What Do You Do About Obstinate Non-Christians in Society?
Have you tried to lead people to Christ? I have, and some have been saved, but for the vast bulk of the time people either run away, come up with some lame excuse, or they misdirect by being ignorant and blame you or falsely accuse you for something instead of dealing with the issue at hand of new birth.
The non-Christians at IIDB.org for example, the leading atheist/agnostic discussion forum on the internet, will ban you for no reason at all other than as a Christian, you can prove your case. Even if you answer sparingly and keep it low key, they still don't like that. That is in itself enough to ban you in their minds and accuse you of sock puppetry. Because their conscience is convicted but choose not to hear the truth, they shut their minds down and shut you down to.
What this shows is non-Christians don't really want to have a discussion at all with Christians, but they want to stir in their own sock puppetry.
In realizing this the Holy Spirit led me to the same conclusion as Paris Reidhead who is coined as having the greatest sermon ever, called "Ten Shekels and a Shirt". His basic conclusion was that those in Africa that he went to try and save don't want to be saved. They know God well, but they don't want His salvation through His only begotten Son. And the reason God sent him to Africa was to realize this experientially.
I have had the same experience. I have tried to save some people such as family members and relatives but they will have none of it. This is their reaction:
- violence, both physically hitting and extreme rage, hatred and reviling;
- they will try to summon support from demons and others for that hatred against me;
- they will make up lies about me that just are not true; hence, they can not prove it;
- some will say they are Christians when they are not just to appease me;
- they try to shed themselves in a good light somehow to rationalize their existence to stay firmly attached to their thrown to keep themselves self-exalted as though they are not sinners: "I am good, I am ok, I am the most loving person and the most selfless. I care for others, you don't". These are typical puffy statements;
- they will say they believed in Christ many years ago but don't know when they were born-again. For as long as I ever knew them, they never spoke of Christ, went to Church, tried to lead anyone to Christ, read the Bible or give any indication they believed. The Bible says we shall know them by their fruit;
- questioning them further before they run away, you discover when you ask them about the 3 things needed for salvation (Jesus died, was resurrected, is deity), they cannot say that Jesus is God, proving unequivocally they were not saved; moreover, a Christian does not accuse Christians the way they do such as helping people come to Christ and not getting along, etc. The evil spirit will stop at nothing in his accusations day and night as the great accuser in the spirit of the unsaved. Is it better said non-Christians do not get along since they are riff with false accusations, misdirections, avoidance and cutting off the line of communication such as "never speak to me ever again" as mad as hell! They may even say now they believe Jesus is God all of a sudden to appease you, because really, they could care less;
- many varied kinds of accusations exist: e.g. "You are just trying to be a salesman" because the unsaved person married an unsaved person who was a salesman so that is their sphere of reference. A Christian however receives nothing in return for leading you to Christ, just the joy of seeing you have the Holy Spirit in your spirit with resurrection life. A Christian would not wish their worse enemy to be unsaved which delivers them to hell;
- to give another lame excuse: "The Bible got Pi wrong" - actually, it got Pi right within a third of a cubit, for the diameter of the wash bin is 9.66 and the circumference is 30.33, approximately 10 x Pi. Obviously with such rounded numbers, it was not intended to be down to the decimal place. Accusing like this is childish, immature and accesses "petty self";
- they will say they prayed before so they are saved. However, prayer does not save you; only the free gift of Christ's work on the cross can save through the precious blood;
- the unsaved have their various personal excuses why they don't want to be saved, from the extreme petty to utterly absurd;
- we must conclude they just don't want to be saved, for they prefer to remain in their daily habits of sin and selfishness;
- so, it would be best that they just be intellectually honest with themselves and admit they want to go to hell. Recently, my brother did just that. He admitted he wants to go to hell as did he admit this many years ago. That is his choice.
Jesus claimed that how people responded to Him would determine how they spend eternity.
How then should a Christian react to them knowing they just don't want to be saved? Do we mingle with them as Israel sinned in mingling with pagan nations with the consequences of losing Jerusalem? We lovingly are there for them, but at the same time kick the dust under our feet, which is to say, back away from many of their functions because they are going one direction while you have eternal life and are going in God's direction. Keep apart from them where possible. We as Christians are in the world but we are not of the world. Do you go to Christmas with them when the Bible says don't dress up trees which is vain? Jesus was not born anywhere near December, but 6 months after John was born, which puts Jesus birth in Sept-Oct. Christmas is for non-Christians to worship Santa Claus (Satan Lucas) commensurate with other pagan festivals during this time of the year.
I believe the key approach to relatives is a simple solution. Christians all have this same problem with relatives since it is very rare that more than just a few relatives would ever be saved. The simple solution is let the light shine in the darkness. They will get angrier, more aloof, distant and estranged nonetheless for the god of this world is Satan.
When you let the light shine in the darkness, the darkness is forgotten and fades away as though it does not even exist. In the new city we will no longer have a tear for them. Even now this is possible. This will give you room to grow in Christ by realizing that you should not cast what is holy unto dogs. But do keep an open door policy to them to let them come to you to ask for forgiveness in their bad behavior, mistreatments and hostility to Christ who is in you, and to help lead them to Christ. My father was abusive physically and mentally, and my brother and sister carry on the same legacy of creaturely behavior. My mother and her mother carry on the same behavior of shutting their minds down. My mother's father was a horrible man. My father's father was a horrible man. You heard stories. It is not ironic at all that I was led to Christ in seeing their bad behavior.
Praise the Lord the chain of generational sin and rejection of Christ has stopped with me, a child of God. I am told my great grandfather and great grandmother were avid Christians. Something happened since then in both sides of my family that caused them to reject life. All they have to look to now is their own death and the second death which is hell. It can be said they are in a foretaste of hell even now. They were all in horrible marriages, involving the police, some were divorced, and now they teach their children the same principle of selfish life. Most of my life too I was unsaved, but praise God He chose me before the foundations of the world.
In most cases such souls will need to get very sick with some illness like cancer to get them to question their lifestyles and independency from God in Christ. The sin causes the illnesses. How sad it would be even if they never got ill and died unsaved. When this happens, I believe it is because God does not need to cause them to get ill to be saved, so they too belong in hell for rejecting Christ. They knew better. Even if they experience other kinds of loss, it may not be enough, so they will go to hell. You would think illness and disease could be the only thing that could ever reach them after decades of living like animals in their souls and by the evil spirit. Only cancer or something worse may get them to come out of themselves. This is a grace of God.
You can't really do much since they know the Word but reject it. Moreover, families can be the worse. They just won't be saved from a family member it seems. James, the brother of Jesus, didn't believe in Jesus until after Jesus was died and resurrected, appearing unto him. No person alive today blasphemed the Holy Spirit. They still yet can be saved. Say to them that their condition is so bad the only thing that could possibly lead them to Christ is a great illness that this needs to be said. That is how hard their hearts are. This is exactly what they need to hear before it is too late. Don't say this to everyone, just the hard cases such as those you have spent several years trying to save and still refuse God's love.
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