In a world of confusion and devastation, nothing has ever reached the realms of destruction for the creation of God, called man, like the Roman Catholic Church. Satan has marshaled his forces, fighting against the Almighty through her offices and officers in an effort to damn the creation of God unlike anything in the history of mankind. The far reaching destruction wrought in her began with the true Church of Christ not a decade after her founding in the city of Jerusalem and has continued until the present time. The deepest recesses of Hell glory in her destruction and the writhing and anguish of the spirit of all men caught in her web can only show her in the depths of her rebellion to the Christ whom she adamantly abhors!! There is nothing that has matched her quench for the souls of men and the overtaking of the place of Christ in the government of men. She truly is the greatest enemy among men of man. There has never been anything she would or would not do to reach her goals in the path of destruction she began in the first century. There are many references to her in the Word of God which we will discover as she, like her master, Satan, began in deceit and disguise to take from the glorious Savior of mankind that which He gave His life to purchase, His Church. “These are the true sayings of God,” Revelation 19:9
We see her beginnings not long after Christ had sent the Holy Spirit from heaven to bring the means of salvation to mankind. To the Jewish people, by ancestry, Satan had begun an orchestrated effort working among their civil leaders to follow a pattern of control and devastation before the Church of Christ began. Hearing the gospel and seeing its far reaching effects on the existing Law under which they had previously been in bondage, the first refusal to the authority of Christ, given to His apostles who spoke and wrote by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was circumcision. As an identifier of all Judaism, from which Christ had separated Himself because of disobedience, circumcision was the first place they put their strength. It is not as though they had excuse in this rebellion, Christ had left a means for correction and instruction, reason and defense which would teach any who were worthy of His fellowship that physical circumcision could never be a part of the doctrine of Christ. Circumcision, in the physical sense, is and was, the true “mark of the beast” as mentioned in Revelation 13:14-18 The “beast” was always the government as named in prophecy since the visions of Daniel. The government of the Jews “marked“” its sons by physical circumcision on the eighth day after birth, kept in record by the Levitical priesthood, as their names were written as God’s separated. Satan, the master of deceit, played his role. What had made Israel as a nation, separated to Christ, was demanded, was brought back in as a tenant of salvation and without making it known as such, allowed it to be. They began to preach the doctrine of physical circumcision as a demand on all Gentiles who had come into the liberty of Christ. When the apostle Peter got home from Cornelius house, they jumped on him, demanding “their” pedigree be defended. Acts 11:1-18 Peter could not withstand their doctrine, it had not been revealed by the Holy Spirit what position the Church of Christ would take on this issue. It awaited the great debater and defender of the faith, Paul, to wage this war. The meeting at Jerusalem, by the commandment of the Holy Spirit, was called.
Satan has always used someone or something in the flesh as his “workers of iniquity.” Eve led Adam to his separation from God, Cain killed Abel, and on and on. So Satan picked the greatest power with access and opportunity to the saints of the first century to begin the destruction which would end up as the Roman Catholic Church. Unfortunately, Satan used one who was innocent yet beguiled, Simon Peter. He always chose someone with enough influence to put the “seed” and His children, so that by deceit, back into spiritual death. The battle of the Garden still rages!! The Church of Christ was the picture of glory. The King was on His throne, bondage to sin had ceased, and for the first time since Adam, all we who had lived before our Creator were in fellowship with Deity!! The “father of sin” and his “man of sin” were on attack and would never retreat until the sublime and glorious Body of Christ would be severed and Christ divided. The forces of Satan fawned “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves in the apostles of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 11:12-15
