2 Peter 1:16 — For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Myra and I have reached Ezekiel in this year’s trip through the Bible. The last verse of Ezekiel 20 has the prophet saying to The Lord that the leaders of the people are rejecting his warnings as parables. Peter is obviously dealing with the same problem. “Look”, he says, ” we’re not just dealing in fairy tales here”.
The blossoming of the internet has vastly expanded the opportunities for those who want to “discredit” Christianity. Here’s a fine example:
The “Word of God”, far from being inerrant, has ever been a work in progress. Biblical morality is archaic and savage. It reflects a barbarous, pitiless age. The priestly “protection racket” required the criminalizing of the whole of humanity through the doctrine of Sin. The gospel yarn began not with the testimony of a disciple but with the musings of someone who switched the anticipated Jewish Messiah from future hope to “historic past”. (These gems come from a website jesusneverexisted.com)
I’m not seeking to debate the Jesus deniers. Today I am moved by the thought that God doesn’t take attacks on His character lightly. His response to Ezekiel was to give him a second word for the leaders of Israel. They, it might be said, got off lightly — Israel and Judah went into exile but were, eventually, restored.
In Peter’s time, the deniers were a larger group. The Jews, of course, had committed the ultimate betrayal. But now there were the Gnostics, the pagans … God’s response was much more dramatic. Jerusalem was destroyed. “The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome” crumbled, though it took much longer.
So what of today? Denial is commonplace. Outright mockery is common. What will that mean for us? What is the future like for a society in which it becomes normal to believe that God’s Word is myths and fables and that God’s men are speaking parables — pretty fairy stories with no meaning? I think we can see …
Do you trust your government to do right by you? Don’t hold your breath. Like the evil shepherds Ezekiel describes in Chapter 34 of his book, governments are increasingly devoted to their own interests — and woe to the sheep.
There is no moral principle that is held sacred. What do you care about? Marriage, children, truth, contracts? Be ready to fight for them.
Paul was clear sighted about where we find ourselves when he wrote to the Romans “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; (Romans 1:18) And he lays out the consequences a little later in the same chapter — “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” (28-32)
Look, there’s nothing we can do to stop this. Most of you reading this have read the Revelation. You know how it’s going to go – but we still have an obligation to do what we can. If you’ve got friends who haven’t got the message yet tell them “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It’s not parables, myths or fables.