Satan Is Back Of False Religions

2nd Corinthians 11:13-15 “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

I have always been intrigued by our text passage of Scripture. We've all seen Hollywood movies where the Devil is portrayed as a red devil with a pointed pitchfork in his hand and a sinister grim look on his face. But the inspired Holy Bible says the Devil as appearing different than the world does. As we just read a moment ago in our text, Satan appears an “an angel of light.” But wait there's more, Satan's ministers are also transformed into ministers of unrighteousness (e.g., John MacArthur, Benny Hinn, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Joel Osteen, Aiden Tozer, Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, Pat Robertson, R.C. Sproul, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, Sid Roth, Paul Washer, Sam Adams, Marty Herron, Chuck Phelps, Charles Lawson, Steve Pettit, Bob Jones University, et cetera). Satan's lying sinister ministers appear as likable Christian preachers! Satan is a beautiful liar!!!

The following helpful teaching is from Dr. John R. Rice's book, “BEHOLD, HE COMETH!” This is from chapter 13, pp. 211-213:

Rise of False Prophet: Priest of Antichrist 

Satan tries to imitate God and act as God. Christ, who is God incarnate, came into the world and so Satan puts forth the Man of Sin, Satan incarnate. The Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell in Christians and give miraculous power and comfort and help day by day. So the Antichrist must have a false prophet and evil spiritual power, too. As Seiss says, “There is a supernatural power which is against God and truth, as well as one for God and truth. A miracle, simply as a work of wonder, is not necessarily of God. There has always been a devilish supernaturalism in the world, running alongside of the supernaturalism of divine grace and salvation. 

We remember that down in Egypt when Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and it became a serpent, "then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.” (Exodus 7:11,12). 

When Moses, with the rod of God, turned water to blood in the rivers and lakes, then "the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the Lord has said" (Exodus 7:22). 

When Moses brought a plague of frogs from the rivers and ponds over Egypt, then “the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt” (Exodus 8:7). After that the magicians of Pharaoh were not able to equal the miracles  in the plagues that Moses brought from God 

But it is noteworthy that Satanic power is more than human power. Satan cannot go beyond what God will allow him to do, but Satan can and sometimes does work miracles. He did with the magicians in Egypt. False prophets may be allowed to work miracles. In Deuteronomy 13:1-3 God gave this instruction: 

Deuteronomy 13:1-3, “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” 

No miracle is to take the place of the Word of God. 

Let us beware, then, for Satan goes about “as a roaring lion . . . seeking whom he may devour” (1st Peter 5:8). And he has more than human power. A spiritist, a fortuneteller, may be allowed to reveal some hidden matter, in a miraculous way. 

In my boyhood, my cousin had a horse stolen in North Texas. He went to see a fortuneteller. The fortuneteller told him that a man with a certain appearance stole the horse, that he had taken it north into Oklahoma into Ardmore. My cousin went there, found the horse and recovered him. It was a secret think which Satan revealed to a fortuneteller. No doubt many a person has thus been tempted to listen to spiritists and Devil-possessed teachers because God allowed some satanic miracle. But always we are to remember that anything that is not according to the Scriptures is still wicked and wrong. 

Here we have, then, a false prophet of the Antichrist with miraculous powers. This false prophet will have “two horns like a lamb” (vs. 11), appearing to be peaceful and good “and he spake as a dragon” (vs. 11), that is, he spoke for the Devil, Satan. And just as secular kings and government in the Dark and Middle Ages put all their power behind the Roman church in its wicked Spanish Inquisition and the persecution and murder of Christian martyrs who would not follow the Roman church, so the powers of the Antichrist will be given to this false prophet that he can teach people to worship the Antichrist, dictator of the restored Roman Empire whose emperorship is restored. 

Note verse 13. This false prophet will make fire come down from Heaven. And he will deceive people by these miracles (vs. 14). He will teach people to worship an image of the Antichrist. He will make this idol live and speak and set out to kill every person who will not worship it. 

Let every Christian beware then, for Satan is back of false religions. He deceives people. He sometimes works miracles to deceive. And his way will be more plain than ever in the tribulation time when the false prophet, with all the power of the Antichrist, works miracles and insists that everybody worship the Antichrist and his image or die.

SOURCE: Dr. John R. Rice, “BEHOLD, HE COMETH!,” pp. 211-213

Amen, that is good stuff! I love Dr. John R. Rice. Respectfully, I disagree with one thing that Dr. Rice said about the restored Roman empire. There is nothing in the Bible which teaches that the fallen Roman empire will be restored. We read in Revelation 17:10-11, “And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” The first five kings were; namely, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. The sixth king was Rome, which was a world power at the time of the writing of the book of Revelation in 96 AD.

The seventh king, I humbly think, will not be the revived Roman empire; but rather, the New World Order (NWO) which we have increasingly heard so much about over the past century. A tremendous book on the subject is titled: “PAWNS IN THE GAME” by retired Canadian Navy commander, William Guy Carr (1895-1959). Please read this introduction to the book first, which is very eye opening. The NWO is upon us in 2023!

Revelation 17:11 teaches that the eighth king will be the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, who will rise up from the seventh king (or, the New World Order). The aforementioned six kings of ancient history were all world powers at the time they ruled the earth. There are no world powers today, only super powers (i.e., Russia, China, United States, India, France, Israel, et cetera, with nuclear weapon capabilities). When the Man of Sin comes, he will rule as a dictator. The United States is presently being destroyed. That is, we are beholding the dismantling of the Old World Order, to make way for a New World Order. Out of chaos will arise a New Order of the Ancient Mystery religion (Satan worship).

This explains why there is an organized agenda to confuse children about their gender. This explains why there are hundreds of English Bible versions today to confuse people. Satan confuses people to hinder them from being saved. This is why President Donald Trump spent $15,000,000,000 of U.S. taxpayer money to build a 2,000 mile long wall along the Mexican border to keep out illegal aliens, but then President Joe Biden allowed 1,500,000 illegals to flood into the United States when he succeeded Mr. Trump. There is no way that our government leaders could be so reckless and irresponsible, unless secret powers at work behind the scenes in Washington D.C. wanted it so. Satan is the god of this evil world (2nd Corinthians 4:4), who comes only to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10), and his minions do his evil bidding (John 8:44; Ephesians 2:2).

Most Christianity today is light shining in light, but God intended for the light to shine in darkness to win lost sinners to Christ. I am all for Facebook, Twitter and other social media venues, but that is shining the light in light. I have thought oftentimes of just getting rid of my Facebook account, because it is nothing more than a meeting place online for Christians to shine the light in the light.

I spend very little time on Facebook. I have better things to do with my time. I would rather spend my time shining the light in darkness by laboring on my ministry websites. Unsaved people don't send me Friend Requests on Facebook, only religious people do. But millions of unsaved sinners have found my Jesus-is-Savior.com website while doing a Google search. I deliberately write about secular matters as well as spiritual matters, to draw unsaved people to my ministry websites.

Satan is back of all false religions. Sadly, this includes most Baptist churches today. If you do a little homework to search online for what the cults believe about repentance, you will be shocked to discover that most Baptist churches today agree with the cults. Dear reader, Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life without ever being born-again. Requiring lost sinners to “turn away from your sinful ways” to get to Heaven is trying to live the Christian life to be saved.

My father used to wisely say: “Religion is the worst thing that ever happened to this world.” He was so right! You see friend, religion is man's filtration of what the Holy Bible teaches. Consequently, you literally have everything from soup to nuts (and there's quite a few religious nuts in the world), each interpreting the Bible in his own human understanding. Thankfully, as believers we have the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide and teach us all things. John 14:26, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 16:13, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” love those promises from God. The first thing I recommend for every new Christian believer is to learn about the blessed Holy Spirit.

Luke 24:45-47, “Then opened he [Jesus] their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,  And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” If you walk with Jesus by searching the Scriptures, praying and sharing the Gospel with lost sinners, He will open your understanding of the Scriptures.

Psalms 119:100, “I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.” When we obey God's inspired Word, He opens our understanding to learn more, so we can grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. In sharp contrast, cults are started when unsaved people try to understand the Bible without the presence of the Holy Spirit (1st Corinthians 2:14-16). Religion is man trying to reach God through human effort, but Christianity is God trying to reach man by the sacrifice of His only begotten Son on the cross.

Revelation 2:12-13, “And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.” Satan's seat is not in the casinos, taverns and brothels, he already owns them; Satan's seat is in the churches, where he can do the most damage. I'll bet you never knew that. Satan goes to church too!

From time to time I meet atheists, who almost all tell me that they grew up Roman Catholic and saw abuse, hypocrisy and dead formalism, which turned them off to Christianity. I always tell them the same thing, that Christianity and religion are two very different things. Ninety-nine percent of people have churchianity without Christianity. Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life without ever being born-again. The churches today are full of tares (unsaved people). Born-again saints are the wheat.

Religion is like the calm eye of a hurricane, in that it provides a space of false security for a moment. This earthly life is short, as a vapour the Bible says. James 4:14, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” I cannot believe how fast the last 40 years went. When I was a teenager, I remember seeing actors in Tv shows (like Robert Reed, 1932-1992, who played the father on The Brady Bunch). In real life Reed was a closet homosexual, which fact came out after his death from colon cancer and A.I.D.S. at age 59. I could name hundreds of music and Hollywood celebrities that I grew up familiar with, who are either gone today or are now in their 70's and 80's. Anyone who was 30 years old in 1977 (when I was 10 years old) is now 76 years old. Wow, time went so fast!!!

I was initially glad to read that singer Olivia Newton John (1948-2022) who died last year was a Christian. But then I sadly learned that she was a devout Roman Catholic. Dear reader, Catholicism is a prisonhouse of religion! Jesus plainly said in John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” In contrast, Catholics are errantly taught that salvation comes through water baptism into the Catholic Church, the first requirement in keeping the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic church to get to Heaven. Catholicism is a lie of the Devil, the biggest religious cult in the world, a deceptive and deadly false religion. Sadly, Hell is full of Catholics. Dear reader, religion is the worst thing that ever happened to this world. To be saved you must to be BORN AGAIN!!!

If you would like to delve further into the connection between Satan and false religion, I have done much research and wrote these helpful articles:

• Religion: The Occult Connection - Part One
• Religion: The Occult Connection - Part Two

“Now you listen to me folks! We're living in a world of compromising Christianity. I call it—'The yuppie generation building yuppie churches!' Brother, we need the old-time Gospel, the old-time religion, the faith of our fathers, and the standards that America used to have!” —Pastor Jack Hyles, “She Sojourned Seven Years”