I recently had it brought to my attention an article about a preacher that is disobeying the government pertaining to the regulations he had originally agreed to obey and is now encouraging other preachers to do the same. Therefore, it naturally piqued my curiosity.
Upon reviewing the article, one might call this preacher cavalier. Yet, I noticed his ignorance, as well as American Christendom's as well, when it comes to their adulterous relationship with the government through their voluntarily seeking them out and paying fees to don the worldly privileges granted to them through their 501c3 tax exempt status.
Instead of reading the article and going my merry way, I was pricked in my heart and reached out to this Christian news site's editor, who happened to write the article.
I reached out to her showing the error of this preacher's doings and showed how instead of breaking a rule of their contractual agreement with the government like little children, they should rather disannul their tax exempt status with the government. After all, these people profess that they are among the few in the American "church" who actually possess a biblical worldview. If this were true, then they wouldn't be nonprofit organizations to begin with.
I called them to "prove all things." I called them to repent. To date, they remain on the same course as far as I can see. They have not replied to me in any fashion. Then I reached out to one of their associates as well, with not a peep from any camp. Thus the reason I'm writing publicly about it.
I also had a couple of local preachers invite me to their nonprofit organization's services. I initially declined saying, "I don't associate with government sanctioned institutions." The younger preacher didn't seem to get it, yet the older senior preacher just kept quiet. We had a nice conversation which led up to the invite. Therefore I thought I would send a simple email to them thanking them for our good conversation. Alas, I have not received word back from them either. They had been preaching a series on how to have a biblical worldview. Apparently, they didn't appreciate my "slap on the cheek" for their adultery with the world.
With this brief background, I'll look at the seriousness of the spiritual adultery (among other things), that these agents and ambassadors of the state (preachers) and their nonprofit organizations (churches and ministries) are guilty of before God and what our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus thinks about their adultery with the world.
I will reveal this preacher and the news site among their many "trusted" friends in future blog posts. At this time that is not as relevant as revealing the dangers of their erroneous ways.
The "Christian" site claims to "publish news and trusted analysis, providing an accurate, Biblical understanding of world events and how they pertain to our times." Yet, their mingling with the government through 501c3, have deceived themselves and worse, those who believe that they are indeed trusted propagators of a biblical worldview. They have left their first love (Rev. 2:7). They are playing the harlot. They are no different than Samaria and Jerusalem (Ez. 23), who entered into alliances or a partnership with the ungodly, heathen nations around them conforming to their worldly, godless system, practices, philosophies and ideologies and idolatry to receive earthly gain and benefit, and instead of trusting and serving the Lord alone.
In the Bible prostitution and adultery, when used figuratively, normally denote religious apostasy and unfaithfulness to God (Is. 1:21; Jer. 3:9; Ez. 16:14-18, 32; Jas. 4:4), and signify a people who profess to serve God while actually worshipping and serving other gods.
Will these professors in Christ realize the spiritual adultery they are committing against the Lord through their alliance and partnership with the government and it's tax exempt status? Even as we clearly see in Ezekiel chapter 23, where their social and political alliance led to spiritual defection. Basically they made a mockery of worship of the one true God even as we do today in our institutional, 501c3 nonprofit corporations, that we erroneously and ignorantly call "churches" or like to refer to as a ministry. We are not worshipping God in spirit or truth, but rather in the flesh and according to error, lies and deception through the commandments, doctrines, traditions, philosophies and ideologies of man and the world. We cannot enter God’s presence in worship and prayer while willfully sinning at the same time. That would be like a person having sex with a neighbor and then going home to celebrate his or her wedding anniversary.
What did God reveal to Isaiah about the condition of His people in the first chapter?
Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. (Is. 1:4)
What an indictment! God was talking about those who talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk. Hearers of the Word, but not doers. Those who love the pleasures of the world rather than God. These people had a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof as can be seen later in the chapter.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; (Is. 1:10-16)
Their worship was not acceptable before God, though they appeared to worship Him in the prescribed manner, unlike Aaron's two sons that brought a strange, profane, foreign, or unauthorized fire (something for a source other than what God had decreed), to the brazen altar, revealing their carelessness, irreverence, and lack of consideration for God. They presensed something in worship to God against His revealed will (Ex. 30:9; Nu. 3:4; 26:61) about not offering something that is unholy, or pagan. This shows the seriousness of worshipping God in spirit and truth according to His revealed will, which would exclude entanglement with the world through an unauthorized, unbiblical government sanctioned and regulated 501c3.
Let's look at an example from the New Testament - the Great Whore of Revelation chapter 17. This harlot will ally herself with the world’s political leaders and governments. The world’s people are being swept up into the intoxication and sin of a false, worldly unbiblically authorized system of religion. Just as a prostitute might first get her victim drunk, so the harlot system deceives the nations into committing spiritual fornication with her.
As the Pulpit Commentary observed with some strong language that should bring godly fear and repentance to those ensnared to a 501c3:
The figure of fornication is repeatedly used to describe faithlessness towards God. This faithless portion of the Church has chosen rather to render to the world that love which is due to God, and to be connected rather with the powers of this world than to have its treasure in heaven.The harlot is Babylon; that is, that the worldly portion of the Church, though nominally Christian, is in reality identical with the world, which is openly antagonistic to God. Indeed, the latter portion of the verse goes even further than this. This faithless (though outwardly Christian) portion of Christ's Church is the mother, that is, the cause of the existence of unfaithfulness to God. So true is it that the professing Christian who is worldly minded does more to cause in others disobedience and unfaithfulness to God, than he who openly declares himself in opposition to God, and even persecutes the faithful; cf. the words to the Church in Laodicea, "I would thou went cold or hot" (Revelation 3:15).
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary likens the Church conforming to the world as a leaven working:
As the union of Christ and the Church is a "great mystery" (a spiritual truth of momentous interest, once hidden, now revealed, Eph 5:31, 32), so the Church conforming to the world and thereby becoming a harlot is a counter "mystery" (or spiritual truth, symbolically now revealed). As iniquity in the harlot is a leaven working in "mystery," and therefore called "the mystery of iniquity," so when she is destroyed, the iniquity heretofore working (comparatively) latently in her, shall be revealed in the man of iniquity, the open embodiment of all previous evil.
Another example from Scripture is the tribe of Ephraim as revealed in Hosea 7:8-9:
8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.As the Benson Commentary notes that by their alliances with the heathen, and by imitation of their manners, he is himself become one of them. That in reality they were worshippers of Jehovah in profession, but adopting all the idolatries of the neighbouring nations:
By his alliances with the heathen, and by imitation of their manners, he is himself become one of them. He has thrown off all the distinctions, and forfeited the privileges of the chosen race. Such were the ten tribes of the prophet’s day; worshippers of Jehovah in profession, but adopting all the idolatries of the neighbouring nations, in addition to their own semi- idolatry of the calves.
As Albert Barnes notes:
Such were the people; such are too many so-called Christians; they united in themselves hypocrisy and ungodliness, outward performance and inward lukewarmness; the one overdone, but without any wholesome effect on the other. The one was scorched and black; the other, steamed, damp, and lukewarm; the whole worthless, spoiled irremediably, fit only to be cast away.Like Samson, when, for sensual pleasure, he had betrayed the source of his strength and God had departed from him, lsrael knew not how or wherein his alliances with the pagan had impaired his strength. He thought his losses at the hand of the enemy, passing wounds, which time would heal; he thought not of them, as tokens of God's separation from him, that his time of trial was coming to its close, his strength decaying, his end at hand. Israel was not only incorrigible, but "past feeling" Ephesians 4:19, as the Apostle says of the pagan. The marks of wasting and decay were visible to sight and touch; yet he himself perceived not what all saw except himself."Looking on the surface, he imagines that all things are right with him, not feeling the secret worm which gnaws within. The outward garb remains; the rules of fasting are observed; the stated times of prayer are kept; but the heart is far from Me, saith the Lord. Consider diligently what thou lovest, what thou fearest, whereat thou rejoicest or art saddened, and thou will find, under the habit of religion, a worldly mind; under the rags of conversion, a heart of perversion."
Or the Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament notes:
The mingling with the nations consisted in the adoption of heathen ways, not in the penetration of the heathen into Israelitish possessions (Hitzig), nor merely in the alliances which it formed with heathen nations. For these were simply the consequence of inward apostasy from its God, of that inward mixing with the nature of heathenism which had already taken place.
As Matthew Poole observes how they voluntary mixed themselves, much like how Christendom has voluntary mixed itself with the world through it's tax exempt status:
This was their sin, and the greater because voluntary: the expression seems to represent it as a thing of their own seeking, they did mix themselves with the heathen, whereas had the heathen sought it, it would in likelihood have been said that the nations mixed themselves with Ephraim;
John Gill certainly brings a cutting rebuke to those that voluntary mix and fashion themselves to an unbiblical, worldly union:
and it is highly offensive to God when his professing people mix themselves with the world, keep company with the men of it, fashion themselves according to them, do as they do, and wilfully go into their conversation, and repeat it, and continue therein, and resolve to do so: for so it may be rendered, "he will mix himself" (r); it denotes a voluntary act, repeated and persisted in with obstinacy;they halted between two opinions, and were of neither; they were like the hotch potch inhabitants of Samaria in later times, that came in their place, that feared the Lord, and served their own gods: and such professors of religion there are, who are nothing in religion; nothing in principle, they have no scheme of principles; they are neither one thing nor another; they are nothing in experience; if they have a form of godliness, they deny the power of it; they are nothing in practice, all they do is to be seen of men; they are neither hot nor cold, especially not throughout, or on both sides, like a cake unturned; but are lukewarm and indifferent, and therefore very disagreeable to the Lord.so carnal professors, who mix with the men of the world, that are strangers to God and godliness, and everything that is divine and good, are devoured by them; they lose their time and substance, and their precious souls, and are not aware of it. The symptoms of the declining state of the church of God are at this time upon us, and yet not taken notice of; such as great departures from the faith; a number of false teachers risen up; great failings off of professors, and of such who have made a great figure in the church; a small number of faithful men; great coldness and lukewarmness to spiritual things; little faith on the earth; great neglect of Gospel worship and ordinances; much sleepiness and drowsiness; great immorality and profaneness: as also the symptoms of the declining state of the world, and of its drawing to its period; as wars, and rumours of wars, famine, pestilence, and earthquakes in divers places; volcanos, burning mountains, eruptions of subterraneous fire, which portend the general conflagration; and yet these things are little attended to.
Chilling words for any Christian that has volunteered to be unequally yoked, united, partnered with, to be conformed or fashioned with an unbiblical alliance and adulteration of the ekklesia of Christ. Stop deceiving yourselves and others through your scripturally unauthorized form of human-centered worship and practice received from the world and it's standards through their 501c3 status instead of the biblical pattern we are to walk according to.
In Romans chapter eight, Paul speaks about the contrast between those who walk after the flesh Ro. 1; 1 Cor. 6; Gal. 5; etc), as opposed to those that walk after the Spirit. William Burkitt notes the following:
Learn hence, 1. That carnal persons are not better than enemies unto God: There is a perfect contrariety in their affections, inclinations, and actions, to the will of God. They are called haters of God: Not that they hate him as a Creator, but as a law giver; they hate his holiness, not his goodness.
Learn, 2. That whilst men remain carnally-minded, there is no breaking off this enmity between God and them; the carnal mind, whilst such, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be: Not that this impotency and inability will excuse from guilt, because it is not a created, but a self-contracted impotency; not a natural, but a moral impotency; which arises from a perverse disposition of will, is joined with a delight in sin, and a strong aversion from the holy commands of God.
William's words should sting those who carnally volunteered to be a 501c3, rather than the ekklesia of Christ and it's pattern He revealed through His Word. William calls such haters of God. Not that this [or their] impotency and inability will excuse from guilt, because it is not a created, but a self-contracted impotency; not a natural, but a moral impotency; which arises from a perverse disposition of will, is joined with a delight in sin, and a strong aversion from the holy commands of God.
Lastly, remember king Saul in 1 Samuel chapter 15 where he disobeys God and spares king Agag and doesn't destroy everything that has breath. Saul did his will and that of the people and not the Lord's. Whether out of ignorance or deceit, Saul maintained that he obeyed what the Lord commanded. Samuel told Saul that to obey is better than sacrifice. Obedience is better than a ritualistic, formal nominal religion. Even the Pharisees studied the Scriptures and had them memorized. They prayed and fasted. They observed the Sabbaths and feasts, yet Jesus rejected them because their hearts were far from Him.
Samuel also told Saul that rebellion and stubbornness against God was equal to the sins of witchcraft and idolatry, which are worthy of death. Therefore God rejected Saul and His Spirit departed from Saul, who feared the people and obeyed their voice rather than God's. May this be a lesson to us about following man's will and not God's especially on this topic of spiritual adultery with the government and their nonprofit status.
Do I honestly need to present more examples of how a 501c3, tax exempt, nonprofit is spiritual adultery? If you haven't read my numerous blog posts on this subject, I implore you to read them to gain a clear understanding of not only Christ's true ekklesia, but also a clear understanding of the spiritual dangers of conforming to the world's ways rather than God's.
I hope you take this post to heart, as a prep on some ministers and ministries that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, in hope that they may honor God and be holy and separate unto the Lord and remove themselves from their profane partnership with the world through their voluntary agreement with the government for the earthly benefits and pleasures of a tax exempt status.
