I am a Christian. I am not just a Christian but one who is committed to Jesus Christ as the core of my being. For me, it is Jesus Christ, God the Word become flesh (John 1:1, 14), crucified and resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:12-15), who now sits at the right hand of the Father interceding for us (Hebrews 10:12-14), who is my Savior and Lord. I wanted to get that out of the way at the start, so you understand the foundation under which I will build my argument.
For Christians, such as myself, the world we live in, by that I mean the social/political systems that govern it, not the physical world itself, is controlled by the rebellious archangel Lucifer, who is commonly called the Devil or Satan. When he rebelled against God’s authority, seeking to elevate himself to the highest position in creation, he took one-third of the angels with him (Revelation 12:4). With their assistance, he rules over the kingdoms of this world and all who individually submit to or worship him or his fallen ones. Remember, during the third temptation that Jesus faced from Satan, he took our Lord to a high mountain and offered him all the kingdoms of this world if Jesus would fall down and worship him (Matthew 4:8-10). They, and all their power and riches, are his to give. Many people throughout history have accepted his offer that Jesus rejected and gone over to the dark side, trading their eternal soul for these momentary baubles.
That covers the basics. Here is the hard part. Throughout history, Satan has done his best to hide from the world at large, either by outright denying his and his minions’ existence (atheism and materialism serve this purpose) or by denying his influence wherever possible (all religions seek the true God and are just different paths up the mountain). Neither of these subterfuges is true. Satan and his minions (the angels who rebelled with him) are real and active in our world, and there are only two religions: Christianity and all other efforts to deceive you away from that truth. That distinction is seen in the fact that every other religious approach outside of Christianity requires you to save yourself through your actions by attempting to perfect yourself or balance out your evil with enough good so that the scales tip in your favor. Only Christianity offers a Savior, Jesus Christ, who paid the debt that you could not pay. He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice on the cross so that through His shed blood, salvation is freely given to all who accept Him as their Savior and Lord.
With that distinction now clear, let’s turn to the wiles of Satan and what I like to call his onion of evil. From the beginning, our adversary has used misdirection and subterfuge to trick people into falling for his traps. Similar to ascending the orders in Masonry or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, engaging with him is like peeling an onion. Every layer you remove exposes another, deeper layer in which the commitment you make at that level requires darker, deeper choices. There are so many examples from the real life of people who have gone down this descending staircase that the stories are everywhere you look. Yet each of those making this choice either believes the outcome will be different for them or that what they get is worth the tradeoff. Neither of these things are true. Biblically, Moses is given as an example in Hebrews 11:25-26 of not succumbing to passing pleasures of sin. The bill eventually comes due and must be paid; then, at that point, the memory of those fleeting pleasures does not sustain the person’s soul through the payment required.
As I observe the world we live in today, I notice an interesting phenomenon unfolding. Up to now, at least from a Christian perspective, there have always been three major gradations of people: those who have chosen Christ, on one side; those who have chosen anything else, on the other; and the vast middle who do their best to sit on the fence and avoid either choice. From my perspective, the size of that fence is shrinking fast, and if I am correct, it will soon disappear. There will only be two choices: Christ or Satan. C.S. Lewis predicted this in the early 1940s when he wrote his space trilogy Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. He believed that as we approached the culmination of history (biblically, the End Times or Apocalypse), the great middle, or gray area—the fence, if you will—would begin to shrink until, at the penultimate moment, it would disappear, leaving us with a binary choice. This is the same choice Jesus told his disciples we all face (Matthew 12:30). We, all of us, are either for Him or against Him. It becomes a binary choice: Yes or no, 1 or 0 (something or nothing).
The subterfuge Satan has used throughout history, only revealing himself through deeper layers of commitment (the onion of evil), will be stripped away. We will all see that everything, every choice in this world, is either Christ or Satan, and we will have made or will have to make our choice. There will be no fence to sit on and no gray area left to hide in. I believe that we are rapidly approaching that penultimate moment in our history. So many vectors are converging, all to a single inescapable point that we cannot escape. I pray your choice is Jesus Christ and that we can celebrate together at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7-9).
How to choose Jesus (Romans 10:9-10).
