“Do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:27)
It was October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther posted his 95 thesis on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. That event came to be considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. But there is another church in Wittenberg that is also significant. It is called the Town Church. It is where Martin Luther used to preach to the German people. From the front of the church, it looks like any other church in any German town. But when you walk around the back of the Town Church, you find something different – something frightening. There you will discover a three-foot long sandstone relief with an image of a pig on it. It is called the “Judensau,” which means, “the Jewish pig.” It was erected there to spite the Jews and to celebrate their expulsion from Wittenberg. It is a sad representation of how the people who claimed to follow the King of the Jews publicly hated the Jews of the King. As a result of this anti-Semitism, Hitler and his Nazi associates took advantage and used it to stir up the German people against the Jews to the death of six million of Abraham’s children in the Holocaust. The sin of Wittenberg was hidden in the back of a church.
Satan can set up a “Judensau,” anywhere in the lives of anyone who follows Jesus Christ. All we need to do is open a small door in the back of our lives that he will be happy to enter. In Ephesians 4:27, the apostle Paul wrote, “Neither give place to the devil.” The word “place” is a Greek word that refers to a specific, marked-off location. It can be a small or large place. The devil is after any and every area in our lives that he can worm his way into and set up a pig. He will use anything that we make available to him.
But first he must find his “entry place” into a person’s life. So, exactly what does he use as an entry place in our lives? Well, I hate to have to tell you this, but he uses us. He uses us when we refuse to let go of old hurts and wounds. He enjoys festering those over an open flame. He uses us when we refuse to forgive others. He loves it when we replay others hurtful words and deeds over and over in our minds. He uses us when we judge others. He delights when we play magistrate over people’s lives. He uses us when we allow ourselves to be addicted to what we know we should not be. He knows how weak those addictions make us. And he really gets excited when we hunker down into demanding our right to be right.
Well, the list could go on and on; but we all get the point. It’s so easy for us to become our own Town Church. Everything looks right and smells right to everyone else, but deep inside the recesses of our hearts and minds, not only have we given the devil a foothold, but like the Town Church of Wittenberg, we too have a hidden pig at our back door. My friends, it’s time to kill the pig!
Darlene
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