Readings for today: Ezekiel 13-16
The world is full of lies. Full of half-truths. Full of disinformation. The world seems hell-bent on attempting to produce its own reality rather than submit to what is truly real. Now, more than ever, humanity believes it is unbound. Unfettered. Unlimited. We believe we can defeat death by finding and turning off the aging gene. We believe we can preserve consciousness in AI. We believe we can find community by creating our own autonomous beings. We believe we can bring our fantasies to life through virtual reality. It’s frightening. It’s scary. And many are warning us that we are signing our own death warrants. Once AI becomes fully autonomous, there will be no way to stop it. It has already broken loose of our constraints on several occasions. We are tampering with power we do not understand nor can we control. It’s our oldest and most persistent sin trait. We want to be like God and now we have the technology to actually make it happen.
Truth can be a harsh teacher. I think of the hard lessons I had to learn as a young person when I tried to cling to a fantasy of my own making and spin a web of lies I wanted to believe. The truth eventually broke through but the process was painful. I think of the hard lessons my children have had to learn and are learning as they too repeat some of my mistakes. Attempting to live according to their own rules and their own ideas, convinced they know what’s best. I was talking to one the other day about their high school experience. They complained about how misunderstood they were and tried to blame the teachers and administrators for not setting them up for success. When I pointed out that the basic truth that they refused to go to class and do their assigned work, they got real quiet. Truth has a way of silencing our nonsense.
Ezekiel is fighting for the truth. His people are being led astray by all kinds of false teachers and false prophets. They make all kinds of fantastical claims. They spout all kinds of nonsense. They are delusional. All they speak are lies and falsehoods. But God will not be mocked. He will not allow them to misrepresent Him or take His name in vain. He promises judgment through sword, famine, wild animals, and plague. Why? God is clear. “This is because you have disheartened the righteous person with lies (although I have not grieved him), and because you have encouraged the wicked person not to turn from his evil conduct and preserve his life.” (Ezekiel 13:22 NET) They have abandoned truth. They have closed their eyes to reality. And in so doing, they doom themselves and their own people to destruction.
If we aren’t careful, we too can fall into this trap. We fall into it individually. We start to believe our own hype. We start to aspire to heights we were never meant to scale. We start to believe we are invincible, indestructible, beyond the reach of anyone’s judgment, including God’s. We fall into this trap culturally. Consider the abandonment of truth by so many. The weaponization of deceit as long as it serves a cause. The embrace of falsehood, half-truths, and disinformation. It’s rampant and real and it’s having a devastating impact. We fall into this trap as a nation when our leaders intentionally mislead, obfuscate, or hide the truth. When they refuse to tell the truth, they sow distrust, discord, and division and it’s tearing us apart.
What can we do? What can God’s people do? We must recommit ourselves to the truth. God’s truth. We must refuse to allow pride or ego or greed or selfishness cause us to compromise the truth of God’s Word. We must put aside the temptation to be liked or loved or esteemed in the eyes of the world. True prophets are never very popular. We must speak from a heart of love and compassion for those who are lost and never in anger and outrage. God is still watching. God is still waiting. God is still calling men and women to stand as “watchmen” just like He called Ezekiel. Watchmen for the truth.
Readings for tomorrow: No devotionals on Sundays