Kidney stones and repentance: One evangelist's quest to present the complete gospel

"Before I was to speak, I was suffering from a painful attack of kidney stones! I was faced with two great needs: the need to find a cure for my severe illness, and the need of a solution for sin in the lives of many students in these schools." JOSE ANTONIO DELGADO, PI EVANGELIST

I've participated ten years in the Proclaim ministry in Peru and during that time I had the opportunity to observe various Proclaim evangelists present the gospel more completely than I would have.

This was courageous of them because they also understood that some listeners might have taken personal offense if they felt that Proclaim was preaching another faith than their own, or was pressuring them to change their religion. And these presentations were in public, as well as in private high schools! Occasionally a school teacher or staff member evidently felt offended by the manner of our invitation to students.

I EXPECTED A MORE APPEALING GOSPEL
This made me think that if I were the evangelist, I would develop a more subtle approach. Of course I thought that I wanted to present the complete gospel, but actually I was looking for ways to present it that were completely acceptable to everybody.

Thank God, Proclaim didn’t invite me to be the evangelist at that time, because I would have preached an incomplete gospel in response to social pressure.

Then I began observing the fruit of a gospel that is completely acceptable to mankind, and the results I saw were not good.

THE NEED FOR THE GOSPEL TO INCLUDE REPENTANCE FROM SIN
Many times the message churches present to a lost world is "God loves you…," "God has a plan for your life…,” “God wants to bless you…." or, the most attractive, "God wants to make you prosperous…." I certainly don't mean to offend you if I have unknowingly used a favorite phrase of yours, and I confess that these would have been my approach to the gospel at one time.

However, I've become concerned about the lack of theological clarity in such invitations. For the last six years I've observed churches that do not clearly encourage repentance and that offer a "lite" gospel. Granted, some are growing rapidly, but I have witnessed that they have become filled with parishioners who are unrepentant, and yet they believe they are right with God. What is more, they expect things from him.

Today, as in Bible times, we are surrounded by people who pretend to be clean -- like Pilate when he washed his hands to imply that he was not making a decision about Jesus, but in doing so, he participated in condemning to death the Messiah of God; people who want to see miracles -- like spiritually lost Herod who hoped to see Jesus perform; people who want salvation without repentance -- like the thief crucified next to Christ who said, "Save yourself, and us."

It is true that our Lord offered a sinful Samaritan woman spiritual water that would take away the thirst in her heart. Yet even though he offered her this wonderful thing, he didn't neglect to deal with the truth of her circumstances. The Lord instructed her in the same conversation, "Go and bring your husband" knowing that she already had five husbands. As compassionate as he was, he confronted her with her sinful lifestyle, knowing all the while that what she needed was to repent.

MY DESIRE TO PRESENT A COMPLETE GOSPEL
We may attract multitudes through our preaching, we may teach them some good Christian habits, and we may even influence them to be nice people, but I maintain that if we neglect to preach the complete gospel that includes repentance from sin, their lives will be like "houses that are cleaned, swept and empty."

I want the message of the gospel which I present (which is the second presentation in each Proclaim school assembly) to be attractive to students. I want it to be at least as appealing as the first presentation, given by a specialist on a critical social issue. Yet I confess to you that I have an even greater concern as an evangelist to present a complete gospel.

Why? Because I have seen that many high school students do understand and apply the truth of the gospel, leading to vital, life-changing decisions. I realize that if I present the complete gospel that includes a clear call for repentance from sin, the Holy Spirit will move some of the people who listen to make decisions about their relationships with God in Jesus Christ.

KIDNEY STONES AND THE GOSPEL
Once I was the evangelist for a week during a Proclaim outreach in Santa Anita, Peru, where we held fourteen assemblies in public and private high schools. In each one, Fidel Gonzalez, a psychologist from the Dominican Republic, gave a presentation on the evils of abuse before I was to speak.

Coincidentally, at the same time he was speaking, I was suffering from a painful attack of kidney stones! I was faced with two great needs: the need to find a cure for my severe illness, and the need of a solution for sin in the lives of many students in these schools. I thought “Human advancement may help resolve my problem with these kidney stones, but it still cannot resolve the problem of sin.”

I decided to mention the problem of their sin to my teenage audience, so I asked if they thought they were mature enough to know right from wrong. They all agreed that they were. Upon further questioning, they also admitted that, in spite of their maturity and moral knowledge, many teens choose the wrong way. And yet sin destroys our relationships, damages us, and causes us to hurt the very people whom we love. Sadly many lives are shortened by sin and most will die eternally from it in the age to come.

I told them the story of how I was suffering from kidney stones at that very moment. Surgeons sometimes operate to remove kidney stones such as mine, yet there is still no surgeon who operates to remove sin. Technology, on which we have come to depend, is powerless to overcome our sin. I continued: why can't we just take an anti-lying pill? Where can one find an anti-abuse drug that would cause abusers to quit? As much as such antidotes would help, we have none.

In fact, rather than improving our lot, our progress is often accompanied by even more sin. In his presentation, Fidel mentioned that Japan is the most technologically advanced nation on earth, and yet it has the world's highest suicide rate among teenagers - the very age group to which we were speaking. The audience could not escape the fact that huge human efforts throughout history including technological development -- assumed to be a sign of the advancement of mankind -- have failed to resolve the problem of evil or to redeem us from sin.

Only the Bible gives us the solution to our need. We can only resolve our sin problem when we look to Jesus Christ.

Using this approach freed me to present the message of salvation so clearly that, at the conclusion, teachers congratulated us for both parts - the presentation on abuse and the presentation on the gospel - for being clear, applicable and important for the lives of students. Many students responded to repent and to submit their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, we don't need to renounce the central message of the call which both John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ made to people who came to hear them: specifically, that there is no salvation without repentance. There is no repentance without preaching of the gospel because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

JOSE ANTONIO DELGADO RECOVERED THROUGH MEDICATION. HE AND HIS WIFE, ANGELA, ARE MISSIONARIES OF PROCLAIM AND OF THEIR DENOMINATION TO SAN MARTIN REGION, PERU WHERE THEY COORDINATE PROCLAIM ASSEMBLIES IN HIGH SCHOOLS. JOSE ANTONIO IS ALSO AN EVANGELIST WITH PROCLAIM.