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Whitewashed Tombs: The Subversion of faith

Look at this brief clip of historical quotes from popular Christian leaders. Then consider where the churches are today in terms of distance from scripture and carrying out the hopes and plans stated in the video. But Jesus had this to say about the religious leaders of His day:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! 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. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead 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. (Mat. 23:25-28)

Certainly the concept of deceptive appearances applies equally to the political realm and the leaders of other religions. But just as the nation of Israel was supposed to be the light of the world and failed, so also the church has abandoned the truth of the gospel and the Bible for the teachings of demons (1 Tim. 4:1). For people to whom such a great responsibility was given, the consequences will be dire. If God would not spare the natural branches (Rom. 11:21) and scattered Israel for almost 1900 years, what will He do to the church that bore His name? If Jesus would issue scathing rebukes to the very faces of the Pharisees, what will He do to those pastors who have been spiritually (and often physically) adulterous?

Now listen to what the apostle Paul said about how Christians should respond to deception:

But we turn our backs on the shameful things people hide and no longer keep in step with craftiness. We do not contaminate the Word of God but will declare the truth, commending ourselves to human conscience before God.

If our good news has been concealed, it is only concealed to those who are being destroyed. The minds of unbelievers have been blinded by the god of this age so the light cannot illuminate them— the light of the good news of the honor of the Anointed, who is the image of God. For it is not ourselves we are proclaiming but Jesus the Anointed Master, whose slaves you are. For God— the One who said Let light shine out of darkness— shone light into our hearts to illuminate knowledge of God’s honor in the presence of Jesus the Anointed.

Now we have this treasure in containers of clay so that it is obvious that the power is of God and not of us. (2 Cor. 4:2-7)

The focus of true Christian leaders is always Jesus and His glory and power, not themselves. Listen again to what those people in the video said; they point to man, to themselves, to this life, to a glorious future without the narrow and exclusive gospel but embracing a kind of everygod, feel-good religious experience to be had here and now. Many articles have been written about these traitors, but it seems that the majority of professing Christians loves them and resents their detractors. And as the video shows, this didn’t begin yesterday; it has been going on for generations.

So now that the whole world is writhing as in the pains of childbirth (Rom. 8:22), whether in nature or politics or religion, will we still cover our eyes and plug our ears to the undeniable approach of the apocalypse? Do we really believe that all of this turmoil is because we still cling to a dusty old book and quaint notions of an old man in the sky, and that if we all just join hands and sing campfire songs we will transform the world? We have been deceived and betrayed for so long that we now deceive ourselves. But as Paul put it in 2 Tim. 4:1-4,

I solemnly charge you before God and Anointed Jesus— the one who is about to judge the living and the dead— and in view of his sudden appearance and kingdom: Proclaim the Word; stay at your post, whether it’s convenient or not; refute, rebuke, encourage and teach with the utmost patience. For the time will come when they will no longer tolerate sound instruction but will collect teachers who tell them only what they want to hear; in fact, they’ll turn away from truth and toward fables.

Does that not describe the world we live in and the church at large? We must stay at our post and not run away in fear. The guards on the walls were bribed a long time ago and our enemies are among us. How will you tell them apart, without the anchor and standard of the Bible to go on? Don’t listen to the siren song that we and all the martyrs before us were sadly mistaken and throwing our lives away for nothing. Don’t let them tell you that God is spoiling your fun and wants only to imprison you; look at how things have turned out for any individual or group that embraced hedonism and ask yourself how truly free such people are in the end. We are not to be citizens of this world but of the kingdom of God, and anyone who would turn our allegiance elsewhere is a subversive and a traitor to the faith.

Who is your king? The time has come to make a final decision.