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The religious spirit of monogamy-only....

PeteR

PeteR

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In recent days as I have been walking through the challenge of sharing/teaching the Biblical truth of polygyny I have become increasingly aware that this wrestling match is spiritual. What we face is a spiritual entity/stronghold that has been dominant in Western culture for 1500 to 2500 years.

This morning as I prayed through this and for a couple people close to me I realized the tie between this religious spirit and spirits of fear, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity, anger, etc. The more I pondered and prayed, the more I began to really sense the importance of facing this as a serious spiritual battle of the highest order. My prayers culminating in me binding the enemy spirits, naming them by name, in the name of Yeshua ( Jesus)..

I'm thinking fasting and prayer may be in order, but I am really interested in other's thoughts concerning this particular spiritual battle. Have you considered this? How have you dealt with it? Should we all be more diligent in specifically praying against this particular religious spirit in general as it affects Western Christianity an specifically as it affects us and our relationships?

I have more thoughts, but want to hear feedback...
 
Ancient Paths said:
In recent days as I have been walking through the challenge of sharing/teaching the Biblical truth of polygyny I have become increasingly aware that this wrestling match is spiritual. What we face is a spiritual entity/stronghold that has been dominant in Western culture for 1500 to 2500 years.

This morning as I prayed through this and for a couple people close to me I realized the tie between this religious spirit and spirits of fear, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity, anger, etc. The more I pondered and prayed, the more I began to really sense the importance of facing this as a serious spiritual battle of the highest order. My prayers culminating in me binding the enemy spirits, naming them by name, in the name of Yeshua ( Jesus)..

I'm thinking fasting and prayer may be in order, but I am really interested in other's thoughts concerning this particular spiritual battle. Have you considered this? How have you dealt with it? Should we all be more diligent in specifically praying against this particular religious spirit in general as it affects Western Christianity an specifically as it affects us and our relationships?

I have more thoughts, but want to hear feedback...
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I think you are on to something. This does appear to be something we can't do individually. Just like there are certain dark spirits that the Apostles couldn't cast out without extra effort, this may be on the same lines, if not large.
 
I know in the Christian world there are prayer campaigns and other corporate efforts to bring down strongholds. Maybe as a group we should look at this type of confrontation from a spiritual battle frame of mind.
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
I know that “We wrestle not against flesh and blood...” It is a spiritual battle for sure, but how do you know the names of the spirits in order to call them by name and what is a “religious spirit” are they mentioned in scripture?
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Religious spirits are demons that oppose truth under the guise of goodness or the cover of being religious. Idolatry definitely fills this bill. to some degree all false doctrine is promoted by demonic spirits usually posing as religious. Of course the 'other side" would claim that we are the deceived ones. Jesus often had to deal with the religious rulers teaching the commandments of men and holding the people in bondage to them rather than teaching the truth. The scripture speaks of doctrines of devils. The most effective ones would be the ones operating with the approval of organized religion. Even Peter, after walking with Jesus, thought he had a good idea to keep Jesus from the cross and the Lord rebuked him. by human reasoning it would have seemed that Peter was walking in love and proper concern for his master. Sometimes the lie that is most dangerous is the one closest to the truth. Satan can appear as an angel of light. Satan is no stranger to religion and seeks to us it to his advantage every chance he gets. Not everyone that says Lord Lord will enter. Discernment is the primary tool to detecting the presence of. and determining the "name of or type of Spirit" not every thing is a spirit, anything can be a spirit. Men are capable of evil without the help of demons. Demons still like to encourage evil and create problems whenever they can. When one determines that a demon is operating, it can usually be identified by its actions and or motivation or intent. A spirit of hatred may use a lie to promote its purpose and not be a lying spirit as such.
 
I went to a women retreat a few months back. A woman there was strong prayer warrior and I met with her for several hours. We got into a discussion on spiritual warfare and she gave me a bunch of material on it. Included was a 3-4 page list of Strongmen with their named minions. The list is at home but Jealousy is a spirit but I can't recall if it is the strongman or one of the minions. It is a very real battle and one not to be undertaken lightly, but corporate prayer could be a good start to combat it.
 
A different take on this: I'm okay with the idea that religious teaching is what humanity comes up with to make sense of what is — and, further, that "what is" is not necessarily a tidy thing that can be captured in any way by a literal reading of ancient records, whether those be texts or rocks. (As I heard one scholar put it when discussing some bits of symbolic language, "Saturn is reality and Neptune is illusion — or, we might say, Neptune is reality and Saturn is the illusion that there is such a thing.").

I mention the above to frame this: My view is that monogamy is the basis for the concentration of worldly power that became and is ancient Rome, Western civilization, the English language — all of it, the whole package. Whatever we think of as Christianity today (and maybe even from its beginnings but that's another discussion) grew out of the need to rationalize and make sense of the already-existing, larger reality of this world of monogamism.

If that is so, then of course stepping back far enough to comprehend the matter will require every perceptual tool you've got, including the tools for perceiving war, peace, and everything between.
 
Jim an Apostle said:
Religious spirits are demons that oppose truth under the guise of goodness or the cover of being religious. Idolatry definitely fills this bill. to some degree all false doctrine is promoted by demonic spirits usually posing as religious. Of course the 'other side" would claim that we are the deceived ones. Jesus often had to deal with the religious rulers teaching the commandments of men and holding the people in bondage to them rather than teaching the truth. The scripture speaks of doctrines of devils. The most effective ones would be the ones operating with the approval of organized religion. Even Peter, after walking with Jesus, thought he had a good idea to keep Jesus from the cross and the Lord rebuked him. by human reasoning it would have seemed that Peter was walking in love and proper concern for his master. Sometimes the lie that is most dangerous is the one closest to the truth. Satan can appear as an angel of light. Satan is no stranger to religion and seeks to us it to his advantage every chance he gets. Not everyone that says Lord Lord will enter. Discernment is the primary tool to detecting the presence of. and determining the "name of or type of Spirit" not every thing is a spirit, anything can be a spirit. Men are capable of evil without the help of demons. Demons still like to encourage evil and create problems whenever they can. When one determines that a demon is operating, it can usually be identified by its actions and or motivation or intent. A spirit of hatred may use a lie to promote its purpose and not be a lying spirit as such.
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Where does this teaching come from? How does one find out the name of a demon? Are there any clear passages of scripture that teach that we should do this? Did the Apostles teach this? Besides “Legion” I’m not aware of any demon’s names in scripture. The passage where that name (if it is even a name, it seems to be a reference to the great number of evil spirits in him) is found is a narrative, not a teaching on what we as christians are told to do.
 
Admittedly this is an area that many Christians do not have much experience.
We have a spiritual enemy that often is able to work by stealth and we are often hindered not knowing who our adversary is.

Mark 16:17

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

The 'name' of a demon is usually just the description of the demon's main work or characteristic. In the Scripture we find the term 'spirit of ' sometimes referring to a demon being involved. there was a lying spirit, a spirit of divination, unclean spirit, spirit of infirmity, spirit of fear can be a demon. Jesus called out a deaf and dumb spirit. we also find a familiar spirit, and seducing spirits. Jesus specifically asked the spirit in the tombs what its name was and the spirit answered Legion. Jesus was our example. Many times he cast out spirits and called them by name. how many times He knew by revelation or asked is not stated. If one has a demon in manifestation, and it speaks, there is a time to ask and a time to keep them quiet. We interrogate prisoners in the natural. true we must use discernment and not let the prisoner rattle on about useless information whether it is a physical criminal or a spiritual one i.e. a demon. You may by observation coupled with discernment come to understand what type of demon is involved. it may come by revelation. Sometimes they will just tell you if you ask. You then must discern if thy are telling the truth. The casting out of demons is for the believers. It is through the authority of the name of Jesus. It is just as much apart of the 'prayer of faith' as praying for the sick. Just because it is not a common and open practice in many churches does not mean it is not real. Polygny is not common or widely openly practiced either.

PS most list may start from scripture and inferences from the works of the flesh then added to by observation and experience of the author
 
So I see this as a real issue and that people are suffering under jealous and deceptive thoughts or spirits. I dont see the spiritual realm, but I do see the suffering and hear the deception.

God promised to give grace to the humble. Would some of you be up for coordinating days where we fast and pray (individually but on the same days)? I believe we can take ground for God here. We can free the captives of jealousy, fear, loneliness, and selfish ambition. Let's declare our weakness with a fast and ask that God's power rest on us. Let's bind things in heaven and on earth. Let's cast down lifeless idols.

Afterward we can share testimony here of God's power and work.
 
Paulsen said:
So I see this as a real issue and that people are suffering under jealous and deceptive thoughts or spirits. I dont see the spiritual realm, but I do see the suffering and hear the deception.

God promised to give grace to the humble. Would some of you be up for coordinating days where we fast and pray (individually but on the same days)? I believe we can take ground for God here. We can free the captives of jealousy, fear, loneliness, and selfish ambition. Let's declare our weakness with a fast and ask that God's power rest on us. Let's bind things in heaven and on earth. Let's cast down lifeless idols.

Afterward we can share testimony here of God's power and work.
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We should pray for our brothers and sisters, but to say that people are suffering under jealous thoughts is making them out to be the victims instead of the perpetrators. Jealousies are a sin, and something to be repented of. Deceptive thoughts are remedied by speaking the truth of God’s word.
 
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Asforme&myhouse said:
We should pray for our brothers and sisters, but to say that people are suffering under jealous thoughts is making them out to be the victims instead of the perpetrators. Jealousies are a sin, and something to be repented of. Deceptive thoughts are remedied by speaking the truth of God’s word.
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So casting out demons is never to be done?
 
Jim an Apostle said:
s


So casting out demons is never to be done?
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That’s not what I said. I said we are not instructed to converse with them. This seems to be a teaching where the information gained comes from demons. It seems rather bazaar. If it is such a deep and important thing that we need to do, why are we not given specific instructions on it in the epistles? Our spiritual weapons are prayers to God, not information that comes from demons, and the sword of spirit which is the Word of God, not spiritual warfare strategies.
 
I completely agree we are to cast out demons. However I am just questioning a few details of the approach - and not jumping to the conclusion that it is wrong, just trying to understand where this information comes from.
Jim an Apostle said:
Jesus was our example. Many times he cast out spirits and called them by name.
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When did He call out a spirit by name, other than the case of the man with the legion? We'd need need several more examples to be able to say that "many times" he "called them by name".

And even that case is inconclusive. Firstly because it is not clear whether he asked for the man's name, or the demon's name (although the demon certainly responded). Secondly because "Legion" is not a name of a demon but a number, and indicates that he was infested with a very large number of demons, none of whom are named individually.
Jim an Apostle said:
If one has a demon in manifestation, and it speaks, there is a time to ask and a time to keep them quiet.
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Almost every single example of Jesus has him commanding the demon to be quiet, not permitting them to speak. Again the only exception I can think of is the legion, and in that case he simply listened to the demons request, he didn't ask them any question other than "what is your name".

I am certainly not claiming that anybody conversing with demons in an exorcism is doing it wrong. I have very little experience here, I'm just probing for information.

My first post was simply prompted by the thought that people have a tendency to write massive lists of things, but it isn't clear whether that information is scriptural or even accurate. Often such information can be quoted and requoted so many times it becomes traditional wisdom but nobody really knows whether it's true.
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
We should pray for our brothers and sisters, but to say that people are suffering under jealous thoughts is making them out to be the victims instead of the perpetrators. Jealousies are a sin, and something to be repented of. Deceptive thoughts are remedied by speaking the truth of God’s word.
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I feel like you are reading a lot into what I said. I said thoughts OR spirits. I also dont really have many conclusions about what is happening exactly in the spiritual realm. I see suffering, we can gain ground for God's kingdom by fasting and prayer and that is what I am suggesting. I said nothing about casting out demons nor did I claim to be Jesus or God.

As for your comments about victims, both perpetrators and victims suffer when their is sin. I never said jealous people are victims, I said they suffer. God had compassion on us while we were still his enemies.
 
Someone who is demonically influenced is both a perpetrator and a victim. It doesn't have to be either/or situation. Generally speaking, some form of perpetration opened the door to the unclean spirit. Once the spirit takes hold, the person is no longer quite at their liberty to change their behavior even if they see the benefit of it.

There are more schools of thought on how to deal with the demonic then there are people who have ever seriously attempted it. Personally I balk at the idea of "discussing" anything with a demon, then again the teachers that I have learned from have all had the odd occasion when it was unavoidable.

I'm suspicious of people that build 'demonomicons' to try to build a compendium of information they've gotten out of demons. I think such information can only do more harm than good.

However I'm not above taking the word of more experienced exorcists that actually have discernment. Derek Prince, John Ramirez, Henry Gruver, and Russ Dizdar all love the Lord and have been used mightily. I'll shamelessly crib from them, because I certainly don't want to have to learn all their lessons from scratch...
 
Ancient Paths said:
In recent days as I have been walking through the challenge of sharing/teaching the Biblical truth of polygyny I have become increasingly aware that this wrestling match is spiritual. What we face is a spiritual entity/stronghold that has been dominant in Western culture for 1500 to 2500 years.

This morning as I prayed through this and for a couple people close to me I realized the tie between this religious spirit and spirits of fear, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity, anger, etc. The more I pondered and prayed, the more I began to really sense the importance of facing this as a serious spiritual battle of the highest order. My prayers culminating in me binding the enemy spirits, naming them by name, in the name of Yeshua ( Jesus)..

I'm thinking fasting and prayer may be in order, but I am really interested in other's thoughts concerning this particular spiritual battle. Have you considered this? How have you dealt with it? Should we all be more diligent in specifically praying against this particular religious spirit in general as it affects Western Christianity an specifically as it affects us and our relationships?

I have more thoughts, but want to hear feedback...
Click to expand...
For sure it IS a serious spiritual battle of the highest order. I have wondered how to come against it. I've learned prayer is our mightiest weapon.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
 
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