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| Illustration of the Devil on Codex Gigas, early thirteenth century. |
People may look at my life as a rural hermit and say, "Aren't you really a coward? You have fled from the spiritual battlefield. You're running away."
And I say, you have no comprehension of what spiritual evil is, if you don't think that running is not sometimes a valid response.
We are speaking of the mother-father of all nightmares. The only true real-life horror story. Ontological horror that would make H. P. Lovecraft soil his britches.
I unfortunately do have some comprehension of what spiritual evil is, and I hate it and I also fear and flee from it. That is a healthy reaction, to fear evil, and also moreso to fear the Lord's displeasure and separation from the Lord if you fall into it. Since the Lord is the source of all good, all light, all truth, to be separated from Him is horror even if the demons leave you be. Which of course they won't.
Now, sometimes you are forced to fight. You don't have a choice. And when you are forced to fight, you can't let fear dominate you. You've got to do the smack-dab in the face of that devil. To use an obscure wrestling reference, you've gotta do the Swanton Bomb on it. But if you are hanging around devil-town when you could leave, you probably should leave.
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
~2 Corinthians 6:17
So yeah, you fight when you have to. You do a fighting retreat to get to a better place when you need to. The Israelites were called out to be a holy people, and holiness implies separation. You don't go tracking in the mud and the blood into the house of the Lord.
It is right and proper and wholesome to fear and hate evil, and more so to fear God. This does not mean you are paralyzed with this fear: after all, the Almighty is your advocate if you are His. I cannot believe how uncomprehending and unknowing people can be that they do not understand this evil and the price of having truck with it. You are having a dalliance with the same forces that invented torture and killing people to steal their organs and abortion and somebody's daughter dead in the street with a heroin needle in their arm and... ugh, things I probably don't want to imagine and don't want to speak on further. The word "ontological" means concerning being itself, and this is ontological horror in total. All other horror traces back to this, the mother-father of all lies.
So no, I don't think I am a coward (more so than other men.) I think I see things truthfully, and that can be a horrifying thing. But however afraid I am of evil, the Devil is more afraid of God.
