by
CGG Weekly, June 23, 2023


"True faith drops its letter in the post office box and lets it go. Distrust holds on to a corner of it and wonders that the answer never comes."
A.B. Simpson


The apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:9-11:

Therefore we make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. . . .

When God summoned us to His way of life, He persuaded us with various proofs that He exists, desires a relationship with us, and rules not just the universe but also the affairs of men. As often happens during our first love (Revelation 2:4-5), we desire to share our joy and newfound truth with others. Most of the time, our early evangelistic efforts fail to produce any new converts to the faith—instead, our efforts usually cause problems in our relationships.

Most lay members, after one or two failures of this sort, get smart and desist from trying to convert their relatives and friends. They realize that nothing will ever happen without God first calling the other individual and changing his heart by His Spirit to accept the truth (John 6:44; Romans 2:4-5; 8:7; I Corinthians 2:10-14; Hebrews 8:10; Ezekiel 11:19). All our preaching, reasoning, and cajoling will accomplish nothing unless God moves to initiate a personal relationship with him.

Ministers do not have such an easy out. In their personal relationships, they can quit trying to "save" those unconverted members of their families, but in their professional capacity, their job is to "persuade men." In personal conduct, counsel, sermons, and articles, they must devote their energies to showing and explaining why God's way is true and will lead to eternal life in God's Kingdom.

Today, that is not an easy task. It has never been easy, really, but the current environment makes it more challenging than it has been historically. For starters, though many people say they believe in God, most people are no longer religious but secular. Religion is not a high-ranking concern, and because of this, religious issues fly under their radar and over their heads. They just do not care, and even when they inquire about them, they do not understand them, lacking the background and education necessary to evaluate them properly.

Another problem is competition for time. It used to be that most people at least treated Sunday, which they mistakenly called "the Lord's day," as a Sabbath and devoted most or all of that time to religious pursuits. No longer. Sunday—not God's Sabbath day (see Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:8-11)—is used just like any other day: for work and entertainment. If God receives a few hours on Sunday morning for worship services, most Americans—and Europeans to an even greater degree—think He should feel satisfied they could spare Him even that much!

Yet a third hindrance is how most modern people think. Too many, especially younger adults, have absorbed the postmodern, values-neutral approach. This mindset considers every idea and belief equally valid, neither right nor wrong. A person can believe anything he likes—even that the moon is made of green cheese—and he should not be judged as right or wrong. Any god one worships—or for that matter, if one chooses to worship no god—is fine, and no one god or belief system is better than any other.

In such an environment, how can we persuade anyone of the truth? Our chances for success certainly look bleak.

The answer lies in what Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:9-11: "We make it our aim . . . to be well pleasing to Him." Our judgment rests not on how many men we persuade but on whether we do the job. We are called to make a witness for God and Christ to the best of our ability and strength. Christ will judge us "according to what [we have] done, whether good or bad." How others react to us and what we say or write matters little; it is "God who gives the increase" (I Corinthians 3:5-8). As Paul says, one plants and another waters, but what happens to the sprout is not under a minister's control but God's.

Thus, we cannot quantify the results of our persuasion as others can. We cannot see the growth of our "business" in statistical form. The true measure of our success will be revealed in God's Kingdom, and even then, we will be unable to claim the glory for it. For in persuading men, we "do all to the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:31).