking by faith, not by sight. I mean, this is everything the atheists could want. This is the horrible situation where deep down inside, Job's thinking, well, God's forsaken me. How can you know, he could even get depressed to the point where maybe deep down inside the demons are saying, maybe he doesn't even exist. If God exists, how could he allow you to go through all of this? And still, despite the fact that all the feelings are gone, despite the fact that all the circumstances seem to cry out, there is no God or God is evil, despite all of this, Job chooses to live by faith, by trust in God, and trusting that God is a good God. It's kind of like Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. It's like this is the fulfillment of the promise. This is the chosen nation right here. And you're commanding me to sacrifice him, but he chose to trust God despite the circumstances. And yeah, I could see that being a pretty traumatic experience for Satan and his kingdom, for Satan and his demons. to see a believer battered and beaten, who feels forsaken by God, yet saying, yet will I still serve him? And again, you translate that to the American church. That's why Lewis is so relevant to America today. You know, we will leave a church. The average American will leave a church. because it doesn't make them feel good. The pastor's preaching and the praise and worship doesn't make me feel good, so I'm going to keep going to other churches until I find one that makes me feel good. And that's the exact opposite. This is the type of person that's saying, hey, I'm going to serve God even when it hurts. And even when I don't feel like he loves me, I know that he loves me and I'm going to continue to serve him. And it's funny, even Lewis talks about that in the Screwtape Letters. And he was like, make this person think that they're almost like a connoisseur of churches. That they can come in and they can critique all these areas and say, well, what about this? And he's like, give them this pride of being able to spot out a really righteous church. And he's like, make them a connoisseur, almost. And so if you're going from church to church. Now, don't get me wrong, it says we need to test... There are a lot of rotten churches out there. But the idea is, if you're going from church to church because you are, like it says in the scrutiny letters, a connoisseur, you're missing out on the whole idea. But you bring up a good point, talking about true servitude, and again, this comes back to reality. What is reality? You know, I've heard people talk about the story of Job and they're like, you know, he was blessed with twice as much after he lost it all. And I think, yeah, we don't need to focus on that. But I think, but it's funny, because often when I hear about this, people say, yeah, he's given everything twice as full, except for his children. He was given the same amount of children as before. And I kind of do like a face palm, where I'm like, you guys don't get it. Where does true reality lie? You know, true reality lies in fellowship with the Lord. Where are the children of someone who fears God and shuns evil? They're going to be with him in fellowship with the Lord. So he has ten in heaven, or whatever, and ten on earth. And then when they all die, that's twice as many in fellowship with God in heaven. And that is reality. That's what truth is. And it amazes me too that a lot of people will act like The reason why God brought Joe through the tough situation and the reason why we should be willing to suffer is because God's going to bless us two-fold afterwards and then you're totally missing the point. We love him and we trust him. And if he allows us to go through tribulation, he's going to cause us to grow through it. But we go through that because we love him. I mean, it's like if you loved, let's say you had a son and you went hiking and your son broke his ankle and you had to carry him all the way down this mountain. you're not going to carry him because he, you know, he promises, you know, I promise when I get older, I'm going to get a good job and I'm going to give you X amount of money. You do it because you love him. And, um, and so, uh, but there's this, so Americans see prosperity as this financial prosperity, uh, prosperity of the flesh. And, and we just don't get it that, um, that there is no greater wealth than to seek the face of God. There is no greater wealth than God himself. I mean, look at John the Baptist. I mean, he died without a penny in his pocket. Apostle Paul, without a penny in his pocket. All the apostles. You know, they usually... I mean, almost all the apostles died martyrs' deaths. And they live... I mean, look... Go off when Paul talks to the Corinthians about all the stuff that's happened to him. He doesn't say at the end, now I am living in a mansion. No, he ends up getting beheaded. So you're not always going to see these blessings on earth. But that's what Jesus said. He's like, don't set up for yourself riches on earth. Where people can break in and steal them and moth and rust and destroy them. He said, set up your treasures in heaven. So that's the amazing thing about Lewis is he gives us a greater glimpse of reality through fantasy. I know. And that's a good point. And I love that you talked about reality because constantly throughout this, you know, these guys, these two demons are talking about reality. And it's funny, I remember in this one letter, a screw tape, who's the older one, he's talking to Wormwood, the younger one, and he says, you know, have this guy focus on real life. He's like, but don't let him question what real means. And I love that, because he's like, get him focused on, I need to buy a car, I need to make money, I need to do this. Get him focused on those things, on those quote unquote real things, but don't let him really question what real means. Yeah, I wonder if you could apply that to today with like reality TV. You said that you have kids more concerned, well kids, you have adults even, more concerned about the reality TV show, which is about as far away from reality as you can get. Yeah, I realize that most reality shows have scriptwriters. Yeah, and it's just, it's like People Who Have No Lives, the Truman show is excellent on that. Oh yeah. At the end of the show, the two guards The Truman's off the air because he escaped the unreal world. And so they're bummed out that they've been watching the show 24-7. They've been watching it over and over again. This has consumed them. This is their life. They don't even care about their jobs as guards. And then one guy says, I can't believe it's over. And the other guy says to him, See what else is on. Okay. And it's just like, you know, our reality isn't television or computer at all. Not the real world. We accept. God wants us to accept reality. Because if we really embrace reality, we'll embrace God. But too often, you know, when God said, don't eat from the forbidden fruit, because you can surely die. That's reality. When Lucifer says, no, you eat this fruit, you won't die, but you shall become as gods, that's a lie. So much of what we think is reality is just lies, and God's trying to pull us into reality, but most of the time we don't want to go there. And like you said, Lewis does a good job of, even through fantasy, pointing out what true reality is, and what true reality moves you towards. Again, there's a lot more that we can cover, but I really want to get to Till We Have Faces because through that we'll be able to kind of continue pulling this thread of reality and finish it off here. He does a great job with it. Till We Have Faces is a great story. Now most of it, C.S. Lewis is just retelling an ancient Greek story about Cupid. That's what he gets most of the story, but he adds some stuff. The story itself, though, is beautiful. It's a really well-written story. Very engaging. You want to really know what happens next. Basically, what happens is the main protagonist is very upset about her life. and the things that has happened to her, and some really bad stuff happens to her, and she's like, you know what, I'm going to challenge the gods. I'm going to go to the temple, and I'm going to call these gods out. I'm going to take them out to the woodshed and say, listen, you guys have no right to do these things to me. And she ends up going into this realm of the gods, almost, and coming before them. And when she comes to them, I think it was a crow that met her, and the crow was like, are you the one that is challenging the gods? And it was almost like surprised. And she's like, yes, I am. And the crow flies off, and it's like, she's here. She's here, the one that's challenging the gods. It's challenging the gods. And she comes before this council, almost like that, of these gods. She begins to tell her story, and she realizes that even in explaining why she felt like she was dealt with unjustly, she realizes that she is not justified in it. I'll take you to this section. I usually don't like reading quotations or anything, but I think this is cool, because she realizes that in asking for an answer, she finds her answer. In this quotation, it talks about a guy named Fox. That was her tutor as a child. Here's where it begins. The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often, when he was teaching me to write in Greek, the fox would say, Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean, that's the whole art and joy of words. A glib saying. When time comes to you, at which you will be forced to at last utter the speech which was laying at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all the time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words, I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer, till that word can be drug out of us, dug out of us, Why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces? And so here she is, and she's saying, and very beautifully, again, this is not a quick read, because he writes like that all the way through. He says these very simple things with beautiful ways. What he's saying here is, we have these things that we think are this crazy, this big deal, and we present them, and we say them out loud, and it's almost like we are convicted by our own words when we realize how petty they are. And I think the brilliant thing about this myth is, C.S. Lewis writes about these false Greek gods that in his own knowledge of them, in their fake history, are petty and finite. But yet, even in being petty and finite, he realizes that a person even just a mere person does not have the amount of perception that these finite gods have. And even as a mere person goes and presents their case to a finite god, she realizes she is not justified. And so C.S. Lewis makes the point of, how even more so are you lacking justification when you think you are being met with unjustly when you take your case not before a finite petty God but when you come before the creator of the universe and say that you were dealt with unjustly and you know in the beginning of this chapter he says the complaint was my answer when she says that again I go immediately back to Job chapter 23 this is how he starts out the chapter he says Lord even now my complaint before you is bitter And so Job was saying, listen, I'm about to complain to you, but I know the fact that you are good, and I know that my complaint holds no water. And C.S. Lewis was no stranger to suffering, and after becoming a Christian, he began to realize that suffering is not always the curse that we think it is. More times than not, it is the blessing one of the blessings that brings us closer and closer to the Lord. But you see that theme running throughout his works. The woman he loved and watched her slowly dying pretty much in his arms. But again, C.S. Lewis causes us to view reality as reality. as God's reality, and not the false reality that we try to make it out to be, or that demons try to make it out to be. And I love this idea when he says, I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. He's like saying, if these false finite gods had to try to justify every little quabble that came across man. He was like, it would be ridiculous. He was like, but it takes, all it takes is a little self-awareness. And that's what the whole meaning of the book is about. Till we have faces. You know, we see Paul talk about that. First Corinthians 15. First we see in a mirror darkly. Is that, yeah, is that 15? 13. First we see in a mirror darkly, and then face-to-face, that intimacy of close contact. Even James, he says, he stares into the perfect law of liberty in it. If you were forgetful, If you are a hearer of the word, but not a doer, you're like a man who observes his natural face in the mirror, then goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he is. But he who stares into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This woman will be blessed in all he does. So you talk about the intimacy of knowing your face, of face-to-face, of knowing what you look like. C.S. Lewis is saying that is knowing what reality is. Yeah, we think we know God, and we don't even know ourselves. And it's like throughout this it seems that, you know, you know it better than me, but it seems that Lewis is using this mythological framework and the gods as to kind of symbolize the true God. And it's like, as the ancients wanted to bring their complaints to the gods, so too we want to bring our complaints to God, and we think we know God, and we think we know what his perspective ought to be, and then it turns out we don't even know ourselves. And I love it the fact that it's these... I thought, when I first read this, I was like, okay, she's going to blow these finite gods away. She's going to say, I'm not just right with this, this, and it was exactly the opposite. The gods blew her away. And I'm like, who are these stupid, you know, they're not infinite in knowledge, they're not infinite in wisdom, they're not infinite beings, and yet they have a little bit more perspective on reality than these humans, and with that little bit more perspective, they were able to blow her out of the water. And then she comes to the point and says, how can they meet us face to face till we have faces? How can we get a just answer when we don't even know ourselves? And how even more so, how even more foolish is it to bring our complaint before God? Now sometimes, and I'll tell you the truth, Doc, sometimes I begin my prayers like dope, and I say, Lord, even now my complaint before you is bitter. When I'm frustrated about something, and the only reason why I continue prayer in those situations is merely for intimacy purposes, because God, I want you to know what's on my heart. But the thing is, too, you've got to wonder if C.S. Lewis was with influence, you know, like medieval literature of Boethius, the Constellation of Philosophy, you know, same thing. Even the Psalms, though, too, you find the Psalmist saying, crying out to God in a way that I would be like, whoa, I don't want to say that to God, you know, and then just, you know, crying out to slay my enemies, it's like, whoa, dude, what are you doing? But it's, you know, God, when God wants us to pray, God wants us to pray from the heart. And though I wouldn't advocate calling God to slay your enemies, at the same time, that's the way the psalmist felt when he prayed. And he was basically, the psalmist there had a face. The psalmist there was being real, knew his own heart and was being real before God. And then of course God will come into the situation and straighten the guy out and show the guy the way things really ought to be. But more times than not, we're not even being honest with God about who we are when we pray, and we're still praying without faces. And I think this again, and the reason why I want to talk about this last, is because all of these works can be appreciated on a purely secular level. Narnia, Screwtape Letters, Till We Have Faces, the space trilogy, all these things can be enjoyed on a secular level. But the thing is, when you realize, when you see the true reality of what C.S. Lewis is trying to portray, if you have a quote-unquote face, you realize the full reality of what he's trying to bring across. And that, therein lies the true beauty of C.S. Lewis's work. God is the creator and he created us in his image and C.S. Lewis used the creativity that God gave him to write about these fantasy worlds and to write his fiction but it was all not for us to escape reality but it was for us to find true reality the only true reality there is and that's God's reality. Amen to that. I think that's a good stopping point. I challenge you, geek guys there, listening, read the works of C.S. Lewis. He was a fantastic writer, and he was a brother in Christ. And yeah, he wasn't your atypical fundamentalist. He smoked, he drank, he swore. But there's no doubt that he loved the Lord. And so if you haven't read any of Lewis' stuff, we challenge you, get out there, read it. Most importantly thing, you guys, is love the Lord with all your heart and seek Him with all your heart. I look forward to meeting with you guys every week. Perhaps down the line we will do some more Lewis. Until then, we will continue to do what we do best, and that's preach the gospel and defend the faith. My name is Matthew J. Kuhm. I'm the Vice President of the Institute of Biblical Defense. With me is Dr. Phil Fernandez, President of the Institute of Biblical Defense and Pastor of Training Bible Fellowship. God bless you guys.