I just thought I would briefly share a quote with you that I found this morning by Charles Spurgeon (my personal favorite preacher).
“Let eloquence be flung to the dogs rather than souls be lost. What we want is to win souls. They are not won by flowery speeches.”
First Corinthians 2:1-5 says,
1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
From experience, I can safely say that when we as Christians get motivated or inspired to witness, the automatic thought is "Hey, I oughta learn how to witness better." What Paul is saying and Spurgeon is seconding is that we don't need more knowledge or training courses; we need action. The model we see in the book of Acts is that evangelism was a natural outflow of what God was doing in the believers' lives. So, if you are one of the people like me and you want to memorize all of the "right answers" to those difficult questions that unbelievers ask before you witness, this is for you. God has already given you everything necessary to effectively witness: power, knowledge, and support straight from the throne room of the Almighty. God's truth doesn't need eloquent and polished speech to enhance it. Do we need to be constantly in the Word as our source of truth? Yes. Do we need to be prayed up? Absolutely. Should we have an idea of what we are going to say? Probably wise. That said, we (I say "we" because this is something I struggle with) will never be effective evangelists if we are constantly in preparation and never in practice. There needs to be a balance. I hate to say this, but no matter how many books you read and how many times you rehearse your delivery in front of the mirror, you won't get it right every time. Nevertheless, we serve a God who is capable of using us despite our shortcomings. The application is simple and direct: get out and do it.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Elevators and Evangelists
Today, we'll be moving ahead in our study of Jude 20-25. This'll be a little shorter than some of the other posts in this particular study, but hey, I hear short is the new long.
Jude 23 says,
23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire...
Suppose you're walking in the middle of New York City and you happen to see a construction team working on a new skyscraper. You and a hundred of your closest friends stop to watch. The main frame of the building is up, and the workers are putting the touches on the elevator shaft. They start to test the lift and send the elevator from the top floor to the bottom floor. As the elevator is sliding down toward the bottom, you look down and see two little children playing right where the elevator will land. What will you do? Chances are good that you are going to push your way through the crowd and sprint for the children. The only thing on your mind when you see those two children is to pull them out of there.
Same idea.
We've spent some time looking at the passages about Hell and God's wrath, so I won't rehash all that here. Let me just say this and leave it there. There are a lot of people that we come in contact with on a daily basis that are playing right under the elevator, so to speak. When we see lost men, women, and children playing around and living each day in danger of God's judgment, we should experience some of the same type of fear as described above. Jude uses a similar analogy of pulling someone away from a fire.
So all of that said, my challenge to you today is to pray that God will allow you to see people as souls in danger of destruction. I guarantee that's all the motivation you'll need.
Not only does this passage describe one of the things we should feel about the lost, but it tells us that people can be pulled out of the fire. There is hope, and we have to rest in that. So let this verse both challenge and encourage you.
Jude 23 says,
23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire...
Suppose you're walking in the middle of New York City and you happen to see a construction team working on a new skyscraper. You and a hundred of your closest friends stop to watch. The main frame of the building is up, and the workers are putting the touches on the elevator shaft. They start to test the lift and send the elevator from the top floor to the bottom floor. As the elevator is sliding down toward the bottom, you look down and see two little children playing right where the elevator will land. What will you do? Chances are good that you are going to push your way through the crowd and sprint for the children. The only thing on your mind when you see those two children is to pull them out of there.
Same idea.
We've spent some time looking at the passages about Hell and God's wrath, so I won't rehash all that here. Let me just say this and leave it there. There are a lot of people that we come in contact with on a daily basis that are playing right under the elevator, so to speak. When we see lost men, women, and children playing around and living each day in danger of God's judgment, we should experience some of the same type of fear as described above. Jude uses a similar analogy of pulling someone away from a fire.
So all of that said, my challenge to you today is to pray that God will allow you to see people as souls in danger of destruction. I guarantee that's all the motivation you'll need.
Not only does this passage describe one of the things we should feel about the lost, but it tells us that people can be pulled out of the fire. There is hope, and we have to rest in that. So let this verse both challenge and encourage you.
Friday, January 4, 2013
The Ram of God
I just want to take a brief respite from our study in Jude and share with you something I came across recently in my Bible study. If you have your Bible, turn to Genesis 22. This is a fairly familiar account in the Old Testament that is often used as a picture of Christ's sacrifice. Long story short, God comes to Abraham and tells him to go atop a mountain and sacrifice his only son Isaac. Abraham obeys and sets off the next morning for the mountain. Abraham and Isaac go on alone, they build the altar, and Isaac is laid upon it with the wood. Abraham readies his knife and prepares to sacrifice his only son, the son that God had so long promised him. Just before Abraham kills his son, a voice speaks out from heaven, staying his hand. Paraphrasing, God commends Abraham's faith, and that He had seen that Abraham was unwilling to hold anything back from Him.
Again, it is a fairly familiar story and has great implications as a picture of Christ; however, I think that this account can reveal more about the heart of God than we often see. Look at who commands Abraham to sacrifice his Son. It's God. No surprise there. The person of the Trinity that is also termed God that Father makes this command, but look at verses 11-13, when the voice calls out from Heaven. In verse 12, the voice says that Abraham had not witheld his son from "me," so we see that this is God speaking, but look at the proper noun in verse 11. It says that the angel of the LORD is speaking. A while back, I wrote a post entitled "The Way" looking at something in the Old Testament called a theophany. I would recommend your going back to that post to get a little more detail on this particular truth, but, simply put, the angel of the LORD is the preincarnate Christ. Do you see the symbolism. God the Father demands the sacrifice, and the Son saves the victim, and in verse 13, provides a substitutionary ram. Thousands of years later, God the Father still demands that His holiness and wrath be appeased, but in His love, God sends another Ram to be offered up in the stead of the transgressors, and once again, it is the Son who provides this substitute.
Again, it is a fairly familiar story and has great implications as a picture of Christ; however, I think that this account can reveal more about the heart of God than we often see. Look at who commands Abraham to sacrifice his Son. It's God. No surprise there. The person of the Trinity that is also termed God that Father makes this command, but look at verses 11-13, when the voice calls out from Heaven. In verse 12, the voice says that Abraham had not witheld his son from "me," so we see that this is God speaking, but look at the proper noun in verse 11. It says that the angel of the LORD is speaking. A while back, I wrote a post entitled "The Way" looking at something in the Old Testament called a theophany. I would recommend your going back to that post to get a little more detail on this particular truth, but, simply put, the angel of the LORD is the preincarnate Christ. Do you see the symbolism. God the Father demands the sacrifice, and the Son saves the victim, and in verse 13, provides a substitutionary ram. Thousands of years later, God the Father still demands that His holiness and wrath be appeased, but in His love, God sends another Ram to be offered up in the stead of the transgressors, and once again, it is the Son who provides this substitute.
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