I’ve been reading from the book of Jeremiah. I’ve always felt sorry for him. He had a calling from God to speak God’s truth to a people who just didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
Specifically, Jeremiah’s message was to tell Judah that judgment was coming and there was nothing they could do about it. Instead of telling them how to avoid the judgment that was coming, Jeremiah’s message was more how to live under the pending judgment.
Part of his message was to say that the cities of Judah would fall to the armies of Babylon, and that Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed. The judgment was a long time in coming, but it was finally here.
Not surprisingly, the people didn’t want to hear what Jeremiah had to say. He was all “gloom and doom.” There was no “Judah’s the greatest country in the world, and our God is greater than all the other gods.” Yes, Jeremiah understood that there is only one God, and that the God of Israel was that God, but God’s judgment was coming.
Imagine someone in 1930’s America standing and preaching that God’s judgment was to come on this nation. The danger would be coming from Asia, and that the United States will fall to Japan. Imagine further that the message after Pearl Harbor was, “God’s judgment has come. Don’t fight it. You can’t win. Allow His judgment to come.”
How would the American people respond to such a message?
We’d call the guy a crackpot. We’d send him hate mail and threaten him and his family. Some of us would dismiss him as an aberration, someone to ignore as we gathered our forces to meet head on the threat Japan offered to us.
Time and time again, Jeremiah warned them of Babylon’s coming triumph over Israel, and time and again, the nation chose to listen to other “prophets” who said all would be well. God would deliver them.
I bring all this together because of a few short verses we were studying at church today during the Sunday morning Bible study. The verses were:
“Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22).
We would do well to heed Paul’s warning.
Are We in the End Times?
For as long as I’ve been a follower of Christ, I’ve heard that Jesus is coming back any day now. I had a pastor preach on the matter so fervently that I asked him if I should waste my money on ordering a senior ring in high school. (He told me I should; that was just under 50 years ago.)
I’ve never doubted Christ would return—the Bible is very clear that His second coming will happen, and judgment will be a big part of it—but I never really considered that His return was coming soon.
However, as I’ve considered the things that are happening in our world today—things that seem to be spinning out of control—I’ve come to the conclusion that He will be returning if not in my lifetime, then certainly within the lifetimes of my children.
Part of the reason I hold to this is some of the things Jesus said and that Paul was inspired to write. Jesus talks about the love of people will grow cold (cf. Matthew 24:12-13), and Paul writes, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
He writes later in the letter, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Turning our ears away from the truth is a danger that imperils not just our nation, but our very message as a church.
That’s Why Paul’s Words in 2 Thessalonians is So Important
The issue of truth is crucial to the Gospel. I have written about it numerous times, but allow me to hit the highlights.
- Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6).
- The Spirit leads us to the truth (John 16:13-14).
- Those who truly seek to follow Jesus will know the truth, and that truth will set us free (John 8:31-32).
- Love rejoices with truth (1 Corinthians 13:6).
There are other verses I can throw out, but the point is that truth is important in the presentation of the Gospel . It is important in the living of the Gospel.
And part of our responsibility as followers of the Truth is that we are to seek that which is true and reject that which is false.
That’s what Paul was stressing in his admonition to the Thessalonians. “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”
These verses all mesh together. We quench the Spirit’s fire when we fail to follow the Spirit’s leadership. The Spirit leads us into all truth; to deny His guidance is to deny that which is true. To try to alter the message of the Savior (by ignoring those parts of Scripture that disagrees with our politics or our way of living) is to treat the prophecies with contempt. The contempt is often found in the phrase, “That may be what the Bible says, but . . .” The “but” usually explains why we’re not going to do what the Bible says, even if we agree that’s what it says.
We live in a society where we look for things to confirm what we already want to believe. We don’t want to be challenged.
I have a friend who works as the opinion editor of the local newspaper. He gets letters and calls accusing him of being biased because he’s willing to print articles that question the beliefs and leanings of these readers. They will not even consider the possibility that they may be wrong. Because they can’t refute what is being said, they simply accuse the editor of printing lies and misleading stories.
That’s contempt for the truth.
To test everything means to not take what we hear or read at face value. Particularly in this day when we are recipients of propaganda and disinformation, it is critical that we test everything. In Acts 17, the Bible tells of a group of people in the city of Berea. Paul preached to them the good news of Jesus Christ. Here’s what the Bible says about the Bereans: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).
By the diligent study of Scripture, not reading into it what we want, but letting the Spirit speak to us through its words, we begin to discover the truth. There are other sources we can go to outside the Bible to discern if what we’re hearing is true or not.
Conclusion
Living in the society in which we currently live, it should be a deep concern for all of us that so many lies and “alternate facts” are being thrown about. It should grieve us that the Church seems to be falling into this trap.
We need to be diligent followers of Christ and the truth, and never allow ourselves to become duped by the father of lies, the one who does not hold to the truth. “There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for his is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44-45).
Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
© 2019 Glynn Beaty