We see distracted people all the time. People texting in the car while driving or scrolling through reels while at dinner. It's become so normative in our culture that we typically don't give it a second thought. It's so pervasive and prevalent that it has even infiltrated the local church without any resistance whatsoever. It’s not anything new, in fact, it’s the same incredibly effective and diabolical plan the serpent has utilized from the onset, i.e. the implementation of distraction, detraction, division, and doubt.
In Genesis 2:9 we read, “Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life -and- the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then, just moments later, in Genesis 2:15, the LORD God blessed Adam with an enduring ministry to לְעָבְדָ֖הּ and וּלְשָׁמְרָֽהּ, i.e. to serve and minister to the bride whom God was about to create from Adam’s own flesh.
When Genesis 3 opens with the insidious serpent testing Adam’s treasured bride with a veiled query designed to distract, detract, divide, and raise doubt, and the man himself appears to be absent, the audience is rightly enveloped in a dark cloud of palpably pending doom. The serpent’s seemingly innocuous query is deployed with infinitely greater destructive power than all the weapons humanity will ever conceive: “Did God really say…”
With the serpent’s objective of distraction, detraction, division, and doubt accomplished, humanity was justifiably evicted from God’s life-giving presence in Eden... but not without the hope of a promise. “I will put hostility between you (the serpent) and her seed. He (Eve’s offspring) will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” A future and doubly fatal clash was imminent.
TWO PATHS:
From that very moment of revelation recorded in Genesis 3:15, we have a definitive splitting of human history into two distinct paths. The first path tracks with God’s inevitable plan to redeem humanity from our own fatal choice in Adam (Romans 5:12), which is the “narrow gate” Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7:13-14. The second path is anything and everything else, which Jesus refers to in Matthew 7:13 as the “wide gate” and “broad road” leading to destruction.
The serpent's diabolical plan hasn’t changed, it’s merely been nuanced, adapted, and “improved.” It’s still about distraction, detraction, division, and doubt. Scripture reveals that the wiley, crafty, and insidious serpent, i.e. Satan, now “masquerades as an angel of light.” His plan is about distraction from the centrality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to other well-intentioned efforts like social justice, orthodoxy, and human rights. Satan’s plan is about doing whatever it takes to shift our focus, attention, and affection from God and His desire for us, i.e. heralding Christ’s salvation to the ends of the earth. Satan’s plan is still about raising doubt regarding God’s integrity, fidelity, and even His very existence.
Distraction: The central message of Christianity is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel may quite possibly be most succinctly stated by Paul in 2 Timothy 2:8: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.” Paul makes no mention of social justice, human rights, community reform, paying it forward, or random acts of kindness being any part of it. In 1 Timothy Paul urged Timothy to stay on in Ephesus to refute false doctrines and to shift the Ephesians' focus from devotion to the worthless pursuits of myths and endless genealogies to the stewardship of God’s work, “loving instruction,” i.e. the advancement of the Gospel, which is by faith.
When any other pursuits, no matter how well-intentioned, take precedence over or compete with the essential and life-giving “Good News” of King Jesus, then the Gospel is at first, diluted, and later, wholly obscured. Shifting the focus to social justice or human rights, for example, inevitably diverts attention away from “the things above” and our future home, to “the things below” and the absurd futility of efforts striving to make this corrupted and fallen world, Satan’s kingdom, our home.
Idolization: The nation of Israel was guilty of perpetual idolatry throughout the entire Old Testament. God intended for them to drive all of the foreign nations out of Canaan in order to protect them from idolatrous practices. Israel not only failed to drive the nations out, but they willingly adopted the values, beliefs, and practices of those depraved cultures surrounding them. The pinnacle of this is revealed in the kings of Israel, where, in 2 Kings 17:17, we read, “They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.” A few verses later, in 2 Kings 17:41, we then read, “Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols…” Idolatry had become such an integral part of Israel’s cultural DNA, they even imported it into their worship of Yahweh.
During the intertestamental period (the four hundred years between the closure of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament), which was intended to serve as an intentional time of divine discipline from God, the nation of Israel continued its sprint down the wide path leading to inevitable destruction. In place of the temple, the residence of God’s glorious presence, they created the idea of the synagogue. In place of the priesthood, divinely appointed men serving in the temple, began adopting the Hellenistic practices of the Greeks, e.g. worshiping social status, human intellect, and the contemplation of ideas and reason. In place of divinely anointed prophets heralding divine revelation, they constructed their own writings (the Apocrypha) and concocted hundreds of oral traditions, which they not only artificially ascribed to Moses for validity and credence, but elevated to equally authoritative status with the written Scriptures.
Elevating any good thing or cause to primary status inevitably and invariably leads to idolization. Israel’s idols not only blinded them to their own Messiah’s incarnation and prophetic fulfillment of Scripture but incited them to crucify the Lamb of God, thus fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah 53:
He was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him,
and by His stripes we are healed.
We all like sheep have gone astray,
each one has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid upon Him
the iniquity of us all.
Today, when the people of God elevate “good causes” like social justice, orthodoxy, human rights, or even a Christian worldview, to the place of primary focus, it demonstrates our depraved and innate desire to replace God as the central object of our worship and devotion. This is catastrophic, as it contradicts God’s commandments to have no other gods than the one true God of eternal Holy Trinity, and to not bear His Name in emptiness.
Division: King Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21, was that we, His born-again, Holy Spirit-filled, Gospel-advancing, nations-discipling, maturing, and edifying Body & Bride, “may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Despite that prayer, the Church has historically been defined by schisms, rifts, camps, divisions, and factions since its inception.
These divisions typically emerge from egotistical narcissists seeking to overemphasize secondary issues. Our disobedience and disdain for Christ’s prayer for unity, however well-intentioned, demonstrate our desire to crush enemies rather than to love them. It demonstrates our desire to curse and trample them in vindictive pride rather than to serve and pray for them as Christ instructed. Disagreements over priorities and theological side issues always create factions and hinder the unity that is central and essential to Christ’s message and mission.
Salvation: A shift from the Gospel to an emphasis on good works, such as social justice efforts, tends to (inadvertently?) promote a works-based approach to salvation. That shift contradicts the core Christian belief in salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
Theologically speaking, Roman Catholics might disagree that theirs is a works-based salvation. The conundrum stems from the Latin Vulgate’s rendering of the Greek verb μετάνοια, i.e. repent, into a noun, i.e. penance. The subtle shift detracts from the unavoidably supernatural manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the life of born-again saints as kingdom heralds and reduces it to nothing more than depraved humans inventing synthetic ceremonies (religious gatherings), rituals (stations of the cross), prayers (Hail Mary), and purchases (indulgences) in an effort to artificially manufacture that which the Spirit accomplishes automatically.
Christians who put the primary focus on good works and good causes rather than on Christ, His message, and His mission, demonstrate their choice to join the perishing multitude in their trek down the wide path that leads to destruction.
Transformation: The Gospel of Jesus Christ not only offers salvation but also promises radical personal transformation through a relationship with Him. When the Church focuses primarily on establishing our popular version of Christ’s kingdom on earth via societal transformation and justice, it shifts the focus from Christ’s future kingdom and our desperate dependency upon the Holy Spirit for individual spiritual growth and sanctification within Christ’s Body, to the temporal and mundane.
Social justice, orthodoxy, kindness, and human rights are most certainly NOT incompatible with Christianity. In fact, they are an integral and essential byproduct of the Christian faith. The issue centers on the extent to which these efforts should be pursued or emphasized, if at all, and the catastrophic results they inevitably produce whenever given precedence over or equality with the core message of the Gospel: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.”
There’s a subtle yet deadly shift afoot within Christian circles. It’s nothing new, in fact, it’s the same incredibly effective and diabolical plan the serpent has utilized from the onset, i.e. the implementation of distraction, detraction, division, and doubt. Only the Holy Spirit can give us the discernment and wisdom to follow Christ. Only the Holy Spirit can lead us through the narrow gate and prevent us from pursuing the brilliant allure of an enemy who masquerades as an angel of light in order to lead us further and further down the wide path of destruction.
Which path are you on? The narrow path with all your attention, affection, and loyalty focused on Jesus or the wide one that has you distracted with a good cause?
Blessings,
Kevin M. Kelley
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