Satan's great skill, as the Puritans would tell us, consists in presenting well his bait and hiding well his hook. His lies, snares and heresies are never original. They are used over and over again. But they are expertly packaged and attractively presented to each new generation. The devil's dark genius is seen in his ability to present error as truth, bitter as sweet, darkness as light, poison as food and sin as virtue. He can, when men are undiscerning, persuade them to drink a dish of dirty water as if it were a glass of wine and to feed our souls on chaff as if it were fine wheat. He can coax the wise to behave in their worship like fools, allure the learned to believe childish fables and seduce men to mock and insult God under the very pretence of worshipping Him.

There is a 'mystery' about iniquity, especially iniquity in holy matters, such as things which men believe in their religious creeds and things which they do in their religious service. Historians of medieval churches tell us that, in that corrupt age, the pillars closest to the 'high altar', where solemn masses were made, were sometimes ornamented with impish stone faces mocking the 'body and blood' of Christ below them. The hand of Satan is in all this and in all similar forms of 'sacred' ridicule. His aim is to cheapen God's worship, turn religion into mimicry and mockery and so to cheat us of Christ, of the gospel and of heaven.

The 'mystery of iniquity' (2 Thessalonians 2:7) indicates that all error has a much deeper root than meets the eye. Many errors look innocent enough to the casual onlooker: 'Christ is of similar essence to the Father'; 'the Bible contains the Word of God'; 'Sacred Scripture and sacred tradition are the Word of God'; 'hell-fire is a figure of speech'; 'the Church alone can interpret the Bible correctly'; 'there must be a visible Head to the visible Church on earth'; etc., etc. (The list can be prolonged endlessly). But however innocent such statements appear to the simple, they have their root and origin from below They are all well-packaged deceits which the unwary are likely to perceive as harmless expressions of piety and devotion. Behind devout iniquity is a profoundly malignant intelligence craftily gilding the half-truth to look like the whole truth and expertly wording the formulations of error to have the ring of truth about them.

Errors in doctrine and in practice are manufactured in another world, a world still more dark and corrupt than this one. Their attractiveness is not accidental. They come on to the markets of this world in well-packaged forms. They are all 'user-friendly' and they have more registered trademarks than merely the sign of the 'Watch Tower' or of the 'Vatican'. They come, at times, from seemingly reliable sources and bearing the stamp of churches which were once very good and of scholars who were once very sound. The modern religious market-place is full of the bad as well as of the good. The bad is often very bad and the buyer must beware.

Satan's hand in the promotion of counterfeit doctrine is evidently not confined to the minting of error or its presentation. He appears to have a kind of hypnotic power over the minds of men. To this the Apostle Paul alludes when he asks the infatuated Galatian church, 'Who hath bewitched you?' (Galatians 3:1). Just a short time before they had received the doctrine of the true gospel. Now they are half-persuaded of its very opposite! Paul marvels that they were now 'so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel' (Galatians 1:6). So plausible was the error on which they had become hooked that they were on the point of abandoning the truth wholesale and in haste! There was some 'bewitching' influence at work in their own minds.

This mysterious factor must not be discounted by us. Error has its own fascination and its own appeal. Sometimes its appeal is to the intellect (Ye shall be as gods knowing); sometimes it is to the lust for power ('Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence'); sometimes to the lust for novelty ('turned unto fables'); sometimes to the desire for freedom to enjoy this life ('having loved this present world'). Error comes to us both well-packaged and also well promoted. The devil does his market-research carefully before he perfects his product. Once the product is in the production-chain he makes sure that the consumer is put into the right mood to buy his goods. Errors in doctrine, worship and practice are sold to the unsuspecting under a variety of persuasive sales terms: 'relevant', 'modern', 'draws the crowds', 'evangelistically successful'...

Satan's hypnotic power depends very much for its success on our poor human depravity, especially our intellectual pride. Nothing scares church-people so much as the taunt that they are 'traditionalist', 'old-fashioned', 'yesterday's men', 'ossified in theology and worship', 'in a backwater', 'dead', etc. The mere mention of any of these epithets in some church-circles has been enough to stampede whole congregations into drastic revision of their church services, their correct emphases, their good affiliations, their correct presentation and their sound preaching. If only people would take a little more time to look for the hook that lies under the bait! But those who are bewitched are always in a hurry to run in some new direction with their eyes shut. 'Anything is better than being out-of-date'!

No doubt the devil's skill at marketing his errors is related to his vigilance in watching to see how the religious mood is changing from year to year. Do church-people crave a revival? They shall have one — at least, a riotous emotional experience which can be marketed as 'Holy Ghost excitement'. Do people in churches see their numbers going down? They need a 'youth pastor' to put things right. Do church-people feel intellectually inferior? They must have ministers who have been trained in all the latest theories. Do people seem to be reverting to the good old Calvinism? They must have it in the most 'perfect' form of it: Supralapsarian Hypercalvinism. Do people long for church unity? They shall have it gladly in a union of all churches together in one creedless mass. Has the church lost its authority? It must have closer links with the only true 'Holy Apostolic Church'. The devil will give men anything they want except the simple gospel of Christ. Anything else they can have with pleasure.

One of the greatest friends of the devil is the religious extremist. He is a sheer boon to Satan and he will prove an invaluable salesman for the popular error of the day. The extremist is the man or woman who insists on taking a good thing just a little too far. One may suppose that all the great and important errors of history have come in through the advocacy of extremists: 'If Mary is the mother of Christ, she is to be revered as the Mother of God'; 'Saint This or Saint That are sure to be able to help us in our time of need'; "'This is my body" means literally what it says'; 'If Christ says, "Come unto me", he must mean that all sinners have the ability to come'...

The extremist has all through history pushed truth into error. He turns grace into lasciviousness, liberty into licence, law into legalism, faith into fancy, shepherding into 'heavy shepherding', biblical separation into monasticism, preaching into ranting, mystery into mysticism and piety into pietism. The extremist turns the screw tighter and tighter till we choke.

The great enemy of Satan's market-strategy is the Christian who has discernment. He is the man who takes the trouble to think through the bright new methods or the exciting new emphasis in doctrine or in worship. The Christian who has discernment is a nuisance in any church which wants to move forward into the new millennium. He is likely to be someone who has not only read the Bible carefully but who has spent many years trying to work it out conscientiously in his own life and home.

The discerning Christian generally has a disconcerting knowledge of church history and has the unwelcome habit of comparing all new ideas with what has happened in the past. He is stubborn and usually refuses to barter good old doctrines for doubtful new ones. He does not love the old just because it is old; but he does love what is true because it is true; and he does love what is sound because it is sound. He is more concerned to have truth that hurts than error that flatters. He prefers 'the praise that comes from God only'.

Of all the prospective customers among whom Satan proposes to sell his wares, none is so unpromising as the discerning Christian. He is the supreme religious spoil-sport and no epithet can be too bad to brand him with. In earlier times therefore Satan used to have him burnt at Smithfield or in Oxford. Nowadays, however, he has to be content to have such men pilloried in the public press and through the media.