Al Mohler on American wealth and leadership

On a recent radio show, Mohler spoke of a foreign leader friend of his who basically said, “It looks like your American church leaders are only chosen from the wealthy.” He made the interesting point that even those of us who despise the health-and-wealth heresy in theory actually live it out in practice.

“I hate your charade”

I think often about how we come together for corporate worship. I definitely have my own preferences for everything, but what I focus on mostly is not the different methods, but rather the fact that the only right I have to respond to God comes from the horrendous death of Jesus on a criminal’s cross in my place. Most often I am confronted with that reality than wondering what I should be doing in that setting. My fear is the constant theme throughout Scripture that our lips can say one thing but our hearts actually be far from God (Mt. 15:18). I, for one, fear being a person of many words but not much action (1 Cor. 4:20). When I am straining to consider the ridiculous idea that Jesus set His affections on me, I’m not worried about whether I’m singing or raising my hands or whatever else.

This, I think, is what Paul was getting at when he says that if we eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord “in an unworthy manner” we will be guilty, and then commands us to “examine ourselves” (1 Cor. 11:26-29). Paul elsewhere tells us to not presume upon God’s grace (Rom. 2:4). We can have absolutely no confidence in anything other than the gospel. If we ever think we’ve arrived and that we’re free to do as we please, we’ve completely missed the point. This is a serious matter, and when we come together for the sole purpose of glorifying God and enjoying the fellowship of His people, we had better remember what we truly deserve.

Hypocrisy is something that I don’t ever want to take lightly. Jesus spent a large part of His ministry condemning hypocrites, in line with the prophets of the Old Testament. And, it seems that a big part of the rebuke was in relation to the “motions” of corporate worship (Jeremiah 7). Those who were trying to make a big show out of their response to God were repeatedly condemned for how they lived the rest of the week. I personally refuse to use the word “worship” when referring to the music that is performed during a Sunday service, because to me it creates a false dichotomy between that period of time and setting and the rest of our lives. I can’t picture Paul or the early church using a lot of the language that we do. In reality, our whole lives are worshipping something. The hope is that something would be God, but if we’re honest, most often it’s not. We may sing loudly or clap or raise our hands, but the truth is that “we have not known thee as we ought.”

Isaiah 1:11-17 – “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough… When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me… I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

I can only imagine what would happen if a prophet in the caliber of an Isaiah or Jeremiah were to appear to us today. I can picture him confronting us – while we raise our hands with tears in our eyes, while we spend hours perfecting and critiquing our sleek worship services, while we wear ridiculous Christian t-shirts and put bumper stickers and fish on our cars so everyone else can know how privileged we think we are; while we sing cheesy songs about our personal relationship with God, and we shout, “God bless America!” All the while, we litter our closets with trendy clothing produced by oppression of the orphan and the widow from a third world country; we give millions of pounds of food to our pets, or simply throw it in the trash or our $1000 garbage disposal, while millions around the world starve to death; while we spend hours a day glued to a television screen and our kids raise themselves with the idols that we have purchased for them; and we spend millions on heretical books about flying out of this world and how to make God into a piñata.

The first will be last.