Tactics of the Accuser (Part 1) | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, in the first of two episodes, we're going to be considering the tactics of the accuser. The accuser, of course, is Satan, the ancient serpent who is the devil, who is the great accuser of the brethren.

Satan is real, spiritual warfare is real. Often in the church, we don't think about these things well. We tend to make one of two opposite errors. We either act like Satan doesn't exist, or we obsess over Satan and the work of the demonic realm.

Neither of those places are a good place to be. Today, John and I are going to begin our time thinking about how Satan does accuse the saints and seek to rob us of peace and rest and joy and hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, and how this affects us and makes us ineffective in the cause of the kingdom of Christ.

And then next week, we're going to pivot the conversation to look more toward the ways Satan tempts us and also distracts us with things that aren't necessarily bad but also hinder us in the mission and the cause of the kingdom of Christ.

We hope these episodes are clarifying.

And helpful to you.

Stay tuned.

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Theocast’s Mission and the Need for Spiritual Warfare Discernment

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the Christian life from a confessional reform and pastoral perspective. Here at Theocast, we are seeking to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

All of that, we hope, in a little bit more than 30 minutes today. Your hosts around the virtual table, whenever you're listening to this, are John Moffitt, who's pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

This will be the first podcast airing in the year of our Lord, 2023, so happy new year from 2022. Greetings from the past.

We're recording in November, so it's a long way away.

That's so true. Yeah, I mean, and maybe the Lord will have returned by now and this won't even air. That would be wonderful. An exciting thing, too, if you're listening to this podcast in the first week of January, 2023, we're about one week away from an exciting event on the West Coast.

John and I plan to fly out to California, to Escondido, to be a part of the Westminster Seminary California Conference. We're just gonna be attending that conference, to be clear, but we are planning to have a collaborative mash-up event with some friends.

So Pat Abendroth and potentially Mike Grimes from the Pactum, along with Mike Abendroth from No Compromise Radio, with Theocast, we're gonna be doing an event together on Friday, January 13th, on the seminary campus there at West Cal, 5 p .m.

So please join us. I think Getting the Gospel Right is the name of the event. We're gonna be talking about all things related to the gospel,.

Confessionalism,.

Reformed theology, et cetera. So if you're in the area, come join us for a good time.

Yeah, if you want details, most likely it'll be on our social media or our website. I don't know if there's limited seating. We'll find out.

We're not sure about any of these things. So that's exciting and we're gonna be there for the conference. We would encourage you to attend. We're sure there's gonna be good teaching. So we're excited about enjoying the Southern California weather in January, as guys who live on the East Coast.

And we are excited about the time with friends, getting to connect, build relationships, invest in relationships we already have. And we hope, get some good content recorded and be a part of a fun event with some of our like-minded friends and brothers in Christ.

So all of that, we hope, is happening a week or so from now. There we have it.

I'm also hoping what happens is that we will be hitting in and out at least once, if not twice while there.

I mean, that's a requirement. I mean, every time I go to California, I've got to go to in and out.

I hit it twice when I was in Waco, Texas this last Thanksgiving.

I mean, you didn't go to Whataburger in Texas. I'm sure everyone's offended. All right. So now that we have distracted ourselves with all these common kingdom considerations about Whataburger and in and out, let's get onto the subject matter for today, John.

This is not like a New Year's resolution podcast, but this is applicable for people as they're thinking about embarking upon a new year and are resolving to do a number of different things and thinking about the purpose of their lives and all of these things.

We hope that the two-part episode that we're about to record will be helpful to the saints in these ways. So let them know. Let them know what's coming.

C. S. Lewis on Two Equal and Opposite Errors About the Devil

This is a brilliant quote. So, you know, as you can see, the title of the podcast is Tactics of the Accuser. So we're going to be talking about the spiritual realm, really the demonic realm, and how Satan obviously uses tactics in order to come after us as believers.

There's this great quote by C .S. Lewis. I've been doing a lot of studying and research on this for quite a while. I taught at my men's retreat recently on this particular topic. And this is out of the screw tape letters.

And I found this to be a very helpful assessment of he was talking about his time. And I think it's appropriate to even say, I think it applies to today.

Not much has changed.

Yeah, he wrote, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialistic or a magician-like effect with the same delight. And I do, just from an observation standpoint, you do have people who just laugh at the fact where it's just this red little figure with the pitchfork, or you're on the other end where you're so fascinated by him that you are being distracted from the light and you are peering into the mystery of the darkness.

And I think both of those are unhealthy. And that's a great example of a tactic of Satan is to get you on either side, to get you distracted from him. One of the things I always say is, recently, is that if you're in a war, if you're fighting somebody, one of the best tactics of your enemy is to make you feel comfortable with his presence.

And this is exactly, I think what Lewis is saying, is that there's a comfortableness of what's going on here and he can attack you, distract you, hurt you, and you don't even know that it's coming because you're accepting the presence that is there.

So that's kind of the setup of where we're at this morning, or whenever you're listening to this, this is in the morning for us. But we're gonna be talking about how Satan uses different tactics to, we believe, really accuse the believer and knock them on their heels and make them weaken their faith so that they aren't, one, enjoying this amazing relationship that we have with our Father, and number two, enjoying sharing the good news of the gospel of the light of the kingdom with others around us, because we either weaken faith, we're entrapped in sin, or we're distracted.

And so over this episode and the next episodes, we're gonna have two episodes on this, we're gonna be really talking about kind of what robs us of rest and the tactics of Satan and temptation. And then next episode, we are gonna pick up where we left off and we're gonna really be talking about how Satan distracts us with things that are good, but we end up using them to distract us from the real purpose of our life, and of living for.

In the kingdom of Christ, yeah.

So Justin, that's kind of my introduction. I know you had a couple thoughts before we jump into this.

Agree with the Lewis quote. For my money, the screw tape letters is the best thing that C .S. Lewis ever wrote. It's more overtly theological. Obviously, the Narnia Chronicles are incredible in terms of an allegory, and Aslan is a type of Christ, et cetera.

I mean, that's really good. But in his more overtly theological works, I think the screw tape letters is the best thing he ever wrote. I think it's incredibly insightful. It's very thought-provoking.

And I think he's exactly right that people tend to fall off of one side of the horse or the other when it comes to thinking about Satan, the enemy, the accuser, the evil one, and even the demonic realm in general.

Spiritual warfare is real. The scriptures make that plain. And I think you see, as you survey the landscape, in the American church even, you see many people who are obsessed with these overtly spiritual things, and they're obsessed with Satan and the enemy and demons, and we're binding things to the pit, charismania and all this kind of stuff.

But then you also have a lot of people, I think this is more the tendency in our world, John, as Reformed confessional guys, where we don't talk enough about Satan and spiritual warfare. We don't talk about it like we should, maybe.

And so that's an opposite error. And so I think Lewis is onto something. And I think this conversation that we're gonna have today, over two episodes, so the listener's gonna hear this over the course of two weeks, is good.

And I think that these tactics of the enemy that we're gonna outline, just to briefly reiterate, of accusation, robbing us of peace and hope and assurance, temptation, doubling down on what's already there in terms of the corruption of our flesh, and then distraction, either in the form of the ways we get geeked up over piety and self-righteousness in bad ways, well, I should say piousness and self-righteousness, or just distracting us with the considerations of the common kingdom in this world.

I trust this is gonna be clear to the listener as to how this is a helpful New Year's kind of stuff for them to think through and ponder. So that's really it for me. I'm glad we're doing this. We took our time in outlining this stuff to come together and make sure we were gonna be pulling in the same direction.

And I'm eager to get going.

Clinging to Christ Instead of Falling Off Either Side

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about falling off one side of the horse or the other. Luther is famous with his battles and the way in which he would really even just engage Satan verbally. And I can't remember exactly where I read this, but in my research, he was just talking about how the human nature, we get so intoxicated with our self and sin and temptation that when put up on the horse, we either fall off on one side, where we don't care about what Satan's doing, or we fall off on the other side and we're too infatuated with what he's doing.

But we can't seem to stay focused on what it is that we should be doing, and that is clinging tight to Christ. And so I think that is really, if you wanna know where we're going in this podcast is we want to keep you safe in your affections for Christ.

And we're gonna talk about today how the Bible warns us, the Bible warns us that Satan's coming for us.

Yeah, and we want to double down on rest and safety and peace in Christ. And we want to keep Christ, in every good way this could be met, as the singular focus of the saint. And that when it comes to our own peace, but then also when it comes to our mission and purpose, which is where we're gonna go in the latter portion of the second episode, I know, all of this is related, and I hope that becomes plain over the course of the next however many minutes.

So Satan, the great accuser of the brethren, that's Revelation 12, right? He is the ancient serpent who is the devil. The name, the term Satan literally means adversary. So he is our enemy. He is the evil one.

He is the great accuser of the saints. So one of his major prerogatives, as the scripture reveals it, is to accuse us. And what does that mean, John? We would understand that to convey that Satan hurls accusations at us, that we are in fact not children of the Father, that Christ is not our Savior, and that there is no mercy for us.

This is what he does. I've said this before, I believe, and I'm gonna reiterate it now because I think it's applicable. The MO of Satan and the tactics of the enemy pertaining to people who are not believers and people who are, I think it's interesting to observe this.

For people who are not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who are outside of the church, Satan's tactic with them is to tell them, you're fine, you don't need mercy, you're good. Your desires are good, you should be celebrated.

I'm at least thinking in the terms of our day. You should be celebrated. Nothing that you could ever want or crave or desire could be bad because it's natural for you. You don't need grace, you don't need mercy, you don't need a righteousness that's outside of you.

You are fine as you are. That's what he says all day long to the person who is not trusting in the Lord Jesus. However, to the person who is trusting in Christ, who now loves God, loves God's law, desires to obey, has agreed with God about his or her sin, and has taken God's side against his or her sin, Satan then says this, oh, there's no mercy for you.

God may be merciful, and he will be merciful to some, but not to you. You are not worthy. You have blown it too many times. You've gone to the well one too many times. God is not gonna forgive you this time.

Yes, Christ is a great Savior, but not for a wretch like you because you're not diligent enough or disciplined enough or serious enough. Your affections aren't right, you don't love enough, you don't have enough faith.

This is what he does. And so we have those accusations, those darts. I'm using Ephesians six language. I'm sure we're gonna go there.

That's right.

He hurls these darts at us, these attacks at us, and that combined with the fact that many of us have tender consciences anyway, and we're mindful of our sin and we're grieved by it because we're born again.

And it's a terrible concoction, John, to completely rob us of peace and assurance and hope and joy, and we become riddled with despair and doubt. We do question, as I said on the outset, is God really my father or maybe he's my judge?

Is Jesus really my Savior or am I gonna be one of those people that he's gonna look at me at the end of it all? I will have meant to trust him, I'll have meant to live for him, but he's gonna look at me and he's gonna say, depart from me,.

I never knew you.

Right?

That's the work of Satan, man. That is not the work of God.

It is.

Be Sober-Minded and Watchful Against the Devil

So I just wanna use some scripture here to just help you understand the tone of what Justin is using here. This is the tone of Paul and Peter in the New Testament. Let me just read you a couple of passages.

So this is 1 Peter 5, 8. Be sober-minded. Okay, that means clear of thought. Be watchful. Well, why? Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Right?

The point of it is, that word devour, you make a thing like, well, he's gonna kill me or he's gonna squash me out. No, I think what he's talking about is devouring one's hope, one's stability, one's strength.

Because he can't do anything that the father won't allow and he obviously cannot take away our salvation. So we're safe and secure there. But why else would Peter write this post-resurrection? Well, I think we don't understand that, yes, the war is over.

Christ won victory over death. But one of the mission that remains for us as believers is to go and proclaim the good news of the light of the kingdom of the resurrected Christ. And God in His sovereignty has decided to not deal with sinners and the accusers, the evil ones, until He comes back.

So we have to deal, we're living in a world where there is two realms spiritually. There is the King's realm and us who belong to that. And then there is His accusers, those who oppose Him, His enemy.

And while we are waiting for the King to come back, He doesn't want this message to expand. He does not want this message to continue. And how does it continue? Well, it continues through our mouths, right?

And so this is why he's saying, be sober minded and be watchful because Satan's trying to keep you from doing the very thing that you should be doing. And how does he do this? You're not gonna see it.

Well, let me put it this way. When it talks about a prowling lion, that means typically when a lion is gonna take down its prey, they don't know he's there. Here's another passage from Paul who uses the same kind of language.

This is 2 Corinthians 11, 13 and following. He says, for such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds. Point of it is, you're not going to easily point it out. You're not gonna see it because he is a deceiver.

He doesn't want you to be caught. He wants you to be familiar with him and acceptable with his presence so he can take you down. I think one other passage that might be helpful here is Paul in Ephesians chapter six.

And I know we're gonna mention this a little bit later in the positive nature, but he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms.

Let me just tell you this right now. If you woke up this morning and your mind did not have that awareness of what could attack you, it's like getting into a car and assuming that you do not need to pay attention to road signs and other drivers around you and the particular harm that is waiting for you.

There's a sense of soberness and a watchfulness because of the potentials of what could happen to you. That's the feeling, we're not walking in fear, right? But I love that sober-minded, take every thought captive, pay attention to what's coming into your mind.

Right, a few things are popcorning around in my brain. We're just gonna talk, because that's what this show really is. It's you and I having a conversation. So I'm sure there are some people out there who are gonna say, now fellas, you guys are reformed dudes and you have a particular perspective on the scriptures and prophecy and apocalyptic literature, et cetera, and how some of these things are gonna unfold.

You guys would understand that Satan is bound. And so we would say, sure, we do. But we also do understand that Satan has not yet been finally defeated. We understand that he is in wounded animal mode, in one sense, right?

You used the illustration earlier. John, I think you could go ahead and give it again for people. Even thinking about the Civil War here in the United States, when the Union wins and what this means for slavery and what this means for plantations and the fact that slaves, God be praised, are going to be liberated.

That's right.

Just give that illustration, because I think it's helpful.

The War Is Over, but the Battle Continues

Yeah, so if you think about the Civil War, just from a technology standpoint, once the war is finally over, the last battle's been won. Well, the rest of the United States does not know this. Neither do the plantation owners know this or the slave owners.

And so one of the responsibilities of the soldiers were these battalions would go out and they would have to go liberate these slaves and let them know, hey, the war's over, we won. Well, guess what? A lot of these people didn't agree with the war in the first place.

Even though the war's over, they don't wanna give up their wealth. They don't wanna give up their slaves. And so as these soldiers are coming to herald the good news that the war is over, because it is over, there was still a battle.

And that battle was to try and liberate those who were enslaved. That's a great view of our spiritual war for now. The battle's over. Jesus rose from the grave, victorious. The war's over. But there's still a battle raging.

And this is why we're warring. And so he says, we war against not our flesh. We are taking the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness. And the kingdom of darkness doesn't like it. It wants to stop it.

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

If Satan is the wicked of the wicked, right? Think about how all of the movies and the stories that we've read and we enjoy, think about how vehemently wicked people hold on to what's theirs.

Power, yeah.

And power, exactly. I mean, death grip, literally, to the death. We're gonna contend for these things. So of course we would expect Satan to do the same. And we do understand that Jesus, in his death, has conquered the one who has the power of death, namely the devil.

We understand that he descended into hell not to suffer more, but to conquer, that he has bound the strong man and that he has let out a host of captives and he is triumphant. All of that is true. And to your point, your illustration conveys this, we are still in an environment where the battle, the war is over, but there still is this residual stuff going on and the kingdom of Christ has not been consummated yet.

And so this stuff is still real and pertinent. I just wanted to say that briefly. I think that while we're, go ahead.

Yeah, I was gonna say to your kingdom idea, we, the citizens, are rescuing other citizens and we're waiting for our king to come. And we're in a world that's not being dominated primarily by our king, because this is why there's a wrestling.

I mean, why else is Paul saying

Satan is called the god of this world in 2 Corinthians 4.

Right, but he doesn't win, he loses. And that judgment day is coming, it's not here yet.

Right, and we're gonna get here more pointedly in the next episode in terms of our cause and our purpose regarding Christ's kingdom. Like you said, we're trying to rescue other saints and we do that in particular ways.

We're already in Ephesians 6. I think we can go ahead and do this, John, and talk through the accusation piece. I also have a quote from Richard Sibbes in the Bruce Reed that I think is a wonderful illustration of how the enemy accuses us, but then how we might respond to that in light of even biblical truth.

So if we look at the armor of God passage in Ephesians 6, you and I've said this before, but it needs to be reiterated. The armor of God is not something that is dependent upon us. And I think the emphasis typically when the armor of God is talked about is, well, how diligent and disciplined are you when it comes to putting on the armor?

It's all about our faithfulness and it's all about our diligence, again, and our discipline to put the armor on well and adequately so that we might be protected. When in reality, I think the emphasis of the apostle is something entirely different because the armor of God for us is what?

Is who, in particular? It's Christ. It's what he's accomplished for us. Consider his language. I mean, he says, "'Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.'". Well, whose truth, right? We continue on.

And having put on the breastplate, good grief, good grief, breastplate of righteousness. Sorry for that gaffe there, but in all seriousness, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, whose righteousness, John?

Christ's righteousness.

It's not mine. It's not yours. I mean, if it's mine or yours, God help us. It's the righteousness of Christ.

Can I just jump on that? Think about the picture he's giving you. If it was our righteousness that protected us, we wouldn't need to put on something else. We're putting on something that's objectively outside.

Of us.

Extra notice. Amen, dude. So it's an alien righteousness. It's the righteousness of Christ that is counted to us, but we're putting that on to shield us from the flaming darts of the enemy. We go on. As far as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

Well, who accomplished the gospel? I mean, what is the gospel? It's the work of Christ for us that gives us peace.

Why?

Because by his stripes, we're healed. You know, all of these things continuing on in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith. Well, what is faith? Trusting, accepting, receiving, resting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.

It's looking away from ourselves to him. We continue on. And take the helmet of salvation. Again, who wrought that? Who works that? Who is the savior? Who does salvation belong to? The Lord. And with all prayer and, excuse me, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Well, what's that a testimony about? It's a testimony about Christ and what he's accomplished. God's plan of redemption fulfilled and accomplished in Jesus, the work of Christ in the place of the sinner, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication.

Amen.

So that's great. Let's listen to Richard Sibbes really quickly because this is a beautiful, beautiful passage. He says, talking about just the fact that our victory is certain. Through conflict and through difficulty, our victory in Christ is certain.

What a comfort this is in our conflicts with our unruly hearts that it shall not always be thus. Let us strive a little while and we shall be happy forever. Let us think when we are troubled with our sins that Christ has this in charge from his father, that he shall not quench the smoking flax until he has subdued all.

This puts a shield into our hands to beat back all the fiery darts of the evil one. That's Ephesians 6, 16. Satan will object. You are a great sinner. We may answer, Christ is a strong savior, but he will object.

You have no faith, no love. To which we respond, yes, a spark of faith and love, but Christ will not regard that, says the enemy. To which we respond, he will not quench the smoking flax. To which Satan says, but this is so little and so weak that it will vanish and come to naught.

To which we say, nay, but Christ will cherish it until he has brought judgment to victory. And this is how this goes, right? I mean, what a beautiful depiction of the accusations of the enemy. Everything we say, Christ is a great savior.

Oh yeah, it's true. But you've got no faith, you've got no love. You know, and it's like, yeah, you're right. It's only literally an ember. I mean, it's a flicker. Oh, well, Christ won't regard that. You know, to which we say, ah, but he will not quench the smoking flax.

He will not break the bruised reed. You know, and he will cherish it, the little flicker of faith and love that exists in my heart because the Lord's given it to me. He'll cherish it until he's brought judgment to victory.

Well, just to go back, I think what's interesting is one of the amazing tactics, and this will kind of lead us into kind of closing this section down and talk about next week, but one of the amazing tactics of Satan is to isolate the prey.

I mean, if you ever watched National Geographic, right?

Very true, of course.

What do they do? Whether it's the wolves or the predators do, they isolate the weak ones. And what's interesting is that that's exactly the tactic of the world today in that Christianity is becoming isolated with our own thoughts and our own flesh and our own mind and in the world through media and entertainment and through our own flesh.

I mean, listen, go spend a month alone in a cave. You don't need the Twitter and the internet to accuse your flesh. No, you're gonna be just fine doing it on your own.

Which we'll acknowledge here in a minute, but yeah.

But the point of it is that one of the tactics of Satan is, and this is gonna sound crazy and I'm gonna say it anyways, but Justin, God's word is extremely powerful and it's wonderful and it's glorious.

And Satan in many ways is like, well, I can't convince them that that's not true. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna help them at least lose some of its power. And so what do we do is we isolate ourselves thinking, well, all I need is the Holy Spirit and I need my Bible and I'm good to go.

Well, guess what? You just fell for the tactic of the accuser because in the Bible it says, you actually don't do that. Do not pull yourself away from, listen, he wrote Ephesians six to the church. The church puts on the armor of God, not the individuals.

The church trusts in Christ together. Go back to chapter four. When the body functions properly, it what? It protects itself. It builds itself up in love.

So a lot

So that we're not blown around and knocked to and fro and all that.

That's right. So a lot of times what happens, Justin, when we start struggling with our own sin, we ended up isolating ourselves. We become quiet. We don't confess it, right? We deal with it on our own.

And what does the Bible tell us to do? No, use each other, confess our sins, bear one another's burdens, right? Pull the brother out of their sin. And so my encouragement to everybody that is here is that be very aware that Satan is definitely trying to isolate you, pull you out, distract you, discourage you.

I've started saying this. If the call, this is next week, if the call of the Christian life is to take the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness, the greatest tactic of the enemy is to call into question the person holding the light if they actually have the light.

No, it's true.

You're not gonna be running with boldness to fight Satan and free the slaved if you don't think you have the light yourself.

Like if you don't even think that you, you may very well not even be a part of God's army.

That's right.

Then, yeah, what in the world does that mean for your mission? But you were referencing this earlier. We're exhorted in the scriptures to be sober-minded and to be aware of the fact that we live in the midst of a war.

There is peace in the midst of warfare in one sense only, and that's Christ for us.

That's right.

But to be sober-minded and to have that wartime mentality would certainly mean the last thing in the world that I wanna do is isolate myself away from my Father's loving presence and where I am going to most tangibly experience the Lord Jesus and his benefits, his ministry in this life, aka the local church.

I need to be with the saints, and we together are stronger than we could ever be a part and the Lord ministers to us. Agree 100%.

Yeah, and I'll just say one last thing, JP, but I know we're about to close it down. But just to add to what you're saying, I think you need to hear us clearly. We don't want you to walk around afraid.

What we're trying to say is the thing that great strength is your union and rest in Christ, the sufficiency of Christ for us. That's what Satan attacks. So if you find yourself questioning your position with the Father, you need to know that you're being under attack unless you're denying the gospel and you don't believe that Christ is sufficient anymore.

That's a whole nother problem. But if he is sufficient, you need to realize the moment you start questioning him, you're not listening to Christ and his words. You're listening to Satan and his deceitfulness.

No, that's entirely right. And this is a great tactic of the enemy to make us ineffective. And we're gonna go there because if you don't, in the next episode, if you have no peace and no hope and no joy and no assurance, you're gonna be a very anemic soldier.

And you're not going to be, I mean, I know this has been co-opted and hijacked, but you're not going to be on mission. If your faith has just been eroded and taken from you and all those sorts of things, and you're questioning whether or not you're legitimate in the first place.