It is a bothersome weed that grows wild on the East coast. People say that the name is “Devil Weed”. I don’t know why it has such a name. It has thorns. It’s hard to get rid of it. It grows fast. It’s really irksome and bothersome, characteristics of the devil.
Actually, in our culture, we use the devil to describe a lot of things. The weather is described as “hot as the devil”. People are described as “worrisome as the devil”. People get angry and exclaim that they are “as mad as the devil”.
My biggest concern with all this is whether we take the devil seriously or not. Is he real? Is he a figment of the imagination? Or is he just the collector of colorful expressions, therefore, not to be taken seriously. I’m afraid the devil has been joked about so much that his deadliest work is not taken seriously. When people are caught in something bad, they sometimes excuse it with “the devil made me do it”.
Problem is: You can’t trivialize the work of your worst enemy. If the devil was nothing more than a Halloween costume of a pointed tail and pitchfork, we could laugh it off. But there are too many terrorist bombings, kidnappings, rapes, and murders for us to make a joke of the problem of evil. The evil we read about in the news is always too intentional to just happen.
There is a power in our own experience of sin that we feel other than ourselves. To explain the existence of evil in the world is to explain the existence of the devil. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve had a confrontation with a personal devil and lost. In Matthew 4, Jesus had a personal confrontation with the devil and won. If you are wise, you will answer the devil with the answers that Jesus gave. They are tested and proven effective.
Dealing with the devil is serious business. Don’t take it lightly.
“God of Truth, help us not to be deceived by the Evil One; we are
susceptible to his trickery. Give us Your light. Amen”
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