truth

Our Bible Reading Plan for today brings us to some difficult Psalms, Psalms 9-11.

I love these Psalms where David exhorts to God for justice, for the wicked to perish, for nations that rebel to be put down.

In today’s loving and tolerant climate, such imprecations are seen as unworthy of the Christian.

But they’re not.

The wicked (as we all were, to be sure) who reject the kingship of Messiah and refuse to repent, do polluted things against our most Holy God. These things are evil, they are wrong, they are a grief and a cause for mourning in the Christian that our God should have mud splattered on His holy name. We concentrate so long on the wicked person, praying for salvation, urging repentance, we forget the reason we do these things is to proclaim the name of Jesus among men and urge men everywhere to repent of the evil they do against Him.

I’m with John MacArthur when he said in his book Found: God’s Will:

“If the truth offends, then let it offend. People have been living their whole lives in offense to God; let them be offended for a while.” John Macarthur

In today’s Psalm, David said

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. (Psalm 9:17)

O, terrible thought! It gives me no delight to proclaim the fact of hell and the individual’s sure condemnation of those who reject Jesus. It gives no consolation to know that nations will fall into the lake of fire to remain trapped in punishing fire for all eternity. Yet Spurgeon said it so well,

Many of God’s ministers have been accused of taking pleasure in preaching upon this terrible subject of “the wrath to come.” Indeed we would be strange beings if so doleful a subject could afford us any comfort. I should count myself to be infinitely less than a man, if it did not cause me more pain in speaking about the impending sentence of condemnation, than it can possibly cause my hearers in the listening to it.

God’s ministers, I can assure you, if they feel it to be often their solemn duty, feel it always to be a heavy burden to speak about the terrors of the law. To preach Christ is our delight; to uplift his Cross is the joy of our heart; our Master is our witness, we love to blow the silver trumpet, and we have blown it with all our might. But knowing the terror of the Lord, these solemn things lie upon our conscience, and while it is hard to preach about them, it would be harder still to bear the doom which must rest upon the silent minister…

Reminding the world of the wrath to come is part of the terrible duty of truth. We stand firm in it.

One moment in the life of a blogger who writes discernment essays:

Stumble into the kitchen, bumblingly make the coffee. Yawning, plop down in the chair and fire up the laptop. As the blue light turns to screen saver, I launch open the browser. As the coffee finishes perking and I finish yawning, I pour a cup and look forward to the day. My prayer is to reach women with the truth, to use scripture rightly to turn them away from the false so they can see the glory of Jesus.

Oh, look there is a comment on my blog. Let’s see what it says. It’s from a woman named Karen Setters.

“You and your blog are some of the most inaccurate and heretical false accusations against some of God’s most anointed and accurate teachers in the Body of Christ. How any informed Christian listens to you after the nonsense you spew against God’s people is beyond me! May the Lord Jesus Christ turn your heart, mouth, and blog to understanding the truth of His Word and His people, because obviously you don’t. Satan is using you and when you stand before the Lord at the final day, you are going to be shocked and maybe lost if you don’t humble your Phariseeical heart and listen to what the true Spirit of God says to you.”

In addition to naming me as a heretical, inaccurate, nonsensical, Pharisaical, satanic person, in Karen’s second comment she also called me an antichrist and a coward.

Okey dokey then, lol, I surmise that the truth of scripture did not reach her heart! It’s a powerful reminder however, that those women held in the clutches of a false teacher or who cling to false doctrine clench untruth tightly. The more anger and nasty language that emerges from their mouth demonstrates the further distance away from Jesus they actually are.

Remember, fellow blogger ladies and fellow witnesses, when you point out a false doctrine or a false teacher, anger is often the reaction. It always has been and always will be. Look at the Pharisees’ reaction to Jesus words and deeds and to His designated witnesses like Paul and Stephen. They reacted with gnashing teeth, fury, stone-throwing, blinding rage. They became murderous. (Luke 6:11, Matthew 12:14, John 8:59, Acts 7:54…)

This is because they loved their sin and they loved the darkness. What happens when you poke a rabid bear? A reaction like Karen Setters’ is what happens. Seething, frothing anger and nastiness. In the Luke 6:11 verse it says the Pharisees and Scribes became actually mad with rage. It’s an unthinking, non-rational, senseless, red rage. Matthew Henry says of the Luke 6:11 verse,

Pride, obstinacy, malice, and disappointed self-confidence were “all” combined, therefore, in producing madness. Nor were they alone. Men are often enraged because others do good in a way which “they” do not approve of.

This kind of rage is also an example of how powerfully sin wants to remain. Sin is the second most powerful force on earth. Jesus’s power in regeneration is the most powerful, but for those left untouched by His hand on their heart, sin reigns and the rage shows just how powerfully it is lord of a person.

The most violent reaction to the truth is murder. Martyrs abound in ever generation and in every country today. As Mark Dever and Burk Parsons and Jesse Johnson and Pastor Gabe of WWUTT.com remind us,

The truth is divisive. Jesus said it would be and we see of course that it is. Jesus said in Luke 12:51,

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

It’s His truth that divides. The truth is the dividing line. In between the gulf of truth on one side and lies on the other, is often anger. The only reaction we can have when met with such anger, even to martyrdom as those in the “closed countries” are met with, is compassion and love. (Mark 10:21).

Tag: truth

Bible Reading Plan thoughts: The Terrible Duty of Truth

The red rage of the Pharisees yesterday and today