Dare The Devil

Chapter 2 - Bible Study

 Ah, youth.  So enthusiastic.  So vibrant.

So dangerous.

In January 1975 I was attending a weekly Thursday night Bible study at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa.  I was a baby Christian, what the lingo of the time called a “BAC”. A born-again Christian, having given my life to Jesus in December of ’74. 

After school on Thursdays I would have dinner and leave the house at 7:00 for the 5 mile trip up the freeway, where the Bible Study started at 7:30.  Being a new driver at only 16 (and a half, don’t forget the half, at that age the half is very important) it was the one night of the week I had access to the car.  The rest of my time I transported myself quite well thank you on my 5 speed bicycle.

The Calvary Chapel format has changed little, if at all, over the years.  7:30 the song leader(s) began their happy, up-tempo singalongs, moving by 8:00 into calmer, more meditative songs, when, at 8:15 a Bible study was given by one of the Church leaders, which usually lasted an hour.  From 9:15 to 9:30 was the altar-call, where everyone who had been touched by the message and either wanted to rededicate their lives to Jesus or convert to the Christian life for the first time were invited up to the front of the chapel for prayer.

I remember that night as though it was yesterday.  Another cliché, I know, but true.  The text for the night was Ephesians 6:16, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” 

The basic idea was straight-forward.  Faith means believing in Jesus.  And with that faith none of the Devil’s arrows can have any effect.

And I really liked this message.  I loved it.  Needed desperately to hear it.

The past 3 years had been miserable for my family, and quite challenging for me personally as I entered my teen years.  In early 72 we lived in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, and life was good.  Dad was making more money than the family of 5 could spend….3 story house in the swanky suburbs, house and boat by the lake in Maryland, private school for all the kids, parties, laughter, Christmas and birthday materialistic orgies….Everything a happy American family ever wanted.

Then a neighbor, Mom and Dad’s best friend, died of protracted spinal cancer.  And Dad lost his job.  And the bills started piling up and he had to sell his prized possession boat and….Well, let’s just say that, on the verge of bankruptcy, in September 74 we moved from owning the 3500 square-foot three story 4 bedroom Pittsburgh mansion at 1732 Fox Chapel Road to renting the 1200 square-foot 3 bedroom condo at 5956 Cinnamon in Irvine, California.  Dad hid in the bottle, as his new job provided neither the money nor the sense of accomplishment and self-worth he was used to.  Mom started working.  Brother and sister shared a room.  Nobody talked.  I, being “the oldest”, had the only private bedroom, for which I was not grateful but, being the arrogant teenager I was, considered it somehow my birthright.  Then there was the new school, and feeling so awkward anyway being a teenager and having recently been transplanted from my private 350 member all-boys Ivy-League prep-school to the Southern California public high school with 3,000 people in it, half of whom were girls who I didn’t even know how to talk to let alone date because the only female I had even talked to for the last 4 years had been my sister and that really doesn’t count and I just don’t know how to deal with all this….I needed help.

And I reached out to God.  And He reached out to me.  I got invited to Campus Crusade for Christ meetings (which in the 70s were still legal before the ACLU got involved), and through a series of messages, studies, “signs and wonders” asked Jesus to come into my life one night in early December 1974.

So, there I was….Scared, trying to find my way through the strange new land, with a family hurting in ways I couldn’t even understand let alone fix……And the Calvary Chapel Bible Study is telling me that this new-found faith in Jesus would protect me from the Devil and any further pain.  All of his flaming arrows gone!  Extinguished!  Hits that shield and falls to the ground with less impact than a spitball.

I was exalted!  For probably the first time in my life I felt my spirit soar…..Joy, peace, healing for my family, protection from further harm!  All of these were mine, all MINE!

As I sang the closing songs with unprecedented ecstasy, I felt renewed and genuinely ready for life and the challenges ahead.  All would be well, and I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.  But there was something I had to do first.  Someone I had to talk to.  An old score to settle.

And as I left the Church that evening I was struck by the very vibrancy of the air.  It was one of the “Indian Summer” nights, in the mid 70 degrees even at night, and the moon was high in the sky, shining with beauty and grace upon my new, wonderful world. 

Irvine was one of the new “Planned Communities”, where nothing, absolutely nothing happens by chance.  House-house-park-pool-house-house-shopping center-house-house-school, for mile upon mile.  And newly empowered with my shield of faith, I stopped by a cul-de-sac’s park and climbed a tree.  “Thank you, God.  Thank you, Jesus.  I will never forget you for this.”

Then I turned my thoughts to the other….

“Damn you, Devil.  You’ve caused so much pain.  I hate you for what you did to me and my family.  Well you can’t touch me now, you idiot!  I’m protect by Jesus!”

Then, in my youthful exuberance, I raised my middle finger to the earth.  “Go to hell, Devil.  Fuck you.”

And though I could not hear it, deep in the bowels of Hades itself, there was a chuckle.

Too bad I didn’t have more background, and a stronger foundation….Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle, that type of thing.  Too bad I didn’t understand the difference between faith and belief.  And too bad I hadn’t read the rest of the Book, where in 2nd Corinthians 11:14 Paul also says, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

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