As we pulled up to the industrial complex hoping to find a good meal, I was reminded of a term I learned in my high school computer class: “Garbage in, garbage out.” How did we get to this place, and why weren’t they serving steak? It was quite simple really; we had fed the wrong address into GPS, and it led us directly here. When we begin with erroneous information, we will always end up in the wrong place.
Isn’t this true of every mistake we make? I was thinking about some of the Bible’s biggest losers: Cain, Pharaoh, The prophets of Baal, Judas, and, of course, Satan. Why did they make such awful decisions? It seems to me that each of their mistakes started with an inaccurate idea about God. Cain thought that God wasn’t fair, Pharaoh thought that God didn’t have jurisdiction in Egypt, Baal’s prophets thought God lacked power, Judas thought that Jesus was not the Son of God, and Satan thought he was God’s equal. This garbage thinking ended in garbage results.
What we believe about God matters. If our understanding of him is inaccurate, everything we think, say, and do will also be askew. In Matthew 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus asking for a sign of his divinity. In verses 2-3, Jesus replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” Then in verse 6, he warned his disciples, “Be careful. Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” The yeast Jesus warned about was the wrong beliefs of these leaders that were corrupting everything they taught.
Truth matters. If you don’t believe it, type “255 S. Faulkenberg” into your GPS and try ordering a steak.