Satan’s pretention expertise was first used on human beings in the Garden of Eden when he presented himself to them as a friendly resident whose only goal was to aid them in living the good life in paradise by going around the stern dictates of the God Who had created them as well as the Garden in which they lived. He convinced Eve that her Creator was wrong in not allowing them to determine good and evil for themselves so that she and Adam could live by their own rules. They should not be forced to march to someone else’s cadence. The serpent, we are told in Genesis 3:1, was obviously much more intelligent than the beasts of the field.

We do not know what the serpent looked like. However, he must have been impressive in appearance and speaking ability for he had no trouble deceiving Eve into believing everything he said to her. Human beings do not normally carry on conversations with those who do not resemble themselves. Who converses with animals and reptiles? It is certain that the serpent did not look like a snake while conversing with Eve. The fact that they shared a common language, and he had the capacity to reason must have added to her trust in him.

But the thing that undoubtedly convinced her that he was legitimate was that HE KNEW THE WAYS OF GOD; HE EVEN KNEW WHAT HE (GOD) HAD SAID TO HER. In fact, he repeated His (God’s) statement concerning the partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve acknowledged that God had indeed said those words, adding that the penalty for even touching the forbidden tree was to die (vss 2,3).

The serpent’s response contained one word that completely reversed what God had said: “You will NOT surely die” for touching the tree. To the contrary, by eating the forbidden fruit she and Adam would become as gods, able to determine good and evil (Gen. 3:4,5). Only God can determine good and evil. Adam and Eve, however, could become gods (commit idolatry) with impunity. Why? Because the great pretender said so.

Sure enough, when Eve saw the tree she realized that the serpent was right. She recognized immediately that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes and would produce wisdom in whoever partook of its fruit. In 3:22 we find the Godhead agreeing with the serpent. The problem would be that the wisdom the tree would produce would be man’s wisdom and his definitions would reflect man’s desires, not God’s will.

By pretending to be superior to the God they knew, he (the serpent) rescinded the Lord’s Law relative to sin. The new and improved “truth” Adam, Eve and their descendants would live by allowed them to break God’s Law (sin) as often as they wished without fear of retribution. In other words, they could rebel against God and still live eternally in the paradise He had created for them and their descendants. Why? Because they were special. The were God’s most important creations; they comprised His first church– the Church of Eden whose Pastor was God Himself. They were too important for Him to punish.

Not long after Eve’s conversation with her new god she and Adam were spiritually dead. Their physical deaths would come later. That is the pattern set in Eden and is still in effect to this day. Separation from God is spiritual death. Sin separates man from God (Isa. 59:2). Sin is the breaking of God’s Law (1 Jn. 3:4). Churchman declares that God’s Law is dead. Churchman is spiritually dead.

With that victory the devil established and perfected His modus operandi for deceiving and capturing the hearts of salvation seekers. His conquest of Adam and Eve made him 100% successful in his first attempt to capture religious man’s heart. History records his continued success. Today his modus operandi has not varied. He has continued to succeed by using the Words of he Almighty, altering them ever so slightly. He adds a word here, removes a word there or take the statement out of context. In some cases he removes entire segments. In other cases he blinds his disciples from seeing God’s Words. He continues to use the method he established in Eden because it yields the same results. The only difference is that today his success rate is slightly lower.

Another way in which the devil spiritually attacks and subdues church people is to pretend to be the RIDER ON THE WHITE HORSE mentioned in Revelation 6:2 who would supposedly conquer the world for His Father with the spiritual bow and arrows he carries. Satan conquers churchman by representing himself as the Rider on the white horse revealed in Revelation 19:11. But note that this Rider has the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God) coming out of His mouth. The false rider speaks words that the Biblically challenged believed to be the Words of the Revelation 19:11 Rider (Jesus Christ).

One of the false rider’s most effective ploys relative to God’s Word is to prevent his victims from learning about the conditions that must be met (“fine print”) in order for God’s Word to affect the believer’s life. By spreading a perverted, man-centered, self-appeasing gospel (Gal. 1:6-9), the false rider causes the vast majority of church people to embrace another, less demanding Jesus which the apostle Paul warned about in Second Corinthians 11:4.

This softer, gentler, more reasonable white horse rider is the “other” Jesus church people worship today. The true Jesus tells them that they do indeed worship Him, but their worship is in vain because they follow the instructions of the false Jesus (Mat. 15:9). This rider provides a different set of instructions for each of the hundreds of church bodies (cults) that make up professing Christendom. Though each body (church, faith, denomination, etc.) claims to have the real Christ as its head and the real gospel as its truth, each presents a different path to walk which each claims will take its user to heaven.

Because each cult has rejected God’s rules of conduct (His Ten Commandment Law) and has created its own set of do’s and don’ts, all of those within them are idolators, having taken for themselves the power to not only destroy God’s Law, but to create their own law as they follow in the footsteps of their original ancestors who were mankind’s original idolators.

Another way Satan presents himself to salvation seekers is as a lamb (Rev. 13:11-18). Impersonating the true Lamb of God (Jesus Christ), this false lamb (“beast”) speaks man-pleasing words through his false prophets which cause billions of people to worship and serve their leader–the false lamb. In this disguise Satan, while pretending to be the “Lamb of God,” successfully “deceives those who dwell on the earth.” By the time Christ returns to put an end to the Catholic/Protestant Religious System, this false lamb will be calling down fire from heaven to cause those in the one-world church to worship the “beast” government headed by the one he identifies as the Lord’s Messiah. When the true Christ arrives, that church will fight against Him, believing Him to be the Antichrist. Only Satan could pull off this deception. Read the history of this lamb/beast in the series titled Simon of Samaria. Key word–Simon.

Satan came “… conquering and to conquer” (Rev. 6:2). And conquer he has, accomplishing his goal by operating as a deadly, Satan-serving lion who spiritually devours his victims while pretending to be the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5). Posing as the Messiah, the devil has “… deceived the whole world” (Rev. 12:9) into entering his religious system disguised as God’s true church where his victims are unknowingly being devoured (1 Pet. 5:8). The billions of salvation seekers who make up the various cults of professing Christendom are proof that the counterfeit lion has not gone hungry. L.J.