NEWS & THOUGHTS ARCHIVE

Tailor-Made Religion 

Acts 7:39-41 “To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.” 

Having seen fifty-eight years pass through the portals of time, one discovers a diversity of good and evil. To use the terms consistent with the electronic age in which we live; age brings with it the attachments of splendor and spam! When the books are closed on 2008, I will have been preaching thirty years and saved forty-five years. While there are others that have seen more, I have started to note significant change, in my lifetime. NO! I don’t have any stories about walking to school bare foot in the snow and it being uphill both ways. Yet, I have lived a sufficient amount of time to see changes made all around me. Some of those changes fall into the splendor department and others into the spam department. 

One such change that disturbs me greatly is the steady rise of tailor-made religion. It appears that no longer does man’s religion change him; but rather, man changes his religion. In the Bible I read of men and women that had an encounter with God and their lives were forever changed; Paul on the Damascus road, Jacob at Peniel, and Lydia by the river near Philippi. It appears that the event has now been reversed. Man encounters God and the only thing that is changed is their god! Man appears to be unmoved by his religion. 

When I speak of tailor-made religion, I am not speaking of the obvious cults that immediately come to the minds of fundamental Christianity. I am speaking of that which has infiltrated what we refer to as fundamental Christianity! In Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man.” In Exodus 32:1, man said, “Up, make us gods.” In the beginning, man existed for the pleasure and purpose of God! Today, God exists for the pleasure and purpose of man! While this idea of tailor-made religion is reaching epidemic proportions, it is not something new. One of its first appearances is recorded for us in Exodus 32 and told again in Acts 7. If we carefully study these two passages, the character of tailor-made religion manifests itself. 

The Corruptness of Tailor-Made Religion – vs. 39

To fully understand the corruptness of tailor-made religion, it is only necessary to ask ourselves, “Where did this religion come from?” The precedent for asking for new gods in verse 40 is revealed in verse 39; “their hearts turned back.” The people of God chose to reject the message of God and the messenger of God and began to follow the direction and desires of their own heart! Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jeremiah reveals the truth about the character of the heart, “deceitful above all things.” The word “deceitful” means crooked and polluted. There is the revelation concerning a cure for the heart in the phrase, “desperately wicked.” The phrase “desperately wicked” means to be incurable, to be frail or feeble, to be sick or woeful. Jeremiah wants us to understand that there is no cure for the polluted character of the heart! Jeremiah speaks of the ability to comprehend the heart, “who can know it?” It is not within our ability to comprehend, discern, or discover the ways of the heart. In Matthew 15:19 we are given the contents of the heart, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” The tailor-made religion can never be anything but corrupt because it comes from an incurable source of corruptness, the wicked heart of fallen man! While the natural heart of man may generate something religious, it will never produce anything that is righteous! 

The Combination of Tailor-Made Religion – vs.40

Tailor-made religion is a blinded combination of truth and error. That is the reason it is so detrimental. It does not totally reject God, but retains the label and places it on the things of the world. The people wanted to embrace the deliverance of God and the pleasure of Egypt at the same time. While they did not want to be the slaves of Egypt, they did not want to be the servants of God either! When the people asked for a god by saying, “Up, make us gods” (Exodus 32:1). The word “gods” in Exodus 32:1 is the word “elohiym.” While in most cases the word has reference to the supreme God; the God that brought people out of Egypt, the word also has reference to gods in the ordinary sense. Think for a moment what the people are really asking for; “Up, make us an elohim!” We don’t want the real supreme God; we want a god something like him and the gods of Egypt. What did Aaron do, he gave them what they wanted in the form of a golden calf and the next day they blinded the worship of Jehovah with that of their tailor made god (see Exodus 32: 5-6). The tailor-made religion of today talks about the Bible, but it does not accept it as God’s final Word to man. Tailor-made religion tips its hat to Jesus as saviour, but rejects Him as Sovereign Lord of their lives! They want an elohim, just not the real one. They want a god that never makes them uncomfortable, never exposes their sin, and never makes any demands upon their busy pursuits of the world’s pleasures. Tailor-made religion is so readily embraced because it appeals to the natural man and it has just enough god to satisfy our religious appetites. But may I remind you of one Biblical Truth; “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 16:25). 

The Construction of Tailor-Made Religion – vs.40

While their tailor-made religion took on some resemblance of the eternal, its entire material list was made up of temporal things. “And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf.” Exodus 32:3-4 The people wanted an elohim and got an “eidolon” (New Testament word for gods which means idol) instead. The people ended up with a golden calf that would perish with time. It was a god void of power and ability. It had eyes but it could not see. It had feet, but could not walk. It was nothing but a worthless idol! This tailor-made religion may be able to pacify the religious fervor of this world, but it cannot impart the righteousness needed to gain access into heaven! Religion may be satisfactory for today, but it is tomorrow that must we must be ready for; “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). In that day many will be heard to say, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Matthew 7:22). The True Elohim response will be, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). What is your religion made of? 

The Crown of Tailor-Made Religion – vs.41

Who gets the glory in this tailor-made religion? Listen to the Acts 7:41, “and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.” Notice the rejoicing! The word “rejoiced” means to put or be in a good frame of mind, to make glad or to be merry. There was gladness and a rejoicing over “works.” The problem is not that there was merriment within the hearts of the people over a deed, labor, or work. The problem stemmed from the source of the work; “the works of their own hands.” It was not the works of God or God Himself that was the object of the people’s praise! They had placed the crown on the creature and not the Creator. In today’s tailor-made religion, it is the men that are exalted, praised, and given the preeminence in the services. 

It is no longer just the obvious cults of the world that project and practice the ways of tailor-made religion. I am afraid that so called fundamental Christianity has become disenchanted with the sovereignty of God, the clear commands of God’s Word, good works as an evidence of true conversion, and a willingness to accept God’s abhorrence for sin in the lives of men whether they be saint or sinner! We no longer call for purity in the pulpit or dedication and devotion from those in the pews. The call back to morality and sacrificial living is misconstrued as legalism. God forbid that we should expect the child of God to come out from among the world and be separated. After all, this isn’t the middle ages! I do not stand in judgment of your religion; but I do in the quietness of my own heart contemplate how much of what I say I believe is tailor-made by the corruptness of my own heart at the expense of that which the Bible calls “Pure religion and undefiled” (James 1:27). It might be worth thinking about today; for tomorrow will be too late! 

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