Two of Religion’s favourite ways to deceive my people.

Two of Religion’s favourite ways to deceive my people. He pretends his voice is mine – and he convinces you to let others hear me on your behalf.

Mark Religion is one of Satan’s most powerful demons. He has to be. Religion’s duty is to keep my people under control and away from free communication with me – to keep them miles from me and yet at the same time thinking they are very close. Religion’s job is too dangerous for a lesser demon. That’s why Satan chose someone as powerful and vile as him for the job.

God I can see that Religion controls so much of our lives. He even influences governments and wars. But I don’t understand why such a powerful demon is required to keep us believers under control? We don’t look much of a problem to me. We don’t make a walk with you seem very appealing. We are so painfully religious!

Yes you are. Religion has huge influence in your lives. He has to be so powerful because my people believe - believing makes you extremely dangerous to his master. Lesser demons can easily instruct and control people with no belief. But you are different, belief makes a human immensely powerful. Unbelievers readily fall for what their demons say, but you believers don’t. Without the power of Religion to keep you believers under control Satan would be lost.

When demons are assigned their humans they know that all they have to do is speak in a voice that sounds like their human’s own thoughts. 

If a person’s demon tells them that they are a failure or that their family doesn’t love them for instance, they assume it is true because what the demon has said sounds like their own thoughts.

And once they believe those feelings they begin to infect others around them. They too become angry, sad, lonely and plagued by feelings of failure. A small negative change in one person can have huge effect on lots of others. You Christians think that there are not enough demons to go around and that their main task is tempting you to repeat your habitual sins. Both assumptions are wrong – the demonic empire has a far more dangerous goal than that.

What is it?

To crush the confidence of every person alive, but that’s another conversation Mark. I want to focus on that wily old devil Religion.

When you become a believer it’s no longer enough for the demon’s voice to sound like your own thoughts. If a demon plants a thought in a believer’s mind they are likely to pick up on it and try to deal with the thought. So in order to keep you happily listening to the enemy there are many times when the demon’s voice must sound like mine. That’s why Religion quickly introduces himself into the new believer’s life. He needs to train you to listen to his voice and think it’s mine. If he doesn’t you’ll discover a conversation with me like David, the Prophets and the Apostles had.

Religion trains lesser demons to tell their believers things that sound like me. Under Religion’s influence your demons convince you that you are horribly sinful…

GOD!! Don’t say things like that!!! It sounds like you’re saying we’re all possessed or something?

Mark you are all assigned demons to keep you under control. When the enemy tells you that you are a failure that’s not a chance encounter with a passing spirit – a demon assigned to you is speaking.

Religion trains demons assigned to you to tell you that your behaviour makes me sad. He teaches them to reason with you; to tell you that if Satan is the father of sin then it must be God making you feel bad about sin. But of course it’s not. I am NOT the accuser.

Religion speaks to you in a voice that says the things you THINK I would say. It completely warps your understanding of me. He accuses you of being sinful and then drives you to attempt all kinds of religious duties to try and ‘win back’ my approval. He urges you to over-zealous pursuit of things that can be fine when directed by me, but are a waste when the enemy urges you to do them; things like quiet times, tithing, bible reading and church attendance.

STOP IT GOD!!

Mark nothing is worthwhile unless you hear me tell you specifically to do it. If you hear me tell you to do one of those things then great, but only if you hear me. Otherwise it’s just religion. The enemy is constantly urging you believers to busy yourselves with Christian duties. He wants to keep you from just sitting and listening to me. Have another read of the story of Mary and Martha. Stop struggling for my approval Mark, you already have it!

Religion makes you feel bad for your sins and urges you to become a better person in order to please me. But Mark what pleases me is conversational relationship, you and I talking back and forward like friends. Once we start talking I can tell you anything I’m not happy with. But most of the time I am happier with you than you think.

God many won’t like this idea that your people hear the enemy talking.

Of course they hear him talking. I did, so they will too.

Mark there is another voice that Religion uses to lead my people astray.

Whose voice is that?

The voices of religious leaders. You believers appoint people to hear me on your behalf. That was NEVER what I wanted. NEVER EVER. Scripture makes that abundantly clear hundreds of times. And yet my people are being pushed this way and that by men and women whose job you Christians have made it to hear me and pass on what they hear me say.

Are they the wrong people for the job?

It’s not the people who are wrong Mark. It’s often not even their fault. IT’S THE JOB THAT’S WRONG!! You don’t need others to hear from me on your behalf. You so badly need to hear from me yourselves. And yet Religion has instructed you to build a system where instead of hearing from me direct, you hear what I have to say through others. Others you think are ‘more holy’ than you. Big mistake Mark.

1 John2:27 ‘You do not need that any man should teach you, but the Spirit teaches you.’

Most of your religious leaders have little choice, you have made it their job to hear from me on your behalf.  You Christians are not prepared to put in the effort yourselves.

What should we do then?

Listen to me. Build a new system. An ‘unsystem’. A system that doesn’t follow a hierarchy, a system where each individual listens to me direct.  Stop assuming the responsibility of hearing me on behalf of another. A parent might assume that role when their child is very small, but even a young child can be taught to hear me direct.

When the people asked Samuel for a king he felt rejected. But I said it wasn’t him they were rejecting, it was me. I wanted a one on one relationship with my people but they wanted a leader to stand between us.

Religion has always taught humans to appoint others to hear me on their behalf because he knows that if you hear from me direct something in the universe changes. Something lines up and you become VERY dangerous. That’s why he challenged Eve’s belief that she was hearing from me. He had to convince her she couldn’t hear from me direct before she became VERY dangerous. ‘Has God really said…’

And now he uses religious leaders to achieve the same end. You listen to what others tell you I have said because it removes the danger of hearing me wrong. The leaders of Israel appointed Moses to hear me on their behalf but that’s not what I wanted Mark. I wanted the Israelites to relate to me one to one.

When I told my disciples I had a lot to tell them but that the Holy Spirit would come and tell them, I DIDN’T say the Holy Spirit would come and tell your pastors, I said he would come and speak to you. Direct. Yet very few of my people hear from me direct. They hear it mainly from their religious leader.

The cult that has grown up around idolising a particular man or woman of God has become a powerful stronghold of the enemy. My people are idolising their religious leaders. Yet neither Paul, nor David, nor even I were held in such high regard as many of your leaders today.

Paul, John and Peter knew that I had spoken out against organised religion. They understood me when I said that Religion was the enemy of my people. They saw first hand that organised Religion had opposed me and had masterminded my death. They knew that I had sent the Holy Spirit to comfort my people. They also knew that to oppose the Holy Spirit, Religion had sent his own comforter; he had sent the religious leaders to comfort the people.

The Apostles’ focus was that each individual could have their own direct relationship with me. A friendship. An arrangement with God that allowed even the most common person to relate direct to me, to hear me speak, about everything. A person’s life couldn’t help being changed dramatically as a result. Neither the prophets, nor me, nor the apostles were ever gentle on Religion. We constantly confronted him; we faced him down and stripped him bare of his PC clothes so that people could see the corruption he hides underneath. We were shunned and killed for our efforts. Religion hated us and he hates you Christians – his power is that he convinces you that he loves you. Beware him. He will kill you spiritually or physically if given a chance.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law hated our message. They hated that a person didn’t need to attend temple worship regularly in order to hear me. They hated that it wasn’t necessary to tithe or be continually apologising to me for your habitual sins - you could hear me without doing any of that.

God I have met some fantastic Christian leaders who actively encourage their people into conversation with you.

Mark the ones you have met are a rare find. But the ones who discourage conversation direct with me would do well to read my comments about little children and millstones.

Hang on God!! I’m in danger of being just as bad. Thousands read my book now and say their relationships with you have changed as a result. I can tell that many of them are strongly influenced by what I hear you say. It worries me actually. Hundreds of people who email or facebook me think I can hear you better than they can. That’s bad isn’t it?

Very bad Mark.

What shall I do?

Tell them they can hear me just as well as you if they practise. Your job is to teach people how to hear me on their own so that they don’t need you. That’s all I want from anyone. Imagine what would happen if everyone who believed taught two others how to have their own conversation with me. 

Teach them they can hear me just as well as you can, many of them even more easily. Teach them there is no hierarchy, a person who learns to hear me today can hear things today that I have not and will not tell you.

Teach them that it will be difficult, but not difficult at all. Teach them they’re on their own, but not on their own at all. Teach them that they have the three of us. Teach them that they were born for this – to speak with us, just like a friend, with no help from you. That’s all. Then leave them to it. They and I can take it from there. I don’t want you or anyone else to show them how to run their lives, I want them to learn that themselves in their own life time of conversations with me.

PRAISE FOR THE FREEDOM DIARIES

The Freedom Diaries will stretch you. It describes Mark’s real life struggle with Doubt as he discovered that he could hear God’s voice every day.Dr Mark Virkler. Author of 4 Keys to hearing God’s Voice. Buffalo. New York.

Like a child on Christmas morning, I was delighted to discover how simple yet wonderful it is to place my hand into the hand of God and listen to his whispers and enjoy his affection.  I could only ask why no one had ever told me he was this good and this close.  I wish I had read this book a long, long time ago.  Daniel Walker. Founder and Executive Director of Nvader. Author of God in a brothel.

This is new and exciting. It’s not the idea of hearing from God that’s new, it’s having conversations back and forth, question and answers. That’s new for most of us. Now I am enjoying my own conversations with God, which always leave me with hope. David Garratt of Scripture in Song. Hawaii.