"What would the devil rather do? Convince everyone Hell is real? Or try to convince everyone Hell is not real and everyone will be saved?"
A Biblical universalist (who believes in Universal Reconciliation) would say, "If you refuse forever to repent and allow Jesus to remove all sin, you will live in torment forever. As with so many things, the longer you wait, the more misery you'll experience." He'd also say, "God will eventually prevail to have everyone repent and trust in Jesus, for there is salvation in no one else."
I really can't find any advantage for Satan in that. According to scripture (Matt 1:21 for example) Jesus is called Jesus (savior) because He saves from sin. If anyone doesn't want to be saved from sin, he doesn't want Jesus. It is irrelevant whether he'd like to be saved from fire, who wouldn't after all? How can we say someone accepts Jesus as Savior if he doesn't want salvation from sin? If he does want salvation from sin, Jesus will save him.
Someone who wants to be saved from a fire might be just as willing to commit horrible sin to avoid that fire, if he thought that would help, as to follow Christ or feign to do so. Some, undoubtedly, from fear of hell have even convinced themselves they follow Christ from the heart when they have nothing really against their rebellious self at all and no real love for Christ. In that case, they'd certainly be better off if they'd never been frightened into that state.
When someone comes to view sin and self properly, he'll rather have fire than sin. Then we are getting somewhere. If we convince him that sin and seperation from God is the ultimate misery, then threats of any other torment are irrelevant. If we don't convince him of that, then what is the use? Repentance is not turning from fire to God, it is turning from self to God.
--Ed
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