Threatened for Bearing Truth
The day I encountered Jesus and became a follower of His, I surrendered to Him as a King and as a Savior. The poor chump who was the “minister” of the congregation whose building Jesus met me in thought it was funny the next Sunday when I told him that I had gotten saved the week before. He thought everybody is saved. Some other church leaders have other seriously wrong things to say to their victims.
When we teach truth or act in faith, we can become targets just as Joshua and Caleb did when they refused to agree with the majority report brought by the other 10 spies. The mistaken majority misled the faithless nation to believe that Yahweh is a liar. The whole community threatened to murder the two servants of Yahweh.
Today, we are being threatened when we oppose the lies that are being poured out to the nations. When we confront lies promoting fear and racism and perversion and the destruction of justice and liberty and faith in Jesus, we are labeled as evil and marked for censorship, prison or death.
When we stand in faith, though, we are creating a light on a path that the next generation can follow to righteousness and life. Our enemies will be washed away in their foolishness, but we will enter the place of purpose and life and blessing if we don’t surrender to anyone but our King.
We will gain strength by overcoming those who are standing against the Kingdom of Heaven. Our enemies will become our bread. We will devour them. Just as eating breakfast gives us strength, when we stand as representatives of the Kingdom in opposition to the lies and evil reports being cast at our neighbors, we will live and gain strength to offer others life who are hungry for life and truth and love.
Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and little children will become plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces to the ground in front of the whole assembly of the Israelite community. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who scouted out the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite community: “The land we passed through and explored is an extremely good land. If the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and give it to us. Only don’t rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them. Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Don’t be afraid of them!”
While the whole community threatened to stone them, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the tent of meeting.
(Numbers 14:1-10 HCSB ©®)