"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." Ecc. 1:9 ESV
I was lost in the Okefeenokee Swamp for a day when I was about 12. I grew up just a few miles from the center of the famous "land of the trembling earth." That is the meaning of the Indian word Okefeenokee. I went into the swamp in a truck with another guy and we "stuck" the truck in the mud and decided to walk out. We started walking out in the middle of the morning and were still walking without any idea of where we were when the sun set. We thought we were making progress until we looked down and saw our our footprints from a few hours earlier. Interestingly enough, until we saw the footprints we thought we were actually covering new ground! It is possible to be lost and think you are making progress.
There was a time back into 1980's when it became popular to teach "new revelations". Familiar teachings from the Bible became a little out of vogue. Of course no one would admit it but you could feel a little boredom with the old paths. The way we became lost in the first place in the swamp was when the older guy I was with made the decision to leave the familiar way by which we entered the swamp in order to find a shorter route home. I remember asking, "are you sure we should leave the way we know?" He assured me he could get us home via a shortcut. Well, that didn't work out so well. Of course the only damage done was our pride and a few scrapes and bug bites. What made us decide to leave the old paths that had been used since the ancient tribes made them? Laziness was a big factor but I think pride was the motivating force. We left our pride in the great swamp that day.
When it comes to Christian Doctrine and Biblical interpretation much more is at stake than our pride. It is a dangerous thing to walk away from the ancient paths of our forefathers to find a shortcut to the Kingdom of God. The old paths of hundreds of years have been established by devotion, spiritual hunger and Divine revelation. They have been received in the atmosphere of humility from a stance of neutrality. Pride causes man to believe he has a new revelation that history never saw or understood. Even as I write that last sentence I think, "what arrogance! Certainly there are new lessons to be learned and new revelation to be gained. But what a frightening place for the preacher of the "new" and for those accepting it because of their faith in the preacher. I'll leave you with an ancient path to trod. 1 John 4:4 "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world,"
