Rebuked For My Backwardness
I was rebuked . . .divinely rebuked!
Some years ago, I was thumbing frantically through the pages of my study Bible in search of a text. I had earlier experienced something that had formulated into a good “thought” (as we tend to call such experiences) and it was building and fleshing itself out beautifully –now all I needed, along with my already wonderful thought, was a TEXT – some Bible to go along with it.
THEN it happened –I was rebuked! As surely as if I had been pinged with the ball part of a ball-ping hammer—I was rebuked by God!
As often seems to be the case, with me anyway, it was not some long discourse of exaggerated length—no-it was just a simple remark, in my spirit, in the form of a question, that asked, “So you come here (the Bible) to amend to YOUR already outlined ‘thought?’ – Isn’t that back-wards?”
I took a licking that day! (I tried to keep on ticking, however). But to this day I have never forgotten the lesson I learned from that rebuke. It is so back-wards to FIRST originate sermons, etc from externals and THEN go to the Bible in attempt to shore them up. It is BACK-WARDS! We ought to STUDY the Bible and that study will open our eyes to the events and situations that surround us and our external world.
One of the fallacies of the formulation of false doctrines is that they ALL can be retraced to a BACKWARD use of the Holy Scriptures. Men dream up ideas and then seek Biblical confirmation to THEIR own mind—rather than allowing the “Mind of Christ” to formulate His idea in man!
It is a dangerous thing to get the process BACK-WARDS. “Study to show thy self approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ASHAMED.” Shame comes when we relegate the Bible to a SUBORDINATE position in our thought process. “HE must receive the preeminence in all things.”
Also, we find that when we have preconceived ideas we are extremely reluctant to hear anything that counters that conception. This is why the doctors and lawyers of Jesus’ day hated Him, because He (the LOGOS, the WORD) contradicted THEIR concepts. And nothing less than a crucifixion would appease them.
I often thank God for that beautiful rebuke… I didn’t realize how badly I needed it!
— jlg —