Time to stop mixing the profane things of this world with the church of Jesus Christ

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Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. -- Ezekiel 22: 26 (KJV)

And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. -- Ezekiel 44: 23 (KJV)

So we come to Palm Sunday 2016. When considering what the write about today I was brought back to sermons past that correctly pointed out the significance of the crowd shouting praise unto God yet a week later would scream all the louder "crucify Him!" I considered the prophetic fulfillment achieved in the triumphal entry and the story immediately following where Jesus drove the money changers from the temple of God. All worthy topics to consider as we enter into what ought to be the most solemn of weeks in our faith. In just one week the event that changed all of human history would occur. Jesus Christ would defeat death and rise from the grave. The devil would be defeated and God would be reconciled to His people. Then I thought back to Resurrection Sunday just a year ago. Which saw the kick off of the wildly heretical AD Miniseries produced by ex-catholic mystic Roma Downey. How the Assemblies of God fully bought into this and how for 12 weeks we were led down an unbiblical trail of the Book of Acts. I remembered the mega church sermon for Resurrection Sunday that centered on a Star Wars theme. Another that tried to glean life lessons for us from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ such as:

1. Someone will always kick you when you are down (Thief on the cross mocking Jesus)

2. Darkness is not forever (Lasted from Noon to 3PM according to Gospel of Mark)

3. It will seem sometimes as if God has left you (Why have You forsaken me?)

4. People will always want to add vinegar to your pain (When they offered Jesus vinegar)

These are of course absurd observations that have nothing to do with the crucifixion account. God did not write this account so we could focus on ourselves but rather on Christ and His sacrifice. Talk about missing the point! God leaves Jesus at the very moment He takes on the sins of you and I, yet this "pastor" thinks it means that we too will feel sometimes as if God leaves us. How ridiculous.

I remember these things not as some form of torture but to remind myself that the church today has a serious problem in confusing the holy with the profane. As this is Palm Sunday we have one week left this year to reconsider the proper place of what should be holy in our lives and the profane we allow in within the walls of our church. During last year alone we saw worship in mega churches include ACDC's Highway to Hell, I Like to Move It; Move It, and Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball. We saw sermons based on our favorite television commercials and classic movies we love. We saw the pastor with the largest church in America say that we only worship God for ourselves. We saw that same church undertake a campaign to raise 30 million dollars to pay off the remainder of the 120 million they needed to purchase the arena they meet in. Joseph Prince spent 500 million on his new facility. One pastor thought nothing of asking for 70 million for a new Learjet. Beloved, time is running out and far too many in Christendom are simply going through the motions. Dressing up each Sunday and playing church. Not a care in the world about correct doctrine, without which there is no true Christian unity. Not a care in the world about purity in worship. Complete spiritual apathy mixed with an alarming rate of biblical illiteracy. But there is a week left. A week left to consider returning the sacred to the status of sacred and the profane to where it belongs. Outside the church.

It starts with Resurrection Sunday. Please note that I did not say Easter. I am not going to get into any debate about the pagan origins of Easter as a holiday. That is not even the point. The point is what Easter represents within our culture and whether it has anything to do with what should be the most important day in our faith. Chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps have nothing to do with the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. By the way, I am not even speaking to how Christians raise their children. I am merely speaking about what the church should be in the business of condoning and promoting. I know local churches that do Easter egg hunts and have someone dress up as the bunny in the sanctuary! At the altar! It is bad enough that the church distracts people from Jesus all year round we ought to at least let nothing distract from Him on the day He defeated death for us!

But preacher! Shouldn't we be relevant to the culture around us? Absolutely not. The culture around us is what is sending people to hell. The culture around us should be the last thing we want to be relevant to. The Bible says we are to be salt and light to a dying world. We are supposed to be different. A shining city on a hill. The world is supposed to look at the church and see something radically different than it sees every day. It should see peace in the storm. Love for our enemies. Humility instead of pride. It should see next Sunday that we are focusing on Jesus Christ and His resurrection not painting eggs. The very last thing they should see when they walk into our sanctuaries is the Easter bunny! We are supposed to be a peculiar people. A people set apart. I have had pastors say in response to such notions that I take things too seriously. Well it seems God took things pretty seriously when He sacrificed His only Son for me. Perhaps it would serve pastors well to watch the Passion of the Christ on Palm Sunday in preparation for writing their Resurrection Sunday sermon. Yes it had way too many catholic overtones but the picture of suffering is so extreme and we forget the sacrifice. We think of it as a Veggie Tale or a few verses from the Gospel before we go fellowship at the diner. We need to see the scourging Jesus took on our behalf. Historians agree that many did not even survive the Roman scourging process and make it to be crucified. Consider this description when you see a pastor dressed up as Han Solo for Resurrection Sunday:

"The usual instrument was a short whip with several single or braided leather thongs of variable lengths, in which small iron balls or sharp pieces of sheep bones were tied at intervals. For scourging, the man was stripped of his clothing, and his hands were tied to an upright post. The back, buttocks, and legs were flogged either by two soldiers (lictors) or by one who alternated positions. The severity of the scourging depended on the disposition of the lictors and was intended to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death. As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim's back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. Pain and blood loss generally set the stage for circulatory shock. The extent of blood loss may well have determined how long the victim would survive on the cross."

And you want me to glean life lessons from this so I can have my best life now? Seriously? They ripped His beard out! They spat on Him and mocked Him! He had to carry the instrument of His very death, after the scourging! They forcibly crushed a crown of thorns into His head until His own blood filled His eyes! Oh is this too graphic for our delicate sensibilities? Good because it ought to be! As gruesome as the portrayal of the sufferings of Christ is in the Passion, experts agree that it does not come close to the true brutality. When we think of these things we also need to remember that this punishment was supposed to be ours!

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. -- Isaiah 53: 4-6 (ESV)

He was crushed for our sins beloved. We have all gone astray and the Lord in His infinite mercy has laid upon His only Son the iniquity of us all. Yet we approach next Sunday as if we have to strategize how to have our guests return to our little church building. That is what purpose driven guru Rick Warren taught pastors a few years back. He actually said that pastors should not preach the Gospel on Resurrection Sunday. Nope. You should start a series instead on how to improve your marriage. His rationale was he wanted to give the unsaved visitors a reason to come back the following week. If it was not so pathetic it would be tragic. Only the Gospel is the power of God unto the salvation of men and you want to use the one chance you have to speak to them be about improving their marriage? This is Resurrection Sunday not the Newlywed Game! On that hill called Calvary thousands of years ago the Roman soldiers were driving spikes through His wrists and feet and you honor that holy sacrifice by teaching carnal relationship principles? Dear God forgive us.

As always however there is nothing new under the sun beloved. What is past is merely prologue. The Bible says that these things were written down to teach us what not to do yet we do them anyway. The two sets of key verses are both from the Prophet Ezekiel. He prophesied during the time in exile in Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah. In many ways the book is divided into two parts. The first being a warning of judgment from a watchman on the wall and the second half was prophesies of the restoration that was yet to come. That God would deliver His people from captivity, as He always had done. Both sets of verses deal with the role of the priests. What they were doing and what they ought to be doing. The modern day parallels should be drawn to the leaders of the church today. They have a role that they are not abiding in. The charges against the priests in the 22^nd chapter should be eerily familiar to what we see happening in the church today.

First of all we see a violation of the laws of God. They actually practice not adhering to the laws of God and teach the people to do the same. The obvious example from today is the heretical teachings of someone like Joseph Prince who eviscerates the law in the lives of believers. Now beloved, let's not gets lost in the nuances of false teaching. It is true that because of grace, we will not be judged by the law when we face God on the final day. His blood will cover our inability to keep the law, hallelujah! The law is nailed to the cross when it comes to matters of eternal judgment. That being said, do not fall for the lie that then concludes the law has no place in the lives of believers. The law is still perfect. It is still holy. It is still what God desires. Our striving to keep the law is done not as an attempt to secure salvation but rather as an outgrowth of our salvation. We now want to please God as so we strive to keep His law. Remember, it is in place for our good. Yes if we commit adultery and repent God will be faithful to forgive on the final Day of Judgment but that does not make adultery good or desirable.

Secondly, the church leaders have profaned the holy things of God. We have already discussed Easter bunnies on the altar of God. We have discussed vile secular music replacing the worship of the one true God. We have discussed gleaning life lessons for our carnal growth from the most sacred moments in our faith. What about the actual process of salvation to begin with? This two sentence false prayer followed by a declaration that the person is saved when they most certainly are not. In the Purpose Driven Life Rick warren offers up a "sinner's prayer" that is less than 10 words long. How cheap do these people view the sacrifice of Calvary?

Thirdly, the leaders make no delineation between the holy and the profane. Between the clean and the unclean. I cannot think of a more suiting indictment of American Christianity today than this. Joel Osteen openly brags that he does not tell people what they do wrong because he thinks they already know. The topic of sin within the Seeker-Friendly Industrial Complex is simply anathema today. When church leaders like Bill Johnson and Bill Hybels canvassed their communities to find out what the unchurched wanted in a church and what bothered them most people admitted that they did not want to hear about their sin. What a surprise. Yet even more of a reason why it needs to be preached. Clean and unclean? Everything is considered somewhere in the middle for modern churchianity. While the Bible presents everything in the moral absolutes of black and white, modern church leadership like the priests in the days of Ezekiel, talk about everything in terms of hazy shades of grey. There is still a week left though to reconsider the holy and the profane.

Fourthly, the church leaders today have hidden their eyes from the commands of God. Many top pastors have gone as far as to tell their congregants that the Ten Commandments do not apply to Christians. Another tried to rewrite them to be more palatable. Joseph Prince redefined repentance as merely, "consenting to be loved." Instead of carrying your own cross the people are taught that God wants them to be rich. They have traded in the true signs and wonders of salvation and healing for gold dust and glory clouds. They have dumbed down the Gospel to the point of criticizing anyone who wants to go deeper into the Word. One pastor referred to such people as jackasses. Another referred to them as the excrement in the body of Christ. Consider this old quote from mega church pastor Steven Furtick:

"We don't teach from books of the Bible because it gets in the way of evangelism. We don't offer different kinds of Bible studies because it gets in the way of evangelism. We don't teach doctrine because it gets in the way of evangelism. If you want to be fed God's word or have the Bible explained to you, then you are a fat, lazy Christian, and you need to shut up and get to work, or you need to leave this church, because we ONLY do evangelism" -- Steven Furtick

Yet the Bible says that only the Gospel leads to salvation. Without doctrine you cannot evangelize. Hidden his eyes? Furtick is blind and is creating blind followers. Lastly from the first set of key verses we see that leaders actually profane God themselves. We could easily speak of such blasphemous heresies such as Jesus Christ going to hell and being born again, a position held by proponents of the word faith false teaching. We could discuss the profaning done by the Joseph Prince's of the world who teach that God is never angry with us. Who alter the character of God to suit their carnality. The truth however is even more insidious because all of the things we discussed today profane the name of God. The mere act of taking the most holy of days in our faith and reducing it down to bunnies and feel good sermons profanes God. Do we truly understand this today? Many may read this and wonder what they can do about it and the answer is real simple. Do not tolerate it. Walk out on it. If you get to your church and your pastor is not taking Resurrection Sunday as being holy you do not have to stick around to see it profaned. We do not have to sing the latest Miley Cyrus song. We do not have to participate in the Easter egg hunt. We do not have to stand by and watch the most holy day in our faith turned into a motivational, self-help class for the sake of being relevant to a lost and dying world. Consider the other key verse, from the 44^th chapter of Ezekiel and how the leaders are supposed to act:

And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. -- Ezekiel 44: 23 (KJV)

This is what we ought to be seeking this coming Sunday. We have a week to get it right beloved. We have a week to ensure that we will only partake of a service that keeps the holy, holy and the profane on the outside. To be the church again that teaches people the difference between what is holy and what is profane instead of mixing them to the point that you cannot tell the difference between the church and the world. To actually teach people to discern between what is clean and what is unclean. When we truly consider all He has done for us this seems the very least we could do.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- Palm Sunday, March 20, 2016

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.