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Big Trouble Ahead
When King Ahab met the prophet Elijah on
one occasion (1Kings 18:17) he said, “Look,
it’s the trouble maker of Israel. But the real
trouble maker was the man who had married
a foreign wife that worshipped idols and
persecuted the prophets of God. Ahab had
everything backwards when it came to
assigning blame. There was another prophet who lived at a time when authorities wrongfully assigned blame, and he was eventually killed for “stirring up trouble.” It was Jesus who was put to death by the leaders of Israel and the Roman governor. But when Jesus was alive, He didn’t let the threat of death stop Him from speaking the truth to people who needed to hear it.
Before Jesus was arrested by the High Priest in Jerusalem, He had been teaching publicly in the temple. When Jesus was on trial (if it could rightly be called a trial), He never backed down from what He had been teaching. But the actual trouble was not caused by the Son of God. It was brought on by religious leaders who were jealous of Jesus and they didn’t want Him to become so popular that they lost their place.
It we stir the pot, in the church or the community, it better be with the same purpose and love that Jesus had. Let’s stand for the truth and not back down from what the Bible teaches. If someone gets a burr under their saddle because of the truth that we have spoken, they may well make trouble, but it won’t be because of our failure, but of those who fail to listen to the word of God! DG
