Do you like to row your boat upstream against the current? Why waste your energy, your very life, in going against the majority?
Probably this very day you will be confronted with some kind of controversy that tests your loyalty to Christ. In politics or in the marketplace, it is often comparatively easy to stand alone for the right; but the most difficult place to stand for Jesus can be in His church. That's where the conflict of the ages has been fought.
Would you have entered Noah's ark when everyone was ridiculing him? When almost all of Israel made a golden calf and indulged in sexual orgies, would you have responded alone to Moses' challenge: "Who is on the Lord's side?" (Ex. 32:24-26). When later the same crisis erupted and they "committed whoredom with the daughters of Moab," would you have joined Phinehas who alone "stayed" the plague that would have wiped out Israel (Num. 25:1-8)? Would you have joined Elijah on Mt. Carmel when he was outnumbered (within the church, remember) 450 to one by the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:21, 22)? You may say, "That issue was so clear-cut, yes I would have stood with Elijah!" But remember, Baal-worship was an exceedingly clever counterfeit, and the leadership of Israel were on Baal's side, thinking Baal was their true "Lord." Would you have joined with Jeremiah when he was dumped in that deep mud-hole by the government leaders of the true church of that day--the kingdom of Judah (Jer. 38:5, 6)? Would you have dared to stand alone with the Prisoner that Friday morning when the entire Sanhedrim voted, "crucify Him"? Would you have bravely told Caiaphas, "If you crucify Him, you crucify me too!"?
Only the indwelling Christ can save us from fanaticism on the one hand and cowardice on the other.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 25, 2002.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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