Fearing God

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. When someone does not have all the answers, then the wise thing to do is to fear God and follow His ways. If one feels less experience of God than his or her intellect or heart feels should be there, then the wise thing to do is to fear God and follow His ways. If one feels like they have all the answers and they do not need to fear God and follow His ways, then they are proud in their own intellect and have put fear of their own intellect, and their own reasons, and their own evidence in the place of fear of God.

Treacherous indeed is the person who says to his neighbor that he fears God while speaking within himself that there is no need to fear God. The heart is deceitfully wicked. A man lies to himself and allows himself to be lied to. The heart is governed by unpredictable emotions that if not submitted to the fear of God will treacherously deceive the person in the hour of testing.

The one who does not recognize the cognitive potential for deception within his own heart and who trusts in it becomes increasingly blind to his own depravity and need to fear God. The one who fears his own intellect and does not fear God and follow His ways is in fact fearing lies that he has believed. And when lies are in the mix, the claim to be an intellectual is merely pseudo-intellectualism.

Blessed is the man who, after walking with God and seeking His ways, finds the truth after having steadfastly feared God. For you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Blessed is the man who, after seeking God, has learned to corral his heart and his feelings or emotions into submission to God. For then the truth is pleasant, cognitive dissonance disappears, and there is greater clarity, zeal, and boldness for the truth. That person knows the truth and does not have blind faith in the truth.

Sin is like an anti-truth poison. The more of it you take, the more you fall into self-deception. Pride enough to put faith in the assurance of one's own agnosticism is overconfidence in one's position. One who prides himself in stretching his mind and being "open" to hard questions should be open to the hard question of "perhaps I am mistaken."

Few people approach the Bible with an open mind and leave it without an increased sense of truth in it in comparison to all their other choices. It is truly possible that many who approach the Bible approach it with one foot back in the world. Their real love is something worldly that they are emotionally attached to -- something that makes them popular, proud of themselves, or makes them feel good. They may not find support for their other love in the Bible, and so they deceive themselves that their other love lies in the direction of the truth, and not the truth made plain in the Scripture.

God knows what is in a person’s heart. He knows if that other love competing with the truth is in a person’s heart as soon as it exists there. God will see to it that this higher love for the wrong thing is exposed. He will see to it that the person’s will in the matter is made plain.

But He will not force that person so as to overrule his choice. That misplaced love may be simple or complex. It may be as simple as loving the polished and professional manner that evolutionists present their case, with all the worldly prestige that goes with it, combined with an unwillingness to suffer for being against it or unwillingness to do the hard thinking of the underdog in the fight, out funded and out lawyered, and all manner of supports for evolution that have to do with pure political and social POWER and nothing to do with actual truth.

You ask what is the best way to reach someone who has departed? One who departs always loves something else. The best way is to find out what love that person went after, then to take that love away or make it unprofitable. This, however, comes with two problems.

First, the person may resent the party that removed the thing they love and turn to pure hatred of the truth and not truly love anything. That is what demons are. God removed their enjoyments at the Flood. So they became wraiths. Humans can end up like them if the things they love are removed and they choose to resent it.

The second problem is that usually we are not in a position to take away what they love in this complex society. It is not a perfect utopia theocracy yet. Therefore, they get aid and comfort from the thing they love.
That is the essence of idolatry. Anything that comes between a man and the true fear of God is idolatry.

Edited by a friend.