Re: [TruthTalk] Mormons and Street Preachers

[Kevin Deegan]

That is great that you can minister to a few BUT there is a WHOLE WORLD of LOST sinners dying at about 83 per minute and going to a Christless eternity. Many of whom even in this country have never HEARD the GOSPEL!

 

"The soul and eternity of one man depends upon the voice of another" Horatius Bonar

What are you going to do about it?

 

                                83

 83 each minute; 4980 each hour; 119,520 each day somewhere in the world are dying without Christ.
    83 each minute; 4980 each hour; 119,520 are going out of this world to their maker without hope.
    Some of them are going to meet him who have been told to meet the way of salvation and have rejected it.  Many are going on without Christ who have never heard of Him.  No one has ever taken the time or trouble to tell them of this wonderful Saviour.
    Some people say that those who have never heard of Christ will be saved because they have never had a chance to know Him, but God's Word says in John 3:36,  "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."
    And in Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."  Also, John 3:18 says, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, bevause he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
    Christ himself as he left this world said "Go ye therefore and teach the nations,"  He meant just what he said, and yet after over 1900 years we find lost souls going out to meet Him each minute.  Almost 4 with every breath that we draw.
    May that number be burned in the heart of all who read this, and may each ask himself if any of the blood  of that 83 is on his hands.  Oh, the millions without Christ, without God, without Hope.
    Do you care dear friend? Is your heart bleeding for those who have never had a chance to hear the blessed Gospel story? Have you heard the Master's call and have you replied. "Here am I Lord, send me"? If you can not go, you can pray and you can give that others may go. And you can do much right where you are.
    83 lost souls each minute! No wonder the angels rejoice over one soul that repenteth. I wonder if you or I will be able to go to sleep tonight without thinking about that 83. Oh, Christian friend, let's pray, let's give, let's work as we never have before. Our Lord is coming soo; maybe sooner than we think. Will we hear His words, "Well done" when He comes?

Bill Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 5:54 AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Mormons and Street Preachers


> Bill wrote:
> > My greatest ministry has been to fatherless boys,
> > tough kids, mainly wrestlers, who think that to show
> > the least sign of weakness is to be an utter failure.
> > I am very physical with these kids.
>
> Are you a wrestling coach? In what capacity do you do this? Is this part
> of some church program or school system or something like that? It sounds
> very worthwhile.

No, I am just a dad who has had sons in wrestling for 16 years -- my oldest
is twenty now. Wow, I feel dated! Anyway, the boys I am around have
basically been together their whole lives. From the time they were in
Peewees until they graduate high school, they are wrestling each other --
hence many, many all-day-long opportunities to minister to them. And their
is not many activities which bring out the range of emotions that wrestling
does. I get to comfort them, congratulate them, talk to them about their
attitude, encourage them, and, yes, sometimes even rebuke them. And I can do
this because the whole time I have been there for them; in other words, they
know I'm on their side.

At regionals this year a very good 152 pound wrestler, who should have gone
on to state, had come done with anemia a couple weeks before the tournament.
Every time he would wrestle his nose would bleed so bad that sometimes he
would have to forfeit the match. Well he made it to the qualifying match to
get into state, and he could not get his nose to stop bleeding -- and he had
to forfeit. After the match his mother was trying to console him and he was
having nothing to do with it. He was understandably quite upset, but he was
not treating his mother respectfully. Finally he yanked himself away from
her and headed toward the locker room. I had been standing at a distance and
when they were separated, I hollered over at him. When he saw me his
demeanor changed completely. Immediately he came to me and threw his arms
around me, and with his sweat-soaked head and bleeding nose, sobbed his
heart out on my shoulders. I told him that I was sorry that had happened to
him, and as he sobbed in exhaustion, I explained to him that things happen
to us that we will never be able to make sense of, yet we may know that God
will use that difficulty in our life to build our character and make us
stronger, better people, that maybe we will be able to comfort others when
they have had similar unexplainable mishaps. When he had regained himself,
he told me that it meant a lot to him that I always encouraged him. I then
told him that I could tell that his mother was hurting because of the way he
had treated her, and I asked him if he could perhaps go talk to her now.
Well, you know what? That is just what he did, and he did it immediately,
before going to shower.

Now this is a very gifted, but fatherless, boy, a senior, who has pretty
much lived his life at the top of the wrestling world. He is a tough guy --
yet when the confusion of this world was more than he could handle, and he
had lost his cool, he was still willing to go back and make right what he
had wronged. I am proud of him -- and I know in part it is because he
trusted me that he turned to apologize to his mother. One had better not
approach a tempersome wrestler after a loss like that, if he has not gained
some credibility with the boy along the way. That is all I am saying.


> Bill wrote:
> > My approach with other people is only
> > situationally different than this -- if it is
> > a woman, I do not touch her.
>
> Well, I'm not quite that structured, but I do understand the need to keep
> boundaries sometimes. My wife does not allow me to have any female
friends
> and I respect that.

Sounds pretty structured to me :>) I would respect it, too. . .
>
> Bill wrote:
> > I have learned what to say to get to people's issues,
> > and once I am there I know how to show them that
> > I care. As soon as people know that I am genuine
> > and, more importantly, that I genuinely care about
> > them, their life is an open book. I have now gained
> > permission to speak to their souls.
>
> I think I understand this very well too. What Christian does not practice
> this?

Well, I have met several, but the more pertinent question, it seems to me,
is this one: Did those Christians who "practice this" get it from that
"Friendship Evangelism" thing that you were accusing me of selling out to?

> Bill wrote:
> > I briefly shared the gospel that I share with them
> > the other day, and so I won't go into it here, but
> > I have found that, just like Zacchaeus, people
> > cannot wait to come down out of that tree when
> > they know they have been loved and accepted
> > unconditionally. And, like I said, it is then that
> > they will be honest about their sin, for O how
> > they want deliverance!
>
> I agree with you in this particular context. But here is where your
> boundaries might need to expand. These particular people are those I
would
> call "in your class." They are a particular group to which you have
> relationship for various reasons. There are entirely other groups of
people
> who would never get into this circle that you have just outlined. Maybe
> they are too poor or too rich. Maybe they hate God because they were
raised
> to hate God. The reasons are numerous, but surely you must realize that
> there are entire segments of society that would never enter into this
> scenario that you have just outlined. How would we expand our borders in
> evanglism and get the Word outside this subculture in which we live and
> move? Well, public preaching is one way.

Yeah, or you could pull into 7-11 someday and see a little black man sitting
on the curb crying his eyes out. And you could walk up to him and ask him
what is wrong, and you could listen to him tell you that he has a new
grand-son, but since he is an alcoholic his daughter will not let him see
him. And he could tell you that it had been ten years since he was sober,
and that he had not come off the wagon since his son had been killed in a
car accident. And you could decide then and there if you really wanted to
help the man, or if you only wanted a pat on the back for "caring." And you
could conclude that if you believed what you claimed you would take him home
with you, a hundred and seventy miles away, to a community which has no
colored people and you could help the man recover from his addictions. And
you could tell him that you could not help him, but you knew who could, and
if he would come home with you, you would teach him about that Man. And when
you got home, you could go in and tell your wife that you had brought home a
transient, that he was going to be living with you for a while. And when she
tells her parents, they could have a fit and insist that she and the kids
leave the house until her husband comes to his senses. And your world could
come apart before your very eyes, but you could trust God, that he would
provide. And your wife could trust you and move back home. And your children
could learn to love a black man without an ounce of prejudice, and this
because they saw you loving him.

And two years later after many relapses, and having to have found the grace
to love him through them, get him sobered back up and on the
straight-and-narrow, this little black man can have gained a tremendous
victory, and he can have seen his grand-son at last, and held him in his lap
and loved him -- before he dies of liver failure. And you can stand at his
funeral, the only white man in a black congregation and talk to them in
straight forward and powerful language about reconciliation and loving each
other as we love ourselves, and you can do this, because now you have
credibility. And then after the funeral the most amazing and wonderful thing
can happen to you. His 80 year old mother can boldly shuffle up to you and
tell that on his deathbed Daniel said to "tell Bill that he hears the music,
and then he closed his eyes and he was gone." And that will remind you how
many times you had told him that he would be in heaven someday, singing
those black spirituals and having a great party. And he would say, "No, not
me; I used to teach Sunday School, but I'm not good enough now -- I am a
sinner."

>
> Bill wrote:
> > There is a difference, David, between not
> > knowing that you are wrong, and not admitting
> > that you know you are wrong. I have yet to meet
> > the Christian who if honest will say that she did
> > not know what she was doing was wrong;
> > or that he had never thought of it as wrong until
> > I pointed it out to him.
>
> I understand what you are saying here because you are still working within
> your own particular subculture. However, there ARE Christians who do not
> believe the Bible is trustworthy, and who advocate things like
> homosexuality, or wife swapping, or free sex between consulting adults, or
> drug use, and the list goes on and on.

Again, I think a little discernment is in order here: it is one thing to not
admit that you know you are wrong; it is quite another to not know that the
SINS you are committing is wrong. Romans 1 speaks to this. The truth is not
lost on these people; it is "repressed" (v.18), held down, pressed down
upon, suppressed and kept at bay through the unrighteousness and unholiness
that they practice. Yet they are without excuse (v.21), and even after
having been fully given over to the depravity of their minds, they know very
well that their behavior is wrong; for "knowing the righteous judgment of
God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do
the same but also approve of those who practice them" (v. 32).

> You have to reach out beyond your
> particular subculture before you meet them.

Yeah, I think I've done that.

> > Bill wrote:
> > But again, I think this is probably because you have
> > already put them on the defensive with your approach.
>
> Bill, I'm not a one track guy. I preach, but that is a very small part of
> my activities. Surely you realize that some people were put on the
> defensive by Jesus too. Others had their hearts opened up. I experience
> both too.

Certainly I realize this; I also realize that the "gospel" you preach is
significantly altered from that of our Lord -- as I understand it of course!
That is the basis for my approach: I see it differently than you. I pray God
that neither of us have strayed into apostasy, but I am not stupid. There
are significant differences between what you see as truth and what I see.
You still have to get people "saved"; what a tremendous burden you carry on
your shoulders, and then once you get them their, you transfer the weight
upon their shoulders. My Lord has already done that -- and he carried the
weight. I am called to tell others about the Good News of their salvation.
Big difference -- and it works itself out in significant shifts practically,
too, which should not be surprising considering the circumstance.

>
> Bill wrote:
> > Nevertheless, David, I have grown weary of this discussion.
> > I guess I have a sense of knowing when I am at an impasse.
> > If you do not mind, I would be content to let it go with that.
>
> ... So instead of saying that I should not speak about something I don't
> understand, maybe you would consider listening a little more to what I
have
> already said.

Another big difference, David. I grew up in your system and I was primarily
educated under it. You on the other hand have yet to grasp the differences
between "causes" and "reasons." In other words, you are miles from
understanding what we are talking about. You must be open to the possibility
that you haven't done and known everything there is to see and know, before
you will be able to learn, that you may gain understanding. That is my
exasperation: I will go with you as far as it takes, but not an inch farther
than you are willing to track. If this is my weakness, I pray God will give
me patience and the ability to KNOW how on earth to go further with one who
is no longer with you.

Bill


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"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org

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