Context: Inspired by C.S. Lewis’s classic – The Screwtape Letters, this fictional series features letters from a senior demon to his young protégé, exposing hell’s subtle strategies against believers. These are not meant to amuse, but to awaken.

This isn’t just satire – it’s a mirror. A sharp one. Because sometimes the enemy’s strategies sound uncomfortably familiar.

My dear Wormwood,

Ah, the end times. Such delicious chaos.

For centuries, we have used this subject to swing humans between two extremes: obsession and apathy.

If you want your Patient distracted, convince him that the end is always tomorrow. Feed him conspiracy theories, date predictions, blood moons, beast systems, and barcode paranoia. Let him read Revelation without ever once praying through it. Better yet, let him interpret it through social media prophets instead of Scripture.

Make him so focused on when the Enemy returns that he forgets why He’s coming.

Let him count the horns but ignore the harvest.

Let him post rants online about the mark of the beast but never once share the Gospel with his neighbour.

Let him track Israel, but not his own soul.

Now, for others, swing them the opposite way. Lull them to spiritual sleep. Let them scoff at the warnings. Let them believe “people have always said this,” and that He’s probably not coming in their lifetime anyway (2 Peter 3:3-4). That verse, by the way, is particularly damning to our cause and we’ve worked hard to fulfil that very prophecy.

Convince your Patient that end-time readiness is for the unstable or the hyper-religious. Distract him with goals, comfort, legacy-building, and vague Christian busyness. Just don’t let him live like a bride waiting for her groom.

We loathe that imagery – “the Bride of Christ”.

Because when she truly expects His return, she prepares. She purifies. She lets go of the world and flees from its grip.

Remind your Patient of heaven as a concept but not as a hope. Let eternity feel abstract. Let hell feel optional. And above all, keep him comfortable. Nothing kills urgency like comfort.

Do you remember that dreadful passage?

“But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief… So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:4,6)

We’ve tried everything to make sure they stay sleepy.

Do not let him tremble when he hears,

“Behold, I am coming soon.” (Revelation 22:12)

Make him roll his eyes instead.

Let him debate pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, mid-tribulation until he’s blue in the face but never once consider that his own lamp might be running out of oil (Matthew 25:1–13).

And for the love of all that’s unholy, don’t let him remember that line the Enemy once said:

“What I say to you, I say to everyone: Watch!” (Mark 13:37)

Because if he starts watching, Wormwood…

He might start walking worthy.
He might repent.
He might warn others.
He might long for His appearing.
He might let go of sin and live like eternity is just a breath away.

We cannot afford that.

Let them think they have time.

Let them laugh at urgency.

Teach them to cling to the world not outright, of course, but just enough to dull their hunger for Heaven. 

A little comfort. A little ambition. A little romance with what is passing away. 

For if they truly believed He was coming soon, their lives would blaze with urgency. They would pray with fire, repent with tears, and serve with reckless abandon. 

We know this and so we labor with our own twisted urgency to keep them earthbound. Nothing unnerves us more than a Christian who actually lives as though the trumpet might sound today.

In calculated delay,
Screwtape