Lucy could feel her excitement mounting as she turned on the T.V. She'd had a long, hard day at school, and now it was time to relax with a nice Star Trek episode. The title of this week's episode was "And the Children Shall Lead". Lucy had never seen this episode before, but she was intrigued. The title was a biblical allusion.
This episode turned out to be the most disturbing one she had ever seen. It started out like any other episode. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were going to beam down to a scientific outpost on a planet. The planet was called Triacus. When they got down there, all of the scientists were dead. This in itself did not disturb Lucy. She was used to seeing the crew of the Enterprise beaming down to a location and finding a lot of dead bodies. What really disturbed her was that these scientists had not died of a disease or from being attacked by an alien being. They had all chosen to kill themselves. Even more disturbing was the reaction of the scientists' children. They kept playing as if nothing had happened. The fact that all of their parents had decided to kill themselves all at once didn't seem to concern them. Lucy felt an odd prickling at the back of her neck as she watched. Something sinister was going on.
Kirk gave a funeral for the dead scientists. Then he took the children back to the ship. They continued to play and run around like wild things. They refused to answer any questions about their parents.
Lucy soon found out that the kids had a friend called Gorgon. Gorgon wasn't solid. He was more like a spirit. The children could summon him with a chant. They referred to him as a "friendly angel", but Lucy was sure that he wasn't friendly at all. He wanted them to take over the Enterprise and take it to a place called Marcos X11. Lucy watched in horrified amazement as the children began to manipulate everyone on the ship. They caused an image of Triacus to appear on the screen so that no one would notice that the Enterprise was leaving orbit. Captain Kirk didn't realize what was going on and beamed two crewmen out into the empty darkness of space. When the crew finally realized what was going on, the children tried to scare them into obedience. They caused Sulu to see flying swords on the screen so that he would be too scared to go back to Triacus. They caused Ulhura to see her face looking old and ugly in the mirror. This upset her so much that she couldn't do anything that Kirk told her to do. This caused Kirk and Spock to start contemplating the unthinkable: killing the children to save the ship.
Fortunately, they did not have to do that. Kirk came up with the idea of showing the children videos of their parents while they were still living on Triacus. The children watched all of the good times with their parents play out. Then they watched them die. The children realized that the memories they had of their parents being too busy to make time for them were false. They also realized that Gorgon their parents had been murdered by Gorgon. They began to cry, and the spell was broken. Gorgon could no longer control the children. The episode ended with Gorgon's face rotting and Kirk saying to the children, "See how ugly he is."
"I guess it was a good episode, but it was really scary," Lucy told her mother later. "I'm a little disappointed too. I thought I might see biblical things in the episode since the title comes from a Bible verse, but I didn't."
"Well, not directly," said Mrs. Jones. "However, this Gorgon character sounds a lot like Satan. You say he appeared to the kids as a 'friendly angel'. The Bible says that Satan often appears as an 'angel of light'"
"You mean that Satan can possess people and give them special powers to do bad things just like Gorgon?" gasped Lucy.
"He can, and sometimes he does. However, more often what he does is trick people into following his plans. He doesn't need to possess them if they'll carry out his plans on their own. He convinces people that sins like stealing or having sex outside of marriage are fun."
"Why?" asked Lucy.
"He does it because he wants to destroy people," answered Mrs. Jones. "You see, Satan once tried to overthrow God, just like Gorgon tried to overthrow Captain Kirk. However, Satan's power was no match for God's. God punished Satan by sending him to Hell. Satan tries to get back at God by destroying the thing that means the most to Him: people. He's very good at it too. He convinces people that sin is just a harmless little game, but it really devours people from the inside-out."
"Does he just target non-Christians, or does he attack Christians too?" asked Lucy.
"He attacks both, but he especially focuses on Christians. You see, he wants to get people to sin so that they will go to Hell. Christians who have placed their faith in Jesus are safe from Hell. However, Satan still tries to keep them from being effective Christians. He does this by tempting them to sin and getting them to put off doing the good things they need to do. This damages their relationship with God, and it keeps them from leading other people to Christ."
"That's terrible!" exclaimed Lucy.
"Yes, it is. Fortunately, Christians have a way to defend themselves against Satan."
"What's that?" asked Lucy.
"Well, they can read the Bible. The Bible tells Christians what things are sinful and what the consequences of sinning are. Then there's the Holy Spirit. That's the special guiding force that God puts inside of you when you accept Jesus. The Holy Spirit helps you recognize when Satan tries to trick you and gives you the strength to resist him. When you look at Satan and sin through the Holy Spirit's eyes, you see how ugly they really are."
"Just like the children saw how ugly Gorgon was!" exclaimed Lucy.
"Exactly," said Mrs. Jones. "And the ugliness might be painful to see, just like it was for those children. However, it's all for the best. Once you see how ugly Satan is and tell him to go away, he will."
"What should you do if the Holy Spirit lets you know that you've sinned?" asked Lucy.
"You should tell Jesus that you're sorry and ask Him to forgive you. Then, you should ask the Holy Spirit to help you not commit the same sin again."
If you are a Christian who is struggling with sin, confess your sins to God and ask the Holy Spirit to help you stand against Satan's power. If you are not a Christian but are interested in finding out more about becoming one, you can talk to a pastor or other Christian adult. If you are ready to become a Christian, say this prayer:
"Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I am sorry for my sins. Please forgive me and come into my life so I can do the things you want me to do. Help me to resist the Devil. Amen."