Here is one which Satan often uses to blind people with: the pleasure of sin, which hides the guilt of it.
Many years ago there lived in Egypt a man who had many advantages. He was strong and handsome, gifted, learned and well educated. He was prominent among the king’s advisers, and stood a good chance of becoming King, or Prime Minister of Egypt. But when he was forty years of age he made a very important choice: a very foolish one in the eyes of his worldly friends, but a very wise one in the eyes of God. He decided that he would no longer “enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:2525Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; (Hebrews 11:25)), and so he left the palace, with its honors and riches, and threw in his lot with the people of God. Moses is one of the greatest men we read of in the Old Testament.
The “pleasures of sin”. Has sin any pleasure in it? Of course, it has. Why does a boy play truant? Is it not because of the pleasure he gets out of his stolen holiday? Why does a girl take something that is forbidden? Because of the pleasure that comes from possessing it. And the pleasure that comes, blinds them to the guilt of the wrong they do.
Satan has another handkerchief: the profit to be had from the sin, that hides the loss of it from the eyes of the mind. A man does something wrong, let us suppose, in business. He is not at first found out. On the contrary, he gains by the wrong. He repeats the wrong, time after time, and still he seems to prosper, and all the time, the profit lie is gaining is blinding him to the sin he is doing. Poor man! Satan has got his handkerchief over his eyes. Let us hope that before it is too late he will face the question,
“What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Mark. 8:36.
Boys, be long-sighted; girls, look right ahead. Don’t play into Satan’s hands. Don’t let him put his handkerchiefs over your eyes. Look right into the future, —past the time when you are grown up, past old age, past death, —right through into the next world. You can’t see beyond death without the help of the telescope—the Word of God.
Death seems to you like a great mass of black rock in the distance, stretching from earth to heaven. You can see nothing that is on the other, side. If you look through God’s Telescope, you will see that what you thought was a mass of rock, is really a thin, half-transparent curtain, through which you can make out some of the things that are going on, on the other side; you will see that what is on the other side is real. God calls some of these things “pleasures for evermore”, which will be enjoyed by every boy and girl that comes to Jesus.
And even in this world, which you think such a deal of, you will have both pleasure and profit, for you will belong to the Lord and so will possess the best of all blessings in Him.
“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 1 Peter 1:7, 87That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 8Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: (1 Peter 1:7‑8).
ML 07/26/1931