Call To Worship January 29 2017


“We should learn, for one thing, from these verses, that the worst and most wicked acts may be done under a show of love to Christ…Conduct like this, unhappily, is not without its parallels. The pages of history record many an instance of enormous wickedness wrought out and perfected under the garb of religion. The name of God has too often been pressed into the service of persecution, treachery, and crime. When Jezebel would have Naboth killed, she ordered a “fast to be proclaimed,” and false witnesses to accuse him of “blaspheming God and the king.” (1 Kings 21:9-10.)…When the Spanish Inquisition tortured and burned suspected heretics, they justified their abominable dealings by a profession of zeal for God’s truth. The false apostle Judas Iscariot has never lacked successors and imitators. There have always been men ready to betray Christ with a kiss, and willing to deliver the Gospel to its enemies under a show of respect…To betray Christ at any time is the very height of wickedness, but to betray Him with a kiss, proves a man to have become a very child of hell.”

(J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke, vol 2. (Banner of Truth, 2012), pg. 319-320.)