| PERSONAL FREEDOM FROM THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION E. Leo Lawson, Jr. HIS GLORY REIGNS B. Childress July 24 2009 08:00 AM I had a hunger for God at a very early age. Walking around on my grandfather's Kentucky farm, I would talk to Jesus just as loudly as I would talk to anyone else. Why? Because I sensed His presence. However, I did not know Him. It was like sitting in the audience of a president - you experience his presence, though you know him not. My grandfather, a baptist deacon, would sit me on his knee and read his Bible to me. Inquiring soul that I was, I wanted to know much about this Jesus whose presence I so sensed, as children often do. My Catholic mother would take me, along with my Baptist dad, to Mass; and then in the next hour, she would attend the Baptist service with my father and me. This worked fine until the priest demanded that our commitment be to the Catholic Church, not to the Baptist church, if I was going to attend their parochial Catholic school. SEARCHING FOR GOD When I entered the first of eight years of Catholic grade school, I certainly carried with me this hunger for God. After hearing the Ten Commandments and all the requirements to participate in the Mass, I set my mind and heart to "do the dos," and "don't the don'ts." I figured that if that was how to please the God whose presence I so treasured, then that was what I would pursue with all my juvenile might. Yet sometime past my first Communion, the years of devotion to "religion" seemed to drain away the sense of God's presence. The very God I wanted to know seemed ever so far, so intensifying my commitment appeared to be the only remedy. Being an altar boy was attractive to me. I even checked out Catholic seminaries in the seventh and eighth grades, hoping that the priesthood might be the place to find God - but to no avail. Where was He? At graduation I decided that there was no reality in "religion," though my earlier experience with the Baptists left me wondering whether there was something more than what the Catholics were telling me. My experience of "the priesthood" during my school years left a bad aftertaste. No, there was no clergy sex abuse. But I would propose that something at least as damaging occurred in my young soul during those years. The spirit of religion dulled the sense of God's presence within me and nullified God's Word to me. Should this surprise you? It shouldn't, because this is exactly what Jesus said it would do. JESUS EXPOSED THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of His day, telling them that they could not discern when God was present, even when standing there in human flesh! (see John 8). What was it that Jesus discerned about the Pharisees' religious past that had so dulled them to God's presence? Of all the religious sects in His day, Jesus would have probably most aligned Himself with what the Pharisees taught, yet His harshest rebukes came their way. Why? There was nothing so wrong about what they said as there was about what they did (see Matthew 23:3). There was just something about the spirit behind their words and deeds that made them detestable, especially to God. They professed to know Him, but by their deeds they denied God (see Titus 1:16). Like so many religious people, their words seemed right, but these folks did not have a right spirit. Could this have been caused by a demonic spirit? AKA: The Religious Spirit Some people would call it the spirit of religion; and others, the spirit of religiosity. One names a spirit by the destiny it distributes over someone; i.e., the spirit of religiosity distributes that demonic destiny. However, it might more simply be called the religious spirit. Lest we damn all "religion," I must make clear that religion can be human initiated, and some of it can even be good. "To keep oneself unstained by the world" (James 1:27, NASB) is self-initiated, though only made possible by God's grace. However, in God's sight, religion can be "pure and undefiled" (James 1:27). Therefore it must also be possible for religion to be impure and defiled. One source of that defiled religion is a demonic spirit of religiosity. This seems to be what Jesus discerned to be at work when He was around most Pharisees. In Matthew 15:1-9, Jesus uncovered the root of their religious spirit, as we shall see. Prior to His exposè on religiosity, Jesus had returned from Gennesaret, where the sick folks were simply touching His garment and getting healed (see Matthew 14:34-36). But such manifest power is where the rub came. Just like today, it seems that the perpetrators of "religion" just couldn't tolerate the power of God flowing so readily. The central motivating factor behind the religious spirit is pride in its self-righteous works, and this, too, was what was welling up inside of those Pharisees. They felt that Jesus was showing them up! So they determined to shut down such a "show" of power in order to secure their own position in society. The religious spirit never changes. It still shows up that way today! As those vultures circled around the Master, they could find no fault with Him. So they turned their attention to His rough-hewn disciples, who cared little for "religion" over reality - heaven's reality brought to the earth by the power of God's kingdom. Offended, the Pharisees fixed their gaze on these men and, yes, found that they violated the traditions of the elders. The disciples did not wash their hands according to the ceremonial traditions, and thus, these renegades did not qualify with the Pharisees.
tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." And He answered and said to them, "And do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" (Matthew 15: 1-3, NASB). Dethroning the Traditions from Men The Twelve were mostly outdoorsmen. Jesus' leading disciples were fishermen. Eating without washing their hands, well, that's just life! But not so for these Pharisees. The tradition of the elders had spoken - this was a mortal sin! Jewish legend had it that these traditions orally came down from Moses, but the Hebrew Torah (the Law) which Moses received from God, said nothing about pre-meal hand washing. However, it did say that nothing was to e taken away or added to the Torah (see Deuteronomy 4:2). In truth, over the years Jewish priests had simply added their own oral commentary (the Talmud) and made dogma of it. Their religious dogma was so twisted that it violated God's commands. Their dogma was for the dogs! The oral traditions were not even written down until the time of the Romans, over 1,000 years after Moses. Why then should these Talmud proclamations be given the same weight as the Torah, which God gave to Moses on the mountain? By extension, what does this suggest about the place of church dogma that is contradicted by the Scripture? As usual, Jesus goes right to the heart of the issue. For these Pharisees, traditions from men had taken priority over God's Word! May I suggest to you that this is the root of the religious spirit? When this happens, God's Word does not just get undervalued - Jesus said that it gets nullified, or invalidated (see Matthew 15:6). The New Testament Greek word for "nullified" derives from kuros, which means "supremacy," and thus implies lordship. Jesus was saying that the lordship of God's Word had been annulled by choosing traditions from men over His Word. Consider the power of God's word that created the ever-expanding universe. Yet with one choice, that power can be nullified in a person's life! HOW A RELIGIOUS SPIRIT IS RECEIVED How then does a religious spirit obtain a legal right into your life? Human-initiated religion finds its way into the fabric of a society and becomes a tradition passed on to you. But the source is human, and it is properly called traditions from men. When the status quo exalts such tradition over God's command, the status quo has to go. But the status quo dies hard; when a person individually chooses to make traditions from men the priority, the religious spirit has found a legal right and can demonize the soul of that person. Demons find access to the soul through all deeds of the flesh, and religion can sometimes be no more than simply a deed of the flesh, when it is not rooted in a relationship with God. Working in evangelism to win religious people over the years, I have found that the first thing I have to do, especially with religious folks, is to ask them if the Word of God is the priority with them. "If, for some reason, your religious tradition is found to be in contradiction with God's Scripture, will the Word of God be your final authority?" I ask. Only when this is affirmed can I go further in ministry with them. This decision weakens the right of the religious spirit to their soul, and the stronghold of the religious spirit begins to crumble. However, Jesus said that if an unsaved religious person chooses to hold to man-made traditions, it becomes an act of "neglecting the commandment of God" (Mark 7:8, NASB). The Greek word for "neglect" here is the same word that Paul used to speak of a man's divorcing his wife (see I Corinthians 7:11-12). In other words, when you choose traditions from men as a top priority, you end up divorcing yourself from God's Word. This gives ground to the religious spirit. Jesus attacked the root of the spirit of religion in these Pharisees. He illustrated how, by their tradition keeping, God's commandment had been transgressed, that is, side-stepped (see Matthews 15:3). Yes, the Greek word for "transgress" also means "to overstep, neglect, violate," namely God's laws. Accordingly, a transgression occurs when one sidesteps the basics of the faith. This is a manifestation of the religious spirit. It causes a person to give more attention to the application of a principle than to the principle itself. Both are important, but the weightier provisions of God's laws (principles) are to have the priority (see Matthew 23:23). Principle is principal! A religious spirit moves a person away from the basics, and something else comes into focus. The basics fade into the background and external ritual wins the day. RITUAL - RELATIONSHIP = RELIGION Jesus characterized the byproduct of the religious spirit: ritual without relationship. External ritual is hollow without an internal relationship with God. According to Jesus, this is the real meaning of the word "hypocrite." The word Jesus used originality came from Greek theater. When used negatively, it referred to actors who did not identify themselves with their roles. From this came its meanings of "play-acting," "disguise" and "hypocrisy." Hypocrites, then, are not the same on the inside as they are on the outside. This is another manifestation of the religious spirit! People who yield to it too often lack integrity, or simply put, are hypocrites. Hypocrites are what Jesus called the Pharisees, pointing out that Isaiah had prophesied of their kind 700 years earlier. Thus Jesus dynamically quotes Isaiah 29:13:
of you: 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" (Matthew 15:6-9, NASB; see also Mark 7:6-9,13). They had ritual without relationship. HOW DO YOU RATE? Though the sect of the Pharisees did not exist in Isaiah's day, Jesus still said that Isaiah prophesied about their kind. Jesus identified some of the hallmarks of these hypocrites as those same hallmarks that Isaiah used to describe such religious people of his day (see Matthew 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-13). Let's look at Jesus and Isaiah's description of the effects of the spirit of religion.
hearts were far from God asked Jesus, "Why do Your disciples...eat their bread with impure hands?" (Mark 7:5, NASB).
their lips, but their heart is far away from Me" (Mark 7:6, NASB).
question with another question: "Why do you yourselves transgress [sidestep] the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition [application]?" (Matthew 15:3, NASB).
follow God's commands, Jesus said to them, "By this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition" (Matthew 15:6 NASB).
Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not..." (Matthew 15:2, NASB).
true accusations: "Neglecting [dismissing the lordship of] the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8, NASB).
the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition" Mark 7:9, NASB).
word of God by your traditions...; and you do many things such as that" (Mark 7:13, NASB).
(Mark 7:6-7, NASB).
lips, but their heart is far away from Me" (Mark 7:6, NASB).
Me. But in vain do they worship Me" (Mark 7:6-7, NASB).
the precepts of men" (Mark 7:7, NASB). THE REASON JUDGMENT COMES Even though human authority enforced religious ritual, Isaiah 29 makes it clear that when those hypocrites chose ritual over relationship in their worship, God still held them responsible for their choice. In fact, the first word the Lord used in verse 13 was "because." Thus he gave the reason for the judgment that He had poured out on the people who had made that choice - heartless worship.
far from Me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote, therefore behold, I will once again deal...(Isaiah 29:13-14, NASB, emphasis added). Like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, the hypocrites of Isaiah's day were one thing on the outside, but inside they distanced themselves from God - and it showed up in their worship. Heartless worship is a stench in the nostrils of God and thus God deals out judgment to this kind of worshiper, who is under the influence of a religious spirit. THE INTOXICATION OF RELIGION So let's look at the hand that God dealt to those who yielded to a religious spirit. Just three verses earlier, God began to sentence them, saying, "Be delayed and wait, blind yourselves and be blind; they become drunk, but not with wine, they stagger, but not with strong drink. The wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed" (verses 9,14). That is to say, "Stop dead in your tracks and gawk, as with a drunken stare; be amazed and ponder God's Word, yet in the end you will not understand with your mind what God is trying to reveal to you." It is as if you were in a darkened room, and suddenly the brilliance of the strongest camera flash enters your eyes and blinds you so that you can't see, though you look intently. This is the blindness that comes upon those who yield to the religious spirit. Put simply, this spirit causes you to "blind yourself" when trying to look at God and His Word. Thus, you look right past Him and His Word. Some theologians have called this spiritual drunkenness. It is an intoxication with religious ritual that short-circuits an intimate relationship with God. Heartless lip service produces a self-induced hardening of the heart. This religious hardening makes the senses numb more than any intoxication that wine could ever achieve. This is a dulling of your spiritual senses. You just don't "feel" what others get from God. You stagger from place to place, hoping you will find something that connects you to God; but to your dismay you bounce from one wall to another, from one church to another, hoping to find something to awaken you from this lifeless stupor. Your heartless ritual has left you bankrupt and in a drunken state that compromises your morals, as you spiral ever downward with a hopeless religion that doesn't deliver. A SPIRIT OF STUPOR
He has covered your heads, the seers. The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, "Please read this," he will say, "I cannot, for it is sealed." Then the book will be given to one who is illiterate, saying, "Please read this." And he will say, "I cannot read" (Isaiah 29:10-12). There's that word again: "because." Why did all this spiritual debauchery, or drunkenness, occur? Because each person chose ritual over relationship. As a result, a demonic spirit of stupor was poured over those who chose their own religious works above God's commands (see verse 13). This is the source of that dullness and drunkenness. According to Keil and Delitzsch, "this stupefaction was the self-inflicted punishment of the dead works with which the people mocked god and deceived themselves. God abhors empty worship; heartless words only mock Him. Because of the choices these people made, God permitted a spirit of stupor to be poured over these people. The original Hebrew text calls it a spirit of tardemah, meaning "trance" or "deep sleep." This spirit would hypnotize a person into a drunken stare, under the influence, staggering throughout their religious days, insensible and impervious to God's Spirit of revelation and His Word. This hypnotic spirit was so poured out on them that they were drenched, baptized, immersed and drowning in their own religious ritual. The eyes of their heart were shut, so they could not catch the nation's prophetic direction - the vision from God eluded them (see verse 10). People with this spirit to whom I have ministered can never seem to catch the vision of Christ's Church or hear the prophetic word of the Lord. I ministered to one prophet who, when he was also vexed by a religious spirit, would bounce in and out of his prophetic gift. When he was on prophetically, he was really on. But when this religious spirit attacked him, he could hardly discern any nudging from God's Spirit. As verse 10 describes, "He has shut your eyes, the prophets." Under the Influence of the Spirit of Stupor As Isaiah 29:14 explains, the result of this punishment was the loss of wisdom and discernment. Why? They made the choice, and thus a spirit of stupor was poured out on them and hypnotized them. The words used in this verse "signify the powerless, passive state of utter spiritual insensibility. This is the religious spirit that locks people into passivity and the status quo - spirit of stupefaction. It is a stupidity that drives one to madness against God's Word, thus nullifying it. That is what happens to people with the spirit of stupor - they are driven mad against the Word, especially the Word made flesh. Doesn't it seem to be more than a few religious theologians out there? This spirit of stupor can harden their hearts and make them hardheaded, too! The Spirit of Stupor Is a Demon Religiosity gives the spirit of stupor the right to take up occupancy in a person. Dare we call this a demonic spirit? Ernst Kasemann asserts, "Israel's inability to see salvation has a demonic depth which resists the Spirit of God...In the righteousness of works there comes into effect th[is] power ...the immanent power of the cosmos which comes to a peak in religiosity...The Lord and demons are most sharply opposed at this point. It is here that blindness and deafness arise most easily" (emphasis added). Yes, this spirit of stupor is a demonic spirit that "benumb[s] the faculties, and make[s] them insensible." But why do I call it the spirit of stupor instead of the spirit of deep sleep, as translated in Isaiah 29? The Spirit of Stupor and Its Results
What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; just as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day" (Romans 11:6-8, NASB) . In Romans 11:8, Paul dynamically quoted the phrase "a spirit of deep sleep" from Isaiah 29:10 and translated it as "a spirit of stupor." He explained that he, and those like him, had received grace by faith and that those Israelites who sought that grace by works of righteousness did not receive it. Their heartless religious works produced an external religiosity that brought on them a spirit of stupor, which hardened them (see verses 5-7). This was just as it is today with many Jews and other such religious people. As Kasemann notes, "Not sins, but pious works prevent Judaism from obtaining the salvation held out to it, and keep it in bondage." Then in verses 8 and 9, Paul amplified Isaiah's description of those who are under the power of the demonic spirit of stupor. The insensibility and hardness showed themselves in lives lived according to their appetites. It was not that their senses were starved of God's things, but rather that they were inundated with the wrong thing, things that fed into their appetites. "The torpor [stupor] seems the result of too much sensation, dulled by incitement into apathy," explains Robinson. Those professing "saints" were so dull to God that they flooded their senses with what their appetites demanded, only to be further dulled. They're the kind that you might find in the back seat of a car in the church parking lot after a church service, being immoral with one of their fellow youth group members, while earlier in church, they pretended to worship. They're also the kind that might swindle a client out of millions of dollars, though the previous day at church spoke piously of righteousness. These two people have different appetites, but both are following their appetites all the same. From the days of Moses, through the days of Isaiah and Jesus, down to Paul's day and our own, this spirit of stupor has hardened those who rendered to God only external lip service while they held their hearts far from Him. The spirit of stupor hardens the heart, blinds the eyes and deafens the ears to God. Of this hardness, Albert Barnes explains, "It comes from a word which signifies properly to become hard, as bones do which are broken and then united; or as the joints sometimes do when they become callous or stiff. It was probably applied also to the formation of a hard substance in the eye, a cataract; and then means the same as to be blinded. Hence, applied to the mind, it means that which is hard, obdurate, insensible, stupid" (emphasis added). This is that hardness of heart that we too often see among young people and adults alike. HAS DEAD RELIGION LEFT YOU BANKRUPT? A religious person you might be, but defiled religion only defiles you and leaves you bankrupt. According to Romans 11: 8-9, your appetites snare you, trap you, stumble, judge you, blind you, and enslave you. Does Paul's description of a religious person who is under the influence of a spirit of stupor fit you? How do you rate yourself now? Here are Paul's additional descriptors of such a religious person:
has not obtained" (Romans 11:7, NASB).
present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice...It is not longer on the basis of works" (Romans 11: 5-6, NASB, emphasis added).
basis of works, ...what Israel is seeking, it has not obtained" (Romans 11:6-7, NASB).
(Romans 11:7, NASB).
hear not" (Romans 11:8, NASB).
a trap, and a stumbling block" (Romans 11:9, NASB).
be darkened to see not, and bend their backs forever" (Romans 11:10, NASB). Does this description somewhat describe you? It certainly described my life for years after I met the Lord - that is, until I got delivered from a religious spirit! It seemed that all the talk of a victorious Christian life was just talk and could never be a reality for me. My back was bent with slavery to sin, lusts and appetites that chased me into a corner. The more I heard the preacher say, the more dulled and despairing I became. I was always seeking for the grace to win, but it forever slipped through my hands like sand. Could God ever be pleased with me? I wondered. Though slow in coming, the day of my deliverance arrived. My pastor helped me see the effects that this demon, which he called a religious spirit, had on my life. He charged me to take responsibility for the choices I had made before and after becoming a Christian. Once that spirit was cast out, it was as if a veil were lifted from my eyes. I could then hear the Word of God in a way that brought permanent transformation in my character. The spirit of revelation (see Ephesians 1:17) replaced the spirit of religion, and life with God became a joy - relationship, not ritual. HOW TO RECEIVE DELIVERANCE If you have experienced an inner feeling that the spirit of religion might have more of a grip on you than you would like, there is hope. You can be set free from a spirit of religiosity. But you must be willing to take responsibility for the choice you previously made to exalt traditions from men above God's Word. You undoubtedly chose a heartless religion over relationship with God at some point in your past. It may have been when your mother admonished you to "practice your religion" so that you would not disappoint your grandma. But it's more likely that you made your decision at a more formal occasion, like Confirmation, where you exercised your own volitional abilities. In that moment, you made an alliance with external religion apart from a right relationship with God. You rendered lip service, but your self-centered heart was still far from God. For me this occurred at my First Communion. If you decide to renounce this alliance with such religion, you should forever repent of trying to appease God with your external rituals, thinking that you are paying Him off so that He will leave you alone to do your own desires. No! Instead you should turn from being your own lord to allow Christ to be your Lord. Then make a covenant to obey, by grace, God's Word as your final authority. Renounce any man-made traditions that stand contrary to His Word. Finally, renounce your agreement with that demon called the spirit of religion to which you gave legal ground through your sin of exalting the traditions from men above God and His Word. Then ask someone in authority over your life, like a parent or pastor, to verbally break the power of this ungodly alliance with such religion, affirming only your covenant with Christ. That person needs to agree with you, asking for God to forgive your sin of idolizing such traditions over God's Word. That person should pray for your mind, emotions and will to be healed and cleansed from this unrighteousness (see I John 1:7). When you renounce your alliance with the spirit of religiosity, this person with spiritual authority over you will cancel all the legal rights of that spirit and will loose it and cast it out of your soul and body. Lastly, pray together with this person, asking the Holy Spirit to flow out of your innermost being (your spirit) like a river of living water and to fill every area of your soul that the spirit of religiosity had once afflicted. Congratulations! Now make sure that by faith you engage your heart each time you open your mouth in the service of your worship of God (see Hebrews 13:15). Source: FREEDOM FROM THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT, by C. Peter Wagner, Copyright 2005, Regal Books. |
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