When Reason No Longer Resembles Truth

We have been seeing violence on the daily news lately with all the chaos and protesting on university campuses in America, which in my mind is the result of poor parenting. The rioting of students on the university campuses is not a surprise given that parents have believed in the lie that providing college for their kids is the best way to love their kids.  This, I believe, is a clear deception of Satan. When parents turn over their children to atheistic teachers to be indoctrinated in twisted and evil thinking, the end result is that their children become God haters who no longer understand how to reason truth from error.

I have encountered so many well meaning parents who have bought into the lie that giving their children a college education is the best way to prepare them for a successful future in life. How is it that people who claim to hear from God can not see the evil underpinnings of so many collages that they are sending their kids too? If we are not careful about who influences our children we will wake up some day to the fact that we have lost them to the lies of the enemy in the colleges that we hoped would help them but instead turned them away from ever trusting God.  Simply put, emotional love based on lies produces bad adults.

One of the fundamental exercises as believers is the ability to reason out the values in our lives and the lives of our children. If we have lost that skill in life we are bound to be deceived  into believing we can live any way we want with impunity from God or others. If there is one thing the bible teaches, especially in the Old Testament, is that God is a just God who gives to each person or nation what they deserve.  For God to give us mercy there needs to be a valid reason for showing such mercy. He won’t be fooled by our excuses or crying but only by our confession and true repentance. Our calling is to live our lives with the values of scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, not the values and sympathies of culture.

One of the early books I read after my conversion was called “True & False Repentance” by Charles Finney. Finney laid out the difference between true and false repentance brilliantly as he was a trained lawyer before his conversion. That book clarified for me how easy the church embraces a false gospel in which people believe God can’t wait to hand out mercy just because a person prays and asks for it. God is intent on our hearts and minds being transformed or his mercy is withheld and never applied.

In the Old Testament, when Saul was made the first king of Israel, the king was commanded by God to utterly destroy the Amalekites. The Amalekites were a people of the Arabian peninsula, who had occupied a tract of country on the frontiers of Egypt and Palestine. They had acted with great cruelty towards the Israelites when they were coming out of Egypt.

1 Samuel 15:2

Thus says the LORD of hosts: I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.

If there is one thing the Old Testament teaches us is that God will bring about justice for his people whether it is done now or in eternity. The second thing the Old Testament teaches us is that God hates when his people, especially the leadership, pretend to be spiritual when they are just acting with self interest cloaked in religion.

When King Saul was commanded by the prophet Samuel to destroy not only the people but all their possession, he instead chose to save the Amalekite king and the best of everything else.  He then pretended to offer sacrifices to God as if God was blind to his motives and actions.

1 Samuel 15:22-23

Samuel said, has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 23] For rebellion is the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.

What is so insidious about religion pretending to be relationship is that we think God can not see our motives and we think we can lie to his face. We cannot and God lays out the principle of what He is after in his people, which is humility and integrity, not pretending.

In the New Testament, a similar thing happened with a couple who pretended to be spiritual.  During this event in the early church God acted with great judgment toward this couple in order to teach the early church that God hates duplicity and deception. This couple paid with their lives in order to teach the early believers how much God hates lying and pretense.

Acts 5:1-3

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

3] Then Peter said, Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?

Both of these stories illustrate how people were judged by God because they acted sinfully and because they thought they could lie to God and get away with it. Let us never forget that God sees the heart and not just our words. When it comes to forgiveness, God always acts justly when evaluating whether forgiveness is ever applied to a life. When we humble ourselves under God’s hand He exalts us because He loves humility, not pride.

James 4:10 

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

The great deception of our modern age is reason being turned upside down.  Lies are seen as the truth and the truth is seen as a lie. Today, reason has become so twisted that it often is no reason at all.  Consequently, we think we can live contrary to God’s will and he will just keep loving us and showing mercy to us.

One on my favorite verses of scripture is found in Mich 6:8.  This verse focuses on three simple objectives that I need to remind myself of regularly regarding what God wants in my life and in the lives of those who call themselves Christians. These three objectives will always get us to reason out how and if we are living on target with the will of God.

Micah 6:8 

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Questions:

1) Have you found yourself buying into the lie that college is good for your kids? Proverbs 3:5 tells us to trust God’s wisdom more than our own.

2) Have your kids walked away from the Lord since they went to collage? 2 Sam 22:7 speaks about calling unto the Lord for help.

May the Holy Spirit restore our reason to trust God most of all,

Pastor Dale