A false foundation

When Ben was just a baby, times were tough. I had a great babysitter lined up and decided to go to work part-time to help out with the family finances. I worked for Jon's IGA in Worland, Wyo., and enjoyed the work a lot. I was out among people and found their grocery selections to be very interesting. An abundant supply of different foods, fruits and vegetable went through my check-out stand and I was frequently surprised by the total. Considering what they had purchased, I found their totals quite reasonable.

My first payday came and I happily grabbed a shopping cart and meandered through the store, purchasing all manner of food items, household helps, even splurging on a full grown hanging spider plant to bring a little green into our two-bedroom apartment. As the items piled up in the basket, I forgot to worry about the total. After all, many people had purchased similar items throughout the preceding days and their totals were well within my budget.

Only when the checker hit the total key did I realize the gravity of my error. I had spent all but $20 of my hard-earned paycheck on food and stuff, most of which we could have easily lived without.

I had fallen victim to a common human malady. I had begun with a false premise. I didn't make that mistake again.

Too often, we make decisions based on a false premise. A neighbor applied for credit at Montgomery Ward back in the day when credit was hard to come by and Monkey Wards was a household name. Wards carried a sturdy set of bunk beds she wanted for her boys and when she was approved for a $250 credit line she promptly ordered the bed frames, expending more than half of her credit line doing so. All well and good, she thought, grabbing the phone a month later to order the posture supportive mattresses for the beds. She was taken completely by surprise, as she explained it to me later, to discover that the $250 credit line did not allow her to charge $250 per month, regardless of the balance carried forward. A false premise.

The sub-prime mortgage meltdown was inevitable because it was based on multiple false premises. First, that wages would keep pace with the rising interest rate. Secondly, that people who couldn't afford the homes would find a way to afford them once they experienced the joys of home ownership. And thirdly, that the mortgage is the only expense associated with homeownership. Anyone who has had to re-shingle a roof or spend the money intended for their 20th wedding anniversary celebration on a new hot water heater understands how quickly this particular false premise is revealed.

Humanity has been living under the influence of a serious false premise since time out of mind. And it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon. A serious discussion among sisters of faith recently revealed how deep this particular deception goes. We were talking about the millennial reign of Jesus, the thousand years right here on Earth when he will be the undisputed king and will rule as we read in Scripture, with an iron scepter, and the final rebellion that will follow that rule. (Revelation 19:15-16)

"What?" my faith-sister questioned, incredulous. "There'll be a rebellion? Against Jesus?"

"That's what Scripture says," was the answer.

"But won't they know who he is?" she protested. "Won't they know he's Jesus? Won't they know he's the Son of God?"

"They will," came the response. Even so, they will rebel.

Knowing Jesus, loving Jesus, following Jesus, she was appalled. "How? Why? It doesn't make sense."

I understand her frustration. It is unsettling to read in the closing chapters of Revelation that the enemy, chained for 1,000 years, finds rebels aplenty to amass that final army of opposition to God, to his Son and to his redemption.

But that's what Scripture teaches. (Revelation 20)

This reveals that the power of that first deception, that first temptation, will still have power over men, even when standing face-to-face with God, and they will die forever die, perpetually die, rather than admit that the first false premise was always and forever false.

"'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'" Genesis 3:5 (NIV)