Since the time of Babel there have been prideful self-righteous religious people influencing the world that think they should be honored and set above the rest of humanity. They claim to be enlightened people who speak for God and like to be called prophet, priest, reverend or some other exalted title for “holy men”. They pretend to be people enlightened by God but many of these religious leaders are actually megalomaniacs doing the work of Satan.
We see these religious examples many times in the Old Testament opposing the true prophets and anointed leadership that God raised up. When the Messiah came to Israel, it was the Jewish religious leaders that rejected Him and opposed Him. Jesus called the religious high priests of Judaism a brood of vipers and sons of their father the Devil (John 8:44).
There should be little doubt that by the time that Jesus made his appearance to the Jews that the Jewish priesthood was ruled by the satanic elite. We can argue if these men allowed themselves to be deceived by Satan, or if they were born to be the vessels of Satan, but in either case most in the priesthood were self-righteous religious leaders obsessed with keeping up outward appearances. The religious leaders did not keep God’s standards themselves but they looked down on everyone else that did not meet their own man-made standards.
The only condemnation from Jesus during His ministry on earth was against these religious leaders. He equated the ruling religious leaders of Israel with the rebels preceding them that opposed and killed the prophets. Jesus said they were sons of the Devil. Jesus had no delusion that these religious leaders would see the light standing before them. He knew that they would literally crucify Him.
Paul warned us that wolves would also come into the Church and lead many astray (Acts 20 29-31). We see how that played out over two thousand years of Christendom’s history. Nothing has changed today except the wolves are now worldwide and in positions of power in most religious institutions. They also dominate modern media.
Many religious leaders within Christendom are doing the work of the Devil. Some are megalomaniac control freaks that drive people out or put them in bondage. Others drive the gospel of salvation out of the institution that they lead. Still others lead the sheep down paths of destruction.
I am convinced that the greatest harm to the gospel of salvation of grace through faith in Jesus comes from hirelings and religious zealots that gain Christian leadership positions. Paul warned us that these wolves would come. We not only can see their evil influence throughout Church history we can see their evil influence nearly everywhere in Christendom Today.
God for His own purposes gives certain people authority to rule over others in the flesh. However, the satanic elite that reach the highest levels in religious institutions are empowered by Satan in his attempt to destroy men’s souls. That is why Jesus had condemnation for religious leaders but did not have any condemnation for state secular leaders. The religious leaders of Israel would not only not come to salvation themselves, they tried to prevent the people of Israel from finding salvation through the way that God provided.
Throughout Church history we see how the religious hierarchy within attacked and corrupted the Christian salvation message that they claimed to promote by adding traditions of men and doctrine of demons to the gospel of grace through faith in Jesus.
They replaced God’s atoning sacrifice for sin and the resurrection power of a risen Lord with earned brownie points and satanic religious dogma that nullified God’s finished work for atonement of sin on the cross. In other words, they replaced God’s righteous work to save mankind from his fallen fleshly sin nature, with man’s own self-righteous efforts to try to restore paradise lost through self-righteousness.
There has been only one spiritual Church on earth since Pentecost. The religious wolves worked within the visible church gatherings, their institutions and media. The satanic wolves rose among the sheep and they created a religious hierarchy within visible church institutions. They then lorded over Christians, oppressed them, lied to them, and even killed those that would not submit to their heresy and rule. Read the history of the Roman Catholic Church and you will see how much of this played out in Church history (A Woman Rides the Beast, by Dave Hunt is one book that outlines some of the wretched history of the Roman Catholic Church).
Religious leaders in the world, more than ever, are still the major hindrance to getting the simple gospel of salvation out to the people.
The Roman Catholic Church is not physically killing people today, but Catholic leaders are still the major hindrance to Catholic people ever finding salvation for their souls. Salvation comes via grace through faith in Jesus Christ, period.
Salvation does not come by good works, earning brownie points, or following any ordinance, decree, or ritual instituted by religious leaders at the Vatican or anywhere else. The Roman Church traveled the whole world seeking converts to Christ, but along the way the satanic elite replaced the gospel of salvation through trusting in Jesus Christ alone with a Babylonian influenced satanic theocratic system and self-effort system that saves no one. (I am not saying that there are no Catholics that are saved.)
Islam came from a bastardization of Christianity by Muhammad or whomever invented his legend and sayings. The religious leaders of Islam are now the ones promoting killing people in the name of a Creator that they cannot even know (The Creator is only revealed through His son Jesus). Many of these religious leaders are making the modern world into a hell hole and its going to get a lot worse.
The religious leaders of Islam will not allow the only gospel given through which people must be saved to even be taught in the land where they rule. Sharia Law was thought up by religious control freaks to keep everyone under their submission.
Many of the religious leaders of Protestantism corrupted the gospel of salvation by buying into the satanic teachings of atheist philosophers that taught humanism. There is hardly a mainstream denomination or church that has not been corrupted by their philosophies and psychologies. Most leaders in liberal Protestantism no longer believe the Bible is uniquely the word of God, so why would they believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation as the Bible teaches? Most of these satanically influenced religious leaders just believe and teach what fits their own humanistic worldview.
Satan now is working through many of the religious leaders of the remaining Bible believing churches. Evangelicals and Pentecostals are rapidly falling for some postmodern more relevant gospel of living your best life now, or how to find God within yourself by whatever works for you. They teach a Christianity where you just create the Lord you want in your own mind.
Other religious wolves among the Charismatics are controlling people by claiming spiritual powers that they do not have and teaching a neo-Gnostic Dominion Theology that the Bible does not teach.
I suggest that Christians get a book like Religious Trojan Horse, by Brannon Howse to get a better understand of what is going on in contemporary Christianity.
Don’t be deceived. Jesus, Paul and Jude made it quite clear that the enemy of the gospel would come mainly via false teachers and wolves in sheep’s clothing hidden among confessing believers. The main enemy of God and His work on the cross is the religious leaders that are hindering the clear gospel message of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. Many are teaching a path to God that may seem right to many but the end there of leads to death (Pr 14:12).
Editor note: This is an edited version of an article on my old blog. It was Posted on Jul 13, 2013
Timely and good article Don. Some time ago, I read Dr Thomas Ice study articles http://www.raptureready.com/thomas-ice/ on the Rapture Ready site. “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel” parts V and VI on the list analyze the seventy weeks and the timing of the arrival of the Messiah in Israel. The Jewish religious leaders would have known exactly to day of Christ’s arrival. The only two excuses that I can come up with are that they did not want to lose their control, as they would have had they recognized the Messiah or that they refused to believe the words of their scripture. Sadly, you are correct in that the modern “religious” leaders are doing to their followers. They lead them down their paths to support themselves rather than Christ. They do so, I think, because they like their own position above submitting to Christ or that they truly do not believe the scripture. Very sadly, despite the fact that they should know that we are currently in the end game, because of the signs of the times, they are leading many people down the wrong path.
BTW, I hate putting links as references on your blog, because it IS your blog. Should you not feel them appropriate, please delete as needed.
In Matthew 7:15-23 Jesus told us about the wolves that would come in. Grapes produce grapes not oranges. They preach another gospel. Jesus goes on to say that not every one who calls Him Lord will enter the kingdom.
So, what do these wolves preach? Lord lord, what about all my good works. Why we even cast out demons in your name and did many wonderful works. But Jesus says, depart from me ye that word iniquity, I never knew you. Not I did know you and now I don’t, I never knew you.
If we back up to verse 21 Jesus tells us why. They did not do the will of God. What is the will of God? John 6:40 And this is the will of Him who sent me, that all that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, (grace) it is the GIFT of God, not of WORKS, lest any man should boast.
Romans 11:6 It is all grace, (what Jesus did for us) not by works, (what we do or do not do) if it was by works it would no longer be grace. It can not be both. Romans 4:5 But to the one that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, (all of us) his faith in counted for righteousness.
But Satan has devised so many other ways for us to miss salvation by faith alone, and so they are taught in our churches as another gospel.
Repenting of sin saves no one. Turning from sin to god save no one Inviting Jesus into your heart saves no one. Giving up your bad habits and changing your life does not save you.
First Corinthians 15:1-4 is the gospel. That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that He was buried and rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures. If you believe He did it for you, you are saved and have eternal life. Jesus plus nothing = salvation by grace.
Galatians 1:8-9 Though we or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which you have received, let him be accursed.
Where do you hear the gospel preached? Very few churches. They preach a salvation by works that saves no one. We can only be saved by what Jesus did for us when He paid the penalty for all our sin, so that we would not have to go to hell to pay for them.
When we trust Jesus alone by faith alone, we are given His righteousness, and our sins can no longer be imputed to our account. Romans 4:1-8 AMAZING GRACE.
We are all sinners, but Jesus paid for them all. Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
First John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know ye have eternal life.
John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
It is only Jesus blood sacrifice that covers us from all sin that saves us sinners. And we at all sinners. We are saved the minute we trust Jesus as the only way to be saved.
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me, will come to me, and ALL that come to me I will in no wise cast out. John 6:39 Jesus has never lost one.
Second Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Bible repentance is the Greek word metanoia, which means to change your mind and believe the gospel to be saved. John 3:16 says, WHOSOEVER, anybody, will not perish but HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE. AMAZING GRACE. No works for salvation which is all grace.
Excellent article, Don.
Several years ago I was a regular attendee at a ladies’ Bible study run by the church at which we fellowshipped. One day a lady, a fairly new Christian, started getting upset because of world events at the time. She was worried about what was going to happen. I tried to offer her comfort by saying we would not be here for the worst of the end times (alluding to the rapture) but was cut off by the leader loudly calling everyone to attention.
The leader then announced to the group that the faith of this particular denomination was based on three things, Scripture, logic and tradition, like a three-legged stool. She went on to say that all three legs needed to be in balance and that there were “extremists” (her actual word) in the churches that took the Bible too seriously and that these extremists were dangerous and were not wanted in the church.
I sat there a bit surprised, wondering if she was referring to me, but I did not want to ask in a group situation so I questioned her the next Sunday at church.
She reluctantly admitted she was talking about me, made reference to my views on Creation (literal 6 days) and then said to me, “how do we even know Adam and Eve really existed?”
To say I was stunned would be an understatement.
I realised then that calling Genesis a “myth” and embracing theistic evolution (as so many liberal ministers do) was much more than a side-issue. No Adam and Eve, no fall. No fall, no need for a Saviour so why did Jesus even bother?
I stopped attending the Bible study and we later left the church when a new minister arrived who was steeped in modern theological training, replete with replacement theology, et al.
Your article is spot on. I have studied evil extensively. what I found is exactly what is written in the Bible. There is a core group of our population, about %1 that have embraced the evil ideologies of satan. It is passed on through generations through father son and mother daughter. It’s has been going on since the beginning. I also found that very high level satanists enjoy two professions where they can manipulate and deceive. These are pastors in churches and psychologists. Another thing I have found is that these evil individuals have a large following in academia. In one book I read, Paint it Black. Half the individuals being initiated into the Church of satan had PHD level education. we are not dealing with stupid people. There is not much time left. They are messing with the genome and have been for years. One individual I found that was a high priest in a satanic cult had a phd in biochemistry.
like our current pope is obviously a wolf deceiving the masses
“(I am not saying that there are no Catholics that are saved.)”
I really need some help with this. One side of my family (wife’s side) is staunchly Roman Catholic. Many are old, and have been in the Catholic Church their entire lives. It’s literally who they are. It is part of their identity. I don’t understand how a Roman Catholic can be saved, when the Church teaches praying to saints and Mary, and have large statues (to me, idols) in their Churches. How can these people be saved when the believe in Jesus AND that you need all the other stuff too? How can they be saved when their Church teaches (and they believe) that communion is literally Jesus blood and body? How can they stay in a Church that homosexuality and pedophilia is not only epidemic, but endemic? How are they saved when they believe as their church teaches that they must work for their place in heaven? How can they be saved when they thought that my wife was going to hell because she left Catholicism? And especially when she married me (a Christian who was never Catholic)? If some are saved, does that mean I can be a Catholic and be saved too? And we all know the theological issues with Catholicism like forbidding priests to marry etc.
I struggle with this. Some are very old and not too far from death. Do I need to reach them, or are they as you say here, saved? Do I reach out the the younger ones and tell them?
Many have turned from Catholicism (my wife among them) and are indeed saved. Did they not need to?
All we do, at this point is HOPE that you can be saved and still believe all the Catholic Church teaches, and is. And I think that my wife knows that if she could be saved and be a Catholic, she’s still be one. Again, these are honest questions that I and my wife struggle with.
My husband has just converted from atheism to Greek Orthodoxy (after an initial interest in Roman Catholicism) a few months ago. I have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus for nine years now and couldn’t help but think of the particular trial I am going through. It is even more complicated now that he is indoctrinating and brainwashing himself with their religious propaganda. He was more open to the true gospel as an atheist than he is now as a false convert. He loves the traditions and rituals of the false church and believes I am deceived into thinking that eternal life comes through faith in Christ alone. It is VERY discouraging at times, but I know the Lord loves him even more than I do and desires him to humble himself and repent and believe in Christ alone for salvation.
Hi Dave,
If Catholics actually believed what you mention, it would because they are not saved. I give Catholics the benefit of the doubt because not all Catholics believe that salvation comes through keeping the dogma of the Roman Church. They certainly are not a large number.
A prime example is Martin Luther. He was a Catholic. Was he saved before he left the Roman church or did he get saved after he left? He actually got saved when he believed the gospel of salvation. He did not get that from Rome he got it from the Bible. Anyone can hear and believe.
So why do believers stay in the Catholic Church? Maybe for the same reason that Protestant believers send their kids to public schools. They are deceived, brainwashed and foolish.
don
it could also be because of lack of knowledge or like u said cuz we are foolish. im a catholic but do i really know what im saying right now? my whole family are roman catholics but we all believe in the salvation from jesus and that he died on the cross for us. So does it even matter if im a catholic or a christian? i’m obviously learning from you don and trying to make sense of all this but my family is not buying it they keep saying we are catholics. i dont think religion is a big deal if you believe that jesus is our god and our hope for eternal life.
Hi 126cardnal,
The crux of the matter is did Jesus save you Catholics because you believed He paid for your sins on the cross and rose from the dead, or will you maybe someday be saved if you obey the dogma of the Roman church and live a decent life? On the one hand you believed and were saved and have the Holy Spirit as evidence, but on the other hand you are none of His, all you have is religion.
As for your family, being Catholic saves no one. Keeping tradition also saves no one. You must believe in the Savior that God sent. The Christ recorded in scripture that the prophets and apostles wrote about, not the Catholic counterfeit Jesus that adds man-made doctrine and your own compliance to it for salvation.
the lack of knowledge is our biggest enemy, alot of catholics have no idea whats happening in the catholic church or that even mad-made doctrines are being added, i actually found out about all of this from reading your articles. (I’v seen people kneel down on their knees and pray to mary when i went on vacation to croatia and iv heard stories how mary appeared to people in medjugorje where the statue is…) and so many other catholics are falling for this nonsense we call a catholic pope, he is such a joke. As for me im a 100% believer that jesus paid for my sins on the cross and rose from the dead. Its obvious to me by now that the pope is a fake simply by saying some anti-christ stuff recently and they even found priests who were molesting boys in the vatican! do i need to say anything else about the vatican lol thnx for sharing ur knowledge don.
Hi 126 Cardinal,
If you want to help other Catholics see the light, then I would suggest finding a good apologetics website that focuses on reaching Catholics. I used to know one, but recently, the guy went off the reservation. Apologetics index might help point you in the right direction. Also, cult apologetics sites too could turn up resources helpful in reaching others. Here is a link to get you started. It’s the main resource page on Catholicism.
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c16.html
This link to the home page:
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/
thnx david ill look into it