Do you see, do you see, all the people sinking down,

Don’t you care, don’t you care, are you gonna let them drown,

How can you be so numb, not to care if they come,

You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done.

Oh Bless me Lord, bless me Lord, you know it’s all I ever hear,

No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear,

But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds, and He cares for your needs,

And you just lay back and keep soaking it in, oh, can’t you see it’s such sin?

Cause He brings people to your door,

And you turn them away, as you smile and say,

God bless you, be at peace, and all Heaven just weeps,

Cause Jesus came to your door, you’ve left Him out on the streets.

Open up, open up, and give yourself away,

You’ve seen the need, you hear the cry, so how can you delay,

God’s calling and you’re the one, but like Jonah you run,

He’s told you to speak, but you keep holding it in,

Oh, can’t you see it’s such sin?

The world is sleeping in the dark,

That the church can’t fight, cause it’s asleep in the light,

How can you be so dead, when you’ve been so well fed,

Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can’t even get out of bed,

Oh, Jesus rose from the dead, come on, get out of your bed.

How can you be so numb, not to care if they come,

You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done,

You close your eyes and pretend the job’s done,

Don’t close your eyes, don’t pretend the job’s done.

Come away, come away, come away with Me, My love,

Come away, from this mess, come away with Me, My love.

________________

Listen to Keith Green perform this song at Estes Park.

The first blog post here at The Battle Cry was called The Great Privilege. Guess what? We’ll say it again – sharing the gospel, the Good News is THE greatest privilege ever given by God in Heaven to His children on Earth!

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” – Rom 10:14-15

Face it. God doesn’t need us, He has chosen to use us as  ‘means’ by which He saves His people. Yes, the Bible says that “He who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30, but do we do the “winning”, or does God win souls for His Kingdom through us? Sure, Agrippa told Paul that he was almost persuaded to be a Christian (Acts 26), but who does the actual persuading, the messenger or the one who opens hearts and minds to receive the message, the Holy Spirit of God (Acts 16)?

As often as we bumble and stumble with Hi gospel message, God has never changed His plan! You don’t have to have a special ‘gift’ of evangelism, although there are some who are so gifted; all you need to be able to do is explain a few basic truths you should already know to whomever you are ‘sent’.

1. Man is alienated from God because of sin, and we all stand guilty before a Holy and Just God (Rom 3:23). There are serious consequences as a result of sin (Rom 6:23a)

2. God has provided an answer to the ‘sin’ problem through the sacrifice of His own Son in the sinner’s place (Rom 6:23b, Rom 5:8).

3. It is the responsibility of everyone who would be saved from their sin to acknowledge that sin, repent (turn from sin and toward God), and believe the good news (Mark 1:15).

4. There is a cost associated with becoming a genuine follower of Christ. A person who doesn’t want to count the cost might not be ready for the gift of salvation (Luke 18:18-23).

Evangelism is not a ‘canned’ method, it is knowing and experiencing in one’s own life the above truths and sharing them with others. The scripture references provided are not the only passages that can be used to present the message, nor are the particular ‘words’ presented above the words you must use. The truths presented are what you need to communicate so that the hearer understands them.

I encourage you to just think about these truths and ‘how’ you share the gospel today. Do you present the ‘gospel of addition’ that people just need to add Jesus to their lives to solve all their ‘life’ problems? Or do you take the conversation to the the only truths that can actually save a person from an eternity in Hell?

And remember, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ is STILL the great privilege!

From Romans, Chapter 1:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

If we define ‘atheism’ is the belief that there is no God, or god, the above passage from Romans 1 seems to indicate that no one is ‘born’ an atheist. We all have some knowledge of God in our hearts. For the one who claims to be an atheist, there seems do be a downhill slide, or descent, from a conscious knowledge of God with significant recognizable ‘marks’.

I will leave all that to you who are reading this…something to think about today and something to remember when encountering someone who claims to be an atheist. Knowing from whence he/she has fallen should help in our approach to bringing truth to darkened hearts.

“It is totally beyond our control to “be saved”.  . . . . Yes, our race is a fallen race, and praise be to God, He provided that perfect restitution, that perfect reconciliation, that perfect restoration of relationship, IF we will only decide to accept it.“

The above statements were part of the same comment in another group of forums I sometimes visit, where interesting spiritual questions are posed for discussion. The forum thread where these appeared was about the ‘nature’ of fallen man.

That combination of statements poses an unavoidable question. The first says that is totally beyond our control to be saved. the second says that we ultimately are saved IF, and only IF, we make the right decision.

There is truth in both statements. We have no ability to control our salvation, and we must choose Christ. But doesn’t the IF, mean that we are ultimately in control?

In another forum thread at the same discussion venue, someone commented that God doesn’t actually save anyone, but that we save ourselves by our decision for Christ.

Please understand that this is just a question, regardless of what I might or might not personally believe. I have had to ask the question myself, believe me.

from R.C. Sproul

Continued from Part Five

Applications

After discussing these five positive signs, Edwards turns his attention to the application section of his treatise, following the normal structure of his sermons. In Section III he notes the practical inferences he draws from his study.The first inference is that the recent extraordinary influences were from the Spirit of God. These influences are judged both by rules and by facts. He points to the facts that correspond to the rules of Scripture—namely, that the positive signs of true awakening he set forth earlier in his treatise are indeed widely evident. They are public and also not confined to remote areas. He cites his own eyewitness experience of the phenomena. He cites his personal awareness of multitudes who have been awakened. “Some have been in great distress from a foreboding of their sin and misery. Others have been overcome with a sweet sense of the greatness, wonderfulness, and excellency of divine things.” He points both to the sober signs of awakening as well as delusions and irregularities that attended them and calls for the promotion of the recent working of the Spirit of God. Regarding the aforementioned irregularities and delusions, he says, “If they wait to see a work of God without difficulties and stumbling blocks, it will be like a fool waiting at the riverside to have the water all run by. A work of God without stumbling blocks is never to be expected.”To focus on the difficulties that attend genuine revival is to miss the manifold blessings that are poured out by it. It would have meant, for Edwards, missing the visitation of God to New England.Finally, Edwards turns his attention not to the critics of the Great Awakening, but to its friends. He calls the friends of the work to self-diligence. He provides an exhortation to them to avoid the errors and misconduct that characteristically accompany revival. He warns of those who will oppose them and counsels them to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. He especially warns against the danger of pride, saying:

Pride is the worst viper in the heart. It is the first sin that ever entered into the universe. It lies lowest of all in the foundation of the whole building of sin. Of all lusts, it is the most secret, deceitful, and unsearchable in its ways of working. It is ready to mix with everything. Nothing is so hateful to God, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, or of so dangerous consequence. There is no one sin that does so much to let the devil into the hearts of the saints and expose them to his delusions.

He cites the errors of those who suppose that in their imaginations and impressions they have received direct messages from heaven.Claims to special divine revelations are not so much a sign of super-spirituality as they are of evangelical or pietistic megalomania. The days of prophets and apostles, genuine agents of revelation, are past. Such claims today are spurious and exceedingly dangerous. To cloak one’s desires, hunches, or opinions in such claims is to make use of a godless form of persuasion. What does one say to the person who claims, “The Lord told me to do this”? To use such devices is to place oneself above criticism by bathing one’s opinions in divine sanction.The extraordinary gifts of the Apostolic Age are not required today. It is the ordinary influence of the grace of God that should capture our attention. Edwards says:

The greatest privilege of the prophets and apostles was not their being inspired and working miracles, but their eminent holiness… . The extraordinary gifts are worthless without the ordinary sanctifying influences.

Edwards declared that he neither expected nor desired the restoration of the miraculous gifts in the church. He said:

For my part, I had rather enjoy the sweet influences of the Spirit. I had rather show Christ’s spiritual divine beauty, infinite grace, and dying love. I had rather draw forth the holy exercises of faith, divine love, sweet complacence, and humble joy in God. I had rather experience all this for one quarter of an hour than to have prophetical visions and revelations the whole year.

Edwards gives great caution to those who are preoccupied with the extraordinary. The danger is that such a quest becomes a substitute for diligent learning of the things of God. Such learning requires discipline and labor. To function as teachers, preachers, and Christian leaders we must advance to maturity as Christians. In this enterprise there is no substitute for diligent instruction. The judgment of discernment, both for what comprises sound doctrine and sound behavior, comes from being diligent students of the Word of God. Edwards had little use for the ripping of the Spirit away from the Word. Again, the testimony of the saints and the axiom with which Edwards began his treatise is that of subjecting experience to the Scripture. In the Scripture we meet the wisdom of God, which is able to judge all things. He writes:

The longer I live, the less I wonder that God keeps it as his right to try the hearts of the children of men. Also I wonder less that God directs that this business should be let alone till harvest. I adore the wisdom of God! In His goodness to me and my fellow creatures, He has not committed this great business into our hands.

This practical warning is directed against those who make harsh and precipitous judgments against other Christians. We do not have the capacity to judge the souls of men. That is the prerogative of God. Though not eschewing the proper procedures for necessary church discipline or the need to speak out against error, Edwards is careful to guard the boundaries established by God. Our discernment is always limited. Even those who oppose a true work of God must be dealt with without raging anger. We are to exercise such rebuke with gentleness and prudence.The work of the Holy Spirit is always a work among sinners. What is true for others is likewise true for ourselves. Though He leads us to holiness, it is a leading out of corruption. That corruption remains, at least in part, until our glorification at His hands. To demand from others what the Spirit Himself patiently endures is to exalt ourselves above God.The practice of godliness is a practice that is to be informed by Scripture and tempered by the work of the Holy Spirit within us. If we have been awakened, that awakening should bring with it an acute awareness that in many respects we are still aslumber.The church in our day can profit mightily from a close scrutiny of the insight provided for us by Edwards’s careful evaluation of the distinguishing marks of a true revival. He gives us a road map to follow lest we twist and turn into the detours of destruction.My hope is that the republishing of this work by the Puritan divine will effect a rekindling of zeal for authentic revival and reformation in our day.*****Excerpted from R.C. Sproul’s Introduction to The Spirit of Revival, edited by Archie Parrish.