“Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.” Jude 1:11
As the Canon of scripture nears the end we find Peter, John and Jude having a heightened sense from the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to warn against deception. Jesus himself told us that in the last days there would be two very specific things to watch for, fear and deception.
Deception comes on three distinct lines or a blending of them. #1 Moral #2 Doctrinal #3 Supernatural How often we see cult like doctrinal deception often also leads to immoral sexual behavior as well. Many time people will be seduced by demons and then doctrines of devils will develop. Sometimes people will be deceived in doctrine, and supernatural activity will take place to reinforce the doctrinal deception. Supernatural manifestations will take place during gatherings, people will experience, burning sensations, swooning, and other counterfeits etc. It was said during the era when the Mormons were beginning to grow and expand, and still in the mid-west, one night were they were gathering such a mighty fiery light illuminated over the building they gathered in, it could be seen for many miles. Paul tells us in II Thess 2, there will be lying signs and wonders.
The book of Jude gives three names assigned to three major principalities of deception in the last days. #1 Cain-Righteousness by works, religion of mans effort, anger, hatred and murder against the righteous by faith-Abel. This is the spirit that had Jesus Christ crucified and has the blood of all the Holy prophets and righteous martyrs on its account
#2 Balaam-This is the strong deception behind teaching godliness is a means to gain material wealth. It is the spirit of greed behind merchandising God’s gifts, using craft, demagoguery, and mishandling the Word of God to enrich oneself.
#3 Korah-represents the spirit of rebellion against Gods delegated authority. It is this manifestation of deception, this principality I want to address in this note.
I call those who are given to this particular deception free radicals. “Free Radicals” are known in medical terminology as cells who take on a independence in our bodies that infect other cells and are usually precursors to cancers. Many times over the years I have noticed folks who have come into the church(s) with a “new found” freedom. They like to have the open church concept where there are no leaders and push forth the concept, we have the anointing, like there is no difference among us(of course there is kernels of truth) as all believers are anointed, but not all are given delegated authority.
Other things brought in is, a supposed new freedom of grace over law, and they equate any structure, rules, even decorum as law. Also they have a new found freedom from tithing, teaching its the law, which were free from. We of course agree and have always taught giving is an opportunity, not an obligation to involve ourselves into New Covenant, Kingdom economics. But money is too powerful to not teach people how to break fear, greed and covetousness via disciplined giving, if New Believers are not taught the spiritual principals of tithing early on it becomes more difficult later. Another observation was that these folks, the “Free Radicals” gave much...much less in their freedom that they did when supposedly under the law. Another thing they teach was that you could give any way and to whoever you wanted, and didn’t need to give to the church and God is OK with that and counts it the same as tithing. Remember when the church brought their money from the assets they had sold and, “put the money at the Apostles feet”? Acts 2&4 They released it to the leadership as they were given the delegated authority over the growing assembly.
What I came to realize after many years of accommodating people and seeking to embrace any new fresh revelations(illumination) God was giving to the church, these folks most often were in rebellion, it was the spirit of Korah.
Korah fomented a rebellion against Moses and Arron, saying they were just as anointed as they were. Remember God had each tribe put the branch of an Almond tree into the Ark overnight and the one with Arron's name on it, budded, flowered and had almonds on it overnight. This indicated God’s resurrection life was the mark of His authority on Aaron and the tribe of Levi. Korah and all those leaders in that rebellion were swallowed up by the earth indicating God’s judgment on rebellion.
The spirit of rebellion is still in each and everyone of us even after we are born again. One of the reasons the church has delegated authority is to root it out of us. We know there are those in authority who are very difficult, but God will even use them to free us from our rebellion, remember David and Saul.
Another thing we soon noticed, even though they taught we were all equal, and there was no leadership or authority in the church, soon they were placing themselves as the authorities.
There are many other ways this “spirit of Korah” was manifesting, not always the things mentioned above, but the main cancerous activity was to damage, confuse and destroy the “local church”, weakening and destroying her foundations. When God’s delegated authority rose up to deal with these folks, off they would go to sow the same seeds in other places. Our hope and prayer is “free radicals” will be exposed and God’s leadership will be instructed how to identify them and how to deal with them in wisdom and strength. Selah!