The Troubles the Messengers Go Through

The dark places of the earth are full of cruelty… The tumult of them increases daily_ Ps 74:20, 23

“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” so asked the wicked witch in Snow White. The magic mirror always replied that she was – until Snow white came along and the mirror blurted out the real truth for a change.

Fortunately in real life such mirrors don’t exist, but that does not stop us in our erstwhile fecundity to improvise anything we like – including the manufacture of truth.

Daily we stare at ourselves in front of our magic mirrors and we ask the same question. “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” Sometimes it gives us the truth which we like to hear, but then at other times it gives us the ugly truth which we don’t like to hear. It is at such times that we wrench our faces into a grimace and swear loudly that the mirror has lied.

At such times there are only two things we can break, either break the mirror or break ourselves. Most of us choose the easier way out. We break the mirror and we walk away from it with “ourselves intact.”

But the mirror never lies, or dies. We can deface it but we can never browbeat it into submission. The mirror is a stubborn servant.

The trouble is we can – and we do - make lies our refuge. Scripture calls that changing “the truth of God into a lie.” The apostle James exhorted the people as follows, “lie not against the truth.” And in another place Paul summed it up rather trenchantly “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.” In the third but very brief epistle of John, the word truth rings out aloud five times in the first eight verses.

Such is the inexhaustible weight of truth.

 

It was thus that the messengers of God often faced the full wrath of the king and his cronies. For the truth God gave to them did not always resemble the truth they wanted to hear.

The king’s ears – and his peoples’ - itched for another kind of truth, the truth that caressed their ears and made their hearts glow. But the messengers of God stood firm and declared God’s message, whether the king and his people liked to hear it or not.

The messengers of God made their faces hard like a stone – and they said to the people what God had said to them to say. Such are messengers that God uses even today. “Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?” the psalmist asked, and he replied,  “He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.”

He also added it is “he that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.” That means he stands like a man and declares the truth which is in his heart without fear.

Like what the indefatigable Daniel once did. He didn’t fear the lions or the fire. Can you stand up for your convictions like that? Can you stand the heat and the growling lions that are pouncing threateningly at you? The psalmist concluded that “He that doeth these things shall never be moved” (Psalm 15). Yes you can die but the truth shall never die.

Are you ready to die for what you believe in? If not then whatever you believe in is probably not worth believing in. Stand not for the bread alone when it is being ostentatiously flung your way. Stand up also for the stones when they are being fiercely hurled your way.  

Nothing scared the true messengers of God. They were reviled and ridiculed. They were called liars. Jesus was called the chief devil. But they stood their ground. Christ simply said what he had to say on earth, and he concluded, “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” And he left it at that. Likewise the true messengers of God are to do that, for “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord.”

In the end Christ died for what he believed in. Most of his disciples followed suit as the writer of Hebrews testifies: “And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:  They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented….”

But their message remained implacable and impregnable. And always it rose from the death on the third day. Even when pseudo prophets (who knew what side of their bread was buttered) sided with the king and convinced him that the prophets of God were liars. They told the king in effect, “God did not say that.” They prophesied peace instead and the king believed them.

That is that “other” mirror of life which resonates with our egos. Yet by the third day peace is nowhere to be seen and the king, and his cronies, and his state are soundly vanquished in battle. Always that is the symmetrical path such a battle always takes – and always ends.

Jeremiah the prophet faced many such trying times like these - of what God said to the people and what the people said to God in turn. At one time they approached Jeremiah with a request. “That the LORD thy God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.” Then Jeremiah replied to them.

I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass, that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the LORD thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.

Jer 42:4-6. 

After ten days Jeremiah came back with the report. But it wasn’t the truth they had expected to hear. So they called Jeremiah a liar. “Thou speakest falsely: the LORD our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there” (Jer 43:2b). 

In the next chapter the people got even bolder. They gave as much to Jeremiah as they received from him: “As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth.”  

But God was unflattering in telling them the truth. That “this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.” He added, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?”  

Paul famously declaimed that the days when the ears of the people will itch for a more tolerable “truth” are coming.  “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2Ti 4:3-4). 

The verdict is out. Either we worship God according to His image as it is delineated in Scripture or we hear that “other” god whom we have fashioned in our own image - and who is inevitably hyped up. In Elijah’s time the false prophets outnumbered the true prophets of God eight hundred and fifty to one. In our own time that contrast is doubly augmented. 

And so the mirror of God is a stubborn mirror. There is nothing we can do against it short of breaking it, or removing it from the wall. In some nations of African origin many men were removed from their walls and placed in permanent hiding in ten foot houses underneath the earth. Their crime? They dared speak an unspeakable truth. And the State sent them to the guillotine for that.

Others were taken to torture chambers where they were sorely broken. Many are limping. Many others have had their mouths impaled against their walls.

But that mould of defiance will never be completely silenced, even when it is gored ten feet underneath the soil. One may kill the truth but there is no way of silencing it. Even in death truth raises its voice to God like the blood of slayed Abel.

God admonishes us to be our brothers’ keeper. Therefore when we speak against injustices committed to the people we are speaking on behalf of God. We are being our brothers’ keeper. We watch over him day and night. We also watch over the king that he does not excite himself to death.

So today be that outstanding person God would use for Himself. Speak your conviction without fear. Be unmoved. Swear by it even if it is to your own hurt, and change not. If the king is walking naked in daylight tell him. Yes, go to the palace and tell that to the king, and say boldly with Esther, “I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.”

The Lies and The Truth

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies. Jer 9:3 

O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? Jer 5:3 

Lies have no purity. They will admit anything inside them. Truth is white and pure. Lies wear the coat of many colors.

Lies don’t walk alone. They walk in a pack like ravenous wild beasts. Lies, if they have to hang, don’t hang alone. Lies will take their friends with them.

But truth should rather hang than lie. Truth admits no impurities. Truth pays care to its health and beauty not to be soiled. If he lied truth knows it’s the surest way to become ugly. Beside he cannot. He wouldn’t even contemplate. He cannot go against his nature. Truth is clean. You can wipe a dish cloth on its surface and there will be not a single speck of dust. Truth wears only white. You cannot find mud splashed on it.

Truth does not fear. When others stampede in a dash for life truth stands alone, fearless and courageous. Truth does not fear to die. Truth fears no man.

Truth does not wear make-up. Truth is himself.  Well, truth admits no affectation. It wears no fake parts. It admits only the original. Truth cannot be bought. It admits no price. Everything else is cheap compared to it.

Truth has an uncanny ability to detect a lie. Flattery will not lie to it. Truth will recognize it, and scorn it. Truth knows a cheat when he sees him a mile off. Nothing can lie against the truth. It will return to you and it will eat you up.

You may harm the truth but it will never die. It always rises again from the dust. Truth will haunt you. But it will stop when you accept it. It will become your friend. It will protect you, and guide you. It will never leave you nor forsake you. Truth will die for you.

Truth demands loyalty. It will be annoyed if you mix it with other friends not like it. Truth will get sick when it is denied.

Truth is jealous. It will give you up to your desires when you scorn it. Then what happens to you will be your own problem. Truth will not be there to protect you. But it will come if you call on it in truth and with a contrite heart. Truth forgives, it forgives and remembers your sins no more if repented.

It is a lonely life to be far away from the truth.

Truth and lies cannot coexist. One has to go and the other remains. Truth has few friends therefore it is often a lonely house.

Truth convicts. It stands upright and it is as straight as a pole. Lies are not so. They bend and shrink when it gets too hot. They rarely stand alone but require more lies to be strengthened. Without more lies for support they are blown down like the dust.

Truth never exhausts its reservoirs. But lies do. Eventually all lying missiles in the world will be exhausted. Then lies will flee under the heavy barrage of truth. Truth will never surrender but lies will. Eventually lies, to avoid being killed, will apostatize, renouncing their king and their faith.

Lies are always cold. Truth is always hot. You will never find any other like truth. I am Jesus Christ. I am the truth, the way and life.

The Plague of Indecisiveness - “To be or not to be, that is the question.” – Part Two

Their heart is divided_ Hos 10:2

No man can serve two masters_ Mat 6:24  

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions?_ 1Ki 18:21

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Jam 1:8 

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. Rev 3:15 

These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest_ 2Pe 2:17 

The indecisive fellow is the quintessential doubter.  He tries to see but every time he lifts his eyes up he comes upon an embankment with this large writing on it “No!”

He rarely comes upon a sign that screams to him, “Yes!” But when he does he ponders for an eternity whether it is really true or his eyes are playing him a trick. If he wears spectacles like I do he will remove them and gently rub his eyes and then put them on again. He might have to repeat that gesture until the chickens have come home to roost. All for want of proving whether what he is seeing is true or not.

Again he is like the man who runs to the ruffle office with the winning ticket in his hand - and his first question to the superintendent as he hands him his ticket is “Is it true that I have won?”

That is the tragedy of the perennial doubter. It reminds me of the story of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man after their deaths. The rich man was in hell and the beggar was in heaven. Then the heat in hell got rather hot. “Father Abraham,” the rich man cried. He wanted Lazarus to be sent to his living brothers on the earth so “that he might testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” Father Abraham replied that “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” But the rich man persisted, “Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.” It is then that Father Abraham added this damper, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luk 16:19-31).

A congenitally indecisive fellow is like that. You give him one proof, even the miracle of Lazarus coming back to life itself, but he will still find it hard to believe. He will instead ask for “one more” proof. But Christ knew such hard fellows. He saw through their recalcitrance and informed them plainly that they were not fooling him, “But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” Others he saw through their stomachs, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.”   

They saw his miracles and even acknowledged that “Never man spake like this man.” But still they remained unconvinced. They kept asking for “one more” sign up to the time he was dying on the cross. Even now people will persist in their unbelief until Jesus comes back again. And then it will be too late.

That is the tragedy. A doubter, or an indecisive fellow jumps from one hurdle of unbelief to another. A miracle does not assuage his unbelief, but rather it increases it.  “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

 

The God of Yes

Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians clearly affirmed that God is never indecisive.  

“But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2Co 1:18-20). 

God has made a covenant and He will never detract from it. Probably that is what we all should do so as to dispel the confusion and to bring order in our lives again – and respect. Write it down and stick it on your wall, “This is my final decision!”  

Otherwise chronic indecision will open floodgates of despair. And next it will lead invariably to a cropping up of all manner of diseases and emotional malfunctions.

Going with the Wind

The apostle James put it succinctly. In describing the person who is a doubter, the writer compares him to a wave of the sea which is “driven with the wind and tossed.”

An indecisive person also behaves like that. He is at the mercy of the wind. He has no standing. And wherever the wind blows him there he calls his home.

  

Paul compared such a person to a child who is without a firm hold on life. “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14). 

It seemed these believers were not entirely certain about what to believe. Every teaching hanging out there sounded a good teaching and they devoured it hungrily. They seemed not to know exactly what they believed in and why they believed it. These were victims for indecisiveness. 

On the other hand Paul used several adjectives to describe a stable person. He is “grounded and settled, and [is] not moved away.” He is “rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith…” (Col 1:23; 2:7). That is the sight of a stable person. Like a strong firm tree, he is “grounded and settled” and he cannot be moved away. That is a person who knows what he believes in and why he believes it.

What is the one thing you believe in with your whole life? Why do you believe it? Then go for it and don’t turn your back. Christ showed who is a dependable person to him and who is not. He said the man who ploughs but keeps looking at his back is not dependable. “Remember Lot’s wife.” Ultimately it depends on whether you can depend on yourself or not.

An indecisiveness fellow is like a ship at sea without anchor. And that is a very dangerous ship not only to its user but to other ocean goers as well.

Prolonged indecisiveness will inevitably lead to death. “To be great is to be misunderstood,” said Emerson. Personally I doubt there is any greatness in that. “But wisdom is justified of her children,” said Jesus Christ.

The Cure for Indecision  

Know what you want in life and stick to that. Tracking too many paths invariably gives birth to indecisions. Seeing too many visions, too many possibilities, too many ways. But we have only one head, and one heart. Don’t get squeezed in the middle by a multiplication of desires.

It is the same when a man has a single woman and a woman a single man. Trouble happens when dreams begin to cross each other at night – and when all that is dreamt and seen looks good. Indecision will make a fatal attraction in the end. You cannot split the heart into two without killing it.

Otherwise dishonesty will set in and respectability will fly outside the window. Make a road map and don’t deviate from your itinerary. Believe in it and be ready to die in it.

Lack of principal causes dishonesty, causes lies, causes shifting of goal posts. Have something you believe in – then believe it to death. You will never be indecisive ever again after that. You will never suffer emotional sickness again because of it.

Perhaps this is a good rule to kill indecision. If a thing isn’t worth dying for in the first place then it probably isn’t worth pursuing either. That will give you sound ground to stand on. It will give you principal.

I bet God meant the same thing when he said they shall become one flesh. If she (or he) isn’t worth dying for now then the plague of indecisiveness will never leave your house.

In recapitulation know what you believe in and why you believe it. You do that and nothing will move you “away.” You will be rooted, grounded, and even more you will be settled. You will no longer be tossed to and fro. You will no longer be a ship at sea without anchor.

Choose persistency, and consistency, rather than slogging forwards and backwards. In the end whether you fail or succeed you will at least be content and at peace with yourself - that what you did you did very well and you gave it your best shot. In the end even the world will notice that. And you shall have earned your accolades on this side of heaven.

Not so for the man who is still stuck at the cross roads. Not so for the man who is still walking on the road left and right. Watch out for him. Such is a danger to himself and other road users.

The Plague of Indecisiveness - “To be or not to be, that is the question.” – Part One

Their heart is divided_ Hos 10:2

No man can serve two masters_ Mat 6:24  

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions?_ 1Ki 18:21

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Jam 1:8 

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. Rev 3:15 

These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest_ 2Pe 2:17 

Whether Hamlet was really mad or merely putting on an “antic disposition” is not the question here. 

The tragedy with Hamlet is that in the end he never decided early enough what he ought to have decided early enough. Prolonged indecision can make one insane or prove fatal. In Hamlet both these results proved true.

Indecision nearly killed Lot once except the angels plucked him out of his “lingering.” His wife though wasn’t lucky. She turned back to look and that was her last look. She hadn’t quite decided whether to go or not to go.

If you have decided you have decided and don’t look back. It can prove fatal. But other times deciding can be the easier part. The harder part is following up on that decision. That is called procrastination. It is the cousin to indecisiveness.

The instruction from God to Abraham had been definite once. “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land I will shew thee.”

But it would seem Abraham had left matters of deciding to his father, Mr. Terah. “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.”

Mr. Terah took matters over but he didn’t finish what he started. For when he arrived at Haran, Mr. Terah and family booked a place, including Abram, and “dwelt there.” But the instruction had been to go to Canaan. And the instruction had been to Abram and not Mr. Terah.  But indecision seems to have weighed heavily on Abram. To go or not to go with his family? 

In the end his family delayed him. Friends or family can delay you in arriving at your destination. The decision to “decide” is a personal initiative. Don’t bring your parents or siblings into it. They will delay you.

On a fictional note, Hamlet delayed acting on instructions from his father’s ghost to kill Claudius his uncle who had murdered Hamlet’s father and married his mother. From his initial indecision were added more indecisions. Eventually Hamlet’s indecisions killed not only him but many members of his royal family.

We all come to the valley of decision at one time or another in our lives. We have to get out of it early or we will be delayed in our enterprises, or worse we can die in the valley.

Unfortunately we can never take leave from deciding in this life until we are dead and our mind is shut and closed. For technically one cannot refuse to decide – for in refusing to decide that in itself comprises a decision – or a judgment. And to refuse to judge is to refuse to think.

The Causes of Indecision

Sometimes it is not a refusal to think – but to think too much, or too widely. Many options present themselves, and all of the options are genuine possibilities. It is not one woman but all of them that have the potential to make good wives. But then one can only marry one wife. If all possibilities look good then close your eyes and pick one. Then get married to it and live with it until death do you part.  

Other times it is not the lack of ambition that is the problem, but over-ambition. You want it all. You run not after one but after all. In the end you will lose all. A rolling stone gathers no moss. It lands clean and swept at the valley below.

Other causes are lack of conviction, doubts and too many fears. “What will they think?” “What if I fail?” “Where do I go from here?” “How long have I got to live?”

A perfectionist streak is another cause of indecisiveness. Remember only God is perfect. No matter how good or “perfect” we think we are, in God’s sight we are but vanity. Being humble will prevent the perfectionist streak from running riot. Be not “over wise: [for] why shouldest thou destroy thyself?”  The preacher also boldly affirmed that “in much wisdom is [also] much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”  Find place for humour whenever you can. Life is hard enough without deliberately adding further sorrows to it. Besides the more we increase in the knowledge of God, the more we shall also increase in the knowledge of our true selves - that we are nothing, and are far from perfect. The challenge is to bring a man to this simple understanding, for everybody is perfect in his own sight.

For the perfectionist I say let us temper our seriousness of life. We are only human. God knows and He understands that. His mercies reach from here to heaven. Having said that let me also add that – yes - God understands but God is also not mocked. In the end we shall all harvest what we shall have planted in the gardens of our lives.

At our death we shall all leave behind some work that will not quite have gotten finished. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Only Jesus finished his. But that was only on earth. He has more work still going on in heaven.

Other causes of indecisiveness are lack of stability, consistency, and lack of patience.

Types of Indecisive Fellows

Life is like a buffet of sumptuous choices. Some people want to pack everything into one plate. The indecisive fellow is the one who holds up the queue. To eat three pieces of chicken or four? To eat roast beef or boiled? To eat lamb or crocodile? To eat fish or pork? To eat five or ten pieces of chapattis?

Some, presumably the chronic lot, will then pack everything on one plate. But after they take their seats a pervasive guilt will inundate them like a plague. Perhaps they packed up too much? Perhaps everybody is watching them? Some will leave it all altogether and stand up and walk home hungry. The courageous will unashamedly pull the plate to themselves, and work on it after they are done with theirs.

Indecision makes for veritable grief and anguished suffering.

Some have drawn up neat time tables but they are notorious for never completely arriving at a decision to stick to them. They might do it for a day or two. After that all hell breaks loose in their lives.

Others are never quite sure they have locked up. They wake up at midnight to go and confirm. Then the perfectionist comes along. Before they sleep everything has got to be in its place, everything. These take longer to sleep just wondering if everything is truly in its place.

The flagellant is an addict. This is an incorrigibly indecisive fellow. His abode is in the musky and misty existential margins of this life as whips of indecision upon indecision mercilessly lash his mind – and life – and he is greatly enamoured of it. This is a demonic impulse and only the power of Christ can deliver such a one.

So is the perfectionist. So is the malignantly indecisive. This lot can walk half a mile to the right only to turn suddenly to the left and walk back half a mile - before finally deciding to walk to the right after all. In the morning this man will still not have arrived to his destination. As a matter of fact this man walks all his entire life and never quite arrives at his destination.

Another lot is ever stuck at the cross roads wondering whether to go to the right or left. They are perpetually stuck at the cross-roads and never quite make a move.

What sort of an indecisive fellow are you?

(To be continued).