But some of them said, “He (Jesus) casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” – Luke 11:15

From this malicious accusation by the Pharisees we learn Satan's attack plan. In fact, Satan has three main attack plans. Number one, he attacks worldly men by deception and seduction. He is a master seducer and a master deceiver. He gets worldly men in his clutches by seducing them into loving the world, loving themselves, and loving to squeeze out of this temporal world all the pleasures they can find. It is a stronghold of deception and destruction, and he is a master at it.

Secondly, he attacks godly men by counteraction. He constantly comes against us. Mark it down, everything we strive to do, Satan is going to try to thwart it. He’s going to try to diminish it. He’s going to try to undermine it. That’s why we need texts like this to invoke us to raise our heads, throw back our shoulders, and with a firm faith determine that we are not slowing in our quest to honor God and serve God in our churches.

Finally, he attacks the church by imitation and substitution. Now listen, Satan is in the business of producing, not true churches, but imitation churches. Satan is in the business of producing and setting forth an imitation Jesus. There will be men who talk about Jesus and preach about Jesus, but when you get down to what they believe about Jesus, it is not the Jesus revealed in the scripture. Satan is in the business of an imitation Jesus.

Satan is also in the business of creating an imitation gospel and a counterfeit conversion! They tell us, “Come to the priest; let the priest administer the wafer and the bread,” or, “Come, you must be baptized in the baptistery to have your sins washed away.” Even if a Baptist brother with good intentions says, “Come to the front and you can be saved.” All of these are imitations. You will not find one thing in the Bible about coming to the priest, taking a wafer, drinking the juice, going in the water, or coming to the evangelist to be converted! God saves – not men, not rituals, and not the works of religion! All of these are but substitutions and imitations for real conversion, and they neglect the changing power of the Holy Spirit on the human heart.

Satan produces an imitation love. Most of what churches know today is not spiritual love. It is a gushy, fleshly, sentimental nonsense that we see among the homosexuals and the Hollywood crowd. Our love is deeper than that. It is truer, more royal, and more dignified than that. Our love is for our Savior’s glory in that we want to lay down our lives for the brethren. Satan comes into the church, and he brings an imitation love.

He brings an imitation unity. Most churches that get along don’t have spiritual unity. The Bible speaks of the “unity of the Spirit,” but what most churches call unity is a toleration of flesh. They have learned how to tolerate and keep the fleshly power mongers and troublemakers pacified and they call it unity. That is not spiritual unity.