“By their fruits you shall know them” (Mat. 7:20), said Jesus of Nazareth while speaking to His disciples during the Sermon on the Mount.  By His language usage during the sermon it is clear that His message was designed for a global audience.  He was telling His ministers, then and now, as well as those the saints who would believe them, to beware of those who would deceive them into following another god, one who would give them the power to determine right and wrong for themselves according to their own desires.  Adam and Eve were deceived by that false god into accepting that power, or so they thought.  Taking that first bite brought them back to the reality of God and His commands.

As the world’s population grew the Serpent (Satan) began using his fallen angels (devils/demons) to persuade the people to follow him as had their original parents.  All did, except for a “preacher of righteousness” named Noah.  Noah “walked with God” (Gen. 6:9) and served him in ministry as His “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5).  But to no avail.  Satan’s power of persuasion, administered through his devils, was so powerful that the earth’s people became his servants.  Totally ignoring Noah’s message from God, they went beyond the point of no return, forcing the Lord to destroy them in an earth-covering flood.  Only Noah and his family survived.

Over time the world once again came to be populated with human beings.  Once again Satan used his fallen angels to tempt them to follow him.  Once again he was successful.  But not totally.  Beginning with Noah, God has always had a “remnant”– people who heard His “voice” and obeyed it.  These were His sanctified (“called out”) people who would manifest His light in the midst of the darkness of Satan’s world.  Beginning with a man named Abraham, He raised up a people who would become known as “Israelites” after their forefather Jacob (Israel) who like his forefathers Abraham and Noah, obeyed God.   Israel’s 12 sons begat the nation that came to be known as Israel, God’s “chosen people,” to whom, for whom and about whom He wrote and preserved His instruction manual for eternal life–the Holy Bible.  The nation of Israel, His chosen people, was to be His “light to the Gentiles” (Heb.–“heathen”–Satan’s people) who would one day be allowed to join the Israelites in the worship of and service to God.

In order to entice as many Israelites as possible away from God, Satan raised up several men and women from the Gentiles whom, like him, offered the Israelites freedom from God’s strict commands.  The Old Testament prophets battled these religious leaders continuously.  Satan realized that in order to remove Israel totally from God’s influence he would need to attack her from within.  He was extremely successful, as the Old Testament confirms.

The Word/Adonai (Jn. 1:1-4,14 the other half of the Godhead) came to earth to call Israel back to the Father.  Gentiles were offered the right to become His people through belief in and obedience to His Word.  As Jesus of Nazareth, Adonai raised up a group of apostles to spread His Word throughout the world.  As they did so they ordained God-chosen local leaders of those who believed the apostles’ message.  These people congregated once each week to fellowship together and to be taught God’s Words by His chosen ministers.  Read Ministerial Ordination.  Key word–Ordination.

The success of the apostles and the local leaders, Satan began a program of diversion by which he would become very successful in drawing many away from God and into his counterfeit church system known as “Catholicism” which was founded in Rome by a man named Simon Magus, a Babylonian priest whom Simon Peter had put out of the church in Samaria.  With power of the Roman Empire behind her, the rapidly growing Catholic Church forced all (heathen) people within the Roman Empire to “convert” to Catholicism.  Many of God’s people weakened and, in order to same their lives, converted to the Satanic religion.  With the departure of a group of people calling themselves “Protestants,” the “protesters” soon began formulating their own “Protestant” religion.  Satan soon began to raise up men within the Protestant religion who had supposedly “heard the voice of God” which, not surprisingly, did not match the rules of engagement the people had heard coming from the apostles.  Through his fallen angels, Satan separated salvation seekers into various groups based on the “new and improved” versions of the Bible which God had supposedly given to those men who had “heard the voice of God.”  These man-centered cults came to be known as “denominations,” each of which called itself “the church” and each of which claimed that God had told them to carry their new theology to the world.  Today these cults are divided into two groups: Catholics and Protestants which today comprise approximately 99% of professing Christendom.

But the Lord has always had a remnant who clung to His Word and obeyed it.  Today these number a few thousand world-wide.  This tiny sanctified (“called-out”) group is tasked with spreading God’s Truth to the world, including the Catholic, Protestant Church world.

Knowing that he cannot prevent man from seeking God, Satan has continuously raised up false prophets to lead the hundreds of Catholic and Protestant cults that now permeate the earth.  From their leadership positions these well-meaning but totally deceived “ministers of righteousness” spread the message of the “angel of light” throughout the world where they have deceived billions of people into believing and obey their deadly words (2 Cor. 11:13-15).  These are those who comprise “the church” as it is called today.  These are those Jesus warned about in Matthew 24:4,5 who would rise up from their midst, proclaim Him to be the Messiah, and “deceive many.”  The “many” Jesus referred to are the Bible-carrying masses who flock to Satan’s citadels of sin on his sabbath to hear his false prophets preach his deadly messages.  These are the messengers Jesus was warning about in the Sermon on the Mount.  These are they who are the focus of this series.

I will introduce the final posting of this series by reminding both the writer and the readers of Christ’s Words found in verses 13-20 where He tells us to enter His strait gate and walk His narrow way, to beware of those who would lead us away from that difficult way and off that exclusive way, to identify such leaders and their followers by their fruit.  He reminds us that both leaders and followers of false doctrine.  Those who produce bad fruit (church “truths”) are bad fruit trees who will be cut down and burned.  What does this say about those who believe and follow them?  L.J.