Why is religion so successful? One reason is, Satan knows this, there is a powerful urge within most people to belong to a group, the larger the better, because if enough people believe something, if enough people follow someone, the crowd can't be wrong, can it? Think on this - Satan is so persuasive he convinced one third of the angels in heaven to join with him in rebellion against God. These are beings who dwelt in Heaven, beholding God in His eternal glory, turning from Him and deciding Satan was more glorious. He persuaded Eve (who in turn persuaded Adam) to disobey God, to turn away from Him and he is still persuading multitudes today to follow him in rebellion to God by using God's own word and God's own name. He appropriates them for his own personal gain and agenda. Hmmm...reminds me of some preachers i know!
Satan knows how much people need to be accepted, he knows our deep need to be loved (we were created by and for, love), if we can't get a healthy form of love from a healthy source, we'll turn to any kind of attention just to feel that we're important to someone, that we're needed and loved - even if the love we're shown is a false form of love....looking good on the outside but with no real substance to it. This is why gangs thrive. Most gang members come from broken homes, single parent homes or grandparent homes. This is what our pop culture is all about - following cultural icons with millions of others fulfills this deep need inside us.
It's much easier (socially) to belong to a group than to be an outcast, alone, shunned, unwanted and abandoned. Cults thrive on this - preying on the lonely, the least, those who don't fit in with the rest of society. Jesus told us to "ENTER YE IN AT THE STRAIT (narrow) GATE: FOR WIDE IS THE GATE, AND BROAD IS THE WAY, THAT LEADETH TO DESTRUCTION, AND MANY THERE BE THAT GO IN THEREAT: (this broad gate is religion, a false form of Christianity millions choose to follow) BECAUSE STRAIT IS THE GATE, AND NARROW IS THE WAY, WHICH LEADETH UNTO LIFE, AND FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT".
The simple fact is the crowds are usually wrong. All through scripture, every prominent figure had their own wilderness experience - they each learned how to draw apart from people, from the crowds, and draw near to God. This way, when they did return to the crowds, they weren't swayed by them. They did not give in to the temptation to follow with the crowds or have the crowds follow them. When they went to the cities, their hearts had been captured, enraptured by God, so the crowds did not sway them, no, they swayed the crowds. Abraham gave Lot a choice - go anywhere you want, I'll go in the opposite direction. Lot chose to draw near to the cities, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and ended up living in Sodom, surrounded by sodomy, and it cost him all he had along with his wife's life and his daughter's souls.
Abraham stayed in the wilderness. Moses fled to the wilderness and found God in a burning bush. And where did he lead God's people after they fled Egypt, with it's grand and glorious cities, like he had done years before? Right back to the wilderness he had come to love, where he had encountered his burning, passionate God, years before - now intensely desiring his people to encounter him as well, in the same way. Would to God all God's people were prophets!
David fled to the wilderness from his personal Pharaoh, Saul, and long before that he'd come to know his God as a protector of the weak and helpless, by tending to his father's sheep. As king later, he would be tasked with tending to his Heavenly Father's sheep.
Paul spent fourteen years in the desert, unlearning religion, purging himself of all it's ill effects and learning the ways of his true father, the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself had an abbreviated wilderness experience - 40 days, one day for every year his people had spent there. He too was tempted by Satan with the same temptations they had faced in the desert, but of course our Lord did not succumb. But when he says he knows what it's like to face the same temptations we are faced with, believe him! From then on, Jesus would periodically withdraw from the crowds, even from his own heart-picked disciples, to go back to the wilderness to be alone with his Father. It was a crowd that killed Jesus. It was the same crowd that Peter denied Christ to. Crowds will blindly follow one another to Hell, drowning any voice or opinion that they don't agree with, with their discordant noise. Cities are just large crowds and nations form the biggest crowds of all, but as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man returns. All the nations with all their cities, full of crowds, full of the majority of people on earth, all perished in the flood of God's judgment on their wickedness. So shall it be, so it is, today. The crowds will be eating and drinking (attending to their fleshly lusts and desires), marrying and partying when sudden destruction will come upon them. As they celebrate and mock God's chosen, his anointed, the Samson's of our age will rise up and destroy their houses of idolatry, built upon shifting sand. Remember this - God always gets the last laugh. It may seem as if Satan has triumphed but he is far from triumphant. His kingdom shall be shown for what it truly is - a farce, a kingdom that CAN BE SHAKEN, a house of cards, built on lies that will not last as the Day of Judgment of our God finally dawns. Light trumps darkness every time. One whisper from God can drown out all the shouts of the enemy - till all that remains is all that belongs to, willingly, our loving Savior and Lord, Jesus, our Christ. All the Father has given him will remain while all others will perish. It's a hard word to bear, this burden of Babylon, but bear it I must. Selah.
Satan knows how much people need to be accepted, he knows our deep need to be loved (we were created by and for, love), if we can't get a healthy form of love from a healthy source, we'll turn to any kind of attention just to feel that we're important to someone, that we're needed and loved - even if the love we're shown is a false form of love....looking good on the outside but with no real substance to it. This is why gangs thrive. Most gang members come from broken homes, single parent homes or grandparent homes. This is what our pop culture is all about - following cultural icons with millions of others fulfills this deep need inside us.
It's much easier (socially) to belong to a group than to be an outcast, alone, shunned, unwanted and abandoned. Cults thrive on this - preying on the lonely, the least, those who don't fit in with the rest of society. Jesus told us to "ENTER YE IN AT THE STRAIT (narrow) GATE: FOR WIDE IS THE GATE, AND BROAD IS THE WAY, THAT LEADETH TO DESTRUCTION, AND MANY THERE BE THAT GO IN THEREAT: (this broad gate is religion, a false form of Christianity millions choose to follow) BECAUSE STRAIT IS THE GATE, AND NARROW IS THE WAY, WHICH LEADETH UNTO LIFE, AND FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT".
The simple fact is the crowds are usually wrong. All through scripture, every prominent figure had their own wilderness experience - they each learned how to draw apart from people, from the crowds, and draw near to God. This way, when they did return to the crowds, they weren't swayed by them. They did not give in to the temptation to follow with the crowds or have the crowds follow them. When they went to the cities, their hearts had been captured, enraptured by God, so the crowds did not sway them, no, they swayed the crowds. Abraham gave Lot a choice - go anywhere you want, I'll go in the opposite direction. Lot chose to draw near to the cities, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and ended up living in Sodom, surrounded by sodomy, and it cost him all he had along with his wife's life and his daughter's souls.
Abraham stayed in the wilderness. Moses fled to the wilderness and found God in a burning bush. And where did he lead God's people after they fled Egypt, with it's grand and glorious cities, like he had done years before? Right back to the wilderness he had come to love, where he had encountered his burning, passionate God, years before - now intensely desiring his people to encounter him as well, in the same way. Would to God all God's people were prophets!
David fled to the wilderness from his personal Pharaoh, Saul, and long before that he'd come to know his God as a protector of the weak and helpless, by tending to his father's sheep. As king later, he would be tasked with tending to his Heavenly Father's sheep.
Paul spent fourteen years in the desert, unlearning religion, purging himself of all it's ill effects and learning the ways of his true father, the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself had an abbreviated wilderness experience - 40 days, one day for every year his people had spent there. He too was tempted by Satan with the same temptations they had faced in the desert, but of course our Lord did not succumb. But when he says he knows what it's like to face the same temptations we are faced with, believe him! From then on, Jesus would periodically withdraw from the crowds, even from his own heart-picked disciples, to go back to the wilderness to be alone with his Father. It was a crowd that killed Jesus. It was the same crowd that Peter denied Christ to. Crowds will blindly follow one another to Hell, drowning any voice or opinion that they don't agree with, with their discordant noise. Cities are just large crowds and nations form the biggest crowds of all, but as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man returns. All the nations with all their cities, full of crowds, full of the majority of people on earth, all perished in the flood of God's judgment on their wickedness. So shall it be, so it is, today. The crowds will be eating and drinking (attending to their fleshly lusts and desires), marrying and partying when sudden destruction will come upon them. As they celebrate and mock God's chosen, his anointed, the Samson's of our age will rise up and destroy their houses of idolatry, built upon shifting sand. Remember this - God always gets the last laugh. It may seem as if Satan has triumphed but he is far from triumphant. His kingdom shall be shown for what it truly is - a farce, a kingdom that CAN BE SHAKEN, a house of cards, built on lies that will not last as the Day of Judgment of our God finally dawns. Light trumps darkness every time. One whisper from God can drown out all the shouts of the enemy - till all that remains is all that belongs to, willingly, our loving Savior and Lord, Jesus, our Christ. All the Father has given him will remain while all others will perish. It's a hard word to bear, this burden of Babylon, but bear it I must. Selah.
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