WHO IS THE DEVIL?
I will make myself like the Most High
Isaiah 14:14
He’s a great humanitarian,
he’s a great philanthropist
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He knows just where to touch you honey,
and how you like to be kissed
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He'll put both his arms around you,
you can feel the tender touch
of the beast
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You know, sometimes Satan comes
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as a man of peace
- Bob Dylan
The devil is not a red, horned guy with a pitchfork.
Neither is he an archetype; a symbol of the evil present in the psyche of man (this view was popularized by occultist Carl Jung).
Like you and me, the devil, originally named Lucifer (the shining one) is a created being.
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[Why is it so hard for people to believe in just about anything and everything - except the possibility that God created a being, just like he created you and me? Because the devil has used media and pop culture to make a ridiculous caricature of himself, he has made it so that anyone who believes in the devil seems ignorant and infantile and spiritually, psychologically and intellectually underdeveloped. The devil's greatest trick of all, is to have you believe he does not exist. For it is in your ignorance that he does his best work.]
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Unlike you and me, he was created as a spirit; an angel.
Said to be the most beautiful angel of all, it was his very beauty and lofty position, that made him succumb to the most tempting sin of all; pride.
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Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
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In his pride, Lucifer did not want to serve God, but rather be equal to God. He wanted some of the worship and glory that belongs to God alone, for himself.
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To covet in your heart what does not belong to you; for a created being to want to be/receive the same glory as the Creator, this is sin, this is darkness in the heart, and since God is all light, only light (1 John 1:5), and light can have no fellowship with darkness (it's literally impossible), this caused the devil to be 'cast out of heaven' (God's presence).
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A third of the angels joined in Lucifer's, now dubbed 'the satan', not a name but description (the accuser, just as the devil means the adversary), rebellion, turning angels (serving and obeying God) into fallen angels, also known as unclean spirits or demons (angels in active rebellion against God).
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After satan tempted the first humans to also want to 'be like gods', he has been working behind the scenes, counterfeiting everything God does...
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God creates - satan counterfeits!
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Counterfeit love
erasing marriage, ie commitment, from society, replacing it with 'free' aka cheap love. Wokeism and 'acceptance and tolerance' are also forms of false or satanic love..
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“The man who is most aggressive in teaching tolerance is the most intolerant of all: he wants a world full of people too timid and ashamed to really disagree with anything.”
― Criss Jami
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Counterfeit light
new age spirituality - we live in such darkness, that even false light seems bright! Most (not all!!) people are not drawn to darkness, but to light. Because of this, Satan appears as a creature of light to draw us to himself and his lies.
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Counterfeit signs & wonders
spiritual powers and abilities, synchronicities, spiritual encounters and experiences, etc. It's not that these aren't real, meaning, yes they actually do occur, but they are still a counterfeit to the real deal; just because spirits are far wiser and more powerful than humans and therefore easily impress and mesmerize (and deceive) us, doesn't mean their wisdom or power even comes close to God's wisdom and power; He is the only one that is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent!
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Counterfeit wisdom & guidance
whereas the Word of God (the Bible) and the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit), give godly counsel, Satan and his demons offer counsel, wisdom, and guidance too; through divination (astrology, tarot), channeling, spirit guides (contacting demons), and 'doctrines of demons' (their teachings and philosophies) as disseminated through Satan's ministers (new agers) by writing books, offering courses and sessions and trainings and retreats, and so on.
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Counterfeit Church (!!!)
ever had a bad run in with religious folks? ever heard nasty stories about Christians persecuting witches and comitting genocide? ever witnessed massive gothic churches and pedophile priests and figured - God is anywhere but here?
You're kind of right.
The 'Christians' that you 'meet' in history books, in media, hell, even in many institutionalized churches, is the counterfeit church. Jesus's church consists of people born again of the Spirit of God, and though they do gather, only God can technically see who truly belongs to His church, and Jesus said real disciples and false converts would grow alongside each other until the end. The counterfeit church/religion is truly Satan's masterpiece. It has the majority of the world reject Christianity, not knowing Christ is hidden (by the devil) behind walls of false christianity, and another majority think they are Christians because they have been raised that way, without ever having experienced the new birth that we need to get into the kingdom of God...
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For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.
- Martin Luther
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Counterfeit Jesus/gospel
Jesus who was an ascended master. Jesus who was a great spiritual teacher, or prophet. Jesus who was an essene, or Jesus who made tantric love with Mary. Jesus the yogi, Jesus the mushroom (yep, that's out there!). Satan has a Jesus to fit every personal preference, just so long as you stay far, far away from Jesus, God incarnate: the true, historical, Biblical Jesus.
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Counterfeit kingdom
this is literally what the 'new age' is; the promise of a better future and better or spiritually evolved humanity; without God's intervention, but brought about by mankind itself! Whereas the Bible tells us that this world will be made new, and all those who have received a new nature from God (being born again) will be part of that new creation, Satan tells humans that we are to restore humanity, largely through socialism, environmentalism, and spiritual evolution (awakening).
"It was not enough for Satan to be the highest and most beautiful created being. He wanted to take the place of God and to make himself the object of worship, thus drawing to himself the glory that is rightfully God’s alone. And in the very same way, he tempted the first humans. He knew that men (as well as angels) were created for the worship of God. But instead of giving the Creator the honor and glory rightfully due to Him, Satan incites man to self-glorification. In this diabolical conversation with Eve, the serpent offers the woman a “better” kingdom, a kingdom in which God will no longer sit on the throne but man himself. This kingdom would function according to his ideas, according to his will.
This tragic moment in human history was when a new kingdom was born—the kingdom of “I” and selfishness. Since the Fall of man described in Genesis 3, man does not want to fulfill his creation mandate—to live solely for the glorification of his Creator. Quite the opposite. He wants to make himself the center of his own kingdom, his own universe, and his own glorification. This is not a voluntary or optional process. If we do not worship God and seek to bring others into that worship, then we ultimately end up worshipping ourselves."
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Biblical Counseling Coalition
HOW SATAN OPERATES
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Satan tempts you to want to be the master ('God') of your own life
'...you will be like God...'
Satan in Genesis 3:5
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Satan's goal is to have people worship him - often without realizing it - rather than the one true God. In other words, he wants to be God (an impossibility), and the main way he has others forsake their one true God is by having people living as if they are gods too.
He convinces people they can decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong (eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil), that they can basically do whatever they feel 'works for them' or whatever 'feels good', that they themselves, not God's Word, is their ultimate authority, and so on.
Sounds like the default setting for humans, right?
That's because since the devil was successful in having the first humans sin (choose their 'own truth' and their own way, instead of God's truth and way), all subsequent humans were born separated from God; born without the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in them (like begets like; humans living in sin (Adam and Eve) cannot possibly give birth to humans filled with God's Spirit, which is holy).
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So you can see, after the devil set off this domino effect; it's mostly humans just acting according to their fallen, godless nature, that has created the world we see today.
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But since God doesn't want anyone to perish; He desires all to return to Him and be restored into fellowship with Him, and has made this graciously possible through the sacrifice of Jesus, God Himself dying for our sin of forsaking Him, the devil and his cohorts are incredibly busy behind the scenes, meaning in the unseen realm, to steadily influence all humanity to fall into more and more depravity, and to darken their minds to the true light and the true God.
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[Satan is not omnipresent and doesn't act alone. The Word of God tells us that a third of the angels joined Lucifer (Satan) in his rebellion against God. So anytime we mention how Satan operates, we mean his goal and his tactics, and his army of fallen angels.]
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Satan's upside down Kingdom
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Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Isaiah 5:20
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Just like Satan offers a counterfeit of everything (counterfeit love, counterfeit light), he has humanity on a steady trajectory to value all the wrong things by inverting all of what God has called good into evil, and all that God has called evil into good;
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Marriage and family replaced with lust, pleasure and feelings (our new self defined version of 'love')
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Prayer (humility) replaced with manifestation (pride)
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True worship (love of God) defiled (love of self)
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Sin is celebrated (pride month)
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and so on
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Satan hands out pleasure, prosperity, and blissful experiences like candy
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I will give it all to you, he said, if you will kneel
down and worship me.
Satan to Jesus in Matthew 4:9
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The devil and his demons love to offer you the world. Healing. Hidden knowledge. Blissful experiences (demons hand out ecstasy like it's candy!). And, power, pleasure, and prosperity, are just some of their favorite ways to get and keep you hooked.
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Satan's slippery slope of temptation
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Satan prefers to work in subtle ways, so as to not accidentally wake up his subjects to the truth. He would much rather you fall into ever deeper deception over a lifetime of seemingly small, innocent choices - than have you outright commit murders.
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The best slave is the one who thinks he is free, and as long as you think you are a good person, and you don't need God, you have all you need in yoga, and therapy, and a boyfriend, or positive thinking and meditation, or a career and status and money - anything but Jesus and the Bible - the devil has got you exactly where he wants you.
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Satan blinds us to Jesus/the gospel/the Bible
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Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
2 Corinthians 4:4
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The devil aims to create a society in which submitting to the Word of God (the Bible) will seem ignorant at best and dangerous at worst, and to have sin seem like our liberation rather than our master, so that the notion of needing a savior seems derogatory to our ever so
inflated egos.
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All the devil does is done with one goal in mind; to keep people away from the truth, the Word of God.
The written Word (the Bible) and the incarnate Word (Jesus Christ), for they are the only way out of the satanic matrix and into presence of the one true God, Jesus Christ.
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SATAN'S MASTERPLAN: ONE WORLD MYSTICAL RELIGION
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coming soon.