marry or date a non-Christian.
righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"
We must be committed to believe that God's Word has the final say in all our relationships. And if we believe that, then we must faithfully follow the three guidelines we have studied today about our relationships with the non-Christian world. The first: Strive to bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ. The second: Guard yourself from being influenced by them to compromise your loyalty to God. And the third guideline: Do not become unequally yoked with them. May the Lord help us!
Discussion Questions
1. What changes have there been in your relationships with others as a result of your relationship with God?
2. How, do you think, do the non-Christians you meet daily perceive your conduct?
3. Are there relationships in your life that are hindering your spiritual life?
4. List as many reasons as you can, why a Christian should not marry or date a non-Christian.
94 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
How to Testify for Christ in the Non-Christian World
(Acts 1:8; 8:1-4, 11:19-21)
Jesus commissioned His disciples to be his witnesses in Acts 1:8, and it is interesting to note that by reversing the verse reference (8:1 and following) we find the verses that tells us how this commission was fulfilled. Note the names of the places mentioned in them: "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1:8) "And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. . . . Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word." (Acts 8:1, 4)
The same commission has now come down to us in this generation. It is therefore our turn to be witnesses for Christ unto the uttermost part of the earth. Now this is not an easy task as there are many barriers to overcome — like language, culture, and political restrictions. But what do you think is the greatest hindrance to fulfilling the commission? Excuses! It is the excuses that we make that prevent us from sharing Christ with others. We say, "The time is not right yet. Our present circumstances are just not favourable for it." Many think that because they find themselves busy most of their time with their own personal pursuits, or are trying to settle their own personal problems, that the time is simply not right yet for them to
95 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
think about winning others to Christ. But if we study the Scriptures well enough, we will be quite surprised to find that very often, the occasions when evangelistic activity took place, were actually when circumstances were least favourable.
Take for example, the time when Jesus witnessed to the Samaritan woman at the well, recorded in John 4. The account begins by describing that Jesus and His disciples were on a journey from Judea to Galilee, a distance of about 100 kilometres, which would have taken them at least four days to travel on foot. After the first two days of their journey, they needed a place to rest and have a meal. And so they stopped at a place called Sychar in Samaria (v.5), "Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink." (John 4:6, 7).
From these verses we can just imagine how physically tired and exhausted Jesus was at this point. He has to sit down, probably because his feet and legs were aching and He needed to catch His breath. The time given in verse 6 is that it was the sixth hour — probably noon time, because the hours were counted by the Jews from sunrise. It was the hottest time of the day, and we imagine that Jesus was all sweaty and covered with dust from the hours of traveling. Our Lord was definitely uncomfortable, to say the least. Since the disciples were sent to buy food, He was probably hungry and evidently He was very thirsty too. And it was that thirst became the occasion for His request for a drink from the woman at the well that eventually led to her salvation, and the salvation of many others in the city! Now, if our Lord was looking for valid excuses for not doing God's work then, would He have had any? Yes! But did He allow these things to keep Him from doing God's work? No! So we see that even in the least favourable circumstances the gospel of salvation was brought by our Lord to others.
In Acts 8:1-4, we see another instance where circumstances were least favourable to winning people to Christ. "And Saul was
96 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word."
The account begins with "And Saul was consenting unto his death." (v.1). The person who died here was a church leader named Stephen. In the previous chapter, Stephen had been arrested on false charges of blasphemy and when brought to trial, he had given a very powerful defence of the Christian faith, but the Jews stoned him to death. The death of Stephen was a great blow to the church, since he was the first to be martyred, one of the most able leaders (see Acts 6:8, 10) and was also a very great teacher of the Scriptures. His death was a great loss! It caused the whole church (about 8,000 strong) to realise how vulnerable and weak they were in the midst of a nation that was oppressing and persecuting them.
And this realisation must have become more acute as the persecution intensified and got much worse after Stephen's death. The church now began to suffer the full force of Jewish hatred against Christ, and all Christians became regarded as outcasts, outlaws, criminals that were hunted down like rats and thrown into jail. Verse 3 mentions that men and women who professed Christ were forcefully removed from their houses and then imprisoned. Many others who escaped arrest fled from Jerusalem as refugees. They went to Judea and Samaria, and as Saul pursued them further they were forced to move on further.
But it was when the church was helpless and weakest, that it also had its strongest and most glorious moment. Instead of destroying the church, the great persecution made the church grow even faster, extending her witness further than ever before. And as the persecuted believers continued to testify for Christ, new churches were planted.
97 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
"Now they which were scattered abroad [cf. Acts 8:1,4] upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. 20 And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21 And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." (Acts 11:19-21).
In these two passages (Acts 8:1-4 and 11:19-21), I want you to notice one important point. The ones who were preaching the gospel were not full-time missionaries, pastors, nor a special group of gifted evangelists. In fact in Acts 8:1, we are specifically told that the Apostles stayed behind at Jerusalem, and they were primarily the ones who had been given the ministry of preaching the Word. But who were the ones that were now bringing the gospel beyond Jerusalem? They were members of the church at Jerusalem. They were actually ordinary believers who simply made use of the opportunities they met as they migrated to new places and met with new people.
And the amazing thing to us is that they were doing all this even though they themselves were going through an extremely stressful and difficult period of their lives. They uprooted themselves in a hurry and were relocating their homes and families to new and unfamiliar places. But despite this, they still bothered to witness to their neighbours and the new friends they made in their new places of residence.
I think that the zeal of these Christians, really puts us to shame. Here we are, enjoying a much easier and comfortable life without any persecution and we are well settled in nice homes. And yet most of us are probably not as fervent as these Christians were in testifying for Christ to those around them. Many Christians today hinder themselves with excuses saying that they are too busy, or that their circumstances do not permit it, or that they are not full-time workers or missionaries, and so they do not really need to make an effort to win others to Christ.
98 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
But the Bible shows us here that each and every believer is to be concerned and involved in the work of testifying to others about our Lord Jesus Christ. This work is not to be carried out just by a selected group of trained specialists, but by the whole church. The work is not just the responsibility of pastors, evangelists and missionaries alone. It is the responsibility of every born again Christian. Let us therefore not make excuses for ourselves anymore but take every opportunity to testify for Christ wherever God has placed us: in our homes, in our schools, or in our places of work. Now is the accepted time! For the rest of this message we will look at some practical points on how to testify for Christ.
Let us first consider some points on testifying for Christ at home. In chapter six, I have already mentioned the importance of living godly Christian lives at home before our non-Christian family members and finding opportunities to share Christ with them. But sometimes the situation we face at home is not very conducive for us to share Christ. Some of us face a language barrier and cannot communicate well in the dialect of our parents and grandparents.
We may also face a cultural barrier. Christianity is often perceived by them to be a Western religion. But the most difficult barrier to overcome is perhaps the generation gap between us and our loved ones. It is particularly hard for parents in our Asian culture to receive instruction from their children. Usually the immediate reaction would be, "I have eaten more salt than you have eaten rice. Are you trying to tell me that you know better than me?"
Do not be discouraged. In a situation like this, what we can do is to look for opportunities for our loved ones to come into contact with the Word of God, in some form that will circumvent these barriers. If your parent is able to read, then giving him or her a book on Christianity might help (e.g. Laidlaw's The Reason Why). We will be surprised at how God can use books to bring a person to Christ. My father became a Christian because my elder sister happened to leave a library book she had borrowed on a table at home. The book was not the Bible but a biography of the Apostle Paul. My father was
99 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
curious and began to read this book and this made him want to know more about the God that had changed Paul's life. This subsequently led to his attending church, attending Bible study and his conversion in 1966.
Sometimes, you can overcome the language and cultural barrier as well as the generation gap by enlisting the help of another mature Christian who speaks the dialect well and is about the same age as your parents. I had a friend at another church who did that. He asked an elder of another church who spoke the same dialect as his father and was just a few years younger than him to come and visit. The Lord blessed their meeting and his father was saved and is now attending the same church as him.
Sometimes when a Gospel rally for parents is held in your church, you could try to persuade them to attend. But one thing may prevent them from coming to a Gospel rally. That is: they are afraid to enter into a church compound for the rally as it is quite alien and unfamiliar to them and they are afraid of feeling like a "fish out of water" in the midst of the people, the surroundings, the singing, and the praying. We must try to understand this and put ourselves in their shoes. I do not think anyone here would be quite keen if someone were to ask you to go with him to a meeting place of some strange cult you have never heard of before to join in some strange activities going on there. How can we help them to overcome this feeling of strangeness?
I have a little suggestion. There are some social occasions held in church when we may legitimately expect our loved ones to attend if they are invited. Things like our wedding (or our children's wedding), getting engaged, or baptism (of our selves, children and grand-children). These are golden opportunities to invite and persuade our non-Christian loved ones to come to church so that they can get themselves accustomed to the surroundings and to the things that go on in church. When Frieda and I got engaged and married, this is what we did. We invited all our relatives, including all those who were outside Christ to church. For a number of them, it was the
100 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
very first time they had ever attended a church service. In this way, if they are invited to church for Bible study or for church service or for a gospel rally, they won't feel so apprehensive about the unfamiliar surroundings.
Now that we have considered points about testifying for Christ at home, let us go on now to look at some points about testifying for Christ beyond our home. For some of us, that would be at our place of work, and for others that would be at our school or campus. First, we want to list some reasons why we should make every effort to testify for Christ in these particular places.
First, for most of us here, our place of work or study is our main area of influence outside our home. We spend six to eight hours a day at our working place or school, five days a week. That works out to nearly a quarter of our total time or one third of our conscious time. We see our colleagues or classmates and they see us day in and day out. This is therefore the main area where we can have an influence on other people and witness to them.
Second, the place where Christians work or study is one of the largest sources of new converts. In most churches, one will find that the majority of new believers that are added to the church, do not come from holding public gospel rallies, or from going tracting in the neighbourhood, or from doing door to door evangelism, but from the friends, work colleagues, classmates and contacts of church members, who introduce them to Christ. If every Christian in our church will therefore take seriously his privilege of being a witness for Christ and concentrate on that in his area of influence, our church will soon be growing rapidly.
And finally, it is easier to follow up people we bring to Christ in our place of work or study than other people because we see them almost every day.
We can watch their progress, encourage them to keep on following Christ, and counsel them when they face problems at work
101 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
or school. We can do Bible study during lunch break or just before or after work or school hours.
In contrast to this, if we were to bring someone to Christ who is not our colleague or classmate, we would have to make an additional effort to keep in touch with them, make extra time to meet them and follow them up. So evangelising those in our areas of influence has some distinct advantages over other kinds of evangelism.
But unfortunately, many believers are not making good efforts to bring their colleagues or classmates to Christ. Somehow most people do not seem to be keen to talk about Christ in these places. Some do not even want to let others in their place of work or school know that they are Christians, and will try their best to keep this a secret from them. Why is this so? Let us examine some reasons.
The Fear of Endangering our Good Relations
with them
I am sure all of us want to have good relations with our colleagues or classmates. We do not want to do any thing to damage those relations, or else it may become quite difficult later on to gain their cooperation for activities in which we have to work together as a team. Well, actually this may be a rather selfish reason for not wanting to share God's word with them. Another reason for doing this is:
The Fear of Being Rejected by them
There are bound to be peer groups or cliques of people that we like to associate ourselves with. We want to be accepted by them and be regarded as one of them. And we fear that if we begin to witness, they will reject us, ridicule us, isolate us and perhaps they may even make things difficult for us, and we might become victims of office politics. Those of us who have been in National Service might know
102 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
about the fear of being "saboed" (sabotaged) by those who do not like us.
But the Scriptures tell us that if we honour the Lord, He will honour us also. That applies even to our working place. One clear example in Scripture of a person who was sabotaged by his colleagues was Daniel. They made things extremely difficult for him. In fact they got the king to throw him into the Lion's den. But the wonderful thing is that as Daniel honoured God, God in the end honoured him by delivering him from the schemes of evil men. He retained his job and they lost their jobs as well as their lives.
The Fear of Not Knowing How to Witness to them
How do I introduce the gospel to them? What should I say? What if they ask me questions that I cannot answer? This is another reason many Christians do not witness at their place of work or study. It is a very natural fear, but one that we can easily deal with if we just take time to learn some simple basic steps. If we take the time to plan, pray, read books on evangelism, consult other Christians who have done it, and attend seminars and talks on how to bring our friends to Christ, we can overcome this fear .
Now, you will notice that all the three reasons listed here deal with the same basic feeling: fear. The devil specialises in paralysing us with fear. The command of Jesus to His disciples and to us is not to fear because He is with us, at all times and in all places (Mat 10:28; 28:20). Very experienced evangelists will tell you that the feelings of fear never go away. You must overcome them.
Remember that the only fear you face is the fear of being rejected by people or, at the most for those who are working, the fear of losing your job. Our non-Christian colleagues or classmates have much more to fear than we do. They have to fear being rejected by God and losing their souls to eternal damnation if no one shares Christ with them.
103 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
You may be the only one they will ever come into contact with, who have the message of salvation which is able to deliver them from the wrath to come. Let us do everything we can to overcome all our fears of sharing Christ in our work place or school. And let us have the same attitude expressed by Paul, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Rom 1:16)
Now that we have seen the reasons we should testify for Christ and why we must overcome the fears that keep us from doing this, let us consider some practical steps that we can take to witness to them.
Do not hide your Christian profession
Let them know that you are a believer. There are some subtle ways of doing this. E.g. Students: A Christian bookmark in your school textbook. A little Bible verse written on your pencil box or file will give away your identity as a follower of Christ. Those who work: Placing a Bible or Christian book at your work site, putting a verse of Scripture on the memo board will tell others that you are a Christian.
Match Your Christian Profession
with Christ-like Conduct
We must be careful in how we live and be wise in the way we act toward our colleagues and classmates so we can make the most of any opportunity with them. Remember that we must live by much higher standards of righteous conduct than what the world accepts as normal. The testimony you bear before others is very important. All it takes is for you to fail just one time in living uprightly, and your testimony before your colleagues or classmates may be badly damaged. And it is immensely difficult to restore that testimony when it is damaged.
104 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
But if you can consistently maintain a good uncompromising testimony before your colleagues, you may actually gain great respect from them. They will regard you as being a person of principles, of integrity, someone that they can look up to, depend on, trust and confide in, and they might even seek your counsel and advice when they are in trouble. When Joseph was in prison in Egypt, he maintained such a good testimony that he was allowed to take charge of the other prisoners. He even won the trust of two highranking prisoners: the pharoah's baker and butler. They were willing to confide in him and shared what they dreamt for him to interpret.
If you have succeeded in the first two steps of making known your Christian profession and living up to its standards of conduct, then you are ready to go on to the third step:
Look for Opportunities to Witness
For example, if it is recess time in school or if you take a lunch or tea break at work and go together to the canteen, you are bound to talk with others. Sometimes in our conversations, we find it difficult to begin talking about Christ. Most of the time when we meet with people in our work place during our free time what do we talk about? The food? The weather? Politics? Good investments?
And how about those of us who are students. What do we talk about most of the time in school, before and after lessons? Homework? The coming test or exam? Teachers we like and do not like? How do we switch from talking about these mundane things to talking about spiritual things? It is not easy, and it takes some effort. We need to find what we call a transition point, a link, which will help to steer the course of the conversation in the direction of salvation. This transition point can take the form of a question.
A question was what the evangelist Philip used when he witnessed to an Ethiopian official. "And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose
105 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot." (Acts 8:26)
As Philip came near to the chariot, he may have been wondering, "Now how am I going to introduce the subject of the gospel to this person. I am a total stranger to him, and he does not know me. I can't just come out of nowhere and say to him, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." As Philip was coming nearer and nearer the carriage he heard the voice of someone reading aloud, and he realised that the Ethiopian official was reading aloud from a copy of the Old Testament. And immediately he knew how he should begin his conversation. Not by saying, "It's a nice day, isn't it?" or "Where might you be going?" His question was designed to lead to the gospel. He asked: "Do you understand what you are reading?" And immediately the response that he knew he would get came: "How can I understand this unless someone guides me?" So Philip sensed the need and then offered to guide the official. This became his golden opportunity to use the scriptures to share Christ.
You must believe that in the course of your daily interaction with colleagues in your workplace, the Lord will open doors for you to share the gospel with them. But you on your part have to look for them. I remember the time when I was in reservist in-camp training and my fellow reservists and I went for our lunch break together. When we all got our food and sat down to eat, everyone else just ate straightaway.
But I took a moment to say grace before I ate. Then, while we were eating the person sitting next to me, by the name of Benny, asked me if I was a Christian. This became a useful transition point and I was eventually able to share the gospel with him.
106 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
Another way you can make a transition point is to divert the conversation to some recent disaster in which lives were lost. For example, the SilkAir plane crash in 1997. Then when your colleague is thinking about how unfortunate the victims were, ask him a thought-provoking question like: "What if you were one of the victims? Would you be ready for that? What do you think will happen to you when you die? If God were to ask you, why should I allow you to come into my Heaven, what would you say?" The best kind of transitions or bridges are often thought-provoking questions.
We have to think of ways like these, where we can introduce the subject without offending the person, but cultivating interest and curiosity in him, so that he will want to discover God's salvation plan. You may recall what was mentioned earlier of how Jesus converted the woman at the well. He used a simple request for a drink as a transition point to bring the message of salvation to her. He skilfully made her interested to know more and more. Once you have found a suitable opportunity to witness, you are now in a position to share the gospel.
Share the Gospel
When the opportunity to testify for Christ actually comes, it may be hard for us to immediately construct a brief, accurate and complete message of salvation right there on the spot. So we have to rely on resources already prepared by others. The most helpful resources are gospel tracts, which are small booklets, containing the basics of the gospel message. Carry a few tracts with you in your purse or wallet. You may never know when they will be useful.
There are several advantages gained from using tracts. First, some of them present the gospel systematically. We can learn the main points and memorise the verses that substantiate the points in order to share our faith. Secondly, we can give the person a copy of the tract to take with them. This is important, so that when they are alone and ready to review God's message, they can do so. Thirdly,
107 A Christian in a Non-Christian World
the person can also check up the verses in a Bible, if they have one, just to prove that you are not making these things up!
Now, after you have shared the gospel with him, your friend may respond in one of two ways — he may be interested in what you have shared, or he may not be interested at all. Whatever his response is, please observe the next step.
Leave the Results to God
Do not worry or think you have failed if you do not get results. The Apostle Paul himself did not always see a warm response to what he preached. In Acts 17, when Paul preached his gospel message to the Council of Mars Hill in Athens, it was not wellreceived at all, "when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again on this matter." (Acts 8:26). Did Paul get the response he had hoped for? From the passage, we see that Paul was dismissed from the meeting amid much laughter and ridicule.
There will be times when we are tempted to feel disappointed and discouraged because people do not respond well to our efforts to bring them the good news of salvation. We expect them to accept our message with joy, but instead, most of them reject it with ridicule.
When we feel this way we need to remember that it is not our efforts, not our methods, not the approach we use, nor our skill in delivering God's Truths that saves men. It is God alone who saves. We will do well to do our part, and we ought to do it well. But the results must be left to God. Only God can change a sinner's heart and convict him of his need for salvation.
Our responsibility is to sow the seed. The rest is left to God. He will cause it to germinate and grow. Sometimes, the seed will flourish and grow, and sometimes it will not. Christ mentioned this in His parable of the sower. Sometimes, the seed takes a longer time than expected to germinate. Many people hear the gospel but do not
108 A Christian in a Non-Christian World