Mixed Messages

As the rock man told Oblio, people see what they want to see, people hear what they want to hear. The result of this purblindness is people refusing to acknowledge what's right in front of their noses if it goes against what they want to believe. 

As the culture war marches insidiously on, the world around us, through every societal entity, is sending mixed messages. Two sides battle against each other. On the wrong side we have powers and principalities and, tragically, pawns who don't know they are being enslaved and exploited. On the right-ish side we have the ambushed unprepared, many who are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, merely doing damage control, even contradicting themselves, undermining each other, and in stark disagreement. People, especially impressionable young people, are getting the wrong messages, while others are maintaining the right ones.

Associates, fellow congregants, lifelong friends, family members, peers, teammates, young and old, ostensibly on the same side, suddenly find themselves aligned against each other, at school, at church, at lunch, during neighborly visits, coming home from a game on the bus. This is confusing and hurtful. So much for unity.

Yes, we are getting mixed messages from the right side, both correct and incorrect, both true and false, both from Christ and from the devil, either by the way we perceive them or by the unclear and/or contradictory way they are being presented. People who have taken the wrong side who nevertheless cling to their cultural church-going roots won't admit to the mixed messages. Holy scripture seems to have been relegated to the trash. They only see the messages they want to see. Then they throw those wrong messages into people's faces who are holding fast to the word of God. 

Here's an example. We get very angry anonymous emails quoting the leaders of our Church to show that we at SoL are in opposition to the Church. These are people who hear the Brethren say something like: same-sex sexual attraction might be something you struggle with all your life, but ignore the word might. They celebrate the idea that the Church has embraced the gay identity. But the truth is, might is not an absolute; it is a qualifier. It implies there most definitely is also a might not. These people's thinking is obtuse. They are hearing only what they want to hear, which in turn validates and encourages wrong thinking and bad behavior.   

We have to see this whole thing clearly if we are to hold to the rod, which is the word of God. The fact is, for whatever reason, people are not only perceiving but actually receiving watery and seemingly radically opposing mixed messages. Yes, this is a fact; we can lay them out to compare and contrast in black and white. Therefore we have a choice. Which message will we embrace?

Harold B. Lee, president and prophet, said, "The time is facing you right now when you will not be able to stand on borrowed light. You can only stand on the light you have by the witness of the Spirit."

Thank heaven that message is clear.