Where does your hope lay, in what do you put your trust, or can I use the words, in whom do you put your trust. I would hope that your hope and assurance in its totality is in the Lord Jesus Christ, that every possible circumstance that occurs in your life shows you the path that He would have you to be on, and that the path is to be adhered to, but for many I am concerned that this is not true.
One of my beautiful wife’s memory verses this week is Proverbs 15:1, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger,” and the devotional that she read for us this morning was speaking about the sanctuary that we have in Christ, which led to the discussion of is that sanctuary one of refuge, one of a place to become reenergized in Him after a difficult time, or both. The verse in Proverbs seemed to fit very well into the discussion we had this morning, for the soft answer in the eyes of far too many believers today seems to be one of never offending, of not speaking the truth of a matter to an individual for fear of hurting their feelings, one of never speaking the entire truths of the Word of God to those we meet, for fear of the possible retributions upon us.
A soft answer of course infers that a conversation has taken place, words have been exchanged by at least two individuals, and there has arisen in this conversation a debatable topic, our response is to be a soft answer. What too many who profess Christ today tend to forget today though is that the soft answer is still to contain truth, and that how the individual that they are speaking to accepts that truth is of no consequence to the speaker, it is left up to the hearer. The inflection of our voice, the modulation of our tones that the person hears must of course be taken into consideration, but the truth must not be altered, and this truth must stem from the Scriptures. There is a propensity among many today that seems to be one of never offending in this truth, for them it is better to just end the conversation, hoping to save face, as it were, than to create even more tension than what already exist between the two verbal combatants.
What those who are doing in these instances is seeking the praise of men above the things of God, or perhaps not wanting to lose a possible friendship or acquaintance, in either circumstance, they have denied the most Holy One for self, they are not willing to lose all for Christ. In these instances, we are not speaking of conversational topics that are based in the world, leave that striving between the lost and the lost, we are to have a cause for our conversations. “Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm.” (Prov. 3:30) The soft answer is meant to turn away wrath. The Scriptural definition of wrath is the expression of physical anger, of man’s sinful anger, and of God’s righteous anger, the soft answer that we are to give to those who need to hear it can only be contained in the first two of these, for no one can stand in disagreement with Gods righteous anger.
Before we discuss these two, we must always remember that nothing happens to the child of God unless it is allowed by Him to happen, and that all that happens to us is for good, (Rom. 8:28) for the glory of God and for our continued growth in Christ. These contentions that will arise, those times that the soft answer is required, are your opportunities to profess the Name of Christ, to expound on the Scriptures, and to assist either the lost souls that your are speaking to, or the brother or sister in Christ to know and understand the Scriptures more completely. That is why there is wrath in the first place, because of contention, and all contentions come from pride. “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.” (Prov. 13:10)
The expression of physical anger is for some the reason that they would rather shy away from any possible confrontations, pain is a great deterrent, but when that pain is inflicted upon us by those who hate Christ, when it comes because of our faithful witness to others, it is to be rejoiced over. If you need proof of this, it takes very little research to see what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Christ in areas around the globe today, they are being imprisoned, tortured and killed for simply speaking the truths of the love of Christ to others. The physical anger should not be any more of a deterrent to the believer that any other part of our ministry to those who need either to hear the Word for the first time, or our fellow believers that we are in a misunderstanding of the Scriptures with.
Man’s sinful anger is indeed an entirely different factor, but should hold no more sway upon our responsibility to the Lord than any other form of suffering. Those who would consider contention points with us in this form have nothing more than words to hurl at us, and it is only the soft answer, the Words of the Scriptures that will turn away that wrath. Herein is where the majority of those who profess Christ but will not stand firmly on the rock of our salvation will falter, their responses tend to turn to the answers of the world, or are not given at all. For those who are not well versed in the Scriptures, this still remains no excuse, the one they are speaking to can either be told that they will have the answer for them at a later date, or in most cases, your cell phone is capable of informing you immediately of the needed response, in either way, the soft answer is available to you and them.
One thing that we must remember is that the Word of God is not always soft, if you will, when it is heard by those who are at wrath with you. The contention point will inevitably be about something in or surrounding the truths of the Scriptures, and those truths are not negotiable. The answer may be given in a soft way, but they may not hear it as such, for their minds are not determined to know the truth, but to be correct in what they believe to be true. If you are just as determined to give them these truths, then perhaps the Holy Spirit will soften them, but they will not hear without His leading, and no matter the intonation of your voice, or the tone of it, without them being called to either repent of their sins and come to Christ, or to ask forgiveness of the Holy Spirit for the wrath that have brought upon this conversation, your soft answer will have availed only one thing, you have been an obedient servant in adhering to the Word of God.
The wrath will continue to come upon us as the Lord sees fit, but in this we can rest assured, the wrath of God will never fall upon any of those who have trusted Christ as their Savior, in Him we will find permanent sanctuary.
