Ambassadorship and Witnessing

RV102-01

Therefore, we find this statement in Revelation 5:10: "And has made them unto our God a kingdom of priests, and they shall reign on the earth." We have in 1 Peter 2:9: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." We have in 1 Timothy 6:15: "Which in His times He shall show (speaking of Jesus Christ) who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. In 2 Timothy 4:1: "I charge you, therefore, before God and before the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead at His appearing in His kingdom."

All of these passages put together reveal this dramatic fact: that you and I are members of a royal family. We are the aristocrats. We are the nobility of all the saints that have ever lived throughout all the various dispensations. We constitute the royal family of God, and we have a special standing, and a special place of privilege consequent to our aristocracy. As aristocrats, Christians have been made capable, through the provision of Bible doctrine, of great spiritual leadership; of great spiritual achievements; and, of great spiritual vision. It is the Word of God that enables us as aristocrats to do what aristocrats are supposed to do. They are to be the achievers above all achievers in the human race.

The hope of American society today is the royal family of God, the church, with its divine viewpoint orientation to the real world, which God has created. Because we are the royal family, the Bible makes it very clear that there are certain demands made upon royalty. As in earthly royalty, children are reared with the understanding that they must fulfill certain duties. They must achieve certain standards. They must produce in a certain way simply because they are royalty.

Marks of Christian Royalty

1. Christian royalty is not to indulge the lust patterns of the old sin nature with its accompanying injuries to other people. A lot of our royal family has not yet learned not to indulge the lust patterns of the sin nature. Christian royalty is not to compromise personal integrity in daily living.
   
   
2. Christian royalty is to uphold other members of the royal family in times of spiritual failure, and seek to restore them to godly living.
   
   
3. Christian royalty is to serve Jesus Christ for His glory, not for personal promotion and gain.
   
   
4. Christian royalty will enjoy rewards in heaven forever for divine good service, as well as being prospered on earth.
   
   
5. Christian royalty maintains a dignified public image by dealing with personal failures quietly with the heavenly Father, rather than running off at the mouth to everybody that they can get to listen to them.
   
   
6. Christian royalty is doubly blessed because of possessing, on the one hand, God's absolute righteousness; and, on the other hand, of being in Christ. These are two tremendous positions of blessing.
   
   
7. Christian royalty is to preserve the personal freedom which God has given each person in terms of volition, privacy, and property.
   
   
8. Christian royalty is not to hold other members of the royal family in contempt, and abandon them when they act like commoners. And Christian royalty is pretty good at acting like commoners on occasion.
   
   
9. Character befitting Christian royalty is formed on the inside of a person through positive Bible doctrine, and then expressed outwardly. It cannot be an act that you put on. A lot of Christians try to put on the character of Christian royalty, but sooner or later, it breaks down, and everyone sees through.
   
   
10. Christian royalty is not to respond to undeserved insults and abuse in kind.
    
    
11. Christian royalty functions on the biblical distinctions between mental-attitude, impersonal, "agape" love; and, emotional personal "philos" love. That's a basic, important truth that is rarely understood among Christians. Christian royalty operates on the distinction between mental-attitude, impersonal, "agape" love (that is, an attitude free of bitterness), and emotional personal "philos" love. In one of the Bible classes at summer camp this past week, one of the girls in one of the older classes raised her hand and asked the teacher, "Does God have 'agape' love toward Satan?" That's an interesting question. What would you say to that girl? What would you have answered? I won't ask you to raise your hand, but just raise your hand in your heart. How many of you would have said, "Yes?" How many would have said, "No?" How many would have said nothing? Well, the truth of the matter is indeed He does. God does have "agape" love toward Satan. God has no bitterness. God has no personal antagonism toward Satan. He is free of bitterness. What God has toward Satan is justice. When you have justice, then you are capable of having "agape" love even on a field of mortal combat with an enemy during times of war. You may be taking another soldier's life with complete, impersonal, "agape" love. There is no mental attitude bitterness there. So, a Christian of the royal family knows the difference between mental-attitude, impersonal "agape" love, and emotional personal "philos" love.
    
    
12. Christian royalty is ready to assist those who have genuine financial needs. By the same token, Christian royalty is not ready to help the deadbeats. It always shocks people when people who are oriented to doctrine say that we should not give away in foreign aid the fruits of the production of individual Americans in order to help a communist country who, because of its system, cannot feed its people. Many times people have come to me and said, "That seems very harsh to let those children starve." My response is, "What do you think would make parents rise up in rage and indignation against a bestial tyrannical government faster than to see their children suffering because of the system?" In a country like India, where they have temples to rats, and cows are sacred, and you can't kill them, and they eat a great deal of the food that we send over in our foreign aid assistance, what better to help those people realize that their religious system is what makes them poor? Their religious system is what makes them have to go through the streets of the big cities every night collecting the dead bodies of those who have starved. What better way than for them to follow the biblical principle of suffering the consequences of the exercise of their volition? However, when there is genuine need, Christian loyalty comes through with help.
    
    
13. Christian royalty faces physical death with the dignity of dying grace.

Ambassadors of Christ

Every Christian is appointed an ambassador of God at the point of salvation. So, every Christian is automatically in full-time Christian service. The reason we do not ask (periodically here at Berean Church) for young men and young women to make a public declaration that they are going into full-time Christian service is because we know they're already there. That is another one of those trickeries of the pulpit to give people a good time and an emotional jag to see somebody who stands up and says, "I'm going to go into the ministry. I'm going to go to the foreign mission field," and to make some kind of commitment. The illusion is given that the people who come forward are somehow separate from all those who stayed behind and didn't leave their seats. Be careful that you understand that, at the point of salvation, you became a priest of God; you became a soldier of God; and, you became an ambassador of God. The totality of the Christian life is the execution of those three roles. Unless you know how to execute each of them according to biblical standards and biblical guidelines, you're wasting your life. And when you get to the Judgment Seat of Christ, you're going to be horrified as to how much you wasted your life. It will be a tragedy that you'll have all of eternity to remember.

Every Christian is appointed an ambassador at the time of his salvation. All of one's life, therefore, must revolve around this fact – that you are an ambassador of God. How you earn your living is your avocation. Your vocation is your ambassadorship. Many Christians never seem to catch on to the fact that the reason they go to work to earn money is to be able to execute their vocation, which is the ambassadorship representing the living God on this earth. When an ambassador goes to a foreign court, and then he's tongue-tied, that's quite a tragedy. It's ludicrous. The ambassador goes to represent his government, and then never has anything to say in behalf of his government. He never represents it, and he never demonstrates what his government stands for.

If you're an ambassador, you have a message, and you are to be out there making that message clear. Our message, as God's ambassadors today, is that God has made it possible through Jesus Christ for everyone to be reconciled to God's standard of absolute righteousness. That's what this verse in 2 Corinthians 5:20 said: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you." When we speak, it's as if God himself is speaking to you. We are carrying His message. We are not speaking our own opinion. As ambassadors, we represent our government. We say what our government tells us to say: "We beg you." This is what God is saying: "We beg you, as Christ's representatives (in His stead), be reconciled to God."

The word "reconciled" refers to a Christian being adjusted to God's absolute standard of righteousness. It is a fitting word to use relative to your watch when you set it to the proper time. When we get to summer camp, we switch back to sun time. As soon as we get to camp, at our first supper meal, I tell the campers, "It is now ..." and I give them what the time is, and they all have to set their watches back one hour. The reason we do that is so it's dark when we get to campfire, and we're having a campfire not in daylight, but in darkness. What they have done is reconcile their watches with the sun. Then when we come home, we reconcile our watches once more with Daylight Saving Time. It's a standard.

Our standard is absolute righteousness. Our message, as ambassadors (what we're trying to tell people), is that God has made it possible for you to get yourself adjusted in the eyes of God to the standard of absolute righteousness. That's tremendous. That is the message we carry. It is possible for a human being who, by natural birth with the sin nature, and who by personal sins, is destined for the lake of fire, to change that destiny.

Logistical Grace

The Christian ambassador's message, of course, is in written form. He carries the document of the completed canon of Scripture. It has full divine authority, and therefore, it is not to be revised by the ambassador.

Furthermore, the Christian ambassador, as with any ambassador, must remember that he is not part of that country. He is a foreigner in that country. That is not his natural element. So, the Christian ambassador does not belong to Satan's world system where, as a member of the royal family, he is representing God. It's hard for Christians to remember that – as Christian royalty, not to pick up the ways of the world system that they are in, nor the views, nor the ideals of that system, but to recognize themselves as having thought patterns that are radically different.

One example of a breakdown in that respect is recorded for us in 2 Timothy 4:10, with a man who is associated with the apostle Paul on one of his teams of evangelistic enterprises. This was a man named Demas: "For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present age." There you have a clear statement of a member of the royal family of God who fell in love with the age in which he was living, and the world in which he was representing the Lord Jesus Christ. He just drifted off, and became part of that world. The Christian royal ambassador may expect abuse from Satan's subjects, but he is never to take them personally. When he takes abuse, he is to recognize that they are directed against the Lord Jesus Christ. That same thing is true in an earthly realm. An ambassador may take personal abuse from the authorities of the country in which he is an ambassador, but he is to recognize that that is not personal – they are speaking against his country.

So, in John 15:18-21, we have this principle laid out – that when you are abused and insulted, you don't take it personally. You recognize that Jesus Christ is the object of that attack: "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said unto you: the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do unto you for My name's sake, because they don't know Him that sent Me." So, as an ambassador, you're going to take gaff. Remember that that is directed against the Lord Jesus Christ, not against you.

When God the Father recalls all of the ambassadors from the royal family from this earth, at the rapture, that is, in effect, the signal for a declaration of war against Satan's earthly kingdom. That's what countries do. When they come to the point of breaking relationships, they pull their ambassadors home. That is tantamount, many times, to a declaration of war. When the rapture takes place, all of God's ambassadors of the royal family are going to be taken out. When that happens, that is God's declaration of war against Satan's earth.

No matter what circle of life a Christian of the royal family moves in, that is the area in which you are the ambassador. So, whatever your profession is; whatever employment you are engaged in; whatever social circles you move in; or, whatever types of families you have, that is the area of your ambassadorship, and that is the place where God has placed you specifically. The Christian ambassador's message has to do with spiritual principles to govern our society and to govern people. We as ambassadors do not concentrate on social changes per se. As the Word of God comes in and works upon the minds of people, social changes that are desirable do come about.

Slavery

God's word has spoken, but we may reject it. We ignore it. No matter what problems we deal with, we deal with them on the basis of Scripture. The apostle Paul didn't say anything about slavery. The one time that he had a slave to deal with, he sent him back to his owner. So, the liberals say that they don't agree with Paul: "He was mistaken." The way we change society is through the Word of God. The apostle Paul never said, "Slavery is good. Let's have more slavery." It was an evil practice, and he personally would have condemned it. You can be assured that he did not have any personal slaves. But the point was that society is changed from the inside of a person through the Word of God. So, the ambassador's message has to do with spiritual principles, and those are the ways that we try to govern society.

The Christian ambassador is in the world to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by allowing Him to bless you. Do you realize that? The Christian ambassador is in the world to glorify Jesus Christ by committing the Lord Jesus to be able to bless you; to be able to prosper for you; to be able to give you the good things of life; and, to be able to move you ahead. That's how God is glorified. The unfortunate thing is that so many Christians in the royal family have so little capacity for material blessings that God cannot give it to them. They would destroy and abuse with it. So, the thing that God wants to do is to bless you as you represent Him in Satan's world. The purpose of the Christian ambassador is to produce blessing for others through the doctrines of the Word of God.

The Christian ambassador can only perform his duties effectively as he has developed his role as a priest. You want to remember that there's a relationship between being an ambassador and being a priest. The person who is a true solid ambassador of Jesus Christ (a real representative) is the one whose soul is saturated with the Word of God, so he has a functioning priesthood. When you have that, nothing can stop your voice. Nothing can stop the voice of an ambassador who has a mature priesthood.

In Ephesians 6:20, the apostle Paul puts it this way: "For which I am an ambassador in bonds, that in this I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." Paul is to boldly speak out as an ambassador, even when he is in prison. So, what Paul is saying is that a Christian of the royal family whose priesthood is on solid ground because of the Word of God – his mouth cannot be stopped. That's an important thing to remember. The voice of an ambassador who has a mature priesthood will not be stopped.

Witnesses

Don't let anybody ever tell you that what God wants you to do is run around witnessing to people left and right. What God wants you to do is to develop a solid, mature priesthood so that you can be a witnessing ambassador at the times that God the Holy Spirit gives you the openings for that message, and that you know what the message is, and you're capable of presenting it then. All of the ministries that believers in the local church do is a pure expression of ambassadorship. That's exactly what those people have been doing. All divine good production of a royal ambassador is the result of viable doctrine which is resident in his soul.

Entertainment Evangelism

There is the issue not only of knowing what the gospel is; what God expects; and, what He wants you to believe, but there is the business of temporal fellowship. An ambassador who does not keep known sins confessed is not going to be one who is in a position to be able to deliver the message effectively. Confession of sins to God the Father restores temporal fellowship, and makes it possible for the Spirit of God to control the Christian.

Religion

John 8:44: "You are of your father the devil, and you will do the lusts of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it."

Then we may add 2 Corinthians 11:3: "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

2 Corinthians 11:13-15: "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is a no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."

Also, in Matthew 23, Jesus very clearly condemned religion.

The witnessing to the gospel is the responsibility of every Christian. Acts 1:8 makes it very clear, when the Lord Jesus left, that that's why He was leaving His witnesses behind: "But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

2 Timothy 4:5: "But watch in all things. Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry."

Then in Ephesians 6:15, Paul says, "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace."

These verses all clearly declare that witnessing is the responsibility of each Christian. It's not the exclusive and primary job of the pastor-teacher and the evangelists. All Christians, as ambassadors, are in full-time Christian service. Therefore, they are all responsible for the execution of ambassadorship.

I heard of a pastor one time where a man came to him, and he was concerned about his soul. He came to the pastor's office, and this pastor was a member of a very large denomination which was biblically oriented. Would you believe what this pastor told this man who was concerned about his salvation? He said to him, "Now I want to tell you. If you come to church next Sunday night, I'll preach the best gospel message that you've ever heard, for you to get saved." The whole idea was that he had to come within the context of that evening service before he could present the gospel for the man to be saved. What do you think was in his mind? Well, I happen to know that the thing that was in his mind was that the only way this preacher knew how to bring a person to salvation was to ask him to come down the aisle after he preached. And how could you invite somebody down the aisle in your office? That's crazy. So, you had to get him in church, so he can get down the aisle, so he could get him saved. That's the nonsense to which Christian ambassadors sometimes come.

Witnessing is the responsibility of everybody. It is not the exclusive province of the preacher. Witnessing will be governed, of course, by the status of your spiritual maturity structure. If you're spiritually immature, you're not going to be eager to get out and battle. Anybody who does not know how to handle basic weapons is pretty smart to stay out of physical combat until you know how to handle the weapons. The immature believer always wants to witness from a guilt complex – from the fact that he has to prove himself spiritual. God does not bless that.

There are many opportunities that come to us to witness. The problem is for us to be ready; to be relaxed; and, then to talk – to give the message when the time comes. Mass evangelism has its place, but it's not much. It does very little. Mass evangelism, by and large, will never reach the world. But if all the ambassadors were speaking, the impact would be tremendous.

The Great White Throne

When you understand that nice people end up in hell if they are unbelievers; when you understand that the moral people who are unbelievers end up in hell; and, when you understand that they stand before that great white throne judgment and hear that terrible condemnation upon them, sending them to the lake of fire, then you will understand the importance of your ambassadorship, and you will understand specifically what the issue is. The issue is that these people are standing there with their human good, and that is not going to take them into heaven. The issue is to have the divine good which Christ has provided upon the cross. The wall of sin has been removed, and that's what you must make clear to people. So, when you understand that it isn't the people who are good citizens who go to heaven, but that the good citizens go to hell without Jesus Christ, then you will understand the importance of the ambassadorship.

The Ministry of God the Holy Spirit

When you are born physically, you're born spiritually dead. That means you have a dead human spirit. Therefore, God the Holy Spirit cannot contact you at all. At that point, God the Holy Spirit comes in and acts as a substitute for your dead human spirit, as an unbeliever, so that you can understand the issues of the gospel. It is that ministry of the Holy Spirit to the soulish man (no spiritual part – only soulish) that enables him to understand the gospel. Then he grasps the gospel; then he understands it; and, then he can make a decision.

Our job as ambassadors is to give the information that the Holy Spirit will take and make clear to that person. In John 16:8-11, we're told that the Holy Spirit will make three things clear to the unbeliever: