The "he" here is not God. The more appropriate translation is that their eyes have been smeared over. Gill's Exposition states that it is the devil, the lord of this world, who has blinded the eyes of men and shut up their hearts to even wanting the truth. Look at how exasperated God almost sounds here at the sheer silliness of this course. That people under false teaching idolatry cannot even exercise the most basic level of knowledge and discernment. They saw where the tree came from and how it grew! They cut it down! They used half of it for fire to cook their meals and warm their bodies! So the next logical step is to take the remainder and create an abomination out of it? Here is the big question for us to consider today. How little do we really want the true God that we would create such a ludicrous forgery? This is the same stupidity that was active when the Israelites created the golden calf! They gave their own gold and they forged it! Why in the world would you conclude that it has any eternal value at all! Why would you bow down to it! By the same token, why in the world would someone sit under such egregious false teaching? Why would one fall down on that block of wood?
To worship idols, such as a cult of personality pastor is to feed on ashes. It has no value for us at all and no benefit to us ever. Beloved, it derives from a deluded heart. Think about that. Never have I seen more delusion than in the church today. The definition of delude is to impose a misleading belief upon someone. Do we get that today? We have been deluded because we bowed down to something other than God. I will give you a real tangible example. In 2009, false teacher Todd Bentley was packing 15,000 people per night in tent meetings in Lakeland Florida. He would claim to speak to angels and physically assault people looking for healing -- claiming the Holy Spirit told him to do so. Kicking little old ladies in the face with his biker boots at the alleged command of God. Now you may hear this and think, well that is obviously false. He still gathered 15,000 per night beloved. He was generating such a stir that Bill Johnson and the NAR went to Lakeland to "anoint him as a prophet." How deluded do you have to be to even consider for a second that any of this was from God? Yet Bentley is still preaching today in Texas. What about the Holy Laughter movement? What about Pensacola? All ungodly false revivals. All embraced by the deluded church. Bowing down on blocks of wood. Feeding on ashes.
Perhaps the most damning part of the key verses is the conclusion. Not only are we starving ourselves on ashes and deluding ourselves astray form Jesus but we cannot possibly deliver ourselves or even say -- is there not a lie in my right hand? That is what the cult of personality pastor does. He draws you in to the point where verity is based upon what he says and not what the Bible says. It is placing him before God as sure as you would a carved idol made of wood.
Beloved, these are the end times. There is precious time left before the return of Jesus Christ and there are many coming in His name. It is our job to discern which are actually from God and which are not. We must be vigilant to not fall into the traps of idolatry when it comes to pastoral worship. All a discernment ministry can do is point you to the Scriptures, compare it to what you have been taught and declare -- is there not a lie in your right hand? Why do you cling to it? Why do you treasure it so? Why do you fall down prostrate over it and pray to it for deliverance when it has no power to deliver you at all?
Is there not a lie in your right hand?
Reverend Anthony Wade -- September 26, 2017
