Top That

In various places in the New Testament, Christians are told to comfort and strengthen one another, primarily to build each other up in the faith. It's common for Christians to share with each other about what the Lord has done in their lives as a way to pick each other up spiritually. They'll share a praise report about an answer to prayer or a particular blessing God has given them. They'll share how the Lord has helped them overcome something they had been struggling with, and so forth.

Christians also occasionally share their personal testimonies about how they came to have faith in God: the detailed story of the how, when, and where they came to believe the gospel. I say the how, when, and where because...well, we already know the who (Jesus), the what (salvation by grace through faith) and the why (because God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance).

In many cases, a believer's personal testimony can be a powerful witnessing tool, especially when that person witnesses to a someone with a similar background, or to someone who is mired in a situation that is akin to something that believer came out of and thus can relate to.

For example, if someone had a problem with drug addiction when they became a born-again believer and the Lord ultimately gave them victory over that addiction through the regenerating power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, then that person's testimony could be instrumental in helping them lead someone else who was struggling with a similar addiction to a saving faith in Christ. There are very few things more effective in sharing the gospel than being able to say to someone:

"I've been in the mess you're in; I've done the things you're doing; I've suffered what you're suffering. Let me tell you what God did for me, because He set me free from it and He'll do the same for you."

"I love to tell the story..."

I grew up in a small town in central Illinois, and I still recall how the little church my family attended would occasionally invite various traveling evangelists, missionaries, and so on as special guest speakers. Some would sing and play the guitar, and would have records and tapes for sale in the back of the church. Some would display unusual items they had acquired during their journeys to mission fields in distant, exotic lands. Some would bend steel bars, break concrete blocks, or rip telephone books in half to vividly demonstrate the power of God that was available to you if you put your faith in Him.

Now, many of you are probably thinking that sounds a little hokey—and I won't argue the point. But hokey or not, at least they had one thing in common: They all preached the fall-on-your-face gospel of Jesus Christ.

I only mention it because that's more than you can say for far too many major denominational churches today. In many big churches these days, it's a smoothly professional, 45- to 60-minute concert of high-octane contemporary worship music followed by a glowing, 20- to 30-minute Christianized motivational speech that sounds like something that came from a pop psychology self-help book.

In many cases, it probably did.

But whatever else they brought to the pulpit, many of those speakers had one other thing in common: a stirring personal testimony. We ate 'em up, too. We'd hang on every word—and it's possible that a few of us may have been influenced to polish up our own testimonies just a smidge.

I might add that country music singers sometimes have a penchant for dramatic Christian testimonies as well, sometimes putting them in the form of song lyrics: syrupy, sob-inducing lyrics that drip with herculean angst and hackneyed images of the singer holed up in a sleazy hotel room holding a Bible in one trembling hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Or pills. Or a pistol. Or a prostitute. Pick your cornpone.

Unfortunately, those lyrics often represent the extent of the singer's actual involvement with Christianity, if any. Not to cast a judgmental pall on things, but the glare of reality reveals that most seem to leave Jesus back in that sleazy hotel room. I suppose the old saying is true: "Nashville has changed more Christians than Christians have changed Nashville."

I love to tell my story...

One thing I've noticed about a lot of Christians here in Taiwan is that they seem to have a flair for personal testimonies. Many of them are quick to recount the story of how they came to faith in Jesus Christ, and they tend to lean toward the compelling and dramatic end of the spectrum.

In many Christian circles in Taiwan, it is de rigueur to be able to regale a small group with a thrilling blow-by-blow account of the epic battle for your soul that took place on that fateful day you came to have faith in Christ's atoning work on the cross. Failure to do so when pressed upon is almost a spiritual faux pas, and there is little doubt in my mind that some people devote plenty of time and effort to polishing (and embellishing) their tales of high spiritual drama.

Like many activities in Taiwanese society, the sharing of testimonies can take on an almost competitive air, with no member of a group wanting to be completely outdone. As a result, some have a tendency to dress up their testimonies over time, adding new details or spicing things up a bit with each telling. Not only that, but I've met Christians here that are virtual testimony junkies, always hungry to hear an ever more enthralling conversion story from any believer they meet.

Although traditionally a Buddhist (as well as Taoist) country, Taiwan has a largely secular society. But even though only a minority of people here are highly devoted practitioners of their traditional religion, the overwhelming majority have no problem whatsoever believing that there exists a lively and very real interaction between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Throughout Taiwanese society, belief in ghosts and the supernatural is widespread and deeply entrenched.

Possibly as a result, some of the Christian testimonies I've heard from Taiwanese people involve demonic encounters that would raise the hairs on the backs of even the most jaded American necks. I've heard testimonies from people that any Hollywood screenwriter worth his salt could turn into marketable horror movie scripts.

Please understand—I don't mean to sound as if I am belittling peoples' testimonies, or suggesting that they are invariably just making things up. Demons are very real, and demonic activity is certainly present in Taiwan. Pagan worship is rampant here, and every time people worship a physical object, you can bet your bottom New Taiwan Dollar that there is a demon behind it. Satan craves worship—worship that rightfully belongs to God alone—and all the other fallen angels and demons are no different.

Besides the fact that God is a jealous God and refuses to allow His glory to be shared by another, this is probably a secondary reason why God forbade the people of Israel to worship idols (the second commandment). It's not just a grave insult to the Creator; it is effectively a flashing neon sign that says "Welcome!" to any demonic entities that happen to be in the area.

But some people do get a little carried away and end up embellishing their stories over time, adding an extra demon or two here and there. One other thing I've noticed about some of the thriller-diller testimonies I've heard here in Taiwan: The speaker is always the hero. Of course, it makes perfect sense that an individual would be the main character in the story of how they came to a saving faith in Christ. But in some of the testimonies I've heard from people here, the speaker is battling the forces of hell in a harrowing spiritual showdown, and somehow manages to emerge victorious—with a little help from Jesus, of course.

I've never actually said anything to anyone, but there have been times when this has bothered me to a small degree. Anything that glorifies man more than it glorifies God bothers me, and I have had to bite my tongue on more than one occasion because I didn't want to offend someone that I felt was sincere in their faith, or come across as being petty or judgmental. I have learned to accept it as their style, and I try not to let it bother me.

That said, however, it has made me realize that it's probably a good idea to keep several basic things in mind in regard to personal testimonies:

• Don't reduce Jesus to a prop in your story about you. Remember that it's not about what you did—it's about what He did for you. Give Him the glory. He alone deserves it.

• Don't judge someone's salvation experience by the drama factor of their testimony. An exciting testimony that keeps listeners enthralled is not the end-all be-all of being a Christian. The fruit of the Spirit always trumps the flourishes of a spellbinding testimony.

• Don't judge your own salvation experience against others' testimonies. If you're not as strong in your faith as you should be and you feel that your experience pales in comparison, Satan can use this as a tool to make you doubt your salvation (or what's worse, start you down that futile road of thinking you need to do things to be more deserving of it).

And you know what, if you really want to polish something, why not make it the story of the gospel? Our focus should be on His story anyway, not ours.

The Lord doesn't tell us to beat people over the head with what we believe; He tells us to honor Him as Lord in our hearts. As we do that, we will strive to live in a manner pleasing to Him by obeying His Word and allowing ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Then, we are to be prepared to tell people who ask us why we have the hope that we do.

What hope? The hope of eternal life—an eternity in God's presence in heaven that we definitely don't deserve and can't possibly earn.

And why do we have this hope? Because we believe in repentant faith that the biblically prophesied death and resurrection of God's only Son Jesus Christ paid the penalty for the sum total of our sin and promises us the same victory over death—and that nothing else can or ever will.

In other words, because we believe the gospel.

Nothing special

One particular incident that comes to mind happened to me several years ago. A new student, a guy in his twenties who worked for a computer company, came to one of my evening classes. I was chatting with a couple of other students before the beginning of class, and he overheard one of us mention something about church or something. Whatever it was, it caught his attention, and he perked right up and asked me straight out:

"Are you a Christian?"

"Uh, yes, I am, as a matter of fact."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

He seemed genuinely excited that he had found his way into an English class where the teacher was a born-again believer, and I liked him right from the start because he contributed to the class and asked a lot of questions. After class, he was eager to share his testimony with me.

He went right into it, and I don't remember all the details of his testimony, but I remember it was a humdinger. In one part that I do recall, he was apparently lying on his bed and three demons were holding him down while he struggled to breathe. He said that a creepy darkness filled the room, and he fought with all his might to cry out, but couldn't. Finally, he was able to scream out "Jesus!" and a bright light suddenly began filling the room, driving away the demons, who flew out the window.

Anyway, when he had finished, he had a look on his face that I can only describe as one of anticipation—as if to say OK, your turn. And he didn't say this with words either, but the message was loud and clear:

Top that.

Thank you for asking how that made me feel. Imagine you're stopped at a red light, and a guy in a sports car pulls up next to your car. He glances over at you and starts revving his engine, and shouts over the thundering noise: "THAT'S THE SOUND OF 480 HORSES, DUDE! SO WHADDA YOU GOT?"

The gauntlet had been thrown down, in a friendly way of course, and it was thrust upon me to respond in a worthy manner. But it was 10 minutes after class had ended, and I don't normally have time to chat with students much after class. I needed to go, and so I politely excused myself and left. The light turned green, and I chugged and sputtered on home.

I had a chance to chat with him again before class the following week, and he asked me about how I had become a Christian. I knew in my heart that he was expecting to hear a testimony that, although exciting and full of thrills and chills, would certainly come up short in comparison to his own. Rather than trying to rev my engine, I just told him the truth: that I had been raised in a church-going Christian family and had been a believer since I was young, although God had been dealing with me in the last few years and had brought me into a closer walk with Him than ever before.

You know...the usual. Nothing special.

No thrills. No chills. No darkness. No demons.

Part of me almost felt like apologizing.

He continued coming to my class, and we got to be friends. He was a good guy and I always enjoy having another student that I can chat with about the Bible and spiritual things.

A couple of months later, I came into the classroom a few minutes earlier than usual to clean my whiteboard and I happened to overhear him chatting with a girl in the class, and he was again sharing his testimony. I happened to catch the part about the demons, except this time it was four demons, with one jumping up and down on his chest. I paid no attention and went about my usual puttering.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to burn in my spirit—not just in regard to my student, but in regard to everybody I had ever heard relate an exciting, thrill-packed testimony that kept listeners on the edge of their seats (and perhaps grew a tad more exciting over time). What burned in my spirit was this question:

He SAVED you...isn't that exciting enough?

Blinded by the light

I certainly don't mean to suggest there's something wrong with exciting personal testimonies. Not at all. Like I said, they can be an effective way of bringing others to a saving faith in Jesus. And you don't have to take my word for it: Go to God's Word.

The apostle Paul easily had one of the most thrilling, dramatic conversion experiences recorded in the Bible, and he didn't hesitate to share it with diverse groups of people in order to spread the message of the gospel and as a means of convincing people he was on the level.

Saul of Tarsus (later changed to Paul) was an extremely devout Jew—a Pharisee, as well as a Roman citizen. And he was well known throughout the region for his murderously zealous persecution of the blasphemous heretics that came to be known as Christians.

While on the road to Damascus to search for and arrest suspected members of "the Way" (that is, Christians), Jesus appeared to him in a blinding vision that left him without sight for three days and radically altered the course of his life—and of history. You can read the details of the encounter in Acts 9.

In the early days of his ministry, Paul's testimony was essential because many Christians knew him only as a notorious Jewish henchman. They had good reason to be leery of his reported conversion, and so his dramatic testimony helped persuade believers he was for real and that they could trust him.

Of course, what really made the early Christians believe Paul had genuinely become a follower of Christ was the unspeakable suffering and persecution they saw him willingly and patiently endure in his tireless effort to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. (See 2 Cor. 11 for a graphic rundown.)

I love to tell His story...

In the end, all of this made me realize that perhaps my personal testimony needed a little work. It was limp and devoid of drama; it lacked pizzazz. It just didn't have that je ne sais quoi that makes people listen with rapt attention, and afterwards regard you as a cross between an American Idol contestant and a Holocaust survivor.

OK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch...but I set to work in hopes of whipping up something that would do justice to what the Lord did for me, and maybe even allow me to hold my own the next time I'm cornered into a spirited round of "Dueling Testimonies." So, here goes.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God's one command, they brought upon themselves (and all their human descendants after them) the curse and penalty of sin, which is death. And that's not because God's a big meanie or some kind of cosmic jerk; it's because He is perfectly just and perfectly holy by nature and He doesn't change.

Many people have difficulty getting their heads around this for the simple reason that it's not easy to fully grasp the following fundamental concepts:

(a) God's perfect love
(b) God's perfect holiness
(c) God's perfect justice

Note that none of these attributes can contradict or compromise any of the others. The penalty for sin is death: no exceptions. The penalty is infinitely severe because sin is an offense against an infinitely holy God—to require anything less would violate His perfect justice. And knowing we were powerless to help ourselves out of our predicament, God, in His perfect love, formulated a plan to save us from the very beginning.

God's plan was to send His Son—the second Person of His triune Self—to be born into the world to live a sinless life in the flesh as a man. (Since God was that man's father, He didn't inherit the sin nature we're all stuck with and was thus able to remain sinless.)

That man would then willingly allow Himself to be put to death as the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for man's sin that God's perfect justice required. God then raised that man from the dead to demonstrate that the curse of death had been broken, that the sacrifice had been accepted and atonement had successfully been made for man's sin, and to thunderingly validate everything that man had said about Himself.

That man taught that if you recognize the fact that your sin has offended and separated you from a loving but holy God and ask in faith for the forgiveness of sin that His perfect sacrifice purchased for you, that God would cast your sin as far from Him as the east is from the west. He said that God would clothe you in righteousness, and that the Holy Spirit (the third Person of God's triune Self) would indwell you and be sealed within you to mark you as a member of His family forever.

That man said that faith in what He had done for us on the cross was the only way to be spiritually reconciled to God, because He alone redeemed us from the penalty of sin. He did that. Not Buddha. Not Muhammad. Not Krishna. Not Lord Maitreya. Not little bug-eyed beings from a galaxy far, far away.

It was that man alone.

That man taught that those who reject the love and mercy that His Father has graciously extended to mankind through His Son's atoning death and resurrection would ultimately die in their sin and force Him to judge them according to their own righteousness. And let there be no doubt in your mind: That translates to a 100 percent chance of being sentenced to eternal separation from God in a place that He created for Satan and his legions. It's a place they don't talk about much in most churches these days: hell.

Of course, that man's name is Jesus. And the message hasn't changed in two thousand years because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's a message that is so profound that the world's greatest theological and philosophical minds have grappled with it for centuries, yet so simple a child can understand it:

For centuries the message has been denigrated and dismissed by secular scholars and intellectuals of every stripe. It has been vehemently attacked by adherents of every other religion on earth. And in today's avalanche of apostasy, it is rapidly being watered down into toothless New Age mush by deceived individuals who have apparently forgotten what the word "gospel" means, if they ever knew. To some, it has become little more than a cultural cliché: a sign flashed at football games by weirdos in rainbow-colored wigs.

Yet the message hasn't changed. And it never will:

You are lost in sin, but God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die in your place to satisfy His own justice in order to give you an opportunity to be forgiven of your sin, to be justified in His sight, to be adopted into His family, and to spend eternity in His presence.

Although God conceived the entire plan before the foundation of the world, none of us can imagine the pain the Father felt as He watched the scene unfold in Jerusalem that night two thousand years ago.

His beloved Son was betrayed by one of His disciples for 30 pieces of silver—the compensation for a servant who has been slain. When a large group of Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus, most of His disciples fled in fear. He was marched into the city where He faced a series of illegal trials, first at the hands of the Jewish religious leaders, then by Roman officials. One false witness after another was trotted out to lie about the things Jesus had said and done, and all they ended up doing was contradicting each other.

The frustrated officials could find no charge with which to accuse Him, but that didn't stop the soldiers from beating Him mercilessly, spitting on Him, mocking Him, plucking out bits of His beard, and whipping Him so severely that the flesh was literally ripped from His body. A crown of thorns was contemptuously jammed upon His head, and then He was forced to carry the wooden beam up to the hill where He was to be executed.

But the Romans were just getting warmed up.

I'm sorry, but I simply do not have the words to effectively describe the unspeakable brutality and horrific suffering that a victim of crucifixion endured. It defies description. If it helps, think of it this way: A doctor once commented that it was so bad that no amount of morphine would have been sufficient to kill the pain.

Suffice to say that large iron spikes were hammered through your feet and wrists to nail you to a wooden cross, where you were left hanging until you were dead—assuming you survived the actual crucifixion itself. The only way to take a breath was to push yourself up on the spike through your feet, and so most victims ended up dying of suffocation.

The lucky ones were dead within a couple of hours.

The custom was to nail a sign above the victim's head stating the crime for which the individual had been crucified. Jesus had a sign above his head stating that He was "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." The Jewish leaders had insisted the sign be changed to read that He merely claimed to be King of the Jews, since they fawningly assured their Roman masters that they had no king but Caesar. The Romans refused, however, and left the sign the way it was.

So that was Jesus' crime—He was the King of the Jews. Of course, the sign was prophetic, because that's precisely what He was. His birth, life, ministry, death, and subsequent resurrection literally and precisely fulfilled scores of prophecies from the Jewish Scriptures, yet as a nation the Jews summarily rejected Him because He wasn't what they were looking for.

The Tanach (Old Testament) stated the Messiah would come first as a Suffering Servant, and then as a Conquering King. However, the Jews believed that the nation of Israel itself was the Suffering Servant being referred to, and so they were waiting for a Messiah who would come as a mighty ruler that would rise up and throw off the yoke of their oppressors—who at the time happened to be the Romans.

They were waiting for a Jewish Superman. And they're still waiting.

Throughout Jesus' entire earthly ministry, up until the very night He was arrested, His very Jewish disciples were fully expecting Him to organize an armed resistance against the Romans. Jesus told them repeatedly that He was going to die and be resurrected, but they just didn't get it—they didn't really understand what He was talking about. How could they? It made absolutely no sense to them in relation to what they had been taught and believed their entire lives.

So, when their beloved spiritual leader and dearest friend died the most humiliating, ignominious death imaginable that day, their hopes and dreams died with Him. They shuffled away into the shadows, despondent and disillusioned. They were crushed. Everything they believed in had been utterly destroyed. As non-Jewish readers nearly two thousand years removed from the historical events, it's easy for us to miss how absolutely gutted they must have been. Their world had come crashing down around them.

It was over.

But three days later, something happened that transformed these defeated, devastated shadows of men into the boldest evangelists the world has ever known, who sacrificed everything—including their lives—to take the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth. These men who had followed Jesus for His entire earthly ministry suddenly went from being despondent and disillusioned to supercharged and unstoppable overnight, and 10 of the original 12 would willingly die as martyrs, never once recanting their testimonies or wavering in their claims.

Jesus was alive.

They saw Him. They spoke to Him. They touched Him. They felt His scars. They ate with Him. They lived with Him. They were taught by Him. And not just the disciples—we're talking about 500-plus people over a period of 40 days.

There are many who would have you believe this never happened. That Jesus was never really resurrected. That the disciples stole Jesus' body. That they drugged or bribed the Roman guards at His tomb and planted the evidence of the Resurrection. That the sightings of the resurrected Jesus were the result of mass hallucination. Or mistaken identity: Maybe Jesus actually had an identical twin brother that faked the Resurrection (I'm not making this up—that's what one scholar postulated).

They scramble for ways to explain it away and get people to believe that it's all a myth. A mix-up. A lie. A legend. A conspiracy. A cover-up.

But not one of these (or any of the other strained ideas people have managed to come up with) stands up under unbiased examination or provides anything close to a logical, reasonable explanation for the historically documented facts of what happened in the wake of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not one.

The deeper you dig, the more overwhelming the historical evidence becomes. The deeper you dig, the more you realize there's no straightforward way to wiggle around it. The only logical conclusion you can come to is that God really did raise Jesus from the dead—just as Jesus (as well as the Old Testament prophets) said He would.

And if God raised Jesus from the dead, then it confirms that He is exactly who He said He was: the Son of God. And He did exactly what He came to do: die to pay the penalty for man's sin. If God raised Jesus from the dead, then everybody—including you—has a decision to make.

It is a decision that is only as complicated or as difficult as you choose to make it—and it has eternal consequences. And make no mistake: Everyone will choose. Not choosing is choosing. Doing nothing is choosing. Blowing it off is choosing. Saying you're not sure is choosing. Sincerely seeking another path is choosing. Blithely responding that you are of a "different faith" is choosing.

There are only two choices, and they haven't changed in two thousand years:

(a) Repent, believe the gospel, and be saved.
(b) Do or believe something else and remain lost.

I won't sugar-coat it because that trivializes it—and it's anything but trivial.

Simple, yes. Trivial, no.

Oh, I nearly forgot—this is supposed to be my testimony. OK, so...there was a time in my life when I did that first thing.

Here is a quick Top 10 list of things that are true for me because I have believed in faith that Jesus' death and resurrection paid the penalty for my sin:

1. My sins have been completely forgiven (Col. 2:13–14).
2. I have been justified and reconciled to God (Gal. 3:24; 2 Cor. 5:18–19).
3. I have been saved by grace through faith, not good deeds (Eph. 2:8–9).
4. I am clothed in His righteousness (Rev. 19:8).
5. I will not come into judgment or condemnation (John 5:24; Rom. 8:1).
6. The Holy Spirit dwells within me (1 Cor. 3:16).
7. The Holy Spirit gives me assurance of my salvation (Rom. 8:16).
8. God will work all things together for my good (Rom. 8:28).
9. I have been delivered from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10).
10. Jesus is preparing an eternal home in heaven just for me (John 14:1–3).

Top that.

Greg Lauer — JUL '12

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 JUL '12 

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