Over the
years, I have met many people that offer their reasons (excuses) for not
believing in God or learning what the Bible says. One such excuse is that the
Bible was written by imperfect men, therefore how could we trust it. Others
try to blame God for doing or not doing something they feel should have been
handled differently. Then there are those that blame God for the actions of
others. I suppose the list could go on and on, but those are ones I frequently
encounter. All these are typically “reasons” that people parrot without really
checking out the facts.
The Bible
also provides reasons for people not believing. These are the real reasons
behind the excuses.
Some
think they are smarter than God and that the Bible is just plain stupid, or
foolishness
1
Corinthians 1:26, 27, “For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are
not many wise in a fleshly way, not many powerful, not many of noble birth, but
God chose the foolish things of the world to put the wise men to shame; and God
chose the weak things of the world to put the strong things to shame;”
Psalm
10:4
In his haughtiness, the wicked man makes no investigation; All his thoughts
are: “There is no God.”
Some
are just too busy pursing their selfish lifestyles and find that serving God
puts a crimp in their lifestyle
Luke
12:15-21,
Then [Jesus] said to them: “Keep your eyes open and guard against every sort of
greed, because even when a person has an abundance, his life does not result
from the things he possesses.” With that he told them an illustration, saying:
“The land of a rich man produced well. So he began reasoning within himself,
‘What should I do now that I have nowhere to gather my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I
will do this: I will tear down my storehouses and build bigger ones, and there
I will gather all my grain and all my goods, and I will say to myself: “You
have many good things stored up for many years; take it easy, eat, drink, enjoy
yourself.”’ But God said to him, ‘Unreasonable one, this night they are
demanding your life from you. Who, then, is to have the things you stored up?’
So it goes with the man who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich
toward God.”
Some
are just too lazy to really search out the facts
Acts
17:11
Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they accepted
the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the
Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. (In this case, the “noble-minded”
showed real interest in understanding what God wanted of them.)
Some look
for and make excuses
Matthew
8:21
Then another of the disciples said to him: “Lord, permit me first to go and
bury my father.” (If a relative had truly recently died, what was that man
doing tracking Jesus? Clearly, when faced with a decision of commitment, some people
will invent any excuse.)
There are
other reasons, but these are very common. Again, they are:
- Arrogance
- Selfish Life Pursuits
- Laziness
- Making Excuses
