All eyes are on President Trump’s “landmark” meeting with Chinese President Xi, but we must not look past the crisis in our own backyard: Hurricane Melissa has left dozens dead and widespread devastation across Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica. Power outages and dangerous conditions persist today. It is vital that we intercede for the victims and look for practical ways to help.

I recommend Texans on Mission as they share the gospel and meet needs in Jamaica. And I strongly encourage you to support Proclaim Cuba, our ministry’s longtime partner on the island. I have worked with them for many years and love them deeply. They are providing critical aid and sharing the gospel across the island nation.

The contrast with this unfolding tragedy could not be greater: Americans are expected to spend a record $13.1 billion on Halloween this year. Songs, TV shows, and movies dedicated to Halloween abound. There are even “haunted” Halloween car washes.

Such popularity is unsurprising: more than three in five Americans say they believe in ghosts, though I am not in their number. Over the years, I happen to have visited several sites believed to be especially haunted, from hotels in Texas and Colorado to the battlefields of Gettysburg. I have found Franklin Roosevelt’s observation to be true: “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

A recent Popular Science article explains the popularity of the paranormal, citing settings such as prisons and battlefields where we are “primed” to expect ghosts; the psychological effects of black mold, carbon monoxide, and other contaminants; and cultural influences and the power of suggestion that precondition us for paranormal beliefs.

But I think there’s another dimension to the story, one that intends to distract us from the good we could do in our broken world by focusing us on evil.

A submarine that sank itself

Across this Halloween week, we’re discussing Satan and his strategies. We’ve looked at temptation, persecution, and deprivation; today, let’s consider deceit.

Jesus warned us that Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). As “the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9), he “blinds the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

He delights in fostering lies and deceptions that we embrace to our loss and grief.

To illustrate: I read recently the incredible story of the USS Tang, which destroyed more enemy ships than any other US submarine in World War II. Its captain and crew were among the greatest heroes of the war. However, the vessel met its demise not at the hands of the Japanese but when its own torpedo misfired, circled back, and sank the vessel.

This illustrates metaphorically an observation I often quote from my friend John Stonestreet: Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims.

Some are less dangerous than others: Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio play was broadcast on this day in 1938, causing panic among those who believed a Martian invasion of Earth was real. But some are horrific, such as the murderous ideology of the Islamic State now rising again in Syria.

Israeli soldiers recently found a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other antisemitic literature in the offices of a charity linked to Hamas. After the US Supreme Court fallaciously stated in 1973 that it “need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins” and tragically legalized elective abortion, more than sixty-three million babies have died as a result.

“The first effect of not believing in God”

The pastor and author Paul Powell noticed this statement on a bumper sticker: “With God, all things are possible. Without God, all things are permissible.” The warning applies especially to our thoughts, as the Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts noted: “The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.”

How can we defeat the deceptions of the devil so we can make a positive impact on our fallen world?

One: Submit our minds every day to the Holy Spirit.

We are assured: “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). When we begin the day by surrendering our thoughts to the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), we position ourselves to be empowered by his omnipotence and led by his omniscience.

Two: Defeat ungodly thoughts by focusing on godly truth.

Immoral thoughts are sinful in themselves (cf. Matthew 5:28) and inevitably lead to immoral actions (James 1:13–15). The best way to refuse them is to focus instead on godly truth that replaces ungodly lies. We are therefore commanded: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8, my emphasis).

Three: Advocate for biblical truth.

The best way to learn is to teach. The best way to develop godly minds is to use our minds for God. To this end, we are to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). We do this when we “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

“Fill my lamp with your light”

Most of all, we love God and others with our “mind” (Matthew 22:37) when we manifest the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). When we submit our thoughts to him, Jesus works through us to continue his ministry in the world.

He was—and is—the most brilliant person in all of history (cf. Matthew 12:42). As scholar Jonathan T. Pennington demonstrates conclusively, Jesus was the greatest philosopher and wisest teacher of all time. The Irish missionary St. Columbanus (AD 543–615) was therefore wise to pray:

I beg you, my Jesus, fill my lamp with your light. By its light let me see the holiest of holy places, your own temple where you enter as the eternal High Priest of the eternal mysteries. Let me see you, watch you, desire you. Let me love you as I see you, and before you let my lamp always shine, always burn. . . .

Let us know you, let us love you, let us love only you, let us desire you alone, let us spend our days and nights meditating on you alone, let us always be thinking of you.

Will you make his prayer yours today?

Note: For positive ways to respond to Halloween, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s new article, “What does the Bible say about Halloween? Can Christians celebrate this controversial holiday?”

Quote for the day:

“[Christ] wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim.” —C. S. Lewis

Our latest website resources:

• How can Christians navigate anxiety and negative thoughts?
• When I’m attacked for being a Christian, how should I respond?
• In “Nobody’s Mother,” Sandra L. Glahn seeks God’s truth on women’s giftings
• Rare earth minerals, Louvre jewelry heist, “No Kings” protests & a World Series preview!
• What is cultural apologetics and why is it critical for today’s culture?

Denison Forum

The ongoing US government shutdown is the longest full shutdown in US history and the second-longest of any kind. Among its consequences:

• At Hollywood Burbank Airport in California, the air traffic control tower was recently left unstaffed for six hours, forcing pilots to communicate among themselves to avoid incidents when taxiing to and from the runway.
• More than eight thousand US flights have been delayed as shutdown-related air traffic control absences persist.
• Forty-two million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) will go without their SNAP benefits beginning this Saturday.
• Federal funding will also stop flowing to programs that fund education, health, and nutrition services for more than eight hundred thousand children under the age of six.

In other financial news, Amazon is preparing to lay off up to thirty thousand corporate workers as the company plans mass automation. UPS disclosed yesterday that it has cut forty-eight thousand management and operations positions. And Axios reports that employers are already scaling back hiring because of AI.

October 29 is an annual reminder that financial prosperity is promised to no one. This day in 1929 will forever be known as Black Tuesday, the collapse of the stock market that helped produce the Great Depression.

However, financial uncertainty need not steal our joy. Happiness is based on happenings; joy is a “fruit” of the Spirit regardless of conditions (Galatians 5:22). And the harsher the conditions, the greater our joy can be.

Here’s how.

How money can make you happier

In And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, historian Jon Meacham describes in detail the poverty in which our nation’s greatest president grew up. Lincoln’s father struggled to provide for their family; his mother died when he was nine years old. He worked as a farmer, a ferryman, and a store clerk. His time in a school classroom was limited to less than a year.

Lincoln said of himself, “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.”

His background helps explain his passionate commitment to Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal.” A year after Lincoln was elected president, he praised this assertion as “giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time.” He knew that, with his humble origins, in no country but America could he have become the leader of that country.

But while the Founders declared and defended our equal and “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” they couched them in secular terms in a secular Constitution. The word “God” nowhere appears in the document; it mentions “religion” only to prohibit religious tests for office, prevent the establishment of a national religion, and defend religious liberty.

Here’s the problem: the “pursuit of happiness” as an end rather than a means turns out to be a self-defeating exercise.

Social scientist Arthur C. Brooks cites research in his latest Atlantic article that shows how materialistic values are negatively correlated with overall life satisfaction, mood, self-appraisal, and physical health. However, they are positively associated with depression, anxiety, compulsive buying, and risky behaviors. He summarizes: “Money can make you happier, but only if you don’t care about it.”

Pursuing happiness makes us unhappy; pursuing service makes us significant.

Four practical responses

This Halloween week, we’re considering Satan and his strategies. In response to financial need, the devil wants us to doubt God, prioritize the temporal, choose greed over character, and thus damage our witness to the world (cf. Acts 5:1–11).

Our Father wants us to do just the opposite:

Trust God. One way the Lord redeems our needs is by using them to show us the depth of our need for his provision. Only when I admit that “I am weak” can I say “I am strong” in Christ (2 Corinthians 12:10). When we seek and follow his lead, then work as he works, he is “able to make all grace abound to you” (2 Corinthians 9:8; cf. Philippians 4:19).

Prioritize the eternal. I once heard a pastor say he had never seen a U-Haul attached to a hearse. Life is like the game of Monopoly: when it is over, the pieces go back into the box. As C. T. Studd noted, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Randy Alcorn would agree: “What you do with your resources in this life is your autobiography.”

Choose character over greed. We don’t know the strength of our faith until it is tested. We can say we would never cheat on our taxes or steal from our employer, but if we truly need the money that such sins would produce, we discover the depth of our commitment. When temptation comes, turn it immediately to your Lord and claim his victorious grace (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Elevate your witness. The prophet Habakkuk authored one of my favorite declarations in Scripture:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will take joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:17–18).

He could therefore testify: “Gᴏᴅ, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (v. 19). Such a testimony in times of plenty is unremarkable; in times of need, it is transformative.

My grocery store friend

I have become friends with a man who works at our local grocery store. When I first met him, I could sense the joy of the Lord in his countenance and the peace of God in his heart. When we see each other, we bump fists (he has to keep his hands sanitary to do his work) and tell each other we’re praying for each other.

Not long ago, he shared with me that he and his wife were going through a time of great financial struggle and asked me to pray for him. I did and I have. I saw him again this week, and his smiling spirit spoke again to my spirit. I asked how things were going. Not better, he confided. But then he grinned and quoted Job:

“Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15).

In whom will you “hope” today?

Quote for the day:

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” —Martin Luther

Our latest website resources:

• When I’m attacked for being a Christian, how should I respond?
• In “Nobody’s Mother,” Sandra L. Glahn seeks God’s truth on women’s giftings
• Rare earth minerals, Louvre jewelry heist, “No Kings” protests & a World Series preview!
• What is cultural apologetics and why is it critical for today’s culture?
• Ask Jim: Should Christians celebrate Halloween? What happens when we die? Does demon possession still happen today?

Denison Forum