If you stand firm for the truth, accept no alternative doctrine and teach, exhort and rebuke accordingly, sooner or later you will be labeled as a troublemaker. You may not even be aware that this title or one of its derivatives has been bestowed upon you. While this may be a result of your dedication and fervor, it is by no means a compliment.

 

Just who is a troublemaker? It may be one who tries to carry out the will of God. In Exodus 5, 19-21, the officers of the children of Israel charged Moses and Aaron with bringing trouble upon Israel when Pharaoh withdrew providing straw for making bricks. Even Moses questioned why God had “brought trouble” to Israel by the hand of Pharaoh (Exo. 5:22-23).

 

Sometimes in the teaching of truth, it may be necessary to call for or cause change in peoples’ daily routines. If you come upon a couple in an unscriptural marriage and call on them to repent, you may be called a troublemaker for “wanting to break up a happy marriage” (Matt 5:31-32, 19:9; Gal 4:16).

 

A “troublemaker” may be one who speaks things some folks don’t want to hear. They lay this charge against you to cast you as disreputable to anyone who would otherwise have listened to you. When people don’t want to hear the truth and you don’t relent from speaking it, they will close their ears to what you have to say. By calling you a troublemaker, they justify ignoring you to themselves and others. Would you think of the prophet Elijah as a troublemaker? Ahab did in 1Kings 18:17, “... Art thou he that troubleth Israel?”. You can imagine Ahab thinking, “Here comes that guy again who won’t leave us in peace. He’s always got something to say against what we’re doing.” Sadly, some people are too comfortable in their current error and sin to have the slightest desire to change (Isa 30:10; Matt 13:14-15, 1 Tim 4:1-4). This happens in the church, too (3John 9-10).

 

The apostle Paul wrote, “Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16).  You may cause so much “trouble” by speaking the truth that people lose all patience with you. They will seek to do you harm beyond just your reputation. Standing his ground in Acts 7, Stephen spoke words of truth that cost him his life (see especially vs. 51-54). Even some brethren, when corrected, see it as being “called on the carpet” and adopt a feeling of pride that blinds them to the correction they need. Rather than accept the correction, they lash out at the one who brings the correction (Prov 9:8, 23:9).

 

Friends, the ones who would call you a troublemaker are really the ones making trouble: for themselves. They don’t realize that you’re not nagging, splitting hairs, nit-picking or promoting your own opinion when you speak the truth of the gospel to them (Gal. 4:16). You are trying to deliver the message of the Gospel to save a sinner from his/her error (Gal 6:1).

 

The ones who have chosen not to heed the scriptures will find out just how much trouble they have caused themselves when Christ returns. “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;”(2Thes 6-9). This trouble is as deep as the pit of hell itself. God wishes for nobody to find themselves in this state (1Tim 2:4; 2Pet3:9). Let us continue our plea for Gospel obedience to the erring and the lost, remembering that the real “troubler of Israel” is the one who “have forsaken the commandments of the Lord” (1Kings 18:18).