Don't Pray to People

I just realized the other day: We are commanded in the Bible to have faith in God.

We are never commanded to have faith in people.

While this may seem elementary . . . it must be a hard concept to grasp because everyone suffers from it every day. I know I do . . . or I just now realized that I do it. Let me explain.

I've been praying to people for entirely too long.

A few years ago, I had a friend. He was a best friend. I could tell him anything and he would listen to everything. He could tell me anything and I would listen to him. And we talked about everything. It was amazing. I've never had a relationship like that ever before or ever since. It was one of those things that you dream about, and then there it is, and you can't believe that this person actually exists. Then stuff happened that I'm still unsure about. We started fighting and I don't even know why. We'd fought before but we always ended up resolving everything. That was the beauty of this relationship: No matter how mean either of us got, the other one would finally forgive, and we would make amends.

I don't even remember what that last fight was about. All I can remember is that I was sure we'd get through it, because we'd gotten through bigger fights before. Well, apparently I was wrong, and we've never been as close since then. I've tried asking him about it, and my asking always makes him mad for some reason, so I don't anymore. I really miss him though. Really. Especially when it comes to topics that I know only he would appreciate. Not everyone gets my sense of humor all the time, and . . . well, it bugs me a ton--even more now, because now this guy pretends he doesn't get my jokes half the time. We're still friends, but it's like friends who visit each other in jail. You have to choose your words or you set the alarms off.

So anyway, I've just tried to fill up my time with other activities. And don't get me wrong, I have great and wonderful friends who I love dearly . . . It's just weird not to have that uncanny otherworldly closeness with a person. It's so weird to have him at a distance mentally when we used to be almost completely connected. It's like if you lived in a mansion and then for no reason you have to go back to your studio apartment. I guess the feeling is betrayal, but I'm not sure if he or I am to blame. Probably me, because I'm the one who asks about what went wrong, and I am the one who gets denied.

I try not to dwell on this situation because obsession just turns into insanity, you know? Anyways, I bring all this up because of events of late.

Anyways, I've felt a similar--yet to a lesser degree--feeling with two other friends of mine. I've never felt like this since high school. Where people just take their friendship with you down a few notches for no discernible reason.

Then it hit me. The number one frustration that we have with each other is that we want to be able to pray to one another. I want to put faith in this guy because I want him to be available for me when he isn't anymore. I want my friends to treat me the way I want to be treated regardless of the fact that I'm sure I treat other people exactly this same way. I want to be loved in spite of myself.

Well, those desires of mine are physically impossible for a human to fix. That's because God is the only one who can do that stuff. Not that it's wrong to talk to people about stuff that bugs you, but . . . you know that feeling when you have a real issue (or at least it's real to you) and you can just see the glaze over the other person's eyes? For me, I hate wasting words. I talk only when I think I'm being heard, and when I find I'm not, I become livid. This is a problem for me because I hate to annoy people, but I really want people to listen to me whenever I speak.

So what should I do? I should speak to God. I'm not going to annoy Him, because He is Joy. He's going to want to listen to me, because His Word tells me constantly to talk to Him. He's not going to judge me based on my opinions, because He is Truth and free from opinion. And what is just awesome is that when I pray, He draws me closer to Him. At the end of prayer, I just feel like praising Him indefinitely. I guess that's really what "heaven on earth" means: The more I pray, the more I can't wait until I CAN praise Him indefinitely. I don't get that from human beings, nor should I.

I should pray to God and give human beings a break.

Organic Prayer

Have you ever heard this?

P raise
R epent
A sk
Y ield

Many people have told me that this is the formula that Christ gave us in the Lord's Prayer and is also similar to the format that David and other Psalms writers tended to follow. I've also heard that if you don't end your prayer with praise, then you haven't prayed. While I think guidelines can be nice, and while I think that there is a lot to be said for these observations . . . The more Scripture I read, and the more I mull it over, the more I have problems with them.

The idea that "most Psalms ending with praise must mean we have to praise God" is intrinsically self-serving. Why? Follow this train of thought and see if you've been here before: We forget to praise God or don't praise Him enough after we've told Him all our stuff; so then we feel like we did something wrong; and so we are just reinforcing what a dirty rotten sinner we really are; this leads to intense feelings of guilt which result in us having to pray all over again and repent of being the dirty rotten sinner that we are; and then we try to think of more praising things we can say so we can pacify Him; but then we have to ask for forgiveness from thinking that we had to pacify Him--because that means we think He is shallow--meanwhile, we are wondering if our prayers are being heard as much as Mr. Smith's over there; or else we are so sure that our prayers are being heard that we become happy in our success; but then we have to apologize for being prideful; and then we have to think of more praising words; and then we have to think of how we can yield to God today; and on and on it goes. Such a headache.

So let's get rid of all that crap. I believe that prayer is more like this: when we call out to God, He hears us, He changes us, and the Holy Spirit automatically causes praise to fall from our lips. Simple as that. We just naturally, organically end up yielding. That's why the Psalms are there in the first place, not to give us guidelines, but rather to observe how the Holy Spirit changed someone else's heart. It's like we can see this change right before our eyes and we can rejoice in the present for something God did in the past to a sinful individual just like us! Therefore, we organically desire the same thing! And of course those Psalms are necessary, because if those prayers weren't there, we wouldn't even know that prayer was possible, or--on a more immediate note--that it did any good!

We don't have to spend any time worrying about praying correctly, or praying the right words, because Romans tells us that the Holy Spirit does all that stuff. There is really no pressure. There is really no point in thinking, "What would God like to hear from me?" That is a man-made question. There is no point in trying to figure out the guidelines for prayer, because guidelines imply that we have some control in the actual direction.

Does that make sense? I've heard soooo many times when a pastor will look at a Psalm and go, "See? David knew the importance of praising his Creator!" I think that's totally backwards. Jeremiah tells us that the human soul is desparately wicked, and that it's only by God's grace through the Holy Spirit that anyone even realizes how awesome God is. David didn't realize the importance of praise. He simply called out to God, God changed his heart, and as a result David naturally turned into a beacon of praise.

When people "realize the importance of praise"...Let's be honest, doesn't that just really give them a reason to feel good about themselves? That addition of pride into prayer adds soooo much frustration into something that should really be all about God--plain and simple.

A Gruesome Necessity

I spent the past week counseling for a Christian camp put on by a high school in South Korea. The camp was specifically geared towards the spiritual growth of the campers which was evidenced by the three chapel services, 45 minutes of "God and I" time, hour of cabin discussion, and 15 minutes of cabin devotions a day.

One of the sermons the visiting pastor preached centered on the gruesome death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In fact, the descriptions of His suffering in this particular sermon left even the most obstinate of listeners squirming from sheer discomfort. To hear how skin, bone, and muscle were violently ripped apart; to listen to details of internal organ failure and the order in which they failed; to picture the complete and total agony of crucifixion from mental, spiritual, and physical perspectives seemed to push the entire congregation to near exhaustion.

Two things came to mind.

First of all, I thought about the non-Christian reaction to the movie The Passion of the Christ. The media was absolutely horrified at it. I remembered the interviews of Christians who had seen it. These Christians looked so ridiculously happy about something the rest of the world saw as gratuitous and extreme.

The second thing I thought of was a conversation that I'd had with a long-time teacher regarding methods of teaching. Something he told me stood out as I listened to the camp sermon, "If you want to keep high schoolers interested, focus on gore and grossness. For instance, " he had explained, "don't just tell the kids that Sir Walter Raleigh was a 'gentleman.' Instead, explain exactly what that meant--that gentlemen walked along the street on the outside of a lady because people, not having indoor plumbing at this time, threw out the day's excrement into the street. A gentleman's walking on the outside of a lady assured the lady's protection from filth should a carriage come rambling by." Okay. It's gross. But he was right, as I soon found out from incorporating this method into my teaching the next year.

What I find interesting about these two thoughts in relation to the Crucifixion is this: Christ's bloodshed was extremely gorey--even fringing on the point of the unbelievable. . .but only fringing. Never completely crossing the line. That's the thing. As incredible as it was, it is also quite credible at the same time. All the elements: nails, blood, thorns, thunderclouds, earthquakes, sins, Perfection, etc. All these elements are believable elements. God did not hurtle thunderbolts from a cloud in the sky. God didn't drive the Sun across the sky as a chariot. God didn't change into animal form and stalk His enemies. Rather, God paid for the sins of the world through very understandable and scientifically fathomable means, while at the same time dumbfounding the most brilliant of minds.

However, the credibility of His death, does not outweigh its gruesomeness. Naturally, questions arise. Is God a God who delights in tearing Himself apart so that He can somehow hold His suffering over us like a disgusting obligation? Does He somehow get off on churning our stomachs? Is Christianity just the invention of a completely sick mad-man with a fetish for the morbid?

Or is this story is so vastly sickening because our need for a Savior is so equally sickening? Is the void we made for ourselves between us and God in the Garden of Eden equal to the void Christ bridged with the cross? If Christ's death had been less violent than it was, would we feel so compelled by it? Are we nothing better than completely depraved high schoolers with attention spans so short that nothing less than a blood-battered Savior turns our heads? Are the two pains, our distance from God and Christ's blood on the cross, mathematically equal and opposite?

If you think back to all the literature you've ever read, you will probably only recall a small handful of stories that you remember in great detail. This is because those stories made an impact, an impression. God desires a relationship with us, yet He knows we forget insignificant details. God is not an insignificant detail, so He chooses to reveal Himself through a story that is not soon forgotten. You can forget Aesop's fables. You can forget the Noble Eightfold Path. You can even forget the Ten Commandments. The only way to forget the Crucifixion story is to ignore it. The true awfulness of this story does not lie in the agony that Christ endured. Rather it lies in a depravity so great of people so far gone that we can't get this story out of our heads without making a choice to ignore it. That is merely part of the gruesome and beautiful necessity of its design.

Wow . . . Read This Book, Seriously (or "Satan The Clever Idiot pt. 2")

So . . . I just started reading this book by my pastor in Ohio, Dennis McCallum. The title is Satan and His Kingdom. I don't want to give a summary, because I need to go to bed, but I just read a paragraph here in chapter five that totally cleared up a thought that always bothered me. (This book is SUPER good, by the way. If you can find it, read it! . . . And read the Bible references he points out. Super great.)

Anyways, I was always bothered by the fact that at the cross Jesus said, "My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me!" I know that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22 and that had always been explained to me, but . . . I couldn't for the life of me figure out why He would bother doing that. Everyone always said that Jesus said it to fulfill Scripture . . . Um . . . Is it just me, or does that seem like a weird thing to say after Jesus had just lived 30+ years spouting teachings about how great and loving God is? Just to fulfill Scripture He decides to tell God that He was unfaithful to Him? You know? I mean, Jesus did every single thing God every required of anybody . . . Thats a past-cruel way to repay His only begotten Son. Also, it seemed like Jesus was actually being the pansy victim of circumstance that the writers of Jesus Christ Superstar would have all of us believe. Anyways, the thought never sat well with me.

But Pastor McCallum explained...--Here. Lemme just retype the paragraph:

"Imagine Satan looking on when Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (NASB). Perhaps only at that moment did he realize that this psalm (which he would have known by heart) fully predicted the crucifixion. He may have suddenly realized, too late, that he had done exactly what Jesus wanted him to do. At the cross, Satan disproved his own accusations against God."

(That last italicized sentence has to do with a point Ps. Mc made earlier that Satan was always accusing God of being too holy for love. In other words, "Why would a loving God require imperfect people to be perfect, and then punish them for their disobedience?" But...there it was. The entire disproof of the lie in the Person hanging before him on the cross.)

I just love that! Jesus wasn't actually telling God that He'd forsaken Him at all! He was actually almost taunting Satan . . . in this moment of seeming to be at his complete wits end, and Satan thinks he has the upper hand, Jesus, as a picture of humility and suffering, beats Satan at his own game!

With that perspective, I reread Psalm 22 as though I were Satan bringing it to mind in that moment. It's like when you bet everything on three aces because you know your opponent has some low cards, but then they pull out a straight flush. You had part of the story, which made you arrogant, but the very part of the story you missed served as your own undoing. Imagine the sheer devastation to Satan as he watched Jesus, remembering this passage with phrases like, "the band of spoilers have hemmed Me in, piercers of My hands and My feet" and " They divide My garments among them and cast lots for My clothing" as these very actions had just happened.

Then imagine finally realizing this last verse of Psalm 22 for what it REALLY means: "They shall come, and shall declare His righteousness to a people that shall yet be born, that He has done this."

In those few words, Christ wasn't claiming God's unfaithfulness, He was, in fact, proclaiming straight to Satan's innermost being what a true idiot he really is. Jesus was always one for efficiency, after all. I mean, remember when Jesus said it and the crowd all thought He was calling out for Elijah? I think He said those words purely for Satan's benefit, and in the old language that Satan, and a select few scholars, would have actually known!

Brilliant!


1Co 2:6 But, we speak wisdom among those who are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, that come to nothing.
1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God has hidden, predetermining it before the world for our glory;
1Co 2:8 which none of the rulers of this world knew (for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory).

Hypocrisy of Atheism pt. 3

Freud and other vocal Atheists have stereotypically used the "Fall of Man" as a point of hypocrisy in the Christian faith. This is their selling point: How can Adam and Eve's choice to eat fruit in the garden curse ALL of mankind? That doesn't seem fair. They feel it is hypocritical of Christians to proclaim love and in the same breath doom people for hell at birth, just because their ancient ancestors ate some fruit.

I found something interesting while reading Freud's book, Civilization and Its Discontents, with his explanation of the origin of guilt. He says that once non-rational chimps figured out how to become sentient humans they began to form tribes. Every tribe had a leader, and every family unit had a father. You see, every son both loved and hated his father. He loved the father because the father was protector and provider. However, he hated the father because every son loved his own mother (See Oedipus Complex); every son wanted to be the father because of the father's higher status; and every son saw his father's weak points and resented him for them. The father didn't make the son happy, and the ultimate goal of every human is to be happy by fulfilling his libido. So what happened? The son killed his father. What happened next is the interesting part.

According to Freud, this is where we got our concept of guilt: As soon as the son killed his father, he remembered how much he'd initially loved the father. He also saw how the murder affected his mother--the object of his love--and he realized his premature and insurmountable tasks of both providing for and protecting himself. The feeling that arose out of all the emotions involved is what we now term "guilt." This is still the going thought for most of the Atheist scholastic world.

Since we have this guilt in our memory from our ancestors, we need redemption, so Freud explains how we, much later, created redemption for ourselves. Naturally, wishfully thinking Christians came up with the image of Jesus Christ and that fixed all the nasty guilt problem. He was at once our "Father" whom we killed and our "Redeemer" who took away the nasty sin. But since He's just a made-up guy, there is actually no hope and so we currently live blissfully on in this false sense of hope. (See my next blog for thoughts on how "no hope" isn't a logical answer.)

This is the Atheist hypocrisy in this thinking: Atheists are simply replacing one "ancestral memory" for another. Either we are sinners because we are born into Adam's curse, or we are born into guilt because caveman ancestors killed their fathers. Either way, guilt...sin...whatever you want to call it, is an inevitability. Either way, all humanity is doomed.

(Furthermore, the Christian view actually explains why women feel guilt. Freud's view doesn't. Freud never mentions women in this equation at all--except being the mother who is grievous over the loss of her husband. Doesn't that seem a little horrible for women to feel a guilt for which they weren't even responsible? Yet . . . Women are statistically quicker and more likely to admit guilt than men. No accounting for that. Oh well. Maybe I just don't have a good understanding of Freud. I've studied his theories for awhile, but this is the first actual book of his that I've read, so maybe he explains it in another book?)

Okay, so let's be fair. I suppose the Christian claim that God is Love is what upsets Atheists. How could a loving God doom all mankind for simply eating fruit? That's just silly. So...do we just replace fruit with killing a guy? Is that more logical? Does it make it easier for me to bear the weight of an ancestral sin if I say that my ancestors were greater sinners than Adam and Eve? Does that somehow make the sin more transferable to starving little babies born in Africa?

Now, I suppose one could argue that the Freudian view doesn't claim that the world was created perfect, like the Christian view does. There is more at stake in the Christian view, because the Christian view says that the world was created perfectly, and that ALL things were cursed after the Fall--which accounts not only for sin, but also for famine, flood, cancer, etc.. However, a naturally caused universe simply evolved sentient beings who act as they've always acted--with the famines, floods, and cancers always having been present.

But isn't there actually more logically at stake in the second view? Let's think about something for a moment. Freud's case states that guilt originated from ancestors killing their fathers. This means, up to that point, no one felt guilt, get it? This means that everyone went about doing things that didn't make them feel guilty. Do you see the problems here? Freud is either repeating the Christian view which accounts for something like a "perfect sinless environment" where no one felt guilty yet, . . . or else Freud's view must be that killing their fathers wasn't something our ancestors cared about until that magical point in time when they became rational enough to realize what they'd done; in which case we must abandon reason in our analysis of such a theory, because why would our ancestors have cared about an act they'd never cared about before? Either way, he's tracing sin back to a starting point and dooming all humanity to lives ridden with guilt, yet he gives no way out of this. There is vastly more at stake here. Again, no hope. (Next blog. For reals.)

As harsh as it is for a Christian to say, "We are all fallen," I would argue that it is just as harsh to say, "We are all guilt-ridden because of our murderous ancestry." Either way, it still affects the starving babies, right? That the inescapable problem.

That was Bart Ehrman's very issue with Christianity in his book God's Problem. He kept pointing out that Christianity is flawed in its promoting this concept of being "fallen" and then saying that poor little starving babies in Africa are just as much to blame for imperfection as the killer on death row. Ehrman is an agnostic and so therefore finds no answers in Scriptures, having supposedly studied them inside and out. His conclusion? He believed that if we all just band together and do our parts, we can make this a beautiful place. Of course, that is a sweet, sentimental thought, but that never happens. Why do people think that if we all put forth a small contribution, that we will eventually make this place wonderful? Does history show us anywhere where that was even close to possible? Compared to the belief that all the horrible, terrible, demonic people could somehow suddenly stop being so detrimental to the rest of humanity (And that's what it would take, you realize? Not for everyone to do some small piece of good, but rather for everyone to stop being evil.), a belief in God doesn't seem as much of a pipe dream, actually.

[A question arises: "So why have charities and helpful organizations in place, if small contributions can't fix the problem anyway?" Ah, but you see, I am not an Atheist; I am a Christian. I believe that these organizations are good, not because we can fix anything, but because we are all created in God's image, and He commands us to help each other.]

Besides all this, the Freudian view of the origin of guilt comes with no fair warnings! No one warned the cavemen that there were direct consequences to their actions. There was no "All-Knowing Being" around to tell them anything, because there is a "No All-Knowing Beings Allowed" sign on the Atheist's philosophical door. There is no hope in the Atheist worldview, because it dooms everyone everywhere to guilty feelings that cannot be ignored and can only be repressed for a short time, only to resurface tenfold later (or drive a person to insanity). Guilty feelings are unavoidable. Perhaps Freud could muse them away and blame them on Christians, yet he admitted the fact that guilty feelings are within us and cannot be escaped. A person can only live guilt-free in this world if he is blissfully ignorant of the horrors of this world, and the horrors within himself--in which case, he is a plague upon all his friends and family.

We all know Adam and Eve were warned:

Gen. 2:15-17
¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

(They understood, because Eve repeats the ramifications later in Chapter 3.)

Being born into sin is not a purely Judeo-Christian worldview. It is a staunchly Atheist worldview as well. For an Atheist to claim that original sin is a mind-trap created by Christians is a huge logistical problem, let alone vastly hypocritical. This is because guilt and sin are inevitable and unchangeable by human actions and are paid for by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Pale Blue Eye

I've been watching some videos on the earth, universe, and cosmos.

One of these videos called "The Privileged Earth," put together from current scientific research, shows further evidence that the earth is not just the Sagan-esque "Pale Blue Dot" that the 1970s wished to teach us. Without going into much explanation, suffice to say the argument put forth is that...

"The most habitable places in the universe also offer the best opportunity for scientific discovery. I believe this implies purpose." ~ Astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez

In other words (although, he said it very clearly the first time), our universe is not only finely tuned to support life, our very position in the galaxy and the universe is also finely tuned to support this place for life. Not only that, but we are in a rare and intensely unique position for observation of the universe.

For instance, if we were not positioned perfectly between two arms of the Milky Way, but instead were nestled into one or the other, there would be too much cosmic dust and star clutter around us for our distinguishing other galaxies from our own. Also, our galaxy is unique in that it is very flat so as not to impede our view of the rest of the universe. Also, the earth's atmosphere is uniquely clear (as opposed to other atmospheric planets) so that we are able to observe the universe clearly. Also, the size of the moon and the sun during a solar eclipse are almost perfectly the same to our eyes, which allows us a privilege of observing the sun's atmosphere which helps us to understand the makeup of the sun and other stars. Also....other things...

I hadn't thought about all that before.

Something else:

One of the special features on this particular DVD is titled "Journey to the edge of the universe," and takes you on a CGI journey from earth to the outer edge of the known universe. Being a nerd, I love seeing all those stars and supernovas zooming past...

Then something hit me.

In the main portion of the video, the scientists came to a conclusion that if we are positioned in such a great place, not only for Darwinian acts such as procreation and base survival, but also in a position for observation for curiosity's sake--a completely unnecessary skill for survival--then that fact implies that perhaps we are supposed to reach out from our unique life-sustaining planet, study the beautifully simple laws of the complex universe, study the outer regions of the universe, and perhaps further realize our purpose for being in this specific position.

Consider this: If we (facing Earth) traveled at the speed of light toward Alpha Centauri, we would hit Mars in four minutes. If we arrived (still facing Earth) at Alpha Centauri, it would take us five years. Further travel would then take us 100 light years just to get to the point of seeing the patterns of light and dust from the two arms of the Milky Way converge. That's as far as we would get in 100 years. And that's without traveling back to the earth to share our findings, you realize.

We haven't yet built any spaceship capable of traveling at the speed of light, let alone sustaining our lives within it traveling that fast. We came to these light year conclusions based on mathematical systems that we figured out and super telescopic cameras we put in space from the safe confines of our little planet.

This is what hit me: we are the only known species of beings that can observe the universe from our little pale blue dot in the sky. Our planet is very like an eye. We were made to observe outwardly, yet....we are incapable (at least for the time being...until we learn to travel faster than the speed of light) of physically traveling outside our very galaxy.

It seems, therefore, that Something wants us to look outside ourselves, yet--at least for the time being--wants us to remain on this lovely finely tuned, uniquely beautiful planet.

Perhaps our best work is supposed to be done within.

Become As Children

Jesus repeatedly tells us that in order to get into the Kingdom of Heaven, we must first become as little children. This is a problem for most intellectuals because they feel that being a child is the opposite of being an open-minded adult.

Six Reasons for Becoming a Child:

First of all, "The Emperor's New Clothes." The Emperor was naked; however, the people were told that only stupid people could see him naked. The adults allowed the deeper, more intellectual argument to control them--because no one wanted to be thought a fool--till they convinced themselves that the Emperor was wearing the most beautiful garment they'd ever witnessed. Instead, the child--seeing the situation at face value and not caring whether he was called a fool--admits that the Emperor was, in fact, naked. Nakedness was the reality. The Truth lay in the simplest answer.

Secondly, humility is the only way that we can know real Truth. Why? This seems like such a simple-minded answer, yet it's the only answer that makes any shred of sense. Being stripped of agenda equals humility in its truest sense. Children are sponges and soak in what they are told. Talk to anyone who has taken a class anywhere. The ones who don't want to learn anything the professor has to teach, don't. Those who humble themselves--even if they do not agree with the professor--do the learning. How can one know Truth if he is not willing to learn?

Thirdly, if the simple could not receive Truth, then Truth would be elitist. Therefore God would be a prejudiced bastard and not loving at all. People from all walks of life are Christians: doctors, lawyers, tribesmen, vegans, NRA members, college professors, toddlers, etc. God must design Truth so that the simplest people can grasp it immediately and the intellectual can grasp it eventually.

Fourthly, God is smarter than we are. If this is really true, then we must be at least children before Him, in that we cannot fathom Him. If God is not smarter than we are, then He is not fit to be called God.

Fifthly, children trust more readily than adults. Tell a child he is a sinner and he understands. Tell an adult, and you have just offended him.

Lastly, Jesus tells us that we have to become as children. In other words, He realizes that there will be many people who do not naturally think as children, but rather want to think deeply--seeing all sides of something. Seeing all sides of something is wonderful and needful; however, as history has shown us, a person can get completely off-track in his thinking quite easily (Copernicus, Nazis, cults, etc.). He tells us to become like children so that we don't veer off the path and buy into a lie. But the point is that He tells us. That means that we, as adults, need to evaluate His reasoning for telling us to do so. Is He trying to brainwash us? Is He trying to pull one over on us? Is He actually telling us the Truth? The fact that He tells us and doesn't force us to become like children shows that the decision is up to us, but that the answer will be always be there staring us in the face until we simply open our eyes to look at it.