By Michael Pursley
Every day I am confronted on Facebook with people who cannot, or will not, pick up even the simplest truths out of the Word of God. I find that this inability stems from a range of rejections. Some people reject God Himself; some reject the Bible as the complete Word of God, and some reject some small but plainly spoken truth because they simply do not wish to embrace it.
Skepticism expressed over any biblical truth which is not born out of honest grappling with truth stems from a two-fold moral problem: first, God has not yet anointed their eyes with the eye-salve of grace so that they can see, and second, their hearts are still to some degree in rebellion against God and against his Word.
I make this assessment because the Bible declares it to be true:
Yes, This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil (Jn. 3:19).
John has already introduced Jesus as the Light: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (Jn. 1:4, 5).
Later Jesus Himself states: “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (Jn. 8:12). In fact, Jesus repeats his declaration that He is the light of the world twice more in John’s gospel, in John 9:5 and again in 12:46,
A well-known pastor once put it like this:
A guy is floating downstream on a raft on a hot summer day. He’s having the time of his life. He is really enjoying the ride as the cool water gently splashes on him. You’re on the shore, and you know that there’s a deadly waterfall not far downstream. Now this guy is floating blissfully in complete ignorance toward his own certain destruction!
So you yell to warn him. You even throw him a rope. But he rejects your words, and he rejects your rope. Instead, he willfully keeps floating toward his own certain death.
Why won’t he listen to God’s word of warning? Why won’t he grab the life preserver?
He won’t because he loves what he’s doing, and he doesn’t want to believe in your warning.
A friend reminded me that Psalm 14:1 says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” The Hebrew word which is rendered as “fool” in this verse does not refer to a lack of intelligence or education. Instead, it is referring to moral deficiency—or to a person engaged in immoral behavior. This immoral person is the one who rejects God, rejects the Bible, and rejects grace. Furthermore, his rejection stems from the fact that he would rather continue in his own immorality then find God. He continues in immorality because it’s fun!
John summarizes these people’s situation like this:
You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see (Rev. 3:17-18).
Paul also addresses the fate of those in the last days who do not believe because they “did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10):
For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness (2 Thess. 2:11, 12).
To sum up this situation, people who persistently refuse to believe are not those who do not hear the truth, but those who do not love the truth. Their love of their own pleasures blinds them to truth.
When I see people rejecting the Word of God—and further, rejecting God’s grace so that they can abide under the Law and its curse, and when I see these same people rejecting the lifelines which other patient Christians are repeatedly throwing to them, then I know that what I am seeing is a moral issue at work, and I pray for them. For until they have been born again, they are morally ignorant, and prayer is all I can do. †
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I believe you mean well, Michael, but you start with the assumption that the Bible is a divine revelation. The Muslims do the same thing with the Quran and the Mormons also do that with the Book of Mormon. Neither group is open to the possibility that their assumptions may not be true.
It is my experience that many people who do not accept the Bible as a revelation from God do so, out of a deep desire to follow truth. It is not because of some desire to reject God, but as a result of concerns over major doctrinal conflicts within its pages, such as predestination vs free will, monotheism vs trinitarianism, cessation of life at death vs soul survival vs resurrection. Concerns over conflicts with science such as a young earth vs radiometric dating and the fossil record, a worldwide flood that left no evidence in the geological record, the claim that the sun stood still for about a day, etc, are also a factor as well as major contradictions in the narratives. There is also the fact that the authorship of much of the Bible is either uncertain, unknown or pseudepigraphal.
The claim that anything we have availably to us today is actually a totally reliable revelation from the creator of the universe is indeed an extraordinary claim. There are dozens of groups making such claims, each for their own books. The burden of proof falls upon those making such claims.
Those whose lives are committed to following the truth, no matter where it leads and no matter what it costs, and who are not committed to any particular religion simply want to see some really strong evidence of the existence of such a divine revelation.