Disciple Up # 190
False gods & the Church at Odds
By Louie Marsh, 12-16-2020
Intro. What’s coming up for the next two weeks.
Link to the Article Read:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/december/idols-worshiping-false-god.html
QUOTE:
Our hearts still fall into that same satanic groove, quickly moving from confessing “I believe in God” to talking about “the God I believe in,” to making the most dire and pretentious utterance of all: “I could never believe in a God who…”
The problem of idolatry
“23Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24, ESV)
Grievous way = way of an idol.
“21Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21, ESV)
“5Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5, ESV)
I do not believe that the big problem for the Bible believing church in the United States and around the world even, is legalism.
Yes, these idols are problems for sure. But there are far larger ones and more dangerous ones in our current era. As would be expected these idols flow from the culture we live in. You can see them slowly, almost imperceptibly in many cases worming their way into the church and our beliefs and practices.
I’m thinking of people who have somehow arrived at the conclusion that God is on their side politically and that whatever changes their party makes, God suddenly has always been behind that even when they themselves believed something different just hours or days earlier!
Take for example the huge shift in public opinion when Barak Obama said he had “evolved” on the issue of homosexual marriage. Now it was good where as before the election it had been bad. Immediately this was seized upon as the only right and moral position you could have, even though most of those doing the seizing had held the older positions mere moments before!
Many of these people would self-identify as Christians and yet they immediately jumped into this new moral standard with hardly a moments hesitation. (Yes, I’m aware many struggled with this choice, but the vast majority of those who changed did not. And of course all of us who didn’t change our beliefs because of what one politician said didn’t hesitate either.)
I don’t want to get off point here which I may already have by bringing up that topic. My point is if you are going to pontificate upon moral issues and you want your opinion to carry some weight you ought to be really seeking to live out what your belief system teaches you to do and not do.
If you don’t, then here’s what you can expect from me.
In the United States you have the right to speak. However you do not have the right to be listened too. In other words you can’t demand that I, or anyone else, pay attention to what you are saying or give it any weight at all in our lives.
If you aren’t active in a church, and at least seeking to find a ministry, and aren’t prayerfully trying to share the Gospel and live out your faith in everything you say and do then say what you will, I won’t be paying much attention to you.
After all, why should I? If you don’t know and seek to live out God’s Word then all your professions of spiritual wisdom are simply an expression of hypocrisy. Nothing more and nothing less. That doesn’t mean you might not be right – even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be paying much attention to it!
There’s a term for this – virtue signaling.
Virtue signaling is hypocrisy.
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