“Jordan never realized that all the time he’d been hunting happiness, someone had been hunting him” (Alcorn 13).  And so it is with all of us. We spiritualize and demonize to our convenience, but rarely do we stop and ponder the reality of the spiritual world.  How active are angels and demons in our daily lives?

The Bible speaks quite openly about the principalities and powers of darkness against whom we fight, as Christians.  We also see evidence of great evils being committed that even our fallible, selfish little brains can’t imagine doing.  Yet I have been known to roll my eyes just a little when people talk about angels and demons.  Randy Alcorn’s book, Lord Foulgrin’s Letters, was a fresh reminder that perhaps I should take the spiritual dimension a little more seriously.

For those of you familiar with C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, this book is a modern sequel to it. In fact, ST and WW are even referenced in the story by the demon, Lord Foulgrin.  Said demon is counseling one of his inferior demons in the process of destroying the human, Jordan Fletcher. The objective is to keep Fletcher out of the hands of the “Enemy,” or Jesus. They use every means available to distract Fletcher from Christ – road rage, family, a seductive secretary, hypocritical Christians, music, the sun, etc.  Juxtaposed to the demons’ efforts are the angels’ fighting to bring one more soul into the Kingdom.

While this book is clearly not meant to be interpretive of Scripture, it does provide significant insight into how apathetic Christians have become in their desire to live a holy life. The numerous small compromises we make with sin are leaving a gaping hole in our spiritual defenses; we are practically inviting Satan to have a foothold in our lives simply so that we can lead a comfortable existence.  While Satan exults, Jesus grieves.