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-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

Detecting The Spirit of Deception

Lesson 4
Satan As An Angel Of Light

By Teresa Seputis

2 Corinthians 11:14 tells us that "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light." Why would he do this? He does it to deceive people. If Satan showed himself for what he is, then no one would want to listen to him -- in fact, they would be repulsed by him. Satan does not want us to see his true nature, so he disguises himself into something that appears attractive or good. He does this in order to pull the wool over people's eyes and get them to listen to him. Deceit has been one of his primary strategies from the very beginning.

If we go back to the earliest recorded history, we see Satan used deceit to lead mankind astray. He choose to operate by deceit back in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were still in their unfallen state. He used his deceptive whiles to get Eve to sin. When God asked her why she did it, her reply was, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate" (Genesis 3:13). The Apostle Paul agreed with Eve's analysis in 2 Corinthians 11:3, where he said, "Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning." The devil has been a deceiver since day one.

And he will remain a deceiver until the bitter end. We know this from the book of Revelation, which tells of Satan's ultimate defeat, where he is cast permanently into the lake of fire. Rev 12:9 refers to him as "the great dragon ... that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray." And Rev 20:10 refers to him as "the devil, who deceived them..." In other words, Satan started out as a deceiver, and he ends up that way. He remains a deceiver from start to finish.

You might say that Satan is the ultimate con man. And, as any good con man knows, he won't be able to trick people with blatant and obvious lies. The lies must be attractively disguised. And the person propagating the lies must come across as believable. Since Satan is one of the best con men around, he knows that he must disguise his real nature if he wants to get people to listen to him. So he disguises himself as an angel of light, hoping to deceive many.

Why does Satan want to deceive people? It is because His very nature is to "steal, and to kill, and to destroy" (John 10:10). That is who he is and what he does. Satan is a liar through and through. Jesus commented on his character when He confronted some of Satan's servants. He said, in John 8:44: "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

2 Thes 2:9-10 tells us that, "the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing." His goal is to deceive people and keep them from coming to their full potential in Christ. That is his nature.

Satan's demons can also disguise themselves as angels of light. They sometimes come with messages that sound appealing, but they don't line up with scripture. I would like to share an experience that a friend of mine had with an "angel" of light that actually led him into error. This happened back in 1995.

Don (not his real name) was a skilled prophetic worship leader. He would often lead worship during the ministry time at the end of his church meetings. He would play his guitar and sing prophetic songs that were amazingly anointed. He also moved strongly in personal prophecy and was being personally mentored by an established prophet. I had become friends with Don and his family. I had been their house guest a few times, and they had been my house guest as well. At the time, I was just learning about the prophetic and did not yet consider myself a prophetic person. So, I looked up to Don and I sometimes asked him questions about the prophetic.

Don went into full-time itinerant ministry for a season. I stayed at their house for a week shortly after he had become an itinerant minister. Don began to tell me stories about his experiences with angels that concerned me. They did not seem quite right to me. He saw angels sitting on the hood of his car when he drove. They would given him instructions like, "The laws of the land don't apply to you because you are important to God. So you can speed all you want and we will alert you when there is a police car so that you can slow down and not get a ticket." In fact, the "angels" did alert him when he needed to slow down to the speed limit to avoid getting a ticket. He felt that God was blessing him to break the law by speeding. That did not match up with my understanding of the bible.

Don relocated to be on staff at a church for a year as an associate pastor. Then he returned home. The angels continued to tell him more and more bazaar stuff. The angels also began to give him prophetic direction, to the point where he actually prophesied stuff that contradicted scripture, repeating what the angels had told him. One time the pastor of that church brough a group of about 30 people to a conference near Don's home. Since they were in the area, they had a private service with Don. I was staying with Don and his wife at the time, so I went with them to this private service. In it, Don prophesied that four giant angels had appeared and bowed down in homage and respect to this pastor and announced that God had appointed this man as head of His entire church. According to the "prophecy" the whole earth would honor and respect this man and all Christians would look to him for leadership within three years time. (That prophecy never came true, by the way.)

That was the "point of no return" for me, because I knew from the bible that God's angels do now bow down before anyone but God. I cut off my relationship with Don after that. Years later, I came across his phone number and gave him a call to see how he was doing. Don was estranged from the church and back in full time secular work. He believed the church had rejected God's message through him, the secrets that the angels had revealed to him. Don sounded bitter and highly critical of the church, pastors and Christians in general.

This is a very sad story, but it is a true one. A demon, disguised as an angel of light, was able to mislead a fairly anointed man, and destroy his credibility and his God-appointed ministry.

I have prayerfully pondered how someone who started out so anointed could have been deceived like that. I believe the reason was because Don had a pride issue which made him susceptible to deception. God had started to refine that character flaw, but he sort of jumped ahead of God's timing and went into full time ministry before God had fully prepared him for it. He desired to be great in God's kingdom, to be well known and sought after, he wanted to be a "big-name" minister, internationally recognized and respected. While he was anointed as a worship leader, he was not really at that caliber of ministry. He became frustrated because those "big" ministry opportunities never opened up for him once he entered full time ministry.

So when angelic beings began telling him how special he was, this was precisely what Don wanted to hear. So he listened to it. The angels of light played to his pride and told him that he was so important to God that he was exempt from speeding laws. In fact, the angels encouraged him to speed and alerted him when a police car was in the vicinity. This gave him a tremendous sense of importance -- he was so important that God would assign an angel to him just to protect him from getting a ticket when he broke the speed laws. I don't know all the particulars of what the angels told him, but I am sure that the deception was carefully tailored to his weak and vulnerable spots. I suspect they kept telling him how important he was to God's plans and purposes, and how God was going to exult him and make him a powerful and famous minister.

Anytime an angel lifts up anybody but God, you should become highly suspicious. You need to be mindful that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light, and that his desire is to deceive people and lead them astray.

Does that mean that all angels are angels of light? Of course not. God does work through angels today. There are a lot of people alive today who have seen and interacted with the "real thing" -- with angels sent from God at God's bidding. We must never reject the truth just because the devil counterfeits it for his own deceptive purposes. I would like to close with a short angel story that shows the real thing as opposed to the angel of light.

I saw an angel in Feb of 2002. The angel pointed my focus and attention on God and reminded me of many of the wonderful things God had done for me and in my life. Then I asked the angel what God was like to him. He began to share a tad (just a tad) of what God "looks like" from an angel's perspective. He talked about His radiance and His glory and His goodness and love. Apparently, each and every angel has a personal relationship with God and they feel loved by Him. I tried to ask the angel some questions about what it is like being an angel, about his experiences, etc. But the angel refused to go there, saying that he wanted to keep the focus on God, not on himself. And each time I would try to wander, he would redirect my attention to God and His glory, His awesomeness, His power His goodness, His love, etc.

There was only one person in the entire universe that any true angel would lift up and glorify -- God. That is what real angels are like -- they are God's willing servants and they love and worship God with all of their being!


-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

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