THE DECEPTION THAT DIVIDES
The great problem that has hit the churches has been a spirit of illusion to create division. It looked as if contention was the big problem, when really the assault against our striving for oneness was a spirit of illusion, a lying spirit to create division. As you look back on this period, and even periods before, you can see that things were not at all the way they appeared. The illusions were not the truth at all, but people got into illusions that created divisions and walls, and all of it was based on illusions—a lying, deceiving spirit.
This was the basic assault: a satanic effort of deception to divide, to bring contention until people were too depressed to hang on to the confirmed Words of the Lord. Behind this is a truth I’ve known for some time: Satan himself comes with a hypnotic power and a deep despair that hits you; and with this comes a deep depression until the deception is accepted to the point that you actually find yourself losing your grip on the Words that have been confirmed to you, what you really know to be the will of God.
This is an important sign. The only time that it comes is when Satan himself, seeing that the issues before each of us are so great, personally takes charge of the battle. This is the sign of Satan—that hypnotic despair; you feel numb when it hits. That is Satan’s sign. If you stood by a furnace, you’d feel heat upon your skin—you’d feel it physically. When Satan assaults, this hits you—the depressive, hypnotic state that you can feel.
We exercised Christ’s authority to divide these spirits of division that have warred against us so long. With all of this that Satan is doing, we realize that our answer is to divide his kingdom until it can’t stand (Matthew 12:25). What is he using to divide us from our oneness? A spirit of division. We’re striving to attain and maintain our oneness; Satan is striving to break that oneness.
Our objective is that, with divine authority, we agree to divide the spirits of division. In other words, when divisive spirits come to divide us, then we agree that those spirits will be divided against each other.
If we pointed out some of the Judases or Korahs or Balaams that have left, you would notice one thing: they couldn’t tolerate each other; they almost hated each other. Yet suddenly there seems to be a unity among them. This is only because spirits of division and rebellion are uniting. The spirits right within themselves are spirits of division and rebellion! Remember this though: there can be no true unity between those spirits of division; there can be no true submission between spirits of rebellion.
When we look back on this move, we see that every time we’ve had a victory, it came because we divided the enemy’s camp—and it wasn’t that difficult to do! It was an easy thing for us to move in on that assault. We would simply separate the enemy and defeat them.
Now, hear this: Jesus said He came to do that! “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Luke 12:51–53. He didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword and division.
Why did Christ do that? Because the kind of unity that exists in those who do not serve God must be broken. That kind of unity must be broken because that is Satan’s kingdom; if we break it, his house won’t stand. That’s what Jesus said about the kingdom of Satan: “… Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Luke 11:17–20.
We must break their unity. This is the next basic tactic by which intercession will be made more effective, because this will break the hindrances that keep the oneness and unity of the Church from being most effective.
Satan’s kingdom must be divided against itself. The two keys, then, to total victory are: One, the Kingdom of God prevails by oneness; two, Satan’s kingdom is defeated because his rebellious and divisive spirits are susceptible to division themselves. It’s a part of their very being.
Satan himself and his spirit are rarely detected and discerned, because he comes under the guise of that hypnotic despair, and you don’t readily realize how he’s dividing you against yourself. Here is a prediction: The defeat of this deception will leave us with a fresh awareness of our oneness, of our commissions, and of the power that we will have to confirm and strengthen the Word of God over one another.
All contention springs, to some degree, from satanic deception regarding yourself, personally, and how you feel accepted or rejected by God or by your brother or sister.
In almost every case, the weakness that defeats us is that we are insecure and so lend ourselves to intimidation. That’s probably the only access Satan could ever use to make headway against us. What happens then is that our contention is not so much belligerence on our part as it is our defense against our feeling intimidated and inadequate, and so we lash out. It’s as though we have a big point to prove to ourselves.
Let those who would divide and deceive us become the victims of the same demonic spirits that they use! This is the answer against the nephilim. Any persons or spirits that would divide or deceive us can become victims of the same spirits they use.
Remember what Paul said in Corinthians to the churches: But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. II Corinthians 11:3. This has become so real to me. Satan wants to beguile us from the simplicity that is in Christ until we won’t see the oneness or the Word and cling to its simplicity.
Satan always tries to make our relationship to God extremely complicated. That is the beguiling of Satan. He tries to emphasize so many negative aspects of it, with so many questions or reasons. You can throw only so much into your computer before it jams it—and that’s the beguiling of Satan. That is his divisive and deceptive tactic—to come and draw us away from the simplicity that is in the Word.
This brings us to the problem of transference. The transference which is accomplished by Satan, which he throws onto us like witchcraft, he does best through his agents who seem to be transformed. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their deeds. II Corinthians 11:14–15.
Good transference is based upon a revelation of the Word of God and the simplicity and purity of the channel who gives it, but evil transference is based upon a deceptive transformation of Satan’s agents. That is what is in the earth today so much so that Christ said if it were possible they would deceive the very elect (Matthew 24:24). That’s why this battle becomes so subtle. We’re going to have to drill our sheep and train them on these tactics of Satan. If we don’t, he may pick them off one by one.
Keep these words in mind: transference and transformation. The transference comes because the agent is transformed until he looks like an angel of light. These thoughts that come from Satan you would swear were the Words from God. You would think you had a leading from the Lord; you’d swear that the divisive deception was really the truth, but it’s transference.
I can’t believe how many things may seem to be true one day in a battle and the next day you know them to be absolutely false. They were not true at all, and they weren’t based upon any fact at all. The illusion comes through the transformation of Satan and the transformation of his agents until they are like angels of light. We’re going to watch this danger above everything else; that’s where the false prophets are.
I think Satan is accomplishing his end when he gets us to be apprehensive about the men who have denied the Word and who go around phoning the flock to deceive them. They aren’t accomplishing that much for Satan. We should be more concerned about the ones who are in the Body who look like angels of light and “ministers of righteousness.” It appears that they still have a ministry. They are the ones who, by their transformation, appear to be something and are still able to bring the deadly transference that is effective. As for those other Korahs, we have our walls up against them. Let’s not be so concerned about them. We’ve broken bonds with them.
The subtle thing is where deception comes as an angel of light and we think, “This could be a Word from God.” Usually it is, “Hath God said?” or, “Is that really a Word from the Lord?” They’ll throw the questions and the division into what needs to be so very strongly affirmed in our mind as being a Word from God. This is the basic tactic to deceive the very elect.
I think that this problem of division during this period of transition from the Church Age to the Kingdom is one of deception. Deception and division are satanic, while the whole thing on our part is revelation and oneness. And we will have revelation from God and will walk as one.
Many and varied are the complications that Satan is bringing to people’s lives. This is what disturbs me, because I realize that it is one of the most subtle forms of deception there is. It can look as if you have so many problems, but they are really not your true problem. Many things can come to distract you and disturb you or to bring depression on you so that you will not follow the directive Word God has given you, or that He has already confirmed to your heart again and again.
I see the problem as being too many issues distracting us from the principal issues that are before us.
All of these assaults are a form of the war over the Word, because Satan is battling those who are the doers of the Word. When we say “the doers of the Word,” we don’t mean those who only go through the motions; we mean those who are actually crying out to do the will of God, to put the Word of God into action and bring it forth as a Kingdom reality.
Keeping the simplicity of devotion to Christ is so important! It’s the complications in our lives that Satan uses to distract us from that simplicity.
These complications make your life full of so many things-you’re doing so many good things, battling so many good problems—that you don’t do the best thing. You never see the principal thing really accomplished. You’re often so busy trying to put out little brush fires that you don’t attain the real oneness of the Kingdom, the relationship that God wants, the unity of spirit, or the revelation of Himself that He is trying to bring to your heart.
Paul warns the Corinthians of deceitful workers disguising themselves as apostles and prophets and parading as being right in the church (I Corinthians 11:13). They are deceitful. It is what they do that creates a deception. This can be a very disturbing thought. I want to talk about that—being a “servant of righteousness” in appearance.
The first thing that the workers of Satan do is make themselves appear more religious than God Himself, or than the servants of God. Satan is transformed as an angel of light and his workers appear transformed into ministers of righteousness. That transformation makes possible the transference.
Listen! The most subtle witchcraft doesn’t come from a witch on a broom; it comes from one who looks very much like an apostle, a prophet, or a handmaiden of the Lord. You see, Satan comes and makes Jesus Christ look like a glutton and a winebibber (Matthew 11:19); and those who come as “servants of righteousness” will go through the community and say, “Oh, these weak ones sinned; they are the stumbling block.” And yet those “ministers of righteousness” are the hypocrites who have been stumbling people with their hypocrisy.
We see these things over and over again. The hypocrites say, “Jesus, You can’t be real because You associate with harlots and publicans.” They push the world to stone an adulterous woman; but when it comes right down to their own sin, they slink off because they’ve got it (John 8:3–11). They are the ones who are self-righteous, self-deceived, and often satanically possessed.
We have to face this because here is the source of this deception and division we are concerned about. The deception has to be broken. The whole thing we’re battling—the confusion, the depression and division—results from listening for a single moment to these complicating, distracting, involved issues that Satan raises which would take us away from the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Jesus Christ and our oneness with each other. These many issues must not distract us from the one issue: God has spoken a Word to us in this generation, and together we’re going to walk in it.
How should we respond to this message? We’re all aware of the elusive thing that tries to divide. I would suggest that you do one thing: get together and say, “Look, the problems that we have focused on are not really our problem at all. We’re going to come back to the simplicity of our walk with God. We’re going to battle through on this thing together. We’re going to pray for one another. We’re going to believe that these divisive demonic spirits which have appeared to be so right, but which cause so much division within the church are going to be broken—absolutely and positively.”
Move in on the victory of this Word! You’ll wake up and realize how different the world is when this victory from God ends the illusion and deception and division and makes you aware of your oneness in Christ. Minister the victory to one another. Lift your hearts together to God, and with revelation move into the oneness and victory over the enemy.
