Witnesses
Sunday 27th July
The teacher asked each student in the class to write an essay about their pet, and two little girls who were twins turned in identical essays about their puppy. When asked why the essays were exactly alike, they replied that they were both about the same puppy.
Unless there is collusion, no two people, not even identical twins, will say exactly the same thing about anything. God has made us each a distinct individual, and although different, yet each in his own way can serve. As God said of Paul, so it applies to us as well, that each of us is to be ”His witness unto all men.” No two witnesses seeing the same accident will give the exact same account anymore than two little girls working independently will write the same essay about the same puppy. In spite of their differences, true witnesses will agree and confirm the facts, but a skillful lawyer can trip up a false witness. 1n the case of those who testified at Christ’s trial, ”many bear false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.”
Now we are all witnesses, our life is a trial, and we are testifying every day. We can be willing witnesses, or like the Jews of old who were God’s witnesses even in their disobedience, we can help prove the truth of God’s prediction that ”there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies.” ”Of your own selves,” warns Paul, ”shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”
What kind of witnesses are we? When a certain number of facts are known, the testimony of the witness can be tested to determine whether or not he is telling the truth. John exhorts us to try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone into the world. John proceeds to give us the test to apply to determine whether a witness is true or false, and says that ”hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
It is important that we each keep alert to the facts so that we may easily discern the true witness from the false. It is also important that we each make sure that not only is our testimony true, but that we are always prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within us.
An ignorant witness is no witness at all. If we were present at an accident or scene of a crime and slept through the whole thing, we could not be of any help. Neither can we be a true and faithful witness for Christ if we are not aware of the facts concerning his life, his sacrifice, his return, or his commandments. ”Oh, you’re a Christadelphian; now just what do they believe?” someone asks. Are we ready to testify? Or are we ashamed, either of our own ignorance or of Christ himself? ”Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” No two people will say exactly the same thing, but we should all be ready, willing, and able to be true and faithful witnesses and ”give to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear.”
With God there is no ”Fifth Amendment.” Not even ignorance can be used as an excuse. We are witnessing every day, either by what we do or do not do” either by our acts of faith, or the lack of them, either by giving an answer or being ashamed of him. The big question that will be answered by the judge of all the earth very soon is, ”Just what kind of witnesses are we?”