Share the Gospel with the Future

[jandl]

Question... If personal evangelism is best, then why on earth would you want to use second best (not that tracts are even second, but you get my point)??? God gave us His very best. If we are to show others the God we serve, shouldn't we give our very best too???

I can't be friends with everybody, nor can anybody on this planet, so friendship or personal evangelism won't always work. Nor is there the time to perform personal evangelism with everybody. There have been so many times when giving the gospel to someone that either they are distracted and have to leave or I have to leave. That is called LIFE. If you ABANDON and REFUSE all use of tracts, then you have just hurt yourself. In those times, what better chance to give them something ON the way out. There is a phrase called "hitting one on the way." You will pass and meet people for a very brief time in life. Let them have the gospel. Give them a tract. There is NOTHING wrong with that. Chick Tracts are GREAT for youth. The Holy Spirit speaks through literature just as much or MORE than you personally giving them the gospel through word of mouth.
Perhaps a lot of the bias AGAINST Jack Chick is because of his stand FOR the King James Bible. That automtically rubs people the wrong way. That's too bad.

[jandl]

Addressing some of the previous conversation in this thread I will say that for all the good Jack Chick has been used for, there seems to be something missing from his tracts -- teaching on grace.

.......................... uh, have you ever READ a Chick Tract? Grace is unmerited favor, and Chick talks about it in almost every single tract, if not all of them. Jesus dying for people who DON'T deserve it. That includes everybody. THAT is grace.

[Firefighter]

Drawing on the claims of Rivera and debunked authors like Charles Chiniquy, Chick claims that the Catholic Church helped to mold Islam as a tool to lure people away from Christianity, that it infiltrates and attempts to destroy or corrupt all other religions and churches, and that it uses various means including seduction, framing, and murder to silence its critics. He accuses Catholicism, specifically the Jesuits, of instigating the American Civil War, supporting the Confederate cause and seeking to undermine the Union. When that failed, they arranged the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and created the Ku Klux Klan, which happens to be anti-Catholic itself. According to Chick, the Catholic Church has also supported such ideologies as Nazism and Communism and used the Holocaust to persecute opponents of the Catholic Church. He claims that the Catholic Church keeps "the name of every Protestant church member in the world" in a "big computer" in the Vatican for use in future persecutions. "Jesuits worked closely with Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin" to create Communism, and it was "believed that soon . . . Communism would rise up as the new strong daughter of the Vatican." It was Rome that instigated the Bolshevik Revolution and the murder of the czar’s family. The Communist liberation theology movement also is a Vatican plot regardless of Papal condemnations, such as those from Pope John Paul II, who, Chick claims, was in fact a good communist.

How can you possibly take someone like this seriously??? There is a reason the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled his publishing house a hate group.

[Slug1]

Yes. We give them ammunition by acting perfect. If we cut them off at the pass and outwardly admit our faults (and hence our need for Christ), where then can they go?

Amen! That is why I am completely transparent in all my postings and testimony that I give on this board even. Many in my church have heard my testimony, I have even been asked to be guest speaker at Christian meetings and have given my testimony and the people who come up to me and express their thank you's shows me that the Lord works through my previous and present faults to help others.

Jesus wants us with our faults and if others see Him using us despite our faults, just as He used Paul despite his thorn... people see the real us and they see the real Jesus working through us.

[Firefighter]

Gilligan,

Does the Bible hide the disciple's mistakes? How about in the OT?


Romans 5:20 - Romans 6:2 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.

[Firefighter]

Gilligan??? Gilligan??? Where did you go little buddy???

[jandl]

How can you possibly take someone like this seriously??? There is a reason the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled his publishing house a hate group.

Most, if not all of the above, is absolutely true, but all "good Christians" look at these days is the NATURE of the claim. "It's too hard to believe, so therefore it can't be true."
The Bible says, of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, "IN HER was FOUND the BLOOD of ALL (that means ALL, not SOME) the saints." It is a wicked institution that is responsible for the inquisitions, massacres, and indeed, Hitler had his own POPE, even secular authorities point this out as fact, and Pope John Paul II claimed on more than three occasions during his papacy that he was a communist.
But, HEY...let's just bash Chick. He's a mean, horrible, wicked man who HATES Catholics.......lol, OH that's right, he defends the King James Bible TOO. Heretic!!!!!
lol

[HisLeast]

Most, if not all of the above, is absolutely true, but all "good Christians" look at these days is the NATURE of the claim. "It's too hard to believe, so therefore it can't be true."
The Bible says, of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, "IN HER was FOUND the BLOOD of ALL (that means ALL, not SOME) the saints." It is a wicked institution that is responsible for the inquisitions, massacres, and indeed, Hitler had his own POPE, even secular authorities point this out as fact, and Pope John Paul II claimed on more than three occasions during his papacy that he was a communist.
But, HEY...let's just bash Chick. He's a mean, horrible, wicked man who HATES Catholics.......lol, OH that's right, he defends the King James Bible TOO. Heretic!!!!!
lol

You know, try as I might I can't find "roman catholic church" in my Bible anywhere. Am I missing a page?

[Gilligan]

Gilligan,

Does the Bible hide the disciple's mistakes? How about in the OT?


Romans 5:20 - Romans 6:2 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.

No, the Bible didn't hide their mistakes, but we live in a different time now because of the high profile scandals of the last 22 years. Now, we can't afford to *not* hide our mistakes and sins from unbelievers.

The scandals I'm referring to are Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Fred Phelps, Mary Winkler, and Ted Haggard, Tony Alamo, etc.. This is what I meant in an earlier post that unbelievers think we are Elmer Gantry's.

On a smaller scale, unsaved family members we are trying to win over seeing our sins will undermine our authority.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _

Originally Posted by Urban Missionary
Gilligan??? Gilligan??? Where did you go little buddy???


I was being chewed out by the Skipper for messing up another rescue. I'm back for now.

[Slug1]

No, the Bible didn't hide their mistakes, but we live in a different time now because of the high profile scandals of the last 22 years. Now, we can't afford to *not* hide our mistakes and sins from unbelievers.

Based on what? Because the way the media works? Media is of the world and then as the men and women of scandals are repentant and God restores them back to ministry that in some cases give more glory to God... the media conveinently forgets to make this a headline. All the media cares about is the dirty parts, not the part when the Lord restores and a once fallen Christian leader is again white in the eyes of the Lord and is doing the Lords work. Even Christians perpetuate this as well and look back at the fall of any minister but don't look forward to what God has done with a minister and is doing with a minister.

It's the whole purpose of testimony as God works in our lives, but people care little for and don't listen to testimony... all they want is the dirt and they keep that dirt before their eyes and don't want to see how the Lord has removed the dirt and restored.

Those that "hide" faults are already offering the enemy a door to use against them. So simply walk in weakness as Paul did with his thorn and allow the Lord to do His work and speak His message through you, despite "your" thorn oe weakness. The enemy will not have that door to have authority over you and stifle the message with scandal because any weakness is already exposed.

Of course this doesn't mean active sin because if a person is in active sin the Lord can't work through them but once they repent and He restores them, there will be a day the Lord will work through them.

In the Bible, Peter is a great example of restoration and of course Paul is probably the greatest example of change once Jesus reveals Himself. So if family members only think of the past sins of a person who is now for God... well, they need to stop looking at the dirt of the past. If the person is still sinning then yeah, their message is hypocritical and won't have any authority of God in it.

[Gilligan]

Slug1, You raised good points. I wish the media would speak of their repentance and restoration after the scandal, and that unbelievers would take that into account.

[Athanasius]

.......................... uh, have you ever READ a Chick Tract? Grace is unmerited favor, and Chick talks about it in almost every single tract, if not all of them. Jesus dying for people who DON'T deserve it. That includes everybody. THAT is grace.

No I haven't, but from what I've read you have, and I'm reading you.