How Many Religions Are There in the World?

Well, as you know, we're only one week away from...we're actually into the Christmas season. Christmas season usually starts right at Thanksgiving now. And so...but that's coming up next weekend, of course. And so, of course, the most widely celebrated holiday season of the year. I looked at my notes, and last year I gave a sermon explaining why we don't observe Christmas and kind of went into some of the points as to that. But it's kind of ironic. One aspect of it is kind of ironic. You know, you have all these traditions and things that go along with Christmas that people do. They have...you have Christmas traditions such as eight reindeer flying through the sky with a sleigh and sand in there and full of presents, and he goes down everybody's chimney and delivers presents to all the little boys and so on.

And that's okay. But if you're a Christian, you don't observe it. There's something wrong with that. You can go along with all these customs, and that's not seem to be strange, but it's strange to see somebody who doesn't observe it. It's interesting to also look, and you look back at our history as a nation. It took quite a while for Christmas to become actually a national holiday, ratified by all 48 of the original states. The last day to actually make December 25th a holiday was Oklahoma, and that was in 1907, so it's only been just over 100 years.

All the states have actually celebrated Christmas or had that as a holiday. Something probably most Americans today don't realize. But today I wanted to have a look at Christmas. I don't want to go over what I gave last year, but I want to look at it from a little different angle. Regardless of the fact that the day of Christ's birth is not given in the Bible, as we know, there's no place in there where you can find out exactly when Christ was born.

That's not emphasized. Nothing there about observing it. You don't even know exactly when it was. You can look at general time of the year, probably in the fall, but you don't know the exact date. And regardless of the fact, like I said, there's no Scripture that tells us to observe it. Or that, regardless of the fact that it can be connected to the Roman Saturnalia back in the time of Christ and to other observances that were paid and the observances were going back prior to that, the world can still look all in spite of all those things.

The world can justify their observance. They're honoring Christ supposedly and supposedly honoring His birth and so on, and His entrance into the world. And they will justify it regardless of any of those facts that we can point out and so on. Human beings can always justify anything they want to justify. So today what I want to do is I want to approach, move a different angle, cut through all those justifications, and simplify the entire matter of Christmas observance down to its most basic equation, if you will.

And I want to do that by asking this very, very, very basic, very simple question. And of course a lot of people think about this and say, well, let's see, and they try to calculate it. But I'm going to ask this question, how many religions are there in the world? How many? Today the main overall religions are there's Christianity, and there's others besides you, but the main ones are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. And you could also, I guess in a sense, say evolution and atheism are religion because they're kind of philosophical beliefs that could tie into religious beliefs in a sense. They're religious philosophies in a sense. Atheism and evolution are. There are also, of course, many offshoots of all those major religions today.

And you can just take Christianity. How many different Christian religions are there? Or variations of Christianity are there today? So I ask again, how many religions are there in the world? How many? Several dozen. Several hundred. Several thousand. That question is also the title of my sermon here this afternoon. My title is, how many religions are there in the world? This is going to get to the really basic equation that we need you to look at, and people should think about when they think about Christmas, Christmas observance.

I want to start out by giving you a little bit of a personal experience, my experience I had in the Coast Guard. I went to the University of Washington for three years, and I was a pre-major for three years. I could make up my mind what I wanted to do. Maybe God has something in mind that I was totally unaware of. I don't know. But anyway, I finally dropped out after three years and went to it for my dad. And of course, at that time, they still had the draft. That was back in 1962. So I realized at that time that I didn't sign up for something service.

I would probably be drafted once I was out of college. When you're in college, you're pretty much exempt from the draft. But once you were no longer in college, you were you could very well likely be drafted back at that time. So I decided I don't want to I do want to be drafted in the Army.

I'd have to be a two-year stint, and I didn't want to have to go in for two years. So I decided I would join the Coast Guard Reserve. So I signed up for the Coast Guard Reserve in December of 1962. They scheduled me to go down and start boot camp on May 1st of 1963.

So I had a little bit of interim there. Interesting was just after that, just after I signed my name on the dotted line, that God began to call me and open my mind. But I'd already committed. So I went down and they had a little island down off of the city of Oakland down there, called Government Island. That's where the Coast Guard boot camp was. So I went down there and had my three months of boot camp.

At the end of the three months of boot camp, I just mentioned this, but I remember, not too many days you can go back 49 years or more and remember exactly the events that took place on that day. But I remember the exact events that took place on May 1st, 1962, because that first day of boot camp, you go through a lot of things that you'll never forget.

They'll be in your memory for a long time. But I won't go into that. That would take quite a while. Anyway, at the end of those three months of boot camp, we took a test. And I scored quite high in the test, probably because I was probably the only one in my company, hotel company it was, and there were probably 30 of us in there, and I was probably the only one who'd had as much as three years of college. And because of that, I guess I scored maybe pretty high on the test.

And anyway, because of that, they called me into the office just before I was going to go graduate from boot camp to be put on the ship for three months. So I served my last three months of active duty on a Coast Guard cutter. They said they would like to send me to a Navy radar school and give me that opportunity. I could have declined it or I could accept it. The only thing, if I accepted it, I would have to extend my active duty by three extra months.

Because the radar school, Navy radar school, was a six-month school. And you get that training, and afterwards, they would promote you to E-4, a petty officer rank, automatically after you completed the radar school. It was a Navy school, but it was right there in the same vicinity. It was on what they call Treasure Island. I'm not sure if they still call it that or not. It's right there in the bay between Oakland and San Francisco.

And that's where the Navy base was, where they had radar school. So I accepted it. So I went to Navy radar school, graduating in three months as a radar man. And then, of course, I came back to Seattle. We had meetings, reserve meetings, on Tuesday night. Every week. And then you had to serve two months active duty during the summer. So during the summer of 1964, because I graduated from radar school January 31, 1964. So my nine months was up. And I came back and went to...

I mean, I came back here to Seattle. And then I had to serve one summer, the summer of 1964. I served for two weeks on a Coast Guard cutter as a radar man, working up there in the radar.

Now, you may wonder why I'm reading all this story to you, and what it has to do with how many religions there are in the world. Actually, it has quite a bit to do with it. Let me explain. You know, radar is a fascinating technology. It stands... radar stands for radio, R-A, radio, detection, D, and A, ranging. R, radar, radio, detection, and ranging. It was first produced in about 1935, the first radar system, useful radar systems, about 1935, just before World War II. And prior to World War II, it was actually developed by the United States, by Germany, and Japan. It developed radar systems prior to World War II. It was then used during World War II to project... project... or I should say to detect enemy planes and or ships, and it just as far beyond the line of sight. So with a radar system, you could... you could go out 150 miles and pick up a blip on the radar screen and see an incoming plane or a ship in the ocean way before you could see it by line of sight. And especially with planes, by the time you get line of sight, you know, they're already coming in with their bombs, it's kind of too late, you could see it way beforehand, then you could be prepared for it and ready for them. Of course, once they developed a radar to detect an enemy at 150 miles away, the enemy then had to devise some way of trying to thwart that, didn't they? So they detect what was called jamming techniques. When you would try to jam the radar, so, you know, it caused so much confusion, you couldn't detect the real target. There are two methods of jamming that were utilized. One was electronic jamming, where the opponent would transmit signals on frequencies that interfered with the opponent's radar system, broadcast on the same frequency, all kinds of information, so you couldn't really determine what the real target was. And the second means was mechanical jamming, where they would actually take materials such as strips of aluminum foil, could be dispersed into the air, then the radar signal would bounce off of all that material, and it would cause so many blips and signals that you couldn't tell what the real signal was, you're seeing. It would confuse the whole system, the person, you know, your radar system. So both of those methods produced similar results. The radar would pick up so much information that it couldn't detect a genuine target or targets. Jamming would confuse a radar system so that the enemy could go undetected until he came within the line of sight. And oftentimes, especially with planes, it could be too late. Or if there's a lot of ships, that could be too late, too. Now, we know that our enemy is Satan. Do you think Satan might have some jamming methods that he would like to utilize to confuse Christians and their ability to pick up what the real target is or what the real signal is from God? I want to look here just for a second before I get into the meat of the sermon. I want to look at some parallels between radar and Satan's spirit world. And I'll pick out three things, three things, three parallels. One, radar was initially used primarily in warfare, beginning in World War II.

Well, that ties in with the world of Satan as our enemy, because we are in a spiritual warfare. We are in warfare. Let's turn to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6, just two verses here. We're familiar with this area a lot of us are. Ephesians 6, verses 11 and 12, where Paul said, Put on the whole armor of God, because you better be aware. You've got an enemy there who's trying to destroy you. You're in a warfare. So you better put on your armor. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles or schemings of the devil, Satan. For we do not wrestle, or we could say we do not war, against flesh and blood, but we war against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the doctors of this age, and against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. So we are in a spiritual warfare. Radar was used in physical warfare. We are in a spiritual warfare with Satan as our primary enemy. Number two, a second parallel is that radar utilizes airways and it transmits a signal. So does Satan. Ephesians 2. Just a few pages back here in Ephesians. Ephesians 2, the first two verses. Ephesians 2.1, where Paul writes, And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you were once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. So just like a radar system, Satan transmits as well. Satan transmits the signal, which is intended to get those who receive it to walk according to the course of this world in disobedience to God, as it tells us here. Now, a third parallel between radar and us, our Satan system. Radar was a means of detection and we didn't want to be detected. So what they do, they developed and devised jamming methods to confuse their opponent's radar. They developed jamming techniques to confuse their opponent. Now, we're the opponent of Satan, and Satan has his jamming methods, and he confuses. He wants to cause confusion. That's what jamming did. It caused so much confusion, you couldn't really see through all the confusion to detect the real target. And Satan does that as well. In 1 Corinthians 14, verse 33, as we're all familiar with, it says, For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. And I'll just say it here, you can, by inference, we know who is the author of confusion, and Satan is the author of confusion. Satan wants to confuse people. And he wants to give them so many targets and so much information that they can't really see through it all to detect what the real issue is. So Satan and his demons are the authors of spiritual confusion. And Satan knows how to jam or confuse an opponent's radar, so they won't detect him. So they won't see the real target or understand what the real issue is. How does Satan do that? That's what I'm going to look at next. How does Satan jam a Christian's radar system, if you will? So he can't detect, but he really needs to detect. Well, Satan uses the same methods that we're using in World War II. Again, he sends out so much information that it overloads an opponent's radar, and he jams so much information into our receivers that the real target or issue can't be detected, and all the confusion is caused.

Satan gets us to focus on hundreds of issues that are not the real issue. So many issues that you don't really see what the real issue is. So the real issue gets lost in all the jamming and confusion that people end up receiving. Just take the issue we want to look at today here, this is the season, take a look at Christmas, for example.

What is the real issue? What is the real issue? See, the real issue is not when Christ was born or whether or not one should try to honor Christ's birth. You can argue that all day long. We can say, well, hey, it's not in there, it doesn't tell us we shouldn't do it, but people will argue that all day long. But that's not really the issue. There's another much more important issue. The issue is not whether or not you can argue about the value of exchanging gifts or having a decorated tree. That's not the real issue either. It's not even whether or not one could justify adopting Roman Saturnalia or other pagan customs and then adapting that to worshipping Christ. People will say, well, yeah, but we're not worshipping the gods they worship, we're worshipping Jesus Christ. That's not the issue. There's another issue. That's just a jamming device. What is the real issue? You know, it's interesting that the Pharisees tried to jam Christ's radar system, if you will, by asking him questions that they didn't really address the real issue. They asked him all kinds of questions, but the questions they asked him were meant to throw him off, and they didn't really address the real issue. You know, it's very interesting. You go through that, all these questions that Pharisees threw at Christ, he never answered them, did he? He never answered those questions, because they weren't the real issue. What did he do? He always asked a question back. He sent them a question back that either they could not answer without condemning themselves or that cut to the real issue, which they didn't want to face. Christ knew what they were up to. He knew how to cut through all the jamming and get to the real issue. And he would ask a question, and he would get to the real issue. He didn't want to face the real issue. So if we cut through all the confusion and reasoning then when it comes to Christmas observance, we need to really, to get to the real issue, we only need to ask one basic question. It can cut through all the jamming, and it can get to the real issue. And that question is this. How many religions are there in the world? That question will get you to the real issue. We can even broaden that question by adding this. How many religions have there been in the world over the past 6,000 years? What does the Bible say? What does it indicate? What happened way back 6,000 years ago, approximately, at the creation of Adam and Eve?

Been hundreds of them? Thousands? Again, what does the Bible say? What does it indicate? Let's go back to, to start with here, looking at what happened way back even before the creation of Adam and Eve. If you want to start before the creation of Adam and Eve, let's go back to Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14, again most of us are familiar with this. We just look at verses 12 through 14. Isaiah 14, verse 12, God tells us here through Isaiah, He says, How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

How are you cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations? For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. And I will insult my throne above the stars or angels of God. And I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, on the farthest sides of the north. And I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Now here we have God and Lucifer, or as his name is in Hebrew, it's Halel, who wants to be like the Most High, who wants to be like God, and who basically wants to be worshipped as God.

So Halel, or Lucifer then, falls from heaven and becomes Satan, the adversary of God. So you just take this verse right here, going way back even before the Krishna Adam and Eve, and you have to ask this question, how many religious forces, if you will, do you have here? We have only two. God and Satan. Let's go to Genesis 2. Genesis 2, verse 9. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow, as in pleasant for the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Okay, so we have how many trees? Two. Two trees. Two trees are mentioned, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the ego, or in Genesis 3, verse 1, the serpent, who was symbolic of Satan, was more cunning than any beast of the field, which Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

Then the serpent said to the woman, oh, don't believe that, you're not going to die. You won't die. For God knows in the day that you eat of it your eyes are going to be opened, and you're going to be like God, knowing good and evil.

Or basically, more appropriately, you'll be like God deciding, you can decide for yourself what's good and what's evil. You can decide for yourself how you're going to worship God. You don't have to do it the way God says. How many religious forces were there, here, trying to influence Eve? Only two. God and Satan. God told them not to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Satan, the adversary of God, who fell from heaven, tells Eve, don't believe God.

He told her in essence, you can worship God any way you want, and you're not going to die, as God said. So here, again, we have two forces seeking to influence Adam and Eve on how to worship God. You have God, who is seeking for them to choose the way of the tree of life, and you have Satan, who is seeking to influence him to follow the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is a mixture of good and evil, a mixture of right and wrong. And it's symbolic of doing what is right in our own eyes, or worshiping God anyway we choose to worship him, which can seem right in our own eyes, and which people can easily justify.

So one tree, one way leads to life, and the other tree, the other way, leads to death, which God told them right there in Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17. Genesis 2, verse 16. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, If every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it, for the day that you eat of it, you're going to die. That's the way it's going to lead to death, if you do that.

If you want to choose for yourself how you're going to worship me, that's going to lead to death. So the way of life is symbolized by the tree of life, and the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to death. And that was deciding for yourself how you're going to worship God and what you're going to do.

But there are only two trees. The point is this, there are only two trees, there are only two ways. One tree represents God's way, and the other tree represents Satan's way, which is the way that seems right to a man, as it tells in Proverbs 14. Let me just turn there and read that. Proverbs 14 verse 12. There's only two ways. There's a way that leads to life, and there's a way that leads to death. And the way that leads to death seems right, to be justified. Proverbs 14 verse 12, which tells us there's a way that seems right to a man.

But its end is the way of death, leads to death. And that way, the way that seems right to a man, basically is the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or the way of Satan. It's the way of deciding for ourselves how we're going to worship God, basically. Now, what about the prophet Elijah? What did he say? It's interesting what Elijah said.

Let's go back to 1 Kings chapter 18. And look at what the prophet Elijah said. 1 Kings 18 verse 21. We just one verse here. 1 Kings 18 verse 21. Elijah came to all the people, and he said, How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, if the Eternal is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him.

But the people answered him not a word. So how many options are there here? How many forms of worship? How many opinions? Well, there are only two. In this case, what are those two forms of worship called? Or, excuse me, I'm getting ahead of myself. How many opinions were there faltering between here? Were they only faltering between two opinions?

And what opinions were there faltering between? Now they're faltering between God's opinion and Satan's opinion, which in this instance involved Baal worship. Well, basically, there are two forms of worship. However you want to call the other form. In this case it was Baal worship, but the only two forms was God's form and Satan's form, which in this case was Baal worship. What about the New Testament? How many options are there in the New Testament, religiously speaking? How many forms of worship are there? Let's go to 2 Thessalonians 2, as far as kind of getting ahead of myself a moment ago. 2 Thessalonians 2, and begin in verse 7.

2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7. Paul writes, For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth, and his story with the brightness of his coming. And the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and line wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, or are perishing as it could be, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

And for this reason, verse 11, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie. Now, just take a look at this here. How many options are given here? How many forms of worship? Can you stop and think about it? There's only two. In this case, what are those two forms of worship called?

Well, they're called the truth, verse 10, and the lie, verse 11, or two, the truth and the lie. Now, it's interesting to note that Paul did not say a lie, but the lie. What is the lie? Well, it's the same lie that Satan perpetrated on Eve, way back in the Garden of Eden. You can worship God in what you want to. Take the truth and the knowledge of good and evil. Choose for yourself what's right and what's wrong.

You're not going to die. You can do that and live forever. Now, during the time of Christ, the Pharisees added their own commandments and traditions to the laws of God, as we know, and they made their own religious rules on how they felt God should be worshipped. And some of those rules were very, very confining. Made it very hard on people. But in doing that, whose way were they following? Were they following God's way or Satan's way? Well, let's go to John chapter 8.

See what Christ had to say to the Pharisees. John 8, verse 42. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come by myself, but it was my father who sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you were not able to listen to my word, he told them. And then he said in verse 44, he tells the Pharisees, this is quite a statement. You stop and think about it. He said, You are of your father the devil. You're following his way. You're not following my way.

And the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning. It does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. And when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. I mean, this is an amazing statement here. Verse 44 is quite amazing. When you stop and think about it, the Pharisees were absolutely certain that they were following and worshiping God. And they sincerely thought that way. But here, none of them, Jesus Christ himself, tells them they were following and worshiping Satan. That their religious father that they were following and unaware of was Satan. He said, You are of your father the devil. And that threw them into shock and made them extremely angry, because they were certain they were following God.

Why did Christ tell them that they were following Satan? Well, because they were following the way of the tree of knowledge of good and evil by adding their own commandments and their own traditions, and thus basically setting their own standards on how God should be worshipped, and deciding for themselves how God had to be worshipped. And they were following the same trap that Adam and Eve fell into, and all mankind ever since then. Let's go to Mark 7.

Mark 7, beginning in verse 6.

So they were doing the same trap. They were getting their own religion, their own standards, and not really going by what God says. They were really following Satan, as he said. Satan was their father, they were following it, and they didn't realize it. Did Christ predict that anybody can fall into that trap, even Christian leaders could fall into that trap? Well, we're all familiar with Matthew 24, verses 4 and 5, where Christ said, "'Take ye the no man to seize you, for many will come in my name, saying and proclaiming that I am the Christ, I am the Messiah.' But they'll do it in a way that's going to be deception, deceiving many. How many overall churches are mentioned in the New Testament? Let's go to 1 Timothy chapter 3. This is mentioned in many places, but I'll just go to this scripture here. 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15. Again, you get many scriptures. It mentions the church of God. 1 Timothy 3, verse 14, Paul says, "'These things I write to you, to Timothy, though I hope to come to you shortly. But if I am delayed,' verse 15, I write, so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth." So one overall church in the New Testament is called the Church of God. Or, in this case here, the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of truth. Now, what second overall church is mentioned by name in the New Testament? Revelation 3, verse 9. Revelation 3, verse 9. Indeed, here Christ tells us to John in his vision, "'Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie. And indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet, and make them know that I love you.'" So there are only two over all churches mentioned in the New Testament by name. The Church of God, which is the ground of the truth, and the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie. There's only two mentioned, just two. Two choices. Just to give you a biblical perspective. There's a Church of God or the synagogue of Satan, and two overall teachings. One is the truth, and one is a mixture of the truth and a mixture of things that are not true, which basically leads you to following a lie. Bottom line. How many children or followers of those two overall churches are there mentioned in the New Testament? Let's go to 1 John 3. 1 John 3. And I'll begin in verse 7. 1 John 3 verse 7.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous is Christ is righteous. He who sins is of the devil. He's following Satan's ways, falling into a trap, if you follow the way of sin. It's not talking about if you make a mistake in sin. It's talking about if that's your way of life, that you're following that way of life. Just living however you want and think that somehow you can still be in God's good graces, as many people do. For the devil is sinned from the beginning, and for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, works of Satan. Whoever has been born of God does not sin. That is, a person who's got God's Holy Spirit is not going to follow that way of life. They're not going to be the way of life of just living however they want to live. They're going to be striving to live by God's principles of Jesus Christ and God's laws. For his seed remains in him. You have the Spirit of God in you. You're not going to just choose to live your life any way you want to, like we did before we were called. We're going to strive to follow God's precepts and God's laws. What I'm really saying here is if you have God's Spirit, you cannot follow that way of sin and be utilizing God's Spirit. You can't be a way of life for you. It doesn't mean you can't make a mistake and slip. Because you've been begotten by God's Holy Spirit, and if you've been begotten by God's Holy Spirit, you're going to strive to follow God and obey God's laws. Verse 10, which is what I'm getting to here. In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. There's two children here mentioned, two followers. Those are following God, and those are following the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or following Satan's way. And this is what manifests them. Whoever does not practice righteousness, is not striving their life to go that direction by going following God's laws, is not of God. You're going to be striving to do what God says if you're of God. Not just live your life any way you want to. Nor is he who does not love his brother. That's what manifests. Those who are striving to follow God are of God, and those who are just living their life any way they want to and deciding for themselves what they think is right or wrong, that's really Satan's way. They're following Satan, even though they may not realize it.

So how many children are mentioned here? Well, just two. The children of God and the children of the devil, or the children who are following Satan's way, who are unknownly deceived by doing that. But I want to emphasize again, it's a very interesting year in this context, to notice again the last half of verse 10. It says, whoever does not practice righteousness, is not of God.

And then it adds another category of people who are not of God, they're not really following God's way. It says, nor is he who does not love his brother. Wow.

So what does that tell you? What if you have somebody in God's church who is showing no love at all towards his brother? Well, it means that even some in God's church could be following Satan's way, even though you don't realize it.

If they do not love their brother. And their brother would include, when you look closely at the New Testament, not only include your brothers in the church, brothers in the church, it would include the whole world. People of the world as well. You know, because Christ died and loved the entire world. He died for everybody. We have to have that same kind of love ourselves. But it basically says here, you know, if you don't have that kind of love, the love of Jesus Christ, the love of God, you're really not following God. Even though you might be in the church of God, you're really following the way of Satan.

So back to our original question, how many religions are there in the world, and how many religions have there been in the world over the past 6,000 years? Well, if you look at God's word, both the Old and New Testament, it clearly tells us there are only two. Not a thousand, but only, or thousands maybe, but only two. God's religion, God's way of worship, according to the tree of life, and Satan's form of worship, according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So when we clear the radar screen of all the other targets, there are really only two targets to identify. God's way and Satan's way. That's it. Simplifies it. In the case of Christmas observance, it doesn't matter what trappings are added or what justifications are made. Those are nothing more than just damning devices designed to confuse and hide the real issue. What is the real issue? The real issue is there are only really two ways to worship. There are only two ways in the world. Only two religions. Either following God's way or following Satan's way. That's it. Those are the two choices. So in conclusion, then, when it comes to the observance of Christmas, there are many issues or targets that people focus on, all of which can be justified or reasoned around when we, in other human reasoning, can justify anything. When we clear all the radar screen of all the other targets that are damning devices that are trying to distract us, there's only going to be really two targets or two issues that are going to remain. They're the real issues. One is God's way and the other is Satan's way. The way of following the truth or the way of following the lie. The way of the tree of life or the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's it. Those are the two choices. So how many ways of worshiping God are there? How many religions are there in the world? When we clear the radar screen of all the damning devices, only two real choices remain. God's way and Satan's way. That's the perspective of God's Word. It's also interesting, I'll just conclude with this scripture, I'll just quote it, it won't turn there. But God told Israel what He told them is they're about to enter the Promised Land. The book of Deuteronomy is written just before they're about to enter the Promised Land. And God through Moses told them something. What did He say? He basically told them they had two choices. That was it. Not multiple choices, just two. He said, Deuteronomy 30, verse 19, I have set before you life on the one hand and death on the other side. There's just two ways. One leads to life and one leads to death. He said, therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live. So how many religions are there in the world? Only two. There's God's religion, God's way, and Satan's way.