Beyond Holiness (Part 6 of 6)

9. My Story 

Have you ever been severely blamed for what you never did?  Put on your seat belt. I have had my share of bad names, very bad names at that, and they came from such unctuous lips that you were bound to believe.  I was called an adulterer, a wicked man, an idol worshipper, a pornographer, a violent person, and everything that should make you pluck a holy microphone from my filthy hands.  Some actually did, lest I should stain them with my unholy names.  The names went far and wide, sometimes ahead of me on an international or local trip.

I was summoned to the courts of the holy and the others.  I was amused at some of them, realising in that season that God was also reviewing my alliances, my connections.  I couldn’t blame some of them, and couldn’t be angry either, given the ‘fine source’ of their ‘privileged information.’ Besides, it was I who was on trial, not they. I was determined to be holy and blameless.  I prayed for some of them pious Pharisees, that God would mercifully spare them the bitter cup that He was letting me drink from in that season.  It dragged on for years, and I chose not to defend myself against the scandals, except to answer to some who wondered enough to ask.  Some honourable altars called to hold hands with me and pray, for God had showed them that the enemy was up to a game.

Based on the ‘facts and figures’ from the mouth of such a horse as peddled those tales, some holy folks stood back to see in me the strange names that I had been called.  I kept my walk, daring to keep lifting up holy hands unto the Lord my God.  My daughter wondered, “Daddy, how do you manage to still go about and preach, with all these things being said about you?”  She knew the matters.  I told her that I couldn’t be deterred by lies, as my heart and my hands were clean. It was up to anyone to believe whatever they wanted, it was up to me to be what I should.  The Lord was my Judge and my Witness, and I couldn’t be condemned by any other.

When Paul had his shipwreck at Melita, people who had never met him all their lives called him a strange name based on the present storms in his teacup.  When again they saw a deadly viper fasten itself around his busy hand, they were surer that he was the names that they had called him.  They declared in pitiable self-righteous certainty, “No doubt, this man IS A MURDERER, whom, though  he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live” (Acts 28:4).  They gave him a bad name by judging his character against his present consecutive challenges.  They expected that he would soon drop dead from the sudden attack of the viper, being judged by nemesis.  When they waited so long and the man was getting stronger, “they changed their minds, and said that he was a god” (v.6).  That was my story too.

People will call you names, but never be the wrong names that they call you. Some blame is deserved, as when Peter at Antioch shied away from his Gentile brethren to please the religious sentiments of his Jewish folks, and Paul “withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11).  It was a blame, not a Sin, but he had upset the faith of some.  He was still holy, but not also blameless.

Being blameless does not mean pleasing everyone.  Being blameless does not mean not being called undeserved names.  Paul at Melita was publicly called a Murderer by biased people who insisted that their conclusion had “no doubt,” and there were those that believed the ‘reliable’ ‘rumours.’  Paul never defended himself against their silent blames.  He kept at his tasks, then they changed their mind.  The same ones who had called him a murderer began to call him a god.  The one whom they thought had been so guilty that  even nature would have none of him, left that island much “honoured,” in a new ship “laded” and loaded with many goodies, his losses more abundantly restored.  From shipwreck to a new ship; from being grounded on a strange island to a fresh and glorious start in a voyage to the noble city of Rome; from Murderer to “god” and Healer, from lack to plenty and abundance.  The blame names had failed to find a place on the holy man (Acts 28:1-11).

May God vindicate you, too, speedily, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”  Amen.

From The Preacher’s diary,
November 23, 2023.