Satan's TTPs/Sub-Techniques

OK, so I have just been reading and studying something very interesting on my own. It connects directly with my cybersecurity education.

I have been studying cyber threat intelligence and the MITRE ATT&CK framework, and it is very interesting. I would truly love to have a job doing this—even in the smallest capacity—just to be able to work in this field.

In cyber threat intelligence, we use TTPs—tactics, techniques, and procedures. The MITRE ATT&CK framework uses tactics, techniques, and sub-techniques. Sub-techniques are essentially the same as procedures.

All of this deals with bad actors—people who attempt to steal intellectual property, credentials, and many other things. They have motives. They use tactics. They apply techniques and procedures in order to accomplish what they want to do.

As I was thinking about this this morning, it struck me that, in the very same way, Satan operates against all of us.

So, first, we look at tactics—the “what” and the “why.” What is the motive behind this bad actor—behind Satan? What is his motive for doing what he does?

Satan’s motive is to attack your Faith.

We know that everything we receive from God comes by Faith—our salvation, our reconciliation, our redemption, and what Jesus accomplished on the Cross of Calvary through His death, burial, and resurrection.

We receive all of this by Faith. It is not something we can do to make happen. God did it, and we must trust that it is true—that it happened and that it worked for us. We must believe. That means we must have Faith that it is real and that it truly accomplished what God said it accomplished.

When this is operating in your life, you are redeemed.

So if Satan’s motive—his tactic—is to attack your Faith, and if he is successful in doing that, then he has won in that individual’s life. When someone does not believe, when they do not accept what Jesus did on the Cross of Calvary, he has succeeded.

This all began at the Cross. It began with the Holy Spirit leading us to receive Jesus as the Messiah, to receive Him as Lord and Savior, and to trust and believe—to have Faith—that His death on the Cross, His sacrifice for us, and His payment for sin are what saved us. That is what redeemed us.

So if Satan can attack your Faith—at the initial point or at any point—he has won.

Now we come to his techniques.

His techniques are how he does it. One of the main ways he does this is by using anything he can to draw you away from God and to pull you outside of God’s will.

These are his techniques and his sub-techniques: deception, temptation, and luring people into error. When the whole Word of God is not being preached, you are in error. You have only part of the truth, and that will keep you from walking in victory in God.

Satan—the adversary, the bad actor—has a motive: to attack your Faith.
His technique is to draw you away from God.
When you are drawn away from God, you are separated from God, and you cannot receive the things of God.

In some people, when they have been drawn away through temptation or other means—through these procedures or sub-techniques—they walk away from God completely.

Many people believe you cannot lose your salvation, but you most certainly can.

Losing your salvation does not mean you made a mistake, fell, or sinned. A person who falls or sins, but still looks to God and still trusts that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the Cross of Calvary, is not lost.

But when someone walks out the Christian life—receives Jesus as Lord and Savior, and everything is going well for a while—and then, somewhere along the way, through some technique or sub-technique Satan uses to draw them away, they finally say, “I can’t do this anymore,” and walk away from God completely, they have walked away from their salvation.

Some are persecuted to the point that they abandon their Faith entirely and go on to live their own life. Those people have walked away from their salvation. They are no longer saved.

This is what Satan does, and it all stems from attacking your Faith.

Understand this: Satan does not care if you go to church. He does not care if you read your Bible every day. He does not care if you pray for hours or do good deeds inside or outside the church. He does not care about any of that.

He also does not care that you believe in Jesus.

You can attend a church that teaches about Jesus, be there every time the doors are open, and hear messages about Jesus as the healer, the provider, and the great teacher. He does not care about any of those things being taught in church.

But there is one thing he fears.

There is one thing he does not want preached in the church.

It is the Cross of Christ.

You can talk about all the good things in the Bible. You can preach about Jesus’ miracles, His healings, His compassion, and even His resurrection. But if you leave out the Cross, Satan does not mind that at all.

In fact, he wants that.

He wants prosperity preached. He wants the focus on money and success. He wants messages that say, “Ask God and He will give it to you.” And yes, God does give us the desires of our hearts, and He does supply all our needs. But if those messages are not connected to the Cross, they become meaningless.

He does not care that you hear those things. He does not care that you believe those things—as long as you do not believe in the Cross.

Why?

Because at the Cross, he was defeated.
At the Cross, sin was defeated.
And sin is what he uses to keep people in bondage.

When someone comes to Christ and accepts His sacrifice on the Cross, Satan loses his hold on that person.

I am not talking about people who reject Christ outright. I am talking about those who come to Christ and accept His sacrifice.

That is what Satan does not want.

That is why his tactic is to attack your Faith in any way, shape, or form.

We can have Faith in many things. I can have Faith that my mother will give me money because she is my mother. I can have Faith that the Word of God is good—and it is. But that is not the Faith that brought me into the Kingdom of God.

Jesus being the healer did not save me.
Jesus being the provider did not save me.
Those truths did not redeem me.
They did not reconcile me to the Father.

There is only one thing that did—and that is the Cross.

If Satan can keep you from hearing that your Faith must be not only in Jesus the man, but in what He accomplished at the Cross, then he does not care where you go to church. He does not care if churches are filled to capacity and hold multiple services every week.

He loves it.

Why?

Because error is being preached in the church.

He does not care if you have Faith that God will supply your needs, that God will heal you, or that God will do all the things His Word says—so long as you do not look to the Cross.

As long as the Cross is not being preached, and as long as the Cross is not part of your Faith, you can place your Faith in almost anything—even biblical things—and Satan is satisfied.

Your Faith becomes improperly placed, and you are in error.

I have personally been walking in error, and I am deeply grateful for the message of the Cross. I am so very grateful that I now understand where my Faith must be placed. I now have the opportunity to walk in true victory.

That does not mean I will not face trials, tribulations, situations, and circumstances. But even when they come, I know the Holy Spirit is working on my behalf.

Satan is the great adversary. He is the bad actor. He brings his tactics, techniques, and procedures to deceive the whole world. He is the ruler of this world. All of the temptations, vices, corruption, and distractions are designed to lure us away from God.

Sometimes they are even good things—things God may want us to do. But if we look to those things instead of looking to the one thing that redeemed us and reconciled us to the Father, we are being misled.

There is only one way salvation was accomplished.
There is only one means of redemption.
It is the Cross of Christ—His finished work, His death, burial, and resurrection.

Satan has been successful in the church through his TTPs—his tactics, techniques, and procedures—because the church no longer preaches the one thing he fears: the Cross.

He does not care about anything else being preached, as long as the church does not lead people to place their Faith in the Cross.

Remember, his motive is to move your Faith away from the one thing that saved you, reconciled you, and redeemed you.

As long as the Cross is not preached, he is winning—and we, the church, have allowed him to win.

Even now, some who read this will continue to allow Satan to use his tactics, techniques, and sub-techniques successfully in their lives and in their churches.

He is the great deceiver, and he has deceived us for a long time.

But now, just as I did, you have the opportunity to hear the message of the Cross—to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, to believe that He loved us, and to believe that He died for us.

But you must also understand that you cannot separate Jesus from the Cross. His finished work includes His death, burial, and resurrection. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant all of it.

We must understand our position in the Cross of Christ. When we do not, the adversary—the deceiver, the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world, the destroyer, and the accuser of the brethren—becomes successful in his tactics and techniques against the Body of Christ and against individual Believers.

As long as the Cross is kept out, Satan is satisfied with whatever else you place your Faith in.

But what he fears is the Cross—because at the Cross sin was defeated, his power over you was broken, and through the resurrection, death itself was defeated.

Do not allow yourself to be deceived by these tactics, techniques, and procedures.

It is an individual decision to receive what Jesus did on the Cross of Calvary for you. It is your responsibility to place your Faith fully and completely in what brought you into the Kingdom of God.

Yes—Jesus the man.
But also what He accomplished for you.

You cannot separate Jesus from the Cross.

When you do, you are in error—and you allow the adversary, Satan, to win.