| From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase |
Part 18 of a 20-part series. Read part 17.
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The presence of counterfeit worship is a key indicator that a church's leadership and membership have deeper doctrinal problems that can cut the very heart out of the Christian faith.
18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations - 21 "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," 22 which all concern things which perish with the using - according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
A Key Indicator of Deeper and Wider Problems
Counterfeit worship is one of the forms by which Satan introduces man-made doctrines into the church. He does this in the area of worship specifically by insinuating "the culture" into the church - that which Scripture calls "the world" - that is, the system of thinking and behavior of unregenerate humanity under Satan's sway, alienated from God and therefore hostile to Christ and His Word. In the time of the Colossian church, the error of counterfeit worship took the form of efforts by men, influenced by paganism, to introduce the worship of angels and other abuses.
The underlying principle set forth in Colossians 2:18-23 applies not only to the problems of that local church two thousand years ago. It applies equally to the worship heresies we find in the church today. The principle is this: The infinitely holy God of the universe must be worshipped according to His specifications, not sinful man's specifications. Man cannot bring anything he wants from the world into the church, put a religious label on it, and call it worship.
That is because the Bible gives us a doctrine of worship, just as surely and as clearly as the Bible gives us a doctrine of creation, a doctrine of sin, and a doctrine of salvation. Biblical worship is a matter of sound doctrine. Counterfeit worship is a matter of false doctrine.
False doctrine concerning worship will not stand alone. It is also a principle of Scripture, borne out by repeated experience in the church over thousands of years, that false doctrine spreads like cancer. It may begin with the introduction of man-made doctrines concerning worship, but if it is not stopped, it can and will spread to other areas. In fact, we can say on the authority of God's Word that when we see counterfeit worship in a church it is a key indicator that the church has deeper and wider doctrinal problems.
The Corinthian Example
The church at Corinth, founded and nurtured personally by the Apostle Paul, later made a terrible mistake with terrible consequences. The Corinthian church became disconnected from the Word of God. The resulting absence of Biblical truth created a condition that we might call a spiritual vacuum. Elements of the unsaved culture rushed into the church to fill that void in the thinking and behavior of the church. The church embraced elements of the worldly philosophies that abounded in Corinth at that time, and it mingled them with Christianity. The results were terrible. The Corinthian church became uncertain of what it believed. It lost the will and the power to confront evil with the truth.
Soon there was open immorality among the membership, and the church did not see this as a particular problem. People did not take their marriage vows seriously. People were living in relationships that God's Word condemns.
The church brought worldly practices into its worship, and with them came confusion and disorder. People partook of the Lord's Supper in a pagan manner. The church took a pridefully wrong approach to the matter of spiritual gifts. There was preacher worship, factionalism, internal strife, and materialism.
The Corinthian church actually forgot the content of the Gospel message, and had to learn it all over again. The Apostle Paul wrote more words preserved in Scripture to the Corinthian church than to any other, as he sought with tears to correct them.
A Present-Day Example
Examples of the Corinthian apostasy abound in today's church. Recently I received an issue of Worship Leader, one of the magazines that is promoting counterfeit worship in the Evangelical church. This particular issue contained an article by Glenn Packiam, who is one of the pastors of a large church in Colorado.1 Mr. Packiam is a leader in promoting false worship, not only in the United States but also around the world.
In this article, Mr. Packiam was writing about the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Within the space of a few hundred words, this nominally Evangelical pastor, this promoter of false worship, showed that he and his church have deeper and more widespread spiritual problems.
First, Mr. Packiam denied that the sacrifices instituted by God in the Old Testament were for the purpose of propitiating His wrath toward sin. Dear friends, God uses the word "sin" 115 times in the book of Leviticus in connection with the sacrificial system. God's Word could not be more clear: the sacrificial system was God's appointed means of appeasing His wrath toward sin, until the time of Christ's full and final atonement.
Secondly, Mr. Packiam said that Jehovah God did not, as he put it, "invent" animal sacrifices. He said that they were the invention of earlier pagan religions. He said that Jehovah God merely brought that pagan invention into the worship of the nation of Israel in the tabernacle. By asserting this he denied God's first propitiatory work at the very time of the fall of man, alluded to in Genesis 3:21, and explained more fully in Genesis 4 and countless passages that follow. The book of Hebrews twice refers to the sacrifice made by Abel, in the very earliest days of fallen man's relationship with God, as instituted by God and foreshadowing Christ's ultimate propitiation on the Cross (Hebrews 11:4 and 12:22-24).
Thirdly, Mr. Packiam said that the account of God's calling upon Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith was a "legend," not a literal account - despite the Holy Spirit's recounting of this historical event and its theological significance in Hebrews 11:17-19 and James 2:21.
Perhaps even more telling than these blatant doctrinal perversions is the fact that Mr. Packiam, in an article focusing on the tabernacle and sacrificial system described in Leviticus, ignored one of God's most important statements about worship, found in Leviticus chapter 10 at the very institution of that system. God articulates a timeless requirement, one that defines acceptable worship for all time and eternity, and it condemns Mr. Packiam's philosophy of worship and the practices he promotes. Indeed, it seems that many nominally Evangelical pastors would happily remove Leviticus chapter 10 from the pages of Scripture, because it shines the blazing light of God's displeasure upon their un-Biblical worship agendas.
"This is What the Lord Spoke"
At the very inception of the tabernacle worship, two of God's ordained priests, the sons of Aaron, brought that which was not ordained of God, that which was of the sinful world - the surrounding culture - into the worship of Jehovah God.
In so doing, the sons of Aaron brought the fire of God's wrath upon themselves. Jehovah God, in His holy anger against counterfeit worship, struck them dead on the spot. This was serious business. Moses immediately recognized why God had done this:
And Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord spoke, saying: 'By those who come near Me, I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.' " So Aaron held his peace. (Leviticus 10:3)
Moses and Aaron both understood what Mr. Packiam and many others today obviously do not - that God must be worshipped as the holy God. He must be worshipped in the beauty of holiness. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth - truth unmingled with the world's lies about that which constitutes acceptable worship.
Obviously this pastor in Colorado does not understand that truth or submit to it. Therefore he is not only teaching falsehood about worship, he is teaching falsehood about Christ, the Bible, and the Gospel.
We Can No Longer Take Doctrinal Statements At Face Value
This pastor's church has a website that contains a doctrinal statement which includes these words:
We affirm that the Bible containing the Old and New Testaments is the infallible and inspired Word of God, and that its authority is ultimate and final and eternal. It cannot be added to, subtracted from, or superseded in any regard. The Bible is the source of all doctrine, instruction, and correction.2
Dear friends, this is why you must be especially careful in choosing a church today. It is a sad thing to say, but we live in a time when you cannot take a church's doctrinal statement at face value. You must test the reality of it.
This pastor, who wrote an article full of blatant falsehoods about God, Scripture, and worship, obviously does not believe that the Word of God is the Word of God. He says the Bible contains myths. He denies the Bible's authority. His church's doctrinal statement says that the Bible "cannot be added to, subtracted from, or superseded in any regard." But in his magazine article, and in the worship he practices and promotes, he proceeds to do exactly that. He adds paganism to the Bible's God-ordained worship. He subtracts the doctrine of sin, and the doctrine of God's holy wrath because of sin. He supersedes the Bible's doctrine of worship by introducing and promoting a counterfeit doctrine of worship that he and others like him have invented.
It is worth noting that this particular pastor is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary in California. This is the seminary that gave birth to the Purpose-Driven Church movement, and it is a hotbed of anti-Biblical theology and practice.
False Doctrine Spreads Like a Cancer
Dear friends, let me repeat: False doctrines concerning worship will not stand alone. The Apostle Paul spoke of this in his second letter to Timothy:
But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer. (2 Timothy 2:16-17)
False doctrine does indeed spread like cancer. Members of the medical profession will tell anyone willing to listen that cancer is a silent enemy. It begins undetected and unrecognized. Physicians have learned that much of their success in treating cancer depends on early diagnosis. Otherwise, treatment is usually a losing battle.
Doctors say that cancer's three great allies are ignorance of the nature of the disease, complacency when warning signs are present, and denial when it is clear that something is wrong. Often, people are simply not willing to listen until it is too late.
Like cancer in the human body, false teaching in the body of the church begins undetected and unrecognized. By the time Christians who are still true to the Word of God recognize the cancer and are stirred to action, often it is too late to stop its deadly progress. The damage has been done, and a spiritual crisis is upon the church.
Large segments of the nominally Evangelical church are now in such a spiritual crisis. The crisis centers on the conflict between authentic Biblical Christianity and an Antichristian counterfeit, and it manifests itself most openly as counterfeit worship. The church needs to understand the nature of the crisis, how it came about, its deadly effects, and what Scripture says must be done. That is the purpose of this series of articles.
When we see counterfeit worship in a church, it is a key indicator that its leadership and membership have deeper and wider doctrinal problems that can cut the very heart out of the Christian faith.
That was the sad case of the church at Corinth two thousand years ago. It is sadly the case with this pastor in Colorado, and with thousands of other pastors and churches in our time. They do not regard God as the One who is truly holy, the One who has all authority. They have usurped God's authority. They seek to establish man-made authority, man-made religion, man-made worship. But God will not accept it.
What is acceptable to God? That will be our focus as we continue.
References:
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As of this writing (February 2013) a version of this article, titled "Under the Knife," can be viewed online at http://worshipleader.com/undertheknife.
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"Statement of Faith," New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado, as viewed on 2/19/2013 at http://www.newlifechurch.org/inside.jsp?id=1
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