The word trick that produced professing Christendom’s perverted gospel which led to her apostasy  was first used in the Garden of Eden when the Serpent inserted an extra word into a statement he made to Eve. After quoting God’s Words concerning the eating of the forbidden tree, he listened to her as she quoted the Lord concerning the punishment for doing so. After hearing her quote God’s warning that one would die, the devil edited (improved) His Words by adding one. God’s version: Man would die if he ate of the forbidden tree. Satan’s version: Man could eat of the tree and “NOT” die. Eve embraced Satan’s perverted version of God’s Words and the rest is history. Nothing has changed over the centuries. Those calling themselves God’s people still choose the devil’s perverted version of God’s pure Word of Truth (Jn. 17:17). However, there has been one change.

Today, with billions of clients to deal with, Satan uses false prophets–“ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:15)–to deceive the church masses. In 2 Corinthians 2:4 the Apostle Paul revealed that, because the church had embraced Satan’s perverted gospel put forth by “false brethren,” she had placed herself in bondage to Satan who, having transformed himself into an “angel of light” (11:14), was passing himself off as the “light of the world”–Jesus Christ (Jn. 8:12).

God calls the Biblical gospel “the gospel of Christ.” Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:4 that by accepting another gospel one is in reality accepting “another Jesus.” In Galatians 1:10 he states that embracing another gospel and another Jesus disqualifies a church member from being His servant. NO SERVANTHOOD–NO SALVATION. Note that there are two types of people in God’s church: the obedient and the disobedient. When writing to the churches the apostles addressed them as a whole in most cases. However, in many cases they were addressing only certain people in that church.

Modern religious man rejects the “servant” label because it involves obedience to another. The fact is that we all are servants of and obedient to a higher power, either God or Satan. Knowing this, Paul wrote of servanthood in both positive and negative terms in Romans 6:16-22. Here he reminds us that the one we yield ourselves as servants to obey, his servants we are. He points out in graphic terms that we choose whether to serve (obey) God unto righteousness leading to life, or to serve (obey) Satan unto sin leading to death. Note that we have only two diametrically opposed options: God/righteousness/life, or Satan/sin/death. One is either a righteous person on the path to eternal life, or an evil person on the path to death.

Paul points out in Romans 6:17,18 that people in the Rome church had at one time been servants of Satan, but that BY OBEYING GOD’S WORD they had been freed from sin and were now servants of righteousness. In verses 20,22 he reiterates the fact that one serves either righteousness (God) or sin (Satan), and that slavery to one=freedom from the other–there is no mixing of good and evil (2 Cor. 6:14). He tells us in Romans 6:20,22 that the only way one can serve God is to be free of sin, which produces the fruit of holiness, the END of which is eternal life. Note it: The END RESULT of a life lived in HOLINESS is SALVATION. Note also that there is no religiosity-salvation connection. Obeying the perverted gospel put forth by Catholicism/Protestantism does not result in the righteousness and holiness necessary to attain salvation regardless of how “active in church” one has been (Mat. 7:20-23). Note also that righteousness and holiness are acquired only by “obeying from the heart that doctrine (gospel) which was delivered you” (vs 17), which is God’s version of “WORKS.” Editing the Lord’s gospel/doctrine in any way perverts it in His eyes in that the editor has deemed it defective and in need of correction by a superior being–himself. This is the perfect description of idolatry–man’s exaltation of man to deity level. Due to having rejected, added to and deleted from God’s true gospel, the church has become her own god–she has rejected the Lord’s “light.” To be continued. L.J.