Trumpet Ministries The Witness of God
Back to FIFTY-TWO KINGDOM TOPICS
We need to understand the difference between witnessing and evangelizing. In the majority of instances when the term "witnessing" is used today we really are referring to preaching the Gospel and evangelizing.
There is a difference between bearing witness and ministering the Gospel. There is an abundance of ministry in the United States at the present time, but the witness of God is nearly dead.
A witness is not necessarily a preacher, but every preacher should be a witness. However, many times the preachers of the Gospel of Christ are actually, in their behavior, bearing witness of Satan. They lie, steal, sometimes commit adultery or fornication, and molest children. They often are covetous. Sometimes they are unmerciful in their actions toward other people. They seek their own advantage. They gossip and slander. All this is true, in some instances, of the preachers of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
They are ministers but not witnesses.
The Lord Jesus told us of the truest form of witnessing: "Let your light shine in the presence of people so they may see your good works and glorify God."
We of today place heavy emphasis on ministry and personal evangelism. But if someone points out the need for righteous behavior he is attacked as being a legalist, a Pharisee.
In other words, we are not truly ministering the Gospel, we are proselyting, making converts to our theological belief. We are exercising our religion and therefore will always slander and oppose Christ wherever He is found.
You just don't go out and fish for men. You just don't go out and "witness." Jesus Christ alone can make a fisher of men. Jesus Christ alone can make you a witness of God so you, in your God-given wisdom, win souls to the way of righteousness by your personality far more than by your words.
God makes witnesses of Himself that He alone is God. We must see God, hear Him, touch Him, before we can bear witness of Him. Any lawyer can tell us.
How do we see, hear, and touch God? Seeing, hearing, and touching God take place throughout a long, rugged discipleship.
We are in deep water but do not drown. We go through the fire, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but are not burned.
We endure every conceivable difficulty and frustration. We have the sentence of death in ourselves and become as dead-living people. God keeps raising us up, and in the raising the witness of God shines forth.
We learn of God's faithfulness when we are brought to the brink of disaster and then find that God appears on the scene just in time to save us.
We learn of God's provision when we have great needs and only God's faithfulness keeps us surviving and moving ahead.
We learn of God's keeping power when thousands fall around us and we escape all harm.
In our day, as no doubt has been true throughout history, people are being brought to the brink of despair. Families are breaking up. Young people raised in Christian homes are dabbling with drugs and perverted sexual behavior. Anarchy controls the streets in some of our cities.
When we are facing divorce, the breakup of our home, or some other severe tragedy, we do not need to hear a young, inexperienced "minister" tell us how we ought to trust God and be happy. We need someone who can portray to us how God has raised him from the point of death and never failed him. We need to feel the strength, courage, and faith of someone who himself or herself has proven God on the battlefield of life.
When we are morally tempted we need the prayers of God's witnesses—those who also have been tempted and through Christ have overcome.
Only God can make a witness. The Holy Spirit can give a new Christian a ministry or gift, but that does not make him or her a witness of God. A denomination can install someone as the pastor of an assembly, but that does not make the individual a witness of God.
A witness of God is someone who has seen God, who has heard God, who has touched God, who has walked with God. All else in Gospel work has its place of usefulness. But only as we walk through the fires, dangers, and pressures of life on earth with our hand in God's hand do we gain the knowledge of the Holy and become a witness of the Person of God, His way, His will, and His eternal purposes in Jesus Christ.
But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. (Isaiah 43:1,2)
"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so you may know and believe me and understand I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me." (Isaiah 43:10)
We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, (Acts 10:39)
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (I John 1:1)
Back to FIFTY-TWO KINGDOM TOPICS