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Sin Under Sins
Barbara L. Klika, MSW, Undershepherd, Life Coach
January 2026
“The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands”
Martin Luther
Written for Wisconsin Christian Newspaper
It is amazing how human beings are just so convinced that we would know better than the “3 O” God-- Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent --who can’t be trusted…but we DO that all too often. In fact, along with many others, I believe we ARE in grave danger now and under His judgment for the same reason. Knowingly, or unknowingly, believing that lie is rebellion. This happens within our faith institutions as well as within other institutions around us.
It happens individually when we fall into this all too familiar cycle: fear, unbelief, pride rebellion. Basically, something frightens us for our own or others well-being; we struggle with knowing Messiah CAN help us but not sure if He WILL help, sliding into the self sufficiency or pride part of it, which can be either in arrogance or desperation, thinking we then MUST figure out ourselves what to do, which lands us in the bottom most pit of rebellion, because of course, what ever we figure out is OUR way, not at all His way.
James Wilder, Founder of Life Model, calls it believing the “sark.” The “sark” is a complex concept, sort of like our “flesh” and somewhat controversial but basically refers to the things we experience or hear and give more weight to than the Word of our God.
I think perhaps Eve fell into this cunningly laid trap when she believed what she could see with her own eyes and reasoned to herself about what the serpent implied…that our Creator was holding out on them!
So as Martin Luther had said, whether we realize it or not, by taking things into our own hands, we ARE in rebellion toward our God.
Our SAM fellowship is in the midst of a study of Ezekiel right now. We just looked and the last time we had studied through Ezekiel seems to have been about 2006. We have learned so much since then…we can only manage to get through one chapter a week! We are corelating with Revelation, Jeremiah, Daniel…we have just read about the process whereby our Elohim withdrew His Presence from the Temple. All the while, the leaders were convinced that could NEVER happen, and the false prophets fed that belief.
The primary reason He left His chosen place?
It was the rebellion and idolatry of His people. As Warren Wiersbe’s commentary pointed out:
(“Begin at my sanctuary” Eze 9:6 sounds like a strange order but it was the idolatry in the Temple that had aroused the anger of the LORD. Often in Scripture, you find God sending judgement, not because unbelievers have sinned, but because His own people have disobeyed His Law.) (from Be Reverent)
Apparently, I was musing out loud a few weeks ago at study and said, ”I wonder if we could say the Spirit has departed from the churches now?” Several people remembered this and our study leader, Janell Schroeder, put quite a bit of thought and study into it.
What led to the departure of His Presence from the Temple then?
The Temple was defiled with pagan practices by the priests and the people. First, their curiosity was piqued by what the neighbors were doing, then they began secret participation in those rituals, and then openly began to incorporate practices of worship of other gods into the Temple practices with the participation of the priests. Ezekiel 8:12 and even Psalm 94 address their belief that He wouldn’t see.
Idolatry was--and still is in my opinion--a besetting sin among His people. (Besetting sin is something that is an ongoing problem or fault toward which we are naturally inclined.)
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Hebrews 12:1
His people were not giving Him glory in their disobedience and rebellion. He saves those who look to Him for His Glory and He punishes sin for His Glory. In Ezekiel’s account, an angel was sent to put a mark on those who sigh and cry over the abominations. This is a GOOD mark we should desire to have along with a clearly God-honoring lifestyle…it is mentioned in Revelation 7:3, 9:4, as well as in Ephesians 1:13-14 (G4972 sphragizo) And there is good reason to believe that this God honoring mark was in the form of a tav, but that is another story entirely!
(Rev 13:16-17 and Rev 20:4 includes the opposite kind of mark: G5480 – charagma the one we DON’T want to have!)
Ezekiel was told that although he needed to speak YHWH’s message he should be forewarned that the rebellious people would not listen to him. (I can relate to this as I have also had the assurance of things I need to speak along with the “head’s up” that they wouldn’t listen! There is joy in being obedient to speak and do what one is called to do, even as one experiences the grief of not being heard or being harmed for speaking.)
What sorts of things do we see today that have migrated into our secret personal practices and habits and then made their way into our public life and even worship?
I began speaking all over northeastern Wisconsin in the early 90s when I began to realize how much “new age” and occult practices were sliding into my Lutheran church system and Catholicism at the time. I well remember people saying I was overreacting… people are too sensible they’d never fall for such things as divination or witchcraft or perverse sexual things.
I remember some of the Bible study formats that made their appearance which were far more focused on our personal thoughts and reactions and interpersonal concerns than they were on the Word. I remember people who were beset with illnesses that weren’t responding to typical medical practices so they went right on over to the new age practitioners who would use applied kinesiology (Placing a substance in a glass vial into the hand and then testing to see if the arm strength weakened or improved)… and one practitioner who would do telephone consultations with a picture of the person in front of them (Psychometry: a paranormal practice) and then swing a pendulum over a tray of herbs to determine what the person needed (in my opinion, divination).
An example of this was a pastor who had been a referral source to me. His wife was suffering inexplicable pains with no help at the physician’s office. She found some relief with one of these kinds of practitioners. I expressed my concern that this was not within Scriptural understanding and wasn’t a good role model for their congregation…and promptly lost a good source of referrals.
Today, there is a lot of attention to quantum energy mechanisms and fields of healing through frequencies…some of this I think could well be of God, but there is also quite a risk of fraud and unholy involvement to discern as well. (examples Reiki, Polarity treatments..)
The more I have learned about pharmakeia, a Greek word usually translated as witchcraft or sorcery and which appears to be the root of our English words such as pharmacy, the more I see possible connections with unholy sources. I do not condemn use of medications but do ask people to prayerfully consider what our Abba is directing them to do for any ailments. That, too, is another entirely separate story to consider and needs to be done in depth in order to avoid any confusion or sense of condemnation, while also considering what might be harmful about our synthetic pharmaceutical basket compared to natural substances provided by our Abba. Once one is committed to the pharmaceutical management of illnesses, it is much harder to extract from that.
When you see transgendered “drag queens” in the pulpit or at the local library story hour do you think this is a practice condoned by our Elohim?
I do believe there are some churches/leaders who ARE seeking to honor God as best they understand but I also know of a number of them that are open and vulnerable to any of the strange practices that have been “coming out of the closet.”
These I suspect one could say that the Spirit has departed from them…all the while they insist on their devotion to God.
These things fall into the individual or “micro” arena of decision making and practices but there are also “macro” or society wide matters that affect our obedience toward our Creator or lead us into rebellion, however subtle it may be.
There is only room to briefly describe things that were involved in the establishment of America which most people do not know. Along with the famous Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, there was also Sir Francis Bacon’s influence in the process. Did you know about the influence of Bacon’s desire to create a “new Atlantis” as America was formed? A primary source is the award winning documentary “America’s Secret Beginnings” by Chris Pinto… here is a small excerpt from the description.
brilliant documentaries that reveal the truth of America's secret origins and symbolism from the ancient mysteries. The films focus on the intentions of Francis Bacon and the founding fathers in creating a new Atlantis, a nation of enlightenment that would lead the world into a new order of the ages.
In fact, this has to do with laying the foundations for the re establishment of a “New Golden Age.” How do you think the current goal of the “New Golden Age” for America might be connected? Much more to that than I can cover here as well. Please prayerfully check this out soon!
And going specifically to the influence of Bacon on our faith expressions I bring this excerpt for your prayerful consideration:
In Bacon’s version of Genesis, the restoration of the lost Paradise was expected to come about not through faith, but from the “great mass of inventions”[x] that would flow forth from the new experimental science that would give humankind the command over Nature that Adam had in the Garden of Eden. As a result, the descendants of the first man and woman could on their own return to Paradise and “subdue and overcome the necessities and miseries of humanity”[xi] that resulted from the expulsion of Adam and Eve to East of Eden,
Without looking Him in the face, Bacon told God in sotto voce, “We do not need your help. We know now how to return ourselves to the Garden of Eden.
Excerpt from : Modernity: A Rebellion Against God; By George Stanciu|July 31st, 2023
Your government; your willingness to believe that our God cannot be trusted while looking to mankind to solve our problems and bring us back to Eden on our own.
How many practices do you see in our daily lives that seem to be mankind’s efforts to take things into our own hands to attain an Edenic life?
I can pretty much guarantee that the answers to these questions of both personal and corporate/ micro and macro ways in which we take things into our own hands will bring resistance and quite possibly anger as well.
Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house. Ezekiel 12:2
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. Matthew 13:43