Satan utilizes Religion to Keep People from Christ and the Church as God’s Will

Today when you talk to others about Christ, they immediately associate this with religion; when you try to explain to them that you’re speaking of a living Person who is now the Spirit, they think you’re a religious person trying to get them into religion.

Religion is something formed by the human mind under the instigation and inspiration of Satan, and religion fully opposes God’s economy. There’s a thick dark cloud of religion over the whole earth, and man is kept away from the living person of Christ and from the church as the Body of Christ by this system of Satan.

To be religious simply means to worship God (which is good, right?) and to serve God (which is very good, isnt’ it?) without Christ or the Spirit. Religion is doing something for God and for other’s benefit, yet without Christ in an experiential way and apart from the Spirit of Christ.

The Lord Jesus prophesied concerning the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens in Matt. 13 when He likened it to a seed being sown in the field and the enemy sowing bad seed, to a mustard seed growing to be a great tree, and to the dough made not only with oil and flour but also with leaven by a woman.

The seed the Lord sows is pure and of life, but Satan as God’s enemy has sown his own people among God’s people.

The mustard seed is small, and the tree is supposed to be small and easy to reach, but it became a great tree where all the birds of the air nest and the beasts lodge under; the nature of the church has changed from being heavenly and spiritual, sojourning on earth, to being deeply rooted and settled on earth, flourishing with its enterprises in which many evil persons and things are lodged; this resulted in the formation of the outward organisation of the outward appearance of the kingdom of the heavens (see Matt. 12:32 and footnotes).

The church is supposed to be made of fine flour mingled with oil to be an unleavened bread for God’s satisfaction, but the Catholic Church, which was fully and officially formed in the sixth century and which is signified by the woman here, took in many pagan practices, heretical doctrines, and evil matters and mixed them with the teachings concerning Christ, leavening the whole content of Christianity. This mixture became the corrupted content of the outward appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. (see Mat. 13:33 and footnote)

We need to see how much Satan worked throughout the ages to form this system of religion to change the nature and appearance of the church, and we need to be brought back to God’s original intention to practice the church life on the ground of oneness for the building up of the Body of Christ!

Satan utilizes Religion to Keep People from Christ and the Church as God’s Will

Satan instigated and inspired believers throughout the ages and thus formed a religious world to keep people away from God and His will, Christ and the church. Now Satan utilizes religion to keep people away from Christ and the church as God’s will.

Satan is OK with people reading the Bible and “going to church” as long as they are kept away from Christ and His Body as the will of God (Col. 1:9; 4:2; 1:18; 2:19). The essence of Satan’s operation is to fill the whole earth with religion so that people would be kept in a religious system away from Christ and the church.

If someone wants to find God today, what he gets is religion – right from Satan’s department of religion and dead knowledge. But if someone wants to be one with the Lord to enjoy Christ as his life and build up the church, Satan trembles. Many good Christians have been cheated by Satan; they may speak of the Body of Christ, but they have no practice of the Body.

In God’s eyes, the old and traditional practices in Christianity without the presence and reality of Christ are part of the present evil age. The religious age is evil because it keeps people from Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32); nothing is more evil in the sight of God than that which keeps us from Christ.

God’s desire is to reveal Christ to us (Gal. 1:4), make Christ our everything to be our life and living (Gal. 2:20), have Christ living in us, and have Christ formed in us (Gal. 4:19); what religion gives us a doctrinal Christ, a past Christ in history, a future Christ who will come back one day, and no present Christ.

Religion defrauds people from Christ and keeps them away from Christ; the present experiential indwelling Christ is unknown by religion, and the religious snare deprives us of all the benefits of the wonderful indwelling Christ (Gal. 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19).
In Christianity people are encouraged to worship God, serve God, do things for God, keep the law, keep traditions and regulations, and do many good things, but they are not told to contact the Lord, enjoy Christ, exercise their spirit to enjoy the indwelling wonderful Christ, and live by the spirit so that the church as the Body of Christ may be built up.

Religion is simply to worship God, work for God, keep God’s law, improve ourselves, and do many good things religiously without the presence of Christ; all these things may be good, but they are a system of religion keeping us away from Christ and the church. This darkness of religion covers the entire earth, and people are drugged with religion, being fully under its influence.

It is the Lord’s mercy that in His recovery He shines on us and speaks to us, but in the denominations in Christianity the Lord has no way to fulfill His eternal purpose! Most believers don’t even have the sense of how dark the religion is, and how much they are kept away from Christ and the church!

The Lord has NO WAY to fulfill His purpose in religion, including Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Yes, there are many genuine believers in Christianity, and many are praying for a revival, hoping the Lord will renew the church…but God has no intention of bringing a revival in the degraded Christianity!

Rather, He is seeking some in Christianity who would depart from religion, come out of it by any cost, and return to the ground of oneness to practice the church life in a pure way according to the divine revelation.

Lord Jesus, save us from doing things for God, serving God, and obeying God’s law apart from the living presence of Christ. May we be kept from Satan’s snare in religion to keep us away from Christ and the church. Oh, may Christ be revealed in us, live in us, grow in us, be formed in us, and be expressed through us for the building up of the church! Lord, save many of Your believers from being deprived of the benefits of the indwelling Christ! Lord, bring many of Your genuine seekers out of degraded Christianity and on the ground of oneness in the Body to practice the church life!

Religion as a World has been Crucified to us, and we have been Crucified to Religion!

In Galatians Paul calls the Jewish religion “the world”, and he testified,

For neither do they that become circumcised keep the law themselves, but they desire you to be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. (Gal. 6:13-14)

May the Lord have mercy on us and shine on us to expose religion so that we may testify with Paul that between us and religion is the cross: religion as a world has been crucified to us, and we have been crucified to religion! The cross needs to be operating in our being, and it will separate us not only outwardly but also inwardly in our being from Christianity.

When the Lord Jesus entered into the temple in John 2 He didn’t give a speech on how unscriptural it is to sell doves and exchange money right there in the temple: He took a whip of chords, overthrew the tables of the money changers, and cast them out saying, “It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you are making it a den of robbers.” (Matt. 21:13)

We need to compare what is seen in the Bible with what is seen today in Christianity. I have to use two words to describe today’s Christianity: deformed and degraded….All of Christianity is deformed from the form of the revelation in the holy Word and is also degraded….When we talk about Christianity in such a way, this does not mean that we do not love all Christians. We love all of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, yet we have to admit that today’s Christendom is absolutely far off from God’s eternal plan. (Witness Lee, The God-ordained Way to Practice the New Testament Economy, p. 25)

We love the dear brothers and sisters in the Lord who are in Christianity, but we hate the religious system of Christianity formed throughout the ages. We hate the money system in Christianity, the principle of “paid preachers”, and the thoughts of money governing everything.

We want to preserve the integrity of the Lord’s recovery over all the earth by NOT being religious but by being men full of God’s breath – breath-men, men full of Christ – Christ-men, men full of the Spirit – Spirit-men, men full of the divine life – life-men, men full of the Triune God – Triune-God-men, men fully for the church – church-men, and men standing in oneness – oneness-men!

Oh, may the Lord have a pure recovery of Himself on the ground of oneness so that He may gain the church that He is after and He may return to bring in the age of the kingdom!

May our testimony be clearly that the religion is dead to us and we are dead to religion, and what matters is living in the new creation in resurrection a life for the church life, for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose!

Lord Jesus, we testify that between us and religion is the cross: religion as a world has been crucified to us and we have been crucified to religion! We love You, Lord, we love the saints, and we love all the believers in Christ who are still in Christianity, but we hate religion as You hate it! Lord, we choose to be Christ-men, Spirit-men, Triune-God-men, church-men, and oneness-men who eat Christ, enjoy Christ, exercise their spirit to be filled in spirit, and live the church life in fellowship with the Body of Christ for the fulfillment of God’s purpose!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, brother Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 1, “The Lord’s Recovery and the Present Situation of Religion,” ch. 4, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Crucial Points of the Major Items of the Lord’s Recovery Today (ITERO 2015 fall), week 9 / msg 9, The Lord’s Recovery versus the Present Evil Age and the Eschatology of the Church.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Do you know what you were saved for? / Do you ever wonder why? / What is God’s intent and purpose? / Why has Christ become your life? / Up till now we Christians only knew / Christ wants to get in you, / And that, indeed, is true; / Yet the vision goes much deeper still, / He has a plan He must fulfill. (Song on God’s purpose)
  # Not the individual Christians, / but a corporate entity— / God must have it for His full expression now; / Not just individual churches but the Body corporately— / Hallelujah, we are in the Body now! (Hymns #1226)
  # We have found the local church, our home; / We are home and home indeed! / Nevermore in Babylon we roam; / In the church is all we need. (Hymns #1153)