Speaking the Truth in Love

Jesus warned us to watch out for false prophets who will produce false disciples (Matthew 7:15-23). The Apostle Paul writes about the terrible times in the last days where people will be lovers of self, money, and pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-5). This warning follows his instructions about the dangers of false teachers (2 Timothy 2:14-26). It is reasonable to conclude that the vices prevalent in the church in last days are caused by people listening to wrong voices. The Bible teaches that we need to experience godly sorrow leading to repentance. Our modern attempts to entice people to live God’s way so they will reach their full potential instead of warning them of the judgment sin brings shows that we are afraid they will reject our message. Falling short of the glory of God is not the same as falling short of our potential. We are omitting the real and eternal consequence of sin which is death. We are not teaching why sin is so sinful. We have sinned against our holy God. To know His holiness makes sin utterly sinful. Missing out on the best life has to offer is certainly enticing and may elicit more responses; but are those responses true repentance? The idea of missing out on some opportunity fits more into the temptation in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5). What if a person is fine with less than God’s best? Are we inadvertently leading them to believe they can determine what sins are acceptable and which they find destructive? More problematically, we do very little warning of God’s judgment upon the unrepentant. The terrible times when the church possesses traits akin to the culture are upon us because we are inundated with false teachers. We have abandoned sound biblical preaching for so long that we do not tolerate the corrections and warnings of Scripture. We prefer a Christianity that appeals to our fleshly senses rather than the sound teachings designed to correct, rebuke, warn, and encourage us. We are tossed by every wind of teaching and the cunning craftiness of deceitful people. The biblical response to this deception is to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). It must be truth from the Bible and spoken with the love of Jesus so that people will repent and be saved. It seemed, almost overnight, the waves of the culture came crashing over the hull of our ship. But it really was not that spontaneous. This has been our course for a generation or more. The church in America needs to navigate these waves by the truth of God’s Word or we will continue to be tossed about by the deceitful schemes coming from the culture. We cannot just set our sails to these winds hoping we can ride them out. We are off course and drifting. We have to navigate back to the Lord’s way. To be honest, our ship has been taking in water for a while now. Christianity in America has been slowly sinking for nearly a half century. As a pastor, I can say this has been a topic that has sparked the church growth movement which actually may be another wave crashing over our hull as our decline over the last twenty to thirty years has increased more rapidly. This book is a reminder of the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:11-16. We need to be built up, united in faith and mature in the fullness of Christ so that we are not infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. This is accomplished by speaking the truth in love. We are struggling in the 21st century because we are listening to the wrong voices. Rather than speaking God’s message (the truth in love) we are adapting our message and ministry from cultural pressures (deceitful schemes). Rather than calling the world to repentance and faith in Christ we are conforming to the pattern of this world by speaking culturally themed messages and adopting culturally accepted practices.