Recently I have been watching a TV show called Reaper. The concept of the show in a nutshell is that the main character’s parents sold their first born son’s soul to the devil. Once he turns 21 the devil shows up and now he is a bounty hunter for the devil, capturing escaped souls and returning them to Hell. I can hear you now… What kind of crap are you watching? Is that what you spend your time doing? Well, yes! If you didn’t know there is a writers strike going on, and if it keeps going like this I’ll be watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island. Honestly though, I was watching it before the strike. Why? Because I find it interesting, and maybe disturbing, how the show portrays the devil.

It is interesting in the fact that this is not the devil the Bible defines for us. It is disturbing because it is probably close to what many in our culture believe about Satan (if they believe he exists at all). Unfortunately people have a tendency to elevate Satan and his powers to same level as God. Satan is not all-knowing, he cannot see everything, and he does not rule Hell. These are some of the ideas that show has thrown out there. Why would the devil even care if souls were out killing people anyway? There is however just enough truth sprinkled in to make it plausible… Sound familiar?

The main character of the show is trying to get out of his obligation to the devil. The irony is that there is a real and simple way to escape, it’s Jesus. Somehow I don’t think that will ever come up in the show, but wouldn’t that be a killer finale episode? Jesus shows up and opens a can… But for now the devil is powerful, that is true, and we don’t stand a chance against him without Jesus. Not that he will capture our soul, that isn’t his plan, he is happy if our soul is focused on anything but Jesus. The sad part is that we are pretty good at that without the devil’s help. The one thing the show does get right is that the devil is a liar, twisting the truth always. Since the beginning he takes the truth and changes it just enough to make it a lie. He is the “father of lies” after all (John 8:44).

Pastor JD