Having come from an uber-religious family (Baptist and Church of Christ with a smattering of Catholic), and having studied the teachings of other so-called churches as well as other “isms” found throughout the world, I am well acquainted with the various methods Satan has used since the Garden of Eden to lure clients into his religious holding company called “religion.” Beginning with a polite question directed at our original mother, the Serpent has over the past 6,000 years appealed to the masses from pulpit and podium, from brush arbors to vast sports stadiums, from one-on-one encounters to open-air mass meetings, from pamphlets handed out on street corners to free Bibles sent through the mail, from bus and airplane seats to the thrones, from c.d.’s to internet Bibles, from radio programs to televised series. Satan has spared no effort to entice the God-seeking masses of each generation to “join the church of your choice” in order to guarantee entrance into paradise at life’s end or at the time of the supposed rapture, whichever comes first.

Then, in the 1950’s the wily devil began to reveal his ability to change tactics in order to stay abreast of ever-changing human needs, wants and proclivities using whichever medium was en vogue at the time. Initially it was radio that enabled the purveyers of his Catholic/Protestant messages to speak to dispersed crowds from a central location. At first only a few people were able to hear his versions of God’s Truth as his broadcasts reached only local listeners. As radio came of age he was able to sway ever larger audiences using national and international coverage. Powerful outlets were able to carry numerous versions of God’s Word into the homes of those who subscribed to the various religious sects known as denominations/faiths/churches, etc. Then, in the 1930’s, a man named Herbert Armstrong sat down before a radio microphone and began speaking God’s Bible Truth. For the first time since the original apostles spoke to small gatherings the world was treated to His unedited Scriptural Truth. Over the years God used this spiritual giant to take that Truth to the world through the medium of radio. But wherever Truth lives, so does error. Just as the Lord used radio to spread His message around the world, Satan used the medium to spread his perverted gospel. God’s lone, calm voice presenting His Will and Way was soon competing with the devil’s loud, shrill voice offering his flesh-satisfying, man-centered versions. Today the two billion plus people that subscribe to Catholicism/Protestantism offer irrefutable proof of who is winning the religious ratings battle.

Then in the 1950’s another, more effective mass media instrument came on the scene–television. As television came of age the Lord installed Mr. Armstrong in the midst of it, sending His message throughout the world–this time with a face. The man behind the face asked nothing of his audience and gave away every piece of written material he produced. On cue, Satan began flooding the world’s living rooms with all manner of religious offerings designed to meet the needs of any and all seekers of religious truth. Soon money-begging false prophets flooded the visual airwaves with their various marketing schemes, each one trying to out-perform, out-promise and out-beg the others. Taking note of the success of individual ministries, church systems began buying air time so as to send their particular versions of religion into the world’s living rooms in an effort to fill millions of armchairs with parishioners and church coffers with their money. Notice that the last few minutes of each telecast is reserved for a money pitch. It’s all about money.

Over the past few decades television has come of age in the religious realm. It began with a weekly program called “Touched by an Angel,” a heart-rending offering that inevitably left the viewer with a warm fuzzy feeling–emotional assurance that all was well with the individuals involved who, after all, represented reality in the religious realm. Each episode would feature a sin-ladened, anti-social man or woman who, within 30 minutes, would undergo a religious metamorphosis. The episode would end predictably–the guilty party got religion, got saved, got with others of like persuasion and lived happily ever after. From that point on, the fix was in for everyone involved. Equally as predictable, the emphasis was on what one could get FROM God. All one needed to do FOR Him was to be active in church. I shutter to think of the numbers of people who were taken in by this age-old ruse presented by beautiful people who never failed to win the religious day–the sinner got “saved” while the already “saved” went on with business as usual. Viewers, having had a similar experience, went to sleep knowing that all was well between themselves and their Maker. Those previously lost souls who had been “saved” by watching the program went to sleep with the same assurance. This scenario remains one of the prime examples of Satan’s bait and switch program. See Bait and Switch. To be continued. L.J.