An Innocent Supplanter of Truth

“Have a blessed day!” “Be blessed.” “What a blessing!” “What would Jesus do?” Although nice and religious sounding, what is the message here? What is the purpose? I’ve been around the Christian culture just about all my life, and it’s been part of me. I’ve seen just about every gimmick in the book, and I’ve done them myself. Shouldn’t we rather be armed with the power of the Word?

Conviction: the reception of a realization that God is and will do no less than reward me according to obedience to His mountain of righteousness.

Justification: the acceptance of a right understanding of God and His wondrous merciful kindness, that puts me in my place, fells my pride, and makes me a slave of His love and a servant to everyone.

Sanctification: the acceptance of God’s work in me, the work of a lifetime; it’s the washing of my mind by the water of His Word by the Holy Spirit. (Brainwashing? If that’s what it takes to remake my stubborn heart, I’m for having my brain washed.)

Redemption: the final product of conviction, justification, and sanctification; complete and utter surrender to God’s love and His will.

A gimmick: a trick to force something that’s just not there. A look-a-like, the tool of bait-and-switch. A cheap imitation and too often a substitute which appears innocent and worthy, but that God desperately hates.

The 3rd commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.” Ex. 20:7. Why does God so utterly despise the gimmick? Because it is destitute of the power to change the rebellious sinful heart. It is empty of God, His power and His love. The Lord Jesus is missing, out of whose mouth goes a sharp sword to smite the nations (Rev. 19:15). Conviction is not present, sin is never touched upon. The results are hollow chaff, clouds without rain, trees without fruit, promising life but only mocking the sin-sick soul. The trite religious front is the devil’s favorite tool. Artfully designed, the searcher for deliverance from Satan’s grip does not discern that the religious gimmick is not the real gift of God. But after trying as much counterfeit religion as the soul can take, too often, with hope broken, the new seeker for the Unknown God concludes that He is beyond discovery or just refuses to condescend to worthless sinners. No wonder Jesus threatened that it would be better to have a millstone tied about the neck and be cast into the sea than to offend His little ones! And, again, how did this travesty occur? The church trying to help God in the work of the Gospel, but ignorant of the true work of God on the heart, and opting for the cheap imitation, the gimmicks, the clichés. Oh, how Satan must exult! He is rewarded daily for his cunning!

It will take a millennium in heaven for the redeemed to get over the fact that their loved ones aren’t there and never will be there. But what about God? He will never get over the loss of billions of the children of His care. Eternity will never erase the Great Controversy-sized hole in His heart. While our tears will be wiped away and the spirit of heaviness will give way to the garment of praise in the presence of His glorious love, and, as eternity rolls, the only reminders to the damage of the Controversy are the scars on Jesus’ hands and head and side, yet the Ancient of Days will be what He has always been from eternity past─the great Burden-bearer, the lone sustainer and maintainer of the universe, ever surrounded by His loving creation, yet never completely understood and never completely forgetting the past.

Pretense forever banished, gimmicks and empty façades cast into an oblivion of God’s fierce hatred of it, likened to a lake of fire that smolders through eternity, only earnest longing after righteousness and love, and being the abundant recipients of the same, will bring long enjoyment to our work. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.” Is. 11:9. “And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that liveth for ever and ever,” and ever and ever… Rev. 5:13, 14.