The Religious History
Exodus 20:1-6
Of all of Satan's lies and machinations, by far the most subtle one that does the most damage to confuse the minds and hearts of men in making a clear distinction between good and evil, is his inventions of false systems of religion. Of all of the sins of ancient Israel and Judah, the one that God fought the hardest was idol worship. Most of the prophets constantly railed against idol worship. In I Kings 18:25-41, the prophet Elijah proved in a contest between two sacrifices that the Hebrew God Yahweh was the only God and that all other gods were false. God told Elijah to initiate this contest and had it recorded in His Word so that all of humanity could learn that He is the only God and that all forms of idol worship, which is all forms of false religion, is by far the most dangerous lie of the Devil meant to deceive the hearts of men.
False religion and idol worship are the same sins. The Bible records that God could easily handle any of the ordinary sins of any of His backslidden believers, but God always had a hard fight against false religion and idol worship because God knew that this sin, which stems from pride, had the potential to destroy the entire human race. The basis of this sin is that terrible pride which entered the heart of Lucifer when he rebelled against God. In some mysterious way, the emptiness that results from the false combination called pride, as opposed to the true basic feeling called pride, engendered within the heart of Lucifer a fierce determination to kill God and make himself a god. He had to try to fill that terrible emptiness. This same self-serving attitude constitutes the core of original sin and false religion within the hearts of men.
This strange false combination called pride actually exists as a contradiction. This false combination could be worded: "A desire to replace God with self." All idols and false religions represent extensions of the self. Each individual idea within this false combination remains real and useful in good combinations that honor God's Ideas, but when falsely combined, these ideas constitute false pride and false religion. All false combinations effect a nothingness which, in turn, conceals a nonexistence that could also be called an absolute nothingness. For this reason, pride engenders within the hearts of men an awful feeling of dread and emptiness even though we often deny this. Philosophers who have recognized this feeling in man have called it "alienation from self,"(Hegel) or "angst," (Kierkegaard) or "nausea" (Sartre). C.S. Lewis called it "the abolition of man." This "dread" is that part of his false pride which causes man to know, deep within himself, the impossibility of ever becoming his own self-serving god. Despite his deep fear of failure, man nevertheless persists in his fierce determination to succeed in his false endeavor, and at the same time, the contradiction of this fierce determination causes guilt and a deep yearning within man for a self-destruction that will eradicate both the sin and the self.
This contradiction called pride manifests itself in history in two ways, in religion and in dissipation. The pleasure seekers know that alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, gambling, crime and all other forms of excessive pleasure will eventually destroy them, but they secretly desire this destruction because of the emptiness effected by false combinations. Those who practice religion may be good citizens and moral people, but in their devotions to their false religions which may simply be a love of money or power or popularity, they display a secret desire to serve themselves. They believe that their religion or money or power will cause them to become their own little gods who do not need the Love of God. Yet at times, even religious and moral people deeply feel that secret emptiness that results from pride.
The contradiction within pride often manifests itself in religious ceremonies, even in Christian ceremonies. The Old Testament reveals this contradiction between a desire to become a god and an obsession with self-destruction when it recorded that parents would sometimes throw their own children into fires that burned before idols because they believed their gods would reward them with prosperity for doing this. A modern parallel to this practice adheres to the ideology that teaches women that they have the right to abort their unborn children if they have become a burden to them in any way. Man possesses only those rights that are given by God, and one of these is the right to life. The Devil has spread modern lies that humans have additional putative rights such as gay marriage and abortion, but these so-called rights are merely false combinations. They destroy rather than produce anything creative. Many Christians have been seduced into believing these lies. These are often the same kinds of Christians who treat worship of God as a mere ceremony that they must go through in order to please God so that He will reward them for enduring these ceremonies. This kind of perfunctory worship actually only displays idol worship because these putative Christians have treated a Holy God like their own little idol who will allow them to be their own little god.
Matthew 22:37-38
True Christians worship God with an absolute love and devotion and with a complete submission to His Will no matter what His Will might be. True Christians also display an absolute faith in God's Word, and never allow themselves to compromise His Word under any circumstances. These are the Christians who have been spiritually born into the family of God because they humbly admitted to God that they were lost sinners who could only be saved by being washed in the blood of Jesus which He shed for them on the cross. These are the Christians who have been born of the Spirit, and who have the Holy Spirit within them; He who gives them the ability to "worship Him in spirit and in truth."Read John 4:24.
Throughout history, the Devil has tried to destroy mankind by using ever more subtle lies. He has invented idol worship, false philosophies, a false science and false political systems to lure mankind away from trusting in the true and living Word of God. Satan has even infiltrated Christianity with the lies of false doctrine and subtle forms of idol worship. Yet, God has miraculously preserved His true gospel even at the heart of those churches that are riddled with the lies of the Devil. For example, no mere man has the power to turn wine into the blood of Jesus, but the fact that the congregation drinks this wine demonstrates that God has preserved the core doctrine within Catholicism that only the blood of Jesus can cleanse one from sin. Those who receive this wine as a mere ceremony practice idol worship, but some may actually believe that the blood of Jesus has washed away their sins. Who has the right to say that those who so believe have not been saved? Does not this judgment belong solely to a compassionate God? Jesus gave Christians no right to judge eternal matters. Read Matthew 7:1-2. This judgment belongs solely to God. Jesus gives Christians the right to judge evil and goodness when they see it, but not the person doing the good or evil. Read Matthew 7:15-20. The trees to which Jesus refers in this teaching are not the persons, but is simply the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is within every person. Christians may speculate as to whether a particular person is saved or not, but never judge. Is it not possible that our Holy God of infinite compassion and understanding would accept such weak faith even though falsities are attached to it? The Bible relates in II Chronicles 30:15-22 that God answered the prayer of King Hezekiah and pardoned the people who committed some false practices while observing the passover. In addition, God may accept this weak faith even though those who drink this wine believe that they must come again and again to the altar to receive it, when God's Word teaches that a repentent sinner needs but once to be washed in the blood of Jesus in order to be permanently born into the family of God. Read Hebrews 10:14-18.
Through the centuries from the time of Christ, the Devil has succeeded in infiltrating the church with false doctrines, false teachers, false Bibles and false leaders so that many modern denominations have compromised with evil and denied the true Word of God, which is the King James Bible in English. At the beginning of Christianity, the Devil raised up many cults which claimed to be Christian, such as the Gnostics and the Arians, in his attempt to destroy Christianity through a direct attack against its doctrines. The Devil still has many cults in the modern world, such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnessess. The central doctrine of all cults is that they deny the Deity of Christ or His Oneness with His Father. The Devil has also tried to destroy Christianity directly through severe persecutions inflicted by false religions; the Roman pagans and the phony hierarchy of the Roman church in the past, and the Muslims, Nazis and Communists in the past and present. The Devil has introduced the sins of racism and anti-semitism into the church in order to try to corrupt it from within. The Devil has used some false leaders of some churches to compromise with the false science called the theory of evolution in order to try to slowly strangle Christianity to death. The Jewish people may have suffered more from direct persecution, but Christianity has suffered greatly from direct persecution and the Devil has used every trick in his book in his attempts to destroy it. Despite all of these persecutions and false systems from the Devil, God has miraculously preserved His true Word and His true gospel right down to the present day.
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