The devil is the source of every lie and deception and cunning and evil. ( Elder Ephraim of Arizona )

The devil is the source of every lie and deception and cunning and evil. 

This is why all thoughts aimed against Christians are in essence a lie and deception. He promises to the young every kind of prosperity through fanciful thoughts and beguiles them through illusory dreams with riches, pleasure, delights, eternal life, etc. (for this is the devil’s plan: to keep man from remembering death, since this ruins his plans ), until he trusts him as his best and most intimate friend. 

Then, once he entwines him in his webs as a spider its prey, with great ease he sucks up all his spiritual substance and renders him dead in relation to God.


Elder Ephraim of Arizona

We must pass our days with great caution.. ( Elder Ephraim of Arizona )

We must pass our days with great caution. The devil is very crafty and is always on the lookout to ensnare us at a time of spiritual drowsiness and render us accountable to God and our conscience. May God abolish him so that he cannot harm us! But since He is just, He does not remove the free will of man. And this is why we and first of all, I , voluntarily follow the suggestions of the devil, and we sin.

Elder Ephraim of Arizona

Even in the eleventh hour, our all-good God accepts us as long as we realize He awaits our return.

Even in the eleventh hour, our all-good God accepts us as long as we realize He awaits our return. But the sly enemy of our soul does not remain inactive; nothing escapes his notice. For this scoundrel knows the inestimable value of time and endeavors through vain cares and allurements and comforts of the world to establish steadfast ignorance and forgetfulness, so as to bring complete despair at a man’s last hour, and win the immortal souls for which Christ died on the Cross!

Elder Ephraim of Arizona