Turning Light into Darkness
Into the Belly of the Whale
One of the most famous pictures in Scripture is that of Jesus calling His disciples to follow Him and become “fishers of men.”1 But as marvelous as this scene is—one that speaks of a God Who is ever seeking to save the lost—there’s also an ominous flipside; another fisherman is just as determined to fill his boat with fish. That fisherman is Satan; and he has his own crew of fishermen, the children of disobedience in every age, who love darkness more than light.
Whereas Jesus and His crew fish for men with words of truth, Satan and his bunch snag their prey with words of deceit—a succulent bait which disguises the hook that spells the end of any and all unsuspecting fish.
It’s this competition, then, between truth and lies, between God and Satan, between two factions of fishermen, that lies at the heart of this story. A whopper of a fish tale, it is, however, not a fish tale in the usual sense, though it does contain certain elements of the tall tale. But in this case, these elements are not interjected to brag but to supply an antidote to the devil’s hook of lies. Any exaggeration or distortion of truth in this tale will be engaged strictly to demonstrate the difference between the original form of truth and its refashioned counterpart.
What we’re talking about here is none other than the truth that the Lord of the Sea Himself has given to His fishermen: The Bible.
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To hear Kent and Zen Garcia talk about correcting biblical misconceptions, from October 28, 2021, CLICK BELOW.
Story Continues From Above
In the hands of Jesus’ fishermen, God’s word is a hearty tool that elicits the most cherished commodity in creation—trust, or, as it’s expressed in biblical terms, faith. “Without faith,” the Scriptures tell us, “it’s impossible to please God.”2 By faith, the ancients parted the waters, raised the dead, and opened the gates of Heaven. Naturally, something this precious to God is the greatest threat to the prince of this world, Satan, who never stops trying to thwart this truth-affirming, faith-creating word of God.
Yet ironically, the one thing the devil has going for him in his quest—the only thing, really—is that contained within the very nature of God’s word is a peculiar conundrum. The word is presented to humanity in the form of a paradox, designed not only to reveal the ways of God but also to conceal them. This is done, according to the edict of Heaven, to allow access to the things of God to the faithful while at the same time to bar access to thieves and robbers. Unfortunately, though, that means the very tool that God uses to spark His rescue effort of humanity also contains the slimmest of potentials with which the enemies of God can nullify that divine effort.
It’s this double-edged nature of The Bible, then, that lies at the heart our dilemma, and why we’re so often faced with two apparently opposing realities inspired by a single source. That’s why it’s so easy to dissect truths of Scripture from their context and reshape them into new versions of “truth.”
