Scripture Reading: Mark 3:20-35
One of the surest ways to hurt a man’s reputation is to give him a bad name. That was the course the scribes took with Jesus. They could not deny that He did very wonderful works, for there were the evidences — the demoniacs in their right mind — but they were determined to damage or destroy His influence over the people by starting this atrocious slander about Him. They whispered all around that Jesus and Satan were in league, and that He received His power from Satan. “He has Beelzebub,” they said. The same tactics have since been employed many times. Men who are vigorously engaged in destroying the works of Satan are accused of being themselves Satan’s agents.
When there is no way of defeating the earnestness or breaking the power of good men, vile tongues resort to slanderous speech. Base stories are started, or suspicions are breathed, or certain acts are misconstrued or misrepresented, or motives are misjudged. Such slanders fly on the wind, and the usefulness of many a godly Christian has been marred or altogether destroyed by them. Yet we must not be surprised if the world treats us as it treated our Master. We may as well make up our mind to the fact that if we are very earnest either in working for the lost or in fighting vice and wickedness, we shall be both misunderstood and misjudged. Some will say we are crazy, and others that we have a devil. The way to escape all such uncomfortable charges is never to rise above the
freezing, or at the highest, the temperate point in Christian fervor, and never to break over the lines of eminent respectability in active Christian service. The devil does not worry over easy-going Christians, for he has little to fear from them. But when he finds a very earnest Christian, bold and uncompromising, he tries relentlessly to strike him down, or to render him harmless.
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