The Mirror of Their Madness

Title: The Mirror of Their Madness

Scripture: “They will treat you this way because they do not know the One who sent me.” (John 15:21)

My neighbour, Mr. Dlamini, lost his job last month. Not because his work was poor — he was the best boilermaker in the Hammanskraal industrial park but because the factory closed. Load‑shedding had strangled production, and the owner sold the equipment to a buyer in Durban. Mr. Dlamini came to my gate at 6 a.m., his eyes red from tears he would not admit. “Pastor,” he whispered, “my wife looks at me now like I am the problem.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Brother, her gaze is a cracked mirror. It shows her fear, not your failure.”

Beloved, I have stood in that painful place too many times. A few years ago, a brother in a Bible study I helped lead accused me of “trying to steal the glory” because I dared to preach on the cost of discipleship. He stopped greeting me in the aisle. He whispered to others that I was “too political.” I went home that night feeling like a dart had pierced my ribs. But the Holy Spirit whispered: Harold, why do you keep measuring your reflection in the mirror of his madness?

1. Let Us Define Our Terms

We throw around the word “rejection” like cheap maize meal but we need to define it biblically.

Rejection is not disagreement. Disagreement can be iron sharpening iron. Rejection is the active dismissal of your God‑given identity or calling, based on the other person’s internal wound, not on your actual failure.

Madness, in the scriptural sense (Psalm 14:1), is the functional denial of God’s reality. A madman calls the sunrise darkness — does that unmake the dawn?

The Mirror of Their Madness is the false reflection you see when you let a spiritually blind person tell you who you are. It is a cracked, distorted glass that turns their dysfunction into your doubt.

2. The Core Argument (Syllogism)

Let me lay this out plainly, so you can carry it in your pocket like a bullet.

· Premise 1: Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, was systematically despised, betrayed, and rejected by the religious and political authorities of His day (John 1:11; Luke 23:18‑23).

· Premise 2: Jesus explicitly taught that His followers would receive the same treatment because the world does not know the Father who sent Him (John 15:21).

· Premise 3: Therefore, when you are mistreated for righteousness’ sake, their rejection is not evidence against your worth — it is proof that you carry something they cannot stomach.

Let me say it in the plain language of the taxi rank: If they spat on the King of Glory, why are you surprised when they drop you on the roadside?

3. The Prophet’s Rebuke: Unmasking the Church’s Error

But we must sound the alarm. In many of our South African assemblies today, we have traded biblical confrontation for sentimental comfort. A young woman is gossiped about because she refuses to sleep with the deacon’s son — and we tell her, “Just pray more.” A man is fired for refusing to falsify invoices and we whisper, “God will open another door.”

This is the devil’s arithmetic. It subtracts your value from their dysfunction. It tells you that their behaviour is a referendum on you, when in truth it is a diagnosis of them.

I saw this error clearly during the chaotic days of the July 2021 unrest. A pastor in Soweto had his church building burned by young men who were angry, hungry, and lost. Some Christians asked him, “What sin did you commit to bring this judgment?” That question is the mirror of their madness. The real question is: What truth were you carrying that the kingdom of darkness could not tolerate?

The apostle Paul put it in war‑terms. In 2 Corinthians 10:4, he declares: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. A stronghold is a fortress of wrong thinking. When someone rejects you for Christ’s sake, you are not looking at your failure; you are looking at the crumbling outer wall of their stronghold.

4. A Common Objection  And the Logical Response

Objection: “But Harold, what if I truly made a mistake? What if my behaviour was prideful or unloving? Isn’t their anger at least partly my fault?”

I appreciate the question it shows a humble heart. But let us apply careful reasoning.

· Fact A: You are a fallen human being, saved by grace. You will make mistakes. You will sometimes speak unwisely or act impatiently.

· Fact B: However, the specific persecution Jesus describes in John 15:21 is because they do not know the Father, not because you messed up.

· Conclusion: The two categories are not identical. A spouse’s anger over your genuine sin requires confession and reconciliation (James 5:16). But a mob’s hatred because you refuse to deny Christ that is the mirror of their madness.

Here is the test: When they attack you, do they attack your character (a real moral failure) or your calling (your identity in Christ)? If they mock you for praying before meals at work, that is not a character issue that is spiritual conflict. Do not confuse the two.

5. A Personal Story from Akasia

Let me take you to my own street, here in Akasia, Pretoria. Two years ago, a group of young men started selling nyope (whoonga) openly on the corner near the spaza shop. I went to speak with them not with a Bible first, but with a loaf of bread and a cold drink. We sat on the curb. I asked about their mothers, their dreams. One said, “I wanted to be a mechanic, but who will hire me with a record?”

After several visits, three of them gave their lives to Jesus Christ. But the drug supplier — a man who drives a BMW 3 Series and lives in a bigger house than mine sent a message: “Tell the pastor to mind his business, or his car will find a bullet.”

That night, I knelt in my lounge. Fear grabbed my throat. But the Lord brought this very verse to my heart: They will treat you this way because they do not know the One who sent me. I realised: that drug lord’s threat was not a measure of my failure. It was a measure of his spiritual blindness. The mirror of his madness said, “You are a meddler.” But the mirror of Scripture said, “You are a sent one.”

I did not buy a bulletproof vest. I bought more bread. And today, those three young men are in a discipleship class, and the drug lord’s business is shrinking. Why? Because light always outlasts darkness.

6. South African Context: The News and the Nkandla Lesson

Let me bring this home with a recent news event. You may have read about the ongoing crisis in the South African Post Office — thousands of workers facing retrenchment, piles of undelivered pensions, and a government scrambling for a bailout. When a worker is blamed for a system’s failure, is that justice? No. That is a broken institution projecting its dysfunction onto the individual.

Similarly, in the spiritual realm, a broken world system that has rejected God will naturally reject God’s people. Why are you surprised when the Post Office of a fallen world loses your package of approval?

Or consider the political theatre we witness every year in the State of the Nation Address. Promises are made, speeches are polished, and yet the potholes remain. If you expect the government to give you your identity, you will live perpetually disappointed. In the same way, if you expect a rebellious world to give you a standing ovation for following Jesus, you will live perpetually confused.

Remember what happened at Nkandla? The endless investigations, the public protector’s reports, the political mud‑slinging. Whatever your political persuasion, the principle is clear: when a person or institution rejects accountability, they project blame outward. The mirror of their madness always points away from themselves.

7. The Healed Person Architects Altars

But hallelujah we are not trapped in their madness. The Scripture declares unequivocally: their rejection reveals their wound, not your worth.

A madman calls the sunrise darkness does that unmake the dawn? No!

Hurt people orchestrate chaos from internal prisons. But healed people? Healed people architect altars. We build places of worship, of intercession, of hospitality. We do not build walls of self‑pity.

Let me give you four action steps, practical and immediate:

1. Stop rehearsing their accusations. Every time you replay their words, you give them free rent in your mind. Evict them.

2. Check your mirror source. Whose opinion are you measuring? Is it the opinion of someone who knows God? Or someone who is, biblically speaking, functionally mad?

3. Do a sin check. Have you genuinely wronged someone? If yes, repent and reconcile. If no, stand firm. Do not apologise for your calling.

4. Find your tribe. You cannot fight this battle alone. Find two or three believers who will speak truth to you even difficult truth and who will stand with you when the mirror of madness is held up.

8. Conclusion: The Anthem of the Sent One

Therefore, reason itself, illuminated by Scripture and confirmed in our deepest longings, compels us to acknowledge that you are not their diagnosis — you are God’s masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10).

Jesus Christ faced betrayal, yet He never became betrayal. He faced false accusation, yet He never became a liar. He faced the ultimate mirror of madness a cross meant for criminals and He turned it into an altar of cosmic redemption.

Your turn is coming. Not the cross of atonement (only He could bear that), but the cross of identification. When they mock you, when they exclude you, when they call you “too much” or “too little” remember: their rejection is not a closed door. It is a signpost. It points to the One they do not know.

So today, reject the devil’s arithmetic that subtracts your value from their dysfunction. Refuse the cracked mirror. Instead, look into the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25). See yourself as the Father sees you: justified, beloved, and sent.

The world will keep building their mirrors of madness. You just keep building altars of worship.

Prayer

Lord God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

I seal my identity today in Your Son. Let me see myself through Calvary’s lens, not cruelty’s lie. Give me the courage of Daniel in the lion’s den — not a courage that denies danger, but a courage that knows You are greater. Protect my brothers and sisters in South Africa who are persecuted in their families, in their workplaces, even in their churches. Break every mirror of madness that has held them captive. And use me, Lord, to build altars where broken people can find healing. In the mighty, matchless name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Go in peace. Go in power. And do not I repeat, do not measure your reflection in the mirror of their madness.