The truth will out 

Both scary and comforting are Jesus’ words in Luke 12:2-3, when he said “There is nothing covered up that won’t be exposed and nothing secret that won’t be made known. And whatever you’ve said in secret in the dark will be brought out into the open (Luke 8:17), and whatever you’ve whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear.” 

In other words, the truth will out. Scary words for those who think they’re too secure in their power and riches to bother about what God thinks. But thoroughly comforting for those who’ve taken Paul’s words to the Athenians seriously, that “In the past God overlooked ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he set a day when he’ll judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. And he’s given proof of this by raising him from the dead,” Acts 17:30-31. 

Comforting words indeed for those who feel so frustratingly helpless as the rich and powerful treat the planet like their playground, gobbling up resources for their own pleasure, and lying through their teeth that they’re doing it all for us. And what can any of us do? To even question their motives risks being blacklisted, jailed and having everything you’ve worked for stripped away. 

It’s always been this way, of course, the feudalistic few living in luxury, viewing all others as mere playthings and slaves. But amazingly, they can even get people to idolize them and worship their every word too. To challenge the arrogant elite, therefore, risks civil war between their ardent supporters and equally ardent haters. And what on earth can we do about that too, as the world spirals into the age old rise and fall of sociopathic leaders and their pompous delusions of grandeur, soaked in the blood of the powerless?

But the truth will out, because “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given” is the resurrected Christ  “seated at his Father’s right hand in the heavenly realms,” Ephesians 1:20-21, and “God has placed all things under his feet,” verse 22. 

And Jesus has a way of proving that to be true, because there hasn’t been an empire yet that hasn’t disintegrated into tatters and disappeared forever. And it’s about time that those aspiring for rulership of this planet by craft and cunning realize they’re up against a power far greater than theirs. 

To be told that will, of course, make them angry. It did in David’s day too, stirring him to ask in Psalm 2:1, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” Why do the rich and elite act like they’re gods, lashing out at all who dare challenge their loftiness, when “the One enthroned in heaven laughs and scoffs at them,” verse 4. To God, they’re just cartoon villains.

But God does more than scoff; he makes sure the truth will out about them too, because, verse 5, “he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in this wrath when they say, ‘I have installed my King.’” 

Scary words for those plotting a new world order in their image (not God’s), but comforting for those who believe God will “bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ,” Ephesians 1:10.