In the previous posting I mentioned a number of real life episodes and religious customs that prove that Satan has the power to entice religious people to commit acts that, to the civilized world, are unimaginable. These acts and practices of barbarity seem especially onerous to the Christian world whose parishioners point to God’s Holy Bible as proof that such actions and beliefs are not only condemned by Him, but guarantee the guilty parties a ticket to hell upon their deaths.

However, what those in the Institutional Church fail to realize is that the people they are judging, if they know the facts about their (Christians) beliefs and practices, have the same attitude toward them. The heathen masses wonder how professing Christians can openly proclaim a belief system, then openly disobey it while claiming that the Author of that system not only allows them to rebel against Him, but encourages them to do so. What, they wonder and sometimes ask, possesses Christians to believe one thing and do another? Outside of professing Christendom, this theological mindset is unheard of in the world of religion. Christianity is the only religion that not only proclaims wholesale rejection of their God’s Word/Truth to the world, but claims with equal zeal that He approves of their rejection of Him and His Son. See Luke 10:16.

In one of my college classes I had a half-dozen or so Muslim students. Religion was one of the subjects covered in my Introduction to Sociology class. I had a good discussion with those Muslim students prior to class one day. During the very amiable back and forth they told me how dedicated they were to their religion and the Koran. I told them that, though I rejected their religion, I had great respect for their dedication to it. I also told them that I was embarrassed by so-called Christianity because of the flippant, irreverent attitude toward it exhibited by its parishioners. I also told them that what passes for Christianity in the world was not the true Body of Christ, but rather a counterfeit version of it.

Only Satan could convince billions of people to openly profess oneness with the Biblical God while openly defying the very Word they use to “prove” their oneness with Him. Man is incapable of concocting the previously-mentioned heresies believed and practiced in the name of his various gods. Only Satan has that kind of power. His success in using that power is obvious to serious Bible students. L.J.