The Accuser

            And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. (II Corinthians 11:14)

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. (Revelation 20:10)

          Have you heard of Artificial Intelligence? For some parts of society, it’s probably not given much thought, but among artists who pour their heart and soul into their work, then watch as computers create “better” pictures or write stories in hours, it’s a bigger thing. It’s also a problem for photographers and those involved in law, reporting, and history. Documents and pictures can be created - forgeries that might show something as silly as two rival presidents together in pictures in homey holiday photos or nature photographs that can’t possibly be taken (like the moon directly north of a certain lighthouse or a perfectly clear bald eagle in front of a perfectly clear full moon - in daylight), or something as serious as someone committing a crime or a piece of writing or art that seems to have been created by some famous artist who died several centuries ago (which would make it worth a lot of money.)

          This is the same sort of thing our minds are convinced to do. Our focus is shifted from what makes us look bad or wrong to what makes us look good or right. Or the other way around. Our attention is riveted on someone’s flaw to the point where anything good is invisible.

          When we consider the second verse above, our thoughts might swing to when Satan accused Job. We might also think in terms of the judgments in heaven, when the devil will rightly stand and accuse us of all our sins. Those pictures are clear. We don’t notice when people (or ourselves) are accused and we are the judge. We don’t notice when God is being accused. We don’t weigh the evidence or consider the nature of the accuser. No, the only light and clarity is on the one being accused. In fact, it’s not even on the one being accused as a whole, complex person. It’s on the thing that the person is being accused of. It’s on the thing with which we then identify the person even though the thing may have little or nothing to do with the person. Our vision gets distorted when we make the assumption that the only time the accuser accuses is when he accuses us before God.