“…and He will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:6
One of the consequences of sin is that even in our knowledge we know as if in a fog. The so-called ‘noetic” effect of the fall (from the word gnosis, or knowledge) doesn’t merely leave men in ignorance but, more often, it leaves us in the curious state of knowing something but not what, in fact, it means. Indeed, the major effect of sinful self-reliance in our thinking (that is, not relying on God’s principles of truth but insisting upon our own) is that we know things, but not truth. Truth, after all, requires context because no thing is a context unto itself. In God’s world all things are created by Him and have their meaning, plan and function in His greater plan. Ignoring this critical foundation of knowledge results in mankind knowing a great many things and yet having no wisdom.
Thus it is that extremely knowledgeable people can persist in the most unwise courses of action.
The Christian should be careful to note how this plays out in the world. We will see a great many people who are rather well educated but push God from their thinking. This causes the fantastical reality, which we see and experience everyday, of very foolish people who are technically skilled. But, again, the issue isn’t technical knowledge – it’s wisdom. Wisdom is the educational result of practical living stemming from knowing the principles of the Word of God and then being able to discern how our unique particulars fall into line with them. Modern education is nihilistically “particular” focused. It sees no ultimate plan of God and, therefore, no transcendent meaning. This makes modern man’s science slavishly pragmatic. It makes mankind a function, not a human being. True values like freedom and independence are subordinated to the state, counseled by so-called science, because the spirit of man is nothing. Humanistic man dreads death only a little more than he dreads freedom.
Our paths are made straight in the Lord because we can, through the redemption of our lives by faith in Christ, see the particular facts of life as all part of God’s plan. When certain particulars are beyond our ability to grasp insofar as what they mean “immediately” in God’s plan, there’s no loss of truth. We do know, despite this, that God knows ultimately. The non-Christian thinker, playing god himself, is always in the act of suppression due to this. He has no fixed and transcendent reference point except his own mind so when he’s confronted with a particular fact or reality, he must interpret it in a way that’s controllable by his own mind. He deals with his lack of comprehensive knowledge and fear of the future by growing his government. The state, for the humanist, is the counterfeit god.
The principle of Genesis 3:5 is that every sinner is playing god by insisting upon interpreting reality and facts according to his own standard. In this way, sinners are self-worshippers. The religion that grows out of this is humanism and all other false religions are humanistic offshoots in that the core of them is the same: man’s mind controls them and they are for man, not God.
Since we’re created by God and this is His world, sin causes us to live in constant intellectual, moral and philosophical suppression. We can’t know all things comprehensively although to be god, by definition, we must. The whole concept of God is one of ultimate control, after all. This is why when we play god we end up playing the game of politics since we seek to dominate others. This is why science today is primarily political – a tool of control. Humanism, the false religion that animates our lives and minds, which we largely refuse to openly acknowledge, seeks to control every sphere of life and thought.
Many Christians are baffled by the tyrannical controls enacted in the wake of the pandemic. And we puzzle over the one-world government being pressed due to the “climate crisis”. But basic to theology is the unity of God. God can’t be God if He’s divided, right? Well, that’s why every humanistic idea ends in statism! It’s a false religion and that religion requires unity – it’s a logical and theological necessity. You must wear a mask! You must get the vaccine! The humanistic religion requires compliance because without it there’s no unity and that threatens the whole shebang.
To better understand what’s happening and why America is tottering, we look to the Tower of Babel. This is a grossly misunderstood aspect of Scripture. The key to it is the word, “Babel.” God says it means “confusion” (Genesis 11:9). The people at the time, however, had a different idea. The original one-world government types defined Babel, from the ancient Akkadian as “gate of god” or “bab-ilu.” In other words, the tower meant one thing to God and something else entirely to humanistic men. The Tower of Babel was the the principle of Genesis 3:5 played out in society and politics.
They weren’t building a literal skyscraper. Height wasn’t the issue. Power and authority was the issue. They believed, as we believe now in sin, that our lives are our own, that we are ultimate. But without God, we have no unity and no assurance of salvation. Death, confusion, and suffering constantly prove that our humanism is a sham, that we aren’t actually in control. The tower was to be a governmental and scientific center through which man would assert his unity and authority. It was a stepped pyramid type structure – a ziggurat. Each floor is smaller, or recessed, so that the base is much larger than the top floor well below. This top floor is used for astronomical and astrological purposes.
The Tower of Babel was not literally trying to reach the heavens but to assert man’s unity and power. The motive was “lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth (19:4).” God’s response is mockery and judgment. Every humanistic attempt to replace God runs to the unified and one-world state. In Revelation 14:8 and 17:5 we learn that God will ultimately judge this tremendous and wicked impulse.
So, why are modern medical scientists against freedom? Why do they prescribe the evisceration of civil rights (lockdowns, house arrests, business closures, mask mandates) over a virus that has a less than one-percent fatality rate? Because humanistic man is acting according to his religious principles. He will always act toward taking a particular fact, in this case, Covid-19, and bring it to the state. The state, the Tower of Babel, will then control men’s behavior. Humanistic religion is man’s false Christianity. Its scientists promise the eradication of death (hence the Covid hysteria) because death is the great enemy of false gods. Its government will get rid of sin (that is, whatever behavior it currently deems unethical) through regulation and law.
In all, our paths are crooked because our hearts are crooked. Refusing to submit to God and insisting upon our own minds as the final reference point of life, we live by the principle of Genesis 3:5. But in Christ we return to our unfallen state and begin again, step by glorious step, to see sin as the great unnaturalness of life. We’re restored by faith alone to the wondrous place where we see life’s particulars and bring them before the principles of Scripture. We learn, as redeemed children of the most High God, to take every aspect of life and see what it means in the plan of God.
The crooked path is the humanistic one. It’s the path that takes any fact of life and interprets it according to itself. The animating principle of the non-Christian is control. This is why we have lawyers everywhere, politicians gathering more and more power to Washington, scientists calling for more political control and less freedom, and educators indoctrinating rather than teaching. A free man is one who knows that only God is ultimate and this sets him on a collision course with the tyranny of humanism. A free man is a man accountable to God, is a creature of God, made for God. A humanist, in rejecting God, cashes all that in and becomes a ward of the state. If the state, not God, will provide his income, attend to his health, and make sure his future is secure, he will worship it and protect it from God. He will say that separation of church and state means that God may not speak to politics. He will relegate the almighty and all-powerful God to the corner of life and society because he’s convinced he doesn’t need him. The state has built its tower and there will he worship. It’s to this impulse that we’re called to repent, turn to Christ and then lean not on our own understanding. And then, yes, gloriously, the Lord will make straight our paths as we live the natural lives we were meant to live in Christ for God.
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