There is none so blind as he who will not see. Many people stare the truth in the face but refuse to acknowledge it. They don’t simply ignore it. They go out of their way to defy it. If they refuse to believe it and act in the opposite fashion, then they will make a new reality, their own truth.
Our Western culture is inundated with these truth-deniers. Simple, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truths such as, “That little boy is not a girl,” and “Men can’t have babies,” are scoffed at by the Illuminati of our culture. In the wake of centuries of historical evidence that socialism is destructive to a culture, there are still the enlightened ones who say, “But it will work this time because we are implementing it.” As it has from the beginning of time, reality, truth, is merciless to those who defy it. You can’t defy the truth of the way God made and sustains the world and expect it to work out well for you. If you run into a brick wall, no matter what you have convinced yourself to believe, the brick wall is going to win.
Jesus faced truth-deniers all through his ministry. Sometimes it is amazing the lengths to which they would go to deny the reality of who he was. On one occasion, Jesus delivered a man of a demon that caused the man to be mute. You would think that those who were looking for the Messiah so that they would be freed from satanic lordship would recognize the truth standing before them in the person of Jesus. However, because they had certain images of what Messiah ought to be and Jesus wasn’t fitting into their preconceived mold, they rejected the plain evidence of his power over Satan. Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah because he was eating with all the wrong people, declaring them to be citizens of the kingdom of God, and he was condemning all the wrong people, the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and priests in Israel. Consequently, when they saw him delivering a man from a demon, they concluded that he was doing this by the power of Beelzebul, prince of demons (that is, Satan himself), and that they really needed a sign that would fit their notions of what Messiah ought to be. (See Luke 11.14ff.)
Staring at the reality of Jesus’ authority over demons, the Jews came to the most absurd conclusion possible. Jesus exposes the absolute absurdity of Satan casting out Satan as being bad logistics for warfare. Satan is insane, but he’s not stupid.
This interchange goes to show us the depths of our depravity and hatred of God. We will stare at his plain truth and defy it with all that we have, even when it is to our own destruction. People who say, “If only God would do such-and-such and prove himself to him, then I would believe” are lying to themselves and others. The problem is not that God hasn’t proven himself. His existence and power are before us every moment of every day in every breath we take, in the intricacies of creation around us, and in the historical person of Jesus Christ. The problem is that we don’t want to believe him. If God is who has revealed himself to be in Jesus Christ, that means he is my judge and will judge me by what he has revealed. I want to live my life the way I want to live it without consequences. I will stare at the mercy, grace, and wrath revealed in Christ Jesus, and I will defy it, trying to create my own reality, because I want to do what I want to do. I want to run into brick walls and never be hurt.
The reality revealed in Christ Jesus is, in this sense, merciless. What God has revealed in him is unwavering, immovable, irresistible truth. To fight against it is insanity and self-destructive. You will not win.
Submit to Christ as Lord, or face the consequences of your defiance of the truth.
