Acts 19:41

“And saying these things he dismissed the church.” Where E. V. reads “assembly,” the Greek has ecclesia, the word throughout the Bible translated “church.” Why do we have the word “church” used relative to this Ephesian mob? Because it is all right and used correctly, not the Church of God, but Diana's church, i. e., the church of Satan. Good Lord, help us to wake up to the fact that the world is full of the devil's churches, this day as in by-gone ages! Ecclesia is from ek, “out,” and kaleoo, “call,” “the called out.” All the people in the world who hear the call of the Holy Ghost come out from this wicked world and all of its sins, leaving the devil forever and identifying themselves with God, are members of the Church of the First-Born. Satan, the great counterfeiter, has done his biggest work on the church line, filling up all lands with his churches, deceiving millions and sweeping them into hell by wholesale. The members of Satan's churches, deluded by him, worship him under a vast diversity of names, thinking that they are worshipping God. In the Paganistic and Mohammedan churches, the devil calls himself by the names of their various idolatrous divinities and false prophets; while in the fallen churches of Christendom, he actually gets them to worship himself under the name of God, passing himself on them for God (2 Thessalonians 2). The devil is so much more intelligent than any human being, that the wisest and the most learned are in constant liability of mistaking Satan, “the god of this world,” for Jehovah, the God of heaven. While all sinners are led by demons in Satan's midnight, so long as Christians have depravity in them, these evil Spirits can bivouac amid the dark jungles, play off on them for the Holy Ghost and deceive them. When you are emptied of sin, filled with the Spirit, your eye on Jesus, you have cloudless light within and without, qualifying you readily to detect the most stealthy approach of an evil spirit. Good Lord, save us all from delusion and entanglement in the devil's church.