Paul says, “All who are in Asia turned away from me” (2 Tim. 1:15). This turning away from Paul mainly involved the rejection of his teaching. Most of the churches in Asia were established through the apostles’ preaching of the gospel; however, all the churches eventually rejected the apostles’ teaching. As soon as the churches rejected the apostles’ teaching, they began to walk in error. Second Timothy 1:15 and 4:16 speak very clearly about this matter.
This is the condition in today’s Christianity. If we tell people in Christianity about Christ being our life and living in Christ, they feel that such topics are boring and uninteresting, much like the children of Israel who tired of eating manna in the wilderness. They want to hear things that are interesting such as parables, stories, and jokes; they cannot tolerate healthy teaching. As a result, according to their own lusts, they hire many speakers to speak to them and to be their teachers. This is revealed in 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
See 2 Peter 2:1-3, 2 Timothy 2:17-18, and 1 Timothy 6:3-5.
Those who preach beyond the teaching of Christ, that is, those who, in their teaching, deny the divinity of the Lord Jesus, the redemption of the blood of the Lord Jesus, and the resurrection of Christ are all antichrists. First John 2:19-20, 22, 4:3-6, and 2 John 7-10 all speak very clearly about this matter.
See Acts 20:29-30.
Balaam was a prophet of unrighteousness who preached for wages and taught for reward; moreover, some actually held this kind of teaching. This is recorded in 2 Peter 2:13-15, Jude 11-13, and Revelation 2:14.
In the Bible the word fornication includes two aspects: one aspect is fornication of the flesh, and the other aspect is spiritual fornication. For instance, the bringing of Gentile religions into Christianity by Roman Catholicism is a kind of spiritual fornication. Satan causes both the fornication of the flesh and the spirit and idolatry to be brought into the church. This is revealed in Revelation 2:20-25.
The fathers, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope in Catholicism and the pastors, overseers, and bishops in Protestantism are examples of the clergy system. This kind of human organization should not be in the church of God. Among the children of God there should be the spiritual order in the Body but not the clergy system according to man. These things are also part of Satan’s work (Rev. 2:15).
The church in Pergamos was fully in union with the world and lost her separation from the world. The church should be like a boat which is on the sea but not of the sea; however, at the time of Pergamos, seawater came into the boat. The result of the union of a boat and the sea is that seawater fills up the boat and the boat sinks into the sea. The world fills up the church and causes the church to sink into the world. Originally, the church was set apart from the world by God, but Satan caused the church to go back to the world and be in union with the world, losing her separation from the world. See Revelation 2:12-13.
The mysterious Babylon the Great spoken of in Revelation 17:1-6 refers partly to the Roman Catholic Church and partly to the Roman Empire. On the religious side, she is the Roman Catholic Church; on the political side, she is the Roman Empire (which includes the former Roman Empire and the Roman Empire that will be revived in the future). God sees the mysterious Babylon the Great as a great harlot because she has fully mixed religion with politics. This is Satan’s work.
Satan not only caused the church to be changed in nature, becoming degraded Christianity, he also caused degraded Christianity to become part of the mysterious Babylon the Great. At this point we can say that Satan’s corruption reached an irrecoverable state. This fulfilled the Lord Jesus’ word in the Gospel of Matthew concerning the woman who took leaven and hid it in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened (13:33). The Roman Catholic Church has added many heresies into the truth of Christ as life and changed the nature of all the truths. Everything in the mysterious Babylon the Great is in confusion. What is of God and what is of the demons have become confused; what is of the Old Testament and what is of the New Testament have become confused; what is of the Gentiles and what is of the Jews have become confused; what is of the law and what is of grace have become confused; what is of the spirit and what is of the flesh have become confused; and what is of heresy and what is of truth also have become confused. Everything is in confusion.
The holy woman spoken of in Revelation 12:3-4, 13, and 17 signifies the church; the man-child signifies the overcomers in the church; and the red dragon signifies Satan. Satan comes to oppose the woman and her man-child, persecuting them and ready to devour them. On the one hand, Satan mixes with deformed Christianity to change the nature of the church; on the other hand, he opposes those who keep the nature of the church, persecuting them and devouring them.
The above thirty-four items are Satan’s damaging work in the church and in the believers.