"We need a new plan!" Satan cried, fire darting from his flashing eyes. "Two hundred years we've waged this war, only to be worse off than before. What does the problem seem to be? We smite one, they rise up three? We must tailor-make a plan suited to the weakness of man."

"Ah yes! If I can't destroy it I will pervert it! I will seduce this family God loves so dear!" Satan scoffed, while grasping his hands in disdain as if he were crushing them in his very palms. "I will plan their compromise. Remember Samson. The battle is as good as won!"

"I will create a counterfeit, a Church to my own liking. We will appeal to man's ambition, his perverted desire to rule. Diotrephes, if you please, had it right after all. I will offer them kingdoms, and entice them with riches; they will usurp the very throne of Christ himself. And all this will be done in the name of God and righteousness. I love it!" Satan shouted, as the hideous groans and sneers of the hordes of hell reverberated through the abyss.

"'The greatest among you shall be a servant.' Ha! I'll make these servants into kings and their servanthood into tyranny. And for my masterstroke, these pagan temples that I have built will be their new home. I see it all so clearly now! They will sit in rows, silent, yes, silent at last. Those who turned my world upside-down will sit silently, in rows, entertained. How I have wished it!

"Ah, what greater pain could I inflict upon the creator, than for him to see his children wrapped in chains, worshiping in my temples, surrounded by my idols and led by my pontiff kings."

"'You shall have no other gods before me.' Ha!" Satan scoffed. "We will see about that! Greater deceptions than these shall I weave. I'll surround them with the trappings of idolatry and then when they are worshiping, in part they'll worship me!"

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