I should care more

Recently I've been pretty hit with a few striking realizations that in fact, aren't very new or very difficult to realize. The first hit me when I was walking back from church one day. Every Sunday, after church, when I get back to my section of Seoul, I pass some street preachers next to a department store. I don't catch much of what they're saying, but the giant poster with Christ on it and person in flames makes it pretty clear to me what is being talked about.

Now many people I know might look down upon this style of Evangelism. Saying that it's not effective. That it's too pushy. That people don't want to hear about hell, damnation, wrath, punishment, and anger. They need to be wooed into the grace of God. So, I thought, what's the opposite of this street evangelism.

I won't mention any names, but the opposite is the "Prosperity Gospel." So, people in the past have said, "Ok, the whole fire and brimstone thing is out-dated, we need a new angle. How about selling the gospel to people. Cater to their already in-born idolatry and show them how the gospel can give them everything their idolatrous heart needs. Maybe that will bring in some church attendees."

AND THEY WERE RIGHT! The prosperity preachers bring in some of the biggest memberships in all of the world. These preachers write best-selling books, (translated and sold at record-breaking numbers in Korea as well), they're on all of the TV stations, radio stations, and everyone loves them. Even people who don't believe in God tune in to listen to them.

So I guess, they must be right. If it's working, why criticize it...right?

WRONG!

I don't recommend it, but there's this video by one preacher (I'm not mentioning names because I don't want to go down that path of bitterness), where he criticizes the street evangelist saying, "No one is stopping to listen to you." And I thought to myself, he's right. No one is stopping to listen to the street evangelists. When I pass these guys in Korea each week, I never see anyone stopping to listen. But the question is WHY?

Why are millions upon millions of people dedicated to the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, but no one every stops to listen to the guy telling people about hell? Well, for one, it's only natural. People don't like bad news. Nobody likes facing harsh realities. It's much more appealing to go to the guys promising all of these blessings without any kind of commitment, then to go to the guy who is asking you to take up your cross daily or you're going to burn. So it's only natural for people to go the prosperity preacher.

Secondly, and much more devistatingly, people are blind to the truth. If every day, you wave a 100 dollar bill in front of a blind man, it doesn't matter how clear it may seem to you, he's not going to reach out and grab it. In the same way, no matter how clear the message of the gospel may be spoken in the streets, apart from the Holy Spirit, people will never stop to listen. Then why are so many blind people going to these prosperity preachers? If they're blind to truth, why would they go? Because the prosperity gospel is not the gospel. I've already shown you that Piper clip on the prosperity gospel I think twice now, but here's the link one more time for anyone who's interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTc_FoELt8s

So anyway, I went on a big tangent, but the point was, about how I felt about those street preachers. I think most Christians wouldn't identify themselves with those people. Saying, those guys seem a little strange to me. But the more I think about it, they seem to me to be the only sane kind of Christian there is!!

If you, as a Christian, know that apart from saving faith in Jesus Christ, a person will go to hell, FOREVER, why wouldn't you be telling people about it daily. I mean, these street preachers seem so similar to the early church. Look at Acts 3:11-26, Acts 2, Acts 5:25, Acts 6:8, the entire ministry of Paul. They seem a lot like street preachers to me. I mean, if you know that Christ is coming back, in glory, and that everyone not saved will ask for the rocks to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb (Revelation 6:15-17), if you look at Luke 16's account of the rich man who goes to hell and then begs to have Lazarus dip just the tip of his finger in water to cool is tongue, if you really believe this to be true, how can we coast through life? How can we?

I don't know what it is? Perhaps it's that we truly don't believe in hell. Or perhaps it's that we have so trained ourselves to run from anguish, that when a "Holy Anguish", that comes prompted by the Holy Spirit, fills our hearts and minds with anguish for the souls of the lost, we just run from it. I'm not sure why I'm so passive towards making disciples. I'm not sure why I'm so scared of making social situations awkward by bringing up Christ amongst non-Christians. I'm not sure why I feel like street evangelism would be the hardest thing in the WORLD for me to do.

And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that street evangelism is always the best way, or that it's even a good way to do evangelism. I'm still wrestling through that in my mind. I realize that there's a time and a place, and that the best evangelism happens through relationships, not yelling at who are passing by, degrading them and calling them sinners. I understand the rejections very well. But my point is that we keep sitting in the judgment seat of these street preachers, saying how primitive they are, while we have no room at all to judge, because at least they care enough to give it a shot. Who are we to judge on a particular method, when we don't even make an effort to evangelize using any method.

And I just can't escape this desire in my heart to scream to my soul, "WAKE UP! SEE THE REALITY OF ETERNITY! MANY OF MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO HELL! DON'T I CARE?"
I used to be so burdened by this that I fell into deep disillusionment with the idea of God's love, which I have already talked at length about in my blog post on predestination. But now, instead of questioning God when I see the harsh reality of eternity, I now question myself. I question my inactiveness. My passivity. My apathy towards the lost. If your friend had cancer, and you had the cure, wouldn't you want to give it to him?

I heard a really powerful sermon on this by Francis Chan, and he gave the story of this pro basketball player who was a Christian. And he said he kept having this recurring nightmare where he saw many of his teammates going to hell. And his teammates were looking back at him, with their hands in the air, looking at him and saying, "Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me that you knew I was going here, and you never tried to save me from this? You never tried to warn me?"

I don't know...I don't know...I don't know how anyone can coast, or put life in an entertainment mindset when people are perishing right and left. You have to become literally insane to become like that. How was I so insane for so many years? Oh how far God has to go with me. Oh the depths of my own heart. Oh how merciful God is to me not to show me how deep the sin in my life really is. Oh how selfish I am, to think that a Friday night watching a movie is time better spent, than on reaching out to someone going towards the flames.

The Christian life, can NEVER become lazy. Once it does, you've lost touch with reality.

I'll end with a video from an ATHEIST. Just watch, you'll see why I put it up here.