“He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” – Mark 7:6-7
THE SYCOPHANTIC PRAISE “WORSHIP” WHICH dominates the evangelical religious scene is repulsive in many ways. In the first place, the melding of disingenuous sycophancy and apostate religious weirdness produces a spectacle eerie, cringeworthy, and bizarre. To behold a building bigger than a battleship, whose comical size and luxuriant arrangements compares to the simplicity of the New Testament church as a humpback whale compares to a ladybug, populated by those convinced they can earn eternal life by their own merits, and who condemn the ways of the world with one breath, while with the next breath exhaling abominable, lame music that is but a tawdry appropriation of the worldly music they denigrate as being unholy and so far beneath their righteous selves – such produces a singular effect on the body and mind, an effect comparable to being subject to a most unusually unique sensation that escapes the confines of speech.
Were the hideous aesthetics of the so-called “worship service” the only problem they posed, substantial would be the issue. But beyond the revolting nature of this so-called “worship” is that is not biblical worship. Jesus said that God can only be worshipped in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Since evangelicals believe one must turn from his sins and surrender himself to following the Lordship of Christ to be saved, they are unsaved, and therefore do not have the Holy Spirit. And since evangelicals neither believe the correct gospel, nor use the King James Bible, they do not have truth. By definition, they are incapable of worshipping God.
Therefore, as a substitute for the biblical worship they cannot partake of, unsaved religious people such as evangelicals have devoted themselves to the abominable practices above described – the vain “worship” of swaying to the tunes of the absurdly named genre called “Christian rock music”, of drawing nigh unto the Almighty with empty words of disingenuous, vacuous “praise”, of honoring him with lips that move in unison, not with scriptural truth and the doctrine of Christ, but with religious apostasy.
Perhaps you will assert that men may worship God in their own way, so long as their hearts are sincere and their intentions pure. But what saith the scripture? Colossians 2:23 forbids “will worship”, or the act of doing what one pleases and then pretending this is acceptable to God and forbidden from being reproved by others. For the false “worship” which evangelicals favor is not done to the edifying of believers, or the glorification of God, but the satisfying of the flesh, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:8). Evangelical worship services are carnal to the core; carnality is enmity against God (Romans 8:7). But since the hypocrites who favor this false “worship” teach for doctrines the commandments of men, it comes as no surprise they would scorn plain scriptural teaching that rebukes their nonsensical spectacles.
Or, perhaps you will remark, “But at least they’re trying to worship God. Isn’t that better than not worshipping him at all?” No, it is not better; it is worse. The man who is still looking for the truth, and therefore does not worship God, is in better position than the man who has mistaken seducing spirits for the Spirit of Christ, and doctrines of devils for the doctrine of Christ. To mix the world with the church is to produce apathy and lukewarm religion. God despises that which is lukewarm. Believe me not? Saith Christ, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16).
Of course, a far greater concern than the nature of evangelical worship services is the false gospel which is propounded thereby. And this false gospel – which always puts the burden of salvation on the sinner, rather than on Christ who bore our sins in his own body on the tree – mixes works with grace, corrupts the simplicity that is in Christ, and produces false converts who will be among the unsaved religious people Immanuel shall cast into the Lake of Fire after informing them, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). Men need not reform themselves to be saved; they need only come to Christ as they are, for whosoever will may take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17). Verily, the absence of the true gospel from evangelicalism is much to be lamented.