The Self Righteous Bible Belt
July 9, 2010 @ 10:41 PM EST | Category:
Just Bloggin'
We had a great night tonight doing evangelism in the local town I live in. Justin, Chad, Allan, Eric, Brad, his wife Cynthia, their children Kayla and Stewart joined Stephanie and I to share Christ with anyone who would listen.
God has so richly heard my prayers of bringing other Christians our way to join arm in arm to reach the lost with the gospel. I am truly thankful for these brothers and sisters. Fellowship in the gospel is true fellowship indeed. It is my prayer that God will allow this group to continue to do ministry together and grow in Christ together while reaching the lost.
I wanted to share an encounter I had tonight with one of the very first people I talked to. Although this has happened to me on just about every occasion that I've shared the gospel, I just wanted to share a few thoughts tonight. I'll try to recount as much as I can.
I walked up to a guy sitting down outside the ice cream shop at the town square. I reached out my had with a tract and said, "Hey man, I care about you. It's [the tract] got a Christian message on it." He looked at me with this look of disdain and said, "Oh, I am a Christian. I don't need that. I am a pastor at the church over there." I smiled, knowing that we live in an area of religious hypocrisy, and said, "Great. When's the last time you shared the gospel with someone." He said, "I let my life speak and I think your way is a bit heavy handed." [Mind you that all I was doing was handing tracts out. I had not preached or anything. He was the first person I talked to that night.] I could tell he was visibly angry as his countenance dropped and his face began to quiver with this mad, nervousness. I then asked him, "So, what does scripture say about how we share the gospel? What did the Apostles do? What did Jesus do? When was the last time you verbally talked to a stranger about heaven, hell, and the forgiveness of sin in Christ?" He looked at me with this blank stare and said, "Have a good day sir!" I parted ways with a cordial goodbye and that was that.
I said all of that to say this. I don't know the state of a man's soul, but it sometimes makes me wonder really hard as to why someone who professes to know Christ and have been transformed by His grace would get so shaken and angry at the gospel being shared. I just cannot figure it out.
I would submit to you that sharing the gospel is HARDER in the south and in the Bible belt in general because of the deceit of religious hypocrisy. I would imagine that I could take the scriptures to South Africa and get a more genuine audience than I could 5 minutes outside my front door. For those of you who have not experienced this, it is disheartening like no other. It is a hard thing to be witnesses in the midst of hypocrisy.
I am learning quickly who would be the first people to yell out in anger, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" It's the unregenerate little old lady sitting in the Sunday service in a dead church with a dead heart to Christ thinking she's going to heaven because she's been faithful in attendance and Bible reading and cooking meals for people. It's the young man who thinks that you can just ask Jesus into your heart and then go live like a heathen because God is love. It's the man who's grown up in church culture and knows all the right answers but is an enemy of God in his mind through wicked works. It's the pastor who is ashamed of the gospel and taunts Christians and mocks them for their sincere love for Jesus. It's just too sad.
"For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with...insults...For when I am weak, then I am strong." -2 Cor. 12:10
