In the following video, Ray Comfort opens with Ben Affleck speaking in a group about sin and his Christian struggle. Comfort then goes to two College students and does his gospel presentation.
If you have not learned how to witness the gospel message, you might learn a few points from Ray. There are posts in this blog wherein Todd Friel is witnessing the gospel; and a post that uses only videos to inform one how to present the gospel, in the category Gospel Message; and Gospel Message Defined.
Comfort says about Affleck that he is not quite there for reasons he asks viewers to identify from Affleck’s talk, I think those reasons are as in the following bullet points.
After the following points, I noted a process called the struggle of faith, devised by Pastor Jonathan Edwards wherein a five-step process is identified that leads to the born-again experience (even though that is unheard of in this day where everyone is born again the moment they utter the sinner’s prayer — what a grave falsehood that notion is!).
Afflecks errors:
- He emphasized finding purpose in the Christian life; I thought of Rick Warren’s heretical work, The Purpose Driven Life (that book is critiqued by Gary Gilley in this blog, to see that post, see: Categories, Mysticism)
- He didn’t want his children paying for his sins: in the book of Ezekiel, God says that everyone will pay for his own sins: consider: Eze 18:20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. Also, Rom_6:23; Gal_3:10-13, Gal_3:22 (His alcoholism however, certainly could impact his children, influencing them to drink for similar reasons, as in being conditioned to behave like their father.)
- He said, it is our job to do the following: to find our redemption; to find God’s love; to redeem ourselves; to live our best life [before God, I assume he meant]; to love one another. To love one another is a command, but that cannot be done without the gracious enabling of the Holy Spirit which we are to pray for. The first several points are all things that God does, that is, Christ redeemed us via the cross and His righteous life; God pours out His love on us via His Spirit. We cannot do those things, they are done by the Sovereign God.
- Not judging: we are not to judge, as in criticize, condemn another’s motives [those are seen only by God]; but we are to judge another’s wrong conduct. The Bible talks about rebuking, 2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, Jude 1:23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. 1Co 5:9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
1Co 5:10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
1Co 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
1Co 5:12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
1Co 5:13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” [All of those scriptures indicate that another’s conduct is to be judged, according to scripture. In a read through the Bible, you could certainly find many more such verses.] - It seemed that he was saying the there are a lot of critical Christians who want to judge and excommunicate other believers. If that is what he was saying, then in Matthew 18 there is a process for church elders to follow to confront a sinning believer and if he doesn’t repent, to excommunicate him until he does; and when he does, then to restore him; other scriptures that talk about this in part are 1 Cor. 5; Gal. 6.
The process leading to the born-again experience: Affleck may be on step two of the following process? To see the post from which the following comes, see: Categories, Sin: The Sinner’s Prayer.
Jonathan Edwards established a 5 stage process which he termed, the struggle of faith: 1) horror of being eternally lost; 2), the sinner’s attempt to stop sinning via his will power; 3), realization that only God can save him from sin; 4), conviction, the sinner beginning to see that God’s judgment is just; 5), awakening to God with genuine religious affections.
The following prominent Christians spent many years between stages 1 and 5 of Edwards standard of assessment for genuine conversion:
John Calvin, 12 years; Wesley, 23 years; Whitefield, 10 years; Fox, 12 years; Edwards, 5 years; Brainerd, 9 years; Newton, 6 years; Spurgeon, 4 years….
I am left thinking, “Where am I on this scale?” The criteria of stages 3 and 4 are very familiar to me; not so with 5. I must examine myself more carefully.
At what stage are you?