The Trouble With the Truth - Acts 17:1-15
Pastor Dennis Bone
6/28/09
THE TROUBLE WITH THE TRUTH 6-28-09
A twelve year old boy was an important witness in a lawsuit. One of the lawyers, who was cross-examining him, said to him, “Your father has been telling you how to testify, hasn’t he?” “Yes,” said the boy. “Now just tell us how your father told you to testify,” the lawyer asked him. “Well,” replied the boy, “My father told me that the lawyers would try to tangle me up in my testimony; but if I would just tell the truth, I could tell the same thing every time.” You see, the trouble with the truth is that not everyone wants to hear it. Many people would rather hear their version of the “truth” and if they the truth doesn’t fit for them, they will often seek to discredit the person who is speaking it.
This is especially true when it comes to the truth of Christ and the message of the gospel. Jesus said, “I am the truth” but those who didn’t like this truth sought to discredit Him and His message. Jesus told us that the truth would set us free – specifically the truth about Him and His teaching – and that He came into the world to testify to this truth, and that everyone on the side of truth will listen to Him. You see, again the trouble with truth is that it’s absolute, and so what Jesus says about Himself is true, whether or not you or anybody else wants to believe it. Jesus came to proclaim truth, not negotiate it. The world wants us to believe that you can “find” spiritual truth in a lot of different ways, yet Jesus says that there is only one way to spiritual truth and it’s through Him. Thus this can often cause trouble for those of us who proclaim Christ as the only way to truth and share this truth with other people.
Jesus Himself was often in trouble with people for His message of truth, and He passed the truth of the gospel on to His apostles and first disciples and called them – even as He now calls us – to believe His truth and tell other people the truth. Like the example of the young boy testifying, we know the truth and we tell it the same way every time – we should love to tell the story, and not be ashamed of it – even when others would prefer not to hear it, or would rather hear something else that makes them feel better or that can justify their personal beliefs and positions.
Over the past few weeks we have been studying passages from Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. This morning I want to go back to Paul’s first visit to Thessalonica in Acts chapter 17 and look at some of the trouble he encountered as a result of sharing God’s truth about Jesus Christ.
You might say that Paul and the leaders of the first century church were viewed by many as global trouble-makers. In fact as Paul and his team get to Thessalonica and begin to proclaim and teach the people the truth of Christ’s gospel, we hear these words in verse 6 – “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here.” What kind of trouble were they causing? They were causing a radical social and religious upheaval simply because they were sharing the truth of God’s message. The truth often makes people nervous and agitated and threatened, especially when it calls for change. The truth of the gospel calls for change, thus it brings conflict – first, inward personal conflict for the person faced with this truth – and second, outward conflict by those who oppose this truth and want to silence it rather than submit to it. And as we know we see this two-fold conflict throughout the book of Acts, and it continues today everywhere and every time the truth of the gospel is proclaimed.
As we look at Acts 17 this morning we will see how the truth of God’s message will transcend and overcome the trouble that it brings. Jesus said, “In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” And because Jesus has overcome, His truth through the gospel will overcome as well. So please follow along as we consider Acts 17 – verses 1- 15: When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the market place, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
What people are most familiar with in this passage is the Bereans, who have become a model as to how we should receive God’s truth, but we see this in the midst of trouble for Paul. God’s Word often brings success in the midst of trouble, for God’s message of salvation is not thwarted by trouble or opposition but is very often spread in it and received through it. We learn three important things about God’s message of truth in this passage. The first one is the strategic spread of God’s message. From the beginning God had a strategy for how the good news of Christ’s salvation would spread. It started in Jerusalem and spread throughout the world. The book of Acts tells us about how the gospel spread throughout the entire world of that time, and as we read in verse 6, it was causing a lot of trouble as well as a lot of conversions. We learn from the conversion of Paul that his calling and mission was to proclaim truth – God’s truth – and this is what we see in the book of Acts.
Throughout the book we see Paul take the truth of the gospel to key cities. His missionary strategy wasn’t arbitrary, and neither was it forced upon him by persecution or opposition. There was a strategic plan to go to the places he went, and do the things that he did when he got there. He chose, and was led by the Spirit, to key cities so that as the gospel had an impact on the lives of people, it would become a base of operation for the rapid spread of the gospel. You will also notice that Paul takes the truth of the gospel to the synagogue first. We read that this was his custom, to first go to synagogue upon arriving in the city – we see this in verse 2, and again in verse 10. Why? We know that the gospel was to go to the Jew first then to the Gentiles; but this is after Paul had made the determination in chapter 13 to go to the Gentiles.
One reason that Paul continued to go to the synagogue was because of what he says in Romans 10:1 – “My hearts desire and prayer to God is for the Israelites to be saved.” At this point most of the conversions were coming from the Gentiles, but Paul never gave up on his own people. In terms of trouble, I’ve already mentioned the socio-political impact of the spread of the gospel upon the region. The argument is made in verse 7 that “They are defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” The authorities were threatened because a citizen’s highest allegiance was to be to Caesar or to the government, which is why even today in places Christianity is forbidden or restricted. Although Paul was talking about a spiritual king and kingdom, the message was construed to be in competition with Rome. But it was the Jews who made this false allegation and they were the ones who got the mob together to start the riot in the city – verse 5 – thus again in this case, as throughout the book of Acts, we see the opposition and persecution as a result of the spread of the gospel.
It wasn’t just one city or one place, but everywhere the truth of the gospel went trouble was not far behind. Even in Berea, where there seemed to be a positive response, we read in verse 13 that some of the Jews from Thessalonica came over – and this wasn’t a quick 30 minute drive; it was about 50 miles away – in order to stir up the people to dissent and opposition. What we should learn from this passage is that no matter how strategic the spread of God’s message or how well it’s received, the truth always brings with it forms of conflict and opposition. As Christians we need to spread the truth of God’s Word and stand firm in its truth, but always be prepared for trouble.
The second important point we see in this passage is the Scriptural content of God’s message. Paul didn’t change his message as he traveled, nor did he accommodate it or adjust it to his hearers so as to get better results.
He went into the synagogues and into the streets and into homes with the same conversation around the person of truth – the person of Jesus Christ. As we see in verses 2 and 3, Paul went to the Scriptures to reason and prove the truth about Jesus as the Christ. Thus the central focus of the message is Christ as Savior – the crucified and risen Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. As Paul says in I Corinthians 15 – “This is of first importance . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; he was buried and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures.” This is the message that has saving power; this is the message of ultimate truth.
Paul sought to explain it, prove it and persuade people to believe this most important truth. Everything else we believe rests upon this – it rests upon Christ as Savior; Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament; Christ as the one who demands repentance from sinners and through faith grants forgiveness and life. This is the same message that we should be seeking to persuade people to believe – not by offering fluff and stuff – but by explaining and teaching the Scripture. Paul didn’t have any “health or wealth” to offer; he didn’t have any entertainment or incentives to offer people; he simply had the truth, which is all he wanted or needed. He said, “I didn’t come to you with eloquence, or superior wisdom . . . for I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
In fact this message of truth produced confrontation and slander. By believing the truth one faced the same opposition as Paul, thus ran the risk of being lied about and blamed for trouble caused by others. The message of the gospel isn’t always popular but it’s always true, and we should believe it and tell others about it even when we are not well received, and even when the benefits of believing the truth are not be what we might expect in this life, because trouble often follows the truth. When you are on the side of the truth, you many get trouble. But truth doesn’t just bring trouble it also brings salvation. And so we see also in this passage that the message of truth brought conviction and faith. As we read in verse 4 – “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.” Both Jews and Greeks responded to the message, and Paul tells us how this happened in I Thessalonians 1 when he said, “Our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.”
We see this same principle at work in Berea as well – both Jews and Greeks believed the truth about Jesus Christ as presented by Paul from the Scripture.
This leads us to the third important point we see in this passage – the salvation received through God’s message. We have seen Paul driven out of two more cities, but the truth of the gospel is not, for the work of the Holy Spirit applies the truth through the gospel. The trouble with the truth, for those who don’t like it or believe it, is that it never goes away. No matter how many times Paul was arrested or driven out or persecuted the gospel was still true. No matter how many times Christians get persecuted or slandered or dismissed the gospel is still true.
It’s significant to see that the Spirit grants salvation to all classes of people. Luke points out that both prominent and poor people came to believe; both men and women; both Jews and Greeks responded to the message. The truth of Christ transcends all class differences and brings people together from all walks of life. In a world that is so often torn apart by ethnic and racial strife, the church of Christ – which unites people from different social and cultural backgrounds – is a demonstration of the truth and glory of the gospel. Thus as salvation is received the Spirit then produces joy not jealousy. The trouble with truth is that people who don’t have it are often jealous of those who do. This is the case with the Jews in our passage – verse 5 – “But the Jews were jealous.” They were jealous over the joy that the truth of salvation had brought to the Gentiles, and their jealousy turned to hatred.
They felt threatened, but instead of seeking the same joy through embracing the truth about Christ, they rejected the truth and sought to make it hard for those who believed the truth of God’s message. We will sometimes find this same thing from people who have no joy because they reject God’s truth, and because they do they want everyone else to be as unhappy as they are. On the flip side, as Christians who have been given the joy of salvation we should guard against the sin of jealousy and envy and walk in the truth of the Spirit by doing what the Bereans did in verse 11 – “They received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” The Spirit inspires discernment and diligence. They were diligent in that every day they were listening and learning from the Scriptures – they were eager to grow in their salvation – and they were also discerning, in that they examined – meaning that they tested or investigated the Scripture with care and impartiality, in order to make sure it was true. You see, they didn’t just blindly follow the leader because he was smart or eloquent or charismatic or clever, they sought God’s truth.
Jesus said to the Jews, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” These particular Jews, like many other people refused to come to Jesus and believe the truth of the Scriptures; but the Bereans did believe – Jews and Gentiles – and found life. The trouble with truth is that you can read all about it and even know about it intellectually, but miss it altogether if you refuse to come to Jesus. In spite of the trouble truth may bring, the Spirit provides the strength to accept the risks or the cost of discipleship.
The cost of discipleship is the willingness to stand for the truth even when it may cause us trouble; it’s the commitment to be more concerned for the truth of God’s message than the possible trouble or hardship it might bring. The trouble with truth is that we don’t have enough Christians standing up for it or unashamedly proclaiming it. May we be those who say with the Psalmist that the Word of the Lord is right and good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endures to all generations.
© You’re welcome to recycle these resources for your church free of charge. However, if you find them useful, please consider making a donation to the ministry of GCC.
Pastor Dennis Bone
6/28/09
THE TROUBLE WITH THE TRUTH 6-28-09
A twelve year old boy was an important witness in a lawsuit. One of the lawyers, who was cross-examining him, said to him, “Your father has been telling you how to testify, hasn’t he?” “Yes,” said the boy. “Now just tell us how your father told you to testify,” the lawyer asked him. “Well,” replied the boy, “My father told me that the lawyers would try to tangle me up in my testimony; but if I would just tell the truth, I could tell the same thing every time.” You see, the trouble with the truth is that not everyone wants to hear it. Many people would rather hear their version of the “truth” and if they the truth doesn’t fit for them, they will often seek to discredit the person who is speaking it.
This is especially true when it comes to the truth of Christ and the message of the gospel. Jesus said, “I am the truth” but those who didn’t like this truth sought to discredit Him and His message. Jesus told us that the truth would set us free – specifically the truth about Him and His teaching – and that He came into the world to testify to this truth, and that everyone on the side of truth will listen to Him. You see, again the trouble with truth is that it’s absolute, and so what Jesus says about Himself is true, whether or not you or anybody else wants to believe it. Jesus came to proclaim truth, not negotiate it. The world wants us to believe that you can “find” spiritual truth in a lot of different ways, yet Jesus says that there is only one way to spiritual truth and it’s through Him. Thus this can often cause trouble for those of us who proclaim Christ as the only way to truth and share this truth with other people.
Jesus Himself was often in trouble with people for His message of truth, and He passed the truth of the gospel on to His apostles and first disciples and called them – even as He now calls us – to believe His truth and tell other people the truth. Like the example of the young boy testifying, we know the truth and we tell it the same way every time – we should love to tell the story, and not be ashamed of it – even when others would prefer not to hear it, or would rather hear something else that makes them feel better or that can justify their personal beliefs and positions.
Over the past few weeks we have been studying passages from Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. This morning I want to go back to Paul’s first visit to Thessalonica in Acts chapter 17 and look at some of the trouble he encountered as a result of sharing God’s truth about Jesus Christ.
You might say that Paul and the leaders of the first century church were viewed by many as global trouble-makers. In fact as Paul and his team get to Thessalonica and begin to proclaim and teach the people the truth of Christ’s gospel, we hear these words in verse 6 – “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here.” What kind of trouble were they causing? They were causing a radical social and religious upheaval simply because they were sharing the truth of God’s message. The truth often makes people nervous and agitated and threatened, especially when it calls for change. The truth of the gospel calls for change, thus it brings conflict – first, inward personal conflict for the person faced with this truth – and second, outward conflict by those who oppose this truth and want to silence it rather than submit to it. And as we know we see this two-fold conflict throughout the book of Acts, and it continues today everywhere and every time the truth of the gospel is proclaimed.
As we look at Acts 17 this morning we will see how the truth of God’s message will transcend and overcome the trouble that it brings. Jesus said, “In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” And because Jesus has overcome, His truth through the gospel will overcome as well. So please follow along as we consider Acts 17 – verses 1- 15: When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the market place, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
What people are most familiar with in this passage is the Bereans, who have become a model as to how we should receive God’s truth, but we see this in the midst of trouble for Paul. God’s Word often brings success in the midst of trouble, for God’s message of salvation is not thwarted by trouble or opposition but is very often spread in it and received through it. We learn three important things about God’s message of truth in this passage. The first one is the strategic spread of God’s message. From the beginning God had a strategy for how the good news of Christ’s salvation would spread. It started in Jerusalem and spread throughout the world. The book of Acts tells us about how the gospel spread throughout the entire world of that time, and as we read in verse 6, it was causing a lot of trouble as well as a lot of conversions. We learn from the conversion of Paul that his calling and mission was to proclaim truth – God’s truth – and this is what we see in the book of Acts.
Throughout the book we see Paul take the truth of the gospel to key cities. His missionary strategy wasn’t arbitrary, and neither was it forced upon him by persecution or opposition. There was a strategic plan to go to the places he went, and do the things that he did when he got there. He chose, and was led by the Spirit, to key cities so that as the gospel had an impact on the lives of people, it would become a base of operation for the rapid spread of the gospel. You will also notice that Paul takes the truth of the gospel to the synagogue first. We read that this was his custom, to first go to synagogue upon arriving in the city – we see this in verse 2, and again in verse 10. Why? We know that the gospel was to go to the Jew first then to the Gentiles; but this is after Paul had made the determination in chapter 13 to go to the Gentiles.
One reason that Paul continued to go to the synagogue was because of what he says in Romans 10:1 – “My hearts desire and prayer to God is for the Israelites to be saved.” At this point most of the conversions were coming from the Gentiles, but Paul never gave up on his own people. In terms of trouble, I’ve already mentioned the socio-political impact of the spread of the gospel upon the region. The argument is made in verse 7 that “They are defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” The authorities were threatened because a citizen’s highest allegiance was to be to Caesar or to the government, which is why even today in places Christianity is forbidden or restricted. Although Paul was talking about a spiritual king and kingdom, the message was construed to be in competition with Rome. But it was the Jews who made this false allegation and they were the ones who got the mob together to start the riot in the city – verse 5 – thus again in this case, as throughout the book of Acts, we see the opposition and persecution as a result of the spread of the gospel.
It wasn’t just one city or one place, but everywhere the truth of the gospel went trouble was not far behind. Even in Berea, where there seemed to be a positive response, we read in verse 13 that some of the Jews from Thessalonica came over – and this wasn’t a quick 30 minute drive; it was about 50 miles away – in order to stir up the people to dissent and opposition. What we should learn from this passage is that no matter how strategic the spread of God’s message or how well it’s received, the truth always brings with it forms of conflict and opposition. As Christians we need to spread the truth of God’s Word and stand firm in its truth, but always be prepared for trouble.
The second important point we see in this passage is the Scriptural content of God’s message. Paul didn’t change his message as he traveled, nor did he accommodate it or adjust it to his hearers so as to get better results.
He went into the synagogues and into the streets and into homes with the same conversation around the person of truth – the person of Jesus Christ. As we see in verses 2 and 3, Paul went to the Scriptures to reason and prove the truth about Jesus as the Christ. Thus the central focus of the message is Christ as Savior – the crucified and risen Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. As Paul says in I Corinthians 15 – “This is of first importance . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; he was buried and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures.” This is the message that has saving power; this is the message of ultimate truth.
Paul sought to explain it, prove it and persuade people to believe this most important truth. Everything else we believe rests upon this – it rests upon Christ as Savior; Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament; Christ as the one who demands repentance from sinners and through faith grants forgiveness and life. This is the same message that we should be seeking to persuade people to believe – not by offering fluff and stuff – but by explaining and teaching the Scripture. Paul didn’t have any “health or wealth” to offer; he didn’t have any entertainment or incentives to offer people; he simply had the truth, which is all he wanted or needed. He said, “I didn’t come to you with eloquence, or superior wisdom . . . for I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
In fact this message of truth produced confrontation and slander. By believing the truth one faced the same opposition as Paul, thus ran the risk of being lied about and blamed for trouble caused by others. The message of the gospel isn’t always popular but it’s always true, and we should believe it and tell others about it even when we are not well received, and even when the benefits of believing the truth are not be what we might expect in this life, because trouble often follows the truth. When you are on the side of the truth, you many get trouble. But truth doesn’t just bring trouble it also brings salvation. And so we see also in this passage that the message of truth brought conviction and faith. As we read in verse 4 – “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.” Both Jews and Greeks responded to the message, and Paul tells us how this happened in I Thessalonians 1 when he said, “Our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.”
We see this same principle at work in Berea as well – both Jews and Greeks believed the truth about Jesus Christ as presented by Paul from the Scripture.
This leads us to the third important point we see in this passage – the salvation received through God’s message. We have seen Paul driven out of two more cities, but the truth of the gospel is not, for the work of the Holy Spirit applies the truth through the gospel. The trouble with the truth, for those who don’t like it or believe it, is that it never goes away. No matter how many times Paul was arrested or driven out or persecuted the gospel was still true. No matter how many times Christians get persecuted or slandered or dismissed the gospel is still true.
It’s significant to see that the Spirit grants salvation to all classes of people. Luke points out that both prominent and poor people came to believe; both men and women; both Jews and Greeks responded to the message. The truth of Christ transcends all class differences and brings people together from all walks of life. In a world that is so often torn apart by ethnic and racial strife, the church of Christ – which unites people from different social and cultural backgrounds – is a demonstration of the truth and glory of the gospel. Thus as salvation is received the Spirit then produces joy not jealousy. The trouble with truth is that people who don’t have it are often jealous of those who do. This is the case with the Jews in our passage – verse 5 – “But the Jews were jealous.” They were jealous over the joy that the truth of salvation had brought to the Gentiles, and their jealousy turned to hatred.
They felt threatened, but instead of seeking the same joy through embracing the truth about Christ, they rejected the truth and sought to make it hard for those who believed the truth of God’s message. We will sometimes find this same thing from people who have no joy because they reject God’s truth, and because they do they want everyone else to be as unhappy as they are. On the flip side, as Christians who have been given the joy of salvation we should guard against the sin of jealousy and envy and walk in the truth of the Spirit by doing what the Bereans did in verse 11 – “They received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” The Spirit inspires discernment and diligence. They were diligent in that every day they were listening and learning from the Scriptures – they were eager to grow in their salvation – and they were also discerning, in that they examined – meaning that they tested or investigated the Scripture with care and impartiality, in order to make sure it was true. You see, they didn’t just blindly follow the leader because he was smart or eloquent or charismatic or clever, they sought God’s truth.
Jesus said to the Jews, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” These particular Jews, like many other people refused to come to Jesus and believe the truth of the Scriptures; but the Bereans did believe – Jews and Gentiles – and found life. The trouble with truth is that you can read all about it and even know about it intellectually, but miss it altogether if you refuse to come to Jesus. In spite of the trouble truth may bring, the Spirit provides the strength to accept the risks or the cost of discipleship.
The cost of discipleship is the willingness to stand for the truth even when it may cause us trouble; it’s the commitment to be more concerned for the truth of God’s message than the possible trouble or hardship it might bring. The trouble with truth is that we don’t have enough Christians standing up for it or unashamedly proclaiming it. May we be those who say with the Psalmist that the Word of the Lord is right and good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endures to all generations.
© You’re welcome to recycle these resources for your church free of charge. However, if you find them useful, please consider making a donation to the ministry of GCC.
