I’m angry. More than that, I’m deeply grieved. Why? I am sick of the sin that is taking place in the name of God in the virtual reality world of the “blogosphere.” The whole thing reminds me of a fight on a kindergarten playground. In the name of contending for the truth, Christians are literally biting and devouring one another in a most ungodly fashion. Blogs are started to point out error, prompting others to start blogs to point out the error in the original blogs. Standing for the truth has turned into something that is closer to a WWE wrestling match. Christians are literally spending hours and hours a day in front of their computer screens, trading pot shots and taunts. In all this, God has been forgotten, and the wonderful, life-giving and joy-bringing message of the Gospel, which truly is worth defending, has been lost in the fray.
Brothers and sisters, I firmly believe that God is not pleased with the great majority of what is published on blogs in his name. Why? Because there is no humility in the writing, and very little sense of our own frailty and susceptibility to sin (Isaiah 66:1-2). There is no sense of grief at sin; rather, there is an ungodly glibness, almost a joy, in pointing out the error of others. Everyone wants to be a prophet, they just don’t want to know God. Everyone wants to be a Paul Washer, they just don’t want to spend hours and hours studying God’s Word, seeking God’s face in prayer, and growing in conformity to Him like Paul Washer does. It sure is fun to make the air crackle with sharp words against sin, but no one wants to face the sin in their own heart. Everyone wants to be a prophet, they just don’t want to waste time getting to know God. After all, condemning sin and defending the truth is so much more fun.
What is the result of this? We have a bunch of hobby prophets. The prophets of the Old Testament were men of God who could hear his voice. They would often weep at the heaviness of their task, but it was God-given, and they could not help but speak (Jeremiah 23:9-10). Yes, the burden of speaking against sin is heavy. Is it heavy to you? Or is it fun. The old prophets were grieved at the sin of their hearers and the hardness of their hearts and literally wept over their blindness and the judgement that was coming. When is the last time you wept over the sin and rebellion of someone you were writing about? I dare say, for many of us, we never have.
Most grievous of all, God has been forsaken in favor of defending his Word. In our zeal to defend the truth, we have forgotten the One we should be loving above all else. We honor him with our writing, but I fear to often our hearts are far from him. How do I know this? While I cannot see hearts, I can see the fruit (out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks), and it does not look like godliness.
God does not need our blogs. How stupid we are if we think our blogs are essential to the life of the Church and God’s eternal purpose. God does not need us at all, but he does desire our love and devotion. Do you love him? Do you want to know him? Does thinking about God make you happy and joyful? Or do you get more fulfillment from wielding the plastic sword of your keyboard?
If you are reading this post and thinking of someone else who needs to repent, you are both missing and confirming my point. My point is, look at your own heart. Examine yourself.
If you are a blogger who truly does love the Lord and desire to please Him, I would strongly encourage you to step back and examine your heart. Shut off your computer and get on your knees. Spend the time you would devote to blogging to following hard after God. Then, get out and minister to real flesh and blood people. Be Christ to someone who is hurting or in need. I fear that if something doesn’t change, we will simply descend into further bickering and backbiting, which will eventually lead to complete uselessness and irrelevance to God’s kingdom. I close with the Lord’s words in Revelation 2:
The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had [for Me] at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand [witness] from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
13 Comments
August 25, 2008 at 2:17 am
Amen, Sam! Our enemy would like nothing better than for us to devour one another and do it all in the name of Jesus. None of us is righteous in our own right. We are fast forgetting that we are to love one another. The Holy Spirit is quit capable of doing His job perfectly. By the way, I’m guilty, too.
August 25, 2008 at 5:33 am
Sam, thank you for this post. It spoke very much to me on a personal level.
August 25, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Thank you for the reminder…If we have not love…!
August 26, 2008 at 2:22 am
Thank you for this post. Recently unemployed – and therefore with time on my hands -I’m a newcomer to the Christian blogosphere. I have been blessed, challenged, chastened, and edified by the majority of what I have found. Through these blogs and referenced websites, I’ve been introduced to men of God like Paul Washer and Charles Leiter – and have been thrilled beyond measure to discover sites like sermonaudio where I’ve heard giants of the faith like Leonard Ravenhill. God has truly blessed me abundantly through much of what I’ve discovered. I have also been greatly encouraged by much of what I’ve read, as I’ve learned I’m not alone in my passion to see the glory of Christ revealed in His church – and my broken heart over my own sin and the ever-deepening apostasy I see around me.
All that being said – I have also been somewhat disheartened by the in-fighting you reference in your post. There’s a streak of mean-spiritedness that seems to run through some of these blogs – an eagerness to pounce on the perceived errors and sins of others.
It’s a thin line to walk, granted – endeavoring to hold to the Truth and shine the Light of God’s Word on error – without falling off on the side of condemnation and self-righteousness. We are commanded to be discerning – but we must, must do so with the purest of motives.
Again, thank you for putting words to my feelings. God bless and continue to use you – for His sake.
August 26, 2008 at 4:43 am
Thanks for posting this. I haven’t been posting many blogs lately, but I do need to minister to real flesh and blood people more.
August 26, 2008 at 8:03 am
Great post Sam. Powerful and a great reminder.
August 26, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Sam,
this peice is so needed today. I agree with everything that you said. So many times as christians we speak the truth, but we forget the love of Christ. Yes we must stand and contend for our faith, however we must make sure that all that we do is to point others to Jesus Christ. Thank you for speaking the truth in love. I want to make sure that i am not acting like this. When people see me I want them to see Jesus Christ. It is my sincere prayer that as i stand on God’s truth that i don’t trample on others in the process. Thank you Sam for saying what needed to be said. You said it with kindess and with true Godly love. We all need the Lord, and without Him we all would be wretches undone. Thank you my brother, and may God help all of us deal with the speck in our own eye so that we can lovingly show the truth and help others who God brings into our lives .
August 29, 2008 at 6:49 am
Amen, a good and timely word.
September 7, 2008 at 1:39 am
[...] written by Samuel Guzman. I happened to visit this morning and I happened to come across this post: Lay Down Your Arms, Get on Your Knees. In the short post, he writes: Brothers and sisters, I firmly believe that God is not pleased with [...]
September 7, 2008 at 9:52 am
Hi,
Thanks for this post! I’ve been echoing some of your sentiments on my blog as well….
Phil
September 8, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thank you. I’ve been struggling as we decided to leave our church due to the emergent creeping in. Blogs and web sites have helped me when they’ve been just information and not negatively attacking others. I also am refreshed when God’s word is shared on the blogs. I have to admit a tendency to begin a long rant on my own blog, and I have to work on rumor control with myself. The feeling that we should sharetruth to educate others makes rumors seem righteous to the Christian like me, weak and frustrated. I have been working on focusing on Christ and the word of God and not on the error in my old church. Your entry here hits me right where it should.
September 26, 2008 at 1:42 am
Amen, brother! What you say is very true. It’s like people have gotten caught up in some how feeling “better” than others. Like that’s what Salvation through Jesus Christ is about — being better than the lost, misguided world. We are no better, we have only received GOD’s grace — that’s all that separates us from the unrepentant sinners. GOD ALMIGHTY may save the folks we mock today and insult with our words tomorrow. Wouldn’t we be ashamed then? Let Jesus be the judge, and stop being self-righteous. We are supposed to be pointing the unsaved towards the Gospel TRUTH. Not gathering crowds to throw stones at people.
Anyway, the Holy Spirit moved me to write a similar post weeks ago: http://lavrai.com/blogs/2008/09/02/nasty-names-christians-call-the-unrepentant-and-each-other/
Peace.
November 10, 2008 at 4:15 am
That was a worthwhile read.