Our society values intelligence. Think about it. Smart people receive a Nobel Prize, a Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, or the Intellectual Property Legends Award. You have to be pretty smart just to win the annual spelling bee contest!
A smart person, and you may never hear anyone say this, is considered more valuable to society than someone who is, dare I say it, “dumb”. Our history books are filled with intellectuals whose discoveries and ideas have been praised – Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Marie Curie, just to name a few.
But for every discovery, for every idea, there are untold thousands who are assigned tasks – told what to do – in order to make the discovery or idea a reality.
We view people who merely do what they are told as less intelligent. But I find it interesting that scripture places much more value on people who listen and do what they’re told rather than those who don’t. These individuals are coveted and respected in heaven.
Being “dumb” – in this case, being obedient – is a good thing.
Now, keeping all of this in mind, think about “smart phones” and how they compare to “dumb phones.” My intention is not to offend you with the word “dumb” – I’m simply using it to bring home a point. For this teaching, “dumb” is good. Say it with me: “dumb is good”.
I purchased my first cell phone back in 1995. Today that phone would be called a “dumb phone” because it could only make and receive phone calls. Text messaging wasn’t introduced to the U.S. until 1996 and its growth was very slow. Do you know why? Most of the available phones were “dumb” like mine.
As texting began to grow, cellular companies found a new revenue stream meeting the desires (not needs) of the consumers. Hello smart phone!
The smart phone can make phone calls, send and receive text messages, and take, send and receive pictures and play videos, order dinner, buy theater tickets, and ring during the church service. Ooops! That last one slipped in!
I owned a dumb phone until 2013. Whatever I typed as a text was sent exactly as intended. Let me tell you what irritates me most about my smart phone: smart phones have an “auto-correct” function.
Auto-correct is a text replacement or replace-as-you-type function. Its principal purpose is as a spell checker to correct common spelling or typing errors, theoretically saving time for the user. Let me emphasize the word theoretically!
My dumb phone did not have this function. The phone interpreted the text exactly as I had typed it and did not try to tell me what I really meant. Not my smart phone. If I don’t catch “its correction”, then whoever receives my text must try to figure out what I meant to say.
My smart phone changes the words of my texts because obviously I, the source of the message, meant to type something else. Do you think we treat God and His Word this way sometimes? Nah!
“Dumb Phones” were in the Garden of Eden.
God put Adam and Eve on earth to rule it and to populate it. They were naked in the garden and were not ashamed. They were innocent, or for the purpose of this teaching, they were dumb phones. Say it with me: “dumb is good”.
By the time we get to Genesis chapter three, Satan is working on Eve to turn the dumb phones – Eve and her husband, Adam – into smart phones complete with the auto-correct function.
Before showing up in the garden, Lucifer (Satan) according to Ezekiel chapter 28, verse 13, was the “anointed cherub that covereth”. Why don’t we look at the entire verse?
“Thou (Lucifer) hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in three in the day that thou wast created.”
Initially, Lucifer served God and did as God commanded. He was a dumb phone. Satan did what God told Him to do because he was not the creator; he had been created.
But at some point, he decided that he knew how to rule better than God. In his mind, God wasn’t the best one to be “God.” Jump down to verse 15.
“Thou wast perfect in all thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found thee.”
God created the angels with free-will. Satan’s iniquity was not found until it manifested itself through his actions.
Can you see Satan behind closed doors questioning God’s decisions? He had decided that he did not like being a dumb phone. Not only did he become a smart phone, he believed he had given himself an upgrade that included all of the latest bells and whistles. Satan believed he was so smart that he could now correct his Creator.
Satan even convinced other dumb phone angels that being smart phones was the wave of the future. “Sooner or later all the angels will be smart phones. You just wait and see. We will do what the Creator does and more!” One-third of the angels believed him.
You know what eventually happened. Satan and the angels were booted out of heaven.
The smart phone had auto-corrected his Creator one time too many and lost his office – the anointed cherub that covereth – and the opportunity to be in the presence of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, let that sink in.
When God creates man, he is a dumb phone. Man does what God asks him to do. Man obeys God when He speaks. Then, smart phone Satan invades the garden. He hates God and dumb phone Adam. Satan wants man to be smart like him – smart enough to question God, smart enough to auto-correct God, and smart enough to teach others that what God says He doesn’t mean.
Read the story carefully and you’ll see that Satan mixes just enough truth with his lies to get Eve to auto-correct what God had said. Satan told her that she would not die and that she would gain knowledge if she ate what God told her not to eat. He lied.
But look at how Satan convinces her to auto-correct God – to disagree with God and do what she thinks is right. He tells her that there’s more to the story than what God is telling you. With no malicious intent – wink, wink – he’s simply trying to help Eve become like God, an upgrade that was not necessary. What a guy! He lied. Again.
Well we know how this plays out. Both Adam and Eve eat of the tree and in the blink of an eye they are no longer dumb phones but smart phones. In the blink of an eye they go from doing what God tells them to do to doing what “they” think they should do. And this leads to a new turn of events.
Now let’s read a few verses in Genesis chapter five. It’s important that you see this. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, but their children were not. Oh really, you say. Yes, really. Adam and Eve’s image – nature – had changed. It was no longer like God’s. They were no longer God’s children.
We’re going to read verses one through verse three.
“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him, Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:”
God created Adam a dumb phone. Say it with me: “dumb is good”. Adam rebelled against God and became a smart phone. Adam then produced what he had become: smart phones.
When Adam ate of the forbidden tree, he signed a “binding non-negotiable contract” with no out clause for the “free upgrade” – an upgrade that cost him dearly and damned him to an eternity without God.
But that was not the worst part. All of Adam’s children and their children for generations were automatically included in this “upgrade”. They would have no choice.
Now don’t rush past what I’m about to say: Adam’s descendants, who would be born smart phones, were born with the auto-correct function preset and turned on. We were born ready to disagree with God and to not read and understand the Bible the way He intended.
However, now that we are born again – we can choose to leave our auto-correct function turned off, just like Jesus did, or we can choose to turn it on.
A good example is John chapter five, verses 19 and 30.
“Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. ... I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”
Just like Satan, Adam, Eve and Jesus – we have free will and can make our own decisions. Satan chose to bump heads with God. The “created” thought he was equal with the Creator. It cost him Heaven.
Adam and Eve were equal with God in every way except deity. We see this in Genesis chapter one, verse 26.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:”
God created man to be a non-deified replica of Him on earth. Yet, that wasn’t enough to keep Adam and Eve from questioning what God had said. It cost them an eternity with God.
Jesus knew he was equal with God but chose to live in agreement with everything God said. For example, in Luke chapter four, verse four, in response to Satan’s attack, Jesus simply replies “It is written.” And because He chose to live in obedience to His father, Jesus’ His death gives eternal life to everyone who accepts him as their lord and savior.
For those of us who are born again, we should live our lives the way Jesus lived his – in obedience to His Father and ours. When we do, we will not auto-correct what God has declared, even if it puts us at odds with society, friends and, most of all, our families.
Next time we will look at examples from Scripture that show what can happen when we auto-correct God.
