1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
The LORD God created all things, and made the Earth from its prior condition of formlessness and darkness. He began with the introduction of light, which in His eyes was good. Light is always good and useful, particularly where darkness reigns. It reveals, exposes, illuminates and dispels the unknown, the mysterious, the unfathomable and brings clarity and understanding. Light enables discernment.
God then divided the light from the darkness; these were distinct from one another, in complete contrast, without similarities or commonalities at all.
The same can be applied to the spiritual dimension as with the physical dimension. It is the light of God's Word that brings clarity (EPH 5:13), understanding and discernment (HEB 4:12; HEB 5:12,14). If any claim to have these things, but denies God's Word, they truly have no light in them whatsoever:
ISAIAH 8:19-20
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? 20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
We live in a GRAY WORLD, but truth be told, this condition of 'grayness' began ever since Satan challenged the plain and abundantly clear Word of God. God told Adam that the day that they ate of the forbidden fruit, in that day they would surely die.
Yet Satan opposed that directive from Deity and deceived them by saying "you shall NOT surely die."
He proved himself to be a menace by muddying up the crystal clear water of God's Word. The distinction between truth and lies has been obfuscated ever since those early days and today we can find little evidence in society of stark, bold, clean-cut and objective, absolute truth. Such things are frowned upon, considered "politically incorrect" and "objectionable".
Ecumenical, Emergent and Progressive proponents view absolute and objective truth as a misnomer for aggressive and close-minded arrogance which is promoted by 'bibliolaters' or those who, they claim, place too high a regard on the Bible and revere this book to the point of worship.
Ecumenism has absorbed some form of Christianity (with just a trace of biblical truth, albeit twisted) to create a world without clarity, without absolutes or certainty, a world of polite, political correctness, where the objective is a kind of spiritual/religious uniformitarianism - a palatable blandness that is heavy on the experiential and light on objective truth.
And anyone's experience is just as valid as any other - as are perspectives of such that hold to this uniformitarianism. Everyone is right and no one is wrong (except those who believe in absolutes); all is truth (except for THE Truth, JOHN 14:6) and nothing is wrong. Thus in this GRAY WORLD, it's impossible to make any mistakes, to say nothing of committing 'sin'.
By diluting the Word of God with more and more modern translations, and even more so, these perilous paraphrases of the Bible, people are being weaned from the truth of the Scriptures. And they are gleaning spiritual 'truths' from novels and films, rather than from the pages of Holy Writ!
By the Emergent Movement, people are being taught to question the authoritative, inspired Scripture and persuaded that truth is indeed relative. Thus this world is getting more and more gray all the time.
The Hegelian dialectic is a process being used by the forces of this world to take polar opposites (thesis and anti-thesis) and bringing them together and fusing them into a paren-thesis - from light and dark - to become gray.
The other factor being added into the mix is pantheism - the idea that "all is God, and God is all" and so we merely have to identify with the Deity already within us. Such a view is Eastern in its philosophy and religious persuasion, but it has found its way into the West via Yoga, TM, and more recently, contemplative spirituality.
In this Gray World, there are no clear compass directions - "north" may not be north. "Can we really understand what it means to head south"? In this world, to be lost and asking questions with an air of blatant uncertainty is something to be admired. To express certitude to tantamount to blasphemy and something to be shunned; certainly disapproved of.
Where truth is sacrificed, justice will soon be placed on the same altar of relativism.
Truth is not something to be possessed, but to be sought after as we 'spiritually evolve' to higher understanding of the vulgar expressions that the prophets of the Bible declared - these 'gray people' genuinely believe that they have greater and deeper understanding than any prophet or apostle - even the LORD Jesus Himself - because in this spiritual evolution which enables them to comprehend more than all previous generations. Yet in their eyes, this spiritual evolution will continue but never enable them to come to the full knowledge of anything remotely identifiable as absolute truth:
2 TIMOTHY 3:5-8
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
Such grayness will make truth that is meant to be seen and understood anemic, tepid, ineffectual at leading people to the Author of Truth - and rather, this 'anything goes' grayness will lead to, and in fact already has led to spiritual anarchy, iniquity, lawlessness:
2 THESSALONIANS 2:7
For the mystery of iniquity [lawlessness] doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
The only way to escape this GRAY WORLD is by cleaving tenaciously to the inspired Word of God, to know the truth it teaches, and most of all, its Author - the Incarnate Word of GOD, the LORD Jesus Christ.
For more on this and closely related issues, I recommend this video entitled, The CHAIR (about 76 mins total time) by Frank Peretti, well known for his novels such as these two books, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness:
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