Is The K.J.V. Bible God’s “Perfect” Word?

October 28, 2009 3 Comments

I live in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. That’s about an hour and a half from Canton, North Carolina. Canton’s Amazing Grace Baptist Church, with its pastor Marc Grizzard, has made a little ripple in the national news recently by announcing plans to have a book-burning on Halloween night. ”Burn what books?” you ask. Oh, just some really radical stuff: Bible translations other than the King James translation and books written by popular Christian authors who use translations other than the King James. We’re talking about authors such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren, and Chuck Swindoll. You know, some real subversives who’ve never done a thing for the cause of Christ.

If my words are already dripping with sarcasm it’s because I’ve studied this “K.J.V. only” issue for years. I’ve listened to sermons from Jack Hyles, who ruled as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana for decades. I’ve spent time online at David Cloud’s website. I’ve read The Sword of the Lord publication, which is edited by Shelton Smith. I’ve even attended two Sword of the Lord conferences in Walkertown, North Carolina. I tell you all of this as evidence that I’ve heard the arguments for the K.J.V. translation being a “perfect” Bible. Here are three of those main arguments.

#1: God has promised to preserve His words. The supposed text for this is Psalm 12:6-7, which says in the K.J.V.:

“The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”

According to the “K.J.V. only” folks, the K.J.V. is God’s preserved word for the English speaking people. Evidently God doesn’t have a preserved word for the billions who speak languages other than English!

Really, though, if you will sit down and read Psalm 12 as a whole you will find that the word “them” in the line “thou shalt preserve them” refers to the oppressed “poor” and “needy” of verse 5, not the “words of the Lord” of verse 6. The Psalm is about God preserving the godly weak in a world of the ungodly strong. This explains why I’ve read that 95% of Hebrew scholars agree that the word “them” in verse 7 should, in reality, be “us.”

#2: God’s word is settled in heaven. The so-called proof text here is Psalm 119:89:

“For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.”

I once heard Jack Hyles say in a sermon that the “word” that is settled in heaven is the King James translation. He said that when he got to heaven he would see a King James Bible there. I guess all those people who can’t read English will have to take the time in eternity to learn.

Then again, God might just instantaneously give them that ability. Sure, that makes sense. Of course, Hyles also twisted 1 Peter 1:23 to make the K.J.V. the “incorruptible seed” that was necessary for anyone to experience salvation. Say, perhaps there won’t be anybody in heaven who’ll have to learn to read English after all! 

Would you believe that the most extreme of the “K.J.V. only” group even contend that the K.J.V. is actually superior to the Old Testament’s original Hebrew and the New Testament’s original Greek? Peter Ruckman goes so far as to teach that the K.J.V. is advanced revelation over the Bible’s original texts!   

#3: The men who served as the translators of the K.J.V. were all godly men who believed they were handling the word of God. With all due respect to the translators of the K.J.V., those men weren’t even “K.J.V. only” themselves. In the original K.J.V. there are eleven pages in the front that serve as the Preface. This Preface is labeled ”The Translators To The Reader.” In that preface, the translators actually argue for the use of other translations by saying, “a variety of translation is profitable for finding out the sense of the Scriptures.”

They also praise translations that came before theirs by saying,

“Truly (good Christian reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one…but to make a good one better or out of many good ones, one principal good one.”

Finally, those translators argue that scripture must always be in the most current, up-to-date language so that the common people can easily understand what they are reading. The direct quote is,

“But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar.”

Ironically, even the meaning of that word “vulgar” has changed since those translators wrote. During their day it meant “common, simple, or uneducated.” Now it typically means “crude, lewd, offensive, or profane.” Does that make the translator’s argument or what?

Furthermore, it’s hard to defend the clear readability of the K.J.V. when it uses such archaic, obsolete words as:

“aceldama”; “almug”; “ambassage”; ”amerce”; “blains”; ”brigandines”; “chambering”; “chode”; “churl”; ”cieled”; “clouted”; “collops”; ”cotes”; “crookbackt”; “glede”; “habergeon”; ”neesing”; ”nitre”; “ouches”; ”purtenance”;  ”suretiship”; “sackbut”; “scall”; “tabret”; “trow”; ”wen”; “wimples”; and ”wot.”

In addition to these outdated words, there are also those various instances where the meanings of certain words have changed. For example, the word ”fetched” in ”fetched a compass” (Joshua 15:3; 2 Kings 3:9; Acts 28:13) doesn’t mean “went and got a compass.” It means “to turn around” or “to go around.” Likewise, the word “without” in “without the camp” means “outside.”   

I certainly mean no disrespect to the K.J.V. translation. I grew up reading it. After I went into the ministry, I preached from it for many years. It has been used in God’s service more than any other translation. But let’s not go off the deep end here. The K.J.V. is not “perfect.” The fact is, it has many demonstrable translation errors. Here are some of them:

-Genesis 49:6: “they digged down a wall” should be “they hamstrung an ox”

-Genesis 42:27; Genesis 43:21; Exodus 4:24: “inn” should be “the lodging place” or “the encampment”

-Exodus 20:13: “kill” should be “murder” (This clears up an apparent contradiction between this verse and passages such as Exodus 21:12-21).

-1 Kings 10:28: “linen yarn” should be the Egyptian town “Keveh”

-Psalm 77:2: “my sore ran in the night” should be “my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing” 

-Mark 6:20: “observed him” should be “kept him safe” or “protected him.”

-John 20:17: “Touch me not” should be “Do not cling to me”

-Acts 5:30: “and hanged” should be “by hanging”

-Acts 12:4: “Easter” should be “Passover”

-Acts 19:2: “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” should be “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

-Romans 8:16,26: “Spirit itself” should be “Spirit Himself”  

-1 Corinthians 4:4: “For I know nothing by myself” should be “For I am conscious of nothing against myself”

-1 Thessalonians 5:22: “all appearance of evil” should be “every form of evil” 

-James 3:2: “For in many things we offend all” should be “For we all stumble in many things”

You see, if even one of these errors stands up to scrutiny and proves to be factual, it means that the K.J.V. loses the claim of perfection. You can’t be wrong in even one way and still be “perfect.” Please understand now, by in large the K.J.V. is a reliable translation that does an excellent job of translating the Bible’s original Hebrew and Greek into English. We’re talking about just a few problems here and there in the translation’s vast universe of words. But those problems are there. And that’s a big reason why we don’t need to be burning translations that aren’t the K.J.V.

According to Romans 10:2, it’s possible to have a zeal for God that is ”not according to knowledge.” The zeal is sincere, but it is either uninformed or ill-informed. In the case of Marc Grizzard and Amazing Grace Baptist Church, I’d say it is ill-informed. Obviously, they’ve studied the “K.J.V. only” issue in great detail and are “informed” on the subject. But their information is not only severely lacking but also downright wrong. It’s a shame, really, because I’m sure there are some good people in that congregation. I just wish they’d find a more productive and Christ-pleasing way to spend Halloween night.

Filed under balance, Bible Study, King James only, Scripture, The Bible Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Clint Eastwood Westerns

October 17, 2009 Leave a Comment

I’m going to drop my pastoral guard and admit something to you: I love Clint Eastwood westerns. There, I said it. Now hang on and hear the rest of it. I don’t love every scene in them, and I’m fully aware what valid criticisms can be brought against them. But I’m not going to tell a spiritual sounding lie and say that I don’t love those movies. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve got Dish Network with the DVR feature, which allows me to fast-forward through scenes I’d rather skip.)  

The reason I love Eastwood’s westerns can be summed up in one simple word: justice. In those movies, the bad guys get theirs. In those famous “spaghetti” westerns (“The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly”; “A Fistful of Dollars”; and “For A Few Dollars More”) Eastwood is the gunfighter-bounty hunter who takes care of the outlaws the law can’t handle. In “Hang ‘Em High” he’s the wrongly hung man who turns marshal and rounds up the culprits. In “Two Mules For Sister Sara” he prevents the dastardly French from making inroads into Mexico. In “Joe Kidd” he’s the rancher who has to put a stop to Robert Duvall and his group of vigilantes who oppose land reform. In “High Plains Drifter” he’s the marshal’s ghost who comes back to handle the hypocritical, cowardly citizens of Lago and the outlaws who killed him. In “The Outlaw Josey Wales” he’s the Missouri farmer who turns Confederate guerilla-fighter to avenge the senseless killing of his family. In “Pale Rider” he’s the mysterious preacher (actually another ghost, that of a gunfighter) who saves a little group of prospectors from a greedy, ruthless mining company. In “Unforgiven” he’s the ex-killer who gets back into the business to bring down not only the men who brutalized a prostitute but also the mean ole’ sheriff who pretty much let them get away with it. Do I sense a pattern here? Sure do. If you want some real justice dispensed, call Clint Eastwood and give him a horse and a six-shooter.

What makes Eastwood’s justice so particularly appealing is the fact that it gets carried out so swiftly. In many scenes, troublemakers are dealt their comeuppance in a matter of seconds. In no case does the justice take more than the span of a movie. This stands in such stark contrast to our own legal system, a system that typically gets bogged down in things like continuations, booked court calendars, recesses, appeals, appeals of appeals, and retrials.

One other thing, in the Eastwood westerns the perpetrator never goes free. Forget loopholes, circumstantial evidence, and the like. If the guy’s got it coming, he gets it! No questions. No apologies. No regrets. In the late 1980s, Eastwood served a couple of years as the mayor of his hometown of Carmel, California. He missed his calling; he should have been it’s sheriff.

Am I the only one who ever wishes that God would hurry up His justice? I have no doubts whatsoever that His justice is found in spades in the afterlife, but why can’t it be found more in this life? I mean, as far as we know, London’s Jack the Ripper got away with his murders. Germany’s Adolph Hitler ended up taking his own life, but not before he oversaw the sadistic killing of six million Jews during World War II. Pol Pot attempted to form a Communist peasant farming society in Cambodia, and under his dictatorship some two million people (approximately 25% of that country’s entire population) died from starvation, overwork, and executions. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was finally executed by hanging, but during his reign of terror he had hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiite Muslims put to death. Cuba’s Fidel Castro kept his tight grip on that nation by killing many thousands of his countrymen, basically anyone who didn’t toe his party line. And yet he has lived in wealth and ease well into his eighties.

Where is God in all this? More to the point, where is His justice? I love Deuteronomy 32:4, which says of God: “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.” I read that and think, “Yes, yes. That’s the God I serve!” But then I pick up the newspaper and read about yet another child abuse case, serial killer on the loose, or white-collar criminal who stole millions and got off with a slap on the wrist. Such injustices simply don’t appear to line up with Deuteronomy 32:4.

We see this same kind of thing even in the Bible. Herod Agrippa I began a persecution of the early church by killing James, the brother of John, and having Peter arrested. Not too many days afterward he was struck by an angel, eaten by worms, and died (Acts 12:1-23). Now that’s justice! But wait. Another Herod, Antipas, had John the Baptist beheaded (Matthew 14:1-12) and played a role in the trial of Jesus (Luke 23:6-12). Despite these unjust acts, historians tell us that he lived for several years after these events. You see, God’s justice doesn’t always fall in ways that are swift and obvious.  

Let’s admit it, seeing that justice gets done in this world just isn’t a high priority with God. If you think this is a blasphemous statement, let me point you to Job. He admitted to being thoroughly confused by God’s lack of justice when he said, “He destroys the blameless and the wicked. If the scourge slays suddenly, He laughs at the plight of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If it is not He, who else could it be?” (Job 9:22-24) He also asked, “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” (Job 21:7)    

Such talk puts Job in good company. Asaph said, “Behold, these are the ungodly, who are always at ease. They increase in riches. Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been plagued and chastened every morning” (Psalm 73:12-14). Jeremiah asked God, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?” (Jeremiah 12:1) Habakkuk got very blunt about the matter when he said to God, “Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore perverse judgment proceeds” (Habakkuk 1:4).  

So why does God so many times delay His justice until the afterlife? I would offer two reasons. Reason #1: God is merciful, patient, and longsuffering (to the point of being illogical) because He loves even the wicked and hates banishing them to hell. 2 Peter 3:9 says: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Ezekiel 33:11 says: “Say to them: ‘As I live,’says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’”

Reason #2 why God’s justice is delayed is: God wants to allow the iniquity of the wicked to reach its full measure so that His judgment upon them can reach its full measure. In Genesis 15:16, God explains to Abraham why His descendants can’t go ahead and possess Canaan. The reason is, the iniquity of the Amorites isn’t yet complete (hasn’t yet reached its full measure).

The Amorites were one of the most powerful of the races who occupied Canaan. In this context they represent all those races. God knew that when He finally did give the order for the people of Israel to go in and claim Canaan, that order would be accompanied by the command to kill the land’s inhabitants, including the women and children (Exodus 23:23-33, 33:1-2; Deuteronomy 9:1-5, 19:1, 31:3-5; Joshua 6:21, 8:24-29, etc.).

Such a cold, calculated command would demand a worthy reason. Delaying Israel’s conquest of Canaan for over four hundred years would give the land’s inhabitants more than four centuries to simmer in their sins and bring them to a boiling point that would befit such an ordered extermination. It was as if God said to Abraham, “The people of Canaan are wicked now, and I could judge them accordingly today. But I want the opportunity to watch them get worse and worse for a few more centuries so that I can work up my fiercest anger against them before I pour it out through your descendants.”

In closing, let me say that these two reasons for the delays in God’s justice are still at work today. Each of them is indelibly woven into the very fabric of His nature. One comes under the category of hope, while the other comes under the category of doom. But the immediate effect of both is the same: the delay of justice. You see, God has more than a quick scene or a two-hour movie in which to impart His justice. He paints on the canvas of eternity. That means that, in the short run, He can be more merciful, longsuffering, and patient than Clint Eastwood. It also means that, in the long run, His brand of justice is much more devastating than Clint’s.

Filed under Coming Judgment, hell, Justice, Patience, Sowing and Reaping Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Tim Tebow and Jesus

October 14, 2009 3 Comments

The Monday (10-12-09) edition of USA TODAY ran an interesting article entitled “And I’d like to thank God Almighty.” The article addressed the issue of Christian athletes loudly bringing their Christianity into sports. If you’re any kind of fan, you’ve seen them do this. The basketball player makes the winning shot and says in the courtside interview, “I just want to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for helping me make that shot.” The Nascar driver wins the race, emerges from his car, dons a cap, and says to the reporter in victory lane, “First of all, I want to thank Jesus Christ, for without him none of this would have been possible.”

The article prominently mentioned Tim Tebow, the star quarterback for the Florida Gators, the nation’s top-ranked college football team. Tebow has been a part of two national championship teams at Florida. He’s won the Heisman Trophy. He’s been named All American. He’s been praised as a leader, an upstanding student, and an ideal role model. He’s also been an outspoken Christian who has fervently mixed his Christianity with his football since the first day he stepped foot on campus. 

The problem Tom Krattenmaker, the writer of the article, has with Tebow is the staunchly conservative brand of Christianity that Tebow promotes. He points out that Tebow takes off-season missionary trips to Asia under the auspices of his father’s organization, The Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association. According to Krattenmaker, the bottom line of that organization is: “Only those who assent to its version of Christianity will avoid eternal punishment.” He then cites two examples of the concerns he has with the organization. First, the ministry boldly states, “We reject the modern ecumenical movement.” Second, the ministry’s literature estimates that 75% of the inhabitants of the Philippines “have never once heard the gospel of Christ,” even though more than 80% of Philippine citizens identify themselves as Roman Catholic.

Now, before I press on to what I really want to say with this post, let me be clear about a few things:

#1: I understand full well the inherent danger of doctrinal compromise in the modern ecumenical movement. There are reasons why I pastor a non-denominational church, and that’s one of them.

#2: Despite my wariness of ecumenicalism, I know there are sincere Christians to be found throughout the various denominations (Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals, Church of Christ, etc.)           

#3: I do believe that the religious system of Catholicism is a false hybrid of authentic New Testament Christianity and that it is laced with erroneous teachings and practices.

#4: I do believe there are some legitimate Christians within Catholicism’s ranks.  

#5: I do believe in the eternal punishment of those who die without ever having placed their belief in Christ as Savior.

So, you see, I’m not writing to lambaste the beliefs of Tim Tebow or The Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association. For the most part, with a few exceptions, I agree with their basic tenets. Instead, what I want to write about is the “Jesus always makes you a winner” mentality.

Are we to believe that Jesus always wants His followers to succeed in sports? Does the fact that Tim Tebow’s team beat Louisiana State last Saturday prove that Jesus favors Tim Tebow over the players on the L.S.U. team? Maybe the Lord just doesn’t like the state of Louisiana in general. After all, He sent Hurricane Katrina to “get” New Orleans, didn’t He? We’ll just conveniently overlook the minor detail that Katrina did incredible damage to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, a conservative school in the Southern Baptist Convention denomination. We’ll also overlook the fact that there might just be some Christians on a team from Louisiana.

What I’m saying is, it’s very easy for Tim Tebow to give all praise to Jesus for letting him run for touchdowns when he is doing that running behind one of the biggest, baddest offensive lines in college football. It’s very easy for him to credit Jesus for letting him throw touchdown passes when he is throwing those passes to some of the fastest, most skilled receivers on planet Earth. I wonder, would Jesus seem nearly as powerful to Tebow if he played for a team that wasn’t loaded with such players?

Tebow can talk all he wants about the power of the Lord, but when it came time for him to choose a college team to play for, this home-schooled son of a missionary didn’t pick a small, Christian, ultra conservative, non-ecumenical school that barely had a football team. He picked one of the most secular ”football factories” in the United States. Think about that. There’s the power of the Lord, and then there’s the power of incredibly gifted teammates. It’s easy to shine for Jesus when the greatest disappointment you have to face in a season is the gap between winning a national championship or having to settle for finishing second in your conference and in the top five nationally.

My son Ryan is a Christian. His belief in Christ is real and he is a great kid. He’s also a good athlete whose best sport might very well be football. However, through no fault of his own, he suffers from attending a school system that rates very low in sports. He never won a football game during his 5th-grade season. Likewise for his 6th. That 6th-grade team scored three touchdowns total. Ryan ran for two and threw for the other one. This season was his middle-school, 7th-grade season. He made all-conference, but his team won one game.

Since Ryan and Tim Tebow both claim the same Savior, why does that Savior work so hard to get Tebow his wins and acclaim but allows Ryan to get gang-tackled season after season? I submit that Tebow’s natural ability and otherworldly teammates have much more to do with his athletic success than Jesus. I say that Jesus isn’t nearly as personally involved in the outcome of sporting events as Christian athletes want to believe. Put a batter up against a pitcher and the outcome will depend much more upon how good the pitcher’s stuff is than how often the batter prays.

Please understand that I’m not trying to completely eliminate Jesus from sports. After all, His sovereignty knows no limits. And let’s face it, any Savior who knows the number of hairs on a person’s head has to be interested in all of life, right down to the minutest details. But we need to get back into the realm of reality on this subject. If an athlete wants to thank Jesus for allowing him the health to compete, that’s fine. If He wants to give Him praise for dying on the cross for his sins, that’s a form of witnessing. When it comes to final scores, though, he needs to keep his mouth shut about Jesus. If Jesus was really that actively involved in that department, Notre Dame would never lose a game. Remember, that’s the school with the famous “Touchdown Jesus” shrine. Oh, wait, scratch what I just said. I forgot, they’re Catholics.

Filed under Evangelism, Sports, Thankfulness, Witnessing Tagged with , , , , ,

Life Is A Vapor, But Then What?

October 6, 2009 Leave a Comment

I got the call yesterday morning that a faithful member of our church passed away during the night. What made the news so shocking was the fact that Bill had seemed fine Sunday morning. He and his wife, Celeine, had taken their usual seats in church and enjoyed the service just like they always did. 

I myself wasn’t fine that Sunday morning, and Bill picked up on it as soon as he saw me. For various reasons, I didn’t sleep well Saturday night. Then I woke up Sunday morning with a fair amount of vertigo. That was only the second time in my life I had experienced vertigo, and I don’t want there to ever be a third. As I walked into church, I put up a brave front and figured that nobody would be able to tell that I was struggling a little just to remain upright. But when I walked over to shake hands with Bill and Celeine, Bill looked right at me and said, “You’re sick.” I’ve got to admit that I was taken aback by the straightforwardness of his remark and the accuracy of his diagnosis.

After I explained to him what was going on with me, he asked me something I will never forget. His question was, “When was the last time you had a physical?” I stuttered and stammered a little and then finally got out the answer, “Oh, I don’t know, I guess it was five or so years ago.” The truth was, I couldn’t remember. Bill’s reply was, “You ought to go have one. You might have some high blood pressure.” (For the record, I’ve had my blood pressure checked in the past few months. It was fine.)

After the Sunday service, I got involved talking to other people and didn’t really say much to Bill and Celeine. I regret that now. If I had known that was the last time I would see Bill on this earth, I would have made a point of spending a lot of time with him. But we never know such things, do we? Life really is “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14).

We don’t know exactly what took Bill’s life around 1:00 a.m. Monday morning. He lived each day with a garden variety of physical ailments. I can’t even begin to remember the number of hospital stays he endured, the surgeries and the procedures. At his home yesterday afternoon the family showed me the list of medications that he took. It looked like an encyclopedia of Latin. He had to have a chart just to keep it all straight. I think that’s why he encouraged me to get a physical. He knew far better than most how quickly your health can deteriorate.

I took great joy in informing the family that Bill no longer needs all his pills or his oxygen machine. His soul has now departed (Genesis 35:18-19) from his “body of death” (Romans 7:24). I’m happy for him. I’m also a little envious. I’ve noticed that something strange has happened to me over the past few years. I’ve begun longing for heaven to a degree I didn’t expect to reach until I was much older.

And here’s the shocking thing (at least it’s shocking to me): My increased longing for heaven springs much more from a desire to leave behind the pain, suffering, injustice, and wickedness of this world than it does a desire to see the splendors of heaven. I’ve begun to see heaven not so much as a desirable location but as an escape from an undesirable one. I’m as excited about getting to leave this world as I am about getting to enter into heaven.            

Do I still love my wife and want to spend our “golden years” together? Yes. Do I still love my two boys and want to watch them finish growing up? Yes. Do I want to hold grandbabies in my arms and get to spoil them? Yes. Do I want to keep on enjoying all the pleasures of life? Yes. But do I now see this life for what it is and look forward to a better afterlife? Most definitely! I think it’s quite appropriate that the text God has given me for Bill’s funeral sermon is Job 14:1-6, a passage which begins with the words: “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.”

Bill is out of that trouble now. He is in that better place that we like to talk about. But his is only a better place because he knew Jesus as his personal Savior. Can you imagine how awful it would be if this life was the highlight of your eternal existence? Can you imagine being born of woman, living out your ”few” days (few in relation to eternity), experiencing all of life’s trouble, and then having your soul depart for a gruesome place of suffering and anguish? Can you imagine lifting up your eyes in hell and being in torment (Luke 16:19-23)? I don’t even want to think about such a horror.      

But the stark reality is that most of the people on earth right now are staring straight down the gun-barrel of that horror. They don’t know Christ as Savior and if they die tonight their souls will not go to heaven. This should compel us Christians to be all the more involved in evangelism. We must share the good news of Christ’s gospel with those who need it. Someone once shared that gospel with Bill, and he responded by placing his belief in Jesus as his personal Savior. For that reason, I won’t have problems preaching his funeral and his family won’t have to search fruitlessly for comfort. But that puts us in the minority, not the majority. And that, Christian, is not a good thing.

You say, “But Russell, I’m just one person and the task of world evangelism is far too overwhelming.” You’re right, it is. That’s why Jesus doesn’t expect you to take on that task. What He expects you to do is engage in individual evangelism. Don’t focus on winning the masses of China to Christ. Focus on that one person the Lord puts right in front of you today. You know the one, the one with your name on them.

Maybe the person is a family member. Maybe the person is a friend. Maybe the person is a co-worker. Maybe the person is a neighbor. Maybe the person is a fellow parent from your kid’s ball team. What I’m saying is, door-to-door evangelism to rank strangers has its place, but so does relational evangelism to people you already know.    

You see, the fact is, some “Bills” will die tonight, and one of them might just be a lost person you know. That person needs Christ, which means that he or she needs you to tell them about Him. Stop talking about politics, the weather, the economy, or the ball game, and press on into spiritual matters, eternal matters. Be tactful, but get the conversation there. Tell that person about Jesus.

If you don’t feel comfortable quoting scripture, at least tell the person what Jesus has done for you. Talk about the trouble you’ve experienced in this world and then talk about heaven. Make a point of explaining that you are guaranteed heaven only because Jesus died on the cross for your sins and you have believed in Him as Savior. You don’t have to hold an evangelistic crusade. You don’t have to try to be someone you’re not. But you do need to be a witness who’s trying. And don’t worry about how the person responds to what you say. That’s not your department. Your job is simply the telling.      

I will miss my friend Bill, but I know his soul now resides in heaven’s glory. He has been reunited with Christian loved ones who passed on before him. Most importantly, he now sees Jesus face to face. That Savior that he only knew by faith he now knows by personal appearance. That’s a joy that everyone should get to experience. I realize that’s not going to happen, but you and I can help it happen for some folks if we will open up our closed lips and share the gospel.

Filed under Adversity, Belief, Christ's Death, Coming Judgment, death, Evangelism, Heaven, hell, salvation, trials, Witnessing Tagged with , , , , , ,

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