A House Divided: Can we Heal Before it is too Late?

A house divided cannot stand. This was a phrase that was used in, in perhaps what became Abraham Lincoln's second most famous speech. This one was done in 1858. It was at a time when he was running, I believe, for the U. S. Senate and he was giving a speech. It was a time in America where everybody just seemed to be at each other's throats. There was so much division and bitterness and vitriol. It was very clear that the nation was coming apart at the seams. And Abraham Lincoln pointed out something that Jesus had pointed out some 1, 850 years earlier. A house divided against itself cannot stand. This is how Jesus put it in Matthew 12, 25. Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself, will not stand. I was talking with a good friend of mine recently. We've had this same conversation several times over the past few years. It just seems like everybody is really on edge right now. It doesn't seem to take much to set people off. If you bring up an opinion that's just a little bit different than somebody else's, somebody's just standing there ready to be offended and ready to just jump down your throat. I wonder sometimes what's happening. What is it about people where we just have no patience for one another? And perhaps the root cause would be that we seem to be losing our love for one another. And because of that, we now live during an era that really can only be compared to the time before the civil war in America. And we have to take the same warning, a house divided against itself. cannot stand. We need to get a hold of ourself before it's too late. The last time this eventuated in a civil war, what's going to happen to us now if we cannot learn to be civil to one another, respectful of one another's ideas? We don't have to agree with everybody, and we certainly don't have to go along with things that are evil. I'm not talking about compromising with sin. Rather, what I'm talking about is learning To be able to respond in a loving way because we really do care for one another. It seems like that, that prophecy from the new Testament in the latter times, the love of most will grow cold is now coming true. It just seems like people don't have that love for one another. So what can we do? What can we do when everybody's just seems to be at each other's throat? Do we just do we just let things play out and go into another civil war? Well, here are some solutions and obviously they are solutions that are not my own. They are from the Bible and therefore I believe they're worth considering. And so here is the first one. Stop gossiping. Now, gossiping is not just saying something that's bad. There are times when we have to discuss and discuss quite candidly things that are going on in the world. that are not right. Before the Civil War, they needed to be discussing slavery. They needed to be talking about the fact that this was not something that was acceptable in God's eyes, nor should it therefore be acceptable in the eyes of men. We have things like that going on right now, so I'm not talking about just never saying anything bad, but, but this idea of gossip, this backbiting and devouring one another and it's not always backbiting, sometimes it's right to their face, and social media circles, we, we see all sorts of comments that, that are made and it just, it just almost makes you shudder. If somebody had said that comment in, in person, they might start a fistfight and doesn't seem like people seem to, to care about this. They'll just say whatever is on their mind. irregardless of who it might hurt. Consider these passages not only on gossip but also on some of the things that surround it. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 20, the Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth and he's writing to them about some problems they're starting to have with one another. And he says this, I'm afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be. I fear there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder. It's like Paul was reading the headlines from today's newspapers. Well, isn't it? It just, it just sounds like where we're at today. We have way too much quarreling, and oftentimes that quarreling is because we're jealous of what other people have. This outburst of anger, it doesn't seem to take much to set people off. And then, of course, factions. One of the things I loved about George Washington was he was, he was very much against political parties and he warned his fellow Americans against the the spirit of party. within politics. And he wasn't talking about that it was wrong for us to have, have different ideas that we could associate with, but he was talking about this idea of factions, where people would get to the point where these factions would turn into enmities and the enmities would result in terrible things. Well, it wasn't even a hundred years before his, his quote on, on his not liking the spirit of party. turned out to to, to come to pass when we saw the Civil War. Slander. Talking evil about one another. Untrue things about one another. Gossip. We seem to rejoice in passing along this slander. Arrogance. Where we don't regard anybody's opinion but our own as being worth, worthy of consideration. And disorder. And we're certainly finding that right now. We've got to stop doing these things if we want to avoid a train wreck that appears to be coming within our nation. In Proverbs 16, 28, it says a perverse man stirs up dissension and a gossip separates close friends. This idea of gossip is just perverse in God's eyes. It's against nature and it's something that we shouldn't be doing, yet we seem to rejoice in it, don't we? And then sometimes after we're through gossiping, we're surprised when it does separate us from our friends, makes us mad at our friends, and our friends are now our enemies. This is one of the things that's so dangerous about gossip. In Ecclesiastes Chapter seven in verse 20 gives us one of the solutions for maybe avoiding getting caught up in this type of behavior. It says, there's not a righteous man on earth who does what's right and never sins. Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. What a great point. We are oftentimes talking in ways that we shouldn't about people, sometimes people that we love. And, and we know in our hearts, we really didn't mean it. We're just maybe blowing off a little bit of steam. But then when we hear they've said something bad about us, well, we take it to heart. And then we, we say something that we really do mean. And then this gossip goes back and forth like a fire out of control. In Proverbs 26 and verse 20, this is what the the king of Israel Solomon has to say about it. He's speaking through inspiration. Without wood, a fire goes out and without gossip, a quarrel dies down. As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife. The words of a gossip are like choice morsels. They go down to a man's inmost parts. Why, gossip just seems to thrill us sometimes, doesn't it? It excites us when we hear something about somebody else, unless it's something that somebody else said about us, and then it makes us angry. But Solomon, through inspiration, points out it's like a fire, and a fire cannot continue to burn without fuel. So stop feeding the fire with gossip. And again, I want to be very clear on this. This does not mean that we cannot speak out against things that are wrong. It just means that we don't get down into the mud slinging and, and the name calling and the hatred and the discord that seems to be so prevalent today. I, I was, I, I mentioned that I was talking to a friend the other day and he was talking about a. Public meeting that was about to take place, and as the public meeting was about to start, there were people on, on social media just talking and saying terrible things about the other side. And some of the things were just flat out untrue. Some of them had a morsel of, of truth or a grain of truth, but they had been so bent out of shape by the time they'd been presented, they no longer resembled the truth. And I realized that sometimes people just do want to blow off steam, but we have to be careful when we're doing that in, in areas that can be recorded for all time. I always hated to write somebody a letter when I disagreed with them. When I disagreed with him, I wanted to be able to take a chance to go to them in person so that they could see my face so that they could hear the tone of my voice and see the expression. that I had so that they wouldn't misinterpret anything. It's so easy to misinterpret things when you're reading something that was written on, on Facebook. And unfortunately, sometimes it's easy to correctly interpret it when they leave nothing to the imagination as well. What have we come to when we feel so Ready to criticize people with words that we know that will hurt. As a matter of fact, sometimes people do it just for the effect of hopefully hurting somebody or hopefully dividing people one against the other. Again, this is, this is a conduct that God calls perverse and we can't be taking part in it. It's something that is contrary to his will. I believe we need to be measured. We need to be loving. We need to be very careful. You watch the news today and, and there's so little on the news that is, that is worth watching. It seems like everything is political commentary now, doesn't it? Used to the, the things that, that pass for news stories now would have been reserved only for a special time of commentary and, and only on special occasions at that. But now it seems like every news story has a slant. And, and it seems much more designed to separate people rather than to unite people. And I realize that there are people in positions of power, whether we're talking about people who, who have news corporations, or whether we're talking about people who are in politics, or whatever, who are benefited by making us mad at the other side. We're saying half truths about the other people or distorting things to the point where, where we become angry ourselves. I realize there are people who benefit from that, but we've got to stop being patsies and stop going along with that. We've got to start having a love for one another. Here's what, here's what we, we know that Jesus quoted this in, in Matthew and then again in, in Luke, I believe, when he was asked what the greatest commandments were. And he of course started out with loving God with, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. But he said the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. Here is where he got that. It's found in Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 18. And this is one of the commandments that God gave to Moses. It wasn't one of the ten commandments, but it was certainly in Jesus's eyes, and therefore it should be in our eyes as well, the second most important commandment. Leviticus 19. 18, God said to Moses to tell the people, Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people. But love your neighbor as yourself. And then God said, he concluded this after he said, love your neighbor as yourself. He said, I am the Lord. Sometimes we hear, hear the phrase, love your neighbor as yourself, as if it's just good advice that we can take or leave. But God left no room for error on this. This was not just good advice, it was an absolute command from God. Love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord. And just before that, he told us not to bear grudge against one another. I realize it's hard not to hold hard feelings, especially when somebody has been particular, particularly hurtful towards us. But if we love people as ourselves, then we're going to give them that benefit of the doubt. We're going to remember that we have said some things that were particularly hurtful at different times, and we wished that, that we hadn't said it, and, and we hope people will forgive us. Well, don't we need to forgive others? Don't we need to stop bearing grudges? And don't we need to stop the chain of evil talk, and gossip, and slander, and hurtful words? It has to stop somewhere. Maybe it could stop with Christians. Jesus, by the way, did not stop with love your neighbor as yourself. In Matthew chapter 5 and verse 43 he said this, You have heard it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. Let me ask you this. When you hear something outrageous that someone on the other side says, do you get mad? Do you, do you say something hateful in return? Do you hope something bad will happen to them? Or do you pray for those who persecute you? Do you genuinely want them to repent so that they will not suffer the penalty of heaven or excuse me, the penalty of hell that is surely coming to those who don't repent of these types of sins. Or do we just start to snowball the effort, the back and forth that we see continually now? Think about your favorite news station. I don't know if you, if you like to listen to to news stations with this slant or with that slant and somewhere in your mind you believe there's no slant at all, but, but think about that. Do the news stories that are presented tend to, to uplift and, and build others up and give others the benefit of the doubt. If you're listening to such newscasts, good for you, but you're probably listening to a newscast that has a, a, a viewership of, of 20 people or less because these things just don't exist except for a few on the internet, just private channels. Most of us get our news from a source that is highly biased, and yet we don't recognize that bias. And so we listen to what they have to say, and then we get mad against everybody else, and it benefits those who are saying this, or those who are paying them their salaries. Otherwise, they wouldn't be saying it. Otherwise, we'd be looking for solutions, wouldn't we? Before the Civil War occurred, Abraham Lincoln was making a valid point. And again, it was valid because it was a truth spoken by Jesus. A house divided against itself cannot stand. If America keeps going in the direction that we've been going in, in recent years, We're surely going to end up in some sort of a conflict. It may not be civil war where we're taking up guns against our neighbors, but it's going to be harsh and it's going to be brutal and it's going to take a long time to get over. Five years after Abraham Lincoln gave that speech, he gave a speech at Gettysburg. I mentioned that earlier that tens of thousands of people had fallen, died in battle. It was getting close now to the end of the Civil War, just maybe a year or a little over a year away, but they were at the height of their killing frenzy. And Abraham Lincoln gave this Gettysburg Address four score and seven years ago and reminded people of the hallowed ground on which they stood, made, made, made holy, not by the words that they were speaking that day, but by the blood that was shed. We have to realize there's a penalty for continuing to go in a direction that is filled with strife and rancor and even hatred. We've got to catch ourselves at some point and start healing at some point. And I believe the best way to do that is to heed the words of the Bible. Don't listen to every word the other person says. Don't engage in gossip. Do love your neighbor as yourself, but also love your enemy enough to know that even though he may be wrong, that he still has an eternal soul. And, and maybe if you handle it in a good way, he can repent. And if you're wrong, and he handles it in a good way, maybe you can repent. And somehow we might get back to the, to the business that we are here for on earth in the first place, to serve God and to serve others and to help one another on our journey to heaven. Instead of all this bitter snapping and biting and, and, and evil talk. and, and striking one another with wicked fists and shooting at one another from ambush or from the open. We've got to get a hold of ourselves before it's too late. We serve a wonderful God, a loving God, who's given us a great solution for our problems today. And when you think about it, don't, don't you have to admit that peace is a lot better than strife. And so maybe we should start acting in such a way that promotes peace instead of strife. There are some people that certainly just, you cannot get along with. There came a point where a nation had to say we cannot conduct ourselves in such a way as to one man owns another and there was a conflict that was necessitated from that. I pray that we can get to the point where we're doing the right thing without that type of a conflict and I hope you'll join me in that. Well, that's the lesson for today. A house divided cannot stand. On the other hand, a house that's united cannot be toppled. And so let's do our best to unite ourselves behind God. Thanks for listening today. We'll see you next time.