We flourish or flounder relative to the things we believe.
Every spiritual blessing is imparted through what we believe and know about our
Lord (2 Peter 1:2-3).
Consequently, our welfare depends upon discerning fact from
fiction, what the Bible teaches from what it doesn’t teach. Here is an example
of how one renowned politician distorted Scripture for his own perverted
purposes:
·
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my
Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness,
surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were
and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not
as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I
read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might
and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and
adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.
To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more
profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to
shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to
be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And
if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is
the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own
people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their
queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no
Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did
our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor
people is plundered and exploited." (Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich
on 12 April 1922)
Actually, Hitler hated Christianity and persecuted
Christians. He was even able to co-opt many of the churches to support his
national and racial policies.
How was he able to get them to close their eyes to even the
worst forms of oppression? He posed as a champion of righteousness, twisting
Scripture to bolster his claims.
Why did segments of the Church believe him? They either
didn’t know Scripture or didn’t care about it. In either case, Christ wasn’t
first in their lives. Instead, their desires and fears held the reigns at a
great expense to all.
In contrast, our God is a God of truth. To follow Christ is
to exalt the truth. There is nothing in the Bible that would have us compromise
the truth. It is the truth that frees us (John 8:31-32), the truth that demands
our allegiance (John 4:22-24). It is the light of the truth that is meant to
judge our lives (1 Corinthians 11:30-32). It is unto the truth that our desires
and fears must submit (Proverbs 3:5-7).
When we seek for God’s wisdom above all else, He will grant
it (James 1:5; Matthew 6:33) so that we are not slain by the cunning of
deception:
·
Get wisdom, get understanding; Forget not,
neither decline from the words of my mouth; Forsake her not, and she will
preserve thee; Love her, and she will keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing;
therefore get wisdom; Yea, with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her,
and she will promote thee; She will bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace
her. (Proverbs 4:5-8 ASV)
To live without the wisdom of God is to embrace instability
and naïveté. To counter this, God gave the Church with pastors and teachers:
·
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to
and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human
cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in
love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. (Ephesians
4:14-15)
Growth depends upon truth, but what about the signs and
wonders of former ages? The Israelites had experienced these in abundance—the
ten plagues, the parting of the seas, manna— however, they continued to rebel.
Indeed God still miraculously delivers us, but expects us to walk patiently in
faith:
·
…we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the
Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption
of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we
wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:23-25)
2 comments:
Thanks for the good word. I appreciate your work.lt is an encouragement and an inspiration to me.
Thanks for your encouraging words. Let me know if you would like me to write on a parti
cular subject.
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