A Reliable Guide – Paul Chappell
Amen, Amen, Amen! This morning’s devotional is right on target with what is happening all around us – churches filled with people who do not want to hear the truth led by men who do not love their flock enough to speak the truth from God’s Word. I thank GOD for a pastor who loves us enough to give us the truth…even when it hurts!
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From “Daily in the Word” by Paul Chappell:
Saturday, Sep 26, 2015
“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.”
Ephesians 5:8–10
In Paul’s final letter to his protégé Timothy, he warned that one of the characteristics of a culture’s decline would be when people’s great priority would be finding someone to tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. He wrote, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3). Truly we are living in that day. There are large churches and national ministries that are based solely on making people feel good rather than proclaiming the need for obedience and repentance.
Yet the truth is still the truth. The truth is not to be found in our hearts, for they have been corrupted by sin. The truth is not found by following our consciences, for they can be seared and hardened. The only sure and reliable guide to the truth is found in the Bible, as applied to our situation by the indwelling Holy Spirit. He will never lead us in a way that contradicts the Scriptures. The seventeenth century Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks said, “The Spirit never loosens where the Word binds; the Spirit never justifies where the Word condemns; the Spirit never approves where the Word disapproves; the Spirit never blesses where the Word curses.”
God expects us to be wise and discerning in choosing to whom we will listen. A steady diet of false doctrine is going to impact even the strongest faith. Instead, we need to be listening to and heeding those who tell us the truth in Holy Spirit power, even when we may not want to hear it.