Does it matter what a person chooses to worship? Is worship of anything not a personal matter?
It matters because worshippers of false gods are destroying lives and dismembering society. Evil spirits have made all kinds of taboos and abominations highly attractive.
For example, Africans know that traditional doctors prescribe incest, rape and child defilement as solutions to pressing needs. Crimes like those are seen as doorways to destiny.
As the Bible has prophesied in I Timothy 4:1, many people are obeying deceiving spirits. Those trusted spirits deserve to be dragged before God’s heavenly court—and at the end of time they will.
Without naming names and placing places, let us compare the character of those gods and that of Jesus Christ.
Remember He was revealed from ancient prophecy as the pure and holy Lamb of God who because of His endless love would die to take on Himself the penalty for our sins; and who fulfilled all prophecy by dying on the Cross and rising from the dead.
Note that for more than 2000 after the Resurrection, not one person or institution has ever adduced any proof that Jesus who is worshipped in the Church as the Son of God is still entombed somewhere.
Let’s proceed.
A god by nature and by definition is not the Creator and Originator of you, your life, the earth and the universe.
Therefore it is an evil spirit, an impostor, unfit and undeserving of your worship and allegiance.
Angels are not gods. Demons, which are fallen angels, present as gods because they demand worship and devotion from human beings.
DEATH
In all cultures, gods are not dreaded for giving life but for taking it. They are strongly associated with death and calamity. For that reason their significance is in the horror they provoke in people.
In the same vein, they teach murder. This is why from infancy, worshippers will be taught the value of shedding blood to forward their religion; the virtue of terminating life to bring honour to their god. Worshippers of that kind of god will grow up to become suicide bombers whose promised reward is a place in heaven.
Consider that. This is a religion that demands your death or the death of others, or even your death with the death of others (as in suicide bombing).
Its god bathes in blood and is satisfied only if there is a consistent river of human blood flowing towards its throne. That by identity is the god of death from the abyss.
Many tribal religions thrive(d) on child sacrifice and cannibalism.
This is one reason why God commanded the children of Israel to exterminate the death-worshipping tribes they found in the Promised Land of Canaan.
And when the chief or king dies, all his widows, servants and bodyguards are buried alive with him. That is the worship and veneration of death.
Is that the god you worship?
One Asian religion was formed by the founder first beheading five volunteers. Another religion to this day does not persuade people who will not convert; it slays them. And if a follower converts to another religion, that follower will be killed.
Oftentimes, the strength of such gods is the graveyard. They cause people to pray and worship at tombs and to live their lives around the dead. In that way, the gods bind people to the past, and most of all, to death.
That fascination with death defined many ancient religions which kept their people backward and unable to see beyond the graves of the ancestors.
Little wonder we have seen generational shifts away from such tribal or territorial religions which have nothing to offer the living.
No matter how ‘democratic’ we would like to be, no matter how we would like to ‘equate’ the faiths, some religions openly lead into deeper darkness and death and they are not timid about it. Societies have no justifiable cause to follow such gods.
There are religions whose founders died, for whom their followers have been killing other people for centuries: they will also face the Day of Judgment before Yahweh the Creator at the end of time.
It is without contest that Jesus Christ died for all our sins and became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) so that through Him we may become the righteousness of God. Jesus died for us.
To the contrary, the gods of this world, gods of death, require that we kill for them and die for them.
This explains the mass killings happening all over the world, including rape murders.
LOVE
Outside Yahweh, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and His Son Jesus Christ, there is no love.
Which religion offers unending grace and love, forgiveness for sin?
And even if it claims to do so, did its founder lay down his life for all sins to bring redemption to all? Only Jesus Christ who came from God did that, and He did that for you. No one is excluded, no sin is too great and no sin too small.
The consistently demonstrated and displayed character of false gods is that they inspire hatred and vengeance in their followers. Who is unaware of the vehement and vicious intolerance shown by the worshippers of such gods, which is daily televised globally?
Spells and curses are the tools of witchcraft, and false gods cast spells for their worshippers.
False gods respond to incantations and instead of teaching the way of mercy, love and grace towards opponents, they kindle and rekindle merciless attitudes and facilitate witchcraft. They enforce curses.
In fact there is no witchcraft without marriage to evil spirits. Male agents of witchcraft have been known to become wives of demons, and females the husbands of demons.
ANIMALS
Humankind was created to worship God, and to hold supreme position over and above all the created things on the earth.
That is the biblical teaching of Genesis 1:27 and 28.
Humans are above animals.
False gods present themselves in the image of animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and all kinds of land and water creatures. The worship of such gods aims lower than even the status of mortal man.
False gods even present in the combined forms of a human body with the head of an animal; or a human torso with the lower part belonging to an animal.
In the occult, demons present themselves as such.
The most powerful spell-casting symbol in Satanism,
The Baphomet, is the form of Lucifer with the head of a goat, torso and arms and hands of a man; and lower part and legs being that of a goat.
This is mortal confusion.
Teachings of false gods have gone against even the fundamental orderof nature.
Creatures of different kinds reproduce after their own kind.
One teaching is that if you have lived a wicked life and accumulated a certain level of spiritual deformity, you will die and be born in another place on earth as a lower creature. You may become a fly, a cockroach, a lizard, a snake, a pig or an elephant.
This teaching demolishes the sense of divine order and purpose as humans and animals criss-cross and assume all sorts of life forms; dying and incarnating several times until the soul attains perfection and can finally escape from earthly life.
Some religions give tremendous reverence to animals. But whether the followers know it or not, those animals, which even respond majestically to that worship, are not mere animals but bear in themselves spirits of the gods.
This is how people have been lured over the centuries to pay homage even to animals they should freely slaughter and eat.
Vegetarian diets are often inspired by the teaching that the animals we eat are in reality our past relatives, living today in another cycle as cows, goats, fish, caterpillars and all that.
BODY-SWAPPING
Be careful what and who you worship. Some gods introduce their worshippers to body-swapping.
In one real life account, a woman was hospitalised to a mental asylum because suddenly she was no longer herself.
Over time she remained altogether bizarre: all her actions and behaviours were not human but those of a cat.
At some point, it was discovered that she was involved with the occult and used to body-swap with her cat.
She would leave her body and occupy the cat’s body, taking the cat out of its body and into her human body.
It was concluded that while her soul was in the cat one night, the cat was hit by a motor vehicle and died. That left her real body occupied by the spirit of the cat and presenting like a woman gone insane.
Those familiar with witchcraft in Zambia, let alone our continent, will recognise this phenomenon.
HIDDEN
False gods tell lies; they keep deep truths about themselves hidden.
Transcendental meditation, typical of some religions, is a practice which has its entry point followed by higher stages.
You will join a religion that practices this and see nothing for a number of sessions.
Then the demands will come: Next time bring with you a betel or lotus leaf, a red or white handkerchief, a fruit, some incense. Should you make a request for wealth, power, fame, influence and the like, you will be required to bring along a human head or organ, or the corpse of a virgin.
There was no sign of anything abnormal at the beginning, but at a certain point you will witness, together with other worshippers who have reached that level, the appearance of a demon. That demon will issue instructions and at that stage you are locked in.
The study of world music history demonstrates that almost all global names have dedicated their songs to such spirits which have placed powerful spells in them. This column has explored this matter in detail.
TRANSFORMATION
Your spiritual transformation is no concern of that god because false gods deny that humanity is in a fallen state of sinfulness. False gods merely excite and interest our imagination by offering us higher planes of purity and spiritual life.
A god only plays a controlling and dominating role in the life of an individual, a family or a community. It imposes rules and demands that are met at great—even tragic cost—to worshippers.
That tragic cost will be the life or the mental health of anyone close to you, which you must pay to get something important to you done; or to get a prayer answered.
A god is a spirit but has no ‘otherness,’ a quality recognised of God who is the Creator of all things including angels and fallen angels (demons). ‘Otherness’ means ‘totally different’ from all created things.
A god is not completely different from human beings; it displays the same weaknesses and character negatives found in us.
In some families, those figurines (idols) that are prayed to are kept separate because the gods fight each other.
On top of that, a false god presents itself in terms of human gender, parading as a god or a goddess.
UNPREDICTABLE
A false god is unpredictable. For that reason, it is not reliable and not trustworthy.
It deprives and punishes without cause and without explanation.
Just when you thought you understood that god or goddess, you find yourself at a loss.
A false god is impersonal. You cannot share a personal relationship with that god and know that god at a personal level.
You cannot become familiar with that god even if you happen to communicate with it.
You should not even dare ask questions from that god.
Some teachings hold that there is an eternal and formless reality that holds all things together; but it is not personal and you cannot relate to it.
When you have reached the highest level of ‘being’ your soul will be joined with that ‘over-soul’ and you will be one with it.
But it is not personal and you cannot relate to it—meaning there is no God but only a force up there.
That is the language of lying spirits.
False gods are connected to rivers, mountains, meteors, trees and other landmarks considered holy or sacred.
You are unfulfilled as a worshipper or follower unless you carry out a pilgrimage to such a place in your life. That is mere ritual.
In some faiths you can even concoct your own god on your terms; you can add to your list of gods every other god you wish to add.
You can even add Jesus Christ as one of the many you worship, not as The One.
REVEALING
Before revealing Himself in Jesus Christ, God spoke in many ways to all cultures; and all revelations pointed to the coming of the Messiah.
In 1962, Americans Don Richardson and his wife went to serve among the Sawi tribe of what was then Dutch New Guinea, Indonesia in the service of the Regions Beyond Missionary Union.
The Sawi were human headhunters—they ate human beings.
The missionaries were exposed to malaria, dysentery, and hepatitis, and the constant threat of violence.
Three violent tribes decided to make peace when the missionaries, after some years of striving with difficulty to transform the people’s lives, opted to leave.
Enemies exchanged children and entered into covenants, actions that showed utmost trustworthiness.
Such a child, now adopted fully into the new family, was known as a Peace Child.
Richardson started using this to show how God gave Jesus Christ as a Peace Child to bring peace between Man and God, and the cannibals converted to Christ.
After all has been said and done, see to it that the belief in which you have taken refuge is able to carry you through the waters of death to the presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in Heaven.
There is an eternal Hell created for demons and not human beings (Matthew 25:41).
Those who choose to remain lost will end down there, but because Jesus died for us, that is not necessary. Email: all.information@ymail.com