THE MOST INCONVENIENT TRUTH
There are many truths one comes across in one’s life that can be labelled inconvenient. It is so much easier for most people to simply remain in wilful ignorance of certain truths, rather than face them head on and adjust their lives accordingly. The ability of the mind to find excuses to keep from facing the truth is quite an extraordinary one. One would be foolish to not swallow some foul tasting medicine simply because of its bad taste, especially in light of the fact that it is a sure cure. How much more foolish would a person be to consciously decide not to face an eternal truth simply because it does not fit one’s beliefs and circumstances in life. Many people, I have found, have no problem with the doctrines of the Gospel of the grace of God. Many so-called reformed folk readily believe and consider themselves staunch defenders of the doctrines of the Gospel, or as they term them ‘Calvinism’. Yet the acid test comes when they are told that no one is saved before they believe the Gospel of God. This includes those very people who claim to believe in the doctrines of grace today, if they believe themselves to have been saved whilst believing in other doctrines or a mixture of truth and lies. People become angry when they are told that the Gospel says that there is no salvation in the good intentions of men but only in belief of the truth. There is no salvation for anyone whilst they believe false doctrines concerning the essentials of salvation. And there is no salvation for those people who knowingly call brethren, those who currently believe a gospel other than the Gospel of God. The most common problem such people have is swallowing, to them, the unpalatable truth that all Arminians are lost, or that even they themselves were lost whilst believing in Arminian doctrine. These same people have no problem calling a Mormon lost, or a Jehovah’s Witness lost, based on the doctrines they believe. It matters not to them that some of the doctrines these cultists believe are true, for the error they hold to nullifies the essential doctrines that deal with the work of Christ. Yet, when you tell these people that they themselves are even now in a lost state because they are convinced that while they believed in the Arminian Christ-denying doctrines they were nonetheless saved, you are treated with contempt and a closed mind. To believe the truth, that no one is saved before they believe the Gospel and that one has to repent of ever having believed that any other gospel could save, is the most inconvenient truth for them because they know that if they faced this truth and believed it, they would have to turn from most ‘fellow believers’ in their lives and perhaps even family members. It would cause a huge disruption to their lives. Indeed, it would turn their world upside down. This inconvenience would pale into insignificance when one ultimately stood before a Holy God knowing that for one brief moment in time, one gladly embraced a temporary inconvenience on earth and will now not have the eternal inconvenience of having hell wrap its fiery wings around them. To marry is to forsake all others. To believe God is to forsake all other gods. To believe the Gospel is to forsake all other gospels! To believe the Gospel is to repent of all other gospels: to repent of ever having believed that one was saved, or could be saved, by believing in a set of doctrines the Bible calls another gospel. I was saved, not when I believed in lies, not when I believed in a mixture of lies and truths, and certainly not when I believed others were saved despite the gospel they believed. I was saved when the Living God gave me His faith to believe His Gospel exclusively, at which time I was made to see that before that great day, I was not at all saved. Even though much of what I believed was truth, it was not the whole truth, for the lies I had unknowingly accepted nullified grace, which is what every false gospel does. Before saving faith, man believes in anything but the Gospel of God. After that faith comes, a man does not, cannot, and will not, believe in any other gospel but God’s Holy Gospel. This is the Gospel that saves. This is the Gospel that is God’s ONLY power unto salvation. You can believe in any other gospel, you can believe in any other god, but none of them will save or can save. Just as a false god is not the true God, so too, a false gospel can never be the true Gospel, and therefore can never save anyone. Therefore, to say that a man is saved whilst he believes a false gospel is an utter nonsense and a blasphemy against God. To believe the truth is not an inconvenience, it is a blessing from God. And to forsake relationships, friendships and even family for the sake of God is no inconvenience to the elect person. It is no great stumbling block for a man to marry the woman he loves, nor is it a great stumbling block for a woman to marry the man she loves. And so it is with the elect person and God. It is no great stumbling block for the elect person to believe the Gospel and forsake all others, for the elect person is in love with God. People of this world have gladly forsaken family and friends to pursue the one they loved and eventually married. What effort is it for the elect person to gladly forsake friends, even family, to gain God. What possible inconvenience is it to gain God and lose friends, family etc.? Whilst this is a great inconvenience to the unsaved, it is no inconvenience to the elect but rather a natural part of believing the one true Gospel and cleaving to the one true God.
I was walking through a shopping centre recently and happened to notice a ring with the Germanic eagle atop the Nazi Swastika. Curious, I asked the lady running the stall if she ever receives any complaints for having such offensive, evil symbols in ring form on display, especially from Jews. She replied that she did not. She said that she knew some of the rings she had for sale had shady overtones so I pointed out a few for her and told her of their meaning. We had a fairly interesting discussion, which she concluded by saying, ‘They’re just jewellery to me. I get sent the rings and put them on sale. Different things have different meanings to different people.’ This is the world’s mind set isn’t it? It’s not the inherent, undeniable facts about a thing that people are interested in. It’s not the historical origins of certain beliefs or symbols that is important, but what it means to you. I wonder if this woman, and so many like her, would take the same approach to the following scenario. Imagine a table laden with food, and before eating you were told that some of the food was poisoned and some was not. Would your attitude be, ‘Well, its just food to me.’ Or, ‘Someone has obviously gone to great work preparing it all and I’m here to eat it, after all I’m hungry.’ Or, ‘For some people some of the food is poisoned, but to others it isn’t. It’s how you want to take the warning.’ Ludicrous isn’t it. If some of the food is poisoned and there is no way to tell the difference without extensive laboratory testing, I’M NOT EATING ANY OF IT!! I don’t care how hungry I am!! The Word of God warns that there shall be false Christs and false prophets preaching and promoting those false Christs through their false gospels. To believe a gospel ‘because it is truth to you’ is stupid and downright dangerous. To believe a gospel just because it is a set of doctrines preached by a man with a turned around collar, or by a religious denomination that has hundreds of years of history behind it and is respected the world over, is more than dangerous, it is spiritual suicide. Only when tested against God’s Word can a gospel be seen for what it is. A Mormon, Arminian, or Seventh-Day Adventist, clearly believes his gospel because he believes it to be true. But simply because he sincerely believes his gospel to be true, does not make it true. The truth is what God says it is. The true Gospel is what God says it is, not what you believe it to be. Truth is not some subjective thing. It is not open to opinion, or debate about what you believe it is. Truth is God’s property, and if what you believe, however sincerely, is not truth, is not what God has said, then you are not a believer in truth but in a perverted image of what the real truth is.