The Church's Role in Evangelism

2/28/10

Man is funny. You and I both know the difference from right and wrong, but we really don’t care. We both know that there is a universal right and wrong but we still disobey it. There are a few people that say they really believe that there is no universal right or wrong, people that seem to think that Truth is relative. But C.S. Lewis explains in Mere Christianity that they all use arguments and statements that say they really do. Such as;

“That’s not fair!”
“That’s my seat, I was there first!” or
“Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine” and
“Come on you promised!”

Each of these commonly used statements and all the ones that are like them, used by everybody, profess a belief in a universal right and wrong. Almost all argumentative statements appeal to a higher moral power. And the people using these arguments expect the other person to believe in or know about the same higher moral power. Without a universal right and wrong, or with out a moral compass, or higher moral power we would have nothing to appeal to in an argument.

People that are being accused often make some sort of excuse that they believe somehow excludes their particular case from this moral law. As Lewis points out, they never say “To hell with your moral standard! I’ll do what I want!” It seems as if all people argue and fight using some sort of rulebook, or moral compass. Whether you want to believe it or not everyone really does believe in a universal right and wrong or a higher moral authority. We appeal to it ever day in our use of logic or whenever we argue! But man is funny. We all know this Law of Nature, or this universal right and wrong. But we disobey it. We really don’t care. [1]
Because we disobey it, and really don’t care, the world is in shambles. And we somehow wonder why! Let’s use America as an example. We the elect leaders who give us what we want; but no one is happy. They say we have problems overseas, many countries certainly don’t love us, and they don’t even respect us anymore. Out of the recognized 203 countries of the world, we have military presence of over 1,000 troops or more in over 150 of them. [2]We’re spread out over the world like too little butter on too much bread. Much like the Roman Empire shortly before its fall. We’re verbally abused by other nations for acting like the worlds police. From within we have equally large problems. Welfare is making our nation weak, yet people are starving. Our government funds from our taxes are trying to support too many causes, yet people go without basic health care. Immigrants are allowed to come and go freely, taking our economy with them, yet it seems we put them in such a position. And this is America! Still considered great, the land of opportunity!  The world is really messed up. And I believe all of our problems are because we know the Law of Nature and we break it, and we really don’t care. And if we do care, it’s not enough to change anything.

Our world’s laws and constitutions are based on the premise that the majority will desire order and morality. But we know that people certainly won’t be basically moral because of what we’ve already learned about the Law of Nature; human depravity. We know it, we break it. So if people are immoral then it leaves it up to our leaders and the governments to try to keep order, enforce laws and keep anarchy at bay. But they do just as bad a job of it because they too are immoral. They alone cannot keep order, enforce laws and keep anarchy at bay. It takes the peoples co-operation. Both the people and the leaders must be basically moral for any government to work. But neither are. In essence, a government serves one purpose, the delaying of the inevitable.

I don't believe capitalism is good or bad, neither is socialism. They're neutral, incapable of holding any moral status. And while one or the other may work better at one time or another, they both only delay the inevitable.

Evangelism and revival are our only hope. That’s my main point. If people can be converted to a religion that teaches them to be moral then all this will change. We can’t be moral on our own. We have to have God's help. I’m not saying that everybody has to be perfect. That’s impossible. We can't change ourselves, we need to learn to rely on God's grace, and His spirit. We don’t need the government, or our schools, or our horoscopes to change us. We need God to reform us.
So the Church must evangelize. But wait! I forget! Much of today’s church doesn't believe in that anymore, we're too comfortable. They are content to sit in their designated pew, have their name enlisted on their church’s membership list, listen to contemporary Christian music, and attend youth groups where they play basketball and have car washes. Something needs to change.
The few Christians that do believe in evangelism seem to think that it means building schools and digging wells in third world countries, handing out food and medicine and just generally helping poor, overseas people. This is a form of evangelism, and these things are great and they need to be done! But that’s not the extent of our calling. God said that our full calling was to “Go into all the world and preach.” (Mark 16:15) as well as "Love your neighbor as yourself." But nobody knows what that evangelism is anymore. Christians really have no idea what that evil word means. They don’t know how to show the people their need for a savior who will save them from themselves.
We must preach. Now where does that leave us? It leaves us with the very few Christians who actually know what that evil word means, to change everything. When we look at the majority of the 6.77 billion people on this world, we see immorality. When we look at the estimated 2.1 billion people who profess to be Christians we see people who are still immoral, or at least too comfortable. We don’t know how to simply share our faith. There are an estimated 7.5 million people in the world who say they believe in going and preaching to the world, sharing their faith, and trying to convert unbelievers to Christianity. [3] We can talk about changing America, getting new leaders elected and bringing reform, but without the people being basically moral, nothing will ever change. We must rise up and evangelize the world. Tell people. We are left with a very few, a minority, who must try to change everything.