Editorial – The Bribe

“All these things I will give you if …” Matthew 4:9

With these words the great deceiver attempted to bribe our Redeemer. A bribe is generally a price or other valuable consideration given or promised with a view to corrupting the behavior of a person. Often immense sums of money are used to get others to do what is wanted. For example, in October 1944, Florida Senator Claude Pepper said that one of those who had helped Hitler to power was John Foster Dulles “because it was Dulles’ company and the Schroeder Bank that had provided Hitler with the money he needed to embark on his career as an international bandit.” William E. Dodd, the American ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937, notes in his diary that the American banks represented by Dulles had already guaranteed German bonds to the value of one billion dollars at the end of 1933. (See God and the Fascists, Karl Heinz Deschner, 181 (2013).)

Bribes are used by politicians and governments, by churches and all manner of human institutions, groups and families. “He who suffered death for us on Calvary’s cross, just as surely suffered the keenest pangs of hunger as that He died for us. And no sooner did this suffering commence than Satan was at hand with his temptations. We have a foe no less vigilant to contend with. Satan adapts his temptations to our circumstances. In every temptation he will present some bribe, some apparent good to be gained. But in the name of Christ we may have complete victory in resisting his devices.” Confrontation, 71, 72. [Emphasis supplied.]

Young women today are bribed to lose their virginity and purity, young men are bribed to lose their honesty and integrity. People are bribed by their associates to try this or that chemical or carnal pleasure. The benefit to be gained is temporary, but if you overcome the temptation to take the bribe, there will be an eternal benefit.

“By the word of God we are to overcome every temptation of the enemy. Satan may present every attraction, bring to our notice every deceiving, alluring bribe, in seeking to eclipse the brightness of Jesus from our view, and to obliterate from our minds His plainest requirements, but we are to meet his deceptions with the word of God.” The Signs of the Times, December 3, 1894.