By Adam E. Heironimus
“The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis is a series of fictional letters sent to an inexperienced younger demon named Wormwood by his “Dear Uncle Screwtape”. In the letters Screwtape is instructing his young pupil how to keep his “patient” (a young christian) from staying on the straight and narrow path and instead tries to instruct Wormwood on ways of keeping his “patient” from church, christian fellowship and all other kinds of godly things, but Screwtape was always sure to tell Wormwood to never hurry his “patient” into anything evil, in fact he said “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”- That’s so true! It’s very easy to slowly, slowly slip backwards without knowing it- and the devil can wait an entire lifetime for us to complete our slide! We need to be constantly be setting “signposts” on our paths and getting other Christians to help us by gauging where we are in our spiritual lives. Another section of the book that I really liked was the part in which Screwtape was instructing his pupil on his “patient’s” involvement in the church, He said “Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches… The search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.”- It’s often much, much easier to find a church’s, person’s or family’s troubles than to find all of their many good qualities- and anyway, if you find a perfect church, don’t join because you’ll mess it up!
I was really encouraged by reading “The Screwtape Letters”, as it gave me somewhat of a better idea of how the devil often tries to tempt and trick us into sin. I would highly recommend “The Screwtape Letters” to anyone who would like to learn more about resisting temptation, and would give it 5 out of 5 stars.
“The Screwtape Letters” is available at Amazon.com and at many other physical and online bookstores worldwide.