The Church and Her Idols
I recently read an important article called “Why Do So Many Churchgoers Have Abortions?” It is a very good question indeed. But it is really just a subset of a much bigger question: “Why is the church so much like the world?” In fact, plenty more such questions immediately come to mind, questions such as:
-Why do so many churchgoers divorce?
-Why do so many churchgoers fall into sexual immorality?
-Why do so many churchgoers regularly engage in known, sinful practices?
-Why are so many churchgoers indistinguishable from non-Christians?
-Why do so many churchgoers have idols in their midst?
The list could go on and on. And a good part of the answer is one which most people in the pews and most leaders in the pulpits refuse to even countenance: Why are there so many non-believers in our churches? Regrettably, many of our churches are filled with people who are not regenerate, who are not actually born-again.
They go through the motions, sing the hymns, and have an outward show of religiosity, but inwardly they are still at heart rebels against God, and have not truly made Christ Lord. They are still acting as the boss, and they refuse to truly and fully turn over their entire life to their maker and their judge.
Our churches are full of those who do not really know him. And our churches are full of idols. But this has always been the case with God’s people. I have been reading the book of Jeremiah in my daily reading again, and there are of course plenty of warnings about idols found therein.
God’s people of old were just as rebellious, just as distant from Yahweh, and just as full of idols. Jeremiah chapter 2 for example is a devastating critique of the people’s idolatry, and Jer 2:11-13 is just one key text from this important chapter:
“Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols.
Be appalled at this, you heavens,
and shudder with great horror,”
declares the LORD.
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Wow, what a powerful indictment of a wayward people? Or consider Jer 5:21-24:
“Hear this, you foolish and senseless people,
who have eyes but do not see,
who have ears but do not hear:
Should you not fear me?” declares the LORD.
“Should you not tremble in my presence?
I made the sand a boundary for the sea,
an everlasting barrier it cannot cross.
The waves may roll, but they cannot prevail;
they may roar, but they cannot cross it.
But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts;
they have turned aside and gone away.
They do not say to themselves,
‘Let us fear the LORD our God’.”
Are things really any different today in so many of our churches? Is there a genuine fear and awe of the living God? Or has God been tamed, domesticated, and brought down to our level? Is he just our friend, buddy, or worse, a celestial servant who exists to do our every bidding?
Do we think we can just snap our fingers and get God to do whatever we want? Of course it should be the other way around. We exist to do his bidding. We exist to serve him. We exist to bring him honour and glory. Yet far too many believers think that God is a heavenly Jeeves who merely exists to give us all our selfish wants.
We have turned God into an idol in other words. He has become an idol fashioned in our own image. We decide who and what God will be like, and expect him to march in step with our demands. That is a very dangerous place to be in. As Jer 5:11-13 warns:
“The people of Israel and the people of Judah
have been utterly unfaithful to me,”
declares the Lord.
They have lied about the Lord;
they said, “He will do nothing!
No harm will come to us;
we will never see sword or famine.
The prophets are but wind
and the word is not in them;
so let what they say be done to them.”
It is because we have rejected the true prophets of God and embraced the false prophets that we have been lulled to sleep. We think things will continue to go along just swimmingly. We vainly believe God is just peachy keen with a wayward church, and no harm will befall it.
Well, God is no man’s debtor. He does not owe the church in the West anything. It can easily go under in a day if God removes his protective hand from it. And that may well be the case in the decadent West, where the church has become just as decadent in so many ways.
So I return to my first question: “Why Do So Many Churchgoers Have Abortions?” The answer seems clear: “My people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” as Jesus said in Matthew 15:8. There is plenty of superficial religion in our churches today.
Just how much of our Christian life is mere churchianity? Far more than most of us dare to acknowledge. But God will not always allow his name to be dragged in the mud and his honour to be tarnished. We all need to go back to the messages found in Revelation 2 and 3. We all need to repent of our dead works and our lukewarmness.
And we need to do it soon. God’s Spirit will not always strive with man, as we read in Genesis 6:3. A time of reckoning must come. Sure it may not be in the form of another flood, but God will not allow his bride to be stained, impure, defiled, and unclean. He will act to present a perfect and spotless bride to the Son. He has to act.
So let us not read over the warnings as found in Jeremiah so glibly. They are just as relevant for the church today as they were for ancient Israel. And in the process, let us keep asking the hard questions, such as why there is so much abortion and other sin in our churches today.
Let me conclude with two important quotes:
“The God of the modern evangelical rarely astonishes anybody. He manages to stay pretty much with the constitution. Never break our by-laws. He’s a very well-behaved God and very denominational and very much like one of us…we ask Him to help us when we’re in trouble and look to Him to watch over us when we’re asleep. The God of the modern evangelical isn’t a God I could have much respect for.” -A.W. Tozer
“The ‘god’ of this twentieth century no more resembles the Supreme Sovereign of Holy Writ than does the dim flickering of a candle the glory of the midday sun. The ‘god’ who is now talked about in the average pulpit, spoken of in the ordinary Sunday School, mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, and preached in most of the so-called Bible Conferences is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality. The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form ‘gods’ out of wood and stone, while the millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a ‘god’ out of their own carnal mind. In reality, they are but atheists, for there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God, and no God at all. A ‘god’ whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, possesses no title to Deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship, merits nought but contempt.” -A.W. Pink
http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/40519-why-do-so-many-churchgoers-have-abortions
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I’m very glad for my own selfish sake that God is not like the god that so many churchgoers believe in. My only hope for eternity is a God who is all-powerful and perfectly just.
I wonder what sort of god Mr Rudd believes in when he says he believes in same-sex marriage- if he is being genuine, of course, which is very much open to doubt.
David Morrison
David is absolutely right. What sort of god does Mr Rudd believe in.
It is my humble opinion that Mr Rudd cannot possibly be a Christian. How can he possibly be when he does not believe in the Word of God and not only supports same-sex marriage, but also abortion right up to full term.
We need to pray for Mr and Mrs Rudd, and also pray that God will sovereignly move and bring Christians into parliament.
Paul Copeland
Hi Bill,
Continuing along the comment theme for a little while.
I have been keeping an eye on Daniel Nalliah, for some time now. He has started a political party called Rise Up Australia (link below).
The Holy Spirit mantle was passed onto him from Smith Wigglesworth, through Pr Norm Armstrong, about the coming end time revival to Australia and the nations in preparation for the second coming of the King of kings and Lord of lords! He has received many prophecies regarding Australia.
He has a strange call of Faith, Prophecy and Politics. But as I said, a man I want to keep an eye on.
http://riseupaustraliaparty.com/
Mark Lambert
Well said, ‘they aren’t saved’ its a simple answer yet so many said believers find it hard to speak simple Bible truths. There’s much to learn and parallel with Christianity today from the book of Jeremiah, things such as his lamentation and woe ministry…I’d imagine it said ‘Jeremiah isn’t a real prophet of the Lord because he has nothing uplifting to say, he always has warnings and woe’. Its a ministry many in Christ refuse to accept or understand, they desire to be told lies, and lies they shall have for God knows their hearts.
One of the latest we suffer at the hands of a number of apostates is being labelled ‘harsh religion’ because we demand that professing Christian’s repent of their habitual sins when they refuse to be sorry for such, they bring no Scripture and admit they have none yet say we are wrong and even after giving these sinners impersonating our faith much time, space and encouragement to repent, but its a sign of the times and will only get worse as the liars flock together with their false Jesus, as for me and my house, we shall stick to the Jesus who is the Word, keep on whacking us over the ear Bill, maybe a few might repent and be saved before its too late.
Blessings, Dorian Ballard
There are so many false prophets out there. I wonder what is the real motive of Kevin Rudd and Michael Kirby for going to church. They support gay “marriage”, with Kirby being a gay himself. To go undercover? To look good? I am not trying to be sarcastic, but such behaviour cannot go unscrutinised.
Janice Tooh
Bill,
It seems to me that part of the problem regarding ‘churchianity’ is that in many churches today there is a lack of clear understanding about what it takes to become a Christian – an eternal child of God through the Lord Jesus Christ – and what it means to live as a Christian with a Biblical world-view.
It also seems to me that many pastors are reluctant to clearly spell this out to their people, and I suspect there are at least three possible reasons for this.
Firstly, the incredible power of ‘political correctness’ which condemns anyone saying anything which may cause offense, such as telling people that they need to repent of their sins and independence, and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.
Secondly, they may not be clear about this themselves, depending on where they did their training; and thirdly simply that they do not believe it themselves.
Many pastors consistently address their people as if they are all children of God, so all the people tend to accept that this must be so.
John Gillespie
Yes quite right John
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I suspect churchgoers are more swayed by the thought control of our distorted, politically correct mainstream media and education system, than they are by the God who is love.
1John 3:22,23 says that Christians keep his commandments, which are:
1: BELIEVE IN JESUS.
2: LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Where is the love in aborting/murdering one’s baby or divorcing your partner and marrying another (adultery, Mark 10:11)?
Perhaps many churchgoers are too busy to allow God anywhere near as much time in their lives as the world has.
Harold van de Wiel