Self-exaltation by proxy
Why applause? Why do God’s people applaud someone who has finished singing his heart out to the Lord? More often than not, following special music or a sacred concert, the congregation claps (I’ve even heard praises) to the musician or singer.
What does this say about the remnant church?
Praise no man; flatter no man; and permit no man to praise or flatter you. Satan will do enough of this work. Lose sight of the instrument, and think of Jesus. Praise the Lord. Give glory to God. Make melody to God in your hearts. Talk of the truth. Talk of the Christian's hope, the Christian's heaven.--Manuscript 8a, 1888. Ev. p. 630.
God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, "What must I do to be saved?" Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" DA p. 104.
Praising the instrument says that many in the remnant church have not read the precious counsel given them by Christ from the Most Holy Place. It says that they are copying the popular denominations of a fallen Protestantism in their pursuit of the great false revival Jesus warned us of through Ellen White. The world has walked right into the church and the church doesn’t even know it.
Why do the Protestant churches applaud people? Because the world has long ago lost sight of God and so they applaud one another instead. Likewise, the Protestants have lost sight of God, their faith is gone, and all that is left to thrill them is one another.
Applause is self-exaltation by proxy. I uplift you, I praise you and enrich you and deck you with gold and silver, because by beholding you I become changed into the same image. Why else exalt the Pope or other national leader, some celebrity or sport star? The human mind envisions itself there, the center of attention, drinking in the love and acceptance of multitudes, swimming in money and luxury.
Since the person can’t be worshiped, the next best thing is to forget reality and to imagine itself being worshiped. Praising a man is self-exaltation by proxy.
But God is not like man, who is marinated in sin. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is. 55:8,9). “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” (Ps. 50:21,22).
If our worship of Him is not from a humble and contrite heart, obeying His word, He distains it. He doesn’t need our applause or flattery. “Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant.” (Ps. 78:36,37).
“Then came to Him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping Him, and desiring a certain thing of Him.” Matt. 20:20). That thing she desired of Him wasn’t forgiveness or grace to overcome sin. It was for her sons uplifting, and through them, her own self-aggrandizement.
Lose sight of the instrument, and think of Jesus. Praise the Lord. Give glory to God. Make melody to God in your hearts. Talk of the truth. Talk of the Christian's hope, the Christian's heaven. Ev. p. 630.
What does this say about the remnant church?
Praise no man; flatter no man; and permit no man to praise or flatter you. Satan will do enough of this work. Lose sight of the instrument, and think of Jesus. Praise the Lord. Give glory to God. Make melody to God in your hearts. Talk of the truth. Talk of the Christian's hope, the Christian's heaven.--Manuscript 8a, 1888. Ev. p. 630.
God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, "What must I do to be saved?" Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" DA p. 104.
Praising the instrument says that many in the remnant church have not read the precious counsel given them by Christ from the Most Holy Place. It says that they are copying the popular denominations of a fallen Protestantism in their pursuit of the great false revival Jesus warned us of through Ellen White. The world has walked right into the church and the church doesn’t even know it.
Why do the Protestant churches applaud people? Because the world has long ago lost sight of God and so they applaud one another instead. Likewise, the Protestants have lost sight of God, their faith is gone, and all that is left to thrill them is one another.
Applause is self-exaltation by proxy. I uplift you, I praise you and enrich you and deck you with gold and silver, because by beholding you I become changed into the same image. Why else exalt the Pope or other national leader, some celebrity or sport star? The human mind envisions itself there, the center of attention, drinking in the love and acceptance of multitudes, swimming in money and luxury.
Since the person can’t be worshiped, the next best thing is to forget reality and to imagine itself being worshiped. Praising a man is self-exaltation by proxy.
But God is not like man, who is marinated in sin. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is. 55:8,9). “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” (Ps. 50:21,22).
If our worship of Him is not from a humble and contrite heart, obeying His word, He distains it. He doesn’t need our applause or flattery. “Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues. For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant.” (Ps. 78:36,37).
“Then came to Him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping Him, and desiring a certain thing of Him.” Matt. 20:20). That thing she desired of Him wasn’t forgiveness or grace to overcome sin. It was for her sons uplifting, and through them, her own self-aggrandizement.
Lose sight of the instrument, and think of Jesus. Praise the Lord. Give glory to God. Make melody to God in your hearts. Talk of the truth. Talk of the Christian's hope, the Christian's heaven. Ev. p. 630.
posted by David | 6:52 AM
3 Comments:
Do you propose people sit in silence? Sounds kind of puritanical.
Do you propose people sit in silence? Sounds kind of puritanical.
Hi Jonas. What I wrote sounded heavy-handed. Since then I have softened by approach to the things Protestants do. But, the words of scripture are still strongly opposed to self-exaltation and the exaltation of a human. It was this that led to the exaltation of the bishop of Rome into a heavenly figure. Turning humans into deities has its beginning in the Garden of Eden, and has never ceased to find a way into the worship of God's people. Solomon permitted people to praise him and he got dizzy at the pinacle of praise and fell. Job exalted himself and heard the Lord's trumpet rebuke for doing that. Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
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