Modern society has become spiritually energized, but invests that energy in everything BUT the Biblical Jesus.  Anything goes in this modern cafeteria of spirituality, EXCEPT guess who?

The world is for the most part suffering from Biblical illiteracy.  The average person has no idea what the Bible says.  There is no understanding about how the Bible was written and no understanding of its reliability.  Instead, myths have been promoted and accepted about the Bible:

1.  It has been changed
2.  It was written by men with an agenda, who were less than truthful and accurate.
3.  The Bible is not authoritative.
4.  The Bible is just a book of nice ideas that we can pick and choose from to make any point we want to make.

Unfortunately, many professing Christians are equally ignorant of Biblical facts.   Many refuse to accept it as the absolute word of God, that reveals Him as he is and who he is.   Modern Christians like to pick and chose what they believe about their faith and they actually make God up as they go -  relying on their feelings rather than Biblical truth.

The reason the Bible and the Biblical Jesus is resisted is because human beings are rebellious and the Bible clearly teaches that the rebellious will never enter God’s kingdom or his presence.  The moment that a rebellious heart acknowledges the authority of the Bible and the truth presented there about the Biblical Jesus, the smell of spiritual death begins to rise in their nostrils.  Denying the authenticity of the Bible creates a license to continue in rebellion and avoid conviction about their true spiritual condition (spiritually dead to God in their sin).

The authenticity of the scripture and the historical truth about the Biblical Jesus is available for any honest person seeking truth to pursue.  Unfortunately, far too many really don’t want to know the truth, so they accept false allegations and misleading charges about the Bible and about Jesus.

Over 90% of the people who have ever been born on this earth are alive today.  The vast majority are spiritually lost and will be so eternally, unless they come to know and accept  the Biblical Jesus.

Do you ever have a sense of impending doom?  By that I mean, do you sometimes feel that ‘something bad is about to happen’ but you can’t pinpoint the specific thing that is producing the feeling?  Well, that is the feeling that destructive fear produces and it has the power to take over our thought processes and lead us into all kinds of troubling choices and behaviors.

Destructive fear is the result of emotionally living in the future and removing ourselves from the present.  The problem is that the present is reality and the future is not.  The future is largely speculation and conjecture.  Usually, most of our future speculation is based on what we want to happen, or what we don’t want to happen.  In both instances the creation of fear is a potential by-product.

If we think obsessively about what we want to happen we may become fearful that it won’t happen.  If we think obsessively about what we don’t want to happen, we may  fear that it will happen.  Either way, the result of putting ourselves emotionally into the future is perilous because the moment fear is birthed we begin to worry and fret about it.  Some of us worry and fret to the extent that we seek out situations or substances that will help us change the way we feel and help us temporarily bury the terror and the anxiety the fear is causing.

God tells us we are to live in the present moment and we must do that by faith.  Faith is nothing more than believing that God is going to do what he says he will do.  Scripture tells us he works everything for good, according to his purpose.  If we believe that, the future becomes unimportant.  It is in the present moment that we find God and that is what is important.

Personal unhappiness is usually rooted in a perception that we are not getting what we really need.  The problem is that most of our opinions on this matter are based on some fairly selfish attitudes that really translate into being upset about not getting what we WANT.  So, distinguishing between what we WANT, versus what we really NEED is critical.  If we believe we are getting what we need and get rid of the thinking that pursues what we WANT…then we can become grateful in any an all circumstances.

The problem with getting unhappy about not getting what we want is that it always involves our feelings and when we begin to base our happiness on the way we feel we are stepping into the deep waters or fear, resentment and a host of other negative emotions.  Then, all those negative feelings  begin to connect and they become self-perpetuating.  In other words, if we surrender to all those kinds of feelings then the way we view our lives becomes even worse!

The only way out of this spiraling, emotional disaster is to become grateful for the good things we have in our lives, regardless of our circumstances.  The simple solution is to just thank God for his grace and mercy and then make a gratitude list – a simple list of things that God has given us to produce the “peace that passes understanding”.  Even in the darkest moments of our lives there are things to be grateful for.

The human issues that start the process of self-pity are directly tied to our feelings.  When we begin to make choices and decisions based on our feelings, rather than the truths God gives us in His word we begin to move down a slippery slope to destruction.  The hard fact is that our feelings are very powerful and it is difficult to stand against them and say no to the many compulsions they have the power to lead us into.  Some of those compulsions are infidelity or overindulgence in anything that will help us feel differently.  Usually, the feelings that lead us into destruction are based on fear.  Simply stated, we fear that we are not going to get what we want, or believe we deserve.   When we begin to be fearful about being happy we are beginning to walk toward the deep water of stupid decisions that lead to catastrophe.

Destructive thinking is like a plague.  Once it begins it becomes a tidal wave of emotion that can take over our lives.  The solution is to take our thoughts captive, one thought at a time.  It also helps to stop listening to other people who just want to tell us how bad our lives are.  Surround yourself with Godly people who understand God’s word and most importantly – spend time in the word yourself.  Ask God to help you leave the bad neighborhood your thinking has led you into.  If you stay there very long, nothing good will come of it.

(To see other posts on this issue, search “thought life” in the home page search box)

Let’s say this hypothetical child has been fearful, angry and selfish his entire life to the extent that his behavior has polluted our entire family.  His selfishness over the years spread among his brothers and sisters to the extent that they became fearful, angry and defensive too.  There seemed to be no end to the strife and anguish they caused each other as the years passed.  Their inability to love one another finally reached such proportions that they began to blame me (their father)  for all of their difficulties.  They became ungrateful for the things I had given them and rejected all that I had tried to teach them.  They eventually became convinced that I was the reason for their unhappiness and began to curse me.

 Even as my children hurt one another and curse and blame me for their unhappiness I still love them.  They are unaware of what drives them to be what they are and do what they do.  In one sense, I can see why they would think their condition is not their fault, but it results from their free will and the choices they make every day.  They fact that they want to deny responsibility for their condition does not change them from being the way they are. 

 I love my children but my wrath against them is just and is based in the truth.  My judgment is that I will not leave them an inheritance I know would be wasted and abused because of their selfish, fearful nature.  But my wrath is not directed personally against my children.  My wrath is against the evil fear and selfishness that drives them to hurt each other and me.  My heart goes out to them in their condition, but justice requires me to judge them unworthy of an inheritance and to cut them off.

 If righteousness and love are the foundation of God’s character, justice must proceed out of that condition.  Perfect righteousness and perfect love produce perfect objectivity and the twisting of truth is impossible under those conditions.  Perfect objectivity that erupts from righteousness and love must support truth in every case.  Upholding truth is justice, and if justice is fostered out of perfect righteousness and love, then God’s justice is perfect too.

The final result of love, righteousness and justice is judgment.  Without judgment there can be no justice.  And without justice, righteousness and love cannot be preserved.  All of this creates a problem for humanity, because the Bible reveals that eternity itself is rooted and sustained by God’s perfect righteousness and endless love.  The perfect righteousness of God cannot tolerate unrighteousness in His presence or in the eternity He occupies.

Out of His perfect righteousness and love, which is fearless and unselfish, God has justly judged that unrighteousness will not be allowed to pollute his eternity.  Since human beings are fearful and selfish it means we are unrighteous.  Our unrighteousness bars us from being in God’s eternal kingdom.  This is a hard judgment for people to accept but it is the price of failing to achieve perfection.

The bottom line issue is that human beings are inherently selfish and God is not.  Selfishness is the root of the human problem and is the source of our unrighteousness.  Conversely, perfect righteousness is produced from a condition of being perfectly unselfish.  This requires a bit more explanation.

The Bible clearly establishes righteousness as the foundational characteristic of God’s nature, and also describes God as love.  Human beings tend to interpret these words in a way that makes it difficult to develop an understanding of their close relationship.  Most of us equate love to the feelings we experience in our relationships with the opposite sex and we think righteousness is all about how we behave and the things we do. 

But love is really about selflessness and righteousness has much to do with our deepest motives and thought.  Now we can begin to understand how love and righteousness are joined together.

 Fear and concern for self, which is a characteristic of every human being walking the face of this earth, produces emotions that detract from our honesty with others and ourselves.  As long as that condition is a reality we will demonstrate selfishness and will probably do some “unrighteous” things along the way.  The only way Iwe might avoid being unrighteous is to be perfectly unselfish and be absolutely fearless.  That kind of perfection as a result of human effort isan impossible goal to achieve.

We (human beings) justify our lives within our own experience, and evaluate our behavior in accordance with our own ideas of right and wrong.    If we only think of righteousness in human terms, it will never accurately line up with the righteousness of God.  Human standards of righteousness are usually related to whatever we think constitutes acceptable behavior.

If the defectiveness of one person is greater than that of another, we conclude the person with fewer defects is more righteous.  When we compare the specific defects we find everyone has them, and we tend to discount their serious nature unless they have produced some obviously extreme behavior, such as a criminal act.  Because of this, humans cannot establish a perfect standard of righteousness.  Human standards will fluctuate with individual fears, opinions, cultures, and situational issues.  However, the righteousness of God does not vary and is based in perfection.

In the history of the Jews the nature of man’s relationship to God is totally exposed.  Human beings are left without defense before the awesome, transcendent God who claims to be the author of life itself.  In the sin revelation, the message is clear that the best efforts of man are not enough to achieve righteousness or please this holy God.

Sin may be the most hated word in the history of the human race, and one of the most misunderstood in our modern day.  Many have come to believe there is no such thing, and if there is, it does not present any problem for them in their relationship with God.

No human being in their right mind would have voluntarily created such a religious doctrine out of their own thinking, because they would have created an  impossible problem to overcome by their own effort.  In the Old Testament Bible revelation man always fails and no solution is provided that will produce a permanent, peaceful relationship with God.  Man is portrayed as dust and beyond hope.

Man on his own would never have written it that way.  Man would have created a theology by which he can triumph and appease God, thus fulfilling his dreams and desires.  We do not see this as it is revealed in the history of the Hebrew people.  We see sin, death and judgment.  Man’s desire is to embrace ideas and concepts that will produce the results he wants.  The things that man wants are found in naturalistic concepts of deity, and in bizarre idealistic theories.  That fact indicates  naturalistic religions are primarily functions of human thought, no matter how convincing the human explanations may sound.

The concept of sin is a foundational difference between the revelation of the Hebrew God, and the god-concepts of other religions.  The uniqueness of the Hebrew revelation is in a personal God, and the revealed nature of sin which other theologies and secular ideas do not embrace.  Sin is a hated concept and humans want to reject it as truth.

The doctrine of Sin indicates that man is a dead duck.  The only way a person who thinks they are alive can come to understand that they are really dead, is by revelation.  Because we are talking about spiritual death, it is a hard concept to grasp in a biological brain that thinks it is alive.

Moses and his two-million destitute people departed Egypt and lived in the Sinai desert with no visible means of support for forty years.  During this period, God gave the timid sheep-herder the Ten Commandments and a detailed system of orderly living that essentially survives among Orthodox Jews to this very day and serves as the basis for common law throughout the world.  This is no small accomplishment in any age and ranks as one of the most astounding facts in the history of mankind.  If someone led two million people into a desert today, how long could they survive?  A huge UN relief program would probably have to be organized to save them.

After Moses and his people wandered around in the desert for forty years, his rag-tag outfit eventually moved into the land of Canaan and subdued established cultures living in fortified cities with virtually nothing in the way of armament that compared with their enemies defenses.  Yet, they somehow succeeded.  The only thing they had going for them was God.

A Stormy Relationship

The rest of the story is of a people struggling with and against their God.  At times they experienced great highs and amazing national success.  More often, they were involved in corruption and rebellion.  About 800 B.C., individuals began to appear who were called prophets.  Though he was not labeled as such, Moses was actually the first prophet.  He had warned those who were in the desert with him of what the future history of Abraham’s people would be.

Moses’ warnings were periodically ignored or forgotten by subsequent generations and their descendants also discounted the messages spoken by later prophets who were sent to them.  These prophets claimed to be uttering the very words of God to this stubborn people and predicted their future fate if they continued to ignore the commands of their God.  The warnings were quite specific and the news was not good.  The prophets told them what would happen and who would cause it to happen.  Every bit of what was prophesied happened.

Because Abraham’s descendants persisted in ignoring God, time and time again they were conquered by other nations and carried away into foreign lands.  But God always preserved a remnant and continued to nurture and develop them as a people.

Abraham’s descendants were restored as a recognized nation in their ancestral homeland of Israel in 1948, and to this day, their national existence is continually threatened by the hostile nations that surround them.  Yet, they continue to survive.

The revelation in the Old Testament is of a transcendent, personal God, who literally created this people from nothing and owned them body and soul.  Creating something from nothing is a characteristic of this God.  He relentlessly pursued this people as they fell away time after time.  They were truly a people He had called to be His possession, and He expected them to respond accordingly.  They rarely did.

In the midst of this sprawling epoch that reminds one of a bad marriage taken to the extreme, there appear great shafts of spiritual light that burst on the scene in various forms.  Revelations concerning the holiness and righteousness of God abound from beginning to end, as well as, the revelation of the nature of sin.  In these revelations, God clearly claims to be the author of life, perfection, goodness, love, and the absolute owner of eternity and time.

At center stage of the entire Bible revelation is a striking theme positioned at the heart and soul of these people.  This theme is built around prophecy that the day would come when God would raise up a deliverer for His people and he would be their king.  In these prophecies, the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus is foretold, hundreds of years in advance of his appearance, down to the last detail.  The prophecies indicated this king would come into the world for the purpose of redeeming mankind from sin and to make them righteous.