New Testament Ephesians 6:12 tells us very clearly that as Christians, we are not fighting against flesh and blood (human beings), but against the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. In other words, we are up against evil spiritual rulers from the unseen world – mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world – but who work through ordinary people.
As a messenger of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ one quickly experiences the truth of that Scripture when he or she goes knocking door to door. With sound knowledge of the Scriptures and much prayer and practice one is soon able to quite readily discern spirits of fear, anger, intimidation, humanism, drunkenness etc.
But in my experience, which was three and a half years of doing this work, the spirit that I came up against the most and the one I believe to be the most harmful for the people who had it, was the religious spirit. Not the Holy Spirit – the religious spirit – an unholy spirit.
I say it’s the most harmful because the people that it works through have no idea what it is that controls them. The religious spirit presents itself in numerous ways – self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, smugness, pride, arrogance, but also in guilt, fear, anger, bitterness, sickness and idolatry. People say religion is the cause of many wars, but more truthfully it is the spirit of religion.
In the Bible, we see the nature of God’s Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Any person who claims to be a Christian, yet displays the opposite of the Spirit’s nature when in the presence of a gospel messenger, is giving clear evidence that they are under the control of a religious spirit.
This is important for us to understand, because if not, we then run the risk of being offended when reading stories such as the ones shared in this and future posts.
In my time of doing this work the religious spirit displayed itself at its worst in people who were members of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Right here is a test for you who is a member of one of those churches or groups: What are the feelings you are expressing right now as you read the above statement? Are they of the Holy Spirit or the un-holy spirit? There is another test you could take: Get in touch with a practicing Christian not affiliated with any of those groups and ask him to take you out for a couple of days and you remain silent and observe while he preaches the gospel. Make sure you find an area where you know a lot of people from those groups reside. It will not be too long before you see and hear your man come under attack from the religious spirit.
On the day of my visitation to one particular street, the religious spirit was very oppressive upon me even before I spoke with anyone. Here’s why. I met an eccentric religious lady who told me she was a Roman Catholic. She walked back and forth waving her hands and smiling towards the sky. She had statues placed all around the front door of her home but facing the front gate. She said, “These are all here for my protection.” Then she went on to tell me that she loved Jesus, but was horrified to think one could have a relationship with Him. She said to me, “Such modern terminology – it’s almost sexual.”
I spoke with a man who told me his wife was Roman Catholic, “But I want the children to know about the wonders of God. This is such a beautiful world, the next world we go to just has to be so much more so.” I then shared the purpose of Christ coming to the world and the fact that He has told us there’s no way into the “next world” unless we’ve placed our trust in Him. Anger came into his eyes along with a weak smile as he said, “That’s your opinion.”
Another Roman Catholic lady got extremely angry at the mention of the word “Bible” saying, “I don’t want other religious people annoying me!” I went to on to quote Jesus, “I am the way…..” and she slammed the door. I went next door and spoke with a young lady who told me she was Greek Orthodox. She asked numerous questions about the Bible and Jesus Christ, taking everything in that I gave answer to.
Then she got into a fluster when she saw a police car outside the Roman Catholic lady’s home. The policemen got out of their car and waited for me at her front gate, which completely threw her, so I thanked her for her time and left to meet and be questioned by the police. I gave them the details they asked for and explained the reason for my being in the street and they seemed satisfied. I then began to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. One policeman said. “I’m a Catholic.” The other one said, “I’m an atheist.”
After the police left there was a spiritual change in the street. Doors opened up and God opened people’s ears, eyes, hearts and mouths. Many were thankful that I called and shared a message of Christ’s reality with them. Words can not do justice to the work that the Holy Spirit did at this time.
In the same street I met an elderly man who was open, receptive and polite. As I was speaking with him he gave the Roman Catholic lady a huge wave and smile, knowing nothing of her earlier actions or phone call to the police. The man listened and asked questions as I shared Jesus’ message, then he asked me what I thought about him being a nudist. My reply was that it was really between him and God, but I also asked him if he thought this would honour God. He then justified himself by saying, “We came into this world with nothing on.” I then asked him if his wife liked him being a nudist and he said no. So I encouraged him to honour his wife as the Scripture tells us to.
He was very thankful and wanted to know more about prayer. Basically my advice was to get rid of any meaningless, repetitious “religious” words and simply be real before God and to take the advice of Jesus Who told us to pray to God the Father in His (Jesus’) name.
Next door to this man I spoke with an old lady who told me of her “dislike of broken marriages – all caused by religion.” Nevertheless, it was a productive visit and she thanked me for speaking about Christ with her.
Down the road a little and on the opposite side of the street I met with an elderly man standing on his doorstep. I walked up the path and as I introduced myself I could see that he was almost blind. He sat on the step and I did likewise. Alf was his name and as the conversation went from one thing to another I asked him where he was at with Christ. He said he didn’t know. So as I spoke, he really opened up and listened.
When it was time to leave I offered to pray for Alf and he said he would like that. He was a smoker and I could see cigarette burns and holes in his trousers. I then asked him if he smoked in bed, to which he said he did. So in my prayer I asked the Lord to remind Alf about the dangers of smoking in bed. Alf gave a little laugh but at the same time I evidenced him as being touched by the Holy Spirit.
This was not the end of my association with Alf. Over the next eighteen months or so we built up a lovely relationship. Once over a cup of tea he spoke about his “having a fallout” with his wife’s local church. He said his wife was dying at the time but, “all the priest ever did was ask for money and in my opinion he had little interest in anything else.”
God’s hand remained upon him. He had a Christian lady regularly call as his cook and cleaner who also took him to her church very frequently and I had the pleasure of leading him in prayer to the Lord Jesus. As time went on Alf was increasingly unable to look after himself, so he went to live with a young family who were his close friends. “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.” Luke 10:16.
Leave a comment