The Spirit of Python
the unbelief that puts men and women in bondage
This teaching and others like it were found on the Be Healed! Network!
The effect of man-made laws:
"One of the biggest reasons that people resist the Holy Ghost is because of man-made laws, and bad theology."
1. People put themselves under man-made laws because they are trying to please God.
2. People put themselves under man-made laws because they want to be more righteous before God.
Trying to Please God:
Man-made laws, the kind that we are talking about here, are the kind that limit and restrict movement and your ability to breathe. It is the Spirit of Python that is usually behind the creation of these false laws and unnecessary restrictions on our liberty in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of Python squeezes us into these laws by casting a doubt into our heart concerning God's grace and our liberty in Christ Jesus. And in the end we are in bondage, and limited in our ability to serve the Lord.
The effects of these laws on those in the ministry can be devastating. I've seen people in the ministry who lived in continuos defeat because of their own rules which they had felt the need to place upon themselves - rules which limited their ability to serve the Lord as they wanted to - rules which limited how much God could use them. This is what happens when you try so hard to please God that you allow the Spirit of Python to begin to squeeze you into a box, or as others might say, a "fence". I believe that the Spirit of Python and the Spirit of Leviathan are two of the Spirits responsible for the existence of denominations and divisions in the body of Christ.
examples
Here is an example of the Spirit of Python upon a man I knew in the ministry. He believed that it was sin to advertise a meeting, because Jesus Christ had made himself of no reputation. With this in mind, he felt he also should make himself of no reputation, and therefore he felt it was a sin to advertise. As you can imagine, this restriction caused him much failure in the ministry as a traveling preacher. But we know that Jesus avoided advertising himself because the scripture says, "Let another man praise you and not your own lips," But there is nothing wrong with us advertising Jesus! In God we boast all the day long. So we see how that when there is a scripture, the Spirit of Python can twist it and use it to put you in bondage. And when there is no scripture, the Python Spirit can speak to you prophetically, and make one. But we will talk about the Prophetic / Revelatory nature of the Python Spirit later.
Overly-much Righteousness:
People put rules and restrictions upon themselves because they desire to be more righteous. What we must understand is that although we should not make ourselves wicked: neither should we make ourselves "overly righteous" - as Solomon said in Ecclesiastics. There comes a place where you begin to put rules on yourself in an attempt to become more holy. Sometimes people who are seekers of God will do this because they want so desperately to find God's favor and more of the Holy Spirit that they "destroy themselves" by overly much righteousness, as Solomon said in the same verse. (Ecclesiastics 7:16)
So here are some things which must be realized in order to begin the process of obtaining guiltless freedom in Christ Jesus by Faith in his love, acceptance, and forgiveness.
1. You must realize that if your conscience condemns you, God is greater than your conscience. (1John 3:20) And your conscience is not infallible.
2. You must realize that obedience to God does not mean you are supposed to be in bondage to the law, because you ought to stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ has made you free. (Gal 5:1)
3. You must realize that if you are in Christ Jesus you are unblamable, unreprovable in the sight of God (Col 1:22), not because you have no sin -- for you do sin, but your sins are forgiven, and they cannot separate you from God's love.
Don't confuse the Python Spirit with the Leviathan Spirit:
In the story in Genesis, we see the snake talking to Eve, telling her, "Hast God said?" Then the snake told Eve that she was free to eat of the fruit. So rather than putting her into bondage, instead the snake lies to her and gives her a false freedom that went beyond what God had given to her. In this case, we are not looking at the Spirit of Python, but rather, we are looking at another spirit, the Spirit of Leviathan. The Spirit of Python rarely takes away from the commandments of God, but rather, it seeks to add rules and restrictions and bondage to your life and conscience that are over and above what the bible says. The Spirit that came to Eve was different, it sought to twist and take away from the word of the Lord. Rather than constricting and limiting Eve, instead it sought to give her liberty, but it was a false and twisted liberty that was in disobedience to a direct commandment from God. That's the difference between Python and Leviathan. Both are lying spirits, but Python limits and constricts, and Leviathan gives you a false liberty to commit sin, and spreads lies, rumors, and false witnesses, and many other forms of prideful sins which I don't have time to go into detail in this article.
The Leviathan Spirit, in this case, spoke lies that resulted in that she did something she was not supposed to do, which was a direct violation of a direct commandment of God. But in most cases I have found that when there is no direct commandment from God, then the Spirit of Python will come and make one, and try to put you under a commandment which you ought not to be under.
The Prophetic nature of the Python Spirit:
The Python Spirit works by casting a doubt into the very conscience of a human. It is one of the few controlling spirits that works through your conscience. Other controlling spirits work through your intellect and emotions, but Python has the ability to speak directly into your conscience and make you feel guilt. Many times it speaks as a prophetic or revelatory spirit by saying words to you that appear to be coming from God. It mimics the "still small voice" of God by speaking directly into your conscience things that are not in the bible at all. The word for "Prophecy" in the bible is the same as Python. It is a prophetic spirit. Many times people who are getting commands from the Python Spirit are aware of the fact that the commandments are not found in the bible. But because the commandments come in the form of prophetic words, then people say, "Yes Lord," and they obey, and never realize that it was not a word from God.
The Friendly nature of the Python Spirit:
I had a dream one night where I saw myself in a large field with two trees in the field. In one tree there were hundreds of snakes, and in the other tree there were no snakes at all. I saw people sitting underneath both trees. The snakes were choking and constricting upon the people underneath the one tree, and yet none of the people knew what was happening to them. They appeared to be quite content to stay under that tree, and none of them seemed to realize that there were snakes squeezing upon them, for they could not see the snakes. But the people who were under the other tree were trying to call to them to come out from among all those snakes, but they would not. I saw the people who were oppressed by the snakes calling for those people who were wandering around to come, and many of those wandering people were coming, and then they too would become wrapped up in the snakes.
I woke up, not realizing what the meaning of the dream was. At the time, I believe that I was under the tree with the snakes myself, and I did not know it, nor did I have any desire to be free.
No desire to be free:
People who are under the effects of the Spirit of Python often times actually enjoy being in bondage to rules and man-made commandments, for it makes them feel more holy; or they think they are getting more of God out of it. It was not until more than a year later that I myself was finally set free from the lies and the false messages from my conscience caused by the Spirit of Python, and only then could I understand the dream and see how much bondage I had been in. But the Python Spirit is an extremely hard spirit to break off yourself, because it is a "friendly" devil that shows up, speaking soft words to your conscience, telling you things which you want to hear, but which in the end will lead to your own bondage. In my case it told me what I wanted to hear, which was that I had to do more than God had commanded me to do, which led to many rules and laws and heavy weights tied down on me. It would tell me that by doing these things I would please God, which is what I wanted. That's why I say that the Python Spirit almost always goes after people who are God-chasers and God-pleasers, which is what I was. If you consider yourself to be hungry for more of God, then you are a target for the Python Spirit. Because if you were a sinner and you had no desire to obey the word of the Lord, then the Python Spirit would leave you alone, because you would not want any rules and laws of holiness put on you. So instead of the Spirit of Python putting rules on you and making you guilty, you would have the Leviathan Spirit on you, teaching you to disobey all rules and stirring up pride and lies in your heart. So in a general sense, Python goes after God-seekers, and Leviathan goes after sinners and everyone else, although it is possible to be under the influence of both.
People who are a source of the Spirit of Python:
Let me mention something about the Spirit of Intimation: there are those who are effected by it, and there are also those people who are "intimidators" -- who are not personally intimidated, but they wield the dark powers of the spirit to their advantage. It's the same way with the Spirit of Python. There are those who are enwrapped by it, suffocating. There are also those who themselves are not bound by it at all, and they breathe freely, but they use the Spirit of Python to bind you, to their advantage. In this next part we will talk about those people who use this Spirit, and why.
Jesus said, "Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! For ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers."
What Jesus was basically saying in this scripture was that these people had found a way to put burdens, which probably were legal rules and restrictions upon people, but they themselves did not have to lift them with one finger. These are people who themselves are not entangled by the Python Spirit, but they use the Python Spirit to entangle others.
We see again in Matthew 23:1, "Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, saying "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat (a position of authority): All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."
What Jesus is saying in this portion is that although these scribes and Pharisees were putting burdens of all sorts of rules and regulations upon other people, they themselves did not do their own rules. These are people who wield the powers of the Python Spirit in order to put you in bondage, but they themselves are not in bondage. They are quick to tell you what you can't do, but they are slow to put themselves under the same rules. These types of people love positions of authority, where they will be better able to enforce their rules upon people.
So as an individual you must watch out for both ways which the Spirit of Python can come in and try to gain a foothold into your conscience.
Let's review the two ways that Python can come to you:
Direct link to your conscience (you are enwrapped):
The first, and very common way, is that the spirit itself will bind itself to you and to your conscience as a friendly prophetic spirit, which lies directly into your conscience, telling you that you are guilty over things which God allows.
Another individual who carries the evil spirit (you become enwrapped):
The second way is that the spirit will come against you through another individual. This individual will manifest the same way that the Python Spirit itself manifests.
1. The individual will come as a friend, not looking for a fight, but just looking for "sheep" who will obey.
2. The individual will very likely come as one who is prophetic and as one who receives revelation knowledge from God.
3. The individual will come as a prophetic instructor of God's will, who will use his or her own prophetic revelations to instruct you in how to obey God's will, and they will rebuke you when you are being disobedient to what they told you God's will is.
4. The individual will come as a prophetic teacher of what is good and what is bad, teaching you grievous things that you must do, and putting many restrictions concerning things that they say you must not do. They will particularly to tell you rules which are grievous and cause restrictions.
Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with a prophet. I don't want you to get paranoid at every prophet, because not all prophets are bad.
The Scribes and Pharisees operated in the Spirit of Python:
We see this example of the Python Spirit being used by the Pharisees in Matthew 12:2, "But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day."
And Jesus' response in verse 7 was, "But if ye had know what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless."
Jesus explained in this verse that the Pharisees were condemning people who were guiltless, which is exactly what the Python Spirit seeks to do. It is a accusing and condemning spirit which will come and put rules on you which are impossible to perform and grievous, and then condemn you when you are unable to perform those rules.
