I grew up on a lake but l certainly wouldn't consider myself an expert on fishing. In recent years, I have enjoyed deep sea fishing and have had better success at it. I think one of the keys to successful fishing is sufficiently burying the hook from sight. Those cheap jigs can work well with the first few casts, but soon the feathery thread tail pushing out of the painted wood body would mat down and the silver hook would shine brightly underwater. At that point, the jig lost its splendor. An exposed hook is the death of good fishing.

The hungriest, savviest angler of all is Satan (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8). He is a master at burying the hooks. Gambling looks like a quick, easy way to financial freedom and enormous wealth. Pornography appears to be a private, harmless distraction from reality; an excursion into one's most exciting fantasies. Smoking seems like a calm, pleasurable enjoyment, a way to unwind, or a satisfying diversion. Sex outside of marriage looks like an exciting, passionate, even thrilling way to spice up one's life, live on the edge, and appeal to one's unbridled lust. There they dangle. No consequences. "Just swallow me," they say. "You'll love it!" they say. These and other sins shine like tinsel and are so enticing. Why not? Just one nibble. Eat and run. No harm. No shame.

Then the barb sticks. Financial ruin and dark addiction. A warped and twisted mind, where nothing seems pure anymore. A man in his forties with an oxygen tank, needing five minutes to wheeze and gasp for air just to go from his car to the post office! In his pocket is a pack of cigarettes. Unwed pregnancies, shattered marriages, and untold embarrassment and shame. The perpetrators of sin are now victims of their own folly. They flounder in bad habits and draining depravity. They have been reeled in by Satan's devices (cf. 2 Cor. 2:11).

By the time the lure is old and worn out--and the hook is in plain view--it may be too late. The hunter may have already captured his prey (cf. 2 Tim. 2:26). Yet, while willful and habitual sin may seem like a hopeless trip the other end of which is Satan's table, there is a way to "get off the hook." It takes a mighty struggle. You will have to fight for your life (cf. 1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7). You will have to become sober and alert (1 Pet. 5:8). You will have to be cagey enough to see past the bait and, by faith, see the barbed, painful hook underneath the temptation. Is a moment of pleasure worth the ride on which you will go that leads where you do not wish to be? God wants to provide all we need, but His way leads to safety and life. Let's remember that with Satan, the hooks are hidden! Eric