Religion, Fasting, and the Supernatural Order

The majority of church-goers in the world are bound. Left and right, it seems that every church is preaching Freedom; freedom from bondage, freedom from sin, and freedom from other people's opinions. On the contrary, a substantial number of churches keep their members bound by something week after week: Religion.

They often preach freedom, yet when it all boils down, many of them have NEVER had an experience with the Lord! And those of them who have, it is often drowned out in a sea of performance. Week after week of going to church, paying your tithes, fasting once a month, and going to every single church function, event and outreach makes you a "better Christian." Many of these churches also conform their members into a mentality of "No smoking, no drinking, no drugs, and no cussing; otherwise, you're not a Christian." These [fundamentalist] churches uphold a warped view of the Bible and its teachings; let's have a look at some of these warped perspectives.

One of the most popular teachings is that of "no cussing." They often look down people for being "in sin" because they say certain words that the Church believes are wrong. Their most common argument is that of Ephesians 4:29: "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, that those who hear it may be ministered to." Apparently, in their school of thought, this "corrupt communication" is confined to an S-word, F-word and D-word, among a few others. This, my friends, is in error. Corrupt communication is not determined by Society; in fact, television censorship lets many insults fly all over every show, provided that these few words are blocked. Friends, a "word" is NOT corrupt communication; tearing people down is corrupt communication.

One passage in the Bible which you will rarely ever hear taught from a pulpit is that of Matthew 15; the reason being is because, simply put, it makes Jesus look like a jerk, and in reality, goes against most churches' beliefs of "corrupt communication." Jesus is going through a city, directly after he has just fed the 5,000 men (not counting women and children.) You can be sure that much commotion was going on in the midst of that many thousands of people; yet, the Disciples were not bothered by it in the least. However, while going through this town, there is one woman who manages to annoy the Disciples enough to ask Jesus to (more or less) shut her up. Jesus first ignores her; she is persistent, and He continues to ignore her, except this time, he explains why He is ignoring her: "I am sent only to the children of Israel." This makes Jesus look like a liar, because He was obviously not only sent to the Jews, but also to all Gentiles, as well. When the woman is still persistent, Jesus finally says to her: "It is not fit to give the children's (Jews') meat to dogs." Jesus just called her a dog!

Let's keep in mind that "dog" in this time period did NOT have the same meaning as it does today; now, this word is a simple substitute for "friend." In Jesus' time period, it is the equivalent to today's word "bitch." By most church standards, it sure looks like Jesus had used "corrupt communication," but obviously, we all know that Jesus was perfect, and that He never did any such thing; in reality, Jesus was getting this woman to dig deeper in faith, so that when He kept on ignoring her, she would not give up.

Friends, corrupt communication is NOT a word, or a phrase, or a set of words that are "bad words" or "cuss words;" it is ANYTHING that tears down the body. The Bible says that out of your mouth proceed blessings and cursings; these cursings are ANYTHING that tears down the body; "You're stupid" is just as much of a cursing as "Fuck you." We need not place emphasis on not saying these select few words; we need to place emphasis on not cursing your brothers and sisters, no matter the "severity" determined by society.

Moving on: the next most common debate is that of not drinking, smoking, or doing drugs. The Bible says that there is nothing that can go into a man that will defile him; it is what comes out of him that will defile him. A man is not defiled by smoking, drinking and drugs; these things only hurt himself. He is defiled by what comes out of his heart! The Bible says that out of the heart of man comes sexual immorality, thievery, insults, murder, licentiousness, wrath, envy, idol worship and every kind of evil thing; let's use an example:

There is a man in a town, who does not go to church, but goes out partying, drinking, smoking and doing drugs; all of these things doing him great physical harm. There is another man in a church, who does not smoke, drink, do drugs, cuss, and he always follows all the rules, yet he stands in the church tearing down another person. Who has done the greater harm here? The man who only hurt himself, or the man who tore down the Church? This brings me to my next point: one common argument for not drinking, smoking or other such things is the Bible verse that says, "Don't you know that your body is a Temple of Christ, and that He lives within you?" [1 Corinthians 6:19.] When this verse is viewed in its original context, however, it is revealed that this verse was talking about sexual immorality and in reality has nothing to do with smoking or drinking!

Rather, the man who is tearing people down is doing the greater damage here. Jesus said, "If you do these things for the least of these, you have done it for Me." This statement is not a one-way door, folks! If doing good things for people is done for Christ, then surely doing bad things to other Christians is going against Christ! This also goes for cussing or any other types of fighting and cut-downs; ANYTHING meant to come against another person is, in reality, going directly against Jesus Christ! I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to go against the God of the Universe.

Now, keep this in mind: There are things that can go into your body which will kill you. Drugs are against the law. Drinking underage and driving while drunk are against the law. Smoking underage is also against the law. Paul himself, earlier in the passage in Corinthians, said: "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not profitable." What he's saying is that even though he can do things legally without repercussions, doing them isn't going to do him any good. Really, they would be harming him. "Even though I'm old enough to buy beer and get drunk, it's only going to kill my liver and make me look like a fool." "Even though I can go buy cigarettes and smoke them all day long, my lungs are going to hate me and I'll be on a respirator in twenty years."

What we need to be careful of is that we do not look down on someone and consider them to be in sin, simply because they smoke, drink, or cuss. We often consider these things to be sins, yet we find nowhere in the Bible that says "Do not smoke," "do not do drugs," or "do not cuss." Yet, we find it in the Bible that gossip grieves the Holy Spirit! However, if we put a gossiper next to a social drinker, or a smoker, or someone who cusses, the gossip would get a slap on the wrist, as opposed to the others, who are "living in sin" who would be thoroughly punished! According to most traditions, gossip is a drop in the bucket as opposed to the HUGE CUPFUL of someone who cusses or smokes. This is exactly what the Pharisees and Sadducees did, and Jesus himself told them: "On the outside, you are white-washed and perfect, but on the inside, you're dead man's bones! With all your traditions and ways, you have made the Word of God of no effect! Don't you know that the religious people hate me for saying that?" Friends, this ought not be so! We need to realize that these little sins, such as gossip, are the ones that could ultimately stop us from winning the race!