[The words below are from the Postscript to the upcoming second edition of my 1,044-page book “The Serpent & the Cross: Religious Corruption in an Evil Age”. This has now been sent to the printer and will be available shortly in a limited edition at cost price (£22 GBP or $30 USD or €26 Euros, plus postage) as a paperback book. In the book, this Postscript comes after a 1,018 page journey through every conceivable nook and cranny of Satan’s operations (psychological, social, political and religious) over the past 2,000+ years. So some encouragement is needed — although there is much Bible exposition in the text to act as a balance to the material that is being exposed].

OUR EXPLORATIONS into the origins and extent of religious corruption in this “present evil age” have now come to a close. But before we take leave of one another, let us share some concluding thoughts which will sum up the salient points of the book and put these matters in their true spiritual perspective.

First, let us remember that the Church has always been ravaged by schism and false teaching. The fact itself has not changed. What has changed is the intensity, which is now being ramped-up massively. There has never been a moment in which the Church on earth has been free from the divisive assaults of Satan in the areas of teaching and personal sanctification. One has only to read through the extensive polemical writings of the early Church Fathers to realise this.

Second, remember that the Lord Jesus said that His disciples would have “tribulation” as long as they remained in the world (John 16:33). That means from birth to death — a period which is actually just a brief preface to the world to come. The Spirit-indwelt believer is an anomaly in the midst of a fallen world in an “evil age” (Galatians 1:4). He or she is a “stranger and pilgrim” on this planet and cannot hope to find abiding comfort or fulfilment here (Hebrews 11:13-16; 2 Corinthians 5:4). This earthly pilgrimage was never supposed to be easy for those who tread the narrow and afflicted way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14), and who wish to follow in the beleaguered earthly footsteps of their Master (Matthew 10:37-39; Mark 8:34). Although we may sometimes come upon what John Bunyan, in his superlative “Pilgrim’s Progress”, calls “a delicate plain called Ease”, we will also, as that author tells us, be “quickly got over it”. I hope you appreciate what is being revealed there. We cannot expect an easy time of it. But always remember this: “God is faithful; He will not let you be tested/tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13), and what you can bear will increase with time.

Third, let us not forget that alongside this inevitable “tribulation” of the saints is the firm assurance that this world is in total subjection to the risen, ascended Christ (again, John 16:33). All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, and it is on that foundation that the Great Commission stands (Matthew 28:18-20). It is especially important to understand this in the light of the many phenomena that have been recorded throughout this book. No matter how desperately wicked world developments and church affairs appear to become, we should not be cast down, for everything is unfolding under Divine scrutiny (cf. Acts 4:24-31).

Around the time that the Lord Jesus will return, world conditions (as Jesus Himself revealed) will be very similar to how they were in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-39). So how were they in the time of Noah? Widespread wickedness, atheism, debauchery, false religion, lawlessness, the invasion of a plethora of demonic entities, and a complete absence of concern that these things should be so (Genesis 6:1-2,5-7,11-13). But all this mayhem did not deter Noah from being a faithful “preacher of righteousness” until the moment that the Lord shut him in the ark, rescuing him with his family from the judgement of the flood (2 Peter 2:5). Neither should we be deterred from heralding the same Gospel until that moment when the Lord comes to take His own into glory and His sickle of judgement is thrust into the world for the final time (Revelation 14:17-20). According to Apostolic counsel, even when people no longer endure sound doctrine, and have “heaped up” for themselves false teachers, the faithful pastor must continue to be “watchful in all things”, and “endure afflictions” as a fulfilment of evangelistic ministry (2 Timothy 4:5). The proclamation of the Word continues unruffled both in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2).

The information given in this book should motivate disciples of Christ to realise that the professing Church has, in many ways, failed to stand mightily against the dark principalities and powers which are having such a field-day in the world at present. The bewitching teachings of Gnosticism have stepped in where the visible church has feared to tread in its Divinely-appointed duty throughout the present Age.

Conditions such as stultifying legalism, cultish extremism, magisterial enforcement of the religion of Christianity through barbaric forms of inquisition and persecution, incessant sectarianism and in-fighting, dependence on outward ritual and manmade ceremonies, the lack of a true spirituality of the heart, have all driven people to conclude that a more genuine form of Christianity is to be found in the siren tones of Gnosticism and a more fulfilling faith in all those world religions which have been devised by Satan. It is high time that we set about reversing this trend. The role of the believer in every era — and this can never be repeated enough — is to pull down these heathen strongholds and to busy himself or herself in what Paul refers to as: “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Let us also remember that this present universe was never designed to be the final product of God’s creative activity. As the Scriptures clearly show, the ultimate purpose in the mind of God has always been a completely reconstituted universe in which suffering and evil will have no place (See Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Acts 3:20-21; Matthew 19:28; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-5). Therefore the universe, as it is currently constituted, is but a vast stepping stone on the pathway to a new heaven and a new earth. In this way, we can see that everything that happens within it is in some sense, in the inscrutable will of God, making a contribution to that ultimate purpose. As John Calvin put it so well hundreds of years ago: “Whatever poison Satan produces, God turns it into medicine for His elect”. Understanding this fact will bring a new perspective to our knowledge of the many forces of this evil age, which must always be seen as provisional, transient, and absolutely under the controlling hand of God.

The Complete Degeneration & Disintegration of Humanity

It is widely believed today that the world is now moving into a Post-Christian Era, and that this will be an age of ‘peace, justice and human brotherhood’. But this is not at all the ‘age of enlightenment’ that the world imagines. For in claiming to be in such an epoch, the world has pronounced upon itself the curse of darkness. For the only post-Christian era revealed in the Bible is that known as Satan’s “little season” or “little while” (Revelation 20:3), that brief period of tribulation prior to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, in which the people of God become subject to the full wrath of a devil who knows he has been defeated and that he has only a very short time in which to vent his spleen. Having considered all the detail that is in this book and pondered the religious and political developments of the past one and a half centuries, one may well wonder if that time is coming upon us now — the time of the global ‘Disintegration’ into the counterfeit kingdom which Satan has always envisaged for himself.

This global ‘Disintegration’ is already happening in a ‘trickle’ sort of sense and has been doing for some decades through such elements as the normalisation of sinful personality disorders and sexual perversions (even taking ‘pride’ in them); the deliberate dismantling of a healthy national identity and the ruination of any remnants of civilised culture through the disingenuous imposition of a false doctrine of ‘diversity’, the enforcement of a social policy involving selective (pseudo) ‘inclusivity’, the implementation of designedly ruinous mass human immigration; and the stigmatisation and even criminalisation of those who tell the truth about these things or who dare to question them in any way, and the ludicrous accusation that they are committing “hatecrimes”.

It has to be said that the global ‘Disintegration’ will not necessarily be like anything that any disciple of Christ (who knows it is coming) may have imagined that it will be. Many who profess ‘Christianity’ will even be blindsided by it — especially those who have been hoodwinked by the ‘rapture’ deception, or who have been taken in by the ‘Israel first’ fraud, or who imagine there is a ‘global revival’ coming, or who stubbornly refuse to believe that the period of “great tribulation” mentioned by the prophet Daniel and the Lord Jesus Christ is a future event (Matthew 24:10-12,21,37; Luke 17:26-30; Daniel 12:1).

For those who are not disciples of the Christ and who are therefore not familiar with the great plan of God (as revealed in the Bible) — i.e., those who will, when the global ‘Disintegration’ has really arrived in full, have “refused the love of the truth that would have saved them” and who will also “believe the lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11) — to them, the global ‘Disintegration’ will not seem like a disintegration at all but instead it will deludedly seem like the “new beginning” they have been ‘hopiumly’ programmed to expect, a wonderful “renewal”, the pinnacle of “global unity”, the final arrival of the “Great Shift”, the “next phase in evolution”, and the start of their long-awaited so-called ‘Golden Age’ which, as we have seen, is an occult buzz-phrase going right back to the Rosicrucians (via Alice Bailey and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky) for what disciples of Christ easily recognise as Satan’s pretended kingdom on earth.

The global ‘Disintegration’ will only be seen for what it really is — i.e., as a true ‘disintegration’ and ‘degeneration’ rather than some supposed earthly unification or global regeneration — by those who are genuine disciples of the Christ, who love the truth and who know what the Bible really teaches, and who are willing to receive that truth regardless of how perplexing and discomfiting it may be.

The response of all disciples of Christ to this global satanically-induced ‘Disintegration’ should be to draw as many folks as possible into the body of Christ, while those men who are tasked with teaching should teach, teach, and teach again the truth about the nature of this present creation and the place of the forces of darkness in it, the true nature of fallen humanity, the centrality of the atonement, resurrection and ascension of Christ to God’s ‘plan of the ages’, the future doom of this present creation, and the glories of the creation that is to come.

The global ‘Disintegration’ is a necessary inevitable climax for human depravity to reveal itself for what it really is, i.e. lawlessness (rejecting God’s law) and anti-spiritual materialism (denying the fact that Christ is God manifested in the flesh, which is the “spirit of the Antichrist”, 1 John 4:3). This exponential ‘Disintegration’ over the whole earth is necessary so that this corrupted creation can be wound up in a global cataclysm with the return of the true Christ who will replace that corrupted creation with a new one, in which the population will be those from the present creation who love the truth and who reject the ancient Lie in all its forms. The “ancient Lie” — going right back to Genesis 3:4-6 — is that humans can make themselves into little ‘gods’, refuse to believe God’s word, dethrone the one true God (in their minds only, because He can never actually be dethroned), and deny that He ever existed.

The global ‘Disintegration’, although caused and encouraged by unregenerated humans and fallen angels (demons), does not at all take God by surprise (for He has absolute foreknowledge) but, rather, is used by Him to bring His own ends to pass (see, e.g., Revelation 17:17). Thus, all satanic activity in all eras and aeons unwittingly serves God’s purposes in many extraordinary unseen ways — some of which we cannot currently understand but we will do so in the fullness of time. All this should give us great assurance. Here are more…

The Counteracting Assurances Specially Given To Us

However, even though these things are coming upon us, we have no need to despair. The assaults of Satan on the Church — however intense they may become — should never give us cause for pessimism or depression, for three good reasons: First, Satan’s assaults on the Church give believers great assurance that every word of the Bible is true and that the Lord’s people do indeed belong to the one true God and Creator of the universe. You can be sure that if Christianity were really just a myth, the academics, media pundits and philosophers of the world would not take the great interest they do in destroying it. Second, rather than plunging us into pessimism, Satan’s assaults should give us even greater impetus to become able apologists and proclaim the glorious Gospel to a needy world. Third, the more intense Satan’s assaults become, the more likely it is that the return of the Lord Jesus Christ is fast approaching; and that is hardly a reason for pessimism or depression. As we are told by Jesus Himself: “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).

When that fullness of redemption comes, then the true “New Age” can begin. There will then be a transformation of every constituent of this universe, in which no place will be found for the devil, his fellow fallen angels, and all those who have helped him unrepentingly. In that glorious moment, “the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). The only recipients of this inheritance will be those who have called out to the Lord and who have faithfully followed Jesus Christ rather than grasped at the glamour of forbidden gnosis. If all this could be fathomed for but a moment, there would be silence on the earth for half an hour.

“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen”.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2025
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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