Will You Be a Fool for Christ’s Sake?

Will you be a fool for Christ's sake? Ray Comfort joins us today on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the true and good news that all people can be forgiven of their sin and reconciled to God and receive eternal peace.

Thank you for joining us today on the program for the live airing of the program every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. Central Time. No one wants to be considered a fool. Rather, most everyone desires to be esteemed and respected.

That's just natural. But this won't be the case for those who follow Jesus Christ. The Bible says the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

1 Corinthians 1. In other words, no matter how educated or how winsome or how accomplished a Christian is, the non-believing world will still view the Christian as a fool. Our guest this weekend on the Christian Worldview is evangelist and apologist Ray Comfort.

He's experienced this firsthand. In his latest film titled The Fool, Ray shows how his use of a banana analogy to show God's design led to him becoming a laughing stock to atheists all around the world. But it also led to unexpected opportunities for the gospel. So in addition to exhorting Christians to embrace being a fool for Christ's sake, as it says in Philippians 1.12, Ray will also answer some current topics regarding social justice, President Trump, and Division in America topics we've discussed recently on the program. So let's get to the first segment of the interview with Ray Comfort. Well, Ray, it's great to have you back on the Christian Worldview radio program.

Thank you for taking the time with us today. We're going to talk about your brand new film called The Fool, and I want to start out with a soundbite from the film as you give an analogy that you use in speaking engagements with a banana. Here's that audio. Here's the beginning and the ending of the parody at the Atheist Convention.

Behold, the atheist's nightmare. Now if you study a well-made banana of which this is, you'll find on the far side there are three ridges. On the close side, two ridges. If you get your hand ready to grip a banana, you'll find on the far side three grooves, on the close side two grooves. The banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other.

There's outward indicators of inward contents. Green, too early. Yellow, just right.

Black, too late. Ray, people listening might think a banana analogy to an atheist convention. What is the purpose of that, and how was that so central to your latest film, The Fool? Probably about 30 years ago when I was open-air preaching, I used it regularly, and then I did it in a teaching called God Doesn't Believe in Atheists, where I held up a Coke can, and I talked about how impossible it would be for a Coke can to be made from nothing, like billions of years ago, Big Bang in space, and then this sweet bubbly liquid left on the top of a rock, and then tin formed around the bubbly liquid, the brown sweet liquid, formed itself into a lid, and then a tab at the top, red paint fell from the sky, formed itself into the words Coca-Cola, 12 fluid ounces, and I'd say, that's ridiculous. It just couldn't happen. And then I'd say, behold, the atheist's nightmare. I'd hold up the banana and compare it to the Coke can.

It had a tab at the top for ease of entry, a biodegradable wrapper, it had perforations in the wrapper, chewy palatable, just the right shape for the human mouth, green to early yellow, just right black too late, and it was even curved towards the face to make the whole process so much easier. And the reason I did that parody was to show how crazy atheism is, to believe that nothing created everything. Atheism is a form of willful insanity. And I was invited to the American Atheist National Convention through a series of strange circumstances, and I did it there, and I got some cynical laughter, but when I did it in Christian conventions, there was belly laughter. They just loved it and understood the parody, so that's why I did that. That was the point over which you were mocked and ridiculed and called the banana man and the fool. Was there something about the analogy of using the banana that was actually inaccurate?

No. What they did is they took away the Coke can. I did it on television for a television program. Kirk Cameron used to be an atheist, and one of our programs on atheism, I said, let's do that banana analogy. And he said, well, atheists will mock you for that. I said, no, it's Christian television.

They won't even see it. So we did it, fell a little flat with our audience reaction, audience laughter, but it was fine. We put it in the program, and about three or four years later, I heard that I was all over the Internet and you're doing the banana illustration. I thought, how crazy.

How could that be? And went online and found someone had made a video of me saying that the banana was proof of God's existence, and it made me look like an absolute idiot. I thought, well, that's just a bump in the road. Who cares?

It'll pass. And it didn't because the world's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, got hold of the analogy and started doing it on television and in universities around the world and was online. And so I became internationally known as Banana Man, the celebrity idiot for atheists. And something wonderful happened because of that, that I would be invited onto atheist programs because I was a dumb old Banana Man, and I was surprised that I could string a whole sentence together, and they let me stay and they let me preach. You know, Banana Man does a little juggling, that's fine.

If he breathes fire, no problem. And so I began to get opportunities to share the gospel with literally millions of atheists around the world, and yet I carried this humiliation of being called Banana Man by every atheist and his dog. And it was terribly humiliating, and I carried that for about 10 years, didn't let Christians know about it, but that's the background to the story of the film. Well, we loved watching the film. It is so compelling just how something simple, that little analogy with the banana and the Coke can, led to really the expansion of being able to proclaim the gospel in so many areas and to people all over the world as a result of that.

And that's really the point of The Fool by Ray Comfort in Living Waters. You can watch the film at BananaManStory.com, and we have it linked at our website as well. I want to play a couple more sound bites from the film, Ray, because it's so good. Some of your Man on the Street interviews are so compelling.

This particular one is with a man named Jurgen. I will play it and then ask you to follow up afterwards. As far as I'm concerned, I'm physically dead, I'm dead, and that's the end of it. What if you're wrong? Then so be it.

Why should I forgive myself with that now? Do you care about your life? Yeah.

Do you love living? Yeah, of course. Jurgen, Jesus said, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? He said, if you look at a woman in lust for her, you've committed adultery with her in your heart. Have you ever looked at a woman with lust?

I'm sure every man has that one time or another. Yeah, but have you? Yeah.

Have you used God's name in vain? Yeah. Even though you don't believe in him?

I think he's more made of speech. Yeah. So I don't want you to end up in hell. You seem like a nice guy. I'd hate God to give you what you deserve on judgment day. You're a lying thief, a blasphemer, and an adulterer, huh?

Whatever will happen will happen. How old are you, Jurgen? Sixty-eight. How long have you got to live?

Probably another twenty years. Are you afraid of dying? No, not at all. If somebody were to tell me you're going to die next month, I'd say, okay, I've lived a full life and have very few regrets, so I'm ready to go.

So you wouldn't have any treatment if you found you had cancer? Okay, Ray, that was a particularly powerful part of the film because you follow up on the fact that Jurgen, I don't want to give the story away for people, but Jurgen did die shortly thereafter. Yeah, it was very meaningful.

Jurgen stood in the crowd. We've been going to Huntington Beach, me and a fellow Christian brother named Scotty, for the last twelve years, almost every Saturday, and we draw a crowd by giving away money, which is unusual. It attracts when a Christian gives away money.

It's like water running uphill for a preacher to give away money. And we do it by just asking trivia. People going past say, what's the capital of France? It rhymes with Arras and begins with P. Anybody know? And someone will say, Arras, ain't great. Here's your dollar. And we give him a clap, and it just draws a crowd.

It creates good feeling, goodwill between us. And the crowd, well, Jurgen for years stood around and listened to the gospel. And he actually said that. He said, I've heard you say all this before. And he would sit in a certain area about probably forty yards from where we preached. And one day I went up to him.

I says, can I interview you? And he said, yeah. And he turned out to be an atheist who backslid when I asked him that question, do you believe the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything? He said, no, he didn't believe that. Something was in the beginning, obviously.

So he wasn't, like most, a genuine atheist. And it became very meaningful because of what happened at the end of that interview. So we actually follow Jurgen through the film. You see him a number of times. And it's very moving when you picture what happened.

It is. And there are many others. You mentioned, Ray, you have for years shared the gospel on the street with all kinds of different people. This is a thread that goes through all your films.

I'd be interested to know how you think people or culture have changed over the last twenty or thirty years when you interact with people on the street. Yeah, what's happened in our nation is what happened in Israel again and again in the Old Testament. Israel were given to idolatry. And if you were to ask the average Christian, what's the greatest sin of America?

Most Christians would say, oh, it would be abortion or homosexuality or blasphemy or adultery or fornication or pornography. But I say, no, I think there's one big sin that's been overlooked and God saw fit to address it in the first two of the Ten Commandments. And that's the sin of idolatry. And that's because idolatry is the tree of which all those other sins branch out.

It's the root. And you see this happen with Israel. When they lost sight of Moses, when they lost sight of the lawgiver, they were given to idolatry. And the reason idolatry is so attractive is because it has no moral dictate. If you create a God in your own image, a God, a snuggly God, you can cuddle up to. A kind of teddy bear God, a celestial Santa Claus or a divine butler that doesn't tell you what to do.

And I did that before I was a Christian. I had this God of my own image in my own mind that didn't exist. He was a figment of my imagination, a place of imagery.

That's what's happened in our nation. Most people believe in God's existence. Even atheists have an idolatrous understanding of God's nature and character. The God that Richard Dawkins doesn't believe in doesn't exist. He's a figment of his imagination.

And that's the problem. And what we've got to do is have our popular preachers, instead of being motivational speakers and not talking about sin, righteousness, and judgment, tell them to do what preachers of old did, what Paul did. That is, thunder out the law of God.

Let the flashes of lightning put the fear of God back into the hearts of people. Because the Bible says, through the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. And when there's no fear of God, people continue in sin. And that's what's happening, quote, within the church and within the nation. I mean, we've become a nation of blasphemers, even on television, even politicians use God's name in vain, a sin punishable by death in the Old Testament, to use God's name as a cuss word. They're given to wholehearted adultery, fornication, blasphemy, homosexuality. All these sins are embraced without any fear of God, knowing that the Bible speaks against them. And I lay the blame at the foot of the church.

The Bible tells us when salt loses its flavor, it's trampled underfoot. And that's what's happened with the church. Instead of the government coming to the church for moral guidance, the church is irrelevant. It's nonexistent because we've become a group of people without any moral conviction.

Our popular preachers never talk about sin or righteousness or judgment. And that's what we've got to get back to. And if we're not going to start on the pulpits, we've got to get back to the streets and share the gospel, as we see in the book of Acts. So the message needs to be more biblical about sin, righteousness, and judgment, the whole gospel, the whole counsel of God. But what do you think about the methodology of the current evangelical church with the heavy emphasis on Christian rock music, the methods of the worship service as trying to attract the world into it? Okay, Ray Comfort will answer that question after this first break of the day here on the Christian Real View radio program, where Ray Comfort is one of the best, I think, evangelists and apologists out there. We're talking about his brand new film called The Fool. It's linked in our website, thechristianrealview.org.

We have much more coming up on the show, so stay tuned. You're listening to the Christian Real View. I'm David Wheaton. Social justice is a gospel issue. This has become the mantra of many evangelicals. Rectifying perceived inequities of race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration, amongst others, is considered a top priority. But what exactly is social justice? Is working for social justice a biblical mandate, an application of the gospel? Kel Biesner has written an insightful booklet entitled Social Justice, How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel. Also included in this revised 44-page booklet is a copy of the just released statement on social justice and the gospel. You can order the social justice booklet for a donation of any amount to the Christian Real View. Go to thechristianrealview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. The mission of the Christian Real View is to sharpen the biblical world view of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

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So thank you for joining us today in the program as we talk about Will You Be a Fool for Christ's Sake? And our guest is Ray Comfort. He is an evangelist and apologist. He's author of many books and films. He's the founder of Living Waters Ministry.

Livingwaters.com is their website. And we're talking today about Ray's most recent film called The Fool. And before the break, I had a follow-up question to how have people or culture changed over time. And you started to get into how the church has changed and what the church needs to do with regard to methodology.

Let's get back to the interview with Ray Comfort. So the message needs to be more biblical about sin, righteousness and judgment, the whole gospel, the whole counsel of God. But what do you think about the methodology of the current evangelical church with the heavy emphasis on Christian rock music, the methods of the worship service as trying to attract the world into it? Yes, it's another gospel. And it's one that's pervaded within the church over the last 50 or 60 years. And if you type in, God has a wonderful plan for your life, you'll find that in most churches' gospel proclamation.

God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life. And yet that's so unbiblical. You won't find it in Scripture. You say, what about the abundant life? Look, the abundant life just means a full life.

The word abundant means full. And Paul's life was full of beatings, stoning, shipwreck, imprisonment and martyrdom. The early disciples, 11 of them were murdered for their faith.

Read Foxe's Book of Martyrs for some bedtime reading. The Bible says we enter the kingdom of God through much tribulation. And what I liken it to when I teach on this subject is that if you were going to address a thousand people on the World Trade Center 100th floor the night before 9-11, would you tell them God has a wonderful plan for their life? Would you say that to people who are going to die horrific deaths?

Of course not. You'd plead with them to get right with God because their lives are so transient and we could pass into eternity in a second. And that's what we've got to do with people on the streets, many of whom will die just as horrific deaths as those who died in 9-11 through cancer and terrible car accidents and fires and murder. And so we can't change the gospel. We've got to get back and do what Jesus did. In Mark 10 verse 17, when the rich young ruler ran to him, knelt down and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus didn't tell him about a wonderful plan. He said, why do you call me good? There's none good but God. And then he said, you know the commandments and took them through the Ten Commandments.

Why? To bring the knowledge of sin. And we see the same thing with Paul in Romans 2. You who say you shall not steal, do you steal? You who say you shall not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

And there's a simple way to do it. All you do is say to someone, do you think you'll make it to heaven? Are you a good person? Firstly, you say, do you think there's an afterlife?

You can do that with anyone and it doesn't offend them. If they say yes, do you think you're going to make it to heaven? Are you a good person? And when they say yes, which they almost always do because scripture says that most every man will proclaim his own goodness, then you say, well, let's see how you're going to do. Let's go through the commandments. How many lies have you told?

Have you ever stolen something? Have you used God's name in vain? That's when you see the conscience resurrected and begin to do its duty. And you'll hear the person say, man, I'm in big trouble.

What shall I do? And that's when the gospel makes sense. This is based on scripture. It's biblical.

I've been doing it for 30 years and it works. And it's exciting to see people get contrite and become sober about their sins and understand the cross. Thank you for reminding us of that, Ray. Ray Comfort with us today on The Christian Real View. He is the founder of Living Waters, a ministry.

Their website is livingwaters.com. We're talking about his latest film called The Fool. The topic of our show is, will you be a fool for Christ's sake? And you can watch this film at banana-man-story.com.

Okay, one more soundbite from the film. Two very prominent atheists, Richard Dawkins and then P.Z. Myers, are talking about you. You may know him as The Banana Man. Because Ray Comfort is probably the very bottom of The Creationist's barrel.

He's the worst of the bunch. This was the point of the film that these so-called very intelligent, smart atheists consider you to be a fool. But what they probably haven't realized is how their criticism of you and their mocking of you has led to the propagation of the gospel even further than it would have been had they not done that. I've watched your interviews with these kind of atheists. Have you ever seen any of them who are this hardened in their beliefs? Have any of them come to saving faith or shown any kind of consideration of what you're saying with the gospel?

Yes and no. I've become friends with a lot of high-profile atheists because of this mantle of The Banana Man suit, which I slip on. I can fly all over the place, and it's quite funny, really. But I've got to share the gospel with Lawrence Krauss, who is the Richard Dawkins of the United States. I got to interview him in Washington, D.C. Another very high-profile atheist, Penn Gillett from Penn & Telefame, showed up in this hotel in Washington, D.C. and listened to the interview, and I got to speak to him afterwards. He followed me down onto the sidewalk and approached me.

He's 6'6", and I'm about, what, 4'17", something like that. So I was looking at his knees for most of the witnessing session, but I got to share with him about questions like who made God, and I took him through the commandments and shared with him grace. It was just such a wonderful opportunity. So while there aren't those, I can say, that have found a place of genuine repentance, I can say that the gospel is the power of God to salvation and that my success is just to share the gospel with sinners, plant the seed in their heart. God does the rest. He makes the seed grow.

So I pray for Penn Gillett every night. David Silverman, who was the president of American Atheists, friends with him, a lot of these guys, and I just pray that God will continue to hound them until they come to a place of repentance. You know, one of the greatest revelations that a Christian can have when it comes to atheism is that atheists are not intelligent. The Bible calls them fools, and if we don't call them fools and think they're intelligent, we're being foolish, because the atheist does believe the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything. He has no alternative.

That's what he defaults to. Either something created everything, or nothing created everything. And when you go through the commandments, you find out why these sinners don't want it to be God.

It's a moral issue, not an intellectual issue. The heavens declare God's glory. They don't just speak of it, they declare it. There's a trumpet sound every time you look at the sky, the clouds, the sun, and the beauty of the sky, and the birds singing his praises, and the trees raising their arms in worship film, and the flowers blossoming to his glory. When you become a Christian, God opens the eyes of your understanding, and everything looks different, but before you're a Christian, you have that inner knowledge of God.

The Bible says the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, therefore they were without excuse, Romans chapter 1. So that's my confidence that God's word never returns void, and that we're always, when we labor, know that our labor is not in vain. So keep praying for Penn Jillette, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins, and these others. P.Z.

Myers, because they are ordinary human beings that have a fear of death, haunting them, and they're left without hope. And someone without hope is in a terrible place when they're on the deathbed. Yeah, well thank you for reminding us to do that, that they aren't the enemy, they're the mission field. Ray Comfort with us today here on the Christian Real View. You answered this next question a little bit in your last answer, but for people listening today, when they talk to someone who claims to be an atheist or agnostic, doesn't believe in God, you talked about creation being one that they just don't have any answer to. Are there other things that you've found in all your interactions with atheists that they just have no response to when a Christian says? One thing I find that they cannot respond to is the issue of conscience. Where did the conscience come from? Every culture has a conscience, and that's what separates man from the animals.

Atheists say that we are mere beasts, that we have no real purpose, that we're glorified primates. Why then do we have this moral understanding? I mean, no dogs, cats, horses, or cows care about justice and truth, but we do.

We spend billions of dollars each year to hound criminals to bring them to justice. Why do we feel like that? And it's because we're made in the image of God. So when you bring up the commandments, you address that dormant conscience. The conscience is like a judge on the courtroom of the mind, an impartial judge that agrees with the commandments. The Book of Romans Chapter 2 says, The work of the law is written on their hearts, the conscience bearing witness, the thoughts of me more accusing or else excusing one another. The word conscience actually means with knowledge, con is with, science is knowledge. And so every single person, every atheist, agnostic, has been given this inner knowledge. God has given light to every man. So have confidence when you go through the commandments that you're addressing that ally that's right in the heart of the enemy. Okay, one more question about the film.

And the film is titled The Fool, and you can watch it at www.bananamanstory.com. Ray Comfort is our guest today. As the broader culture rejects biblical Christianity, how can this film be an encouragement for Christians to stand fast and not let the marginalization of Christianity and individual Christians that we see going on in our culture today, how can we not let that discourage us?

Okay, Ray Comfort will answer that question after this right here on the Christian Real View Radio Program. Before we go to break, I want to remind you here, as we get toward the end of the year, boy has it gone fast, it's time for our annual end of the year letter to be mailed out. And if you're not a subscriber to that, it's free. I would encourage you to do so. You get a letter on a current topic, end of the year time here, and also you get our full resource catalog just in time for Christmas or gifts at the end of the year.

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So I highly encourage you to do that. It's going to be mailing out within the next week or so, so make sure you do that soon to get on our list for this year's annual letter. All right, stay tuned because we have a lot more coming up with Ray Comfort, film producer, evangelist, Christian apologist from Living Waters. After this break on The Christian Rule of Your Radio program, I'm David Wheaton. In his DVD, The Death of Discernment, Mike Gendron uses this apt analogy from A.W.

Tozer. Red cells are like faith. They carry life-giving oxygen to every part of the body. White cells, on the other hand, are discernment.

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Have to have the the in there, thechristianworldview.org. And we have three current resources right now. It's more than we typically have. And our current resources are typically donations of any amount for the resource. So take advantage of getting the Social Justice Booklet. Boy, is that a hot topic.

Right now it's going to be continuing to be a hot topic. It's a 44-page booklet. It also includes the statement on social justice and the gospel. And speaking of that, John MacArthur is one of the signers of that. And he's going to be on the program coming up here in the next couple of weeks. So we're looking forward to that next week. And we'll probably do something on the election before the midterms.

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They're only for a limited time, so be sure to go to our website and do that. Okay, today on the program we're talking about, Will You Be a Fool for Christ's Sake, in light of Ray Comfort's new film, The Fool. And we have much more with Ray coming up in the interview today. I always enjoy talking to him.

I always learn a lot and hope you are too. Let's get back to the interview with Ray Comfort. As the broader culture rejects biblical Christianity, how can this film be an encouragement for Christians to stand fast and not let the marginalization of Christianity and individual Christians that we see going on in our culture today, how can we not let that discourage us? Jesus was never discouraged. The Bible tells us in the book of Isaiah, he shall not fail nor be discouraged.

His courage was never taken from him because he knew he could not fail. And we as Christians cannot fail. As the culture gets dark, the gospel shines lighter. You know, our nation is an absolute mess and Christians have got to step up to the plate. We've got 45,000 people committing suicide every year. We've got over a half a million ending up in hospitals because of attempted suicides. That's horrific to think people are committing suicide in mass. We only hear about it when there's a celebrity killing themselves, but there's a horror going on that Christians have got to step up and say, hey, what's happening is when you're godless that you're leaving yourself without hope.

You're like a man who's standing on the edge of a plane 10,000 feet up and he doesn't have a parachute on. As Christians, we have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have hope in our death. But when you're not a Christian, there is no hope. And so we cannot be discouraged because God is with us. No matter what comes our way, all things work together for good because we love God according to his purpose. And so we need to learn how to share our faith because the only answer to this mess our nation is in in every area, politically, whatever, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, we've lost God's blessing as a nation. And the way to get it back is through the power of the gospel to transform the heart and cleanse this nation of sin.

And God's faithful if we're willing. Ray Comfort with us today on The Christian Royal View. He is the founder and CEO of Living Waters. Their website is livingwaters.com. He's a best-selling author, the co-host of a very well-known popular television program called Way of the Master and has produced many films of which one we're talking about today.

You can watch it at bananamanstory.com. Your last answer is segued into a few questions I'd like to ask you just about some current events, Ray, some of the recent topics we've done on The Christian Royal View. I just want you to get your thoughts on a few of these things. We did a program on the divided states of America, how divided we are as a country. Do you think that the United States is as divided as it appears, like as you see on cable news programs every night? And if so, what is causing that division and what do you think the path is to having a more unified country? There can't be unity with a political party that advocates the murder of children in the womb.

For me, that is not negotiable to think that nearly 60 million Americans have been slaughtered because of legalized abortion in America. There are certain issues that we can't agree on, the whole homosexual thing. We're not saying homosexuals are evil or more evil than adulterous fornicators and blasphemers. We're just saying, hey, homosexuals, we love you enough to tell you that homosexuals, adulterous fornicators, thieves will not inherit the kingdom of God.

You need to have your sins forgiven. So I think there is a divide that's even more prevalent than the divide between a Republican and Democrat, and that's the divide between light and darkness, between truth, righteousness and sin and evil. So the only answer to bring this nation together is the gospel. I couldn't think of anything better than Hillary Clinton and all these people that advocate things that are so ungodly to come to a knowledge of the truth and stand up and say, we haven't honored God as a nation. We've said, God bless America, and it's just been a lip service. So that brings us back to, we as individuals need to share our faith.

The way to do that is to study it, to get rid of this curse and fear of man. If I said, David, I want you to dive into a pond that's filled with chunks of ice. It's so cold, it will kill you within three minutes of being in it. Could I encourage you to dive in? You'd say, absolutely not. Let's say there's a four-year-old boy that fell into that pond. You wouldn't hesitate.

You'd forget about your flesh. You'd dive in, grab him and save him because love swallows fear. And so if you and I have got problems with fear when it comes to sharing our faith, I encourage you, don't pray for less fear.

Pray for more love because that's the problem. Love will dive into these cold, freezing, frigid waters of personal evangelism. We'll study to learn how to do it. And we do that on our website. We've got a YouTube channel that's had over 60 million views, totally free. And so if you just go to youtubetypeandlivingwaters.com, you can see the gospel being shared with atheists, agnostics, all sorts of people. We have two new videos each day. That will help equip you, it will help give you courage to share your faith because you'll learn how to make an approach.

You'll learn what to say, what not to say, and learn how to say it. And it's all free through our YouTube Living Waters channel. I highly encourage listeners to go there and they can find links to that by going to YouTube and just typing in Living Waters or go to livingwaters.com. Okay, another program we did recently, Ray, was on President Trump. His campaign promise was to make America great again. What do you think of President Trump, and particularly the fact that so many evangelicals voted for him, do you think that has caused non-believers, or has pushed them away from respect for Christians because of some of President Trump's personal behavior versus some of the policies that he advocates for that many Christians are in favor of? What do you think of President Trump?

Yeah, I would like to spend 10 minutes with him if God would allow me to do that. He did it with Penn Jillette when I cried out to him because President Trump is an enigma, if I may call it that, it doesn't make sense, but you can see that in the Old Testament that God used ungodly men to fulfill his purposes. And we see that happening, the guy has all the attributes of an unregenerate man. It makes me laugh in one sense, but his policies thrilled my heart in the sense that I am so pro-life, it's not funny. I'm horrified when it comes to the issue of abortion, so when I see legislation that protects the unborn, I cannot help but rejoice. So we need to pray for him, we need to pray particularly for the godly men that surround him, that they will be able to influence him to be more gentle, kind and sweet and godly in his response because he is a little rough around the edges.

But as I said, we see God using men like that in the Old Testament to fulfill his will, like Nebuchadnezzar and others and Darius and others that he used to fulfill his purposes. So we need to pray for our president and I think that's what we've got to commit to. We certainly do. Thank you for that reminder. Thank you for being with us today in The Christian Real View.

Last two questions for you on some current events we've recently discussed in the program. One major issue going on within the Evangelical Church right now is social justice. It's being said that social justice is a gospel issue. What are your thoughts on social justice becoming a priority within the Evangelical Church?

Because this is something actually I see a division going on within even more the theological conservative end of evangelicals dividing over this issue. It's one that is very subtle and we can become so involved in social justice we forget about the gospel. Remember Jesus said to be salt and light.

Salt preserves, it adds flavor, and that's our social agenda. We should be rich in good works. We should stand for righteousness.

But we must be light. There's a story of a lighthouse keeper that was a very kind man and a ship had run out of oil and so he gave all his oil to the ship because they were stranded. It was a very kind thing to do. But then a storm arose and he couldn't run his light. His light went out and a ship hit rocks and people drowned because of his kindness, his misguided kindness.

And when the judge sentenced him to prison he spoke of his kindness and had a tear in his eye but said he had done a very, very bad thing by letting his oil and letting his light go out. And that's what the church presents as light. When we don't proclaim the gospel we are turning the light out and leaving a nation in spiritual darkness.

And when that happens they're going to hit the rocks. And that's what we're seeing happen to our nation. So gospel is priority and from the gospel issue social justice and good works. There's lots of doctrinal issues dividing Christians and I mentioned one of them, the issue of social justice. There's another one with the New Apostolic Reformation that extreme charismatic movement with all kinds of unbiblical theologies that they bring into the realm and how that's enticing to the evangelical church. You have the issue of women teaching men in church. You focus mostly at Living Waters on evangelism and apologetics. Would it be inaccurate to say you don't get as involved with some of these debatable doctrinal issues?

And if so, why don't you? Okay, Ray Comfort will answer that question after this final break of the day on the Christian Reel of Your Radio program. Hope you're enjoying the interview with Ray today. I talked to him a couple days ago and I'm sitting back here in the studio just tuned in very intently to what he's saying. Even though I heard it once already it's been great to hear it again today.

Hope you feel the same. All right, you're listening to the Christian Reel of You. We'll come back after this. We have much more coming up with Ray Comfort and then some concluding thoughts at the end of the program today.

Stay tuned. Here's Mike Gendron previewing his DVD on apostasy. We'll see how apostasy is the result of Satan's relentless attacks on the Church. We'll also look at four steps that characterize a Church's drift into apostasy. Then we'll look at the history of the Church, a chronological development of the Roman Catholic religion and its drift into apostasy.

And lastly, and most importantly, what are you and I to do in the midst of this great apostasy and the growing ecumenical movement? The DVD is titled Roman Catholicism's Drift into Apostasy and contains two messages. You can order it for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview.

Normal retail is $15 plus shipping. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Social justice is a gospel issue. This has become the mantra of many evangelicals. Rectifying perceived inequities of race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration, amongst others, is considered a top priority. But what exactly is social justice? Is working for social justice a biblical mandate, an application of the gospel? Cal Beisner has written an insightful booklet entitled Social Justice, How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel. Also included in this revised 44-page booklet is a copy of the just released Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. You can order this social justice booklet for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview.

Go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Back on The Christian Worldview radio program for our final segment of the day. We have some exciting things we're going to be rolling out with The Christian Worldview coming up over the next couple months, a way to deliver content and I just want to thank listeners and supporters because you have made this position, blessed us with your giving and prayer and support to be able to expand out and try to bring the content of The Christian Worldview to a broader audience. Even through our golf and dinner event this year, it just went so well.

Both, we believe, from an impact standpoint, from a financial standpoint as well. So thank you so much for your support of this ministry. It has made such a big difference. So in our final segment here with Ray Comfort today in the program, if you missed any of the program in the interview today, I just highly encourage you to go and hear the podcast of the interview today. You can go to our website, thechristianworldview.org. It's usually posted within a few hours of when the program airs live. So you can just go there and click and play it on the YouTube video page, or you can go to wherever you get your podcasts on your smartphone or your computer, Google Play, iTunes, just search for The Christian Worldview and become a podcast subscriber.

That just goes automatically into your phone every week and you can listen to it in the car or when you're out for a walk with the dog or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, let's get back to the last question for Ray Comfort and then a few follow-up thoughts afterwards. There's lots of doctrinal issues dividing Christians and I mentioned one of them, the issue of social justice. There's another one with the New Apostolic Reformation, that extreme charismatic movement with all kinds of unbiblical theologies that they bring into the realm and how that's enticing to the evangelical church. You have the issue of women teaching men in church. You focus mostly at Living Waters on evangelism and apologetics. Would it be inaccurate to say you don't get as involved with some of these debatable doctrinal issues? And if so, why don't you? We deliberately stay away from a lot of issues like Charismania and the whole issue of Calvinism and Armenianism because they are so divisive and we want the church to be unified as soldiers and not be involved in what I call friendly fire, shooting each other down, shooting each other afoot.

And believe me, there are some crazy things going on out there. I listen to prosperity preachers that so appeal to the greed of man and the Bible says those that think that gain is godliness turn away from them and they preach and proclaim they've been doing it since I started watching them 30 years ago, the same message, God wants you to prosper. Now that doesn't really concern me because you can find isolated scriptures about riches and the blessing of the Lord makes you rich, adds no sorrow to it, Abraham is rich and others were rich and there's nothing wrong with riches.

They that will be rich, make sure you're ready to share. It's the love of money and not money itself. It's the root of all evil. But what worries me about these preachers is not what they say, it's what they don't say. You'll never hear them talk about sin and righteousness and judgment and the terrible place called hell and pleading with their people to come to the cross to have their sins forgiven. They don't preach repentance.

It's as though they don't care and they probably don't. They're probably false converts themselves that have come in through the wide gate rather than the straight and narrow of genuine repentance. So that greatly concerns me because as I look at these vast thousands that listen to them, I know there are false converts and unsaved people in there and all they ever hear was God wants you to prosper and that's grievous. Well, Ray, we just appreciate and respect your stand for the gospel and your relentlessness to preach it and to see people to go from eternity destined to hell to an eternity with Jesus Christ. And so we just pray all of God's best to you in living waters and we're thankful that you came on The Christian Real View today. I appreciate you having me on and for your kind words about the film.

Very grateful. Okay, again, the film is titled The Fool and you can watch the film at www.bananamanstory.com Ray Comfort's ministry, Living Waters, their website is www.livingwaters.com Those are all linked, by the way, at our website www.thechristianrealview.org Really only two follow-up takeaways from the conversation today with Ray Comfort and the first is this, that we as Christians, if you're a Christian, you need to alter your expectations. What I mean by that is non-believers or the world is going to consider you a fool for following Christ. I mean, it says this in 1 Corinthians 1 For the word of the cross, the gospel, is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. In other words, if the gospel's foolish to the world those who follow it will be considered fools. Going on in that passage in verse 19 For it is written, God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever. I will set aside where is the wise man, where is the scribe, where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Two kinds of wisdom, the wisdom of the world which is false and foolish and the wisdom of God which is true and wise.

So that's the first thing. Alter your expectations. Sometimes we as Christians don't like to be considered fools or to not have that esteem or respect in broader society. It's just not going to happen in the non-believing world.

Look what they did to Jesus Christ himself. He was the perfect wisdom, perfectly righteous one, came to earth, did miracles right in front of their eyes and they crucified him. But as Ray said in the interview today the real fools are those who don't believe in God. Psalm 14 1, it says, The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. So know that you're going to be as if you're a follower of Christ, you're going to be considered a fool, but in the back of your mind know that the real fools are those who don't believe in God, who think they can go through life as their own authority and somehow avoid God's promised judgment of all people, that God is the final authority. He is the just judge of all mankind. We can either choose to pay the penalty for our sins ourselves in hell or we can choose to receive God's offer of forgiveness through Christ, what he did for us on the cross, and receive eternity with Christ in God in heaven. It doesn't seem like a very difficult decision, but it is a difficult decision because it requires you getting off the throne, or me getting off the throne of my own life, and asking Christ and God to take his rightful place there.

So, alter your expectations. Non-believers will consider you a fool for following Christ, but the real fools are those who don't believe in God. The second takeaway is God uses fools for Christ's sake to accomplish his purposes. And there's that passage from 1 Corinthians 4 where Paul says, We are fools for Christ's sake. That's what Paul considers himself. But then Paul says in Philippians 1-12, Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. He talked about his imprisonment and how he was treated and his beatings and being considered a fool. It all turned out as it did in the life of Ray Comfort as well.

When he was the banana man, he was a fool, but it turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. So be bold. Be bold in your conversations. Be truthful and graceful. Because as Ray said today, don't pray for less fear.

Pray for greater love for people that outweighs any fear of you have that what people will think of you. Thank you for listening today to the Christian Worldview radio program. Again, the podcast is available at thechristianworldview.org. We do live in a changing and challenging world, but there is one thing we can count on and trust in. Jesus Christ and his word are the same yesterday, today and forever. Until next weekend, everyone, think biblically and live accordingly.

Our weekly one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian Worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.