It Is a Serious Thing to Reject God's Word!

If God shows you something in His word, the Bible, and opens your mind to understand it, He is speaking to you.  And if the thing he shows you contradicts what you have believed before, you may have a problem.  You have to make a choice - believe your traditions and maybe your ministry and fellowship, or believe God.  Maybe it will be easy.  But not always.  It might be hard, especially for a minister, to admit he has been wrong in what he has believed and taught and to begin to teach some new truth God has shown him, if he is the leader, or to at least refrain from now on from teaching error if he is employed by a Church of God fellowship and forbidden to openly teach the full truth.

It thus becomes a test from God.  Will you believe what God says, or will you reject the Word of God in favor of your existing beliefs?

It can be a very serious thing to reject the word of God.  There are warnings about that, from the Bible and from Church history.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children" (Hosea 4:6).

To king Saul of Israel, Samuel said, "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king" (1 Samuel 15:23).

"The wise men are ashamed, They are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; So what wisdom do they have?" (Jeremiah 8:9).

We criticize the people of the world for rejecting the word of God, yet at the same time some of us do the same.  What must God think of that?

If we knowingly teach to the brethren what God shows us in His word is false, we are lying to God's people.  We are lying to God's Holy Spirit which dwells in the minds of the brethren.  The seriousness of that is shown in Acts 5:1-11.  Ananias lied to Peter, and Peter had God's Holy Spirit.  By lying to Peter, he lied to the Holy Spirit that was in Peter, and by lying to the Holy Spirit he lied to God.  God struck him dead for it, and his wife who participated in his lie.   

And if we lie to others, we open ourselves to deception.

God says, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

If we sow deception, God may allow us to reap deception.  If we lie to others, God may allow us to be deceived by others.  That is a dangerous thing considering the worldwide deception that is coming.

Consider the life of Jacob.  Jacob lied to his father to obtain a blessing, and if you look at his life after that, God allowed him to be the victim of the lies of others.  Laban lied to Jacob, and later Jacob's sons lied to him about Joseph.  Jacob suffered needlessly thinking that Joseph was dead.  He sowed a lie, and he reaped being deceived.

There is an example in Church history, in the life of Mr. Armstrong as related in his autobiography, of how God dealt with someone who rejected His word.

There was a man who had the gift of healing.  He was a Sunday keeper, but God answered his prayers for the healing of others.  Mr. Armstrong learned about God's promises of healing from this man.  But Mr. Armstrong shared with the man the knowledge from God's word that the seventh day Sabbath, not Sunday, is the day God wants us to rest on and observe.  

The man had a decision to make.  He chose to reject God's word.

God took from him the gift of healing.  He no longer answered his prayers.

We must not reject God's word lest God reject us.