RELIGION SPEAKS A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE
Coming to understand the truth about how man’s ways differ from God’s ways is not simple or easy. It requires careful study of symbolic, Biblical interpretation. Moreover, understanding does not come unless God speaks the truth directly to the heart of people who are ready to rest from their religious works, stop listening to their cherished religious leaders, and begin listening to God.
The Religion Detox Network is a resource for people who have rejected the traditions and teachings of men (i.e. Old/First Covenant) in favor of following God’s commandment and listening to his voice (i.e. New Covenant) without the aid of a human mediator.
It is worth repeating that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are Old/First Covenant religions because their religious practices were conceived in the minds of men and codified into written religious laws that have been refined over time by succeeding generations of religious leaders. Indeed, all three religions claim that they are based on select parts Bible. But, they are based on rigid, literal interpretations of the Bible — not on the spiritual meanings found in the symbolism of the literal words. The religious leaders who created their respective religions did not understand the first the natural and then the spiritual principle which provides that God first speaks to us in human language and then in spiritual language.
Regarding spiritual language, it is important to understand that God’s definition of spiritual language (i.e. glossolalia ) is not the babbling of tongues taught and practiced by Charismatic Christians and other religions. These foreign, unintelligible tongues are not remote, unknown human languages spoken by people supposedly under the divine influence of the Holy Spirit as the Charismatics teach. Nor are they divinely inspired, made up noises created by Charismatics in a so-called personal prayer language that only God understands. Doctrines about speaking in tongues are all false teachings practiced in many religions — even those that preceded Abraham, Moses and Christianity. That other religions practice glossolalia is an undeniable clue that the practice is not one commanded by God because he gave clear warnings that his people should not follow the religious customs of other religions. These and all other religious doctrines are empty delusions, dreams and visions fabricated in the minds of religious leaders.
When God talks about tongues, he is referring to the language of God’s truth that is not understood by natural, non-spiritual Old/First Covenant religionists. Their ears are so accustomed to listening to the teachings of false prophets that they cannot understand what New Covenant disciples are saying when God speaks truth through them. Therefore, what they hear when the truth is spoken to them sounds like babbling in a foreign language that they do not understand.
STUDY TIP: See Tongues for more about foreign languages.
Lacking awareness that God first speaks in natural language (i.e. the literal Bible) and then in spiritual language (i.e. his spoken voice), Old/First Covenant religionists do not move beyond the natural language that they do understand — or at least pretend to understand. As long as they limit their understanding of God to what they learn from the literal words of the Bible, and to the interpretations of the literal Bible offered by religious leaders (i.e. false prophets), they remain prisoners to the religious doctrines that false prophets divine from those literal words. And, as long as they continue to listen to those false prophets and their divinations, which God calls lies and sin, they will never listen to or understand God’s spirit speaking spiritual truth to their hearts. They cannot serve both God and man.
STUDY TIP: See God’s Written Word and God’s Spoken Voice Part 1.
The habit of considering only the literal Bible has led Jews, Christians and Muslims to create religious traditions that constitute worship with their lips while their hearts are far from God. They listen to false prophets who use their intellect and imagination to interpret and report what they read in the literal Bible without ever listening to God’s voice. That fact, plus the fact that all religions have evolved over time, and are still evolving, proves that they are man’s creation because God does not change.
The result of this pattern of listening to false prophets instead of God’s voice is religion created and controlled by man (i.e. idolatry). Religion is idolatry because man has created it by his will, intellect and physical effort just as a man creates a physical idol out of wood, stone or metal. He then worships what he has created thinking that his creation (i.e. his religion) will save him and others. No one in these modern times will welcome this perspective, but rejection does not alter the fact that this is how religion develops. That is the bad news. The good news is that religious people with a mind open to the possibility that religion is idolatry will eventually come to awareness that they have been walking by sight (i.e. they put their faith in their religions and their religious leaders which they can see) and not by faith (i.e. in God who is spiritual and invisible).