The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 4

I do not really want to write this post. I am not at all sure I can pull it off without sounding overly harsh. Then again, the people reading this blog primarily fall into two camps. For the most part you will give us a fair hearing. We appreciate that and take it as a sacred charge to only be writing the truth as we understand it. The other group is reading with a critical eye because they think we are writing about them. They cannot afford to be wrong in matters of faith and practice so they have to find fault with the writing or the writer. Regardless of which camp you belong to, may we assure you, this is not about you. If, however, you should feel uncomfortable with yourself over anything you read here, we suggest you seek the Lord to find the real reason for your discomfort.

"Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth..." (2 Timothy 3:8) There were religious spirits working even in Egypt thousands of years ago. Moses had to deal with them. The magicians and sorcerers of Pharaoh's court had religion bottled up and packaged for their greatest good. When he should have been letting God's people leave Egypt, Pharaoh hardened his heart because his religious leaders convinced him Moses was not part of the religious elite. That was true. Moses was coming in the name of I Am to set God's people free from their bondage to the Egyptians. God always comes to set his people free from bondage. He is working on that in the Santa Maria valley right now.

Let us be precise about what was going on. Perhaps we will see a parallel or even two between the religious spirit Moses confronted and the one we are facing. The religion of Egypt was controlled by a group the Bible calls magicians and sorcerers. This is done lest we be confused about who is the good guy in this historical account. Jannes and Jambres are traditionally thought to be the leaders of these magicians and sorcerers. By way of their magic arts, this group was able to convince Pharaoh they were the ones to whom were given the power of God in the nation of Egypt. Along comes Moses telling them I Am has sent me to tell you to let Israel go. Pharaoh had to ask who is this I Am, and who is Moses, and why would he let the unpaid laborers who were building the infrastructure of Egypt simply leave.

Moses had a word from God. Pharaoh had a country that needed cheap labor. Jannes and Jambres had a religious structure that garnered its power by being a closed system that maintained the status quo. They resisted the truth. We know the end of the story. God had to finally destroy Egypt and kill the firstborn in all their houses before Pharaoh was willing to send the Hebrews away. Even then he had second thoughts and went after them with his whole army. Again, we know the end of that story. The words of warning for us follow immediately, "but they will progress no further for their folly will be manifest to all..." (vs. 9) Religious leaders who perpetuate a closed religious system hit a glass ceiling. They do not understand why they are not making any more progress than they are. It is clear from these verses the reason is they resist the truth. The problem, as we know, is they cannot see the truth because they are blinded by a religious spirit.

There are lots of other places we could go in talking about the workings of religious spirits, and perhaps we will reprise this series in the future, but there are other things we would like to teach that might fill in some blanks first. Stick with us for one more manifestation of a religious spirit and we will move onto something more fun.

"...who suppose that godliness is a means of gain..." (1 Timothy 6:5) Many people reading those words will doubtless think we are about to indict the word of faith teachers. In truth we probably have less of an axe to grind with most of them then with certain other groups. In fact most of them seem to be outside the influence of religious spirits so they are of no concern in this case. The reason our minds go there is because we have mostly been taught that the gain Paul is talking about here is strictly, or at least primarily, financial.

L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the heretical Scientology cult (guess how we feel about Scientology) is purported to have said the best way to make a lot of money is to start a religion. He then went on to prove his hypothesis by becoming a wealthy man. We have never found there to be a great deal of money in the business of religion, but perhaps that is because we were never very good at it. In any event, gain cannot be seen as simply dollars in the bank or the worldly things money can buy. It is actually better summed up as "more". This deception of a religious spirit thinks more is better, more money, more people, more buildings, more buses, more books authored, more Cd's distributed, etc. Hear me on this, there is nothing wrong with any of that--unless it leads to arrogance, which it certainly can. A byproduct of doing the right things before God is his material blessing. Therefore, we cannot simply look at a person's material substance and judge whether he is being influenced by a religious spirit. A person who is so influenced will, probably sooner than later, give himself away. Just as a gambler with a tell, this person will brag, as humbly as he can, about the people he ministers to, the money his ministry generates, or the building project he is planning. There will be a smugness about him that cannot be explained away simply as a personality trait. Did we mention he is not very good at receiving counsel from anyone who has not reached his level? That is all we are going to say about that. We could give examples, but we will not--at least not in the blog.