evidence thereof they began speaking in foreign languages not heretofore learned by them. (Acts 10:1 to 11:18) From then on the door stood wide open for the Christian truth to attack the false religion in all the Gentile nations.

The Crowning Assault upon All False Religion

1. What had the ancient Hebrew Scriptures prophesied, and how did many in the nations respond to Paul’s preaching?

EVEN the prophecies of the ancient inspired Hebrew Scriptures had indicated that in God’s appointed time the light of the truth was to assault the darkness of false religion. The apostle Paul quoted such a prophecy when he said to the people gathered together in the Jewish synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia about eleven years after the conversion of Cornelius to true religion: “Look! we turn to the [Gentile] nations. In fact, Jehovah has laid commandment upon us in these words, ‘I have appointed you as a light of nations, for you to be a salvation to the extremity of the earth.’” After the apostle Paul quoted that prophecy to his mixed audience, what happened? This: “When those of the nations heard this, they began to rejoice and to glorify the word of Jehovah, and all those who were rightly disposed for everlasting life became believers. Furthermore, the word of Jehovah went on being carried throughout the whole country.”—Acts 13:14-49; Isa. 42:6.

2. How was the action of “those of the nations” proof that a successful attack had been made by Paul in his preaching?

² Would you call that a successful attack on false religion? Yes, because it resulted in real liberation of victims of false religion and putting them in the way of “everlasting life” in the new order of Jehovah God, where there will be no false religion. This was a liberation of people from the power of the god of all false religion, to free them for the worship and service of the God of true religion, the Archenemy of all false religion. Such liberation was the gist of the commission given to the apostle Paul when the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him and went on to say: “I have made myself visible to you, in order to choose you as an attendant and a witness . . . while I deliver you from this people and from the nations, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, in order for them to receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by their faith in me.”—Acts 26:14-18.

3. How does Satan wield his authority, and when did he first begin in this manner?

³ Note those words of this commission to Paul: “to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God.” Satan the Devil wields his “authority” through false religion, through religious “darkness.” True to his name Satan, which means “Resister; Adversary,” he resists the one living and true God, whose name is Jehovah. (Ps. 83:18) Satan began his resistance of Jehovah God at the garden of Eden during the presence there of the perfect Adam and Eve, and through deception he introduced false religion into the garden of Eden. (Gen. 3:1-15) After the expulsion of the rebellious Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, Satan caused religion of a false kind to flourish outside Eden until the flood of the prophet Noah’s days, which flood brought an end to the violence with which the earth was filled as a result of false religion.—Gen. 6:1 to 8:22; 2 Pet. 2:5; 3:5, 6.

4. (a) How was false religion reorganized after the flood of Noah’s day? (b) Who is worshiped as a god in the Babylonish world empire of false religion?

⁴ After this global flood Satan the Devil finally succeeded in reestablishing and organizing false religion, especially in the days of Noah’s great-grandson, the founder of the city of Babylon (Babel) and a “mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” (Gen. 10:8-10; 1 Chron. 1:10) Babylon became the central stronghold of all false religion on the earth, and starting out from here a world empire of false religion was built up. This religious empire is the mysterious thing that the Holy Bible calls “Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.” (Rev. 17:1-5) This Babylonish religious empire has come to include even Christendom. Through this religious empire Satan the Devil is worshiped as god. This is not an overstatement, for the apostle Paul says: “If, now, the good news we declare is in fact veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.”—2 Cor. 4:3, 4.

5. Why have the political rulers tried to protect false religion?

⁵ The said “god of this system of things” also has the political rulers under his control. Jesus Christ knew this about Satan the Devil and called him “the ruler of this world.” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11) This explains why the political rulers of this world have tried to protect and foster false religion. This has made it more difficult for the practicers of the true religion to assault the Babylonish world empire of false religion and turn persons “from the authority of Satan to God.” Yet this assault has been successfully carried on among all nations.

THE PATTERN FOR SUCCESSFUL ASSAULT

6, 7. What tactics did the ancient Israelites follow in attacking false religion, and are these to be the tactics of Christians?

⁶ The apostles of Jesus Christ set the pattern as to how this attack upon the false form of worship should be carried on. They were no iconoclasts or image breakers, such as the ancient Israelites were when subduing the Promised Land in the Middle East under the generalship of Joshua the son of Nun, beginning in the year 1473 B.C.E. At the time of the Israelite invasion of the land, it was filled with idols of the false gods of the pagan inhabitants of the land and the moral conditions among these pagan worshipers were very low and degraded, filthy.

⁷ “Consequently,” said Jehovah God, “the land is unclean, and I shall bring punishment for its error upon it, and the land will vomit its inhabitants out.” (Lev. 18:21-30)