God's Word Doesn't Flinch

Why We Mustn't Be Embarrassed of What God Says

Christians have spent much time flinching before the scoffers of western culture in recent years. One reason for this is that they had already spent much time flinching at the Bible themselves.

Rather than owning and declaring the wisdom of God before the scoffing world, they have too often shrunk back in the kind of cowardice which disguises itself as “cautiousness” or “winsomeness” or even “kindness”. Ultimately, they feel the need to apologise on God’s behalf.

Many in the 21st century Church have never quite forgiven God for passages like this one, for example:

“Then Samuel said, ‘Bring here to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.’ And Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, 'Surely the bitterness of death is past.' And Samuel said, 'As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.' And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.” (1Sam. 15:32-33)

I suspect many Christians today would prefer the company of “cheerful” Agag to the less-than-hospitable Samuel.

But one of these men was a deceitful enemy of God; and the other was a faithful servant of God.

Such passages embarrass them in front of their more sophisticated friends - the ones who quite like “cultural Christianity” but despise what they call “fanatical Christianity”. Increasingly, people who are called “fanatical” or “radical” Christians are just those who actually believe Christian beliefs, rather than those who pay lip service to the nice bits, the bits that agree with them.

Such people really wish, at the very least, that the author had not said “hacked...to pieces”. But he did. Did he really have to say it like that? Yes he did. And amen that he did. Because God is good. And God is just. And God is faithful to what He says.

There may be much more to say about passages like this—the way they speak of the blessings and/or curses that result from obedience and/or disobedience; the necessity of God’s judgement; the possibility of holy violence; and the pointing forward to the holiest violence of all on the cross in which God Himself entered into His own justice in what was simultaneously the greatest act of love in human history.

But we never get to such riches if we spend our time flinching at the apparent brutality of the event, or the brutality of how something is expressed. Whilst the progressive tone police cause much harm today (often seemingly willing to hack the designated “perpetrators” to pieces [figuratively speaking!]), it’s nonetheless true that tone really does matter. We ought to express things how they ought to be expressed. The Bible does not flinch. Nor should we.

We miss out on much that needs to be heard because we’re embarrassed by what God really is saying, by what God really does command and commend, even if it does not suit our delicate tastebuds. As Calvin said:

“If people find prophetic doctrine tasteless, they should be thought of as lacking in tastebuds.”

If you find it easier to offend God than to offend people on God's behalf, then it's quite possible that something other than God has become your god.

God is good. He is good not some of the time, but all of the time. Correspondingly, His Word is good not some of the time, for some people, at some times. His Word is good all the time. He doesn’t regret a single word.

We must stop being embarrassed by it. We must keep flying the flag of Christ, not foolishly, but nonetheless shamelessly. The people who are unexpectedly coming to Christ in these strange times today often do so from a yearning for the kind of convictions and foundations that have been eroded away in the “progressive” ravages of modern secularism.

Such people will be neither helped nor impressed by the frankly embarrassing compromises of the modern Church which so desperately seeks to accommodate the new progressive dogmas rather than challenge them with a robust proclamation of the goodness of the kingdom of God.

If you find God’s Word difficult to stomach, pray for a new stomach. You’re certainly going to need it. Pray that you may be freed from the conventions of our time that make you wince at God’s Word. Pray that you may indeed taste and see that the Lord is good. Pray that His Word (all of it) is like honey on our lips, whatever the neighbours say.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

—Psalm 34:8