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How Jesus Relates Persecution to the Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount and His Example to Us In Doing So
In what is called “the Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5-7, Jesus preaches salvation to a Jewish crowd of people and pulls down with supernatural wisdom and authority their unique strongholds. For instance, in the very first statement, one of the Beatitudes, He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Jews didn’t see themselves as spiritually poor, but spiritually wealthy. They were by rights, God’s chosen people. Of course, they were already “blessed” through the Abrahamic covenant, and even in their own eyes, the Mosaic covenant, according to the Deuteronomic code. None of their thinking was true on this, so Jesus eviscerated it in the Sermon.
Another Jewish thought is “the kingdom.” They would have considered themselves already the beneficiaries of the kingdom through the Davidic covenant. “Heaven” is the abode of God and they saw themselves as the children of God, so wherever God was, they would be, even as God resided in the tabernacle through the wilderness. Jesus confronts their wrong thinking when he shows the rich man is in Hell, not in heaven in Luke 16. None of this, the kingdom or heaven, was theirs, however, unless they were poor in spirit, which meant that they acquiesced to their own spiritual poverty, that they really were lacking and in dire need. They needed to do what the Apostle Paul did and count their own spirituality as loss and as dung for them to win Christ or find themselves under the reign of the Messiah in His kingdom with all its promised blessings.
The Jews already saw themselves as sadly and badly not receiving their just desserts, their appropriate reward. According to their own assessment, they were persecuted by the Romans as they had been by many other various empires previously. This would fly in the face of being a blessed people and a kingdom people. It was an unacceptable circumstance that should be turned around and would be reversed by a true Messiah. That’s not what Jesus said though.
Just like the people in the kingdom of heaven would be first poor in spirit, they would also be persecuted for righteousness sake (Matthew 5:10). Persecution is the guaranteed cost of a truly saved person and Jesus frontloads this in His gospel presentation in Matthew 5:10-12. As people enter into true salvation through Jesus Christ, they need to expect persecution. They need to count the cost. Jesus said in Luke 9:23, that if any man will come after him, let him take up his cross daily. Jesus issues that understanding right up front to those who might receive the kingdom. It’s a narrow road with few on it.
Churches today do not give their targets for attendance or membership the impression that they will suffer or be persecuted by joining up. That’s a way to shrink the numbers. However, it is the method of Jesus. He included that in His gospel presentation and more than once. Do not expect to have it easy if you’re a Christian, and that’s not why you’re receiving Christ, for what you’ll receive in time, because that’s going to be persecution. Very likely why less are truly converted today is because they do not see the Christian life as worth suffering for. They would choose a Christianity full of pleasure, but not the one with guaranteed pain, so they reject genuine Christianity for the placebo. Churches offer the placebo, because that’s what people want. Then the entire program of the church revolves around various pleasures, especially for the young people.
The Jews thought they were persecuted already, but they were were persecuted for unrighteousness. Daniel prophecies why Israel would be dominated by the Romans. He was downhearted by the lack of enthusiasm for God among the captives in Babylon, comfortable to just stay and not return to the land for true worship of God. They would keep being chastised because of their faithlessness and then they took that as persecution. Actual persecution is for righteousness and not unrighteousness. Just because the Jews of Jesus’ day were suffering didn’t mean they were persecuted and neither did it mean they had a future kingdom for them. No, that kingdom was only for those persecuted for righteousness.
People in the future kingdom do not fit into the present one, the kingdom of this world. The people under the future reign of Jesus are those who want a present reign of Jesus. People who want Him to be king in the future have got to want Him to be king in the present. Those over whom Jesus reigns will be persecuted. They will not fit in. They will be despised, reviled, and accused falsely by men. That will be the norm for those following Jesus Christ into the kingdom and He wants them to know that right up front.
Jesus isn’t going to take away persecution in the short term. He offers the future kingdom as a motivation for present rejoicing. The basis for being exceeding glad now is the reward in heaven for all eternity. There is a lack of joy in churches and in professing Christian families because of something far less than persecution. The church and family members are not getting their way and they don’t like the discomfort now. They expect to be treated better and have their rights protected. When they get hard preaching from scripture they become easily offended. When they are required to live like a Christian, they are put off and threaten to quit, if not just to find another church where they’ll be treated like they want.
Professing Christians aren’t looking for a church where they will suffer. They are looking for a place of creature comforts with lots of friends. This is not what Jesus told true believers to expect. He told them just the opposite and He included it in His gospel presentation.
The Beginning of a New Church and the Place of Discipleship In That
When you arrive into a town or city as a missionary, let’s assume it’s just you. You don’t have anyone else. You start with evangelism. You start with preaching the gospel. You really don’t know that anyone will be saved, but that’s how you start if you are a missionary.
A church is built on the gospel, which is seen in part when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” The grammar of Matthew 16:18 refers “this rock” to the confession of Peter, which could be described as his faith in Christ. The church is built on the gospel, belief in Christ. A church is built with saved people by their hearing the gospel and receiving it. The goal in an area is to get the gospel to everyone who is willing to hear it.
Something else you can do is let saved people know that you are in town. If you are there with a goal of a church starting, then you think there needs to be a church there. That is in part because you don’t think you could say, “Just go to that church.” Depending on the size of the area, there are probably believers there that need your work and you want them to know about it. They could join you. However, no missionary should think that he’s coming somewhere to take people from other churches. He’s there to evangelize first.
If the gospel is going to be preached to everyone, that could be done by the missionary doing it himself. He never stops preaching the gospel until everyone hears it. Is that the way intended by God for everyone in an area to preach the gospel? It isn’t. The command of the Great Commission is “teach all nations” in Matthew 28:19. The word “teach” comes from a Greek word, which means, “make disciples.” The priority in evangelism is making disciples.
The first amount of time, let’s say, year, emphasizes evangelism especially. The goal is to evangelize as much as possible and to disciple those believing the gospel. As soon as someone is converted, you start with discipleship. A main goal of discipleship is to train an evangelist. Your disciple at least by year two himself starts evangelizing. What you’ve done then is multiply the number of evangelists. For that reason, discipleship is the priority. If you had a choice to go evangelizing or spending time in discipleship, you disciple someone. Get in as many discipleships as possible, really disciple everybody.
You disciple even the people you meet, who are already believers. When someone claims to be saved already, he also is discipled. This way everyone is prepared to be an evangelist. You want to take everyone as far as they can spiritually.
Yes, everyone needs to start assembling for church. A church is starting. You start to get everyone you are discipling into every meeting. You will be preaching on all the things from the Word of God these new believers and new members need.
As you move along the first year, you will be baptizing new believers. That is part of discipleship, teaching them on baptism and then baptizing them. Each of them will be baptized into the church. Baptizing is part of discipleship even as seen in Matthew 28:19.
I try to evangelize every day and do most days. I will do less evangelism as more people are saved, because I have to disciple these people. Also part of what I do is to take new converts to evangelize, part of discipleship. Maybe you think that spending less time in evangelizing will mean less evangelism. Over a longer span far more evangelism will occur if new converts are baptized.
New converts need to be made disciples. This will result in more evangelism. When it comes to the church planting phase of the history of a church, discipleship must occur for a church even to start. You aren’t going to have a church without discipleship, so no new church will occur. Even more so, not related to a new church even starting is the glory to God that will go through the increased obedience of a discipled saint. God wants to be followed and new converts don’t know what to do. They need to be taught. They have to be taught so they will live like God wants people to live.
Psalms 14 and 19 in Preaching the Gospel
How could someone read Psalm 14 and think that salvation is by works? Read verses 1-4:
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
I ask you to consider how conclusive these verses are. They are speaking about everyone, anyone who has ever lived. The LORD is looking down from heaven, and He doesn’t miss anything. He says that every person is corrupt, has done abominable works, does not good, does not seek God, has gone aside, and is filthy. He does all these things and then he does not call upon the name of the Lord. He is helpless to live a righteous life and yet he still does not call upon the name of the Lord, whom he needs so that he can be righteous. He’s not depending on God, because he’s proud.
Men can’t save themselves. It’s not just that they’re sinners, but they could never sustain a righteous life by doing good works. They do not do good works. This is reality for mankind. God knows this better than anyone. Whatever a man may say about himself, these verses are the truth. A person is lying to himself if he thinks he can be saved by works. He’ll never succeed, because this psalm is who he is.
The Apostle Paul refers to this psalm in Romans 3 with his treatise on sinfulness of man. Many of you reading know that it says this in verses 10-12:
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Then you also know that he writes the following in verse 23:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
And from that a man should conclude according to verse 28:
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
The point of that argument by Paul is so that men will submit to justification by faith alone and not by works. If you can’t do good works and you aren’t righteous, then you can’t be saved by works. You should conclude that salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. You should believe in Jesus Christ to receive His righteousness by faith, which is to have His righteousness imputed to you and the forgiveness of your sins.
Psalm 14 is quite a psalm to be singing. This is a song to be sung to God expressing the truth of man’s sinfulness. God wants to hear that men agree. He’s praised by this truth. It assumes that men need God.
The Old Testament doesn’t teach salvation by works. It teaches that men are sinners and they need God for forgiveness of sins and righteousness.
What about Psalm 19? It says that from God’s creation alone men know God. These are statements of reality. God knows. He says:
Verse 1a: The heavens declare the glory of God.
Verse 1b: The firmament showeth his handiwork.
Verse 2a: Day unto day uttereth speech.
Verse 2b: Night unto night sheweth knowledge.
Verse 3: There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Verse 4: Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
All of these are sheer statements of fact. They also state the truth of what man knows. From the standpoint of knowledge, he is without excuse. Everyone living in this world knows God through the declaration of the heavens — the handiwork of the firmament, the speech uttered by the day, and the knowledge shown through the night. The day speaks through the sun, as seen in verses 4-6:
4 In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
“Them” in verse 4 refers to “heavens” in verse 1. The word “their” all the way through (vv. 3, 4) refers to “heavens.” Poetic language describes how the heavens talk, specifically through the sun. The heavens during the day are a tabernacle for the sun, which shows itself in all the helpful, beautiful, and awesome ways explained.
A beauty of the revelation of the heavens is that it transcends a particular speech. It can be heard in every speech, every language. An Italian, Russian, Hispanic, or English person hears the voice of the heavens from God without exception of place. This speech goes out to the whole earth and to the end of the world.
When we evangelize, we should learn to use and then use creation as a basis of introducing the God of the Bible to an unbeliever. He already knows. This revelation has reached him. We should assume that. People that haven’t even read the Bible, which are more than ever, still know God and through His creation, the heavens.
Furthermore, scripture, also the revelation of God, called “the law of the LORD,” “converts the soul” (verse 7). For salvation, the soul needs to be converted. It is stained and corrupted by sin.
James 1:25 calls the law, “the perfect law.” The idea of “perfect” isn’t contrasting with “imperfect,” but with “incompletion.” The law of the LORD is complete or sufficient. It lacks nothing, it has everything in it that anyone would need. Conversion of the soul is the total transformation of it.
The first designation of the Word of God in Psalm 19 is the law of the LORD. The usage of that term refers to all of the Word of God, not just the first five books of the Bible or just the parts that are laws. The Hebrew word for “law, torah, means instruction, direction, or doctrine. It reminds me of 2 Timothy 3:15, which says that the “holy scriptures,” referring to the Old Testament, are able to make a child wise unto salvation.
The LORD’s law instructs man sufficiently for his soul to be converted, which is to be restored. It has been ruined by sin and it can be restored to moral rightness before God. It makes sense that the “law of the LORD” isn’t just the Mosaic law, which in itself wouldn’t convert the soul, even though it has an important part according to the Apostle Paul, who in Galatians (3:24-25) says it is a schoolmaster to bring someone to faith in Christ. The instruction of the LORD, which is His Word, is powerful to save, specifically the Gospel (Romans 1:16).
Psalm 19 says that salvation is the conversion of the soul. In the Old Testament, the soul is nephesh and in the New Testament, psuche. Jesus said (Luke 9:24) that to save one’s life (psuche, soul), someone must lose his life (psuche, soul). He’s got to give up his soul. He gives it to God and God restores it using scripture. This is the sanctification of the truth, the Word of God, that God uses in salvation. The conversion of the soul is the transformation of a life, where the person becomes a “new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Peter calls this the knowledge of Jesus Christ through which someone becomes a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:2-4). After the conversion of the soul, the sinner has a new nature, a divine nature, and is returned morally to the image in which God created him. He now has the ability not to sin.
Someone might consider the teachings of Psalms 14 and 19 to be New Testament concepts. No, they are biblical concepts of salvation, which is the same in the Old Testament as it is in the New. They can be used in preaching the gospel.
How Does Natural Law Work in and for Evangelism of the Lost?
Romans 1:18-21 read:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
I’m assuming a lot of you readers know these verses. According to them though, based on what people know, they will be judged rightly by God, because what they know means that they are without excuse. At the same time, people are not going to experience the wrath of God’s judgment because of ignoring information, but because of ignoring law. When they knew God, they didn’t glorify Him as God and were not thankful unto Him. Glorifying God as God is represented by various prescriptions, which are laws. This knowledge isn’t a mere bunch of facts. Bare acknowledgement of God’s existence isn’t sufficient to avoid the wrath of God. The judgment and wrath of God is justice for disobeying natural law.
Natural law relates to the theological terminology, general revelation. “General” is general in audience, that is, everyone knows it, so everyone is responsible for these laws. Knowing God and glorifying Him as God in Romans 1 means knowing these laws to the extent that someone is responsible for obeying them. They relate to the revelation of God, so according to His nature. No one has an excuse for not knowing these. They’re natural to know. All men are responsible for them.
In my assessment, the natural laws are those most denied, and against which men are most rebellious. On the other hand, men like what they consider to be their natural rights, like what Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence mentions at the beginning:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
He uses the language, “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” “truths to be self-evident,” and “endowed by their Creator.” Natural laws are self-evident truths.
Men know natural laws. They’re natural to them, so to deny them, they are at their most rebellious. The Apostle Paul talks about some of them later in chapter 1. They rebel against God’s natural order, because it clashes with what they want. It’s natural that the woman is the weaker vessel, and women very often don’t want to hear that. The natural order of two parents and children obeying their parents is repulsive to children.
When people think of the Declaration, they especially think, “all men are created equal.” They focus on the word, “equal.” Most often, however, I’ve noticed that they ignore the first four words, “all men are created.” It is self-evident that “all men are created.” Equal, yes, but it is self-evident that man is created by God. To Jefferson, creation of man carried with it more than sheer existence. With God as Creator, He s also Lawgiver and then Judge.
I’ve found when evangelizing lost people that they will still act like they don’t know certain things. Since Romans 1 says they really do know, I assume they do. This is presuppositionalism. I presuppose people know what is natural to know. Many of those things people say they don’t know, they rely on for enjoying their lives, which is why Jefferson uses “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness.” People like those things and yet they act as though they’ve somehow received them by accident. This is the part in Romans 1:19, “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” As many of you know, it means they suppress the truth. The way I put it is that the problem is not intellectual, but volitional.
Romans 1:18-22 assure what is already known by everyone. I’m saying, you know that everyone knows what Romans 1:18-22 say because those verses say they do. People can act like they don’t know, but you know that they do, so that you don’t believe that they don’t know. God says they do know, so they do know.
If someone is suppressing the truth, that means he knows and he is rebelling against what he knows. In evangelism, you expose the lost on his rebellion. How do you do that?
When I encounter someone who says he is a scientist, a professing atheist, too uncertain, or just not sure because he says he’s not gotten enough proof, I rely on natural law. I refer to a number of different examples. “When you look out there at the vast and intricate world, does that look like it all came about by accident?”
I haven’t found anyone who likes to be characterized as thinking or believing that everything came about by accident, but if this world isn’t an accident, then it is design. People know this is design. Scripture says, according to the way I like to put it, that they don’t want to have a boss. The Designer would be their Boss. They like having their own way, which you can read in the rest of Romans 1 and in 2 Peter. 2 Peter 3 says these scoffers are walking after their own lust.
I continue. “Everything out there is so complex. So many occurrences have to be going right at one time, that it is mathematically impossible to be an accident. It looks like design. Four or five hundred different circumstances need to be going right for us to even survive. If just one of those hundreds does not go exactly right, we couldn’t survive. This can’t be an accident. The human body itself is so complicated, the human eye, speech, the operation of the brain, the circulatory system, our heart beat, so many that have to be functioning in just a certain way at one time. And that’s just to survive.”
Romans 1:21 says, “Neither were thankful.” “So we breathe God’s air, eat the food that comes from a seed growing from the ground, enjoy all of the good things all around on this earth, use all of that, and then just ignore Him.” This is when you can turn to scripture to point rebellion out. “Romans 1 says that everyone already knows all this and rather than worship and serve the Creator, they serve the creature. It describes this as not being thankful, being unwilling to give the credit to God, because that acknowledgement would carry with it responsibility. Next chapter, Romans 2, says the goodness of God leads us to repentance.”
The statement of what people know, natural law, aligns with what is written by God in men’s hearts as a default position (Romans 2:15). Pointing out natural law strikes a cord in men’s hearts, their conscience then also bearing witness (v. 15). They feel guilty because of their ungratefulness.
Then I may say, “What we see occurring out in the world also aligns with the Bible. The history of the world reflects what we see there. There is a God, we are here because of Him, He has put us here for a particular purpose, we are responsible to Him, and we are going to meet Him someday. This is what the gospel is about. God is just, but He also loves us, and the good news is that He wants us to save us. However, we really do need to be saved.”
Since the problem is not an intellectual one, the solution is supernatural. The volition, the will of a person, must be dealt with scripture. The Bible is powerful (Hebrews 4:12) and a spiritual weapon to pull down the strongholds in people’s minds (2 Corinthians 10:4).
The approach I’m giving you is biblical. It’s what the Apostle Paul did in Acts 17. It doesn’t mean that it will result in your audience either listening or being converted, but it gives people an opportunity, which is what you want. It might be too late for most. You don’t know. More than ever, we’re living in an age in which natural law is a necessity in an evangelism approach.
Sanctification Summary: Christian Holiness or Sanctification—A Summary from Eternity Past to the Eternal State
During the recent Word of Truth Conference at Bethel Baptist Church, I had the privilege of preaching a summary of what Scripture teaches on sanctification. It was suggested that this summary be made into a pamphlet. You can now download the pamphlet on the FaithSaves website by clicking here; it is entitled “Christian Sanctification: A Summary from Eternity Past to the Eternal State.” The video is also live at FaithSaves; it can also be watched on YouTube by clicking here; if it is a blessing, I would encourage you to “like” it on YouTube and leave a comment. I have also embedded the video below for your viewing edification.
May it be a blessing to you, and with those with whom you can share it who want to understand what Scripture teaches about sanctification.
–TDR
The Gospel (The Good News of Salvation, Because We Need to Be Saved and God Can and Wants to Save Us)
Raise a Godly Family in an Ungodly Area–Is it Possible?
If one is in Oklahoma, there are pages and pages of Baptist churches in the phone book. (Phone book? What’s that? But I digress.) In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are many, many fewer churches that even preach a true gospel, much less take a stand for all the truth in the Bible. Sometimes, in relation to a post like “Evangelize the Bay Area of California!,” some people say, and more people think, something to the effect: “I’m glad you are wanting to do that, but I could never do it. I want to raise my family for God, so we will live in a conservative area, try to move some place rural or stay rural if we are, and never, ever go to a place that is liberal and godless like San Francisco.” Is this a Biblical way of thinking? Do we see this sort of thinking in Scripture?
It is true that if one wants to live a comfortable and easy life, coasting along living the American Dream, doing so in a conservative and more God-and-Bible friendly area is easier. Taxes are likely to be lower; people are more likely to be friendly; everything is nice and pleasant. But where does Scripture say life is about having things nice and easy? Where do “nice and easy” and “take up the cross and follow Me” meet?
Revelation 2-3 records Christ’s commands to seven first century (Baptist) churches. One of these churches was “where Satan’s seat is,” and where “Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth” (Revelation 2:13). Sounds like a really, really rough place. A lot worse than San Francisco, in fact. No martyrs in San Francisco recently. So because the church was in a wicked part of the world, Christ told the congregation that they shouldn’t be in a big, bad city, where Satan’s seat was. He told them to go to some rural place and live the American Dream.
Oh wait, sorry, that isn’t in the text anywhere. Didn’t Christ want the families at that church to be able to raise their children for God? Didn’t He know that you can’t do that in a city “where Satan’s seat is”?
In the book of Acts, the Apostles and their helpers really, really wanted those who received the gospel to raise their children for God, of course. Therefore, we see the pattern that they sought out the areas that were the most likely to have Biblical values and went there first, leaving those in the big, bad cities to perish in their sin.
Oh wait, sorry, that isn’t what they did–they went to the cities first, and even when the Apostles had to flee because of riots, they didn’t tell the church members there to leave their city and go somewhere things were easier.
So this idea that you can’t raise your children for God in areas that are hostile to the Bible is not in Revelation 2-3 and not in the book of Acts. Is it in the epistles? Nope. In the Gospels? Nope. So does it have any basis in the Bible? None at all. It is just made up. The closest you can get to it is that if someone is actively trying to kill you or cause you bodily harm Christ teaches that you can run away. Also, if you go to a wicked place for worldly purposes unconnected to the glory of God and leave godly influences behind to go there (Genesis 18-19), you should expect bad things to happen. Those are both totally different than refusing to go to a liberal part of the United States to help a strong church or plant a church because there is more open evil in the world than in some nice, rural, conservative, Bible-friendly area, maybe in the Bible belt or in the heavily Republican South.
What does matter to raising a godly family is having a strong church that is seeking to obey all of Scripture for the glory of God, and where both parents are actively serving. If you want to raise your family for God, make sure that you have a church like that. Make sure that you have your kids in a strong Christian school or homeschool that is actively seeking to disciple them with close parental involvement, and that you and the school are consistent in the use of the rod and of reproof. If you think you can put your kids in public school because you live in a conservative area, so everything will be fine, you are bonkers. Do the above to raise a godly family. If God is giving you the desire to help evangelize for the purpose of seeing new churches established in a part of the USA that actually needs them really, really badly–in other words, those liberal parts where nobody or almost nobody is preaching the gospel–do not refuse to go because of this made-up idea that you can’t raise a godly family there. It isn’t true. It is a lie, a Satanic lie to confuse people on what is necessary for godly child-rearing and to prevent the Great Commission from being fulfilled. Certainly someone in a weaker church in a more conservative part of the country is more likely to lose his children to the devil than someone in a stronger church in a more liberal part of America.
At least in my experience, people who have adopted this non-Biblical idea usually limit their restriction on moving to liberal areas to the United States. Going to a mission field is OK, even if the place is very wicked. If they were consistent, they would apply this idea to foreign countries as well, which would be the end of world missions. The large majority of the world is more corrupt and with less Biblical influence than remains even in San Francisco, Massachusetts, and other parts of the USA where we still have First Amendment protections and other constitutional privileges as citizens that are not present in the overwhelming majority of the world.
It would be great if some of the people in the Baptist churches on every corner in the Bible belt and in other nice, Bible-friendly areas would get out of their holy huddle and move to parts of the USA and to the rest of the world where the vast majority of the population has never heard the gospel even one time. They should be earnestly desiring to move to places like that and start preaching the gospel to those that have never heard it (Romans 15:20). Maybe the default position should be to help there, and only stay in their nice and comfortable place if it is clearly God’s will that they stay instead of going.
So if you have it in your mind that you would never go somewhere like the San Francisco Bay Area because it is liberal with little Biblical influence, you are not thinking Scripturally. Instead of wanting to avoid going there because of a made up idea that raising a family for God is impossible in such a place, ask the Lord of the harvest what He would have you to do and where He would have you go, knowing that as you actively take up your cross and follow Christ you will have the best chance possible to raise the next generation to do the same.
Oh, and by the way, while the idea that you can’t raise children for God in a liberal area is not in the Bible, at least you have the Catholic philosophy of monasticism and Ellen White, the cult leader and prophetess of Seventh-Day Adventism, on your side. In her allegedly “inspired” book Country Living, Mrs. White made statements such as:
“[God] wants us to live where we have elbow room. His people are not to crowd into the cities. He wants them to take their families out of the cities, that they may better prepare for eternal life” (17.1).
“Get out of the cities as soon as possible, and purchase a little piece of land, where you can have a garden, where your children can watch the flowers growing” (17.3).
Aww, isn’t that sweet. Too bad it isn’t in the Bible anywhere. If you follow the Bible instead of Ellen White, take up the cross, follow Him, and help to preach the gospel to everyone in the areas where nobody is doing it. God will help you raise your family for Him there. –TDR
Updated Evangelistic Bible Study #1
The evangelistic Bible study series online at faithsaves.net are being updated. Study #1, which covers the inspiration, preservation, and canonicity of Scripture, has been updated with pictures and other things that make it much nicer looking. I would encourage you to start using the updated ones if your church uses these evangelistic Bible studies.
In addition to improvements in the appearance of the Bible study, some facts have been updated. For example, the chart below:
You can download an MS Word file of Bible study #1 here to personalize with your church’s information, while seekers can be directed here to get PDFs of it and to have access to other helpful gospel resources.
–TDR
Evangelistic Bible Study #4, “How Do I Receive the Gospel?” is now live!
In previous weeks I had mentioned that videos teaching the evangelistic Bible studies that I have written were being made available. We had made #1, “What is the Bible?” live. That study covers the inspiration, preservation, and canonicity of the Bible. We had made #2, “Who is God?” live, covering who the true God is, including His crucial Tri-unity. We had made #3, “What Does God Want From Me?” live. Study #3 covers the law of God and His objective standard of perfect holiness which He will use to judge mankind in the last day. #5, “How Do I Receive the Gospel?” was also made live–that study covered repentance and faith, the human response to the gospel. However, we were having issues with study #4, so that one was not yet available. However, I am pleased to report that Bible study #4, “How Can God Save Sinners?” is now live. You can watch it at FaithSaves, watch it on YouTube, or watch it through the embedded video below:
Please “like” the video on YouTube and feel free to post a comment if you believe it is valuable, as doing those things help the video gain circulation.
The physical copies of the Bible studies are available online if you can do them with someone in person or over Skype, Zoom, etc. in this era of COVID. I would encourage you to share the videos as well with people who are not willing to do a one-on-one study with you but like to watch things over the Internet.
May the Lord use these studies for His glory and the advancement of His gospel!
Studies #6 and #7, on eternal security and assurance (#6) and the church (#7) are not yet available, but we are working on them. Please feel free to pray for us as it takes a lot of work to have these done well. The actually evangelistic studies, however, are all complete–#6 and #7 are follow-up Bible studies.
–TDR
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