7/28/2019 Satans Great Deception
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Satan's Great Deceptionby Dr. C. Paul Meredith
Did you know that ancient pagan beliefs and practices in many
ways bore a striking resemblance to the beliefs and practices
taught and followed by Christ andthe apostles? This is the very
reason for the most amazing and least realized fact of all, which
is easily seen by reading through the New Testament, that
theteachings and practices of Jesus and the apostles in the
original true Church are not the same as we see in today's
churches! This CHANGE was due to the paradoxical fact of the
astonishing resemblance between ancient pagan beliefs and
thoseenunciated by Jesus!Paganism Resembled Truth
The false often appears as true. It is made to resemble the
genuine. Edward Carpenter, in Pagan and Christian Creeds, p. 25,
says: "The similarity of ancientpagan legends and beliefs with
Christian traditions was so great that they excited the attention
and undisguised wrath of the early Christian . . . not knowinghow
to explain it, they fell back to the theory the devil, centuries
before, caused the pagans to adopt certain beliefs and
practices."
He also quotes Tertullian, one of the early church fathers
living between A.D. 160 and 220, as saying, "The devil, by the
mysteries of his idols, imitates even the main part of the divine
mysteries." Furthermore he says, "Cortez, too, co
mplained that the devil had possibly taught the Mexicans the
same things that God taught Christiandom."Since the practices of
today's churches are not the same as the early true Ch
urch recorded in the New Testament, it is vital to know if there
has been a purposeful mixing of the false practices of paganism
with the true teachings of Christ, the apostles, and the Bible.
Many writers of history, including Edward Gibbon in his Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1, chap. 15, state that there
has been a change brought about by great numbers of pagans flocking
into the early Christian Church and mixing their similar pagan
customs and beliefs with those of the true Church.
The important question, then, is this: As the churches are
teaching beliefs and customs not commanded by God and which,
although similar, do not really leadto our placing ourselves as
obedient servants to Him -- being ruled over by Him
now so that we may be eligible to obtain eternal life -- it is
vital that we know it, so that we may return from the counterfeit
to the right way.>STIGAO DOVDE
