Two Types of Opposition to God’s Word

Satan has always opposed God’s purposes, of course, and it seems like there are two basic kinds of opposition he uses. He has no power to confront God. But because God has chosen to involve people in his purposes on earth, Satan works to deceive people. And because God accomplishes his purposes by sending forth his word, Satan tries to stop people from spreading God’s word and receiving God’s word.

One kind of opposition is external. This involves persecution: inciting wicked people to kill Christians, beat them, burn down their houses, and take their possessions. Many Christians today face such opposition. Satan wants to stop Christians from sharing God’s word by intimidating or killing them. However, this often backfires and causes the church to grow and God’s word to spread even more.

The other kind of opposition is internal. There are different forms of this. Satan tries to sow doubt in people’s hearts like weeds to choke out the seed of God’s word. He attempts to add leaven or mixture to adulterate the gospel message.

The Religious Spirit

The Bible talks about religion that is pure and undefiled in James 1:27. So let’s use the term “religiosity” to talk about how the religious spirit works. Religiosity hardens people’s hearts so that they don’t receive the rain of God’s word.

Isaiah 55:10 (GNT) My word is like the snow and the rain that comes down from the sky to water the earth. They make the crops grow and provide seed for planting and food to eat.

Religiosity kills expectation. It’s like hard ground that the water rolls off of. It’s not moved by the gospel message. It’s not excited by God’s promises. They have become just theology. People caught in religiosity hear God’s word and brush it off. “I know that.” They’ve heard it so many times that they think they know it, but they act like it isn’t true.

I’ve heard of people hearing the gospel for the first time in their lives weeping and wailing when seeing Jesus’ crucifixion depicted in the Jesus film, and jumping and shouting with joy over his resurrection. Does the gospel move your heart like that? If not, why not? Isn’t the gospel “Glad tidings of great joy?” (Luke 2:10) If God’s word no longer moves our hearts, do we still believe it?

The religious spirit embraces religious activity but robs people of the joy, excitement, and expectation that are the responses of those who receive God’s word and believe it. It deceives people into thinking they already know the truth because they subscribe to the doctrine. But you only really know the truth of God’s word when it accomplishes in your life what God sent it for!

People caught in religiosity think as if whatever they have experienced up until now is all there is. They don’t see that there is more! We have all in Christ, but there is much more to lay hold of. There is a Promised Land to be taken! There are giants to slay! There are still promises to inherit by faith and perseverance!

Hebrews 6:12 (NKJV) …do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

People whose hearts have been hardened have a hard time believing that God is good. Here are some of the phrases I often hear when a spirit of religiosity is hindering people from receiving God’s word and I say “I’d like to pray for you. Do you have any specific request or need? Do you have a need of healing?”

“That’s all right. I pray.” They refuse prayer because they pray (in unbelief) and have no expectation of anything other than what they’ve experienced before, which is mostly spiritual barrenness.

“Yes, please pray for my son! He is using drugs. || Great, we will pray for your son. And for you? What do you need? || Oh, I’m fine.” The person feels as if God doesn’t have enough to bless them and their loved one, or as if they don’t want to ask too much of God or bother him with their own problem. I often find they have a pressing need of healing. I say “God is rich! God is generous! He has enough for you and your son too!” I pressed one lady who said this about her own need and found she had diabetes. She felt God’s fire come on her pancreas and testified that she was healed of diabetes. Praise God!

Some of the people at the recovery houses only ask for prayer for their families but it’s hard to get them to share their own needs, because they feel unworthy to receive anything from God. That’s another manifestation of a religious spirit. It’s not about what we deserve or don’t deserve. It’s about what Jesus deserves! Read Isaiah 53. Is it right for Jesus to pay such a high price for our redemption and for us to continue in sin? Is it right for Jesus to take the punishment for our peace on himself, and for us to be caught in anxiety and mental torment? Is it right for Jesus’ body to be broken and blood spilled for people to be healed, and for them to continue to be sick and suffer. No!

The religious spirit often asks “why” in the wrong way. “Why did God heal that drug addict of cirrhosis and I am not healed?” (As if God’s goodness were based on our own merit or lack thereof!) On the contrary, the spirit of faith says “God loves me and he is also working in my life! I may not understand everything, but I know there are promises for me to lay hold of!” The spirit of religiosity is downcast when another person is blessed, as if “I’m missing out.” The person who receives God’s word with faith rejoices at the other person’s blessing, and it only heightens their own expectation of God’s goodness.

When I pray and the person initially feels little improvement or partial improvement, I usually say “Let’s pray again.” Many of the people who have been healed initially felt little or no change. But people in religious unbelief often say “Oh, God will heal me” or “I’m healed by Jesus’ stripes,” in order to avoid pressing the matter, pushing in for their healing now, or taking hold of God’s promises! Instead of taking hold of God’s promises so that they become our experience, religiosity treats God’s promises passively.

The religious spirit makes excuses for passivity and unbelief regarding what God has said. It often relegates God’s promises to another time by saying “that was only for the time of the apostles” or “that will happen in the millennium,” instead of seeing God’s promises as available here and now so that we take hold of them!

Don’t Let Your Heart Become Like Hard Ground that the Rain Runs off of

Hebrews 3:17-19 (NKJV) Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Hebrews 4:1-3 (NKJV) Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest.

Does the good news of the gospel still move your heart? Do God’s promises excite you? Have you become spiritually sluggish, passive towards God’s promises, or are you an imitator of those who by faith and patience inherit the promises and enter the Promised Land? Have you forgotten what God did in the past as the Israelites did because you don’t understand how he will deliver you in your present situation? Will you receive God’s word and benefit from it because you mix it with faith, or will you fail to enter God’s rest?

Hosea 10:12 (NKJV) Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

One of the things plowing does is to soften the ground so that it can receive the rain. When we recognize an area of unbelief in our lives, we can break up the fallow ground, confront that unbelief, and repent for letting our hearts become hardened against the Lord.

Many areas that have become desertified do receive rain, and occasionally even heavy rain! But the water just flows over the hardened ground! It doesn’t sink in! Yet there have been successful projects to reclaim the deserts. They use different techniques, such as digging half-crescents in the earth to catch the water so it soaks in. It is our responsibility to cultivate the ground of our hearts! It is our responsibility to reject complaining and unbelief, leave disappointment in the past, and mix God’s word with faith!

Isaiah 35:1-2 (NKJV) The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
The excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God.