“The Seven Deadly Sins and a War Path”
The transition of Winter Soldier into White Wolf is such a picture of salvation from inner torment to inner peace! I love this little sub-story and everything it entails. Bucky was originally a freedom fighter, but after the evil empire managed to so twist his brain, he became a very tormented soul, more deadly than a rattler snake and having no sense of conscience or remorse.
The real horror of this is that Bucky was not really that kind of person. Evil had turned him into something going against everything he ever wanted to be. Even after he begins to realize the truth and make an effort to do right again, the enemy was able to enter back in, and by saying certain code words, force him against his will to still be the rattle snake! How many people do we know, perhaps even ourself, because of an addiction or whatever, the enemy has his back door access to spark the monster in us, and then the battle is on, sometimes we win, and sometimes the monster wins. We hate the thing we do and yet find we have still done it. We do not want to be the monster within, and yet we just can’t seem to forever be rid of it.
To me, these are deadly sins, because they have a hook in us and seem to take over. But there is a White Path of peace in Christ. Just like Nomad took Bucky to Wakanda. In this place they were able to deliver his soul and his mind from the evil programming, to deprogram him into an inner peace you could actually see in his eyes. He was finally free! He was finally Bucky again, except he has also spiritually evolved into something more, and now he is, White Wolf.
As the White Wolf, he finds himself still in a fight. He fights with Nomad, not against him. He fights with Black Widow, whom he had once tried to kill as Winter Soldier. He fights against what may be an unbeatable foe, and yet he fights on the side of good. He has found there is a battle you can fight, and still have inner peace, even satisfaction.
Lets look at the Seven Deadly Sins again, and discuss how they manifest in today’s culture. In the Promise Land of God’s Word, we find there is a fight. The White Path is also a War Path against the enemy of our soul and the souls of our fellow man. Thanos, and his beautiful jewels of power hold deadly attraction for a mortal soul. Here is the list we are working from: Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Slothfulness, Wrath, Pride, and Lust. Which are the ones that most haunt you?
“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Romans 7:24
And this is the fight we fight, this body of death, not only the mortality of it, but the “curse” of a “fallen” flesh we’re still trapped in. Jesus delivers us from this death and empowers us by his Holy Spirit to overcome. Scripture says the wages of sin is death. This is the salvation Christ has bought for us through his blood, and in this “Blood Covenant” we have entered peace with God. Praise our Lord forever. And then we find it is the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and working in us towards our complete freedom, complete deliverance from slavery to sin. And in this process we also have the “Church”. In which God has given gifts: Prophets, Pastors, teachers, and so on, to equip us, and strengthen us in our spiritual walk with Christ; but what happens when too much of the snake has gotten into the Church? How does today’s Church compare to what Jesus did?
When Captain America originally rescued Winter Soldier and brought him into a safe place, supposedly. A place involving the “System”. The enemy penetrated the place. It was not safe. Winter Soldier was triggered again. From what we can tell, it was not till Nomad got Winter Soldier to Wakanda, that he was finally able to be helped, and find inner healing. In this analogy of ours, Wakanda becomes the picture of what Church is supposed to be. It is what Jesus did.
As our society becomes more and more ungodly and unbelieving, even as it was in the days of Noah, there is no safe place in our culture. Our culture has become the snake constantly trying to wrap us in its coils. God’s garden must be within us. The Kingdom of God is within us, and it must be strong enough to withstand the onslaught of a world spinning out of control in the pursuit of more and more pleasures. Eve believed the lie. Have we?
What of “Greed”, the first deadly sin in our list? It can truly be said that “money” has become the god of this world. And the love of money includes all the materialism that goes with it in its many many forms. Our country is saturated in a love of money and the pleasures and security it can “seem” to provide. Constant advertising and peer pressure telling us what we need to be happy, and what we can’t live without. Just give us your money, and we’ll hook you up. Yes, they “hook you up”, alright. Like a fish on a line.
Jesus was VERY specific when he said: “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt. 6:24)
Notice Jesus said two “masters“. The love of money and materialism desires to “master” us. It is one of those powerful and deadly jewels constantly surrounding us in our current culture. This subject is taboo in America, and I wonder why? Don’t touch my sacred cow! Prosperity is the right of the child of God? To be the head and not the tail?
Well…here again we see the modern church clinging to the Old Testament, when tithing was a law, and it was an “eye for an eye”, and the Armor Bearer was expected to die with King Saul rather than King David, and the Holy Spirit did not indwell them. The O.T. is where we see most of the Prosperity message, but Jesus and the Apostles lived a very different way. Try to deny it all you want, but the evidence is literally overwhelming.
I see people every day, who claim to be Christians, and they are financially prospering, but where is God? Most of them are lucky if they even still give God one day a week. These are deadly sins. They lull us into a sleep while our life is quickly passing by and we’re missing the best things while we serve another master. Never mind eternity, I want mine now.
Too many times expensive possessions does a slave make, and its’ not a slave to God. White Wolf walks a different path now. He has been transformed. He is free from Winter Soldier. The cold of his previous life is over. He has found the fulfillment of simple pleasures. What are the true treasures of life? Is not your soul, your relationships, your peace of mind, your future in heaven, this present moment and what it has to offer? Thanos and his sparkly jewels desire to rob you of all these things, and put you on a treadmill in which God is on the underside. Can you say you really “love” God as you spend all your time making the money?
Here’s a good test: How much time do you spend thinking about God and seeking him, compared to how much time you spend thinking about money in one form or another?
For our analogy, White Wolf and Wakanda has become our picture of finding our white path in Christ. We need a church family, like Bucky found a family that was finally for his good, not to simply “use” him. We are just beginning this series of the deadly sins and “Infinity War” as a parable of sorts. I’d much rather know Bucky as White Wolf, rather than Winter Soldier. And my experience with materialistic Christians have been less than satisfying too. You CANNOT serve God and money. Who’s serving who? Beware the church that seems to be all about the money.
And so Winter Soldier becomes White Wolf, but he finds there is still a fight. In a fallen world, filled with human nature, there will always be a fight in the garden. Much more to come on Infinity War/ Eternal War and the 7 Deadly Sins.
Path Without End 