How can so many false religions continue?

[gdemoss]

There is but one true living God.

How is it that so many false religions and false views of God continue to exist without being brought into subjection to the true?

I do not have the complete answer and look forward to hearing your responses but I do have a better answer than when I first began to try to understand God.

I understand that God is God and does not change.

From this point on my arguments will begin to break down because nothing compares to God but I have to have a frame of reference to work from so poor comparisons through illistrations must suffice.

A rock is a rock is a rock. A rock has properties that allow us to interact with it. Unlike God we can change a rock so here it breaks down but let us suppose that for the sake of the illustration that we cannot.

So we can do all kinds of things concerning this rock provided we don't disturb the rock and cause it to fall upon us and break us into pieces.

God has properties or attributes if you will such as mercy, grace and patience that seem to provide a framework for principalities and powers, rulers in high places to author and build whole religions around so that those following the false religion have freedom to move within set boundaries that allows them to live their lives in error without ever crossing the line too far and being destroyed by the one true God.

In other words there is enough truth in them to sustain them. But like a chess game it is only a matter of time until tge one true God will position his pieces to eliminate all error.

God is good. And really patient!

[other one]

He's not going to do it by moving anything around, he's coming in person to do it violently and to just destroy the others.

[OneLight]

Paul summed it up rather nicely in 2 Timothy 4:1-5

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

[gdemoss]

I understand what your both saying but neigther of the responses works to give understanding as to how false religions and false views of God continue to thrive when there is a God.

[OakWood]

I understand what your both saying but neigther of the responses works to give understanding as to how false religions and false views of God continue to thrive when there is a God.

 

Didn't he have some sort of deal with Satan (although 'deal' is probably the wrong word)? If Satan proves God to be a liar, God has agreed to step down and let Satan rule the World.

It all started in the Garden of Eden. The tree of knowledge was a test to see if man would choose to disobey God. Satan's plan didn't work at first so he lied and fooled Eve into taking the forbidden fruit. He has continued to fool mankind by deceiving him into worshipping false gods. But God has only given Satan a limited time in which to continue to fool mankind as part of the 'deal'.

 

God has a plan to put things right. Through the chosen people he selected (the Jews), he sent his only Son to die on the cross to provide salvation to all mankind. Satan has tried to thwart this ever since by bringing in false religions that deny that Jesus died on the cross (such as Islam and Gnosticism), or by deceiving man into believing that all religions lead to God.

This nonsense will end when God decides the time is right, but there will first be one last 'test' and that will be the Great Tribulation.

Satan in the meantime is continuing to try and make God's plan fail. If he can thwart the fulfillment of prophecy then he will prove that God has lied to us. One of Satan's tools to try and prevent prophecy from being fulfilled is to wipe out the bloodline of the Jews, as the descendants of the tribes of Israel are required to fulfil prophecy. The easiest way for Satan to do this is to exterminate the Jews and that is why under the influence of Satan, evil men have always persecuted the Jews. Look what Hitler did, for example.

Now that the Jews have their own land back and their own military to protect themselves, Satan focuses on lying about and discrediting Israel. He hopes to see Israel destroyed.

[Sevenseas]

for a time...only for a time

 

God, as you know, has an appointed time...for creation, for His Son to be born, live, die and be resurrected and return to heaven, an appointed time for the Holy Spirit to descend and so on

 

We read of God saying over and over wait for this or wait for that...His prophets in the OT often told people to wait and when they went ahead without waiting, dire consequences,

including death were incurred

 

It's like God wants things to have the time to become what they really are (my words).  

 

I think it is complicated...unless you can hold a 3D idea of it all in your mind?  I think you might be able to....God sees from beginning to end and He Himself has neither...

you prob know that the concept of time is a line, but what if it is not?  So, take the 3D model and see God seeing ALL and knowing ALL...and we cannot say why, I don't

think, other then it most likely has something to do with the cosmic battle regarding the fall of lucifer.

 

The devil is allowed, for now, to be the prince of the power of the air and we have the freedom to choose but it seems God knows who will choose Him and therefore states

He knows those who are His...because again, He sees the entire model of time.

 

I don't get it all but I so feel alive when I look up at the stars at night...we have a great view here in the country near the ocean....but as David says, who is man that you

are mindful of him....and God smiles and says 'you are My beloved creation'...

 

Abraham wants to know how God will do as He promised.  God instructs Abraham to prepare a pretty complicated sacrifice (bascially covering all the offerings

involved in the temple rituals I believe) but then does not answer Abraham until night fell and Abraham slept

 

God speaks of the evil in surrounding nations and makes the astounding (I think so anyway) statement that the sin of the Amorites had not reached its full measure...and

of course God also reveals how Abraham's descendants would be enslaved in Egypt and would not return to the land God promised them for FOUR HUNDRED years!

 

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

8But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

9So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

10Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. 11Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

12As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13Then theLord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.16In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

17When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi^e of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

 

So, I think this is one of the best examples of God's overview of time and events in a capsule, that we have if we want to take a look at it.  How can we understand that

the evil and sin of the Amorites had to get worse before things got better and God said 'That's enough from you!'

 

We think God should step in and stop the evil and God is most likely saying "I will when the time is right" and yet we also have that very short prayer at the end of the book

of Revelation "Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus" 

 

For me, this simple explanation works in revealing why people believe the false in favor of the true:

 

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”^a made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

 

The darkness does not understand the light...(John 1)  I think (my thoughts, not a passage in scripture) that the devil does not understand in the sense of the light or truth

being veiled from darkness...two kingdoms....one of light and one of dark

 

Anyway, that's my take....in a nutshell

[gdemoss]

Oakwood. Those are very interesting thoughts. I had not heard about any deal God and Satan may have had.

[OneLight]

I understand what your both saying but neigther of the responses works to give understanding as to how false religions and false views of God continue to thrive when there is a God.

 

Seriously?  It is prophesied.  Gods will be done.  Why does it surprise you that people will follow after their own heart and not after God?  The world creates a belief that fits their dream, despite the fact that it is not what God has designed.  A falling world will grasp onto any 'hope" they can find, unfortunately, the hope they are grabbing onto will burn.

[gdemoss]

Sevenseas. Very nice layout of a focused thought. The most important part of what you laid out was the concept of time and judgement.

I picture a graph like a population increase or compound interest chart where there is little change over a period until it explodes at a point. I see sin of a people or nation being the same.

This would be one aspect of why false religions are able to continue and even thrive. As far as I know there is no known religion, denomination, sect or organization that has not changed through time. God knows the end of each. For example when Roman Catholicism was forever altered as each new proclimation was made such as doctrines concerning Mary being made dogmatic but the ends of these changes may take generations to reveal their fullness.

One piece of the puzzle may be revealed when Paul said that there must be heresies so that that which is true will stand out.

In the end I believe it comes down to things repeating themselves. Noah did what God asked and by it condemned the world. A day is coming when some will have reached the point where they are doing as God has asked thereby condemn the world. I believe that this is already happening.

[gdemoss]

I understand what your both saying but neigther of the responses works to give understanding as to how false religions and false views of God continue to thrive when there is a God.

Seriously? It is prophesied. Gods will be done. Why does it surprise you that people will follow after their own heart and not after God? The world creates a belief that fits their dream, despite the fact that it is not what God has designed. A falling world will grasp onto any 'hope" they can find, unfortunately, the hope they are grabbing onto will burn.

I am not disagreeing with you Alan but I am looking for more of the reasons it is able to happen.