MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
June 21, 2023
God’s Saving Enmity
Part 24
REPROACH IS PART OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP AND THE CHRISTIAN’S LEGACY
“Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for My sake.” Matt. 5:11As someone aptly said, “If a man deceive me once, shame on him; If twice, shame on me.”
Deception is deployed through numerous ways, including but not limited to, false accusation, evil-speaking, character-assassination, blackening motives, derision, misrepresentation, malicious imputations and imprecations, innuendo, sly suggestions, mocking, reproaching, slandering, reviling, or in today’s social media lingo, “shading,” “gaslighting,” etc.
Mount of Blessing, page 53:
“Ever since his fall, Satan has worked by means of deception. As he has misrepresented God, so, through his agents, he misrepresents the children of God [particularly His chosen messengers declaring unpopular yet present, testing truths of the everlasting gospel for earth’s final generation before its probation closes].
The Savior says, ‘The reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon Me.” Ps. 69:9.
“There was never one who walked among men MORE CRUELLY SLANDERED than the Son of man [Jesus Christ the Creator incarnate]. He was derided and mocked [by the chosen nation and people, His very own] because of His UNSWERVING OBEDIENCE to the PRINCIPLES of God’s holy law. ‘They hated Him without a cause’ [John 15:25, 20-24]. Yet He stood CALMLY before His enemies, declaring that reproach is a part of the authentic, genuine] Christian’s legacy, counseling His followers HOW to meet the ARROWS of malice, bidding them not to faint under persecution!” Why?
“While slander may BLACKEN reputation it cannot STAIN the character. THAT IS IN GOD’S KEEPING. So long we do not CONSENT TO SIN, there is no power, whether human or Satanic [or a deadly combination of both in desperate confederacy] that can bring STAIN [of sin and its corrupting nature] upon the soul [the living, rational person].
“A man whose heart is stayed upon God is just the SAME in the hour of his most afflicting trials and most discouraging surroundings AS WHEN he was in prosperity when the light and favor of God SEEMED to be upon him. His WORDS, his MOTIVES, his ACTIONS may be misrepresented and falsified, BUT HE DOES NOT MIND IT, because he has GREATER interests at stake. Like Moses, ‘he endured as seeing Him who is invisible’ (Heb. 11:27); looking ‘not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen’ [another application of “walking by faith not by sight.’].” E G. White, Mount of Blessing, pp. 53-4, Pacific Press Publishing Asso., 1943 (All emphasis and bracketed words supplied).
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.