November 4, 2014 (Tuesday)
The closing line of a popular song a few years back declared, “It can’t be wrong when it 
seems so right.” The specific intent of the phrase within the song was OK, but plucked from its context as a general principle for making ethical decisions, it’s not very good. Our feelings can mislead us, causing us to think wrong is right. The Bible, correctly interpreted, will not mislead us. We must make moral choices based upon what God says, and not upon how we feel about the situation.
James Denison wrote in his online “Forum,” “When we read Scripture through the lens of our experience, the Bible usually says what we believe.” We make it say what we want it to say.
First, we should determine what the Lord is saying to us through the written Word, then we can judge our experience accordingly. This procedure does not work when we reverse the process.
The moderator of an assembly in business session asked the parliamentarian, “When this motion is made, how are you going to rule on it?” to which the parliamentarian replied, “How do you want me to rule on it?” Can you say, “Kangaroo court?” With “Rules of Order” in hand, the parliamentarian has an obligation to be true to his calling. The book “says what it says.” To make it say something different is to create confusion and anarchy. Yet at times we approach the teachings of Scripture in this way. We decide beforehand what we want it to say. This is a mistake. It does not change Truth.
“Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
“‘How many anvils have you had,’ said I,
‘To wear and batter all these hammers so?’
‘Just one,’ said he, and then with twinkling eye,
‘The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.’
“And so, I thought, the Anvil of God’s Word
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone.”
Many people today have stopped caring about what the Bible says and have decided to do what is right in their own eyes. Noah knew a lot of people who felt that way. (Genesis 5:32-10:1).