External vs. Internal

For the exact same reason a doctor will treat the symptoms of a disease--1) He doesn't know what is causing the problem. 2) He doesn't know how to solve the problem.

Because griping about how bad things are in the culture does not require me to get involved personally. It is something that we expect our Christian politicians to deal with.

It is easier to amen Rush or Hannity than to serve in a soup kitchen. It just is.

Great point :-)
It seems to me often that we're more concerned about the unrighteousness of the world (which is without Christ) than we are concerned about the state of the church (Christ's body).
We are aliens here, citizens of another kingdom.
To answer your question, I believe we should earnestly pray and pray and pray, particularly if we can do so with others.

I'm teaching on this tonight at our church, actually. And, the question is "What In The World Is God Doing?" . The answer is revival and awakening. China, Iran, Brazil and it seems even Mexico is beginning to stir. I'm going to, thanks to materials and speakers on Sermon Index, outline some of the activity of the Holy Spirit around the world. Then we are going to plea for us to repent and pray and seek God here. I'm going to share the bulk of the facts of Duncan Campbell's account of the Hebrides revival....again, thanks to SI. We will ask the question, and insist that God will hold us to account, of why, when God is reviving His work in the midst of the years, why do we keep buying and working for and seeking what does not satisfy (Isaiah 55)? We will plea with our people to repent and to seek God as the two sisters and the pastor and church leaders did in Hebrides. We will explicitly pinpoint our city, the church climate in our community and our own church as in need of repentance and revival.

I missed that passage where Jesus commands the disciples to go into all the world and mind their own business.

He Himself is the Light of the world, and those in Him are also lights. They expose what darkness hides, they are both a fragrance of sweet attraction to those who hear God, and a stench of death to those who only feed their own lusts.

In all, His genuine ones make a difference in their own homes, in churches, in cities and in nations.

The eyes of the Lord range to and fro about the whole earth, seeking someone in whom He can show Himself to be strong.

Be ready, be available!

The answer is revival and awakening. China, Iran, Brazil and it seems even Mexico is beginning to stir. I'm going to, thanks to materials and speakers on Sermon Index, outline some of the activity of the Holy Spirit around the world. Then we are going to plea for us to repent and pray and seek God here. I'm going to share the bulk of the facts of Duncan Campbell's account of the Hebrides revival

PRAYER AND TIME.. EXTERNAL REMINDS ME OF THE pARABLE OF THE good SAMARITAN.. JESUS TEACHES US.. Many are too busy (B BEING UNDER SATANS YOKE...
THe one who stopped.. we need to stop and pour in the oil and the wine.. Internally we are all members of the body of Christ and important.. Noone has arrived.. Noone we can strive for holiness.. God alone is Holy..
REPENT PRAY OR BE PREY...REPENT PRAY OR BE PREY..REPENT PRAY OR BE PREY
PRAYER CHANGES THINGS... WE NEED TO KEEP PRAYING PUSH
PRAY UNTIL SOMETHING HAPPENS.. PRAY OR PREY..

Yes, our Lord Jesus went to the heart of the issue of sin in man's corrupt nature. For example He declared hatred to be heart-murder and lust to be heart-adultery. He said in Matt. 15:19-120 "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

So it's always good to address the sinfulness of the human heart when preaching the gospel, as Jeremiah 17:9 declares that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

But I also see Jesus and the apostles and prophets addressing external sins in their proclamation of the Word of God to the world. For example, regarding marital unfaithfulness Christ declared, "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."

And we see later on in the pages of the NT that there are many lists of external sins, including homosexuality, that we are warned to flee from at all cost (e.g. 1Cor.6:9-10; Gal.5:19-21).

So it's always important to reason regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment when sharing the gospel with the lost. Jesus said the world hated him because He testified of it that its deeds are evil (John 7:7) and that a servant is not greater than His master so if they hated Him they will hate us if we are His faithful witnesses (John 15:18-20).

That being said, we do have to be careful not to come across as purely hate-filled preachers, like the Westboro preachers and others like them. Like our Lord, we must be full of both grace and truth and speak the truth in love.

Jesus, God whom became flesh, love-incarnate, our Teacher, was all about focusing that each and everyone who calls themselves a follower of God, to focus on the sin in their own individual hearts and to love all people.

A great example is the woman caught in adultery. Jesus was merciful.

Sin is sin in God's sight, whether internal or external. From God's perspective according to His Word, any sin is sufficient to merit eternal damnation. That's why we must be born again through repentance and faith in Jesus. That is the message we must declare to a lost world.

The message is not only all about love. People must hear and understand the bad news of their sinfulness before a holy God. The book of Romans is considered to be one of the most exhaustive presentations of the gospel. In the first 3 chapters Paul presents the bad news of man's fallenness from God, including lists of sins, both internal and external, making a strong case for man's utter and total depravity apart from the gospel. The book of Romans is designed not only for believers but also the lost. There have been many who have been converted through reading that book.

There are so many scriptures that show Christ, the prophets and apostles preaching the message of repentance from sin, that one would have to either willfully ignore them as they read the Bible, or be sincerely ignorant of those scriptures. I have already mentioned quite a few scriptures relevant to that point.

John the Baptist got himself beheaded for condemning Herod's adulterous affair. Paul reasoned with the governor Felix (who was also involved in an adulterous affair) about righteousness, self control, and the coming judgment, and scripture says Felix trembled at Paul's message -Acts 24:25.

Both the OT and NT are filled with such bold preaching on repentance from sin, both internal and external sin.

Ezekiel exhorts us to warn the wicked of their impending death due to their sins against God, lest their blood be required of us:

"When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul."-Ezekiel 3:18-20

In his first sermon after Pentecost Peter warned the Jews and declared to them that they were guilty of crucifying and murdering the Lord of glory, and what happened? Scripture says they were cut to the heart when they heard that, and they feared and said "Brethren, what shall we do?" And 3,000 souls were saved in one day.

As I studied that sermon carefully I noticed there's not even one mention of the love of God in it. Why? Because Peter knew they needed to understand the seriousness of what they had just done to the Lord of glory. The Holy Spirit used Peter as His mouth piece to convict of sin, righteousness and judgment.

We cannot water down the message and make it palatable to a world that loves sin and hates God. We cannot become part of the seeker sensitive, seeker friendly, and social gospel movements. Those kinds of movements only speak of love and doing social acts of kindness without warning of the need for repentance and faith in Christ.

I can go on and on with example after example of the biblical precedence for preaching against sin in our gospel message to the lost. But I trust that what I have posted so far is sufficient to make the point.

LoveMeekHope, I see your point and agree to a certain extent. I'd say there needs to be a balance when considering the attributes of God, particularly His love for sinners and wrath toward sin and sinners. While it is true that He is love, He is also holy and righteous and will punish sinners with fierce wrath if they do not repent.

I agree that the gospel message needs to be proclaimed with the underlying motive of love; first love for God and secondly love for the lost. Yet we see in the Bible that the message was sometimes a very hard message that did not mention God's love but instead warned of the consequences of refusing to repent.

We must be led by the Spirit in each situation when sharing the gospel. God may lead us to speak to some in a tone of deep sympathy with encouraging and kind words, and to others in a tone of bold, strong rebuke like John the Baptist often did.

Jesus, God whom became flesh, love-incarnate, our Teacher, was all about focusing that each and everyone who calls themselves a follower of God, to focus on the sin in their own individual hearts and to love all people.

As has been mentioned, balance is needed here. As A.B. Simpson has said, "Our morbid and excessive self-examination is one of the forms of self-life that causes much pain and works much injury in our Christian life. There is a right, but there is a wrong self-examination. God alone can truly search us. Even Paul said, "Yea, I judge not mine own self, but He that judgeth me is the Lord.” Let us commit our own way unto Him, and honestly say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
- excerpted from Thirty-one Kings, or The Victory Over Self by A. B. Simpson

If we just focus on the sin in our hearts then we can easily buy the lie that I have to get things right before coming to God. Like those of God's people who were bitten by snakes in the wilderness, we are to look away from self and unto the Lord Jesus as our only hope.

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. (Isaiah 26:3-4)

In Christ,

Ron