Mary Said that Joe said that Ellen said Stan Did – Uh, I Can’t Remember What. But it WAS MEAN!

They Did? Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones – But Those Words Mean WAR!

    Digging Deeper

In the movie Sum of All Fears, Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) is an analyst with the CIA specializing in Soviet military and political policy.  In particular, he is an expert on President Zorkin (Richard Marner), the new Soviet President.  When the Soviet military launches a missile strike on a US ship, Ryan is convinced that President Zorkin was not responsible for giving the order.  While he can't prove what he believes to his boss, William Cabot (Morgan Freeman), it turns out that he is exactly right.  A small, well funded group of Nazis is behind the scenes, pulling strings to get the USSR and the USA to go to nuclear war.  Their goal:  To rule the world that will emerge from the ashes of such a holocost.  Can Jack Ryan get the American President to step back from DEF CON 4 and the total annihilation of the Human Race?  Here's a video clip of the Nazi leader, Dressler (Alan Bates) explaining his plan to get the US and the USSR to destroy each other: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C-M27BEyno
 

When Satan Seeks to Destroy

In the movie, Sum of All Fears, Dressler seeks to destroy the diplomatic relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States by playing on their worst fears.  While both countries want to trust each other, they have many fears and biases they both hold.  Dressler plays on their fears, manipulating circumstances to cause the two sides to go to the edge of war believing the worst about each other. 

Satan lives to do that very same thing to us.

In the Old Testament, we find a story of how one man sought to do the same thing in order to take revenge on King David.  A man by the name of Ahithophel was David's chief counselor.  And yet, when David's son Absalom sought to rebel against his father, Ahithophel sided with the King's son.  In 2nd Samuel 15:12 we read the following:   

Then Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counsellor, from his city – from Giloh – while he offered sacrifices. And the conspiracy grew strong, for the people with Absalom continually increased in number.      

A key question was why the chief counselor of David would join in a rebellion against the King?  To uncover the reason, we need a bit of detective work to reveal the web of family connections and broken relationships.   Second Samuel 23 lists David's mighty men.  Two names stand out in verses 34 and 39:  Ahithophel's son Eliam, and Uriah the Hittite.  In other words, Ahithophel's son was a close friend and father-in-law of the man who married Ahithophel's granddaughter, Bathsheba.  Putting 2nd Samuel 23:34 and 39 together with 2nd Samuel 11:3, we read the following:       

… Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite … Uriah the Hittite: thirty-seven in all. ... So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"

David had ordered the murder of Ahithophel's grandson by marriage, a man who had been a friend to his own son, in order to marry his granddaughter, Bathsheba.  By siding with Absalom (who we are told in 2nd Samuel 14:27 had three sons), Ahthophel saw an opportunity to destroy both David and Absalom, clearing the way for his great grandson, Solomon, to become King.  Like Dressler in the movie Sum of All Fears, Ahithophel played off the fears of both David and Absalom to destroy them.  In the end, Absalom and his three sons all died, David was destroyed by grief, and Solomon became King.

 Bitterness Does Not Make Us Better, It Only Makes Us Broken.

How often Satan uses the broken relationships of families to divide people, causing the friends of the family members to choose sides.  How easy it is to fall into the trap of destroying the other party because we hear that "Some one said that someone else said that so-and-so did something terrible."  Recently, I was in Goshen visiting my mother, and had a chance to attend the church where I grew up.  That Sunday, Pastor Ed Fritz, Pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Goshen, Indiana, gave a sermon titled: "The Man in the Mirror".  As part of his sermon, he spoke of a set of circumstances that led to him and his brother not speaking to each other for over three years.  As part of his sermon, he asked "How can I sit in my office, counseling people to forgive and restore broken relationships when I have this in my life?"   And then he said something I found profound:  "Bitterness does not make us better, it only makes us broken."  With that, he shared the circumstances surrounding the broken relationship with his brother, and how he reached out to ask forgiveness. 

If more pastors in America would do what Pastor Ed did, people would truly see the power of God's word.   By being willing to humble himself and share that story, Pastor Ed was taking to heart the words of our Lord in Matthew 7:4-5: 

Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

To conclude his sermon, Pastor Ed invited people to write down a broken relationship they were holding on to and come up to the front of the sanctuary and toss it into a wastebasket.  Applying a concept called "Dying Moments" from an event known as the Great Banquet, this action symbolized each person standing up to Satan, telling him "You will NOT defeat the power of God's love." 

Satan prompts lots of Dresslers and Ahithophels who want to play on the Sum of All our Fears in order to get us to destroy each other.  When the Body of Christ encounters those like these two, we need to confront them and ask them to repent from their efforts to divide the body. 

God has a better way.  He calls us to confess our sins, to seek His forgiveness, and by being cleansed by His love, we are empowered to then forgive others.  When we do, God takes our Dying Moments and does just as He promised through His Prophet, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:34):  

They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

What about you?  Are you harboring a grudge - or worse, trying to cause others to destroy themselves because of that grudge?  If so, ask God for the courage to look at The Man- or Woman - in the Mirror, and face The Sum of All Fears.