Hiding our light... to reach the lost? What?

Krispy

I agree with you this is not the way to reach the lost. If you can't even speak about sin how would someone who is lost ever see their need for Jesus? The idea that we don't want to offend anyone in my opinion is such a lie from the enemy. Not that we go out and purposely try to hurt people but in love speak truth.. those who are not twice born are dead in their sins and the only way to really show them love is to tell them the truth. These kinds of compromising gimmicks are not Biblical.

My only other thought is maybe just maybe its time we start caring about how sin offends God and not worry so much about making everyone "feel" good about themselves?(this includes me to!)

God Bless
mj

Why bother?

Sounds like your basic radio station, with some Christian music on it.

"Certain phrases are not allowed on the air... such as saved, or born again. Not because they dont believe in such things, but because those words are often time misunderstood by unsaved people."

I think that the terms 'born again' and 'saved' are misunderstood by many so called Christians! Never mind the unsaved.

Probably the only converts that this radio station will produce will be more 'Christians' who misunderstand these terms.

It's in the nature of these radio stations to try and attract as many listeners as possible. Preaching at listeners will chase many, but may reach a few.

It sounds like the radio station wants to compromise with the world, but not lose the evangelical purpose behind the station. An unsaved person must be told about their utter sinfulness before a holy God i.e. they must be told the bad news before they can understand the Gospel. Telling people this won't make us popular and definitely won't make a radio station popular.

If we have to massage and manipulate the truth in order to get people into the kingdom then I guess the question we have to ask ourselves is the kingdom we have massaged them into the kingdom of heaven? Or is it like the kingdom of massage? If any man is ashamed of Him, and His words, Jesus will be ashamed of them when he comes into His kingdom.

One of the reasons that false confession is so prolific in our day is due to the fact that the Reality of the Gospel and its clear expectation is kept at arms length and has become like the gnostic higher reaches of only the upper echelon. However that supposed "upper echelon" really turns out to only be a man behind a curtain saying, "ignore the man behind the curtain."

Because the "ideal" Christian life is not an actuality in our lives, we then must resort to trickery, dilution, and manipulation to get people to stay attached to more of a phenomena than they are attached to the vine.

So much of this, in my opinion, and experience are the result of a lack of faith that the saving grace of Christ manifests itself in true deliverance from sin in my own life. If it is not a reality to me, then I am no different than the radio station. Because I am veiling my face like Moses because what Christ might have started has not been maintained by the reality of the Gospel.

This is what Paul is talking about in II Corinthians. We must use GREAT plainness of speech. We must correctly articulate what the Gospel actually is in its real tenses. The tendency to veil that truth may be indicative that the faith being handed out is no more than an Old Covenant Sinai experience which has faded because we may have had light at one time, but no longer have oil in our lamps.

O that we would be an unquenchable inferno of truth. Displaying the articulation of faith and the substance of God as he commends His reality through our expression of obedience. Then we all with open faces reveal the Glory of Christ from glory to GREATER glory.

We have not been given an old covenant to hide...we are to be a city on a hill, but if our hearts are darkened by sin, then how can we not be ashamed to hold up what we claim is the city of light? Are we that city in deed? Not just in theory.

Make the call clear, make it sound, build on the ROCK not the shifty sands of false comfort. The call to Christ is the call to death.

I was actually told by a guy a couple days ago that Ray Comfort's style of evangelism is wrong... because it makes the lost person feel like a sinner before the gospel is presented to them. Uhmmm... yea... thats kind of the point.

It does seem a bit hard to repent of sins that I really don't believe I am committing, or at least that I don't want to feel too bad about.

The stated goal of management is to #1 be the best rock station in the city... and #2 reach the lost.

And here lies the problem. These two things are knocked out of prospective Reaching the Lost should be number one priority if that in fact is one of their goals.

I think Paul said it quite well in Galatians 1:10 "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ."

I don't really think that some people have grasped the concept that when you speak the truth in Love you will be hated and presecuted.

I actually tried to do this very thing and even tried to live like this for a while! I was talking to a lesbian I know about God and everything went great for about 15 minutes UNTIL she stated, "Well, there's many roads to heaven."

When push came to shove, I had to stop trying to be all things to all people and speak the truth to her. In my gut I felt it, "There's only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ alone."

She said, "Well, that's cool that's your belief." I looked her seriously in the eye with love and I said, "That is not just my belief, that is the truth of the ages; I'm not trying to manipulate you but I have to tell you the truth... Jesus Christ is the only way to get to God and heaven."

thingsabove very wisely said: "Faith comes by hearing the word of God, not carefully veiled phrases of men." That manager will have to decide one day to speak the truth of the ages to the masses!@!

To God be all the glory!!

I know that when a person really gets saved they can't help but tell others about it. Imagine if God had been silent about it because some would not understand it. We would all still be lost. But thank God that it is Good News- the Gospel. It seems to me that maybe the station leadership etc. is more concerned about what others think about them than what God thinks. Of course, salvation would help cure that. Satan tries to keep the message silent or obscured. He does that by influencing God's messengers to not be clear and distinct in the message.

Wonderful testimony Lysa, and God bless you for having the boldness to tell this woman the truth.

We cannot hide our light, and because we are of the truth, we recognize that we are compelled by our Father to declare it.

It's not really hiding the light; but presenting another light; a light in which permissiveness is the order of the day, there is no sin, and god is love...the kind of love that accepts you forever just as you are.

Exactly! I just left my church after feel the Holy Spirit guiding me out and after much, much praying. My only reason for leaving was the prompting of the Holy Spirit. However, there were some things that I can point to and say, "This is one reason". One of the associate pastors had bought 3 flat screen tv's for the new men's ministry room. The fact that they bought 3 bugged me but what really got me was that they were tuning them to sports channels on Wednesday nights to attract men to the church. They would turn them off to begin service, but they had them on in the first place. I don't think it's a good idea to get people to church using something that's keeping them from God in the first place. It's like handing out shots to get the AA crowd in. How bankrupt are we that we must resort to offering that which we should be standing against, just to get people in the door?

I would also like to suggest, on principle, and not as it pertains to this particular situation. But that it may not be an issue of "hiding the light" as there is a real probability is that there is no light to hide, and that the day star is not even rising in the hearts of those who claim to be doing God a service.

Romans makes the case towards the end that we, as gentile believers have got to take seriously the fact that we are only "grafted" into the tree. And one of the great indictments against the Jewish nation was that they failed to be the light to the gentiles, so in essence the torch as been passed for a time to us. I would think that when the light of truth is veiled behind worldly methodologies, we could be doing the exact same thing Israel did by mixing idols and gods in with temple worship. Thus signifying that the light is not hidden...it just simply may not exist. Because we have failed to apprehend our responsibility to follow the captain of our salvation as he expects us too.

I would like to emphasize that each one of us is responsible to carry this torch. As little lights in a darker room that begin to fade as the day star arises by literally applying the exhortations in II Peter Chapter 1.
The problem as I see it, is a result of exactly why we all love Ten Shekels and a Shirt so much. Dry theological orthodoxy has promoted a view that spirituality is measured by ascent to truth...rather than actually becoming that truth ourselves.

Even the demons believe...

I pray that God raises up a generation who has the discernment to recognize the principalities for what they are, and for how they are influencing us to Natural behavior...rather than supernatural.

Tom, you Iced the cake I pulled out of the oven very very noicely. Thus the conclusion we may propose through this line of reasoning, which I believe to be right, is that a natural means of promoting a spiritual kingdom is absolutely fundamentally and diametrically opposed to the purposes of a Spiritual Kingdom which can only have an entranced gained through its expectation being meet which is "Spirit and Truth."

A Babylonian promotion of a heavenly kingdom will always result in tyranny and confusion...

Let us build a tower ourselves! Let us not acknowledge the Creators right way of doing things! Us Us US US US US US!!!
The footsteps of pride echoing from time immemorial till it comes to rest on the very ones who claim that they are servants of the Most High God. Nimrod is not so dead as we think.

This is almost enough to make my head as waters...and my bones as of flame. Yet I falter in my heart wondering what can even be done about it. Sometimes knowing the truth hurts more than the comfort of ignorance. The concern in my soul over this has no real practical outlet apart from prayer and protecting the flock I love, as it does not really directly affect me or my family...yet I know this insidious leaven affects the minds of friends and acquaintances. And those only a few degrees of separation away.

Amen BruthaTom