Modern Religious Idols and False gods, Part 1
Posted by Michael Bunker editor@biblicalagrarianism.com

The false god named “I Think”

Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. (Deu 12:8)

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. (Pro 12:15)

A simple conversation with just about anyone chosen at random who identifies himself with the modern church today (and of any denomination) will do to prove the point I desire to convey to you today. The god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), the one whom the Bible says has blinded the minds of men, is known by many appellations. Most of the false gods worshiped by the religious men and women who call themselves “christians” today, are actually just idols formed in their minds by the god of this world to blind them to the the truth of God revealed by God in His Bible and perfected by the revelation of Jesus Christ who gave us His Gospel. Though there be many idols today, under many names, almost all of them are idols who represent the interests of the god of this world. That is an important thing to keep in mind as we study this topic. As we proceed, if the Lord wills and gives us understanding, we will see that the god of this world has an agenda, and that agenda involves blinding the minds of men – leaving them in darkness – that the light of God, which He commanded to shine out of darkness, will not shine in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). In short, the god of this world, taking many forms and names, will endeavor to keep men in darkness that they cannot see, because so long as they stay blinded to the truth of Jesus Christ (meaning not the truth about Jesus Christ, which is an important and critical truth, and necessary to be apprehended), but the truth of Jesus Christ; His truth, belonging to and coming from Him, which is contrary to and at enmity with the truth of this world made evident to the natural man by means of his own natural heart and his five natural senses. The way of the fool is right in his own eyes, and the way of God is foolishness unto him (1 Cor. 2:14). So the way of the deceiver is to make certain that a man comes to his own knowledge of “truth”, starting in and from himself, using himself as the measure, and using what he thinks as the “canon” (or measuring stick) in order to judge all things as to whether he will accept them as truth or not. The man who operates by this standard is called a fool in the scripture, and all of his ways are foolishness, “the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is mischievous madness” (Ecc. 10:13).

As I said, the proof of what I say can be determined by a very simple test involving a conversation with just about anyone who calls themselves “christians” today. You may pick your own topic. I suggest picking a “hard” truth – one that the flesh does not particularly or naturally like. Pick a Biblical truth that shocked or surprised you personally when you first heard it, or one that ran counter to what you naturally believed before it was proven to you from scripture. I will give you some suggestions:

1. Discuss the absolute Sovereignty of God. Talk about His Sovereignty in Predestination, Election, Reprobation, Salvation, Conversion, Sanctification, etc.

2. Challenge the myth that God loves every man and woman and desperately wants them all to believe and be converted and go to Heaven. Point out that there are people whom God hates (Psalm 5:5, 11:5, Mal. 1:3, Rom. 9:13), and that there are some people whom God does not want to believe (Mar. 4:11-12, John 12:40).

3. Challenge their participation with ungodly and pagan-based “holy” days.

4. Challenge assertions concerning the binding nature of the commandments of God. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”, was he joking? Now, make sure to assure the person that no amount of law-keeping by us could ever secure for us (or maintain us in) our salvation, but ask them just what God requires of true believers.

Here is what you will find, if you probe hard enough. Eventually, unless you have run across one of those rare, but beautiful, true Christians who love the Word of God, the person is going to say something like one of these statements:

1. “Well, that doesn't sound like MY god”.

2. “My god wouldn't do that”.

3. “I don't think of it that way”.

4. “I don't think god would do that”

5. “It doesn't mean that TO ME”.

6. “I just do my best and know that god loves me and will show me mercy”.

7. “Anyone can make the Bible say anything they want”.

8. “Well, we'll find out when we all get to heaven”.

9. “I don't think god cares about _____________” (fill in the blank with something God says He certainly does care about).

10. “That's just what YOU believe, we can agree to disagree”.

11. “I couldn't worship a god that would do that, say that, or command that”.

12. “I know god loves me know matter what, and that's all I care about”.

13. “Just be sincere in whatever you believe and god will accept it”.

Or, of course, the classic mantra of the Bible hating truth rejector:

14. “God knows my heart”.

Every one of these statements (and all of those thousands which are like them and which have the same meaning) have several things in common. They all assume that there is no absolute truth, and that if there is an absolute truth than that truth cannot be known, and if it can be known, then it is relative and never applies absolutely. Or they assume that there is a God, but that that God is just like them, and would do the same things they would do in the same situations. They all assume that if any truth about God and his requirements can be known, than that truth can be discovered outside of (or without considering) anything God has had to say on the subject. They also assume that God accepts the sacrifice of good intentions or that God has a general open door policy with no restrictions as to who may go to heaven.

Along with these things, these ideas deny some very basic and important doctrines of God. The most critical doctrine denied by those who hold to these sentiments, is the doctrine of Total Depravity – or in general the fallen nature of man outside of Christ. Every idea or philosophy that supports these statements we have seen, denies that man is fundamentally fallen and unable to rescue himself from his fallen condition. They deny the truth of the nature and penalty of sin (both original and actual committed sins), and they automatically assume that man, starting with himself, can come to universal and complete truths based solely on the things that he thinks or feels.

Now, throughout the scriptures, God warns man to never, ever, ever... do what is right in his own eyes! God knows how corrupt and fallen man is. God knows that man cannot arrive at truth starting with himself and with the things that he thinks, sees, or senses. He can never get there. So God warns man and teaches him that it is foolishness for man to do what he thinks is right as opposed to what God says is right and holy and good. Over and over in the Old Testament we read that “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes”. Men were not guided by truths or commands outside of themselves, so they began to fall back on their own thoughts, ideas, and conclusions in order to guide their lives. Eventually, all men did what was right in their own eyes. But God commanded his people over and over again (and we see it plainly in our text in Deuteronomy 12:8) to NOT do what was right in their own eyes. God had taught men to understand that their own thinking and rationalizations were faulty, and so long as they thought they knew the mind of God outside of what He had commanded and said, they would continue to fail. As we have shown, the Bible says that “the way of a fool is right in his own eyes” (Prov. 12:15). Only a fool would ever believe that they could do well, obey God, find and understand truth, or enter into the Kingdom of God using only the things that they think.

And that is the point. The Bible teaches us that we all rely on the wisdom and understanding of our God to operate. Every man, every woman, every child, everyone who has ever lived on this planet, has rested in and trusted in his own God to guide him.

The atheist trusts in himself and in science. He honestly believes he can come to a knowledge of truth starting with himself and what he thinks, and when he says that there is no God, his declaration has no bearing at all on infinite truth. Of course he does not really believe that there is no God. Whomever he trusts is his god. Whatever he relies on for wisdom and for decision making is his god. It is an idol constructed for him in his mind that he might be blinded from the glorious truth of the true Creator God of heaven, lest that powerful light enter into his darkened mind and enlighten it that he might see the truth, repent, and be saved. And what is the modern religionist if he isn't a practical atheist?

The atheist says “There is no God, so I will rely on what I think. I will look at everything logically and determine what the truth is for me, and I will operate based on logic, reason, my five senses, and what my brain determines based on what these things allow”.

The modern “christians” says, “There is a God, and He is defined by what I think. I will look at everything and I will assume that God sees it just like I do. God is just like me (only sinless, of course), so it is easy for me to know what God would and wouldn't like, and what God would and wouldn't do. If I wouldn't do it (If I were God), then of course God wouldn't. Of course I would let ME into heaven, so God will. I know my heart, so God does too, and of course God will come to the same conclusions I have come to regarding my heart, so I am just fine.”

Now, there is no practical difference between what the atheist thinks and what the modern “christian” thinks. The modern “christian” will object, of course. He will say, “Wait a minute, I think plenty of things because the Bible says it”, and then he might offer examples. So here is a typical conversation with a modernist professing “christian” and you will see how he rationalizes self-worship and how he deceives himself into thinking that God must be just like him:

PC (Professing Christian): I have heard your arguments, but they are not true of me. I believe God loves everyone because the Bible says so. Go read John 3:16.

TC (True Christian): Well of course I have read your only proof text, and I agree with what it says. What it does not say is that God loves everyone. It does say God loves the world, and since we know that the word “world” can have many different definitions, it is important (if we love the Word of God) to let the word mean what GOD meant by it when He said it. If I said, “I love my house”, it can mean that I love everyone in it, but it does not have to mean that at all. If previously I had said, “I hate everyone who eats Twinkies” and then I said, “I love my house”, then it would be necessary that we find out if anyone in my house eats Twinkies. Both of those statements can be true at the same time. I can love my house, and hate someone in it who is eating Twinkies. It is also true that I can love my house, meaning that I love that it is mine and what I intend to do with it someday, but not love it in every aspect right now the way it is. We know God loves the world because He created it, and He has a plan for it, and He loves what He is doing in and through it; but we also know that God does not love everything or everyone in it, because He has already told us that there are some people he hates.

PC: Well, when you say God hates some people, that doesn't mean He hates them. He hates their sin.

TC: But that is not what the Bible says. Go read Psalm 5 where it says that God “hatest all workers of iniquity”. It does not say that He hates their iniquity, it says He hates them who work iniquity. Read Psalm 11 where it says that God hates the wicked and them that love violence. It doesn't say He hates wickedness and violence (which He does), but it says that He hates THEM that love those things. Read in Malachi and in Romans where it says that God hated Esau! Psalm 7 says that God is angry with the wicked every day.

PC: Well, it doesn't mean that to me. The Bible says that God is a God of Love, and that God IS Love, and it wouldn't be love to hate. Those were just figures of speech.

TC: So you don't care about what God says about Himself. You would rather replace God with someone who thinks like you do and who would do what you would do in that position. So, in effect, you think you know better than God does and you would advise Him differently because you have more information than He does?

PC: Don't be ridiculous. God knows my heart, and I know that God loves me and you and everyone.

TC: You know that from where?

PC: I just know it.

You see, in the end, the modernist “christian” will abandon the Bible and God's Word and he will always rest on what he thinks or what he knows. He believes that something is true just because he believes it. He is not concerned with what the Bible says about it, unless he is allowed to wrest the Word of God from it's context and to use it outside of what the whole Word of God says on the subject.

For example, I recently received an email from a religious worldling. This man is a really rare find in that he admits he is probably not saved, though in his heart he really does not believe that. I think that he thinks it is just more evidence that he is saved if he claims that he is not. Anyway, this man in many rambling emails and messages has made it clear that he does not give one whit what God has to say about anything. He gives a passing nod to the scriptures if he can use it to convince someone he is spiritual, but he doesn't care a bit about any part that disagrees with him. This man has abandoned one “fellowship” after another – generally after he determines that the people or leadership of the fellowship don't think or believe like he does. In no case has he ever (in my experience) gone to the scriptures to exhaustively prove any point at all. His statements are more like:

“I like these old guys I was fellowshipping with, but I just can't get into the foot washing deal”

“I don't think God is pleased with my growing a beard or my putting a bonnet on my wife's head. Doing those things doesn't make me a Christian. Besides, I like kissing my wife and she doesn't like the beard”

“I just think Christ died to fulfill the whole law, and not just 1/3 of it, so I don't think keeping the sabbath is a requirement any more than killing bulls and goats is”

All of his statements (and there are a lot of them) rest on what he thinks, and not on what God has said. He sent a long, rambling message to a woman on our forum (a woman who he does not know) giving her a long history of himself and his condition, and giving her advice or his opinion on dozens of things I teach, and in not one place in the whole message did he reference the Bible, other than to say what he thinks about it. Now, this evidences a hatred of God and His Word. And this is common. Another man recently has been attacking me and the ministry because he is unhappy that he has been Biblically rebuked by me (and others in the ministry) many times because he rejects God's Word in favor of whatever he happens to think at the time. This man abandoned the ministry to follow his lusts even after he was warned. He broke about 8 of the ten commandments in doing so, and took a woman to be his wife who was not saved, just because he lusted after her. Less than two years later she had abandoned and divorced him, and now he is a 27 year old divorced man who has now taken a second wife. Let's look at how it went down:

1. He began to lust and to covet and he determined that God's law did not apply to him. He abandoned God's Word in favor of his own word, and he turned his back on any reproof an correction.

2. Because of this, God gave him over to the punishment do his sins, turned the heart of his unbelieving wife against him.

3. The man wrote to us “screaming” from all the punishments being heaped upon him for his errors, and saying he repented of his sins and wanted to be reconciled. In the meantime he chose to continue to live in the world and like the world because he felt like God had exiled him into the world.

4. Soon, another woman came along. He was smitten, and remarried, and now he is convinced that he has it all figured out. You see, the problem was not him and his covetousness, lust, and sin. The problem was everyone else who tried to stop him from making such a grievous error! The problem, as he sees it, is with legalism. God is love, and God loves sinners, so, apparently, God is just fine with his sins. If only he had not been around legalists I suppose his life would not be the train wreck that it is today. The Bible says, “The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD” (Pro 19:3).

Almost daily I hear reports (either first or second hand) where some professing “christian” is pontificating about life and living based solely on what they think. The stories are endless,

“My mom says God would never send anyone to hell”

“My friend says that everyone is being saved”

“I think you are portraying God as mean and capricious, when the Bible says God is good”

“My wife says that only an abused woman with low self-esteem would every wear a headcovering”

The root of this error is based in man's faulty perception of himself and of his own goodness. He truly believes that he is capable of coming to a knowledge of the truth starting and finishing with himself. He says to himself, “I am the author and finisher of truth”. Those who are not so brazen, who do not believe that they can hold their own in the marketplace of ideas, will just remain silent. They will claim that their religion and their beliefs are very private to them, and they are “spiritual” but not religious. They will avoid ever having to discuss or be pinned down on the details of what they think and why.

The false god named “I think” is one of the most deceptive and dangerous idols in the world today, and it is the idol that reigns in the hearts of most professing “christians” in our modern world. And I will add to this truth a shocker that might just help you understand more about the world and why it is the way it is today. I have called modern religionists “little popes” and a “thousand-thousand mini popes”, and I have done so for a reason. The Bible teaches us that an antichrist would arise that would put himself in the place of God, and that he would sit in the most high place declaring himself to be God. True and diligent students of the scripture and of history have, throughout the age of the Church, identified this “antichrist” as the Pope of Rome and his Papal religion. The single most evident identifying mark of the Papal religion is their rejection of the authority of God's Word. The Papal religion is evidenced as antichrist because it rejects what God says in favor of what men say. Popery rejects God's Words and says that you cannot understand them, so they replace the Word of God with the opinions and “I thinks” of priests and councils and Papal Bulls. Every man, then, who does this same thing – even if it is only in his own life, and only affects himself – has become a pope. He is an antichrist. He is a lover of self and not a lover of God.

The Bible says, “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (Pro 3:7), and that is great advice, but that verse is found in the midst of a great instruction and it is only part of it:

“My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones” (Pro 3:1-8).

The Bible says that the “heart” exists for a purpose. It is for trusting on the Lord, which means trusting what He says over what man says, and believing what He says over what our five senses reveal. Trusting in the Lord is trusting that His wisdom is higher than our own, and that His knowledge is infinite, and He has all the information needed to perfectly decide all things concerning us. Trusting in the Lord is saying, “His will is perfect, mine is imperfect and wicked. His will is divine, mine is earthly and flawed. His commandments are good and lead to life and peace, my thoughts and ideas are limited, my discernment is diseased, and my own way leads to death and hell”. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, for that is the purpose of the heart. The purpose of the heart is not to determine and lean on our own understandings. “Lean not on thine own understanding” means that our own understanding is often at enmity with the Lord's ways. We cannot both trust in the Lord, and lean on our own understanding. Our path must be directed by God, and this is only going to happen when we trust in Him, lean not on our own understandings, and when we acknowledge Him in all our ways. This word “ways” means “In all of our ROADS. In all of our COURSES. In all of our DIRECTIONS.” We are to acknowledge Him in all of our ways. The word “acknowledge” here means “to know” and properly “to ascertain by seeing”. We are to see and know that He is necessary in determining a proper path. We must TRUST in His knowledge and wisdom. We must never lean on our own understandings, opinions, or ideas when those understandings, opinions, or ideas are contrary to His declared will. In order to find our way, we must acknowledge our need for His guidance, and we must be guided by His declared will. We acknowledge that we trust and serve Him, when we follow His declared will and commandments. He guides our path, not in the way we think we should go, or in the way our lusts and coveting carries us, but contrary to our natural path. He guides us when we operate by faith and not by sight.

Be not wise in thine own eyes. Wisdom and prudence requires that we obey God as opposed to obeying ourselves or men who advise contrarily to the declared will of God. When we place God's will above our own, and when we place God's Word above our own thoughts and understandings, we show that we do not elevate our own wisdom in our own eyes. This leads to a proper fear of the Lord, as the Word says, “Fear the LORD, and depart from evil”, which is to say, we ought to have a proper knowledge and understanding of the true God of the Bible, and to fear Him and reverence Him, and by our doings elevate Him and glorify Him and not ourselves.

I have said this before, but it bears repeating. God is not impressed with the things that we think. He is not at all entertained by our idolatry and self-adulation. He does indeed know your heart and he knows that it is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

There are idols in the land, and one of those idols is named “I think”. The book of Leviticus teaches us that one of God's intentions in the creation is to throw down the idols of the wicked – especially those of wicked religious men who take upon themselves His name.

“And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you” (Lev 26:30).

Best to cast down this idol yourself in repentance and sorrow, rather than to have your idols cast down for you when the Lord determines He will suffer your idolatry no more.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

 
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