THE DISTURBER

We went out and disturbed people. We did this through our Survey Evangelism at a community wide event that featured, a dog parade, a dog show, and a dog awards program. I saw big dogs,one wearing a collar with protruding spikes and thought it best to keep a respectful distance from the brute. I saw little dogs as well, but I didn’t pal up to them either; animals can   be so unpredictable.

The event planners called it, “The Mardi Growl.” We call it, “evangelism,” but in a sense, we can call it, “Disturbing people.”

As people pass by our area, we disturb them. They are there to enjoy a leisurely half day with friends, family, dogs, and fellow citizens, and then we go up to them and start disturbing their day by telling them (politely, of course), “We’re taking a survey to get the community’s viewpoint on spiritual questions, and we’d like to get your opinions.” We ask if they want to take the survey.

This is an unexpected interruption to their plans, and if they seem taken aback, we assure them, “It’s painless.”

We know that those who say, “Yeah, I’ll take it,” sit at our tables by divine appointment, so we get excited and escort them over, ask them to take a seat, and someone on our team begins the interview. 

BIBLICAL PRECEDENT

We’re like Philip who disturbed the Ethiopian he’d never met when he sat down in his chariot. We’re like Christ sitting by that well disturbing the woman from Samaria. He interrupted her day with a request. We’re like Peter and John as well as Paul interacting with people we’ve never met and, most likely, we’ll never see again. We’re in good company.

THE REALITY

In I Corinthians 1:23, Paul says that every time we witness, three things can happen and two of them don’t seem to be very good: there are those grace has disturbed so much that they are offended and get all huffy about it; there are those whom grace has disturbed them to the point that they find it “foolish.” No matter those two reactions, the gospel has disturbed them.

When Paul went on his missionary trips, there was one disturbance after another. Usually, when we think of the disturbances, we think of the riots, the beatings, the incarcerations Peter, John, and Paul suffered, and that’s true, their message did cause those things.

But we must remember that whether a riot occurs or not, grace is disturbing. This internal turmoil comes because grace violates their traditions of good works that are ingrained in people as they see at least some works as a prerequisite to be good enough to be with God forever.

Grace also disturbs people’s man-centered logic. We may hear people say, “It (having eternal life) JUST can’t be THAT simple!” (They may say it with a sneer and in a most condescending way.)

Grace doesn’t stop with those two ways of disturbing people because grace disturbs their emotions when they figure out that, if gaining eternal life comes by faith alone in Christ alone, and then they realize that their loved ones believed in works as a necessity, then the gospel has assaulted their emotions. And they may raise an unholy howl because grace has wounded them and they’re bleeding emotionally.

THE GREAT DISTURBER

When we get right down to it, the reality is that we’re not disturbing people with the gospel; Someone else is. That’s what Jesus said in John 16: 7-11:

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper [viz. the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. ⁸ And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; ⁹ concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; ¹⁰ and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; ¹¹ and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

Based on John 6:44 where Jesus said, “No man can come to Me except  . . . the Father draw (“woo”) him,” we would say that no one ever trusts Christ as Savior unless, to some degree, he has been disturbed, that is, wooed by the Divine Lover.

It’s like Paul said in Romans 10:14—a person can’t place his faith in the Right Object until, in some way someone comes into his life, that is, disturbs him so that he can hear the content of saving faith:  ^“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”

The Holy Spirit is the One who’s doing the disturbing when you and I (“the preacher”) present the gospel; He’s the One enabling people to understand it and He’s wooing them like a lover to trust the Son of God for eternal life. This “wooing is the disturbing.

CASES IN POINT

When the Holy Spirit disturbs people, He disturbs them with a capital “D.” Take for example that person who’s heard the gospel, maybe several times or more. You may not see your friend all that often, but whenever you do, he wants to start an argument about the Resurrection or supposed “errors” in the Bible, or Christians he knows who are hypocrites, or whatever. You don’t have to mention the subject; he will.

This shows us that the Holy Spirit is still disturbing him because you haven’t nagged him or presented the gospel to him every time you’ve seen him, and you find that you might go 5 or more years without talking to him, yet every time your paths cross, no matter how long it’s been since you last saw him, he starts arguing. Amazing, isn’t it?

We normally think of grace as disturbing the townspeople in the book of Acts, sort of ancient history. But grace disturbs people and entire churches today and we find one explosion coming after another as people start and continue reacting just as Paul said they would—being offended or calling it foolishness.

Such people may become obsessed with you because of the good news you’ve brought to them. All of a sudden, you’ve become the subject of their conversation, their meetings, and their malevolent thoughts before they go to sleep at night.

Now don’t get me wrong. 99.9% of those we interview don’t get all huffy with us. They’re polite to the core. But that doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit is not a work.  Maybe they don’t argue with you or think with hostile thoughts about you; they may be a polite unbeliever, and they say “No” to hearing the gospel or after hearing it, they may say, “No.”

Yet, the Disturber-Lover is still at work; we know that for certain.  The Holy Spirit may cause your words to disturb him so much that he begins reading the Bible or that piece of grace literature you gave him or he goes on the hunt for more information.

A refined, polite woman who began visiting our church told me after several months, “I sat there every Sunday morning and mentally argued with everything you said, but you know, you’re right.” She trusted Christ as Savior and is today with the Lord. Talk about being disturbed, and I had no idea I was disturbing her, or should I say, the Holy Spirit was doing it. She was being polite all those Sundays, but she was being disturbed.

The summary of the matter is that the Holy Spirit, using the Word of God as given by the messenger, is THE GREAT DISTURBER.

The question is: Are you letting the Holy Spirit use you to disturb people?

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Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak, available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582