Mercy, Not Sacrifice

May 18, 2008

Last week I came across the astounding video of Southern Baptist missionary Paul
Washer’s sermon before a congregation of young people, and I immediately became a
fan. Early that week I had written that I wish I knew one minister of God with the guts,
conviction and initiative of someone like conspiracy hunter Alex Jones, and it seemed as
though here I had found one.
I was deeply moved by Washer’s conviction during the speech, and wholeheartedly
agreed with everything he said about the pitiful condition of Western Christianity, and
also loved his television interview one can find on Youtube.

However, there was one thing that kept haunting me in a negative way about his
sermons, and that was that he seriously seemed to question people’s Salvation, and his
way of mocking the way most of us have learned to win souls, namely by asking them to
pray with us to receive Jesus as their Savior.

While it is true that we should make sure we are saved, and that we make our Salvation
work out for us in this life with “fear and trembling,” and it may also be true that Jesus
never asked anyone, “Would you like to receive Me in your heart?” and that repentance
is way more than that, at the same time it also remains true that “Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” (Acts 2:21), no matter what Paul Washer,
Roy Comfort or anyone else may tell us!

It also remains a fact that “Whosoever believeth on the Son hath eternal life” (John
3:36), and that “as many as received Him to them gave He power to become sons
(children) of God” (John 1:12) and that He even stands at the doors of the hearts of the
lukewarm church and knocks, and “if any man hear My voice, I will come in to him and
sup with him and he with Me” (Rev.3:20).

And there is no amount of “godly zeal” that could ever destroy the universal truth of John
3:16, that “God so loved the World (yes, the whole world, including not only lukewarm
Western Christians and Jews, but even Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and the
whole shebang) that whosoever believeth in Him should have eternal life.”

I have also spent some years on Latin American mission field and have had to cope with
the vast difference between the fire and fervor among Christians there and the blatant
lack of it in the West. Things quite simply never were the same. It took me years to get
over it.

But I don’t find any use whatsoever in raising doubts over anyone being saved or not, or
in speculating over the percentage of Christians in the West that are actually saved or
not. We should remain focused on getting those saved who pretty much are sure they’re
not.

As far as the “sinner’s prayer” is concerned, brother Paul, it definitely did work for Me,
when I was 13, although I didn’t immediately turn out to be an overnight wonder, and
although I probably couldn’t get you to keep doubting my salvation until the end of our
lives.
All I know is that before I was blind, and now I see. Before I was deaf, and now I hear.
Before, there was emptiness, and now there is Jesus. And I won’t let anyone’s words,
may they be ever so eloquent or “anointed,” take that away from me, and I would
seriously issue a warning to anyone attempting to do that to anyone else. Unfortunately
it is often those endowed with the greatest amount of truth that will cause the greatest
harm to God’s work, as evident in the sad example of the Pharisees in Jesus’ time and
the incessant persecution of believers by the established churches for centuries.

In my opinion, “being saved” is not always something plainly evident, since it can take
years for that seed of having received Jesus in our hearts to sprout and surface. We will
be rewarded according to our works (without which our faith is dead,) but we are never
saved by them (Eph.2:8,9, see also 1Cor.3:11-15).

People who go around repeating how they doubt the Salvation of others must either be
paranoid that there won’t be enough room in Heaven for everyone, or the prospects of
so many less deserving than they winding up in the same place anyhow makes them
feel less “special.”

There are hundreds of verses in the Bible about the vastness of God’s mercy, but we
don’t seem to grant our lesser brethren that mercy. Perhaps that’s why Jesus told those
among us with a tendency toward self-righteousness, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I
will have mercy, not sacrifice’” (Mt.9:13)

It also reminds me of the parable of the workers who volunteered to work in the
Husband’s vineyard but didn’t go, while those who said they weren’t going to, actually
wound up doing the work. You never know who’s going to pick up the plough you left in
the field when you got overwhelmed by your frustration and bitterness.

Of course, one factor that probably influences the “No, you’re not saved” attitude of
some is the false belief in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. I whole-heartedly agree that most of
today’s Christians would not “deserve” just being whisked out of this world before the
great purification of the church the Antichrist and the Tribulation are purposely destined
by God to bring about.
But that’s not what the Scriptures say anyway, if you care to read them properly.