According to the church of Satan’s website, from their nine Satanic statements, "Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence” (statement 1), and "Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification” (statement 8). Just what kind of lifestyle will giving oneself over to sin bring about? What about the individual who engages in sin continually and indiscriminately?

It is true there is gratification in sin, but it is short-term at best. The Hebrew writer tells us there is passing pleasure in sin (Hebrews 11:25), and the pleasure that you can receive from engaging in sin is what Satan wants you to focus on. As Jesus points out, Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), and there is no truth in him. His purpose is to deceive (Revelation 20:10). What he doesn’t include with temptation is the knowledge of what sin leads to, beyond the immediate, short-lived pleasure it offers.

Paul reminds us there is shame associated with a sinful lifestyle (Romans 6:21). Even in Rome in the first century, as wicked and immoral as it was, and as ingrained as that lifestyle was, Paul mentions how they knew those who engaged in such activities deserved to die (Romans 1:32). Sin doesn’t satisfy desires, it only stirs them up to go further, deeper, where they become entrenched in a person’s life. This is why Paul tells us so many are "slaves of sin” (Romans 6:20), and that sin only leads to more and more lawlessness (Romans 6:19). Giving oneself over to the gratification of sin only sets one on a path that is a downward spiral. If left unchecked, it leads to various problems for oneself and one’s relationships with others.

How many drug addicts began taking them thinking addiction would follow from the gratification drugs offer? How many who engage in sexual immorality realize the health issues it can create, or the broken homes it can lead to? How many of those who commit suicide do so because of what sin has done to them, physically, mentally, and emotionally? Having spoken to so many about this through the years, those who fall in all of these categories, following after Satan and sin offers a host of problems that worsen over time.

The end result of such a lifestyle, however, becomes unmistakable in eternity. Scripture makes clear there is a day of judgment, "For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Jesus tells us hell is real, a place where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51). The reality of a place of eternal punishment should cause everyone to stop and reflect on his or her life, on what it’s being lived for. Sin offers short-term gratification that leads to eternal punishment! Living in the righteousness of God may bring temporal trials, but leads to eternal life! In choosing Christ and living by the gospel, there is life indeed, with no shame, no regrets. Satan’s fate is sealed (Matthew 25:41). Choose what is truly life.  

Robert Johnson, Longview TX