Gold Nugget 285 - Synagogues of Satan
“I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and [they] are not, but are the [a] synagogue of Satan.” Though the “Jews” here described are fiendishly bad, they had their synagogue, their place of worship. They perhaps attended to the forms of religion, read and expounded the Scriptures in their own way, but their religion was fiendish. …
Satan has ever had much to do with religion. Religion, not godliness, is at once his shrine and his instrument. Religion has been and still is the greatest curse of the world; it is the nursery and the arena of every fiendish sentiment. It was religion that put to death the Son of God himself.
There are churches and conventicles that are rather the “synagogues of Satan” than the temples of Christ; in their assemblies there are fiends in human form, service, and voice. They breathe the spirit of intolerant sectarianism and bigotry, and disseminate degrading and blasphemous views of the all-loving Maker and Manager of the universe. The difference between what is called religion and Christliness is the difference between light and darkness – life and death. Satan has ever had his synagogues. …
A spurious religion has ever been the chiefest and bitterest fountain of persecution. Inquisitions have been constructed, chains have been forged, tortures have been inflicted, and martyr-fires have been kindled by men of the synagogue. … Corrupt religion dries up the fountains of social sympathy in the human breast, dehumanizes human nature – turns man into a devil.
The Pulpit Commentary, Revelation p. 98-99, Revelation 2:8-11, (D. Thomas)
Gold Nugget 285
Synagogues of Satan
