Sid: My guest by way of telephone at his home in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Howard Morgan. I’m interviewing him on his book “Leaves From the Olive Tree” which he shows exactly how Christianity has deviated from the Judaic Biblical pattern, moved to a Greco-Roman pattern, and it was ever so subtle to the point that today you can’t tell the difference between Bible and tradition. Two thousand years ago the greatest rabbi that ever lived, His name was Yeshua. He went into the synagogue and this is what He said: “Your tradition makes void the power of God.” Why? We Jewish people for thousands of years started with a genuine act of God, but the human is you add layer and layer and layer and layer of tradition down. You deviate from the pattern. Well God said that Christianity has been around, this is in word to Dr. Howard Morgan that Christianity has been around for 2000 years. The same thing that happened to us Jewish people has happened to Christianity. If He walked into the best churches today he would say “Your tradition has made void the power of God.” Dr. Howard Morgan on yesterday’s broadcast we were talking how the church veered little by little into Greco-Roman culture. I want you to explain how it deviated from what the pattern should have been. Where is it now, and where should it be?
Dr. Morgan: Well I think the answer to that question goes to the crux of what Greco-Roman philosophy taught. You know that man was the sum of all things, and the whole idea is summed up in, “I think, therefore I am.” So everything was all about what we think and what we feel. Into the midst of this comes the revelation of the Torah and the Brit Hachadashah in which God says “He is the center of everything.” So there is a difference between rationalism, that is “How I rationalize things,” and revelation is what God says to me. So if God speaks to me I have to lay down my understanding and trust the Lord, and then have a walk of faith by the Spirit and not by my sight. We walk in Proverbs 3 where “We trust in the Lord with all our heart and do not lean on our own understanding.” That’s completely contrary to the humanistic, if you will, came out of Greco-Roman culture particularly the Greek philosophers where everything is based on what you can see with your eyes, you’re limited to your senses. In the Spirit Jesus said “If you were born from above” now a river of living water can flow out of you, you can live by revelation. So we can either live rational lives, or revelational lives. This doesn’t mean that we will be irrational, we don’t leave our mind out we love the Lord our God with our whole mind, but our mind is submitted to the revelation of the Spirit. Then we can walk with the Living God which is the invitation of the covenants that God made with Israel through Sinai, then through the nations of the world through the resurrection of beloved Messiah that everybody is now invited into a revelation walk of faith with God.
Sid: Okay everyone is, and most real Christians would say “I agree with what Howard has said.”
Dr. Morgan: Right.
Sid: But it’s not playing out in the institution called the church. Why?
Dr. Morgan: That’s again because we go back, and I encourage all of our listeners to be students of history. Read church history, read secular history, read Jewish history and you will see how little by little political things moved people away. People vied for power and authority, they used church offices, they established institutions and organizational dynamics to control other people so that one group of the elite had the power the “Clergy,” then they kept the laity suppressed. You know in the body of Christ Sid there is no such thing as Clergy and laity. This is something that came out of the Christian religion, if we study the Torah we see that EVERYBODY had access to God. EVERYBODY had the opportunity to come to the tabernacle, or the temple, have the atonement made. They were all represented by the high priest there was not this kind of hierarchy. The priest served the purposes of God in the lives of the people. We talked… the other broadcast about how Paul was expressing his heart. He wanted to do everything by whatever way he could to bring people to maturity. You study church history you don’t see that at all, you see people dominating other people, controlling other people to the point Sid that the church was guilty of murder literally persecuting and murdering other believers because they didn’t do what they wanted them to do. They believe it the way they wanted to believe it and they became a threat to their power. “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” is one book and that was written in the 1500’s that talks in horrendous ways about the bloodshed of the church. Of course as Jews we know what the church did to the Jewish people, our people down through the centuries and it’s still happening as you read things and reports on the internet, and churches are talking in horrendous ways about Israel.
Sid: Howie, as you talked earlier let’s bring things down to the lowest common denominator. Yes God loves the church, of course He does Jesus came to die so that the body of Messiah could be formed.
Dr. Morgan: Amen.
Sid: But, even the good churches have deviated from the pattern which is literally not by words but by action is just cutting the glory that God wants released in the church.
Dr. Morgan: Yes.
Sid: Now my heart and yours is to release that glory. So here’s what I want you to do, I want you to take me Sunday morning and you now are walking into a building called “Your Church” and take me step by step and show me what we have and where it deviated.
Dr. Morgan: Okay. I think the first thing we’re going to look at is the fact that there are pews in this building and most people are sitting back to back where we are looking at the back of someone’s head. So right away architecturally the dynamic is that everything is focused up on the platform, and then everything really on the platform then gets focused on the pulpit. So we have a pulpit centered building to create a pulpit centered experience. We are always looking for what is going to happen on the stage. The dynamic in the New Covenant is that everybody is supposed to bring a gift, everybody is supposed to be equipped and everybody is supposed to be participating. So instead of having everybody participating we have few people actively participating and most people are simply being spectators. So we go into this building where this is a “religious” spectacle taking place, a “religious” service taking place. So we go for the service instead of being equipped for service. There’s the dynamic then of… for example what we call praise and worship. So many times what we call praise and worship are song services that are structured by the clock. How many times have we been in church buildings and looked from the platform and saw this clock staring at us telling us that you have to begin at a certain time, and you have to end at a certain time because the theatre is scripted. The service is contrived and then it is controlled. Jesus said “That the children of God would be like the wind. You don’t know where it’s coming from, you don’t know where it’s going.” You can just see the effect thereof the glory of God when the Holy Spirit moves. If we have created, even in the good churches as you said, a mentality that we’re here for a service and we are going to go for an hour and a half, rather than saying “Holy Spirit come this is the day that the Lord has made.” We want to be free to allow the Holy Spirit come so that we can not cut the worship off. How many times have we and so many people said to us “I’ve been so frustrated because just as the worship was reaching a crescendo where we were about to break through into another level in the spirit somebody got up to make an announcement.” Somebody got up to do something else and we left so frustrated because of the spirit of religion wouldn’t let us in, didn’t take us to the next level. It was like having the key of knowledge but not using it and nobody was going in because the mentality of the way the Christian service is operating is according to the clock. It’s according to we’re going to do this at this time, and this at that time and people say “Yes, but if it goes too long the children… you know they get upset and they get bored and we don’t have the workers.” I say to people “Go back to your Jewish roots.” God said, I believe it’s in Deuteronomy 18, “That you know you teach your children as you go in the morning, in the evening so your children stay with you all day. If they’re hungry feed them.” “Oh no!” in some churches the board of demons shows up and says “You can’t have food in the sanctuary.”
Sid: (Laughing)
Dr. Morgan: “…but I have a hungry child.” So what if the carpet gets stained what’s more important my son or daughter staying in the presence of God in the anointing of the Holy Spirit that changes their life forever? Or we take them out to feed them because God forbid the carpet gets stained. I’ll stain the carpet!
Sid: (Laughing)
Dr. Morgan: Jesus put oil and wine right on the altar and stained the brand new carpet so that nobody can complain about the stains in the carpet because we’ve got the wrong mentality Sid of going to a service rather than being equipped for service and giving the Holy Spirit the kind of freedom that he really needs to do the deep work in people’s hearts.
Sid: You know Howie we’re out of time today, but I want you to pick up on tomorrow’s broadcast. You state because that the system because it’s Greco-Roman rather than Hebraic is almost an emperor type system.
Dr. Morgan: Yes.
Sid: Then you, I’m quoting your book, “The emperor only sees your value as you work to accomplish his goals.”
Dr. Morgan: Right.
Sid: That’s pretty explosive, but we’ll pick up right there.
