Diligently Seeking God
Be Careful Where You Choose To Stand
BE CAREFUL WHERE YOU CHOOSE TO STAND
In Luke 19 we see Jesus entering Jerusalem. He’s gone there to die. When He comes to the temple He drives out the buyers and sellers and then begins teaching there daily. This is the chief priests and religious authorities’ turf, and Jesus is disrupting things and they don’t like it. And so they’re looking for something to hold against Him that they might kill Him. In an effort to trap Him, they challenge Him. (Lk 20:2) “Tell us, by what authority are You doing these things? Or who is he who gave You this authority?” Jesus refuses to answer their questions unless they first answer His. (vs 4) “ The baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men?”
At this point the chief priests and religious authorities play politics. Remember the people are standing around watching this situation unfold. (vs 5&6) And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why [a]then did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” These Jewish leaders are in trouble no matter how they answer the questions. They’re not interested in the truth. They’re interested in what makes them look good. So, they choose not to stand on the truth, but on a lie. (vs 7) “We don’t know”.
They have put themselves in a position of not being worthy of receiving an answer from Jesus and so Jesus refuses to do so. Truth isn’t political. The answers don’t change. Our reasoning of applying the truth cannot be compromised by the situation we are in or by the way we want to live our lives. For example, we can say, “All I need to do to be saved is believe”(forget about all the verses that deal with the need to repent, confess, and wash away our sins in baptism). We can choose to pull out just the truths we want to run with, while ignoring the rest, and so live our lives as we want to and still feel good about it. In John 12:48 Jesus says, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” We must stand on all the truth, as that is what we will be judged by.
There is a day coming when the Lord will tell us what His truth says and then judge us accordingly.
Do we stand on the truth, all the truth?
