The Balance of Strictness and Compassion in Gods Prophet's

You know, in the Old Covenant, Old Testament, usually there's only one prophet who comes up and leads, whether it's Moses or Joshua, leader, Elijah, Elisha. But by the time you come to the end of the Old Testament, you see them starting to work in pairs because that is God's perfect plan. And Jesus, when he sent out his disciples, he sent them two by two.

It is never God's will for a person to work alone. But because there were not enough people in the Old Covenant, he had to select Moses alone or Joshua alone. But when you come to the end of the New Covenant, it's sort of preparing a way for the New Covenant.

It's Ezra and Nehemiah together. And then you go later on, you read Haggai and Zechariah. And you come into the New Testament, you read Paul and Barnabas.

And the thing I noticed about these pairs that God joins together, when Ezra heard that the people had compromised and married and were unfaithful, it says here in Ezra, see Ezra chapter 10 verse 1, Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping in the midst of the people. Because, you know, he had spoken earlier on, you see in chapter 9 and verse 14 about the intermarrying with all these people who commit these abominations. That was the reason for his weeping.

These people had married the non-Jewish people and Ezra weeps about it. Now when Nehemiah saw it, he was reading the last chapter of Nehemiah 13, verse 23, I saw that these people had married women from other countries. What did he do? It's very interesting.

It says in verse 25, he cursed them and slapped them on the face and pulled out their hair. Very different from the way Ezra tackled it. That is the balance in God's, the way God deals with people.

You see exactly the same with Paul and Barnabas. They were the two whom God called to spread his word. And what type of person was Barnabas? You read in Acts of the Apostles and verse 36, chapter 4, Acts 4, 36.

Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian, was called Barnabas. Why did they change his name? You know that Barnabas was not his original name. His name was Joseph.

But they changed his name because the guy was going around encouraging people left, right and center. Everywhere he went he encouraged people, encouraged people, encouraged people. And maybe wept with them and prayed with them.

And they said, we better change your name. We'll call you the son of encouragement. That is Bar in the Hebrew, Bar-Nabas.

Now God selected him to go along with Paul for his ministry. And on their first trip, you read about their first trip in Acts chapter 13. And when they go, it says here in Acts chapter 13 and verse 13, they went out from Paphos.

Before that, sorry, they went in chapter 13, verse 5. They reached Salamis and proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues. And then we read here that the proconsul, verse 7, was a man of intelligence. He called Barnabas and Saul to hear the word of God.

That was the governor of that area. But there was a magician who was a right-hand man to this proconsul, who was trying to oppose him from coming to the faith. And see how Saul reacts to that.

Saul behaves exactly like Nehemiah. He pulls him up and says, you who are full of, verse 10, you who are full of all deceit and fraud and son of the devil, you enemy of righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? It's just like Nehemiah slapping the fellow on the face and how dare you do such a thing. And Barnabas was the person who would just go around encouraging.

The reason I say that, you know, for God's work to go on, there must be these two ministries. And that's why God called Paul and Barnabas and trained them to be like that. That's how he called Ezra and Nehemiah.

Ezra weeps when he sees all this and Nehemiah just slaps him on the face and he better stop doing it, he says. It's the combination of this, what we read in the New Testament as grace and truth. How Jesus would comfort a person who's fallen into sin.

Tells a woman caught in adultery who deserves to be stoned. Old Testament law said she must be stoned. He says, I don't condemn you, just don't go and sin again.

And the same Jesus, when he sees the Pharisees making money, he takes a whip. And whips them all out and turns the tables so the money changes and all the money goes flying around there. The same Jesus, there are two aspects of Jesus.

We read in John 1.14, the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. And the ministry in the body of Christ has to be exactly like that. Ezra and Nehemiah were a demonstration of that grace and truth.

Paul and Barnabas is a demonstration of the grace and truth. And I believe that every church or group of churches, when they move together to fulfill God's purpose, there must be the ministries of grace and truth. And where God is in charge of a church or churches, he will raise up people who will be like Paul and he'll raise up people who will be like Barnabas.

One is not more important than the other. So it's very important for us to recognize this and see that, to be thankful that God raises up such people. I've seen that in all these 50 years in India, how God has raised up people like Paul and people like Barnabas.

Or people like Ezra and people like Nehemiah. I mean, we don't have anybody going around slapping others on the face, but using the word of God in that way. That's what I mean.

Jesus never slapped anybody. But he used the word of God very strongly. So the point is that, as Jeremy was saying, God is so much against compromise that he had to use strong words and rebuke and encouragement plus rebuke.

The main aim was that nobody should compromise. There's a great danger. The greatest danger the church faces today is compromise because all around us, Christendom is compromising.

And we must be concerned about it. And say that that compromise should not come into our midst in any area. Amen.