Since heritage day is coming up, I would like to deal with the question that seems to rise up is: Can a Christian serve Christ and still worship their forefathers? What I have found is that this brings up an ultimatum. It is either Jesus or your ancestors. You can’t worship both. You may ask why? Let’s read the Bible…
Deuteronomy 18:10-11
10“There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.
Isaiah 8:19
19When men tell you to consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?
So, since the Bible is compatible with Jesus but not compatible with ancestral worship. We can now say that there is now no commonality between them whatsoever.
Most people use the Transfiguration story to justify consulting the dead because Jesus called up Moses and Elijah. However, one must understand that Moses and Elijah did not die a natural death. Also, the disciples did not have a conversation with Moses and Elijah.
It is also vital to know what Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 says:
5For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. 6Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun.
The dead doesn’t know anything. They can’t help you! It also says that they will no longer have a share in what is happening on earth. The question arises: Who are you communicating to? Are they really your forefathers? Are they really your ancestors? Or are they spirits disguising themselves as your loved ones deceiving you and drawing you away from Christ Jesus?
You cannot follow your ancestors and Jesus. They are going in two opposite directions. You can’t be in America and England at the same time. You will have to choose who you will be in. You may that it is your pride or your tradition but the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17,
17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
Unless you leave the old things, you can’t be with the new. You don’t need your forefathers to take you closer to God. We have Jesus for that. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but through Him. John 14:6
In 1 Timothy 2:5;
5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
Hebrews 9:15
15Therefore Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, now that He has died to redeem them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Therefore, Jesus is the ONLY essential person that will take us to God for in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. Colossians 2:9
Repent and turn to Christ. Put away all false gods aside and serve the true living God.
