 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
|||||||||||||
Article 15 Hijacked Worship! By Bishop Dr. Douglas Muchiri Beloved of God, Throughout history, the Kingdom of God has continues to suffer severe opposition from the devil and evil elements that camouflage as instruments of new revelation, enlightenment and blessing. Today the devil continues to use Familiarity, Heresy, Conformity and Complacency as baits with which to infiltrate the true worship of God with a view to mislead, distract or altogether hijack the worship of God into an alienating and alienated demonic worship that is not of God at all but of demons and devils. The end result is a self-made egotistic and egocentric worship whose characteristics are exposed by Saint Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-9. “in the last days difficult times will come for men and women will become lovers of self, lovers of money, arrogant, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, brutal, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a form of godliness but denying the power of God”. To such Paul warns “Avoid such people as these”. Saints, let me also add that at no other time does the words of Jesus Christ: “from the days of John the Baptist till now the Kingdom of God suffers violence, and it is the violent who take it by force” find more fulfillment in the body of believers than today when well meaning Spiritual Leaders and Christians alike continue to be easily deceived and misled into accepting “another gospel” that is not a gospel at all but the very deception of devils. In speaking to the Galatians, Paul warned that even if an angel were to come from heaven and preach “another gospel”, they should not listen… So how is it that large numbers of Christians today continue to be so easily deceived into a pseudo Christianity that exhibits a form of godliness but without God or God’s power? This is a question that demands immediate response and in order to expose some of the dynamics of the evil of this worldly Christianity, I propose that we quickly turn to Exodus 32:1-14 where we witness the climax of a drifting away from God into a demon driven worldly worship.
From the Beginning Before Godly worship experience can take place, the first thing that happens is a thorough preparation for that worship. According to the Old Testament regulations for sacrificial worship, such preparation/s included: establishing the purpose of the worship sacrifice, determining the place of worship, selecting and preparing the sacrificial animals, fetching the wood for the sacrifice, building the altar for worship, dedication and cleansing of the worshippers etc, etc. So worship is a WORK that one cannot enter into hurriedly or carelessly. Classic examples of worship are seen in the lives of Cain and Abel who incidentally are two contrasted biblical worshippers. In their worship experiences, Abel ended up offering an acceptable sacrifice to God while Cain’s sacrifice was altogether rejected by God since it did not meet the requirements of God. So even though Cain did indeed offer a sacrifice to God, yet Cain’s sacrifice was not a true worship but a selfish humanistic sacrifice whose driving force was the Devil himself. This is an example of what I now refer to as a “hijacked worship” whereby the worshipper thinks that they are worshipping God but in essence they are not --since their worship has already drifted away from God to self or the devil worship. It is in order at this point to expose the fact that according to Jesus’ warning in John 10:10, it is the devils work to Steal, Kill and Destroy. So therefore, regardless of one’s good intentions, the devil will always work hard to hijack true worship of God into devil worship. The devil even tried this same trick with Jesus when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness for 40days. For remember Satan shamelessly asked Jesus to bow and worship the devil in exchange for present worldly kingdoms! In this temptation, Jesus rebuked the devil that “you shall only worship God”. Friends, this is what I am talking about-- the devil working so hard to add sin in your worship in order to distract you or hijack God’s worship. Remember too that seeking to hijack worship in Heaven was the very sin that led the devil to be kicked out of heaven in the first place! Do you get it?
In Exodus When God appeared to Moses in Exodus 3, God made it clear that He wanted God’s people delivered from Egypt’s bondage so that they may go worship God in the wilderness [See Exodus 3:18]. To bring this to pass, God needed to use a strong man of God capable of standing up against Pharaoh in order to bring salvation and ultimate deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh’s dominion. Following their physical deliverance from Egypt, God would lead the Israelites into the wilderness where they would worship God. Already we can see that God’s primary purpose for delivering the Israelites was – Worship! This is in line with the covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all of whom were true worshippers of Yahweh! Likewise saints, when God saves us from the world and sin’s dominion, God SAVE US so that WE MAY WORSHIP HIM and worship Him alone. This is exactly what we see in the life of Noah who was saved so that he may worship God! And if so, then our relationship with God must always lead us into more intimate worship. Let me add too that our daily living should in itself be a worship experience. This now means that the purpose of your life is to worship God! Period! Worship is what God expects of you and I and worship is what we should be about in our daily living. Having said that, it follows then that the greatest temptation the devil tempts us with is none other than hijacking True worship so as to prevent us from worshipping God. This the devil does by employing every vice possible to deter us from worshipping God in Truth and in Spirit thereby thwarting our worship relationship with God. With a view to worship, when Israel left Egypt, God made the Israelites gain favor in the eyes of the Egyptians to the point that “Israel looted Egypt”. In other words, God went ahead to make the Egyptians give away their treasures of gold and silver just like God had told Moses in Exodus 3:21-22. Now think about this, the one reason why God wanted Israel to literally plunder the Egyptian wealth was so that Israel would go worship God with that wealth in the wilderness. In other words, “if God wanted the Israelites to go worship God in the wilderness, then He had to provide the means to tat worship including wealth and the riches which were in the possession of the Egyptians”. Ohh Yes, God wanted Israel to use the Gold and Silver to worship God. But first, God had to arrange to meet with His people…
Then came the devil There was no better place to meet with God than on Mt Sinai. So God asked the people to prepare to meet with God by taking various sanctification measures. And finally when this was done, God came down to meet with the people. However God’s enemy was watching all this and so when Moses was invited to go get the Ten Commandments, the devil came and infiltrated the people’s mind to recreate a man-made worship sacrifice instead of true worship of God. That is how they ended up with the golden calf! Do you get it? But wait a minute, where did the Israelites get the idea of a golden calf? And why a golden one? Friends, such an idea could only have come from the devil whose presence had saturated Egypt. In other words, the delivered people of God incorporated worldly ways and methods to worship God resulting to a substituted temporal deceptive humanistic demoniac worship! In this sense, what we see at Mt Sinai is a full blossomed representation of a “hijacked demonic worship”. And sad to say, this same evil that led the Israelites away from God is the same evil spirit that continues to infiltrate the Church of Jesus Christ today. It is no wonder then that we now see a worldly Christianity which is not a worship of God at all but a demonic worship that Paul warned us about in the last days.
Pseudo Worship The identification of such a worldly worship is evident. Three most obvious /common characteristics include believers becoming 1. Lovers of self, 2. Lovers of money and 3. Lovers of pleasure rather than God. All of which are products of the satanic temptation triad: “The lust of the eye, The lust of the flesh and The pride of life”. Do you need to look further to recognize a “hijacked worship?” The litmus test is simple: - look for traces of the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh or the pride of life. And if you notice any of these three traits, then what you have is not a worship of Truth and Spirit but pseudo worship! In other words, worship is not measured by what appeals to your eyes, or what impresses your body, or even what makes you feel good about yourself. Instead true worship is measured by the very Presence of God and a life of continued Presence with God. For if these are your motivation/s or psyche for worship, then be careful for you may very well be on a downward slope towards worldly devil worship!
So Who will Stand? When Israel made the golden calf and worshipped it, not everyone participated in that evil worship. Infact scripture is plain that the Levites took a stand against this demonic worship and that is why God made them servants of God to serve the people in offering worship sacrificial to God. Their stand for Truth and Godly Worship uplifted them to serve forever at the very presence of God. Friends, as it was then, God is looking for a man or a woman who will stand for God regardless of the current wind. And even now, when we are strongly being bombarded by the darts of worldly Christianity, God is looking for men and women who are willing to take up a stand against the selfish worldly standards and human made temporal comforts. Ohh can you hear the voice of God asking “whom shall we send? Who will go for us? Ohh how I pray that you and I will answer God’s call to STAND for God and God’s Truth regardless of the comfort, pleasure or worldly pressure. Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego were willing to stand for God even when such a stand meant immediate death but guess what? When they stood up for God and God’s Truth, the whole nation of Babylon bowed not at the golden idol but to Yahweh. And when John the Baptist stood up for God, the Kingdom of God triumphed; when Martin Luther stood up for Truth, the word of God prevailed; when Billy Sunday stood up for Truth, people left booze and worshipped God; when Charles Finney stood up for God, there was a mighty revival. And when Jonathan Edwards stood up for God, there was the Great American Wakening. When the Christians in Rwanda and Uganda stood up for God, we got the East African Revival; when Seymore stood up for Truth, the mighty Pentecostal revival was ushered in the world; when Yonggi Cho stood up for Truth, Buddhism was defeated in Korea. And now when you and I stand for truth, the power of God will be manifested in our generation! But who will stand up for God? Who will stand against schisms, tribalism and power cliques, oh yes, who will stand up for God and God’s Truth? Who will stand up for true worship of God? Ohh who will deny themselves and shun lustfulness, pride and worldliness for God? May I continue to ask? Who will faithfully STAND UP for God in offerings and tithes? And will you further sacrificially worship to God when it is convenient or inconvenient for you? Who will compromise God or will you really stand up for God’s Word, Truth and Righteousness? And yes, who will stand in prayer and intercession? Honestly who will stand up for and with the Servant of God? Who will stand to Seek God for God’s will to prevail? And yes, who will stand against the devil? Beloved saint, somebody has to stand for God in our generation, WILL YOU? Really, Should God Depend or Count on you -- for if not you, WHO WILL? I will, Bishop Dagi ......................... Respectively Submitted by, Bishop Dr. Douglas Muchiri P. O. Box 256 Urbana, Ohio. USA » TOP |
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|