As the Dear Abby column in the San Diego U-T, 6/8/21 proved, personal evangelism—one Christian talking to an unsaved friend, co-worker or relative—can have three stages: starting; continuing till succeeding; stopping when the prospect is no longer listening. It seems the Christians involved neglected the third stage.
Jesus himself faced the potentially-negative in every encounter, remembering to speak "the word to them, as much as they could understand" Mark 4:33. For their own peace of mind Christian witnesses must observe the "as much as they could understand" reaction when interfacing with others. Indeed, Jesus insisted that his servants should stop teaching his word when people stop listening Matthew 7:6. As animals have no spiritual capacity to grasp scriptural truth, some humans have none to appreciate it. They're wayside soil. Don't waste your time. Scatter a few grains of truth before them if you want, but don't stop to cultivate or fertilize them with other truth. In her usual secular mindset, Dear Abby unwittingly offered two examples of the spiritual hog. One, the prospect believes his relationship with God is what he wants it to be. Two, the prospect believes a "little prayer" never hurt anyone. It might even make a guy feel "better" about himself. Such people are not candidates for conversion. Maybe another occasion will arise when they will be. Until then, save your breath for others open to Gospel truth. Fini
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This blog will have one more part.
While a Christian witness can be useful any time, before both believers and unbelievers, Christian evangelism has a different source and purpose. Where a witness can open the conversation, scriptural truth carries it to completion. In particular, evangelism needs to be verbalized. The prayers and hymns of Paul and Silas, leading to the earthquake at Philippi, aroused the jailer to seek information from Paul—Acts 16:25-26, 30. The preachers replied by speaking "the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house" Acts 16:32. That's evangelism. In Berea, Paul's instruction from Old Testament prophets led the people to examine "the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" Acts 17:11. The assembled Jewish leaders in Paul's Roman quarters listened to Paul from morning to evening explain and declare...the Kingdom of God...and "to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets" Acts 28:23. That's evangelism. The lesson in evangelism is clear from these texts: convince the unbeliever from the Word, not from personal experience or opinion. End Part II In Part III, what can happen when the Bible message is unwelcome. The San Diego Union-Tribune paper 6/8/21 serves as source of this two-part blog. It involved a self-appointed "long-suffering" relative of evangelicals. He told Dear Abby that he resents their efforts to proselytize his not "overly religious" or "atheist" family.
His complaint surfaces our need as disciples to understand the difference between a Christian witness and Christian evangelism. Ways Paul offered a Christian Witness on Malta Acts 28:1-10.
All of that served as a Christian Witness, but lacked Christian Evangelism. End Part I Racoon John Smith, one of the Restoration Movement's colorful characters, once said that a full glass of liquid of one kind had to be emptied before it could be filled with liquid of another. Just so the human mind can only be filled with the Holy Spirit when repentance of sin, coupled with immersion in water for the forgiveness of sin, renders the spirit empty, but pure, ready for the Spirit's occupancy.
As emphasized in Finale, Part B, it's a pleasure to be an oppositionist in an accommodationist culture. But Christians are also re-constructionists. Jesus had only scathing words for the person who swept his life clean, then left it a vacuum Luke 11:24-26. The bread in Communion also symbolizes our post-conversion state as servants of Christ's mission and witnesses of his Lordship in evangelism Matthew 28:18-20. Joseph in Egypt proved a reconstructionist. Giving Pharaoh the good news—seven years of plenty, followed by the bad—seven years of scarcity, he suggested a solution to balance the difference: a man to be in charge, with associates supervising the storing of excess of plentiful years as reserves for years of inevitable depletion Genesis 41:33-40. Being a citizen of heaven means we judge all teaching, belief, practice and behavior by what would make us WELCOME in Heaven, not what will make us COMFORTABLE on earth. If we know from God's word that something happening here and now, will never happen there and then, it has to change, however tolerant society may be of it, however many declare for it, however few stand with us opposing it. In these few words a brief idea exists of "our Citizenship is in Heaven." In summary, that citizenship presently embodies Christ's:
The unfaithfulness of some believers to these strict Bible standards won't weaken, eliminate or eradicate them from Powerful, Active Bible-disciples Galatians 2:20-21. Indeed, we will not be deterred from possessing and proclaiming them. We will not be spiritually neutered by having these bedrock convictions removed from our life! We will engage in preserving the truth of spiritual ideas, because God authors, protects and preserves them. Get up, Christians, don't sit. Buck up, Christians, don't shrink. Pull back your shoulders, Christians, don't slump. RISE to the WORTH of our spiritual enfranchisement, Christians, a relationship with God that never fails though we often do. Remember,"The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still; His kingdom is forever." Luther, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Finale/Fini Lessons learned.
Second, the pleasure of being oppositionists in an accommodationist culture. Joe Biden will have no Federal employee labelling as "aliens" those illegally in America. Though pot shops operating without a license are illegal pot shops. Since a vast difference exists between being a citizen of any country and being an alien in any country, why would our government grant illegal aliens rights belonging only to citizens? Try being an alien in Mexico while claiming the rights of citizens! We have served for so long as an economic safety-valve for Mexico that we think it our obligation to continue. The Roman Catholic Church certainly welcomes that conviction. It's the wealthiest organization in the world, with an estimated worth of $30 billion, from ownership of churches, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, offices, tennis courts and telephone towers. Internet. But while we presently spend $60 million a week housing and feeding migrant MINORS, when has that absolutist ecclesiastical body EVER spent $60 million to create jobs in nations where it rules, so their people stay home, not migrate here? This is the first reason we're oppositionists to our accommodationist culture. The apostle Paul's declaration that we're citizens of heaven, Philippians 3:20, agrees with the apostle Peter's declaration that we're aliens in this world, I Peter 2:11. Christians can't be both aliens here AND citizens here—that is...holding as the basic values of life what any nation tolerates. By being aliens here, we avoid the world and its sinful desires that war against our soul I Peter 2:11. But by being citizens of heaven, we inherit the transforming of our "lowly bodies" into Christ's "glorious body" Philippians 3:21. Why would we forfeit Christ's glory to our nation's depravity? The saying that "Christians are so heavenly-minded they're no earthly good" is a satanic lie. Robert E. Lee had a struggle between patriotism and citizenship which made him a traitor to the Union. He disliked secession and slavery but loved his native soil. God frees Christians from any such struggle by establishing our citizenship in heaven with Jesus, not in an earthly commonwealth. Citizenship with Jesus determines the basic, permanent, changeless ideals by which we identify ourselves, by which we say, "This is what we are and will always be. And by this naturally, by our relationship with Jesus, we introduce his virtues into everyday life!" Therefore, as many Christians have yet to learn, we automatically exist as spiritual aliens in America because our citizenship is in heaven. For the best in any human society doesn't even barely approximate God's world and can never equal or surpass it. To the Pentecostal crowd the apostles preached, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation" Acts 2:40. And that a society of Temple and Law, God welcomed, his word obeyed, his Person Revered. What would the apostles say to our depraved culture, indeed to every generation bequeathing an "empty way of life"? I Peter 1:18. We're oppositionists therefore to an accommodationist culture. We're also Christian-counter-culture advocates. That's the "rest of the story." Finale, Part B Lessons the series teaches.
First, The Difference in God's Beneficence and Covenant.
Meaning: while God provides daily needs for all people, he restricts his Spiritual Grace to those in covenant with him through Christ, as he taught in Matthew 5:1-12 and Paul in I Corinthians 2:1-16. The spiritual rebel can serve God's Sovereignty, as God told Pharaoh in Exodus 9:13-16. The spiritual servant alone serves God's Purpose on earth, and only biblical Judaism and Christianity have accomplished that. And Christianity finalized what Moses initiated. The revulsion of world religionists against this truth doesn't change the FACT. Their rejection of it doesn't alter God's TRUTH. Nor does it prevent Christianity alone being God's sole revelation of himself offering completed forgiveness of sin. While the very best Biblical Judaism offered was yearly abeyance of sin Leviticus 16:1-34, with the understanding that annual repetition rendered the forgiveness incomplete Hebrews 10:1-4. Matthew 27:51 explained that Christ's death symbolized the abolition of incomplete forgiveness by slicing the curtain between the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. Sinners could enter God's Presence by the Savior's sacrifice. Which his bodily resurrection verified and his ascension into heaven forever PRESERVED as an ETERNAL reminder that he, chosen to die before the world began, I Peter 1:18-21, occupies his Throne next to the Father's as our Eternal High Priest, Hebrews 4:14-16. Christians, never discount, and always accentuate, the delight we alone enjoy: the complete forgiveness of sin verified by Christ's bodily resurrection from the grave. Because he Lives, we are not only perfectly forgiven, but guaranteed a body like his Glorified Body of Revelation 1:12-18. That's the jubilation of all believers in Christ and the despair of all heathen religions, and even of biblical Judaism. The heathen had no historically verifiable person RISING from the dead and Judaism had only the inkling of it in the Passover Lamb I Corinthians 5:7. While renewed yearly by generations of Hebrews, never understood insightfully as a symbol of Someone better. And never fully appreciated by Christians until we see WHY Jesus added the BREAD to the CUP. The bread represents the post-forgiveness purpose of God's people. He has a use in ministry now and eternal joy in our new bodies. No wonder Christians that the apostle Paul could glory in II Corinthians 4:16-5:10. No wonder that, despite our humanity that weakens us as we waste away, we can exalt with Paul II Corinthians 4:8-9: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Finale, Part A In God's Holy Scripture humanity has a book that teaches, not measurable TRUTH, but TRUTH without measure. Truth upon truth in every fact it surfaces. Through every perspective it views us. In every principle it establishes. Through every discovery it provides us. Absolute truth as pure in origin as useful in everyday life. It opens spiritual wonders to which only the human spirit forgiven by Christ's grace, and maturing in Christ-likeness, can aspire to study in depth, without hope of mastering. But in which every effort to learn MORE catapults our spirits!
Which is why Christians never bother to challenge the skeptics, secularists and other assorted godless to express in their lives better examples of Christ than believers often demonstrate. Ponder I Corinthians 2:14: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." Indeed, the fullest understanding of the spiritual life comes only to those experiencing burial in water that washes our sins away and quickens us mentally and spiritually. This suggests that faith-only people rob themselves of tremendous spiritual benefits by dismissing the cleansing nature of immersion. This writer invites anyone with questions about it to correspond with him. The lack of Spirit-provided enlightenment explains why unbelievers cheer the mission of Christians—compassion, benevolence, hospitals, children's homes, et al—but jeer the message of Christians—Jesus Christ as God-Incarnate reconciling sinners to God through his sacrifice. Though...THOUGH...the mission of Christians originates in Christ's message. Conversion to Christ unleashes the Christ-centered spiritual power that makes Biblical—make that Protestant—Christianity SO people-friendly wherever it has gone. Philanthropists fund buildings that meet physical, mental and emotional needs. Only Christians, inspired by the Holy Spirit, teach Christ's sacrifice for sin as the starting point in human renewal; it alone brings all manner of benefits the secularized mind considers the sine qua non of human existence. End Part V Next, in the finale, lessons Christians must learn and defend. To continue a balance between unthinking praise of fallen mortals who fail their own standards while condemning mortals who fail God's infinitely greater standards.
First, while those failing to achieve self-appointed goals may find themselves improved humans, believers discover success in being MORE like JESUS! Indeed, as we try, and fail, to emulate his life, the less we succeed the greater our understanding of Jesus becomes. And the behinder we get, despite our effort, the more like him we become. Second, because skeptics deny the believer's spiritual dominance shouldn't lead us to question it. Because they deny God's existence doesn't alter his ETERNAL BEING. Because they deny Christ's sacrifice for all humanity in every age doesn't keep the Holy Spirit from successfully evangelizing the unforgiven from LOST to SAVED. Because a majority of Americans want unlimited abortion on demand doesn't eliminate God's declaration that human life begins at conception Luke 1:39-45. Indeed, Christians RISE to OUR spiritual enfranchisement. It comes as God's gift of GRACE that no doubter can ever decrease. For while their doubt issues from an ignorance of God's word that often refuses education, our privilege rests in a knowledge of God that continually fuels our spiritual energy, whatever life-circumstances we experience. Third, unbelievers seek pleasure; Christians testing. They want ease in life; we spiritual strength for the stresses of life. They understand life as a marathon to be endured to the end; we as a steeplechase whose obstacles can and are to be overcome on the way to the end. They want a human maturity to fit in as a fellow-mortal; we a spiritual maturity that qualifies us to join the godly host of saints before us and those still with us in our shared ascent to Heaven. They can ignore God, and do; Christians can't, and won't. They live only to die; we die only to live again, forever. They live in history until they or it ends. We live in history until IT ENDS and God's Eternity Begins to never end. End Part IV The following blogs offer a balanced perspective on both secular and Christian failures. It corrects the imbalance between the laud unbelievers heap on their failures and the lash they lay on Christians for theirs.
Why would Benjamin Franklin be praised for failing his own human standards and Christians blamed for failing God's infinitely greater ones? When we all share the problem of a brain and spirit alive with desire but torpedoed by a fallen nature? Shouldn't those who strive for a higher level of life be appreciated even when failing to reach it when those failing in a lower level are honored for their effort? From a purely human standpoint, who deserves more credit: those choosing an easier way through life—the broad road Jesus condemned in Matthew 7:13; OR those voluntarily walking the "narrow road" he approved, Ibid, 7:14. Consider a marathon race. Those with the slowest speeds congregate at the end of thousands of faster runners. Don't all receive honor for finishing the grueling contest? That principle should be as true spiritually. Those feeling crushed by disappointing their LORD—and we ARE when we DO—should be as appreciated as the unsaved person merely disappointed with THEMSELVES by failing self-established goals. Indeed, Christians should receive as many kudos for partially succeeding in God's Greater Cause as secularists succeeding partially in pursuit of their lesser ones. Take Esau and Jacob. The unbeliever overvalues Esau for his refusal to take revenge on a deceitful brother, and undervalues Jacob/Israel for taking fright when learning of Esau's approach. Esau worked through his anger at Jacob to amnesty for Jacob. Remarkable for that day—and ours. While Jacob fell to a conscience still guilty over his deceit to appease an anger that no longer existed. However, while offering kudos to Esau's absence of revenge—forgiveness always excels grudges—both men represent even today the difference between secularists and believers. After 20 years secularist Esau achieved all he considered essential to him: successful animal husbandry, servants and family extension. After 20 arduous years, deceiver-Jacob grew into God's spiritual patriarch. Esau fathered a race of people no longer in existence while Jacob fathered 12 sons whom Moses would lead from Egypt as a new nation which, by the way, is still very much in the news. In a sentence, Esau succeeded in living for this life and Jacob lived 20 years in a state of slavery which turned him into God's FREE MAN for the next! Which man deserves plaudits? Which would we seek to emulate: the one who "struggled" with God and prevailed, or who disregarded God and vanished into nothing? WHICH of the TWO succeeded: Esau, through wrong choices reached his goals or Jacob through his failures reaching God's? End Part III As a culture we sink ever-deeper in the immoralities we consider the new normal: gratuitous sex instead of sex within marriage; living together for as long as "we love" instead of married for as long as we live; homosexual and lesbian sex acceptable instead of heterosexual sex; increasing kinds of genders instead of the male and female of Genesis 1-3; paying $60 million a week to house and feed migrant minors instead of sane immigration policies that demand legal immigration into the country; and...far below all other immorality, the prideful humanism at all education levels that denies GOD ALMIGHTY any role in education and national life.
It isn't surprising, then, that Cal State University at San Marcos, California, CSUSM, is debating whether to remove the name of William Craven from its buildings, road signs and traffic circles. Though he proved the "mover and shaker" responsible for its existence! His offenses against present societal prejudices include: he 30 years ago considered illegal immigrants at the bottom of the economic scale. As if it isn't still true that fast-food hires are mostly ethnic because they work cheaper. And, thanks only to failed labor unions, people with very little education or English skills receive $12-$15 an hour for entry-level positions. How proud our ignorance of history. We think our permissive society can be the first to reject God without him exacting a crushing punishment on our egotism. Since Christians pray for God's will to be done on earth, and unbelievers insist on their will being done on earth, who is right? Since Christians know God's sovereignty can't be withstood, and unbelievers think it doesn't exist, who is right? Since Christians accept the struggle between righteousness and evil living side by side, because we know who wins, unbelievers can feel comfortable in their rejection of God only by eliminating any meaningful thought of God from the discussion, WHO IS RIGHT? At no time in our history has Galatians 6:7-8 been more appropriately applied to America, particularly verse 7. Both individuals and nations reap what they sow. For no one, individually or corporately, can turn up his nose at God. And judgment in harmful, bludgeoning, obliterating wrath will always equal the unbelief and immorality practiced, however proud of its anarchy against God. Therefore...a Christian who fails at being a Christ-honoring disciple deserves praise while a godless person who succeeds at being godless—living without God, without concern for spiritual values, without any interest in what happens after death, deserves punishment. Consider this blog an encouragement for Christians whose personal life often fails to equal their belief. For our embrace of Christ's teaching envelopes us in a Kingdom that does not fail, and cannot fail, because GOD determines its success! And those who stupidly forfeit the superlative spiritual superiority our forefathers bequeathed us for a humanism that has no answer to any of humanity's significant questions, will be wrecked in history and damned in Hell. End Part II |
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