Pastor Matt's Blogosphere

Quit Straddling The Fence!

We should want all people to be saved and to be a part of the family of God. We probably even hope that our encounters with unbelievers and heresy-believers are peaceful and pleasant, and when they hear the truth of the Gospel from us they will believe. However, such a hope is not very realistic.

In the first place, people do not often ask you to share the Gospel with them, for the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an offer of forgiveness. Such an offer presupposes that a person is guilty of something that they need forgiveness for. In this case, it is an offer which presupposes that all people are sinners against God and deserve His wrath.

When people are confronted with the claims of the Gospel, they may respond by saying that it is not true, or they say it is an interesting hypothesis which might be true. It is at this point that the child of God may be most tempted to compromise the claims of Christ and not offer a ready defense. One may do this by trying to prove that Christianity is true. People must "reason" in order to believe. However, if we are not careful, we may promote the false idea that the lost person is a neutral observer who has the "right" to evaluate and judge the claims of Christ and any decision he/she comes to is both understandable and acceptable. As sinners, they are anything but neutral regarding the truth of God's Word. They are lost! Despite the popularity of books such as Evidence That Demands A Verdict, it is not Jesus who stands awaiting the judgement of any man, it is man who must be cleared.

The fact is that all people everywhere already know of the existence of God. Furthermore, they understand the overall meaning of that testimony. Consider Romans 1:18-21: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
"hold" = katecho = hold down, retain.
"manifest" = phanerro = to render apparent, to make clear

There is no excuse for not believing because of the evidence which God has implanted within man. Still, people rebel against God. They do this by not only disbelieving the Bible, but by denying God's general revelation (in nature and history) and coming up with rationalizations to justify themselves. Such rationalizations we know as false prophecies and false religions.

Therefore, according to God's Word, can anyone who has reached a place of spiritual accountability in his life truly be classified as legitimately ignorant? No! When we argue as if an unbeliever is legitimately ignorant as to whether Christianity is true or by treating him as a "neutral" seeker of truth, we are denying the real situation. We are implicitly agreeing that reality (of God being God and man being a sinner) is not a personal revelation of God, but an impersonal environment or emotion, which is not true. Even the fact that some seemingly sincere people deny the truth makes sense because the Bible explains that people practice self-deception in spiritual matters (James 1:22).

What lost sinners need is not new evidence but a desire to stop suppressing the evidence they have already. They are working against God. We must be working for God and not "beat around the bush." We must be bold and unrelenting in our sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. This is one issue where we can not sit on the fence!

(Thanks to Bro. Mike Rice for putting together most of this material.)