Dear Cell, last Friday we discussed about unscriptural convictions and then we examined its undesirable impact and influence. Predictably, we got carried away and started to go into the heart of what is currently wrong with Christianity and how we personally felt about it. Of course, we are not qualified socio-religious commentators or ecumenical (whole Christian Church) pundits. But our discussion did shed some light into the disturbing dark side of beliefs. We talked about how a famous mega-church pastor once told the media that he wished he had a Holy Ghost machine gun so that he could use it to hunt down his enemies (here means his critics). No matter what faith or religious background you come from, that statement would surely send shivers and chills down your spiritual spine. It is just a wrong statement, morally and spiritually. The televangelist should have known better but somehow bad taste and bad judgment got the better of him.
Then, we talked about false prophets, people who used the name of God for self-gain and self-popularization. Basically, God’s name was used by them for their own sake and not for His kingdom. Of course, false prophets come in varying sizes and degrees. Jim Jones and David Koresh are unmistakable examples of false prophets. Their warped doctrines and egregious deeds say it all about their egomaniacal personalities.
But the Bible has a broader definition of a false prophet and 2 Peter 2:1-3 gives us a good footing on this, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them…Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.” This is a sobering warning for Christians to keep watch and pray for people I label as “Jesus-less Christians”. And the only way you can tell them apart from the rest is the fruits that their life and ministry bear. Jesus said that it is by their fruits that you shall know them and indeed there is no better way. When in doubt about a person or a ministry or even a church, the best advice is to take the “wait-and-see” approach.
In the meantime, we do our part to suspend all judgments and keep our noses clean until such time when all that really matters are revealed. We must trust that our God is the God of truth and truth like a flooding light in pitched darkness cannot stay hidden, covered or suppressed for long. All you need is a crack or a leak in the character or ministry and the shaft of light will pour forth and expose the corroded structures. When that time comes, we can all taste the fruits for ourselves and see whether it is sweet or rotten.
What is sad about the emergence of all these false prophets and teachers is that they thrived richly and grandly under our consummeristic culture. It is like oxygen to them and their ministry. And when they thrived, they also bred in the hearts and minds of their congregants the message that self-satisfaction is better than self-sacrifice, convenience is better than conviction, and prosperity is better than poverty. There is in fact no easier, more convenient and more seductive evangelistic bait than a religion that does everything for you, costs you nothing, is readily available at your beck and call and comes with a lifetime warranty of an eternal bliss. This is what some churches are peddling or selling to their congregation. Beloved, our faith has been commodified. It has been packed, branded and marketed in return for profit like any secular businesses in this world. I think the label “McChurch” describes it well.
Like McDonald, some churches are growing both locally and internationally. They have global networks, branches, offices, and headquarters. They own large estates, private amusement parks, shopping malls, grand mansions, getaway resorts, private companies, a stable of luxury cars, and lots and lots of cash and investments. I think a famous quote (attributed to a former Chaplain Richard Halverson) expresses the cultural phenomena best, “In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then, it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America, where it became an enterprise.”
What’s wrong with all these ownerships?
Let’s be clear about one thing. God owns everything, the “here and now”, the “there and beyond”. All that our eyes can see and cannot see, God owns it all. Who is therefore the real owner of this created world? God is and He will forever be. So, we should never forget who is the real Owner. (the operative word is “never”) CS Lewis, with his characteristic wit, once wrote, “He who has God and everything has no more than he who has God alone.” Indeed, God is all we ever need; everything else is costume jewelry. Having said this, I issue you this challenge: Can you come to a stage whereby you can, with a lifted spirit, sing this hymn to our God, “…turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace,” and mean every word of it? Beloved, this is not a personal call to poverty and to sell all your earthly possessions. But it is a call to stewardship. We may own all things on paper, like title deeds, shares certificates and promissory notes, with our names on them; but we mentally attribute true ownership to God. We become His stewards, tending to His gardens, managing His investments, and preserving His properties. We dedicate all that we have to God and use them for the expansion of God’s kingdom. We practise what I call Christian Capitalism, using our wealth responsibly to bless others first and in turn be blessed by them.
Beloved, the risk of having more in this world, that is, bigger houses, bigger bank accounts, bigger cars, bigger ambition, bigger reputations, bigger accomplishments, is the risk of not having enough. I trust that all of you are and will, in one way of another, prosper in your own time and in your own way. Some of you will progress faster than others in your career, gain more in material blessings, and be recognized for your accomplishments. Money is of course important; but to the same extent that balance and contentment are equally important, if not more. There’s a saying that if you want to see a person’s true character, give him power. If you want to see the effect in double quick time, give him absolute power. This applies, with equal force, with money. Of course, we all know that money doesn’t corrupt. Money is amoral. That much is agreed. But it is not money that we should be worried about; it is the money-handler and his corruptible intentions that should be guarded against.
Here, the words of former Chaplain Richard Halverson deserve another full quote, “Jesus Christ said more about money than any other single thing because, when it comes to a man’s real nature, money is of first importance. Money is an exact index to a man’s true character. All through Scripture there is an intimate correlation between the development of a man’s character and how he handles his money.”
Jesus had warned us repeatedly about money in his short lifetime on earth because it concerns our soul and spirit. His admonishment to the rich young man was the hallmark of his many teachings (see Luke 18:18). No one should doubt the sincerity of the rich young man on his desire to follow Jesus just like no one should doubt that he was extremely wealthy. He was also a perfectionist, I guess. He listened and obeyed every commandment in the Old Testament since he was a rich young boy. So, he was both a say-er and a doer. By any standards, he was a “good Christian” way ahead of his time. Yet, we know that he was not shortlisted to join Jesus’ ministry because he had self-disqualified himself.
Although his attitude towards everything in life passed with flying colors, his attitude towards money flopped big time. In the end, he just could not envision a life following Jesus without wealth. I think CS Lewis’ adage above does not apply to him – he wants both God and everything. His attitude is such that wealth is inseparable with life. One cannot live without the other. Sadly, I think the rich young man had missed Jesus’ point altogether. I like to think that Jesus did not literally want him to sell everything and give them all to the poor – at least not immediately or in the near future. If I may be allowed to engage in some scriptural adventurism, I would like to think that Jesus wanted the rich young man to experience a change of heart first before he proceeds with a change of behavior. For it is with a change of heart that we can truly be transformed for good and forever. Borrowing the words of Confucius would be proper here, “Wherever you go, go with your heart?” I guess if the rich young man were to follow Jesus, he would have left his heart behind – a heart for all his wealth.
Beloved, what is your attitude towards money? Is it your master or your servant? Of course, at this stage, most of us do not have enough to allow it to lord over us. But it is not in the quantity that counts; it is in the quality. We can have a heart of avarice or greed without having a lot of money. We can secretly strive for personal fame and recognition on the pretense of doing good and performing charity. We can camouflage blind ambition as human aspirations and progress. You therefore don’t need money to be corrupted; you just need an un-surrendered, rebellious heart. Matthew 6:21 puts it best, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”
So, let’s go back to McChurch. Here are some of the rotten fruits that these false prophets or teachers frequently produce to mislead their gullible flock (and the central theme in all their teachings has to do with self-enriching on a grand scale either in terms of gaining more money or more fame)
1) False Promises and False Hopes. Many of them will tell you things you want to hear and, because you want so much to hear them, you more readily and more easily believe them - hook, line and sinker. Many sincere Christians have become easy target for the outlandish, unscriptural promises coming out from the mouth of these false shepherds of God. Now, I want to be brutally honest with statistics here. There have been claims of resurrections, growing of amputated limbs, and healing of terminal cancer, among other dreaded diseases. There is even a ministry that specialized in a program called “Raise the Dead”. However, statistics do not lie. These so called “miracles of God” were, for reasons unbeknownst to most, always anecdotal, after-the-facts, and poorly documented.
When confronted for objective verification, these faith-healers were unable to reproduce the same miracle in the eyes of an impartial public and, to save face, they never failed to give lame excuses for their inability to “conjure” up a miracle; as if God only works miracles under spotless and pristine conditions. I am submitting that there are reasons to doubt the claims made by them not so much because of a lack of proof but of a lack of character and integrity. You shall know them by their fruits. The lives of these false prophets say it all. Most of the time, their ministries are about money; the more the merrier. Fame and recognition comes at a close second. One international televangelist even threatened the public that if they held back their seed money from him, his god would charge them 20 percent (interests) and take it away from them through tragedy!
Another went to the extent of blackmailing his congregation by telling them that if his ministry does not raise 1.5 million dollars by a certain deadline, his god will take his life! Imagine being forced to give by the threat of death. Still another told his congregation that he once visited heaven and saw Jesus personally and yet, at another point in his life, he testified that he had allowed demons to possess and take control of his body, thrashing it from one wall to another! You just can’t help but squirm in confusion about such unbiblical baloney.
2) False visions. Seeing vision and dreaming dreams are one of the main operandi modus of these self-styled faith healers. One pastor claimed to have been to heaven and he saw Jesus. He described Jesus as having the loveliest brown eyes he had ever seen; very much like those of Bambi’s. Jesus was also radiating with many colors and one of them that shone the brightest was pink. He also saw the apostle Paul and he described him as short, bald and monk-like.
Another pastor claimed to have numerous out-of-body experiences and one of them took him to a place where he was having a discussion with Jesus. In the middle of it, a demon monkey leapt out from nowhere and created a racket. After a while of monkeying around, the pastor took control of the situation and commanded the demon monkey to shut up in the name of Jesus. Then, what’s most disturbing were these alleged words of Jesus to the pastor, “If you hadn’t done something about that (demon monkey), I couldn’t have.” Imagine Jesus, the one who overcame life and death, was completely helpless until the pastor took charge! Beloved, I am not denigrating dreams and visions. I believe there are authentic visions like that of Jesus’ transfiguration. What I am against are dreams and visions for its own sake, in particular, for self-glory. To see through these fake imaginings or illusions, we have to constantly pray for discernment and spiritual maturity.
3) False Guilt and Fear. I believe that true guilt and fear lead to a heart of conviction and true repentance. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is the fear that draws us closer to God. But the guilt trip and fear that the false prophet plant in the hearts of his congregations are of a different nature altogether. A pastor once told his church that any pastor who does not accept what God had told him would “fall dead in the pulpit”! In another incident, the pastor’s wife doubted what she saw in a service when a woman levitated from an altar and stood in mid-air dancing. Immediately, the pastor’s wife was “slain” by the Spirit of God and was glued to the floor. She writhed in pain for a while, struggling to stand up. However, all her efforts were in vain until she acknowledged that she was wrong.
Sadly, there are many out there who are held spellbound by these false prophets and their cultic sway. Most of them elected to stay compliant in their respective ministries because they were afraid of spiritual reprisals when they leave. Some of them were even stunted in their faith through guilt. Thanks to the twisted teachings of the so-called shepherds of God, they repeatedly blame their circumstances and their sickness on their lack of faith and trust in God. These helpless souls are literally at the mercy of their spiritual leaders and the latter continues to subjugate them by injecting guilt into their spiritual veins with one hand and dangling false hope with the other. In the light of this, one can identify with these words from the mouth of a non-believer, “Religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.”
4) Lastly, False Teachings. One pastor admitted that he regularly visited grave sites of dead evangelists in order to assimilate the “anointing’ from their bones. He also said that the Holy Spirit once told him that women were originally designed to give birth out of their side! Although these pulpit ramblings seem silly and ridiculous, there are some teachings that are serious enough to warrant some attention and addressing. A pastor once preached this, “Do you think that the punishment for our sin was to die on a cross? If that were the case, the two thieves could have paid your price. No, the punishment was (for Jesus) to go to hell itself and to serve time in hell separated from God.” Well, I didn’t know the two thieves were “God’s begotten children” and part of the Trinity! Anyway, Jesus said it was finished at the cross and not in hell. His victory and our salvation were secured when he died on the cross. The idea that Jesus had to serve in hell like a common prisoner before we can be saved is a dangerous idea and, if we do not take care of what we listen, such ideas can grow wings, distort the truth, and derail our spiritual walk.
Another false teaching is the prosperity teachings so popular among the charismatic circles. One pastor claimed that Jesus wore designer’s robe, lived in a big house, had a rich ministry, and rode on a brand new donkey. Another pastor barked, “…the reason why I drive a Rolls Royce is because I’m following in the step of Jesus.” Well, with such cheap sloganeering and racy advertisements, who wouldn’t want to be a Christian?
As an aside, I can understand why this is so from a limited perspective. In life, all of us, with no exceptions, want to prosper both physically and professionally. We want the best for ourselves and our families. Who doesn’t want promotion, increased salary, recognition, power, and health? If we are honest enough, we will admit that we want it all; if possible, as soon as possible. And there is nothing wrong with wanting it all per se. Well, I will not deal with the issue of money and our heart since I have already dealt with it at length previously. At this point, I just want to balance things up. I want to give you a realistic credit and debit of life’s accounting. In essence, Jesus never promised us a rose garden. But He did promise us a garden Gethsemanes when He said, “In this world you will have troubles. But, behold, I have overcome the world.”
Somehow, there is something insidious and patently wrong with the hundred-fold prosperity message. Those prosperity preachers who exalt the goodness of God and promise that for every seed money sent to them, God would bless the giver a hundred fold back, are terrible economists. Picture this: if everyone were to give to these money-leeching ministries, holding nothing back, and what was promised to them (that is, a hundredfold return) was fulfilled without exception, then, imagine the chaos in the world economy! There will be runaway, hyper-inflation with prices of goods and services skyrocketing to the economic stratospheres! Too much money chasing after too little goods would mean that a loaf of bread may very well cost a million Singapore dollars and we will have to wheel-cart bundles of cash all the way to the mall just to buy a bottle of milk. I guess such promises are just too far removed from reality to be believed and yet many were nevertheless hook-winked by the “hundredfold” bait just like many were fleeced by the Madoff scheme. I can also guess that the only one enjoying the hundredfold return is the one who made the empty promise in the first place. It is therefore the spiritual con-artists who are laughing their way to the banks.
In the last cell, I shared about one scripture that convicted me deeply when I was a new Christian and it still holds great important to me today. The relevance of this scripture to my message will become clear soon enough. John 12:24 puts it eloquently, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Beloved, this is the heart of the message. This is Jesus’ message and His legacy for all true believers. The credit and debit of life’s accounting is based on this scripture. The credits to being believers are this: our life is transformed from darkness into his marvelous light. We are saved and our eternity is secured. As long as we trust in God, we will always have this hope and this hope is powerful enough to carry us through life, even through the toughest of times. This is the good news. Empowered by this news, we then live our life with faith, hope and love. We live our life as if on borrowed time and do our best in all our endeavors. Prosperity may come our way when we live for Christ. We may become successful. We may have lots of money and real estate. We may have good health and a strong, united family.
Or we may not. We may suffer illnesses, some even life-threatening beyond our control. However hard we try, our family may break up because of a prodigal spirit. Our career may careen off track and temporary poverty becomes our lot. We may experience early death in a family or sorrow too painful to speak of. So, don’t let the prosperity preachers take reality away from you. Don’t let them wind you up with false hopes and empty promises. Our hundredfold blessing has already been given to us at two points in history: one was when Jesus died in our place and another when He went before us to prepare our mansion. Beloved, don’t give your blessings away to the spiritual con-artists and sell away your birthrights.
In life’s interim, Jesus’ message is this: Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. Beloved, we cannot be a blessing to others if we do not let go of the blessing we hold in our hands. We are “seeds to be planted” and are of no use to God’s Kingdom if they remain above ground. But to plant them in God’s soil, metaphorically speaking, is to give of ourselves to Him completely. Our surrender is what is required of us in exchange for an abundant life; not necessarily in wealth and health. But in a definite victory that Jesus experienced two thousand years ago, that is, a victory over life unceasing strivings, over life’s pain and sorrow, over the sting of death, and of the enduring assurance that God is good and He will make all things good again in the end, be it in our lifetime or in the life to come.
On this note, I will let 1 Peter 2:21-23 (The Message) bring us home,
“This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into,
the kind of life Christ lived.
He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done,
and also know how to do it, step by step,
“He never did one thing wrong,
Not once said anything amiss.”
They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back.
He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.”
Have a hundredfold week ahead!
No comments:
Post a Comment