Overcoming Obstacles to Sharing Our Faith: FASHION and FAME

I've been meaning to finish off this series of posts that I started last year for a long time, apologies for the delay. 

There are many things that can get in the way when we seek to share the Good News faithfully. We have already looked at FEAR, FINANCE, FRIENDS, FAMILY and FELLOWSHIPS. This final post will examine ways to overcome the obstacles of FASHION and FAME.

Some of you might be thinking that you aren't that interested in the latest trends or in being fashionable so you don't have to worry about this hurdle. But do you care about other people's opinions of you? Do you want to make sure that you fit in and don't stand out? What about taking a stand on a controversial topic?

Similarly, when we think of fame we tend to think of famous people and celebrity culture but fame can be used to describe many contexts including those more relevant to us as the little people. Are we trying to make a name for ourselves at work or chasing a promotion at all costs? What about in our church, are we known for the right reasons or are we seeking platforms for ourselves?

What do we do if we do become well known perhaps unintentionally. I'm sure many of the church leaders and missionaries of times past didn't intend to create followings, it was just a by-product of their ministry. How did they remain humble and committed to sharing their faith?

So how can we overcome these obstacles?

1.  PRAY: This is always going to be number 1 because prayer is vital in every area of Christian life. If we don't pray we can't expect God to do anything and if we don't pray as we read the Bible, we can't expect God to guide us in our decisions. When seeking advice, it can be annoying to be asked, "Have you prayed about it?" but that irritation is usually because we haven't and we want a more practical solution. 

However, if we believe that God cares about the details of our lives and that he wants us to share our faith, we should have confidence that He can help us in removing obstacles in answer to our prayers.

2. FOCUS ON PLEASING GOD: When confronted with a situation that challenges our commitment to sharing our faith, we should always examine what the Bible says about it. Some things are clear, if we are told to stop doing something that God tells us to do, we should do it anyway. If we are told to do something that God tells us not to do, we shouldn't do it as it then becomes sin. 

We may have to stand against the crowd, we may become unpopular and we may miss out on a career or a promotion in the process. Being a Christian is unlikely to make us popular and is likely to force us into sacrificing things we may have wanted, for our faith: the Bible describes it as taking up our cross and following Jesus. At least in the West we aren't generally being imprisoned or worse...at the moment.

3. MAKE NEW FRIENDS: Peer pressure can be hard to resist and if we are constantly surrounded by people who want to stop us sharing our faith either through negativity, mockery or more subtle persuasions, then we should ask ourselves whether it's worth keeping "in" with these people. Instead, we should find some like minded Christians, who are committed to sharing their faith, to spend at least some of our time with.

4. DON'T EXPECT TO BE CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE: There may be rare occasions when culture aligns with our biblical values and encourages us to share our faith but that's not the norm. We are likely instead to be faced with constant pressure not to talk about our faith. We will be told the message or the method of our outreach is "not for today". 

One well known leader said that on judgement day when our neighbour asks desperately "Why didn't you tell me??" our shameful answer is likely to be "because it wasn't culturally appropriate". 

We should prepare ourselves for these challenges by reminding ourselves of what Jesus and His followers did and how they wouldn't be silenced by the trends of the society in which they lived. One street preacher said that he gave up any and all street cred the minute he took up his post.

5. LIVE IN THE LIGHT OF ETERNITY: Fashion and fame shouldn't unduly concern us as believers and shouldn't be things we are striving for as they belong to the world. You can read in James about the dangers of loving the world and the things in it. Life is short and then we will be in eternity, we have limited time to reach people with the Gospel. 

A favourite quote from Carl Henry is, "The Gospel is only Good News if it gets there in time." It may help to think about these things and to seek to order our lives accordingly.

6. DEVELOP A LOVE FOR THE LOST: This can be a real motivator to get out and evangelise no matter the cost. If people are heading for an eternity in Heaven or Hell and God has told us that they need to hear the Message in order to be saved, then surely it's worth sacrificing our reputations and friendships to bring them the Good News. 

It may not be fashionable, even in Christian circles, to talk about Hell but it is necessary to warn people of the terrible consequences of rejecting Jesus. The Message of the Gospel is often watered down to try and minimise the unpalatable with an unbalanced focus on the love of God. But God is a God of justice and holiness and we must communicate the whole of the Gospel. You can read Hell's Best Kept Secret by Ray Comfort for more on this.

7. REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU: We tend to live as if we will go on forever and are pursuing things that are temporary. Recently, on a mission team we were asked whether we were ready if Jesus returned that day. There was a guilty silence in the room. It's difficult if not impossible to live every moment as if it could be our last as we are distracted by the world around us. 

However, we can make sure we aren't chasing worldly things or accumulating possessions that we can't take with us. Judgement Day is the great leveller where rich and poor, great and small, will all stand before the Creator God of the universe with nothing at all. What will our legacy be?

Read the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12 who tore down his barns to create bigger barns to store his great wealth but instead found himself facing God who took his life that very night. A quote from CT Studd, "Only one life twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." 

8. LISTEN TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN THERE: Those who do chase fashion and fame and make it to the top either through hard work or through handouts usually find that they aren't fulfilled. People who are purpose driven feel empty because there is nothing more to do and no new goals to pursue. People who receive wealth or position without earning it find that it is not what they had hoped for or dreamed about: many lottery winners end up broke, divorced or suicidal within a few years. 

Jim Carrey said, "I wish everyone could be rich and famous, so they would know it is not the answer." Erica Jong warns, "Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are" Vicki Baum's experience, "Fame always brings loneliness. Success is as ice cold and lonely as the North Pole" Elvis Presley discovered, "Fame and fortune, how empty they can be," and John Lennon cautions, "Fame is a monster that everyone wants to pet until it bites." Learning from these people who seemingly had everything they could wish for can stop us chasing after these things in the first place.

9. KNOW THAT IT CAN ALL BE LOST: People who seek to fit in with the latest fashions and/or who are famous have to spend huge amounts of time maintaining their image to keep their influence. This might be via social media channels or appearing in person for interviews or performances. Yet, they all know that they can go from hero to zero in an instant; one wrong word or poor performance and its all over. 

Robin Williams said, "You're only given a little spark of madness and if you lose that you're nothin." Oprah Winfrey noted that, "Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has its compensations and it has its drawbacks, and I've experienced them both."

This makes it even more difficult for a Christian seeking to be faithful in evangelism. It's unlikely that a Christian will be able to keep this public image and speak the truth without eventually compromising in some area or other. Christians that do manage it often find it very stressful and feel like they are walking a tightrope or on eggshells as they can be de-platformed in an instant. God can and does use people in these positions but it's not something we should seek as the reality is very different to what is presented by the media.

10. CHOOSE SOUL WINNING: Evangelists of previous generations didn't have the pressures of social media or the expectations of the masses created by things going viral on the internet. But, they knew the temptation to conform, the temptation towards a fashionable sermon without the cross and the temptation to please people rather than God. They knew that they were unlikely to be popular or have great material comfort but they chose to focus on winning souls anyway.

We have the same choice today. We can choose to conform, to be fashionable, to seek to get to the top of our career ladder, or even to become famous or we can choose to share our faith with individuals and seek to win them to Christ. 

If we do end up with a platform, we should hold it loosely knowing it can just as easily be removed, then we can use it to share the Gospel without compromise.

God doesn't care about fashion or fame but He is concerned about how faithful we are as believers. Let's overcome these obstacles and seek to win the lost by sharing the Good News of Jesus wherever we are placed.

Does God Still Speak to us in Dreams?

I was planning to write a post about free speech as our open-air keeps getting shut down in Rochdale, then I thought about the importance of relevancy in evangelism because people don’t want to hear irrelevant news. 

Somehow, these topics didn’t inspire me and then last night, I had a dream…..

 In my dream, I was standing in front of a mirror in the toilets of a hospital, presumably washing my hands. A girl appeared at the wash-basin next to me and I saw her reflection in the mirror. Her head was shaved completely and she was dragging an intravenous drip containing medications. She was wearing a dressing gown and looked very unwell.

 On seeing my face in the mirror she immediately smiled and enthusiastically said my name. I looked closer but I didn’t recognise the girl. It was difficult to put an age on her due to the absence of hair on her head. Despite my lack of acknowledgement, she began chattering about things that had happened in the past. It was obvious that she knew me and knew me well. I concluded that we must have been good friends.

The girl told me that she had been given a terminal cancer diagnosis and only had two months to live. I felt terribly sad for her. She asked if I could come and visit her and proceeded to escort me to her ward.

At this point, I realised that I needed to say something rather than just allowing myself to be swept along by the girl’s excitement at recognising an old friend. I said simply, “You know that if I come and visit you, I will be speaking to you about Jesus.”

The girl hesitated and temporarily let go of my arm. Then, she nodded and quietly said, “I know I didn’t want to hear this stuff before, but now I’ve got nothing to lose.”

 Then, I woke up.

It’s fair to say that a dream like this is unsettling. Is there an old friend somewhere in the UK dying of cancer that I’m meant to share the Gospel with? Is that person actually in Southeast Asia or America or another part of the world that I’ve visited on my travels? Is it someone I knew in the UK who now lives elsewhere? 

If I start thinking like this, the possibilities are endless and could lead to panic as I try to identify them before it’s too late!
 
Perhaps, I should try to work out what my dream means by reading the Bible? After all, that’s always good advice, isn’t it? 

My Old Testament reading today states this:
 
    “When there is a prophet among you. I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.” (Numbers 12 vs 6)
 
According to this verse, the only one in my reading today that refers to dreams, if God sent my dream, I must be a prophet. Hmmm…
 
This may sound silly, but sadly this is how some Christians respond to every dream, sign or other seemingly miraculous event in their lives. They come up with their own interpretation of what God is saying and take Bible verses out of context to support their chosen path. I sometimes meet confused people who have done this and are still focusing on a dream wrongly interpreted and sometimes even confirmed by unwise church leaders.
 
If God had been wanting me to take some specific course of action in relation to an individual, the person would probably have had a face that I recognised. God doesn’t hide His will from us; He wants us to find it. The Bible passage that I read can’t be applied to this situation as, clearly, I’m not a prophet.
 
So, is my dream worthless? Did I eat too much cheese yesterday?
 
Well, God is in control and He allowed me to have this dream so it may be useful. I can take certain things from the dream, submit them to the Bible and perhaps take a less drastic course of action than frantically travelling the world to find my unidentified dying friend.
 
    -The theme of the dream is obviously the urgency of evangelism. The girl had been given two months to live which had put everything into perspective for her. The distractions of the world were no longer her focus as she faced death and eternity. Some here would object to Christians preying on the vulnerable, but the reality is that this girl needs to be offered hope for a future life in Heaven. Surely, telling a person how they might be forgiven of sin and find peace with God is the loving and kind thing to do at the end of their earthly life.
 
    -The dream could be a reminder that it’s never too late to make peace with God. In conversations on the street people often tell me that it’s too late for them which we know isn’t true because of stories like the thief on the cross who received forgiveness as he was dying. However, occasionally, someone asks a question like, “Can I do this at any time?” The answer is always, “Yes, but don’t leave it too long as we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow.”
 
    -Another aspect of the dream might be that a person may be more likely to listen to someone they already have a connection with whether it’s current or from the past. My main evangelistic work is with strangers but I still have responsibility to share with people I know.    
 
   -We can also see from the dream that although someone has rejected God in the past, their circumstances might change and they may be willing to listen on a second, third or fourth attempt.  So, we should persevere and not give up even if they have previously told us they aren't interested. We must find the courage to try again.
 
     -The setting of the dream was a hospital. As a result of attending the FEW conference for evangelists a few weeks ago, I had already looked into the possibility of joining Good News for Everyone (GNFE). One of the reasons for this was to try and get Bibles into places locally, including hospitals and to have conversations with people in these settings. I had spoken to one of my church leaders, who is involved with GNFE and I’m hoping to attend a prayer meeting with local members soon. Perhaps, the dream was a reminder not to forget this ministry and to ensure I get to that meeting.
 
   -In the dream, I was also struck by how alone the girl appeared to be. Being given a terminal diagnosis with such a short time left, will make a person feel alone even if they are surrounded by friends and family, but we mustn’t assume people have a support network as there are plenty of people who don’t have anyone. We know this because of the tragic cases of people who die in their homes and lay undiscovered for weeks, months and even years because no one has missed them. You might be the only person who cares for someone.
 
   -The final lesson that can be extracted from the dream is the importance of taking every opportunity to share the Gospel. It would have been easy to enjoy reminiscing and there probably were plenty of memories that could have made the girl’s last days enjoyable enough, but her greatest need in that moment was to hear that Jesus saves and that she needs to get right with God. It was interesting that, in the dream, she responded as if she knew what was coming when she encouraged me to visit her. It wasn’t the reason she asked me, but she was open to the possibility in a way that she hadn’t been before. I only found this out when I braved the conversation.
 
Perhaps, you’re thinking that I’m over analysing my dream and that there’s no way God intended to communicate all of this to me or maybe that I come across as a bit too much of a hero. I did wonder this myself as, confronted with this situation in reality, I may not have been as bold as I was in my dream.  
 
However, all of the things that I’ve extracted can also be found in the Bible and are a good motivator for evangelism so I think they are profitable.
 
To answer my original question: Does God still speak to us in dreams? 

I don’t really know, but if He does, He will confirm anything He wants us to learn through His Word and it will always be in context.

Don't Let Disappointment Turn Into Bitterness

My church appears to be under spiritual attack. In the last few months we’ve lost people suddenly, had some people hospitalised and others are awaiting test results. This week, half of the members went down with covid so we’ve been forced to postpone our Spring Supper outreach event. It all feels a bit bewildering and has got to the stage where every time I receive an email I’m almost afraid to open it because I’m wondering what has happened now.

We all experience disappointment in life in one form or another; the relationship that failed, the promotion that was given to someone else, the injury that caused us to miss out on a trophy, the person who seemed to be a friend but proved untrustworthy. More significantly; the death of a loved one, the loss of a livelihood, the child born with disabilities, the diagnosis of a terminal illness. The list is endless.

It may be stating the obvious, but anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time will tell you that they have experienced just as much pain and suffering as the non-believer living down the road. Sometimes, more.

The problem is that, whether we recognise it or not, a lot of our theology has been shaped by the prosperity gospel; God wants us to be healthy, wealthy and happy and to live our best life now. So, when this is not our experience, we subconsciously feel that we must have done something wrong, or that God doesn’t love us, or has abandoned or forgotten us. Instead of remembering that the Christian life is a daily battle, we wonder “why me?”

We feel that we cannot voice our disappointment with God as Christians aren’t meant to have such feelings, so we internalise it and in time it can make us bitter and angry.

Recently, I was listening to a sermon and the preacher told an incredible story about two Swedish missionary families that had gone to serve in a remote location in the Congo. When they arrived, the tribes people were extremely hostile and refused to even let them speak, let alone settle amongst them. One family gave up and moved somewhere less remote. The remaining couple with their small child were forced to build a mud hut, outside the area, in the jungle. The only concession from the tribes people was that a young boy could bring them eggs and chickens every so often. During his visits, the wife shared the Gospel with this young boy who, after some time, made a profession of faith.

Shortly after giving birth to their second child, the wife died from an illness leaving the husband with an apparently fruitless ministry and two small children in the middle of nowhere. He gave up, took the newborn baby (Aggie) to the original missionary family and left her with them. He returned to Sweden with the toddler and walked away from the faith completely refusing even to allow God’s name to be mentioned in his presence. He married his wife’s sister, who wasn’t a believer, and had four additional children, then became an alcoholic and developed diabetes. The missionary couple that had fostered Aggie also died in a suspected poisoning so she was handed to a childless couple who happened to be visiting at the time.

This sad story would be seriously depressing if it ended here.

The couple later adopted Aggie and she went on to marry and have her own children. One day, she received a copy of a magazine from an anonymous sender in the post. There was a picture of a gravestone in the Congo and she recognised her mothers name. Reading the article, she discovered that the little boy who her mother had witnessed to had founded a Christian school in his village and had shared the Gospel with many others. There were now 600 believers in that area alone!

Aggie decided that she had to share this news with the now ailing father who had abandoned her. She went to his bedside and when she started to speak about God he cut her off stating that God had deserted him in the jungles of the Congo all those years before. She persisted and told him about the little boy and the many converts. Hearing this, he turned back to God then died a few weeks later.

Hearing this story, many things went through my mind. Humanly speaking, the whole thing seems impossible. What if the little boy hadn’t understood the message, or hadn’t cared enough to tell anyone, or hadn’t been the type to assert himself, or had died at a young age? Any of these things would have been possibilities, maybe even likelihoods, without God orchestrating events.

What of the man who, having started well, had allowed his disappointment and grief to turn to bitterness turning his back on God until his final days. What of his second wife and the children he had raised as a non-believer angry with God. What a tragic waste.

We can almost find ourselves feeling sorry for this man and thinking that his reaction is understandable. He had given up everything to serve God on a foreign field and as well as the rejection by the natives, God had allowed him to be stripped of everything that was important to him. It was only when, years later, God in His mercy revealed that the pain and suffering had not all been purposeless, that he repented of his bitterness.

It’s worth asking ourselves whether our faith would stand up to these tests. Will we serve God when our ministry appears fruitless, when we face one setback after another, or even when we face serious persecution?

I’m not wanting to minimise the suffering in our nation, but for some perspective, I’ve just read In God’s Underground by Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor in Communist Romania who was imprisoned for many years and tortured for his faith. The violence is described in graphic and horrifying detail so don’t rush out and buy it if you are sensitive.

When we face disappointments, we should acknowledge them and allow ourselves time to grieve the loss of a person, opportunity or ministry. We can ask God the why questions but we may not get an answer (Job didn’t). We may need extra support, encouragement and help from our church family for a while, or maybe longer.

However, we mustn’t allow our disappointments to turn to bitterness and fester in our soul damaging our relationship with God. This is the devil’s ultimate goal, he doesn’t just want to cause a Christian pain, or make them suffer on Earth, he wants to cause them to doubt God and to destroy their faith completely leading to eternal torment. The spiritual battle is real and we must be ready to fight even when things seem impossible, or circumstances threaten to overwhelm us.

Imagine dealing with all these difficulties as a non-believer. Then, the suffering is pointless with no hope even in death.

As believers, God promises never to leave or forsake us. He is with us in the disappointments of life that will inevitably come our way. Let’s persevere and keep trusting Him in the knowledge that we have eternal life in Heaven to look forward to!

Why Christians Should Not Have Gone Silent in the Case of Enoch Burke

I’m sure I don’t need to further identify the title character who has now somehow reached the dizzying heights of headlines in most of the UK news media. Enoch Burke has become a household name being ridiculed by most but admired, mostly quietly, by some who are probably just glad they haven’t ended up in the same situation.

It might seem funny to create St Patrick's Day floats and design Mother’s Day cards with cartoon images of Burke forlornly standing outside the school from which he has now been dismissed, but this is a family man and an evangelical Christian who, despite the devastating consequence, has chosen to stand up for what he believes is right.

For those who haven’t kept up, the bizarre set of circumstances that has now resulted in Burke not only being sacked as a teacher but also imprisoned and subject to an ever increasing daily fine, began last year when he refused to call a “transgender” child by their preferred pronouns. Quite rightly, Burke stated that he was unable to comply because such an action conflicted with his Christian beliefs.

You might have thought that, at this stage, the principal of the school would take some time to consider the wisest way forward as even a simpleton knows that gender/sex and religion are both protected from discrimination under the Equality and Human Rights Act.

 Instead, he was immediately suspended, an action which would usually only occur if keeping someone in a workplace caused an unacceptable risk of further harm. Another reason might be to prevent someone tampering with evidence or to prevent them interfering with the investigation. None of these apply to this scenario which leads to the conclusion that no investigation was intended and the decision had been made to dismiss him immediately without due process. (I’m sure this aspect will be picked up and challenged when the furore dies down.)

So far, nothing particularly spectacular as sadly we are seeing daily reports of Christians being suspended, then sacked in similar situations across the UK. It’s worth mentioning that many of these people have later received compensation or been reinstated, usually after lengthy court battles, but the emotional damage is catastrophic for the individuals and their families.

In many ways, I’m grateful that my own small scrape with the politically correct brigade took place 15 years ago when gay and transgender rights didn’t trump all others; my police force did drag me through a disciplinary procedure but didn’t suspend me. For the full story you can read Planet Police.

Enoch Burke, however, wasn’t going to meekly take his unfair punishment; despite the suspension, he turned up at the school daily insisting on his “right to work”. The school obtained a court order banning him from the premises, he continued his protest, was arrested and then imprisoned for contempt of court. His brother has now also been arrested for a public order offence after protesting at one of his appeal hearings. What a muddle….but is he right?

I don’t think we can be dogmatic one way or the other about Burke’s response to his suspension. If he honestly believes that God has placed him in that workplace and he is taking a stand for something that conflicts with his beliefs, then it is a conscience issue for him. You could say that the disciples, whose work was preaching the Gospel, refused to stop in order to obey God rather than men. They too were imprisoned and many were martyred for their faith.

However, Christians can and should be dogmatic about the original cause of the suspension. We should challenge cultural pressure that seeks to force us to sin; to lie and state that a girl is actually a boy or a man a woman. We shouldn’t withdraw from the debate, hide away or stay silent when Christian freedoms are at stake.  

Health professionals are being forced to change patient records when they change gender which is actually the crime of falsifying records under current UK law. It’s also potentially damaging to patients who won’t be picked up for the various gender specific cancer screenings, or whose medical condition might be misunderstood without the true information.

The trend is continuing; a street preacher was arrested for “misgendering” someone who approached him and asked his views on the LGBT movement. Incredibly, he was convicted at Magistrates Court before his conviction was later quashed on appeal. The most worrying thing about this case was the hounding and abuse of the preacher by the crowd who largely seemed to support the view that he had committed a homophobic hate crime simply by speaking the truth.

Another headline this week stated that teachers are tiptoeing around as they are afraid of saying something that will cause them to end up like Enoch Burke. Those of us who are Christians must stand up and be counted, or it won’t be long before we too fall foul of the same cultural swing that took away his livelihood and freedom.

So often our Christian lives are comfortable and we get along with everyone. Is this harmony only because we are afraid to speak out? Is it because we haven’t even identified ourselves as Christians let alone taken a stand on anything important? Are we more worried about offending people than speaking the truth in love? What about the eternal destiny of those around us; have we offered true hope in Jesus?  

We should remember that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3 vs 12)

I’m sure that’s Enoch Burke’s heart desire. Let’s pray for him and his family as he deals with the fallout.

12 Reasons People Give for Rejecting Jesus

I nearly used the word “excuses” in the title but thought that “reasons” was less provocative. However, in reality the reasons people give are excuses because the evidence is there for anyone who is concerned enough to investigate.

1. I’m too busy- People often say this when we attempt to speak to them in the street or offer them a leaflet. It’s tempting to point out that we are only after a few minutes of their time and that we are talking about their eternal destination. However, we all know that we make time for the things that are important to us, so what they are really saying is that they aren’t interested.

2. I’ll consider it when I’m older- We had some young lads say this to us during a mission this year. You would’ve thought the pandemic would’ve made people more aware of their mortality and that no one is guaranteed tomorrow. However, it’s amazing how quickly people are lulled back into a false sense of security when times of crisis appear to have passed.

3. I’m too old to change my beliefs now- Tragically, we sometimes hear this from people. Again, it’s more a case of not being willing to change, or even to consider the case for change rather than their age preventing them. Jesus welcomes anyone, of any age, who will repent and trust Him for salvation.

4. I’ll get there on my own- A little like the Pharisees (religious leaders) in the Bible. People like to think that they can earn a place in Heaven through good deeds, a religious life, prayer, confession, charity work etc. A Catholic man of 83 who said he had been doing all these things all his life asked me what I had done in comparison. As he walked away, he called out that when he died, they would be “over the moon” to see him. I feared for that proud man who was not trusting Jesus but relying on his own goodness.

5. I don’t want to give up my lifestyle- At least this is more honest. It’s different to saying I can’t live up to God’s standards of holiness. If that was the requirement, then none of us would make it. This is where someone knows that repentance is required and knows they would need to be willing, with God’s help, to try and turn away from lifestyle sins that they are attached to.

6. I can’t read/concentrate/understand- A lot of people who say these things actually don’t want to hear because when we offer them a CD/DVD or try to use simpler language, they aren’t interested. They aren’t willing to seek God or make any effort to understand. The Bible tells us a child can understand the way of salvation.

7. I don’t know which religion is true- This is interesting as it can be a genuine dilemma, but it’s also used as a red herring. Two young guys recently told me that they had been given a John’s Gospel by a co-worker and were reading it every day. I asked them if they understood the message and they said that they did. I asked them whether they had become Christians. They looked shocked and immediately replied that they had not. I asked them why and they said it was because there were lots of alternative views out there. So, I asked them to consider whether Christianity was true before worrying about all the other religions. It struck me that these lads seemed not to be searching for the truth but possibly just acquiring knowledge. People can sit on the fence their entire lives if they aren’t willing to take a true step of faith.

8. I can’t go to church- This isn’t a requirement for salvation, but because people know that if they become Christians, they will be expected to attend church, they sometimes say this. It can be due to bad experiences in the past, due to fears of large groups of people, anxiety disorders, or other reasons. The best thing to do is not to say that someone doesn’t need to attend church as a Christian but encourage them to take one step at a time in that direction, to decide firstly if they are ready to repent and believe that Jesus died for them. God will then help them with getting to church.

9. Christians are hypocrites/religion causes wars- I’ve put these together as they are essentially the same. When people use sin in the church, or in Christians they know to justify their own negative response, all we can do is to remind them that we are all sinners. It is awkward when a professing Christian falls into grievous sin, but this is why we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and not on other Christians who are just as fallible as we all are.

10. I just don’t believe it’s true- Most people who say this have never read the Bible. Most people don’t know the true Gospel message. Most are placing something else that they consider to be more plausible above God e.g., science, or Richard Dawkins. People who say this aren’t usually willing to investigate for themselves, they are closed minded because they don’t want to believe. They have nailed their colours to the mast eternally, without considering the evidence which is pretty risky if you ask me.

11. God is unfair- Usually these conversations start with, I can’t follow a God who allows…. or how can a God of love send people to Hell? Questions around suffering are difficult, especially when it is personal. However, there are reasons for suffering, pain, death and Hell. They all trace back to humans committing sin. People who use this as a reason to reject God are essentially placing themselves in God’s position and making a judgement on Him. We can’t see the big picture. We are the creatures, and He is the Creator. There are things that we can’t understand that we must leave to God.

12. I’m an Agnostic- I’m meeting more and more people who say this rather than that they are an Atheist. However, believing that the truth about God is unknowable when He has clearly revealed Himself in sources that we can easily access (The Bible), just means the person is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something. Ignorance is not an excuse in any other area of life so why should it be any different with God?

Maybe you are reading this, and you recognise yourself in one of these categories. Perhaps, you are thinking that by giving these reasons, you are not really rejecting Jesus, but just living your life.

The Bible says that we are either following Jesus as Saviour and Lord, or we are not. If we are not, we are following the world which is under the influence of the devil for this period of time.

If we are Christians, we are safe and heading for eternity in Heaven. If we are not, we are currently heading for a lost eternity in Hell.

In light of the eternal nature of these things, it seems sensible to suggest that people should either be on an urgent search for the truth, in which case they will be willing to read, pray and perhaps visit a church, or they are already Christians and will be wanting to lead others in this direction.

Please don’t let one of the reasons above, or others that I haven’t thought of, stop you from searching for the truth.

The Bible says that if we seek God with all our hearts, we will find Him. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me."

Can Anyone Be Saved?

Seeing this title, you might think that I’m going to attempt to deal with the complexities of election/ predestination. Sorry to disappoint, but that’s well above my pay grade!

If people are elected to salvation, we don’t know who has been chosen and who hasn’t, so the fact doesn’t change our responsibility to share the Gospel with anybody and everybody.

We’ve probably all had that conversation with someone who is wondering if they, or someone they love, hasn’t been saved because they aren’t elect. Is that really helpful? All that happens if we think like this is that we give up, succumb to the belief that they cannot be saved, and stop witnessing to and praying for the person.

For the purpose of this post, I’m thinking more about how we view people when we are involved in evangelism, and whether we really believe they can, and will be saved.

Here are a few examples:

 -The aggressive atheist. You know the type. We may know that the person is suppressing the truth and that deep down they know that God exists, but do we really believe that they can be converted?

One of my friends was like this, arguing aggressively with me to the extent that sometimes I got so annoyed that I left the conversation rather than responding in kind. Although, I sensed that this person’s struggle was genuine, I’m not sure that I had the faith to believe they would actually be saved. However, in 2018, Billy Graham died. My friend told me he had seen the death on the news and asked me if I knew of him, realising the connection to the Christian faith. My friend then said he had watched a YouTube video of Billy Graham’s. I asked what the title was, and he replied, “Who is Jesus?” Next thing I know, my friend is attending my church, every service in fact. Then, he became a Christian, and a while later got baptised. At his baptism, he chose the hymn, “O How the Grace of God Amazes Me.”

Originally, I had met this person in a large group. Out of the group, I would have said that he was the least likely to a) be interested in Christianity b) actually be converted. For me, it was a lesson not to judge the outward appearance, and not to try and second guess God. God used the sermon of a dead preacher to draw my friend to Himself.

-The family member or close friend. We’ve likely been praying for this person (s), perhaps for years, but do we really believe they will be converted? In our hearts, have we given up on them, or on God?

Two of my relatives were recently converted in mid-later life. One of them had started working with a young man who is a Christian. The young man had witnessed to him which led to a Bible study, then conversion, baptism and joining the church. Apart from years of prayer, which is clearly crucial, my family didn’t have a lot to do with the practicalities, as God used someone else. Our initial incredulity, and fear of believing that it would actually happen, turned to joy, as we realised it was genuine.

A newly converted church friend, just this week, received a call from a relative she had been praying for, telling her that they wanted to get right with God. I advised her to ask them if something had happened to cause this. Their answer was that nothing had happened, they had just realised they were living a sinful life and wanted to get right with God. 

Sometimes, when God is at work like this, we are almost paralysed by shock. It takes us a while to accept that God has actually answered our prayers and then to move forward in helping the person take the step of faith. This can demonstrate that we aren’t really trusting God that the people we are praying for will be saved. It is good that God is gracious, and accepts our meagre efforts, and weak expectations, but it must be disappointing to Him, especially when it’s not the first time He has saved someone we are praying for. Answers to prayer should encourage us to greater faith.

-The person who is ready. Some of my favourite stories in the Bible are those where people have been prepared in advance by God and are literally waiting for someone to point them to Jesus. The Philippian jailer who asked, “What must I do to be saved?” The Ethiopian eunuch who asked who the Scriptures were referring to, and then asked for baptism. The crowd who was told they had crucified their Messiah, were cut to the heart, and asked with some urgency, “What shall we do?”

When involved in evangelism, we are sometimes so astonished when we get these questions that we are rendered speechless, or tongue tied. Yet, they occur far more often than we expect.

In the last few weeks, I had a group of lads who had been asked if they knew how to get to Heaven turn the question around and say pointedly, “No, but can you tell us how to get to Heaven?!” Also, a man recently released from prison, on hearing the Gospel, said urgently, “I don’t want to go to Hell, I really don’t want to go to Hell, can you help me?” Another young guy approached the book table, asked us to tell him what we believed, and then asked if he could film our response. There was a pause as all three of us stared at him before realising that we were there for that purpose!

Many times, I’ve been asked what a person should do if they want to become a Christian and even a few times, “What must I do to be saved?”

-The unlikely convert. No matter how much we try to avoid it, we all judge a book by its cover, similarly with people. We look at someone and think that person would never be interested in Christianity. This can be based on all manner of external factors, but we forget that God deals with the heart, and that He saved people like Saul of Tarsus, and King Nebuchadnezzar.

I’m reading a book at the moment entitled, Out of the Black Shadows. Gang member Stephen Lungu, attended a Christian tent meeting in Zimbabwe, carrying a bag of petrol bombs with the intention of committing mass murder by firebomb. However, God stepped in, “The preacher was now saying that anyone who wanted could have this Jesus. I could exchange my poverty and sin for Jesus’ love and riches. The transaction that Jesus was offering me suddenly became clear. Tears for all the pain, loneliness, self-hatred and fear I had known coursed down my cheeks. If this great burden could not be removed by this Jesus, I no longer wanted to live. So, clutching my bag of petrol bombs I stumbled towards the preacher…….” Can your Jesus save even someone like me?” 

There are plenty of other testimonies of people that we might think outwardly wouldn’t be interested. I often find during street evangelism that it’s these people with whom I have the best conversations, perhaps to remind me that it’s God’s work and He can save anyone.

-The child. Society tells us that we shouldn’t brainwash children and that they can’t understand the things of God. Yet, the Bible tells us we have to become like little children to be saved, in terms of them having a simple trust in Jesus.

Many Christians that I know date their conversion to their childhood, one person was even as young as 4 years old. On a mission team this year, we had a question board with the question, “Does God exist?” The parent confidently placed his mark next to “No” but was then silently rebuked by his 8-year-old daughter who just as confidently selected “Yes.” I asked her how she knew that God existed, and she said that she just knew, she then spoke in simple terms about Creation.

Sometimes, children have a better understanding than adults as they haven’t been exposed to the corruptions of thinking that occur as we get older and mingle with supposedly more intelligent people.

-The cult member. I recently attended a conference dealing with cults and other religions. It was pointed out that we shy away from dealing with these people as a matter of course. We might even think they are unreachable because we tend to end up in lengthy conversations that never really seem to make progress.

Yet, there are Christians even in my limited circles who were formerly Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Mormons, Catholics etc. Some of them are now Pastors and Evangelists.

-The prodigal. We know that God saves prodigals because of Luke 15 and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I know that God saves prodigals because I was one!

Sometimes, we forget the love of God shown in the parable as He runs to meet the repentant son, or daughter, that has turned their back on Him, embraces them and restores them to their former place.

Are we still praying for prodigals that we know and love, or have we given up in despair secretly believing that they are beyond redemption?

So, can anyone be saved?

In the Bible, we are encouraged to believe and persist in prayer for people. A visiting speaker at my church recently told us this story about George Muller, a 19^th century Evangelist.

​” In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land, on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I thanked God for the second and prayed on for the other three. Day by day, I continued to pray for them, and six years passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three and went on praying for the other two. These two remained unconverted.

​
Thirty-six years later he wrote that the other two, sons of one of Mueller’s friends, were still not converted. He wrote, “But I hope in God, I pray on, and look for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they will be.” In 1897, fifty-two years after he began to pray daily, without interruption, for these two men, they were finally converted—but after he died! Mueller understood what Luke meant when he introduced a parable Jesus told about prayer, saying, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).” (www.georgemuller.org)

Surely, based on the evidence we have considered, including the Bible stories, the answer is that yes, God can save anyone. This is what we should be communicating to anyone that asks us if they can be saved.

We have some great verses like Romans 10 vs 13, “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved,” and 2 Peter 3 vs 9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.”

We can be confident that God can save anyone, and that He wants to save everyone. Sadly, not everyone will be saved because many will reject the free gift of God through Jesus.

However, until the day a person dies, we must keep praying for them and witnessing to them, believing that God will answer.

Is There a Solution to Our Biggest Problem?

“Let yourself have fun and let yourself fail. Who cares? We’re all going to die. Just have a go.”               A heavily edited excerpt from an interview my cousin, Connor Swindells, recently gave to a national newspaper. At 26 and on the edge of stardom, you might think that death would be the last thing on his mind, but it isn’t.

In fact, no human being has ever had an answer to the problem of death. It hovers over us like a dark cloud throughout our lives rearing its ugly head from time to time when we lose someone close to us.

So, we do one of several things; ignore it, refuse to think about it and bury our heads in the sand choosing instead to live for the moment, or we become obsessed with health and safety to ensure we live as long as possible, or even, in extreme cases, we arrange for some kind of preservation of the body, just in case the scientists find a way to restore life in the future. If you are hoping for the latter, by the way, it will never happen!

We can’t beat or cheat death and, at the risk of stating the obvious, it gets us all in the end.

I often meet people who are upset about a particularly serious accident or tragedy where lots of people have died. The terrible incident at Aberfan, where a rubbish tip on hills above the village merged with springs of water causing a catastrophic collapse of slurry that killed many children at the village school and some adults, have been mentioned a few times this year even though it was decades ago.

People ask how God can be loving yet not have intervened as these, and other tragedies, unfolded. One man told me that if he had been God, he would have moved the trajectory slightly as the slurry descended the hill, so it avoided the school at Aberfan. I had no answer to this particular observation, and I’m not sure the man was expecting one, it was more like he was thinking out loud.

Reflecting, I wondered whether the man would still have been upset if he had been able to change the course and a group of different people had been killed instead of all the children. What if one of the new victims had been a relative of his, or the parents of one of the children that had survived and was now an orphan?

We can easily fall into the trap of thinking like this man. Perhaps we think the saddest aspect is because most were children that had barely started life. But is there ever an age that makes it easier to lose a loved one?

Some of the angriest people I meet in the street are still holding a grudge against God for allowing one of their grandparents to die decades earlier. Often, they had lived to their 70’s or 80’s but the person still believes God was unfair in allowing it to happen.

They are asking, “Why Me?”

Leaving aside the issue of us being unable to assess the fairness of God due to our comparatively minuscule minds and the fact that we cannot see the bigger picture.

The reality is that if God intervened to prevent your relative or friend dying in an accident or from an illness, others with people who love them are dying in similar circumstances all around the world every second of every hour, of every day. These people might well ask why your loved one was saved and theirs was not. 

If fairness is what we are concerned about, would that be fair?

Taking this to its logical conclusion, the result would be that God would be forced, or expected, to intervene in every situation where someone’s life was at risk, otherwise He would be showing partiality, or favouritism, to one person over another.

Then, we would all live forever!

Maybe at this point you are thinking that this sounds like a good idea and wondering why God didn’t set things up in this way in the first place.

Actually, He did…. but we messed it up. 

Our first parents rebelled against God and rejected His rule over them. So, God gave them over to their own ideas and, because of their sin, He cursed the Earth with suffering, sickness and…. wait for it…. death.

The Bible makes it clear that we ultimately die because of our sin, “the wages of sin is death…” and that we all are guilty of sin, “for all have sinned”.

God can’t just overlook sin, or He wouldn’t be just and fair. He can’t just intervene every time someone is in danger or there would be no penalty, or consequence, for sin which also wouldn’t be just and fair.

This would be a pretty diabolical position for us all to be in, and this post would be seriously depressing, if it weren’t for one important fact.

God loved us so much that He had a rescue plan. A plan to defeat the curse of sin, suffering, sickness and death that He had placed on the Earth due to our rebellion. A plan to send His Son Jesus to live a perfect life on our behalf. A plan for Jesus to die on a cross, taking the punishment you and I deserve, and to be buried in a tomb. A plan for Jesus to defeat the curse of death by coming back to life.

I said earlier that no human being has an answer to the problem of death. This is true, but thankfully God does.

Jesus was able to stand in our place, pay for our sin and reverse the curse of death because He was sinless. If we repent (turn away from our sinful lives), ask for forgiveness, and trust that Jesus died for us on the cross, we are promised eternal life in Heaven as a free gift.

Effectively, we can receive the benefit of Jesus defeating death and live forever with Him.

The alternative, which I don't recommend, is to stand before God on Judgment Day carrying all of our unforgiven sin. God has to punish us at this point, or He is not just. The punishment is eternal in a place called Hell.

Either way, death doesn’t have the last word, God does. 

Will you face Him joyfully having been forgiven through Jesus or will you suffer His righteous anger for all eternity?

 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

(1 Corinthians 15 vs 55-57)

The Danger of a Wrong Diagnosis

Many of us have had the frustrating experience of being repeatedly told that the result of a medical investigation is that there is nothing wrong, or to put it in simpler terms “the blood tests are normal.” Our plea which seems to fall on deaf ears, “But Doctor, I just don’t feel right!”

The weekend before last, I went walking with some friends. A few steps (literally) up the first hill and I was gasping for breath, wheezing, and with serious chest pain. Berating myself for being unfit which seemed to be the only possible explanation, I forced myself to continue at a slower pace and finished the walk in the pouring rain several hours later. Seemingly, no harm done, apart from my wounded pride.

At church the following day, a friend suggested that this was not normal, even for an unfit person, I had already been walking regularly so was not that unfit, she then told me of someone that had had a heart attack in similar circumstances at 40. I felt afraid, but not very afraid.

The following day, I woke up with slight chest pain and, my friend's words ringing in my ears, decided to go to A and E. To their credit, they took the situation more seriously than I had been taking it up to this point and arranged all manner of tests. After several false alarms, a few days later I was diagnosed with severe iron deficiency anaemia and told not to do any further exercise, until I could have the first of several iron infusions.

Suddenly, a lot of symptoms I’d been struggling with on and off for years made sense. Why had this not been picked up earlier, you might be wondering?

Basically, because I have an under-active thyroid which involves similar symptoms, every-time I tried to get to the root of the problem, I would end up in a circular conversation like the one above. I’d grown so tired of fighting a losing battle with medical professionals that I’d given up and convinced myself that it was my thyroid issues that were the problem.

What’s my point? I think that sometimes we do the same thing in evangelism.

We might meet someone in the street and be so determined to communicate our message, or reach as many people as possible, that we don’t really listen to the person in front of us. We provide a solution without really hearing the problem. The person is left feeling like a number in a doctor’s waiting room, or worse, telling us that they still don’t feel right (understand the Gospel) by which point we’ve already finished our script, given them a book that doesn’t answer their questions, and moved on to the next person.

We can also make assumptions about what someone believes and end up in long discussions that don't deal with their real problem. I covered this last time in the difference between red herrings and real hindrances. But we can also do it when we assume that because someone is a Muslim, they won't believe that Jesus died on the cross, or because someone is a Catholic, they are relying on good deeds to get to Heaven. Sometimes, this happens because we sub-consciously like to show off our knowledge, or conversely it may happen because we are ignorant about something the person has mentioned, and we don't want to admit this. I've even ended up in a long discussion about Creation vs Evolution with someone who also believed in Creation because I wasn't listening properly to what he had said. Whatever the case, we haven't gathered the correct information which will inevitably lead to a wrong diagnosis.

Perhaps, more worryingly, we can make assumptions about what people need without reference to the Bible, or God. We might decide that they need food, a place to stay, help getting a job, a reference, a loan, friends, a social life, a holiday, time off etc. Yet, when someone is sick, they need a doctor not a well-intentioned stranger to make a diagnosis. We can be impulsive and jump in with a wrong diagnosis. The sin-doctor is Jesus, and we must refer to Him first if we are to really help anyone.

Another tendency is to determine that we can save the person either through our exhaustive efforts, or through money, or practical help. We give 24/7 to a person for weeks, months, years. We have everyone praying for them. We raise their plight at every opportunity. We create dependence, then resentment. We are left broken when the person isn’t saved and finally walks away from God for good. We can’t redeem or pay a ransom for someone else (Psalm 49). This is another form of wrong diagnosis as we have wrongly, (and usually subconsciously), determined that the person needs us rather than God.

I’m sure we can all see the danger of giving someone false assurance of salvation, yet we do it often. John MacArthur said once that if someone came to his office with doubts as to whether or not they were saved. He would say to them, “You’re probably not saved”, and explain again the way of salvation, rather than offer false assurance. Each time a member of another religion tries to tell us that we are all on the same path, or a cult member says that they are a Christian, or someone says that they were born a Christian, or that they are sure they are going to Heaven because of good works, and we fail to challenge it…we are potentially giving the person false assurance that they are saved. In this case, if we don’t pluck up the courage to tell the person we don’t agree with their statements, we may be contributing to their own wrong self-diagnosis!

A less likely issue in street evangelism, but something that is occasionally possible would be making a real Christian doubt their salvation. We might wrongly decide that the person isn't a Christian based on something they say or do, or we might be, usually unintentionally, adding church culture or our traditions as necessary for salvation. We have again made a wrong diagnosis which could be extremely damaging.

How can we make sure we are not causing, or contributing to people being wrongly diagnosed?

It’s true that the Bible holds the solution to our greatest need, forgiveness of sin and peace with God. But people are individuals and can’t be treated en masse with the same medicine delivered in the same way.

We need to really listen to a person’s heart when we are speaking one to one with them and not be rushing to solutions or looking around for our next contact.

We all know that there’s nothing more annoying than someone coming up to you at church and asking how you are. Then, as you begin to reply, you notice that the person has gone, or turned their back on you to talk to someone else, or interrupts with an “I’m fine too”, before you can say anything! Or the person who is looking over your shoulder for someone more interesting to talk to, or who seems easily distracted by anything and everything going on around them whilst you are pouring out your heart. It’s just another way of looking at a watch which we would all say is extremely rude!

People are in different circumstances and often we have no idea what they are going through when we talk to them. We need to be sensitive to God’s leading and aware of issues that may crop up in discussions.

It’s obvious, with hindsight, that a wrong medical diagnosis could have led to my collapse halfway up a mountain. Yet, a wrong spiritual diagnosis could have a far more deadly consequence.

Let’s make sure we are not getting in the way of what God is doing by offering people a wrong diagnosis without reference to Him.