Good morning,
This is really good, from your online book! Especially that last sentence.
God Had a Son before Mary Did*:
Paul’s heart was broken (cp. Phip. 3:18–19). He was frustrated in his purpose, just as Israel’s ancient prophets had been, by ministers of the Institution who won the hearts of God’s people (cp. Gal. 2:4–5). Paul bitterly expressed his wish that those who had led his converts astray would be cut off from God (Gal. 5:12), that is, that they would be damned. Paul’s converts in Galatia and Corinth were among the victims of the deception:
Galatians 3
1a.O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth?
…
3.Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh?
Galatians 5
7.You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
8.This persuasion is not from the One who calls you.
2Corinthians 11
13.Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
14.And no wonder, for Satan himself is disguising himself as a messenger of light.
15.Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works
These scriptures show us that even in the days of the first apostles, Satan was working among God’s people to form an institution to which he could invite believers and thereby separate them from those who were the real government of God, such as Paul. In that effort, Satan’s eventual success is evidenced by his establishment of the Institution of Christianity, the church, as the norm for God’s children.
God’s children were seduced by the friendship of Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, into blending with the Roman Empire,[129] and the Institution that was formed from that unholy alliance claimed for itself the name, “Christianity”. Holy men who were sent from God “not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power” (1Cor. 2:4) were replaced by men ordained by the Institution, whose gospel was a “word only” gospel (1Thess. 1:5) imposed upon civilization by the State. But in replacing true servants of Jesus, Satan and his ministers had replaced the true Jesus, and in replacing the true Jesus, Satan and his ministers had replaced the true God with a god more to their liking. When Satan offered Jesus the world, he turned it down, but when he offered the world to Jesus’ followers, many of them accepted it.
Beth D.
* Going to Jesus.com – God Had A Son Before Mary Did