Tag Archives: evangelism

The Unresponsive Heart – Matthew 13:4, 19

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I sometimes wonder how some people can be so insensitive to sin, without a bit of guilt or remorse. I’m thinking about those who do sin for a living and think nothing of it. They seem to thrive in it, and the gospel has no effect on them.

I’ve been reading The Gospel According to Jesus, by John MacArthur. He has some very good incites on the parable of the soils from Matthew 13:3-9.

And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 “And others fell upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. 6 “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 “And others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. 8 “And others fell on the good soil, and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. 9 “He who has ears, let him hear.”

First we need to explain that the seed represents the Word of God and the gospel; the sower is one who presents the gospel to the unbeliever; the soil is the human heart—or the people; and the birds that ate the seed is Satan.

The purpose of sowing the seed is to build the kingdom of God—to save souls for His kingdom. In the parable, Jesus describes four kinds of soils (or four kinds of people) that the seed falls on. The first three described (vs. 4-7) is soil that is not prepared correctly for the seed of the gospel to germinate. These people will not be saved. Only the fourth kind of soil—good, fertile soil—will respond to the gospel and be saved.   

In this blog we will focus on the first soil mentioned (v. 4). The sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some of the seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up.

This first soil is soil that is hard-packed. It is soil that is on a path that has been packed down by people constantly walking on it. The seed that lands on this path, as you can imagine, has no chance of taking root. The hard-packed soil represents people with a hard heart. Like the hard-packed soil, their heart is hard. It has been hardened by repeated sin and abuse. The Old Testament called these people “stiff-necked.” Their repeated sins and rebellion against God has made them what they are: unresponsive to the gospel (and the Word of God), unconcerned, indifferent, even hostile to the gospel. These are definitely unsaved people; because a believer will commit sins and even be rebellious, but he will not stay that way. The Holy Spirit will cause him to repent and he will be delivered.

Hence, this parable is directed to unsaved people. They need a heart change. The soil of their heart needs conditioning. The hard-hearted person has no chance of being saved unless his heart is softened. How?

By prayer and by the Word of God and by love from a kind friend.

It is a sad thing to see this person; they have no understanding of the gospel and no sorrow over their sin, because the devil has plucked all the seeds of the gospel away. They seem to be so oblivious to sin, to living a sinful life. These are the ones who march for Pride month; these are the ones who fight for abortion rights; these are the ones who sell themselves to pornography and also the ones who love viewing it; these are the ones who have no understanding of the truth and the Word of God and will call Christians and conservatives extremists. They fight for global government and for the climate change movement. Most of them will not repent and be saved. Much prayer is needed for the few who will be saved.

Three Prayer Requests for the Casual Christian

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 As true, growing believers we should regard evangelism as our duty and responsibility. Moreover, as Christians, we should grow to have a deep concern for the lost, and a joyful excitement about sharing our faith. If we lack these three qualities, that is, if you think you might be too casual and carefree in this area, you can always pray about it and expect God to change your heart.  Here are three prayer requests for the casual Christian:

 To see our duty and responsibility to witness.  We must never think that God’s call to us is optional—He commands us to go and be witnesses (Matt. 28:19).    This means that witnessing is our duty and responsibility.  Yes, He has put a heavy weight on us.  He has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation, by which we as His ambassadors are to reconcile the world to Himself (2 Cor…

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Prayer to Be Better Witnesses – 10 Prayer Requests

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

The Bible tells us that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth (2 Pet. 3:9, 1 Tim. 2:4).  For this reason, He wants us to pray for the lost—for all the lost.  It is how God has designed for people to be saved (Rom. 10:1).

But we should also pray for ourselves—because we are the instruments that God has chosen to pray for them and to bring them to Christ.  Of course, in our own ability we will fail, because we naturally lack the desire, the skill, and the courage to witness.  But with prayer, God will work the power of His own Spirit in us, so that many may be delivered out of the power of darkness and into His marvelous light.

Now the most vital thing we need as witnesses is to be…

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The Navigators: Lasting Influences

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The two people in the Navigators that most influenced my life were Michael Ryan and Doug Benshoof. Let me start with Doug Benshoof, the Nav rep. I don’t know why, but he chose me several times to go witnessing with in the Marine barracks. I kept thinking that he was expecting me to follow in his footsteps, but sadly I never did, at least not to his caliber. Doug had a wonderful gift of discernment and a way of piercing right through a person’s arguments to their heart. I remember him telling me one time that when a person is most argumentative and belligerent, he often is the readiest to respond to the gospel. And I, personally, more than once, saw Doug bring a very angry and argumentative person to the point of repentance. I’ve never seen anything like it.

He also had a very commanding and authoritative presence. One time I saw him walk into a break room area in a Marine barracks, where about 20 Marines were sitting and watching television. He went boldly up to the TV, shut it off, and directly told them that he had something much more important to talk to them about. And then he boldly shared his testimony and the gospel. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that he had done that a few times before—he saw opportunities to witness to groups and he knew how to pull it off. I’m guessing that maybe the men thought he was an officer, and even though he was dressed as a civilian, they had better listen to him. Well, Doug was (formerly) a Marine lieutenant, and no doubt God used that experience for His purpose.

But Doug wasn’t only a bold evangelist. He was primarily a disciple maker. I’m not sure what his goals were, but everyone knew who he was discipling. And he would find a new guy to disciple every year it seemed. And it was kind of funny to see it. I mean his disciples would turn out to be almost a copy of himself: having the same drive and goals, and even the same stories. And I remember him telling me how he would go about looking for disciples. He would start with a group. He would gather a group of primarily none-Christians that showed an interest in studying the bible. And he would stay with that group for as long as they were interested. Many of them would become Christians but not all. And he would, at the same time, be looking for one man to spend most of his time with—a man that he thought would be faithful, available, and teachable (FAT).

Doug was the Nav rep with us for about half of the time I was there (about two years), and then the Nav organization (in Colorado, Springs, Co.) sent him to Spain to begin a Navigator ministry there. Obviously, they knew of Doug’s gifts and knew he would be the best man for the job.  I stayed in touch with him for a while. It didn’t take him long to begin bible studies and to find people to disciple. And I think his wife Betty was fully involved too.

Michael Ryan was a lot different than Doug. He was quiet and more introverted—like me. He would probably never look for an opportunity to witness to a group, like Doug did. But he had other gifts. I suppose you could say that Doug was like the Apostle Paul and Mike was more like Timothy. And though I was more impressed with Doug, I think overall, Mike’s ministry to me has made a more lasting impression; one reason why is because he had a way of communicating to me that he was benefiting from our friendship just as much as I was benefiting from him. He regarded us as equals, even though it seemed that he was usually the one to lead the way and take the initiative. I remember when we would meet together every morning to read the word and pray together before we went to work. He would always come over to my apartment, and we would usually sit outside in the fresh air. I don’t think we had any high goals of finding anything new in the word during our times together. I think it was more just establishing the habit of having a quiet time every day—and building a faithfulness to the Lord and to each other. We met almost every day for, I think, over a year, until he decided to move back to his home in Kansas.

I miss those times and I miss Mike. But our faithfulness in meeting together has greatly benefited me and has left in me a lasting legacy. For if there is one thing in my life that I would say I am faithful in, it would be my morning quiet times. And I don’t count it as any great achievement, just as something I’ve grown a custom to, or something that I look forward to.

8th and 9th Grade: The Good and the Bad

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After 7th grade, where I lived in Montevideo, we moved again, back to Minneapolis. I think I remember that my dad wasn’t doing too well and spent some time in a mental hospital. Meanwhile, my mom was working full time as a secretary and us kids were fending for ourselves.

I don’t remember how it all happened, but I got involved with a Christian group called Hi-C Club. It was a Jr. High branch of the Campus Crusade for Christ group in Minneapolis. I remember our first meeting in the home of one of the girls in the group. We all, about a dozen of us, sat in the living room waiting for the leader to arrive. He was about ten minutes late and came huffing and puffing to the door, saying that he had run all the way. Strange guy. He ran everywhere. Anyway, he gave his testimony about how he came to Christ, and he got us all excited about the group and about being Christians. Looking back on it, that group was just what I needed at that time. It was my first introduction to Christianity since I received Christ a year ago at camp.

We not only did bible studies; we did a lot of fun activities and games. And when one of the leaders challenged us to do beach evangelism, I jumped right in. We memorized a booklet called the Four Spiritual Laws, and then we headed for the beach on Lake Calhoun. It was so scary at first, but after a few encounters, me and my buddy Gary really got into it. Of course, the thing that excited us was the few converts we got. People were actually praying to receive Christ!

The junior high school, Jefferson Jr. High, was about ten or twelve blocks away. Instead of taking the bus, for some reason my mom wanted us to walk to school. It took a long time, over half an hour. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to lug my trombone with me all the time, but I had to bring it home because I had to practice.

Playing the trombone was probably the thing I liked best about 8th and 9th grade. I was in the band and the instructor gave all of us free lessons. He was hard on us—on me, but I learned how to play, and I loved playing in the band. The band wasn’t that good, but we sure had fun. One of the things the band instructor would always tell me was that I was playing too loud! But I couldn’t help it. That’s the only way I knew how to play.

At the time, I was going to a Presbyterian church just two blocks away. It was a little different than what I was use to—like free churches, Baptist churches, and even charismatic churches. So, you can imagine that this Presbyterian church was different, more formal or liturgical. But I didn’t mind.

My Sunday School teacher was also the church basketball coach, and I was on the team. I didn’t make too many points, but I was fairly good at defense. And anyway, it didn’t seem to matter that much to the coach. In fact, he had more than just basketball on his mind. He was out to befriend us. I later found out that he was a pervert, or a pedophile. But at the time I really didn’t know what to think of him. A couple of times he had me and another guy (a fellow basketball player) over to his house for the night. For some reason he chose me to share his bed. I had no idea what he was up to until he did it to me. And then I still wasn’t sure what happened. Living on the farm, away from everything, I had really been sheltered, and no one told me anything about sex. I kind of knew that what happened to me was wrong, yet at the same time I wondered if it was normal—if it was just something every boy would go through.

One fall, I think it was in October, the coach took me and this same player for a week long camping trip in Lake of the woods. It would have been so much fun and a great adventure if it hadn’t been spoiled by what he did to me during the night—as before. Again, I asked myself, was this normal? (years later I found out that my brother Mark had been abused by this same guy. He too was in his Sunday School class. And I heard that when my dad found out he was furious. Evidently, he had been doing this to boys for years and getting away with it.)

Well, wouldn’t you know it, a few months later, in the summer time, some kids from our Christian group had a swimming party. I can’t remember all the details of what happened, but, as I remember, the guy I got a ride with couldn’t give me a ride home and said I could ride with these old guys that he knew. Anyway, on the way back they stopped at their place, and they offered me a drink. I didn’t know what it was, but it sure hit me hard. After a while the whole room was spinning around and they were laughing. I couldn’t see straight and I couldn’t walk. And they led me, and sort of dragged me, to a bedroom and forced me down onto a bed. One of them had his way with me and I could hear that the other guy was in the room too. In a way I was kind of thankful to be drugged, because it kept me from knowing exactly what when on—though I remember some of it.

Thank God, it only lasted a couple hours and then they took me home. The next day I went for a long run in an attempt to clean out my system, and I’m sure I was praying along the way. I think I had come to realize that what had happened to me, both with my Sunday School teacher and with these old guys, wasn’t at all right or normal. The devil was after me. He wanted to destroy my life. That’s the last time I was abused by anyone; but it was just the beginning of what Satan had planned for me. Though I was a child of God and eager to serve Him, I could sense that Satan was constantly after me to destroy me in one way or another.