Ray Comfort vs. Hyles's method of Evangelism

Could you please give me some scripture to back that up?
I never heard that before.

 

So are there two heavens then?

One for those positionally in Christ, and another for those who are adopted?

Please show me that one in scriptures also.
I never heard of that either.

 

Yes I will PM you some information. And it is not surprising that you haven't heard it before. It's unfortunately not widely taught. Most of Christendom teaches that the kingdom is part of the eternal salvation package.

No. Eternity in heaven is another church tradition myths. Scripture never says that we are going to spend eternity in heaven. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news that Christ is the Annointed King over the earth, and we can have a part in His coming kingdom if we meet the requirements (which are laid out in Scripture).

So when Matthew (the phrase is also found in John 3 in the Aleph text) speaks of the kingdom of heaven, it is actually the kingdom of the heavens. The phrase is almost always articular and it is almost always plural. The kingdom of the heavens is the heavenly aspect of the kingdom that governs the earth where Satan and his co-horts currently rule over the earth.

One day Christ will assume the throne and we can have a part with Him in that reign. But our participation in that kingdom is not guaranteed.

Again I will PM you with some information.

 

Nope. The "Kingdom of Heaven," occurring only in Matthew (Aleph is mistaken), is exactly the same as the "Kingdom of God," which occurs in the other Gospels and the rest of the NT.

As for "heaven" being plural, this is true, but it is only an idiom. It occurs often and in many other constructs than "Kingdom of Heaven." Linguistically, it is a mistake to make too big a deal out of it.

 

How is the Aleph text "mistaken?"

And yes you are correct in that the other writers use kingdom of God, but that doesn't prove your point that I can see.

Really? How can you go about proving that something is an idiom.

That maybe a true statement if the rest of Scripture didn't back up this view, but it does, so linguistically there is no mistake being made. That is the amazing thing about Scripture in that there is nothing that is left to man's interpretation. The mistake is that people will shrug off the actual words that are used in Scripture as being something less than they are. The Holy Spirit guided the author to write those exacts words for a purpose.

 

Take a look at the recent Latin thread on the BB translations forum. There is virtually no possibility that the "heavens" reading in John 3 is correct."

It's a synoptic problem. In parallel passages where Matthew uses "kingdom of heaven," Mark and Luke and John use "kingdom of God." Therefore, it is obvious that when Matthew translated the original Aramaic of Jesus, he translated "Kingdom of Heaven" (some commentators say to avoid offending the Jews). When the other writers translated the same Aramaic phrase of Jesus, they translated "Kingdom of God." Therefore, the two terms are synonyms.

Easily. I'm a linguist! :smilewinkgrin: But seriously, it would take too long to prove this, and it would derail the thread.

If you must make a big deal of it, and you have to discuss the plural of ouranos, then you must dig into the Jewish idea that there are different levels of Heaven. You will then realize that the word for "sky" in Greek is ouranos, and go from there. Christ is King of the sky, outer space, Heaven itself, etc.

God bless.

 

Not that this really matters one way or the other, but now you have gone from it is absolutely wrong to virtually not possible.

Whether or not the phrase is there in John 3 is immaterial, because John is talking about the same thing that Matthew and the other two gospel authors are speaking of in that context.

And yes the kingdom of the heavens and the kingdom of God are synonomous. I agree with you there. I guess I'm just not sure what your point is that you are trying to drive home. My whole point from the beginning that the gospel of the kingdom and the message of eternal salvation (gospel of grace through faith apart from works) are not the same message. One is talking about a 1,000-year period and the other is talking about the endless ages that will follow that period.

It's not me that is making a big deal of it. It is Scripture that makes it a big deal. We can either understand what it is talking about or not.

Christ is the Annointed King of this sphere of the earth that is true. However He has not assumed the throne. He is currently our High Priest. One day He will assume the throne and rule from the heavens and from the physical earth. We can have a part in His rule from the heavens, but it is not guaranteed as most of Christendom would have one to believe.

That has been my point all along, especially when discussing the topic of eternal salvation, because what most of Christendom has done is take the message of the gospel of the kingdom and merged it (mistakenly) with the gospel of grace through faith apart from works and thereby have distorted both messages.

For example people mistakenly use the term "soul-winning" when speaking of eternal salvation, when eternal salvation doesn't have anything to do with the soul, but with the spirit. So people should be talking about spirit-winning. Soul-winning can only happen after eternal salvation is a completed act.

 

J.J.,

Common thing for us that, we all understand heaven is the place where God dwells, it is an eternality. John 14:1-3 is a beautiful passage of promise. God's house, itself have no end, it is eternality home. That is the third heaven. Of couse, we know both of the first and second heavens shall be destroyed in the future. BUT, New Jerusalem, itself have NO end, it is eternality.

John 3:16 is the gospel of our hope of salvation. "Eternal life" is the gospel and salvation.

Early Christians understood 'eternal life' is speak of salvation and gospel. None of them saying it is a temporary. If it is a temporary then we would have believed in purgatory. HUH???

In Christ
Rev. 22:20 -Amen!

 

Well, this thread looks good and derailed, and I'm sorry for my part in it. And I seem to have misunderstood some of what you are trying to say, J. Jump. Sorry about that. If you want to start a thread on what you've been saying about the Gospel of the Kingdom, Heaven and all of that, it is only fair that I interact with you, as I have time. (The weekend is coming up.)

God bless.

 

Near as I can tell, DeafPosttrib, without derailing the thread more, I agree with what you just said.

God bless.

 

This is true He dwells there now, but there is not Scripture that says God will dwell in heaven forever. Actually quite the opposite of that is true. He will not dwell in heaven forever, but on the earth amongst His people. There's a thread about this in the section right above this section of the board.

See this is where we differ. Eternal salvation is not a hope it is a certainty. Either you are saved or you are not. There is no hoping to it. It's either a yes or no, not a maybe.

This is one of the problems with using out of context verses to witness to people, which takes us back to the OP somewhat. We need to get back to the Biblical understanding of what eternal salvation is, so that we are not misleading people. And I don't think it done intentionally, but out of simply repeating what has been taught for many years now.

The simple message of the gospel of grace through faith apart from works is that if a person (knowing they are a sinner) believes in the substitutionary death and the shedding of Jesus Christ's blood on the cross as the Lamb of God they are saved. That's all that is required to pay the debt we owe. Death and shed blood. We aren't able to do it ourselves, but One has done it for us. If we believe in His works done on our behalf then we are saved. That is the simple message which is consistent throughout the OT and NT alike.

And when we believe that the Holy Spirit breathes life into our spirit. We are made spiritually alive so that we can understand the Spiritual Book that was given to us for the purpose of us understanding the offer that Israel rejected which is now open to all those that would believe (continual - not like believe one time for eternal salvation) and repent, for this is the gospel of the kingdom.

These are two separate messages. The gospel of grace through faith apart from works (believe in the Substitute) is for spiritually dead people (unsaved-eternally damned). The gospel of the kingdom (believe and repent) is for spiritually alive people in order to have a place in the coming kingdom of Christ.

 

I've seen one of the TV presentations of "Way of the Master" on TBN and I've gone to their web-site and watched some of the video witnessing presentations. I also bought a book by Ray Comfort. He has several and I'm not sure what the name of this one is. I read it about two months ago.

Things I like about "Way of the Master":
The approach of using the law to show people their sin is powerful. When you watch Ray and Kurt do this on the tapes, you can see the unsaved people visibly wilt as they begin to understand their own sinfulness. I think this is a powerful tool for sharing the gospel. It also has the strength of keeping you off apologetics-type topics. People like to change the subject to creation, the problem of evil, etc. This approach keeps you off these dead-ends.

The "Wayof the Master IS the way of the master! Two people in the gospels approached Jesus with the question: "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" In both instances Jesus referred them to the law to show them their sin, as both men who asked this question were actually trying to justify themself.

Reservations about "The Way of the Master"
In no way would I throw the baby out with the bathwater here, but I do have some reservations about some of the things that are taught in conjunction with this method. These reservation have to do with things that are said in the book. I don't know that I would have picked up on these just from watching the TV presentations.

First, Comfort says that he would not share the gospel with someone if, after going through the law, they do not admit that they are a sinner. He says that if they will not acknowledge the bad news (they are a sinner) then they should not hear the good news. I think this is a little unecessary. We are to preach the gospel to every one and it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. I think we should sow the seed of the good news even with people who are hardened. That's what the sower did in Jesus' parable. Sow the seed anyway and let God take care of their ultimate response.

Second, in the book, Comfort takes some Old Testament narratives and allegorizes them to bolster his arguments. While I admire his creativity, these passages have nothing to do with what he is talking about.

All IMHO, of course.

 

Sharing the good news with someone when he won't admit that there is bad news is like casting pearls before swine. What good will it do? A person must admit that he is a sinner in order to realize his need for a savior.

 

While I again think it is probably okay to use this method in witnessing, this example keeps coming up in saying this is the way the Master evangelized people. However that's not entirely accurate. Jesus was not preaching the message of salvation by grace through faith, so to say that Jesus was using this method for preaching eternal salvation is not true.

The Way of the Master was pointing people to the offer of the kingdom that He was here preaching not eternal salvation.

Again context is not eternal salvation in the parable of the sowers, so this passage can't be used to say yes we need to preach to the hard hearted.

My question is if they can't even admit they are in need of salvation they certainly aren't going to accept the good news of the Substitutionary death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. So at best you are merely getting practice witnessing , which I guess could at least leave something for the Spirit to use in the future.

 

My point exactly. I'm glad we agree!

 

But we don't know what is going on in their heart. Maybe they are saying with their lips, "I'm not a sinner," while in their heart the Holy Spirit is saying, "Yes you are!"

Today I preached for a Japanese preacher friend in another town, and an old man came to the service for the first time. He had been to a couple of Christian movie showings at the church before, but not the Sunday service. Pastor Nakajima warned me that this man didn't think he was a sinner. Before the service I talked with him for awhile and he came up with some objections to something in Is. 7 that he had read in a book. I said, "You know, these are small items that the scholars argue over. You need to concentrate on the truths of the Bible, not the details." In the message, I preached on Heaven, and afterwards he and I sat and had some green tea. He said to me with tears in his eyes, "What you said was just for me. I have been concentrating on the details and missing the truths. He didn't get saved today, but he's on the right track!

Never underestimate the workings of the Holy Spirit. Many years ago in America I was going door to door, and I witnessed to a lady who then said, "I don't want to get saved right now." I said, "I don't have to be here. After I leave, you can get on your knees before God and accept Christ as Savior." My mother visited her the next week, and lo and behold, she had done exactly that! She had gotten saved after I left! :jesus: