Ponderings

"I’ve learned that anytime my success depends on another person’s response, I will manipulate them.”

That's a really interesting quote, it got me thinking a lot and I think that it is almost always if not always true. It is probably one of the biggest flaws as well in the way we view evangelism. When we are concerned about numbers and how many people accept Christ instead of just faithfully presenting the gospel then we are manipulating and probably not preaching the full gospel. It reminds of one of the most convicting passages in the bible for me

Ezekiel 33

Ezekiel Is Israel's Watchman

1The word of the LORD came to me: 2"Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, 3and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.


7"So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.


God has called us as Watchmen, we are to warn others of the coming wrath. This is serious stuff, it is all right if they don't listen. But the responsibility is on us to get the message out, otherwise their blood is on our hands. I don't know if we can take this as theologically accurate, but definitely as a stern warning. Here is a site that changed my life, and my opinion of missions


http://www.thetravelingteam.org/2000/resources/quotes.shtml


I heard an analogy of telling people about Jesus actually if you want to hear the sermon itself it is here

click here

But the guy was talking about if you are standing outside a forest on a snowy day and you have a shotgun in your hand and you see a wolf walking up behind a skinny defenseless man, and you watch as the wolf proceeds to eat that man. You do not even raise the shotgun but watch with Sadness. Would you say that you showed Love to that man? Maybe he had sensitive hearing and would have been offended by the blast of the shotgun. Surely then you were justified in not shooting the wolf or even yelling and telling him about it. Or imagine the gun is not yours but there is a man beside you who's gun it is and he is pleading with you to use his gun to shoot the wolf before it reaches the man. As you can probably tell Jesus is that man and he says

Mark 16:15
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.

The gun is the gospel message and the wolf is the oncoming Godless eternity.

All of this is so important and has convicted me so much but it means nothing if I don't take what I've been learning and use it for the glory of God. I am such a timid guy sometimes, it is so frustrating because I know that God is offering me boldness if I will take it but I am too afraid to accept the boldness that he can give me because I know it will change who my friends are, what people think of me, and my future. I know it would be for the better but also it would be far more uncertain, far more dependant on God. And that is scary, so very scary, even though I know in my head that God is trustworthy and am learning more in my heart that he is.