Teach the Nations (3)

The Abiding Presence

If the act of evangelism is offensive to the unbelievers, the message is even more scandalous. It clashes with their belief systems at every point and on every issue. It is intrusive, subversive, an insult, and an omen. To the chosen ones, it is a "fragrance of life," but to those whom God has cast off, it is the very "smell of death." Such a ministry is not to be taken lightly. As Paul asks, "Who is equal to such a task?" (2 Corinthians 2:16).

Now, I dislike it when preachers and theologians cite a statement from the Bible that seems to lead toward a certain direction, when the same Bible immediately answers it in order to point toward the opposite direction. One of the best illustrations is 1 Corinthians 2:9, which says, "However, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.'" Many people just stop here, and this gives the very opposite impression of what Paul is saying, for he continues, "BUT God has revealed it to us by his Spirit" (v. 10).

We do know what God has prepared for those who love him. No eye has seen it, but God has revealed it. No ear has heard it, but God has made it known. No mind has conceived it, but God has taught it to us. How? By his Spirit. That is the point, so if we are not going to quote verse 10, then we should not quote verse 9, either. The passage does not assert mystery but knowledge, not hiddenness, but revelation.

Something similar has been done to 2 Corinthians 2:16. Preachers and theologians lament, "Oh! Who is equal to such a task?" But Paul does not leave us in despair, for almost immediately, he says, "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (3:5-6). We were not competent in ourselves, but God has made us competent as ministers of the covenant by his Spirit.

Right now our problem is that Christ has given us a seemingly impossible task. He has commanded us to do something that people find intrusive in order to tell them something that they find offensive. He requires us to do something that he knows is difficult and sometimes dangerous.

But the Lord does not leave us helpless and hopeless. When Jeremiah said, "Ah, Sovereign LORD…I do not know how to speak; I am only a child," the Lord answered, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you….Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land – against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you" (Jeremiah 1:6-8, 18-19, but also see v. 17).

Here we have the greatest of promises in the Great Commission – Jesus says, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." The pronoun "I" is included in the verb, but it is spoken as a separate word for emphasis, as if to say, "I, even I, and no one less than I myself, will always be with you." Not someone else, not an angel, not a force, but Christ himself will lead and accompany us as we obey the Great Commission.

The Great Commission would be impossible without Christ's presence, for the task is to make disciples, but only he can change human hearts. Only he has the power to directly control the mind of man, and to turn it in whatever direction he chooses. Without this spiritual power to fill our preaching, and to make it effective, no one would ever be converted.

Paul writes that "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing" (1 Corinthians 1:18). This is not because the gospel is indeed foolish from a rational perspective, but it is because sinners are so foolish, so irrational, and their minds have been so darkened and damaged that it is impossible for them to recognize true wisdom. Their reference points are so far from the truth that even the highest wisdom would appear to them as the greatest falsehood, and the most absurd foolishness. Their intellects are so crippled that they cannot rightly judge even the plainest proofs and the keenest arguments.

We can offer proofs and reasons, and the Spirit will often use them in his work of conversion and sanctification. But in themselves, even the soundest arguments, those that are irrefutable and undeniable, cannot convince non-Christians of the truth of the gospel, because their minds have been pervasively ravaged by sin, so that there are moral and intellectual barriers in them that are impenetrable by ordinary human speech, however true and sound it may be. Unbelievers are too stubborn to listen, and too stupid to understand.

This is why conversion requires a spiritual power to directly operate upon the human mind, and to undo sin's hold on it at the deepest level. This is what we call regeneration, and when the Spirit causes this to occur in one of God's chosen ones, then he also sovereignly grants faith in the gospel to this person. And so Paul writes, "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God….For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6-7).

Paul reminds the Thessalonians that the gospel came to them "with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction" (1 Thessalonians 1:5), and he says to the Corinthians, "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power" (1 Corinthians 2:4-5). Since I have written a fairly detailed exposition of the two passages in Ultimate Questions, I will do nothing more than to mention them here. For our purpose, it is enough to agree that we need spiritual power to effectively carry out the work of the gospel, and the good news is that this power is promised to us along with the Great Commission.

This spiritual power is not something that you can work up. You cannot manipulate it with your voice, your mannerisms, your personality, or your willpower. You cannot increase or control it even by much prayer, but we are talking about the sovereign action of the Holy Spirit. Your part is to make the message clear, and the Spirit will work in accordance with the will of God.

The promise of God's presence and power does not mean that all who hear you will believe – far from it. Although all are morally required to repent and believe the gospel, and those who reject the gospel will be punished for it, it is not given to all to repent and believe, but only those whom God has chosen and loved before the foundation of the world. In these, the Spirit will work, and he will regenerate and convert them. They will welcome you with joy and with open arms. Others, on the other hand, will oppose you, slander you, and revile you. But even then the Spirit is at work, hardening those whom he wishes to harden, directly and actively confirming evil in their hearts.

If they have thought about it very much at all, most Christians have a woefully inadequate theology of spiritual power, one that not only fails to fully acknowledge the work of the Spirit in conversion and sanctification, but that fails even more in squarely confronting the claims of power from the occult, witchcraft, false religions, and demon worship.

Some people take the position that demonic powers are not real, and that Satan has no actual supernatural power, but the word "supernatural" is often ambiguous. Although not all of them would go this far, some of them would clarify this by saying that all apparent demonstrations of satanic powers are in fact illusions. This position seems awfully naïve unless its truth is established by solid biblical exegesis, but so far I am unconvinced by the attempts that I have come across. And if the meaning is that Satan indeed has power to manipulate physical objects and forces, but he can do nothing more, or as some say, that he has superhuman power but no supernatural power, then we still need to formulate a biblical perspective from which to confront this.

Sometimes it is pointed out that Scripture refers to "false" signs and wonders, and from this, inferences have been made concerning the nature of satanic "miracles," as to whether they are supernatural, or just superhuman, or even nothing more than natural illusions that any party magician could produce. But we need more than this, since "false" has several meanings, and to call someone a "false" prophet does not mean that the person does not exist, but that religious speaking, he represents a false message. A "false" religion is still a religion, only that its message is untrue.

Likewise, the term "lying" signs does not immediately indicate the lack of real supernatural power, since it might be that the lie is in the accompanying message, and not that the signs are mere illusions. Moreover, even if some of these "false" miracles are in fact illusions, and not supernatural at all, it does not automatically mean that all such miracles are nothing more than natural illusions.

The biblical perspective regarding demonic powers, it seems to me, is never to deny them, or to deny that they are supernatural, but to assert the superiority of God's power. This does not mean that all satanic signs are necessarily real, in the sense of supernatural wonders rather than illusions, but that the Bible does not confront them from such a perspective.

Now, the Bible relates many instances of power encounters between God's followers and Satan's followers. When Moses confronted Pharaoh's magicians, he threw down his staff and it turned into a serpent. The magicians threw down theirs, and they turned into serpents as well. Whether or not the magicians performed mere illusions, and that their staffs in fact never turned into actual serpents, or that by a sleight of hand they exchanged the staffs for serpents, is not the most important and relevant aspect of the issue. The point to be grasped and applied is that Moses' staff, transformed into a serpent, consumed the staffs or serpents of the magicians. And at least from this perspective, it matters little whether or not Satan's followers possess real supernatural power. What matters is that God's power is always real and triumphant.

Let me tell you the story of the Shaken Wiccan. I must leave out many interesting and instructive details about this incident because of the lack of time, but I will tell you those things that are necessary to understand the story and that are relevant to our current discussion.

It happened when I was still a teenager in high school. At that time, I preached every Sunday to a group of adults off campus. There was a Bible study group on campus that met every Wednesday night, but I had no contact with it. Up until that time, I had never preached to other teenagers, that is, except for several private discussions with friends about the gospel.

Then, one day I ran into the sister of a friend from junior high. Now she was attending the same high school as I was, although her brother had gone to somewhere else. He had told her about me, and I knew about her as well. As we talked, she mentioned that she was going to the school's Bible study. She invited me to go, but when I hesitated, she suggested that I meet with the group's faculty supervisor. Maybe he could make the group sound more appealing and change my mind about it.

So I went to meet the supervisor, and immediately we got along very well, mainly because he was an extremely sociable and hospitable man, and more than a little jovial as well. He opened his on-campus home everyday so that Christian students could pray and socialize with one another. For the next several weeks, we met a number of times, and after he found out more about me, some of the things that I had been doing, and perhaps some of my strengths, he invited me to address his Bible study group.

It would be accurate to say that the group practiced a seeker-friendly format when they came together. In fact, it was so "friendly" that, as I later found out, a Wiccan girl had been attending the meetings all year and felt completely at home there. Later, I would discover that the faculty supervisor had asked her why she was going to all those meetings when she had no intention of becoming a Christian, nor was she convicted or disturbed by anything that was said there. Her answer was, "I like the songs."

You can understand what kind of atmosphere they had been providing for those who went. No one felt threatened or challenged in any way, and that was the way they wanted it. So, now knowing a little about the kind of person I was, the kind of things that I was likely to say, and the way I was probably going to say them, the faculty supervisor and student leaders, although expectant, were at the same time a little apprehensive about my appearance.

To the supervisor, it was a rather bold decision – there could have been great trouble, and a lot was on the line. Although I thought that he was too "soft," and told him so, he had already been receiving pressure from the school for encouraging so much talk about Christianity on campus, even if it was a seeker-friendly variety. And so what I was going to do and say there, at his invitation, could have put his job at even greater risk. Perhaps he thought that I had something that his group needed, but for whatever reason, he decided to turn me loose despite the danger.

As for me, the incident presented a number of personal challenges that I had to overcome. Later, I realized that the incident marked a turning point in my faith and ministry, not because of what happened when I addressed the group, but because of what it took for me to get there. But that is another story, and it would take too long for me to tell you what happened.

The day finally came, and after singing several songs and a few minutes of Bible reading, the supervisor gave a short introduction and I stood up to speak. I talked about what I thought the group needed to hear most – biblical supernaturalism. I affirmed the creation account against biological evolution, and the historicity of the Eden narrative against the mythological theories. I spoke about the inerrancy of Scripture and affirmed that the miracles in the Bible indeed happened. I condemned the liberal scholars in "cemeteries" (seminaries) who were subverting the faith that these teenagers were trying to follow, or at least trying to investigate. It was indeed a "seeker-friendly" speech – I am sure it was pleasant to those who were really seeking. To the rest, it was a sound of condemnation and an aroma of death.

The general reaction was very positive. The Christians became excited and encouraged in the faith. One of the student leaders told me in jest that the Spirit must have been upon me, since he thought that I was surprisingly entertaining – he thought I was usually too serious.

But not everyone was entertained. The next day, that Wiccan girl went to the faculty supervisor and told him that, as I started to speak, she felt a power took hold of her and physically shook her, and it continued throughout the night until the morning. She was convicted, and very afraid, and she went to the supervisor for an explanation. I could not have manipulated the situation in such a manner, as I was unaware that there was such a person in the audience until I was told about her later.

I can tell you many stories like this one, some of them much more spectacular than this, in which the Spirit of God worked in and on people in ways that were beyond my awareness and control. But this incident is especially relevant because it presents to us a contrast between two approaches and their respective results. On the one hand, you have a seeker-friendly environment in which even a Wiccan could sit there week after week for almost a whole year without so much as a twitch in conscience. Then, on the other, you have a forceful declaration of the truth of Scripture, the historical reality of creation, and the miracles and resurrection of Christ, together with an unapologetic condemnation of unbelieving theories. The promise of the former is unqualified human acceptance, but the reward of the latter is the visitation of the Spirit. One welcomes you with a hug and a pat on the back; the other confronts you with truth and power.

Imagine! The Wiccan girl did not believe, but she liked the songs! For months she had been singing:

Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, down, down,
deep down in my heart, I love you Jesus!
Deep down in my heart.

Some of you would consider a song like this too shallow, and you would be right, especially if you only sing songs like this one. Nevertheless, this is something that a believer could sing with meaning – I do love Jesus deep down in my heart. "Oh Happy Day" is not deep worship, or not worship at all, but it is enough to move me to tears. It was a "happy day" when "he washed my sins away."

However, "Oh Happy Day" was not about to convert that Wiccan girl, and she did not love Jesus deep down in her heart, or anywhere in her person, for that matter. She was just having fun and enjoying the melodies. Everybody was comfortable, and the only person offended was God.

But then, and not until then, someone came along and preached the gospel to her, and perhaps for the first time made her realize that there was a person and a power associated with this message that she had never known before. She was made to realize that there was something wrong with her that she could not fix herself, and that she needed salvation from God.

Paul writes that he is not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God to save all those who believe. If we will not be ashamed of the gospel, then Christ will not be ashamed of us, and neither will we be ashamed of ourselves at the judgment. But what is there to be ashamed of in the gospel? What promise! What power! What beauty! What perfect coherence! It is easy to have confidence in the gospel.

For the Christian who embraces the Great Commission, and who obeys it in faith, love, joy, and duty to the Lord, the power of God in all its fullness is a present, active reality. I can preach with confidence and teach with authority every time, and in any context, because I know that the power of the Lord Jesus Christ is with me. On a subjective level, my confidence rests on the call of God upon my life, which is more real to me than my own name. It occupies my consciousness at all times, and defines all of my thoughts, plans, and actions. But the objective basis for confidence is even stronger. It is the biblical revelation of God's eternal purpose and his sovereign power to perform it. He will have mercy on those whom he will have mercy, and he will harden those whom he wishes to harden. He will accomplish his will, and there is no chance for failure. With the same message, he will save the elect and slay the wicked. And because this pleases him, it pleases me as well.