One of the worst condemnations of Israel found in the Old Testament prophets is found in Zephaniah 1:12:
“I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will He do ill.'”
God’s judgment against His covenant people is not a matter of their denying of Him. They didn’t become atheists or convert to a pagan religion. Rather, they denied His relevance. They professed that this God who had brought them out of captivity in Egypt had no place in their lives.
One claim that the triune God of the Bible makes is to be the source of truth (e. g., John 14:6 and 17:17). Moreover, He claims to be the determiner of history:
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“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and, from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose'” (Isaiah 46:9-10).
Yet, they turned to other sources of immanency, or so they imagined, accusing Him of irrelevancy and insufficiency.
God, being the jealous God that He is, rebukes them for such syncretism:
“You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes… Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:26, 31).
These things occur in today’s America, and even more so in Europe. In some European countries, mediums outnumber Catholic clergy. Most Americans consider ourselves to be too sophisticated for such superstitions. Yet, do we not look to scientists in the same way? As I write this, we keep hearing “follow the science” as we deal with the covid-19 virus. However, we have been seeing it for much longer in the orthodoxy of Darwinian evolution. Rather than the determinative witness of the Creator, we look to the presumptions of, not science, but of scientists, people who have a vested interest in philosophical domination, but not in evidence. The declarations of orthodox scientists have become the Tarot cards and sheep entrails of the modern unbeliever.