For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

II Timothy 4:3, ESV

Do you believe this?

One of the things that I have noticed in over thirty years of preaching is that most people do not want to know the truth.

You may dispute this, but please understand what I am saying, as well as what I am not saying. I am not saying that you don't want to know the truth, for I suspect you wouldn't be reading a religious article if you didn't. What I am saying, however, is based upon several conclusions that I have reached over my lifetime that now guide everything I do. I believe that God created the heavens and the earth, I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and I am convinced that the One who was powerful enough to create the world was also powerful enough to ensure that we got His word in its complete and mistake-free form that we have today.

I believe that people who pick and choose what they want to believe from the Bible are risky people, to say the least. I believe that they have determined in their own minds what is right and what is wrong, so they sit in judgment over God's word and determine for themselves where God was right and where He was wrong.

And that's okay, because God gives each one of us the right to handle His word in any way we want, including rejecting the portions that we personally find hard to believe or offensive. What I do not believe, however, is that He gives us the right to still be rewarded with eternal life if we are so foolish as to do such a thing. We must never forget that God gave Adam and Eve the right to choose - He just never gave them the right to choose wrong and still be rewarded or to escape punishment for their disobedience.

And that's the part where most people differ!

They are convinced that "I'm okay and that you're okay", as long as you don't think that I'm not okay. And as moronic as that sounds when i is written down, this is precisely what the Apostle Paul was taking about in the passage we read above that God inspired him to write. God wanted us all to know that there would be moments in history - perhaps extended periods of time - when people wouldn't put up with His instruction. But God also knew that people being people would still want to feel like they were okay, even when they were blatantly disregarding His commandments. God knew (because He knows everything) that these same hypocrites would then seek out teachers who would say what they wanted to hear, and He also knew that when they heard these people who were paid to teach what they taught, that they would then actually believe them.

That, as unattractive as it might be, is exactly what Paul through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was trying to get across. Further, God was having Paul warn us that this would really happen. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for us! Do you think that He would then somehow make the way to salvation tricky? That doesn't even make sense, yet if many of the teachers whom we surround ourselves with are to be believed, that is what they are in essence teaching. They teach that God's plan of salvation is not completely correct - so they have a prayer or two to take care of it. There are some elements of salvation that many people find hard to do, so these teachers let us know that we don't really have to do them.

There are specific commandments as to how God expects (and requires) us to abide by. These clever teachers will often come up with clever explanations to do away with these commandments because they don't really mean what they say... or do they?

I am convinced that most people really don't want to know the truth, because if they knew the truth, they would have to do something about it. And, sadly, all too often, what they eventually do about it is to surround themselves with teachers who will say only what their itching ears want to hear. And such a task, all too many false teachers have found, pays very well.

But will that save us in the end?

I'll try to have something more cheery tomorrow, but today I wanted to get us all to thinking - me included. Do we believe what we believe because it is what we want to believe, or do we believe what we believe because it is the truth? The answer to that question will likely be a large determinant as to whether or not we will be saved. It's something to think about, isn't it?