Day 25 – What Do You Do With the Truth?

The final woe from Jesus to the Pharisees:

Matthew 23:29-36 (ESV)
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

Doesn’t this sound like us? We often jeer world changers while they are in action, or run them out of town if they offend us, but then, we celebrate them as heroes after they die. We look back on history and say to ourselves, how could they have believed that way? Acted that way? Committed those atrocities? I like to look back, then look around and consider what we are doing today that 100 years from now will be looked back on with great regret, and try to address them now. Jesus declared in verse 35 that all of that righteous blood would come on them in that generation, but the truth is, He would take all of their unrighteousness upon Himself as they did to Him what they had done to truth tellers and prophets in the past. What do you do with the truth?

Rev. Andy Bales

President/CEO of Union Rescue Mission