“…this is sergeant Sacker. Listen to me. We’ve traced the call… it’s coming from inside the house…”
The 1979 horror film, When a Stranger Calls, includes one of the most chilling scenes in movie history. A young babysitter is harassed by repeated telephone calls from an unidentified caller. She communicates with police in hopes that the law enforcement authorities can investigate the matter and identify who’s out there making those menacing telephone calls. She’s behind locked doors, distressed about the danger outside.
Then she receives the horrifying revelation that the call is coming from inside the house. Her safety was an illusion. She had been vulnerable the entire time.
In the spiritual realm, our enemy exploits our vulnerability by operating anonymously in closer proximity than we often realize. His lying messages often come from inside our houses. As long as we remain passive receivers of his communication, he can operate undetected in the shadows.
The strategy of the evil one is to send harmful messages through any available channel, including unwitting carriers who are closer to us than we think.
As human beings, we’re all broken. We’re all wounded. To one degree or another, we’re all dysfunctional. So the evil one looks for opportunities within the network of our relationships to take advantage of our fallen-ness, to exploit our weaknesses, and to work through the injured places in our hearts.
The enemy can deceive us through what others say, and he can deceive us through what we hear. Whether he is tapping into the sender or receiver, he’s always hijacking the telephone lines.
Some of us have placed too much confidence in a religious leader, becoming passive receivers of the enemy’s manipulative messages. We thought we were safe in the religious house. But the enemy was operating by stealth.
The calls are coming from inside the house.
Some of us have unknowingly received enemy communication through the relationship network within our own families. Through unhealthy relating, we’ve become participants and contributors to the community dysfunction. And the enemy is patching into the switchboard.
The calls are coming from inside the house.
But often the enemy does his most covert, sinister and effective work by using us as carriers for his lying communication. How many times have I given agreement to his lying suggestions? How many times have I repeated his lies with my own lips?
The calls are coming from inside the house.
In that creepy scene from the horror movie, the police officer directs the babysitter to flee the dangerous intruder by getting out of the house. God directs us to escape the danger by getting the menacing caller out of the house.
It all starts with tracing the call. The Spirit of Truth is our resident guide, and the word of truth is the measure of all communication. If the content of the communication does not agree with revealed truth, we’ve traced the call to its smoky source.
Our response:. 1) Reject the message. 2) Evict the caller.
The phone is ringing. Who’s on the other end of your line?
Drawing from Experience 
FIrst, you have effectively stopped me from going back to sleep tonight, thank you very much. I don’t watch scary movies — and I don’t read about them either. Except when you lead off with one in your blog post …
Well done, Dave. Well done. And well written. Point taken. I’ll be thinking about this for a while. Like the rest of the night.
Sorry about disrupting your night’s sleep. I’ll make sure my next post is just plain boring–a real snoozer–that will put you right to sleep.
I HATE horror movies. After I researched that old scene on youtube, I had to sleep with the light on. When the phone rang, I found myself wrapped around the ceiling fan 🙂
But I hope we’re both on more heightened alert to the messaging schemes of our enemy.
And a sincere thanks to you for helping me be a better call tracer.
Sorry Beth, laughing at your expense, a lot.
I’m with Beth, Dave, even if it is only 2:00 in the afternoon. My heart is pounding because of your vivid description. 🙂 But, it does communicate your message effectively. I’m not a horror flick sort of gal, which would explain why I didn’t know who Seargant Slacker was until you explained. 🙂
This is such an important message though. I have fallen prey to the lies the enemy’s told me more times than I care to count. They become so real to me, and I am slow to run out of the house. I am working to identify his voice/lies in my head sooner so I can run away from them sooner.
Thanks for this. Great post!
I appreciate your encouraging and honest feedback.
I’m with you, Jeanne. I don’t like horror movies at all. I made the mistake of watching When a Stranger Calls on TV way back in the day, and I’ve never forgotten that chilling scene.
I hear what you are saying. I have been very slow to learn how frequently the enemy hijacks communication. Learning to discern and distinguish the “voices” has been such a crucial part of my spiritual maturation. I am still learning how critical it is to stay alert.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Well, it didn’t bother ME! The folks with whom I was once associated in blood, and forever in spirit, had a motto – “Fear the darkness, for we are in it.”
Go ahead. Call from inside my house. I need some exercise.
Seriously…you are so right, Dave. This is something with which I’ve been having trouble lately – I’ve been doubting my right to even consider myself a writer, and the ‘voices’ chime in to the point where I have found myself repeating their lies.
It is with an effort of will that I put the phone down, and say, loudly, “No!” A trick I learned from a Buddhist priest helps me here – I see my mind as a pool, and let it become still so that it mirrors the sky. Breathing control helps, too…four seconds inhaling through the nose, four seconds to let the air ‘digest’, four seconds exhalation through the mouth, and four seconds’ rest.
The voices don’t like discipline. They go away.
Well, here is someone with the fearless heart of Maximus. When death smiles at you, you just smile back. “Scary” movies? Kid stuff 🙂
Andrew, here’s some truth. You write because you are a writer. And you will always write, because that’s who you are.
The “voices” always want to take us for a ride, don’t they? Sometimes it’s by stealth on a whisper-quiet train where you can’t even feel the tracks underneath you. Sometimes it’s by noisy distraction like you’re on a wild and rickety roller coaster. Either way, the voices want you to be a passive and captive passenger. What you say is true. The voices don’t like confrontation. They don’t like discipline. They don’t like quietness of spirit, easy breathing, the restful state.
Keep sending those voices away, brother. And keep writing. Thanks you for your comments.
Great analogy, Dave. We SHOULD be afraid of what’s in the house to our soul – to be vigilant about it, but not paralyzed by it.
“Vigilant” but not “paralyzed”–quite an excellent summary, Shel! Thanks for providing your succinct take-away message!