Articles
Does Your Lifestyle Define Your Belief?
I was approached by a young man who was quick to inform me of his hatred for the Bible. He affirmed he had read the Bible through a number of times and what he read defined his belief. What was the basis of his hatred? He said, “The Bible commands that homosexuals should be killed, and I’m a homosexual, therefore, I’m an atheist.”
This type of an attitude is not foreign to our society. In Jeremiah 44:16-17, we are told where men responded to Jeremiah, saying, "As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you! But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune." As these men refused God’s word, as spoken through Jeremiah because they “had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune,” they manifested the true proverb that their god is their belly (Phil. 3:19).
A similar event transpired when "The king of Israel (Ahab) said to Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil. He is Micaiah, son of Imla" (2 Chronicles 18:7).
The rejecting of the will of God for personal reasons has been a practice all too common among mankind. It is difficult to find any individual that has not found something in the scriptures that they wished was not there. However, if everything that did not set well with man was removed from the scriptures, there would be little left that had any substance.
What we must learn is simple: God’s laws are to us, as they were to
Is God the source of your belief and wisdom? “Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, that shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there, that hath a god so nigh unto them, as Jehovah our God is whensoever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that hath statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” (Deut. 4:6-8)
Ross Triplett, Sr.
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