At the request of our younger daughter, we agreed to allow her friend J to stay with us as he was from outstation. Both of them got a job with a popular downtown clothing store and the reason we allowed him to stay was because we wanted to reach out to him (I guess we wanted to see another conversion like in Paul's case, which will take another time to write). We also took pity on him as he was from the East Coast and for him to rent a room in KL and furnish it would have set him back by a month's pay at least. Since he came, we have fed him, washed his clothes, cooked for him, provided transport for him, taken him out for family meals etc. Once when he came back from work, he called me 'mummy' which was surprise for me! Now I feel that I have 2 sons in the house, instead of one!
Anyway the crunch time came when my daughter took him to a Chinese Christian Youth Outreach (he was from a Chinese medium school and more comfortable with Mandarin). When they came back from the meeting, I asked her whether he responded to the message. My daughter told me that many accepted the Lord during the meeting but not J. Reason: he was offended because according to him "Christians were converting the people".
No wonder Jesus said "Blessed is he who is not offended because of me". This young man missed a great blessing that day.
This incident brought to my mind the parable of the seed and the different type of ground. I find that sowing the seed of the gospel is relatively easy i.e. I give the tract or the church magazine, say a few words on the gospel and if the Lord open doors, take out the 4 Spiritual Laws and go through it cover to cover. It is the response of the person to whom the seed is sown that I have absolutely no control. Whilst Tim and I have had success with Paul who stayed with us for over a year, this young man seem to have a different response.
Luke 8:11 - 12 tells of one of the reason why the seed did not take root. "The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from believing and being saved." How is this so? I think it must be that the enemy has already got some sort of foothold in their lives to begin with. Perhaps its their background of idol worship, bondage, bad habits or recurrent sin or even a mind control spirit. Maybe its some kind of wrong teaching or indoctrination (like in my case - I was reading books on Tibetan Buddhism/occult/astral traveling). Perhaps its some unforgiveness, bitterness or resentment, hurt or grieve which arose as a result of altercation with Christians. For some young people, perhaps its their fear of parental objections.
The only way to deal with this is to bind the works of the enemy so that the enemy's foothold will be smashed, broken and cut down!
Lord we take authority over every work of the enemy in J and bind every spirit of doubt, fear or unbelief. We bind and break every bondage of the mind, every unforgiveness, bitterness and resentment, every past experience that is a stumbling block to J's salvation. Have mercy on him. In Jesus name. Amen!
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