Be Wary Of Leviathan

The Leviathan - a twisting spirit

The Leviathan Spirit has many characteristics, but it mainly manifests itself as pride. The very word "Leviathan" means "to twist." In Scripture this spirit is regarded as a sea monster or seen as a serpent of some type.

We have come into an amazing time of challenge and change in the Body of Christ. The Lord is fundamentally tearing down many of the false constructs many of us have stood upon with great confidence for years. Whenever the Lord begins to do this type of deep inner healing and reconstructive work, there is a natural tendency to grasp for the familiar and protect what we've always known. We tend to scurry to the familiar. However, Leviathan seeks to take you steps beyond natural apprehension into demonic rebellion.

Leviathan is deceptive because it preys upon very real hurts and wrongs that have happened to you. Your pain is not imagined; you were actually wronged, but Leviathan is seeking to make you fix your gaze solely on your problem so you never pull back from how you were wronged and pray the heroic prayer: "Lord, heal ME!"

Leviathan shrouds itself in religious activity by allowing you to get overly involved in church work, ministering to others, and even praying religious prayers for the people who hurt you, but this spirit will attempt to not allow you to take a look in the mirror and ask God for His word about you. Leviathan is a prideful spirit that won't let you honestly confront your own faults and dysfunctions. This spirit causes you to embrace your old constructs and call right what God is clearly calling wrong.

Leviathan is a twisting serpent and destroys its prey much like a boa constrictor in the natural. It wraps itself around you and covers you such that you cannot see, hear, or speak properly. Leviathan blinds you from seeing what God is doing in the reconstruction work of your life, he covers your ears so you can't hear what God is trying to tell your heart, and he'll try to silence your voice so even though you maintain the ability to talk, nothing that you're saying makes any sense or is in alignment with what God is trying to do. Your words, if he is successful will actually become devoid of any power. Ultimately, Leviathan attempts to squeeze the life out of you until there's nothing left.

A season of great reconstruction

This is a season of the great reconstruction. A time when God is building a new force of elite soldiers that will ascend their mountain of culture but also possess the character to stay on top and release God's love and healing in a manner that brings glory to Him. He is purposefully poking you where it hurts and forcing you to deal with internal issues you've masqueraded and hid behind for too long. This is a time when "judgment is beginning with the house of Israel," and it doesn't always feel good. However our relationship with the Father is not based on feeling, it's based on faith, and this is a time to renew our trust in Him.
The time to yield to God's hand is now; He's awaiting your surrender, and He's made a promise to construct an upgraded thing that's so much better than you ever could have imagined for yourself or ever could have come into by following your old pathologies and patterns. Ironically, there's another word in the Old Testament for twisting, and it's translated as "wait" in Isaiah 40:31.
Here the Father instructs us to "wait" upon the Lord. He wants us to braid or twist ourselves around Him and, when we do, our strength is renewed, we'll mount up with wings as eagles, we'll run and not become weary, and we'll walk and not faint. In this time of great change don't allow Leviathan to twist himself around you; why don't you twist yourself around God?

4 Keys To Confronting Leviathan

1) Come In The Opposite Spirit. At the root of your vulnerability to Leviathan is authentic hurt and anger. The Bible says we are to be angry but not sin. Here it is critical that we acknowledge our anger but intentionally forgive and not give too much energy to thinking about how we were wronged.

2) Create A Healthy Environment. The old adage is true, "misery loves company," but during these critical times we can't be surrounded by people who will "co-sign" and enable our dysfunction. We need friends that will hold us accountable and tell us the truth about ourselves even when it hurts. The Bible says the wounds of a friend are faithful. We don't need fans...we need friends.

3) Be Teachable. Leviathan is especially dangerous for leaders and leader-types, because they are so used to having the answers for everyone's problems that they struggle with seeking answers for themselves. Leaders think they always have to be tough, that they have to appear strong, and those attributes work against them when they are the ones under God's magnifying glass and in need of help themselves.

4) Fixate on His Promises. God is always good, and Scripture teaches us everything works together for the good of those that love God and are called according to His purpose. We must focus on God's promises to come at the end of all this reconstruction. We can't get sidetracked by the pain or how badly we were wronged.

He's working on us to bring us to a better, more sustainable place. Ultimately He's taking us from glory to glory, and that must be our main focus.

Troy Goode, Senior Pastor
New Dimension Church