I am afraid even among biblical Christians, religion is not always honest and sincere. Again if I go back many years, I remember the mass crusades that took place in the 1950s and 60s, and which tended to peter out at the beginning of the 70s, from various international evangelists. There was an awful lot of spin. There was a brother I got to know quite well, he has gone to be with the Lord, but at the time of the big crusades in the 50s and the 60s at Wembley and Haringey he was vicar of Blackheath. And he was a Bible believing man who was appointed to be in charge of the counselling at the great crusades of the international evangelist. But he was shocked when he went along to take up these responsibilities, to find that the script was already written and everything was highly organised. And when the appeal for decisions came and the invitational system, a kind of machinery came into play straight away. And the system was that the preacher would appeal through the verses of a hymn, first of all for those who wished to profess Christ. Then he would broaden the appeal so that more and more walked the aisles. Then he would include the people who were just rededicating their lives and so on. But it was all so organised that as people walked out of the pews to walk to the front, so appointed workers would leave the aisles at the same time, would go into the aisles and join them. So that the great effect was that there was a massive crowd of people all responding to the preacher’s appeal and the shimmering music was played to act on the emotions. Little bits, you might say, of mildly innocent trickery employed to heighten the emotional effect. And this brother who was appointed to be head of the counselling felt he had to resign because while what was being preached was essentially true, there was so much spin mixed up with it and presentation. That never happened with the apostle.
These days, there are many, many churches who try to get people in by putting on concerts, and the service is more like a concert than a service of worship. And even the new churches that are being built very often resemble cinemas and theatres more than they resemble churches. It is all trickery. Become a Christian, come to church, it is fun. It is no different from the world. We play the same music, have the same style, do the same thing. That is trickery. It is baiting people with something which is not true. Here are we, calling people out of the world to come to Jesus Christ and to a totally different life and to conversion. Well, you cannot attract them by pretending you are something else.
There are other examples of this. We have the prosperity gospel movement, preachers who are just making a lot of money out of people. They could not say with the apostle Paul, we are completely straightforward and honest and sincere. And we have to be sincere as a congregation too. No secret sin, no Achans in the camp, no looking at filthy images, secret sins, playing the hypocrite. Our responsibility is to be honest and straightforward in everything and sincere before God.