Hard to Hear – Good to Know
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. James 5:19-20
Bad news can be hard to hear but good to know.
Consider Paul in Acts 23. He is imprisoned by the Romans while forty Jewish leaders make an oath not to eat or drink until they have succeeded in killing him. They make a plan for accomplishing their goal and the Lord revealed the plan to Paul’s nephew who reported it to Paul.
Paul sent this nephew to the leader of the Roman soldiers to report the plot. This man had Paul moved while guarded by 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, and 200 spearmen (Acts 23:23). That was some serious protection against 40 men!
Paul got the truth so he dealt with the truth. It saved his life.
Many today would rather hide from truth figuring it is easier not to have to deal with it, confront it, or change it. What they don’t know… they’d rather not know.
John 8:31-32 says, “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Knowing the truth sets us free. Pretending a problem doesn’t exist will not improve matters, in fact, not acting when we know something needs to be done, usually makes matters worse. We may be prolonging our own misery because we are putting off the difficult conversation, the one we know we have to have.
Many of us put these conversations off because we’re afraid of the fight or other negative response. We want peace and comfort now over the long term benefit of the confrontation. We make ourselves busy, we eat, we talk to everyone but the one who needs to hear it – and after the weight gain, the exhaustion, and friends avoiding the conversation with us, the problem is still unresolved. Sometimes, even worse.
Matthew 18 advises us to go to the one we have something against, one on one and see if we can work it out. If the person refuses to hear us, we may take one or two people with us the second time so the charge can be established by witnesses…or dismissed by witnesses in some cases. If they still refuse to listen we may take them before the church and if they refuse to listen to the church we are to treat them as “a Gentile and a tax collector.”
For some reason we like to avoid the hard issues of life. Things like a child you think is involved with drugs or alcohol or having sex before marriage, or a husband with a pornography addiction. Things like a friend flirting with the temptation of adultery, a serious spending problem, or considering an abortion to ease the guilt of a difficult situation. All of these are better dealt with immediately rather than waiting until the problem has become bigger and more dangerous or detrimental.
“Who am I to judge?” is not the proper response! If God has revealed the problem He has entrusted a truth to us to act on, not to sit on, talk about, or avoid.
Bad news may be hard to hear – but it good to know so it doesn’t get worse.