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Escape from Paradise Chapter 12 Study Questions

Chapter 12 Meanings

Judas Desires

Judas desires represent what the New Testament calls “the flesh” (translated “sinful nature” in the NIV). It is the part of a believer that keeps sinning because of its attachment to this world (See Romans 7 as an example).

EXCERPT

“You will encounter no fruit trees traveling westward. Only those traveling east find fruit. … The fruit always leads away from the cottage—never toward it.” –pp.99, 100

QUESTION 1

All movement away from God is sin, and all movement toward God is righteousness. What do James 4:8 and 1 Peter 2:4–5 promise to those who move toward Christ?

QUESTION 2

How does one move closer to or farther from God? See Psalm 119:176; Isaiah 29:13; James 4:8.

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The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Screwtape is a senior demon writing letters of advice to a jr. demon on how to tempt his human subject.

This is a book I need to read more often. My only complaint is that the insights go by so fast, I fear most of them don’t really sink in. It’s the kind of book I should stop every few paragraphs and give serious thought to the ideas before moving on.

Here are a couple parts that stuck out this time:

“You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky. … [in a war] the undisguisable issue of cowardice or courage awakes thousands from moral stupor. This is probably ones of [God’s] motives for creating a dangerous world”

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Demon by Tosca Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Strengths

When I reached the final chapter, I was fully intending on giving this book a 5-star rating. It is a retelling of the story of the creation and redemptive history through the mouth of a demon.

I liked the fact that the Biblical story is told. Most of it is straight exposition, but the fall of Satan is dramatized in an imaginative way. I would have liked more of the biblical story to be shown with similar vividness, rather than simply told.

I also enjoyed Lee’s impressive skills with her prose, dialogue, and characters.

Weaknesses

The main character is very passive, and there is no real plot to speak of.

Throughout the story, there were hints of a possible plot. The demon makes a remark about how he is taking a risk in speaking with Clay, and there are other hints of drama in the spirit world over these meetings. The promise of that drama kept me interested.

SPOILER …

But alas, the book ended without any explanation of what that was about. Worse, the biggest question driving the whole book (why is this demon telling a random human the story of the Bible?) has a decidedly unsatisfactory answer. His purpose was to present Clay with the truth in hopes that he would reject it and suffer a more severe damnation for rejecting the truth.

I agree that there is greater accountability for those with greater exposure to the truth, but for a demon who is so distressed over the large number of people following Christ, it seems unlikely that he would run the risk of Clay believing the truth. The demonic strategy Scripture presents is one of deception, not truthtelling.

Another, lesser complaint I have with the book is the negative view of the church. The demon is unconcerned with churches because they are given to empty formalism. While that is true of many churches, the biblical view of the church as a whole is that it is the primary headquarters of the presence of God in the world, it is the body of Christ, and when individual churches carry on their work, the spirit world gets a greater understanding of the manifold wisdom of God (Eph.3:10).

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Iscariot by Tosca Lee

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Iscariot is a popular book because it presents Judas from a surprising new angle and people always love a new angle. The problem is, it’s an angle that flatly contradicts what the Bible says.

The story is very well-written. Tosca Lee is a skilled writer to be sure. And most of the story is remarkably well-researched and historically accurate. But the crux of the story–the part that reviewers find so fascinating–is the opposite of what we know about Judas.

SPOILER:

Lee presents Judas as a hero. A devoted follower of Jesus who did what he did only to protect Jesus from death. He didn’t care about the money. That was just a formality. He did it, sacrificing himself, because the authorities promised him they would not try Jesus for blasphemy. Thus Judas believed he was saving Jesus’ life. When Jesus said someone would betray him, Judas was horrified and wondered who it might be. That his own actions could be construed as betrayal was the farthest thing from his mind. But Jesus misunderstood what Judas did and took it as a betrayal.

It’s sad to read in the reviews how many Christians say things like they were surprised to “learn” the true motivations of Judas–as if Lee’s theory about Judas were something other than her own imagined fantasy.

While a great number of passages of Scripture are quoted in the story and interpreted with surprising accuracy, the following were omitted:

Luke 22:3-4 Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus.

John 12:4-6 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages. ” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Judas was not a godly, selfless, devoted follower of Jesus to the end. He may have been at the beginning, but be the end he was a crook who stole money from Jesus and the other disciples, he didn’t care about the poor, and gave himself to the control of Satan when he bargained a way to betray Jesus.

I highly recommend the first 3/4 of this book. It’s excellent. Some of the best biblical historical fiction I’ve read. But the last quarter is so unbiblical and misleading that it spoils the rest. If the whole book were fanciful and non-historical, it wouldn’t be as bad. But to write a book that is so historically accurate that the reader comes to fully trust the author, and then to make the climax of the story a complete falsehood, is inexcusable.

 

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My Strained Relationship with Young Me

I have a bone to pick with young me. The teenage version of me had a lot of fun playing the trumpet in jazz band, but now middle-aged me has to wear hearing aids.

On the other hand, I do appreciate younger me’s choice in a wife and career. Thank you for that, 20-year-old Richard.

It makes me wonder—if the Lord gives me another 20 years, what will 74-year-old me think of 54-year-old me? How will my current decisions, practices, and lifestyle impact him? Maybe I need to show a little more compassion for the old geezer.

More importantly, what about eternal me? On the day the Lord hands out rewards, I’ll be standing there. What will I think of 54-year-old me in that moment?

Or the moment where I have to give an account for the things I did, thought, and felt (or didn’t do, think, or feel) in 2021? Will I be shaking my head (or fist) at middle-aged me on that day?

It’s amazing how different teenage me, 30-year-old me, and 54-year-old me are. It’s hard to imagine they are the same guy. I can only imagine what elderly me will be like.

So which version of me is the most important? Would it be better for teen me to be deprived of something good for the sake of elderly me? Or the other way around? Hard to say for sure (although I think I can guess what old man Richard will say).

One thing I can say for sure, the most important version of me is eternal me. That’s the one God had in mind when he designed me. And that’s the condition I’ll be in the longest—by far. All the other versions of me put together will be like the blink of an eye compared to my life in the eternal state.

I think this is what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth … but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven” (Matthew 6:19-20).

What could the 2021 version of you do now that the eternal version of you will be thanking you for … forever?

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A.D. 33 by Ted Dekker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After reading A.D. 33, the previous book (A.D. 30) remains my favorite Dekker book. A.D. 33 has its strengths, but it’s not as good as the first volume.

Strengths:

While I don’t agree with all of Dekker’s interpretations of Jesus’ teaching, one thing he gets right in this book is the emphasis on Jesus’ radical statements about how one must give up everything to follow him (Lk.14:33).

I also enjoyed some of Dekker’s portrayals of the crucifixion. The statement about how it seemed all the world was crying in Jesus’ tears in the garden. That was a moving scene. Beautifully written.

What Dekker does with the lamb and lion is masterful. A wonderful portrayal of some of Christ’s attributes. For this reason, I found the ending much more satisfying than many of the reviewers.

Some have criticized this book for having too much “telling” and not enough “showing.” But I would argue that while there is a great deal of exposition (especially in the final third of the book), Dekker also dramatizes the points from the exposition in the story. One of the main themes of the book is to promote pacifism. And while there are many points in the book when the reader really wants to see the heroes give the bad guys a good thrashing, Dekker is faithful to his philosophy and takes a pacifist route instead. I thought he did this very effectively. I found myself longing for a violent response in some places, and Dekker’s refusal to give me that satisfaction really did make me grapple with the issue of pacifism in a deeper way than I would have otherwise.

Regarding all the exposition–if you don’t like novels that are “preachy,” you definitely won’t enjoy 33 A.D. Personally, I think Christian fiction should be far more preachy than it usually is. Jesus told parables, but that was not the majority of his teaching. Most of his time was spent preaching (Mt.4:23). And he sent his disciples to preach as well (Mk.3:14). Preaching is held set forth in the New Testament as being supremely important (2 Tim.4:2). Too many Christian novelists, taking pride in the fact that they have mastered “show don’t tell,” end up showing little more than the most simplistic and basic of biblical principles. They usually don’t go much deeper than, “Good is good. Trust God.” There is a lot more to the Christian message than that. And some things need to be explained. We shouldn’t be afraid of a little exposition.

Weaknesses:

My biggest concern has to do with judgment. Perhaps the most prominent theme of the book is the idea that the essence of sin is judgment/grievance. Eating of the tree of good and evil is even defined in terms of judgment and grievance. The idea that we must never make judgments is unbiblical. Scripture repeatedly calls us to use discernment and to judge between good and evil. To say that is wrong is a self-contradictory philosophy, because calling judgment wrong is itself a judgment.

I initially rated the book with 2 stars because of this, but then changed to 3 stars because the book faithfully portrays the gospel message, and that makes it worth reading.

The rest of my complaints are more minor.

While Dekker did a good job dramatizing his argument for pacifism, I wasn’t convinced. I believe there is a place for violence in defending the weak–especially one’s own child.

I agree with other reviewers who complained about what happens with Judah. Unsatisfying.

Regarding the large amount of exposition, while I believe preaching has a place in fiction, I wouldn’t say Dekker is the prince of preachers by any stretch. The sections of teaching tend to be overly repetitive and esoteric. The purpose of exposition should be to make something clear. But much of the exposition in the story left me scratching my head.

 

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Deadline by Randy Alcorn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Alcorn’s book The Treasure Principle, so I thought I’d give his fiction a try. This is his first novel and it stayed on the bestseller lists for 36 months.

The story is interesting enough. It wasn’t exactly gripping, but it held my attention throughout, which is rare for a novel.

The point of the book is to present the biblical truth on various pro-life issues. The arguments are sound, but probably not very persuasive to anyone who isn’t already pro-live. And the conversion of people in the book struck me as unrealistically easy.

I also thought the depictions of heaven and hell were predictable. Not as imaginative as I would hope for in a novel. And lots of telling without showing. For example, we’re told heaven is a place of discovery, but the discovery process is not dramatized. It’s just stated as it would be in a nonfiction book.

I enjoyed the story and appreciate the message, but I doubt it will change many minds.

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The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Many of Tozer’s points in this book seem to come from his own speculation rather than from Scripture. Nevertheless, many of the points that do come from Scripture are profound and rich, making the small amount of time required to read this book well worth it. Especially helpful are Tozer’s observations about the necessity for the believer to follow hard after God relationally and the nature of faith as “the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.”

Notable points in the book:
Tozer characterizes modern evangelicalism as laying out the parts of the sacrifice on the altar and being “satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel.” (p.9)

The Presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence. That type of Christianity which happens now to be in the vogue knows this Presence only in theory. It fails to stress the Christian’s privilege of present realization. According to its teachings we are in the Presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience that Presence actually. … We are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and for the most part we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience. (p.37)

The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience. … This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush. (pp.38-39)

“With the veil removed by the rending of Jesus’ flesh, with nothing on God’s side to prevent us from entering, why do we tarry outside? Why do we consent to abide all our days just outside the Holy of Holies and never enter at all to look up God?” (p.43) … The answer? The veil that keeps us from approaching God is the veil in our hearts (p.44). … And that veil is made of all our “self-sins” (self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, etc.) “We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate. … there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience, that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. (p.46)

“To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. ‘He must be,’ they say, ‘therefore we believe He is.’ … The Bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person or thing. … The same terms are used to express the knowledge of God as are used to express knowledge of physical things. ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good. All thy garments smell of myrrh. … My sheep hear my voice.’” (pp.49-51)

“[Receptivity to God] is a gift of God … which must be … cultivated. … A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer. … The tragic results or this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hallow religious philosophies …”

In chapter 6 Tozer argues that the voice of God is more than the written Word in Scripture. “The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” The written words of Scripture have power only because they correspond to God’s ongoing life-giving voice. (p.74)

When God spoke from heaven in John 12:28, the people who heard it simply said, “It thundered.” Tozer says, “This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science. In the living breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful for any mind to understand. The believing man … falls to his knees and whispers, “God.” The man of earth kneels also but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and how the of things. … We are more likely to explain than to adore. “It thundered, “ we exclaim, and go our earthly way. … Everyone of us has had experiences which we have not been able to explain: a sudden sense of loneliness, or a feeling of wonder or awe in the face of the universal vastness. Or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world, that our origins are divine.” (pp.80-81)

“God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. … it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. … If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with notion that it is a thing … it is more than a thing, it is a voice.” (p.82)

On p.89 Tozer defines faith as “the gaze of the soul upon a saving God.”

“Another saying of Jesus, and a most disturbing one, was put in the form of a question, ‘How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God alone?’ If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible.”

In chapter 9 Tozer points out that human nature can be described fairly accurately by turning the beatitudes around to their opposites. “Of this kind of moral stuff civilized society is composed. The atmosphere ischarged with it; we breathe it with every breath and drink it with our mother’s milk. Culture and education refine these things slightly but leave them basically untouched.” (p.110)

“Jesus calls us to rest, and meekness is His method. … The meek man … learns to say, ‘Oh, so you have been overlooked? … They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff …” And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing.” (p.112)

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At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry by Steve Gallagher

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’m not sure I would recommend the beginning of this book. In an effort to relate to the struggles men face, Gallagher describes various sexual sins in ways that could potentially increase temptation in the minds of men who struggle with lust. The most helpful chapters are ch.12-17, where he gives solutions.

A few minor concerns – on p.202 he seems to confuse repentance with victory. He describes a situation where a man who is remorseful but continues to stumble, and suggests that his ongoing stumbling shows a lack of repentance. He also holds to a view of demonic atmospheres, where demons of certain sins dominate a particular area (p.231). And on p.257, he makes a point about how love involves serving, regardless of emotion. That is true, but I think he goes too far in understating the importance of emotion. A man should serve his wife, but he should also take delight in her and have desire for her.

The most helpful principle I found in the book was his point about how lust is selfishness. When a lustful temptation arises, remind yourself that it would be selfishness, and think about what you can do to serve someone. If nothing else, pray for someone.

Overall, I think there are more helpful books on the topic of sexual purity. I recommend Finally Free by Heath Lambert.

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A.D. 30 by Ted Dekker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Of all the Ted Dekker books I’ve listened to so far, this has the best storytelling. The characters are interesting, the prose is excellent, and the story held my interest throughout, which is not an easy task.

The narrator of the audiobook does an amazing job.

One big disappointment was the main theme of the book, which has to do with judgment. It is repeatedly claimed that neither God the Father nor Jesus judge anyone, and that Jesus called his followers to forgive the whole world unconditionally.

It is true that John 5:22 says, “The Father judges no one …” but the sentence goes on to say, “…but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.” Jesus does judge. Indeed, his is the final judge of all mankind (2 Tim.4:1). Anyone who thinks Jesus forgives unconditionally should read his blistering condemnation of the Pharisees in Matthew 23. God does not forgive unconditionally, nor does he love unconditionally (another claim made in the book). There is a sense in which God loves the whole world (John 3:16), but not as his children. To receive his fatherly love one must be his child, which only happens through faith in Christ (John 1:11-13).

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