Pastor Matthew Peters,
High Prairie Bethel Baptist Church.
“You can’t tell me what to do!”
Well, I certainly can, but that doesn’t mean you’ll listen. Nor does it mean you should. It depends on our relationship and what I’m saying.
In the April 2 edition of this newspaper, I spoke about the place of feelings in determining truth. How can we know what we experience is true? Essentially what I was getting at is, what’s the authority we trust in? What do we listen to with the assumption that it is accurate, helpful, and true?
The ultimate question being, what is our authority?
The answer to that question used to be much simpler. There were exponentially less voices that were talking to us that we needed to discern and conclude whether they were good or evil, right or wrong.
Most oldtimers have a hard time understanding young people these days. When they grew up, what mom and dad said was the truth and they generally lived much closer to it into their adult years. Mom and dad were authorities and trusted intuitively to know best. Of course, there were exceptions but generally speaking, so it was.
Nowadays, a massive shift has changed that. Social media has changed young people. They don’t know right or wrong and they don’t know who to judge as right or wrong. They know more bits of information than their ancestors, but they don’t know those bits with any depth, nor how it all fits together. There is an illusion of knowledge but not the real thing. They know more bits, yet they know less, and what they know they know with more anger, or complete silence. There is no willingness to listen to another, or there is no willingness to share thoughts, just in case the other person fires back.
In past generations, the authority was usually parents. Now, the authority is the young person themselves. They get to pick and choose but with so many options, they are left in a hopeless sea of possibilities, eventually concluding that there is no such thing as absolute truth. And they become absolutely certain about that.
The craziest version of this is believing that a man might be a woman and a woman might be a man. How can you know? Where is your authority? On this issue, biology used to intuitively have the authoritative answer. But then the words get redefined and now the definition for woman and man changes. Confusion ensues.
In the past, authority was respected but sometimes abused. People will point to that and argue against authority in general. In our present day, where everyone can do what is right in their own eyes, are we better off? Why is it that suicide rates for young people have gone up significantly, especially since the advent of Smartphones? Why are the rates of anxiety and depression skyrocketing, especially among young girls? Is the solution to abusive or misled authority to erase the idea of authority completely?
I’m going to advise you. But who am I? What certainty do I have that what I say isn’t just another opinion in the endless sea of possibilities? It is this; I have the words of the Creator of the heavens and earth. It was only when we departed from Him that confusion and destruction ensued.
It was two Sundays ago where we celebrated His coming to life after being crucified on a Roman cross. He has spoken and we do well to pay attention. Because all authority has been given to Him. And He showed that by rising from the dead.
In this age of confusion, the authority that we need to return to, and to teach the young people with, is the word of God, the Bible. It answers the questions we have about life and death. It explains why our world is the way it is, and why there is so much evil. It gives us the truth about what God did to come and solve the worlds ultimate problem. Most importantly, it tells us about the God who made us, and who we were made to worship.
In the comment section of the Feb. 12, 2025 edition, Barry Cooper wrote: “A majority of Canadians no longer believe their government. In a recent Ekos Research survey, 51 per cent of respondents said they distrust government decision-making, with that number climbing to 64 per cent in Alberta . . . Public faith in media is even worse. According to an Ipsos survey for the CRTC, only 32 per cent of Canadians trust that information provided by news media is accurate and impartial.”
There is a good reason to distrust the authority of media. They have not proven themselves trustworthy.
But Jesus has, by being killed for our sin, and rising from the dead three days later. He rose from the dead, which proves His words can be trusted. Nobody else has done that nor can.
And God has said that “He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world . . . by a man whom He has appointed and has given assurance of this by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17: 31)
The fear you may have of our recent election must pale in comparison to the day when Jesus is revealed, who is the King over whoever comes in power.
And I would strongly encourage you, not on my authority, but by the command or your Creator to repent, and to willingly put yourself under the benevolent authority of God Himself. He is trustworthy!