Militant Evangelism! (11 page)

How much do you want to live on the cutting edge of the will of God? Do you want to fight in the front lines of battle? If you desire it above all else, then set your sights on it, and don't let anything deter you from that goal. Set your face "as a flint towards Jerusalem." You have a large crowd to push through, and some won't move out of the way as quickly as others.
Self-
will,
will be your biggest obstacle. He will take some prodding with your case. Directly behind him is his best friend, the never satisfied and overweight
Self-indulgence.
He is more interested in eating a donut than he is in moving out of your way. Just beside him
is
Laziness,
and his two bedfellows,
Apathy
and
Hard-heart.

Pride
will stand arrogantly in front of you, and will persist in keeping his position. He will be wearing the disguise of the "fear of man," so he may be hard to recognize.

Condemnation, Doubt
and
Discouragement
will whisper lies in your ear to try and take your eyes off your goal. They can be dealt with through faith in God's promises. Watch them though, because they will
be wanting
to move back, the moment you push them aside.

Then you have to
maneuver
passed the attractive subtleties of
Legitimate Pleasure, Entertainment
and
Leisure.
They will want you to stop and talk for a while.

The fundamental principle to getting each hindrance to move
back,
is the authority you and I have in Christ. What I did to get that jacket was deceitful. I let those people think that I was something I wasn't. But, if you are in Christ, you are a son or daughter of the most High God.

The flesh, with all its appetites, is no longer a puppet for the devil. The strings were cut at Calvary. Jesus Christ gave you the right to boldly approach the Throne of Grace.

God will open doors at just the right time for you to get your heart's desire.

It is your blood-bought right to break out of the comfort zone of mediocrity, obscurity, mundane and defeatist Christianity, and live on the cutting edge of the will of the Living God. Let's look at how you can do that.

Whose Idea
Was
it?

A young man sat in my office with a very troubled expression on his face. He had been seeking God's will for his life and had come to a point of total frustration.
He didn't know what on earth God wanted him to do.
It was clear that he wasn't clear of what his battle orders were. So, I shared a simple key to unlocking the will of God, something which had been a guiding principle by which I lived since I was converted at the age of 22. I had been apprehensive to share the key with anyone, but the young man so appreciated what I told him, I decided to begin teaching it from the pulpit, and to my surprise, it was also appreciated in the pew.

I reminded him of the incident where David slew Goliath, and asked him whose idea it was for the youth to fight the giant. He thought for a moment, and then said, "David's." He was right. If you take the time to study 1 Samuel Chapter 17, you will see that there is no record of him seeking God for His will in this instance. How could this be? The Scrip-
tores
say, "Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will direct your paths." Shouldn't David have acknowledged the Lord in some way? No doubt, he did pray as he faced his enemy, but there is no record of David asking God as to whether or not he should attack the giant Philistine.

The reason for this is clear. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 10:32, "The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable." There are things in life that we know are not acceptable. If you saw an elderly lady fall to the ground, do you ask God whether or not you should help her up? Certain things should be obvious to the godly. David took one look at the situation, and saw that such a thing was completely unacceptable—that this "uncircumcised Philistine" should defy the armies of the Living God.

David could draw that conclusion because he had a relationship with God. His senses were "exercised to discern both good and evil." He knew the Lord, and "they that know their God shall do exploits."

Doing Your Own Thing

The thought that may come to mind, is that the Christian must be careful not to move into the area of what is commonly called "presumption." There is an incident in Scripture where Israel
presumed
God was with them, when He wasn't, and the result was great tragedy. However, the issue is clarified the moment one understands the difference between
faith
and
presumption.
Take for instance my faith in my wife. Sue loves me and takes care of me. She keeps the house clean and tidy to a point where I am proud to have visitors. I have great faith in her. But presumption says, "You guys leave that mess there, the wife will clean it up ... best housemaid I ever had!" The dictionary defines the word
presumption
as "an arrogant taking for granted, a liberty."

Love, respect and faith go hand in hand, and I trust that I never
presume
upon my wife. In the same way, each of us should love and fear God enough never to have an arrogant attitude of taking Him for granted. In fact, he who
knows and fears
his God would
never
take Him for granted—he will not venture into presumption. Yet, so many are so afraid of presumption they won't step out in faith. They are so scared of 'doing their own thing,' that they don't do anything for God.

It is interesting to note that the Apostle Paul rejoiced even when certain professing Christians 'did their own thing' when preaching the Gospel. Look at his words:

"Some, indeed, preach Christ out of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds; but the other, of love, knowing that I am set for the
defense
of the Gospel. What then? Notwithstanding, every way
whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and in that I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice "
 
(Philippians 1:15-18, italics added).

For many years, I crossed swords with a man called "The Wizard." The man was a very eloquent speaker, who would dress up in all sorts of costumes to attract large crowds. His message varied from things of interest, to stupidity. He would provoke thought by saying how senseless it is that we pay doctors when we are sick. It is not in the interest of the medical profession for you to be healthy. If we are in good health, our doctors have no income, so there's no great incentive for them to work for our well-being. It would be far more sensible for us to pay our doctors $5 for every month we are well. Then they would have a reason to keep us in health.

We were both open-air speakers, and had a mutual understanding that I preached to the first lunch hour crowds in the local square, and he preached to the second. This happened almost daily for twelve years. Some days he would arrive while I was still speaking, and would suddenly burst from the crowd and verbally tear into me. I loved it. In fact, he was my best heckler. People thought I had great courage, but I knew that afterwards we would go off together for a cup of tea. The wizard and
myself
were what I called, "friendly enemies."

This man was very anti-Christian. He would, much to the delight of the public, make an altar to the God of Israel and sacrifice a $10 bill by fire to God, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I was always surprised at God's patience with him. On a scale of evil, the wizard was seven out of ten.

I also had another regular heckler, whose name was "Bernard." On a scale of ten, Bernard was on twenty seven. He would say and do things in public that would make your hair curl. He was so anti-Christian, he made Saul of Tarsus seem like Mary Poppins. With cutting sarcasm and a blazing contempt, he would say things like,
"Jesus died for your sins. You have to repent because God has appointed a Day in which He will judge the world in righteousness.
" One
day he was spitting out hatred with such intensity, he embarrassed himself by accidentally spitting out his false teeth. I almost choked with joy.

What should our attitude be to such a man? We should grieve that he was so anti-Christian, but our grief should be for him, not for God—"Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man
sows, that
will he also reap." It didn't worry me at all when he repeated scripture, because like Paul, I rejoice, even when Christ is preached from such an evil motive. The reason for this is that
the quality is in the seed,
not in the
sower
. A farmer can, with great proficiency, place his skilful hands in the sack of seed and scatter it on the sod. It will produce fruit if it falls on good soil. A simpleton can place his unskilled hands in the same sack and scatter the same seed, and it will also produce fruit,
because the quality is in the seed and not in the
sower
.
This is of great consolation to me. I know that God doesn't require my ability, just my availability to take the quality seed of His Word and scatter it on the soil of men's hearts.

Let me give you an example of this principle. Around the time Bernard was
evilizing
, a young man approached me and said, "I have been listening to the Gospel for some time, and I gave my life to Christ last Monday." I said how pleased I was, and asked him for details. The young man heard Bernard spewing out blasphemies in his usual anti-Christian, mocking fashion. After listening to him for some time, the man was so
disgusted,
he went somewhere quiet
and gave his life to Jesus.
The quality was in the seed of God's Word, and it found a place in his heart even when it was thrown down in ridicule.

Paul rejoiced that somebody, even out of a wrong motive, was scattering the seed of the Word of God,
because anybody scattering the seed is better than nobody scattering seed.
With these consoling thoughts in mind, to illustrate another important principle, I now want to share with you four small exploits that God allowed me to be involved in.

A few months after my conversion in 1972, I suddenly felt inspired to buy a bus to use for evangelism. This sudden flash of thought came when I was driving through "
Aranui
," a suburb of my home town. I placed an advertisement in the church column of a local newspaper to purchase a bus, and when nothing came of it I put the idea aside.

Two or three months later, I was driving through that same portion of
Aranui
, when I felt impressed to pray again for a bus. I could see it in my mind's eye. I would have scripture painted in quality sign-writing all around the bus. I would take out the seats and rearrange them around the walls, and lay plush carpet on the floor. It could be used for counselling, prayer, and for transporting Christians to preach the Gospel. When I arrived home, a friend called and read me a verse from the Book of
Acts
about turning "those who are in darkness to light." That night at a prayer meeting, another friend stuffed $150 into my pocket (I liked that guy). The next day, God confirmed His Word with the kind of signs following most of us enjoy, by supplying finance, from four different directions. It was about that time that I heard of a bus auction and went to it with faith, a friend, and finance.

As I waited for the first bus to be auctioned, I had a sense of anticipation as to what the Lord was going to do. It was just a matter of waiting, and clutching onto my grand total of $600. Unfortunately, the first of the three buses to be auctioned went for $1900. I felt devastated, so I went for a long walk. It was then that God spoke to my heart with the words, "Lean not to your own understanding." The second bus sold for $1100, still well above our price range. We left the auction for a quick lunch, but upon our return, found that the auctioneers had changed, this one was fast and the auction had finished. I felt the air drain out of my lungs as we leaned against our lost bus and gave