One of my favorite small talk questions to learn about someone’s personality is this: what’s your go-to strategy for shutting down voices of truth so you don’t have to take accountability for your sins? Okay, I don’t actually ask that—but the point is that everyone has a strategy. When it comes to silencing the truths we don’t want to hear, we’re all really clever and inventive.
Life gets hard when we fall deep into sin patterns. The unavoidable reality of our grotesque depravity is oftentimes unbearable, plus the absolute last thing we want to do is repent from the deep-seated sin we so enjoy. And so we strategize. We invent flimsy arguments to justify our behavior, or we surround ourselves with unwise friends who say the things we want to hear, or we launch attacks at our naysayers until they shut up and leave us alone. Perhaps if you’re the king of Israel, you even burn the scroll of God’s Word and try to get God’s prophet killed.
God’s Word chases us down though. The good news is that his Word remains true, and it remains the greatest possible good, even when we adamantly want to not believe it. So there’s hope and comfort in the fact that the truth is unavoidable. In spite of all our scheming, in spite of all of our self-justifying and avoiding and self-deception, we simply cannot blot out God’s Word, because the God of truth lives, and no matter what we do, his Word will always, always prevail.
The same gospel that proclaims forgiveness and redemption and hope is also a command of repentance. And yes, a command of repentance makes us come to terms with some really serious sin problems we have. But a key mark of a believer is being willing to face them humbly and then repent! King Jehoiakim still paid the price for his evil, because God’s words are true even when they’re burned to ash. But we instead can find joy in letting our façades fall and allowing truth to fully convict us. Because accountability is a gift, repentance is a privilege, and God’s Word will always, always prevail.
