The Ways of God & the Ways of the Devil - Glenn Conjurske

The Ways of God & the Ways of the Devil

Abstract of a Sermon Preached on September 6, 1998

by Glenn Conjurske

I hope to preach during the millennium. I expect to reign with Christ. To reign means to enforce the law, but I hope to do more than merely enforce the law. I hope to move the people who are committed to my charge to submit to Christ not merely because they have to, but because they want to. We know that all who live in the kingdom will be outwardly subject to Christ, but many of them will not be subject in heart. When the devil is released at the end of Christ’s reign, and goes out to deceive the nations once more, he will find a large and ready following, from among those who have previously submitted outwardly to Christ. If God says to me, “Be thou over three cities,” I aim to move the people of my charge to be subject to Christ in heart as well as outwardly. How will I do that? The same way I aim to do it here, by preaching the ways of God and the ways of the devil.

We are saved by faith. Faith is not a mere belief of some historical facts concerning Christ or his death. It includes that, now that such facts exist, but saving faith was a reality long before Christ died, and before he was born, and so long before there were any such facts to believe. And saving faith was of exactly the same nature then as it is now. Abraham never “accepted Christ as his personal Saviour.” There was as yet no Christ to accept. But he was justified by faith, and it was the same sort of faith as justifies us today. It is a belief in the nature and character of God. It is confidence in God, and such confidence as moves us to choose his ways. The key word in the faith chapter of the Bible is “better.” Faith apprehends God and his ways as better than the devil and his ways. It therefore chooses the ways of God, and walks in them. Though they may be difficult, faith perceives them to be actually and eternally better, and therefore embraces them from the heart. Faith so views them because it understands them, and I believe the first and foremost method of begetting faith in the children of men is simply to preach to them the ways of God, and also the ways of the devil. When we understand those ways, it plainly appears that the ways of God are better.

But we must understand that faith looks to “the recompense of the reward.” Faith looks to “the end of the Lord.” Faith looks to the future, for its present portion may be very grievous. “Better” is the key word of Hebrews 11, but one of the most obvious facts of that chapter is that the better portion of faith does not belong to the present, but to the future. For the present, faith may well expect a worse portion—-the reproach of Christ and affliction with his people, in place of the pleasures of sin and the treasures of Egypt. Wandering in deserts and mountains, and dwelling in dens and caves of the earth. Persecution, torment, and death. The better thing belongs to the life to come. I know that “the way of transgressors is hard,” and it is surely legitimate to preach to drunkards and harlots and jail-birds that they may have a better portion even in this life. Godliness has a promise of this life, as well as of that which is to come, but that promise is a narrow one. Even the “hundred fold now in this time,” which God has promised, comes only “with persecutions.” (Mark 10:30). The devil’s promises for the present life are as expansive as the broad way, taking in all the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

As a matter of fact, the way of God is a difficult one, while the ways of the devil are easy. God requires self-denial. The devil preaches self-indulgence. God requires us often to wait for the needs of our hearts. The devil offers us what we want now. But faith regards neither the good nor the evil of the present, but looks always to the end of the way. “The end tries all,” as an old proverb says, and this is the certain dictate of reason. Of what consequence is a pleasant way, if the end is evil? Of what consequence is a difficult way, if the end is eternal glory? Unbelief looks at the present, and sacrifices the future to secure it. Faith beholds the future, and sacrifices the present to secure that. Faith alone is reasonable.

Now the ways of God and the ways of the devil are direct opposites. The devil gives us a pleasant way, and a bitter end. God gives us a thorny way, and a glorious end. Who that understands this can doubt for one moment that the way of God is better? Who can doubt that the narrow way of self-denial is better than the broad way of self-indulgence, if the narrow way leads to life, and the broad way leads to destruction? Faith perceives this, and believes it, and therefore chooses the narrow way and walks in it. That faith which remains in the broad way is the greatest delusion on earth. It is just faith in the devil, neither more nor less. It believes that the devil’s way is better than God’s, and therefore chooses it and walks in it. And if it believes that by the grace of God or the death of Christ it shall find heaven at the end of the broad way, this is no faith at all, except faith in the devil’s lie. God said to Adam in the garden, “Ye shall surely die.” God says at the present day by Paul, “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” The devil says, “Ye shall not surely die”—-though ye eat the forbidden fruit, live after the flesh, walk in the broad way of self-indulgence, and refuse the narrow way of self-denial which Christ has commanded. “Ye shall not surely die.” Many would drag in the grace of God here, as contrasted with the law, and actually use the grace of God to confirm the devil’s lie, but the matter in hand has nothing to do with the difference between law and grace. Paul says, “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.” (Rom. 2:12). With or without the law, they “sinned.” This gives us the history of their lives in one word. And with or without the law, they shall perish. They walked in the broad way, and they shall surely find destruction at the end of it. That “faith” which trusts in Christ for eternal life, while it chooses the broad way, and walks in it, is precisely faith in the devil’s lie, and miserable unbelief in the truth of God, who said “Ye shall surely die.”

Genuine faith in God, on the other hand, believes not only what God says, but believes in what he is. It apprehends the bitter prescription of God to be better than the sweet one of the devil, for it verily believes that “the end of the Lord” is better than either the way or the end of the devil. It must be better, if God is God, however narrow and rugged the path which leads to it. So reckons genuine faith, and so it chooses the narrow, rugged way.

This is what must be preached if we are to bring men to faith. They must understand the way of God to be better. This is the essence of faith.

But understand, the devil is a preacher also. I have often preached here on “The Devil’s Message”—-his two-point message, which he preached to Eve in the garden, consisting of 1.”Sin is good,”—-”good for food, pleasant to the eyes, to be desired”—-and 2.”You can get away with it”—-”Ye shall not surely die.” This message was successful the first time the devil preached it, and he has been preaching nothing but this ever since. Both halves of the devil’s message are lies, of course, and real faith believes neither one of them.

But I want you to understand that the devil is more than a preacher. He is a salesman. He is the master salesman, the master of the art of advertising, and he has a million students and disciples the whole world over. He showed himself the master salesman in the garden of Eden. He preached all the glories of the product (the forbidden fruit), and said never a word about the cost, except to lie about it. I got a catalog in the mail the other day, full of the glories of the merchandise, and not a word about the cost of it. I threw it away in disgust, as I always do. The first thing I want to know is not what I will gain in taking this product, but what it will cost me. Eve would have been of the same mind if she had been wise. Her first question would have been, “What will it cost me to eat of the forbidden fruit?” But she did not concern herself with that. She was taken by the devil’s sales talk. The fruit was good for food. It was pleasant to the eyes. It was a tree to be desired to make one wise. The cost was far from her mind. The devil denied that there was any cost, and she believed him.

The way of the Lord is exactly the reverse of this. He calls upon us to count the cost at the outset. He plainly tells us what the cost is—-the cost of both the broad way and the narrow way. On the one side, the loss of our souls. Eternal damnation. On the other side, hating and losing our lives. Self-denial and poverty, persecution and reproach.

But understand, there was something to gain as well as something to lose in eating the forbidden fruit. There is always something to gain as well as something to lose, whether we follow the Lord or the devil. The difference is just this, that the gain in the devil’s way is small and transitory, while the loss incurred is great and eternal, whereas the loss in the way of the Lord is light and temporary—-”our light affliction, which is but for a moment”—-while the gain is great and eternal—-”an eternal weight of glory.” But the devil gives the gain first, and the loss later—-and keeps the loss out of sight if he can, for he is a liar. God requires the loss first, and holds the gain in reserve.

And as is the devil, so is his kingdom. As are the ways of the devil, so are the ways of the world. The advertising of the world is, in general, a perfect epitome of the ways of the devil. In the first place, a great deal of it consists of lying. The advertiser is the last man on earth to believe concerning the character or worth of his goods. But even where it is all true, it is still an epitome of the ways of the devil.

First, the undoubted tendency of advertising is to promote self-indulgence. It appeals generally to “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” rarely to our reason or our conscience. It concentrates upon our gain in using the product, not upon its cost. Much of it solicits us to “buy on time,” to “buy now, and pay later.” This is the very essence of the way of the devil. He comes to us with all the pleasures of sin and luxury, and invites us to indulge now, though we know we must pay later. The devil, liar that he is, denies that we must pay at all. The world’s advertisers will never come to that, for it is precisely our money which they want, but they commonly represent the cost as small and distant.

One more thing I want you to understand. The devil had something to offer to Eve. He offered the pleasures of sin. The pleasures of sin are real, though transitory. He offered her the pleasure of self-gratification, but we should understand that the mere pleasure of tasting the forbidden fruit was but a small part of Eve’s gratification. She had fruits enough to taste and swallow, that she could have done without this one, and never missed it—-except for curiosity. The devil occupied her mind with the forbidden fruit till her curiosity was aroused, and the gratification of that curiosity was no doubt a much stronger motive than the gratification of her taste buds. Thus the devil tempts, and thus the world advertises. Some years ago I used to see everywhere an advertisement which featured a little cigarette walking around saying, “Taste me, taste me, taste me.” This was to arouse men’s curiosity. To this the devil appeals also, and by means of the insatiable curiosity of the human race, he draws them into sin.

God does not appeal to our curiosity. He requires us to deny ourselves, and to deny our curiosity as well as our lusts. He requires us to wait, while the devil invites us to indulge. He requires us indeed to permanently do without the pleasures of sin, and never gratify our curiosity at all, while the devil invites us to freely indulge it. This appeal to our curiosity is one of the devil’s most effective forms of temptation, but we overcome it precisely by faith—-by the faith which steadfastly holds that the way of God is better. He who believes this has no compulsion to gratify his curiosity in the pleasures of sin. He who believes that the way of God is better is content never to know the pleasures of sin at all, though he knows there is pleasure in sin. Though the devil is a liar, he preaches some truth. When he preaches that there is pleasure in sin, he preaches the truth, though he may represent the pleasure as greater than it is, and the cost as smaller. But we may grant all that the devil says concerning the pleasures of sin, and yet tread those pleasures under our feet, if we have the faith which holds that the way of the Lord is better. While the devil preaches self-indulgence, the Lord preaches self-denial, and faith chooses the latter, fully believing that the self-denial which God preaches is better than the self-indulgence which the devil preaches, precisely because it is the Lord who preaches it. This is the essence of faith.

The message of God, then, and the message of the devil are diametrically opposed. But the thing which I want you to observe is much deeper than this. The difference does not lie merely in the manner in which God and the devil preach their respective ways, but in those ways themselves. As simply as I can put it, the difference is this. The devil’s way consists of a present and temporary pleasure at an eternal cost. God’s way consists of a present and temporary cost, for an eternal pleasure. The way of God is better, and the measure of its superiority lies in how much better God is than the devil. This is exactly what faith lays hold of—-the faith of Hebrews 11—-and it can never hesitate a moment as to which way is better. That faith therefore moves Abraham to forsake all, and to go out, not knowing whither he goes. It moves Moses to forsake Egypt, and refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. It puts the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, and Daniel in the lions’ den. It puts others in the dens and caves of the earth. It moves others to submit to be tortured, and to refuse the deliverance which is offered to them, for their eye is fixed not on the present and temporary cost, but on the future and eternal recompense of the reward—-upon the better resurrection. All these by faith gladly embraced the present and temporary cost, for the sake of the future and eternal pleasure.

But you may perceive that there is generally no cost at all in the faith of modern Christianity. Many explicitly preach that there is no cost at all. It plainly appears, then, that the faith of Hebrews 11 and the faith of the modern church are two different things. The faith of the modern church is not the faith of Hebrews 11, but of I Corinthians 4—-that carnal faith, which is full and rich, and reigns as kings without Christ, instead of suffering with him. The faith of Hebrews 11, the faith of all the saints of God in all ages, calls us all outside the camp, to bear the reproach of Christ, and to suffer with him a little while in the present, that we might reign with him forever.

Alas, the present age has discovered a better way than either God’s or the devil’s. The discovery has produced a mongrel gospel, preached by the majority of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists all over this land, which is neither the way of God nor the way of the devil, but a mixture of the two. It takes the easy and the pleasant from both, and weds them together in a false gospel—-a gospel which gives us both the present pleasure which the devil offers, without its future cost, and the eternal pleasure which God offers, without the present cost of that—-a gospel which gives us both the pleasures of sin and the pleasures for evermore at God’s right hand—-a gospel which gives us the portion of the rich man while we live, and the portion of Lazarus when we die—-a gospel which gives us the broad road of ease and self-indulgence here, and life eternal there. It gives us, in fact, a broad road which leads to eternal life. If this is not the devil’s gospel, what is? It is in fact the devil’s lie. And faith in this lie is mistaken for the faith of the gospel.

The modern gospel does not exactly give us the pleasures of sin, but it fails altogether to take them away from us. That self-denial which was preached by the Lord as the first condition of discipleship, which was required of Eve even in the garden of Eden, which made the patriarchs pilgrims and strangers on the earth, which made the prophets of God prisoners and martyrs, and which makes overcomers of all the saints in all ages—-this self-denial has no place in the modern gospel. It is optional at best. I understand that no one preaches that we ought to walk in the broad way, but many preach that we may. Some preach this explicitly, and many others preach it by implication. But you should understand that the present self-denial is as much a part of the way of the Lord as the future recompense of the reward. You should understand also that present self-indulgence is as much a part of the devil’s way as the future punishment. The broad way of self-indulgence and self-will leads ever and only to destruction. The narrow way of self-denial and submission to Christ leads to life. The one is the way of God. The other is the way of the devil. Those who take the devil’s way must take all of it—-the future cost as well as the present pleasure. Those who take the way of the Lord must take all of it—-the present cost as well as the future pleasure. God has joined these things together, and woe be to the man who dares to put them

Glenn Conjurske