I agree with your statements. Since you have embarked on this topic, would you please state a biblical path to Salvation. Give us your plan of just how you would lead a person the Christ Jesus. Where do you start, how do you proceed, and how do you finish. There are many folk who don't know, are scared to witness, because they don't know what to say. Please help us out here.
Fishing for men (mankind) is the most interesting and engaging matter there is. Jesus said "I" will make you fishers of men. Matt. 4:19, Mark 1:17.
Let's look at what comes up from the sea regarding fish. We might find it an eye opener. Jesus employs many allegories from the O.T. regarding these matters. Why are men fish for example?
To understand these allegories we have to be "led" to understand the language of allegory. Jesus gives us His Divine Analysis of how to break down all parables (which for all intents are also allegories) in Mark 4, specifically vs. 13, where we have to understand ONE parable to understand them all.
Rather than a long dissection which could fill up several pages, I'll cut to the chase. In every parable there are only 3 components. These 3 components are in ALL parables. The components are these: God/His Word/Work/Ways, mankind, and the devil/devils.
That's pretty much it. If any of these components are missing in someone's dissections or understandings, such understandings are unfit for use, being one or two sided, but not in accord with the pattern Jesus demands to be employed.
Now let's go fishing for men. Fish are in the allegorical sea. Mankind, from our beginning, has been in a veritable "sea" of confusions. They spiritually reside in Mystery Babylon, the Mystery of iniquity. They are confused. This is what the adversary does.
The adversary "steals" Gods Words of LIFE and HIS LOVE from people's hearts. That is why FEW find HIS LIFE and HIS LOVE. The adversary is IN their heart to STEAL. Paul describes this as sin, which he terms "no more I." Yet still had it, sin, in his own flesh. He also describes it as "evil present" with him. Romans 7:17-21. Paul also described this as "internal lusts." Romans 7:7-13. Obviously this is an adverse spiritual working as it is not internally forensic/observable by cutting open the flesh. It HAS to be from an adverse spiritual working, which JOHN terms quite clearly, sin being "of the devil" in 1 John 3:8.
We also know that all unbelievers are "under" the power of darkness, of SATAN. Acts 26:18, 2 Cor. 4:4, Eph. 2:2.
No man, no believer, is even allowed to see these matters unless and until Jesus leads them to see their own sin as a working of the ADVERSARY in the flesh/mind/heart. Anyone reading these scriptural discourses and "internal" DISCLOSURES will not and can not "get it" and will instead OPENLY RESIST these scriptural disclosures because they have not submitted to Gods Constructs and are being STOLEN FROM. They are resistors by nature of that adversarial component. (Nevertheless, I would not say they are not saved if they have called upon Jesus to save them. SAVE HE Will!)
Moving on, here, the SEA is disclosed:
Revelation 17:1
And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore
that sitteth upon many waters:
Revelation 17:15
And he saith unto me,
The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth,
are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
Mankind is MEANT to be the BRIDE of Christ. The peoples who are blinded by Satan are Satan's, as his enslaved spiritual CAPTIVES. Therefore those meant to be His BRIDE in the spiritual senses are currently
whores, captives to/with
the adversary.
It is our JOB to
RIP them apart. But we can not engage accurately if we don't see who we are up against. It's NOT just people. It is people and their CAPTOR. Most believers can't see the obvious. They too, we too, are (partly blind, seeing only in part) because the same problems they have in their own flesh with the adversary, we also have. 1 Cor. 13:12, 2 Cor. 12:7, 1 John 1:8
We have some very powerful Spiritual Tools at our disposal. The Spirit of Christ is with us, within US, to lead us "in the Way."
Let's look at what happens, when God is with us in our fishing expeditions:
Ezekiel 29:
3 Speak, and say,
Thus saith the Lord God;
Behold,
I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
4
But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and
I will cause the fish of thy rivers
to stick unto thy scales,
and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers,
and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.
When we go fishing for MEN, who is also being DRAGGED up from the sea? Uh huh. A great dragon is coming up with them. This is WHY God in Christ has to be 'with us' because it is a mighty fishing expedition.
Anyone "trained" in the ways will have much success. By net, by spear, OR by hook or by crook as some might say.
Paul used 'guile.' (sly cunning intelligence) 2 Cor. 12:16.
If anyone managed to follow along, I will share my "fishing" techniques. Sometimes a net, most often times, a spear. Sometimes guile. Depends on how cagey the adversary who holds them is. I will also share "hooks in the jaw" understandings,
and what that really means.
Love Divides.
