The Devil Has A Diabolical Design For Disaster

It reminds me of a paper I had to give in college once. I had already written a paper for English class on the life of Mark Twain. Two years later, our Philosophy professor assigned a paper of our choice. So I thought, “I know a short cut!” I simply handed in my Mark Twain paper and renamed it - “A Philosophical Analysis of Mark Twain’s Life.” I even paid a guy ten bucks to type it out for me! No problem! My heart just about jumped out of my skin when I received my paper back saying, “I would like to talk with you after class.” It wasn’t good. That’s how short cuts usually work. The short cut takes us into dangerous territory that is not permitted.

Such was the case with Satan. He was offering Jesus the “easy road.” The glory without the cross! Think about what a temptation this would have been for Jesus. No more hungry stomach! No more ridicule! No more fear of having God’s wrath come crashing down on Him!

But notice Satan’s version of grace - it had an IF clause attached to it. This reminds me of the many ploys out there today - get 400 dollars of free merchandise - IF you sign up for MSN for three years. No money down - no interest for 12 months - you can own a new car NOW! But all you have to do is make payments for the next five years! It’s not exactly as free as you thought! Satan said, “I’ll give you ALL these kingdoms, if you bow down and worship me!”

Jesus realized the devil’s temptation for what it was once again. It was actually a trap to try and take all of the kingdoms from Jesus’ hands. This would be an obvious violation of God’s first command to have NO other gods. The devil’s shortcut reminds me of a husbands version of a short cut - where the wife is saying, “are you sure you know where you’re going?” The man confidently answers, “oh, yes!” The short cut ends up getting them completely lost. That’s where this “short cut” would have left Jesus - if he had fallen for it - He would have lost the very thing he had been working for - the salvation of the world. So Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

History repeats itself. Satan does the same thing today. The idea is - why wait for heaven when you can have it RIGHT NOW on earth! The devil plants this mind set in Americans, who believe that the sole purpose of life is to EAT, DRINK, and BE MERRY! He whispers in your ear, “Why sacrifice your first fruits when you can spend your money on a nice outdoor spa? Why spend the rest of your life with the same woman! Go out and play the field - you only live ONCE! You deserve a break TODAY!” What is the result? We are living in the middle of a country of children whose lives revolve around video games. Our middle age people are scheduling themselves around concerts and sporting events. If they aren’t doing that, many are hoarding their riches and investing it, eagerly anticipating retirement where they can sit around and do nothing besides travel the world and enjoy themselves. We are putting much thought into how to retire as millionaires or how to save up for new video games or clothes.