Coming Out Of Egypt

Part 2. Swept And Garnished

April 4, 2007

Ron and Karen Schwartz

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Sometimes it is difficult to understand God’s objective for our lives. Every day, mountains of information pour upon us from every side, complicating everything. Do you wade through the information looking for answers, and find yourselves increasingly perplexed by the conflicting views, directions, perspectives, and messages given by notable Christian teachers? Some Christians eventually resolve that hearing from God on their own is impossible. Many follow the crowd, and in doing so, fall into the snare Satan. Satan does not want Christians to hear from God. Such an occurrence would spell disaster for him.

Exodus 3:17-18 KJV

17 And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.

We see in this example how difficult it can be to understand God’s true objective. He appeared to give Moses conflicting instructions. God first tells Moses that their destination is “unto a land flowing with milk and honey,” yet His instruction is to only go “three days' journey into the wilderness [and] sacrifice.” Ultimately, God destined for them a land of peace, prosperity, and safety, but His specific instruction addressed only the first three days. Throughout the forty years that followed this first encounter with God, He directed His people one step at a time. But there was another voice that spoke to the children of Israel: the voice of Pharaoh.

Exodus 12:30-31 KJV

30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians…

31 And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as ye have said.

Pharaoh didn’t really mean that he wanted the children of Israel to go worship the Lord, but by saying, “Go, serve the LORD,” he appeared to be in agreement with Moses’ message. Like Moses’ Pharaoh, the pharaohs of today’s institutional churches preach messages telling their people of spiritual freedom and maturity that sound right, but they don’t really mean any of it because they don’t take actions that support their words. The true message of God is lost in the similar voices of our pharaohs. But since the pharaoh’s message is similar to God’s, what is wrong with listening to it?

Voices

1 Corinthians 14:7-10 KJV

7 And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?

8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.

Our need today is not for a voice to speak truth but to be able to discern to which voice we must listen. Paul wrote, “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.” This is to say, every voice is significant, and that is exactly the problem. Everything that Christian leaders have to say today is significant. It all makes sense. Every doctrine that is taught, every teaching that is peddled, every book published, every web page visited, and every message of every radio and television preacher that is articulately spoken seems to make sense and have significance. Christians are so thoroughly and completely consumed by partial truths that try to pull them in every direction that they no longer know what to do.

The flood of information, ideas, and teachings is like a great orchestra, with each individual instrument playing a different song. Trying to find the right answer to a question is like trying to distinguish the tune of a single flute amid the turbulent roar of many other instruments. It is far more likely that the tune it plays will be lost in the cacophony of sound. How, then, do we distinguish to which voices we ought to listen?

As with the children of Israel, the messages we hear today are so similar, it’s like discerning between the voice of Moses and the voice of Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s mouth was moving, he spoke words directing God’s people to obey their Lord, but he didn’t really mean it. His true objective was to preserve his kingdom. So he took actions designed to preserve his kingdom.

It seems that weekly I hear from people who brag about how their pastors and their churches are different. Their pastor encourages them to serve the Lord and have a personal relationship with Him, so he must be right. Right? Well, maybe, but actions speak much louder than words. If his goal is to preserve his position in his church, his actions will speak louder than his pretty words. Like it or not, he is speaking with the mouth of Pharaoh. His ultimate goal is not the welfare of God’s people but the success of his own church. The “good” messages that he preaches are not designed to remedy the fundamental problems that Christianity faces, and that is why his church and other churches across our nation continue to coast on in an unrelenting ineffectual status quo. They get bigger and prettier, they have many good programs and teaching seminars, they provide valuable education and children’s functions, but they do not solve the fundamental problems that contribute to the apathy and spiritual bankruptcy of most Christians.

The great messages provided to Christians in institutional churches merely address the superficial aspects of their lives. As a result, most Christians spend their entire lives practicing religious form and achieve no real spiritual growth. Before you say that this could not possibly be describing you, consider how dependant you have become upon your church for your spiritual and social needs. How easy would it be for you to leave? And we’re not just talking about leaving one institutional church to attend another institutional church (even home churches can be institutional if you keep the same form), but truly leaving the institutional church altogether. Most Christians will never leave willingly. They will find some way to justify the spiritual umbilical attachment they have to it.

In reality, if their churches really encouraged the personal relationship with God they claim, they would have no fear of leaving it. If, however, their spiritual fulfillment is found in their churches, then they have developed a spiritual umbilical with their churches rather than with God (idolatry).

Matthew 12:43-45 KJV

43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.

45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

“Garnished” is the Greek word “kosmeo,” which means “to adorn, trim, decorate, or garnish.” It is the verb form of the popular Greek word “kosmos,” which denotes the world or the universe and how it is ordered.

In the scripture, “kosmeo” is used in both a positive and a negative way. In Revelation 21:2, it is used to describe how the “new Jerusalem” is “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and in Matthew 23:29 Jesus uses it to describe the hypocrisy of the “scribes and Pharisees.” They “build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish [their] sepulchers” while being no different (i.e., their “children,” verse 31) from the people who killed them.

This same word is used to describe trimming the burnt excess of a wick (Matthew 25:7) and the decorating of a home. But in every occurrence, it only addresses the outward appearance of things. It is superficial. It does not change the underlying structure. Garnishing can improve quality, but it cannot create fundamental change.

Most of the messages (voices) in the plethora of Christian information that is published or preached today are little more than garnishing. They do address improvement, they can make things look better on the outside, but they do not address the underlying structure that is responsible for the problems with Christianity. Garnishing addresses relationships with spouses and children, work ethics, social reform, moral principles and values, tithing, and other duties that Christians can perform, and, yes, all of it takes place at a superficial level. It is this preoccupation with the superficial that has caused many in the home church community to believe that they have changed at a spiritual level simply because they left an institutional church. Changing churches or changing the type of church does not change our underlying spiritual being. Changing music or doctrine does not change our spiritual lives at a foundational level. Discipline, submission, giving, and morality do not change us at a spiritual level. These are all superficial changes. The real change occurs only when we allow this new freedom to draw us into a deeper spiritual relationship with God. It is a relationship that is not connected to a church nor does it need a pastor.

Parasitic Christians

Each week, churches are filled with parasitic Christians. They are like dry lifeless sponges. They soak the life out of everything around them. They come to church after spending a (spiritually) lifeless week in the bowels of this world. They are like batteries that have been used up all week and barely have a spark of life. They expect their Sunday morning will renew their spirits and re-charge their spiritual batteries with just enough energy so that they can make it through another week. Then the cycle repeats itself. Is this the type of Christianity that is described in the scriptures? Absolutely not. Today’s version of Christianity is fundamentally flawed in that it is an exercise in futility. It is, at best, superficial.

John 7:37-39 KJV

37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

The picture Jesus describes is of a person’s bowels opening up and water shooting forth explosively creating rivers (plural) of flowing water. Contrast this to the model of Christianity today: a dry riverbed that soaks up every drop of water like a sponge. Today’s typical Christian is not life-giving but life-sucking.

Jesus also said:

John 4:13-14 KJV

13 …Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Jesus here describes a person having a spring that explodes forth like Yellowstone’s “Old Faithful” geyser, with water bursting out of his entire body – water shooting forth from his mouth, ears, hands and feet. Everywhere he goes, the water pouring out from him soaks everyone around him. This is the Christianity Jesus described and the Christianity found in the first generation believers. It has absolutely nothing in common with the Christianity we see today. Why?

Christianity has veered from the course set by Jesus and His disciples into a two-class society of believers. Today’s Christian society is made up of consumers and providers. Only the providers are expected to have these springs of living water. The consumers are the sheep that need, and need, and need. The providers are the springs of living water that provide for the sheep. The sheep don’t need to go to God. Their spiritual fulfillment is so totally provided by their church and pastor/provider that they cannot live without them. God is regulated to a footnote. If God were truly the provider for the sheep, then the sheep would themselves become source of living water springing up and out from them as rivers. There would be no dry sponges.

If you are a consumer, consider your pathetic spiritual existence. All you are is a user, and you will probably never become anything other than a user. This is a certainty, because the fundamental structure of an institutional church does not allow those of the consumer class to go into the provider class without considerable effort and then only if they are fortunate enough to find an opening.

Consumers run from church meeting to church meeting, pastor to pastor, church to church, book to book, soaking up every drop of living water they can find while contributing little or nothing to God’s kingdom. Why? Because they do not have their own source of this living water springing up in them. Do you really believe that after wasting your whole life away, you are going to show up at the gates of heaven and God’s going to be happy to see you, just thankful that you made it by the skin of your teeth?

Jesus described this kind of believer when He said:

Matthew 25:18-30 KJV

18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money.

19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.

24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:

25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Provider Christians have convinced Consumer Christians that their part is to be in church and pay their tithe, and as long as they hang on from week to week, somehow it constitutes overcoming the world. This is far from the truth. They are actually describing a person who is victimized by the world, not one who is overcoming it. The providers do not want us to have or develop our own spring of living water because if we do, we will no longer have need of them.

Paul wrote:

Hebrews 5:12 KJV

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

If these people were (all) expected to eventually become teachers, then there could be no class system: eventually they would all become providers. Paul indicates that all believers are to become providers of springs and rivers of life giving water.

Are you simply a parasite who lives off the living water of others? Then you don’t know who God is. You are plugged into men instead of into God. You are worshipping men. You are living off their water rather than finding the true source of water from God. You must discover what it means to have a relationship with God.

Fruitful, Or Just Garnished

Matthew 13:24-30 KJV

24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

It is impossible for us to distinguish between those who are tares and those who are wheat. They often look the same. It is certain that many churches are full of tares. Tares have all the characteristics of wheat but lack their fruit. In this parable, the tares came about because the overseers were asleep (i.e., while men slept).

We learn from this parable that tares are around until harvest. Harvest is missing from most institutional churches, and that is the reason tares remain. A harvest requires fruit to form, grow, and mature. But if there is no requirement for fruitfulness, there is no expectation of harvest. Therefore, tares remain.

Ripe fruit comes (the harvest) when wheat matures. But sleeping church leaders teach a superficial Christianity that has no requirement for real fruit. It deals with attendance, tithing, form, and law. It does not deal with Christians maturing, because, again, that would mean they might lose their jobs. So Christians are shown a path that causes them to never mature as wheat. The maturity they are shown keeps them always dependant on their Christian leaders. They can mature but only as a fruitless spiritual tare. They look similar to true Christians, and (like the voice of Pharaoh) they may even sound the same.

Jesus said:

John 15:4-6 KJV

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you are a dry riverbed, soaking up water from church and pastor week to week, then you are not maturing. If, year after year, you remain a consumer, living off the life found in Christian leaders, books, radio, and television, then you should consider whether you are even wheat – tares never mature to have real fruit. If you have not a spring of living water gushing out from you, then something is wrong. Perhaps the voices you are listening to only sound like Moses but are not actually. If you never mature, then you are still in Egypt and still listening to Pharaoh.

Many people cannot let go of their wonderful institutional church and their wonderful institutional pastor. They learn and receive much from these churches and assume that to be their validation. But providing for your spiritual needs is neither the church’s job nor the pastor’s job. The Spirit of God wants to provide all our spiritual needs directly. Keeping us going to others for fulfillment of our spiritual needs turns us into leeches or parasites. Is that how you want your spiritual life defined? Do you really believe that this is what God wants for you – to go weekly to the well at a church and dip into it instead of going directly to Him and becoming that well? People who idolize their wonderful churches and pastors are tares, and they don’t even know it. They are as asleep as their pastor.

Remember, Pharaoh could not allow the children of Israel to leave Egypt and travel three days into the wilderness to worship God, because he knew they would never come back. Institutional churches are no different. People think they are free to worship God while being addicted to their churches. It is interesting that no drug addict or alcoholic believes he is addicted, either. Do you need your weekly fix? If so, your church is just “garnishing” you spiritually. It touches you superficially, and because there is no fundamental change, you feel the need to continually return to get your next spiritual fix. There is no actual change to your spiritual being. If there were, you would become a spring of life, not remain a dry sponge.

Conclusion

Are we suggesting that only those who teach or preach are mature? Maybe, but not necessarily. The point is that Christians are meant to be life-giving, not mere parasites, feeding off the “life” of others. Christians are supposed to mature and bear fruit. They are not meant to live on a spiritual umbilical cord from their church, nor are they supposed to behave like addicts looking for their next fix. They are meant to become rivers of life.

The best thing we can do is to leave our institutional churches and find places that require us to grow. Find places that cannot operate without everyone participating. Find places where we must all be springs of living water rather than places that provide one. In doing so, we will come to understand the difference between “garnishing” our spiritual lives and actually having real ones.

Participating in an institutional church does not make us spiritual. Participating in a home church does not make us spiritual. Ridding ourselves of the wrong spiritual form (a church and pastor who act as spiritual crutches/fixes) can make it possible. Leaving religious form forces us to go to God instead of men and depend on Him. It forces us to become spiritual rather than depend on others who are. This is the “good ground” described in the parable of the seed and the sower (Matthew 13:3-9). It makes growth, and ultimately fruit, possible.

Pastors of institutional churches are only partially responsible for the deluge of tares in their churches. Other Christians are just as responsible. They shop around for the place that provides for them the best “worship experience,” and they speak with their feet concerning what they want/expect from their pastor. They essentially extort pastors into providing for them according to their wants. It is hard to say whether the pressure pastors feel comes from lazy Christians who have become dry riverbeds or from lifeless tares, but the result is the same. Pastors then become as much victims as they are victimizers.

It is certain, however, that a system has evolved which makes it impossible for true believes to mature in these churches. They can only experience a superficial Christianity – one that sweeps and garnishes the temples but leaves them barren of the life-giving springs that give forth rivers of living water. Is that where you are? Come, then, out of Egypt, and learn to worship God.

If you are a pastor in an institutional church or a home church, then you must find a way to get out of the way and allow your people to grow through participation. You must not be their provider. You must not accept their titles. If they do not want this, then step down, open up your home, and invite those who want to experience Christianity as it was meant to be. There may not be as many people in attendance, but the spiritual growth will be more rewarding and useful to God. More importantly, you will be pastoring in a way that turns people to God rather than allowing them to build a dependency upon you.

Amen.

kmsrjs@triton.net (use the same address for MSN Messenger)

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