Monday 30 November 2009

Meditation on the Text of the Week

God is Not Served by the Lies of Man

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Romans 1:25
Mendacity always attends Unbelief. When men deny what is evident about God they must determine to self-deceive, to lie, and to dissemble. The more Unbelief bangs on about the truth, the more frantically it is covering up its lies. The more it claims high moral purpose the more implacably destructive it becomes. Unbelief is truly awful, always covering its rotten core with garments of respectability and faux protestations of high motives. Its hypocrisy has no limits.

The more strident and powerful Unbelief becomes, the more it is given over to self-deception and lying. As the past weeks have unfolded, we have seen this writ large upon the world stage. The issue du jour is “global warming”. It now serves perfectly to illustrate the malodorous mendacity of Unbelief. Let us trace the lies.

Firstly, there is an assertion of Man as the controller and arbiter of the entire planet. The Lord declares:
Tremble before Him, all the earth;
Indeed the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
And let them say among the nations, 'The Lord reigns'
I Chronicles 16:30-31
but Unbelief says this is nonsense. The whole earth actually trembles before Man. Man is destroying the world. Only Man can save it. This is the first lie.

Secondly, there is the assertion that Man has the light and truth and certain knowledge to know how to save and deliver the world. Now, of course, in our modern world this light and truth comes from science—objective, cool, dispassionate, evidential, reasoned. It brings infallible knowledge whose truths are neither speculative nor open to dispute. This is the second lie.

Thirdly, Man has not only the knowledge, but the power to deliver the world. Man can coalesce all his ingenuity and wisdom into a focused and combined effort through global government, rules, regulations, treaties, agreements and taxation to heal a doomed planet. By the enunciation of words and promulgation of laws Man will effect global restoration. This is the third lie.

Fourthly, those who do not believe are cretins and blasphemers. These are the people who seek to oppose light, truth, and salvation itself. They hate life and mankind. “We are the righteous; those who disbelieve are evil,” they say. This is the fourth lie.

Fifthly, the cause is so righteous and the need so urgent that the end of saving the planet and all life justifies the means taken to get there. The end justifies forcing sacrifice; dissembling and manipulating data and information; crass simplifications and generalisations. This is the fifth lie.

Now, we do not doubt that the scientists who fabricated data to “prove” that the earth has warmed in the twentieth century believed thoroughly that they were justified in their “adjustments”. Unbelief always insists on infallibility, in the end. But as soon as those adjusted numbers spat off the printer, global warming became—to their minds—sure, certain, and irrefutable. Numbers do not lie. The more they found consorted with confabulators who who agreed, the more certain are sure they became. Is not every matter confirmed by two or three witness? Filled with dread at the threat of the end of Mankind, their cause quickly became a righteous crusade. Since they were speaking into a culture which had already accepted the Five Lies, it was very easy to gain traction.

God has given our culture up to lies. Unbelief is killing the world. For the lies of man, as they take hold and become institutionalised into law, policy, and administration end up wreaking a terrible price—and, as always, the price is paid by the most weak, the most vulnerable, and the most poor. The world is now starting to groan under the lies of Unbelief.

But it will not last. It cannot succeed. Like all the "isms" of the past, it will collapse in upon itself, for it is rotten at the core. For the earth and its fullness belongs not to Man, but to God. Indeed, the earth is firmly established; it will not be moved. God will not be served by the lies of Man. The idols and gods of Man are vanities. They are nothing. He will come in judgment and the trees will clap and rejoice, for the judgement of God upon the evils of Man will ease the curse and blight upon Nature.

Let the sea roar and all it contains;
Let the field exult, and all that is in it.
Then the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord;
For His is coming to judge the earth.
I Chronicles 16: 32-33


No comments: