Day 3292 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 19:40 NIV

Voices may indeed become at times silenced, but know this, He doesn’t need us to share the message. He’s just giving us the opportunity to live for something worth dying for.

The reality is that as pasts repeat inside the present and promise still a probability on into the upcoming, we may indeed find days again when those in and of the down here sternly remind that we needn’t speak of the Gospel nor in Jesus Name, and further insist we take such opportunity to remain silent on such severity. Indeed, this world has made clear and will continue to usher all into the understanding that they don’t like this truth for which we stand, by which we stand, upon which we’re standing. And indeed, as done in days gone, they may prove themselves violently unwilling to stand for our standing for Him.

But despite the world threatening to force the issue, though we do have, will have the opportunity to shut up and go away, that doesn’t mean we have the ability.

Because the beauty in all this is that we didn’t choose Him but rather He saved us. We didn’t decide to give faith a try but rather faith invaded our hearts and allowed them a restart of sorts into a new life lived actually living life. It’s such an action-packed invitation that He didn’t wait for the RSVPs to roll in. No, He dove in, strode in, stole in to inside every heart that He knew would be His. That’s the impossible sovereignty to which we serve, after whom we strive.

He came to give His life knowing entirely prior all who would see, hear, taste and try. He chose the cross knowing who would accept the cost and find an excitement to share. He knew that many would in fact believe in His Name, but too that many more than those many never would. And I think that’s become somewhat a strange concept for us to consider or contemplate. He came to bring a message of salvation that should, and among some has, inspired a sense of unity as if community built on this continuity of continuing what He accomplished.

But He also said that the world would hate us for continuing His will, allowing such an impossible hope to work through us while inside these lives lived within this world absolutely bent on living a lie.

And so while it’s a natural pursuit, and by all means an entirely noble one, the reality is that we can only pursue peace and appeasement so long and so far before the inevitable splitting of paths traveling in opposing directions. We can only get by not ruffling feathers for so long before someone somewhere catches wind of a word they don’t want to hear. Been talking about that for days now. We will, at some point, do something, say something, become something along this path that someone else somewhere else just simply doesn’t like.

Problem is that this world so filled with pride and profit will fight viciously to protect the power we’ve long assumed within our ability. And so any who say anything which even hints at this possibility that humanity isn’t actually all that powerful or that sin isn’t all that profitable or that worldly popularity isn’t all that important, well, the same will become thorns in sides among those residing inside such intense nonsense. We’ll be hated, He made it clear.

Almost like He wanted us to be ready, but for some reason instead it seems we’ve chosen to become worried.

Despite evidence seemingly aimed at the contrary, I don’t know that humanity has really ever been one for confrontation. We like to argue. People love to fight. Everything from politics to sports teams has been at times a reason so important to some that they’ve come to physicality over their preferences. But despite the occurrence of outliers, humanity has by and large always tried to avoid strife as ease and tranquility are clearly more conducive to the peace and relaxation we prefer.

But alas, with everything there is for everyone a line which shall not infringed, encroached upon. And well, just so happens that this Word is indeed a double edged sword that both confronts the complacent and too contradicts the cantankerous. And that’s for a reason. You see, not all will sleep but all will be changed. We see that promise proven over in 1 Corinthians 15:51, a personal favorite of mine due to the depth of the poetry of the parable.

Point is that He’s giving us this life as an opportunity to wake up from our slumber inside both selfishness and stupidity before we find ourselves roused into a rather rude awakening upon that day when He proves one final time that He was never joking.

Problem is that most still assume so contentiously otherwise that such assumption has become in them an assurance of such. Simply because sin has long been too good a friend to consider severing the relationship. We’re not the kind to walk away from a good thing, and well, sin to us seems best of all as it’s custom tailored to talk that line we want to hear with these itching ears. Sin tells us everything we want to know to be true, gives us everything we’ve longed to go through, allows us all the vanity and insanity that we can dream of.

And so it’s become a power in us unwilling to be spoken against.

No, sin is so thick inside each of us that should any outside of us dare define anything we’re doing or saying as something we shouldn’t, well, them’s fighting words! Can’t have that. We cannot endure such affront, such blatant offense. No, we’ll fight like the third monkey to prove we’re not at all worried about there being only two spots. An irony of sorts. We will fight like crazy to say we’re doing nothing wrong and yet can’t quite help but to feel the need to fight as if we might.

But my point for today is that within that fight is found this long-standing and only growing into a growling insistence that we shut up and go away. Stop speaking the truth that confronts the version already bought and believed by most. Indeed, just go with the flow, don’t rock the boat, all the other clichés aimed at peace and applause. The world makes it easy to know what’s welcome and the many ideas and inclinations which are not.

He chose the cross but we had no qualms in helping Him put it together!

In fact, that’s kind of one of the undertones of this passage. Here in Luke we find a little kerfuffle between the Disciples and the Pharisees. All these followers of Jesus were making clear their joy and belief in Him, much to the obvious chagrin of those assuming themselves in charge. We do love that idea, do we not! But such a display seemed to rather harsh the happiness of the religious leaders, them not getting the attention or adoration all that much all of the sudden. And so they set out to nip said bud.

“Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

Tell these people praising you to quiet down, simmer out, scatter away would be entirely preferred if at all possible. Indeed, much the same message we hear broken record style still today. Go away. Ease up on this truth telling business. Calm down or be calmed. Don’t come around here speaking a joy that proves the replica offered by sin as hollow as it’s always been. No, we’re not welcome to do what He calls us to because it’s centered upon a truth spoken that proves wickedness a problem.

But mainly because it was proven true by the Savior they thought they took care of already. And well, seems that once a victory has been assumed, reminders of the loss aren’t really all that welcome.

And in fact, nor shall we be. We won’t be welcome here, not if we do as we’re called to. Well, this world will actually welcome us to a couple of options, remain silent or be silenced. But hey, didn’t work on Him, not then too worried about their trying it again.

No, I’ve a faith that tells me that nothing will stop His will being done, His Word being heard, His people being home. Nothing will alter the outcome He won over the death we've become. Nothing anyone does will undo what He came to see to, the salvation of every heart so shattered by sin's suffering that they ache only to die every day to all that cost Him such a misery as that seen upon our cross.

Because you see, that was our cross and our cross is the cost that He paid without being in any way guilty of all we've done, all we've lost, all we've left to the wrong side of a trillion moments in which we could have and thus should have chosen to revere Him but rather opted to reveal our lesser intentions through decisions decided by the rampant darkness around us rather than a realization of our being so undeserving of His light and the love He's shown for all who dare to see beyond where they've been, what they've been, who we've been.

And well, since I know well the many poor choices I’ve made at the suggestion of this same world that insisted He suffer, I’m done letting this world suggest what I should do, who I should be, what I’m allowed to believe.

No, when He took our place He sealed our fate for either the sort of suffering we see in His sacrifice as such is the wage of sin or He opened our hope into a home we shouldn't even know exists. Nothing will undo the permanency of His promise, either for the good or the gore. His will will be done in every life as such is the victory He accomplished in overcoming the death that's long been undermining our fearing of Him alone as Lord of all. No, as He says right here, even if we be quite as the wickedness of this world demands, then even the rocks will cry out this call.

Even stones will speak. Even gravel will grovel so gracefully before His glory that every knee will have nothing left to do but bow in fervent and forever acknowledgement of His sovereignty. Nothing will stop His work, but, and this is perhaps one of the biggest buts of them all, we can, and many will, choose to refuse Him the chance to work through our lives. And in that choice, as again many will choose, all will lose what shouldn't be lost. Because that we've been given this gift of a brand new life has left us owing Him beyond everything we are as shown in more than everything we do all being done for only the glory of the only begotten Son.

And so should we settle for falling still short of the glory of God, seeking never such glory in God, or even seeking only occasionally the option to speak of His story, the simplicity of faith is that if He is not God of all, we're not His at all. Because in truth, if we believe Him everything He says He is, we'd find absolutely nothing else in life as lived in this world of any worth whatsoever.

Others might. Others will. Others are.

Indeed, so many are so disheveled among so many distractions and divided devotions that they're eternally devoid of the dire state of this decision as displayed in our seeking to honor God alone. Not society. Not popularity. Not profit or protection or safety or security. We should seek to honor, to revere, to even respect nothing but God because God alone sent Christ alone to for all atone. And in His giving of His life, if we'll not give ours in return then we've no business expecting such a promise.

Because the fact is that narrow remains the road and sparsely is it chosen as such is simply uncommon as what it deserves, what He deserves is equally unprofitable as it is unpopular.

But still, whoever wants to keep their life will lose it. And so the question becomes will we lose it or give it away? Do we give Him all we have, the little it seems? Do we surrender the entirety of our souls to somehow being of service to the Son? Do we go and do as He's called us to, speaking and teaching, pursuing and preaching this path of a divine intervention so deep and undeserved that it ignites in us a foreign insistence upon His having all of us?

Or do we rather as most will agree and succumb to the sinful suggestions of those sleepily slumbering inside selfish stupidity? Do we worry about the warnings against our workings being done in His will, His way? Do we fear man and invite into our chance at this a snare which shouldn’t be there as such will only, can only keep us from ever knowing Him?

Friends, in this verse He made the easiest choice ever offered even easier to decide inside this promise presented to the leaders who insisted people pipe down, chill out, shut up even. Sound familiar? He promised those Pharisees that even should they succeed in silencing every follower, every believer, even the rocks would speak as His Word will not cease, will not silence.

Will we be silent, silenced, suffered into sharing this suggestion that we shut up as this wicked world still insists we do?

No, they don't want the truth to be told, but friends, it's going to be heard no matter what by every ear and every heart. Will we be among the few who follow Him so passionately that we invite the danger of this world's darkness so as to allow the rocks to take the day off? Or do we rather sign our name among those many who knew the warnings but said nothing? We know what Scripture says about that, that not only will the sinful still die in their sins but so too will be bear their blood upon our hands, our heads as we carried the truth that could have helped but instead settled for silence out of fear of the violence promised by the wicked who want nothing heard of His Word.

Again, His will will be done, our choice is whether or not we're with Him or against Him, whether we gather or scatter. He made that clear too. Friends, the cross proves He isn't playing, and by some sort of the most miraculous love ever imagined, He allowed in that moment a few days to switch teams. We know who we've been on Friday. What does that empty tomb say now? And then, what do we say in light of it?

Truth is that we don’t have to say anything. We all have the right to remain silent, and such an option seems most safe these days wherein most don’t want to hear the truth of their vile captivity. But again, just because we have the opportunity to remain silent about His salvation doesn’t mean we have the ability. And truthfully, if we do believe in the promise of either Heaven or hell waiting for all of us, we shouldn’t have the ability to keep quiet about this Word that we claim set us free from worrying about even death.

And if we are truly no longer afraid of even the grave, then what can this world do? And if this world can do absolutely nothing to us but hasten the day upon which we’re home, then why let the rocks do what we’ve the chance to? No, nothing and no one will stop what He started nor cease this call He deserves undertaken. Let’s not allow the rocks to steal our opportunity to tell everyone who we are and why we’re able to hope in that new identity.

Because if we are His and have a firm hope in His promise, then we should know that this world can’t take it away. And if they can’t convince Him to change His mind and revoke our hope, then I think it’s pretty easy to see who we should be living to please, to praise. And I’ll not let the rocks steal that glory that comes inside such a story as this we’ve been given the undeserved chance to share.

That He allows us a chance to speak hope into a rapidly darkening world is truly amazing. And so we shouldn’t be at all willing to let anyone else do what He gives us the chance to. Least of all a bunch of compressed sand.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold