There’s a certain sort
Who strive to be nicer than God—
Erasing the lines he has drawn
And avoiding the sternness—
Putting up with bad behavior
He clearly rejects—
Including the very behavior
I’m addressing here.
They say, “Peace, peace”
When there is no peace.
And though it is the very language
Of the Serpent himself, they can be
Heard to ask from time to time,
“Did God really say…?”,
Or in softer terms,
“But does that really mean…?”
When they know full well—
Or should know full well—
That he did indeed really say it
And did indeed really mean it.
And their particular stock in trade
Is the insistence that “God loves everybody”
Even though the Bible does not agree.
And I wonder what they
Hope to accomplish
By this behavior—
And whether they suppose
That God will thank them
When finally they meet
For having provided to him
A better example in such things
Than his own.
Some of them are surely
Overreacting to cruelties
They have suffered,
And supposing in error
That since God is righteous,
There must not be anything
Stern and unyielding about him—
For this, they think, feels too much
Like cruelty, even though it is not.
And they simply are not listening,
For he has made himself clear
As to what behaviors he won’t accept.
And some of these people, I observe,
Are not merely erring, but indulging,
For they are so needy
For the admiration of others
That they dare to step in order
To offer sympathy, even where
God himself offers none
So that they will be loved In return,
Even at the expense of shielding
Their victims from the very counsel of God,
And so corrupting the mind
Of a fellow human.
Thus they give aid and comfort
Even to God’s enemies,
Both fledgling and veteran alike,
And they mistake the gratitude
They get in return
For a sure sign that they are
Doing good in God’s eyes.
They see themselves as
Lovers of souls, and not as
The interlopers they are
Ever stepping in between God
And his creatures for their own gain.
And a great many people
Fall under their spell.
They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace.
Jeremiah 8:11. NIV
…diviners see visions that lie;
Zechariah 10:2. NIV
they tell dreams that are false,
they give comfort in vain.
Therefore the people wander like sheep
oppressed for lack of a shepherd.
The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, 3 and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4 then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5 He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.
Ezekiel 33:1-6. NIV
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”
Jeremiah 23:16-18. NIV
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”
18 For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
“Are you greatly disturbed in mind over Israel? Or do you love him more than his Maker does?“
2 Esdras 5:33b
…you come far short of being able to love my creation more than I love it.
2 Esdras 8:47a
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Isaiah 55:8-9. NIV
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
