Charles Pogue
All around us there is murder, theft, hatred, unfaithfulness, and more. These are all offensive. Most people recognize that, though sometimes some of them may falsely accuse some others of being guilty of one or more of them when they are not. When understood, and applied correctly, though, all of those things truly are offensive. However, not one of them is the most offensive thing to the world. What is? Increasingly, most of us who love it, recognize that the most offensive thing to a growing number of people is the Bible.
Why do we say that the Bible is the most offensive thing to many people? Because they love the things the Bible identifies as sin. The Bible identifies drunkenness as a soul condemning sin (Gal. 5:1). Since the Bible condemns drunkenness, drunks are offended by the Bible, and by those who call their attention to the fact that drunkenness is sin. The Bible says that homosexuality is a soul condemning sin (Rom. 1:26-27). But society at large has come to accept homosexuality as a natural alternative life style (which it is not), thus they hate the Bible and all of those who stand with the Bible against that sin. When one considers the fact that people are offended at the truth, the only logical conclusion must be that they are offended at the God Who created them, has the power to save and destroy their souls in His hands (Matt. 10:28), and Who revealed the truth to them (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Second Corinthians 10:12 fitly describes the world, and the folly of its rejection of the Bible. “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”
It is offensive to an increasing number of people to identify sin as sin, because they no longer believe there is such a thing as objective right and wrong. To them, sin only becomes sin when it is used in a sinful way. For instance, they deny that homosexuality is a sin until (and this, too, is a decreasing number) one homosexual partner is unfaithful to the other. No, homosexuality is a sin because God says so. That ends the discussion about anything God identifies as sin.
Those who stand up against sin are branded as bigots, hateful, conceited, and arrogant. Why so? Not only because so many have rejected the concept of objective right and wrong, but because the world misidentifies concern for hatred. Loving persons, knowing that drunkenness, homosexuality, immodesty etc., are sinful, and understanding the eternal implication for those who commit such things, will speak out. They do not do so because they hate the sinner, but because they hate the sin, and they know that the sin will cause the sinner to be lost eternally. That is not hatred, it is love and concern, but the world rejects that truth. They will not even listen to it. But just as God does not want anyone to be lost (2 Peter 3:9), neither does any caring faithful child of God. Paul well describes the attitude of the world at the end of the list of things the Gentiles turned to after rejecting the Creator when he wrote, “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:32).
Why should the Bible not be offensive to the sinner? Because it tells of a loving Father Who sent His only begotten Son into the world to save the world (John 3:16). That same Father, loves that world enough that He has revealed to His offspring the things that are sin, and has given the instructive and corrective charge, not to walk after those things (Rom. 8:1-4; 13:13; Gal. 5:16; Eph. 4:17). The world does not understand that if the things that are sin are sin, and that if an individual does one or more of those things anyway, God must send them away into eternal punishment. Why is that so? Because it would be unjust of God to save those who are sinful along with those who are righteous. Not knowing that and other truths, the world is offended by the Bible that reveals the fact that there is a hell as certainly as there is a heaven, and there will be far more people occupying the heat than the heaven.
Many people who are in the public eye, and even suspected of opposing the sin of homosexuality are aggressively attacked. Some of those who are attacked do not have the backbone to stand up and say, “Yes, that is sin, and I want anyone who does it to quit, because it will cost the person his soul. When they are unwilling to take such a public stand, isn’t it, in fact, the truth that they too are just a smidgen offended by the Bible?
