Recent Articles | About Authors | About the Syndicate | Archives

To receive a plain text copy of this article by email, see info at the bottom of this page.

Real Answers™
dt9
Copyright: ©2007 Debbie Thurman
685 words

IS ANYBODY LISTENING?

By: Debbie Thurman

Perhaps the more appropriate question is “To whom are we listening?”

It¹s not our sense of hearing that is impaired. The channel we always were meant to tune in is still there, its broadcast loud and clear. In our busyness with the myriad things that have become indispensable to us, we fail to partake of its timeless wisdom and words of life.

The mythical “good old days” never were. Truth has always been obfuscated by the white noise emanating from the Tower of Babel. Postmodernists have just taken it to new heights.

Loud-mouthed atheists “educated beyond their intelligence” build cottage industries out of their foolish denial of God. They are the worst babblers of all. To ignore them is perhaps the supreme and justifiable insult they deserve.

French philosopher/mathematician Blaise Pascal spoke more than 300 years ago of the God-shaped vacuum in every human heart. Today, competing purveyors of divinely (or not) inspired “truth” offer an array of choices for the seeker-sensitive to fill that void. Is the key to truth and fulfillment a “secret” contained in a current bestselling book? No and yes. No, it’s not a secret. Never has been. Yes, it’s in the number one bestselling book of all time.

Remember that 2,000-year-old institution called the Church and a book of history, law, prophecy and divine revelation (first to God’s chosen people, begun thousands of years before that) called the Bible? Most souls, if pressed, could not even perfunctorily recap its themes. Yet, many of those same folks could rattle off endless baseball statistics or the detailed plotline, including some of the biblical allusions, of the entire “Harry Potter” series. 

It’s hard to argue with the fact that all practical instruction for wholesome living emanates from the Bible. Those far wiser than I have expounded on its grand themes for centuries. God¹s instruction book contains
much more than wisdom for life, however. It is life. Various cultural and philosophical revolutions have chipped away at that core belief over time, leaving many illiterate and spiritually deprived victims in their wake.

The Bible is one continuous book with one purpose: to reveal God for all mankind¹s access. I invite all who are unfamiliar with the Bible to pick up a copy and begin reading it to learn at least some of what God really has to say instead of merely relying on what others tell you he says. Hold your clergy accountable.

You will find the Jewish and Christian faiths are inextricably linked through biblical narrative. Scan the Old Testament for some of the prophesies (and their fulfillment) about God¹s people and his ultimate
remedy for the world he created and loved, which had forsaken his original plan through deception and free will.

Jesus Christ came at a time of contentious religious and political division among his people (sound familiar?). In his own words, he fulfilled rather than abolished Old Testament law, plainly telling all who had “ears to hear” exactly how he was “the way, the truth and the life.”

Christ established a redemption covenant and a church so powerful that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). He left believers with a “ministry of reconciliation” that he commanded us to perpetuate throughout the world he so loved. We do that imperfectly (read Rom. 7:14-25), but we press on.

God’s truth is neither hidden nor beyond the grasp of our limited intellect. The irony is it does not come to us through intellect, but through faith. The politician, the scientist, the psychologist, the philosopher -- none of these has the power to “scourge the devil from his fortification in the human heart” (credit to columnist Bill Murchison).

To the postmodern, certainty in anything is a myth. How sad. God has given us not everything there is to know, but all we need to know. The original rebellion -- Lucifer (Satan) trying unsuccessfully to acquire equality with God and tempting mankind to do the same -- lives on in us today.  But so does something more powerful.

Read the book to see how the story ends.

Debbie Thurman is an award-winning commentator and author who writes from Monroe, Va. Her e-mail address is debbie@debbiethurman.com.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

Request this article:
To instantly receive a plain text copy of this article by email, enter your publication title, city and state, and email address, then retype the article number (shown in bold below). Then click the "Send It" button once.
Fields marked (*) are required

back to top