Jesus used the terms, “whitewashed wall,” and “whitewashed tombs” in reference to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. (Matthew 23) Here in Ezekiel 13 God uses the same terminology when prophesying against the false prophets in Israel during Ezekiel’s time. In this portion of Scripture God says in essence, you can paint a cardboard wall, but it won’t hold up in a storm no matter how good you make it look.

Sometimes you run into people who are adamant about their beliefs. They might believe God is merely a concept invented in the minds of needy people. They might believe you have to do X number of good deeds in order to escape hell. They might believe with all their hearts that good people go to a better place no matter what name they pray to. They might even believe all life is a delusion, or that whatever the Higher Power is out there, it certainly isn’t involved in the lives of individuals. 

If you press, even the most dogmatic of these lost souls, about where they base their beliefs, you’ll find them living in cardboard houses. Base my belief on science? On what is observable? On what makes sense to me? On the word of someone who claims to have had a message from God?

You might hear the argument that the Bible is flawed, that it’s no different than the Koran, or the Watchtower, or some other religious writing. Is it? Is the Bible just another collection of religious penmanship?

When I was getting my counseling degree, we studied a technique of the 5 Why’s. When presented with a problem, you ask “Why…” Then you use the answer to that question to ask the second “Why…” And so on until you get to the root of whatever is going on. 

I believe if we press deep enough into a person’s belief system, not just the “what” but the “why,” it will reveal if that belief system is based on Truth or opinion, on fact or myth. I have no problem going five whys deep into my belief because the bottom line is, I believe what I believe because God said it.

The God of the Bible tells us how the world began, it shows God is who He says He is with example after example of supernatural occurrences, many of which can be verified by extra-Biblical sources. God inspired many men over thousands of years, to write down a cohesive book that consistently reveals God the same yesterday, today, and forever. “I AM” is the name which this God calls Himself in the Old Testament, and that by which Jesus identified Himself in the New. The Bible clearly says that there is One God, one way to God, one Truth, so therefore cancels out any other religion as remotely true.

My belief isn’t based on opinion. It’s not based on someone’s imagination or reasoning. My belief is based on the Words of the Creator, the inventor of life, the eternal God who loves me.

If anyone’s belief is based on anything other than the entire book we know as the Bible, they can dress it up in intellect, in emotion, in religion, or even apathy, but it is still only whitewash on a cardboard wall. One day, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, that God is who He has said all along He is, and that believing anything else is believing a lie. (From Philippians 2:10) And only those whose belief is grounded in Scripture will be able to withstand the judgment that follows.

I would challenge you to go “5 Whys” into your own belief system. Do you know the Scriptures that are the foundation for what you believe? Are you basing your beliefs on conjecture or downright lies or on Truth? Are you living on the solid rock of God’s Word, or are you hiding in a whitewashed cardboard house?