Posted on 09/30/2016 11:36:30 AM PDT by Gamecock
You understand this much more deeply than the average FR poster on the religion forum, because God uses your posts the same way. I mention it because what is happening with Ray Comfort's witnessing is not understood by many who read these threads. As Paul wrote, one plants, another water, another harvests ...
Yes. May the Lord send harvesters. The fields are white, but so little of the true Word is being sown/proclaimed in the true Way. May God bless the herald and the hearers.
Many evangelists attempt to gain converts with Romans 10: 9, 10, 13, and 15 without engaging the audience into verse 8 and 16 in that chapter. That is, they feel that they have a warrant, a license to preach:
"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!"
And they do--if they preach a message that when heard, can convince, convict, awaken a person's spirit to respond by "walking the aisle." So they play upon this awakening of conscience to:
(1) elicit a guilty response of the hearer according to verse 9a:
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, . . ."
(2) to repeat the words of a prayer that employs the words of verse 10b:
". . . and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
In this, they are incorrectly presuming that a public oral confession produces salvation and hence a convert, whereas in contrast the correct interpretation is that a valid oral confession is made on the basis of already having been saved. (3) They then assure the responder that the scriptural prescription has been met, claiming verses 9c and verse 13:
". . . thou shalt be saved." plus "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
(4) But they do this without having any clear idea with confirmation that the criteria of verses 9b:
". . . and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead . . . "
and 10a:
"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness . . ."
(5) have been consummated.
In their brief (if any) personal contact with a person whose guilt-based sorrow and regret has been aroused, how can they possibly know that true repentance unto righteousness has been effected? How can they know beyond question that the context of verses 6a and 8 has played out?
"But the righteousnessa which is of faithb speaketh on this wise . . . But what saith it? cThe wordd is nigh thee, even in thy mouthe, and in thy heartf:c' that is, the wordd of The Faith, whichg we preachh; . . ."
a = the righteousness of Christ that is imputed immediatedly by The Father when The Holy Ghost is convinced of
b = the supplicant's total, irrevocable committed trust in the Person, Work, Shed Blood, and Resurrection to Life of Jesus as Messiah and Lord
c = beginning of the quotation by 'the-righteousness-which-is-by/from-faith'
c' = end of the quotation by 'the-righteousness-which-is-by/from-faith'
d = the ρημα, the spoken Word; the Word of God read, memorized, rehearsed, inscribed in the heart, and repeated to others as understood and believed
e = of course, the Word spoken is delivered orally; that is, figuratively 'on the tip of one's tongue'
f = the individual, knowing fully from hearing the preached Word what is required of him/her to become the entirely owned property of The Christ, contracts with the Holy Ghost by confession of Sin, sins, and sinfulness with desire to repent of it, desiring to be taken and possessed by Him forever, and thus The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost come to reside in his/her heart, the seat of the human's mind, emotions, and spirit.
g = which, referring to the necessary details of The Faith, the Gospel, which defines the true Jesus of the Bible (and not another similar 'Jesus' of the same kind put forth by a 'gospel' of a different kind)
h = here, to 'preach' is in the Greek κηρύσσω (kērussō), to proclaim as an herald, always with the suggestion of formality, gravity and an authority which must be listened to and obeyed
I supplied articulation to show the particularity of The Faith by colorizing the added part of it, and by capitalizing to show it as a proper noun, an entity which we may refer to as 'The Faith.' It has a separate and different meaning than the first occasion of 'faith' in verse 6a, which anarthrous, describing the quality of the saving righteousness.
This clarity was not offered in the translation of the Authorized Version. The translators left out the definite article that is in the Greek text. This omission, and the specific use of the noun ρημα in several places needs to be remedied to show the full meaning and richness of the doctrine passage.
In neglecting the context, careless evangelizers who employ only partially successful methods and add other unauthorized procedures fail to understand that they cannot truly know the heart of one with whom their preaching and contact is less than intimate. Surely, they have no business of offering eternal security to anyone, let alone everyone, on the basis of what little they know of the depth of effect on those that would submit themselves to this embarassment.
In this matter, Evangelist Comfort is entirely and Scripturally correct, IMHO. He is willing to let the Holy Ghost use his preaching to the best effect.
In other words,
"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?" (Romans 10:14 AV)>
The preacher had better take the time to impart the whole Gospel, and resist the temptation to offer something he is not authorized to do, of interrupting God's process of saving by terminating it too early, before the seed has even sprouted, in some cases.
Evangelization is to be effected by the method of persuading awakened souls to become disciples long enough to understand what they are committing themselves to (Mt. 28:18-20), then of being able to at least tell of the basic elements of The Faith (1 Cor. 15:1-11) into which they are being formally inducted by the rite of bodily immersion in water as their public testimony.
Even then, only the person and the Holy Ghost knows if he/she is truly saved. But one's following life-style ought to give some kind of indication of progressive sanctification, shouldn't it? But the traveling evangelist is not going to know that, is he? How can he presume to give assurance?
So, under whose sponsorship is he conducting his efforts? Hmm? Some poor local spiritual brothers or pastors who are going to have to clean up the mess of professed but not possessed salvations he has left behind?
It's a matter of record that there was a different sort of human coexisting with the usual ones of today, and that they interbred:
Neanderthals & Today's Humans (click here)
By NIKHIL SWAMINATHAN
Monday, August 12, 2013
Archaeology Magazine
A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America
Ok, this link.
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