Crossing KCU

False Religion and Spiritual Idolatry

Books are strange things. They have the ability to carry whatever is inside of them through time. They connect the past to the present, and the present to the future. Right now, I am trying to bring this book to a close, wrapping up the story that it has contained, so that it can be passed on to others. If I’ve been successful, if this book will be among those that make it through the gauntlet of capitalistic scrutiny, then someone will be reading it, and all this struggle of mine will now be in the past. The book that I’m writing now will be read in the future. If not, I suppose I will just send a few copies to my close friends, post it online, and then print out a copy and put it away for my grandchildren to find someday after I’m long gone. Whatever happens, I guess the point, and the hope, is that it outlives me.

If there is one thing I could communicate to someone reading this book, it is the idea and the truth that nothing I’ve said here is new. All I’ve done is take from stories that are older than me, that were written down long ago, and attempt to show how those stories are true and how they are still alive today, still relevant to us even thousands of years later. That’s why I’ve used Scripture throughout this book. Not to preach or beat people over the head with the Bible, but to show that this story of mine is able to be told because of another, far greater story that was already told. Some smart people will call what I’ve done, “theological interpretation,” or “hermeneutical application,” or some other combination of large words that don’t really mean anything. I just call it reflecting on my life, in light of the Scriptures.

The Scriptures contain the only collection of writings that we can be absolutely sure are the written down truth of God’s revelation to mankind. So if my story—if my life—has anything meaningful to offer, it has to be in agreement with what God has said. I’ve done my best to make sure that it is, but I am still a flawed, flesh-ridden, sinful human being. And though I’ve been saved and redeemed by God’s grace, it doesn’t make what I say the absolute truth, or my actions divine, or my reflection on scripture the only right interpretation or correct application.

With that said, my years of reading, studying, and meditating on the Bible, and on the message it contains about Christ, and who we are as God’s people, have led me to some specific conclusions about the Christian environment in which I have been born and raised. These are the conclusions that I want to share now, before I bring this book to a close. You see, the mission that God sent me on to the campus of K.C.U. was just preparation for life and ministry beyond that place. And as I’ve moved beyond that place, I’ve come to see that many of the issues I was dealing with while I was there, turned out to be symptoms of a much larger epidemic infecting the American church as a whole—the sin of idolatry, in the form of false religion.
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This is not new to us either. False religion goes back a long way. In the book of 1st Samuel, in the 15th chapter, there is written a story of Saul, the first king of Israel. As with many of the stories in the Old Testament, this passage begins with a command from God to his people. In this particular story it is a task which God charges directly to the King…

“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (15:3).

The King hears this command from God through Samuel the prophet, and he wastes no time in summoning his army of 210,000 men and proceeding to engage the enemy. A few verses later, there is written the account and aftermath of the battle…

“Then Saul attacked the Amalekites… He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs–everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed” (15:7-9)

These two passages speak for themselves. In the first, King Saul is asked by God to do something, and in the second, it is clear that he has only accomplished part of the task. Samuel is troubled by this, and upon finding the King confronts him with the problem directly… “Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?” (15:19) Saul attempts to justify his disobedience, and proceeds to offer Samuel a rational explanation…

“’But I did obey the LORD,’ Saul said. ‘I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal’” (15:20-21).

And so we see in this third passage Saul’s reason for disobeying God. Saul’s stated intentions are to present the spoils of war to the Lord himself through a sacrificial ceremony of some kind. His intention is to carry out the command of God, but to do so in a way that he thinks is better than what the LORD actually instructed. Saul has, in effect, convinced himself that this is not disobedience to God, but obedience. And so he is proceeding in the understanding that he is doing the right thing, unaware of the error he has fallen into and the sin that has ensnared him. Samuel is quick to set him straight…

“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king” (15:22-23).

This story of Saul illustrates a particular type of sin which ensnares the people of God throughout the Old Testament record. Of course, disobedience to God is the very meaning of the word sin. But this particular kind of sin is rooted in pride, and deceives the people of God into disobeying the Lord. In this example from the life of Saul, it is pride that convinces the king that his very disobedience to the Lord is an act of worship. Later, in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, the prophets record this same kind of sin committed by the people of Israel, crying out to the people of God, warning them of the deception under which they had fallen…

“This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people… instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts… they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their forefathers.” (Jeremiah 7:20-26)

“Then the word of the LORD Almighty came to me: ‘Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves”…Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’ ‘But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.’” (Zechariah 7:4-6, 10-12)

“The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.’”(Isaiah 29:13)

“All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; …who say, ‘Keep away; don’t come near me, for I am too sacred for you!’ Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.” (Isaiah 65:2-5)

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god– which you made for yourselves.’” (Amos 5:21-26)

The central issue in all of the above passages is false religion. It is the act of worshipping God through physical acts that have no real spiritual significance. The essence of true worship can be understood through these passages, and in all of the scriptures, simply as obeying God. These above passages illustrate attempts by God’s people to subvert the very nature of worship by turning it into a physical set of actions. The prophets are pointing out in these scriptures, that engaging in these physical actions of worship, while disobeying the Lord in other matters, is detestable in God’s sight. Thus, the very act of physical worship becomes sin.

But this is not a sin that can be found only in the Old Testament record of God’s people. Looking ahead in the scriptures, we can see it again in the time of Jesus…

“The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were ‘unclean,’ that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, ‘Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with unclean hands?’

He replied, ‘Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.’ And he said to them: ‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! …Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.’”(Mark 7:1-13)

This passage provides an even deeper insight into this issue. Where the people of Israel in the Old Testament period had exchanged obedience to God, for obedience to physical acts of worship, the Pharisees and elders in the time of Jesus had actually instituted rules to preserve and enforce this type of behavior. In effect, the religious leaders of God’s people had exchanged obedience to God for obedience to their own rules, regulations, and laws. The resulting effect was a religion of outward, physical acts, devoid of any real spiritual significance. This is what the Lord rebukes them for in Matthew chapter 23…

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. …You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. …You are like white-washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”(Matthew 23:13, 25-28 )

So far we’ve looked at scriptures from the time of Samuel and Saul, through the era of the Old Testament prophets, and down through the time of Christ as recorded in the gospels. Through this succession of writings we can see the same cycle of sin resurfacing and becoming a snare to God’s people throughout many generations. The interesting thing about this cycle is that it does not stop with the nation of Israel, but moves on into the New Testament era, resurfacing in the Church. Paul addressed this issue when he wrote to the Church in Colosse, and though I’ve already mentioned it before in a previous chapter, it needs to be looked at here again:

“Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (Colossians 2:20-23)

There is some disagreement in the scholarly realm over the precise identity of the ideology that Paul was addressing in this passage. Many theologians argue that he was targeting a specific group of ascetics that were gaining influence in the Colossian church. Since asceticism is characterized as depriving the body of its appetites to extreme and even harmful degrees, it is most reasonable to assume that this passage speaks to such behavior. However, it also speaks to the general behavior which has been outlined in the previous passages; the behavior of adhering to man-made regulations which pose as spiritual, when in fact they are physical in nature, and have no real spiritual value in them. The point is that human commands and teachings, of any kind, cannot ultimately prevent a person from engaging in behaviors that gratify the flesh. This is the exact point where the Old Testament Law falls short. Where the Law brings to us an awareness of sin, it is powerless to set us free from that sin. Paul again addresses this issue in his letter to the Churches in Galatia…

“I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing–if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? …So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.” (Galatians 3:2-5, 24-25)

These passages illustrate for the people of God today a solid warning. It is a warning which we, as God’s people here in the present have inherited from His people in the past… Simply put, we have a tendency of setting aside real, spiritual worship of God, for physical rules, regulations, and traditions that lead us away from Him. It reminds us that obedience to our own traditions and rules, and even obedience to the Laws in the Old Testament, is not the same thing as obedience to God. It reminds us that true worship of God is obedience to Him, and nothing else. It tells us that our offerings, whether we are offering money, or praise, or sacrifices of time, material goods, food, and pleasure do not constitute real worship of God, but are only, at best, products of true worship. It warns us that if we forget this, though we may do all of these things and more, we are provoking the Lord to anger. Finally, it warns us that God’s people throughout history have repeatedly fallen into this trap without even realizing it.

At the center of this trap is the sin of pride, which can so easily entangle each and every one of us, and at the same time keep us blinded from seeing it. It is pride that was at the root of Saul’s decision to disobey God’s command, believing that his own status and power as King of Israel gave him the ability to do so. It is pride which convinced the Israelites in later generations that they were worshipping God the right way, trusting in their position as his chosen people, and the knowledge they had of his Law. It is pride which convinced the Jewish elders and religious leaders in the time of Jesus that they possessed the full understanding and knowledge of the scriptures, and that their own traditions were equal with God’s Law. It is pride that drove them to reject the Son of God instead of giving over their power and authority to him. It is pride that we catch glimpses of in the New Testament writings, invading Church bodies and convincing Christians that adhering to the Law or other regulations would make them holy and righteous. It is pride that still deceives Christians today, and makes us focus on ourselves, and the works of our own hands, and our own accomplishments, achievements, and gifts, instead of God and his Word and his Work. It is pride which seduces us into thinking we are worshipping God, when in fact we’re just making him angry.

In the third chapter of Revelation, Christ rebukes and gives warning to another church that was under the spell of a similar deception as we here in the American church. This church was not a dead church, yet neither was it alive. Rather, it was a church that was caught between death and life, hovering at the edges of both, not completely asleep, but neither able to fully wake up. Also, it was a wealthy church; a church fully confident of its own resources and its ability to survive and prosper. It was a prideful church; a church so enamored with its own capability and security that it boldly boasted of its power, saying, “…I do not need a thing.” But it was, in reality, completely blinded to its real spiritual condition. It considered itself so wealthy, that it could not see how poor it really was. It was so confident in its physical appearance, that it could not grasp how spiritually rotten it had become on the inside. It was a church so turned away from the face of the Lord that it left him to desperately search for “anyone” to hear his voice and respond (Revelation 3:14-22). This is where the majority of our churches are at in this country.

In most places, church buildings are just very large, walk-in idols. Millions of dollars are spent building and maintaining these extravagant places called churches, when the church is, and always has been a people. These buildings function like modern-day fortresses, built in an effort to shut out all of the things which might infect or threaten the people of God. We gorge ourselves on millions of dollars worth of self-serving luxuries while at the same time throwing change to the poor and the homeless in a sick effort to appease the guilt of doing so. Instead of seeking the authority of Jesus Christ, and recognizing leaders who follow and point the way to him, we just appoint our own leaders and teachers by sending them to church factories, charging them thousands of dollars, and then handing them a piece of paper. Christian colleges and universities are big business in America. Instead of teaching our youth to discern between truth and lies, we just tell them not to read Harry Potter while making them think that if they vote a certain way they are solving the problem of sin in the world. After we’re done lecturing them about religion (not true spirituality) they head off to college where they are bombarded with the reality of being smack in the middle of a spiritual war that they either know nothing about, or are completely unprepared to face.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” – Matthew 7:21-23