Questions and Answers: What would you say to someone who doesn't want to repent because he thinks life will become dull and boring?

Obey your flesh and descend into darkness

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

You may hear someone say that they don't want to repent because they think life will become dull and boring.

Answer:

Ask them why they think that life would be dull or why do they think that life would be boring? What are they doing now that is so much better in their eyes? Draw them out. Let them explain their position fully. Listen. When you hear their reasons, do not attack or accuse them. Pray for a word from God that you can say to them. The reality is that Christian witness has more to do with the flow of the Holy Spirit than with human reasoning and persuasion. God will not guide your words in the wrong direction. Stay in the flow of the Anointing of the Holy Spirit. Do not depend on your own understanding. Let God speak through you.

You will probably find that they think life will become dull and boring if they repent bacause they love darkness rather than light. They are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Also, they may never have really gotten to know a Christian who walks in the Spirit and may have a misunderstanding of what walking in the Spirit would be.

The life of walking in the Spirit is exciting and eventful. It is more exciting than roller coasters or video games. It brings more pleasure than anything that the world has to offer. Even in our day-to-day lives, flowing in the Anointing of the Holy Spirit moment by moment changes every experience into a wonderful, exciting experience. Christians who are bored are walking in the flesh, plain and simple.

There was a Christian couple who took their granddaughter on vacation. On this vacation, the granddaughter wanted to go see the movie, Avitar. While this movie used the Hindu terminology, it is a movie that gives the experience of neopaganism and pantheism and is based on evolutionistic assumptions found is so many cults. The grandfather mentioned this to his granddaughter who became immediately angry and accusative. The granddaughter accused her grandfather of being negative. The grandfather asked whether the granddaughter really believes that he was negative. She had to admit that her grandfather was full of joy, but she did not want to face the reality of what the film was. There is an interesting movie review here: http://creation.com/avatar-movie-review

Fleshliness hardens the hearts of believers and non-believers alike. For non-believers, it makes them unreceptive to the gospel. Sin blinds their eyes. For believers, it makes them unreceptive to moving into a closer relationship to Jesus. Ungodly music hardens the heart. Un-biblical philosophy/theology, church and family orders, forms, and rituals all harden the heart. Addictions to entertainment harden the heart. Anger and bitterness hardens the heart. Not discerning the Body of Christ hardens the heart.

It has been said that the Kingdom costs you everything, but what it costs you is worth nothing. That it true. Forgiveness will cost you every grudge and bitterness that you carry. Purity will cost you your impurity. Spiritual church services will cost you entertainment church services or form and ritual church services. Your true gifts and calling will cost you all false gifts and callings.

So there is a reason that people reject. There is no good reason, but there is a reason.

Questions and Answers: What would you say to someone who doesn't want to repent because he thinks life will become dull and boring?

How can we know anything about anything

Answer:

Repentance and Repenting

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