Answer to the Unasked Question

 A couple of generations ago, summer evenings were often punctuated by tent revivals, springing up around town in the odd vacant lot. The faithful flocked to the spot, often bringing friends or neighbors who they believed needed to hear the dire warnings of a horrific future the Bible predicts for all the unchurched unbelievers. Looking back, it seemed that sinners recognized two main categories of folks: Christians and sinners. Sinners didn’t expect the other tribe to accept their behavior as acceptable; they acknowledged their sin whether or not they ever repented and changed their lives and fate.

Some of Jesus’s followers today seem reluctant to bring up the subject, whether from fear of offending, wanting to “blend in” with today’s prevalent (missing) moral code, or from lack of knowledge, inability to share their faith. No wonder we’re accused of arrogance, ignorance, intolerance, superiority complex for insisting on absolute truth and deploring the current widespread depravity and degradation of principles. We stay too busy defending ourselves from charges of prejudice and hatred to exercise our wits and do what we were left in this world to do. 

The Bible tells us we are citizens of God’s heaven, ambassadors to a needy world, which resents our efforts to share our future kingdom. We are told to be ready, when asked, to answer and explain our faith. But seldom does anyone ask! Expecting the world to look at our imperfect, though devout, lives and become curious as to the source of our strength seems fruitless—they can always catch one of us doing something that allows them to call us hypocrites. Or they assume, if they even notice a holy blameless life, that person is very strong or very lucky in life and not subject to the problems most people encounter.  

 A preacher once described our responsibility as followers of Jesus thus: He and his wife were driving home one night and noticed smoke rising from a house and immediately stopped and ran to knock on the door to wake someone inside. A disgruntled, tousle-haired man yanked the door open, was amazed to hear of his danger and grateful his sleep had been disturbed. We are God’s volunteer fire department, trying to awaken those asleep in their sins.

This story spoke to me because my family had a similar situation, but in our case, where there was smoke, there was not fire.  We moved into our house one bitterly cold New Year’s Eve, and fell into bed, exhausted, about 11:45 p.m. About ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and we found a woman on our porch; she was driving by and saw smoke billowing high above our house. Thinking quickly my mate asked her to call the fire department because our phone wasn’t connected yet. She declined; she lived too far away. He then sent her next door to use their phone, while I bundled up two toddlers and got them out on the porch.

 By this time, to the background of firecrackers ushering the new year in, our front yard was suddenly filled with several tuxedoed strangers from next door’s party, carrying a garden hose. And then the firemen came. Instead of fire, they found the plumber had left our water heater on the highest setting; the safety valve had popped off, sending clouds of steam rising in the night sky. Relieved, but still alert for other unknown risks we faced a new year in a strange house, on guard to keep safe.      

We’re not promised easy work, just that our Lord is with us through it all and He provides on-the-job training. Dr. Jeffress, FBC Dallas, listed a few facts to remember when called to defend our faith, lest we be unprepared for being accused an exclusive group, intolerant of other philosophies:       

1. Nature of truth is absolute, not relative (different strokes for different folks is Satan’s deceit) 1 Corinthians 3:9

2. The Bible. Satan attacks God’s Word in Eden and it’s still his main weapon. John 8:41. John 9:32 

3. Deity of Christ denies universalism, pluralism, exclusivist- regardless of faith.    Matthew 7:14 John 4:6  

4. Necessity of atonement   Luke 22:41   Matthew 14:43    Matthew 7:13-14  

5. Evangelistic missions our work–1 Corinthians 3:9, Matthew 28:19

Life and death of Jesus a fact, based on His being seen for 40 days after resurrection by at least 500 witnesses who testified this fact to others. Jesus said He and the Father are one. He said He was there when the world began, He affirmed He is the way, the truth and life, the narrow road. If not Deity, he would have been a liar or insane. His birth, life and death were predicted many times beginning 700 years before. 

When Adam and Eve sinned and tried unsuccessfully to over their shame by covering themselves with leaves, God sacrificed an animal to cover them.  When He tested Abraham’s faith telling him to sacrifice his son, who was previously promised the first of a nation, God provided an animal for sacrifice. In the nation Israel, priests offered sacrifices for the family and nation, for atonement and Jesus as sacrifice for atonement of the world, available to any who ask.

 

Busy Signal

            Most of us are used to being busy, right? A fact of life is that many things are                                 engineered, it seems, specifically to interrupt our train of thought or slow down our                       response to someone else’s emergency in a long line of matters already on our To-Do list.             Right? 

To maximize our effort output, often we must juggle several things at once and always have a couple of crises simmering on the back burner, needing to be addressed before they erupt into open flames. Sound familiar? Often in self-defense, we tend to categorize calls on our time, 

So, we mentally list these occurrences according to our own judgment of priority. The risk is that a common result is that we tend to the urgent before the important. 

Often, we feel pressured when someone else’s emergency pops up, just as we made our plan for today. I know; you want to tell them to take a number, but crisis has to jump to the top of our list, right? 

Whether returning phone calls, or balancing our checkbook, if we don’t follow our schedule, those come with an implicit threat of complications if pushed aside for the urgent. But the interruption may be both urgent and important—investigate the circumstances, evaluate, and respond, postpone, or put your own agenda on hold and answer this new situation if warranted. 

Where is prayer’s place in this dilemma? We’re prayer warriors, right? What if an interruption comes while we’re praying? We’re certainly not irreverent enough to interrupt our time with the Lord. But what if the person on the phone is desperate—and what if they are praying too--for our help? Inasmuch as God gives us discernment, we must respond as God leads us—when we’re ready to resume that interrupted prayer, He won’t hang up He’ll be waiting. 

Even if all we can do to help that caller is to encourage him, calm him and go with him to God’s throne for grace, we have invested those few minutes with our God. We must guard against worshipping our routine instead of our God. 

At the same time, we must include in our day’s most important things  a scheduled time with Him—by prayer, reading His Book, worship, feeding His flock—remember we are Jesus’s  hands in this world. 

When that phone rings, we don’t want to put God on hold.