Psalm 14

 

There aren’t a lot of praises coming from 2016 in Western Culture this year. Most people in the media and online have made it clear that they are glad that the books on 2016 are closed and that there’s a new year laid out before us. There always seemed to be news of celebrity deaths, we endured one of the most excruciating political seasons in in recent memory and if there was ever a year to complain about something, be offended by something or to get upset over seemingly trivial things, 2016 was the year.

As Christians, we have long since learned to look to God for what is good in this life. It isn’t prepared for us by our culture, it isn’t fostered by the mass media and it certainly isn’t perpetuated by trends on social media. The world cries out, lost in its godlessness, and is repeatedly upset and devastated when things don’t go in a way that perpetuate the image for life that they have built for themselves. It is an adolescent mindset, an entitled worldview that constantly screams for everything to go the way they want.

This world is broken, and in our obvious need for a Savior, those whose hearts are set alongside the agenda of sin and worldliness continue to cry out that there cannot be a savior. They want so desperately to be their own. But what hubris! What a mass of pride wells up from within this mindset, from within these hearts! You would think that the evidence would be plain in front of them, but sin-stained hearts create blind eyes, deaf ears and hard hearts.

They openly mock the ones who find hope in the wasteland, who claim a joy they cannot obtain. They shame us, revile us and try their best to silence us, but the Good News of Jesus Christ cannot be silenced. Behold! There is a voice that cries out in the wilderness: “Make a straight path for the LORD! ”

Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ³ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

⁴ Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Where Herod silenced John the Baptist, the world tries to silence us. John called out Herod’s sin, and as bearers of the Truth of Jesus Christ, we call out sin still today. And the world will not have it, through anger and violence and loud rhetoric, pounded relentlessly in our faces, we are told to be silent, to be still, to keep our beliefs to ourselves. And we feel like Jeremiah the Prophet, persecuted by those within our own culture, workplaces, families and schools. We are denounced, rejected and ridiculed. The truth is not welcome.