Mat 10:25 It is enough
for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If
they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they
malign those of his household. Mat 10:26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing
is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Mat 10:27
What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered,
proclaim on the housetops. Mat 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body
but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in
hell.
In our day of secularism and antibiblical political
correctness it is important that Christians not fall prey to mindsets and
arguments used today to try and get us to stop proclaiming truth. One thing we need to keep in mind is that the
main commission of Christians is to proclaim the gospel to all cultures and all
sinners and all nations that unless they repent and trust in the cross of
Christ they shall face the judgment of God.
And as in our text above and later in Paul’s writings we are told up
front that this will offend sinners, 1Co
1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. Remember what they did to Stephen when he
proclaimed Christ to the Jewish leaders of his day and what about John the
Baptist when he told Herod that his divorce was sin? Are we to think that what he did was
wrong? Not when Jesus had nothing but
good to say about him.
And so since we live in a culture that sees offending anyone
for anything (except Christianity) as the ultimate evil it necessarily follows
that being a Christian and doing the will of God in evangelism is going to mean
we will be going around offending people as we tell them that they are sinning
and there are consequences of their sin.
Sure, we want to be careful that we don’t needlessly confront them in a
belligerent, judgmental way. We might
say that we must tactfully offend people with the gospel and that living the
Christian life requires this; there are no silent disciples.
The other thing that causes me to write this article is the technique
that many enemies of Christ are using to try and silence the proclamation of
the gospel. They tell us, and usually not
in a loving way, that when we tell them that some activity or lifestyle they
are engaged in is wrong or sinful that we are being hateful and offensive. I recently heard of a Catholic apologist
calling an evangelical, who debated Catholics and has written books showing the
biblical errors of Catholism, as a person who hates Catholics. So evidently if you disagree with someone you
automatically are a hater.
I would argue that the one who will tell you the truth and
warn you of coming judgment even if it offends you loves you more than your “buddy”
who only tells you what he thinks you want to hear.
All that should be rather obvious to Christians anyway but
there is something else that we need to keep before us so that we don’t start
thinking that we shouldn’t say anything that offends someone else even when it
is the truth of the gospel. It is seen
in the above passage. The first thing Jesus
does is make it clear that in following him we will necessarily offend this
world; not through mean behavior but by openly proclaiming truth, 27. Anyone who says that Christians aren’t
supposed to be offensive but accepting of everyone no matter what they are
doing has no concept of sin and a holy God and the need of the gospel.
And then the most important thing he reminds us of is that
we don’t need to worry so much about whether we have offended someone by
telling them the truth as we had better be worrying about whether we are
offending God, 28. We hear a lot today
about not saying anything negative about certain sinful behaviors but what we
don’t hear is anyone concerned about what God thinks. I understand this coming from the lost but as
Christians let’s remember that we are here to please and honor him, not what is
politically correct. This is swiftly
meaning that we are going to be ostracized and persecuted in one way or
another. But this has been the experience
of God’s people ever since Cain murdered Abel and we had better be careful of
thinking that American Christians somehow can escape it. At the end of the day it is not American law
that we must answer to but the Lord Jesus Christ.
What motivates us, whether we are offensive to men or
offensive to the Lord?
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