The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 1

We have already noted we can learn much about the workings of a religious spirit by observing how they reacted to the ministry of Jesus and we have looked at a couple examples. There are many other things Jesus said that demonstrated he knew the religious leaders of his time were being influenced by religious spirits. We will deal with them in a later posting. It is interesting that the New Testament is full of the manifestations of religious spirits, but if one has never dealt with a religious spirit, they appear to be generic warnings of things to beware of or avoid all together. Some of these we will look at in a little more detail as Paul spent a considerable amount of precious space in the Pastoral Epistles dealing with religious spirits. He did not identify them as such by name, but the manifestations are unmistakable to the discerning spirit.

Perhaps a small warning is in order as we move through this list. Everyone will find they have been influenced by a religious spirit to a larger or smaller degree. It is inevitable that when a spirit controls a geographical region, virtually everyone who spends any amount of time in that area will be affected either directly or indirectly. When you see yourself in any of the examples to follow the appropriate response would not be to become angry with his writer (remember, we do not fight flesh and blood). The appropriate response would be to immediately confess and repent. Confession places the actions we have done in ignorant agreement with the spirit to be placed under the blood of Jesus. They are literally blotted out by the blood and become as though they had never happened. Step two would be to repent--turn away from any agreement with the spirit to never revisit those actions.

I Timothy 4 and 2 Timothy 3 read like listings of the manifestations of a religious spirit. Let us look at the two lists and then break them down separately to see how the religious spirit manifests. They depart from the faith and give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons (4:1). They speak lies in hypocrisy and their consciences are seared (vs. 2). These pairs of manifestations go together as we will explain directly. In his second letter to Timothy, chapter 3, Paul continues his list. They will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy (vs. 2) unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good (vs 3) lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (vs 4) having a form of godliness, but denying its power (vs 5). Paul then takes a break from his listing to tell Timothy how to deal with this spirit before continuing. He says to preach the word and to be ready all the time to convince, rebuke, and exhort with patience and teaching (4:2). The list continues, they will not endure sound doctrine, but will find their own teachers to tell them what they want to hear (vs. 3) because they turn away from the truth (vs. 4). As you can see, portions of this list are duplicated so we will not need to deal with every one of them individually.

They depart from the faith. This is not an apostasy from Christianity per se, but rather a departure from the true faith, or what we call orthodox Christianity. Perhaps at this point we should ask, "Who determines what is orthodox Christian doctrine?" The answer is very simple and taken directly from scripture. It is the genuine faith. Paul encourages Timothy to stir it up (2 Timothy 1:6). It is resident in every born again believer. It has been passed down from generation to generation, from person to person, teacher to student, parent to child always overseen by God himself. Ok, but how do we know we have this genuine faith and not an adulterated version perpetuated by a religious spirit? Jesus promised, "...when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth..." (John 16:13). Why then are some deceived and some not? Everyone is deceived to a greater or lesser extent. However, when one is aware of that possibility and acknowledges it, the Holy Spirit will move him or her out of the darkness and into the light.

A person opens himself to deception, "...when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." (James 1:14) When our desires are first for God and his kingdom righteousness we are less likely to be deceived at all and our stay in deception will be greatly shortened. To say it another way, we become deceived when we operate in our soul (mind, emotions and will). The antidote is to live in the spirit. The soul, whether redeemed or not, is the devil's playground until it comes into submission to the spirit. So why do people and even church leaders, find it so difficult to do that? Everyone finds it difficult because it is contrary to the sin nature we are all born with and we have precious few examples nowadays of anyone doing it right. Church leaders have a double dip deception dilemma in that the demons of hell work overtime to distract and neutralize them from their main task which, as we know is, "...the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry..." (Ephesians 4:12)

Head's up. This is important. Church leaders are far and away more likely to be seduced by a religious spirit because it takes the slightest detour into the soul to set up the deception. The instant a church leader begins to think he or she is accomplishing anything of value because of his or her education, experience, intellect or general, intrinsic ability--never mind the fact they actually have an acknowledged position in the church--WHOOSH! (That's the sound of that person being sucked into the vortex of deception.)

We certainly did not get far into the list of the workings of the religious spirit in this installment. Watch for Part 2 soon. God bless, and pray for your pastor, teacher, or other minister.