I’ve noticed that people never seek proof for what they love.
Faith is always something already at work in us. A great tactic of the enemies in our day is to *pretend* to reverse this in the minds of secularists (various loves already afoot) to claim to only want “proof” of what opposes their faith or “proves” ours, and that they would in fact believe were it presented. As if it’s something we can walk up to, work out on paper “objectively,” (love that one) or dig up to find. No one has ever done this with any such beliefs. To pretend we could is a feint and would be a misuse of means equal to pretend using a ruler to measure decibels.
I know that the world pretends that this is how it works, but Christian the curtain has been pulled back for you and me by God in the Bible. We see the spiritual of things. Men are not converted by natural things. The eternally wise God has decreed that the proof will be only his to give and directly in the foolishness of the message preached. This is not argumentation, but life granting hearers an understanding of our message as he pleases.
People need a miracle, not a fact. They need regeneration. Life. Facts without that miracle (even other external to them miracles) are just more nails in the coffin. There are only facts we have to give, but that’s not what people need. Facts, as wonderful as they are in Scripture, are just the ice cream after the surgery.
How did Jesus reveal reality to his world? What were his “proofs?” Is it not in truth revealed only to God’s elect? By him…to them? I promise you- knowing his word- that it wasn’t some pre-Marx, Freud, or Darwinistic reasoning he utilized. He was no mere philosopher or rabbi among rabbis. Use any means available to reason, but the only answer that we Christians should *focus on giving is the *only one said in Scripture to bring life when God wishes to- that’s Christ and him crucified. The Gospel. God makes his appeal through us. Acts 13:48.
God alone changes loves and allegiances within and that will be the proof to those given it. Please, rest in that. And preach! Speak of sin, judgment, and the Cross.
“If they do not hear Moses and the prophets they will *not be persuaded even if one rises from the dead.” -God.
