Psalm 68:20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

I have been struggling with what to write about explaining how the lost might come to know the God that saves. It comes down to this, they have to hear about this God before they learn about this God. Learning is not the same as knowing. That takes revelation, God revealing Himself in a tangible way that takes the student from a learning experience to a knowing experience.

My experience is not the only way that God can reveal Himself. I can share what I know to be true in my experience but that doesn’t mean others will experience God in that specific way.

Only God knows how to reach that lost soul who will finally place their faith in Jesus Christ.

We as Christians have been instructed to spread the gospel, the “Good News”. The parable of the sower says to scatter the seeds liberally without concern as to where that seed lands. The seed only produces fruit when it falls on good soil.

Some go about sharing the gospel by looking for good soil. Nowhere in Matthew 13 does that parable or the explanation of that parable tell us to test the soil, yet that is what some do. In doing so we are not obeying the Word, to spread it liberally.

Now Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples by twos with these instructions;

Luke 10:5-7 English Standard Version

5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.

What is different in this application of obedience of faith between the sower parable and these instructions is often lost on believers. In the parable everyone is capable of sharing the gospel wherever they go. In Luke 10 there are those sent with a mission, and evangelistic mission. Specific instructions are given to each in how to go about behaving on their mission. That is not the case in the parable of the sower, all are to spread the gospel, we do not have to be “sent”.

While I still struggle with the words to delineate the difference between learning and knowing, I see one more thing that God shows us in the scriptures.

How many of us think that Jesus only sent out the 12 apostles two by two? Luke says 72.

I missed that and others might also.

Proverbs 1:8-9 English Standard Version

The Enticement of Sinners

8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

The editors of the English Standard Version added the words “The Enticement of Sinners”. I suspect they had some purpose in mind to stir up conversation over what they might have thought of a proverb that is not as clear as some others.

The Oxford Dictionary defines enticement as something used to attract or to tempt someone; a lure. 

I reject the notion of temp because His Word says that God is neither tempted nor temps. The word lure however does remind me of what Jesus told Simon and his crew.

Matthew 4:19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

What my parents taught me was that life owes you nothing and you need to work hard. That was not an attractive garland for my head, nor a pendant for my neck. But as a teenager a classmate who lived down the street showed interest in me and I followed her to church.

She lured me into the place where God revealed Himself to me. Her parents raised her according to Christian principles and she was attractive in ways that makeup could not enhance.

Suddenly this proverb makes sense, it has real world application.

What if a child is raised in a household that believes in ungodly principles? I don’t have to label those behaviors, we can think of some examples without making a list. The child would look totally different and their enticement would only draw others deeper into sin of a particular type.

Sin then becomes a lifestyle and is only attractive to others of a like mind.

How can God reach those lost sinners?

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

A few days ago we quoted Lamentations and the issues of vanity, emptiness of results. When sin crushes them, perhaps then they will look for a way out. But how can they find the God that saves?