PONDERING COVID, BEING TOO NICE, RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION, LAVISH GRACE AND LIFE LESSONS ~ EXPOSING HYPOCRISY ~ Part 41

As you read that title, you no doubt thought, What in the world? I must apologize for being MIA for the last three weeks. It’s funny how things happen sometimes. In my last blog I had mentioned the hot cultural issue of our day regarding vaccine mandates as it relates to our Christian’s convictions. I got Covid about a week later. What surprised me was just how quickly it hit me. One day I was sneezing, the next I was wheezing with every breath with a hacking cough that seemed to never end. Gladly, I can also say it was gone just about as quickly as it came.

I have asthma, so I have learned to fight hard against the ordinary cold “going to my chest”. Nevertheless, about every three years, I get a case of bronchitis that lasts for a couple of months before I am feeling even close to normal again. In essence, during those months, I may make several trips to the doctors for prescriptions and generally feel miserable for the duration of the illness.

Covid was very different. I didn’t feel bad at all. The coughing fits sounded as though I was dying; at first not being able to cough up anything at all, then coughing up a lot of phlegm that was totally clear (evidence of no infection). I broke out in a lot of sweats but didn’t seem to have a ‘fever’. I never lost my sense of smell or taste. It lasted almost two weeks to the day; although I still have a cough here and there, I am back to my normal routine. I took really good care of myself (probably due to all the hype), rested a lot, self-medicated with OTC drugs and some common-sense remedies, and never had to see a doctor. The downside to that is I cannot document that I did, in fact, have Covid; although I have no doubts that is what it was.

Having been inundated with all the cultural background noise, conspiracy theories, lies from the mainstream media, and tumultuous chaos of the past 18-months, I eventually formed my own opinions and convictions of Covid that weren’t too different than how I view anything else that may or may not happen to me in this life. I must say, however, when Covid hit, my first thought was: So, this is it. I had to quickly wrestle down any fear in me that might be tempted to creep into my heart. My family said, “This is serious.” Honestly, it felt like it could be serious for the simple fact of how quickly my chest was filled with congestion. Then again, life is serious and seems to get more serious the older I get. Like anything else in the believer’s life, sometimes our convictions are put to a test of faith. (I seem to recall telling the Lord I would go to prison for Him while reading a book early in my walk!)

This past Sunday, at the end of his sermon, Pastor John MacArthur stressed the need for students getting ready to go off to college to have strong convictions and to be critical thinkers. This applies to all believers, especially in a day when clearly so many in positions of authority have no problem lying to those under them when it advances their own agendas and worldviews. Never has there been a time in my own life when I feel the need to know what I believe, why I believe it, and to stand firmly upon God’s Word for a biblical worldview.

On top of having Covid, I am packing up our home in order to be able to move across town in the next two weeks, so I may need to take a bit more time off from blogging until I am able to get back to a more regular routine. Regardless, I wanted my readers to know that I have not abandoned them, and I also want to offer some encouragement.

It is easy in our current environment to be tempted to get angry easier, to doubt, to worry, to complain more often, to lose our joy and our focus on the eternal. But may we be all the more aware of doing all things without grumbling or disputing; so that we will prove ourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ we will have reason to glory because we did not run in vain nor toil in vain.  While Covid is portrayed as a massive dark cloud looming over the whole world to threaten not only our very lives but the freedoms we cherish and enjoy, we can know that is also being used as a weapon against us to induce fear for political gain and power. As Christians, we must continue to keep our focus on the Lord and fear Him alone. Covid is real; and just as realistic is the fact that most people will recover from Covid. Just as factual is the understanding that the enemy of our souls is working hard to distract us from our purpose as believers in this world. At the same time, God is shaking up His church; and that’s a good thing! Those who were closest to Jesus saw Him shake things up at times. I have no doubt that it shocked many that lowly, gentle, Jesus could get so irate. Surprisingly, He reserved His most confrontational provocations for the religious elite.

While recovering from Covid, Jesus Unleashed, A New Vision of the Bold Confrontations of Christ and Why They Matter, John MacArthur’s timely new mini book came in the mail. I highly recommend it as a quick read that will boost your convictions to boldly stand against religious hypocrisy and religious lies that are eagerly disseminated in our day regarding who He is and His work of redemption.

Milquetoast, nervous Nellie, doormat, pushover, namby-pamby, spineless, wishy-washy. Have you ever been characterized by any of those adjectives? I have heard every one of those directed towards me at one time or another in my life. Jesus was none of these. I get mad—sometimes reacting in a way that honors Christ, at other times more sinful than I would like.

Injustice is something that flips the trigger in just about everyone according to how they perceive it. Two instances stand out in my mind when I perceived injustices had been done prompting me to react in anger. Interestingly, I cannot remember the actual circumstances that caused me to be so angry, but I do remember something else. My boss said, “I told my husband that even Karla is angry about this!” My unspoken response was twofold: I must be more aware of my reactions to situations because people are watching my witness for Christ. I must not be quick to respond but to bring all my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. But I’m glad my boss thinks I don’t typically get angry over trivial issues. Nonetheless, I must learn to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:19-20) The second instance was a much earlier instance when I had reacted sinfully to a situation, but at the time believed I was acting out of righteous anger. I had gone off in a letter to a Christian friend I had known and discipled for many years. How she responded to me put me to shame and humbled me in a nanosecond! Her first sentence had not even a hint of retaliation. She said, “What is going on with you? This is not like you.” Put a dagger through my heart. I learned a great lesson from her in that one line.

For many years, letters were my weapon of choice. When someone got a ‘letter’ from me, others would say, “Uh-oh.” My letters always addressed some form of ‘religious hypocrisy’ I saw in the life of the recipient. Often, they were only gray issues, things for which I held strong convictions for myself and everyone else. False teaching angers me…as it should. Truth be told, however, looking back, I was the biggest hypocrite of all. In many ways, I was just like the Pharisees for whom Jesus reserved His harshest rebukes. The deeply painful lesson I had to learn was to love the sinner, show the very grace I had been shown, and just keep teaching the truth in love. I was stingy with grace when Ephesians 1:7-8 says: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us… To have grace lavished on me according to His riches is not grace according to even the richest person in this world. To have His lavish grace poured out on me, then withhold it from others, is despicable behavior not befitting a child of God but a child of Satan, himself.

IT IS ALWAYS RIGHT TO CONFRONT ERROR, BUT the problem is I was rarely addressing anyone who was teaching others (there were a few), and I always addressed error as I saw it in only one way—with the full force of Scripture, my own convictions, usually from a false perspective of one who had a corner on the truth. ‘Up there’ looking down on others is not a place of mutual love and equality at the foot of the Cross. To be ‘up there’ looking down is to put yourself on a cross that cannot save anyone. The only right place for a Christian to be is at the foot of the Cross pointing up to the only One who is Light and Truth. I was confronted with my egregious error in prison, of all places. There, I grasped my own human depravity with a far deeper realization than ever before. In my ‘prison trial’, a most humbling experience, the Lord taught me the difference between the deceived and the deceivers. He gave me eyes to see just how lavish His grace towards me really was in choosing to save me, a wretched sinner like all those I lived with and learned to really love for almost four years. It was no coincidence that while there another inmate introduced me to what would become my theme song, “Who Am I?” by Casting Crowns. Indeed! Those lyrics speak of wondrously lavish grace.

After prison, I saw these truths modeled for me in my pastor, John MacArthur. I marveled at how he went after false teachers with the full force and power of the Spirit while showing the same intensity of love and grace towards sinners. He didn’t chastise those who didn’t know any better, were still learning to walk as children of Light and trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. He simply loved them and taught them.  Looking at how Jesus responded to the rich young ruler versus the scribes and Pharisees is telling. We must stop and ask ourselves why Jesus interacted with some differently than others.

What sets you off? What pushes your buttons? For mothers, going after our children or those closest to us is especially hard to deal with. People have commented on circumstances in my life and said I should be angrier than I am. That’s when I get accused of being too nice. I know better. I know the real me. They assure me I have grounds for righteous indignation. But do I? Though we might sometimes have grounds for righteous indignation, we still must respond righteously.

There are a multitude of issues all around us that can induce righteous indignation in us. Got Questions says that “anger or indignation is righteous when it is directed toward what angers God Himself. Righteous anger and indignation are justly expressed when we are confronted with sin. Good examples would be anger toward child abuse, pornography, racism, homosexual activity, abortion, and the like.” We must be careful to direct our anger at sinful behaviors and unmistakable injustice rather than at people themselves. A great place to learn this as a Christian is in prison!

I hope I have learned some lessons that have helped me to walk in a way that is more pleasing to the Lord. The sanctification process, just like growing up, is often painful and hard but always good. As usual, when we look at righteousness and behavior that is pleasing to Him, we can never pull a Scripture out of context or make it stand alone by itself. For instance, we are to confront and expose error, while Hebrews 12:14 says we are to pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. We are told: BE ANGRY AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. (Ephesians 4:26-27). Paul tells us in Romans 12:18-21: If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE. I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. “BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Peter then adds: But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. Situations are not often one-size-fits-all. With every situation, however, we must learn to check our attitude and our motives before becoming angry with others.

Sometimes it is the most loving thing we can do to forcefully expose false teaching due to its influence affecting the eternal destiny of those who blindly subscribe to it. For the simple fact that the spiritual realm is not something that can be seen, the damage of false teaching is all the more minimized in the eyes of the world. In reality, the greatest kindness shown to man is that which points him to the narrow path leading to eternal life. The greatest irony not understood by man is that the greatest kindness shown to him is perceived as hatred and intolerance.

As we continue our look at Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees in Matthew 23 in the blog posts to come, we must know that it is not always right to be ‘nice’. I will leave you with some quotes from the book I mentioned above.

From the Preface:

“Try to imagine a Bible teacher so devoted to the truth that he never misses an opportunity to confront false teachers and refute their errors. He exposes and rebukes religious hypocrisy wherever he sees it… He never shies away from controversy.”

Someone like that would be despised and rejected by today’s evangelicals—especially by the movement’s most influential leaders. They would do their best to muzzle him and check his influence, even if they agreed with his views. Because in this postmodern era of tolerance and diversity, agreeability is deemed a higher virtue than faithfulness in the pursuit of biblical truth.” (John MacArthur)

 

Pastor John says things like this: “He was deliberately provocative.” (Speaking of Jesus)

 

“Any suggestion that our Lord might ever be angry or argumentative poses a severe challenge to the image they (most evangelicals in the current generation) have created in their imaginations. They must at all costs keep Jesus subdued and make Him safe.”

 

He is portrayed as a Lamb and a tender shepherd, “But He is also depicted in Scripture as a Lion. He is ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah’. And He is not to be muzzled or declawed. It is pure blasphemy to imagine that toning Him down would somehow improve His character, make Him seem “nicer,” or elevate His glory.”

 

“In fact, the hypocrisy of a superficially religious person has potentially even more sinister implications than outright atheism, because of its deceptiveness… But the hypocrite is not only more irrational; he is also more contemptible than the out-and-out atheist, because he is actually doing gross violence to the truth while pretending to believe it. Nothing is more completely diabolical. Satan is the master hypocrite, disguising himself so that he appears good rather than evil.”

 

“Jesus never shied away from conflict. And He never, never, never treated the vital distinction between truth and error as a merely academic question.”

 

The religious leaders in Israel were “despotic gatekeepers of religious tradition.”

 

In the chapter, When It’s Wrong to Be “Nice”, he says, “In reality, no other field of the humanities—philosophy, literature, the arts, or whatever—holds quite as much potential for mischief as religion. Nothing is more thoroughly evil than false religion, and the more false teachers try to cloak themselves in the robes of biblical truth, the more truly Satanic they are.

      Nevertheless, benign-looking, suavely religious emissaries of Satan are ordinary, not extraordinary. Redemptive history is full of them, and the Bible continually warns about such false teachers—savage wolves in sheep’s clothing, “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:13). Indeed, nothing is more thoroughly diabolical, and we are warned repeatedly not to take false teaching lightly because of its close resemblance to the truth.”

 

Lastly, I want to point out something Pastor John says that I have been trying to elaborate on in this blog post:

 

 “(Regarding Jesus’ denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees) It is a blistering denunciation—a candid diatribe about the seriousness of their error. There is no conversation, no collegiality, no dialogue, and no cooperation. Only confrontation, condemnation, and (as Matthew records) curses against them.

Jesus’ compassion is certainly evident in two facts that bracket this declamation. First, Luke says that as He drew near the city and observed its full panorama for this final time, He paused and wept over it (19:41-44). And second, Matthew records a similar lament at the end of the seven woes (23:37). So we can be absolutely certain that as Jesus delivered this diatribe, His heart was full of compassion.

Yet that compassion is directed at the victims of the false teaching, not the false teachers themselves. There is no hint of sympathy, no proposal of clemency, no trace of kindness, no effort on Jesus’ part to be “nice” toward the Pharisees. Indeed, with these words Jesus formally and resoundingly pronounced their doom and then held them up publicly as a warning to others.”

 

I hope to pick up where we left off in Matthew 23 next time. Blessings to you, Beloved. Stay safe, healthy, and most importantly, focused on Him as you continue to learn what is pleasing in His sight. Let us all glorify and honor Him as we walk as children of Light!