During my quiet time with God I was reading the book of Galatians and when I got to a certain text it stuck with me. The text was Galatians 5:9 and it says, “A little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough.” So I was thinking, hmph. One small thing to corrupt a whole batch of something? Let me dig deeper. Starting with finding out what leaven is…
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Corruption
Leaven is a small portion of fermented dough that is used to ferment other dough. When leaven is applied to a large mix of dough, it ends up thoroughly spreading throughout it.
In the Old Testament, it was common for bread to be made with leaven.
“In the New Testament leaven is a symbol of any evil influence that, if allowed to remain, can corrupt the body of believers.” Then it provides some examples of instances where this happened. One instance was when Jesus warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees, their teaching and hypocrisy (Matt. 16:5-12; Luke 12:1). Another instance is when Paul urged the Corinthians to remove wickedness from their midst and become fresh dough, unleavened loaves of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:6-13).
There is an instance where leaven was used in a positive way and that was when Jesus used it to illustrate the pervasive growth of the kingdom of God (Matt. 13:33), but for the most part leaven is used as a symbol of evil influence thoroughly pervades a thing by its influence.
Now that we know this....
… let’s go back to the scripture God highlighted to me during my quiet time, Galatians 5:9, which says, “A little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough.” I want to provide some context here now that we know what leaven is. In this text, the Apostle Paul was speaking to the church in Galatia.
What’s going on during this time is that false teachers, who were called Judaizers, had started teaching a version of the gospel that was not gospel at all, and they had the saints bewitched. That word bewitched means charmed. It also means to bring evil on by feigning praise or an evil eye. Paul was trying to get the saints to see that they were listening to a false gospel being pushed by those few false teachers.
The believers in the Galatian churches may have outnumbered the false teachers, but it only took a few people pushing false doctrine to produce destructive results among the body of Christ.
This shows us that small things can have a huge impact. We cannot separate the portions of things that are good from the things which are bad because the bad consumes the good.
Cursed Objects
Where else do we see this concept ring true in scripture? We see it happen when one person took objects from Jericho that had been marked for destruction.
After defeating Jericho, Joshua sent troops to the next town Ai to overtake it since the town didn’t have many people. However, Joshua’s troops ended up being murdered and the rest were ran out of the town. Joshua got all up in arms about it, tearing his clothes and falling to the ground crying out to the Lord asking, you know, why. God is like, stand up, get up. Then he tells Joshua why they lost the battle.
Judgment
Here’s what God told Joshua, “Israel has sinned. They violated my covenant. They took some of what was set apart. They have stolen, deceived, and put those things with their own belongings. This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you what is set apart.”
Before this, Joshua had led the troops of Israel in battle against Jericho and they won. Typically in battles, the winning army gets what is known as the “spoils of war.” This is any lawfully seized and captured property of their opponent. Since they have won the battle, those things now belong to the winning army. Well, in this case, God told Israel not to take certain things from Jericho and that those things were to be set aside for destruction. Not only that, but God told them what would happen if they took those things. He specifically said that if they kept any of the stuff that was supposed to be set aside, then they themselves would be set apart for destruction AND they would set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and make trouble for it.
God revealed...
…to Joshua that Israel stole what God had told them to set aside. Joshua goes on a supernatural fact finding mission to figure out who stole stuff. What he discovered was that out of the thousands of troops and millions of people of Israel, ONE man stole items from Jericho. The man confessed and told Joshua that among the spoils he ended up taking a beautiful cloak, five pounds of silver, and a bar of gold.
ONE man took a few items, it affected the entire people! God told Joshua Israel has sinned. One man did it but in God’s eyes, the entire people had sinned and the consequences fell as such because the sin corrupted the entire people.
And this is what God was revealing to me during my quiet time. Sure, the things I mentioned in the deception series seem small. It seems like it’s no big deal to stretch using yoga poses and may not seem like a big deal to walk around with a little stone that’s supposed to protect you from evil, but in the eyes of God this is a HUGE deal and it corrupts all of the good we think we’re doing for the kingdom. None of that service for the kingdom matters if we’re breaking God’s commandments.
Same thing with fraternities, sororities, and secret societies.
The gods, goddesses, and other deities attached to the orgs seem like small things. The oath and pledge members take seem so minor compared to all the good things the orgs do in communities. But the demonic spirits attached to the organizations corrupt the ENTIRE organization. The two can’t be separated.
Galatians 5:25 says to be led by the Spirit in every area of our lives.
Why? Because according to Galatians 5:16, when we walk by the spirit we will not carry out the desires of the flesh. The desires of the flesh are in direct opposition to the spirit.
“To walk by the Spirit is to discover God’s view on a matter, decide to act on that divine perspective, and depend on the Holy Spirit to empower your obedience.”
Idolatry and adultery corrupt the lives of Christians. It seeps through canceling out every other thing we’ve ever done in the kingdom and puts Believers under the jurisdiction of Satan and if a believer dies without repenting AND renouncing the covenant, then heaven is not where they will spend eternity.
The Kingdom of Darkness
Satan is our adversary. An adversary is someone who opposes another in purpose or act. This is someone who is in direct opposition to your purpose!
The entire infrastructure of his kingdom is built against humanity. Everything about it is meant to oppose YOU, especially if you are a Christian.
Sun Tzu said something that I want to leave you with to encourage you to remain vigilant. He said, “if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
It is not God’s will that any of us should perish. God tells us in His word one way to avoid perishing, which is to obtain knowledge. This series provided A LOT of knowledge. Please don’t ignore it.
Repent and Renounce
At the root of why we engage in a lot of the things like crystals, sage, horoscopes is because we don’t believe God can and will show up for us in these areas or we don’t know that this is something He provides.
If you have engaged in any of the practices I mentioned in this series, know that you can easily get back in right standing with God.
Repent and ask God for forgiveness for seeking safety, security, protection, and revelation apart from Him. ask Him to restore your love for Him.
Renounce the covenants you’ve made with these things. All you have to do is say:
- I renounce all witchcraft, sorcery, divination, and occult involvement in the name of Jesus.
- I renounce all ungodly soul ties and immoral relationships in the name of Jesus.
- I renounce all ungodly covenants, oaths, and vows I have made in the name of Jesus
And continue to renounce whatever you engaged in that was not of God.
Want More?
If you enjoyed this episode, then you may also enjoy the episode of the show about the seed of deception and how to spot or this episode detailing the deception in music.
Resources Mentioned
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