Articles
You Want the Truth -- Really?
In a 2016 poll on religion, George Barna asked the following initial question of those who professed to be believers: “Must Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ?” It may be a little surprising to some of you, but it wasn’t 100% who answered “yes,” but 92% did answer such. Later, Barna asked specifically about Matthew 19:9, and whether disciples were bound to obey that passage, and this time, only 26% answered in the affirmative. Either we are ignorant of the fact this was Jesus was speaking, or we really don’t want to follow His teachings, after all — but that is quite often the case, and not just on this subject. This isn’t a problem exclusively American, either, or something that has only recently arisen.
Long ago, those who were God’s people [the Israelites] made a good show of interest in God’s word, but didn’t back it up with an interest in making personal application or obedience to it. To the prophet Ezekiel, God said of them, “As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, ‘Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them” (Ezek. 33:30-32).
The people of whom He spoke were His people — the ones who should have professed their adherence to God and His ways. And, yes, they made a show of proclaiming their love for it and of actually listening to it being spoken; but when they left, they each went about their way and simply did whatever they wanted to do, with no true concern for what God had commanded. Their mouths said one thing, but their lives something completely different. We would call them hypocrites.
Years prior to that, God’s people had been invaded and overrun and many had been taken away captive to Babylon. Some who remained finally understood that their persistent unfaithfulness to God might have had something to do with their recent unpleasant circumstance, so some who remained in Jerusalem and Judea thought it might be a good idea [finally?] to hear what the prophet of God had to say. So they came to Jeremiah and said to him, “Please, let our petition be acceptable to you, and pray for us to the Lord your God, for all this remnant (since we are left but a few of many, as you can see), that the Lord your God may show us the way in which we should walk and the thing we should do” (Jer. 42:2, 3). Sounds good, right?
Jeremiah told them he would petition the Lord, and the people said again, “Let the Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not do according to everything which the Lord your God sends us by you. Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God” (Jer. 42:4-6). Again, sounds good, right?
But when Jeremiah petitioned the Lord, and God told him to tell them to stay in the land and they would be preserved, but if they went to Egypt to flee they would die, he also told them that they would not obey what the Lord commanded, “For you were hypocrites in your hearts when you sent me to the Lord your God” (Jer. 42:7-22). True to his prediction, they replied by calling Jeremiah a liar (Jer. 43:1-3) and they went to Egypt, anyway (Jer. 43:7). Just as God knew they would, they did not really care to hear what God had to say, much less obey Him. As Jeremiah noted, they were hypocrites.
It is now that each one of us must take a long, hard look at self and see if maybe we are no different — and no better — than those Israelites of old. And let us note again that these were not people “of the world” who knew nothing of God and His ways; these would be the ones we would call “believers” today, for they professed to be followers of God. How about you?
Are you, dear reader, one who professes faith in Jesus Christ and who professes to be one of His followers? Do you make the claim to be one of His disciples? That is, do you claim to be a Christian? If so, and if you also profess to desire to know what He would have you to do, have you diligently sought to know the will of the Lord (Eph. 5:17)? Are you “diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15)? And is it truly His will you seek and follow, or is it human-created creeds and human traditions? It is one thing to claim to have a desire to please and obey the Lord, but it is quite another to actually be doing that, as illustrated by the behavior of the Israelites. A desire without the fulfillment means nothing, in the end. A man who professes a desire to serve the Lord, but never does, is no better and no different, in the end, than a man who has no desire to serve the Lord.
And our ‘obedience’ cannot be one of convenience, either, else we are not actually obeying. To illustrate this, draw a straight, vertical line on a piece of paper, and let this represent God’s commands; then, beginning at the top of that straight, vertical line, draw another line of a different color, but this time, crisscross back and forth as you move the pen downward, until you reach the bottom of the first line, and let this represent our life of ‘obedience.’ Now, you will notice that, occasionally, the two lines will intersect; we might be tempted to say it is on those intersecting points that we ‘obeyed’ the Lord, but did we, actually? Not if the second line was always the line we wanted to follow! At those points where the two lines intersected, we haven’t ‘obeyed’ the Lord at all; it’s just that His will happened to agree with ours on those points!
Unfortunately, this is how a great number of people ‘serve’ and ‘obey’ the Lord; they will obey when it is something they like, or is easy and convenient, but will veer off-course to follow their own desires when it is not easy or convenient, and is not something they like or even want to do. That is not obedience at all! If this is how we ‘serve’ or ‘obey’ the Lord, then we are essentially no different and no better than those Israelites we noted earlier. We are talking a good game, but are putting up a very poor performance, and will not be pleasing to the Lord.
I truly hope that you are not just a professor of faith in Christ, but one that is also a doer. James reminds us, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves…But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (Jas. 1:22, 25). And let us not forget that it is the one who does the will of the Lord — not the one that merely professes to have faith in and love for the Lord — who will be a part of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 7:21). I may say I love the Lord, but have I proven it by my obedience to His commands (John 14:15)?
Do you want the truth — really? If so, does that mean you are willing to obey it, whatever it may be? The proof is not in our words, but in our actions. Do the right thing; do God’s will. — Steven Harper
