Passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Today I thought I would share with you a little information about one of our staff members helping me in the Answers Worldwide translation ministry. Steve Fazekas is a dear friend and brother in Christ, and anyone dealing with Steve will find a person who has a sincere zeal for seeing the gospel spoken throughout the world, and particularly using Answers in Genesis materials to advance the gospel. I asked Steve to give me just a few words about himself and his passion for Christ. Below is what he wrote. As I read Steve’s words, I considered how Scripture helps us to better understand our real condition before God as people who have rebelled and deserve His judgment. The Answers in Genesis message also helps people to understand that if the history in God’s Word can be trusted, so can His ultimate message of salvation and real relief in Jesus Christ. Steve shared some words about that relief in his life, and my hope is that many others will also come to knowledge of Christ through creation evangelism exploding throughout the world.

I like to think that I enjoyed a “Tom Sawyer” childhood. As a farm kid, in addition to weeding the asparagus patch and trimming fruit trees, my life consisted of roaming back-roads and ponds, streams and fields, swamplands and meadows. These were the warm, mellow days of innocence, and I drank deeply of all that the Niagara region of Southern Ontario could offer.

I was also privileged to have a mother who constantly read to her children. In the evenings at bedtime, the adventure would continue with John Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress. A few years later it became literary gems such as A.W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy. As an unschooled immigrant from Eastern Europe, mom was amazing.

Yet, what a shock it was to discover another world outside my perfect cocoon, one that was ugly and needy and sometimes vicious. The age of innocence was over. The beauty has evaporated and all that is left is the ache in the gut for something better.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described it well but rather pessimistically:

“There is a forest where the din Of iron branches sounds! A mighty river roars between, And whosoever looks therein Sees the heavens all black with sin, Sees not its depths or bounds.”

What a privilege it is to serve the One who takes that which is blemished and defaced, makes it beautiful again and restores all things. We have a message of hope. As strangers and pilgrims on the earth we look for a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells—a new creation in and through the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

SJF

Steve Ham, Senior Director Worldwide Outreach