And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. Zechariah 13:2

There is coming a day soon when all the false religions in the world will be abolished by the Lord, from the small cults springing up everywhere to the giant religious system set up by the False Prophet as part of Antichrist's kingdom. There will be only one religion, a loving relationship with God Himself.

The Lord has always had witnesses to His existence and His majesty and goodness towards man. Before the flood there were righteous men like Abel, Enoch, and Noah who testified to the people about the Lord. After it came a series of prophets like Moses, Isaiah, and Daniel who not only clearly proclaimed God's right to the rulership of man and the Earth because of His creation of them, but also what the coming judgments on wicked angels and men destroying humanity and the Earth would be.

Most of the time when religion is spoken of in the Bible, it is to warn people about being caught up in a false system of beliefs and rituals meant to draw them away from God. The world system is filled with all kinds of religions. Some are formal religions based around the worship of a god or gods, some are philosophies based around the worship of a wise human teacher, and some are personal beliefs substituting for some unmet need in an individual.

The God Who is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ actually hates religion. He wants to have a loving personal relationship with all of the children he has created. Religious rituals and doctrines often get in the way of that even when the religion is a Christian denomination. When the religion is based on something else, it can blind the person to the God who is reaching out to him.

The Christian church has splintered into denominations over questions about doctrine until some denominations hardly resemble the others in core beliefs. Other denominations have separated so widely from the mother church that they are truly separate religions because of the addition of doctrines not taught by Jesus Christ and His apostles.

Is your church led by a false prophet? Some of the nicest preachers can be false prophets. They may have been at the top of their seminary class. They may be totally conversant with the Bible. They may be totally sincere in their belief that they are following the Lord. They may be totally wrong.

The test to see if your preacher and church are truly following the Lord is to see if God and His Word are at the center of all church activities. He must be the core of all programs. Nothing, no matter how worthwhile, must be ahead of Him.

Some churches are obviously out of the will of God. They follow the doctrines of man in addition to or in place of the true gospel. Some are clearly cults that only have Christian trappings. Still others claim the name of Christ, but hold doctrines contrary to the Scriptures as equal or greater in importance to the Word. When you have needs, either personal or as a church body, do you pray in faith toward God or toward faith in faith itself?

What about apparently orthodox churches where the gospel is preached? Even orthodox churches can get lured off the true way by worldly standards of success. Check yourself and your church. Are you following Jesus, or aiming toward some other goal?

When someone gets saved, do you rejoice that another soul has his name in the Lamb's Book of Life or do you rejoice that the numbers on the church roll or missionary roll just went up another notch? Do you welcome everyone who comes to your church in the Name of Christ, or do you screen out the "undesirables" who don't meet church standards under the assumption that some lesser church will take care of them? Do you esteem any born again Christian from any denomination as your brother or sister, or only those in your denomination?

Is your pastor a hireling or is he a shepherd? A hireling is a person who tends someone else's sheep for pay, while the shepherd tends his own sheep. A hireling often was not reliable. He would feast on the best of the sheep, but when dangerous animals attacked them, he would often run away and leave them to be slaughtered. A true shepherd would carefully tend to the sheep, making sure they had the best food and water and treating any injuries. When the sheep were attacked, he would defend them, sometimes at the cost of his own life.

What kind of pastor is leading your church? Is he preaching the full gospel without any hesitation, or skirting touchy issues in favor of safe sermons on noncontroversial topics? Does he take a public stand on moral issues, or does he hide his faith behind the church doors and encourage the congregation to do the same?

Some of God's strongest condemnations are for religious leaders who exploit their flock instead of feeding them. If you have a trustworthy pastor who preaches the Word and diligently tends his flock, pray for him and support him and your church in every way you can. If you have a hireling instead, start looking for a new pastor or even a new church. Don't support the devil's work by supporting one of his hirelings.

Our adversary Satan delights in this, of course. That is why he cultivates the creation and advancement of religions. If he can't get a human to believe that no religion at all is necessary for a satisfying life, that is, atheism, he will try to substitute a non-Christian religion to keep that person from hearing about God at all.

One of Satan's most persistent efforts to doom humans to Hell with him is to trick them into worshipping idols in various forms. Some of these idols are so ridiculous that God explains it in Isaiah 44. He describes how men make idols out of wood and metals which clearly are no gods when put to other uses, such as baking bread and warming a house, them make a "god" out of the rest and fall down to beg for help from the idol.

Other idols are more subtle. Many people worship power as their god, trying to climb the social or political ladder to get control over as many other people as possible. Some worship money, accumulating great amounts of it far beyond what they could use in their lifetime. Still others, in the grip of the worst sin "pride", actually worship themselves!

If he can't succeed in that, he will try to steer them towards a Christian-like cult to keep them away from a saving relationship with God. If that doesn't work, he'll try a legalistic or liberal denomination with either too many rules or too little substance for the person to form a relationship with God easily. If the person does get saved in such a church anyway, he'll try to mire them in worthless works or aimless philosophies so that they don't serve God effectively in leading more people to salvation and spiritual growth in God's kingdom.

God doesn't want His children performing endless religious rites. He gave the Israelites the Old Testament legal system for mankind to see how futile it was to endlessly live in sin and have to keep performing sacrifices as the penalty for it to keep covering the sins. Even the most devout Jew couldn't keep the law, except for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The law and its associated rituals were meant to restrain law-breakers, not to be a loving, holy relationship with God.

God wants a holy family of loving, sinless children. Much of the New Testament teachings are aimed at showing disciples how God wants them to behave as His children. They are there to raise up His children spiritually, not to restrain law-breakers. Christians struggle to conform to them because we still live in bodies that are infected with the spiritual disease of sin, the result of Adam's and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden. It is a powerful enemy that Jesus Christ had to overcome for us, since none of us could do it for ourselves. Only God Himself can totally cure sin in us. We can't do it for ourselves no matter how hard we try.

What about your religion? Is it based on a holy, loving relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? If not, do you really understand what your religion is all about and where its beliefs come from? That is a matter which every human being must decide for himself. If you learned your religion from parents or friends, you must at some point examine it and decide for yourself if you truly believe it as an active decision that you have made, not to please the people who taught it to you.

One day, you will be called to account for the decisions you have made in your life, and the question of what kind of relationship you have with Jesus Christ (or don't have) will determine the course of the rest of your life for eternity. If you aren't a born again Christian, please consider the claims of Christianity carefully. They are the invitation for you to have a life giving relationship with a loving Creator and His Son and Holy Spirit for an eternity of bliss in Heaven. Refuse this invitation, and you will regret it for an eternity. Be sure that the decision you make is truly an informed one, because it will be a truly eternal one.

Please accept the free gift of salvation and join His family today. Jesus loves you so much that He died on the cross to pay for your sins and redeem you back into the family of God. If you aren't saved yet, please pray this prayer:

Dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. I want to join your Heavenly family and I submit to King Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I renounce anything to do with Satan, his kingdom, and his ways. Please save me and adopt me as one of Your children. In Jesus' Name, Amen