God Is Not The Author Of Confusion

Not confused, are you?

I'm sure some of you are quite confused. We get reports via the grapevine. You know we are telling you the truth, but for your own reasons you "stay in line" and continue down the path of least resistance.

I Cor.14:33 God is not the author of confusion but of peace.

A local Christian false teacher recently responded to a request for clarification re: her beliefs on the subjects of universalism, the Lordship of Jesus, the authority of Scripture, etc. Her response was, "I'm resting my certainty on Christ crucified. That is as far as our conversation needs to go."

Guess why God revealed Himself and His ways to us in the Bible. So we could KNOW stuff! Of all the nasty lies promulgated by the "progressive church," one of the nastiest is the idea that we live in a postmodern, enlightened world, and cool, hip , educated people now understand that you cannot really know anything with certainty. We answer; no one knows the whole mind of God, but some things He has revealed quite clearly, so that we can know them. Vapid excuses for ignorance will not stand up at the judgment.

For the thinkers among you, Yes, there is a really schizo dilemma in our culture. While all the scientific world is based on knowing, and building on that knowledge, the postmodern philosophers and their duped minions are happy with the idea that you cannot really know anything. How often we have heard "I am not so arrogant as to claim that I know anything with certainty, so please stop trying to back me into a corner about what I believe." In the next breath they will claim "The Bible says. . ." And we ask "Why quote the Bible if you don't believe it contains any real, absolute Truth?" Even while asking, we know why they use the Bible. Because even as they deny the Bible's authority over them, when they pose as "Bible teachers" they effectively gain credibility with the immature and the untaught. So the Bible is referred to in order to support pet ideas. But not in good faith. Frankly, they use the Bible much as Satan did (Matt. 4).

No, God really is not the God of confusion. The way out of confusion is to sort out the truth. Establish what is true and real, and build on it. Remember Jesus' parable about the two builders (Matt. 7:24-27)? His challenge is to listen to His teaching and obey it. Even that simple instruction by our Lord requires that we distinguish His teaching from all the other voices out there.

The peace that God talks about does not come as result of just being agreeable and tolerant. It becomes possible only when we obey the Truth (Philippians 3), when our thinking lines up with God's thinking. Any other kind of peace is a shallow substitute.

Please listen. In this world created by God there are laws at work. There are natural, physical laws always operative, and there are spiritual laws, rooted in the character of God, always operative. We are fools if we think we can pick and choose which of these laws we will abide by; they are all operative regardless of our preferences. This just IS. We can observe it around us, and God has revealed this to us in His Word. So to use a line here or there in the Bible to support a pet idea, while ignoring the clear revelations of God that the Church has always called DOCTRINE (don't be intimidated by the word; it just means "teaching,") is foolish. That, in fact, is the hallmark of the false teacher.

So let me make a homegrown illustration. Long time ago we had a pet Black & Tan Coonhound pup. Jonah. A most beautiful animal: at the time of my story about twenty pounds of bones, loose skin, paws and ears. So I was working at the kitchen table with a block of styrofoam, a carving knife and a vacuum cleaner, trying to fashion a flotation device for a project. . . The pup was snoozing at my feet, and I was carving, carving: then vacuuming up all the little white beads that fell around me, when I noticed that some had fallen on the pup. So I impulsively swung the vacuum wand down toward him. Now I did not intend for this to happen, but when the tip neared his ear, it sucked it right up! He came off the floor with round eyes and all four limbs stretched out to the side. A few seconds of pandemonium. Now again, I did not intend this. God's physical laws were at work. Physical laws or spiritual laws: we submit to them or else. 

Somewhere very early in His revelation God said "These are my ways; walk in them."