F “ OR IN him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. “And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:9, 10). The E p is tle to the Colossians, strange as it might seem, was writ ten to bring to a halt a great reli gious revival. Like all religious re vivals, this one had Satan as its leader. I make a clear distinction between religion and Christianity. Christ is the Founder and Head of Christianity. Satan is the founder and head of all religion. There is a marked difference between these two systems. The Devil is a very religious per son. The fall of Lucifer, whereby he became the Devil, was the result of his attempt to dethrone God and en throne himself (Isa. 14:13, 14). Why did the angel Lucifer want to be like God? He wanted to be worshipped. This is brought out clearly in the testing of Christ in the wilderness (Matt. 4:8, 9). This worship of men’s hea rts, which Satan seeks, will reach its zenith in the Tribulation after the true Church has been caught up from the earth to Heaven. At that time the whole inhabited earth, whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life, will worship the Devil (Rev. 13:4, 8, 15). In the meantime, Satan keeps ac tive in the realm of religion. His pro gram never lags, he, whom our Lord called “the prince of this world” (John 14:30; 16:11). Satan’s method of blinding men to the truth is by means of a syncret ism,. The dictionary defines a syn cretism as a union of conflicting re ligious beliefs. It is a movement to unite different religions by seeking
some common ground for coalescence. In the city of Colosse, in Asia Minor, Satan instigated and inspired a phi losophy called Gnosticism. I t was a syncretism made up of Judaistic legalism, Roman paganism, Hellenis tic philosophy, and the vocabulary of Christianity. Mark well, I did not say “Christianity,” but merely the vocabulary of Christianity. By in jecting a little of the right vocabu lary, Satan’s victims fell an easy prey to his new religion. The intel lectual pride of the Gnostics had watered down the pure Gospel of re demption through Christ into a phi losophy. This group, by flaunting its new intellectualism and “science falsely so called” (I Tim. 6:20), led the less educated ones to believe that their neo-gnosticism possessed a su perior knowledge (Col. 2:4, 8). Now who might turn from the re-
The 1966-67 Biola Quartet sings together for their final performance. The youngmen trav elled across the United States and appeared in Bible Conferences and church services for the school for two years. From left to right are Richard Buhler, Rolland Gangsfee, Lyle Jacobson, and Jim Reub. Seated in frontare Dr. Ray A. Myers, Biola Board Chairman, and his daughterMrs. Frances Simonson.
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