Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Sharing the Gospel Without Fear in a Hostile Culture – Highlight Episode 369

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Sharing the Gospel Without Fear in a Hostile Culture – Highlight Episode 369 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sharing the gospel in the midst of hostility.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, this is fresh in my mind.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's going back to our trip to Turkey, Greece, and Rome, in particular uh thinking about Turkey.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Were you guys nervous to share the gospel in Turkey?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Were we nervous?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was most reticent in Turkey.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And especially because our guides told us, hey, you do have to be careful here.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a Muslim country.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's Muslim, 99% Muslim, but also secular.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: You think of the apostles standing before the Jewish council and they're telling them not to preach anymore in the name of Jesus.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And were they nervous?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Man, of course.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, these guys are beating them, they're imprisoning them, they're locking them up, they're stoning them.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: And what do they say?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's right to obey man rather than God, you be the judges.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, and it's like, no, we'd rather obey God than man.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: And you think of um, you think of what they did after that.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: They went away rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Ray, how do we square with that?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is it that gives a believer?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is that where you just shoot a gun and watch it?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when they're like feeling still the smart of the the canes against their body, you know?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: I don't just look to Jesus on the cross.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Father, forgive them.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: They know what they do.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: I was thinking, we're looking at the fact we live in a hostile world, and we really do.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and people are hostile.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: You can see it in road rage, etc.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: But when you bring the things of God up, it's like putting pouring gasoline on a flame that's already lit.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's in the heart of man.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: Enmity against God.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're enemies of God in our mind through wicked work.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: So we've just got to deal with that, realize that, and deal with people gently because we've got to understand where they're coming from.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I am so moved right now by Jesus' response towards persecution.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he is the great lion.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one, God is the one who speaks and all things come to being.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one that can cast down rain and thunder and lightning.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: He holds everything in his hand.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: He lacked no power.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't need a sword to destroy his enemy.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, Jesus is the one that gets spit on, that gets mocked, that allows a crown of thorns to be put on him, to be nailed to a cross.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who dies for his enemy.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I think about that.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like the early church, think speaking of it, like the early church, they got that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when they were persecuted, they responded by service and sacrifice because they saw that their Lord and Lord and King of Kings did the same thing for them.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: That he died serving and sacrificing for his enemies.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about it, like the the early church sought out to Christianize Rome, but at some point in history, the church was Romanized.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but wonder how often we have this Roman disposition where now it's like, oh man, we need to fight.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're our men, we need to stand up and fight.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And like we need to fight for truth, but we don't take up a sword.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: We we ought to not act romanized when we're being persecuted.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be more like Jesus, the reality that he served and sacrificed his entire life for his enemies.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we're certainly what what do we do in the midst of persecution, in the midst of people mocking us and ridiculing us?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: We we love our enemies.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We will good in their lives, we preach the truth and we serve and sacrifice for him.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you I mean, is the American church ready for that kind of response?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it is.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it's okay to run away from persecution.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Persecuted one city, flee to the next.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's one of my favorite verses.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: So if someone's gonna hit me, they gotta catch me.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: The key is to um put yourself in their position.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's the key with everything.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: If someone gets upset of you, if you can translate to how they feel, walk in their shoes, like I did with you when we did that filming.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: I had your shoes when we did the filming.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: But to walk in their shoes for a minute.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can just imagine how you would feel if you're this is what I did with my sister, if my sister had become a Jehovah's Witness, how would I feel?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's how she feels about me becoming a Christian.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: She thinks I'm probably caught up in some sect and have been for 50 years.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm still trying to win, and the only way to win is with love.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's the most powerful thing.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was just reminded of oh, I got I got myself into trouble.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'd never mentioned this before, but I'd been preaching back in the square in New Zealand many years ago, and this woman came up to me and she said, I don't like what you said.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: And she cussed.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Did I tell you this?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think so.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: And she slapped my face.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh she went The Fear of Woman.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what I said to her?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so dumb.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: I said, I said, I said, sounds like some demons in there anymore where that came from.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: And she punched me in the mouth.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yes, I remember that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then she walked off.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so I didn't have the wisdom then that I have now.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but a guy came out of the crowd and he says, I just saw that, how you reacted to her, and I I want to give my life to Christ.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: So that was wonderful.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, boy, that brings one sinner to Christ, something like that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: What would it take to bring revival?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Mark, let's kind of bring it down to street level, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's not always getting beat up, getting punched, getting it's going toe-to-toe with a vicious atheist when when open-air preaching or when trying to witness or share the gospel.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or so what do we do?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we we are called to give a an answer, we're called to give a defense, but how do we balance that and not let ourselves get worked up to where we blow our witness and forget what we're doing?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's to have a heavenward uh focus, isn't it?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it helps when you when the camera's rolling.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know that uh um they're gonna look bad and you won't, you know, in the midst of that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've had plenty of people say, Boy, you really kept your cool in the midst of that conversation.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I just remember, well, there's the camera's rolling, you know, right there.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really easy to stay focused.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna make good video, you know, eventually.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, Jesus had the absolute perfect message, perfect cadence, enunciation, pronunciation.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: He knew the heart of men.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was able to treat one person slightly different than the other person because he knew all men.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and yet he was still rejected, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Still rejected, and we are going to still be rejected.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if we realize and recognize that we can't save anyone, salvation belongs to the Lord.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's he's calling us to be uh available to share the message, the best abilities, availability.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when we share that message, we realize that, you know, God's calling us not to be uh fruitful but faithful.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And if it wasn't for God's grace, that would be us with silly responses and objections that they may bring, and the same things that we hear over and over and over again.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, 1 Peter 3, but we we don't get it in its context.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed, and do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's where we start quoting, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason, a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear or gentleness and respect.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: But that's in the context of if you should suffer for righteousness.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's in the context of don't be afraid of their threats, don't be troubled.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: To me, that's the climax.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Don't be troubled.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: You're sharing the gospel, don't be troubled.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Paul Washer, if you're faithful to the gospel, the world will not applaud you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: It will oppose you.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: So we have to we have to remember that and uh just seek to just to be humble, to be loving.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: I found that one of the most effective things you can say to someone is if I can be honest with you, I'm I'm terrified talking to you right now.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: If I can be honest with you, this is very uncomfortable and like uh unpleasant for me and undesirable.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: But man, the only reason I'm doing it is because I care.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like something about that breaks through.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Friends, we value your time.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped without the jokes and fellowship.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaters.tv.