CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 14, 2023 – I thank God when I hear that unbelievers who were my friends before I was born again are barely scraping by. I celebrate their poverty, because I know it means they haven’t made any deals with the devil and so are still spiritually salvageable while there’s still time. Some of these people came into sizeable wealth through inheritance or lottery wins, but then quickly dissipated it and have since been living modestly. This is a good sign. Poverty and living modestly usually indicate a soul uncompromised.

On the other hand, I have some relatives and acquaintances who took the devil’s bait and became “rich” and “successful”. They zoomed to the top of their respective fields and have remained there, regardless of their ability or performance. Recessions have no effect on their jobs or their earnings. Even run-ins with law enforcement can’t keep them down, as the charges are dismissed and then expunged from the record.

When you make a deal with the devil, you not only get the promised wealth and whatever else you bargained for (fame, power, etc.), but you’re above the law. You’re untouchable. If you mess up, you get warned by your mentor or other ‘brethren’ and are then disciplined back into compliance. But the devil’s protection continues even throughout your disciplining, such that if you’re hastily removed from one position, another will quickly and quietly be offered you.

There is no reason to celebrate the alleged success of these people. I have profound pity for them, but most are beyond our prayers. Most have definitively sealed the deal, and there’s no going back. These are the children of the devil that Jesus spoke about. They were in positions of authority during the time of his ministry, and they’re in positions of authority today. They’ve always been in positions of authority, ever since the devil got the go-ahead from God thousands of years ago to start offering his deals. The higher up the position in an organization, the greater the likelihood that the person occupying that position has made the deal.

However, I also know people who made it to the top of their profession solely through hard work and dedication. Not everyone who succeeds in their chosen field has made a deal with the devil. But you’ll know who these people are, the authentic successes, because they’re often unceremoniously dumped from their hard-earned position to make way for a dealmaker. I have seen this time and time again. But God still looks after these people and gives them their earned reward, one way or another.

When a dealmaker goes so far off-script or runs so far afoul of the law that the charges cannot simply be dismissed or reduced to a minimum, they are often “disappeared” or “suicided”. I know of such a man who went off-script and ran afoul of the law one too many times. His passing was recently announced in the local papers with only a vague reason given for his death. And although he was at the top of his field when he died, no commemorative ceremony was arranged, no fawning obituaries were penned, as they had been for his much lesser colleagues. Building wings and scholarships that had been named after him were hastily and quietly renamed. His publications were removed from the teaching syllabus. The dealmaking brethren left behind dare not utter his name, lest they, too, suffer the same fate.

It’s brutal, what happens to disgraced dealmakers and their families. The threatened brutality is what keeps the dealmakers in line.

But here comes the whole point of this article. I’ve tucked it way down here in the middle as a reward for those who’ve soldiered through this far. Of the dealmakers who naively entered the deal for fame, fortune, power, etc., and not for worship of the devil – these dealmakers can still turn back to God. These dealmakers are not beyond redemption. They are, as it were, foster children of the devil rather than his very flesh and blood. They can still break their bonds and turn back to God.

Dealmakers are all around us. They may be our teacher, our lawyer, our accountant, our minister (yes, you read that right, our minister), or our local politician. Anyone we know in a position of authority could be a dealmaker. They’ve been trained, these people, to be kind and generous to the unwashed masses. But their kindness and generosity is arm’s length and superficial, like a smile that just stops short of reaching the eyes. That’s one way you’ll know them, by their superficial kindness that comes from a directive from their superiors, not from the heart.

There are other ways, too, to identify them, such as by distinctive rings or handshakes or words they addend to their messages. I know of some of these identifiers, but frankly it’s all too tiresome to list them here. Having been an atheist and a former dabbler in the occult myself, I find the whole capitulation to Satan thing tiresome and cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would do it. Is money really that important? Fame? Power? Social standing? Legacy? As Jesus reminds us, what can you give in exchange for your soul, once you’ve given it away? The combined wealth of the entire world is still not enough to give in exchange for even one soul.

Let me repeat that in bold in case you missed it – the combined wealth of the entire world is still not enough to give in exchange for even one soul. That’s how valuable a soul is, and yet here are all these people, millions upon millions of them throughout the ages, signing away their soul for trinkets and baubles and a front-row seat to the tragic farce that their life becomes after they sign on with Satan.

It’s no wonder most of them become alcoholics and drug abusers and addicted to all manner of porn. They grasp at anything to escape the knowledge of what they’ve done, even as more and more demonic spirits pour into them and goad them on to increasingly extreme levels of excess and abuse. For most of these dealmakers, there’s no escape. They knew what they were doing going into the deal and accepted it. These people are beyond our prayers.

But for the ones who signed on not really knowing what they were getting themselves into – these people are salvageable. These people we can still reach with our prayers. They can still turn back to God, though it would mean giving up everything Satan has given them. It would also likely mean their immediate death upon repentance.

This might be a bit of a hard sell, getting them to give everything up and then die to boot, but even so, it would be good if someone had a ministry specifically for these people.

I think such a ministry would be extraordinarily blessed by God.

“There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents, than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.”

Luke 15-7