Matthew 10: 16-26

¹⁶ “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. ¹⁷ But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. ¹⁸ You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. ¹⁹ But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; ²⁰ for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

²¹ “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. ²² And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. ²³ When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

²⁴ “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵ It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! ²⁶ Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.”

If you have been following the events of this past week, you may have seen the speech that Vice President Vance gave to the European Union that caused many to stir, and later, he was made fun of. In that speech, the VP made reference to a man being arrested in England for praying 50 meters from an abortion clinic; he was praying because he and his girlfriend had agreed to an abortion in their past, and he was grieved over it. He was arrested and charged.

In another example, he mentioned that in Scotland, one could be charged for praying in your own home. Persons were encouraged to snitch on people that they knew were praying IN THEIR OWN HOMES if it was too close to an abortion clinic. Here in Canada, parts of our Bible have been deemed as hate speech, and one can be arrested for speaking in public.

This kind of control surprises us in North America, but it is coming as we get closer and closer to the return of our Lord Jesus. It would seem that for now, the new administration in the US will slow down the erosion of our freedoms, especially of speech. But many parts of the world are following the EU model and telling their people what they can think, how they can pray, where they can pray, and asking the very people in their homes to tell on them.

In our text, Jesus warns us that a man’s enemies will be the very people in our homes. We saw this in COVID; homes were divided and still are, for the most part. Even in the homes of ‘saved’ people, it was clear to see those who thought for themselves and those who ‘drank the Kool-Aid,’ so to speak. The same will happen again; it will happen in our homes. Someone will call the government on their son, on their daughter, or on their parents because they heard them praying – something that was not allowed. This kind of evil will also happen in our church homes, and the ‘tares’ will spy out the liberties of the saved and cause us to be arrested, killed, and our families threatened. We are called to be wise by our Lord and to be harmless. We will not win our freedoms with violence and war.

It is okay to vote, to speak up, and to stand up, but it is not for us to kill someone for our freedoms. The truth is, we are free in Jesus. We are to expect to be threatened and, yes, even killed for the cause of the Lord. Sadly, the people who will be there to point fingers and maybe even throw the first stone will be the very people we sat at the table with. Wow, sobering.

They will accuse of not living like Jesus; the world’s view of Jesus is that He never stood up to evil, never talked about sin, never spoke about Hell and the like. But nothing could be further from the truth. They are ignorant about the Bible. Then there are others who call the God of the Old Testament an ogre. He promotes slavery, hates women, and is an unloving tyrant. We know this to be lies and falsehoods, but they hate Him. It is amazing how they hate a God they claim does not exist. Please notice that they do not have the same rage against Islam or other religions. It seems that Christianity is the most evil and dangerous ‘religion’ in the world. We know that they are wrong, but they are enraged by the indignation against the God of the Bible.

We should enjoy the reprieve that is here, and hopefully, it will spread to Canada as well. There Is a window of freedom that gives us the opportunity to speak the truth, share the Gospel, tell others what Jesus has done, pray near the abortion clinics, stop the transgendered attacks on our kids, and be louder than the lies. Soon, the tide will turn; the left will be back in power, and the march toward the loss of free speech will begin or continue again.

Don’t waste this opportunity that we have been given; it may not be afforded to us again. Our kids and grandkids need us to step up and show Jesus to the world around us. Show the real Jesus; the one who had opinions about sin and sex, the one who stood up to tyranny and still loved the slave. The one who had to suffer because sin is so egregious to God that He cannot look the other way. We need to talk about the Jesus who will return as a Judge to call out sin, right the wrongs, and eventually judge those who rejected His free gift of salvation.

No one on the left and, sadly, not too many in our churches can picture this Righteous Jesus presiding over and sending people to their eternal doom in Hell. Yes, this is the real Jesus, and we have a short window to talk about Him. Let us be about the Master’s Business.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

Ephesians 4:15, “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—”

Zechariah 8:16, “These are the things you shall do: speak each man the truth to his neighbor; give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace;”

John 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

We celebrated Valentine’s Day just yesterday. For many people, it was a day filled with joy, chocolate, flowers, and dinners. For others, it was a sad day, the first Valentine’s without a loved one. Maybe the one you love has rejected your advances, and that day was a sad reminder. We have a lot of lonely people in our world; some are lonely for their own reasons; others are not able to find anyone to love them. Sadly, in our world today, there is confusion between what love is and what tolerance is. Our world would have us to believe that these are one and the same.

The word tolerance is defined this way in the dictionary: the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. We have learned that, in general, the desire is for us to tolerate the bad behaviors of others and not of us. One of the problems we face is that love has become about everything but the truth. Now, let us be clear: there is a certain degree of tolerance involved in love. We are called to forgive each other numerous times for the same failures, just like God forgives us. We are told that true Godly love covers a multitude of sins; that means a lot of sins. I have heard a good marriage defined as one where the husband and wife each forgive each other a lot.

The Bible tells us that Truth and Love go hand in hand; one will have a hard time when you try to separate the two. Our world is doing that. We are told in John 8:44 that all lies are from the devil. He is the father of all lies. So, if we say a man can be a woman, and vice-versa, we are lying, and that is from the devil. If we tell our children that a man can do what a woman does and vice-versa, that lie is also from the devil. If we tell our kids that love means encouraging evil and that tolerance means that we ignore God’s stated laws about right and wrong, then we are lying, and that is from the devil.

Love requires truth; one cannot speak lies in love. I will say it again: one cannot speak lies in love. The world’s definition of tolerance requires us to do that. It requires us to turn a blind eye to the obvious truth and to promote lies as ‘truth.’ This is hatred. Love requires us to be willing to be hated for it. This is hard; we all want to be liked. But the truth separates; it requires lines to be drawn. I love my wife, so I do not have sexual relations with other women; all else is lies. All else is hatred.

Truth fosters other things in our lives and in our societies; just look at what Zechariah says: truth comes hand in hand with justice and peace. They cannot be separated. The contrast is that lies breed injustice and warring. Herein, then, is the Achilles heel tolerance; the very thing that it desires to bring in cannot be had when that tolerance is built on lies. Jesus is the very standard of truth, and as such, He is intolerant by the world’s standards. But He also requires that we live in justice and peace with each other.

In Micah 6:8, see this admonition: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Because of the doctrine of tolerance even promoted by churches, many Christian women have stayed in physically abusive relationships, and sadly, some have been killed. We have been guilty of promoting tolerance at the expense of love and truth. We used guilt about separation or divorce to coerce these women to stay and ‘tolerate.’ In many cases, we did not even challenge the men to stop their evil ways.

One can see that as we get closer and closer to the return of our Savior Jesus, the lies of the evil one grow more and more audacious, and they are no longer creeping into our churches; they are being proclaimed from the pulpit. Many of the mainline denominations have been infiltrated and flat-out taken over by the LGBTQ2+ communities, and they no longer have any fear or reverence for God at all. It does not take long for the lies to cheat God of His glory. It does not take long for the lies to pervert the Gospel, and a local ‘church’ becomes a highway to Hell and not a gateway to Heaven. We are tolerating people right into Hell.

Jesus’ love requires sacrifice; it requires a standard that is not negotiable, and it requires us to say ‘No’ at times. Love requires us to be perceived as hateful and even mean. Real love is hard and requires us to have a thick skin. True Godly love looks at the long view and is not satisfied with instant gratification. God’s love requires forgiveness, then more forgiveness, then a bit more forgiveness, and finally, more forgiveness.

I pray that your life is filled with God’s truth, that you live in peace and justice with those around you, and that you never allow tolerance to defy the clearly established boundaries of God.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario