Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error, or rather that common consent in vice which these worthy men would have to be law. Any one with eyes may perceive that it is not one flood of evils which has deluged us; that many fatal plagues have invaded the globe; that all things rush headlong; so that either the affairs of men must be altogether despaired of, or we must not only resist, but boldly attack prevailing evils. The cure is prevented by no other cause than the length of time during which we have been accustomed to the disease. But be it so that public error must have a place in human society, still, in the kingdom of God, we must look and listen only to his eternal truth, against which no series of years, no custom, no conspiracy, can plead prescription. Thus Isaiah formerly taught the people of God, “Say ye not, A confederacy, to all to whom this people shall say, A confederacy;” i.e. do not unite with the people in an impious consent; “neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Is. 8:12). Now, therefore, let them, if they will, object to us both past ages and present examples; if we sanctify the Lord of hosts, we shall not be greatly afraid. Though many ages should have consented to like ungodliness, He is strong who taketh vengeance to the third and fourth generation; or the whole world should league together in the same iniquity. He taught experimentally what the end is of those who sin with the multitude, when He destroyed the whole human race with a flood, saving Noah with his little family, who, by putting his faith in Him alone, “condemned the world” (Heb. 11:7). In short, depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd. It were well, moreover, to ponder the observation of Cyprian, that those who sin in ignorance, though they cannot be entirely exculpated, seem, however, to be, in some sense, excusable; whereas those who obstinately reject the truth, when presented to them by the kindness of God, have no defense to offer.
~John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Faith, pages 13-14
Category: Easter
Subtle Idolatry Practiced by Christians
Presentations that confuse the distinction between God and His created world
A picture or movie of Christ because of inherent limitations, resides in the world of created things. Whatever aspirations may be intended, it can rise no higher than that which it is. Hence it blurs the distinctness between God and man, confusing the Creator with the creation. The Apostle Paul reveals the cause of this confusion, “Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”[xvii] This digression, the Apostle tells us, continues because, “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man….”[xviii] The problem is this: “to whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?”[xix]. The Scriptural answer is unequivocal: “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”[xx]
Any attempted portrayal of Christ transforms the medium itself into a mediator between God and man. The viewer, restricted within the confines this humanistic plane, imagines that he knows the Lord, at least in some measure. With this inculcated image of Christ throbbing within his mind, the viewer is allowed to wander, silently thinking his own thoughts, constrained by an impression that is not Christ. Thus, the viewer’s mind continues to be conformed to the world by the created image and by his own subjectivity. Although such visual presentations appeal strongly to the sensual impulses, they do not present explicitly to any man the objective truth concerning the Lord.
Our knowledge of Jesus Christ must be formed from the truths in Scripture and not by subjective impressions of artistic interpretation. In the latter, the artist and the viewer coalesce God and His creation into a single entity within the picture, and this is the visible expression of idolatry. This spurious image lays the foundation for a pantheistic concept of God. Marvel not then that, “Soaring pagan numbers have churches worrying and calling for stricter controls on cult TV programs and films that celebrate sorcery like “Harry Potter,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”[xxi] The command given in Scripture is to choose God’s way so as to know and follow Christ in His Word! When obeyed, upon the pages of Scripture, in the words of the Law, in the grace of the Gospel, we know Him in spirit and truth.
We do not see Jesus Christ with the physical eye. This is the whole meaning of faith. The excellence of the object of faith is the unseen Jesus. While sense deals with things that are seen, reason is a higher plane. Faith however ascends further still and assures us of abundance of particulars that sense and reason could never have found. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” [xxii] Faith nourishes itself – “I had fainted unless I had believed to see” [xxiii]- upon the power and promises of the Unseen. We can understand, then, the logic and consistent purpose of why the Lord God forbids images.
Source
“You shall have no other gods before Me. Exodus 20:3
When you bow your head to pray, who is it you see? It’s near inescapable but not unforgiveable if you strive to walk in repentance of it.
They Weave The Spider’s Web
“They weave the spider’s web.” — Isaiah 59:5
See the spider’s web, and behold in it a most suggestive picture of the hypocrite’s religion. It is meant to catch his prey: the spider fattens himself on flies, and the Pharisee has his reward. Foolish persons are easily entrapped by the loud professions of pretenders, and even the more judicious cannot always escape. Philip baptized Simon Magus, whose guileful declaration of faith was so soon exploded by the stern rebuke of Peter. Custom, reputation, praise, advancement, and other flies, are the small game which hypocrites take in their nets. A spider’s web is a marvel of skill: look at it and admire the cunning hunter’s wiles. Is not a deceiver’s religion equally wonderful? How does he make so barefaced a lie appear to be a truth? How can he make his tinsel answer so well the purpose of gold? A spider’s web comes all from the creature’s own bowels. The bee gathers her wax from flowers, the spider sucks no flowers, and yet she spins out her material to any length. Even so hypocrites find their trust and hope within themselves; their anchor was forged on their own anvil, and their cable twisted by their own hands. They lay their own foundation, and hew out the pillars of their own house, disdaining to be debtors to the sovereign grace of God. But a spider’s web is very frail. It is curiously wrought, but not enduringly manufactured. It is no match for the servant’s broom, or the traveller’s staff. The hypocrite needs no battery of Armstrongs to blow his hope to pieces, a mere puff of wind will do it. Hypocritical cobwebs will soon come down when the besom of destruction begins its purifying work. Which reminds us of one more thought, viz., that such cobwebs are not to be endured in the Lord’s house: He will see to it that they and those who spin them shall be destroyed for ever. O my soul, be thou resting on something better than a spider’s web. Be the Lord Jesus thine eternal hiding-place. C.H. Spurgeon
J.C. Ryle Quote
The Mass? Penance? Purgatory?
~ by C.H. Spurgeon
Where, then, did the mass come from, and of what avail is it? The Lord’s Supper was intended to be the remembrancer to us of our Lord’s sufferings; instead of which it has been prostituted by the Church of Rome into the blasphemy of a pretended continual offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, a continual sacrifice. According to the Romish doctrine the offering upon Calvary is not enough-the atonement for sin is not finished- it has to be performed every day, and many times a day, in the Catholic churches, by certain appointed persons, so that that sacrifice is always being offered. Oh! brethren, the Mass is a mass of abominations, a mass of hell’s own concocting, a crying insult against the Lord of glory. It is not to be spoken of in any terms but those of horror and detestation. Whenever I think of another sacrifice for sin being offered, by whoever it may be presented, I can only regard it as an infamous insult to the perfection of the Savior’s work. Popery swarms with worshipers of the god whom the baker bakes in the oven, and whom they bite with their teeth.
What of the Catholic sacrament of penance? Is not penance in its essence an offering for sin? I do not care who it is that prescribes the penance, nor what it is, whether it is licking the pavement with your tongues, or wearing a hair-shirt, or laying on the whip- if it be supposed that by the mortification of the flesh, men can take away sin, the Scripture is like a two-edged sword to pierce the inmost heart of such teaching. Take off your hair-shirt, poor fool! Wash the stones with a dish-cloth and keep your tongue clean. There is no need for these fooleries! Christ has completed the atonement; you need not suffer thus. You need not, like Luther, go up and down the stone staircase on your knees, and think that your poor sore knees will find favor with God. Christ has suffered; God exacts no more. Do not try to supplement His gold with your dross. Do not try to add to His matchless robes, the rags of your poor penance.
Hebrews 9: 24-27 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment… *
“It is finished.” – John 19:30*
How these verses shut the gates of purgatory! It is held that there are some who die who are believers, but who are not quite purified from sin, and in an after state they must undergo a purgatorial quarantine to be purged by fire, so that they may become quite complete.
Beloved, when the thief died on the cross he had but just believed, and had never done a single good work, but where did he go to? Well, he ought to have gone to purgatory by rights, if ever anybody did, but instead of that the Savior said to him, “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Why? Because the ground of the man’s admission into Paradise was perfect. The grounds of his admission there was Christ’s work, and that is how you and I will get into heaven, because Christ’s work is finished. The thief did not go down to purgatory, nor, blessed be His name, neither shall you nor I if we trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
A Bible study of the false doctrine of purgatory
(* – my add)
Oh, That Pagan Wedding Ring!
Yes, it’s true. We Christians live in a world of paganism. Everywhere we look its pagan. Pagan! Pagan! Pagan! Our churches are modeled after pagan worship centers, so we are told. Our days of the week are named after pagan gods! Some say worship on Sunday is pagan! And our dollar bill…GASP!!!…
So what? That’s right, I asked, so what? Maybe knowing that truth puts most Christians at ease about celebrating X Mass. “Paganism is hard to avoid.” Or they will say, “See, you can christianize paganism! Look at the church structure!” Well…not so fast, o clever one!
No. No you can’t christianize unredeemable paganism. Yes, we use, or practice, the things of pagan origin all of the time. But that pertains to worldly use for our benefit or as a person-to-person use. Many things we believe have a pagan origin didn’t just happen to be only for pagan worship after all. The practice simply existed before the time of Nimrod, where all pagan religions came from. Nevertheless, in our man to God worship we must not adopt the ways of the heathen to worship Him with. He hates it. He did not ordain it. It is Cain worship, i.e., man-made. God has the only right to sanction the worship of Himself and to call days “holy.” Not us. Some say that Jeremiah 10 has nothing whatsoever to do with X Mass trees. Fine. You can believe that. Some say that Deuteronomy 12:29-32 is not speaking about our modern-day X Mass trees and such other rituals and traditions. Fine. You can believe that way, too.
Here’s the problem: If you are decorating your homes in the same manner as the Wiccans then you are yoking with the idolatrous unbelievers. You are not being separate from them. How are you being holy as God is holy in this X Mass-Saturnalia “holy” day observance? You are not abstaining from even the appearance of evil! Are you a Christian or a Wiccan? Sure, today many would say you are a Christian but not the unbelievers. They don’t know the difference, nor do they care. It’s about Santa for them, no matter their age. The Wiccans are either laughing at you for doing as they do, or they are angry at you for hijacking their holy day and putting your false god (yes, its lower-case “g” to them) in the place of their true sun-god, unless they believe there is no difference between the two. But they should know it! Christians aren’t helping them in the matter with their copy-cat decor. Where are we different, then, by our appearance?
If you cling to your X Mass to the point of being rude or inconsiderate to your fellow Christians who do not celebrate it, then you are committing idolatry and brotherly love is not in you. If you use Scriptures to validate your celebration but say that the incarnation story is the “Christmas story” then you have no idea what the Christ Mass truly is about, and you are inadvertently sinning against God and calling the holy by an unholy name. Plus! You are misinterpreting the Scriptures you are using! If you are celebrating X Mass despite knowing its pagan roots (or similarity to the Wiccan’s “holy” day) then you are willfully sinning against God. It’s not just sinning, but willfully sinning. If you are celebrating X Mass for the kids’ sake, or for fear of what others might say, then you are not worthy of Jesus. He said it, I didn’t:
Matthew 10:36-38, “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.”
See also Bible Hub’s commentary and other like verses here.
It’s time to repent of Christo-paganism.
“OUT OF CHURCH” CHRISTIANS
This has been copied from the comment line of a J.C. Ryle FB post:
Andrew Strom. [4 April 2003]
I am writing on a rather unusual topic today. On Monday night (31 March) I was invited onto a Christian Radio show in New Zealand to discuss the growing numbers of “Out-of-church” Christians in the West – people who have left the churches for various reasons but still claim a strong Christian faith. It was a very interesting night, and the phones ran hot.
This “Out-of-church” phenomenon has now grown so large that books are being written about it. In fact, several years ago I heard an estimate that there are TENS OF THOUSANDS of such Christians just in our largest city (-Auckland) alone. And I believe it is the same right across the Western nations. I have personally come into contact with literally hundreds of such people. The surprising thing is that they are often the most committed kind of Christians – praying, insightful, deep-thinking. Yet they have grown tired of “playing the game” inside our church system and have opted out. Often their involvement goes back many years. In fact, they had commonly been leaders of various kinds.
But now they have left. Why? The church obviously finds this a very difficult thing to explain or deal with. The usual accusations are often trotted out: “So-and-so has been hurt and has a root of bitterness”. Or they are in “rebellion”. Or they are “not a team player”. Or they are “backsliding”.
But if you talk to these people you will often find that they have been sitting in church for years and years, and they simply cannot stand to sit and watch the same old game being played any more. The LACK OF GOD is what gets to them – even in our most “Spirit-filled” churches. WHERE IS GOD IN ALL OF OUR ACTIVITY? Surely this is not the way it is supposed to be?
New fads and programs come and go, but the mediocrity and LACK OF GOD just seem to go on forever. And so quietly, sometimes without anyone even noticing, they slowly slip out the doors – never to return. Some have even told me that they felt God “calling them out”. Others simply felt they couldn’t stay there anymore. The state of the church weighed upon them more than words could say.
Very often they did the rounds of other churches, hoping against hope that they would find a place that felt “right” in any way. (-Though most of them are not “church-hoppers” by nature). But the places they visited never seemed any more “right” than the place they had left. And after a while it just seemed easier to stay at home with God.
As I said earlier, most of these people have not given up on Christianity at all. It is today’s church system that they have given up on. And we are talking about large numbers here. Thousands are already opting out. And many feel like they are “waiting” for something.
Some of these people have started up home-fellowships. Or they meet with other couples on a casual basis. But many meet with nobody at all, and they consider themselves in a ‘Wilderness’ place – alone with God. (-Very common).
I was asked several weeks ago by a pastor whether I agreed that what is happening could be a ‘move of God’. That is a pretty radical thought. Many leaders would think the opposite. Because anything that leads people out of “their church” can’t be of God, can it?
Hmmmm. All I know is this: The concept of going through a ‘Wilderness’ just before entering the ‘Promised Land’ is totally Scriptural. In fact, it is right through the Bible. Even Jesus went through such a wilderness time.
But it is not possible to stay “alone” forever. Some day, if these people are going to be part of a new move of God’s Spirit, they are going to have to come out of their wilderness and become part of the “BODY” that Jesus brings together – the ‘new wineskin’ that will come with this new move of God. Otherwise they could miss out. That is the great danger.
I’m sure there are many on this List with comments or testimonies relating to this topic. I would love to hear from you. It really is becoming a significant issue in the church.
God bless you, my friends.
________________________________
For weeks after I published the above article, I was inundated with emails. It seemed to be going round and round on the Internet because many responses were from people that were not even part of our own List. Such a huge number of heart-felt stories from people who still loved Jesus but had left the churches (-forever, in many cases). What an eye-opener! It confirmed to me that this issue is so much larger than many of us have realized. I don’t think a lot of Christian leaders have any clue how many believers are simply opting out of “organized religion” today. Andrew Strom
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Pastors, there are many of us “Out-of-Church” Christians who want to belong to a Bible practicing church that has nothing to do with the pagan/papist/traditions of men “holy” days like X Mass and Easter, which is just blasphemously slapping Christ’s holy name on an unholy pagan feast to Tammuz and the Queen of Heaven. Get rid of those unlawful days as practices and see if your numbers improve. Even if they don’t, you can know you are obedient to God’s Word.
The X Mass Blog 