Intricate

 If the devil were to come right out and tell his minions that all he was offering was an endless buffet of fear, death, and despair, there wouldn’t be any people lining up. There may be a handful, you know, the contrarians who think nothing is as bad as it sounds or as good as it seems, but for the most part, people would avoid the devil as they ought. That so many people are still enamored with the idea of evil, if not evil itself, proves that propaganda works and is surprisingly effective.

All the rubes keep going on about how all the cool people are in hell, but nobody mentions they’re all screaming in agony and terror. All the coolness wore off the first fifteen seconds of realizing where they ended up. The rest of eternity is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nobody’s going to want to give you an autograph or stop screaming long enough for a selfie. Hell will not be what some imagine because what they imagine contradicts what Jesus says hell will be like.

The same person who said let the little children come to Me, let He who is without sin cast the first stone, and I lay down My life for the sheep, also said that it would have been better to hang a millstone around the neck of whoever causes one of these little ones to sin, and drown them in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:6, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

God has a visceral reaction to deceivers and deception, and there is zero wiggle room. The words Jesus used are also telling because it was one of the little ones who believed in Him that he was concerned would be caused to sin. No, I’m not looking to start another debate about whether someone can sin after being saved. I’m quoting the text, more specifically, the words of Christ.

How can one who believes in Him be caused to sin? It wouldn’t be by the obvious means. It would have to be via some sort of deception, some sort of deceit, because if you believe in Him, you know Him well enough to be able to identify sin and flee its tendrils. It’s via deception that the enemy gets a foothold within the church, and dripping lies like poison into the minds and hearts of the unwitting, given enough time without the antidote, they find themselves in sin once more.

It is the individuals who open the door to the sin that recaptures the hearts and minds of one of the little ones that Jesus has exceedingly harsh words for. They couldn’t get much harsher even if He’d tried because once you tell someone that it would have been better for them to die by drowning while having a millstone hung around their neck, there’s a sufficient word picture to make His intent crystal clear.

No one’s sitting around wondering what Jesus meant. No one’s trying to figure out the hidden meaning or the nuanced interpretation. The judgment on those who attempt to deceive the sheep of God’s pasture will be that severe. It will be beyond what they can conceive or imagine because the value God places on the souls of men is high indeed.

This is why I still maintain that those actively and knowingly attempting to pervert the gospel and lead innocent souls astray don’t believe in the God of the Bible or the words contained therein. How could you intentionally do something that Jesus said drowning in the depth of the sea would have been preferable to?

Whether men attempt to twist the gospel out of jealousy, trying to use Scripture as a wedge to separate and divide, for money, or out of a desire for more influence than they already possess, if their target is the little ones Jesus refers to, their punishment will be delivered without grace or mercy.

Some may sit back and conclude that this is uncharacteristic of a loving God, but it isn’t. Besides being loving, God is also righteous and just, and His righteousness and justice demand that He judges as He does.

Psalm 7:11, “God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.”

God uses His standard of justice, not mine, and it is by His standard that He is a just judge. That’s why saying something isn’t fair when God has declared it is, is foolish on its face because neither you nor I get an opinion on the matter.

We presume too much and don’t obey enough, then wonder aloud why things are going from bad to worse, why we’re not seeing the power and presence of God, and why we feel far from His love on most days. God met you where you were to bring you where He was, but if you remove yourself from His presence and wander through the desert, He will not follow you there. There is a difference between being lost and being a runaway, between never having known the light and having known the light, preferring the darkness. God’s not looking to play hide and seek with His creation, wherein we’re always hiding, and He’s constantly seeking.

Let’s not kid ourselves; some men do just that. Some men weasel their way into a congregation or ministry only to corrupt and destroy it, some love their sin more than they love God, and the pull is too much for them to resist, and some are caused to sin by the voices that cry liberty while they themselves are in bondage.

Perhaps it’s time we got past the naïve mindset that all the mansions in heaven have doggy doors, and everyone who’s ever touched their television screen during a televangelist’s musings is heaven bound on the nonstop redeye.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.