Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give you, and their glory: for this has been delivered to me, and I will give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship me, all will be yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” Luke 4:5-8
I have a biology degree, and science defines kingdoms differently than sociology would. When most people hear about kingdoms, they think about different countries and rulers (kings)around the world. Science uses kingdoms to characterize and organize life. Science looks at different forms of life and organizes it according to shared characteristics and puts all life forms into kingdoms. God created life and on different days He created different biological kingdoms. On the first day of creation, God created light, the second, He created the atmosphere life would need to flourish. On Day three, God created the dry land and the plants and on day four, He created the sun the moon and the stars. The birds and the sea creatures were created on day five and the animals were created on day six. At the end of day six, and the perfect environment for man to live in was complete, God created man, male and female. Genesis 1:26-27 “And God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowls of the air, and over all the cattle, and over all the earth and everything that creepeth upon the earth. So, God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created He them.”
In biology, domains or dominion or super kingdoms are the ranking above the kingdoms. What kingdoms did God create and what dominion did He give each kingdom? The highest dominion or authority is God, God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 37:16 “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You, are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, You have made heaven and earth.” God also reveals His authority in Isaiah 45:5 “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God.” The second level of authority or kingdom is the kingdom of man, remember, the bible does not define man in this instance as a gender, but a classification of male and female. God said let us make man in our image and in our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, the cattle and everything that creeps on the earth. After God created them, He blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply and to take dominion. Ezekiel 28:14-16 tells us that Lucifer would walk in the fiery stones in front of the throne of God and get revelation for what God was creating and go and share the revelation with all creation. When Lucifer saw God’s plan to create man and the authority man would be given, he rebelled against God and was kicked out of heaven. Man was to have dominion over all the angels, and Lucifer being an angel, wanted to be the one most like God. Psalm 8 is Lucifer’s complaint against God in the courts of heaven. The Geneva bible reads “What is man, say I, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou has made him a little lower than God and crowned him with glory and worship. Thou hast made him to have dominion in the works of thine hands, thou hast put all things under his feet.” Lucifer was mad that God gave man dominion over even the angels. The animal kingdom is below the kingdom of angels, then comes the plant kingdom and the earth/dirt kingdom. Satan took Jesus up on a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms. He told Jesus “All this authority I will give you, and their glory: for this has been delivered to me.” Did Satan have authority over the kingdoms of the earth? Yes! When Adam chose to commit treason and to fall into Satan’s schemes, he forfeited his dominion and gave it to Satan. Instead of Adam obeying God and taking dominion over all the earth, he relinquished his authority by sinning. The bible clearly teaches that Eve was deceived, but Adam willfully committed treason against God. Jesus came and lived a sinless life, died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day. When Jesus completed the assignment, God had on His life, Jesus took back our God given authority. Matthew 28:18 “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Jesus took back man’s authority that Satan took from Adam. Now man also has authority over the angels, even the fallen angels. We have authority over every kingdom, every spirit, and every fallen angel.
The only way Satan can take authority over you is through deception and making you believe that the destiny and plans God has for your life are not valid or good. Satan wants us to think we are just animals, so we willfully give up our authority over him. That is why science tries to group mankind in with all the animals. Those who do not acknowledge God try to tell us we came from a blob that came up out of the sea that evolved into monkeys and eventually became a man that walked upright. Evil is trying to shape our perception of who God made us to be and the authority we have. One of the enemies most effective tools against mankind is the spirit of religion. The spirit of religion tries to diminish the majesty and power of God and control man with manmade rules and restrictions. God gave Moses the ten commandments, which are summarized as “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Luke 10:27.
Religion created 613 more laws to control man. Crazy restrictions, for example. If a man spit on the ground on the sabbath, he had to rub his spit into the dirt because if the spit ran, it would cause a furrow and the man would be guilty of planting on the sabbath. A Jew could not light a candle on the sabbath but could pay a gentile to light it for them. Ridiculous restrictions that made the sabbath, a day of rest, into a plethora of misguided rules. Another way religion works against God’s people is to distort who God really is. When you think about God, how do you see Him? Is He a loving, gracious, and generous God or is He a God sitting in heaven with a lightening bolt trying to catch you do something bad so He can wipe you out? While I am very thankful for my training as a child and those who taught me God’s word, I was taught many manmade rules that really did not have anything to do with my walk with God. When we were young, we were taught that it was sinful for a woman to put on man’s clothing, so I did not own a pair of pants until I was in the sixth grade. I played sports in P.E. in the freezing weather and snow in Colorado wearing a dress because of manmade restrictions. We did not own a T.V. but were allowed to go to my grandmothers and watch hers. We did not go to the movie theaters but was ok to rent the same movie and watch it at home. I listened to a man tell his granddaughter this week that she was not holy because she had on makeup. All these crazy rules that try to make us good enough for God to be pleased with us and to control others.
Jeremiah 29:11 tells us how God thinks about us “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Psalms 139:17 -18 “How precious also are your thoughts to me O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand, when I awake, I am still with You.” God always has the best interest on His mind.
While some of the people who operate in the spirit of religion honestly try to help others understand God in a distorted way, others use religion as a means of control and domination. We first see the spirit of religion with Adam. The Jews teach that Eve was a mighty warrior and she fought for the promise of God over her seed. Adam knocked her out of the position of being his helpmate, one comparable to him to just being a baby maker. After the fall instead of being a woman, created from a man, Adam caller her Eve, the mother of all things. I am not minimizing being a mother, being a mother has brought so much pleasure to my life. Being a mother is not my only calling in life, God has plans for my life that go beyond marriage and raising children. After the fall, males tried to minimize females making them like animals. Women were bought and sold like livestock, they were not given the same rights the males had, and the design of marriage was changed from one man and one woman to a man with many wives. Before Jesus time, women could not enter in the inner court to participate in the ceremonies that were taking place, they could peak over the balcony from the Court of the women. God chose redemption of mankind to come through a woman, the virgin Mary. During Jesus’ ministry he tore down the class barrier between men and women, he even allowed the women to sit at His feet and to learn. After Jesus talked to the woman at the well, she became the first recorded evangelist in the Bible. John 4:39 “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony.” Paul set the order in the homes back to God’s original design 1 Corinthians 7:2-4 “Let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her won husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection that is due to her and likewise the wife to the husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” During the life of Jesus, women were allowed to participate in ministry and Paul sent the book of Romans with Phoebe, a deaconess to instruct the church on implementing the new doctrine. Jesus also restored children to a place of significance. Religion wanted to keep the children away from Jesus, but Jesus corrected the disciples telling them to let the little children come unto Him. Paul taught Fathers’ not to provoke their children to wrath, but to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Jesus taught to seek the Kingdom of God, not rules and regulations. While religion tries to control people, Jesus wanted to set all the captives free from the bondage others put on them. We should never allow ourselves to become slaves to sin. Paul said in Galatians 5:20-21 “idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition. Dissensions, factions, and envy drunkenness, orgies and the like I warn you, as I did before that those who doe this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Colossians 2:20-23 “Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”
Is the spirit of religion active in your life? Are you trying to control other people with distortion of scripture and man-made rules? Is someone trying to hinder you from being all you can be by the spirit of religion? Sadly, abused people sometimes grow up and do to others the things that were done to them. People who were controlled and manipulated will later be come the manipulators. Maybe you are not being manipulated or manipulating others, but you do not see God as a good and generous Father. Perhaps religion has told you that God is harsh and stingy, seeking revenge all the time. Remember it is religion that crucified Jesus. Ask God if there is any spirit of religion operating in your life and ask Him to set you free from the distortion and control. James defined Religion as “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their troubles and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27 Cathy Nesmith