Bible Reading:
Psalm 115 vs 1 to 9

Forgery and Deceit

A forged ten pound note might look very similar to a real ten pound note. Right colours. Right number of squiggly lines. It says its worth 10 pounds on it. It might have a metal band across it. But no matter how close it is to the real thing it's still a forgery, it's still something made by someone who had no business making it. A forgery is a false thing, a lie. The forger makes his forgery and hopes that someone will come along and accept that its real. But it'll still get you arrested and locked up if you try and pass it off as a real 10 pound note.

But people don't just forge ten pound notes. People forge all sorts of things. Some people forge religions. They make up false religions. Forged religions take all sorts of forms. To find you've got a forged 10 pound note is a great disappointment. To find on the last day, the day of judgement, that the religion you've followed all your life is a forgery is beyond words to describe. It's the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone. Religion is the acknowledgement by man of God and His Deity.

A persons religion is the way that person shows what they know of God and how they feel about God. A persons religion is about how they are with God all the time. Not just in meetings or Sunday services in the church building but every day and night, wherever they are.There are only two religions in the world. True religion and false religion. True religion comes from God. False religion comes from the devil. True religion brings us to God. False religion brings us to hell with the devil.

It will help us, if we understand the origin of false religion, to be able to recognise false religion in these days so that we might not be deceived into going in a way that leads to a lost eternity.

When God created Adam and Eve He made them perfect and sinless. They were able to be in Gods presence .in the garden of Eden. They were able to talk with God there in the garden. They had a close, loving relationship with God so long as they obeyed that commandment God gave. There was nothing between Adam and God to cause upset or anger. God loved and cared for Adam. Adam obeyed and served God. Adam knew God. He knew what pleased God because God told him. Adams religion, his way of showing God what he thought of God was perfect love and obedience and service to God. Genesis 2:15 - 17 "And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.;And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."This was the way things were right up to the day when Adam had his own idea about how he'd get on with God in future. The idea was put in Adams mind that, in future he'd be just like God himself. He'd get himself the knowledge of good and evil and then he thought he and Eve would become as gods. Satan said in Genesis 3:5 - 6 "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

That was the point at which sin entered the world, the moment Adam and Eve disbelieved God and decided to go their own way. They thought about themselves and what they could get rather than about God, about all He had done for them and about what He had said. The sin began inside in their hearts and minds even before they reached out and took the fruit of the tree. God had told him how things were meant to be and what disobedience would mean but Adam thought he could make his own way forward. He thought he could take something he thought God was withholding from him. Adam stopped thinking of God as The Great Creator God who is always to be honoured and served and obeyed. Instead he said in his heart that he'd deal with God in his own way in future.

This was the beginning, the origin of false religion. Adam and Eve went their own way. They stopped going Gods way and chose their own instead. In their minds they made themselves more important than God. This is what false religion is all about. God had said how they were to be toward Him, how they were to show their respect and love and understanding of how wonderful and good and mighty He is. Instead Adam and Eve made up their own way. But it was no way to treat God. It was the opposite of what God rightfully expected.

There are other examples of wrong religion right back at the beginning. Cain and Abel were Adam and Eves first two sons. Abel was a shepherd and Cain a farmer. Abel killed a lamb and offered it as a sacrifice to God and was accepted by God. The death of the lamb was a picture of the death of The LORD Jesus on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. The lambs death was in the place of the person who brought it, just as the Lord Jesus died on the cross in the place of sinners.

The death of The Lord Jesus was promised right after Adam and Eves fall into sin and the offering of the lamb was a reminder to those who trusted God that one day there would be Salvation for sinners from God. Sinners cannot come into Gods presence on their own because God is holy and hates sin. If sinners are to come into Gods presence they must bring an offering that pleases God. The dead lamb didn't please God it was what the lamb reminded the person making the offering and what it reminded God of - The Lord Jesus - as it is only through Him that we can come to God and be accepted.

Cain, Abels brother decided he'd offer fruit and vegetables from his fields. It was an offering but it was Cains idea of an offering - not Gods. God never said offer fruit and vegetables and God wasn't pleased when Cain didn't follow Gods way. Cains religion might have looked alright - he made an offering to God but it wasn't according to what God had said. Just as Adam and Eve went their own way so too did Cain. Only trusting in The Lord Jesus for forgiveness of our sin can make us acceptable to God. We cannot make up our own way, either to worship God or to get ourselves to heaven.

After Gods judgement of the flood you'd think people would have learned their lesson and have respect for God and what He said. Genesis 9:1 "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." The people after the flood were commanded to fill the earth with people. Instead, as time passed they got together, ignored Gods word and decided to make their own way to heaven.Genesis 11:3 - 4 "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." They deliberately set out to go their own way in opposition to Gods command yet they still thought they were going to get to heaven! Their tower was going to reach up to heaven the place where God dwells - the very God they'd disobeyed and who had shown such anger against rebellion and sin! They thought they could go their way and just come into Gods presence as if everything was alright.

Just think for a moment. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that these people built their tower up to where God was in the highest heaven. They climb to the top and enter the holy presence of God. There they stand before Gods throne. Here are men and women who have disobeyed Gods commandment barging into the sinless glory of heaven amongst Gods host of angels. What's God going to say? Matthew 25:41 "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:" . Those people would be cast right back out again because God is of purer eyes than to behold evil. Of course, noone could build a tower to get to heaven. Not one made of bricks, anyway.

Lots of people still do try and tower their way to heaven. They think they'll build such a pile of their own goodness that they'll get to heaven by standing on that. The people that built the tower of Babel thought they'd get there by their own efforts and that is how millions and millions think they'll get there today. False religion is about doing things to please God and to get to heaven by our own works. This is the mark of false religion. Any religion, any way to please God and to show respect and honour for Who He is that relies on what man can do is false. It's a forgery. It may look real. It might even be a way that uses the Bible but if it's a way to God that relies on what people can do for themselves or on ideas they've made up themselves then it's a false way. Any way that is not given by God ends in hell. Proverbs 14:12 "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

If we are to know God it must be Gods way. People we have looked at have all gone their own way and God has been angry with them. Adam and Eve went their own way and were sent out of Eden. Cain went his own way and was cursed and sent away from the presence of The Lord. Genesis 4:11 - 12 "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.". The builders at Babel were driven apart by God, their language confused by Him in judgement. Even their high tower God had to come down to see. It would never reach heaven. Their best work could never reach God.

Scripture says in Isaiah 64:6 "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. " As we've said before there are only two religions in the world. There are many who would claim there are many religions in the world but the Bible only allows two. Some say all religions bring people to God in the end. False religion just isn't acceptable to God. Only Gods way, His truth and The Life He gives can bring us to God in peace. John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Only when we ask God to forgive us our sin through what The Lord Jesus has done and ask Him to make us acceptable through The Lord Jesus's perfect life in our place can we truly love God and serve Him as we ought. Only when God brings us to know Him can we really be right with Him and worship Him as we ought. But we must ask Him to work in us and not rely on things we think we can do.