Man’s Traditions and God’s Way (DCLC – July ’86, Part 4)

Stained glass windows began in the year 1200. A costumed clergy began about 360 to 380 A.D., and it has been wearing a costume ever since. The Catholics wear a costume, and don’t you ever think the Protestant clergy does not wear a costume. There would be a revolution; there would be a revolution in the Christian faith of staggering dimensions if every Protestant minister in America would vow to take off his suit and stop ministering in it in churches on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and stop wearing it around the community. Think about it. It would revolutionize a hunk of the Christian faith. Do not think, do not think that it’s a small thing. It’s what separates the clergy from the layman.

I can name on one hand all the men I know who preach the Gospel without a suit and tie. I know three. I’m sure there are several dozen, but I know three. Who are they? Oh no. I met one in Florida who claims he doesn’t. And I know one on the West Coast and one in Ohio. And that’s all. That’s all I know. There. I’m sure there are many, many more men who’ve been ordained to the ministry or who are full-time preachers or whatever I am who do not dress up. Now, see, you thought I’d fallen from grace, didn’t you? Now look at me, I’m just like you. And I enjoy dressing up. I’m one of those people who would probably do it more than I do, except I’m so violently opposed to it as my profession. Lawyers, preachers, doctors; teachers got liberated. When they did, the kids got liberated, and that’s why the clergy will never give up their suit and tie.

Okay, what I don’t think you understand is that the Christian faith was without ritual until probably around 260, 280 AD. And now it’s at that point I’m going to move on and talk about the situation going on with the Lord here. Sunday morning church, black Bibles, costumed clergy, choirs, rituals; if you took them away from the Christian family, God’s people, and the clergy, neither one would know what to do with themselves. And that’s frightening. That is really frightening. Even in this room this week, forgive me. Most of you do not know how to function. You have rarely been called on to help in a meeting, and it’s new to you. I can tell you something. A year or two of church life under your belt, and you’d do great and going to a meeting without a clergyman present. You’d learn more listening to God’s people share the reality of Jesus Christ than the next 200 sermons that you’ll hear put together, and do your spirit more good. Might even help your soul a little bit.

By the way, when I was talking earlier about what you’ve learned this week, I would like to tell you I left out something, and that is, that those of us who live together in a very compact church life made a discovery. Some of you religious people don’t like the idea of a Christian counselor at a Christian conference on the deeper Christian life, because that doesn’t go together well. You know, I understand your problem out yonder, but this is not out yonder. This is here. And I heard Mike say it perfectly. There are some problems in your life and in mine; you’re never going to work out on your own. I once heard a man say something very wise. He said, “When I really find out what a person’s problem is in a counseling session,” he said, “I make him repeat it three times. Come back the next time; I make him repeat it three more times, because their mind is incapable of seeing it, understanding it, or holding it inside.” Your blind spots are exactly that. You are utterly blind. And sometimes somebody has got to say the emperor is not wearing any clothes.

Somebody’s got to tell you where you’re aching, hurting. And if you’re in church life for a couple of years, even the lame, the halt, the blind, and those in the middle of an epileptic fit can tell you what’s wrong with you, because they get to know you. And I think that’s another reason church life has never been particularly popular. It’s because we get found out.

Now, back to my story. Your God has lived without ritual and traditions, forever. He came to earth in a voice to His people, and He gave them shadows to teach them about things that were real. They left the shadows and pictures and began concentrating on the things they invented around it. And one day in a rage, the Lord said, and somebody heard Him say it and wrote it down, in the Old Testament, the Lord said to people, not the ones in Judea, but to their great, great grandparents, “With your mouths, you come to Me. With your lips, you honor Me, but your heart is somewhere else. You’re worshiping Me in vain. You’re not following Me, you’re following the traditions of men. You come to Me with your ear, your tongue, and your body, but you don’t come to Me with your heart. You’re worshiping Me in vain because you’re following the traditions of men.”

Now, who said that, pray tell? A God who was tired of getting up every Saturday morning to watch people worship Him. When I was 19 years old on Christmas day, I went to St. Peter’s Cathedral at high mass, and there were only 150 people there, because the Pope wasn’t showing up that day. There were about 15, 20, 25 Cardinals. They marched out in their beautiful robes. Sat down, forthright, I went to sleep. Sound asleep, while the mass went on. They were going to a ritual they had gone through tens of thousands of times. Well, not only did they go through it, but God also had to go through it.

Here we go again. It’s Saturday morning. The ritual starts. People are looking off this way and that way, thinking about something else. The priest is going through the ritual. And there’s God looking over the battlements of heaven at this. Your heart is far from me.

I like to pick on Pentecostal people. Have you ever watched altar calls in the Pentecostal churches? The pastor’s walking up and down, going, “Oh, praise God. I’m hallelujah.” And all that stuff, and he’s looking at offerings, and he’s saying it while he’s saying, “Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.” He’s trying to find his coat or his wife, and he’s talking in tongues and looking around, hearing somebody else out there praying and agonizing, looking over and saying to his wife, “I’ll be there in a minute.” And they’re enough. You always drop something, picks it up; it becomes a form. I like to pick on Pentecostals. Baptists don’t even listen to the preacher. The preacher doesn’t have a foggiest idea what he’s talking about. And the choir’s got a thousand-yard stare. And they have been taught to never yawn. I like to pick on Baptists, too.

Well, it was the God of heaven who was tired of that in the days of Isaiah. Now, that same God is walking around on earth, and He’s healing people in Galilee, and you know what else He’s doing? He’s listening to Pharisees pray in Jerusalem. That’s what He’s doing. Are you following me? As sick and tired as He was with Isaiah’s garbage, I mean, the garbage going on in Isaiah’s day, He’s just as sick and tired listening to the Pharisees get up every morning and pray at certain times and enforcing the traditions that have grown up around those prayers. Prayers are prayed a certain way. I’m not going into Jewish ritual, but it is extremely complex. For instance, if you’re a conservative or orthodox, you wash your hands, and when you wash your hands, you don’t speak to anybody till you get your first bite of food in your mouth. Is that not true, Jim? Jim’s not orthodox. That’s what they told me, Jim.

Well, brothers and sisters, there were whole rituals when these things, the purifying of pots, as was mentioned, and on and on and on, these things they would fight over and kill over, and then they would turn around and pray to the Lord. And the Lord who was in heaven was also a man in Galilee. And He was having to listen to that, and it was reminding him of their grandparents, and He was angry at their grandparents, and He was angry at them because they had replaced tradition with true and living worship.

I deliberately left out one of the great traditions. And some of you are going to have a duck when I say this to you. Do you know what God, the living God, did on Calvary with the Sabbath because He was so fed up with it? You know what He did with it? What did He do with it? He nailed it to the cross and ended it. He ended Saturday worship. He did not replace it with Sunday worship. Just because Christians in the early centuries sometimes designated and witnessed to the fact that there was the first day of the week, did not mean that suddenly it was some kind of a holy event. And you’re still a Jew when you are so religious as to specially honor a day. Now you need a day of rest. I’m not counting that; God made you a machine that needs to rest one day and work six. But He didn’t designate which day. He took that day and nailed it to the cross. And it’s still there.