December, 1997
Issue 4.12
By Warren E. Berkley
Editor’s Note:
Topic Series for 1998 -- The Church of the New Testament, by David Smitherman,
begins with next issue.
The devil does not want us to see how ugly and horrible sin is. He wants us to be attracted to the temporary pleasure of sin and so, he is careful to package and market sin in beautiful, alluring wrappers. Let me use a personal confession to illustrate.
At about the age of 11 or 12 there were 6 or 7 of us boys in the neighborhood, and during the summer months when school was out we got together every day to play and "goof around."
We played ball; manufactured little go-carts; went craw-dad fishing; went up into our tree houses and stuff like that. One summer there was a girl in the neighborhood, Barbara Fault, and she would follow us around and intrude into all our fun; you know, of course, we didn't allow "no girls!"
No girls in the tree house; seems I remember a crude sign we made with this prohibition. I believe this male statute was written somewhere in the laws of the Medes and the Persians. We didn't allow "no girls!"
Well, Barbara Fault kept following us around - so we had a little meeting up in my tree house one afternoon; and agreed upon a plan to stop this irritating female intrusion. We spent about an hour quietly going through the neighborhood, looking for bugs, earthworms and anything else that was unclean.
We met back up in my tree house with our collection of bug guts and stuff - we formed that concoction into a little mixture and pushed it into five or six Hershey's Kisses. Barbara Fault was rather ill for a day or two but she lived; she never bothered us again.
The worst part was - when the crime was discovered, my father came up with some very creative punishment, and I was ill for a day or two.
My point is - In our treatment of Barbara Fault, we were doing what the devil does all the time!! The devil takes some ugly, corrupt, nasty mess of sin - and he makes it look like a delicious piece of candy!! The devil puts together a nice looking, good-looking lure, and that becomes the bait - but there is a hook in it.
"And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." (2 Cor. 11:14,15).
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