I look at the news — from a “Biblical” perspective — almost every day. Sometimes, quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that people could live in the same world I see and not recognize that something is HORRIBLY wrong, and that events are rapidly coming to a “tipping point”. It seems more and more obvious, in other words, that the plagues now at hand are far more than mere random acts of nature.
Perhaps the most common complaint I hear from those who DO have “eyes to see” is frustration. How can some things apparently be so obvious, and yet so many of our friends and loved ones are oblivious to them? Why can’t we “make them see” what should be so clear!
Scripture seems to say that only a Remnant will ever “get it”. Likewise, we should remember that if so many people missed the nature of the Savior Himself — when He was literally right in front of them! — why should we expect things to be easier for us today? After all, He told His own disciples (Luke 16:31) that if people would not listen to Moses, and the prophets YHVH sent, they wouldn’t be persuaded even by the example of someone rising from the dead!
Only He can give someone “ears to hear” and “eyes to see”. But the rest of us CAN at least be ready to give an answer when people ASK us why we believe what we know to be True, and even why certain things are happening. When we talk to people who are beginning to understand what it means to “come out of” a Whore Church that has “failed to teach the difference” between the clean and the unclean, the qadosh or set-apart and the profane or pagan…we find no shortage of references directly from the Bible to make that case. All that one has to do to understand what Yahushua meant when He said that not the smallest part of His ‘teaching and instruction’ would pass away so long as heaven and earth still exist is to read what He said. People who DO have some knowledge of Scripture, and even CLAIM to accept it as His Word, will find that He is faithful, and will give understanding to those who ask.
For most of my own life, though, I was NOT one of those people. I believed the Big Lies — from the Big Lie that “Evolution” was a science rather than a pagan religion, to the politically-correct doctrines on sexuality, pop psychology, and politics. I thought that the Bible was probably a “good book”, but that only a “cultist” would BELIEVE fables that couldn’t be proven, or think that ancient rules still applied today. Anyone who dared to try to convince me of something FROM SCRIPTURE ALONE, in other words, was destined to fail — because I didn’t accept their standard of proof to begin with!
Before an individual like I once was can be convinced of the Truth FROM Scripture, they have to be convinced that Scripture IS the Truth! And that is what takes “eyes to see”. And sometimes — once a person is finally READY to be convinced — a different approach.
I’ve talked and written a lot about elements of that approach. Some of those elements sound very “secular”, because they overlap things that we see in the world of economics, sociology, law, and politics with the clear, practical commandments and examples from Scripture. But, taken together, they paint a bigger picture. The more we know about what is happening in the world, and about what His Torah says, the more clear the tapestry becomes. Taken as an incredibly detailed, Masterfully-complete WHOLE, the Bible — when read WITHOUT the distorted lens of ‘church’ dogma — is, above all, consistent. From “Genesis to maps” , and particularly in the original language, it is without question the handiwork of an Author beyond human comprehension. Once a person is ready, in other words, to be like the Bereans…actually READ the Word, and study for themselves…the first battle for Truth has been won.
Sometimes, then, the initial skirmish consists simply of asking the right questions, and encouraging people who already understand — Jeremiah 16:19 says they would — that they have “inherited lies,” to take that next step. I was in my teen years when I first knew I was being given the WRONG answers. And while I know that there are people of any age who are being led to seek the Truth, I tend to think of this line of reasoning as “torah for teens” because of the questions my own sons once asked, and as I have heard so many others do in the years since. How do we know what is “wrong” versus what is “right”, or “good” as opposed to “evil”? But I have come to realize that there is an easier question to ask first, which helps to put those more abstract issues in perspective:
“Where does “Law” come from?”
Is something “law” just because a majority of people want it to be? Some are surprised to learn, for example, that the word “democracy” appears NOWHERE at all, in any form, in either the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
But when they consider that nothing prevents such a majority vote from taking their iPod, their car, or their life under such a “law”, the reasons why the Founders called democracies short-lived “spectacles of turbulence and contention”, and even “the Devil’s own government” become clear! And how many people does it take to turn what would merely be “theft” or “murder” if ONE person did it alone, into “Law”?
So if it’s not “majority rule” that determines what is “law” and what is merely opinion – what about “might makes right”?
Mao Tse Tung — hardly unique among dictators and Tyrants, by the way — claimed that all power “flowed from the barrel of a gun.” Without question, there is much truth in that claim, because “laws” today are ultimately backed up by the threat of force. From parking tickets to taxes to ‘hate crimes’ (whatever that means today!) there is an implicit threat of fines, imprisonment, and deadly force behind what is claimed to be “law” — whether it comports with the principles of the Constitution and the Bible, or not. Is power what really makes “law”, then?
The Declaration of Independence laid the foundation by saying that we agreed that certain Truths were “self-evident,” and that each of us were given “Rights” by our Creator. Furthermore, they declared that the reason that governments even existed was to “secure those Rights,” and prevent them from being usurped. The Foundation for all “law” in these once-united States, they unanimously agreed, was appealed to the “Supreme Judge of the world.”
Even in a land which no longer teaches such Truths, or even believes them, some “Laws” obviously still apply. No amount of government force can make “pi equal to three”, repeal the Law of Gravity, or the law that we “reap what we sow” — even if it sometimes takes a while. The debtor is still slave to the lender, too, and no fiat money system of “dishonest weights and measures” has EVER survived very long, in all of recorded history. Perhaps, as the Founders claimed, there really is a Power even bigger than any government of mere men. It is certainly comforting to see, then, that His Word is so consistent, so intelligently DESIGNED, that it, too, is beyond the ability of mere men to have Written.
The implications of such questions can be troubling. A pragmatic teen, or a middle-aged agnostic, will eventually come to a disturbing realization about where the Law really comes from. If it is NOT from God, all roads lead in another direction: it ends up coming from the Biggest Brother you can imagine.
Way back in the late 1600s, William Penn put it this way: “Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by Tyrants.”
And that, too, is a key element of such a line of thought. It is one which is fundamental to what the Bible says about the nature of mankind as well. God has given us a choice. We can choose good, or evil. We can choose life, or death. Blessing, or cursing. But the choice is ours, and of course, so are the consequences. (When I’m talking to a student, of any age, I like to point out that “it’s an open Book test,” as well!)
Some of those consequences are also becoming hard to deny. Why should it surprise us that a nation whose ‘churches’ teach that His “law is done away with” has decided to treat the Constitution like toilet paper as well? I contend that more and more people will begin to ask these same questions once the inevitable fruit of “lawlessness” begins to be reaped. Those of us who seek to walk in obedience to Him should be ready, “in season and out”, to explain what His Word proclaims is Truth…and explain why it matters.
In the end, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Yah“. But it may begin by helping those who have questions to ask the right ones.
