"...the Devil will get you!"

Just north of Prattville, Alabama (USA) on Interstate Highway 65 is a roadside billboard on which there is painted a gleefully leering red-skinned devil with a pitchfork.  There he stands, with a long pointed tail and little horns on his head.  Just like the little devil who stood on Little Audrey’s left shoulder in the classic cartoons. (A little white-robed angel with a halo stood on her right shoulder.)

On the billboard, is the inscription in bright red, “Go to Church or the Devil will get you!” 

I used to pass by this sign without any serious thought, but, this last weekend, it really bothered me.  I know that the people who put up the sign were well-meaning and devoted Christians and I share their concern.  The primary and overriding task of the Church is evangelism. (Matthew 28:19)

There are several things I see as troubling about the billboard.

1.                     The devil on the sign is cartoonish and stereotypical.  Non-believers will laugh at the supposedly “stupid” Christians rather than be frightened by the Devil whose existence they deny. 

2.                     If we are serious about challenging the world’s evil system and wish to draw others to Christ, we must present arguments which are intellectually unchallengeable, not trite and stereotypical ones which will be dismissed as silly by unbelievers.

3.                     As presented, the message seems to state that        

church attendance will save someone.  Then why does every honest pastor know that, among the people in their churches, some, perhaps many, are totally lost? “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:23 (The full passage is Matthew 7:15-28)

4.                     The billboard's message implies that an action, church attendance, is important in our salvation.  We are told not to forsake assembling ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25) but we are also told that observance of the law and assembling on a particular day will not save us; we are saved by our relationship with Jesus Christ.  (Galatians 2:16, Romans 14:4-8.)  There is nothing which we can do to save ourselves, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  Not of works, lest any man should boast.”  Ephesians 2:8-9

The person(s) who placed the devil billboard on the side of the highway had only the best intentions and, if only one person was moved by the billboard to accept Jesus as Lord, there was rejoicing in Heaven (Luke 15:10).  We must, however, be careful about the unintentional messages we are sending by our statements and actions to be sure that the received message is the biblical one we intended to send.