Modern Religious Idols and False gods, Part 5
Posted by Michael Bunker

editor@lazarusunbound.com

The false god named “Peace: Comfort and Provision”

“Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth” (Isa 2:6-21)

May 11, 2009 - This will be the first of at least two parts under the sub-category of “Peace” as a Modern religious idol or false god. In this part we will look at one of the most deceptive and understandable of all idolatries, the false idea that because a society lives in relative comfort and safety and with ample provision, it necessarily follows that that society is in good stead with God, and is not under His judgment and condemnation. This is to say that - because all seems to be fine and dandy with us, God must therefore be pleased with us. Contrarily, the Bible teaches us that quite often, when a society is at its zenith, when it seems that comfort and plenty will abound forever, when all appearances are that “to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant” (Isaiah 56:12), that this is the time when judgment and destruction are likely at the very door.

It is during times of plenty that a culture professing to be a culture or system “under God” actually turns from God to worship the work of its own hand. It is during these times, when human wit and strength have combined to create a level of productivity that offers men a sense that they no longer have a need for God and His ordinances and ways of doing things, that God gives wicked men over to a false sense of peace, comfort, and safety so that the people might be overturned and judged in an instant for their idolatry. As an aside, I would like to say that when a nation or society has reached its zenith, and when the people can actually (if they are willing to do so) see over the precipice of destruction, that the diviners and soothsayers of that society become ever more shrill in their defense of that which they love.

Now, when a culture pretending to be a godly culture is given over to this idolatry, it is during this time that God allows the enemy to send forth these false prophets, defenders of the status quo, prophets who prophesy “peace and safety”, liars who prevent the people from seeking the old paths and the right ways of life. The enemy is permitted to send these false prophets to a people who are actually under the judgment of God, because God would have the consciences of idolaters soothed before he delivers judgment on their idolatry. Remember, God demands repentance, and He only gives that gift of repentance to those to whom it is given to seek Him diligently and to search out His ways. Be sure, God asks us to move backward and not forward. Repentance involves a decision to return to the narrow path and to leave the broad path that leads to destruction. To those who love this world and who listen to the siren songs for the idolatries and dainties of this world, God leaves them with uncircumcised ears, and eyes that cannot see. They march forward, even when the cliff has become obvious. This is exactly what is happening today, as the prophets and defenders of industrialism and the modern society and culture speak peace to professing Christians who now live in relative comfort and safety.

“To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD. For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jer 6:10-14).

The false prophets of industrialism and modernism, those lovers of the world and haters of God, would have you think that tomorrow will be like today, only more abundant. They are given over to covetousness, and they deal falsely when they pretend to speak of God’s mind on the subject.

I have said it before, and I maintain that it is the truth, that this society and this people, however godly they pretend to be, are unsustainable, and it is because of their idolatry and love of the world that they have allowed themselves to be supported and suspended in mid-air with no reliable means of support. Amerikan society is not sustainable, because it long ago abandoned God’s way of doing things. Because of her idolatry, God has allowed Amerika to grow fat and comfortable, to the point where she relies upon her dainties for support and salvation. She no longer follows the precepts of God in sowing in and reaping from the earth. Instead she has sowed the wind, and she will reap the whirlwind. Israel, represented in our opening text as the house of Jacob, had similarly grown comfortable and fat in the land of God. Israel had come to rely on her silver and her gold, and on the promise that one day she would rule over the nations of the world, and that all nations would flow into her. She lived on her past glories and on misunderstood promises of future glory and honor, neither was there any end to her treasures or riches. She neglected her primary duties of service and work, and instead became reliant on being “replenished from the east”. She no longer was reliant on God and His provisioning; instead she became reliant on commercial trade and manufacturing. She relied on her army (chariots) to keep her safe, and no longer relied on the Arm of the Lord. God, to her, was a ceremony and a diversion but He was no longer the Living God that provided for and delivered Israel. Likewise our modern society has left her first love, and the priests and prophets of this world prophesy smooth things to a people who are perfectly prepped for destruction.

“Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not” (Isa 2:8-9).

Industrialism, and the post-Industrial system, has created a land full of idols. People no longer know where their food comes from our how it comes to them. The modern world has created a system where the very basics of life appear mysteriously and magically, and the people have come to worship and bow themselves to this system of JIT (Just in Time) production, manufacture, and delivery. The very lives of the people are dependent on this JIT service delivery system, and they do not even know it. Men have created a system with their own hands that bypasses the system God created for the provisioning of life. The rich man and the poor man alike worship this world system, and each humbles himself and bows down to the system that spares him any obedience to the true God of heaven.

The Bible makes the production of our provisions very simple. We are commanded to plant a seed, and to see it watered, but we are very clearly taught that it is God alone that gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). The type (planting and watering) was given so that we would understand the antitype (preaching and teaching). We were given Agrarian terms to understand spiritual realities. Just as we should never rely on some pre-packaged and mechanically delivered system of salvation, neither was man to rely on industrial and commercial systems for the maintenance of the means of life. The industrial and plastic gospel being preached today is a symptom of the industrial and plastic idols the people have embraced. Before the “say this prayer” false gospel ever invaded the land, the agrarian market was replaced by the mercantile system; the mercantile system was replaced by chain store; the chain store was replaced by the supermarket; the supermarket was replaced by the “stuff mart” and eventually by the warehouse club. The spiritual destitution of Amerika is represented by the modern commercial system and the modern culture that the false prophets of worldliness love and defend. When Amerika embraced Arminian easy-believism and an “ask Jesus into your heart” gospel; when she enshrined and sanctified Jesus Christ, Incorporated instead of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible; when she began building temples and tabernacles and big-box churches, she laid the course for her own destruction. That which took place in the spiritual was soon reflected in the physical, and even those who kept their doctrine somewhat pure, were eventually corrupted by the siren song of leisure and specialization. When the “church” became a building where the professor went to fellowship and to worship, the “store” became the place where food was kept and stored, rather than in the root cellar or the store room. People began buying what they used to produce.

Spiritual fruit was that which was produced miraculously by God in the life of a believer, it was free and it was unrelated to any corporation or marketing arm of the corporate “Jesus”. Likewise physical “fruit” used to be what miraculously grew on the trees in your yard or your orchard, it was free and it was unrelated to any huge supermarket chains. When Amerika began going to the building called “the church” in order to experience or produce fruit, it was not long before she began going to the corporate store to buy what once grew freely in the yard. The religious nature of Amerika never died, it just changed its focus and its gospel.

The contrast and comparison can be made starker by another example from history. The Russian revolution of 1917 tossed God off of His throne in a wholesale way. Prior to the revolution, Russia, though well on its way to industrialization in the cities, was still primarily (on the whole) an at least nominally Christian and Agrarian nation. 80% of the population of Russia at the time of the revolution still lived in the country, and most of the population still considered itself nominally “Christian”. There were only two great population centers in Russia at the time – St. Petersburg and Moscow. For the most part, these two population centers were pretty well industrialized, commercialized, and urbanized. The problems of the so-called “lower classes” and the discontentedness of the peasantry were not generally problems extant in the whole Russian nation. It is certain that there were inequities and difficulties in the nation due to the autocratic czarist system, but for the most part the voices being heard during the revolution were not the voices of the average peasant on a farm hundreds of miles away from the population centers. The voices of revolution were those of the citified poor and of unhappy educated philosophers like Lenin and Trotsky. So, the inadequacies of industrialism, which had replaced the agrarian system – a system which had succeeded for a thousand years - in the great cities of Russia, had created a social class of unhappy misfits who did not experience the success and riches promised by industrialization. God had been dethroned in name only by the industrialization of Russia under the Czar, and what industrialization did not accomplish fully, the revolution completed. Let’s be frank. We Christians may be on the complete other side of the issue from the Communists, but at least we must say that they were intellectually honest. The Communists actually did openly what the industrial revolution only did surreptitiously – they replaced God with the machine and the state. Communism gave much of what it promised - It dethroned God and collectivized the state. What industrialism had done only in the big cities of Russia, Communism did in the rest of the country. The result? 30 million starved to death in the next couple of decades, and those numbers do not include the millions who merely disappeared into the maw of the Gulag system. Communistic atheism was very efficient. Communism is idolatry, but it is an idolatry of a completely different sort than that which occurred in the West.

Like I said, Communism was at least honest about the dethroning of God. Industrialism in the West attempted to accomplish the same fact (the dethroning of God from the minds and hearts of the people) more surreptitiously. The false prophets of idolatry in the West were able to understand that the people, if they were to be properly and completely given over to idolatry, would be more permanently and successfully corrupted if they had full stomachs. When the inevitable failures of industrialism and urbanism began to be felt in the U.S. during the late 1920’s and 30’s, Socialism, a much slower and more discreet poison, became the drug of choice for the people and the false prophets; anything but a retreat to the successful eras of Christian agrarianism that had built the nation.

The goal, of course, was to wean people from their reliance on God. Where once a family, dedicated to God and His Kingdom, standing on their own land that God had given them, planted a seed in the ground and watered it, looking to the heavens for their daily bread, they gave God alone the glory when He gave the increase. They were not usually rich in gold and silver, but they were rich in spiritual gifts, in Godly heritage, and in Christian culture. For thousands of years, this culture survived and thrived. Now, in the same lands, the descendents of those people, for the most part fat and dumb spoiled brats, with little or no true knowledge or wisdom, sell the hours and minutes of their lives (time generally spent away from the family and the land) for a mess of pottage - nutrient deprived foods, gadgets, toys, games, and other mental and spiritual narcotics that dull the senses and the intelligence, and widen the path to destruction.

The gadgets of the industrial age, machines that took man off the land and centralized him in the great and wicked urban and suburban areas, have become the objects of worship. “Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made”.

Comfort and the wealth of Provision have become the idols of the land. The prophets of worldliness are examples and distributors of the necrotic poison that has infected the people. They say “peace, peace; when there is no peace”.

“For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD” (Jer 6:13-15).

As in all sin, the root of the present decay is the covetousness in the hearts of the people, and in the hearts of the prophets. The prophets of industrialism cannot say that modern so-called “Christians” are more holy, or more spiritual than their Christian ancestors. Neither are the people any better provisioned than they were 200 years ago. Our modern culture is worse, our modern society is worse, our modern systems and ways of life are far worse. And despite all of the technological “advancements”, the people today hang on an unsustainable thread of mechanical dependence. Before, a family was healthy and well-fed through hard work. Now, criminally dependent, fat and dumb prophets of worldliness are well-fed without work. Maybe you can see why they became covetous? When the economic system of industrialism collapsed in the U.S. in the 1930’s, there was some discomfort and heartache, but most of the country was not greatly affected. Electrical power did not reach our area of the country until the 1940’s, only 70 years ago. A massive and lengthy loss of services 70 years ago would likely have gone unnoticed by the bulk of the people. Maybe, if the power went out, you had to get out the lanterns you had put in storage because the single electrical bulb that hung in the kitchen would not burn. It was a nuisance, but nobody would have died from it. Today, it is estimated by many of those who study these things that fully 60% of the country OR MORE would likely die or be killed in a very short amount of time if there was a massive and lengthy interruption in modern grid services. That would mean that, conservatively, close to 200 million people would die if the current system even hiccupped just a bit. 30 million real people died in Russia from starvation and famine and most of these people were nowhere near as dependent on the industrial system as people are today. In Russia, the peasants were the victims of massive industrialization and collectivization being thrust on them. In the U.S., the people have chosen this industrialization and eventual collectivization, who do you think will suffer the most?

True spiritual peace is not the absence of war. It is the absence of desires, because for the true Christian, God is his complete desire. God is our life. God is our defense. God provides for our material needs. God, our provider, is sufficient for us. False peace is that peace which provides for the carnal desires by weakening the reliance on God, and by strengthening dependence on machines and systems which have purposely been put in the place of God. This false peace is an idol, and it – like any other idol – must be cast down in the life of true Christians.

The citizens of the United States, and those of most of the Western world, are looking Soviet style collectivization dead in the eye. Socialism, whether it takes the form of Marxian socialism leading to communism, or the form of industro-capitalist socialism leading to fascism, is on the march. The pied-pipers of worldliness, both in the “church” and outside of it, are leading the people into the gulag of their own making. There were Russian patriots who marched for freedom from tyranny, who despised the autocratic czarist system and who longed for a true and abiding freedom; yet they embraced the new industrialism and modernism and in doing so they formed the nails for their own coffins. Some of the people reading this might consider themselves Amerikan patriots. They may see themselves as minutemen in the next revolution or soldiers of freedom ready to fight off what must naturally come. They may say, “I can love industrialism and modernism and hate despotism and tyranny”, but they are wrong. If they love industrialism and modernism, then they are ignorant of the fact that industrialism and modernism are the structure, foundation, and basis of what the Bible calls “the world”, and if they love the world, then the love of the Father is not in them (1 John 2:15). You may say you love the world but hate tyranny and despotism, but I tell you that your love of the world can only result in tyranny and despotism. Tyranny and despotism are the natural result of the idolatry of worldliness. Sadly, for most people this is only a philosophical point, since most of you who love the world are likely to die of starvation, disease, or as a result of rampant crime that instability will bring long before the next and greatest tyranny arrives to “save the day”.

The Bible is given to us as a living book of history, so that we may read it and study it. What has gone before is that which is happening today. God has a way of dealing with those who profess to be His people, or who call themselves by His name. Israel, called the “house of Jacob”, had the promise, but they fell in love with the world, and they heeded the false prophets of comfort and provision and worldly peace. They were rich with silver and gold, but they were poor in spiritual graces. Their prophets prophesied that separation was only of the heart, and that the body could live and survive on the promises of worldliness and worldly provision. How wrong they were.

And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth” (Isa 2:17-21)

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker