John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

Forgiveness

He’s Still Redeeming the Lost

by

In July 2012, I went to lunch with a co-worker named Matt Smith. Since there are 3 Matt Smiths where I work, he is commonly referred to as MS2. The conversation was intentionally spiritual. It got very uncomfortable at times as he explained to me a complete mental understanding of the gospel, even rather deep theology – without a person profession of faith. I tried to be kind, but was very challenging.

Matt Smith knew he needed Jesus, thought he wanted Jesus, but had to admit he simply was not born-again.

I was nearly speechless. What do you tell someone who already knows the gospel? I don’t even remember what I said that day. Probably something along the lines of discussing his pride as a barrier to trusting Christ. I remember feeling good about my response to him at the time, and finding him very likable and approachable.

It is with great pleasure that I announce that today, Matt Smith and I went to lunch and he revealed to me that he had been saved! We don’t actually work together, so this is the first time in 15 months that we were able to do lunch. But on the way to lunch, he told me that he was saved April 28! The Lord has been with Him since then and Matt is continuing to grow in His grace!

Praise God, his wife was saved in February of this year: each of them born again of the Spirit just a few months before the September birth of their first child!

Brothers and sisters, join me in prayer for our newly adopted brother and sister and their baby girl. And praise the Lord Jesus Christ who saves at His Will whomsoever He pleases. May God continue to be merciful to sinners before it is too late.

Quick Hitters: NorCal Fire, Bird Droppings & Holocaust Rage

by

Allow me to quickly draw your attention to a few important items.

First, if you have not registered for NorCal Fire and are able to attend, I highly recommend you consider it by clicking here.

Secondly, check out this enlightening and pointed post about a light topic – bird poop: So a Bird Pooped on My Head

Thirdly, if you have a check, check out Fred Butler’s several posts concerning the KJVO problem. This is a dangerous group, and you should know how to spot a member. Thanks in part to Fred’s teaching, I was able to pick one out this weekend!

And finally, let me preface the next section with a qualifier. I believe Adolph Hitler was wrong in what he did to the Jewish people and it was a horrible atrocity. Do not misinterpret what you are about to read.

I received this photo in an email today. The text of the email read: If you think you are having a bad day, I bet the person who wrote this would trade with you!

Picture going around in email.

I could not agree more. You see, anyone whose attitude toward God is one of “God owes me anything at all” is a hellbound sinner for his sins against a holy God. The worst atrocities committed by men cannot even compare to the wrath a creative and intelligent God can and will unleash against the ungodly. This poor holocaust victim most likely is suffering far worse at the hands of the Creator to whom he did not give due glory than he ever suffered in this world.

This brings me great distress. God is so easily tossed aside because of “evil” in this world. Yet those who hate God because of the existence of evil cannot even explain evil without contrasting it to God’s goodness. Look, the point is that no matter what happens in this world, God is the one who you need to rely upon. And if you believe God owes you any kind of comfort, pleasure or relief from evil, you are mistaken and have not truly trusted in the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

The question is, dear Christian, do you ever find yourself believing that God owes you more than you’ve been given? Do you even notice your own complaining spirit?

I can assure you, your suffering is likely less than the person who etched this phrase and that you deserve far worse? Think of the Christ who opened not His mouth to His accusers, that he might take punishment he didn’t deserve on your behalf.

This is about recognizing that even in the worst moments in this world, lost sinners still need to acknowledge Christ as Savior and Lord. To many, this doctrine is reprehensible. If you are one of those people, you do not love God, but the god of your own imagination.

Red, White and Boom Evangelism 2013

by

First of all, allow me to share and celebrate my re-birthday with you. I was reborn July 4, 2006. So, as my daughter reminded me today, I was born again 7 years ago. Praise God for that!

Every year Columbus sports the largest fireworks show in the mid-west. Whether or not that is true, I believe it is a fact that over half a million people descend upon downtown. This year, I was able to use the opportunity to share the gospel. I just want to highlight some of the evening for those of you who are interested!

Firstly, and, as expected, there was a fair share of sinless perfectionists preaching their heresy that Jesus is not enough. I abhor their preaching and feel uncomfortable around them. I am afraid to look and sound like them too much – and also don’t care to be drawn in an argument with them, for fear that I will look as foolish as they.

So Fred & Elaine Triplett and I moved from our original location and ventured over to the area where the parade would be. This offered an opportunity to pass out a lot of tracts as people were just lined up. I probably gave away over 2000 tracts yesterday (just estimating, I didn’t count them)!

During the parade, I met some Muslim fellows. They were very friendly at first, but as I made the distinction between our religions more and more clear to them I could see their disdain for me grow. They actually created a bit of a diversion from preaching as the parade ended as I spoke to them and hundreds of people walked by without a preacher!

After the parade ended and that conversation concluded, I set up a stand and began to read 1 John 1 & 2 in the open air. A man named Walter and his girlfriend, Brittany stood very near to me and listened. He was crying. So before I even preached a word, I stepped down to talk to him. He was very confused about the gospel (from a history in several different American churches). I tried my best to explain it to him but I never felt like he understood. While speaking, 3 sisters came up and prayed for his girlfriend and then we shared sweet fellowship with them for a few minutes and they praised God we were evangelizing. They prayed for us on the sidewalk and I felt very blessed by the entire encounter! I then preached from Psalm 34 for probably 20 more minutes or so.

Then I ran into some of the other preachers we were hoping to meet. Fred and Elaine left and I joined this other group. I was very excited when they asked me to preach and handed me a microphone. I had been shouting to this point and my throat was very dry and I had difficulty projecting my voice. The microphone was just what I needed. I preached for about an hour with some interesting encounters!

One guy in a blue shirt walked by and mumbled something. I called him out on it, telling him it was cowardly to mumble and run and that real men would talk. He came back and asked me for the microphone. {insert laughter} I told him I would not give him my microphone to which he replied, “Who’s the coward now?”

I told him keeping the microphone from him was not cowardly, but rather, wisdom. He argued and told me I should stop preaching because (and he counted on his fingers) 1. I was wasting my time 2. No one cares what I was saying and 3. My preaching was an invasion into their lives. I looked at him and said, “I feel you are invading into my life right now , and you are wasting your time because I don’t care. Now who’s right?”

He didn’t get the irony. Nevertheless, he began to yell to the crowds that I was a coward because I wouldn’t share my microphone with him. I simply proclaimed (way louder than he could) that if he had anything valuable to say, someone would have already bought him a microphone or brought one for him. Then, after about 10 minutes of his heckling, I pointed out the irony that he told me I was wasting my time. After all, I was doing exactly what I intended to do that evening, whereas his entire evening appeared diverted by the preacher guys with the big cross.

Another guy just stared at me for like 5 minutes. Literally stood as close as he could to me without touching me and just stared up at me while I preached. I made eye contact several times and he didn’t budge. After a while I engaged him personally. He was very angry about the gospel, so much so that he changed his name because his mother had “shoved this same talk down his throat his whole life.” I told him I wanted him to be forgiven of his sins.

One interesting part of the encounter was when he told me I was using circular reasoning. I asked him to explain to me why circular reasoning is wrong. He explained ever so eloquently, “because it is circular reasoning.” So I asked him how he could be allowed to use circular reasoning and I could not. He became very frustrated quickly. I told him I was not going to talk to him since he seemed so angry. He cheerfully declared, “Well at least I kept you from preaching for 5 minutes.”

So I continued. I got a lot of “Hail Satans,” and I could see people listening from a hundred feet away. I had a nice size group of people who were with me, which not only provided protection if needed, but they were holding signs up and passing out tracts and engaging people. It was wonderful.

After I stopped preaching, I stayed for about another hour passing out tracts and engaging people. I met a man named Johnny who goes to the church I used to attend (but had to leave), and we had a nice talk.

Probably the saddest moment of the night as it pertains to the human condition was when I met 2 obviously gay men.

They were in their late teens, flamboyantly flaunting their sexuality. They were very annoyed by the preacher. I told them he wasn’t just preaching against gays, as they had assumed. They asked me what I thought of “gays.” I told them that gays, like all humans have a sin problem with God and need forgiveness for sins, but Jesus died and rose again to provide forgiveness. They listened cordially. We chatted a few minutes, but finally I said to them,

“If you knew that God considered homosexuality a sin, would you want forgiveness?”

“Hell no. I want to live my life,” was the reply. Then they walked away.

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Lost a Friend

by

After only a few minutes back on Facebook, I caused my wife to lose a friend today! But this wasn’t my usual hijacking shenanigans. She asked me to read a post which had bothered her and read some comments.

Check out this thread and tell me what you think? How many problems can you spot?

You can view the previous comments here. I am just highlighting the stunning conclusion.

It should be noted that “Rachael” jumped in unprompted in order to quote my wife: “But, I believe that warning people of eternal punishment is the most loving thing they can do.” and contradict her. Then you will see she professes to avoid religious debate and to unconditionally love…finally she unfriended my wife on Facebook.

LostAFriend

You tell me…is there anything wrong with this picture?

The AHA and the Vineyard, Columbus

by

Does the Abolish Human Abortion organization support the human sex trafficking industry? Using the normal logic they employ, they just may. Bear with me as I flesh this out. Firstly, I do not believe AHA promotes sexual trafficking or child rape and prostitution. So don’t take statements from this post out of context.

The Premise

Recently, there was an unfortunate Facebook thread concerning the Vineyard Church of Columbus and an apparent attack by the Abolish Human Abortion organization.

The post was focused on a particular picture, but more so, the events surrounding the picture. According to AHA,

This “church” does not want to “expose evil” (Ephesians 5:11) it wants to “ignore” it (VineyardCulumbus) [sic].

The spelling error is theirs, not mine 🙂

The picture depicts the Vineyard Church encouraging its members and passersby to ignore the protesters. vineyardpicture Sadly, the AHA resorted to a typical sensationalistic tactic of marketers. The sign put up by the church is referring to the protesters when the word “them” is used. But the caption on the FB picture is clear – Vineyard Church wants to “ignore” evil. It allows skimmers to get the wrong idea immediately.

The Problem

Please allow me to point out that it tells you a lot about AHA when they put quotation marks around the word church when describing the Vineyard. This is clear attack on the authenticity of this body. These types of attacks may be warranted at times, but I do not believe that because this church refused the AHA’s teachings and resources that this qualifies them to be publicly attacked as a false church. The continued testimony in the thread is, in fact, of a group of people who for the sake of Jesus Christ are actively opposing abortion AND providing resources for mothers and families.

The implication that Vineyard Church intends to ignore evil and the babies who need help is a lie, as well. Maybe we should protest lying on their property.

This is what prompted this video by the producers of Babies Are Murdered Here concerning the AHA.

More Irrationality

An advocate of AHA posted the following on the thread. The first portion, enclosed in “\\” is this user quoting another user who seemingly is a member of the church.

\\This is my church, and for the past 6 weeks we have to tell our kids to close their eyes as we drive in and leave because of the obscenely graphic banners of cut up children this group displays along the road. My kids are 6 and 7. They don’t need to see this at that age.\\

I’m less than heartbroken for you.
Did you know that every day you do that, 3000+ children are murdered in this country? Why are people so often so much more concerned over the PORTRAYAL of evil rather than the actual evil itself?

I’ve seen this line of thinking before. People politely (or impolitely) request that people stop exposing their children (or themselves) to gruesome signs depicting murdered babies. Here are a few examples of the types of responses I’ve seen:

  • You are more offended by the portrayal of evil than the evil itself.
  • If you don’t like it, why don’t you do something about it.

The Analogy

Let’s look at the rationality of this by considering an analogy. Every day, hundreds of thousands of already born humans are used by perverts in the fastest growing criminal industry in the US. It is called human sex trafficking. Average ages of sex slaves from a variety of websites are 12-14 years old. Human sex slaves are forced to perform sex acts with several people daily, resulting in a horrific lifestyle filled with disease, captivity, degradation and poor nutrition. Many of these young people are actually enslaved by the person they had trusted to help them from what they thought was a more dire situation. Becoming pregnant, they are forced into abortions.

Many of them people probably wish they had been aborted themselves. This is a different discussion. Please do not use this to say I advocate for abortion.

Logical Fallacies

Now, do you think it is right to say that the AHA supports human sex trafficking, particularly the trafficking of children for sexual abuse because they are not currently picketing this evil? It is a well understood evil in our society, and can happen anywhere; they don’t even need a facility! But that is the general logic employed by AHA concerning abortion. If you or your church are not actively picketing outside a clinic – you are not truly pro-life. What I think you would find is there is likely an inconsistency in AHA’s application of these principles.

But let’s go further. What if I decided to print images of child rape on posters and display it on the sidewalk outside where AHA members’ children would view it. Does anyone honestly think that is a good idea? The fact that no one wants to or needs to necessarily see the evil depicted visually has no bearing on whether they actually abhor the evil. Did you catch that? It is non sequitur, or logically fallacious, to make the claim that because someone doesn’t want to see pictures of aborted babies, or because they even protest the use of those pictures where their children’s eyes will take them in that that person does not, in fact, oppose abortion.

I strongly oppose human sex trafficking. Not only do I not want my children to view images or videos exposing this evil, but I do not want to see these images myself!

There is no biblical precedent which AHA uses to lambaste churches who don’t do “enough”, and there is no biblical precedent for holding up signs depicting evil. There are evils which are not even to be spoken of. AHA likes to use Ephesians 5:11 to defend “exposing evil,” yet ignored the verse following:

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. (Ephesians 5:11-12 ESV)

It is shameful to even speak of some of things done by evil doers. It may even be possible that it isn’t necessary to publish visuals of some of these atrocities as well. Not to mention the fact that AHA has no authority over a local church.

Concluding Thoughts

The following has needed to withstand correction. I have been corrected by a number of people that the official stance of AHA is that of only truly born again Christians. They oppose yoking with nonbelievers. I apologize for misrepresenting this point. In my defense, the very first person I met from AHA was as self-professing Catholic who told me they are an organization of Christians who oppose abortions from all denominations. I simply took this at face value.

Look, I’m appreciative that there are people out there who oppose evil. But I am reminded that the AHA opposes evil in a few ways which I do not.

  1. They oppose a particular evil more than others.
  2. They oppose a particular evil at the expense of the gospel. Even though their stance is that of gospel-centered, my personal experience (as can be seen in this comment thread at times) does not seem gospel centered. AHA seems all too defensive and ad hominem attacking all too quickly. I have found (a few) of them to be difficult to have a rational discussion with.
  3. They use tactics which are designed to elicit emotional responses, (incendiary signs), instead of attacking the real problem, the heart. I also oppose the tactic they’ve chosen concerning abortion in regard to protesting a local church.

So, when you feel you are attacked by people who say you are not doing enough about abortion, instead of going on the defensive, ask them how many sex slaves they’ve freed. When you are vilified for wanting to keep your children eyes from imagery that may scare them deeply, ask them if you can show their children a depiction of child rape and its after effects.

Sadly, it seems organizations like this are doing more to hurt the cause than help due to the unbiblical nature and practices of the members. Remember to be compassionate toward these folks, too, as you would any person relying on their own self-righteousness for Heaven’s sake. And if you meet a true believer from this group, greet them as a brother and maybe you will be able to have a useful conversation about the hows and whys of our behavior and association (yoking) with non-believers in spiritual endeavors.

[Note: Some comments have been removed as there was a misunderstanding concerning some links that hadn’t been shared.]