the Good Question

What follows is an article written in the April 2001 issue of Virtue magazine by musician, writer, and theologian Michael Card. This article was introduced to me by John Piper. Enjoy.

One day Joseph, who was walking along one of these hot, dirty African roads, met someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. Then and there he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. The power of the Spirit began transforming his life; he was filled with such excitement and joy that the first thing he wanted to do was return to his own village and share that same Good News with the members of his local tribe.
Joseph began going from door-to-door, telling everyone he met about the Cross of Jesus and the salvation it offered, expecting to see their faces light up the way his had. To his amazement the villagers not only didn’t care, they became violent. The men of the village seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire. He was dragged from the village and left to die alone in the bush.
Joseph somehow managed to crawl to a waterhole, and there, after days of passing in and out of consciousness, found the strength to get up. He wondered about the hostile reception he had received from people he had known all his life. He decided he must have left something out or told the story of Jesus incorrectly. After rehearsing the message he had first heard, he decided to go back and share his faith once more.
Joseph limped into the circle of huts and began to proclaim Jesus. 'He died for you, so that you might find forgiveness and come to know the living God,' he pleaded. Again he was grabbed by the men of the village and held while the women beat him reopening wounds that had just begun to heal. Once more they dragged him unconscious from the village and left him to die.
To have survived the first beating was truly remarkable. To live through the second was a miracle. Again, days later, Joseph awoke in the wilderness, bruised, scarred—and determined to go back.
He returned to the small village and this time, they attacked him before he had a chance to open his mouth. As they flogged him for the third and probably the last time, he again spoke to them of Jesus Christ, the Lord. Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him began to weep.
This time he awoke in his own bed. The ones who had so severely beaten him were now trying to save his life and nurse him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ.
(Michael Card, "Wounded in the House of Friends," Virtue [March/April 1991], pp. 28-29, 69.)

Labels: conflict, evangelism, suffering, the unwasted life, The Upside-Down Way

Today, I stumbled upon Google™ Trends. Type in a search term and see how popular it is. Google even provides you with the option to see what cities search for a particular search term the most. Nifty.

But this isn't an advertisement. Oh no. If you've been reading this blog or its predecessor, you know me better than that. I began comparing results between various words to see what the world was up to on Google.com, and to see if I could learn anything interesting about people's search habits. And boy did I ever!

To my surprise, I very quickly discovered a connection between the top ten U.S. cities that search for the word "sex" and those that search for the word "heaven." Take a look:

Notice anything interesting? You got it. It seems that five of the top ten U.S. cities that search for "sex" are also among the top ten U.S. cities that search for "heaven." How's that for ironic? [UPDATE: As of June 26, 2007, the number has risen from five to six, namely: Meriden, CT; Elmhurst, IL; Kansas City, KS; Norfolk, VA; St Louis, MO; and Irvine, CA.]

...but I don't think it's that strange, really. Let me tell you why.

If it appears that the people of Meriden, Connecticut have a problem with pornography, it also appears that they know it very well. The people who know they have a problem are the people who are looking for a solution. You don't go looking for a doctor unless you are convinced you are sick (Mark 2:17). And you're not as likely to go looking for Heaven, unless you already know you have a problem with chasing sin.

Google has taught us a valuable lesson here. It's in that moment, in a dark room, when a man in Elmhurst, IL lusts after the image of some woman on the Internet that the conscience God gave him and the Holy Spirit God sends him will convict him of his sin. It's in that moment when he understands his inability to conquer his darker urges that he is most likely to seek after God. But no one is there is tell him of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I have no plans to be in the dark room beside that man, but I could catch him on his break at work, and ask him, "Ted, have you ever looked at a woman with lust? Jesus said that whoever looks upon a woman with lust has committed adultery already with her in his heart. That's pretty serious. Isn't it? 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' is one of the Ten Commandments. You've broken God's Law. I have too. That makes us criminals against God. And He's a good Judge, who'll see that justice is done. But there is good news: Jesus stepped into the courtroom of Heaven and paid your penalty for you. He satisfied justice for you. And now the Judge is waiting for you to give up trying to defend yourself, to stop trying to bribe Him with your good works, to own up to your crimes, and to repent of your criminal life. Throw yourself upon the mercy of the Court, and He'll bring down His gavel saying, 'Case dismissed. You've been freed. Your fine has been paid for you. Now, go and sin no more.'"

We have a Biblical mandate to talk about sin as part of the Gospel message. But we can't just use the word "sin" and think we've covered our bases. We must define what sin is. We must address personal sins. This is what Jesus did with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well in John 4. This is what Jesus did with the rich, young ruler in Luke 18. This is the very purpose of the Law. The Law proves that we cannot be saved by the Law, because we cannot keep it. The Law convinces us that we fall short of the glory of God, because we cannot keep it. The Law is the dictionary that defines for us what sin is, that we might know our depravity and seek the mercy of God. Paul said, "I had not known sin, but by the law" (Romans 7:7), and "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). (And we know that no one can be saved without the knowledge of sin.) Sin is the sickness. Jesus is the Physician. And the Law is the test that proves to us the presence of the deadly thing pulsing through our veins.

The Good News of Jesus Christ makes no sense without the bad news (1 Corinthians 1:18), because it is the knowledge of the bad news that causes the goodness of the Good News to dawn upon us. "The Commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes" (Psalm 19:8). Let us remember that "the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" (Galatians 3:24). We can use the word "sin" without actually addressing the issue of sin, because when most people hear the word "sin," they think "that's what humans do," which is their way of diminishing the feeling of guilt that their consciences and the Holy Spirit are giving them. In evangelism, we must address the issue of personal sins by the Law, and then address the issue of the personal Savior by the Gospel, because the Law heightens the conscience, stops the mouths of sinners from justifying themselves before God, and leaves the whole world guilty before God (Romans 3:19).

I'm not always going to be present in the moment a man is convicted of his sins because he's just finished sinning, but I can be present in the moment a man is convicted of his sins because we're talking about them. That's my responsibility, as a Christian.

So, my Christian brothers and sisters, let's stop watering down the Gospel. Let's stop leaving out the parts of the Message with which we are uncomfortable or with which we think others will be uncomfortable. The Truth is uncomfortable. It is offensive, convicting, and inconvenient. But it is still the Truth that sets people free—not the partial Truth, but the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.

Labels: Commandments, evangelism, Grace, Jesus' Words, Law, Ninth Commandment