Get the Word out!

What are the kids saying?

I spent some time this weekend in the rain with a few youth in my town. We talked about Christianity and spiritual things and some of the questions and comments were interesting. The conversation started a little awkward, but what should I have expected when a 33 year old man walks up to five teens? One of the boys was cynical and asked a few questions that were an indication that he had thought about these things for awhile.He claimed that he wasn’t a Christian, even though he went to church. He admitted to being an agnostic, someone who isn’t sure whether or not God exists.

I started by telling them the truth of the gospel. I have found that whether or not someone claims to be a Christian, it is important to witness to them anyway. I couldn’t let the chance go to make sure they heard it at least once.

After I shared the gospel, I began talking to the agnostic young man. He had some common questions that many seem to ask. He told me about how he would ask “Christian” after “Christian” these same questions and no one could answer them. He said that he felt that many Christians were fake and were just doing it for image reasons. I told him that I agree with him. Sadly, even though we are told (in 1 Peter 3:15) that we are to be ready at all times to give an answer for what we believe, many don’t. Below are the questions that he asked me. I would ask that you read the questions carefully and decide how you would answer them. If you don’t have an answer, then you need to find one. I’ve heard these questions over and over from people and without an answer, we just look foolish.

The first question he asked was: “Who made God?” This is a common question and the confusion around it comes from a misunderstanding that has evolutionary roots. To ask this question means that you are assuming that there has to be a maker for everything. Before you call to have me committed, please listen to me. There is nothing that says that God has to be made, unless you hold to evolutionary views. These views tell you that everything comes from something else and that it all comes about through natural causes. The Bible makes it clear that God has existed eternally. He was already there in the beginning. He is the cause of everything else.

The second question that he asked me is also very common although it’s usually asked the same way the young man asked it. He asked me, “How can God be so loving and great when I look at a little baby with brain cancer or see horrible things happen. How could a good God allow this?” As I said, this is a common question. Many people ask this question in derision to God. This question has its source in a misunderstanding of a few things. First, it is a misunderstanding of who God is and what His character is like. God is holy, perfect, and righteous. This means that everything He does is right, whether or not we like it or understand it. The second thing that this question ignores is the effect of sin on man and the rest of the world. When Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating the fruit that they weren’t supposed to, they broke God’s law (His command not to eat) and sinned. This sin brought death into the world. The origin of death, cancer, and all of the other ills is not God, but man. It was Adam and Eve who brought these things into our world. God allows this as a judgment on sin because it is His decision to do this. Before anyone thinks that this is unfair to innocent people, let me share something with you. There aren’t any innocent people in the world. The Bible says that we are conceived in sin and iniquity and that no one is righteous. We should be praising God for His grace in not wiping us off the planet…

The young man then told me that he went to a church in a nearby town for almost a year. He said that he idolized the pastor of that church. He looked up to him and saw him as an example. Then, not long before they left, the boy found out that the pastor had been sleeping with one of the girls in the youth group… I could see the outrage and disappointment in his eyes and I’m sure that he could see the same emotions in mine. This aggrevates me. First, it makes it so much easier for someone to mock the Lord and His bride.  Second, it makes it so much harder for someone who sees these things to both understand and submit to Christ. They see “Christians” who constantly fail and decide that the God they serve isn’t really powerful enough to do much of anything.

There was one thing that caught me off guard. At the end of the encounter, I ended up giving the young man a gospel tract. It was a million dollar bill tract from Living Waters. He looked at me and asked me why I was doing this and who I was doing this for. I told him the truth. I wasn’t doing it for any church. I told him my concern was that he and his friends would not go to hell. This shocked him. He asked me again if I had come out on my own. I said yes again. I pray that he and his friends heard the message of the gospel and that it still echoes with them today.
This is where a majority of our kids are at today, Christians. These are the types of things that they are thinking about. If you and I don’t have the answers, they will turn their back on the church and we will lose them. Will you let them down? Will you continue to make the church and the character of the Lord a parody of the truth? Or, will you take the time to learn the truth and then share it with everyone you can? It is what our kids need, what our nation needs, and what the world needs…