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SMELLING A FRAGRANT BRANCH AND
KISSING YOUR HAND
Ezekiel spoke against the idol worshiping
Jews of his day saying, “Then he said unto
me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of
Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they
have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to
anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also
deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though
they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them,”
(Ezekiel 8:17-18). Job declared himself free from idolatry by saying,
“If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon
walking in brightness; And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth
hath kissed my hand: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge:
for I should have denied the God that is above,”
(Job 31:26-28). Somebody objects to these texts
saying that we do not know the precise meaning of them. What does it mean to
“put the branch to their nose”? And what does it mean when Job mentions the
kissing of his hand by his mouth? Our answer is that while we do not know
all the details of these matters, we can discern from the context as well as
the statements that Ezekiel and Job were both speaking of idolatrous
practices. Seemingly little things, to be sure, but serious things as seen
by the judgment of which Ezekiel speaks. Ezekiel was condemning idolatrous
sin. Job. On the other hand, was testifying to his cleanness from idolatry.
The thing that ties these two passages together is that they both have to do
with idolatry among the ancients.
Through Jeremiah, God instructed His
people Israel, saying, “...Learn not the
way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the
heathen are dismayed at them,” (Jeremiah
10:2). Whether then or now, the child of God does not need to understand all
the meaning behind pagan practices. Rather he needs to eschew them – to stay
away from anything related to the worship of idols. The pagan worship
involved in their custom of putting an aromatic branch to their mouth or
nose as part of idolatrous worship may be unknown to
us, but the custom of bringing aromatic
(evergreen) branches into homes and businesses is no doubt connected with
this same ancient idolatry. And the honoring of the sun by bringing one's
right hand to the mouth as if kissing it when viewing the sun's brightness
is of similar pagan origin. All paganism is tied to the sun and is
ultimately worship of the fertility gods. Father sun, mother earth,
observations of solstices, sunrise worship services, Christmas observance,
Easter celebrations – all these things and others are connected to and
originated from pure paganism.
But some professing Christians object:
these are nice and lovely things to do; our family and our church has always
done these things; what will our Christian friends think about us if we stop
observing these holidays?” we do not mean to worship idols, won't God excuse
us?; can we not Christianize pagan customs so that they are acceptable to
God? Space and time forbids dealing with all the different objections. They
all fall into the same category: they are objections to just simply being
pure from idolatry. For that is what folk are objecting to. They are
objecting to purity. They are objecting to carefulness. They are in effect
saying, is it not OK for me to go to the roof of a tall building and walk as
close to the edge of that roof as possible? The question is not how close to
sin can I get without sinning, but rather, how far away can I stay from sin.
The ancient people of our two texts quoted
in the first paragraph above knew these things for what they are. The Jews
involved in committing the abominations mentioned by Ezekiel had not given
up the worship of Jehovah – in their own minds, that is. They had merely
added to His worship some of the ways of the Gentiles. So it is with many
professing Christians today. (We cannot say whether or not they are true
sons). But we can say with Bible authority that such worship is a mixture of
truth and lies. And the Lord Jesus said,
“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship
him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit
and in truth,” (John 4:23-24).
The Samaritan religion in Jesus' day was a
mixture of truth and lies. The Samaritans had a temple and a service like
that in Jerusalem. They had a priesthood. They had the Old Testament
Scriptures. Their worship had existed for generations when Jesus spoke to
the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four. Because of the mixture
of lies and truth in this man-made religion of theirs, the Lord Jesus told
the Samaritan woman, “Ye worship ye know
not what...” (John 4:22). So it is
whenever people innovate in the worship of God: whenever they bring in
customs and practices of the pagan people round about, they do not know what
they are worshiping. We must be careful to worship the Father “in spirit and
in truth.”
Job mentioned being “secretly enticed”
when seeing the glory of the sun. There is a constant danger of falling into
paganism which is defined for us by Paul. He said
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools,” (Romans 1:22). Rather than
worshiping God they worshiped creation. Paganism is popular. It is accepted
by those in the “camp” of religion. Most professing Christians are pagans.
To those whose religious experience is only an imagination of their hearts,
paganism is as acceptable as Bible truth. But let those who have been born
from above by the Spirit of God mind the Bible:
“Let us go forth therefore unto him without the
camp [of popular religion],
bearing his reproach,” (Hebrews 13:13). |