Religion: The Enemy’s Ace

Satan is the father of all religions. He loves religion and religious people and uses both to further his deception of men and nations.

"Religion" from the Greek threskeia, is used very few times in the New Testament, always in contexts having to do with things external or ceremonial Threskos, "religious," means "careful of the externals of divine service." But nowhere does the Bible suggest that any amount of care in the externals of divine service can make a person acceptable to God, either before or after salvation.

Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Entry into Christianity is based solely on the work of Christ on the cross, accepted by faith. Growth and production in the Christian life are based solely on the work of Christ on the cross, accepted by faith. Christianity is a total grace operation. Man can neither earn nor deserve anything from God. But in grace, God does the work, God gets the credit, and man gets the blessing. This is not a plan that man would have devised.

Christianity is not to anyone’s natural liking. Because it is absoute, there is no place for dialogue in Christianity. It declares the way to life to be very narrow. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," Jesus said, "no one comes to the Father but through Me" (Joh 14:6). No man was ever more narrow-minded than Jesus.

Satan, on the other hand, is very broad-minded. He fosters an infinite variety of religions, but they all have one thing in common: they depend on man, not God. Within Christian churches Satan works to promote the same perversion of the Word and independence from God.

The Bible tells us that the enemy has his own system of counterfeits including a false gospel (2Co 4:3-4) with a counterfeit Jesus who is not the Jesus of the Bible; false doctrine (1Ti 4:1); false ministers who tell people what they like to hear (2Co 11:13-15); a false communion (1Co 10:19-21); false spirituality, not by grace but by what people do and do not do (Gal 3:2-3; Col 2:20-23); false definitions of good and evil, promoting social action and the neglect of divine institutions (Col 2:8); and false power (2Th 2:8-10).

As the day of his destruction draws nearer, Satan steps up his deceptive activity. The Bible lists at least nine denials that he will foster in the last days:

  1. The denial of God (Luk 17:26; 2Ti 3:4-5)
  2. The denial of Christ (1Jo 2:18-23, 1Jo 4:3; 2Pe 2:1)
  3. The denial of Christ’s return (2Pe 3:1-4)
  4. The denial of the faith (1Ti 4:1-2; Jud 1:3)
  5. The denial of sound doctrine (2Ti 4:3-4)
  6. The denial of biblical separation (2Ti 3:1-7)
  7. The denial of Christian liberty (1Ti 4:1-4)
  8. The denial of true spirituality (2Ti 3:1-8; Jud 1:18)
  9. The denial of spiritual authority (1Ti 4:13; 2Ti 4:3)

  

This material was originally a highlighted topic in "The Basics".



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