by Herbert W. Armstrong

In God’s Church in our time I have seen how Satan cleverly and without their knowledge uses humans to destroy GOD’S TRUTH and inject false or counterfeit doctrines instead.

The record, in our time, has been written. And the record has been written of how it was done in the first three centuries of the Church.

The Church of God started out, A.D. 31, under the original apostles, taught personally by Jesus Christ, pure in doctrines.

Yet by about A.D. 58, the apostle Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia: “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel…but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of [Jesus] Christ” (Gal. 1:6-7).

To the church at Corinth the same thing was happening. To them Paul wrote, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted” (II Cor. 11:3). Today, if one should suggest that a brother or minister in the Church has unsuspectedly been led in any degree by Satan, he will rise up in furious indignation and angrily retort that Satan can’t influence him! That is to say, “I am stronger and more firm and righteous than Satan – Satan never could deceive me!”

But listen, dear brethren of God’s Church, Satan is MORE POWERFUL, MORE CUNNING, MORE SUBTILE, than any human being on earth! Unless you and I are constantly on guard – close to God in constant heartrending prayer – constantly close to God and His truth through Bible study – Satan CAN deceive you, blind your eyes to God’s truth and USE YOU! Satan has used and led, without their knowing it, even some of our ministers in past years.

Paul continues in his letter to those at Corinth: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if HIS MINISTERS” – mark you, it is speaking of those who unwittingly become SATAN’S MINISTERS! – “also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness” (II Cor. 11:13-15).

In God’s Church in our day, self-appointed “scholars” rose up in what they called a doctrinal committee, devoting themselves, NOT to discovering any NEW TRUTH – but trying to DISprove the TRUE DOCTRINES Jesus Christ put into His Church through His apostle, and inject false doctrines into the Church of God.

This very thing happened in the days of the apostle Paul and the original apostles. And SATAN DID BLIND AND DECEIVE THOSE WHO, WITH HONEST HEARTS, HAD ACCEPTED GOD’S TRUTH!

It happened again in the next two centuries. After the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation in the 90s, A.D., Satan was using those at Rome to inject the pagan Easter instead of the Lord’s PASSOVER!

A disciple of John – Polycarp – engaged in a heated controversy on this question with the Bishop of Rome. Later, Polycrates entered into an even more heated controversy with a later Roman bishop on the question – referred to as the Quartodecimani controversy.

About the same time, Satan was using ministers in the Church to completely do away with the real work and function of the Holy Spirit, by calling the Holy Spirit a “Ghost” – a third Person in the godhead – calling God a TRINITY, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

Brethren, do we think we are so superior to those of the first, second and third centuries that Satan could not have tried to pervert God’s TRUTH today?

But praise be to God – even though so much of GOD’S TRUTH was distorted, changed and replaced with false doctrines in the very first three centuries, and remained hidden from God’s Church until our 20th century, God’s original TRUTH was preserved IN His WORD!

And, beginning in the fall of A.D. 1927, God began an absolutely UNIQUE WORK on the one the living Christ had chosen to be His apostle. He put me through the wringer that squeezed out all former misconcepts and untrue beliefs, using me to put His TRUTH into His Church that is to rise and meet the glorified Christ in the clouds as He returns to establish the Kingdom of God!

The END TIME has come! God has restored original TRUTH! How PRECIOUS is IT TO YOU? – or do you trample it underfoot as swine would trample into the mud the most precious diamonds, rubies and precious stones, and go for the slop?

Yes, Satan has tried to WATER DOWN true doctrine – to turn God’s Church to false truths. Apparently it is unhappily true that some willingly fall by the wayside and shall not continue on to enter into the KINGDOM OF God! But I have not retired – I am still vigorously active. Jesus Christ is still on God’s throne, as the dynamic living HEAD of God’s Church!