HERE I STAND!

by Chris Hohnholz on the blog Defending. Contending.

I want to make something clear. I am a born again follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. This means I believe I was born a sinner and that my actions put me at war with God. Because of that, God will judge me for my sins and condemn me to Hell. Yet, in His mercy, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life I could not live and to die the death I deserve. Jesus rose from the grave three days later, giving me a promise of eternal life. By turning from my sin and trusting in Jesus, He takes on my sins and I receive His perfect righteousness. I have been granted eternal life and will one day be with Him forever in Heaven.

 

As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God. That means it is the direct revelation of God to man. This means I believe everything it says. Everything. When it says something is a sin, it’s a sin. What culture says about it today is irrelevant. No matter how we try re-work or re-word what God has already said, His truth remains. I will not bend, I will not yield, I will stand. I will proclaim God’s word, all of it. I may be called arrogant. I may be called ignorant. I may even be called a hateful bigot. But no matter what the world thinks of me, I care more of how I am viewed by my Savior than by anyone else. Jesus paid my fine with His life’s blood. I owe Him nothing less than my total love and obedience.

Because I trust in Christ for my salvation, and because I believe God’s word is true, I will proclaim to the world that it is in sin against God. I will proclaim that through Christ and Christ alone is their salvation. I will do this because I love people far too much to leave them in the delusion that they are “OK” with God. I love them enough to warn them of the judgment that is coming. I love them enough to risk being hated by them, and even have them turn against me. If I am willing to risk my life to save a drowning man, or a child trapped in a fire, how much more must I be willing to risk my standing in people’s minds to try and rescue them from the fires of Hell. It matters not if a blind man does not believe in the cliff he is walking toward. Thus, I cannot and will not stop my warnings because people do not believe as I do. I love them too much to stop.

I make this declaration today because I believe the world is beginning to openly war against Jesus Christ and those who follow Him. I make this stand today to make it known I will stand for Him no matter how tough the opposition may be, and no matter what it may cost me personally. I declare this to let you all know that I believe the greatest love I can possibly show is to point to the way of salvation, not to allow people to remain comfortable in their sins.

In the words of the Reformation preacher Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I can do no more.”

HELPING STUDENTS "SEE" ETERNITY!

This past Tuesday (Aug. 24) I was talking to a college student here in Niterói (state of Rio de Janeiro) who felt all of us will go "to a better place" when we die and that God won't judge anybody.  Even when I asked him if he thought God would be just to allow Hitler into this "better place," he said that was up to Him.  At the end of our conversation, I told him that if he is right, I'll be fine.  I'll go to the "better place" too.  But if I'm right, he will end up in hell.  He was shocked and said, "What are you doing?  Prophesying that I'm going to hell??!!"  I told him that I wasn't prophesying anything unless he dies in his sinful rebellion, meaning he'll go to hell.  I then quoted Rom. 3:23 and 6:23 to back my claims.  Pray for Felipe, who studies Economics at Fluminense Federal University (UFF), that my words will keep ringing in his ears and that he won't be able to sleep until he runs to the Savior, Jesus!

WHO WOULD HAVE IMAGINED?

Who would have imagined that one of the banners we use in our open air preaching ministry (to which I devote 4-9 hours weekly) and that I had made while in the U.S. in February would have such an impact? First, I met a brother in Christ from one of our supporting churches - Pine Valley Bible Church - who has a sign shop. I asked him if he'd be willing to make me three banners in Portuguese, to which he replied, "Of course, Bill. That's what I do!"

I sent the text over by e-mail and Bro. Mark made me three banners. After, he expressed to me some reluctance on his part over the text on two of the banners despite not knowing any Portuguese. If one knows Spanish, however, he can usually figure out the gist of what is being said in Portuguese.

You see, one of the banners boldly proclaimed, "YOU DESERVE HELL." with Rev. 21:8 on one side. On the other was written, "The God of the New Testament says, 'It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God' (Heb. 10:31)." Now, I realize this is very confrontational, but the open air preacher should use whatever he ethically can to arrest the attention of those passing by in their spiritual blindness. To be honest I, along with at least two other North American preachers, have yet to find a more "arresting" phrase than "YOU DESERVE HELL." Frankly, the reactions we get are always interesting.

This past week three reactions stood out. The first was by a 40-something man who quipped, "God doesn't even exist!" as he passed me while I preached. I replied, "God doesn't exist? How convenient! You think that by denying God's existence you'll be free from hell? Let's say you firmly believe that the sun will not rise tomorrow and go around telling people this. But will your belief that the sun won't rise change the fact that the sun will rise? Of course not! In the same way, just because you don't believe that God exists doesn't change anything if He does exist. And if he does exist, just because you don't believe in Him won't change the fact that you're headed for hell!"

The second reaction that stood out was a 20-something guy who flashed the finger toward the banner as he passed by. I told him that he'd give an account to God one day for that, to which he replied with the same obscene gesture directed at me. As negative as his reaction may seem, you have to remember that someone reacting so strongly is obviously experiencing some level of conviction by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, they would just brush off the hard truth of God's Word.

The reaction that made our week, however, was by another 20-something guy who stopped to talk to my Brazilian colleague, Ednilson - who was holding the banner while I went on campus for a meeting. Ednilson told me later that this guy wanted to "testify" to the effectiveness of our very confrontational banner. Two weeks earlier he had planned to buy some drugs and wine to get stoned and drunk. As he walked through the Largo da Carioca in Downtown Rio he spotted our banner - the Hebrews 10:31 side - from a distance. Instant conviction fell upon him! Ednilson wasn't sure what this guy's spiritual background was, but he was carrying a bible around in a bag under his arm that day and squirmed when he read Heb. 10:31. He told Ednilson, "I knew at that moment that what I was planning to do was sin and that I had better not take sin so lightly. After all, your banner says that it's terrible to come under God's judgment."

As he passed by us that fateful day he said he didn't want to turn around and look at the other side of the banner, but curiosity got the better of him. When he saw "YOU DESERVE HELL." he said under his breath, "Yeah, and if I do drugs and get drunk that's where I'll end up!"

As this guy continued walking, he was suddenly overcome with God-produced sorrow. Second Corinthians 7:10 says, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." He squatted down against a fence and put his head in his hands. Then he decided he should open his bible, and guess which verse he just happened to open to? Hebrews 10:31!!

He wanted to "testify" to Ednilson that day how God had used His written Word - on a banner, of all things - to convict him of his sin, to show him he was nothing more than a false convert and that he needed to repent of his sin and place his trust once and for all in Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. He wanted to "testify" to us that God had saved him as a result of our very confrontational banner!

Amen!

REPENTANCE OVER REPUTATION!

“A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, then we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them.”

- Richard Baxter (Puritan)

"HAVEN'T BEEN CALLED" OR "HAVEN'T HEARD THE CALL?"

"'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world."

- William Booth

IS BEING "SEEKER-FRIENDLY" TRULY FRIENDLY?

We came across a thought-provoking article recently that points out the problems of a church "going seeker-friendly." Here are some of the more convicting parts:

"I once read through a stack of newspaper and magazine articles that highlight a common thread in the user-friendly phenomenon. These observations from newspaper clippings describe the preaching in user-friendly churches:

• 'There is no fire and brimstone here... Just practical, witty messages.'
• 'Services at [the church featured in the article] have an informal feeling. You won't hear people threatened with hell or referred to as sinners. The goal is to make them feel welcome, not drive them away.'
• 'As with all clergymen [this pastor's] answer is God– but he slips Him in at the end, and even then doesn't get heavy. No ranting, no raving. No fire, no brimstone. He doesn't even use the H-word. Call it Light Gospel. It has the same salvation as the Old Time Religion, but with a third less guilt.'
• 'The sermons are relevant, upbeat, and best of all, short. You won't hear a lot of preaching about sin and damnation, and hell fire. Preaching here doesn't sound like preaching. It is sophisticated, urbane, and friendly talk. It breaks all the stereotypes.'
• '[The pastor] is preaching a very upbeat message... It's a salvationist message, but the idea is not so much being saved from the fires of hell. Rather, it's being saved from meaninglessness and aimlessness in this life. It's more of a soft-sell.'

"So the new rules may be summed like this: Be clever, informal, positive, brief, friendly, and never, never use the H-word." - John MacArthur

"When a sinner wanders into the church and sits through skits, mimes, interpretive dances, and the like, and yet never hears a clear, convicting message about his dangerous and tenuous spiritual situation – that he is a depraved sinner headed for an eternal fire because he is a daily offense to a holy God – how can that be called successful? You could achieve the same level of success by sending a cancer patient to receive treatment from a group of children playing doctor. A sinner must understand the imminent danger he is in if he is ever to look to the Savior." - John MacArthur

"I fear there are some who preach with the view of amusing men, and as long as people can be gathered in crowds, and their ears can be tickled, and they can retire pleased with what they have heard, the orator is content, and folds his hands, and goes back self-satisfied. But Paul did not lay himself out to please the public and collect the crowd. If he did not save them he felt that it was of no avail to interest them. Unless the truth had pierced their hearts, affected their lives, and made new men of them, Paul would have gone home crying, 'Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?'...

"Now observe, brethren, if I, or you, or any of us, or all of us, shall have spent our lives merely in amusing men, or educating men, or moralizing men, when we shall come to give our account at the last great day we shall be in a very sorry condition, and we shall have but a very sorry record to render; for of what avail will it be to a man to be educated when he comes to be damned? Of what service will it be to him to have been amused when the trumpet sounds, and heaven and earth are shaking, and the pit opens wide her jaws of fire and swallows up the soul unsaved? Of what avail even to have moralized a man if still he is on the left hand of the judge, and if still, "Depart, ye cursed," shall be his portion?'" [Charles Spurgeon; Soul Saving Our One Business, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 25 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1879), 674-76.]

May we see more pastors raised up with a passion for the lost - a passion that will force them to not mince words! May we see more pastors raised up with a passion for the found - a passion that will force them to biblically feed the sheep!

SAVING THE LOST

Christ's call is to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers, and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil's clutches and the very jaws of Hell. This can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered devotion, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ.

--C.T. Studd (1860-1931) was an English missionary who faithfully served His Saviour in China, India, and Africa.

Spurgeon's Challenge

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” (Charles Spurgeon)