In 1987, my favorite baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, traded popular catcher Tony Pena to the St. Louis Cardinals for Andy Van Slyke. Van Slyke turned out to be a pretty good player for the Buccos, but at the time I thought it was the worst trade in history. I am sure there have been other ‘worst trades’ in professional sports.
The real worst trade in history is found in Romans 1:25 - “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie...” According to commentators R.C.H. Lenski and William Hendriksen, the literal rendering of that phrase could be, “They traded THE true God for THE lie”. What could be a worse trade than that? THE lie in view here is the idols, or image-likenesses that people often make to replace THE true God. Oh, they recognize who God is. The Apostle Paul says they know that much, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God, or give thanks” (Romans 1:21). Not only do they know God but they are familiar with his law. Verse 32 of the same chapter says, “...although they knew the ordinance of God”. But even so, these people refuse truth. They exchange it for THE lie. The imagery of the lie comes from Isaiah 44. Hendriksen says this “describes a sculptor, who has made for himself a god. He reaches out to take ahold of it, but fails to ask himself, ‘Is there not a LIE in my right hand?’ The idol is a LIE because (in the imagination of the worshiper) it promises much; however it provides nothing!”
And so here we have the worst trade, the worst exchange in human history: one who would exchange the true God for the lie. Why? Because men love darkness rather than light. Does this not show how stupid, depraved, sin-sick, twisted and needful mankind really is? Thank God he reveals his truth to those who have ears to hear and are willing to listen.
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