Discovering More About the Enemy’s Strategies

On the anniversary of my fourth year out of the cult of Sound Doctrine, I am praising God to be able to connect even more dots as to the why’s and how’s of my 12 year detour into deception.

As I taught this last weekend at a ladies’ retreat, I covered areas of vulnerability that can leave anyone open to deception. I used some quotes from a book we developed for ministry back in the late 90s and as I read this one section to the ladies, it took my breath away how precisely the enemy of my soul used these tactics through the leadership of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, Tim Williams.

This is the section of the book, Behind Enemy Lines, where the guerrilla warfare tactics are compared to the way Satan operates, and any comments I add will be italicized:

The following list of ways the enemy fought is by no means compete, but it will serve to show you some of the tactics used by the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese soldiers to kill, maim, harass, and disrupt our war strategies. You will see how these methods match Satan’s ways in fighting us in the spirit realm.

• The VC attempted to look as much like the civilian population as possible. (Satan disguises himself and can even look like a friend – an angel of light.)

Tim Williams used his wife, Carla, to draw people into his initiative. She found her way into positions of credibility so that she would be seen as friend, not foe. That was a very effective strategy…it sucked me in, and in the end, gained him a publishing company to further his agenda and doctrine.

• The VC did not fight for physical territory…they fought to win the hearts and minds of people. (If Satan can shift our attention, our zeal, our time, our hearts and our minds onto something other than Jesus and the Great Commission, he has won. We have fallen into idolatry without even knowing it. He has captured our heart and mind leaving us unfruitful and ineffective in the Kingdom of God.)

The enemy used Tim Williams to shift our attention off winning souls and onto promoting his agenda, his doctrine, his message that ultimately divided families and destroyed lives. His twisting of scripture rendered the hearts and minds of his followers ineffective to discern the truth from a lie.

• The VC deployed booby-traps along trails to destroy our confidence. By blowing off the arms and legs of our buddies along the march, our purpose and confidence was weakened. We were taking casualties, but never saw the enemy because after the explosives were detonated the enemy could watch the destruction from afar—out of harm’s way (Satan knows he cannot win the war, but if he can set enough traps along our walk to make us hurt and be unsure of our faith then he can keep us from being effective witnesses for Christ. He usually wreaks enough misery from a distance that we sometimes forget who the real foe is. Many times we target each other as the enemy because he (the devil) is not an obvious player in the scenario).

Tim was a master manipulator and using shame based theology he set traps to beat us down and make us question our ability to hear God and discern His will.

• The VC used innocent civilians, even to the point of destroying them, as decoys to undermine our security and confidence. It was a common practice to strap explosive charges on small children and send them into groups of G.I.s to make friends and win their affection. When the child would get close enough, the communist soldier would detonate the charge with a remote switch—taking out the G.I.s and the child. (Often Satan will use even good things to win our affections. Once he has accomplished this, he ambushes us and attempts to destroy us.)

Tim effectively used children as pawns in his game of deception. He and his wife openly shamed the parents, telling them they were unfit to lead their children in the Lord, and then turned the children against their parents, building into them complete loyalty to their new “granny and grandpappy.” That inevitably made the parents more dedicated to the wolf’s doctrine and agenda because they didn’t want to lose their kids or grandkids.

• The VC tried to get us to mistakenly kill our fellow warriors. One particular tactic he used was what we called “cutting the pie.” At night, when we would stop daylight operations in the jungle, we would dig into night-defensive positions. The entire unit formed into a large circle (pie) for protection. Normally, there were two men to a hole, and one slept while the other kept watch for enemy activity. The VC would probe a point in the perimeter circle, making a lot of noise to attract attention, and would try to take a slick out of the “pie.” After making the noise, they would pull back into the jungle and hope we would fire our weapons in the direction of the noise—which would be at our own men on the other side of the circle. (Satan deploys the same strategy against us. He creeps into our midst and causes disruptive “noise,” and then pulls back into his jungle and waits for us to kill each other. He tries his best to cause fights, quarrels, dissatisfaction and dissention in our midst. All the while he has distanced himself and remains the undetected source of trouble. This tactic is evident in almost every church or fellowship in Christendom. Most pastors can attest to this.)

This was common in the cult. No one was safe, people were used against each other in order to further the wolf’s agenda and provide information to be used against them in the future to his advantage.

• The VC attempted to stay close to U.S. military units. They knew that the closer they could be to us—especially in a firefight—the less likely it was that we would call in artillery or air support, in fear of directing the incoming fire on ourselves. (Satan sends his forces against us in the same manner. He gets as close to us as possible so that we cannot determine which direction to call in “air support” to take him out. Many times he is so close that we completely overlook him when he is in our midst.)

There was always lots of talk and preaching of Satan and his strategies, when the reality was he was in the midst of this group and calling all the shots, in the Name of Jesus.

WOW. Reading this book again after all these years, with 20/20 hindsight, it’s amazing to see how the enemy worked to steal, kill and destroy our family, business, and faith.

Today is, however, a victory day. Four years ago I escaped the mind-control and evil deception of Sound Doctrine and Tim Williams, and am connecting new dots as I review the schemes of the evil one and more clearly see how he worked in my life and the life of my family.

Let me be clear. I am not one who sees a demon behind every doorknob. But I have to say, the church had better wake up and realize how the enemy works. There is just too much at stake and there are too many opportunities for him to come in and deceive. I am living proof of that, and I praise God He rescued me from that deception. There continue to be too many others caught in the enemy’s grip through Tim Williams and Sound Doctrine, and other spiritually abusive leaders out there. Oh God, please open their eyes, in Jesus’ Name!