In my introduction to the website I listed a number of heathen practices, doctrines and holidays.  A reasonable question is: How and when did heathenism enter the church?  The answer comes from years of study and is summarized in the following.

Not long after the establishment of the Church of God on the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 31, Satan began his assault on the newly founded New Covenant Church.  By the time the apostle Paul came on the scene the battle between the apostles and the forces of Satan was in full swing.  The careful reader of the New Testament will find that the apostles’ letters to the churches were by in large warnings concerning Satan’s determination to destroy what God had built.  Most people tend to notice only the positive statements recorded by God’s representatives.  If asked to recite or paraphrase those Bible Scriptures they know they will come forth with positive verses in most cases.  But such uplifting verses are outnumbered by dire warnings to the Body of Christ concerning religious practices and doctrines coming into the church from the world of paganism.  As long as the apostles were alive to do battle with Satan’s false prophets the church managed to hold its ground.  But with the death of God’s warriors the prophecy of Paul came to pass– savage wolves entered and scattered the flock.

Beginning in about A.D. 90 the religious world entered a period called in church circles “the Dark Ages,” “dark” due to the total lack of written documentation concerning the church.  Around A.D. 150 the veil was lifted, allowing the world to see that the church that came out of the Dark Ages was nothing like the church that had entered it.  An entity calling itself the “Universal Church” (Catholicism) now dominated the religious world.  So large and powerful was it that those who refused to bow to its theology were severely persecuted, many to the death.  Those who remained true to their Master were few in number– His “remnant.”  Many years later that Counterfeit Church would enter into what would become known as the Inquisition during which between 50,000,000 and 150,000,000 people were murdered, many of them God’s people.

Due to an act of fate, Roman Emperor Constantine declared that Catholicism would henceforth be the state religion.  Because of the union of State and religion, the new entity was called the Holy Roman Empire.  In short order the Priest of Rome persuaded him to use the all-encompassing power of the Roman Empire to force the heathen within its domain to join the church.  As a result of a join-or-die edict, hundreds of thousands of godless heathen did so, bringing with them their religious observances.  Over time they persuaded the Catholic hierarchy to embrace many of their beliefs, practices and holidays, some of which are mentioned in my introductory statement.  Over succeeding generations those observances came to be accepted as “the Word of the Lord.”  Because the church did not allow its parishioners to possess or read the Bible, the people remained ignorant of the truth relative to the source of those beliefs and traditions.

Then came the so-called Protestant Revolution.  However, it soon became clear that the protesters were not protesting much of the mother church’s religious themes as their mother’s ways became their ways.  The mother whore of Revelation 17 and her harlot daughters differed only in form, not in substance.  And so it has been for hundreds of years.  Today there remain three church bodies: the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church which together make up approximately 99.9% of professing Christianity, and God’s Church–the “few” who endured to “find” that strait gate and walk that narrow way that leads to life (Mat. 7:13,14).  The Counterfeit Churches (Catholicism/Protestantism) continue to entice the Scripturally ignorant through the wide gate and along the broad way that leads to destruction.  The Lord’s commission for this website is to proclaim to all with eyes to see and ears to hear the spiritual condition of that which calls itself “the church,” how it came to be in that condition and why it refuses to change.

In summary, God’s church came to be infiltrated by Satan’s false prophets who, as the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 1:6-9, presented a perverted Gospel.  As he said, their message was not a different Gospel, but rather a perversion of God’s true gospel.  Satan’s ministers used just enough true Scripture to gain the acceptance of the congregations.  As Jesus said, they deceived the many who did not know the Holy Scriptures as they should.  Nothing has changed.  False prophets continue to lead the Institutional Church into Satan’s camp using only God’s “headlines” while refusing to teach the people His “fine print.”  More on these subjects in a later series.   L.J.