Satan's Ten Most Believable Lies by Dave Breese

From the Introduction

There is a form of satanic activity that is more deadly than witchcraft. Serious damage has been done in naive personalities because of overt spiritualist activity, but far greater havoc has been wrought by another kind of satanism, the covert production and propagation of false doctrine. The enemy has produced a significant triumph when he can spread in our society a broad set of false views about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, the purpose of life, and other imperative parts of Christian doctrine. For every one person who is subverted by Satan worship, thousands are enmeshed in Satan's more deadly trap: doctrinal error. People who are otherwise perfectly rational, who would not dream of attending a seance, are, nevertheless, the more thoroughly undermined simply because they believe the wrong thing.

Satan's trafficking in false doctrine is more dangerous than spiritism. Few inquiries could then be more helpful than to examine the doctrines of Satan in the hope of deliverance from his mind-destroying theology.

From the Back Cover

Satanic activity on earth takes many forms. His overt activities -- witchcraft, sorcery, and related occult practices -- are well-known in many circles. But more devastating may be his covert attacks on unsuspecting victims. While Satan's public activity has deceived millions, he has led astray other millions with false doctrine.

Satan's Ten Most Believable Lies describes ten of the enemy's false doctrines. Each chapter defines a satanic lie and compares it to the truth found in Scripture. Learn to avoid falling into the pit of deception, as well as how to fight each lie. Author Dave Breese reveals the truth about these ten satanic lies:

• God Is a Cosmic Sadist
• God Is a Liar
• Man Is God's Slave
• Man Serves God Only for Human Rewards
• Adversity Results in Turning from God
• This Life Is Everything
• God Is a Magician Working Miracles on Demand
• God's Promises Are for Our Worldly Profit
• Satan's Way Is the Best Way
• God Has No Purpose for Your Life

Active, strong resistance is the way to defeat Satan. Strengthen your faith and put on the armour of God to resist the pervading influence of false doctrine from the prince of darkness.

From Chapter 12 - The Question That Remains

...while evangelical Christianity has grown commendably in these years, it still possesses a major problem, spiritual vulnerability. Dozens of well-promoted cults and sects are experiencing a field day, in that they are able to beguile thousands of immature and naive Christians into their simplistic and pseudo-authoritarian religions. Spiritual carnage has resulted in the lives of multiplied thousands of babes in Christ, for want of a development in the use of the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. They have been subverted by Satan into sweet-sounding but false religions, only because of their lack of biblical knowledge.

Indeed, this is becoming a most serious problem within the church. Ours has been a generation of evangelism...today's media have made it possible for the eternal message to be brought to major segments of the population of the world...the problem is that the wide dissemination of seed sowing evangelism has been but fractionally matched by an equally wide teaching of sound, biblical doctrine. The consequence is that among the masses who claim to know Christ, there are relative few who are able to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

The presence of spiritual quickening along with the absence of strong doctrine has created the great problem in the church of our present age, cultic vulnerability. Like the Galatians, who began well in the faith but soon became re-enslaved to the law of Moses, Christians today are in danger of being victimized by one of the many clever systems that claim to be the full or the complete version of Christianity. Only a solid program of Bible study can prevent the spiritually naive from being beguiled away from the simplicity that is in Christ...

In whatever circumstances, the Christian watches and prays, for he knows that he is being relentlessly stalked by Satan, his determined foe. Transforming himself into a roaring lion, an angel of light, a grievous wolf, or even a loving friend, his enemy is the fateful hunter so long as this human life shall last -- which is not forever. We are taught that the day is coming in which Satan and his cohorts shall be cast into the lake of fire, forever banished from the presence of God and from the possibility of plaguing the steps of the Christian...

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Defective Christology (Mark #7)

Who is Jesus Christ?

This is the most important question that any person will ever face. The deepest joys we will ever know in this life and our very hope of eternal life depend on the proper answer to that question. Because this is true, we may be sure that the primary activity of Satan will be to obscure as much as possible the true nature of the person of our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus.

In all of the history of the Church, the most grievous heresies have been those which have advocated a view of the person of Christ other than that which is taught in the Word of God. Satan knows that an improper understanding of the person and the work of Christ makes salvation impossible.

The attack on the understanding of the nature of Christ began in the early days of the Church. The intellectually disposed Colossians began to be infected by a heretical view called Gnosticism. This doctrinal error taught that a human approached the Godhead through progressive steps of higher and higher angelic beings who bridged the gap between man and God. It taught that Christ was one of these angelic beings who was more than man but less than God. It advocated the worship of these angelic beings and included worshipping Christ as merely a part of the duty of a Christian.

The Apostle Paul, knowing the peril the Colossians were in of turning to a religion other than the faith of Jesus Christ, wrote them a most earnest epistle. He warned. "Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:8-9; 2:18-19).

These people prided themselves in possessing knowledge. Paul told them that knowledge was not enough; they must have "full knowledge" (epignosis). He insisted that this full knowledge was the knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ Himself. The Scripture therefore insists that in worshipping Jesus Christ, we are worshipping God Himself. "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father" (John 5:23).

Later in the history of the Church there grew up another sub-Christian point of view called Arianism. This was one of the first heresies of the Church, and it was declared so because it denied the true deity of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The advocacy of Arianism by the satanic opponents of Christianity produced great doctrinal clarity in the ranks of the early Christians. These confrontations lead them to the greatly reinforced conviction that one's attitude towards the nature of Jesus Christ is primary to his Christianity. A false view of the Saviour produced a false religion which presented no salvation at all. This conviction lead the Early Church fathers to earnestly contend for the faith. They knew what was at stake. The issue was the survival of Christianity itself.

The central truth of Christianity is therefore related to the question, "What think ye of Christ?" The Christian is commanded to test the spirits of these suspicious alternative messengers. The doctrinal test of those spirits is very clear. (Read 1 John 4:1-3). It is clear then that the test of a true representative of the Gospel has to do with his definition of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The central doctrine of Christianity is Christology, the doctrine of the nature of the person of Jesus Christ.

Christianity affirms the true deity and true humanity of our blessed Saviour, which deity and humanity is conjoined together in one personality on the basis of the hypostatic union. By this we understand that Jesus Christ was not partly man and partly God on the basis of some percentage or formula. He is true humanity. He is true deity in human form. The characteristic of biblical faith is that it has a proper understanding of the nature of the person of Christ.

There are those today who claim to be Christians who deny the true deity of Christ. Religious liberalism can be judged as heretical on the basis of its denial of the sure deity of the blessed Son of God. Liberalism is not Christianity, it is a heretical, anti-Christian view, being defective in its view of the deity of Christ.

There are religions that deny the true humanity of the Saviour. Christian Science, as an instance, denies the existence of the physical, claiming the essential substance of the universe is mind. If the physical does not exist, then deity did not become true humanity in the person of Christ. This is the doctrine of antichrist, according to Scripture.

The thoughtful Christian will carefully analyze the doctrine of a cult that is being pressed upon him paying special attention to the Christology of that alternative religious message. The message that in effect declares Christ to be the automaton of the Father and not a real person in Himself, is a cult. The message that denies the virgin birth of Christ, holding Him to be merely the natural son of Joseph and Mary, is a cult. An examination of the doctrinal base of any religion in the light of its views on the person and the work of Jesus Christ can be most revealing.

The question, "What think ye of Jesus?" is only answered correctly by the believing Christian. The Christian gladly answers, "Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the living God, God incarnate in the form of human flesh. He is the Son of man, the only Saviour of the world, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who, through His death on the cross, provides redemption for all who believe in Him. He is the One who died for our sins, rose again on the third day who lives to make intercession for us before His Father and who one day will come in His glorious returning to judge the quick and the dead at His appearing in His kingdom. He is Lord and God, and in Him alone we have life, and life more abundantly."

Closely related to the fatal heresy of defective Christology is a denial of the trinity of the Godhead. The only true God is one God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son. and Holy Spirit. Each person of the Godhead is co-equal and co-eternal with the others. This view is not held by the Jehovah Witnesses. Many cults are blind as to the nature of God and in their theology deny the deity of Jesus Christ or the deity of the Holy Spirit. An improper faith in the only true God makes impossible any real hope of salvation.

These critical doctrinal problems concerning the nature of the Godhead should come to each Christian as a new reminder of the need for Christian scholarship. For too long we have been influenced by foolish leaders who say, "We don't need doctrine; we just need experience!"

In the same vein is the mindless claim, "We don't preach doctrine, we just preach Christ!" Preachers who talk like this need to move up from their spiritual kindergartens and realize the shameful neglect of their own personal scholarship and the consequent neglect of doctrinal preaching to their people. The cults will have a field day in exploiting experience-orientated saints who have no time for the study of Christian doctrine.

(from Know the Marks of Cults - the 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)

The Claim of Special Discoveries (Mark #6)

"I have found the secret!"

Few people are more fascinating then those who claim to have inside information on a given subject. Who of us as a child has not listened with breathless anticipation to stories told by older people of their experiences? Stories of talking animals or mysterious haunted houses were a part of our youthful pursuit of fantasy.

Children's stories which are known to be fantasy are one thing; fantasies purveyed as religious truth are quite another. There is nothing wrong with listening to a storyteller; the wrong, indeed the insane course, is to fall down at his feet and worship him. Fables that are known to be such are enjoyable little diversions in life. Religious fantasies that are presented as special spiritual discoveries are dangerous.

In the world of religion, many have been conned out of their money, their eternal souls, or both by those who claim special knowledge from sources of information not commonly available. It is illegal for any person to purchase securities on the basis of "inside information" not generally available to the average investor on the street. We could wish that in the world of religion there were such a law. Unfortunately, such a law would be impossible to pass. Even if it were enacted, it would be ignored by millions of people in pursuit of religious fascinations rather than common truth.

The careful teacher of sound doctrine is rarely as electrifying as the mysterious religious promoter who, usually for a price, will let us in on his "secret." Under the spells he casts, we are often tempted to forget that the best things in life are not only free, but they are usually obvious. It is very clear that the humble Christian who will pursue the teaching of the Bible with simplicity and godly sincerity becomes the glad recipient of the abundant provision of God for every need for time and eternity. There can be no greater promise than that we are blessed "with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).

In the face of this open provision of all things freely given from God, one is amazed to see the large and loyal following that comes to people who report some vision, presence, revelation, or special discovery which has come to them and which they claim to be divine. It would be impossible to have a cult without mysterious, otherwise unavailable inside information.

The Christian must remember that there is no discovery in the entire universe that anyone could possibly have that is superior to his discovery of salvation in Jesus Christ. There is no higher information, no better revelation, no deeper truth -- nothing is greater than the knowledge of Christ. The person who turns from this greatest discovery, this ultimate revelation, to pursue the delusions of a cult leader is a fool. Despite this obvious truth, the cults continue to beguile unstable souls with their false claims to special discoveries. No discovery is more special than Jesus Christ.

The claim to special discoveries and "repeatable-on-demand" revelations from God is the point where the cults tend to move off into the occult. Witchcraft, spiritism, and Satan worship are nothing more than religions that claim to be able to call for the incursion of the metaphysical in the realm of the physical. This is surely one of the reasons why the cults are often but a stopping place where a disturbed soul lingers briefly before dropping totally into the pit of the occult.

Nevertheless, the almost universal base of each cult religion is the purported revelation that one person received. These persons claimed divine authority for a private, unauthenticated religious event. They claim to have seen a vision of a woman on a mountain, heard a voice in a prayer tower, or been visited by an angel who came with golden tablets and giant spectacles. The unsubstantiated and largely preposterous stories are endless. The discovery may have been a hallucination, an outright lie, or even the result of indigestion or a sleepless night. We cannot know, we are without corroborative evidence.

How different is the truth of Christianity? It is not dependent upon claims by private individuals to special discoveries. The fundamental characteristic of the faith of Christ is that it is based on historical fact. Talking of all of the events that centered around the life, work, death, and resurrection of Christ, Luke states that Christ declared Himself to be alive after His passion "by many infallible proofs" (Acts 1:3). There were hundreds and in some cases thousands of witnesses to the open and public facts of the Gospel.

The witnesses to the facts of the Gospel were declared as being alive and responsible to testify of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6). Nothing is more obvious in the Old and New Testaments than the fact of the public revelation and working of God in the presence of proofs and competent witnesses. The truth of Christianity does not depend on private knowledge or secret, unconfirmable relationships on the part of individuals.

But the growing activity of religious promoters with concocted stories should not come as a surprise to us. The Scripture predicts, "There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of..." (2 Peter 2:1-3).

We notice that the heresies being brought in by false teachers are secret and destructive. It would never be possible for these purveyors of their own imaginings to be successful were it not for the foolish inattention on the part of many to the laws of evidence. Again and again Jesus paid respect to the divine laws of evidence by naming those other sources of data that would bear witness to the truth of His Word (John 5:31; John 10:25).

Because of these abundant sources of evidence the Apostle Peter was able to say, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).

Nevertheless, the deceitful infection of the cultic promoters continues as they beguile unstable souls away from the clear and obvious truth into unprovable mysteries that they themselves cannot explain. It is a fair generalization to say that it is the duty of the true minister of the Gospel to take the mysteries of God and make them plain. The normal direction of the cultic promoter is to take the plain truth of the Word and turn it into as mysterious a message as possible. Many deadly pitfalls lie along the path of the dark and the mysterious.

No Christian is required to believe that Jesus Christ has appeared to anyone since the day of the completion of Holy Scripture. God rests His case on the Bible. This Book should be plainly preached by those who stand in pulpits. It should be clearly taught by those who would expound truth. It should be carefully read by all who would discover the nature of reality. Then there will be no need for special discoveries on the part of anyone. The greatest discovery an individual can make is to experience the joy of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which comes by faith in His person and His work as revealed in Holy Scripture.

The secret is out! The Gospel is available to all. Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Faith in Him brings a discovery that is special indeed and available to all.

(from Know the Marks of Cults - The 12 Basic Errors of False Religion by Dave Breese)