How can we hope to tell the world of an enemy that seeks to steal, kill, and destroy them when they won’t believe us. John Snow asked that same question. Here’s the answer.
This conversation between Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister in “Game of Thrones” is a question/dialogue that many Christians have with each other with regard to telling people who don’t know Jesus about our common enemy, that being Satan.
The answer to the question, “we don’t try to convince them, that’s not our job.“
We can only present the facts as they are, and the choice is up to them.
But the facts are hard to present when we push the enemy away into unseen tents.
John Snow was trying to elicit the help of Daenerys Targaryen’s army and dragons to fight off the army of the dead but to no avail. She simply didn’t believe the stories of an enemy so great that it threatened the whole world. It wasn’t until the queen herself saw them that she believed.
In third world countries, Christian missionaries sometimes use what is referred to as “demon tents.” This is a place where many people that take up Jesus as their Savior & Lord are taken as demons leave them because the New Man is “kicking them out.” There is coughing, screaming, groaning, convulsions, and all manner of “embarrassing” behavior from the new Children of God, so they are taken where they won’t be a “distraction.”
This is not how it should be done, nor has it ever been done to anyone in the Gospels or the book of Acts. The enemy must be seen so that people will believe in the bigger fight.
Non-believers & believers MUST see the enemy so it can be real to them, just as Daenerys Targaryen saw the army of the dead and it was made real to her.
Jesus never had the disciples take away people that were “causing a scene,” nor did any of the disciples do “demon tents” when they were fulfilling the Great Commission.
We live in a world of Daenerys Targaryens, not believing in anything bigger than the comfortable monsters they fight every day. Even in churches, the Iron Throne is a more preferable prize than the work of Christ, showing the people the true enemy.
Don’t sweep aside evidence of the evil army that walks the earth into a tent. Let their screams and wailings be heard on the street and in the churches, so all can see the greater threat!
