Religious Pretenders:
Lessons From an Ancient King Scammers steal money, information and identity with lies and false promises. And religion is not immune. by Steve Myers
Providence Collection/Goodsalt.com
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ould you fall for a fake? Scammers are everywhere, trying to steal your money, seeking your personal information, making all kinds of false promises. And religion is not immune. Could you be taken in? The ultimate deceiver is Satan the devil, the greatest con artist of all who “deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). This most accomplished pretender and counterfeiter zeroes in on attacking religion, but maybe not in the way you’d think. He uses corrupt religion to mock God and destroy lives. Over the ages, he’s convinced billions of people to worship the sun, or astrology, or animals or even deceased ancestors. Sometimes it’s to embrace atheism, which is in itself another form of false worship. And not only that, but Satan is even behind the many varieties of traditional Christianity. Adherents are divided, arguing over who and what God is, God’s purpose, and how He wants us to worship and to live our lives. Jesus warned, “There shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). The mention of false Christs and prophets points to the fact that the devil has assembled a multitude of human assistants—false teachers serving the devil’s purposes, usually unwittingly but sometimes as outright pretenders. The apostle Paul wrote: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). So we must watch out and be on guard. There are many false teachers proclaiming popular and traditional ideas that are false. The fact is, misguided teachers are among Satan’s most influential tools of deception. So have your religious leaders fallen for the devil’s scam? Has true belief been corrupted by Satan? After all, how can you spot a religious pretender? Religious innovation to maintain control Turning to biblical history, let’s consider what happened shortly after the reign of King David’s son Solomon when
Jeroboam set Israel on a fateful path when he replaced worship of the true God with pagan practices such as worship of a golden calf.
the Promised Land was divided in two—with the kingdom of Judah in the south under Solomon’s son Rehoboam and the northern tribes forming the kingdom of Israel in the north under a man named Jeroboam. The devil used this opportunity to set up a big counterfeit. God Himself appointed Jeroboam as king in the north, telling him: “If you heed all that I command you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house [or dynasty], as I built for David, and will give Israel to you” (1 Kings 11:38). Those instructions are how not to be a pretender. But Jeroboam became concerned the people’s loyalty would shift in continuing to attend God’s festivals in the south, thinking, “If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back . . . and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam king of Judah” (1 Kings 12:27). Instead of trusting God, Jeroboam worried he was going B Tm a g a z i n e . o r g
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