In 1968, you could not help but hear the music. Songs that we find ourselves humming today, blasted from every radio that year. Nah, Nah, Nah…, Nah, Nah, Nah…, Nah, Nah, Nah, Hey Jude, was heard from every house that a teenager lived in. Otis Redding could be heard as he sang from the docks of the bay. Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo became more than lyrics, popularizing a movie. Choppers roared as Born to be Wild blared. The world was taught about little green apples, and was told the busyness of the Harper Valley PTA. Kids were instructed to dance to the music, they learned that Judy wore a disguise, and found out they had love in their tummy that was very yummy!
But amongst all the music, came a song that brought with it a controversy unlike any the music world had ever seen. As the Rolling Stones released their album Beggars Banquet in December of that year, the first song on the album introduced lyrics unlike any that had been heard before. Words that were filled with questions, as many questioned the purpose of the song.
Mick Jagger wrote an “introduction” that much of the world was not prepared for, one that brought fear to the minds of many. Sympathy For the Devil was sung as if Satan himself was speaking, reminding the world of Satan’s hand at work in many of the worst events that history had recorded. In the lyrics, you could hear the world question just who Satan was, and you could hear a warning given by Satan as he required respect from the world.
Many questioned where Mick Jagger had come up with this song, with this image of Satan that the song painted. He would later claim that two sources served as inspiration. First, was the writings of Charles Baudelaire, a 19th century French culturalist and poet. He took a very humanistic and modernist look at the world, and many if not all his poems reflected that view. He saw evil as nothing different than good, just an accepted part of life. Baudelaire once said, “I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing ‘evil’–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil.”
Second, Mick Jagger had been influenced by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov, and his famous book The Master and Margarita. As Jagger read this book, he latched on to the ideas. The main point of the book was that our source for evil was inseparable from the world around us. He would reference this by saying it was the same as light was to darkness. Bulgakov believed that both Satan and Christ were present in all people. He wrote in his book that Christ was unable to see Judas’ betrayal, despite all the obvious hints that Pilate gave Him. He believed that Christ was only able to see the good in people, and could not protect Himself because he could never see who or what to protect Himself from. He basically saw Satan outwitting Christ, as Christ was not able to recognize the evil as it surrounded Him.
Despite what much of the world thought, it was this viewpoint from which Mick Jagger wrote the words of the song. The Church heard the song and was outraged, justly so, but not for the right reasons. Many from the pulpit immediately accused Mick Jagger, and the Rolling Stones, of devil worship, looking to promote Satan to the innocent youth of the world. Although not written for this reason, Mick Jagger was no less confused. No less lost in his understanding of Satan, and of Christ.
The chorus of the song left all who heard it with words of questioning, words of doubt. “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. But what’s puzzling you, is the nature of my game.” Words the reflect a lack of understanding of who Satan is, and what his purpose has always been on this earth. Questions that Jagger had and did not understand. Questions that over thirty-five years later, you hear from many who stand at our pulpits today. As many of our pastors still question the “nature of his game”.
At the time of Christ, the religious leaders of the day had conflicting views of evil in this world. Two major groups filled the religious scene of Jerusalem as our Savior walked this earth, and as His Church would become established. First, were the Sadducees. They came from the wealthy and the politically powerful of the day. At the time of Christ, they held the majority of the seventy seats that made up the Jewish religious council, called the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees often worked hand in hand with Rome, and found themselves more involved in politics than in addressing the religious needs of the people.
The Sadducees did not believe that God was involved in the day to day lives of men, seeing God as distant and often absent. They did not believe in a Resurrection. They did not believe in an afterlife, claiming that at death the soul perished. And they did not believe in a spiritual world. The idea of angels and demons were foreign to them. As was their belief in a literal Satan.
The second was the Pharisees. They mainly came from the middle class, and were favored by the common man. They believed that the Lord was omnipresent and omnipotent. They taught the Resurrection and an afterlife, and believed that the spiritual world, and Satan, were real. But they put oral tradition on equal authority with God’s Word, often adding to His Word(Deuteronomy 4:2).
Two groups. One that only accepted the parts of God’s Word they liked and agreed with, the other giving their own logic equal, and often greater, voice than what the Lord had spoken. Both claiming to speak for God, but in reality, speaking words that would lead man away from God. Both claiming the truth, but teaching and spreading the lie. Both, in the end, nothing more than tools in the hands of the fallen one. Sound familiar?
“That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9. As we look at the Church today, the words of this verse could not ring with more truth. We see in the leadership of many of our churches, the images of the same men we saw in the Sanhedrin. Many today who look to make God’s Word fit their words. And others who take a pick and choose philosophy, often denying the presence of the Lord in our life each day. Men who do not recognize Christ when He stands in front of them. Men whose words are music to Satan ears. Men who think themselves wise, but speak as fools.
We often hear the words of Hosea quoted today. “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”, Hosea 4:6. Nine words so often spoken, but nine words that have been lost in our pulpits. To understand these words, you must know the remaining twenty-nine words of the verse. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” The words actually read in Hebrew. “because you refuse to acknowledge Me.” We can only find knowledge when we recognize that knowledge can only come when we put the Lord and His ways first. And we cannot serve God, if we do not first seek God, and acknowledge God. The consequences of not doing this, can only result in our own destruction. That is not my warning, that is the the Lord’s warning! And words the pulpits of our churches had better take to heart!
God warned the Israelites in Amos 8:11, “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord.” When we look at the Church today, we begin to realize that the Lord could just as easily be speaking these words to us. So many of our pulpits are filled with this famine. They leave our pews hungry, starving to be fed by His Word. Dehydrated, thirsting for waters of Truth. There is no enrichment in their words. They leave the Church undernourished, now looking in any direction to be fed. As the Church seeks sustaining nutrition, the fallen one smiles. Stepping forward with meals that look appealing to so many who hunger, but each bite they feast on is rancid. Meals that many from the pulpit dish out freely, not concerned with the poison they are feeding our pews.
Recent polls show us just how much of this poison is being brewed by Satan from our pulpits. Less than forty percent of our churches today believe in an actual Satan. The rest believe that Satan is nothing more than allegorical, a created symbol to represent evil. Of those that do believe in a literal Satan, less than half of those teach what the Scriptures tell us about Satan. Of those that believe in a literal Satan, but choose to not teach about him, most will tell you that he is insignificant, that he has little impact in the lives of people today. In other words, you would have to visit churches for several Sundays before you would be shown the face of evil, before spiritual principalities were taught. Churches whose preaching closely reflect the words that inspired Jagger. The words of Baudelaire and Bulgakov are more reflected in our churches than the words of Christ. And this is exactly how Satan wants it! A Church willfully ignorant of his presence. A Church that does not even try to guess his name, that does not know the nature of his game.
It is time the Church woke up from this nightmare of a dream we have placed ourselves in. Awakened to the reality of knowing, Satan is not a dream, he is very real! God’s Word paints for us a very realistic picture of just who Satan is. He is the ruler of this world, and the prince of the air(John 12:31, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2). He is an accuser(Revelation 12:10), a tempter of all(Matthew 4:3, 1 Thessalonians 3:5), and he is the great deceiver(Genesis 3:1-24, Revelation 20:3). His name means “one who opposes”, and he carries that title with pride, as he opposes what the Church is called by Christ to do and be every minute of every day!
Although he was cast from Heaven, he still looks to place his throne above the Lord’s. History gives proof of him as a counterfeiter, looking to gain the worship of this world, and leading all who he can deceive to oppose the kingdom of our Lord. This world has not know a false religion that he was not behind, no cult that he did not create. He will do everything in his power to stop those who bring glory to God, and to turn the heart of man to him. There is nothing allegorical about his name, and there is nothing abstract in the destruction he seeks.
As Satan looks today into the pulpits and the pews of many of our churches, he does not look on with fear, but with a sense of opportunity. He sees churches that do not even know his name, and are unaware of the deception he can bring. Churches that no longer recognize the face of evil, but welcome into their midst the great deceiver. Pastors that no longer stand as a wall of truth against his accusations, but serve as a door, welcoming in his lies and temptations. He no longer has to come to the doors of so many of our churches as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as the appearance of the wolf himself is now welcomed in.
“Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”(Ephesians 5:14). It is time for the Church to arise, to awaken from this coma we now find ourselves in. For so many of our churches to open their eyes to this moment, and realize just how close so many are to an eternal death. We must ignore the lullaby that Satan now sings to us, keeping us from the work the Lord has for us, and keeping our eyes closed to the evil that stands in front of us. A Church that must awaken to the Truth, no longer denying the obvious that the Lord has already taught us. A Truth that will never deceive us, never tempt us. A Truth that knows his name, because it has already exposed to us the nature of his game!
Praying the Church will open its’ eyes to the deception that Satan brings.
Dr. Mike Murphy