A Prayer for Justice against the evil in this world - Psalm 94

From the Australian group, "Sons of Korah".   I just discovered this group recently and I am impressed with their musical skill and that they have done many of the Psalms, and they are all very wedded to the text of Scripture.  The song covers Psalm 94:1-11.  I don't know what their church background or specific theology is, but so far, of the songs I have listened to, they seem very good.

Psalm 33:1-3 - "play skillfully" (verse 3) to the Lord with a shout of joy !

Psalm 94

"O LORD, God of vengeance

God of vengeance, shine forth!

Rise up, O Judge of the earth,
Render recompense to the proud.
3 How long shall the wicked, O Lord,
How long shall the wicked exult?
4 They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly;
All who do wickedness vaunt themselves.
5 They crush Your people, O Lord,
And afflict Your heritage.
6 They slay the widow and the stranger
And murder the orphans.
7 They have said, “The Lord does not see,
Nor does the God of Jacob pay heed.”

8 Pay heed, you senseless among the people;
And when will you understand, stupid ones?
9 He who planted the ear, does He not hear?
He who formed the eye, does He not see?
10 He who chastens the nations, will He not rebuke,
Even He who teaches man knowledge?
11 The Lord knows the thoughts of man,
That they are a mere breath.

12 Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O [j]Lord,
And whom You teach out of Your law;
13 That You may grant him relief from the days of adversity,
Until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not abandon His people,
Nor will He forsake His inheritance.
15 For judgment will again be righteous,
And all the upright in heart will follow it.
16 Who will stand up for me against evildoers?
Who will take his stand for me against those who do wickedness?

17 If the Lord had not been my help,
My soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.
18 If I should say, “My foot has slipped,”
Your lovingkindness, O Lord, will hold me up.
19 When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.
20 Can a throne of destruction be allied with You,
One which devises mischief by decree?
21 They band themselves together against the life of the righteous
And condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord has been my stronghold,
And my God the rock of my refuge.
23 He has brought back their wickedness upon them
And will destroy them in their evil;
The Lord our God will destroy them.

Before "Christianity in Crisis" and "Strange Fire" There was "Marjoe"

Back in the 1990's there appeared two much-needed books documenting and exposing the heretical doctrines and deviant practices that had found a home in Pentecostalism: Christianity in Crisis and Counterfeit Revival  by Hank Hanegraaff. Both of these books were valuable contributions by a Christian writer dedicated to the health and sanctification of the church. Recently the church has also benefited from the Strange Fire conference and book. There have also been contributions by non-Christians that have some value, for instance James Randi's The Faith Healers. While Randi appears to be bent on destroying the Church, one should not deny the value of his work exposing the deceit and trickery of some of the faith healers.

Recently I came across a documentary from the early 1970's infiltrating and exposing some of the deviant practices of American Pentecostalism: Marjoe. Marjoe Gortner had been raised in Pentecostalism, and was himself a novelty within the movement being ordained as a preacher at four years old. As an adult in the early 1970's, Marjoe traveled the Pentecostal circuit with a film crew bent on exposing the movement. In the film, Gortner is accepted by a number of churches as a gifted preacher, none of which realized that he didn't believe a word of what he was preaching, nor did they realize the film crew was making a documentary to attack Pentecostalism. The documentary eventually won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

I found the film quite disturbing and even at times blasphemous. On the other hand,  the film does capture some of the fraudulent practices of Pentecostalism. In understanding those people seeking to be caught up in a frenzied / emotional worship service, this movie is a valuable contribution.

I found the video below on the Internet Archive.

Contemporary Lutheran Worship?

I came across a heartbreaking tale from a Lutheran on the CARM boards: "Deeply upset after Sunday Service." One particular section caught my attention:

And then the singing. Many songs were repetitive, vapid, touchy-feels nonsense songs designed to stoke emotions without singing God's word to you. Imagine my shock when I looked down as saw only the first stanza printed in my bulletin:
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na
Na na na na na na

I post this link because I know Lutherans read this blog (even though many of them won't admit it or link to it, kudos to the Lutherans though who fess up), including Lutheran pastors. If you've got any words of wisdom for the author of this post, you should log on to the CARM  Lutheran forum and help out.

Contemporary worship can infuriate some folks. I come across people angered or hurt by the contemporary worship movement all the time (and before my Roman Catholic readers think their churches have the answer, they don't. Roman churches have their fair share of "contemporary services" as well, with the same sort of angry people fed up with them).

I attend a rather conservative Reformed church. I always come across new faces... people visiting our church, and many of them staying with us after a few visits. It's not that all of them are already "Reformed" looking for another Reformed church. Some of these new folks are refugees from the contemporary worship movement. They've gone to churches on the "cutting edge" of worship... rock bands, light shows, drama, innovation, etc.  For some folks, this "experience" of contemporary worship ceases to be a positive experience and turns into anger and discontent. They leave their contemporary churches often viewed as troublemakers and nitpickers.

When they walk into the church I attend, it's like a flashback to  the 1950's. There's a consistent weekly liturgy that includes readings of law and gospel,  100 year-old+ hymns of response with an organ and piano (and no flashy worship leader with an overhead), there's actually hymn books and Bibles (that people are expected to use) there's at least a 10 minute pastoral prayer, and an expository sermon mentioning sin, repentance, and salvation, condemnation from the law, salvation in Christ, and application as to how to take and apply all of it as one is conformed into the image of Christ.  And, to make it even worse, the children are expected to sit through the whole thing, Sunday morning and Sunday night.

The ironic part to me is that some of these refugees have no idea what "Reformed" is, even after attending for a good length of time. Rather, they're conservative folks that like conservative things. I'm not angered by this irony, I just find it interesting.

Lest anyone think these ramblings are my way of throwing contemporary worship "under the bus," I actually don't have a problem with many contemporary services. I know many people that love their contemporary services, and despite the loud music and repetitive choruses (and um, recall some of Psalms use repetition and the sacred psalmist writes about himself and his feelings?), the "contemporary" minister preaches the Gospel. Give me a Reformed person who thinks the organ is more spiritual than a guitar, and I'm going to have a nice little chat with him about John Calvin's view of the organ and the need for dinnerware. If the minister preaches the gospel, I'll put up with a contemporary service.

The reason I don't gravitate towards contemporary worship has nothing to do with what sort of music pleases God and which doesn't. It has to do with my heart. I began playing guitar as a kid, in and out rock bands for quite a while. When I see a guy in a worship service strumming a guitar, I'm either distracted by how good he is... or how bad he is. If he's terrible, I'm hoping he's going to stop playing soon. If he's really good, there's a good chance I'll be coveting his ability at best, or worshiping him at worst. I'll take the organ and the piano and the dusty old hymns. This keeps me out of trouble. Lights, stages, drama, skits, etc., I don't really need that sort of stuff on Sunday,  but, who am I to say God can't use stuff like this for particular people? Someone told me once that Old Testament worship involved all the senses. Rome's been on to this for centuries. Certainly I think there are instances of abuse and silliness in contemporary worship, but I'm not willing to throw the whole thing out the window. People in different centuries have had different types church services influenced by their culture and sitz im leben. Think this isn't so? Simply do a historical study on liturgy. The church service will never completely escape the culture it's in.

If you're conservative, find yourself a conservative church. In my area, I know of many conservative churches (some that would consider the service I'm in to be liberal!). If your church has gone from conservative worship to contemporary worship, it may be time for you to go. I'm not of the mindset that you should grin and bear it and fight for your conservative worship cause. You're probably going to lose anyway. Why go to church angry and bitter? Go fellowship with people who are conservative like you are.

Be awed and humbled . . .

HT:  I saw this morning at AnsweringMuslims.com.  Wow. 

Icon't take it anymore

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Can we get some more peanuts in the front please?
...

If you don't get it, don't worry- it wasn't that good.

Starting from where I left off in the combox of the previous post on icons...

What in the text indicates that Uzzah was treating the Ark "as if it had intrinsic value"?
This is what I mean by ad hoc...God clearly defined how the Ark was to be transported. The Israelites neglected to do that. Where was Uzzah venerating or doing anything to the Ark besides walking beside it and putting out his hand to steady it? More eisegesis on CrimsonCath's part.

Uzzah was, in his own way, a proto-Gnostic. You don't try to grab the divine without permission, outside of the specific channels He provides, or you will be destroyed.

Eisegesis. This reminds me of the way that RCs often try to push prohibitions of contraception onto the text on Onan.

Does that text itself explicitly say any of this? No.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I wonder how it would even be possible to worship Him on your understanding unless He were standing in front of you

Just b/c we are prohibited from using icons in worship, you don't know how I'd worship Christ? "In spirit and in truth" is where I'd start.

even then, if you could not disregard His humanity entirely

Which has nothing to do with the question at hand. And of course I don't do so.

why do you venerate Scripture as the Word of God?

Red herring - it is far from the same thing as the way RCs and EOx venerate icons. I don't recall the last time I or anyone in my church bowed down before, lit incense before, lit candles before, and prayed to the Bible.

Without the Christological explanation, they all lack justification.

Another naked appeal to "Christological explanation"s, without an argument.
Just b/c Christ is the eikon of the Father and took on human flesh, why does it follow that it's OK to perform worshipful actions in front of statues of dead people and pray to them?

It certainly doesn't mean that there are no more signs and symbols in Christian practice,

As if that were part of the argument.
But we're talking about communication with the dead through worshipful actions directed at icons here. Let's try to stay on point.

and it certainly doesn't mean that there is no longer worship through icons.

No longer? When was there before? The OT? Where?

The saints are likewise venerated as "in Christ."

1) And are in some cases treated as more merciful and generous than Christ Himself.
2) Where is the justification to pray to them as Christ?
3) They're dead and the Bible forbids communication with the dead. Christ is not dead.

Service of God's instruments is not service of other gods (1 Chron. 29:20, Dan. 2:26, Rev. 3:9); rather, it is a form of service to the One True God.

Except that worship and serve are bound up in the same ideas and terms in the OT as the post demonstrates.

And yes, service is less than latria.

Not in the eyes of the OT. That's the point.

Given that the instruments of God (like Scripture, David, the Ark, Daniel) are venerated in the Old Testament

Not even close to in the same way as modern RCs and EOx do.



Matt said:
1) Where is "religious context" specified in the Old Testament? Where does the Scripture clarify what is in and what is out?

When it says you shall not bow down to them or serve them.
This is the same attitude as pro-death people and those tempted towards sexual immorality - how close can we get to the line? They never stop to consider that we should remain FAR away from any question of wrong, especially on so delicate and important an issue as the worship of the One True God when He's said over and over again that He's a jealous God!
We might ask ourselves then: "Is it OK to light a candle to the dead person? OK, how about to light a candle AND burn incense? Great, how about both of those AND praying to them inaudibly requests that I'd otherwise share with Jesus, since they can probably read my thoughts?"

Religious context is where you're rendering worshipful actions. It's not that hard unless you belabor it in order to protect your manmade traditions.

2) If you were living in the seventeenth century, would you bow to the king of your country?

Sure, fine. So what? I can guarantee that I wouldn't bow down to a picture of him AND light a candle to his image AND burn incense before it AND say an inaudible prayer to the king while doing those things in front of the image. Why? B/c those are things we do to God, not men.

If so, then why is that not going against the command of God(?)

B/c I'm not rendering worshipful actions in a religious context to him.

This "religious context" stuff is really unpersuasive.

That has nothing to do with whether the argument stands. I don't control your spirit; I can only point the way.

Bowing down to kings is often a "religious context" (think of the Caesars or the Eastern emperors who proclaimed themselves to be gods).

Precisely. And the early Christians did what exactly when commanded to do so?

It seems like some of the criticisms are against doing things to "dead" (who are, to my mind, more alive than we are) people through the mediation of an image which are perfectly OK with living people: making requests (petitionary prayer)
Until you tell me that you do ***ALL*** of the following to a living person, this is a non-point:
1) Kiss their image. While they're not there.
2) Burn incense and light candles to their image. While they're not there.
3) Set up that image in church. While they're not there.
4) Pray inaudibly to them and expect them to read your thoughts and carry the prayer to God. While they're not there. And you can't say it audibly to their ears since the dead don't hear with their physical ears.

We honor them as rational animals created by God, imago Dei, etc.

Not according to the way that you act towards them. This insults our intelligence.

What really matters is that what I MEAN by the term is actually contrary to the word of God.

Which is what Dr White was trying to tell you. *You* don't get to define the terms of what is acceptable worship to the Lord. Maybe you should think about letting Him do that.

Something overlooked by your analysis is that some of the passages are referring to FALSE GODS!!!

They are, of course, no gods at all, and yet these people condemned in the OT bow down before them and do worshipful piety to them in a religious context.
Your dead people to whom you pray thru icons are no gods at all, either, as you would agree. There's a reason why God didn't accept worship on the high places or in Samaria in OT Israel and Judah, you know. Your assertion begs the question that it's OK to bow down to dead people as long as you intend to worship God thusly.



CrimsonCatholic continued:
so that both were forbidden of any creature.

I didn't say that. I am pointing out that there are certain contexts in which the distinction advanced by RCC and EOC does not hold, and religious actions is one of those categories. That's why I keep pointing out the religious worship/non-religious non-worship contexts in your counter-examples.

Luke xiv.10

Nobody is doing anythg religious in that context. It's a dinner.

Now in the Old Testament no distinction in the Hebrew is drawn between these words when applied to creator or creature.

My point is clear for all to see, above.

Nor do they appear to be categorically forbidden in the context of religious practices.

Then give me JUST ONE example where somebody other than God received actions of worshipful piety in the Bible and your case is much-bolstered.



Mike Burgess said:
Luke 20:34-38
John 11:25-26
Hebrews 12:1-24

I've made multiple comments on this topic already.
1) God says BOTH - that the dead are not destroyed but merely appear to us to be asleep.
2) Yet there is obviously a changed relationship. You agree since you don't do ALL OF THE FOLLOWING to a living person

• Kiss their image. While they're not there.
• Burn incense and light candles to their image. While they're not there.
• Set up that image in church. While they're not there.
• Pray inaudibly to them and expect them to read your thoughts and carry the prayer to God. While they're not there. And you can't say it audibly to their ears since the dead don't hear with their physical ears.
  

3) God still forbade contact with those who have died physically. He must consider it pretty important that we not do so.

I'd probably have to know what you're looking for in each of those passages, though.

Col 3 - who is dead at the beginning of the chapter?

This refers to the spiritually dead who are raised by regeneration.

What does St. Paul say idolatry is in v. 5?

I assume you mean "why does...?".
B/c idolatry is forbidden and sinful.

What does that contextually tell us about "motive" and its relevance?

Nothing.

You seem quite devoted to (at least implicitly) the regulative principle of worship.

Not at all, I'm a Southern Babdist.
But I decry that which affirms what God has prohibited.

What about anything short of what He commanded in the OT?

Since rendering worshipful piety to pictures of dead people and talking to them doesn't fall under this category, I fail to see how this is relevant.
If you really want to know, feel free to email me.

Daniel Clendenin's Eastern Orthodoxy A Western Perspective

I read that one.


Jeremy said:
I agree with the comments about "religious context" being arbitrarily defined.

Yes, of course!
Doing ALL OF THE FOLLOWING to an image of a dead person is just CLEARLY non-religious.
1) Ascribing non-human inabilities to these dead people (ie, hearing you when you pray silently)
2) Falling down before them
3) Lighting candles to them
4) burning incense to them
5) addressing THEM in prayer

The insults to readers' intelligence continue.

If it is permissible to bow down before someone outside of a "religious context", is it not also permissible to murder, commit adultery, steal or give false testimony - so long as these are only done outside of a "religious context"? Clearly not

The question at hand is whether it's OK to do to dead people what you do to God - worshipful actions.
This would only be analogous if you wanted to see if I'd argue whether it's OK to murder God, commit adultery away from God, steal from God, etc...

Rhology asserts that this verse "makes it clear that we are to bow down to no one other than God" - in otherwords, we shouldn't bow down to anyone. However, this is false. What the passage actually states is that we shouldn't bow down to "them"

Right, to the false gods. Who are not gods at all. Neither are dead people gods.

Peace,

The difference between latria and dulia is ad hoc and imaginary

Mateo tried to distinguish between latria and dulia and I think it's worth spending a little time on. I'll shamelessly swipe from my own post on the topic:

The transparent teaching of the OT is NOT to fall down before images. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox do so. So do pagans, Hindus, Shintos, animists, etc. The RC/EO excuse partly consists of pleading a difference between latria and dulia as Mateo said. The lexical differentiation is, however, disproved by the OT itself.

The reason that such distinctions are made in the 1st place is to justify the behavior of rendering worshipful actions of religious piety to someone other than the One True God. As a monotheist, it stands to reason that one would need to come up with a reason why such is not prohibited, especially since Exodus 20:5 makes it clear that we are to bow down to no one other than God, and yet here they are bowing down to someone other than God.

Ex 20:5 - you shall not worship (bow down to) them nor serve them.
God discusses His wrath and visiting the iniquity on children, etc.
In Heb, shachah is "worship" or "bow down" and `abad is "to serve".

Yet the LXX translates `abad as latreuo and douleo (out of which come latria and dulia in Latin) both. So here we are forbidden to "`abad" anyone other than God.

Let's see some other psgs where that is the case.

Ex 23:33 - they shall not live in your land... for if you serve their gods, it will be a snare
`abad here is LXX douleo.

Deut 28:64 - there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, etc
`abad here is LXX douleo.

Judg 10:10 - we have served other Baals
`abad here is LXX latreuo. Would anyone argue that this is not idolatry?
I can hear it now: "Lord we didn't give latria to the Baals, we just gave them dulia."
(Edited 19Jan2008)

In the Heb mindset, you can't worship him whom you don't serve.
You can't separate it out biblically. That's why the LXX doesn't just use latreuo or douleo; the Hebrew term is richer than that.

1 Sam 7:3 - remove the foreign gods... serve Him alone
`abad here is LXX douleo.

1 Kings 9:6 - serve other gods and worship them
Both appear.

Ex 4:23, Ex 12:31, Ex 23:24, Deut 4:19, the list goes on.

The NT likewise shows no hint of the distinction.
Rom 14:18 - does service to Christ not involve worship? douleo
Gal 4:8 - when you did not know God you were slaves to those which by nature were no gods. douleo
So these Galatians were not involved in idolatry? It would've been OK to serve those gods, just not worship them?

Col 3:24 - it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Is this less than latria?

1 Thess 1:9 - you turned from idols to serve a living and true God. douleo
Is he not saying you turned from idolatry to true worship?


The disturbing part of all this is the attempted separation of what our RC and EO-dox friends are defending and what Scripture teaches is wrong.
I'll illustrate by way of comparison:

Exodus 20:15 - you shall not steal.

In Hebrew, the word is "ganab".
In the LXX, ganab is translated "foneuseis" and these words have a similar usage to "klepto" in Grk, which is often used by the NT to express the same idea.
Several 100s of years after the time of Christ and the time of the writing of the NT, the argument could go like this:
"Yes, the property 'belonged' to a brother in Christ, but you know, we all hold all things in common like the book of Acts says. I didn't steal it from him, you see. He may want it back and accuse me of stealing it from him, and yes, I have it and he never explicitly gave me permission to remove it from his property, but that's OK. We're all free in Christ, and we don't use the word 'steal' the same way anyway."

I'd like to know the difference between the two situations.

As I've said before, when you ask a dead person to pray for you, you light candles, kneel and prostrate yourself before an icon, kiss the icon, burn incense, and pray at the icon. These are worshipful actions. These are actions that God has reserved for Himself in the Old Testament. Is man left up to the task of determining what is right worship before God, or does God determine that for us?
It is simple ad hoc equivocation to say that one can "proskuneo" before an image of a dead person, light candles, burn incense, and pray to them. Prayer is a worshipful action. Bowing down is a worshipful action, as in Exodus 20:5.

Intentional icons

Piggybacking on the recent post on images... some thoughts on God directing how He shall be worshiped follow.

I don't think I'll be able to do much in this combox, but maybe God will be merciful to my schedule.
Our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends defend the blatant violations of Old Testament directions for YHWH's worship by appealing to their intentions.


Leviticus 10:1-3

1Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.

2And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

3Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the LORD spoke, saying,
'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy,
And before all the people I will be honored.'"
So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.

God's instructions were clear as to how He should be worshiped, when, by whose hand, etc. These men violated those instructions. This is not pagan worship or the intrusion of a different religion into Judaism; this is disobedience to how they were to worship. Intention played no part.



Exodus 25:10-15

10"They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high.

11"You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it.

12"You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it.

13"You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.

14"You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them.

15"The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it.

Here God gives instruction for how the Ark of the Covenant shall be transported. And the consequence of disobeying with good intention:


2 Samuel 6:2-7

2And David arose and went with all the people who were with him to Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the Name, the very name of the LORD of hosts who is enthroned above the cherubim.

3They placed the ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart.

4So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark.

5Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals.

6But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it.

7And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God.

Uzzah's intentions were good, as the text says - to stop the ark from falling over. Indeed - what a terrible thing to have the ark fall over! But God destroyed him b/c Uzzah did not treat God's worship and instructions on worship as foremost and holy.
The Lord struck out in anger and wrath over the breaking of His instruction, despite the good intentions of David, Uzzah himself, no doubt the guys who lent the oxen and cart, the people in the procession, etc.

...


Acts 10:24-26

24On the following day he entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends.

25When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him.

26But Peter raised him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am just a man."

Revelation 22:8-9

8I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.

9But he said to me, "Do not do that I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God."

There is a way to bow down to mere humans and honor them in righteousness, as attested to by Scripture, without it being a sin. But not in a context of worship, which is the heart of the matter and the objection we have to RC and EO-dox practice.

Deuteronomy 4:15-18

15"So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,
16so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth.

What's the definition of a graven image here? "The form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth."
Presumably, something like this.
Let's leave aside the question of making an image of Christ here and focus on v. 16 - no image of form male or female. How is making an image of a dead person (ie, a saint) for worship not a violation of this command?