When Praise becomes Blasphemy

He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him. (Proverbs 27:14)

As I have been reflecting and writing about praise, I have come to the point that I see the bulk of what we call praise (and of course worship) as for the most part blasphemous.

I know many are shouting at the top of their systems that I have overstretched and so I will ask to be allowed to walk us through the reasons I am saying it.

What constitutes a false friend?

A false friend is simply someone who openly confesses their friendship yet behind the scenes is working feverishly to bring you down.

Allow me to give a very fresh example from the church I have been involved in.

There are these friends of the pastor who have over the three or so years I have been in that church been pouring praise on the pastor. They have talked about the wars they have fought for him in the many battles he has had in ministry for over twenty years.

According to their narrative, they could very easily take the bullet for him for the ministry and impact he had had on them.

Then early this year they cooked such muck, muck that was intended to completely obliterate the same pastor’s ministry from the damage they had cooked against his person. That for the single purpose of taking over his position.

Simply speaking, Judas would have looked like a saint if he was compared to what they have done to the same pastor they were pledging to take the bullet for when they wanted to take over his position.

Could you call such people friends just because their words spoke very positive about their pastor? Could you treat their words as praise when they are telling the congregation that they are not part of the scheme yet at other fora arguing for the guilt of this man of God in such detail as would make any ears tingle?

Of course not.

That is the point I want to make about praise.

Praise is not about the words we speak to and about God, words that may sound very pious.

Praise is not the amount of money we pour into what we think God needs.

Praise is not the actions we perform in God’s name.

Though praise may have those and even more, words and actions do not constitute what praise to God is.

At its root, praise is the overflow from a heart totally consumed by God’s revelation.

Praise originates from the heart. And it is from the heart that God receives it.

When we use words and songs to define our worship and leave out surrender, we are not talking about praise to God.

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? (Amos 5: 21 – 25)

I hope you are getting what I am saying.

It is only a heart that is completely submitted to God that can able to truly praise Him.

Anything other than that is not praise.

This because praise is not about us or our interests or feelings.

How then does God look at praise that is not completely centred on Him?

It is simply bogus praise, or the praise of another, even if it is feigned as praise to God.

That is why I am calling it blasphemy.

Otherwise explain to me why Christ would call something that was ordered by Him in Exodus a den of robbers?

The order to Moses was to accentuate the worship of the Israelites who lived far from the centre of worship by removing the hassles of driving livestock those distances and looking for acceptable currency to offer in their worship.

But they had made that trade something completely different with a completely different focus.

A simple instruction had been transformed into something that was so abhorrent to God who had issued it that He had to whip people to stop it.

I believe we should start thinking about praise or worship void of words or music to be able to recapture what they are.

Otherwise we could be fueling blasphemy in our worship.