Re: [TruthTalk] Mormons and Street Preachers

[Bill Taylor]

David Miller wrote  >  Ask yourself this honest question, Bill.  How many of all those that you try and accept and love into Christ really want it the way you are talking here?    To an extent, I agree with Terry. There are some so hardened to the gospel that they will never receive it, no matter how it is presented. Hence, I am also convinced, as I said, that they will not hear the blare of your horns either. And neither do the masses need you blasting at them that this or that is wrong -- they already know it, too.   But this is not the norm, David, not even close. Most people are disinterested in Christianity because all they have ever got from it is either your approach, or the love-at-the-expense-of-truth approach of the liberal churches. "Truth" without grace is demonic, David, and grace without "truth" is nothing more than sentimentalism. Neither are of Jesus Christ. When people are loved, and they know it, they are open to receiving the truth.   You act as though it is to the most perverted of "sinners" among us that Christ will say, "Away from me, I never knew you." Not so, David. It will be to the most actively religious in our midst that he will say these things. It will be to those who have been out and about, working there tails off, "casting demons" out of people in his name, and judging them on his behalf, that he will say these most terrifying of words -- and it will be because in their zeal they will have rejected Christ, because he is not as they presented him to be. Check out your New Testament and just see for whom the harsh language of Jesus was reserved. It was directed at the self-righteous know-it-alls of his day. See also how he treated those "sinners" that you are so up-in-arms about. Notice the difference between the way he treated the two and then start modeling Jesus in your life.   The truth is, most people I meet love me because of the way I treat them. They are opened to what I say because they value the relationship I have entered into with them: my message has credibility, in other words.   On the other hand, there are other people who dislike me very much. I am a real threat to these people. But without exception, they are stuffy religious types who see what I am doing and realize in it that their scam is up. Those stiff-necks will never repent. They will still be casting out demons on the day the Lord returns . . .      DM wrote  >  How many of these are just joining the Christian club and enjoying the socializing, ...   BT: Not a single one of them, David  --  until the church snatches some of them away from their first love and turns them into what you are describing.    DM  > ... and how many are having life changing experiences in getting set free of the sin and iniquity that has destroyed their lives?   They all do, David. I wish there were others to speak on my behalf, who know me and have witnessed the Gospel I present; they have seen their own lives changed and the changed lives of others, and they can testify to the freedom it brings.   Please do not assume to know something which you have not yet come to understand. Your examples of liberal Christianity do not apply here, and it is because that is not what this is.   Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: David Miller To: TruthTalk@mail.innglory.org Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Mormons and Street Preachers Bill wrote: > they are not going to receive it as "truth" until > they know that you love them: Truth is only credible, > when it is relational.   Bill, your post saddens me somewhat, because while you seem very sincere, you seem to be speaking mostly from theory and ideology.  You truly have no comprehension of how my preaching comes across to those who hear it.  If you saw the tears of repentance and saw the people asking for me to lay hands upon them and pray for them, people asking me to cast spirits out of them, young men asking sincerely for prayer to be set free of the lust that has driven him to the night club scene that night, young ladies in tears because she sees that sin is at the root of the problem with her boyfriend and I am showing her that God's way really works... you really just have no idea.    You make some good statements about relationship and its role in discipleship, but this does not discount the effectiveness of an itinerant preacher.  Surely you have heard testimonies from people being effected for the Kingdom of God by somebody they had absolutely no relationship with.  Some men who have effected me greatly in my past I only heard speak a few times.  Furthermore, just consider the ministry of Jesus.  Those who knew him the best were usually the last to believe in him.  His home town and even his brothers and sisters were reluctant to believe in him because as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt.  I'm not trying to disagree with anything you have said, but only register with you that there is a much bigger picture that needs to be considered.  If you were my neighbor, I would insist that we go minister together on a street corner so you could see for yourself the good fruit that comes from it.   Bill wrote: > ... if I will receive them like Christ received me -- while I > was yet a sinner -- then they will know that there is something > real, something true, something transcendently sublime about > this new form of life. They will want it because it is credible > -- because it speaks meaning into that which they so desperately > wanted all along: to be loved.   Comments like this sadden me most of all, because I was taught this all my life growing up in the church.  It simply is not true.  It saddens me to hear you say this because it means that perhaps you are not out there witnessing and making disciples of the sinner the way the Scriptures teach us.  Isaiah 58 speaks about loosing the bands of wickedness.  I've tried the love and hugs thing.  People continue in their sin.  Then I did it the Lord's way.  It stirs up a lot of controversy and yes some sinners get very mad, but those whom the Lord is after gets set free.   Ask yourself this honest question, Bill.  How many of all those that you try and accept and love into Christ really want it the way you are talking here?  How many of these are just joining the Christian club and enjoying the socializing, and how many are having life changing experiences in getting set free of the sin and iniquity that has destroyed their lives?  I certainly like the relationship and discipleship aspect the best, because I have a pastor's heart.  This is why I enjoy home church and am unimpressed with super churches.  Nevertheless, when we talk about reaching out into the community and taking ground for the kingdom, about addressing those outside the church, we cannot deny the effectiveness of the itinerant minister.  God does a whole lot through the Spirit and his Word even without the trust engendered through relationships.   Peace be with you. David Miller.