Jeremy Brown - The Testimony of Satan

Sloth is based in a number of sins that result in complete stagnation externally and internally. Non-activity is not based in not moving, but not thinking, not feeling, not living. With the mind that contemplates, the heart that loves, and the body in motion — the spirit is never weakened. It only grows more powerful. You were created to create, to act, to experience, to share, and to discover… but the fire of sloth smolders and smothers the spirit… Sloth is designed to take the heart and make it beat with less passion, to make the mind slow, to make the body’s senses dull. Sloth is creates a form of isolation, where one is locked into a perpetual state of monotonous, but hellacious lack of change and arrested development. When people are slothful they may have once reclined and enjoyed peace as a need or reward from physical or mental strain, but they never found more comfort in doing nothing. Yet slothfulness becomes a comfort when one finds little peace in activities necessary to keep life crisp, clear, and in perspective.

Remaining active enlivens the ethereal fire and reduces the eternal fires. Even I am active, always active… plotting and menacing things I find worth my time and focus… Yet, sloth still serves me because it takes kings and makes them drunkards… these kings of old are now moguls, businesspeople, politicians, leaders… and once they feel they have attained enough power or control, they feel they can do no more and they fall under their own ego and weight. They fall into depression because power and control with no direction founded in serving the betterment of the many leads to an abyss of depression. Why? Because to serve the self leads to nothing. You have immortal spirits, yet your very personalities and minds are as temporal as your bodies, they will decay and fall away. Therefore, any activity that invests solely into serving the self eventually results in some form of slothfulness. It may at first appear to be well-deserved rest, but to be enchanted with rest in itself leads to the collapse and loss of keenness and strength. For the vigilant are active, keeping watch, and seek a deeper connection with Him… They are the ones I can not attack and enter through the lack of activity. They are the diligent ones.

Diligenceis rooted in determination. From such determination one can undo the knots of slothfulness that often ensnare the supposedly successful or those who continue to fall and feel they have failed. Your race has yet to understand you are not failures if you try. I might be the most detested being known among the living, the dead, the unborn, and the yet to be born — but I do not feel I am a failure. I am diligent. I was diligent when I was simply the known as the Light Bearer — Lucifer, and served Him. I suppose now my diligence is not sanctified or celestial… But simply to another of your timeless clichés, “You have to fight fire with fire.”

Diligence of humankind can overcome my diligence… at times…The ethereal fire is of God to be used by you to burn away the eternal fires of which I agitate within in you… to work against your better nature. Determination that is built upon diligence is an immutable force that can not be turned from its course… And whosoever wields it is with God… For instance a man struggles with a loss of a job, a marriage in shambles, and debilitated health. Slothfulness would make him accept it all and slowly deteriorate into nothing or turn to vices that would further destroy him and his family. But the element of ethereal fire found in diligence would burn away slothfulness. He may seek counseling for his marriage, and his wife will see this as strength to bring them back together. At his job, he may seek a unilateral move or ask to be demoted only to be promoted again at a later time. He may also simply change his diet and exercise to improve his health despite the fact that doctors may tell him little will be accomplished. The man is with Him. Because unlike accepting the perspective I present him making him slothful, he pushes to be diligent… I despise such diligence… unless it’s of my own generation…

Greed is one of my favorite means to feed the eternal fires within your kind… It is similar to lust, generates wrath, and feeds gluttony. Greed has made men make slaves of entire civilizations. It has made your kind dehumanize the meekest of people in order to justify destroying not only their humanity, but your own. You have put prices on everything that was given to you for free. You sell land. You sell water. You sell food that grew wild for centuries. You sell knowledge. You even sell the worship of your beloved God and all His many manifestations. You would sell life if you could package it… You even attempt to sell what can never truly be marketed which is love… What you sell as love is nothing but vanity and lust dressed up with pretentious smiles and hidden selfishness… You sell means to cope with death as in the burial of your dead…

I’d rather see fester and be fed on by my minions of cursed vermin and scavengers. You have even challenged the ease of childbirth through the use of so much medication and money to bring children into the world… more children I need to be born in order to turn against their parents and nations to make war and chaos within them… This even challenges my campaign when many die… Yet I still win with less of you alive and at peace upon this earth — an earth which should rightfully be mine!…

Greed has pushed wonderful, so called modern nations to allow many to die simply because they could not afford insurance to cover certain medical challenges when the technology and resources were available… This pleases me… in some fashions… It’s like allowing a child to die of thirst while you hold the glass, but his mother doesn’t have the money to pay for the child simply to live… Greed has killed more people among you than any other sin rooted in the eternal fire… However, the point of temperance that addresses gluttony is similar to the acts of charity used to offset greed.

Charity is among the ethereal fire; it gives without concern of attention or reward. It is not boastful or self-righteous. Problem is it often goes unnoticed and much like chastity, it is not as valued among your kind… And definitely far from valued by me… Chastity provides for those who can not provide for themselves… It is one of the greatest forms of love… if I must refer to it as such… where you truly are doing His work… You are compassionate whereas my minions upon earth would push such people to the side and watch them die without care unless they could make use of them. However, I have been able to turn many of those who originality spoke of charity and serving their supposed fellow man or woman from the path of charity and made them fall into line with my hordes who thrive on greed. This greed is rooted in wealth and fame…. Many feel denied their acknowledgements because this is a weakness in your kind that has existed from the origin of your race… Few of you seek to assist others without acknowledgement…

You are not a selfless race — you are selfish. You place ego in all things. Even in your own birth which is by no means an action of your own doing, you look for acknowledgement simply for existing… but in that sense I can relate… for I was originally created to be adorned, and through me He was acknowledged by beings far beyond your knowledge or understanding…. But I lacked discretion to see I was adored by Him, and I felt I was only a tool of His influence… I wanted power, glory, and greater understanding of what I was for myself… But, I have contended with this failure and made it my strength in every battle against Him… Altruistic charity is rare and truly a path to exuberant ethereal fire and the reduction of the eternal fires of greed… Yet, I continue to win through some of your most adored religious, political, and even media leaders using their pride as a means to make them focus on greed… consuming their humanity.