Secular Religion During the Tribulation
Now that we understand how and why truth rejection is so easy when a person's soul becomes locked into an out-of-control state, we should examine some of the results on God's plan, Satan's strategy, and human history. There is a historical trend underway which seeks to deny the existence of God and instead worship at the shrine of human causes, turning those causes into a false religion without a god, thus a secular religion. Romans 1:28 says: "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator." These objects of worship can be based on political activism, radical environmentalism, climate change, the social gospel, gender activism, or whatever strikes the emotional tuning fork of the "worshipers". Of course they deny it is a religion, but it contains all the factors which can be called worship. It is a deep-seated belief system which views their object of focus as the source of their own self-worth and reason for existence, therefore they treat it as sacrosanct, and the thing which must be given the place of highest honor among all other things. Although organized religions have a system of doctrines or guiding principles, secular religion has only an emotional and therefore zealous approach to the world around them based on secular concepts and objects of worship. Philippians 3:19 says: “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach [emotions], and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things." It is an approach to life where the guiding principles focus on a misplaced and misguided attempt at betterment of the world, which Satan rules. To the followers of this secular religion there is no God or gods, only a focus on humanistic reforms deemed important to their "righteous cause." In this regard secular religionists seek to replace worship of God with worship of something secular, something which can give meaning to their otherwise empty life. It can be the earth itself, human progress, environmentalism, total equality of outcomes for everyone, an ideal brotherhood in which all practice what is "moral and good" as they mis-define these, or a number of other secular causes. But why should we care? After all, there are plenty of misguided people doing misguided things in this world.
The reason to care is that secular religion will be at a peak during the Tribulation when the Antichrist will rule much of the earth under the guise of the head of a secular religion where he is its secular savior, not for the soul but for secular causes. This secular religion will enable the rise of the Antichrist, and will make him into a secular hero who will lead billions of people astray into the most vicious system of evil during all of human history. This man will be personally indwelt by Satan, something which is extremely rare since Satan normally leaves such messy details to his demons. This secular religion under the Antichrist will lure people in as it promises to save them from global unrest, bring about world peace, heal the earth by stopping global climate change, make all people equal, make no distinction among choices by sex, and provide economic benefit to those who worship this religion. This secular religion will also use copycat tricks to make the Antichrist into a substitute for the true Messiah Jesus Christ, since this man will be viewed at that time as the secular savior of the world, and even a god, although that is an oxymoron in a secular religion. Not that Satan was ever accused of being rational.
Those who reject the truth based on a broad spectrum takeover of the soul by the sinful nature backed by the emotions can easily end up in a secular religion whereby they worship human powered self improvement and furtherance of causes rather than worship God. Extreme humanism and liberalism best represent this secular religion sponsored by Satan. They preach love but their focus is hate for those who are not one of them. They preach a love of freedom but what they truly love is lack of responsibility for one’s own actions, and they seek to take away the freedoms of those who oppose them. They preach tolerance yet are intolerant to the extreme. They preach helping the downtrodden yet seek to destroy those who are not on their side. These are very much aligned with Satan's thinking and plan where the end result justifies any means used to achieve it. The secular religionist seeks total liberty to do as they please, but in reality instead of having liberty they are simply libertine, seeking liberty without responsibility. They seek freedom from accountability for their actions, which is unobtainable. And at the same time they want to deny others the freedom to think and act in ways different from how they think and act, especially if it is related to Christianity. Their search for total liberty without responsibility or accountability enslaves them to their sinful nature inside Satan’s plan, and therefore to Satan himself, the father of lies. Their so-called liberty is not the individual liberty God has established in His plan, whereby all individuals are free to choose for or against God, which is individual liberty with responsibility and accountability under nations which protect the rights and freedoms of every individual. God is the author of liberty, while Satan is the author of slavery, yet secular religionists reject God's liberty and therefore must accept Satan's slavery, which is the only alternative.
Under secular religion those who worship the true God are called heretics who must be eliminated. In contrast, God's plan is to allow all to make choices from their own free will and live with the consequences, which is a live and let live approach. The reality behind secular religion is that the proponents try to ignore God but cannot. They fall prey to Satan and become his slaves, meaning Satan becomes their god. Satan is the father of lies, a cheater, and a murderer from the beginning. Since this is the one they follow they become like him, and will end up with him in eternity. It is no surprise the secular zealots are liars themselves. Look at their approach, what they say about those who disagree with them, how they do not hesitate to lie and cheat to gain any advantage. They are clearly representing Satan’s approach when they do so. Achievement of the goal is what matters to them, not how they get to it. Lying, cheating, deceiving, and even murder are all just a means which can be justified by the end result. They become like their evil mentor and sponsor Satan -- liars, haters, inwardly focused, godless automatons. And current trends have not yet reached the peak of evil the world will experience during the Tribulation. But the softening process must come first if the masses are to be prepared to accept the master secular religionist called the Antichrist.
Secular religion is mankind's way to cope with their own eventual death which looms over their lives. Denial and dissociation are mental gymnastic tools used to avoid thinking about death, while the person practices human powered self-improvement as a means to personal redemption. Comparative analysis is used to show there is always someone worse than they are, providing some secular comfort. These secular religionists may even have fleeting thoughts of some mystical cosmic force which will suck them all up into the universal ether in some lasting way, giving them an idea of possible immortality. But death still looms large over them, and there is no escape. So they cope by turning to self-improvement, saving the planet, and other humanistic causes as a means of self-redemption apart from God. But no matter how they try, the secular religionist has no hope, no power in the life, no meaning, and no understanding of why they are on earth. This thinking will reach a peak during the Tribulation under the rule of the Antichrist and will enable his rise to power.
Secular religion finds it acceptable to hate and even kill those who violate its "doctrines". Without God their religion is one of worshiping the earth and humanistic causes as sacrosanct and therefore as a god. Harming the earth is harming its “god”, therefore those who would harm their object of worship or even deny the existence of the harm are heretics and blasphemers who must be destroyed. Salvation in this secular religion comes by making a difference, such as saving the planet. Radical environmentalists evangelize regarding global climate change, and want to destroy those who do not convert. Questioning environmentalism, equality of outcomes, or any “progressive” thinking is blasphemy against their secular religion and is called hate, and therefore worthy of the secular religionist's own hatred, punishment, imprisonment, and even death. The Bible itself is therefore deemed to be hateful, especially Romans 1 20-32:
"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
Looking at historical examples is useful to help explain the concepts just covered. When Jesus presented Himself as the Messiah during His earthly ministry, the Jewish leadership rejected Him immediately. This was in spite of His miracles, His teachings which lined up with what the Messiah would teach, His fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies, and His credible answers to all of their questions to Him. They were blinded by their own arrogance and lust for power, which they did not want to lose, and they refused to look at the truth in the form of their own Messiah. Although they tried over and over to prove He was a faker, they never succeeded. So they ultimately decided to execute Him without cause, and in violation of their own laws of evidence and jurisprudence. This hardness of heart by the Pharisees shows how closed-minded someone, or a group of people, can become when the soul is locked into a pattern ruled by the sinful nature and backed by the emotions. They simply cannot see the truth no matter how convincing it may be. And explaining and teaching is not the answer for most such people, since the Pharisees rejected the teachings of the best teacher in history. Another past historical example of a large secular religion was the Soviet Union. As an entity it denied God and made the State into a god. The ends justified the means, according to its prophets Lenin and Marx. Working for the State brought glory and redemption. Millions were murdered to enable "progress". It was a microcosm of the Satanic system -- dark, cold, and inhuman. Under such a secular religion, whether the adherents realize it or not, Satan becomes their god, and everyone else is nobody and therefore expendable. Contrast that with God's plan where each individual is allowed to live in freedom to make their own decisions for or against God, and God also allows each one to live with their own choices and reap the consequences.
But the ultimate in secular religion will occur during the future Tribulation when Satan pulls out all the stops and lashes out in every direction hoping against hope that somehow he can avoid his certain doom. It will all fail, but not before the human race suffers in unimaginable ways, especially those who take the easy route of truth rejection and follow his evil plan. And although it may seem inconceivable, the vast majority of the human race at that time will reject the truth and follow Satan's plan of chaos, hatred, and evil as they approve of killing Christians simply for their belief in Jesus Christ, and line up in agreement with those who punish anyone who does not comply with the evil government of the Antichrist. Truth will be rejected as never before in human history. Right will be called wrong and wrong will be called right. The world will be turned upside down. And it will be enabled, encouraged, and cheered on by the overwhelming majority of people on the earth at that time. They will approve as innocent people are imprisoned and murdered by their governments. Any form of opposition to the evil government will be the highest level crime, while ordinary crime will become rampant. Those who believe in the true God and the Bible will be declared an enemy of the State, and many thousands of believers will die for their faith. This is why there will need to be an Armageddon, because the world will be so evil, and the people so irretrievable in hardness of heart.
We see the pattern of hardness of heart all around us. Many issues the Bible declares to be wrong have become the poster children for declaring discriminatory practices among those who simply state an objection. The proper roles of government have been hijacked. People instantly gravitate to hardened positions about a vast array of subjects, and the truth is ignored in the debate over how to proceed with common issues. Civility and common courtesy are thrown out in the interest of proving the correctness of one's own indefensible positions. Those who defend actual truth, teach the Bible, support lawful procedure, and believe in the right to exercise individual liberty to live and let live, and do so under proper motivations, are declared to be a fringe element which must be eliminated. This is all due to the majority of people rejecting God's truth and allowing the sinful nature and emotions to take over their souls. When God and His truth are ignored there are only lies remaining. And Satan is right there to help promote those lies and convince his followers of their legitimacy. This will be the pattern of the Tribulation when the divine order God has ordained will be replaced by total lawlessness under the rule of Satan, and administered by the Antichrist. Secular religion will bring the world down to a level of hate-filled intolerance never before seen, and the police state will murder Christians by the many thousands for simply believing in Jesus Christ as Savior. And the earth will also end up in near ruin, despite the secular religious fervor to save the planet and promote other forms of humanistic causes. This is the legacy of secular religion, that it is powerless except for doing harm, and has no power to do actual good as defined in the Bible.
This leads us to our next topic, which is why there will be a period of time called the Tribulation.