“And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14).
It’s October, and Halloween is just around the corner. Children will soon be canvassing the neighborhoods dressed up as everything from fairy princesses to flesh-eating zombies. And parents will be on watch for these trick-or-treaters all through the night. Halloween festivities make this night a fun holiday for kids, but for me, it has never held a great appeal. I don’t eat a lot of candy, and I honestly could pass on ghosts and goblins and dancing skeletons. Nevertheless, a lot of people make a big fuss over Halloween. Even some churches get in on the action with their haunted judgment houses and virtual trips to the underworld. They try to give people a taste of what they think hell is like, with the goal of making participants desire to avoid going there.
As I said, I’m not a big fan of the Halloween season, and to be honest, I am not a big fan of those church Halloween houses either. The motive behind those “houses of hell” are sincere, but I believe they are significantly misguided. A few churches host these types of events because they wish to find a way to reach out to young people with the beautiful message of the gospel of Jesus and bring those people to faith. But I’m afraid what they usually end up doing is using hell to scare kids into heaven. By the time the young people finish their “tour of the tormented” they are brought into a room with counselors and asked a few simple questions. The goal, of course is to get them to make a decision for Jesus, a profession of faith. They are told that if they simply open the door of their hearts and allow Jesus to come in then they can have assurance in that decision that they will never have to go to that terrible place when they die. But a setting like this can be a little intimidating to say the least, and some young people can easily be made to feel like they are being interrogated under a spotlight until they give the correct answer to those questions.
The call of the gospel message is to have faith, but I have a hard time thinking this is the way we should frame that message. And I have a hard time thinking any of the Apostles, or our blessed Savior Himself, would ever have done this kind of thing to the young people of their day. Jesus said He wanted this gospel, or good news, to be proclaimed to people throughout the whole world (Matthew 24:14). But is this the way He wanted us to do it? We can coerce young people into making that “decision for Jesus,” but we would all have to question whether such a decision was true faith, made out of a genuine love and desire for Him.
I don’t believe we find Jesus doing this type of evangelism. Instead of leading a group on a haunted house tour of demons, I find Jesus and His disciples bringing deliverance to those who were oppressed by demons. Instead of displaying the arms of hell reaching out in dark hallways to drag people in, I find Jesus and His disciples reaching out hands of love and compassion to the lost and the wayward. Their method of evangelizing was to invest themselves into the lives of those they encountered, sharing the good news of the kingdom to come. We see this in the gospel accounts:
“And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1–2).
Jesus cared for the sick and healed the lame and fed multitudes and taught about the kingdom of God with compassionate stories of redemption and reconciliation. The sweetness, love and compassion of His manner drew people to Him. Even the little children gravitated to Him by sensing an aura of love in His life and actions. And I believe this is the best example for us to follow. We must show the beauty of His kingdom in the brokenness of this world. As I see these houses of hell at Halloween, I cannot help but wonder, is this how we really wish to communicate this good news of the glorious kingdom Christ has ushered into His fallen creation?
We must be careful that our evangelism does not promote a shallow view of what Christ has accomplished. Jesus is not simply our eternal fire insurance policy, or our “get out of hell free” card. Our Lord’s gospel message is not primarily based upon what we are delivered from but what we are delivered into. For we are delivered into an everlasting dominion of what the human race was always meant to be, a dominion of the peoples of all nations serving our God and King.
I am all for sharing the truth of the gospel so that hearts will be opened. That is why I write these articles each month. But the gospel is much more than a way to escape hell. The gospel is the glorious announcement of the kingdom which Christ ushered into this world through His death on the cross. It is the glorious announcement that Jesus, as the eternal God, took upon Himself humanity, and in this humanity, He suffered and died for my sins, which satisfied His own holy wrath toward me. In that death, He redeemed and reconciled me to Himself. And as He returned from that death into life, He ushered that kingdom of His new life into this world. He now reigns as the King of that new life and new world, and new, redeemed humanity. The gospel is the good news that Christ has absorbed my death into His and gives His life to me through the Holy Spirit, who applies the benefits of that death through the gift of faith. Therefore, the biblical call of the gospel is not simply a profession of faith, but a call of faithful obedience to that King and His heavenly kingdom. And that gospel is to be shared for the purpose of bringing that obedient faith into people throughout the world (Romans 1:5). It is not to be shared to cultivate a cornered commitment or a potentially superficial decision void of true living faith. Our Savior warns us of this:
“16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. 21 Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:16–21).
The Apostle Paul tells us that our spiritual father Abraham was justified (or counted to be in a right standing before God) by having a faith which was placed upon Christ, who is our rightness (Romans 4:3). And so, the possession of a true and genuine faith in Jesus is of absolute necessity. Let us be careful not to confuse an imitation with real faith, for a cheap imitation can lull someone into a false sense of security that goes unquestioned. A saving faith is so much more than a superficial decision. Paul tells us again, in his letter to the Ephesians, that true faith comes to us as a gift from God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). True faith is a new and foreign set of desires brought into a person’s heart by the life-giving grace of God. The power of His Spirit, which makes us alive in Christ, brings faith alive in us. And Christ becomes our King, for He becomes our reason for life itself. As we live the love of Christ in this world and encourage deep and life-altering relationships with God, we see the fruit of the good tree which He has planted in us. And this fruit gives us true security and assurance that our faith is real.
I encourage my readers to be a vibrant part of the life of a church which evangelizes with the love of Jesus, a love that shines out into our Murfreesboro community and the world. The grace of God is to be seen in the life of His spiritual family. And this grace gives the world a glimpse of the beauty of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.
