Finger Thinking 060112
Words….words….words……
Every once in a while you stumble across something that
gives you pause or set you off ….
A.W. Tozer wrote:
Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting”
Christ (a term incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not
expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God in our souls.
Three things struck me in this statement.
First is the fact that the idea of “accepting” Christ is
un-biblical. Hunt as I could I could not
find this concept in the scriptures. The
closest I could come was:
1Co 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they
are spiritually discerned.
1Th 2:13 And we also
thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which
you heard from us, you accepted it
not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at
work in you believers.
Jas 1:21 Therefore put
away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the
implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
The word ‘accept” here is the Greek term δέχομαι / dechomai. Its common meaning is, “to take with the
hand,” with subsequent meanings of receive, get or even learn.
The key thing we must see here is that the “natural person”
does NOT accept the things of the Spirit of God. This “natural” person if an unredeemed person,
a person without Christ.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a
natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. If there is a natural
body, there is also a spiritual body.
Going back to the words of our Lord, the bottom line is: Joh 6:44
No one can come to me unless the
Father who sent me draws him. And I
will raise him up on the last day.
Now the word “draws” is important. (ἑλκύω
/ ἕλκω - helkuō /
helkō) The word means to drag
more so than to draw. It is not a wooing
but a forceful dragging.
Act 16:19 But when her
owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace
before the rulers.
Joh 18:10 Then Simon
Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off
his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.)
Though not the most forceful word for “dragging” the key
here is that the one being “drawn,” is
passive. Perhaps we could even include
that the drawing/dragging is NOT the normal state for the drawee. They are being acted upon by the
dragger.
Here’s the rub. We speak
of our redemption as if it were something we have gotten through some action of
effort of our own. Now I say we “speak
of,” it that way not that we really believe it.
But in speaking of it that way it is easy to forget our utter passivity –
at least to some extent. Not only that
but we communicate to others the idea that they must “do” something to have
what we have.
No matter how uncomfortable it may make us and others the
simple truth is:
Joh 6:44 No one
can come to me unless
the Father who sent
me draws him.
And I will raise him up on the last day.
Tozer writes:
Today, accepting Christ becomes terminal. That is the end. And all evangelism leads toward one thing –
getting increased numbers of people to accept Christ, and there we put a
period.
Can you see the disconnect?
We evangelize; even preach today with the aim of getting men and women
to accept Christ. That should certainly
be our desire but it is not OUR goal. We
should so evangelize and preach that the Gospel is clear, God is glorified and
the Spirit has something to work with.
Instead we craft careful communications using all the wiles we can find
to convince men and women to do something they cannot, without the direct and powerful
intervention of God, ever hope to do.
It is NOT our concern who God has called or will call. It is our concern to herald the Gospel
through which God saves. When we do so,
and no one comes it is in no way indicative of our failure but rather it proves
both John 6:44 as well as 1 Cor. 2:14. The
lack of positive repentant response does tell us that in that place, on that
day, at that time God did not “draw,” anyone AS FAR AS WE COULD TELL!
When did our faith become more about politics, culture,
society, ethic, etc. that about the Lord?
When did it become more about us than it is about Him? Well, the truth is that the faith has always
had these kudzu vines growing all over it.
Anyway – isn’t it time we made it clear that some folks just
aren’t called (drawn)? Isn’t that part
of the Gospel (yeah, strange kind of good news). Isn’t it time we prayed for discernment and
courage?
A.W. Tozer wrote:
The new cross encourages a new and entirely different
evangelistic approach. The evangelist
does not demand abnegation of the old life before the new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but
similarities. He seeks to key into
public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands;
rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. . . .
The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way
of living and saves his self-respect.
The only comfort I have as I look at the Church today is the
sovereignty of God. Were I not
absolutely sure that everyone He intends to draw will be drawn no amount of
Xanax or Cymbalta would ever be enough. For
ill or good, I also find comfort in the fact that those who pervert the Gospel
are accursed by God and only need be exposed by us.
More later .............................................
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