"Hell is the highest reward that the devil can offer you for being a servant of his"

Billy Sunday’s words deliver a powerful paradox. The so-called reward promised to those who serve dark purposes is nothing more than eternal suffering. Servitude to evil might offer fleeting pleasures, present illusions of satisfaction, or the lure of power, but these gifts are deceptive. The devil, a symbol of all that is corrupt and misleading, cannot grant any true or lasting happiness. What he offers as his best, the highest completion of his promises, is not paradise, but torment.

Hell here symbolizes the ultimate consequence of a life spent serving the wrong master. The metaphor extends beyond religious imagery; it reflects the emptiness that follows a life lived in pursuit of false ideals or forbidden gains. Each action taken in service of morally bankrupt purposes accumulates, building towards a final reckoning. All the promises made by the tempter, every argument of justification or rationalization, collapses under the weight of this reality. The servant of evil inherits only misery, no matter the glories that might be paraded before him along the way.

Billy Sunday, himself a fiery evangelist, uses this phrase as a stark warning. He urges consideration, not just of immediate gains but of lasting outcomes. Choices inspired by selfishness, cruelty, or greed may yield short-term victory, yet they carry an inherently destructive trajectory. The ultimate payment for allegiance to malevolence is a forfeiture of peace, fulfillment, and genuine joy.

By framing hell as a “reward,” the language is deliberately ironic; it underlines the ultimate futility and cruelty in trusting the devil’s bargains. Serving such a master means working towards one’s own undoing. The implication is clear: to avoid this tragic reward, one must instead choose devotion to what is good, just, and true, a life guided by principles, not fleeting temptations.