Why it is Hard for Believers to Escape the Tag of being Crazy

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2Ti 3:1  

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1 and 2) is a hilarious movie shot in South Africa. But it is not a religious movie. And it is a clever gimmick because the subject of gods will always elicit laughter, anytime and anywhere. For apart from the ‘believers’ who regard them as revelation, to the rest of the world they are usually fodder for the crassest of jokes. That is why we look at someone with a wry smile when they announce that they have seen the Lord.

Nobility, Professors, Religion and Craziness

I read in a devotional, how a woman of nobility was once scandalized by the preaching of George Whitefield, so much so that she approached him and raved, ‘How can you preach to me as if I am one of the common people? Underlying her fears was the thought of being considered crazy.

And that is always the curse of nobility and higher education… that a professor will feel out of place in a church where people are clapping wildly and raising their voices… And so why should he be thought crazy?

And it is for that reason that Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night.

But is there a Ground for such Fears?

At Pentecost the believers were thought to have taken one too many – and Felix advised Paul to go easy on his books… ‘And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.’  So Jesus too did not escape the tag of craziness, and ‘It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master.’

Certainly religion has had its share of excesses (and it cannot be legislated, or denied). But likewise the world has had its excesses too in tyrants - and Trump.

It is possible many who would be believers are not because they fear to be counted with the insane (or they would prefer to go to Jesus at night). Might that be the reason why you do not believe - or show?

But did not the OT Prophets act Crazy?

Granted, in the OT, the prophets acted, by today’s standards, real crazy! Else how would people react to a prophet building a ship in a dry land as Noah did? Or Ezekiel acting out his bizarre visions, or Hosea marrying a prostitute… Can God act the same way today?

‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds’ (Heb 1:1-2). So today we have Christ. We have the Bible. And we have his word and the teachings of his apostles…

So Today should we Still fear to be thought Crazy?

No. To announce one’s faith is a matter of principal. It is to be decisive and not to be a rolling stone. To abandon the world belief will naturally attract hatred. As it is written, ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you’ (Joh 15:18-19).  

It will attract ridicule, certainly, but that is not the same as being crazy. To proclaim a different belief might even attract death, it is to be lonely, and to open oneself to being misunderstood. And as nature abhors a vacuum, and where people cannot explain something, so they will naturally dismiss one as being crazy!

Yes Truth will at Times Sound Crazy

And the question of Isaiah is still as relevant today as it was then, ‘Who hath believed our report?’

Only the latter day prophets have become most popular, rich and jet set… and multitudes have believed their report. But it is easy to see why. Any gospel which preaches nothing but money will draw in crowds. But the word of God cannot be broken. And that is why it is written, ‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven’ (Mat 7:21). 

And you shall know them by their fruits. 

There are True Prophets (read crazy) and False Ones

Paul died a lonely man, while most of his friends deserted him, like Demas, as he wrote, ‘Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears’ (Act 20:30-31).  

Apparently Paul’s preaching refused to move with the times, ‘Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle’ (2Th 2:15).  

And in the same note, and by today’s standards, the prophet Jeremiah (and his famous mood swings) would not only be regarded as crazy but sick. He would be a clinical case. And like the painter Van Gogh he would be thrown out of church for interpreting the Bible too literally (the scar of that rejection seems to have stuck with the artist until his death).

But even today the highly educated and believing Christians are caught in a fix. They believe in Jesus Christ yes but they gloss over those aspects of him which insult their intelligence. So they have thrown out his miracles, and they have dignified them with the word myth.

But the Apostle Paul writes again, ‘For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God… For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe… For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are’ (1Co 1:18,21,26-28 ).    

And so How will the Last Days look like?

And ‘as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be,’ Jesus said. Perhaps this is the time to engage in a serious discussion about life and the signs of the time… as the prophet Joel cried to the people of Judah, ‘Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?’ 

O Lord, grant that I might see ‘these things’!