I have been reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones "Life of Christ: Studies in 1 John". So many crazy cool things he says. Here is but one: "John has some strong comments to make about this world. We must remember constantly that it is a very evil place. According to the bible the whole mind and outlook of the world is opposed to God; it is under the dominion of Satan and in the grip of the wicked one." I think we might do good to remember that the world, even when it is smiling, is opposed to God.
Not shocking on the surface but in practice, in reality it is a brutal reminder that we are in truth the enemy of almost every one who walks this planet. That is a reality that most of us do not consider. Those who are enemies of God (all unbelievers) have made us their enemies. They have made us their enemies, though they may not act like it. Because they don't always act like enemies we get confused and forget that they are in fact, followers of another god. So we try to tell them about the love of our God and how can they understand that when their god is doing a pretty decent job of showing them love? Jones and David Pawson both seem to argue that telling unbelievers about the love of Christ is a waste of time. Pawson calls it, "pearls to swine." He argues the love of Christ is not mentioned to an unbeliever once in the Bible. Pawson does a study where he shows that the love of Christ is only explained to followers in the Word. They both argue that we contend for their salvation with the truth of Christ long before we tell them of the love. We tell them who He is and we demonstrate in power.
1 John 1:1-3 seems to support this idea. In these verses John declares "that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." He is matter of fact. He wants the recipients of his letter to know that he has seen things and that he knows who the Christ is. Before we can know the fullness of His love we have to know what He has done. This is made clear in verse 4 when John explains why people must know what Jesus has done. "We write these things so that your joy may be full." The fullness of joy is after the knowing. Teaching the love or the fullness makes no sense to an unbeliever. They are lost in the happiness of the world. To tell them of the love of God leaves them relativizing this truth. They can only place the love of God in context with the love of the world. When we tell them of love we have placed the cart before the horse. We tell them of Jesus and then He makes their joy full and then they have revelation of the love of God. The order is simple but absolutely critical.
Today Me, Zoey and Anjin were hanging out in balboa park in San Diego. Set up among the main walk were an Athiest booth, a few psychics, a crew of Krishnas and a crew of Jesus followers. I will tell you that the air was filled with the demonic and the Christ followers were rather sober or somber. I believe they were sincere in their message that "Jesus loves." The athiest crew was looking pretty happy, laughing and joking and the Krishnas were dancing as always. The psychics just looked super oppressed. Whose joy was full? Anjin was intrigued with the Krishnas. They had cool hair and sang and danced. I once loved the Krishnas. I would spend hours reciting the mantra and I even had the cool hair. I read the bhagavad-gita so many times. I fully believed the words. I never had the commitment level to take to the streets like they do. If you ask me did I worship Krishna I would have to say no. But then again if you ask most unbelievers if they follow Satan they would also say no.
We know this is a lie. This is a battle being waged between two followers. There is no neutral party and until we understand this we will never fight this thing well. 1 John 1:5-6 makes clear that "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness we lie." The world can see what I saw today and they might think the Krishnas are crazy but they are filled with song and dance. The demon who drives that group is strong. he mimics joy and he can only be contended with in the spirit realm. As we passed by them I began to cry out in the spirit. There was a war to be fought. Anjin asked me who they were and I explained the nature of the demon they follow and the mimic of joy they walk in. I explained to her that when I was unsaved krishna made sense to me because there seemed to be so much joy and so much hardcoreness in them. I desired to have what they have. I told her that I found in Jesus the fullness of joy and the hardcoreness i was searching for. I found the real and not the counterfeit. A few minutes later Anjin began to weep. I asked her what was happening and she said that she loved Jesus and their music was making her cry. Her heart was breaking and the music for, and the worship of, a demon was making her ache.
I am all over the place here but the truth is that if our message is not about the power of Christ, the realness of Christ, then our message looks no different than the message of the world. Which probably explains why the demonic power was great today and while there was a booth of Christians across the way I got the distinct feeling that I was fighting this thing alone. The only crew in worship were the Krishnas and me and two little girls. I kept thinking how does that make any sense? And then I remembered, "the world is a very evil place."
