As was discussed in the previous posting, pride is one of the weapons Satan uses to prevent those within professing Christendom from believing and obeying the Biblical God. Another powerful hindrance to conversion is fear of the reaction of family, friends and former churchmates should a church member decide to embrace, believe and obey the Lord. Rejection, ostracism, ridicule from relatives, friends and former churchmates WILL be forthcoming when one sells out to the Lord. Such attitudes and actions are hard to accept unless one is totally serious. See Persecution. Though pride and fear are enough to keep church people from embracing the Biblical God, they are nowhere near as powerful as the Lie–the universal belief among churchites that they are already saved. This is by far the most powerful of Satan’s weapons of spiritual mass destruction. We read of his using it for the first time in the Garden of Eden when he convinced Adam and Eve that they could sin and still inherit eternal life. In short order he deceived the only two members of the Church of Eden into believing that, in spite of God’s Words concerning the forbidden tree and death (Gen. 3:3), they could eat of it and they would “… not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). He convinced them that the wages of their sin would not be death as God had warned, but rather eternal life. Having been deceived by the same serpent (Satan) into believing the same lie, Catholics and Protestants “know” that, because they have performed a church-prescribed, hireling-led ritual, THE FIX IS IN–they are saved, born again and ready for the rapture. See Hope and Salvation, Born Again and The Rapture.

Unlike his dealings with his first converts, Satan himself no longer speaks to church people as He did in Eden. He now has thousands of surrogates scattered throughout professing Christendom who do his dirty work for Him. Being blinded to God’s Bible Truth (Jn. 17:17), the devil has convinced these religionists that they have been called by the Biblical God to be His ministers. Being selectively ignorant of His Word, they believe what Satan tells them. Incredibly, they believe Satan even when shown in God’s Word that what they believe is Satan’s lie (Rev. 12:9). God warns honest Truth-seekers about these people: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself (their god) is (self)transformed into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:13,14).

The apostle Paul warned Timothy about those who would corrupt the Lord’s gospel: “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves.” Because these ministers were taught in the past not to question what their leaders taught them, they follow lock-step in their Satan-directed footsteps. For this reason they do not realize that they are false prophets. Because they refuse to believe God’s Word, they lead the masses to believe the same false gospel they and their ancestors believed and taught. THEREFORE, THE FOLLOWERS OF FALSE PROPHETS ARE FALSE CHRISTIANS. They are the blind who are being led by the blind into the ditch (Mat. 15:14). Having been taught to believe only those Scriptures that supposedly confirm church doctrine, false prophets are “ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the Truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). Paul’s words of warning are as meaningful today as they were 2000 years ago in that they perfectly describe the church’s hirelings whom she employes to scratch her itching ears. Each denomination schools its leaders in its particular ear-scratching doctrines, then pays them to do so. Contrary to God’s teaching, the Institutional Church is governed from the bottom up–the church tail (parishioners) wags the church dog (ministers). See Ministerial Ordination. To be continued. L.J.