On why we must continue speaking despite opposition and difficulties · 10:31pm Jan 21st, 2022

We face challenges daily. One that disturbs many believers is the response to preaching the Gospel and labelling various activities as sin. Among these are homosexuality, abortion, sexualization of minors, pornography, along with many others. In many cases, the response to these things being - rightly - labelled as evil is a strong, fierce, very angry one. Those in favor of these things call us - wrongfully in many cases - homophobic, as being opposed to women's' rights, as overreacting to sex, and many other things. They call us - often falsely - as being hateful. They accuse us, again wrongfully, of being the problem. And... we often get discouraged by such a response. We don't want to suffer such a storm of hate directed towards us.

I will acknowledge that not everyone who opposes vices does it rightly. This video by Mike Winger shows one example of a truly wrong way to handle to problem. The man he's debunking can rightly be considered homophobic and hateful. However, as Mr. Winger himself opposes homosexuality; the difference is why he does it.

If we love other people, as commanded by God, directly through Christ Himself, we cannot remain silent on sin and its consequences. And no, I'm not saying this without self-examination; I've felt the problem of being attacked, of being told I'm a bad person for believing what I do. I have nowhere near a perfect record when it comes to speaking up against something I consider to be wrong. I do hope to say that I've been given more of a spine, with that spine growing a little every time I do stand up and speak out. If more people had more backbone, perhaps the world might be better off, though one can argue that that's part of the problem; this world needs God's salvation because it is so broken by sin, which includes bad actions as well as failure to act.

I would like to provide an analogy. If someone we knew was going to jump off a cliff... should we just let them? Would that be loving and caring for them? Shouldn't we try our best to convince the person to live rather than die? If they jumped after being warned, that would still be terrible, but as least we wouldn't be responsible for their death. If we knew they were going to jump and just didn't warn them, for whatever reason, we'd be guilty of not acting; the other person would still die, and would be responsible for their own choice, but we would indeed be guilty for doing nothing to try to change that outcome.

The prophet Ezekiel knew this problem. In Ezekiel 33:1-9, God appoints Ezekiel as watchman for His people. If he/the watchman saw danger coming and blew a danger call from his trumpet, if the people refused to heed it they'd be responsible for whatever they suffered, but the watchman would be exempt from blame. If, on the other hand, the watchman saw danger coming and did not blow a warning call, the people would still be responsible for whatever iniquities they had committed in their lives, but the watchman would be held to account.

The prophet Jeremiah knew the violent response people could make. He was threatened with being killed several times. One notable instance was when he delivered a warning to the people and leader of the kingdom of Judah within the Temple, telling them that God would destroy the Temple and the city. When he was done, his listeners responded violently, saying outright, "You shall die! Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’(Jer. 26:8-9, ESV)?” This response doesn't sound all that dissimilar to a lot the enemy does to us with today; silencing, either by law, threats of violence, or with death. Furthermore, Jeremiah would eventually be arrested and even thrown into a muddy cistern to die (Jer. 38:6). Fortunately, Jeremiah was rescued from both attempts on his life (Jer. 26:16-19 and 38:7-13), though his enemies meant to kill him for the message he brought.

We must remember, God is behind the message of the Gospel. That includes both the parts we find easy to digest... and those that people don't like. Both are important, and we can't just shy away from delivering the message due to opposition to it. At the same time, we need to deliver the message with Christlike love; caring for people despite their sins and desiring to rescue them from them. We were all lost once, after all, so we should be motivated to try to lead people to be lost no longer.

Love for our neighbor, mixed with the need to warn them away from evil. Not an easy mixture to get right; I've known that tear. It's easy to look upon sin with disgust, and, in so far as it's the sin that is the reason, it's not wrong. What's wrong is to hate other people for sinning and see them with disgust. At the same time, it's easy to go the opposite direction; you want to show love for other people but don't want to criticize their actions, so one feels it is better to stay quiet. I'm not going to say getting the balance of love and opposing sin is easy, or at least, I'm not saying it's easy for everyone. However, it needs to be done as well as we can, with prayers to God to aid us and change us to be better. We should also pray four courage; we will face opposition, and to put it lightly, we don't know the future with certainty, especially as to how our lives here will end. Prayer for bravery in the face of struggle and uncertainty is not unwarranted.

Thank you for reading. May Christ Jesus save you all, and please stay safe, spiritually and otherwise.

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