I remember back in the day when I served as a pastor that I
tried to maintain a preaching plan that covered a wide spectrum of Bible books,
themes, and doctrines (including those that didn’t fit well with my
denominational biases). Why? First of all because they’re there in the pages of
our Bibles, and secondly because I believed (and still do) that it is easy to
get stuck in the rut of only speaking on the popular and
denominational-friendly Scriptures while ignoring the rest.
Obviously there’s much more discussion in the Bible than only
the verses and pet doctrines that we’re comfortable with. I believe that topics
such as the persecution of the church and the heresy of sugar-coating the
Gospel are a couple of such topics, and as such, it would be irresponsible of
us to not at least discuss them now and then. After all, as I just said,
they’re in the pages of the Bible, so it’s probably safe to assume that God
wanted them there for a reason.
This post is part two of a two-part series. If you haven’t
read part one yet, you may want to read it first here before
continuing on with this one.
All too often we hear of how another brother of sister has
fallen to the evil one. Instead of “Preaching
the Word” as Paul instructs in 2 Timothy 4, all too often folks will buckle
to popular demand and say “what their
itching ears want to hear” (see: 2 Timothy 4: 2-4). All too often we bow
not to the Lord God who created the heavens and the earth, but rather we bow to
the god of pragmatism; if it works to bring in the people, it is good. By
default, then, if it doesn’t work to bring in the people, it must be bad. As a
result, we begin sugar-coating the Gospel to make it palatable to the masses
that we wish to befriend and attract.
Don’t get me wrong. I am certainly not suggesting that
church growth is bad (unless by that we’re referring to institutionalism as opposed
to the Body of Christ). Obviously we want the church to grow (again, the Body;
not the institution); Christ Himself commanded it. But I do not believe that
our Lord would have us to grow the church at the expense of preaching and
teaching the truth as unfortunately is often the case, by only sugar-coating
the message of the Cross.
In part one of this series we began by looking at 2 Timothy
3: 10-11. In this second part I want to consider the next two verses.
“In fact, everyone who
wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men
and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2
Timothy 3: 12-13; NIV)
A life committed to following Jesus Christ, to truly
following Him, will not be easy. Is it your desire to live a godly life in
Christ Jesus? Of course it is! Do you want to serve Him with more than just
words? Absolutely you do! Do we want to serve Him with all of our being, with
all of our hearts? A resounding no-brainer, Yes we do! Unfortunately, here
comes the nasty part. If that is really our desire, the Bible says that we will
be persecuted.
They persecuted our Lord and they persecuted Paul, as we’ve
seen in Part 1 of this post. They have persecuted many other believers over the
ages, and if we think that we are somehow exempt because we live in the North
American 21st century, we only kid ourselves. As true followers of
Jesus Christ (as opposed to pseudo-followers), the question is not whether or not
persecution will come, but rather to what extent and how frequently it will
come. But come it will if you love the Lord and seek to do His will.
C.W. Ellison in Roger Greenway’s book, Discipling the City, said: “Currently,
it is estimated that approximately 250,000 Christians are martyred annually
throughout the world; that figure is expected to increase to 500,000 by the end
of the decade” (incidentally, my version of that book was printed two decades ago in
1992). Are modern Christians exempt from persecution? Certainly not, and
according to at least this source, it will only get worse. Do you believe it?
Only the naïve downplay all such talk.
Jesus said in John 15:20, “No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they
will persecute you also.” While this truth was written in a day and age
very different from ours, and to a people very different than you and me, it is
a truth that transcends all time. Despite the differences, what remains the
same is that anyone who wants to, as Pederson says, “live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble” (The Message).
Following Christ was often a very costly decision for the
early believers. Often folks paid the ultimate sacrifice for their faith. I
remember touring Europe over 40 years ago with my family when I was only 11
years old. One of the places we visited was the infamous Coliseum in Rome. I
remember noticing how the Coliseum floor had long since fallen through exposing
the ruins of what was once an elaborate network of underground rooms and
passageways. I remember my father sharing a church history lesson on the lions
and soon to be martyred Christians who may have been in those very rooms and
corridors. Ever wonder what it must have been like to undergo such an atrocity
as being fed to the lions? I cannot even begin to imagine.
The point is that our decisions to live it all out for
Christ could very well be costly ones. It’s not easy to be different, to try to
be set apart, or holy. Taking a stand for what we believe could lead to
alienation by family and friends. It could cost us promotion opportunities at
work. It could even cost us our work. We’ve all seen or heard of individuals
who have been shunned by others because of their Christian beliefs. Perhaps
it’s even happened to you. Sometimes it seems to me that today society gladly
accepts any religion or faith (or even cult), so long as it is not Christian;
or at the very least, so long as we sugar-coat the stuff that society doesn’t
like or fit into their humanistic mantra.
Yet we are indeed fortunate here in North America that we
don’t face situations like those faced by the early Christians in Rome, or even
today in many other third-world countries where Christians are still regularly
persecuted for their faith. “Sign this
and renounce your faith,” they’re told, “and
you can go free.” In other words, sugar-coat it to take the offensive parts
out. Yes, we are fortunate here, but that does not mean that it cannot (or will
not) happen to us one day as well. Even not considering martyrdoms past and
present, the fact remains that we still do face many struggles related to our
faith. Ironically, sometimes they’re even from within the church.
For years we subscribed to National Geographic. In your mind’s eye, I would like you to
picture something I saw in one of its issues. Picture a man by the name of Eric
Valli, a professional photographer. He is dangling by a nylon rope from a 395-foot
cliff in Nepal. Nearby on a rope ladder is another man, Mani Lal, doing what he
has done for decades; hunting honey. Here in the Himalayan foothills, the
cliffs shelter honeycombs of the world’s largest honeybee. (See some great pictures here)
At the moment, thousands of them are buzzing around both
men. Lal, a veteran of hundreds of such attacks, is calm. Not so Mr. Valli.
Describing that moment in my National
Geographic magazine, he says: “There
were so many bees I was afraid I might freak out. But I knew if I did, I would
be dead. So I took a deep breath and relaxed. Getting stung would be better
than finding myself at the bottom of the cliff.” He overcame his fears and
won a photo competition for his efforts.
Fear, including the fear of persecution, can send a person
plummeting to destruction. Some believers, fearing the stings of persecution,
testing, and temptation, may have compromised their faith and slipped from the
lifeline of Christ. Is such a thing even possible? Many Christians are divided
on this possibility. I suspect that this is perhaps one of the reasons why the Bible, in both Old and New
Testaments, teaches us to fear God alone.
The adversaries are, according to our text, spelled out in
verse 13. They are the evil men, the impostors, the unscrupulous con men who
want nothing better than to exploit the faith by sugar-coating it. Paul ran
into such characters constantly. We, likewise, run into the same type of people
today who seem to have made it their life’s ambition to discredit and
sugar-coat Christianity. Take a stand for Christ, I mean really stand for Him
no matter what the cost, and see if there is not some individual or group who
doesn’t persecute you in one way or another.
So where do we go from here? Well, for one thing, it’s not
all gloom and doom.
Let me share part of an email I received just days ago from a
dear couple my wife and I know well. They shared about how they were reading
through Samuel again when they came upon the part where David hid from Saul,
right in the heart of Philistine land. The lesson they came away with (and
shared with us) was that as Christians, it is possible for us to hide even in
the enemy camp and be perfectly safe because we know who we are in God. I liked that. Do
you know who you are in God?
“God has said, ‘Never
will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The
Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews
13: 5-6; NIV)
Remember, Jesus said: “All
men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be
saved” (Mark 13:13; NIV). So stand firm; no sugar-coating the Gospel.
Photo Source: Unknown (via Facebook)
No comments:
Post a Comment