I’ve been doing some thinking about this. Current events and all, you know.
Either there is a supreme, sovereign authority, or there isn’t. If there isn’t–well, have fun, anything goes, whatever you can get away with.
If there is, either it’s God, the God revealed to us in the Bible, or someone or something else.
If God is supreme, we have His word and we know what He expects of us, for He has told us so. But if that authority belongs to someone or something else–then whom? Whose is it?
Well, perhaps some other god. Thor. Baal. Zeus. Ah, we’ve tried all those. They didn’t last.
Ooh-ooh, I know! It’s us! Real smart people! And all that stuff that we create–technology, laws, moral codes…and the state! Hum-baby, the state! That’s where you find the supreme and sovreign authority. Oh, yeah–in Science, too. You just can’t go wrong if it’s the State and Science.
Obviously we never learned a blessed thing from that whole lamentable and wretched 20th century. Original sin is nothing if not intractable.
If the supremacy is not God’s, then it must be someone else’s.
And if it does belong to someone else–no two people can agree on whom–then God help us.
I actually do feel sorry for those who are not fully convinced that Yahweh IS GOD. It will not be good for them at the judgement seat unless they change, repent (do teshuva) before that happens. Unfortunately, we know very many will not make the right choice, and then eternity. How sad.
In reading in Jeremiah again this morning, it always strikes me how many parallels we find between the “politics” of ancient Israel and present day U.S.A. In chapter 36 where God instructs Jeremiah to speak His words, Baruch the scribe to write them on a scroll and have them read to the leaders of the people as a warning that if they do not turn from their rebellion and obey God, these things will happen to them. The part about the king hearing the words and taking the scroll and burning it in the fireplace reminds me of “you know who” taking the pages of President Trump’s speech and tearing them to pieces on camera. People never change, never grow up and seek wisdom.
Really, this is the ONLY issue and it always has been. Our recognition of God as our source for wrong or right was the issue in Eden and the issue today.
Some Muslims think it is Allah and will ever kill others who do not agree. Jesus said you will know them by their fruits.