Contrasts and Counterfeits by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 9, 1908

_Contrasts and Counterfeits_

By C. M. S.

_— No. 5_

It was God’s design that man should find in the Creator alone an object of worship. Satan, at the very outset of man’s career in the earth, set himself against the design of the Almighty. That was Satan’s purpose when he said to the woman in Eden: “Ye shall not surely die: . . . ye shall be as God;” and the carrying out of that purpose, as well as the others mentioned in these articles, was a direct onslaught upon the law of God, which said, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

The question, “Whom ought man to worship?” has therefore been a matter of dispute during all the history of the race. The question, “Who only shall receive worship?” is as old as the rebellion in heaven. It did not come into either heaven or earth until the justice and sovereignty of God were challenged by the father of sin. It is as great an issue now as it ever was; indeed it is reaching its culmination in this very age, as we shall see.

The man Adam met the question, and fell before it. Disobedience was the proof of his disloyalty; disobedience showed his willingness to worship another out of harmony with the One he should have served; obedience is the highest form of worship. As all the offspring of Adam fell in his fall, so there came One who was to meet the same test, and who, if he met it successfully, would open a way whereby all men might rise and stand again in his triumphant stand. He came; he met the test in the personal presence of the fallen rebel, and triumphed gloriously over the common enemy of God and man. In the example of his own life Jesus Christ answered truly and fully that question for all time.

So now, when voices are calling to us from every side, when scores of standards are being raised, and plans are carefully laid to turn the worship of man away from the only object of righteous worship, we ought to know what is the true standard and the true voice. Otherwise we shall be deceived as our first parents were deceived, and ruined eternally. As God is not a God of discord, there can be but one true standard, one true voice. All others, all that are not in perfect harmony with this standard, this voice, are false—either counterfeits of the genuine, or open or secret enemies of the true. He who worships anything but God has listened to one of these voices of deception, and has placed himself under one of those false standards. It makes no difference what that other object of worship may be; to worship it is to range one’s self on the side of the enemy of God. The worship of self is such a worship, and he who performs it is on the side of Satan and against God, for he has broken God’s law, which it is Satan’s great aim to have every man do. When Satan said, “Ye shall be as God,” the seeds of temptation to self-worship were sown in the human heart.

For ages the worship of self was chiefly manifest in obeying the demands of human desire rather than the commands of God; but in this present age regular cults for the worship of the human in actuality have been established. It is in fact a religion that is very much in evidence at the present time. It manifests itself where the Spirit of God has not come into the heart to soften and subdue the elements within us that would war against God. We may be made to think we are doing God service while we are burning incense to this idol.

The worship of self, in the aspect characteristic of it to-day, is more than the mere serving and pleasing of self known as selfishness. It has come to be a specific act of worship performed as self-worship. In its dogmas the object of worship set before the individual is “the Divinity within himself,” the “Good within him,” “the God within man.” The expounders of this new religion teach that all men have God within themselves. That makes the human being divine in the mind of the believer in that doctrine. It contradicts the teaching of the prophet of God, that “there is none that doeth good, no, not one,” and the personal declaration of Jesus, that “none is good save One, even God.” Mark 10:18. In spite of this declaration of him who is God and the embodiment of life, light, love, goodness, and truth, that new religion teaches that “it is fitting for us to unloose our shoes and bare our heads before the majesty of ourselves.” The seeker after light and life is taught to sit down at some definite time each day,

and slowly, carefully, and distinctly repeat to himself such sentences as these and many others of similar import:—

I am One with Infinite Life. I am Health, for the indwelling Life is Health Itself. I am Strength, for the Eternal Good [by which they mean God] within me is Strength Itself. I am Harmony, for the Divine Mind is Harmony Itself. I am Love, for the Infinite is Love Itself. I am Truth, for the Truth is Law of Being.

And so it goes on, attributing to the finite all the attributes of the Infinite. Whatever God is, that they claim to be. Whatever he has, that they claim to possess. If they are a part of God, of course it follows that what he is they must be; and they claim that they are, because they have him within themselves. The ascription of all these divine attributes to self makes self a god. The repetition of these claims at recurring, appointed periods is an act of homage, worship; and the deeds which go with it testify to the reality of that worship. With such the “I” is all, and the “I” is god, and is the only thing worshiped.

This is the kernel of the philosophic religions which are claiming much attention in the world to-day. Their adherents are multiplying rapidly. In every such cult we see the subtle working of him who disputed with God for the throne of heaven, and sought to induce even the Son of God himself to commit an act of worship contrary to the law of God. That counterfeit worship is the invention of Lucifer, designed to oppose the government of God and ruin the souls of men. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” That principle is the standard which should be lifted up now by every lover of the Lord Jesus. Allow the enemy to gain no foothold in the citadel of the soul by making you believe you possess the attributes of divinity. He conquers only to destroy.

C. M. S.