John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

Scripture

Open Air Preaching from Home

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I am sure you’ve heard of “working from home.” But have you heard of open air preaching from home? I want to share what I think was a singularly unique experience to me. Maybe you’ll think so, too!

My 3 year old son Wesley had just gone outside into the backyard. My teenagers were on the couch with my 9 month old and my wife was gone. All was quiet on our little street and then I heard the doorbell, or a knock. I looked over and saw a man in a suit with a young boy. I figured they were Jehovah’s Witness, and headed over to the door.

The young boy showed me a pamphlet and was trying to talk to me. You could tell it was taking some courage for him to do whatever he was doing. Had he been a boy scout or a basketball player raising money for a trip, I’d have bought popcorn or candles or whatever he was peddling to encourage him.

After I took the pamphlet I looked quickly at it to find the JW markings. The man was saying something about Scriptures and the boy was talking about love…and I told them to hold on, while I went and grabbed a tract.

I always try to give JWs a tract because I have been told they are not allowed to take them. It’s a test, in a sense. If they take it, fine. If they refuse, it opens the door to asking them why I should take their stuff and they don’t take mine, etc.

So I went out on the porch and started asking the boy what he thought. He kept saying they were walking around to ask people what “they thought.” I asked him if he believed Jesus died on a cross for sinners, and he mumbled yes and then the older man corrected me and said Jesus died on a stick. I repeated that He died on a cross and then asked if they believed Jesus is God. The boy just stared and the man said “No.”

I don’t intend to prove this here, but if you do not believe Jesus Christ is God, (and not just “a” god, but the God) you do not believe the saving gospel.

So I started talking to the boy and telling him that whatever the man he is with has been telling him is false and will lead him to Hell. I started explaining that Jesus had to be God to die in the place of sinners; that if Jesus was only a man that He would not have been able to satisfy God’s wrath for sinners!

The reason I did this is twofold.

  1. I have found that JWs usually travel in pairs, (like Sith), and, like Sith, there is usually a learner and a ‘master.’ I believe all men who hear the saving gospel of grace and of Christ’s glorious resurrection can be saved, but I’ve found experienced JWs particularly hard to interact with. But a 9 or 10 year old child who was obviously nervous about whatever faith he had? I was sure I could get him thinking and maybe be used of God for his salvation.
  2. As I mentioned, the context was that I had a 3 year old alone outside, a couple of teenagers watching a baby and no wife at home. I didn’t believe I had time for a friendly conversation where I slowly tried to lead them to the gospel. Nor, honestly, do I want to listen to their beliefs. I know many wonderful Christians who will sit and listen to pagans share their thoughts and many times blaspheme Christ. I do not believe it is my duty to allow them the privilege.

The man immediately recognized what was happening and saw he would get nowhere with me and said, come on, let’s go. And he led the lad away. So I quoted Matthew 18:6 to him. They, of course, kept walking, so I kept talking, louder and louder. Within seconds I was open air preaching from my porch to this man and this child as they met with one of their cohorts across the street. I continued to preach the necessity of the new birth, believe in the deity of the Christ and the truth of the resurrection for the justification for sinners. You could see the bewilderment as I do not think they expected this, nor probably ever encountered it.

I started to hope I had neighbors who would hear the preaching too! I saw a family walking toward the house who looked like they may be the young lad’s family and I started preaching in their direction. Finally, they all headed as far away as they could until I could no longer see them.

I am sure some (Christian) people would not feel comfortable with this story. But when was this young man going to hear the gospel if not from the preacher whose door he was brought to providentially? Do I know how many more days any of those folks had before they met their maker? Do you not believe that it is through the foolishness of what we preach that men are saved from the wrath of almighty God?

I am not saying that is the only way to interact with JWs (or anyone). But I am grateful to God for the opportunity to preach His Word today, even if it was only for 3 minutes. 6 people heard the gospel, my own children heard me preach the gospel and saw the importance of it.

Maybe the sweetest part was coming inside and praying with my children for the salvation of sinners and then singing hymns together as worship of Jesus Christ! May God be praised and may He have mercy on the men and woman and children who visited my neighborhood today.

Divine Revelation? Wisdom? Intuition?

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The good folks at The Domain for Truth have let me post on their blog again.

This post actually got some comments for discussion.

Receiving divine revelation has become so blasé that people who normally would affirm sola scriptura don’t even bat an eye when someone proposes to be hearing from God. Now I know a lot of people use various forms of language when describing their feelings or senses or intuitions, often ascribing revelatory meaning behind them unintentionally, but there are still many Christians today who believe God does, in fact, divinely reveal things to some folks apart from the Holy Scripture.

The following two anecdotes are opposite sides of the same coin which I hope will demonstrate the danger and seriousness of this kind of thinking and speaking, and show the irrationality of at least some instances of people who claim spiritual gifts such as prophecy.

Here is a link to read the entire post. Don’t forget to add to the comments and see the interaction. It is edifying.

Ultimately, ministering alongside anyone can be fraught with difficulty for a variety of reasons such as immaturity, or if someone has an anger problem, for example. But to minister alongside someone who is open to the sign gifts requires an extra level of prudence and comes with inherent difficulties due to the nature of denying sola scriptura either in word in in practice.

2017 Arnold Report – 1

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The Arnold Classic is an annual athletic event held in Columbus, OH which attracts a large number of people from all over the world. For several years in a row we have gone to the central location for the event and preached Christ crucified, handed out tracts and engaged people in conversations.

Here is a multi-part post where I will share with you some of the stories from this weekend’s evangelistic outreach. I am hoping to make this series educational for others.

Allow me to introduce you to our team of evangelists. From left to right in the front row Pam, Kenton, Alexandra, then me. In the back row are Dave, Luke, Nick and Kurtis. You will notice that our team has 4 teenagers and one almost teenager! Praise the Lord for giving these young people a desire to see souls hear about Christ.

The day started long before March 4. We spent days and weeks praying, announcing the event at church and studying the Bible so that we would be ready. The night before and morning of the event I was charging my speaker, packaging tracts, finding DVD movies and watching the weather report!

We met at our church at about 11am on March 4. Due to there being 8 of us, we borrowed a generous brother’s van which seats 8. Right before leaving the church for downtown Columbus, our pastor prayed that the Holy Spirit would go before us and change hearts, something we cannot do.

On one sad note, two dear brothers who were scheduled to go with us could not make it due to illness. One of them was sick and the other couldn’t come because of how that affected him. This is very common! Pray for your outreaches and those of folks you know.

Click to read part 2..

Responding Like a Pharisee

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Last month I received a card in the mail from Legacy Church here on the east side of Columbus, OH.

I posted a couple tweets with screen shots as you can see below.

 

 

 

I received one particular reply which I wanted to respond to in a blog post.

 

 

 

 

I want to give Lisa Manning the benefit of the doubt. Even though I don’t think she’s asking an honest question (I believe she’s making a point in the form of two questions if you include her hashtag), I want to respond graciously, explaining a few of my own thoughts.

First of all, let’s take a look at this statement

What if one person gets saved or changed their life because they change their thinking?

Change Their Thinking

It seems Lisa has deftly understood that I do not agree with the concept of the mailing I received. I do not think that man’s problem is that our thinking is negative, thus pulling us from our goals and potential.

So, in response to the second part of Lisa’s question, “what if someone changed their life because they changed their thinking?” my answer is that I don’t really care, unless of course that thinking was changed from whatever a person thinks to thinking God’s thoughts, which we know according to His Word.

1 Cor 1:11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual

If somehow a person changed their life because they changed their thinking, apart from salvation in Christ and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, although those changes could be positive changes, it is a not the purpose of the church to help people better their lives with better thinking. It is our purpose to preach God’s Word to people and let them fall under the conviction of the Holy Spirit where the only real helpful change occurs (cf Phil 3).

What if one Person Gets Saved?

Next, let’s consider the first part of Lisa’s question. What if a person changed their thinking and got saved? This sounds great on the surface.

In fact, don’t we always say, “such and such sacrifice would be worth it if it helps just one person?”

Well, let’s take Lisa’s tweet in context. She is recognizing that I am opposed to the use of the crude vulgarity on a church mailing. And instead of defending it as a righteous and good practice, she proposes that maybe it will attract someone who ends up saved. Either that or she recognizes that someone may come to church because they want to have more positive thinking, but find Christ while there.

This sounds OK, until we substitute some other verbiage to see if it makes logical sense. Let’s say we have a stripper pole at a church meeting, find some beautiful ladies willing to share what God’s blessed ’em with and invite men from the area to come and enjoy “God’s creation.” Sounds despicable, doesn’t it?

But what if one person gets saved?

“What if one person DOES get saved?” I’d ask.  Who cares? What bearing does it have on the morality of the act? None. Zero. The point is this, someone hearing the gospel and getting saved is a wonderful act of God’s mercy – but whether or not that occurs has no logical bearing on whether your method of getting the gospel to them was legitimate.

I would go so far as to say that if you are willing to sin, follow methods NOT prescribed by God for dispensing His Word, or use language NOT becoming of a Christian (Eph 4:29) in order to get the gospel to someone, then you probably are not saved, and you are just practicing a religion you call Christianity, with a god you call Jesus who forgives people of their sins…to assuage your own sin guilt.

Am I a Pharisee?

So does all that make me a pharisee? The implication here is staggering to me because of what pharisees were in Scripture (outside God’s kingdom). Lisa’s tweet goes from an honest question -> to a hashtag which effectively labels me as outside the kingdom of Heaven.

This is a big deal to me because Lisa seems to come from the easy believism camp of Christianity – which is nearly indiscernible from Universalism. My point is this, she seems to be almost a universalist, but she draws a comparison from me to the very people Jesus called a “brood of vipers!” (Mt 23:33)

Of course, maybe Lisa didn’t mean it so literally analogous to biblical pharisees as I took it. Maybe she was just asking me if I was being legalistic or if I was unrighteously judging (John 7:24).  I will leave that to you, the reader to decide. But remember, if you judge me to be unrighteously judging for passing any judgement at all, you are caught in your own trap.

I appreciate the good folks who wrote this post which sums up the problem with playing the pharisee card. I strongly suggest you read it.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, we need to be a holy people in a wicked and perverse generation. We need to do things the way God has instructed in His Word and trust Him with the results. And we need to keep in mind when we judge others that we ourselves are not committing the same errors we are correcting them for.

Jonah’s Jaunt from Joppa

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Jonah is one of the more interesting saints we read about in God’s Word. His behavior and thoughts expose us to contradictions which can make us uncomfortable. The short book buried in the ‘lesser-read’ section of the Old Testament has many themes about our immutable and longsuffering Savior and Lord, the truths of which ought to bring you to worship.

Here is the audio of my Jonah 1 sermon. I will post Jonah 2 soon. Lord willing, Jonah 3 & 4 will be preached May 22 and I’ll post audio after.