Our Last Battle (12)

 

When I first looked at Chapter Six of the Last Battle I saw it as kind of a bridge, a setup to move the story forward...for things accelerate in Chapter Seven. While it is a setup for encountering the Dwarfs and their unexpected response in Chapter Seven, Lewis continues to deal with anger, contrasting Tirian's anger with Jill's mercy and understanding. 

Tirian falls back into the anger of which he has already been convicted. 

Tirian is about to commit another murder in cold blood, of which he has already been convicted.

When we drink the poison of this world, it takes us a while to unlearn our habits, our thought patterns, our self-righteous emotions. 

Most frightening is when we contaminate others with this poison.

Perhaps the greatest danger is that we think, "That can't be my tribe. It's those other people!"

That, my friends, is almost a guarantee that we are wearing dead lion skins.

(I've worn more than one!).

Love,

Bob

Twelve – Which Spirit?

In Chapter Six of The Last Battle, Tirian, Jill, and Eustace arrive at the Stable to rescue Jewel the Unicorn. Tirian captures the lone Calormene sentry, who leads him to Jewel, being held behind the Stable. 

While Tirian is freeing Jewel, Jill goes into the Stable and makes a startling and, to her, a funny discovery, “Aslan” is nothing but a poor old donkey draped in a lion skin.

For his part, Puzzle is ready to be released from his captivity in the Stable and gladly goes with Jill.

When Tirian, Jill, and Eustace are reunited, along with Jewel, and Tirian is confronted with Puzzle, the King reaches for his sword to “smite off the head of the accursed Ass.”

Here we see that Tirian has not yet learned to fear his anger, for he is on the verge of making what would be another costly and sinful mistake. Once again we see how anger clouds our thinking and poisons our hearts. He murdered a Calormene, and now he is about to murder Puzzle. 

Jill’s quick plea for Puzzle saved his life, and may have saved Tirian’s soul, for what happens to a man’s heart when he descends into hatred, anger, and murder? And consider how merciful Aslan had been to Tirian up to this point. 

To begin with, Tirian mercifully realized his sin when he and Jewel killed two Calormenes without warning. This was a double sin, for not only did Tirian commit murder, but as King, he led Jewel into murder. Yet here he is about to murder once again. 

Aslan was merciful when Tirian prayed for Aslan to take his life, but to save Narnia – a work of mercy and grace and servant – leadership was working in his soul.

Aslan was merciful when He sent Jill and Eustace in answer to Tirian’s prayer. 

Aslan was merciful when Tirian rescued Jewel.

Aslan was merciful when Jill rescued Puzzle.

Yet Tirian was about to commit murder, he was about to murder a foolish and frightened donkey. What blood would have been on his hands had he done so? Had he done so, how might the story have unfolded? Tirian would have been transformed into the image of Tash rather than the image of Aslan.

O my dear, dear friends, when we drink of the cup of the world and Satan, our souls are warped, our hearts poisoned, our minds confused – we forget who our Lord Jesus is and who we are in Him. It may be that Satan’s most subtle and toxic temptation is for us to respond in kind, forgetting that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or natural (Ephesians 6:10 - 17; 2 Corinthians 10:10 – 5; 2 Timothy 2:24 – 26). 

Is it possible that there is blood on the hands of the professing church in America today? Is it possible that our anger and alliances with political powers and our humanistic systems of thought (across the theological spectrum) have wrought spiritual death on those around us, to the point where many unbelievers are saying, “If this is Christianity, then I want nothing to do with it”? Is it possible, that as James and John, we do not know the Spirit which we are of, but have rather adopted the spirit of this age and the ruler of the prince of the air (Luke 9:51–56)? 

O dear friends, there is a heresy of the mind, but there is also a heresy of the heart – we can’t really separate the two, one will poison the other. 

As Jill points out regarding Puzzle, “He didn’t know any better.” 

As Jesus prays, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

So we are to live.

When we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us, to reconcile us to Himself (Romans 5:8 – 11), demonstrating His love for us. This is our calling, to love others as our Father and Lord Jesus love us. 

Often people do not know what they are doing. They have been taught to wear dead lion skins; the skins are often tailor made, and I imagine that all traditions and movements have their own style of lion skins. They have been taught that Jesus wants them to wear their special skins. Then they are taught that Aslan and Tash are really the same person.

So let’s not be too harsh on the Puzzles of the professing church, in one sense they don’t know any better. Even their pastors, I think, often don’t know any better. Even those who have taught their pastors may not know any better. After all, we’ve been at this a long time. This is what we know.

An element of Our Last Battle is whether we will live by the Spirit of Christ, or by the spirit of the enemy. Will we give life, or will we take it? Will we live in anger or in peace and merciful love toward others? 

If all Jill Pole did in this book, The Last Battle, was to save poor Puzzle from the lion skin and from the tyranny of Shift the Ape, hers would be a story worth telling. 

Do we have such a story?