Screwtape in Danger

I’m reading the Screwtape Letters, which has to be, by far, my favorite book of all. Screwtape is writing to his nephew, a junior demon that has just begun the job of tempting a human and leading him (hopefully for Wormwood) to Hell.

Screwtape is talking in this section about how ‘The Enemy’ (which of course is the Lord) will allow suffering into a person’s life so that they will follow the Lord more deeply and truly.

“Do not be decieved, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. “

“Our cause is never more in danger” he says. He is, of course, talking about Jesus dying on the cross, which was the ultimate show of obedience to God.