Deuteronomy 7.26
If it is not a physical kingdom it is a spiritual kingdom, and the only spiritual kingdom for the Christian is the kingdom of God. Any other must originate from the devil as there are only two spiritual powers in the world. Even God, ruler of the universe, wrote His requirements in His word. He did not expect us to guess what was required of us. An unholy spiritual kingdom relies on hints, superstitions, conjecture and second-guessing. Its aim is to raise anxiety and bind the heart in a system of fear. Look at the characteristics that are found in the kingdom of God and taught by Jesus and compare them to this spiritual bondage.
This system reminds me of the pagan systems of worship that existed in ancient cultures. The gods have changed -- for this age they are life, money and status, but the worship is the same. Because the devil's time is short he has taken what was a normal evil and passive idolatry and raised it to a new level of spiritual enslavement.
Economic Restrictions
1. Because of a system of coercion many have been enslaved. This has been done by restricting their access to resources and making them afraid that they would not survive.
Re 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Economic sanctions are enforced to make it difficult for people to find jobs or interact in society in a normal way. People are terrorized by all kinds of fears and because they depend on man, they naturally believe that it is only man that sustains them. They do not even allow God the opportunity to protect and defend them. There are many times that the other options that He has provided are not considered.
De 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
The Christian should always be ready to die, so that they may be free to serve God. We need to take this concept seriously so that we will not find ourselves doing abominable things because of the fear of losing our lives. It is better to be prepared to die than to submit yourself to a spiritual authority that requires more and more submission from you until you have sold your soul for a morsel of bread. What kind of life are you living when you are addicted to abominations that even heathens would shun?
Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud. Proverbs 16.10
Addictive Behaviors
2. Once you begin to submit yourself to the rules you find out that you have to also govern every action that you do--not from conscience or from truth but from the list of rules that are instilled in you.
The system is also based on fear of losing social standing and the need to have status symbols surround you at all times in order to be able to have the approval of the other cult members.
There are games played in order to rank you, and to tie you up in anxiety and gambling in every part of life. If the outsider does some action which raises his standing too high in the system, the cult will make sure that another person misrepresents the action by having a person pretend to do the same thing, but in order to sway the opinions of all other cult members they will color the action in some way to the detriment of the outsider.
For example if a new initiate goes to an expensive supermarket, in order to erase the effect of the anxiety that this action has on other members the cult will have one of their members go to this exclusive supermarket and buy something crass to show that this new initiate has no real knowledge of shopping at exclusive markets, or someone will go in who is buying something for someone with higher standing and not for themselves, so that all the surrounding cult members will be able to assuage their wounded feelings that someone outside of their system is able to do something nice for themselves.
The outsider who becomes aware of these actions by the cult member has a reaction of anxiety. First because it is a very strange way to think -- it is of course evidence of the cultish, robotic way of thinking that has taken over their minds --but also because at this point the outsider believes that everyone belongs to this system except for them, so they are afraid that it will sway the opinions of all the people around them to their detriment.
At this point I will say that we need to forget people as being our support. It is God who supports us and we should not fear these behaviors as having a negative effect on us.
This causes them to react in some way that will sway the crowd's opinion back in their favor so that they begin to play-act their lives, living life in large demonstrations so that others will see their behaviors and approve of them. Their entire lives becomes a robotic lie and a form of worship and subservience to other people. With positive reinforcement from others this becomes addictive, not only because of the fear of looking bad, but because you begin to need the approval of others in order to live.
So eventually every member of the cult becomes brainwashed into reacting to life only as it serves to reinforce their standing in the cult. They cannot remember God or do what pleases Him because in every action that they do they are doing their best to serve the cult and through the cult serve Satan.
Demonic Control
The violence of the wicked will drag them away, for they refuse to do what is right. Proverbs 21.7
3. This system is also based on a hierarchy of demonic control and some kind of cooperation with evil spirits.
Most likely some people are born psychic with the ability to read and hear other peoples thoughts. There have been other books that mention the fact that those who are possessed have the abilities to read the thoughts of others. This would be very simple to imagine since the evil spirits can communicate with each other, and once they have control of your mind, they can communicate with and through you as well. It is possible that part of the reason for this system is to control those who have not been born with this ability. I do not believe that they can hear the thoughts of normal people, but only of those who have been degraded in some demonic way.
The devil has many ways to trap your mind under his control. He can have you become involved in some sin that you take lightly. After you become attached to this sin, the devil has can blind you to this attachment and then work on controlling your mind. The more their minds are controlled, the stronger the demonic control becomes until people completely lose their ability to decide what they want and to restrain themselves from action. Their passions take control of them.
I think that even under such a circumstance there is still hope since Jesus was able to free the demoniacs who had lost complete control over themselves.
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