Jerry C. Brewer
If you have ever mailed a package at your local post office, you’ve been asked if there is anything in it that is, “liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous.” Aside from our regular monthly mailings of The Gospel Preceptor when it was being published in print form, we have other occasions to mail bundles at various times during the month. When we do so, we are invariably asked the above question and are tempted to answer, “Yes, there is something here that is potentially hazardous — the Truth.”
Truth Is Not Liquid
Despite the beliefs of most folks in today’s postmodern world, God’s Truth is not liquid. Postmodernism decrees that Truth, like water, is unstable and changes with each person’s perspective. Water in a riverbed takes the path of least resistance, meandering around the difficult and hard places. But that isn’t the nature of the Truth of the gospel. It is absolute. Truth is “like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces” (Jer. 23:29). Water reaches a strong wall and flows around it, leaving the wall in place, but Paul said the weapons of our warfare — the armor of God and the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:13-17) — are “mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).
Truth Is Not Fragile
The gospel of Christ is powerful to save men’s souls (Rom. 1:16-17). The word translated “power” in this passage is from the Greek dunamis which is also the word from which we derive our English word, “dynamite.” Jesus said, “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). In this sense, no one can ever break God’s word. One may break himself on the Word of God, but he cannot break it. It is not fragile.
Truth Is Not Perishable
Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). Through the centuries, evil men have tried to destroy the Word of God. Jehoiakim thought he could destroy the Word of God, spoken through Jeremiah, by cutting it from the roll with a penknife and burning it (Jer. 36). But God’s Truth is God’s Truth, whether written or spoken and no one can destroy it.
Truth Is Potentially Hazardous
Truth is hazardous to sin in men’s lives. As God’s power for salvation (Rom. 1:16) it is capable of blasting sin from men’s hearts. It has the power to purify one’s soul (1 Pet. 1:22), thus erasing the stain and rot of sin.
Truth is hazardous to those who preach it. It got Peter and John arrested and threatened in Jerusalem (Acts 4). The Truth got all of the apostles arrested and beaten by the Jews (Acts 5). Preaching the Truth brought death to Stephen (Acts 7-8), as it had earlier done to Jesus Christ. Preaching the Truth got the scattered disciples imprisoned, beaten and killed by Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-2; 22:19-20).
The same Truth he once persecuted as Saul of Tarsus got Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ threatened with death (Acts 9:20-24). The Truth was hazardous to Paul when he preached at Lystra (Acts 14:19-20). It was hazardous to both Paul and Silas when they went to Philippi and preached it (Acts 16:16-24).
Truth has always been hazardous to those who believe and obey it, for in so doing they commit themselves to Jesus Christ and that brings the wrath of an evil world down upon them (1 John 3:11-12; John 15:18-21). The world hates Truth because its light exposes the world’s sins (John 3:19-21).
But to the faithful child of God, Truth is the only way to heaven and every sacrifice one must make to know and obey the Truth will be worthwhile(John 14:6; Prov. 23:23; Matt. 13:44-46; Rom. 8:18). On the other hand, Truth is far more hazardous to those who refuse to obey it (2 Thess. 1:6-9). Will you obey the gospel and be saved? Believe in Christ as the Son of God, repent of your sins, confess Christ and be baptized.
