The goal of Satan has always been to be worshipped as God. This desire manifested before the beginning of time, when Lucifer tried to convince the Father to make him the Savior instead of Jehovah (Abraham 3:27-28) and was cast out when his power play was rejected. (Moses 4:1-4) Satan wants to replace worship of Jesus Christ with worship of himself and to that end Satan has repeatedly masqueraded as the Only Begotten Son (Moses 1:19) and demanded that we worship him. The purpose of this article is to expose how this Church of the Devil is organized, what it teaches, and how we counter and defeat it.
The Wings of the Dragon
Thanks to Revelation 16:13 we know what the structure of this false religion looks like:
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
From Revelation 12:9 we know that the dragon is Satan. He is the head of his false religion just as Christ is the head of the Church of Jesus Christ. Beneath Satan are two different organizations, the separate wings of the dragon if you will.
The first wing of the dragon, the Beast, represents the worldly powers which serve Satan In Revelation 12:3 Satan the dragon is described as having seven heads, seven crowns, and ten horns. Dr. Alonzo Gaskill explains in his book The Lost Language of Symbolism that crowns represent authority and political power (pgs. 69-70) and that the horns represent the imperfect power of the Devil (pgs. 49-50). Then in Revelation 13, John sees a great seven-headed beast arise which is empowered by and and which serves the Devil. According to the revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Beast is, “the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth.”(See Revelation 13:1, footnote a.) Note that “likeness” means not just looking like something, but being a representation of it. Revelation 13:2 explicitly says that this beast which represents the kingdoms of the world gets “his power, and his seat, and great authority” from the dragon- the Devil. Revelation 13:7 says the Beast has the power to make war and has power “over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” The first wing of the dragon then are the governments of the world, which derive their power from and which serve Satan.
The second wing of the dragon, the false prophet, represents the spiritual powers which serve Satan. In every era of human existence he has formed a false religion with a false prophet to proclaim the doctrines of damnation to the masses. The first of these was Cain, who sacrificed his brother Abel to Satan and proclaimed himself the Master Mahan (Moses 5:30-31). The title Master Mahan has two likely meanings. The first, proposed by Dr. Hugh Nibley, is Keeper of the Great Secret, which makes sense as Cain declares himself “the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain,” The other possible meaning is Master of Annihilation, a title hearkening back to when the Lord warns Cain that if he continued on the path of serving Satan that he (Cain) would be renamed Perdition (Moses 5:24), which means “utter destruction.” Cain then became the (false) prophet of Satan’s faith, described in Moses 5:51-52 as a “secret combination” of people that “covenanted with Satan,” which Cain taught to his children and from them to all the rest of humanity. (Moses 5:47-55) And
The Doctrine of the Dragon
Just as the political wing of the dragon appears in every human civilization in every era, the secret combinations and covenants that constitute the religion of Satan, appear in every age of human history. Thanks to the scriptures know what the title of the false prophets of Satan’s faith are called, the Antichrist. Just as Christ represents the Father as the Prophet of the Covenant (Acts 3:19-26), the Antichrist is the prophet of Satan, spreading his covenant of lies to the masses. But what exactly are those doctrines? If Satan’s goal is grasp us in his awful chains (2 Nephi 28: 21-23) and cover the whole world with darkness until we are lead down into Hell (Moses 7:26), what are the doctrinal chain links in this infernal system designed to damn us eternally?
The clearest explanation of the doctrine of the dragon comes from Alma 30. In this chapter, Korihor, who is explicitly called an “Anti-Christ” (Alma 30:6,12) twice, is traveling around the Nephite lands trying to destroy the faith of Nephite followers of Christ. Like all Antichrists, Korihor is a false prophet, a prophet of Satan. As such, Korihor teaches very specific doctrines about the nature of the Gospel, the intentions of church leaders, and the meaning of life, all which are designed to destroy the faith of the believers. Taken altogether, Korihor’s teachings constitute the religious doctrines of Satan which, if followed, teach people to believe, think, and act in Satanic and damning ways. In the next couple of paragraphs, I will quote the relevant portions of Alma 30 and draw from Korihor’s teachings therein the specific doctrines of the religion of Satan.
12 And this Anti-Christ, whose name was Korihor, (and the law could have no hold upon him) began to preach unto the people that there should be no Christ. And after this manner did he preach, saying:
13 O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things? Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come.
Notice that the first thing, the very first thing that Korihor says here is not a debate about doctrine. He is not quibbling over scriptural interpretation or theological propositions. No, the very first thing Korihor says is that believing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is stupid. Only foolish people, stupid gullible idiots, believe in Christ. This is not accidental as Korihor understands that he can’t prove the Gospel is false. Instead he attacks the people who believe it. No one wants to be a moron. And if he can convince you from the start that the Gospel is stupid then he doesn’t even need to take it serious enough to confront its claims. It immediately places the believers on the back foot, having to prove their intelligence instead of defending the Gospel itself. Then Korihor follows up by claiming that the Gospel is a waste of time, effort, money, and life. The Gospel is stupid, idiotic, and an absolute waste.
Worse, according to Korihor, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is slavery. It is a yoke, a burden placed on you that weighs you down and forces you to do hard, backbreaking labor. It denies you your freedom and turns you into an animal. By calling the Gospel a tool of control and domination, a means of slavery, it also implicitly means that Korihor’s teachings, which teach you to cast off the Gospel yoke are a source of liberation and freedom. Korihor presents himself as a liberator of people bound to slavery by their ignorance, gullibility, and stupidity.
Then Korihor launches his first attack on Gospel doctrine, building on the theme of it being stupid to have faith in Christ:
14 Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers.
15 How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ.
Korihor claims that no human can know the future, that it is a literal impossibility. Therefore anyone and anything claiming otherwise is a liar or an idiot who believes in the impossible and is therefore obviously wrong. Like all materialists, he claims that the only form of knowledge that exists is that which can be falsified through what we would consider the scientific method. If you can’t see it or hold it for yourself and manipulate it as you will then you cannot know it and therefore have no reason to believe it. All faith is blind according to Korihor.
16 Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins. But behold, it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so.
17 And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.
Korihor steps it up here. Not only are you stupid if you believe in God or Christ, you’re actually crazy if you do so. Only insane people say they experience things that cannot exist. Therefore, if you have a religious experience you’re either a liar trying to manipulate the ignorant for profit, stupid, insane, or some combination of those possibilities. And all of this drives to the ultimate point:
There is no Christ. There is no Atonement. Nor will there ever be.
Korihor knows that if he can degrade your faith in Jesus Christ then everything else collapses. You can and will then be easily led down forbidden paths of darkness and be lost. (1 Nephi 8) And, being lost, you will be easily manipulated by Satan into doing his work and walking his paths down into Hell.
In these next couple of selections I am going to quote some verses out of order as a means to unite the similar points Korihor is making into a single quotation in order to avoid repetition in my commentary:
23 Because I do not teach the foolish traditions of your fathers, and because I do not teach this people to bind themselves down under the foolish ordinances and performances which are laid down by ancient priests, to usurp power and authority over them, to keep them in ignorance, that they may not lift up their heads, but be brought down according to thy words.
24 Ye say that this people is a free people. Behold, I say they are in bondage. Ye say that those ancient prophecies are true. Behold, I say that ye do not know that they are true.26 And ye also say that Christ shall come. But behold, I say that ye do not know that there shall be a Christ. And ye say also that he shall be slain for the sins of the world—
27 And thus ye lead away this people after the foolish traditions of your fathers, and according to your own desires; and ye keep them down, even as it were in bondage, that ye may glut yourselves with the labors of their hands, that they durst not look up with boldness, and that they durst not enjoy their rights and privileges.
According to Korihor, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is something old people believing in – “your fathers” – and not something smart, liberated, young people believe in. Again, Korihor repeats that the purpose of the Gospel is to bind people down, to place mental shackles upon them that give church leaders power and control over their lives. Church leaders, he claims, grow fat and rich on the tithes and offerings of the people while the people suffer, having being indoctrinated into submission and obedience. In contrast, Korihor promises freedom from such bondage, the freedom to follow your passions and desires as you choose.
25 Ye say that this people is a guilty and a fallen people, because of the transgression of a parent. Behold, I say that a child is not guilty because of its parents.
28 Yea, they durst not make use of that which is their own lest they should offend their priests, who do yoke them according to their desires, and have brought them to believe, by their traditions and their dreams and their whims and their visions and their pretended mysteries, that they should, if they did not do according to their words, offend some unknown being, who they say is God—a being who never has been seen or known, who never was nor ever will be.
Korihor claims that the Gospel teaches we are all guilty of Adam’s sins, but this is foolish because no one is responsible for the actions of others. It is no surprise at this point that Korihor claims that all of the revelations and visions people have had are simply made up, either by them or by others who seek to use these stories to control people. God has never been seen and never will be seen because there is no such thing as God. Gods cannot exist. I do think the reference to “pretended mysteries” is interesting though. The “mysteries of godliness,” are discovered in the holy temple(s) of the Lord and a reference to the mysteries by Korihor may very well be a reference to temple rites and temple worship among the Nephites. If so, then Korihor’s claim here may be something like, “You use access to temple worship, which you claim is necessary for salvation, as a means of controlling the ignorant public.”
So, to summarize: Korihor teaches that the Gospel of Jesus Christ are stupid beliefs in impossible things used by powerful church leaders to mentally enslave the ignorant and stupid masses in order to bilk them of their money and keep them obedient. The Gospel is something moronic old people believe in, but smart young people can see the truth behind the lies and will reject the Gospel. No one can know the future. There is no God. There is no Jesus Christ. There is no Atonement. All these things are impossible. The only things that you can know are real are those things which you can directly see and touch whenever you want.
The Goals of the Dragon
Remember, the ultimate goal of Satan before the beginning of time has been to replace Jesus. Satan wants you to worship him as the Only Begotten and the Messiah. Therefore, Satan has to destroy all faith that either Christ will come or has come and has to destroy all hope in the Atonement. With that destroyed Satan can destroy your hope for tomorrow and get you to live the way that he wants you to live. And how does Satan want you to live?
Like an animal.
Satan’s lie has always been that you were “born this way” and therefore should act upon your natural urges. Your identity is what you think and feel, your urges and your instincts. Whatever you do is no crime, is no sin, because no divine or even natural laws exist. Satan’s propaganda has always said in one from or another, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Satan has always cloaked his lies in the robe of love and freedom, declaring that he frees people to love as they desire and that he liberates people from the tyranny of discipleship to Christ. This allows Satan to cast his teachings as empathetic and humanitarian and the commandments of God as oppressive, cruel, and mean. (For example.) Of course, the ultimate outcome is that, unmoored from the source of divine revelation and truth, one becomes victims to the philosophies of the world. Once that happens, one loses control over who he or she will be and allows herself to be dictated an identity by the morality and ideologies of the masses. Individuality gives way to mass-mindedness, liberty to slavery.
In this endeavor, the commandments and doctrines of God are twisted to fit the Satanic message. Korihor claims no man can know the future. This is true and it is completely irrelevant. In the Church of Jesus Christ it is God, a Being who exists outside of spacetime and can see everything at once (D&C 130:4-7), who knows the future and reveals that knowledge to man. No one just knows it of himself. To suggest that is what the church believes is a lie. Another example: Korihor claims that the Gospel teaches that we inherit the guilt of Adam’s sins. This is a lie. We face the consequences of Adam’s choices, but not the guilt or the sin of Adam’s choices. These two things are not the same. If my father was a drunk driver and goes to prison as a result, I suffer the consequences of his actions, but I do not inherit the guilt of the crime of drunk driving from him. The same is true of Adam and the Fall.
These examples of the twisting and corruption of authentic doctrines, and all the others Korihor and his fellow Anti-Christs invent, sound good to the ignorant and those whose understanding is shallow. And they have no reason to want to learn the truth, it takes less effort to believe a lie that investigate a claim, evaluate the evidence, discover the truth, and change to live in accordance to that truth. It takes a lot less work to continue being ignorant and fooled. But you need a reason to justify to yourself why you aren’t changing to become better or, even worse, are abandoning the Gospel of Christ for the ways of the world. Which is what Korihor is doing here, providing justifications that you can accept which will allow you to justify your actions to yourself. As a consequence of accepting Korihor’s lies, and the lies of those like him, the commandments of God become hateful and hated.
Of course this is all absolute nonsense.
Love is not about physical desire, natural urges, or erotic attraction. Love is not a product of the natural world. Lust, thinking of and using other humans as objects to satisfy your own desires, is a product of the natural world. Love comes only through self-denial. Love is a gift from God and is developed as we use our freedom to sacrifice for others and others do the same for us. Those who give themselves to the service of and love for God find that their capacity to love even the most unlovable has grown in leaps and bounds. Just as we love God because He first loved us and sacrificed for us (1 John 4:19) other love us because we first loved them and demonstrated that love through self-sacrifice for them. We earn and develop love by conquering our instincts to take, use, and conquer, not by giving into them. We develop and gain love by doing what others will, not what we would. As the Prophet Alma taught his son, he (and we) must “bridle all your passions, that ye [we] may be filled with love.” (Alma 38:12)
A bridle is an apt metaphor here as bridles do not kill horses. Rather, by bridling the horse its strength, stamina, and raw power can be directed into paths that are productive, meaningful, and successful. For humans, self-control and self-sacrifice, discipline, gives us much more. One who does not control his passions is controlled by his passions. Instead of being defined by your physical urges, allowing your sexual urges to define who you are for example, does not reveal an “authentic” self. Such a being does not exist and never has. As Longfellow articulated it over a century ago, who we are is forged in life through thoughts and our actions. If you base your identity on your desires then you aren’t creating an identity for yourself or discovering some true, hidden identity. You’re abdicating your right to your mind and your body to the influence of others, for them to mold you in their image. But if you control your passions you can harness their power and direct them into the ways you choose to accomplish the goals you wish to achieve. This liberates us by placing within our power the ability to command and direct our lives instead of being commanded by our natural urges. This is actual self-empowerment. This is true freedom.
Also like an animal, Satan wants you to believe that the only way to get ahead in the world is by destroying others, crushing those weaker than you, and taking what you want for yourself. Notice that this doesn’t mean everything is chaos and slaughter all the time. Rather, that society is built on the belief that there are no higher laws that dictate human action than what humans create for themselves. There are no true crimes because crime is determined solely by what people decide is or isn’t illegal. The inevitable outcome of such a world is the slide into autocracy, authoritarianism, and universal slavery as the laws of men act without any limits other than what politicians can get people to accept. Like an animal, humans are seen as being incapable of controlling themselves and need someone with the power to terrorize them into “civilized” behavior by threatening to beat, cage, and kill those who do not obey order/the law. The result is an unending war of all against all in a scramble to ensure it is your group that wields the levers of power against your “enemies” before they do the same to you.
The ultimate goal is to destroy faith in Jesus Christ. Satan knows that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is central to the entire Plan of Salvation. And Satan could not prevent it from happening. His next best option is to convince us to not take advantage of it. Satan understands that the discipline of the Gospel of Jesus Christ liberates people by freeing them from slavery to themselves and the bondage of wicked men and evil laws. Satan knows that the natural products of living the Gospel are peace and joy. Faith in Christ brings hope to even the darkest times in our lives, allowing us to weather the storms of existence without giving in to nihilism and depression. (Ether 12:4) All of these are counter to Satan’s desires, because his goal is to make us as miserable as he is, to bring us down into slavery to him and his systems of power. (2 Nephi 2:27) And so he tells whatever lies he can in order to convince us to hate the very thing that will save us, to deny God, to deny Christ, to deny the faith, and to refuse to access the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ when we need it most.
Devoid of a faith in God the biological urge to worship does not cease. Rather, as Dr. Carl Jung explained, men with no gods begin to worship their governments as gods, with temples and idols and all. Voting becomes a sacrament and politicians become messianic figures that promise to solve all the problems of human existence – to abolish all hate, poverty, misery, and ignorance, to create a society of the perfectly just, the perfectly equal, the perfectly wealthy – and all at the wave of a Presidential executive order or Congressional act. All we need to do is submit to their edicts and enforce their orders and we will be granted utopia. All we need to have a perfect society is to be a willing slave. Of course, this is exactly what Satan wants because the nations of the world are under his influence and control. To love and serve the State, that is to love and serve “your country,” is to love and serve Satan, who is the master over the nations of the world. This is why worldly governments are built on human sacrifice just as Cain’s original Cult of Satan was based on human sacrifice. (Moses 5:30-32, 47-49) Satan threatened to reign the Earth with blood and horror by buying up armies and navies to carry out his will. And he has plainly done so through his emissaries, human governments.
Defeating The Dragon
As V explained, you can’t kill ideas. Ideas are bulletproof. They live like seed in the minds and hearts of all those that hear them. Therefore, we cannot crush the doctrines of the dragon. You may kill the believer, but the belief will live on. Especially because one does not need to be a literal Satanist to spread Satan’s religion. The world, by its nature, is anti-Christ and therefore full of Antichrists. Anything that tries to get you to break the commandments or not believe in any of the doctrines of the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is Antichrist. Anything that attacks any point of Christ’s Gospel of Antichrist as they oppose part of Christ’s truths, Religious people who try to destroy your faith in Christ or in His Church restored are Antichrist as they oppose Christ’s work of salvation today. Atheists are often some of Satan’s biggest missionaries even as they denounce all belief in Satan’s existence. You do not need to believe in the Devil to do the Devil’s work.
It is consequently impossible to eliminate the dragon’s religion by eliminating anyone who professes it or elements of it. Indeed, by trying to forcibly eliminate Satanism we only end up creating the kind of political and state apparatus that Satan rules and do the work of social, physical, and spiritual destruction at the heart of Satan’s religion. Remember, Satan was first named Perdition, Destruction, long before any human was and destruction is the core purpose of his religion. (D&C 76:26, Moses 5:24) Trying to destroy others is to only do Satan’s work for him and makes all our professions of Christianity null as out actions turn us into anti-Christs.
So, then, how do we defeat the dragon?
The Prophet Alma provides us with the answer in Alma 31:
5 And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.
The Word of God is the most powerful source of truth in all existence. It is more powerful than all the forces and powers of the Earth. No government agency, program, or enforcement agency can change the hearts and minds of men. They may terrorize you into compliance, but they cannot change what you believe and choose what you will do when they aren’t watching. (Which is likely why they want to destroy you right to privacy.) The revelations of God repeatedly tell us that it is the Word of God that destroys the dragon and its minions. Perhaps the most dramatic representation of this comes from Revelation 19 wherein the Apostle John describes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and explains how Christ will destroy both wings of the dragon, Satan’s political and spiritual organizations:
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Notice that it is by the sword coming out of His mouth that the beast (the nations of the world, all of which are controlled by Satan) and the false prophet (the Antichrist forces which are Satan’s religious organizations) are soundly defeated and cast into Hell. What is the sword that comes from Christ the King’s mouth? The Word of God is repeatedly symbolized as a sword which divides truth from lies, good from evil, and the discerner of the thoughts and intents of mankind. (Ephesians 6:17, Hebrews 4:12) Thus, it is by His Gospel teachings, by the Word of God, that the Beast is destroyed, that the false prophet is crushed, that the wings of the dragon are torn from it and cast into Hell forever.
Now, this is often interpreted literally as Jesus will slaughter all His enemies and cast them into Hell. But there is another possibility. Remember, the Beast and Antichrist are not actual people, they’re symbolic. Likewise the sword coming from Jesus’s mouth is not literal, but symbolic. Why not the war itself? As Alma taught, the Word of God has the power to transform the mind and soul of a person. All conversion includes an encounter with the Word of God which begins the process of gaining faith and repenting. It seems likely to me that John is teaching us that Christ will not slaughter His enemies, but that He will conquer them by converting them to His Gospel. Thereby He will defeat the dragon that is Satan by turning his servants into Christians. Even the reference to birds eating the dead may be symbolize the church as Jesus compares the church to eagles gathered around a carcass in Matthew 24:28 (and made absolutely clear in JST Matthew 1:27.)
So it is by the Word of God that Satan’s lies are overthrown, his servants transformed into disciples of Jesus Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ grows, and the wings of the dragon are destroyed.
What then qualifies as the Word of God?
- First and foremost, the teachings of the Prophets and Apostles when they are speaking by revelation and inspiration in their divinely appointed and authorized Priesthood roles. As the Lord explains, “whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.” (D&C 1:38)
- Second, the scriptures are the Word of God. Specifically as they accurately record God’s words to Prophets and Apostles both anciently and modernly. Not everything in the scriptures is God’s word, only those things which actually are God’s words. (AoF 1:8)
- Third, revelations to you through the Holy Spirit are the Word of God. While not everything is under your purview or authority, for those things which are the Lord will guide you by revelation about what you should think, say, or do. This applies obviously to callings, but also to your relationships with family, friends, and other loved one. You cannot receive revelation for them, but God can give you revelation about what you should say to them or do to bless the lives of others. (D&C 68:3-5)
Testifying Of The Truth
Does this mean that merely quoting scripture is enough to confound Satan and his servants? No. As the Lord Jesus Christ explained in D&C 84, it takes more than that:
85 Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.
In order to be effective hearers, doers, and teachers of the Word of God, we must study them deeply. We can’t just read the scriptures, we must study them, strive to understand them, and implement them into our lives. We cannot just listen to General Conference, we have to study the teachings of the contemporary Prophets and Apostles deeply, strive to understand their teachings, and implement them into our lives. We cannot just feel the Holy Spirit, we must actively cultivate a relationship with our Father through the Spirit, develop our sensitivity to the promptings of the Spirit, act upon those promptings, and live in such a way that we may have the Holy Spirit with us at all times. Thus we, like Christ, will not speak only as scribes, quoting texts in our arguments, but speak with the authority of the Spirit of God.
If we do these things, we will be open to inspiration and revelation from God as He directs our thoughts, words, and actions to best counter the doctrines of the dragon and proclaim the Gospel of the Lamb. We will not be ignorant and therefore be easily manipulated and deceived by the lies of Antichrists when they warp and wrest doctrines or outright lie about them in their efforts to lead us gradually but directly down to Hell. Antichrists will not sound smart to us, we will recognize their stupidity for what it is and not fall for their lies. Instead, we will know the truth because we have learned it from the Word of God and we will be able to articulate that truth to counter and defeat the lies of Satan. Even if our work does result in immediate conversions, the truth will have been upheld and seeds planted by the Spirit that, by the by, may come to fruition. Not only will we be transforming and saving our own souls, but He will make us the instrument in helping to save many souls who have lost their way.