Monday, June 7, 2021

RAY COMFORT-HELL'S BEST-KEPT SECRET

The major problem I have with this message-which seems to be the keystone for Ray Comfort's ministry-is his whole approach to sin and the disobedience of the law by humanity.


First of all, sin is indeed the transgression of God's law. However, the first and most important law, whether you are going by the ten commandments or the two great laws in the Gospels, is that we are to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, hence not putting anything else before Him and making it our God. 


Thus, we see that the true essence of breaking God's law is living outside the will of God. Therefore, we don't need to go through any kind of good person test with people. Even if someone claims they've never sinned, all we need to ask them (including requisite follow-up questions) is if they have always loved God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength since the day they were born, which, of course, no one has.


The reason no one has done this is because they don't know or wish to acknowledge who Jesus is. Thus, to be right with God, they need to change their minds about who Jesus is, having whatever notion of Him they had before made correct. This is the meaning of repentance: not a forsaking of sin, though forsaking of sin will accompany true repentance because what is involved in true repentance (seeing God for who He truly is) is a dying to oneself. If God is who He says He is, then that means He is in charge of our lives, not us.


What do you do with a dead man? You bury him. That is where baptism comes in as described in Romans 6. The baptized believer comes up out of the water a new creature (1 Corinthians 5 17) and thus that person has just been born again.


I would like to say, secondarily, that we can't use Ray's approach, or the above outlined approach, with every unbeliever we witness to. Different people require different approaches. With some people, it may be appropriate to put emphasis on the love, joy, peace by-products we get from God if the person has grown up with very little of this in their lives. Emphasize these things but don't neglect the other "sin" side of the equation either. 


Many Christians have no peace or joy because they've been taught that God is a judge who is always mad and who loves to punish people for their sins, rather than a loving father who sent His only son (really a part of Himself) to provide a way we could be forgiven and brought back into relationship with Him when we had gone astray.  

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