My brother-in-law is friends with some of the coaches and managers of the Atlanta Falcons football team. The last time he came to visit us, he rented a car and drove over to the other side of Atlanta and spent the whole day watching the team practise and talking to his buddies about strategy for the coming year.
When he got back to our house, we talked about football and he said something I never forgot. He commented that football teams spend an incredible amount of time studying their opponents. They watch videos about the team they are about to play and they know the weaknesses and strengths and tendencies of everyone on it. Then they base their strategies on what they know about them. They wouldn't dream of coming out against an opposing team without "knowing their enemy."
I had to help someone in my house realize that he has an enemy and that enemy wants to destroy him.
I have a kid named Brian living in my house who is a felon. The warden in the jail he was at gave him the job of painting the jail and I think he observed him and talked to him and decided that the kid should be out earning a living and not taking up jail space.
The result was that Brian got two and a half years knocked off his sentence and came to live with us last April. The parole board wouldn't let him live with his parents because it wasn't a good environment for him. He asked us if he could live with us and we said yes.
In July, I noticed that someone in our house was visiting White Supremacy sites on the internet and I concluded it must have been him. But I didn't say anything about it until his mother called me and told me she had found Hitler's Mein Kampf in his room at her house and was concerned about it.
Monday night two weeks ago, he came home while I was cooking dinner. I turned everything off and sat him down. Remember, Brian is saved and I think he's received the Holy Spirit. At least he says he has. So I can talk to him on a spiritual level. I said, "Brian, you and I both know that Satan would love to get you back in jail. He had a strong hold of you for years and now you're out of jail and trying to get your life together and I'm sure he HATES it that he's lost control of you. If I were Satan, I would be trying everything I could think of to lead you into something that could destroy you. Can you see where this White Supremacy interest of yours could be the perfect vehicle for that? Just imagine, you hear about a fight that's going to take place, you go down there, someone hands you a beer which you don't refuse, the fight gets out of control and somehow you get involved in it, the police come, and they get you for both under-age drinking and aggravated assault. And because you're out on parole, you get the maximum sentence. Brian, do you see that this could be your future? Do you see that Satan is very busily planning your future? Can you see that your interest in the white supremacy movement could lead to your destruction?
Well, God bless him, he was completely receptive. He agreed with me. The next day, he showed up at my Bible study and asked us all to lay hands on him and pray for him, which we did. The next night, he went to the youth service at my church which is really geared to people like him. The following Tuesday, he came to Bible study again and asked for prayer. Funnily enough, the subject of the Bible study was "Satan's tactics" and he listened intently as it reinforced everything I had been telling him.
And here is the clincher! Wednesday night, he took two carloads of kids his age to my church. One was an atheist who came along for the ride and told Brian, "I'll come along and if you've got someone who can convince me, fine. If not, it's just another church service."
The pastor, who is 23 and has done every drug known to man and almost died of a drug overdose, started preaching and then he stopped. There were more than 200 kids in the room. And looking directly at the kid who was an atheist, he said, "There is someone here who needs to meet God tonight" and he preached a real powerful sermon directly to this kid. The kid left that night absolutely convinced that God was talking straight to him!
But anyway, my point in this post is that I believe Satan really does have a plan for our lives. I believe he'd love to enact that plan. I believe that by appearing as an angel of light, he lures good people like us into cults and religious movements and false religions. We fortunately saw the light and got away from the COG, but we still have to really stay vigilant to make sure we're not being deceived by Satan again. I don't believe he ever stops.
But that's how I think we all ended up in the COG - we got deceived. We fell into the trap. But like someone below said, if we genuinely loved Jesus, we muddled through and got out when we were ready to see the truth, but we were not without scars and for most of us, not without children who were badly scarred. But at least we're out now.