The prophet Isaiah recorded God’s eternal Word records, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”” Isaiah tells us that when Satan fell from grace, it was because he sought to take God’s place.
He counterfeited God’s authority, and he still does so today. In fact, almost everything of great value has been counterfeited under his influence.
When he was 24yrs old, Joseph Smith published a book. The year was 1830. The book was called “The Book of Mormon” and Smith told everyone that it was a translation of a text written in an ancient language on a set of golden plates that he had dug up from a hill near his property after an angel had shown him where they were. After his death in 1844, Smith’s followers assembled another book in which they placed much of Smith’s additional writings, almost all of which were allegedly written in response to visions. They called that book, “The Pearl of Great Price” after the parable that Jesus told His followers; “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
Sadly, Smith’s followers didn’t name the book “The Pearl of Great Price” because Joseph Smith had sought truth in the Scripture or wanted to point people to the kingdom of heaven Jesus had taught about. In fact, history records that Smith was a troubled man with a history of lying, fraud and deception. Smith taught that people could become gods – the same lie that Satan himself believed; “In one of the Mormon scriptures, The Pearl of Great Price, we are told that the world was fashioned “by the Gods.” In his famous King Follett sermon, Joseph Smith stated that God was once as we are and that we may become as He is—a God.” That is a blasphemous lie. Any who read his writing and know the Scripture know that Smith distorted and added to the Word of God, and it is well established Smith and the leadership of his church consistently published false prophesy, “One well-known example is their prediction that the battle of Armageddon would occur between 1874 and 1914: “In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished at the end of a.d. 1914.””
The kingdom of heaven is truly wonderful. But until it is fully established on earth, there will be counterfeits and counterfeiters. We who seek God must be diligent to know the difference, just as a pearl merchant would need to be diligent in their business to know the difference between a coloured marble and the real thing.
The principal tactic Satan uses to attack God and His program in general is to offer a counterfeit kingdom and program. This was evident when he originally sinned by wanting to be like, not unlike, God.
Charles Caldwell Ryrie
APPLICATION: Intentionality
There is always more of us to lay aside, and always more of Christ to pick up.