With the advent of the participation trophy, we’ve been taught to believe that half-measures are perfectly reasonable and acceptable. You don’t really have to try; you just have to show up, and someone will hand you a prize for something you never did and make you feel accomplished when, in truth, you accomplished nothing. We need to spare feelings because feelings have become the new currency. If you’ve got a winning smile and learn how to praise people who’ve done nothing praiseworthy, stroke their egos just so, and feed them spiritual scraps, leavings, and cast-offs, you’ll be living in high cotton with not a care in the world.
Whatever you do, however much your conscience hammers away at
you, however often that doom-fraught sense that you are leading people into
Sheol overwhelms you, if you want to retain the lifestyle to which you’ve
become accustomed, you must resist the urge to preach the truth or rightly
divide the Word. That way lies poverty and the vitriol of the godless. That way
lies invitations to gladhand with Oprah, sip champagne on some rapper’s yacht,
or attend a nonbinary wedding between two famous men drying up.
Clout chasing and the gospel are like oil and water. They don’t
mix, never have, never will, and if you want to be well-received by the world,
you must compromise the Word of God. Turning your face toward one necessitates
turning your back on the other. You can have either the world or Jesus. You can’t
have both. You must choose one.
Rather than being humbled by Stephen’s faithfulness unto
death, as is the correct response, most Christians today tend to roll their
eyes and find reasons why they think it was wrong for him to antagonize the
ruling class and that, perhaps, he had it coming since he wasn’t willing to
compromise, meet in the middle, give a little to get a little, and so on.
We have stripped the modern-day gospel of the Gospel, then
wonder why there is so much confusion, division, and acrimony. Everyone’s a
theologian, and they’ll make sure you know it given half the chance. Whenever
anyone dares to point out that their theology isn’t Biblical, they’ll call you
unenlightened and resistant to the spirit. If it’s unbiblical, it’s wrong. Yes,
I am resistant to that spirit, as everyone who seeks the truth ought to be
because great monsters have been birthed from within the household of faith who
went on to persecute the saints because they placed their dogma above the Word
of God and deemed it to be the final arbiter.
When someone’s counterargument to Biblical truth is to stone
you to death or call for your demise, they have no counterargument and are lashing
out in rage and vitriol. It’s to be expected. It’s something we were told to
prepare for throughout the New Testament, but we’d rather listen to fairy tales
about pet dinosaurs in heaven. Giving our last full measure, enduring to the
end, and suffering for the sake of righteousness have become so anathema in the
modern-day church that if anyone dares to mention it, they are looked upon as
strange and out of touch.
It’s eye-opening to see how some churchgoers react to reading
a Bible passage from the pulpit, as though they were hearing it for the first
time or had never encountered something so controversial before.
Revelation 2:8-11, “And to the angel of the church of Smyrna
write, ‘These things say the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to
life: “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I
know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue
of Satan. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.
Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be
tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I
will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit
says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.’”
Yes, I’ve heard the snarky theories of pampered boys in grown
men’s bodies wearing horn-rimmed glasses and skinny jeans about how you don’t
beat up your bride on her wedding night, and so because our ways must
necessarily be His ways and our thoughts His thoughts, that childish anecdote
should be enough for us to dismiss the words Jesus spoke through John the
revelator.
We’re faithful; just take our word for it. We are committed
and steadfast, resolute, and purposed to follow You to the end, but please
don’t call our bluff.
In case anyone missed it, the First and the Last, the one who
was dead and came to life, is none other than Jesus. It is He who gives the
message to the church of Smyrna, encouraging them, but not in the way one might
define encouragement where hurt feelings are compared to the worst of tortures
and disagreement of any kind to the pains of death itself.
Jesus didn’t say he knew their tribulation and poverty but
that soon they would prosper beyond their wildest dreams. Nor did Jesus say
that they would be spared suffering, but rather that they should not fear the
things they were about to suffer.
The image of a magic genie Jesus who’s there to serve at your
pleasure and pamper you however you see fit, giving you everything, requiring
nothing, and denying you nothing is a fabrication of the modern-day church,
dare I say the Western church. It’s the only image that would have the mass
market appeal they needed to push out enough product to keep them in the
lifestyle after which they lusted and to which they’ve become accustomed.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that between a book on
holiness unto the Lord and one on unlocking the keys to endless prosperity, the
one about getting stuff will outsell the one on being holy a thousand to one.
It’s market dynamics dictating what the shepherds feed the sheep, and if the
demand is there for sin-affirming doctrine, the supply will manifest.
It’s not as though the church of Smyrna had not endured
persecution up to that point. Jesus knew of their persecution and was preparing
them for more persecution still. They had not shied away from it, but the
foreknowledge of what was to come served as an encouragement to them to
persevere and be faithful to the end. It’s not what we want to hear, though.
Lord, don’t tell us that we’ll be persecuted; tell us that we’ll be spared
persecution. In that case, we’re asking for Jesus to lie to us, and if He does
as we will, then when persecution comes, we’ll shake our fists at the sky and
call Him a liar.
If the Word of God tells us to prepare for persecution, and if Jesus insists that being hated by the world is a certainty and not a possibility, then it doesn’t matter how many degrees those speaking to the contrary might possess; they’re still wrong. One is a declaration by the omniscient Creator of all that is; the other is the opinions of men who see the world through the prism of having never had their faith tested nor ever having endured hardship for the sake of Christ.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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