Listen To The Prophets

Listen to the Prophets

21 Aug 22

Richardson TX

YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! My favorite scene in Planes, Trains & Automobiles is when Steve Martin and John Candy were driving down the freeway after getting spun around and a couple keeps screaming at them, “YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!” Of course, they don’t believe them until they come head on with two semis coming straight at them. By then it’s too late. In the split seconds they are between the two semis, Steve Martin sees sparks flying, his death, and John Candy as Satan. I guess your really have to see it to really get the humor of the scene.

Nobody wants to believe someone telling them their going the wrong way. Oh, come on. We men are notorious for never asking for directions, and when we do get them, we don’t believe them.

Kings 18

15 Elijah said, “As the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today.” 16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. 17 When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals.

Elijah was telling Israelites they were wrong. They just didn’t want to hear it. Nobody likes being told they are wrong. It’s kind of wired into us. It’s been studied over and over. According to psychologist Dr. Tim Sharp (1) there are three major reasons that even with overwhelming evidence we just won’t admit we were wrong.

1. They think being wrong means they’re unworthy

? Some people strive so hard for perfection, they just can’t admit the path they were going down was the wrong path.

2. They think never admitting fault makes you look stronger

? They think admitting a mistake makes them look weaker. Even if they are wrong, and proven wrong, they don’t want to back down.

3. They don’t value the truth

? To some the truth is only secondary to winning the argument. They would rather win that muddle up a good argument with actual facts.

In the past couple years, we’ve seen our media play out our leaders with each one of these scenarios. It’s amazing that when faced with objective facts or for just flat-out proof, they simply dismiss it. And it doesn’t matter what social or political identity you look at, everyone denies facts. Even if overwhelming proof is dropped in their lap, they keep their argument and deny the truth.

Just watch the news. Science shows we are poisoning ourselves if we keep using certain things … fake news, can’t be true. It’s bad for jobs. Never mind if it kills everyone who works there or lives in the area. Never mind if future generations will live on toxic land. Or, pure biology show something contrary to popular opinion …what a bunch of haters! Just because someone believes something doesn’t make to true. In our local school, there is a student who identifies as a cat. Speaking the truth upsets him, so nobody it allowed to say any different.

In many cases the debates from either side don’t end up as a debate. They just end up as a battle of beliefs. At that point it’s no longer a debate, it’s an argument.

How are we any different from the Israelites? If a prophet came to us right now, how many people would even listen? We would only listen as long as he was telling all those other people they were wrong. What if he tells us we were wrong? What if your opinions on the climate, biology, wars, or political leanings were different from what they said? Would you no longer accept it as the word of God?

If you think we are a much more evolved society, that we can take the truth, just look at recent history. Reporters get murdered in Turkey for speaking the truth about Saudi Arabia. Health officials from both sides of the argument get death threats because their opinion on masks or vaccinations doesn’t agree with someone else’s version. We even have even seen weathermen getting threats because they didn’t predict the weather the way someone else thinks it’s going to be. How ridiculous is that?

There are so many voices completing with the voice of God. There are distractions and true false prophets are pulling us away from what God it trying to tell us. This has been true for in most of our recorded history.

So, what great oracles do we listen to? The Oracle of Delphi was consulted by emperors for centuries. Some evidence suggests they were just folks, in altered states due to noxious volcanic gases.