Tag: Providence Reformed Church

How is the best way to stop a quarrel or fight from happening? How can we actually prevent petty squabbles from breaking out and causing major divisions in families, churches, or friendships? How can we move to avoid making a mess of relationships when the problems do not need to be exacerbated? The answer is in the title: shut your mouth.

 

Now, let’s preface and get it over with. I am not here talking about serious offenses; neither is Scripture. I’m not talking about crimes or abuses. What I am here talking about is the kind of little thing that gets under your skin, bugs you, starts a fight, and ruins an otherwise decent relationship.

 

The book of Proverbs is about good, godly, wise counsel. Each proverb shows you how things should generally work when things are right with the world. And often the proverbs shows us how to deal with our words in such a way as to live a smarter and easier life.

 

There seems to be a running theme in Proverbs 17 regarding how you and I speak, especially when we are offended in a small way. Take a look, and see if you can find the pattern in what the Bible says to do to prevent a minor offense from becoming a major conflict:

 

Proverbs 17:4, 9, 14, 27, 28

 

4 An evildoer listens to wicked lips,

and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.

9 Whoever covers an offense seeks love,

but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

14 The beginning of strife is like letting out water,

so quit before the quarrel breaks out.

27 Whoever restrains his words has knowledge,

and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.

28 Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise;

when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

 

Put that all together and what is the counsel? Shut up! Do not listen to a gossip who wants to stir you up toward conflict. Do not uncover or speak out loud to others everything that bugs you. Sometimes choosing to walk away and get over a small offense is far smarter than pushing the matter into a lasting quarrel. Even foolish people look smarter when they keep their mouths shut.

 

This all requires a bit of wisdom. Sometimes an offense needs to be confronted. Sometimes you need to be wise enough to close your mouth and walk away. How can you tell which is which? Here are just some bullet point thoughts that may help:

 

• Do not make every offense into a major problem.
• Take time to think and even sleep on a matter before choosing to confront someone with a minor offense.
• Be humble and recognize that you are also often the one in the wrong.
• Read Matthew 7:3-5 and consider how you might also be in sin. Repent first before thinking about confronting someone else.
• Do not spread your offense around to others and make a conflict bigger than it needs to be.
• Choose to let an offense go if it is relatively small and if it is not a clear pattern of behavior in a friend that needs to be corrected.
• Be quiet and listen to what others are saying. You may find that you misinterpreted what you found so offensive.
• Ask if you are seeking to love your friend or if you are just seeking to win in a conflict. Seek love over winning every time.
• Recognize that starting a quarrel has consequences, so be sure that the issue is serious enough to move forward.
• If the issue is over something trivial, it is often better to walk away than to battle for the final victory.

 

Friends, the truth is, we cannot spend our lives confronting each other with every little thing that bothers us. If my wife had to confront every failure of mine, I cannot imagine how she would have time to get anything else done. If your friends pointed out every flaw they see in you, you would probably not want to keep them as your friends. Be the kind of friend you want. Confront things that matter: issues of sin, issues of lasting character, issues that are strongly hurtful. Let go of issues that do not matter. See the preface above and never keep silent when issues of abuse are happening. But, let’s be honest, most of our personal conflicts are not over major offenses. Most are over the way someone wrote a comment on our Facebook page, didn’t invite us to an event they invited someone else to, or the way we think someone was thinking when they said something we heard them say.

Over the past few decades, the concept of the local church being committed to church discipline has grown in favor. Leaders often refer to church discipline with Matthew 18:15-17 as the key reference in important documents for the church. We want to clearly define the “process” so that nobody is confused:

• private confrontation
• confrontation with a witness or two
• inclusion of the whole church
• excommunication

 

But, as I continue to learn and grow, I wonder how much we are missing as we discuss the issue of church discipline. Did Jesus really intend this to be a four-step process for every situation? Are these the only four possible steps? And what about the intent?

 

I believe firmly in Matthew 18 church discipline. I believe that a church that refuses to practice discipline will become something less than a church. But, I also believe that if Matthew 18 is our only prooftext, we have a problem.

Galatians 6:1-2 – 1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

 

Look at Paul’s language for the church in Galatia. Do you feel the focus? Can you sense the emotion? Paul is not directing the Galatian church leadership to enact a four -step process from Matthew 18. Of course, Paul is not at all violating that process. But he is handling the situation with a great deal of love, mercy, grace, and tact. Yes, he is in the parameters of Matthew 18, but his heart is coming out very clearly.

 

What is the goal of discipline? On the one hand, the goal is the purity of the church. But notice that in Galatians 6, the goal is the restoration of a sinning believer before they are in great danger. We cannot sacrifice one purpose for another and be doing biblical church discipline. Discipline is supposed to be restorative.

 

This is why church membership is so valuable. Yes, we want a pure and obedient church for the glory of Christ. And part of that includes us teaming up together to live life in such a way that, when we are messing it up, we help each other to get back on track. A church that only lists 4 steps of confrontation followed by excommunication will fail to communicate that discipline is primarily us living together to help sanctify one another to the glory of God.

 

So, dear friends, do not think I’m opposed to the process, I’m not. But if you want to handle discipline rightly, please include Galatians 6:1-2 with your process from Matthew 18:15-17 so that you include the togetherness and the heart for restoration that the Lord intends mark his church.

Some people love conflict. I know that to many of us that sounds weird, but there are some folks who thrive on stirring up arguments with one another. I’ve seen some groups on social media where it seems that all these folks do is pick at each other and find ways to argue with one another rather than agree with each other and encourage the body.

 

I don’t like arguing. But, I do know that there are times when a good argument is important to the faith. There are situations where we cannot remain silent. There are times when we have to push on a point for the sake of the gospel, even in the church.

 

Paul had such an experience with Peter.

 

Galatians 2:11-14 – 11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

 

In Galatia, there were some folks known as Judaizers. Those men argued that, for gentiles to be saved, they must submit to and obey the Old Testament Jewish law. This is not people saying that Christians ought to follow the heart of the law to Jesus, but that Christians should submit to circumcision, to ceremonial cleanliness regulations, and to food laws. It is almost as if they wanted the gentiles to pay their dues and work the non-Jewishness off of themselves.

 

When Paul arrived in Galatia, he found these folks, and he was surprised to see that Peter had started to act like them too. As our text says, before the Judaizers got to Galatia, peter would eat with the gentiles. He would have a ham sandwich, no problem. But when the Judaizers arrived, Peter separated himself from the gentile believers and started acting as if those gentiles needed to stop with the bacon.

 

Now, it may seem that an argument, to ham or not to ham, should not be a big conflict area. But, as Paul arrived, he realized that something of the gospel was at stake. Paul understood that the Judaizers were adding their particular, cultural morality to the message of Jesus. They were not saying that you are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Instead, they were saying that you are saved by grace through faith and adaptation to our culture. This, of course is no longer the true gospel.

 

So, Paul brought the conflict. And what he did was right. Paul challenged Peter openly. Paul showed that Peter was perverting the gospel by hanging with the Judaizers and adding laws to the gentiles that God did not require for either their salvation or their sanctification.

 

We should never be a people eager to have conflict. We most certainly should not call every interpretive error heresy. We should not fight about every difference of opinion. In many cases, we will find that our difference of opinion is one of style or preference, and we should be sure to speak graciously with one another, even when we disagree and cannot come to consensus.

 

But, Christians, do not avoid conflict if a question of gospel is at stake. If a person is proclaiming something as gospel that is not the biblical gospel, you have to get in there and mix it up. If a person is adding requirements to the gospel, saying that you must add something beyond faith in Jesus and repentance for salvation, you need to challenge it. The purity of the gospel is too important for us to let anyone mess with it. Never love fighting. But, if the gospel is at stake, then gospel conflict is to the glory of God.

Toward the end of the book of Nehemiah, after the wall was rebuilt, we see a section where the leaders of Judah help the people to pray in repentance. These prayers are worth seeing. They show us a solid model to follow in how we might ask God for mercy while confessing our own or our nations’ sin.

 

Nehemiah 9:32-37 – 32 “Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. 33 Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. 34 Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them. 35 Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works. 36 Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. 37 And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.

 

In verse 32, the prayer begins, Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love.” The people begin a prayer of repentance by properly acknowledging the Lord. They see God in his perfect character, and they praise him. How do they praise? They do not seek things to make up about God to make him sound a certain way. Instead, they just describe who God is, and that puts the prayer in a worshipful context.

 

The people continue in verse 32 , “let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day.” That prayer is a call for mercy. The people of Judah have suffered. They are continuing to suffer in many ways. And they declare it clearly to the Lord. In all of the biblical prayers for help that we see, we never see people minimizing their own pain or their own previous hardships. Prayer should properly include us declaring the truth of our pain to the Lord. There is nothing to be gained by us pretending that we have not suffered or that we are not sorrowful in certain areas of life. Our God is loving and gracious. He will hear us when we speak truth to him.

 

Then comes what first caught my attention when reading this passage, verse 33, “Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.” This is something that is so often missing in the prayers and declarations of modern people. The people declare that, though they have suffered, God is perfectly righteous. Judah knew that, based on the word of God, they had received exactly what God had promised they would receive for rebelling against him. The people knew that enslavement to empires such as Assyria, Babylon, and Persia were the promised consequences for turning against the Lord. And in the verses that follow, we see the people clearly admit to the Lord how they and their leaders had failed to follow the Lord.

 

Part of a good prayer of confession is to admit what we have done wrong as we acknowledge that the Lord, his ways, and his actions are always right. This does not mean that we do not ask for mercy. This does not mean that we do not ask God to lift from us the consequences we deserve. But a good prayer of confession will always praise the Lord for his justice as we declare the truth of our need for grace.

Why do churches compromise? Why do entire denominations move away from biblical faithfulness toward theological liberalism? Why did preachers in the 19^th century so easily allow themselves to stop believing and proclaiming the miracles of the Bible and change the message they brought to the people?

 

Interestingly, the change of message is not often motivated by the kind of evil that one might think. Those who face the greatest temptation to compromise on either part of the message or the entire gospel itself are seldom tempted that way out of a desire to destroy the faith. In truth, if you look at those who have changed the message most, the desire they proclaim is that of wanting to protect Christianity more than to weaken it.

 

The thing that we must realize, however, is that we cannot protect the faith by destroying it. WE cannot make Christianity relevant to a modern age by denying miracles. WE cannot make Christianity popular in the 21^st century by changing the moral laws of God to fit the sensitivities of modern rebels against God.

 

Paul faced the same frustration that many modern Christians face—the frustration of seeing people deny the faith for the sake of making it more pleasing to outsiders.

 

Galatians 1:6-10 – 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

 

Look at the uncompromising passion with which Paul writes in that section. If you know Paul’s writings, there are passages of such mercy, grace, and beauty that this one rings solidly against our ears. Paul says that if any person, man or even angel, comes preaching a supposed gospel that is different than the original, that person should be accursed. That is the strongest language that I think he had available to him. Paul basically just said that a person who changes the gospel should be consigned to eternal hell immediately. Then Paul backs up his statement by repeating it.

 

Why such a passionate statement? I think it should be obvious. To change the gospel message is to destroy it. Imagine that you are driving and you reach a fork in the road. To the left is a road that ends suddenly with a drop off a cliff. To the right is a road that leads to safety and to a place of great happiness. To change any part of the gospel would be the same as switching the road sign so that travelers would think it safe to turn left and head for the cliff. To change the gospel moves it from being a message for life to a false message that leads to destruction. Such, in Paul’s inspired mind, is a damnable offense.

 

Then, in verse 10, Paul showed us that somehow, in the midst of all this, the preaching of the gospel message is compared to attempting to please men. The alteration of the gospel message from many is a message intended to please those who do not know the gospel. Many out there who preach the faith have been tempted to compromise on the gospel message or the ways of God inn order to make the message more alluring to those who are outside of the faith. But Paul tells us in verse 10 that to attempt to please men in such a way is to let go of pleasing God. We must not do such a thing.

 

So, let us never compromise, even if we think that such a compromise will please men and draw them to our cause. To win people with a compromised gospel is to win them to something other than genuine Christianity. Such a victory is of no value, and it puts us in a very dangerous spiritual place.

In Nehemiah 8, after the Jews rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, the people heard from the word of God. Ezra and other leaders opened the word, blessed the Lord, and led the people. And the response, to me, is interesting.

 

Nehemiah 8:5-8 – 5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. 6 And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 7 Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. 8 They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

 

Look at all the things that happened in this setting, and recognize the significant points that should mirror our own worship. The central thing, the thing that fed all the forms of worship, was the opening of and explanation of the word of God. Scripture is at the heart of genuine worship. True worship is always our human response to the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Scripture.

 

Notice as well that worship included different things from the people. There was not exactly one way to know if the people were worshiping. There was verbal agreement with truth. The people shouted, “Amen!” They declared to be true what God’s word said was true. At the center of worship, therefore, is the affirmation by the people of God of the truth of the word of God. Thus, whether we are singing or speaking, true worship in our lives must be focused on the declaration of truth about God and not on mere emotional sentimentality.

 

People had physical responses that were different. WE see people raising their hands, which in Scripture is always a prayer posture. People heard the truth of God, declared their agreement with it, and they entered into prayer. This is right for our worship too.

 

And, when the Bible declares that they worshipped, notice what the people were doing. They were bowing down. Worship involves reverence and humility. Worship involves us lowering ourselves before God the king. Worship is us making living declaration that our Lord is our Lord and that we are his subjects. We will submit to him, yielding to his commands, agreeing with his truth. This is worship, and, again, it is not mere emotionalism.

 

I can recall a person declaring to me once that he could tell just by looking if the congregation was worshipping. The point he was making is that he could tell by the looks on people’s faces if they were into worship. Sadly, he was judging the depth of worship in a setting, not by measures of truth, Scripture, or humble response to the Lordship of Christ, but rather by the emotional reaction of the people to the music. This is not the biblical measure of worship, and it never has been.

 

If you want to examine your worship in a church service, you might start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Is my worship centered on Scripture?
• Is my worship an affirmation of biblical truth?
• Is my worship prayerful?
• Is my worship a humble and reverent declaration that God is my Lord?

 

May we be a people of genuine, biblical worship for the glory of God and the joy of his people.

One of the fun things about having a child in the house is the fact that stories do not get old. Any of my 3 children, when they were little, would want to watch the same video or hear the same story again and again. Kids, with a sense of wonder, do not seem to lose interest in the tale, no matter how often the tale is told.

 

I think that Scripture wants us to understand something of that kind of wonder. God shows us in his word that hearing the story repeatedly is good for our souls.

 

Psalm 105:5-7 – 

5 Remember the wondrous works that he has done,

his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,

6 O offspring of Abraham, his servant,

children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

7 He is the Lord our God;

his judgments are in all the earth.

 

Psalm 105 is one of a set of psalms where the writer wrote a song about the history of Israel. It is a longer psalm, and it comes off as a history lesson. It tells of God and his repeated covenant promise. It tells of how God preserved his people and passed the promise on. For those of us who are Christians, it shows our heritage through Israel as recipients of God’s ultimate promise to bless all nations through Jesus, the promised one descended from Abraham.

 

Why would they sing this? Why would God have people tell this story again and again? I would suggest, from reading the psalm, that it reminds us of God’s faithfulness.

 

Knowing that God has been faithful in the past gives you and me confidence of God’s faithfulness in the present and in the future. Life hurts. The world looks messed up. But God has always been faithful. God will continue to be faithful.

 

Look back over your own life. Where has god been faithful to you? Has the Lord provided for you? Has the Lord protected you? Has the Lord been gracious to you? If he has been faithful in your past, why doubt him in the future? Add to that the biblical tale. How powerful has God shown himself to be? How kind? How loving? How capable of preserving his own?

 

May we allow the past faithfulness of God to bolster our hope in the present. May we remember God’s faithfulness to his biblical promises. May we remember God’s faithfulness to us personally. May we remember and trust in the Lord.

When we think of the Great Commission, we often immediately mentally go to Matthew 28:18-20. But, the Great Commission from Jesus to his disciples appears in other forms in the other gospels. Just as we need the 4 gospels to get a more fully accurate picture of Jesus, we need all of the gospel perspectives in order to understand what Christ has really charged his church to do.

 

Take a look at the Great Commission in Luke.

 

Luke 24:45-47 – 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

 

Matthew records Jesus telling us to make disciples of all nations in three ways: going, baptizing, and teaching. Luke here focuses on the proclamation we make as we go through this world. What do we proclaim? I fear that what Luke tells us to proclaim is not actually the message proclaimed by many Christians who desire to be evangelistic. Luke shows us Jesus telling the church to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name.

Please, dear Christian, do not exclude repentance from your gospel. Often, the gospel presentations I hear focus on belief. Often the presentations ask you if you are willing to believe in Jesus and ask him to forgive you. Some of the older presentations include the phrase, “ask the Lord Jesus into your heart,” “accept Christ,” or something similar. Those are good things as far as they go, containing an element of truth, but they are not the biblical command.

 

In Scripture, faith and repentance are inseparably connected as we discuss salvation. Even in this version of the Great Commission, we are called to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins. WE proclaim something bigger than simple mental acknowledgement of Jesus. Yes, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. But faith that saves is always connected to repentance for forgiveness.

 

So, as you share the gospel, yes call people to believe. But help them to see that saving belief in Jesus includes a yielding of your life to Jesus. Saving belief includes repentance, a turning from wrong to right. We turn from being our own personal authority to bowing to God’s authority. WE turn from living in sin to desiring to obey God’s commands in righteousness. If such a turning does not take place, if repentance does not take place, then the faith a person had is not a genuine saving faith.

 

The reason we say that people are saved by grace through faith alone is not to exclude the call to repentance. Rather, the reason is to say that no activity, no religious ceremony, no church blessing saves a person. Faith in Jesus is the only way we are saved. But faith in Jesus is always, truly always, connected to repentance if forgiveness of sins is to result.

How did Jesus defend his claims? What did he rely on to convince people of the truth of who he is and what he has done? How might we use the same tools?

 

At the end of Luke’s version of the gospel, Jesus meets a pair of unnamed disciples walking to a nearby town. On the way, the disciples were speaking about their sadness at Jesus’ death. The Lord did not at first allow the men to recognize him, but walked along and anonymously joined in the conversation.

 

As the men talked about Jesus, the Savior helped them to see that they had misunderstood his identity and his mission. These disciples thought of Jesus as a prophet, but they had missed his identity as God the Son and as the suffering servant who would rescue God’s children by sacrificing his own life.

 

Look at what Jesus did to help the men understand.

 

Luke 24:25-27 – 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

 

What is the primary tool Jesus used to convince these men of his identity? He used Scripture. Jesus led these men on a walk through the Old Testament to show them that all of the prophets had all been pointing to Jesus. He showed them not only that Messiah would be great, but that he would suffer and rise from the grave.

 

Luke 24:33-35 – 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

 

The other tool that Jesus used to help the men to understand his identity was his resurrection. The fact that the men saw Jesus alive after his death was the powerful proof to them that the words of Scripture had been fulfilled. The disciples believed once they saw the Lord Jesus alive.

 

So, the two tools that we see Jesus using as an apologetic, as a defense of the faith, in Luke 24 are the Scriptures and his resurrection. Jesus showed that hundreds, even thousands, of years before his ministry, God promised all he would do. Read Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53 sometime and see the perfect predictions of the sacrificial work of Jesus. And then Jesus proved all this was true of him by fulfilling the prophecies even to the point of rising from the grave after his sacrifice.

 

I think there is a wisdom in Christians understanding apologetics to a point. I think there is good in knowing how to help people see that their own arguments have holes in them so that they might listen to the truth we proclaim. But, at the end of the day, I believe that we have only the tools that the Lord Jesus has given us to really help people to believe. By the Spirit of God, we prayerfully use the Scriptures and the resurrection as our arguments. Regardless of the issue at hand, the Bible and the fact that Jesus is alive are our powerful arguments to help people to grasp that all that Jesus said about himself is true and that he is the only hope of all in this lost and dying world.

#END

 

 

When Nehemiah was working on finishing the walls of Jerusalem, enemies of the people of God tried to stop him. At times they used distraction. At times they used threats. At times they used lies. But they constantly clamored for Nehemiah’s attention to prevent him from doing what the Lord had called him to do.

 

Nehemiah 6:2-4 – 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” 4 And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner.

 

Nehemiah had a job to do. He had a work to oversee. He could not just let the work go so as to have a round-table discussion with the enemies of the Lord. This was especially true when Nehemiah knew that these men intended to do him harm. They had no good intentions.

 

Later, that same group would write a false letter to share with the Persian king to attempt to discredit Nehemiah. But Nehemiah would not stop the work because of their threats. Eventually they threatened Nehemiah with violence and tried to convince him to sin against God by running and hiding in the temple, a place off limits to Nehemiah.

 

Nehemiah 6:11-13 – 11 But I said, “Should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? I will not go in.” 12 And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me.

 

Nehemiah did not let himself get distracted from the work. He did not compromise the standards of the Lord, not even for his own safety, and the Lord took care of him.

 

I think we can learn from this in our present political predicament. As Christians in the U.S., we find ourselves facing distractions. People want our attention. People want us to focus on anything other than the actual mission of the church. People want us to compromise. People want us to stop doing what God calls the church to do. But we must not give in.

 

Eventually, the same people who wish first to distract us and shift our focus from the Lord will try other means. They will try threats both political and physical. We, as people of God, must not give in. We must learn that the Lord has always been able to use his people, regardless of their political situation. We must not compromise. WE must not run and hide. We must, instead, be faithful to the Lord and to his word.

 

We are called, Christians, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts. We are to obey the Lord Jesus. We are to call true and right what God says is true and right in his word regardless of popular opinion. We are to tell people that they need Jesus for salvation. We are to worship Jesus and make his glory our number one priority. We must not let ourselves be distracted with political in-fighting or threats. We simply are to be the people of God as God has called us. WE cannot hide through compromise. WE must stand on the word of God, faithfully honoring the Lord, if we wish to be what the Lord has called us to be.