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By Lloyd Albritton

Columnist

It has been suggested by not a few religious scholars that a certain Evil Doer commonly known as The Devil, The Old Serpent, The Dragon, Satan, Mammon, Lucifer, Beelzebub, and a host of other uncomplimentary monikers likes to facilitate and promulgate his lies and false doctrines by filtering them through the lens of truth.  Consequently, the delicious delicacies this evil Master Chef serves up at dinner time may look good and even taste good, but their main ingredients are always deadly poisonous both physically and spiritually.

It is reputed that this Big Fat Liar of whom I speak has a large repertoire of lies which he can roll out at a moment’s notice ingeniously disguised as truth and virtue.  Perhaps the biggest whopper The Old Monster tells is that he does not exist at all, that those who believe such fairytale notions of a real-life Boogy Man are only ignorant, gullible fools being led astray by religious fanatics for their own self-serving purposes.  He seems to believe that if he can persuade us that there is no such thing as a devil, he is only one short step away from the logical or, as he likes to say, “Scientific” conclusion that there also no God.  And where there is no God, there is no law.  And where there is no law, there is no sin or virtue.  Good and bad become completely subjective concepts.  If I may quote my dear old late, great grandpappy, Hubbard Albritton, on this matter, “Boys, that ain’t no way to run a railroad!”

Whether one considers this Great Deceiver as merely an abstract concept in the mind of evolved man or a real-life historical character who once upon a time revolted against God and was cast out of Heaven into the earth by a great general named Michael and his army of archangels (Revelations 12:7-9 KJV), I say, either way, the above analysis applies.  The little invisible dragon-man with the red, scaly skin and the horns does indeed seem to perpetually poise himself on every man’s shoulder whispering beautiful lies into our ears.  After all, who of us has not blamed this ugly little fellow for our bad behavior at one point or the other by declaring, “The Devil made me do it!”

Renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, a professed athiest, posed the allegedly more scientific concept of the “Id” as a stand-in of sorts for the real star of the show.  Like the star himself, Freud’s “Id” would also deny, not just his own existence, but the existence of evil itself.  Id’s motto is more like, “If it feels good, do it!  After all, there is really no such thing as evil.”

While it is a commonly accepted principle of Christianity that all men are free to choose good or evil in this mortal life, it is also generally accepted by most Christians that a huge army of unembodied spirits (one-third of the entire population of heaven [Rev. 12:4], to be sure) were cast out of heaven into the earth along with their leader (Lucifer) as unembodied spirits and have since roamed to-and-fro upon the earth trying to persuade and tempt all mankind to join their fallen congregation by choosing evil over good (Job 1:1-11).  These are those “angels” which Jude said “kept not their first estate” (Jude 1:6).  Those who chose in that far distant premortal day to follow God’s proposed plan, those “morning stars” and “sons of God” who “sang together” and “shouted for joy,” as described in Job 38:4-7, were precisely those two-thirds of heaven’s population who did keep their first estate and who consequently were afforded an opportunity to enter their Second Estate through the process of mortal birth, whereby the eternal antemortal spirit joins with a newly minted mortal body and becomes a living soul.  It may, therefore, be correctly and gladly considered as prima facie evidence that each of us who currently tarries in a mortal tabernacle on earth today, or anyone who has ever lived and died in times past, kept their first estate and fought with the armies of Michael against The Dragon, else we would have never had an opportunity to enter our Second Estate at all.

So miserable are these unembodied spirit followers of Lucifer said to be, and so envious are they of the mortal bodies of flesh and bone, which we have (but that they shall never have) that they would take complete possession of them if they could.  And, to be sure, they can, and often do, take such possession.  For example, whenever we succumb to the chains of addiction of any kind we forfeit our freedom to choose between good and bad and we are well on our way to complete self-destruction.

So sorry for the interruption, but we have run out of space.  See next week’s edition of The Atmore Advance for Part 2 of Lloyd Albritton’s treatise on The Devil Made Me Do It!