THE COUNTERFEIT In his bunker, days before he would take his own life, Adolf Hitler whiled away his time with his close friends and mistress. The untold story, until years later, was that Hitler had been a man given over to the occultic underworld; an avid student of yoga, hypnotism, astrology, and Eastern occultism. Many now believe him to have been possessed by demonic forces that caused him to do things that can only be explained by the darkness of Satan’s agenda against the Jew and the Christian and the world at large. One of Hitler’s staff members, with him at his final hideaway, was a man named Rauschning. This man described a recurring scenario in Hitler’s final days when Hitler was no longer a comrade of Satan but a throwaway puppet king of no more use. Rauschning said, [We would hear] Hitler yell for help . . . seized with power that made him tremble so violently his bed shook. There in his bedroom, his lips would turn blue and he would drip with sweat and he would be whispering in terror, It is he! It is he! He is here! ’ Whether he sensed Satan, or Christ whom he hated, we do not know. Listen to this truth about the final false Messiah – the antichrist means nothing to Satan. He is only his greatest puppet, used as Satan’s final attempt to wrestle worship away from God. For those of us who believe in Christ, the antichrist is not someone to be feared, but someone to be most pitied. Like Judas Iscariot who did Satan’s bidding and then took his own life, as did Nero and Hitler after him – they danced with the devil and then died. And they will live with him one day, forever. [I] will close our study today with a challenge and an invitation. [F]or those who believe in Jesus Christ, let me give a challenge to be discerning. Even today, even without the antichrist to do his bidding, the Christian is in danger of being distracted by the enemy, or worse yet, deceived. For everything that God has, Satan has a counterfeit. There are counterfeit Christians, whom we call hypocrites. There is a counterfeit church, which the Bible calls the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 3:9). There are seducing spirits and doctrines of demons (I Timothy 4:1). There are false messiahs and false prophets who will arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. (Matthew 7 and 24).xiii When trouble comes, will it detract from your worship; will it distract from your walk; will it divert your commitment? . . . My friend, a counterfeit works well only because it looks so much like the real thing. It models the truth as much as possible. It uses religious terminology; it genuflects at the Bible, or some steeple, or a cross; it hushes in reverence at the sight or sound of something spiritual or profound, but it wants nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The antichrists of the world and the coming final antichrist will have so many people dying for them; [yet] Jesus Christ died for you. I invite you to eternal deliverance. Do not follow the wrong Messiah. Even now, place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ – everyone else is a counterfeit. Only Christ is the One to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. This manuscript is from a sermon preached on 1/25/2009 by Stephen Davey. wisdomonline.org/cgi-bin/media_player.cgi?id=918
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 16:48:33 +0000
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