The saying goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  I don’t believe this is true.  But it’s a good place to start this entry.

What have I learned from a recent battle against unbelief?  I’ve learned to pray for wisdom the very second I realize that I’m up against something “not quite right.”  I’ve learned to look for certain phrases and catch words that liberals use in the traps they lay for those who promote the Living God in truth.  I’ve learned, also, to look at the words surrounding those expected traps.  This might be called listening.  I’ve learned that there is such a thing as what I will call “sugar watered gospel”, which is no gospel at all.  I’ve learned that there is a “bitter truth” attached to the Gospel of Jesus.  The sugar and the bitter collide on the tongues of the proud and the humble.  Sugar is for those who remain in pride as they search out the things of God.  By its very nature pride waters down and sweetens the message of God so that the man of pride might remain proud.  This is a horrible plight for those who embrace false teachings.  Everything they learn gets filtered through the “broad way.”  The bitter, on the other hand, causes a man to fall to his knees with reverence to the Holy Law of God.  These things I have learned.

And one more thing I have learned.  I say I have learned it but . . .  I should have remembered it, for I knew it before.  Perhaps it was the heat of the battle that caused me to forget.  Perhaps it was the awe in me that men could be so very stubborn and wrong.  Perhaps it was that I was cast out by reason of the truth they would not accept.

What did I learn (again)?  I learned to pray for those of that encounter.  I too was once in utter darkness.  I too groped around like a blind man seeking “The Way”.  Even now I find that my forgetting is a sign of blindness.  I should have known.  I should have had mercy on those who bantered their way with His.  Though they thought that I was simply an obsticle to be absorbed or thrown out of the way, it was not my duty to remain their enemy.  They are enemies to themselves by opposing the Lord.  So was I, at one time.  I have learned to strive to remember.  I have learned that when the sweat of battle has evaporated, when breath slows to normal, when the blood has caked on my skin, PRAY for mercy.  Pray that their eyes would be opened.  Pray that they would read the Bible.  Pray that when they do read the Bible, that they perceive the Living God among the words.

I should have remembered.  But the Lord, in His marvelous kindness, reminded me.  Tossing on my bed all night, unable to sleep, He reminded me.  For this I give Him praise.  Not that there was a battle, not that I knew which side I was on, and not that I walked away having left a legacy of the TRUTH.  I praise Him for being merciful to me.  I praise Him that He was gracious enough to remind me to pray for those who oppose The Way.

I apologize to those with whom I fought.  I do not apologize for bringing the truth to bear on the false hood they embrace.  I apologize for not remembering that it is God alone who opens the eyes of the Blind.  May His Holy Will be done forever, for He alone is Good.    Amen.

Image via Wikipedia