My online pet peeve is social media reposts made without checking if they are factual. These posts are like gossip; once they get out there, great damage often follows. A bit of research and common sense would eradicate most of them, yet these days confirming claims and ideas is not as easy as it once was. Who are the experts? Do claims of research make these statements true? How can they be verified?
The Bible usually does not spell out current issues. However God has ways to CONFIRM what He says, setting up principles that are helpful. For instance, He told His OT people how to live and not to make idols. They were to keep His Sabbaths, reverence their place of worship and obey Him. He said, “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them . . . and I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you.” (Leviticus 26:1-9) Their actions would be confirmed by His blessings.
Deuteronomy 8:18 repeats this idea: “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day” with the promise that He would give them power to do well — which would also establish the veracity of what He commanded. In other words, the proof of something can be seen in the results.
The OT also says that those who disobeyed and thus refused to confirm His law were cursed. Again, that which is right and true will result in blessing. Going along with the opposite will result in disaster. It might seem okay to begin with, but disobedience is eventually destructive.
Another test is checking if an idea magnifies the Lord and confirms the words He has spoken. This one is challenging. 2 Peter 3:16 speaks of Paul’s NT letters and says, “There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” He refers to those who do not have knowledge or fail to listen to the Holy Spirit for their interpretations. Ignorance can be remedied if the heart is willing but unstableness is harder to fix. Either one can motivate people to twist the Bible to make it say whatever they want. Yet the Lord is fully able to “confirm forever the word” that He has spoken. His promises were kept in the past and will be kept in the future.
Isaiah 44:24–28. “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish, who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’; who says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’; who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’ ”
The NT declares the same method of confirmation. Mark 16:19–20 says that after the Lord ascended, His disciples “went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.” What is true produces positive results and those positive results confirmed what God promised and bring glory to God. God is not glorified by lies, gossip or deception because lies are rooted in the devil who is “the father of lies” and a “destroyer.”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. To be certain that ideas and philosophies match the truth God says means I have to be reading Scripture, thinking about it, obeying it as well — because it is from God. 2 Peter 1:19–21 says, “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” The God who knows all things and who is true and dependable is also able to divide truth from error. Fact checkers help and He may send me to them, but when His Spirit whispers “Doubt this” then it is important to confirm it — or send it to the trash.
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