11th Hour Evangelism (part IV)

ASPECT 6: The eleventh-hour group’s aversion and hatred of Christians is due to the fact that our failures have lead to the consequences they must now endure. Because the church has been internally focused, elitist, judgmental, and morally driven, the world wants nothing to do with Christianity, apart from an open hand during environmental disasters or the occasional Band-aid when times get personally trying. Scripturally, we are assured that when the world acts “worldly,” it is operating inside its own nature. To blame the world for acting inside its own inherency is like attacking a lion for being a carnivore. Instead the church should humbly and compassionately recognize that because of our failures, society’s lions are now feeding on their own flesh for sustenance and satisfaction. The world is desperate for pleasure, but it is helpless when it comes to the consequence of those actions.

The role of the church, regardless of its first- to ninth- hour failure, is to display a reality so wonderfully fruitful, so radically winsome, that the world intentionally changes its harmful-yet-pleasurable direction and follows a different course. Our failures have given full access to the intent of worldliness: death, destruction and misery. But the world is too savvy to remain in that state indefinitely, so it invents its own forms of alleviation of the consequence of worldliness – while still embracing the pleasurable aspect worldly actions. Worldly actions are part and parcel with unsaved humanity. Consequence, however, is not God’s intended intent for His image. But both come hand in hand. The failure of the church to remain “salt and light” has lead to the gross destruction of much of the rest of humanity. The church remains morally elitist. The world still embraces sin’s pleasurable intent. And neither side recognizes worldly action for its strategic consequence. But if blame must be placed, it must tip further toward the church, for its failure to act according to its nature, has led the eleventh hour society to rush head first into its destructive “worldly” inherency.

The eleventh-hour group isn’t looking strictly for compensation for itself. Its concerned focus is on alleviation for its fellow man, the environment, and other affective issues. It has been riddled with the consequence brought about by our lack of evidence and hypocrisy, and it wants to see something done about it. Those with the most vehement hatred of the church are turning the church’s fiasco into an all-out crusade against Christianity. Instead of launching attacks or boycotts, the church must first recognize its own failures, humbly admit to its primary role in the destruction of society, and begin to partner with the eleventh-hour cohort for positive transformative change.

ASPECT 7: All other groups were called, but the eleventh-hour group was specifically chosen. All other hour groups were presented an offer and either took it or negotiated for the best terms. But the eleventh-hour group was not only different, it appears it was special; it was given equal standing, the statement is that the “last shall be first.”

ELEVENTH-HOUR APPLICATION: Despite their look, attitude, character, and temperament, the church must recognize that the currently unsaved are God’s greatest treasures. We may have come into His fold in the earlier hours, but it was for the purpose of the group that currently wants little to do with our current version of church. There must be a radical humility from the currently saved to those of the eleventh hour. Our elitism has turned off both society and it would appear according the passage, God himself. Our arms must be open and accepting, our posture must be that of support rather than instruction, our voice must resonate into the culture, and our fruit must be by far the most delicious on earth. Should we continue to attempt first, third, sixth or ninth-hour evangelism, our solicitations we will fail both humanity and the God who has chosen this group for His special purposes.

CONCLUSION

Eleventh-Hour Evangelism is not the preaching of a watered-down gospel. It is a swallowing the holistic Biblical Worldview whole and allowing people to see the gospel’s power through the visage and disposition of transformed individuals. It sees all people as uniquely created images of God, not select people as numbers for a church or denomination. And most importantly, it operates under the radical presupposition that if applied correctly, the gospel will not only transform the individual but cultures, societies, and nations because its adoption causes all arenas of human existence to be holistically transformed in far greater measure than its current experts claim possible. It doesn’t wait for the Kingdom, but attempts to fulfill the mandate to bring the Kingdom to earth. It believes that man should first be made “fully alive” so then he (and the rest of the world) can then see the “glory of God.” It recognizes the weight of its current responsibility and past failure to this eleventh hour society while also fully grasping the power of its own offer. In other words, while it comes to God as a son and joint-heir, it comes to the eleventh-hour society as a servant.