Job CCLIX

 Job 24:18-21, “They should be swift on the face of the waters, their portion should be cursed in the earth, so that no one would turn into the way of their vineyards. As drought and heat consume the snow waters, so the grave consumes those who have sinned. The womb should forget him, the worm should feed sweetly on him; He should be remembered no more, and wickedness should be broken like a tree. For he preys on the barren who do not bear, and does no good for the widow.”

The rise of the perma-passive, non-confrontational, non-offensive Christian is something I’ve been noticing for some time. We don’t challenge, we don’t push back, we don’t present a logical counterpoint even to the most heretical, destructive, and unbiblical proclamations, either out of a desire to overcorrect from the fire and brimstone preachers of old, or sheer cowardice, all the while insisting that letting anyone who is so inclined walk all over us and use us as a doormat equating it with righteousness itself.

If someone is speaking a lie and you confront them with the truth, you’re not being a jerk for Jesus; you’re defending the truth. If someone is attempting to bring in destructive heresies and you see them for what they are, keeping silent doesn’t make you brave; it makes you complicit.

The words spoken by the man whom God deemed blameless and upright regarding the wicked were neither conciliatory nor filled with empathy. No matter how much one may attempt to twist scripture, it’s impossible to conclude that when Job said the womb should forget him, and the worm should feed on him sweetly, he meant it in a nice way.

There is a time and place for righteous anger. There is a time and place for righteous indignation, and when it comes to wickedness, as Job stated, it should be broken like a tree, and not ignored, placated, validated, or celebrated.

The selfsame people who rebel against the light, whose consciences are seared, and who see the household of faith as nothing more than sheep to be sheared, exploited, and feasted upon, are the first to insist that we shouldn’t judge, and by no means should we touch God’s anointed. In order for someone to touch God’s anointed, they must be anointed by God, not claim to be so. That men would try to deflect from their wickedness by insisting that God’s anointed are a protected class, all the while inferring that they number among them, and therefore must be allowed to continue in their wickedness without being called out, aren’t rightly dividing the Word but rather using the ignorance of the Word among God’s sheep to shield themselves from criticism.

1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Test all things; hold fast what is good.”

Another word for test is judge. The metric by which we test, or judge all things isn’t our feelings, emotions, or traditions, but by the Word of God. It is the standard, the plumbline, and the final authority in all things, and if the Word deems it detrimental, unwise, sinful, or wrong, then we reject it, avoid it, and mark it as such.

Just as a boat without an anchor will get carried away by the storm, a believer not rooted in the Word of God will be swayed to and from by every wind, every doctrine, and every heresy that makes its way to the fore. Repackaged deception is still deception, and we know it for what it is because the Scriptures say as much.

It’s gotten as bad as it has because many have been deceived into believing that, rather than being the light that pushes back the darkness, we should try to understand it, have empathy for it, and come to some sort of armistice. You do your thing, we’ll do ours, we won’t interfere in your machinations, and you pinky swear to do likewise. The problem is that while the household of faith was more than happy to leave the devil alone because it meant less exertion on their part, the devil never had any intention of leaving the church alone. From tirelessly deploying his minions to secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, to insisting that courage, boldness, steadfastness, and faithfulness aren’t virtues but rather practices to be avoided, to raising up wolves while demeaning true shepherds, the devil has been hard at work.

All the while, we sit cloistered in our little bubbles, gravitating toward echo chambers that place tertiary issues above the Lordship of Christ, trying to pray the darkness away when Jesus said what we should be doing is letting our light so shine before men.

Darkness must be resisted. Wickedness must be called out. The wolves must be chased away, and the sheep must decide whether they’re really sheep or goats pretending to be sheep. Save the customer is always right for McDonald’s or Burger King. When it comes to spiritual matters, our attitude must be that God is always right, even if in Him being right, our pride gets wounded, our ego gets humbled, and our flesh gets mortified.

Job had a natural disdain for wickedness because he understood that light and darkness would always be at odds, perpetually at enmity, and either the light shines bright enough to dispel the darkness, or the darkness would continue its smothering of the light until no light remained.

It’s been so long since the church has been on a war footing that we’ve come to think of it as being something unnatural. Golf was more appealing than warcraft, prosperity more tempting than battle, passivity more comfortable than the active, unrelenting furthering of God’s kingdom, and here we are, lame men, skinny jeans and all, teaching other lame men to be at ease in their lameness.

We have so thoroughly removed the principles of personal accountability and personal responsibility from the conversation that anything past trying to be first in line at the Sunday buffet is deemed works, and readily labeled as such. Of course, I want eternity in paradise, who wouldn’t, but Ichabod on anyone who says I need to lift a finger to attain it. I’m too busy golfing; maybe you can sell that whole denying yourself, picking up your cross, and following after Jesus to another sucker. Who needs brave, bold, and courageous when you have gluttonous, greedy, and gullible?                   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.