An unsettling phenomenon has become more and more apparent to me as I walk with my brethren in the Lord, especially in my favorite denomination: The Assembly of God. This phenomenon is what I am going to call ‘spirit questing’. It’s the advocation of ‘asking God what He thinks’ and waiting for revelation. It’s the ‘guiding by the spirit’ and the mystical ‘hearing from the Lord’. It’s the advice given from a fellow parishioner: “Well, have you asked the Lord about it yet?” I don’t think this is a new ideology because it is chronicled in the old and new testaments of our ancient tome, the bible.
I probably would not have even given this doctrine a second thought until embarking on my courses in Christian counseling by Dr. Jay Adams. I realize he is a Presbyterian with cessationist, Calvinistic beliefs, which differ from my own beliefs. And I understand that each of us can have a slightly different interpretation of the scriptures and style of enacting them. I do think there is a place for ‘asking God’ about things and I have made it a regular part of my meditation and life. However, the bible is clear that you are to seek the Word first, which is given to us by God through His prophets. The Word is inspired and contains everything we need to know to please God. If that is true, and most Christians would say that it is, then there is no time where we cannot find direction in the bible because the bible also contains every answer to every problem we could have. It isn’t just a nice story about the origins of Christianity, it is the guidebook for a goodly life. Therefore, the bible is the first-and last-place we turn to gain guidance. The other part of an active Christian’s life is prayer. Thanksgiving is yet another. These should be daily practices of the devout follower of Jesus. Indeed, we cannot properly follow Him without these components of Christianity.
The other day I found myself in an unusually indecisive place in how to deal with a sister in Christ, and in my confused and perplexed state, I felt led to reach out to some women who are over me in the Lord. When I relayed my problem to them and what I had studied in the scriptures, one of them asked me if I had ‘asked the Lord’ what I should do? I live with the Lord, I talk to the Lord, I pray to the Lord, I carry the Lord in every being of my cells, He is dwelling inside me. But had I formally asked the Lord what I should do? I guess the answer is, “No”, which made me feel stupid. James 1:5 states
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
That definitely sounds like praying and seeking the Spirit of God for an answer.
My friends offered me guidance and wisdom and prayed for me, and I gained immediate clarity to my problem and went forth with my solution, feeling much better. I know that God wanted me to lean on my friends in that moment, in order for us to learn and minister to each other.
While I believe wholeheartedly in seeking the Holy Spirit, I also know that the bible has over a dozen or more verses about NOT seeking after spirits. This, for example, is but one:
A man also or a woman that divineth by a ghost or a familiar spirit, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones; their blood shall be upon them.
A different translation:
‘Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.’” ~Leviticus 20:27
The Hebrew words for ‘spiritist’ is 3049. yiddeoni. This is defined from the Hebrew root word “yada” which basically means a LOT of things about knowing, or ‘to know’. As in the Garden of Eden when they ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and would know as God knows: From yada’; properly, a knowing one; specifically, a conjurer; (by impl) a ghost — wizard. Yiddeoni יִדְּעֹנִי specifically means (noun masculine) familiar spirit
(properly either as knowing, wise (acquainted with secrets of unseen world), or as intimate acquaintance of soothsayer, — absolute. This is what King Saul did when he wasn’t hearing from God and went and hired a female fortune teller, who then told him about his impending death.
The Hebrew word for ‘medium’ is even more interesting. It is 178 ob: a bottle (made from animal skin), a necromancer. Original Word: אוֹב , noun masculine, i.e. A water skin (from its hollow sound); hence a necromancer (ventriloquist, as from a jar) — bottle, familiar spirit. I can’t help but think of a genie in a bottle.
And God says throughout the bible these people are to be cut off from their people and put to death.
We cannot mistake the similarity to ‘seeking the Spirit’ and trying to know things we should not know in ways we should not know them. This is just like Eve and Adam in the Garden; they wanted to know as God knew.
I used to have a Christian female friend who ‘would reach’ for men she longed for, or was crushing on. This was the major part of her meditation with God. Because she did not have audience with them, she would mindfully meditate on speaking to them through the metaphysical realm. She was convinced she saw and heard their spirits. That she gained knowledge and gratification from this was certain. She would even ‘talk’ to them. But when she was doing this with one of them who had committed suicide, I warned her of this scripture:
Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery, casts spells, consults a medium or spiritist, or inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD. And because of these detestable things, the LORD your God is driving out the nations before you. ~Deuteronomy 18:10-12
She surely had no awareness that what she was doing was anything close to sin, she thought it was spiritual and God-honoring. The fact that she hid this practice from everyone else hinted at its sinful root.
That is the way it is with many of my brothers and sisters in Christ in my church. They spend way more time ‘feeling’ what God wants them to do than reading about what God says for them to do. They spend more time trying to hear from God than praying to Him. They spend their time seeking mystical transformation instead of just walking out the mundane tasks of daily Christian life in obeyance to God’s commands. This reminds me of when Jesus admonished his followers:
Then the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him. But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.” ~Mark 8:11-12
How is this any different than the spirit quests or vision quests done by pagan cultures? Those rituals involve going out alone and communing with the divine and asking for a sign or miracle to occur, or wisdom to be granted. They often fast and prepare themselves beforehand, hoping for a word or insight from their god. We understand this as clearly pagan and ungodly, yet we are doing the same thing in our daily walk with God!
So the next time someone gets super spiritual on me about ‘seeking the spirit’ of God, I am going to tell them that Spirit Quests are for pagan cultures, not God’s people. God set us apart from ALL the other cultures for a reason. It is inevitable that culture creeps in as this is the devil’s world, but it should not creep in by us.
❤
~Song of Mary~ 