Israel’s false prophets had no fundamental allegiance to the covenant, and the effect of their work was to reinforce the corruptions and injustice. They were not merely off course. They were deadly to Israel’s continuing existence because they promoted a different view of Israel’s character as a people.
Come Alive (Dry Bones)
Lauren Daigle
Ezekiel 37
A Valley of Dry Bones
The LORD took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the LORD to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?” “O Sovereign LORD,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.” Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’” So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army. Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the LORD. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the LORD has spoken!’”
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution."
—G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News (1924)
We should remember that history’s first official social critics were the Hebrew prophets, who had a key role in Israel’s, and therefore history’s, earliest “separation of powers.” Standing over against the power of the kings and the power of the priests, the prophets had a dual task. First, and more positively, their responsibility was to keep calling the nation back to the ideals and terms of Israel’s founding constitution, the covenant. Second, and more negatively, their equal responsibility was to challenge any and all forms of the corruptions of power, whether by the kings, the priests, the people, or the false prophets. This dual calling of the prophets was critical to the ongoing character and existence of the Jewish people, and there is surely a parallel responsibility for public intellectuals today. Their responsibility is to call their nations to live up to their ideals and to challenge any and all corruptions of those ideals. In strong contrast, false prophets were absolutely lethal to Israel, just as a certain type of progressive intellectual is dangerous today. Israel’s false prophets had no fundamental allegiance to the covenant, and the effect of their work was to reinforce the corruptions and injustice. They were not merely off course. They were deadly to Israel’s continuing existence because they promoted a different view of Israel’s character as a people. In the same way, certain progressive public intellectuals in America are dangerous today because they owe an allegiance to a revolution and to views of freedom that differ decisively from those of the American Revolution and its distinctive views of freedom. The lesson, of course, is that we should never be seduced by the mere repetition of words such as values, freedom, progress, and change. The question is whose values, what is actually meant by freedom, and how progress is defined and the standard by which it is to be judged. The term change can be as deceptive as the term progress...
...freedom is truly creative in relation to the future. Freedom and choice mean that history is the arena for creativity and change, and humans can be the agents of protest, innovation, transformation, growth, renewal, and reform. Like freedom itself, the notion of reform is surrounded with confusion and controversies today because of the massive differences between revolutions inspired by the Bible (such as the English, 1642, and the American, 1776) and revolutions inspired by the French Enlightenment (such as the French, 1789, the Russian, 1917, and the Chinese, 1949). The roots of constructive reform lie in the vision and truths of the Bible. God calls Abraham to break with the gods and practices, the worship and ways of life of the surrounding nations, which in turn becomes an ongoing protest against all that distorts the understanding of God and all that dehumanizes the treatment of persons made in his image and likeness. The result is the calling of prophets as social critics who address wrongs and promote justice. The result is a commitment to creativity, change, renewal, and reform that repairs humanity
Os Guinness
https://thefederalist.com/2018/11/02/podcast-americas-division-stems-opposing-views-freedom/
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