This is part 3 of a series responding to the teaching of another ministry regarding taking spirit trips to minister to stoicheion. In part 1, we suggest that this ministry is recommending deeply dangerous activity using deeply flawed biblical reasoning. In Part 2, we debunked the claim that stoicheion are “nature, earth, or tree spirits.”
In this post, we’ll turn to some of the proof texts this ministry used to biblically defend their practices and teaching that the Bible actually presents the existence of nature spirits throughout scripture.
Talking Rivers in the Bible
Does this passage from the Book of Revelation teach the existence of River Spirits, as the ministry in question asserts?
The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say,
“Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!”
And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!”
Rev 16:14-7
Claiming this passage teaches the existence of a river god shows an egregious example of ripping a verse completely out of context to argue something very bizarre. Put aside that the Book of Revelation is highly symbolic, let’s note that this is a book– not a collection of unconnected verses. The author has already told the reader where the angel in Rev 16 came from, and it’s not from the river.
Back in Revelation 7:1, some angels from heaven held back the wind. The passage clearly says these aren’t nature spirits, but angels doing things to the weather.
Revelation 8:3-5, an angel in heaven came to the heavenly altar, drew fire from the altar, and then cast the fire to earth, causing thunder, lightning and earthquakes. Again, not nature spirits.
In Rev 14:18, an angel came out of the altar to do things with fire, while calling on another angel to do things to vegetation. Finally, in Revelation 16, an angel came out of the alter to do things to the water.
These aren’t nature spirits. They’re angels from heaven doing things with nature.
The stones will cry out… nature spirits in the stone?
These teachers assert that when Jesus said the stones would cry out in worship, he was teaching about earth spirits. The passage is in Luke 19, when Jesus is entering Jerusalem and the crowd welcomed him like he was the King. Some Pharisees demanded he rebuke the crowd, and Jesus said, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”[ref]Luke 19:40[/ref]
The implication is if the crowd doesn’t worship, the spirits of the rocks in the earth will.
But Jesus is not asserting nature spirits with his words: he’s alluding to Habakkuk 2:11, a Messianic prophecy that says, “For the stone will cry out from the wall,” – in other words, Jesus is claiming that it’s appropriate for the Jews to worship Jesus, because he really is the King coming in the Name of Yahweh.
The stones aren’t even in nature – they’re in walls, and they aren’t local. They are the collapsed walls in Babylon. The prophecy, and Jesus’ use of it, isn’t alluding to nature spirits at all.
Mountain Spirits
Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name. Psalm 89:12
Psalm 89 declares that God made everything, including Mount Tabor and Hermon (two prominent mountains north of Israel). Hermon, of course, had cosmic geographic messaging attached. It was sort of Mount Doom, but the Psalmist reminds us that, although it was used as the gate to hell and had become the heart of darkness, God made it, and someday, it would function like it was supposed to function, and in so doing, would be worshiping the Creator.
All Creation Praises the Name of Yahweh!
The Bible is full of imagery of aspects of nature worshiping God. From mountains and hills, to animals and fruit trees, do these biblical declarations assert sentient spiritual beings of nature?
Of course not. They are a declaration of identity. When things operate as God designed them, they are in an act of worship, declaring by their functioning the sovereignty of God.
In other words, when aspects of nature function as God designed them to function, their functioning is an act of worship.
By comparison, when humans function as God designed them to function, their obedience in functioning is also an act of worship. As I wrote in my book, Peace in Your House, “As God’s imagers and representatives sent to bring the Kingdom of God to earth, all of the activity in our lives constitutes acts of worship.” The same goes for when aspects of nature function according to God’s rule – the Kingdom.
This nature imagery has nothing to do with sentient nature spirits.
Psalm 148 has many aspects of the creation praising Yahweh, including (in order) the heavenly beings, the sun and moon, the shining stars, the heavens, the water above the heavens[ref]This reflects the ancient conception of the universe, with water below the flat earth, the heavens/sky above the earth, then a dome, holding waters above the earth back, and above that, God’s throne/heavenly realm.[/ref], the great sea creatures, the weather, the mountain and hills, fruit trees and cedars, the beasts and livestock, creeping things and flying birds, the kings, princes, rulers, men, young women, old men and children.
Naturally the ministry in question reads this and thinks Nature Spirits!
My heart aches at this abuse of scripture.
The Psalmist is following the creation order of Genesis One [ref] see John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One or the more scholarly Genesis One As Ancient Cosmology for a detailed explanation regarding how the author is following the created order of functions and functionaries in Creation.[/ref], reaffirming God’s sovereignty, power, and the created order.
When the created order function as designed, they are worshiping God, not as sentience but as functionaries in God’s government. This all-powerful God is the God of Israel. The Psalmist is overwhelmed with this awesome realization!
As the created order worships God, so will I.
Do animals and other aspects of nature have spiritual existences? As this post explains, I certainly think so.
I also think certain spiritual creatures have globbed onto aspects of nature for their own purposes. Perhaps they like the life energy that emits from certain plants or sacred space. And many seers also have seen or heard them, perhaps interpreting them to be nature spirits.
Seers and prophets in the ancient world no doubt communicated what some of these spiritual creatures looked like, and idols were fashioned in their image: idols of animals, hybrids, monsters, and yes, trees.
In the next installment of this series, we’ll specifically deal with trees in the Bible, tree spirits, and the concept of sacred trees.
When I hear all creation worship Papa God I don’t hear a voice speaking like when you and I talk to each other it’s more like a sensation that arises a feeling within me I’ve sensed great joy and great sorrow I’ve sensed anger even. EVERYTHING God created whorship him if not now they will when every knee bows and entry tongue confesses Jesus Christ is Lord.mmm of course I’m referring here to the demonic and human beings that are unbelievers.. All other creation worships God.. The hills cry out the trees clap their hands ect….all sending back a vibration if you will to the very one who created it… I believe if a person tries to claim these creations have spirits the enemy would gladly provide such delusions.. I think that there’s so much new age surrounding this topic because for that sect of people they are confusing what they are pickling up from Abbas creation and instead of sensing the song of worship that comes from trees and rivers and animals to name a few people that are not Holy Spirit filled translate what they sense as being gods and create for themselves idols to worship as if the creation it’s self was God . Papa God has his signature if you will on EVERYTHING he’s created and the original untainted order of this world was corrupt by man’s sin…man’s ..that is why the earth cries out as one in labor waiting for new heaven’s and earth going back to the original untainted place.. God only gave human beings a free will to choose as well as apparently angels all other creation dose not have a will all it knows is God and it worships because God seen and called it good as we read in Genesis… The creation sending vibration back to its source.. Creation knows it’s creator it dose not choose to be worshipped or to have false gods fashioned in it’s likeness that is man’s doing not creations doing you know what I mean.. I’ve NEVER understood how or even why human beings would ever reach for or supplement creation and the universe as a god when Abba God the very creator of ALL things desires a relationship with us human beings. To me when you understand your created as all things are created and you have a direct open ability thank you Jesus why would anyone ever want to down play that or by pass that for a imagination apart from the very creator himself.. I’m so so so grateful to Jesus for reconnecting the umbilical cord if you will to Papa God so we have direct access to the one and only living God.. It’s in the most prescious scared Holy connection I can hear the worship song of trees and rivers and animals ect…why? Because I hear what the Father hears and I see what the Father sees because that’s what he opened me to.. As Jesus is so am I in this world… Dose that make sense my friend
Trees look at me and I have a lot if Revelations when I’m around a river. I have no power and no fear. I trust God and I want to be a vessel. I want to help build the kingdom. I ask for more of God and less of me. I know God has all power. He is Lord.👀