FACT AND FEELING

Can something be both true and false? Is careful planning able to exist with chaos? Does the past ever become part of the future? On the surface these may seem like rhetorical questions and maybe they are. Consider the following story.

As Sally Sue Bettathanu sat in Biology class with life taking on new meaning, her thoughts about her parents taking a plane to vacation in the Caribbean were intermingled with frogs' stomachs and mouses' eyes. She was totally unprepared for the interruption by the P.A. system announcing that a plane filled with local people headed for Kingston had crashed with no known survivors. She immediately thought that her parents were dead and began to cry. Feeling alone and abandoned, she would not even listen when anyone tried to console her. She was thinking, "If I only had them back." With much struggle the teacher and a couple of the stronger young men in the class got her to the nurse's office. Nurse Loretta, concerned about Sally Sue and most desperate to end the chaos she was causing, was frantically trying to locate the close personal friend listed on Sally Sue's entrance form. This name, required as part of an overall orderly and reasonable plan in case of emergency, eluded Nurse Loretta's darting eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, close friend Norma Jean was notified and managed get Sally Sue to her car.

 When they arrived at Sally Sue's home her parents were also just pulling into the driveway, having decided to wait till summer to make the trip when they could take Sally Sue with them. Now the experience of feeling the loss of parents to Sally Sue was real but the fact was not real. The chaos existed but the careful planning limited its time. Sally Sue's wish to have her parents back was granted but she hadn't really been without them.

In religion the same type of problems exist and I am convinced there is a close friend, Jesus, and a plan to end the chaos. The plan is:

Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. -- II Timothy 4:2-4

When someone tells me they saw God or Jesus and that He told them something, I cringe. When I hear someone say, "I wouldn't trade this feeling in my heart for all the scripture in the world," I am dumbfounded. When I hear about someone's experience which was some sign to reveal some truth the them, wheels begin to turn in my head in wonder of where to begin. Have folks missed the simple teachings of the Bible? I must wonder if they have read much of' the Bible. There is great danger in store for those that are guided by a human experience. God alone is supreme and his word in the hearts of true God fearing people rules above everything else. Notice some other passages of scripture.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, -- II Peter 1:2-3

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. -- II Timothy 3:16-17

I know that I cannot deny the experiences and feelings. They are real but I must ask, "Are these experiences and feelings in accordance with the truth of God's word?" Truth is the all important element. All experiences must be evaluated in the light of truth. Truth should never be evaluated in the light of experience. I find too many people wanting to talk about an experience they never would have had if they had sought only those things revealed in God's word. We should be looking for truth, not signs. Paul's warning is certainly needed today.

And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. -- II Thessalonians 2:11-12