Evangelism

Call upon Him while He is near (Isaiah 55:6)

“We are still young, and we have lots of things that we want to do. There are girls and beer and experiences. When we are older, then maybe we will think about this religious stuff.” Thus Kostya, a Russian student, explained to me his thoughts about the gospel. In so many words, he said to me what many people believe: “The offer of the gospel can be received anytime, and when I am good and ready, I will accept God’s offer.”

Indeed, the Lord’s offer of salvation through the gospel seems to be always available to the sinner, at least that is what we are led to believe. It appears that the sinner, once informed of the gospel of salvation, is free to accept God’s offer whenever they choose to accept it, either today or tomorrow or on my deathbed.

This appearance, however, is a lie from the pit of hell. It is the devil’s lie that the creature is free to ignore the Creator’s offer of salvation until the creature decides to act. Satan propagates this idea because he knows that when a person postpones their gospel response, they effectively smother their gospel response.

But consider this from the standpoint of human experience. Is there ever a situation where a serious offer can be accepted at any time? No. No serious offer is made without an expiration date. In practice, an offer is made, and if there is no acceptance of that offer, the offer is withdrawn.

Now, if it is true in our experience that offers between people for mere earthly things are either accepted or they are withdrawn, how much more true is it that the Lord’s offer to sinful man for forgiveness and for eternal salvation must be accepted or it will be withdrawn. There is an urgency that accompanies the hearing of the gospel, and if the sinner does not respond, the Lord may withdraw the offer.

How, then, are we to respond? In Isaiah 55:6, the Scripture says,

Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.

            We are to seek the LORD, but it is clear from this verse that He is not always available. There is a time element to our seeking the LORD. We are to seek the LORD WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND. And since we do not know when the LORD may be found, we are to seek Him with all our heart (Deuteronomy 4:29; Jeremiah 29:13) THE INSTANT WE HAVE A DESIRE FOR HIM. When the gospel has kindled our desire for the LORD and has given us a hunger for cleansing and for righteousness, THEN we are to seek the Lord.

            And we must call upon Him, but again we see that He is not always near. How do I know when HE IS NEAR? If the gospel has been proclaimed and you have been convicted of your sin and have felt a longing for forgiveness, you can know that THE LORD IS NEAR. It is THEN that we are CALL UPON THE LORD. “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13).”

            In Acts 17, the philosophers in Athens heard Paul declare to them the truths of the gospel and the glories of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul urged them to seek God (17:27) and to repent (17:30), but they sneered at him and said, “We shall hear you again concerning this (17:32).” But they never heard Paul speak again. Instead, “Paul went out of their midst (17:33)” and left Athens. They had heard the gospel, but they did not seek the Lord, nor did they call on His name, and the offer of salvation was withdrawn, and they perished.

            By contrast, in Matthew 13 we read two parables about seeking in 13:44 and 13:45-46. In the first parable, a man finds a treasure hidden in a field. He realizes that this is the opportunity of a lifetime and that he must act now and seize the moment. And so, “he sells all that he has and buys that field.” That is the attitude of the person who hears the gospel. “This is the moment of my life. I will seek the Lord and call upon Him until I receive His offer.”

            The second parable is similar to the first. In this parable, a pearl merchant finds a fabulous pearl of immense value. He realizes that this is the opportunity of a lifetime and that he must act now and seize the moment. And so, “he sold all that he has and bought it.” That is the attitude of the person who hears the gospel. “This is the moment of my life. I will seek the Lord and call upon Him until I receive His offer.”

            When God, in His infinite grace, chooses to bring the gospel near and to stir our heart with a desire to know Him and to be freed from our sin, then at that moment we must respond, for we do not know if God will ever do this again.

SDG                 rmb                 11/24/2020

The question of the conscience (Romans 2:15)

The issue in the book of Romans is righteousness, that is, a right standing before God. Paul’s theological masterpiece describes how God legally grants righteousness to those who are manifestly unrighteous and sinful, and who, because of their unrighteousness, deserve His wrath and condemnation. The means of obtaining this righteousness is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).” If a person hears and responds to the gospel, they will be saved (Romans 10:9-10), but if they do not, they remain condemned (John 3:18, 36).

AWARENESS OF SIN

One of the critical components of the gospel message is for a person to come to an awareness of their own sin. This is where the conscience fits in. God has created man as a moral creature, and that means that we are all accountable to God for every disobedience of His commandments. So that we can know when we have broken one of God’s commandments, God has given every human being a conscience. And what does the conscience do?

            Romans 2:15 puts it this way:

They (the Gentiles) show that the work of the Law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.

            Paul is saying that the conscience makes the sinner aware of their sin by functioning like a copy of the Law written on their heart. The same God who issued His holy Law at Sinai is the God who has, by the conscience, written a copy of His Law on every human heart. So, when you or I violate one of God’s commandments, our conscience is provoked and accuses us of sin, and we experience guilt, as we should. And this is true for every human being, regardless of any external factors. God has given everyone a conscience so that we would all be aware of our sin and would, perhaps, seek for the Savior.

            But is the conscience enough to bring about salvation? No, it is not. The conscience renders all people guilty of violating God’s Law but offers no relief from the guilt. My conscience merely leaves me without excuse, justly deposited on death row without an apparent hope of pardon. My conscience reveals to me my unrighteousness but tells me nothing about where righteousness lies. The necessary bridge between a guilty conscience and the joy of righteousness is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only by faith in the crucified and risen Lord that my guilt is washed away.

APPLICATION

            Because all people have a conscience, all people should be aware of their sin and guilt. In our evangelism, then, we can be confident that some will be sensitive to their own unrighteousness and will be open to hearing about a forgiving Savior.

SDG                 rmb                 10/27/2020

Sowing the gospel seed (Mark 4:26-27)

“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.” Jesus, Mark 4:26-27

            Our pastor recently conducted an evangelism workshop at our church. During the workshop, the men at my table had been working on our evangelism exercise, trying to present the gospel (God-Man-Christ-Response) in less than two minutes, and were finding the exercise difficult. I heard myself going through the presentation with my voice, but in my head having my doubts. Although one of my friends described it as “technically correct,” no one at our table felt that it was either convincing or persuasive. We just felt that we were declaring huge truths to people in rapid fire and expecting the impossible, that they would believe these truths about God and man and sin and salvation, and then to have some kind of saving response. But this seemed very unlikely.

            How does this work, then? How is it that a brief proclamation about how Jesus Christ has died for sin so that sinners who trust Him for salvation can be delivered from the wrath of God and thus have eternal life; how can that message ever get traction?

            As I was pondering these things, I remembered three times in my own past when people had spoken to me about Jesus.

My first recollection is of me on a bench in downtown Asheville. I was probably eleven years old (~1970) and I was waiting for my mom to pick me up after a doctor’s appointment. A man probably in his mid-twenties approached me and sat down on the bench with me and proceeded to tell me about his journey. He was strung out on drugs and was running from the law and his life was a mess, and then he met Jesus Christ. He asked Jesus into his heart and Jesus had changed him. “Don’t you want Jesus in your heart?” What was I going to say? “Sure (if you will promise to leave).” So, we prayed “the prayer” and I was saved. Then Mom came and picked me up and I forgot all about that. Or so I thought. A seed had been planted.

Fast forward to about 1986. My girlfriend had taken me to the local Baptist church, where during the service an executive at Proctor & Gamble had talked about how he came to faith in Jesus. “So, if anyone is interested in talking to me more about how Jesus can change your life, please get in touch with me.” His story impacted me, so I contacted him. We met for breakfast at a restaurant in Roswell, GA. He did his best to tell me about Jesus and about how I could know Him as my Savior. The seed had been watered.

In 1988, I was on a date with another girl I had taken a fancy to. We were on a patio of a restaurant in north Atlanta and she brought up that she was a Christian. She told me that she believed in Jesus Christ and that Jesus had forgiven her of her sins. I think I may have asked a question or two about her faith, but that was about it. But the seed had been watered again.

Isn’t it interesting that, of all the experiences that I have had in the last fifty years, I remember these three times when random people talked to me about Jesus? The point is that the gospel makes an impact. It is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).” So, God used these obedient people to plant and water the seed of the gospel in my life.

Then, when the Lord was ready to bring me to Himself, after an experience on a big cliff and visits to a church, in late 1990 I repented of my sin and believed in Jesus as my Savior. How did that happen? “It is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.”

So, what do we do? We sow the gospel seed far and wide, “in season and out of season.” We proclaim the gospel to unbelievers as often as the Lord will give us opportunity, trusting that the power is in the message of the cross and not in the cleverness of the speaker. “God is well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:21).”

SDG                 rmb                 10/23/2020

How will they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:14-15)

BRITTON BUSINESS SCHOOL CASE STUDY

The sales manager was at a loss as to what to do next. Sales had been flat to slightly declining for almost five years now, despite having a clearly superior product at a more competitive price. True, the product had not been changed or been upgraded for a while, but the existing features and benefits already so far exceeded all the competition that an upgrade should have been unnecessary. That, in combination with a sales price much less than the competing products, made it hard to explain why sales were not steadily increasing.

“Far superior product at a lower price; Why can’t we move the needle on sales?”

He considered the company’s decision to cut marketing. Could that be it? Yes, they spent less than 25% of what the competition spent on marketing, but that could not be the full explanation.

He thought about sales training as a possible answer. “Maybe our salespeople need more training.” But that didn’t make sense, because both his salespeople had been selling the product for at least twenty years. Both knew how to prospect, how to make and convert cold calls, how to show the superior features and benefits of the product. As far as skill at one-on-one sales, the sales manager would put both his salespeople up against anyone in the business.

Then he wondered whether it was the competition. While it was a fact that the competition was well-established in the market, it was also a fact that almost all of their existing customers had at one point in time been using the competitive product and had switched when they heard about our product and what it had to offer. “No, it’s not the competition. It must be something else that I can’t put my finger on. There has to be some reason why we can’t get more market share, especially with more than 50 million potential customers in our territory.” The sales manager decided to call his two salespeople into his office and see if they could brainstorm and come up with an answer.

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

            As business consultants, how would you explain the lack of anticipated sales at this company? What would be your recommendation for the sales manager as to how to increase sales?

            Okay, time’s up. What is your answer? I hope that you said something like, “Get more salespeople out there! If you have a market of 50 million people and TWO SALESPEOPLE, you are desperately understaffed and need to figure out how to let more people know that there is a far superior product available at a lower price. People will not buy the best product in the world, even if it is free, if they don’t know that the product exists.

THE GOSPEL ANALOGY

            In Romans 10:14-15, the apostle Paul lays out four essential steps for any person anywhere to be saved. After declaring that, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13),” Paul then tells how that blessing of salvation takes place, starting with the end and working backwards. So, he asks how they will call on the Lord if they have not believed in the Lord. (Implied answer: They won’t!) Backing up one more step, he asks how they will believe in Jesus if they have never heard the gospel about Jesus. (Implied answer: They won’t!) Finally, he asks the critical question, “And how will they hear without a preacher?” (Implied answer: They won’t!) All these steps are necessary for salvation. No step can be omitted. Therefore, it is necessary for salvation for there to be “a preacher” (see below for a description of what it means to be “a preacher”) to proclaim the gospel message so that an unsaved person will hear the gospel. And it is necessary for salvation for the person who hears the gospel message to believe that message. And it is necessary for salvation for the person who believes the gospel message to call on the name of the Lord in repentance and faith as a response to their believing the gospel message that was preached and heard. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth (a verbal call on the name of the Lord) Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” That means that if there is true belief in your heart, it will issue forth in verbal confession from your mouth and then in life and behavior change as sanctification occurs.

WHO IS A PREACHER?

            So, from Scripture we see that a preacher is necessary for salvation because the gospel message must be heralded to the unsaved. But now the question comes up, “Well, who is a preacher?” Various pictures may be conjured up in your mind in answer to this question. The caricature seems to be of some man sweating profusely as he shouts at his hapless congregation. The popularity of this image would suggest that the picture was designed in hell and has resulted in the perishing of many souls as they laughed off “the preacher.” But the biblical word that is used in Romans 10:14-15 is that of a herald, of a person who had been entrusted with a critically important message and was sent out to proclaim exactly that message, even if the herald was killed in carrying out the task. This is the biblical picture. In the Bible, Paul was a preacher (2 Timothy 1:11). John the Baptist was a preacher. Solomon was a Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Noah was a preacher (2 Peter 2:5). Most significant of all, the Lord Jesus Himself was a Preacher. There is no reason to shrink back from being a preacher based on reputation.

            But who is a preacher? Think about the preacher’s task. The preacher is a herald sent out to proclaim a message. Now consider Matthew 28:19-20, when Jesus told us to “Go, therefore” in the Great Commission. Jesus was sending every member of His church out to proclaim the gospel to the nations. In Matthew 4:19, Jesus says to His first disciples, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Those are herald words. In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul says, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Again, herald words. Jesus told the parable in Matthew 13, “The sower went out to sow.” We find out that “the sower” sows the Word of God, and it doesn’t take a leap of imagination to see that every believer could be described as a sower. Again, more herald words.

            Who is a preacher? Who is a herald? Who has been sent out by the Lord Jesus Christ to herald His message to perishing men and women so that they might be saved? That is the privileged calling of the preacher. Who wouldn’t want to be called to that task? And what Paul is saying in Romans 10:14 is that you and I have been called as preachers (“heralds”) of the good news so that people will hear and believe and call on the name of the Lord.

            So, whether your audience is few or many, you are the one who has been called by your Lord and Savior to let others know about Jesus and about how they can be delivered from the wrath to come.

            In Matthew 9:38, after seeing the misery of the people who were like sheep without a shepherd, He said, “Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Just as the company in the case study needed more salespeople, so the Lord Jesus is seeking more heralds who will be active in His harvest.

SDG                 rmb                 9.8.2020

Why are you doing that? (Romans 10:2-3)

SCENE 1

The squirrels had been in my attic for a while now. I could hear them overhead, running the length of the attic as they played in my insulation. It was driving me crazy. I hated those squirrels. “How are they getting into my attic?” Then one day I was standing in the front yard and saw a squirrel cross the street and head directly toward my house. It climbed up the trunk of a small tree near the house, jumped onto a branch of the tree, which bent under the weight and then sprung back up, catapulting the squirrel onto the roof of my house. “Oh ho! That’s how they are getting onto my roof and into my attic!” So, the next Saturday I was out with my tree saw and started to cut down the tree that the squirrels were using as a catapult. My neighbor wandered over to me and asked,

“Why are you doing that?”

“What do you mean, ‘Why am I doing that?’ I am cutting down this tree because I don’t want squirrels in my attic!” He shook his head and smiled and said, “Cutting down that tree won’t stop squirrels. You know, squirrels can just climb up the brick on the outside of your house and get onto your roof.”

            I began to feel just a tiny bit stupid, realizing that he might be right, but I continued cutting down the tree anyway. “There,” I said, as the small tree sunk to the ground. “That will stop them!” My victory was short-lived, however. About two hours later, I felt chagrined and outmatched as I watched that same squirrel scamper up the corner of my house, using the brick as you or I would use a sidewalk, pop over onto the roof and then disappear into my attic.

            What had just happened? Because of my ignorance of the real nature of the problem, I had employed a strategy that could never get me the results I wanted. I wanted to get rid of the squirrels in my attic, so I cut down the tree. No good. Waste of time. Bad idea.

            Now, other than a little bit of humiliation in the eyes of my neighbor, my blunder had no real consequences. No big deal. Lost a tree and kept the squirrels. Oh, well.

SCENE 2       

For the next scene, we turn to the Bible as Paul is applying the truths of the gospel to his Jewish countrymen in Romans 10. Paul presents a troubling scenario. Paul writes, “For I testify about them (his Jewish brethren), that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge (10:2). For not knowing about God’s righteousness (that is, not knowing about salvation by grace through faith in Jesus the Messiah), and seeking to establish their own (by religious works), they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God (10:3).”

            So, what I want to do is frame this scenario in terms of the incident with the squirrels in my attic, because these scenes are similar. Let’s say that an observer was talking to one of Paul’s friends, who was a Pharisee.

“I see that you are really zealous about doing religious things. You fast twice a week. You tithe from all that you get. You pray long prayers on the street corners. You always wash your hands before you eat, and you never do any work on the Sabbath. Everyone knows that you give to the poor. I’ve heard you even cast out demons and occasionally do a miracle! But . . . “

“Why are you doing that?”

            The Pharisee replied, “Because I want to be righteous, of course!” The observer sadly shook his head and said, “Doing all these religious works does not make you righteous. In fact, no amount of religious works can EVER make you righteous. Do all your works, but your sin will remain.”

            The Pharisee said, “That’s nonsense! Anyone can see that I am more righteous than you! I know that my religious works please God.”

            Once more, the other man tried to get through. “Actually, in Isaiah 64:6 the prophet says, ‘All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.’ The only way to be righteous is to believe in Jesus the Messiah.”

            For a brief moment it seemed that the Pharisee was considering what had just been said. Did Isaiah really say that thing about the filthy garment? And if he did say that what might that mean for me? Could my Rabbi be wrong? Could I be wrong? Could this guy be right? Then the mental window slammed shut. “I don’t need to be taught by you!” he said. “I will continue to work my works!”

            What had just happened? Because of the Pharisee’s ignorance of the real nature of righteousness, he was employing a strategy that could never get him the results he wanted. He wanted righteousness, but he is trying to obtain his righteousness by his own works. No good. Waste of time. Bad idea.

            But it is right at this point that things radically change. For while my blunder with the squirrels cost me a small tree and a little bit of embarrassment, the Pharisee’s error will cost him an eternity in hell. You see, “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness for all who believe (Romans 10:4).” The only possible way to obtain righteousness before the Holy One, the God of heaven, is to believe in Jesus the Messiah. This is not a preference issue. This is not a question of semantics. This is not an issue where you go at your way and I go at it my way and then we will probably both get there eventually. If the Pharisee does not change his mind and repent and bow the knee to Jesus the Messiah, he will never obtain any righteousness. In fact, he will miss righteousness by an eternity.

SCENE 3

            The final scene is a lunch discussion between me and Jack. Jack is a business associate of mine. We have developed a bit of a friendship and know a little bit about each other. I know that Jack is a Catholic, and we have had a couple of discussions about each other’s religious views. On this occasion, I have steered the conversation in the religious direction again.

            “So, as a Catholic, what sorts of things do you do? In other words, what religious things do Catholics do?”

            “We have talked about this before, Roy, but anyway. We do confession and we do the Mass every Sunday with the Eucharist. We do some ‘our Fathers’ and some ‘hail Marys.’ Some people do the rosary. We pray to various saints. Like that.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“What do you mean, ‘Why am I doing that?’ I am doing these things because I don’t want to go to hell!”

At that moment, I felt like the neighbor who was telling me the truth about squirrels or like the “other guy” who was telling the Pharisee the truth about righteousness. Jack said that he wanted to avoid hell, but he was pursuing a strategy that guaranteed that he would arrive there. He had adopted the Catholic plan which promises that good Catholics will avoid God’s wrath by doing religious things. For Catholics, trying to do your best and obeying the Catholic Church will at least get you into Purgatory. These are the inventions of the Catholic Church that keep people from hearing the truth.

So, I tried to explain to Jack that this was not a preference issue. I tried to tell him that there was no such thing as Purgatory (“Jack, I think you have a hole in your parachute.”) I told him that Jesus died to atone for sin, so there is no longer an ongoing sacrifice needed through the Mass. The priest has no authority to forgive sins or to give you any sort of penance that you can do to remove your sin. But my words fell on hard ground and we basically left the restaurant a tiny bit incensed with one another and probably a little more polarized.

The lesson from this is that we must be clear about what is wisdom and what is absolute truth. With regard to salvation, we must insist that there is no room for compromise or personal preference. When the fireman crashes your door down with an axe, it is not so he can debate with you whether your house is on fire. For everyone of us, our house is on fire, and there is only one way to safety. His name is Jesus.

For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness for all who believe.

Romans 10:4

SDG                 rmb                  9/4/2020

The Whole Creation Groans (Romans 8:22)

Yellowstone is one of the most unique and beautiful places on the planet. My wife and I recently returned from our first visit to this amazing place and were treated to one breathtaking view after another. Waterfalls and canyons and rivers and lakes and valleys and mountains flow from one scene to another. Everywhere you look God’s creative genius is displayed and it is mindboggling to think that, since before the creation of the world, these dazzling wonders have all been planned in the mind of our great God. The upper and lower waterfalls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone were designed in eternity past and were then brought into being exactly as the Lord God had conceived them. He planned where every rock would be and then He executed His plan, and the result is a feast of natural beauty perhaps unrivaled on earth. Indeed, this place must be seen to be believed.

And yet, despite the incredible beauty of this place, there is also built into this beauty evidence that things will not always be this way. If you pay attention to the displays at the Visitor Centers in the park, you will see that Yellowstone began as a gigantic volcano, a volcano so big that it makes Mount St. Helens look like a campfire. Each presentation talks about the “caldera” that represents the rim of the original volcanic crater, a caldera that is about 30 or 40 miles from rim to rim. This is sobering enough, but even more unnerving is the fact that this mega-volcano is still active. In fact, one of the most fascinating features of Yellowstone is the abundance of geothermal activities. There are dozens  (and maybe hundreds) of geysers (yes, like Old Faithful), mudpots (steaming hot mud that percolates with bubbles), hot springs (like the Grand Prismatic Spring, that is so incredibly beautiful that it almost seems unreal) and fumaroles (holes in the ground that belch out sulfurous steam) spread all over the vast acreage of the park that are constantly active.

Now, here is my point. As we consider all this geothermal activity, we must also contemplate what all this steam and all these geysers represent. Each geyser that throws boiling steam into the sky indicates a crack in the earth’s crust that allows ground water to leak down to the white-hot magma beneath. The plethora of hot springs, which are as blue as the Caribbean, are hot enough to scald you and appear to be bottomless pools of water going down to some heat source. Walk out into one of the geyser basins and you are surrounded by seething, boiling, steaming evidence of an active volcano. They are beautiful and fascinating, but they are also ominous, because the Lord has promised that one day the world will be destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:10-12; 2 Thess. 1:7). Today these springs and geysers give us pleasure as we observe their beauty, but they also contain a warning, that there is coming a day of judgment when the natural order will be wrenched out of place. Do the millions of people that come through Yellowstone every year consider the fact that Old Faithful and the Grand Prismatic Spring are reminders that the Lord could decide at any time to detonate this volcano and end time?

There was one display in one of the Visitor Centers that told about the active volcanos that are scattered across the earth, particularly where the tectonic plates come together. Because of scientific research, we are aware of these active volcanos and we are aware of the tectonic plates that are resting against one another in a delicate balance. As I considered all these geological facts, it occurred to me that all the pieces are in place for the earth to loudly and cataclysmically groan and bring about worldwide geographic destruction. “The whole world groans and suffers the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8:22),” but there will come a time when the Lord will remove His restraining hand and will allow the volcanos to erupt all at once.

I don’t want to wander much farther off into speculation, but I do want to emphasize the things that I observed in Yellowstone. The Lord has arranged all the pieces for geographic catastrophe, and those destructive forces are displayed in Yellowstone as beautiful geysers and hot springs, but they are also there for those who will heed them as warnings that the time is now to repent and to come to faith in Jesus. The Lord gives us this evidence wrapped in beauty to let us know that the end can come at any time. So as you watch Old Faithful erupt, be sure to consider that you are sitting on top of a giant volcano that the Lord could detonate at any time.

“The whole world groans and suffers the pains of childbirth until now.” – Romans 8:22

SDG                 rmb                 8/30/2019

Matthew 12:30 That Big Group in the Middle

As Jesus was ministering among the multitudes and also dealing with His opponents, the Pharisees, He said to the crowd, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” In so saying, Jesus answers one of the questions that many people subconsciously hold in their mind: “What about that big group in the middle?”

I want to do a series of posts that talk about the subject of “that big group in the middle.” This idea holds that, on one end of the spiritual spectrum there is a relatively small group of those who seriously follow Jesus. These are the righteous. Then on the other extreme end there is another relatively small group of those called “the wicked” or “the ungodly.” These are the bad people who need to be saved. But then in between these two extreme groups there is “the big group in the middle” who have not yet made up their minds. They are still on the fence and have time to think about which way they will eventually vote. So in this series of posts I want to talk about what the Bible has to say about this “big group in the middle.”

So let’s see what Jesus has to say about this topic in this verse that we cited from Matthew 12:30: “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” The interpretation of the verse is fairly simple. The verse is divided into two parts and both parts talk about two, and only two, groups of people. The first part of the verse says that the person who is not with Jesus is against Jesus. Thus in this first part there are only two groups; those who are with Jesus and those who are against Jesus. It is apparent that there is not a big group in the middle. There is no middle group at all. There are only two groups and you are either in the one or the other. Also the two groups are exclusive of one another. You are either with Jesus or you are against Jesus, and you can’t be both. It is also striking that a person can think they are not against Jesus, but Jesus knows that they are against Him. A person can say, “I am not against Jesus and I am not against Christians. I am sure that Jesus was a nice guy and a wise teacher and a sincere religious man. I admire Jesus for what he did and said. So I am definitely not against him. Now, am I a ‘born-again’ follower and am I some kind of religious nut? No. My religion is a personal thing. But I am definitely not against Jesus. I am part of that middle, moderate group.” But Jesus Himself says you are wrong. Jesus says that if you are not 100% sold out to Him and are not willing to follow Him to death, then you are against Him. “He who is not with Me is against Me.” So if you are not a committed and zealous follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus says you are against Him and you have Him as your adversary, whatever you personally may believe. You are definitely NOT in “that big middle group.”

Let me give a brief piece of theology before we look at the second half of this verse. Every person is born as a sinner and therefore is also born as an enemy of God. We may believe that we come out of the womb as innocent babies in a neutral spiritual position and then we take our place in “that big group in the middle,” but the Bible declares that we are born as sinners, that our default position is ‘unrighteous,’ that we are enemies of God and are against the Lord Jesus. Unless we have been rescued from that spiritual place, we remain sinners and are therefore under the condemnation and wrath of our thrice holy God (Isaiah 6:3).

Taking a look at the second part of this verse, we read, “. . . and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” In the first part of the verse we found there were two groups (and only two groups) of people, those with Jesus and those against Jesus. Now we read again that there are two (and only two) groups of people, those who gather with Jesus and those who scatter. Everyone who does not actively gather with Jesus is one who scatters. As in the first part of the verse where the default was being against Jesus, so here in the second part the default is to be one who scatters. The one who is not actively, intentionally gathering souls or worshipers or disciples for the Lord Jesus is scattering people from Him. Again our Lord is saying that if you are not intentionally doing His will, then you are disobeying His will. But in any case, there is no “big group in the middle.” When it comes to your spiritual condition, the Bible speaks of two and only two groups. There are those who have been saved and there are those who remain condemned. There are those who are for Jesus and there are those who are against Jesus. There are those who gather with Jesus and there are those who scatter.

But it is crystal clear that there is no big group in the middle. There is no middle group at all. There is righteous or there is unrighteous. There is saved or there is lost. There is heaven and there is hell. There is life and there is death. There are two groups: Those who know Jesus and those who will be judged by Jesus. Which are you? SDG rmb 12/12/2015