So, Christians seek for truth to be known. Truth is what sets people free from sin. Jesus is Truth (John 14:6). Truth allows people’s lives to be abundant (John 10:10) and fruitful (Rom. 6:22). Truth separates the religion of Christ from all impostors (2 Tim. 4:2-5). People will want to hear what they want to hear, that passage essentially teaches, but the true evangelist is supposed to stick faithfully to the word of God, preaching the whole counsel of God (compare Acts 20:27).
In a culture that was supposed to be godly, but had become overrun with wickedness, Ezekiel stood out as a specially called prophet of God. He had all kinds of messages—from object lessons to prosaic preaching to passionate poetry—to pass on to the people for warning. The populace was in error. The truth was that they needed to change. Early in the book the image given to Ezekiel was that God’s word was like a scroll, he was to eat it, and it would be sweet in his mouth like honey (Ezek. 3:1-3).
Some nearly six-hundred years later, the book of Revelation, with similar apocalyptic imagery, picked up on that picture. In chapter 10, John is told to eat a little book that was in the hand of an angel. It would be sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach (Rev. 10:8-11).
Why would the word of God, the truth, ever be bitter? John, as Ezekiel had, would have to “prophesy…about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings” (Rev. 10:11) and those messages would not always be so pleasant. They would often be messages of the judgment of God coming upon people for their sinfulness.
No preacher of sanity is giddy and gleeful in preaching that sometimes judgment must come. It would be a sick human being who enjoyed the thought of God’s wrath coming upon fellow human beings. Any preacher of reasonable love would not enjoy the warnings, but know of the responsibility before God to make them (cf. Acts 20:27). The word of God is a beautiful, sweet entity (compare Psalm 19:7-11), but sometimes it hurts to preach it.
Then, sometimes it hurts because people are so antagonistic towards the message. The prophets throughout Israel’s history suffered all kinds of mistreatment. Stephen rhetorically asked an angry crowd, “which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?” (Acts 7:52). Even families will be divided because some people reject the saving message (Luke 12:51-53).
Gut-wrenching emotions accompany teaching the gospel. Why, then, would people bother? Two reasons: Because it is right and because it wins.
There will be a judgment day in which all will be judged by the truth, the standard of God’s word (John 12:48; 17:17; 2 Cor. 5:10). This standard comes not from any man, but from deity, superseding all human thought. In that judgment day, there won’t be any secrets, but all things that people tried to hide from God will be made known (Rom. 2:16; Mark 4:22). Jesus will judge (John 5:22); the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) will conquer as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16).
The common postmodern lie is that everybody’s own personal truth is equally as valid as the next person’s. That may be so for opinions of no consequence (i.e. whose football team is preferred), but regarding morals, religion, ethics, it is simply not true. Truth conquers in the end. In the meantime, those who accept it are made free from the clutches of the deceit of sin.
Those who preach truth preach it because they love God and love people, not for ease or popularity. Truth quite often hurts, but, in the end, it wins.
Andy Robison
Andy (my father) is currently the Director of the West Virginia School of Preaching and the minister for the Hillview Terrace Church of Christ in Moundsville, WV.