As I have pointed out in past postings, one of the major deceits Satan has perpetrated on the Institutional Church is the “truth” that if a religious person or a religious organization is being used by the Lord in a positive way, that person or organization is undoubtedly one with Him and right in His eyes.  As the following will attest, this theological tenant could not be more wrong.  I remind the reader of what God says to us in Deuteronomy 13:1-4 where He warns that He will test us to see how we react to miracles and miracle workers, whether we will follow him or her or become a part of an organization (church) simply because of the miracles or works being performed there.  I might also mention Revelation 13:11-17 where we read about a world-ruling religious figure called the False Prophet who, claiming to be the instrument of God, will perform great miracles, signs and wonders and through them will deceive the world’s masses.  With that in mind, let us study some of other Biblical figures along with some non-biblical figures who, though evil beyond description, were used by the Master to carry out His will.

Adam and Eve were used to populate the world after having demonstrated their allegiance to Satan by eating of the tree God had strictly forbidden them even to touch.  He had created them, spoken to them face-to-face, raised up a paradise specifically for them, visited with them regularly, granted them freedom of choice and promised them eternal life if they would do only one thing– obey Him.  Though they rejected Him and embraced His enemy, He nevertheless used them.

There is a little known passage in the Old Testament that explains why there have been so many evil, tyrannical, and in some cases spiritually Satanic men at the heads of so many nations.  The passage is found in the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel.  Daniel was a captured Israelite slave who served in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonian Empire.  In this passage the king was writing to his people, telling them how he had come to be the leader of the world’s greatest nation at that time in history.  In his letter he wrote, obviously under the unction of God’s Holy Spirit, that the God of the Jews rules the kingdoms of men and sets over those kingdoms the “basest (worst) of men” (vs 17).  The irony of this story is that Nebuchadnezzar soon came to reject the truth he had written to his people.  A year after saying that the God of the Jews set leaders in their positions he was thinking about his incredible empire and came to the conclusion that he himself had brought about the world’s greatest political and military entity, saying: “I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?”  Instantly, God spoke to Him in an audible voice, telling him that for the next seven years he would have the mind of an animal and would live in the fields with the cattle.  In His rebuke of the king God used the same words the king had used a year earlier–that He, God, raises up kingdoms and places at their heads whomever He wants (vss 31,32).  Through those leaders He does what He wants done to or for that nation.  We in democratic countries believe that we determine who will lead us through our voting system.  However, God says the opposite.  He, and only He determines who rules nations and who make the laws that govern the people.  And He places in those seats of power the “basest” of people.  Why, some may ask, does He place into leadership roles people who do not believe Him and obey Him.  Why did He place in the highest positions such people as Nebuchadnezzar, the pharaohs, Pol Pot, Ho Che Minh, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Yong un, Vladimir Putin, Bill Clinton, Barach Obama, Donald Trump, etc?  God has raised to the highest power positions some of the most vile men in the history of mankind.  Why?  BECAUSE HE GIVES THE PEOPLE THE LEADERSHIP THEY DESERVE.  What nations deserve is determined by their obedience or disobedience to Him.  The reason the U.S., Britain and Israel are experiencing the chaos, attacks, disasters, etc. being seen on the nightly news is because THEY HAVE REBELLED AGAINST GOD.  The Lord established those three nations to represent Him to the world.  They have all failed, and failed miserably.  They will cease to be because they claim to be God’s people while openly, braggingly and proudly reject His rule over them.

God places people in power who will lead the nations in the directions the people want to go spiritually, which is downward.  One will notice that each generation is more liberal–more distanced from the ways of the Lord–than the previous generation.  The farther from God, the closer to Satan.  For example, during the 1950’s when I was growing up if someone had suggested that one day Americans would be murdering unborn children by the millions each year, that homosexuals and other deviants would be celebrated as the society’s role models, that riots would taking place and the police would not shoot the rioters, that men would believe that they are women and visa versa, that person would have been thought delusional.  People make up nations.  People, and therefore nations, have traditionally moved in a continuous downward moral spiral.  By rebelling against their Maker, the nations are committing spiritual suicide.  With this in mind I composed a saying that involves man’s desire to sin and God’s attitude toward sinning man: If you want to commit spiritual suicide, God will provide the tree, the rope and the stool.  Now back to the subject of this posting.

Judas Iscariot was a thief (Jn. 12:6).  He did not suddenly become a thief when he was assigned to serve as treasurer for the Lord and His disciples.  God chose him knowing what he was.  In spite of his sin, Jesus gave him the same ministry as the other disciples–preaching, healing the sick, casting out demons, etc.  Peter noted this fact when it came time to choose a replacement for him (Acts 1:16,17).

Today there are numerous false prophets who, with a Bible in one hand and a collection plate in the other, perform miracles in the name of Jesus Christ.  God said in Deuteronomy 13:1-5 that He would test those who profess Him by raising up men from among them who would perform miracles, signs and wonders, then ask them to embrace a god other than the Biblical God.  That god is Satan.

God used two of history’s most vile nations–Babylon and Assyria–to defeat, destroy and enslave both the Jews (tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi) and the other ten tribes of Israel respectively because of their refusal to obey Him.  Seventy years after the Jews were taken to Babylon, 42,000 of them were allowed to return to the Promised Land in order to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall and to revive the city.  In 70 A.D. God had to send another heathen nation to destroy the city, defeat and enslave then again.  This episode was prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:2 “… not one stone will be left upon another ….”  The homosexual, multi-god worshiping Romans were God’s instrument of wrath this time.  It would not be until 1948 that Israel would once again have a homeland.  Ironically, it will be the nations that made up the ancient Roman Empire who will take out not only the Jews, but also their brother Israelites in the near future.  See Who and Where is Israel Today?

Following the national split over taxation, God placed Jereboam over the ten tribes of Israel.  Jereboam was one of the basest of men” Nebuchadnezzar wrote about in the Book of Daniel.  Though Israel rose to great heights on the political and economic level, Jeroboam took the ten northern tribes to all-time lows on the spiritual level.  Israel’s sins had brought about the national split and eventually the demise of both parts of the nation.  Israel’s sins brought down upon them God’s wrath. Their biological and spiritual descendants will suffer the same wrath from the same God for the same reason. L.J.