The Lesson of the Bears and the Boys

My pastor's weekly newsletter this week was about the story of Elisha and the boys who taunted him and were subsequently killed by a couple of angry she-bears.  The original Hebrew, as Pastor Stephan points out, more than likely isn't talking about what we would consider children these days. The bears didn't brutalize a T-ball team. The word translated as boys in this story refers in other places to young men. The Israelites considered anyone under 30 to be not an "adult" but a young male. And we all have been treated lately to the sort of orchestrated violence young people can get up to when incited by media and ideological party leaders.

The way this story is written, the confrontation of Elijah by the youthful servants of Baal (it's likely that's who they were) suggests an imminent attack on Elisha was planned. Certainly the story was going around that Elijah was actually dead and that his going up to Heaven was a lie perpetrated by Elijah. It was in the interest of the pro-Baal party to spread this sort of gossip. Later their descendants, the pro-Sanhedrin party of Israel in Jesus' time, repeatedly attempted to stone, throw off a cliff and arrest Christ for disagreeing with their dogma. It's no surprise that their cultural ancestors (the "boys" in this story) would have been gathered to do harm to Elisha and to shut up the man who opposed them. The bears were simply God's security team protecting Elisha, whose work was not yet completed in Israel.

Jesus said we would recognize the signs of his imminent return in the same way that leaves in Spring speak of the coming Summer. One can hardly look around, watch the news, hear the taunts of today's version of those young men in the story, and not see evidence of the soon-coming Savior. The young men have gathered. Google Seventh-day Adventist and you'll see page after page of anti-Adventist web pages and entire sites dedicated to opposing Adventism. I saw one "pastor" ranting about how horrible SDAs are and how they should be knocked in the head until they come to their senses. He flat out recommends that we be prevented from buying or selling until we cease spreading our lies. It was pretty stunning hearing a self-proclaimed Christian defender saying it straight out like that.

The devil is among us like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It is hardly surprising that the church is being attacked from without and within. Only by knowing God and Jesus whom He has sent, is there any safety in this momentous age. But God is working among all those children of His. There is a growing division in the Catholic church and among Protestants as well between progressive leadership and those who prefer to get their theology straight from the Word. Many Christian leaders wonder after the Beast, seeking to gather themselves and lead their followers to join the popular herd without challenging the traditions that Satan has worked so hard for millennia to embed in churches, the culture, the media and governments. 

At the same time, we see Christians waking up and questioning things they've long been told and which are generally believed without question. It seems the Holy Spirit is moving God's scattered flock to go back to the Bible to check out some things they've been told about God that don't jibe with the God of Love they have come to know. I recently came upon an Assemblies of God pastor who has published the Bible with the books in their original order. To my surprise, Pastor Coulter talks about the ever-burning hell idea being false doctrine. Other whole churches worldwide are accepting the Sabbath truth. Amazing Facts director, Doug Batchelor, recently was invited to preach in the largest Christian church in India (if not the world). 

We're in the sheep and goats time of history. The polarization of political parties usually leads to sharp disagreements and violence, especially if their followers suddenly begin thinking for themselves, asking awkward questions, and (to the horror of the leader class), choosing another path. The apostate church leaders, who hold to a kind of "divine right of kings" with regard to their own authority, will gather loyal followers and encourage them to taunt anyone who deviates from the accepted convoluted pack of lies Satan and his minions have for so long perpetrated on the Christian world.

And one need not study for very long before you find that what you read in Scripture is on many points at variance from what you hear from the mainstream pulpits of the land. When Bible students take a hard look at doctrines like the immortality of the soul, ever-burning hell, transfer of sanctity of the 7th day Sabbath to Sunday, and priestly authority to forgive sins, and find a different truth, it makes a lot of people who have taken the name of Christ and claim to speak for him, exceedingly angry. When you realize that the idea of an immortal soul negates John 3:16 since it means God no longer gives eternal life to those who believe in Jesus, it raises questions about all you have believed. Everyone good or bad, believer or unbeliever is by nature already immortal mainstream religion claims. So, logically, God can only burn people in the lake of fire forever, since He cannot kill an immortal soul as this doctrine claims. So logically, this means God cannot have love or mercy in this matter. He can only punish.

So that means God is NOT omnipotent at the least or, at worst, He really enjoys watching folks suffer for a lifetime of what are in most cases pretty petty sins in the vast scheme of things. God, then is pretty harsh, not the God of love at all. Then there is Hollywood theology that portrays a kind of Christian reincarnation where you die, become an angel and then get sent back to Earth to have another go at it. If you want to believe all that, then you best get folks away from the Bible. Like a retired pastor told me, "I believe in science and the Bible equally." That way it leaves room for him to believe the same stuff all the regular folk do and it becomes an easy road from there down to "Well the Bible is so full of flaws, there's no need to take any of it literally other than as occasionally good advice."

Those who love power have a tendency to become cruel and desperate as that power slips through their fingers. See Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the rest of the world's despotic rulers for examples. The death toll in the 20th century alone is in the hundreds of millions. We are seeing that now as the venom against God's children gets more and more poisonous. Remember, we are up against the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet. It's good to remember that God will send along bears to protect His servants when He needs to.

Yours in Christ,
Tom King
© 2024