Modern evangelicals have been critiqued by many pastors,
including Tony Miano (see crossencounters.us) for their “methods” of
evangelism, how they deal with the unsaved, and their belief that the unsaved
need their friendship or good impression of them to be saved. Rightly so.
I have been rebuked harshly by modern evangelicals who put
on a false facade of grace for not being “gentle” by using the Law of God. I
told a street preacher who preaches the Law and the Gospel about this, and he
said that he too has often been told he was not “gentle” because he uses the
Law as well.
Indeed, modern evangelicals think they their friendship with
an unsaved person will make them seek after God. No! God is the one who draws
people to Him. Nothing makes an unsaved person seek after God except for God
Himself. It is not friendship, being “culturally sensitive”, scientific
evidence, good works, or kindness that does so. To say that such things make
people seek after God is to blaspheme God, by denying His Word. Even the
slightest bit of denial about God’s Word is to blaspheme God. To say that the
unsaved need these things to draw near to God is to blaspheme God! The unsaved
do not need your friendship, your kindness, evidence, your good works or
kindness. They do not need you or I. God does not need you or I. The unsaved
need God Himself. Salvation belongs to the Lord alone.
The modern evangelical would say “but can’t you be friends
with them?” as a retort. This is not the point. The issue is that they always
dogmatically insist that one needs to be a friend of someone before you reach
out to them with the Gospel. They accuse you of being “ungentle” when you are
not forming a friendship with an unsaved person before sharing the Gospel with
them. If that does not work, they hide
behind the deceptive smokescreen of “cultural sensitivity”. What they mean by
“cultural sensitivity” is that one should not use the Law of God precisely
because it offends people. This is exactly what they mean, twisting a
supposedly neutral or good concept into one which is to say that one should not
be evangelising at all.
This is exactly what one modern evangelical was implying to
me as someone new in witnessing, and he discouraged me, causing me to be under
so much agonising spiritual bondage. Speaking to him in person will just lead
to more of it, so I have to shun him, and not communicate to him at all.
Speaking to him just causes me to be in more spiritual bondage. He does not
understand this, and has no idea how much frustration and bondage he put me in
his way of imposing a rules of “cultural sensitivity” on me. Since he fails to understand this, he does
not understand why I don’t want to speak to him in person, and dismisses me as
“arrogant” or “too proud” to speak to him.
They claim they refer to the “method” of evangelism (if
there is such a thing as a “method”) when they speak of “cultural sensitivity”,
distinguishing between the “method” and the Gospel to justify their smokescreen
of so-called cultural sensitivity. There
is no such thing as a “method” – it is just a mere platform for one to proclaim
the Gospel.
When it comes to understanding spiritual things, God must
give the person revelation. A modern evangelical once kept on lecturing me
about being “gentle” in his whinny, pretentious manner with a false
hypocritical sense of graciousness. I did not understand it because it was not
something God had given me revelation about. So, when the next time he
perceived me to be “ungentle” he scolded me for not taking into account what he
and another pesky modern evangelical said to me. It is not about what he says
as he was trying to imply. It is what God says.
Of course, he will say that is what God says. However, if one does not
have revelation from God about a particular topic, one just cannot understand
it, and therefore, any rebuke about that would be either pointless or wrong.
He loves to accuse me of saying that many in the modern
church are under the spirit of mammon. I did not say definitively that all
Christians are under it, but that most are, and that many of the ones I was
specifically referring to are most likely
to be under the spirit of mammon. That
they think that there is nothing wrong with earning more money or accumulating
more things is a very strong indicator that this is the case.
He blames me for being “argumentative” and annoyed at him
when he was the one who initiated the discussion about not using The Way of the
Master because it is “offensive”, “gives the impression that the Bible is all
about rules” and other accusations of his hatred against Way of the Master. I
explained to him my frustration at what he decided to tell me which placed me
in spiritual bondage. So, in a sense, the annoyance I felt against him and the
ministry in general was something he asked for.
Sources:
crossencounters.us
onthebox.us
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