O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.
Final Warnings
This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them— since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you.
Both statements are true and oftentimes the truth is hard to hear. While we tell ourselves we are good because we have compared ourselves to others and we do not see their failings in ourselves, that is judgment. We might not accept that we judge others to make ourselves feel good. That is the Soap Opera life, viewing the disasters of others while patting our own backs that at least we are not like that.
“Not that the heart can be good without knowledge, for without knowledge the heart is empty. But there are two kinds of knowledge: the first is alone in its bare speculation of things, and the second is accompanied by the grace of faith and love, which causes a man to do the will of God from the heart.” John Bunyan from Pilgrim Progress
John Bunyan was a Puritan and his best known work Pilgrim Promise has survived the emotional disdain of Puritanical behaviors that sprang forth from raw emotions that Bunyan gracefully called bare speculations. Their judgment was not tempered by “the grace of faith and love”.
God is just and we are justified but that does not make us ministers of justice punishing those who have given in to their animal instincts. Punishment does not change behavior, it only makes the judge feel like he is doing his job.
Our job is to make disciples but we must be very careful not to make them in the image of ourselves. That will only create a legalistic theocracy that is void of grace of faith and love.
If we want to feel better about ourselves without loving others all we have to do is to turn on the Soap Opera we call The News.
There seems to be no good news in the news, just judgment absent of grace of faith and love.