Just so you don’t think all I do is complain about the state of Christianity and not do anything about it, by the grace of God, I still\u00a0hand out tracts and witness on a regular basis.\u00a0 One of my favorite parables is called the “Fisherless Fishermen”.\u00a0\u00a0 Most evangelists today tell everyone else how to fish and go from lake to lake recruiting fishermen and spend time telling everyone how important it is to fish— yet most are too busy to fish.\u00a0 Or afraid.
\nJust so you don’t think I am picking on just my circles, this is something I have observed for 10 years. Regardless of denomination.\u00a0 I have been out to eat or for coffee or on mission trips or on conferences or breakfasts or\u00a0at couple’s dinners or seminars or whatever, and I can’t recall any Pastor or Evangelist or layperson having any serious witness with anyone.\u00a0 At best at times I will see them disengaged from their waiter or waitress the entire time and at the end drop a tract when no one was looking along with a not-so-generous tip.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is\u00a0everywhere.\u00a0 I went\u00a0on a trip to Detroit to preach the Steelers\/Seahawks Superbowl (when Hurricane\u00a0Katrina canceled the original destination,\u00a0New Orleans) with\u00a0street\u00a0preachers that would\u00a0put our boldness to shame.\u00a0 Yet, the first stop, at a drive thru in McDonalds for 5 am Breakfast, the preacher\u00a0never witnessed to the drive thru girl.\u00a0 She is a soul\u00a0likely on her way to hell.\u00a0 He didn’t hand her a tract.\u00a0\u00a0He had many strengths and was a great preacher, but\u00a0it is the small things that would leave a great impression.\u00a0 It is easy to preach when there is a crowd, and brethren around, and people notice us.\u00a0 It is harder when it is nothing but you and a soul.\u00a0 But I think one on one is where it is most effective.\u00a0 And least practiced.\u00a0 And least noticed.<\/p>\n
Is that book of Acts boldness?\u00a0 I see all the time Christians so busy fellowshipping they don’t even notice the lost folks bringing them dinner or the lost folks\u00a0taking their\u00a0ticket at the toll booth or the lost officer pulling them\u00a0over for blowing the speed limit. Pay no attention to that Christian Bumper sticker officer.\u00a0\u00a0 I am not immune, I chicken out more often\u00a0than not,\u00a0but\u00a0once God starts building some momentum, I see the truth and how wonderful it is to open your mouth.\u00a0 You see God working literally when you start to witness.\u00a0 Maybe that is why it is so hard to start.\u00a0 But all I see are preachers boldly railing on us to care about the lost but they do little themselves to get the gospel out.\u00a0 They lay guilt trips on the members, but it is the leaders that we are trying to follow.<\/p>\n
Maybe I am railing on folks with my blogs, but I think it is\u00a0different when you are out there playing the game and playing\u00a0your heart out and yet you are down 80-3 at halftime.\u00a0\u00a0If you know that we can get back in the game, and you know how to defeat the other\u00a0team, and the other players are so busy planning the after game party to care, you\u00a0should step\u00a0up and try and talk some sense into the team.\u00a0\u00a0 Someone has to just go and get a fishing pole and start fishing.\u00a0 Instead of bragging about the one that got away.
\nI enjoy preaching and I have been able to preach behind a pulpit in several countries.\u00a0 I enjoy going to church.\u00a0 Yet there is something about actually going into the world, whether it is to a Sabres game and street preaching or opening your mouth at the Burger king drive thru, that makes your Christianity come alive.\u00a0 Anything else is not being obedient to the full counsel of God.\u00a0 We are commanded to do the work of an evangelist.\u00a0 Lost people do not come to church.<\/p>\n
The lost people in church are tares and really don’t know they are lost.\u00a0 I’m not saying it is a lost cause, but lost people who think they are saved\u00a0are probably Enemy #1 in the church today.\u00a0 They do nothing and others look at their worldliness and think that is normal Christianity.\u00a0 I am nothing to brag about, I am not a special and unique snowflake.\u00a0 I am just doing on a much more pathetic level something normal Christians did for 2,000 years.\u00a0 Except the last 100 years of course.\u00a0 I witness where I go, I hand out tracts, I give out DVDs and books, I street preach, I street witness, I go up to people in Wal Mart or at the Tim Hortons Drive thru and hand them tracts, etc.\u00a0 That is what Christians are supposed to do.
\nSince my wife has been sick with her pregnancy, I haven’t been to any big events but I do evangelism where I am at.\u00a0 God gives illustrations as I go.\u00a0 One of my favorites is at any fast food place, challenging the cashier not to be a Burger King Christian.\u00a0 That is having it your way instead of God’s way.\u00a0 I try and use something silly or humorous first, this gets them to drop their guard.\u00a0 Then I will hand them a tract and ask if they have a Christian background.\u00a0 Then I will try to get the law in there somehow.\u00a0 Told a lie? Stolen?\u00a0Hated someone?\u00a0 Lusted?\u00a0 They admit to being liars, thieves, murderers, and adulterers and there is conviction.\u00a0 Once the disease is exposed, then you can give the cure.\u00a0 Then and only then.
\nShopping at Walmart, when I take the kids on an outing, etc.\u00a0 I went to Monroe to have my wife’s headlight fixed, and witnessed to James the assistant manager and gave him one of the tracts I wrote.\u00a0 I went to Autozone today and gave the guy my tract and a Mark Cahill booklet.\u00a0 At Walmart I gave Rob a tract and I gave a young guy a tract and witnessed to him a bit in the middle of the store.\u00a0 Just so you know I am not just trying to complain from the bench.\u00a0 First hand I see what is wrong, and only when I have used the Law did I see honest actual conviction in the witnessing.
\nI wonder how much of our evangelism today is a true burden for souls and how much of it is attempting to impress the brethren.\u00a0 Or perhaps,\u00a0an attempt to convince ourselves we are right when deep down we are insecure because we ourselves have given over to\u00a0the modern humanistic\u00a0gospel.\u00a0 Do souls dying and being cast into the lake of fire like the Bible says move us to tears or are we just interested in gathering material for the next prayer letter?
\nIn the old testament, David sinned when he numbered Israel.\u00a0 I don’t think it was the actual counting that was a sin.\u00a0 In the book of Acts it was recorded that 4,000 were saved on the day of Pentecost\u00a0and added to the church.\u00a0 But I don’t think Peter was going around handing out decision cards and a free gift just for playing.\u00a0 We must see there is a vast difference between counting those saved and added to the church and churches counting 28,000\u00a0decisions in 2012 in a church running 250.<\/p>\n
Modern evangelism cannot account for 80 to 90% of their converts.\u00a0 It is not an exaggeration for a prayer letters will say in one year they had 585 professions, 35 baptisms, and they are still running a church of 25.\u00a0 If I had those results in the business world, I would have been fired.\u00a0 Yet modern evangelism\u00a0sees nothing is wrong and keeps marching forward\u00a0in the making 2-fold-children-of-Hell program.
\nImagine an OB\/Gyn office where for every 10 deliveries, 8 babies didn’t survive the birth process.\u00a0 Imagine a pediatrician office where for every 10 patients they had only 2 made it past their 3rd birthday.\u00a0\u00a0 These offices would be shut down soon and sued for malpractice.
\nIf they are “saved” by\u00a0the church, yet “lost” and running around who-knows-where, they likely did not get saved.\u00a0\u00a0Oh, you must have lots of faith.\u00a0 You believe they got saved even though you never heard from them again and they ran from you when you tried to follow up, and they returned the Bible you gave them after they used it for their bird cage, and they are still shacking up with their girlfriend and have a garage full of empty Budweiser beer cans.\u00a0 They prayed and asked the Lord to save them, and who are we to judge that? is the soul winner’s only defense.
\nI have been to soul winning booths like one at the Erie County Fair a few years ago.\u00a0 I was told to keep it positive, not bring up hell, not address their false religion.\u00a0 They ask people if they are 100% sure if they would go to heaven when they die.\u00a0 Then they say if you want to know for sure would you want to know.\u00a0 If they say Yes, they give them the generic Romans Road, and lead them in prayer.<\/p>\n
I can give an adulterer who’s wife threw him out a hall mark card to read to her and promise\u00a0God has a wonderful plan for his marriage, but that will not save his marriage.\u00a0 \u00a0Yet they declare these folks miraculously saved and then they take their names and tally the decisions and go to the next fair.\u00a0 There is no hint of conviction, no hint of repentance, but these are the converts that are being made all over America.\u00a0 1 2 3 Repeat after me, 5,6,7, friend you still will not make heaven.\u00a0 Folks fly planes into buildings to get to heaven, so certainly some will be eager to pray a prayer.<\/p>\n
These soulwinnners\u00a0give them the impression it is a one time Flu shot.\u00a0 Easy.\u00a0 No commitment needed.\u00a0 Stay at your cult! Stay in fornication! God just wants you in heaven!\u00a0\u00a0 We have more in common with Simon and Garfunkle than the Bible.\u00a0 Their song Here’s to You Mrs. Robinson says Heaven holds a place for those who pray.\u00a0 The Bible says He that hath the Son hath life and Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.\u00a0 Salvation is a person, not a prayer!
\nSome preachers live in this dream land with their head either in the sand or the clouds, and they know that even though they have never seen\u00a0a genuine Biblical conversion, that\u00a0one day this person who “prayed a prayer” and gave this Jesus thing a try will magically turn into a spiritual butterfly and fly to church.\u00a0\u00a0 But the evidence is clear — it is the overall direction of America.<\/p>\n
If millions and millions have been saved in this country and the country is going nowhere spiritual WHEN 11 disciples turned a whole world upside down, something is off.\u00a0 At some point, we lost our way and dropped the evangelical ball.\u00a0 Millions saved in America should\u00a0make an impact on the morality of the nation.\u00a0 200 saved at a fair should shake up the town.\u00a0\u00a0 God is mocked at our presumptuous soulwining and we need to be broken over our results instead of bragging about them and defending them.\u00a0 There should be some evidence we serve the true and living God.\u00a0 Yet there is none.\u00a0 We need to repent for that, we need to beg the Lord for forgiveness.\u00a0 We are making 2 fold children of Hell and we’d rather shoot the messenger than find a better way.
\nThere is a better way,\u00a0 convincing of the disease like men of old.\u00a0 It might take 20 years of sowing good seed,\u00a0 it might take 5 years of putting the altar call on hold, it might take 10 years before you can put a decision in your prayer letter.\u00a0 But we need to be faithful to the Lord.\u00a0 The gospel is the power of God unto salvation but if it’s not getting instant decisions, we cannot change the gospel.<\/p>\n
Are not the results up to God?\u00a0\u00a0 Why then do we take credit for them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just so you don’t think all I do is complain about the state of Christianity and not do anything about it, by the grace of God, I still\u00a0hand out tracts and witness on a regular basis.\u00a0 One of my favorite … Continue reading