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Satan's  Primary  Tactic
  "Satan disguises himself as an angel (ἄγγελος/messenger) of light"  
BE  ALERT  FOR  WE  ARE  IN  A  MERCILESS  SPIRITUAL  WAR

2 Corinthians 11:14.
  The history of Christianity gives ample illustration of this sadly successful tactic of the Enemy of God! See:
Common
'Christian' Fallacies
If Satan is
unsuccessful in opposing or discouraging any move of the Spirit of God among those who are open to the Spirit of God,
he does not quit    nor stand back . . .
—  HE  JOINS  IT  —,
so that over a period of time he can add a slant,  to subtly take it significantly off-course!
He knows that human beings tend to classify and so think in categories, which makes them more vulnerable to his subtly shrewd manoeuvres.
This is why
the Bible warns us, by giving examples of –
 
 
"false brothers secretly brought in – and urges us to be alert for –
"...there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies..."
Galatians 2:4;
2 Peter 2:1.
The Lord
Jesus had earlier warned His disciples to – "Beware of false prophets,
which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves"
Matthew 7:15.
And the Apostle Paul then later warned that – "after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock" Acts 20:29.
 
But 'identifying' a suspected "false prophet" is not simply the answer, for Satan is far more subtle than that.
 
 For the damage of a particular heresy or false teaching is not simply in the LIE, in the 'false' itself, but in what it subtly distracts us from, or hides
Toward the
 Example ONE   
Satan highjacking faith
in the
plurality/trinity of God
Inserting hierarchy
end of the third century AD a heresy known as Arianism, which denied the eternal deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, was spread across the Christian Church within the Roman Empire (arising from Jesus as 'Son of God', a Semitic term for messiah, being misunderstood as His having been originated from the Father). This error was eventually 'stopped' at that time, but, as is typical of Satan's tactics, he simply joined the winners and so added his own slant in the Council of Nicea (325 AD/CE). So the eternal plurality of the Infinite One thus became a hierarchical Trinity – in which the Holy Spirit was downgraded to third place, whereas the Bible in both the Old Testament (Isaiah 59:19) and the New (Mark 1:12) was very clear that the Son of God (messiah of Israel) was Himself completely subject to the Spirit of God and that this Lordship of the Spirit is therefore to continue in Christ's Church today
(2 Corinthians 3:17).
See:
Athanasius

and
The Filioque Clause
  Satan's purpose in this move was to reduce any direct awareness of the Holy Spirit's immediate authority in the Christian Church, and he succeeded.
One of
Satan's most successful tactics, in tune with our modern world of celebrity focus, is to attach himself in congratulatory form to a prominent Christian leader who has been blessed by God with a real Spirit-anointed ministry.
Remember:
the ministry of
Christianity is based
in the congregation,
not on the platform
or in the church
leadership group!
The congregation
is more than a
recruitment agency
and funding resource!
Satan then

A
common
vulnerability
supports the fame of that person in order to turn that ministry, which was given as an integrated part of the ministry of the whole Body of Christ, the congregation, into the independent ministry of a single 'finger' of that Body. So that, no longer does the Spirit's ministry reside within the congregation of God's people (the Body of Christ), but now it belongs to the 'platform' of a particular 'anointed' individual, which therefore enables this vicious Enemy of God's people to subtly unbalance and add twist after twist, to eventually deny the whole truth to many following generations –
  adding a continuing imbalance which eventually takes it completely off-course.
The churches
that then expand under these specially blessed ministries are then frequently split into 'campuses', because of the spread or size of these leaders' ministries, rather than into the local congregations (which they really are in God's sight), and so the church leadership organisation then continues its hierarchical development as a perversion of congregation-based Christian ministry.
(The
"Body of Christ", which is His continuing ministry, is not the organisation. It is the people and only the people – all else is simply supportive infrastructure of ministry at best, for a church's unity is not ever in 'shared ministry' between 'campuses' but always and only in the direct inter-personal spiritual fellowship of the people in whom the Spirit of God dwells.)

The Daniel 9:27
prophecy of Christ's
3½-year ministry
and His Atonement
(midst of the Week)
is interpreted as
Antichrist's covenant
ignoring the 3½-year
remainder, which
Christ's Body will
still complete...

But without attacking

 Example TWO 
any individual leader today who has become an unwitting prey to this continuing Satanic tactic, it is clear simply from a study of the history of Christianity itself that centuries ago, after the Christian Church had completely lost the perspective of God's conditional Land promise to the descendants of faithful Abraham (which is still to be fulfilled at the end in association with other prophecies and promises to Israel), it was so completely lost, to the extent that –
any mention of 'Israel' in the Old Testament was commonly wrongly interpreted as a reference to the Christian Church
(as being spiritually the "Israel of God", Galatians 6:16)
Satan Hijacking
the rediscovery of
Israel in Bible Prophecy
but the Holy Spirit inspired correction to this particular error, beginning in the early 19th century,
was then quickly swung off-course in sincere persons
by splitting the return of Christ into two events to cater for these 'two' meanings of 'Israel':
(1) first to evacuate Christ's Church from this world (the Rapture); and then
(2) seven-years later to come again (with them) to now rescue Israel during Armageddon.
  The real target of Satan in this particular subterfuge was to close the eyes of the Christian Church to its own part in setting the time of the End.

The New Testament's




 Example THREE 

Satan Hijacking
the uniqueness of
the Gospel in Christ
significant statement about a previously Hidden Time being now revealed (Colossians 1:26; etc.),
"the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to His saints"
which disclosure was itself meant among other to help us fully understand the application of Daniel's Seventy Weeks (490-years) Old Testament prophecy in its semi-complete fulfilment, and therefore why the crucial Atonement-effect in Christ's crucifixion caught Satan so completely off-guard when he had unknowingly even helped set it up with Judas (John 13:27), is now subtly diverted from its full meaning. For as the Old Testament 'virgin-prophecy' of Isaiah had a double meaning hidden within it, so also the Seventy Weeks prophecy of Daniel had a hidden significance.

The incorporation of all nations/Gentiles into the kingdom of Christ was not hidden from previous generations nor the grace of God toward all
(Gen.22:18; Isa.42:1,6; 49:6, etc.) as some allege.
 
See:
The Hidden Time
The hidden split in
the Seventieth Week
Sadly, this Hidden Time is then re-interpreted to mean, not a time period characterised by the gospel of Christ, but simply its 'content' (the gospel in contrast to the Law): meaning that the old priority of Israel as an instrument of God has now changed to treating all equally so that there is therefore just neither Jew nor Gentile in the working of God's grace in this world. This is so close to the truth that it has very effectively blocked an understanding across most of the Christian Church of how Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy applies, and this has then led to the repeated error of individuals trying to apply his prophesied Weeks to calculating a date for Christ's return, which then has repeatedly made a fool of Christian expectations in the eyes of a watching world.
Daniel's
Seventy Weeks prophecy (Daniel 9) necessarily ignores the split in its final Week (its last seven-years), for the existence of this indeterminate* period between its two halves was deliberately hidden even from the angels of God, and therefore Satan also, so that out of Israel's failure to accept its Messiah at the completion of His 3½-year ministry there should come by God's awesome grace an even greater glory in the spiritual Body of Christ to fulfil the End Time in its finality. And it is coming!
*Acts 1:7!

NO
Escapist Rapture!
  The real target of Satan in this particular subterfuge was to create false expectations and so make a disparaging fool of Christian end-times expectations.

This continuing tactic
of Satan is also demonstrated in the history of the wonderful Welsh Revival of 1904.
See:
The Spirit of God
& Your Physical Body
This deception
is still carried today
in her book
"War on the Saints"
published by
Send the Light Trust.
As the
 Example FOUR 
awesome impact of spiritual renewal swept across Wales, initiated by Evan Roberts, Mrs Jessie Penn-Lewis the renowned Keswick Conference holiness speaker (who had encouraged so many), invited him, evidently exhausted from his travelling ministry, to her estates to rest, and his ministry never recovered.
Few

Satan Hijacking the
call to holiness
See: A Personal Testimony
understand the cause, but it was the subtle deception which Jessie Penn-lewis had unknowingly absorbed into her holiness theology which affected him – of a dichotomy between spirit and matter (an ancient pagan view from a form of Neoplatonist Greek philosophy) which therefore, in the name of 'Christian holiness', interpreted any physical awareness of the Holy Spirit's anointing as being that of a deceiving demon. The effect of this offence to the Holy Spirit on Evan Roberts personally was his loss of the anointing of the Spirit from which his ministry had flowed, and it never recovered, for its cause in the Penn-Lewis deception was never understood.
  The target of Satan in this was to close our eyes to the Holy Spirit's direct relationship to a Christian's body as being the place where the community meets Christ.

Arising
 Example FIVE 
from the world's increased awareness of human value and the ideals of internationalism and socialism (as opposed to narrow nationalism, later demonstrated in Italian fascism and German Nazism), Communism is now presented as the great tool, which then 'legitimises' cruel dictatorships on behalf of the masses.
The deceit of
Communism
This
Satan Hijacking
Humanitarian Ideals
plunges the world into a Cold War, and several secondary wars (Korea, Vietnam, etc.), which seriously hinders international Christian missions, to delay the completion of the Christian Church's international mandate.
 
Sadly, in addition, the long-term social effect of communism tends to be the destruction of a work-ethic and so when it eventually collapses for economic reasons, the victim community tends to be socially ruled by a jungle-morality as sadly became apparent in many regions of of post-communist Russia with the plundering of resources and betrayal of one another.
 
    The target of Satan in this has been to distract and delay the Christian Church from its epoch–ending mission which precipitates Christ's return.

Subtly
on the back of the international spread of the recognition and practice of the Holy Spirit's ministry gifts (known as the Charismatic Revival) to the congregations of God's people, Satan devised a new application of this, his prime tactic.
 
Because
 Example SIX 

Satan Hijacking the
Charismatic Renewal
Inserting hierarchy
Christian culture had in-accurately ascribed ranking status to certain spiritual gifts of leadership, Satan invented the 'New Apostolic Reformation', beginning about 2001. This perverting teaching then ascribed a ranking structure to the five Holy Spirit gifts/enablings, of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, and presented it as a 'restoration' of 'five-fold leadership ministry', so that each local church therefore needed to be under an 'apostolic covering'.
See:
the Gifts
of the Holy Spirit
Sadly Bob Jones, Todd Bentley, Bill Hamon, Mike Bickle, etc..., were all duped into this, and became instruments of its promotion.
(Satan of course, whom the Bible says presents as an "angel of light", providing any necessary supernatural verification).
  The target of Satan in this was to take away the Church's ministry from the congregation of God's people to the platform of the 'clergy',
so the 'program' becomes central rather than the relationship between the Lord's people, thereby again restricting congregational participation,
in contradiction of the Charismatic Revival discovery of the congregation as being the spiritual base of the Holy Spirit's ministry through Christ's Church.

Riding
on the back of the realisation in Christian teaching of the absolute centrality of personal faith, rather than in either religious ritual or creedal affirmation, a subtle half-truth slant is introduced.
 
 Example SEVEN
Faith in God is one's view of Him, is it not? So of course it needs definition in 'expectation', if one believes. And so very understandably, the naïvely sincere then accepted the intrinsic limiting of faith in God by defining it according to 'expectation'.
 
This

Satan Hijacking the
centrality of faith
cleverly subtle swing actually reverses, at a personal level, what God had done in commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac – which was the surrender of Abraham's expectation in his son Isaac (which God had promised) to a faith in God concerning those same promises which was therefore beyond his understanding, and so therefore beyond any possible limitation of a defining expectation.
See:
Three
Days of Pain
When God guides, He does not distribute a 'map' to us. He gives His hand, so that the future is not limited by expectation in our understanding. It is a direct product of a childlike faith which centres in its direct and progressive fellowship with God Himself.
And so the God-desired future is just its side-effect.
  Satan's target in this is to turn personal faith into a psychological formula which puts the Judge in Heaven's Court 'on trial' to perform according to expectations.

So until the time that the spiritual Body of Christ reaches its full spiritual maturity (Ephesians 4:13) by nothing less than the perseverance of the Holy Spirit Himself,
this will remain the primary tactic of Satan –
joining the followers of every move of the Spirit of God which he cannot stop.
 
Satan does not give up...  He does not acknowledge defeat!
 
And so there is still a time ahead, of which the Bible speaks in its completing Revelation (12:6,12,14),
when Satan is angry as never before, because he knows his time is "short" (½ of the 'Week', or 3½-years / 42-months / 1260-days) in
the historical climax of Christ's faithful Church in which is fulfilled her own sacrifice that she might be conformed to that of her Lord! (12:17).
H A L L E L U J A H !
See also: God's Seven-Phased Invitation to Obedience in Human History
Evangelism & Christ's Return When Satan Is Cast Out The Core Concept
Moses' Depression A Chronology of Confusion The Hidden Time of God

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