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Plainly Speaking
with Karl J. Forehand
Living
Boldly
(1 Peter 3:13-15)
by
Karl J. Forehand
And
who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? 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;
(I Peter 3:13-15)
Much like us, when the apostles faced difficult circumstances,
they relied on Scripture. At this
time, the church was experiencing persecution. Peter harkens back to the reference to King Ahaz. Ahaz was the king of the Southern Kingdom,
Judah. The Kings of Syria and Israel
(Northern Kingdom) wanted him to join them in an alliance against the
Assyrians.
Ahaz counseled with Isaiah, who instructed Him with the Word of
the Lord:
You are not to say, ‘It is a conspiracy!’ in regard to
all that people call a
conspiracy, and You are not to fear what they fear or
be in dread of it. (Isa.
8:12)
In other words, “Don’t believe everything you hear.” Isaiah cautioned Ahaz not to let people
get him all worked up over what might happen. What should he do then?
It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as
holy. And he shall be
your fear, And He shall be your dread (Isa. 8:13)
God should be the one you fear (reverence), not the whoever is
threatening. When that is in
perspective,
Then He shall become a sanctuary; But to both the houses
of Israel, a
stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a
snare and a trap for the
inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Isa 8:14).
In a nutshell, God told Ahaz to learn not to fear people, but
to fear God. God would do the
protecting. What happened after
this. What was the result? The Assyrians did attack the Northern
Kingdom and defeated them in 722 B.C.
In 701 B.C., Sennacheib attacked Judah. The annals recorded the following:
As for Hezekiah(a successor to Ahaz) the Jew, he did not submit to my
yoke. I laid
siege to of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless
small villages in their vicinity, and conquered
them….I drove out 200,150
people, young and old male and female…Himself I made
a prisoner in
Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.
Sennacherib describes Hezzekaih’s chances as slim to none. He is a “bird in a cage.” What Sennacherib didn’t realize was that
the ‘bird in the cage’ was praying and God was intervening. Listen to what happened:
Then
the angel of the LORD went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the
Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were
dead. So Sennacherib, king of
Assyria, departed and returned home,
and lived at Nineveh.
The normal response is to fear the intimidators. Ahaz and Hezzekiah chose to fear the
Lord. God became their
sanctuary. God says to us that is we
will reverence Him correctly, He will provide for us and deal with
“them.” It is a huge lesson we should
learn.
Usually we fear the situation so much. Our immediate thoughts are “What will this
do to my reputation or my church?” We
say, “How is this going to impact my family?” We think “What will this do to me personally?”
We get so worked up over impending crisis that we go into
battle mode. All of us have a battle
mode. It is when we decide to “got
into action.” We begin to spin our
position to anyone that will listen.
We forget we have a God that created the universe. We move outside His protection – we move outside
His will – we dig ourselves a deeper hole.
Most often, as Peter says, “What is there to harm you if you
prove zealous for doing good.” It is
why their accusations sound silly sometimes.
If you are living your life “above reproach,” what can they say? If you are following God’s commands, they
really can’t charge you with anything substantial. If you are zealous for the good, let them talk. If God can work in spite of your
weaknesses, then God can work in spite of them.
Is He Lord in the trials or just in the victory?
- Do not fear the persecutors
Why not?
Most of our mistakes are made in fear. We perform the wrong actions and speak
hasty words. We end up having to make
retractions and apologize. I was
unhappy with a medical test I had a while back. I had to have the test taken again. So, I set out to right the medical profession of it’s
shortcomings in one day. I ended up
having to apologize to several people and didn’t alter much of the medical
profession.
Why not?
We have a God that created the universe. We have a God that can move
mountains. We have a God that has
conquered evil. We have God that loves
us unconditionally. But, He can’t
work when we are “taking over.” He
can’t work when we are fearful and taking responsibility for solving
everything.
Why not?
We have to put things in perspective. Jesus said, “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of
those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. "But I will warn you whom to fear:
fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I
tell you, fear Him!” (Luke
12:4-5). Even if someone were to kill
us, they still can’t change our eternal destiny. God controls that! We
must learn to fear Him first.
- DO fear the Lord
Proverbs 1:7 tell us “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of
knowledge.” We must learn not to tell
God how big our mountains are, rather we should tell our mountains how big
our God is.
Impending situations sometimes become surreal to us. Something is real when we see it as it
is. When we see a barn and a manure
pile, that is real. When the manure
pile seems bigger than it should, that is unreal. When we can’t see the barn for the manure pile, that is
surreal. When we allow our struggles
to become surreal, God gets blocked out of the picture. We lose God in our stuggles.
When we fear (reverence) God, our struggles come into
focus. God can then become our refuge
and we are able to deal with our problems correctly.
We have to “sanctify” (set apart) God as Lord. We can’t let the problems rule our
life. We can’t let people rule our
decision when they create fear in us.
If I a kid is more afraid of his dad than his peers, he won’t as often
succumb to peer pressure. A holy fear
of God is not just a fear of His judgment; but also longing to please Him and
a desire to be like Him.
- Then we can boldly give
testimony
You can’t boldy give testimony if you fear people. You also won’t have the resolve to testify
if you don’t properly fear God.
We have to be ready.
We must know what Christ has done in our lives. Some call that counting your blessings. Others call it being thankful. We have to recall the many, many ways God
has blessed us. Primarily, we have to
remember that He saved us from sin.
We have to make a defense. That doesn’t mean that we are lawyers – it means that we are
witnesses. A witness tells what
he/she knows. It is not what we
accomplished; but what we have seen Him do in our lives.
We tell about our hope.
When people say, “I have no hope,” we say, “I have hope and this is
why.”
If you serve the Lord, you will face accusers. You will face intimidators. You will face prognosticators. You simply have to be an imitator of
Christ. You can’t afford to fear
people. You can’t afford not to fear
the Lord. You must boldly give
testimony.
Karl
J. Forehand, 2002
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