From the Pastor’s Heart OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
I am using the above title to reflect on what I see being displayed in our world regarding the denial of truth and evidence.
When I see and hear, for example, the trauma of the police personnel who were beaten up on January 6 by the insurrectionist demonstrators at the Capitol of the United States, it grieves my heart; and when I see and hear others trying to change the narrative to make the occasion seem like it was a “love fest,” I am mortified.
Some people have been trying to make a case against the negative effective of the insurrection by complaining about how the rioters who have been arrested and imprisoned are being treated. They are calling them “political prisoners.” Some news outlets have even refused to cover the investigations of the incident.
As a diversionary tactic, some political leaders have held their press conferences simultaneously with the hearing of the Select Congressional Committee investigating the case. In their press conference, the political leaders being named have been trying to give their own “spin” about what occurred. What is evident is that every effort is being made in some quarters to present “alternative facts,” offer “disinformation,” and confuse a quite gullible public.
What is bothersome is the willingness of the mass to go along with the denial of truth. It is obvious to me that people are just:
1. Blinding their eyes
2. Deafening their ears
3. Hardening their heart
4. Searing their conscience
5. Refusing to reason
6. Despising evidences
7. Selecting memory
8. Unwilling to discern
9. Unwillingness to accept the dangerous condition
10. Deceiving themselves
11. Trying to avoid responsibility and accountability
If you have paid any attention to history, you might know that the above reactions provide the ingredients that have destroyed societies, nations, and shattered individual lives.
Let me take you to a frame that you might not have suspected that I am going, but it points to the state of blindness and deafness that operates among truth resisters. And it seeks to direct attention to the effort that Jesus made while He walked the earth, in helping to open His hearers’ eyes and ears to the truth. In the days of Jesus, there were those who were most astute as truth and reality deniers. Even while Jesus was standing before them, they blinded their eyes and stopped their ears, refusing to acknowledge who He was.
One of the fascinating stories in the Gospels record is that Jesus healed a man born blind on a Sabbath. The Pharisees said what Jesus did was against the Sabbath law. And, so a conflict was unleashed. As the conflict progressed, it became plain that the blind beggar was seeing reality while the Pharisees were seeing reality less and less. The conflict reached its highest point when the Pharisees refused to acknowledge that the miracle was attributable to the power of God in Jesus. So, Jesus told the Pharisees “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” (cf. John 9:41).
In effect, their blindness was willful. They did not want to see. They were resistant to the truth. They saw the miracles that Jesus did and attributed them to demons. When their consciences could hardly resist more, they sought to throw Jesus out of the temple. On other occasions they sought to stone Him. They only held back because they were afraid of the people who had believed in Him. But ultimately, they made a plot with one of His inner circles who betrayed Him and handed Him over to be crucified.
On the occasion of His trial, the Roman legate, Pilate who could not resist the reality that Jesus was a pure and innocent person standing before him, not guilty of death, passed judgment on Him, by handing Him over to be crucified. The after handing Him over to be crucified, Pilate took a basin and washed his hands, declaring that he was “innocent of this man’s blood.” (Matthew 27:24). Pilate’s effort did not change the reality. Jesus was the truth of God. He was the Truth, the Life and the Way.
So, we might become willfully blind or deaf, or harden our hearts, or sear our consciences, in order to avoid acknowledging the truth. But let us remember that so long as truth stands, we will be judged by God with the very truth that we deny.
We might take note of what is said concerning that which took place on January 6 at the Capital or about the truth revealed in Jesus Christ, or any other truth that we might seek to deny. The point is that we cannot blind ourselves to truth, or deafen our ears and not expect that God will not bring us into judgment.
To make the emphasis in the spiritual realm, I note again what one of my most favorite authors says: “What we need is a conscience quickened by the Spirit of God; for with many, conscience has been stupefied by indulgence in sin and unbelief. We must know what religion is, and realize that we must have a living connection with the God of heaven; for “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (Ellen White, ST July 25, 1892 Par. 10)
In effect, we cannot just sit back and say to truth, “See I am blind, Hear I am deaf,” or we will be facing the judgment of God.
