Don't Get Hammered!

Why do we have scriptures that when someone gets up here and reads them it makes us uncomfortable? We seem to avoid certain parts of the Bible like the plague, certain verses that make our throats tighten, our butts clench, and our hearts beat just a little bit faster. 

Quite often, these feelings are motivated by fear that someone might be offended by what is read, or it might cause disunity, or it makes us feel guilty because we know that we are not living according to that scripture! We are worried that someone might be offended by something being read out of the Bible! Doesn’t that seem a bit silly? 

They are God’s words, not our own, so why should we feel worried about how someone might receive them? Yet we worry still, and often, we take great care to gloss and skim over the parts that make us uncomfortable or that we think might make someone listening uncomfortable. 

People don’t like Paul. He just really does not have a way with words, and he is very blunt. He makes many people uncomfortable, and nowhere more so than when he is read from the podium. You can read something straight from Paul and there will be people who disagree with what you are saying! Why does it make you uncomfortable? Is it guilt? Is it fear of disunity? Is it fear that someone will be offended? 

It could be any number of these reasons, or it could be one not mentioned here. Fear of losing things we perceive of as ours can have a lot to do with things, but my point today is not to analyze Paul. My point is something deeper. To illustrate the point I am making, I am going to read you one of Paul’s statements, one of God’s statements, really, if we believe the Bible to be divinely inspired.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 NKJV Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but [they are] to be submissive, as the law also says. 

35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church. 

Oooohh! You can feel the tension building! 

Why though? 

I just read God’s own words. Indeed, even if I said, “Let the women keep silent in the Churches,” it is still God’s words and not mine. Still, it makes us uncomfortable, doesn’t it? 

Is it that we just disagree with that scripture? No, that’s not it, though it may be that for some, that’s not true for all scriptures like this one. 

Because there are a lot like this one, and it can depend on our circumstances as to whether or not they make us uncomfortable. If I read a scripture about adultery being wrong, for example, it might make a few of us uncomfortable, but if there was someone sitting here who everyone knew had committed adultery but had repented, it would make almost every person in this room uncomfortable.

Well, if hearing certain scriptures read makes us uncomfortable, we need to ask ourselves why. Is it because we don’t agree with them? That’s a dangerous stance to take if we believe the Bible to be divinely inspired. A way around this is to say, “That was written for a different culture and people.”

Humans are like God in that without His intervention, they are the same yesterday, today, and forever. All the imaginings of their carnal hearts are evil, and human nature runs rampant the same today as the day the Bible was written. There is nothing new under the sun, and that goes for within the Body of Christ and outside of it.  Rather than not applying to us today, it is quite the opposite. 

2 Timothy 3:16 NKJV All Scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

The whole Bible is there to teach us something, to show us how to order our lives for success, and to bring us into a real relationship with God. It rarely does that comfortably. God’s word is the only Truth that we can grab onto and know that it is still right, that it hasn’t changed, and most importantly, that its author hasn’t changed. The promises given, and even the curses, still hold true.  

John 17:17 NKJV "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

God’s word is true and unchanging. We don’t have to worry that something inside of it is wrong. God has preserved it perfectly, and an excellent example of that is every section that has ever been changed. We know where it is and we know what it was before it was changed in translation. We are able to trust that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God and that what they said holds just as true for us today as it did for the audience it was written for. 

2 Peter 1:20-21 NKJV knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 

21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke [as they were] moved by the Holy Spirit.

We know that the Bible is true! Yes, even those parts that make us uncomfortable. This brings us back to the purpose of the Bible: It is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, as Second Timothy says. Reproof, correction, and instruction are all fairly uncomfortable things, aren’t they?

There’s a very good reason for that. The Bible is called a sword, a hammer, and a fire. 

Jeremiah 23:28-30 NKJV "The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What [is] the chaff to the wheat?" says the LORD. 

29 "[Is] not My word like a fire?" says the LORD, "And like a hammer [that] breaks the rock in pieces? 

30 "Therefore behold, I [am] against the prophets," says the LORD, "who steal My words every one from his neighbor.

Hebrews 4:12 NKJV For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

God’s word is powerful, and if we are speaking from God’s word, are these not likely to be the results of people hearing His words? 

Is it not reasonable that some people are going to feel pierced by the Word?

Is it not reasonable that some people are going to feel hammered by the Word?

Is it not reasonable that some people are going to feel set on fire by the Word? 

That they will have their heart fired up for the Truth of God? 

That they will have their faith tested by the fire of His truth and the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God fanned into a flame in their very hearts? 

The purpose of the Bible is to induce change and growth, and the purpose of speaking the words of God is to put the Bible into the ears of those who need to hear!

Is it not the speaker's purpose, then, to wield and put forth the scripture in such a way that all this is accomplished? If we are doing our duty and speaking the truth, then the uncomfortable parts of the Bible are where the most growth lies. People will feel hammered, they will feel pierced by the truth of God, and they will be set on fire! 

For the word of God can do nothing less than this when it is spoken. None of us like to feel exposed, and the sword of God lays us bare. We cannot escape the eye of God when He convicts us with His truth from His own word. The words He breathed out through the men He called and inspired.  

If we lean on the word of God, it will burn us, it will cut us, tuning us into better people, and it will hammer us if we resist it. If we yield to it and to God, it will inspire the greatest growth any of us can imagine, and Jesus will use it to forge us into His image. If we resist it and strive against it, we will be destroyed as individuals and as congregations. 

So why do we avoid the uncomfortable scriptures? 

Because we are afraid. We are afraid of what might happen to us if we look the scriptures square in the eye and have to come to terms with them. We are afraid that we will have to change to conform to them or that we will have to admit that we were wrong. We have our pride, after all, and the status quo. 

We’ve all faced things we thought we knew and found them to be wrong, and it always requires change—scary, scary change because change is unknown. We have to stop allowing the culture around us to dictate how we perceive scripture (that’s not loving *finger wag*) or which scriptures we should and should not read. God blesses us when we search for the truth and conform to it. 

Whenever, upon hearing a scripture, the very words of God make us uncomfortable, we should go, “Ah! A chance to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus! A chance to learn something new and become more like Jesus, our example! Here is something that I have not come to terms with yet!”

We should be afraid but not of the truth. We should be afraid of what happens to us when we ignore the truth. We should be afraid of our God, who is a consuming fire and a man of war! 

Proverbs 1:7 NKJV The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge, [But] fools despise wisdom and instruction.

We have a lot to learn, and that starts with fearing God and not refusing the words He has offered to us because they make us uncomfortable.

Hebrews 12:25-29 NKJV See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more [shall we not escape] if we turn away from Him who [speaks] from heaven, 

26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven." 

27 Now this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 

28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 

29 For our God [is] a consuming fire.

We are facing unprecedented times for our generations, times when everyone's thoughts are continually evil. Unless we seek and hold fast to what is true, we will perish. We will be shaken if our foundation is not built on Christ and His true words. 

1 Thessalonians 5:21 NKJV Test all things; hold fast what is good.

The Bible is our first line of defense in spiritual warfare and against the lies that are spewed by all around us constantly. It is our measuring rod to test all things, and it is the good we hold fast to. We can’t use it effectively of there are sections that we allow to make us uncomfortable or ignore. It just doesn’t work like that. We cannot allow parts to be ignored because they make us uncomfortable.

God’s word shouldn’t make us uncomfortable, and there shouldn’t be parts where we “just don’t like that part” or “don’t agree with it.” All of God’s words are divinely inspired and profitable for our spiritual growth. They reveal sin and the wickedness of the world around us and expose us to God, both congregationally and personally. We shouldn’t worry if something we read will offend someone. 

They are God’s words, not our own. We need to speak them and, more importantly, live them. The word of God is fierce, and it will convict our hearts if we read it properly. 

What are we going to do? Are we going to get hammered? Or will we rise to the challenge and seek God, obeying Him and reading all His words!?  

Change takes time. No one expects it to be instantaneous; after all, we didn’t get to where we are today instantly. It took a lot of failure and a lot of growth. It’s a process we have to keep up, and we can only do that by facing the parts that make us uncomfortable. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable, but we should embrace it rather than shy away from it. Uncomfortability is a sign to “dig here” in God’s word, and it must not be ignored. So why do we allow there to be parts that make us uncomfortable that we do not visit and do our best to understand and conform to?

Acts 17:11 NKJV These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily [to find out] whether these things were so.

They received the word with all readiness and tested it against what they already had written to see if it was true. Are we as willing to receive every word of God with all readiness? 

If we are in the Bible seeking to understand what is true regardless of the way we feel about a certain scripture, then we are receiving it with all readiness. Embrace what makes you uncomfortable in the scriptures, and let us all grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, whose name we claim.