(Originally published on Facebook May 21, 2011)

The biggest lie the devil tries to spread among human kind– and he’s done a darn good job of it– is that he doesn’t exist. That’s the absolut vodka truth– and not just some catch phrase trivialized in Hollywood movies to sound cool.

The devil is hella smart, often times smarter than we are. The devil’s job, though, isn’t so much to make people worship him as it is to make people turn away from God, which is…. wait for it… THE EXACT SAME THING!!

We worship money, power, sex, fame, celebrity, and most commonly ourselves– everyone and everything except God.

What does this have to do with all the rapture b.s. talk?

The devil works his magic in mysterious, not-so-obvious ways.  For example, he LOVES to make Catholics/Christians out to look like fools, idiots, crazy people yelling on street corners, often erroneously quoting Bible verses out of context.  Great job out there.  Btw, get some new speakers.

It gets better.  He makes religious leaders, politicians, and those in the public eye act a damn fool by having extra marital affairs, being arrested for drugs, getting divorced over and over again, and in the same breath, saying they’re Christian or Catholic, but acting the opposite of one.

And now…

He inspires well-intentioned “Christians” to buy billboard space yapping on about the rapture– and I won’t even begin to go into the theological fallacies– and makes media coverage go bananas over it, dedicating countless wasted hours to covering crap that isn’t news.  Free advertising.  Brilliant.  Marketing majors, take copious notes.

While a billboard may have an initial effect of raising dialogue about our relationship with God, the long-term effect is probably one of detriment.  For example, some Christians might be more reluctant to express their faith openly now because they don’t want to be grouped with those crazy rapture people talking their sheeyit.  And those who openly ridicule people of faith have more poop to throw at them.

Net effect?

Rapturers – Will probably yell louder (even after the rapture does not happen) about the next rapture. Covered in poop.

Haterers – Still gonna hate.  More poop to throw.

What about the borderline, struggling-with-faith, go-to-church-twice-a-year people?  This is where the devil focuses his energy to do the job of turning people away from God because they might be weakened or vulnerable.

How are the borderline folks vulnerable? Two ways:

1.) They’ll be so turned off by all of the noise created by all this rapture non-sense that they might just stop believing altogether.  Win one for the devil. 

2.) They might stay more the same, i.e. indifferent to seeking out the truth in God, happy with placing their faith in mysticism or superstition, and content with their own selfish “personal spirituality”— or as I like to call it, the god of Me.  Another win for the devil.

So stand and applaud (sarcastically) the bang-up job the devil’s been doing and continues to do.  But don’t flip him the bird.  He’d want you to do that.

People of faith, guided by grace given by the Holy Spirit, and armed with the Cross, won’t be fooled by lies.  The devil will try to fool us, but like I said, the devil’s pretty smart.  Why try to fool us if he can make us fool ourselves?  Friggin’ brilliant, that guy.  But we’re brillianter.  How?  Just re-read the beginning of this paragraph.

Take us outta here, Anita Baker!  “Papa-paya pa-paa pa-pwaaaaa…!!”