If we desire to live for Christ, we will be out of step with
the rest of the world. The world will even hate the Light that we represent
(John 3:19-20). They will also hate and persecute us (John 15:18-20).
The Prophets of Israel serve as examples. Preaching the Word
of God made them anathema to their culture, even to the “pious” Pharisees,
about whom Jesus charged:
·
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the
righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not
have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you
witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the
prophets.” (Matthew 23:29-31 ESV)
The world’s hatred of the true Prophets was easy to
understand. Jerusalem was besieged by Babylonia and its King Nebuchadnezzar.
However, the Word of God to Jeremiah was understandably weakening the resolve
of the people to resist. This was because he had prophesied the fall of
Jerusalem because of the sins of Judah. Therefore, King Zedekiah angrily had
him imprisoned, saying:
·
“Why do you prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the
LORD: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and
he shall capture it; Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of
the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon,
and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye. And he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and
there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the LORD. Though you fight
against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed’?” (Jeremiah 32:3-5)
In the eyes of Jerusalem, Jeremiah was the worst kind of
traitor and was accused of being in league with the Babylonian horde.
Jeremiah might have been an extreme example. However, we too
are prophets and ambassadors of our Lord (2 Corinthians 5:20). We will be hated
to such an extent that people will believe that they are doing the right thing
even as they put us to death:
·
“I [Jesus] have said all these things to you to
keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed,
the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to
God. (John 16:1-2)
To truly serve the Lord, we have to forsake the hope of
being people-pleasers. To please people is to compromise the Word of God (James
4:4) and to be a friend of the world (1 John 2:15). This is why Jesus had
warned us that our commitment to our Savior must not be rivaled by anything
else, even our commitment to family:
·
“No one can serve two masters, for either he
will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24; 10:37; Luke
14:26)
Jeremiah and the Prophets could have easily found many reasons to demote the Word of God:
·
They will not listen to me. I need to tone down
the message so that they will listen, or
·
I have to stay relevant so that they will
continue to listen to the Word, or
·
Preaching the unadulterated Word of God will
just make them more angry and incline them to commit more sin and rebel all the
more, or
·
I will lose respect and influence.
The forces behind compromise take many forms. They often lead
us to assume that we know better than God’s Word. Such reasoning is also a
violation of the First and greatest Command:
·
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This
is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)
There was only one
measure or test of the Prophets’ love for God – their fidelity to the Word of
God – and it still is the same today (John 14:21-24; 15:7-14).
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