09/04/20 FOLLOW UP TO PICTURES ON THE WALL

 09/04/20 FOLLOW UP TO PICTURES ON THE WALL

This is a follow up to my post concerning, "Straightening pictures on the wall, while the house burns to the ground."

 

The Bible warns that knowledge and information can have a negative rather than a positive impact, and that folks can be greatly informed about certain issues but they never come to the knowledge of the truth.

 

This has been dubbed, "The Information Age," but it is also "the MISinformation age," or the MISGUIDED AGE. Too much time and energy is spent on misinformation, false information and worldly information. Believers need to spend our lives and ministries on studying, proclaiming, sharing, teaching God's truth rather than men's errors. When we know the truth of God we are more likely to grow in grace and knowledge and less likely to be caught in the web of worldly and vain philosophies. The devil sidetracks believers with worldly concerns, movements, issues, answers, insights. Don't be sidetracked. The longer we are sidetracked, the less we will be evangelizing the world and edifying the church.

 

Peripheral issues and answers are not the message of the Bible. These things are part of the clutter. Focusing on these things and spending time on these things distracts from the great truths of the Bible. The time, space, energy, talent spent on pictures and clutter should be spent on the HOUSE (the household of God, the life of faith, the revelation of God). There are plenty of people who will address these side issues. What we need are MESSENGERS OF ETERNAL TRUTH.

 

Jesus did not send His disciples to teach about the pictures and the clutter. He sent us to proclaim the gospel. The information concerning the pictures and clutter can be mistaken or misrepresented. The information and focus concerning the pictures and the clutter can be a stumbling block and a smokescreen, which keeps people from seeing, understanding and believing the gospel.

 

Christians need to keep their Divinely appointed mission separate from the pictures and clutter of worldly issues. I understand the connection between the peripheral issues (pictures, clutter) and the gospel, but unsaved and believers do not need to turn their attention away from sound, deep Biblical teaching, values, directives.

 

We have enough TRUTH to proclaim without wasting time on the peripheral issues, even though there is a certain amount of truth and importance attached to them. I believe that these side issues, minor issues, godless issues are diluting the impact we have on the world. It is true that people will be more stirred by the peripheral than by the CENTRAL TRUTHS OF THE BIBLE, but they will not be saved and Christians will not grow in grace and knowledge, by the pictures, the clutter, the peripheral. To focus on those things is to focus on the negative, on the works of Satan. People need to focus on and feed on the word of God.