EXCERPTS FROM THE MINISTRY

CHAPTER ONE

THE PRESENT EVIL AGE

(1)

THE SECULAR WORLD AND THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

The Bible shows us that there are two different kinds of worlds. The term the world usually refers to the universe composed of the heavens and earth created by God for His purpose and corrupted by Satan to oppose God. Everything created by God has been utilized by Satan to frustrate God’s purpose. After man became fallen through Satan’s corruption, God came in to call a people unto Himself, and He gave them His holy Word, the Bible. However, Satan utilized the Bible to form another kind of world. Most people, even many Christians, do not see this second kind of world. Yet the Bible clearly reveals that in addition to the secular world there is another world—the religious world. The secular world has fallen away from and even denies God. The religious world tries to worship God and even please God, but it does so without Christ or the Spirit.

When Christ was incarnated, He came first to the religious world (Mark 1:21; Luke 4:16). However, the religious world did not receive Christ but instead rejected Him. Eventually, the Sanhedrin, which was the supreme court of Judaism, the religious world, sentenced Christ to death (Matt. 26:59, 66). Then they demanded that the Roman Empire, the secular world, execute their sentence (27:1-2, 20). This shows the nature of the religious world.

I recently went to speak at a conference in Germany. While abroad, I took the opportunity to visit several religious centers in Europe and the Middle East with a group of saints. When we went to Rome and saw all the religious tradition, superstition, and falsehood, we were stirred up to stand against religion. In Saint Peter’s Basilica we saw that the foot of a statue of Peter had been worn down by people kissing it. Then we went to Switzerland, which has Protestant religious centers in cities such as Zurich, Neuchâtel, and Geneva. Protestants initially rejected the images of Catholicism, but now in these centers there are large statues of John Calvin and other reformers. Then we went to Israel. No other part of the earth is as religiously dark as Jerusalem. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is said to have been buried and resurrected, under one roof there are separate sections for the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Egyptian Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox, and Syriac Orthodox Churches. I sensed that many demons were dwelling among all the superstitious things in that building. In Jerusalem we also visited the Dome of the Rock, which is the third holiest site in Islam. In both Rome and Jerusalem we saw nothing but darkness and falsehood. Even Bethlehem and Nazareth were full of superstition.

God gave man only one Bible. After seeing all these religious centers, I considered how many different religions man has made from one Bible. There is Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Furthermore, today in Protestantism there are many small “daughters.” Another religion, Islam, is based on the Koran, which is a counterfeit of the Bible. The earth today is filled with religion. Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam are the same in principle—they worship God, yet they lack God, Christ, and the Spirit and are instead full of forms, traditions, and superstitions. For those who fear God and seek God, the religious world is a much greater problem than the secular world.

THE PRESENT EVIL AGE
BEING THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

The book of Galatians deals with the religious world. Galatians 1:4 says that Christ “gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us out of the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father.” The religious world has different sections, which are different ages. There is the ancient age of the religious world, the present age of the religious world, and the coming age of the religious world. Thus, when the apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians, he called the religious age in which he was living the present evil age.

In 6:14 and 15 Paul says, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation is what matters.” The word for at the beginning of verse 15 indicates that what follows will explain the previous verse. Thus, the mention of circumcision in verse 15 means that the world in verse 14 is the religious world. The present evil age in Galatians 1:4 and the world in 6:14 both refer to the religious world.

The Gospels show that Christ came first to the religious world and that the religious world opposed Him and sentenced Him to death. Following this, Acts and the Epistles show that it was mainly the religious world that persecuted the apostles. Paul preached the pure gospel, but the religious world brought in mixture through the Judaizers. The churches in Galatia were troubled and frustrated by the confusion brought in by the religious world. Therefore, Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians to deal with the religious world.