What do you do when your liberators suddenly become your captors?

For decades, we have changed channels to get a different perspective.  But instead, we heard the same perspective from different news anchors.  Often shockingly verbatim.

So, we got our news from people chatting on Twitter and Facebook.  And the news anchors echoed the same concern:  hearing “fake news” or other perspectives was a “grave threat to democracy”.

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media began censoring cutting off the flow of free speech at the source.  So, some created their own websites.

Prager University presented this near-Orwellian video on censorship in social media. Where Twitter, Facebook, and others once gave us hope, hostility toward Christians, Jews, and others have hurt it. 

What do you think?

Have a few multi-billionaire CEOs, the ACLU, and the political correctness crowd also taken over the courts, the universities, the high schools, and the media?

Will we live in a proverbial Egypt for 400 years, or will we make our exodus into a land of milk and honey?  Can we make that exodus if we do not educate ourselves to discern and know when we’re being controlled and when we’re free to think and choose for ourselves what we will believe?

Visit Prager U Article

The above button will open up another window to a video at Prager university.

An excellent article on the pros and cons of social media censorship can be found at ConnectUs

Never mind what everyone else demands from you. Before your time is up, what do you want to leave behind? What do you want to be remembered for? What blessing do you want to bring to others?

And why? Why is THAT important to you?

If you suddenly learned you had 24 hours to live what would you do with it? Just 24 hours, and your last chance to wrap things up.

What do you want to say? What will grieve you if you have to leave it undone?

If you could just add 3 months what would you use that three months for??

Or fifteen minutes?

Legacy: Time’s Almost Up!

Imagine yourself in Sunday school or at work or with your children or family and somebody asked you this. What would you answer?

If you were to write down your answer or answers, would your life be different if you were to begin pursuing those goals as though you only had a few days or months left?

Would you accomplish those goals?

Why Would Your Legacy Matter?

Would your goal be selfish or unselfish? Would you want to feed the starving or heal the sick or save souls or bring happiness to God?

Would you like to make sure every loved one has a chance to be close to God? To be saved? Baptized? Discipled? And having a legacy of their own?

When you stand before God on judgment day, do you hope God will go easy on you? Or do you hope He will simply be truthful? Would that scare you? Would it terrify you?

Would you love to know all your loved ones could stand before God on judgment day safe and assured of being honored for being a good, loving, faithful servant of God and not be found a betrayer?

Would you like to know their salvation and yours were honest and not a false hope? Many strive hard to be approved by some religious person or organization and do so in vain. Many try to please man and will sacrifice soul and integrity to fit in.

Do You Have a Great Christian Legacy Already?

I’d like to have a life that leads people to heaven rather than hell because God is honorable. And I love my family and friends too much to want to see them perish.

God is not a tyrant with rules nobody can obey. He is a fair God of perfect love and integrity. I would rather my loved ones spend eternity with God than with the devil. Isn’t that reasonable?

I also don’t want a rift between God and myself to get in the way of them or I having a good relationship with God. Do you?

I want a legacy of love and faithfulness to our God, our family, and our friends. I don’t want to stand before Him having abandoned all that for a moment of pleasure or comfort. Do you?

The time to begin working and praying for that greatest legacy of love and faithfulness is now. Don’t give it up for something cheap.

Do you share your faith with others? How?

Do you pray for others to be saved from sin or from hell? Do you pray they will be saved and go to heaven?

Do you know how to start? Or do you just wing it? Do you find yourself afraid and unable to start? Or do you get up your courage just to get the brush-off?

Or do you plunge in and warn them straight away that if they don’t believe or accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they will go to hell forever?

When you evangelize, what do you hope to accomplish? What outcome do you want? What do you hope to see? What is the first thing you expect to see when your evangelizing starts to show signs of success?

Immediate Gratification in Evangelism

Have you ever had a lengthy quarrel and your opponent suddenly stopped and said, “You’re right. I’m wrong. I want to pray for forgiveness right now with you”?

I have never heard of anyone experiencing that before. I had a person come into a church while I was cleaning and ask for me to pray with him to give himself to the Lord. But in a quarrel, pride gets in the way. Neither party wants to give up a single point. Both are trying to “slay”, “destroy”, “obliterate” each other.

Now, what I have seen happen is for the quarrel to end, where both sides stop battling and they start to be humble and confess their wrong in the fight. And I have seen that open the door to the point where the sinner pursues salvation and surrenders to Christ.

What About Rebuking In Love?

How to you show people their need for salvation if you cannot point out their sin? Some preachers just speak out against sin openly without pointing a finger or naming names. Other go ahead and name names and pray the person will repent after the anger settles down and the sinners see their need for Christ.

Evangelism Explosion asks a couple questions.

• If you were to die tonight, do you know for certain you would go to heaven?
• If you died and stood before God and He were to ask you why He should let you into heaven, what would you say?

Ray Comfort of Way of the Master asks people, “Are you a good person?” Then he asks if he can give them a little test to see. Then he touches on some of the ten commandments. “Have you ever lied?” “Have you ever lusted after someone?” “Did you ever steal anything?” “Did you ever take God’s name in vain?”

Then he would ask, “Would God say you were innocent or guilty?” If they don’t believe in God, then he might ask, “If there were a God who was perfectly loving and honest at the same time, would he have to say you were innocent or guilty?” “Does that concern you?”

All this brings a person to conviction. God wrote His law into our hearts and we know instinctively it is wrong to lie, cheat, steal, murder, and so on. The reasons we make excuses or attempt to justify something or reduce it to an honest mistake or accident is that we know it is wrong and we don’t want to bear shame for being cruel, unjust, unfaithful, cowardly, or having any other serious flaw in our character.

But knowing we are guilty, we instinctively know that God cannot be honest unless He acknowledges that we deserve punishment. We have sinned against Him and against the entire universe. We have put our lust or fear or greed above the well-being of others.

So, Jesus Christ footed the bill. Did he do this so we could have a license to continue sinning? God forbid that! He paid the price so we could give up our sin and leave it behind. God knows we cannot change the past, so we must either perish or be redeemed from our sin.

Do you want to win souls or just avoid losing an argument?

If you want to avoid losing, stay out of the battle. No brainer. Right?

How many people lost battles they never got into? Have you ever lost a battle you walked away from? Walk away from unnecessary and unproductive wars.

This is what Jesus meant when he told the disciples to find a person of peace and if none can be found, brush the sand off your feet. The goal there is not to stick a dagger into their hearts with an insulting parting shot. The goal is to spend time with folks who are open to the Gospel. Don’t neglect them for the sake of winning an argument with someone who only wants to quarrel and demand proof for the obvious.

Give them time. Let them observe from a distance and develop a desire to come clean and have a relationship with God. Approach them again later when they’re ready.

If someone wants to learn more about God, that person is precious. You have someone to share the Gospel with. If you spend more time with them, the hard cases will be more likely to come back and be ready to listen later.

Don’t waste your time on the hard cases while you ignore those hungry to learn more about God.

That’s a great way to start winning and cut down on the losing.

Evangelism is about love, power, healing and giving people a reason to seek God.  Too often we squander all of this on compromise, bitterness, unforgiveness, and sin when we should be praying to bury and leave those things behind in the water of our baptism in repentance and prayer.

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How do we make disciples? By Example

Jesus said to go, heal the sick, raise the dead, make disciples, baptize them in water and in the Holy Spirit.

If we neglect prayer we will miss opportunities. So what? Isn’t life more important than being on some sort of religious treadmill or rat race?

Some feel that if we sin or turn to a life of sin we won’t lose our salvation, that we’ll only lose our rewards in heaven. When we lay down our crowns before Jesus, we won’t have so many crowns to lay down. Or if there are mansions, ours won’t be so nice. Or our place in heaven won’t be so super-nice.

But that doesn’t really matter as long as we get in. After all, we don’t want to be prideful or greedy. Right?

But what if those crowns we lay down at Jesus’ feet are our loved ones? Our children? Our parents? Our friends? What if we see our loved ones on judgment day and they’re not happy with us because we betrayed them into hell with our example of living in sin and hypocrisy?

Suppose we saved our own skin and betrayed our family and friends to an eternity with infinite pain for failing to embrace the salvation offered freely–a salvation bought and paid for by Jesus’ own blood?

What if we squandered Jesus’ suffering and blood so that it went for nought concerning those we claimed to love most?

What if we only saved our own skin?

Perhaps we would not wish for them to be lost while we were saved. Perhaps if we were truly saved we would wish we could be lost so they could be saved. Maybe we would wish we could trade places and go to hell so they could go to heaven. But we can’t. Or perhaps we are not as saved as we think we are. Saved from what? Hell or sin? Selfishness or the punishment for it?

Why do we care? Why don’t we care?

Where will we go with this?

We obviously need to minister in power. But to do that we need power. We need power to step out of our comfort zone. Or perhaps we need to get a little experience obeying Christ so that becomes our comfort zone. We need to trust Christ and do what He has called us to do in love and in power.

How do we Evangelize? – By Doing

Knowing this, we are responsible. We cannot afford to nod like a bobble-head.  We need to live what’s true.

If we need to fast or seek God, let’s do it. If we get interrupted, we need to let those at home know, and remind them and spend that time in prayer until we break through. We need to refuse to offer God any token prayers or any sacrifices that cost us nothing.

I believe token religion is what has gotten us into so much trouble these days. I also believe time is running out. If Christ were to return tomorrow and you knew it, what would you do differently today? Perhaps that is what we should be doing.

We need to minister in power–not argue–not try to win arguments. Not compensating for our lack of power due to our own cowardice and compromise. We need to surrender all to Jesus.

Does God hate or love sinners?  How about homosexuals?  Or military people who risked or gave their lives for our liberty?  Is Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church right?  Does God hate America?

Some say God loves everybody.  Others say the wrath of God burns against the ungodly day and night, that in sin, we stand on a crumbling precipice overhanging the lake of fire awaiting our eternal demise.

Are you on a crumbling precipice or are you safe in the hands of an infinitely loving Father?

Most of us have opinions.  Probably most of us feel we’re going to heaven or else we’re just going to drop into a hole and rot away when we die.  Some of us believe we will be spirits wandering the earth perhaps as ghosts or angels until we are at peace with going to our eternal destiny.

Visiting a Grave of a Loved One

Did you ever visit a grave of loved one–a parent, or perhaps a sibling, child, relative or friend?  We may bring flowers and speak as though they hear us. Did you wonder where they were or whether you will ever see them again?

In our times of darkness, we may dread the thought of going to hell if they are in heaven, or we may dread going to heaven if they are in hell.  We may feel guilty as though we neglected their eternal destiny in the ultimate betrayal.  We may feel it will never be possible or desirable to imagine loved ones or friends in hell suffering hate and wrath from God bringing eternal, infinite pain.

Could a loving God ever send someone to hell?

We ask that, but often we contradict ourselves.  We assume Hitler must go to hell after killing six million Jews and 5 million others. Perhaps the devil and his angels must go there, too. And terrorists and child molesters and rapists and tormentors of animals–anyone we hate.

Wouldn’t heaven be poisoned by Satan’s presence?  Would Henry VIII go to heaven after divorcing and beheading his own wives?  Or after killing the Catholic leaders who wanted to stop him?  Vlad III impaled thousands on spikes lengthwise.  Nero crucified countless men, women, and children and torching them up to light the roads.  How about Stalin?  Pol Pot?  Charles Manson?  Jack the Ripper?  Should they go to heaven?

We often hate child molesters, terrorists, tyrannical leaders, and assume blatant Satan worshipers must perish into hell as well.  We cannot imagine someone so corrupt as to get rich robbing people of their life savings and going to the grave unpunished only to enjoy riches in heaven while their victims perish in hell bitter and unforgiving.

So, who does God hate and who does He love?

Does God hate the sinner?  We’re all sinners, or we were at one time.  The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of heaven.  Was it by accident?  Not me.  I sinned by choice.  I was selfish.  So, I cannot say the devil will perish because he was a sinner and I wasn’t.  How about you?  Have you ever sinned intentionally?  If God were to speak honestly about you, would He say you’re a sinner or a saint?

Jesus has an interesting way of dealing with sinners, and it probably is not what you or I would expect, but it is much wiser.

Was He consistent and fair or did He play favorites?  Let’s see.

In John 8, men caught a woman in adultery and brought her to Jesus.  The law said to stone her.  They asked Jesus what to do.  If Jesus said, “Do as the scriptures say”, she could die a painful death and the men could claim Jesus told them to do so.  If Jesus said not to stone her, he would oppose the law.

What Did Jesus Do?

What was Jesus’ response?  He drew in the dirt and delayed a little.  He let them stew.  Then He spoke.  “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”  Then he resumed drawing and waited as they left one by one.  He asked the woman, “Who condemns you?”  She answered, “Nobody”.  Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more.”

How many people today say, “He that is without sin cast the first stone” when someone speaks out against sin?  Was Jesus snapping to the defense of sin?  Did Jesus love sin so much as to defend it?  Or was his love for the sinner?  If Jesus was defending sin, then why did Jesus say, “Go and sin no more?”  Doesn’t it sound like Jesus was rebuking or judging her?  Yet didn’t He say, “Neither do I condemn you”?

Judging

When Jesus spoke against judging, He spoke against hypocrisy, cowardice, and insincerity where people would defend their own sin while wanting to harm others because of their sin.  If they were truly opposed to sin, they would not live in sin.  If their justification for hating sin was that it was disrespectful toward God and unjust, then they would stop living in sin themselves.  These men did not merely want to speak out against adultery–they wanted to stone this woman to death.  They hated her.  And I wonder how many people wondered where her partner was.  How many people commit adultery alone?

What’s wacky is that people today use this passage in scripture to rationalize sin.  They run on and on about how we should never judge when someone rebukes in love, but nothing could be more hypocritical or insincere.  In the very next verse, Jesus asks the woman who condemns her.  She answered, “Nobody.”  People remember that Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you”, but they forget the next verse.  Jesus said, “Go and sin no more.”

Why would Jesus say Go and Sin No More?  Did Jesus hate her when He said, “Sin no more”?

Everybody makes mistakes. Right?

Ah.  Before you get too comfortable with that, what would you say if I said sin is not a mistake?

Would you think I was absolutely nuts?  Of course, sin is a mistake.  It isn’t a good thing, is it?  We all fail sometimes.  Nobody succeeds all the time.  Who knows everything?  Are you all-powerful? I’m not.  Nobody can live the rest of their lives never once making a mistake.  Right?

Yeah, but could you, say, go the rest of your life without committing adultery?  Could you go for the rest of your life never getting drunk?  Must you do every sin sometimes?  If you must sin a thousand times a day without knowing it, must you also rape children every day without knowing it?  Must you commit acts of terrorism blowing up buildings every day without knowing it?  Of course not.  Right?  Those things are serious sins.  They are intentional.  They are not mere mistakes.  You don’t say, “Whoops, I blew up the Empire State Building”.  Those are serious sins.

What if no sin were an accident? And what if God were to tell us on judgment day that every sin is preventable, that every sin is serious, that every sin is a decision to turn against Jesus as Lord and follow the demands of one’s flesh instead?  Now, do you believe it is impossible to go without sin?

Faithfulness

Ask yourself this:  Who is more worthy of faithfulness–your spouse or God?  Do you commit adultery a thousand times a day?  Would your husband or your wife tolerate it, say once per day?  Per week?  Month?  Year?

How many times should we be unfaithful to Christ per year?

How Does Jesus Love the Sinner?

If we want to know how we are to show love to a sinner, Luke 18:18-23 shows how Jesus did it.

Luke 18:18-23 (with the context of verses 24-30 also)

 [18] A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 
[19] "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good -- except God alone. 
[20] You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
 [21] "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
 [22] When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
 [23] When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.
 [24] Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! [25] Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
 [26] Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"
 [27] Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
 [28] Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!"
 [29] "I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God [30] will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." 

 Jesus Lord and Love

Jesus loved the man.  He did not march with signs saying, “God hates rich greedy young rulers”.  However, Jesus worked this young man like a lawyer.  In fact, Jesus taught this young man Socratically asking questions. “Do you know the commandments?”

Jesus named some safe commandments he knew the man was OK with. And the man perked up and said happily, “I have done these since birth.” Those were the easy ones.  

We all have easy commandments.  We’re proud we don’t rob banks like the bank robber. And we don’t molest children like child molesters.  Nor do we murder people or swindle people or beat people up violently or read Playboys.  We don’t get drunk or take drugs or sleep around.  We’re among the most trustworthy, honest, loving, forgiving, moral, ethical, upright people we know.  By our standards.

But, Jesus puts His finger on a sin we haven’t given up and says, “There–that is the one I want you to give up.”   That sin owns us.  We fight to defend it even if we have to fight God to do it.  If someone touches it, we cry, “Judge not, judge not–the Bible commands us to judge not.”  Nobody has cursed us or called for our demise.  But, the minute someone identifies a moral standard or a sin, we fight to defend our sin.  Or we walk away and ostracize that person.  Perhaps they have touched the sin that is Lord over our lives, the sin we worship, the sin that has the place in our lives that only rightfully belongs to Christ.

Finally

Does God love us?  Yes.  In fact He loves us enough to die for us, and enough to tell us the truth we need but don’t want to hear.

But, will we surrender to Him?  Or will we hate God and love sin?

Holy of Holies

Am I ready to face God, NOW? If my appointment with eternity begins before my next heartbeat ends, I will give an account to God.  Is that OK?

Five minutes from now, will I be alive or gone to face my eternal destiny?

Ananias and Sapphira lied to God.  And to their sudden surprise they perished immediately. So did those who touched the ark of the covenant.

Will the day of judgment be less ominous?

When we face an infinitely loving but holy God, will we face infinite wrath or infinite love? Or will the wrath be infinite because of God’s infinite holiness and love?

Are we ready? Of those who perished immediately and unexpectedly, how many were ready?

How many thought they were but were not? How many shored up their confidence telling comforting lies to themselves and perished unexpectedly?

Are we secure?

Our children? Our loved ones? Of our loved ones, who would we like to find missing in heaven?  Any? If they are lost will we be certain their blood is not on us?

If we would lead them to Christ and to salvation, can we do that if we are not there ourselves? Can we teach others to seek God if we don’t? Can we teach them to pray if we don’t? Can we teach them to give up sin and trust in Jesus Christ if we won’t?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. Is our life evidence? Is anything about God proved without a shadow of doubt by the way our faith affects the way we think and live?

If our hearts change, if we become more faithful, can one more soul be saved? Ten souls? A thousand or a million souls? A billion?

If it’s only one, whose soul would we give up for our own convenience? One of our children? A parent?  A friend?  Or would we sacrifice them all for Mammon, Lust, or Pride?

How much does God love you?  A little?  A lot?
Well, He died on the cross to save you from your sin.
And that’s a lot of love.

How would He feel if you turned Him down?
If you decided you’d rather perish forever than love Him.
I’m sure you would hurt God deeply.

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Many people hate to hear those words.  After all, how could God love us if we are sinful, undeserving, selfish, and have a horrible past?

Others who are equally sinful are totally ignorant of their sin.  They thank God they are not as bad as the robber, the molester, the murderer, the terrorist, the drug pusher, the alcoholic, the adulterer.  They’re happy to hear God loves them because they feel worthy.  But, to hear that God loves the really bad sinner is offensive to them.  So they rule their churches with the iron fist of hypocrisy bullying their pastors and ministers into compliance.  They’re modern day Pharisees, and one may wonder if they ever will be saved from their ignorance, their arrogance, or their sin.

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