The Battleground of Apologetics

Forward – The Road Less Traveled

I want to make one thing very clear from the start of this book.  I am nothing special by the standards of this world.  I am not a genius.  I am not super-smart.  I alone have not developed any special means of acquiring knowledge or assimilating information.  The information contained herein is the result of God granting me the ability to have the scales removed from my spiritual eyes and giving me ears to hear and eyes to see.  To Him be the Glory.

In October of 2000 I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ.  Shortly after that, I wanted to know more about my Savior.  I wanted to know Him better than I had ever known anyone.  After all, I am trusting in Him for the eternal security of my soul.  I figured I better get to know Him.

This desire to know Him, led me to ask a lot of questions.  I was always taught in school that asking questions was a sign of intelligence.  I would like to rephrase that old saying and state that asking questions generally means you are confessing ignorance in a particular area.  In my case, I was trying to get closer to Jesus Christ.  I was ignorant of what my Lord and Savior wanted from me personally.

My Jesus Journey led me down a lot or roads that seemed to be the ones less traveled.  This brought to memory the following verses from Matthew 7:13-14, when Jesus told His followers:

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”^[1]

            While on my quest, I found a lot of freely available resources in printed books, magazines, newspapers, videos, audiotapes and CD’s, Internet resources, professional organizations and societies, and the Bible itself.  What amazed me was that there did not seem to be very many people on this road that I was on.  This narrow path seemed extremely quiet and overrun with weeds and thorns indicating its lack of use.  This caused me great concern.

            The farther along I progressed on my journey, the more of God’s Truth I found, and the more my Faith in Jesus and His Word grew.  The more I knew, the more I wanted to know.  The more I got to know Him and what He had done—is doing—and will do, the more my love for and submission to Him grew.

            These studies took me into the depths of treacherous caverns where scoffers dwell that seek to twist, pervert, deny, and ignore God’s Sovereignty, His Identity, the Bible as His only revelation, and the Atoning Death of His only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ.  These studies took me down the halls of schools of evolutionary and humanistic thought.  They introduced me to the nauseating and blasphemous beliefs of false religions and cults.  Gradually, I was piecing together a puzzle that depicted a dark and sinister view of the world around me.  Nothing looked the same as before—the scales were truly gone.

            The pinnacle of this trek transported me to a cliff overlooking the Land of the Lost.  From that vantage point, it was much easier for me to see the unfolding schemes of the evil one as he seeks to deceive the multitudes and keep them from God’s loving and saving Grace.

From this birds-eye perch, I agonizingly observed the lost as they were all marching down that wide road that Christ spoke off that leads to eternal destruction.  The dilemma was that from this cliff, it was impossible for me to warn the people where they were headed.  No matter how loud I yelled, no matter how big my sign, they could not recognize what I was trying to tell them.  Jesus tells us in His Word and showed us through His life that the only way to get them on that narrow path is to go down there and lead them out—to show them the way! 

            I knew then that I had a choice to make.  The easy thing to do would be for me to stay on the mountain that I had already ascended and either waste my time hopelessly yelling to them or just ignore them.  That option however did not sit well in my spirit.  That only left me with one alternative:  I had to go down there and try and lead them out.  But I knew that this would be an even more perilous journey than the one I took to get to where I was.

I knew that there would be danger involved if I tried to scale down that jagged cliff to the Valley of the Lost below.  I could fall and get some bumps and bruises along the way and maybe even perish in my descent.  I also knew that it would not be an easy task trying to show others that they were on the wrong path.  The bottom line was that I was afraid—I did not want to do it, especially not alone.  I could have sat on that cliff for the rest of my life and thought of many good excuses as to why I could not and should not, ‘go therefore.’

            However, God was faithful to write His Words on my heart again.  I remembered my Lord Jesus saying the following as recorded in Matthew 16:18-19:

         “…upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.  “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” (NASB)

This Scripture is affirmed in Isaiah 22:22, Revelation 1:18, and Revelation 3:7.  Then I also remembered that it is also written in John 4:4, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”  (NASB)

God showed me that I was not called to take up this fight alone, but with other believers.  The Scriptures above reassure me that there is nothing that the evil one can do when the unified Body of Christ works together for the glory of Jesus.  The gates of hell cannot keep us from being used by God to gather His harvest trapped within them.  Inside each believer lies the key—Jesus Christ.

My reasons for writing this book are many.  First and foremost, because I want to be obedient to God, do what He is calling me to do, and hopefully glorify Him.  Second, my prayers are that the reader will develop or increase their hunger and thirst for a closer fellowship with Jesus because of an increased understanding of what a personal Treasure we each have in God’s Word. 

Next, should God place this book in the hands of a lost person, my prayer is that He will grant them repentance so that they may have their eyes opened, hearts softened and be saved from eternal destruction in hell.  Finally, the surface reason for this manual is to equip believers so that they can effectively witness to every person that God places in their life at His perfect time.

We as believers will stand accountable before our Lord one day for the life we lived after salvation and what we did with the talents, abilities, life and knowledge He gave us.  Let us work together as a unified body to glorify our Lord and Savior—Jesus Christ—by going down and crashing the gates of hell together and winning souls for Christ.

I personally want to earn the right to have Soldier of Christ Jesus placed on my tombstone when the Lord justly decides my time is up.  What will yours say?

II Timothy 2:3-4

“Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” (NASB)

            We are all involved in a spiritual battle the moment we are born.  There are no impartial observers or neutral parties.  You are either for God or you are against Him.