Counterfeit Presence of God

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Co-author – Rev Patrick Williams http://breadandwineministries.com/

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Angels do bring messages from God. God can also speak directly to the believer. This true contact should bring a humbleness upon the person, making them teachable, and receptive to the truth of the Word of God. So, how does a counterfeit experience occur?

Characteristics of a counterfeit spirit

1. The devil mixes his lies with the truth, for he must use a truth to carry his lies. The believer must therefore discriminate, and judge all things. Satan is a “mixer.” If in anything he finds ninety-nine percent pure, he tries to insert one percent of his poisonous stream, and this grows, if undetected, until the proportions are reversed.

2. In accepting the counterfeits of Satan, the believer thinks, and believes, he is complying with Divine conditions in order to ascend to a higher life; whereas he complies with conditions for Satanic workings in his life, and thereby descends into a pit of deception and suffering, with his spirit and motive pure.

How they gain access

How evil spirits gain access to the believer, is the next question we need to consider.
(1) how they deceive; (2) the ground given for deception; (3) where they enter; (4) the excuses the spirit makes to hide the ground it has claimed, to keep the believer in ignorance of his presence and the ground he holds; (5) the effect on the man deceived; and (6) the symptoms.

3. In one who has been brought into fellowship with God, Satan can only gain ground in terms, by “wiles”; for he knows he will never get from a believer deliberate consent to the entry, and control of evil spirits.

The Deceiver can only hope to obtain that consent by guile: i.e., by feigning to be God Himself, or a messenger from Him. He knows, too, that such a believer is determined to obey God at all costs, and covets the knowledge of God above all else on earth.

There is, therefore, no other way to deceive this one, but by counterfeiting God Himself, His presence and His workings; and under pretense of being God, to obtain the co-operation of the man’s will in accepting further deceptions; so as eventually to lead to “possession” of some part of the believer’s mind or body, (not in the spirit man which is off limits) and thus injure or hinder his usefulness to God, as well as that of others who will be affected by him.

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A need for visual and other sensory stimulation

How the powers of darkness counterfeit the presence of God to those ignorant of his devices may be as follows. At some moment when the believer is yearning for the sense of God’s presence, either alone, or in a meeting, and certain conditions are fulfilled, the subtle foe approaches, and wrapping the senses round with a soothing, lulling feeling–sometimes filling the room with light, or causing what is apparently a “breath from God” by a movement of the air–either whispers “This is the presence you have longed for,” or leads the believer to infer that it is what he has desired.

Then, off his guard, and lulled into security that Satan is far away, some thoughts are suggested to the mind, accompanied by manifestations which appear to be Divine; a sweet voice speaks, or a vision is given, which is at once received as “Divine guidance,” given in the “Divine presence,” and hence beyond question as from God. If accepted as from God, when from the spirits of evil, the first ground is gained.

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Self love at core

The man or women is now so sure that God has called them do this or that. He is filled with the thought that he has been highly favored of God, and chosen for some high place in His Kingdom. The deeply hidden self-love is fed and strengthened by this, and he is able to endure all things by the power of this secret strength.

He has been spoken to by God! He has been singled out for special favor! His support is now within upon his experience, rather than upon God Himself, and the written Word.

Through this secret confidence that God has specially spoken to him, the man becomes unteachable and unyielding, with a positiveness trending on infallibility.

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Does this sound like you?

He or she cannot listen to others now, for they have not had this “direct” revelation from God. He is in direct, special, personal communion with God, and to question any “direction” given to him, becomes the height of sin.

Obey he must, even though the direction given is contrary to all enlightened judgment, and the action commanded opposed to the spirit of the Word of God. In brief, when the man at this stage believes he has a “command” from God, he will not use his reason, because he thinks it would be “carnal” to do so–“common-sense” is lack of faith, and therefore sin–and “conscience” for the time being, has ceased to speak.

Spirits cater to self love, and to a need to be accepted as special

Some of the suggestions made to the believer by deceiving spirits at this time, may be: (1) “You are a special instrument for God,” working to feed self-love; (2) “You are more advanced than others” working to blind the soul to sober knowledge of itself; (3) “You are different from others,” working to make him think he needs special dealing by God; (4) “You must take a separate path,” a suggestion made to feed the independent spirit; (5) “You must give up your occupation, and live by faith,” aiming at causing the believer to launch out on false guidance, which may result in the ruin of his home, and sometimes the work for God in which he is engaged.

All these suggestions are made to give the man a false conception of his spiritual state; for he is made to believe he is more advanced than he actually is, so that he may act beyond his measure of faith and knowledge (Rom. 12: 3), and consequently be more open to the deceptions of the enemy.

Upon the basis of the supposed revelation of God, and the special manifestation of His presence, and the consequent full possession of the believer by Him, the lying spirits, afterwords, build their counterfeits. Do not waste your time with counterfeit spirits.

If you are willing to test the spirit, and have others test it, then you are most likely dealing with a true experience. If you are unwilling to be questioned, or tested, then, mostly likely, you have a counterfeit spirit.

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**** NOTE:

One prophet from India (http://www.voiceofjesus.in/) recently warned about receiving duplicate/fake anointing.

John 16:8
“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”

If this does not happen, then what one has is a false anointing.