EYE BALL TO EYE BALL

January 31, 2012, Sam Houston State

     It looked like the rain was going to be the big story today.  Shortly after we arrived on campus there was a heavy downpour.  By the time I started preaching the precipitation had somewhat subsided.  Nevertheless, half way though the break the rained started coming down hard again.  Still a group gathered around me under umbrellas.  They were mostly females who professed Christianity but they took issue with my approach and preaching against Hell.  One of them who had a pretty good knowledge of the Bible tried to promote Rob Bell, who questions the doctrine of eternal damnation.  Apparently, he is influential among many students.  The other main issue was holiness.  Of course, I knocked down all their religious excuses to sin.  Eventually, I got several of them to admit that one can live holy but that nobody actually does.  In the end the Rob Bell girl, who is planning on going to seminary, asked if she could pray for me.   She actually prayed a good prayer with the others laying hands on me.  Usually I am hesitant to allow Christians in these circumstances to pray for me because they sometime will pray something like, "Show Brother Jed the error of his ways and lack of love, etc."  However, the girl did not do any of this.  I think the gal has a lot of potential; I pray that seminary does not ruin her as it does with many.

Bro. Dave and Sis. Doris weather the heavy downpour before the start of a great day.

     Meanwhile, Sister Doris had gathered a significant crowd around her; she was not cutting them any slack.  Some of the open air preachers are absolutely against women preachers.  The laborers are few; if a woman is willing to lift up her voice, I am all for her, especially when it comes to evangelistic preaching.  Some say a woman ought not to teach men under any circumstances; however, there are very few real men on a college campus.  Most of them have been effeminized.  So the lady campus preachers might as well be speaking to a virtually all female audience. 

Sis. Doris was especially anointed today and really had the attention of the SHSU students.

     Bill Hamilton from Houston joined me on campus today.  He served Campus Crusade for Christ for many years.  However, because he received the call to preach in the open-air, he was kicked out of CCC or CRU as they call themselves these days.  He brought a street preacher friend, Dave, with him.  Dave is a tall fellow who held a sign listing damnable sins from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.  The sign from the ground was well above his waist and about three feet wide.  It was quite an attention getter.  Bill said he was not going to preach but he ended up getting into the fray in defending Creationism against a persistent and loud mouthed evolutionist.  Dave was active all day; he is very bold.  He had a sense of humor similar to my own, which I liked.  Dave had never been on campus before.  By 2 PM the rain was no longer a factor.  Throughout much of the afternoon there was more than one meeting going on at a time.

     At one point when I was sitting alone, a male student paused in front of me, spit at my feet, and as he walked away, he said, "God is dead.  And I am glad my generation killed him."

      By mid-afternoon the students were beside themselves and crowded around us and giving us little space.  The battle was raging; I could see the whites of their eyes; I was firing both barrels; smoke was everywhere.  There were several lesbians which were close to me all afternoon.  If a man with self-control had been in their lives, perhaps they never would have ended up lesbians.  These types of girls have had so many men around them, who just treated them as a piece of meat that they come to hate men.   Soon they start to think of themselves as merely sexual objects, but they turn their affection toward females.  Lately, I have been taking the students through a little exercise:  "Now imagine you are in the shower.  Look down and if you do not see anything that means you are a woman, not a lesbian, not a bisexual, not a transgender, but a woman, a girl, a female.  Now if you look down and see something that means you are a man, not a homosexual, not a bisexual, not a transgender but a man, a boy a male.  It is very simple young people to figure out what you are." 

      Somehow the rumor was going around that I said all blacks were going to Hell.  This is a sign that students are getting desperate.  When they cannot rationally discredit what I teach, they will make things up.  Part of this is the old tactic of the left to call conservatives racists, bigots, homophobes because we do not want to grant certain so-called rights to groups, who primarily identify themselves by their race, sexual practices or their sexual identity.  Actually, there is no such thing as group rights.  There are only individual rights.

      Dave and Doris left for their camp ground about 4 PM, Bill and Dave left shortly before 5 PM for Houston.  Sister Pat and I stayed around until 5:30.  For the last half hour I had a quiet group around me who were intently listening to my every word.

Christian girl leads students in prayer for Bro. Jed.

       At the end of the day a Christian boy for asked my forgiveness.  He said, "I should not have called you out.  I was influenced by the emotion of the crowd."  I appreciated his honesty.  This so often happens that Christians allow the crowd reaction to influence them to oppose me.  Instead of siding with God against sin, they end up siding with the devil in support of sin.  Many are more interested in pleasing their peers than they are in pleasing God. 

     It was an exciting day!

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"WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE?"

February 2, 2012, Texas A&M

     Students began to gather as I was waiting for the class break.  I overheard some of the conversation of those who were about 30 feet from me, a few of whom had Bibles in hand:  "He says he doesn't sin.  We are all sinners.  He says Christians are perfect."  I decided to take the offensive on the holiness issue rights away, I stood up and pointed at Dave's sandwich board sign which reads on the front, "Jesus said, Go and sin no more."  I expounded on the story of the woman caught in adultery pointing out that she did not excuse her sin as so many on campus have been doing the last two days. 

Bro. Dave's sign reads, "Jesus said go and sin no more." Today the holiness message was the issue at Texas A&M

     I continued, "Jesus said to the lame man whom he healed at the pool of Bethesda, 'Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.'  He did not say to the adulteress or to the lame man, 'Sin less.'  He certainly did not say, 'Sin daily and thought word and deed.'  He issued a command!  Holiness is not an option.  It is not something we may or may not receive in this life; it is something we must achieve if we are going to have eternal life."

     Any one who professes Christianity and continues to sin is like the lame man at the pool who had his infirmity for 38 years.  It is a shame that we have people who have been claiming Christ for years, who have not learned to overcome sin.  Our churches are like the "great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water pool."-John 5:3.  These sick folks are paralyzed with fear, refusing to confront their own sin.  And they know if they cannot overcome their own sin, then they cannot meet head-on the sin of the world. 

     Jesus asked the infirm man, "Wilt thou be made whole?"  This is the question I daily ask sinners, "Will you be made holy?"  One must will to be righteous, not simply desire righteousness.  Sin is a product of the will, a refusal to do what one knows he ought to do.  Like the lame man at Bethesda, hypocrites make all sorts of excuses why they cannot be holy, even having the audacity to misuse the scriptures to justify their sin and hypocrisy. 

     The lame man pleaded, "I have no man to put me into the water."  But the man, Christ Jesus, commanded him, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk."  And immediately the man was made whole.  Men rarely become wholly sanctified in this life because they think that sanctification is a lifelong process, which can never actually be achieved until the next life.    They have sanctification confused with maturity.  When men choose to be holy by obeying the commands of our Lord, they will be made whole.  The lame man had to rise up; he had to do the walking; he had to believe the Lord that it was possible for him to walk.  He had to act on the Word.  Men need to have faith that it is possible for us to live holy or they will never be holy. 

     "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."-1 Thessalonians 4:18.

"Any one who professes Christianity and continues to sin is like the lame man at the pool who had his infirmity for 38 years,"  Bro. Jed tells the students.

      I wrote, Walking in the Spirit:  A Liberating Commentary on Romans 6, 7 & 8, which commands men to be wholly sanctified.  I exhort men to continuously and habitually walk in the spirit and not fulfill, at all, the lusts of the flesh.  Sin will make a believer impotent and incapable of begetting other men into God's family.  Alas, men still prefer the bondage of Egypt instead of advancing into the promised land of holiness.   

      As the hour progressed, I was unrelenting in proclaiming godliness asking students, "Why do you think that it is called the Holy Bible?  Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect even at your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'  Paul said to young Timothy, 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God, . . . That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.'"

     Finally, someone interrupted me and said, "We are to strive for perfection." 

     Jesus did not say strive, he said 'Be.'  Paul said, 'For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.'  Don't you people know anything about sanctification?  To be sanctified means to be separated from the world, the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life.  Christianity is not a religion based upon works or striving; it based upon faith.  We need to learn to rest in him and his work; he has promised to purify us."

     "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."-2 Cor. 7:1.

      Many impotent students joined in pleading for sin, coming up with all sorts of religious reasons why they had to sin.  The holiness issue was the main subject of the day.  I had to explain 1 John 1:8 and Romans 7 numerous times.  Psalm 51:5 was read to me several times, which gave me the opportunity to teach on the nature of sin, which is a selfish choice, not a gene or inherited substance.

"Jesus did not say, go and sin daily in thought, word and deed," Bro. Jed

     In the middle of the afternoon it started raining heavily; the large crowd mostly scattered for shelter; however, several encircled me to hear more as I preached under my umbrella.  Some of the students simply stood in the downpour.  After an hour the rain stopped and the large crowd returned. 

     A secondary issue was my approach to evangelism.  The atheists were out again today with their signs but they were less of a factor than yesterday since I was getting my main opposition from Christians.  One atheist was holding a sign which listed alleged contradictions in the Bible; so pointing to his sign, I put these verses in context and instructed on hermeneutics.

     At 6:30 there were still 30 or so students hanging around.  Some were talking with me and others speaking with Sister Pat.  There were also a few other pockets of students standing around and talking about Biblical issues.  By late in the afternoon I noticed somewhat of a change of attitude in some of the professing Christians.  They seemed more interested in learning how to live holy.  Also, I clarified my position on Christian perfection.  "I am not saying that Christians are unable to sin; I am teaching that we are able not to sin."

      I invited my group to walk back to the parking lot with me and I would give them complimentary copies of my book, Walking in the Spirit.  Six students followed us back to my car to get their books.     

      Cindy's bridesmaid, Susie, and her husband, Enrique, drove up from Houston to take us to dinner, two of their children and four of their friends joined us for dinner.  I had been invited by a Christian student, Matt, to come to his Bible study at 8:30 in his apartment to answer questions.  Our whole dinner party came with me to the study.  The questions were not hostile and dealt mainly with holiness and confrontational evangelism. 

     Both Susie and Enrique engaged in the dialogue, Susie told a humorous story about how when she first heard me as a sheltered 20 year old Catholic girl at Louisiana State University, she thought, "I can not listen to this man he is cussing.  He is using the words like whore and whoremonger."  But she was provoked to read the Bible and discovered the strong language, which the Bible uses to condemn sin.  Enrique first heard the gospel from me at LSU when he was as a freshman.  He is from a prominent family in Nicaragua.  His uncle was Somoza.  It was helpful to have Enrique, who is now a financial consultant, confirming what I had been teaching. 

      I gave each of the students a copy of Walking in the Spirit.  We left at 10 PM; we had a very full, productive and unforgettable day of ministry.

Sis. Doris takes away every excuse that the sinner has to sin!

     Later, Matt, the leader of the Bible Study, wrote on my FB wall, "Brother Jed, Thank you for coming to teach us Thursday. You really gave us a newfound understanding that Christians are called to be without sin. I believe it is because today's brand of Christianity that tolerates so much daily sin that our fellowship with the Lord is broken daily. Perhaps this is why you don't see others healed by being in the shadow of a believer today? We must be urgent; there is a generation that doesn't understand the difference between confession of sin and repentance of sin. Confession isn't enough."

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