If I Were the Devil — by Paul Harvey
Good day to each of you reading this column as I hope this day finds each of you well. Before we begin the column, let’s enjoy a laugh or two—
After church, Johnny tells his parents he has to go and talk to the minister right away.
They agree and the pastor greets the family.
“I heard you say today that our bodies came from the dust.”
“That’s right, Johnny, I did.”
“And I heard you say that when we die, our bodies go back to dust.”
“Yes, I’m glad you were listening. Why do you ask?”
“Well you better come over to our house right away and look under my bed ’cause there’s someone either comin’ or goin’!”
An elderly woman died last month and having never married, she requested no male pallbearers.
In her handwritten instructions for her memorial service, she wrote, “They wouldn’t take me out while I was alive, so I don’t want them to take me out when I’m dead.”
A Sunday School teacher asked her class why Joseph and Mary took Jesus with them to Jerusalem.
A small child replied: “They couldn’t get a baby sitter.”
A painter was hired to paint the exterior of a church.
His practice was to thin the paint so that he could make a larger profit.
As he was painting the church a torrential rain began to fall and it washed all of the paint off.
Then, as quickly as the rain began, it ended, and the sun came out.
As the painter gazed skyward, he heard a voice from above saying:
” Repaint ! Go, and thin no more.”
As we begin the new year, I want to take you back to 1965 and a writer in the United States who I listened to until his death. This man could tell a story like very few with enlightenment, morality and lessons from each story.
This man, through his editorial, gave us a firm look into where we were heading way back in 1965, some 56 years ago. Never yelling nor screaming, he provided statements so bizarre that many thought “he had fallen off his rocker.”
Yes, this same man, Paul Harvey, provided us with mountains of entertainment and thoughts about the spiritual condition of these United States of America.
Paul Harvey’s “If I Were the Devil” Transcript from 1965
Copied from ‘Fresh Manna Today’
If I were the devil … If I were the Prince of Darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I’d have a third of its real estate, and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree — Thee.
So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first — I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please.’
“To the young, I would whisper that ‘The Bible is a myth.’ I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what’s bad is good, and what’s good is ‘square.’ And the old, I would teach to pray, after me, ‘Our Father, which art in Washington…’
“And then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting, so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I’d pedal narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.
“If I were the devil I’d soon have families that war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves; until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flames. If I were the devil I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions — just let those run wild, until before you knew it, you’d have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.
“Within a decade I’d have prisons overflowing, I’d have judges promoting pornography — soon I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress. And in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls, and church money. If I were the devil I’d make the symbols of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.
“If I were the devil I’d take from those who have, and give to those who want until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious.
And what do you bet I could get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich? I would caution against extremes and hard work in Patriotism, in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun, that what you see on the TV is the way to be. And thus, I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were the devil I’d just keep right on doing what he’s doing.
Paul Harvey, good day.”
Not everybody wants to call sin ‘sin’! Some call it mischief. Some call it rebellion. And hardly anybody can agree where we should draw the line. … Our courts are … trying to define pornography, yet moral law is very specific to any reader of God’s Word.
Paul Harvey
In the future, I will be providing more content on Paul Harvey including quotes, tidbits, thoughts and of course, ‘the rest of the story.”
I hope you will pass this transcript on to others and share this with as many people as possible concerning the spiritual condition of the United States and the world.
If this transcript is not an awakening call, then I have no idea what will awaken our great republic?
As we usher in 2022, let us be mindful that God is still in charge and that He has never left us nor forsaken us. May we never leave him nor forsake him.
To God be the Glory, Great things he has and continues to do.
Jeff