188 The Fundamentals Israel in the outward fulfilling of the law! The Lord’s strong words make it appear that Satan’s invisible “church” is filled with those who make religion a cloak while they are really his subjects. satan ^ s doctrines The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy that the Holy Spirit had expressly told him that in the latter days the adversary would seek to draw many away from the faith by the teaching of spirits inculcating “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4 :1 , m.). So that Satan has “doctrines” as well as system of worship—a “cup,” a “table,” and a “synagogue!” Paul said that the teaching would be given through men who would profess to be what they were not, and whose consciences would be seared as with a hot iron. These “teachings of demons,” through false teachers acting under their control, had already begun in the first century, and seducing spirits were evidently at work in the church at Thyatira drawing servants of God from their Lord through the “deep things of Satan” (Rev. 2 :24 ). One calling her self a prophetess was leading souls astray, teaching them to “eat things sacrificed to idols.” The Lord’s complaint was that the church suffered these things to be in its midst— things upon which He pronounced the most awful warning of certain judgment. Satan’s religion has always one clearly defined mark in the omission of the Gospel o f Calvary. And by this test all “gospels” that are not the Gospel may be recognized! The atoning death of the Son of God; His propitiation for sin; His blotting out of sin; His deliverance from the power of sin by the severing power of the Cross; His call of the blood-redeemed soul to the Cross in humiliation of self, and sacrifice for others—in brief, all that Calvary means, is emphatically repudiated, or else always carefully omitted, in the doctrines of the seducing spirits which are evolved in hell! Let everyone thus test the tenets of The-
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