Common Errors in Evangelism

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 18, 2015

00:00: Well, I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to Mark chapter 10.
00:06: Mark chapter 10.
00:12: We are tonight looking at the subject, Ten Common Errors in Evangelism.
00:23: That is the title of the lesson.
00:25: Now I want to make note that this is coming on the heels of an eight-week study of evangelism.
00:33: We were blessed to be able to go through the Way of the Master course, which we appreciate the work that those men put into that course, Ray Comfort, the evangelist, and we're thankful for him and for Kirk Cameron and for all the work that went into that.
00:50: And what we're going to be doing tonight is reiterating some things that were said in the course, but also addressing some things that were not said, and at one point I may even address, I know I'm going to address rather, something that I may disagree with ever so slightly from the course.
01:07: So again, this is just an opportunity for me to follow up on what we've learned.
01:11: We certainly appreciate everything that we have learned, and I hope that it has been a benefit and a challenge to you in your own personal evangelism.
01:20: But we're going to begin tonight in Mark chapter 10, verses 17 to 22.
01:29: This is the story that most of us are familiar with.
01:33: We call it the rich young ruler, the rich young man who came to Jesus wanting to know how he could be saved.
01:41: So it begins in verse 17, it says, And as he was sitting, that is Jesus, setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
02:08: You know the commandments.
02:10: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.
02:18: And he said to him, Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.
02:25: And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, You lack one thing, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.
02:44: Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
02:54: Well, may God add his blessing to the reading of his inerrant word.
03:01: Many pastors have read this story, and based, not just pastors, many people have read this story, and based on modern evangelistic methodology, have come away saying, Boy, Jesus messed it up.
03:24: Jesus missed the boat on this one.
03:26: Jesus missed a golden opportunity.
03:29: Because if somebody ran to us, and fell down before us, and said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? I bet most of us would not have done what Jesus did.
03:43: In fact, we might say, Well, here is the Roman's road, or here is the gospel in some form or fashion, or we might just be so excited somebody is asking us, and say, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.
03:59: But Jesus does not do that.
04:01: Jesus confronts this man on his sin.
04:06: The first thing he does is he confronts his understanding of goodness, and as we have gone through the course, we understand why Jesus did this, was to show him his sin.
04:18: He said, Why do you call me good? That's an interesting question, because Jesus was good.
04:23: Jesus was the only good person who ever lived.
04:25: Jesus is the only good man in all of history.
04:28: We were talking about this, I don't know if it was last night, but I think it was at dinner.
04:34: Somebody says, Well, why do bad things happen to good people? I said, Show me one.
04:40: Show me one good person.
04:42: There's no such thing.
04:44: There's no one good, no not one.
04:46: Obviously that question has a deeper and more profound way of talking about it, but my first answer is, Show me one.
04:52: Show me one good man.
04:54: There is no one good.
04:55: And Jesus confronts his thought of goodness.
04:58: Go ahead.
04:59: Wouldn't we say Adam was good before the fall? Yes, but he's not...
05:03: I'm not...
05:04: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
05:05: And that's why I say, but Adam was not good in demonstrating his rebellion, absolutely.
05:13: But yes, prior to the fall, he was in a state of goodness, because all that God created was good.
05:19: So yeah, absolutely.
05:20: But after the fall, post-fall, where all of us are, there's only ever been one good man, and that was Jesus.
05:27: Why did he say he wasn't good? He didn't say he wasn't good.
05:32: If you read the text, he says, Why do you call me good? There is only one good, and that is God.
05:37: He's not saying...
05:38: He's not denying his own goodness, because Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.
05:42: It doesn't sound like it, when he says, Why do you call me good? It doesn't sound like he's saying I'm not.
05:47: He is challenging the man's understanding of goodness.
05:51: Because as far as this man knows, Jesus is just the man.
05:56: This man doesn't understand the Trinity.
05:58: This man doesn't understand that Jesus is God in the flesh.
06:00: This man doesn't understand who Jesus is.
06:02: So when the man runs up and says, Good teacher, Jesus says, Why do you call me good? Don't you know that there's only one good, and that's God? Why are you assuming that any man could be good? But he thinks he's good.
06:14: Yeah, because that's the next thing.
06:17: He says, You know the commandments.
06:19: Don't do this, don't do that.
06:20: Don't commit murder, don't commit adultery.
06:21: He says, I have done all that.
06:22: So what's the man's response? I'm good too.
06:26: He thought he himself was good.
06:28: He called Jesus good.
06:29: But why? He had a very low opinion of what it meant to be good.
06:33: And that's what Jesus is challenging here.
06:35: Jesus is not giving up his own goodness.
06:37: He's not even denying his own goodness.
06:39: He's denying this man's understanding of what goodness is.
06:42: And he's challenging him.
06:44: Why would you call any man good? And that's why he goes on.
06:49: The man, he says, Well, if you haven't done this, you haven't done that.
06:51: And Jesus, of course, could have said, Well, actually, you have committed adultery because you've looked with lust.
06:56: Actually, you have committed murder because you've hated someone.
07:00: He could have done that.
07:00: But he didn't do that.
07:01: What did Jesus do? He said, Okay, go sell everything.
07:06: What commandment was he addressing then? Commandment number one, have no other gods before the Lord.
07:14: He said, Sell everything you have and come follow me.
07:15: If you really want to follow after God, get rid of all this other stuff, which is actually your God.
07:20: How do we know that it was his God? Because he wasn't willing to give it up for following Christ.
07:27: And I like the end, the last verse, it says that he had great possessions.
07:30: What really was his possessions had him greatly.
07:34: He had great possessions and his possessions had him greatly.
07:38: But I always look at this text and I always say, You know, a modern evangelist would have handled this differently.
07:44: They wouldn't have challenged the man regarding his sin.
07:46: They wouldn't challenge, if a man ran up to a modern evangelistic methodology person, a person who goes on modern evangelist method and said, How do I inherit eternal life? They would say, Well, repeat after me, I believe, I believe.
07:57: You know, Jesus, yeah, or whatever.
08:01: They would lead him to a prayer or they would have him and then they would stamp them with an automatic, You're saved.
08:07: And they would go on and they would not have any understanding of sin, no understanding of discipleship, of taking up their cross, following after Christ.
08:15: They wouldn't have any understanding of that.
08:17: You know, Jesus said, Unless a man is willing to do these very things, unless a man is willing to take up his cross and follow me daily, he's not worthy of me.
08:25: We don't ever discuss that in evangelism.
08:28: We make, we have, we have become, we've, we've, we've bought into the idea of what is called easy believism, easy believism, and that is the idea that all it takes is simply an assent of the mind, an agreement with what the gospel is for a person to be saved.
08:49: They just simply have to agree.
08:51: That's true.
08:52: What we're going to learn Sunday, because I'm preaching on Simon from Acts, Chapter eight, Simon, the magician.
09:00: That he believed, the text says he believed, but that he wasn't saved.
09:05: Very clear indication of someone who had false faith.
09:10: Yes, sir.
09:12: Do you think the Lord was, I think he was demonstrating to him what was his God.
09:23: I think his demonstration here is that that was his God.
09:28: And what I've often kind of pointed out to people is we are not all called to sell all of our possessions, because if that were the case, every Christian would be a pauper and there would be no Christian businessman.
09:44: There would be no Christian leaders.
09:45: There would be no Christians in government.
09:47: There'd be no Christians anywhere.
09:48: And the Bible says we're supposed to be salt and light.
09:51: And to be salt and light in the world means that we're actually influencing the world and we influence the world by being a part of the system, but not being a part of the worldly aspect of the system.
10:04: And we'd be willing to give up anything.
10:07: Yeah, the thing is the willingness, the willingness to do it, the willingness to give up the hundred thousand dollar job to go into the mission field.
10:14: You know, if that's what God has called us to do.
10:17: Yes, that we should be willing to do whatever God calls us to do.
10:21: And that's the point of the story.
10:23: But again, the reason why I'm bringing it up and my goal tonight wasn't really to exegete this story, but just to use the story as an example of how modern evangelistic methodology doesn't really follow biblical methodology.
10:36: Because we are running to the end.
10:40: Just say this prayer.
10:42: Just just just say just say you believe in Jesus.
10:45: Please say and then we're done.
10:47: We don't we don't disciple or guide or lead people in an understanding of sin and salvation.
10:53: Instead, we simply just hope we get through this and maybe they'll pray a prayer.
11:01: So we're going to talk about tonight 10 errors in evangelism, and I've compiled this list.
11:07: I didn't get this off a website.
11:09: And if you have 10 that are better than my 10, God bless you, because these again, I didn't I didn't go and find me some of these aren't the top 10 from the from any ministry resource.
11:20: This is just as I sat and thought what things I actually didn't I didn't say I didn't set out to do 10.
11:26: I just started writing and it just happened to be that 10 things sort of flowed out of the things that I see that are the most common errors I see when I see people engaging in evangelism.
11:38: The first one, and you have your blanks, I hope everybody has your seat.
11:43: Number one, relying only on our lifestyle to preach the gospel.
11:50: So the first word is lifestyle, relying only on our lifestyle to preach the gospel.
12:01: Simply living like a Christian, quote, whatever that means, simply living like a Christian is not a valid way of sharing your faith.
12:10: It is not.
12:12: We're not debating it.
12:13: We're not going to agree to disagree.
12:14: It's not.
12:15: It just isn't.
12:16: Atheists hold doors for people.
12:19: Atheists give to the poor.
12:21: Atheists work at soup kitchens.
12:23: Don't tell me that your goodness is what's going to get someone to understand the gospel.
12:30: Because it's not.
12:31: You don't watch television with a mute button on.
12:35: You don't.
12:37: But this is what we do.
12:38: This is how we placate.
12:40: This is how we placate our content.
12:42: You may watch TV with me, but not I don't know what I'm saying is you understand what's happening on television with a mute button off because you want to hear what's happening in the same way.
12:53: We say, well, I live like a Christian and then maybe somebody will ask me.
12:58: That's not what we're called to do.
13:00: Now, I'm not saying you're not supposed to live righteously in the world.
13:03: You are.
13:04: You are supposed to be an example.
13:06: You are supposed to be a person who lives for the gospel.
13:09: But you know what we say when we say my lifestyle preaches the gospel.
13:13: It's another it's a it's a very it's a very simple way of saying, hey, look at me.
13:19: I wrote an article called Atheists Hold Doors.
13:22: It's on our website.
13:24: And that's and that's what it was about.
13:27: The idea that we placate our conscience, we say, well, I didn't say anything, but my lifestyle sure showed them about Jesus.
13:32: No, it didn't.
13:34: People are so ignorant of the gospel, you would be amazed.
13:41: Well, I'm stopping good enough anyway.
13:43: Well, that's true.
13:44: But what I'm getting what I'm trying to say, you are not preaching to them simply by living good in front of them.
13:50: You're not telling them the truth simply by living good in front of them.
13:53: It's not enough.
13:55: But we satisfy our conscience by lying to ourselves.
13:59: By the way, I tell you tonight wasn't going to be nice.
14:02: This is hard to hear, but it's true.
14:07: It's very true.
14:08: I hear it all the time.
14:09: I hear it all the time.
14:11: Any time I talk about evangelism, the people I'll say, are you evangelizing? Well, I'm living my life as a Christian before people.
14:17: That's not evangelism.
14:18: It is not.
14:23: Because my next question is, when was the last time you had a conversation with somebody about Jesus? Well, in 2012.
14:31: I tripped over a person while they were walking into a sub shop and I said, God bless you.
14:35: And they asked, well, why do you believe in God? Is that the last time you had a conversation with somebody about Jesus was three years ago? Seriously.
14:49: That's why this doesn't work and you cannot rely on it.
14:52: And if you are relying on it, repent.
14:56: Because it's not evangelism.
14:59: Number two, leaving out any reference to sin or call to repentance, sin or call to repentance.
15:21: When you share the gospel with someone at some point in the conversation, when you are talking about Christ, the concept of sin should be involved.
15:32: What does the word gospel mean? Good news, right? Comes from the Greek, evangelion, good message.
15:43: Why is it good news? Because it rescues you from the bad news that you are a wretched sinner worthy of God's punishment.
15:53: And if you don't understand that, then the good news doesn't make any sense.
15:58: I said, well, you're going to be judging people, people are going to say you're judging them.
16:02: That's what this whole last eight weeks has been about, helping people understand themselves that they're sinners.
16:08: But if you try to preach the gospel without sin, you're trying to give somebody an antidote to something they don't understand that they need.
16:16: It's like the guy, it's like Ray said, I think in one of the videos, if you walked up to somebody and said, I've got a pill that will save you from your disease, if they don't believe they have the disease, they would laugh at you.
16:24: They would think that was foolish.
16:26: If a person doesn't think that they are a sinner, then what Christ did on the cross is meaningless.
16:32: But that's what we try to do.
16:33: We try to preach the gospel without telling people about sin.
16:37: And it's foolishness to them.
16:39: It doesn't make sense because they don't understand why Jesus went to the cross.
16:45: I ask people, what is the gospel? That's what I ask Jehovah's Witnesses when they come to my door.
16:50: You know, the Mormons or whoever walks up to my door, you know, I have a little thing that I do, and I do admit I got this from Ray Comfort.
16:57: I thought it was very good.
16:58: I asked him, I say, I said, imagine you came to my door, today, I had a knife in my back and I'm dying.
17:05: I have one minute to live.
17:07: Tell me how I can be saved and go to heaven.
17:09: Go.
17:12: And they look at me.
17:14: They can't because they don't have a gospel.
17:16: They don't have good news.
17:17: They don't have a gospel of justification by grace through faith.
17:22: They have a justification by works.
17:25: And because they do, you can't be saved in a minute.
17:27: You can't be saved on your deathbed.
17:29: It doesn't work that way.
17:30: I had the Jehovah's Witness guy ask me, he said, well, what kind of life have you lived? I said, apparently a pretty bad one.
17:35: I got a knife in my back.
17:36: I'm dying.
17:38: That's 15 seconds.
17:40: It's counting down.
17:44: He who endures to the end shall be saved.
17:46: It's the end.
17:46: I got 30 seconds.
17:48: This is what he said.
17:49: And we were going back and forth.
17:50: I said, your problem, sir, is you're walking through my neighborhood and you're preaching a false gospel and you're preaching a gospel that cannot save a dying man.
17:58: Your gospel couldn't be preached to the people who were dying on the Titanic.
18:03: Your gospel couldn't be preached to people who were dying under terrorists who are coming in to kill them.
18:09: You can't preach to a dying man.
18:11: You don't have the gospel, but the gospel involves understanding our sin.
18:20: So leaving out any reference to sin, and if you want to add, I have in my note just a little addition.
18:24: If you want to add a little caveat, you can put law because that's what we've been studying.
18:29: What is sin? Sin is any one of conformity to or transgression of the law.
18:35: That's what sin is.
18:36: It's breaking the law.
18:41: Oh, yeah.
18:43: OK.
18:44: Well, it's that's what.
18:46: So so when when when Ray spent all that time teaching us how to go through the commandments, all that time going through the law.
18:52: Yes, that's how we help people understand what is sin.
18:57: Sin is not a peccadillo.
18:59: Sin is not a little mischievous thing.
19:02: Sin is not a little small thing, because if you ask anybody in the world, are you a sinner? Most of the time they'll say, yeah, but everybody's a sinner.
19:07: So it's not that big a deal.
19:09: Are you a lawbreaker? Are you worthy of punishment? Oh, no, no.
19:14: So that's where the change comes, because they don't understand what sin is.
19:17: To them, a sin is a peccadillo.
19:18: It's a small thing.
19:19: It's not worthy of eternal condemnation.
19:25: So that's number two.
19:27: If we leave out reference to sin or repentance, and that's the other one.
19:33: Boy, has that one fallen on hard times.
19:36: People don't talk about repentance at all anymore.
19:38: It's just believe.
19:40: They don't use the word repent at all in a lot of situations.
19:43: In fact, some people say, if you preach repentance, you're preaching works righteousness.
19:46: I can prove that you're not.
19:47: But for just tonight, trust me, you're not preaching works righteousness by calling people to repentance.
19:55: Repentance is a change of mind which results in a change of action.
19:59: That's what metanoia is the Greek, meta being a change, gnosis being the mind or the knowledge, understanding we are changing the mind, which results in a change of action.
20:11: That's repentance.
20:15: Number three, making the gospel about what we do instead of what Christ has done, we do and has done.
20:29: Christ has done.
20:38: Here's how this one works out.
20:39: Here's how this one works.
20:43: You go to somebody who's drunk.
20:45: You need to quit drinking.
20:46: OK, go to somebody who's living with a person in sin.
20:50: Y'all need to quit living in sin.
20:52: You go to somebody who's gay.
20:53: You need to quit being gay, whatever.
20:55: Pick something.
20:59: What we are doing is we've replaced the gospel with moralism.
21:03: You need to get your life right.
21:05: Well, guess what? They're not going to get their life right until they're born again.
21:09: The getting the life right comes after the justification by grace through faith, which comes as a work of the Holy Spirit, whereby a person is changed and is able then to begin living right.
21:22: If you expect somebody to get right before they get saved, you got your cart before the horse and you're preaching moralism, not gospel.
21:36: Yes.
21:36: Yeah, exactly.
21:37: If we expect people to clean themselves up before they get to Christ, we have the wrong idea.
21:43: I love that.
21:44: Bring him to Jesus.
21:44: He will clean them up.
21:45: That's very good.
21:45: Yes, sir.
21:48: Yeah, and we tell people, obviously, Christ calls us to repentance.
21:55: So if a person says, well, I'm living with my boyfriend.
21:57: Should I stop? Well, yeah, yeah, that's a sin and Christ doesn't want us to live in sin.
22:03: We don't lie to them and say, no, no, no, you can keep doing what you're doing and we want you to keep doing what you're doing.
22:07: That would be foolish of us.
22:09: But the problem is, do you see how the cart gets before the horse when we want them to make these changes prior to their conversion? We become preachers of moralism rather than preachers of the gospel.
22:21: That's a huge, huge problem because we make it about what is Ephesians 2 8 say? Somebody for by grace, are you saved through faith and that is not of yourself, it is the gift of God and not of works, lest any man should boast.
22:40: All right, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
22:47: That's all the way through verse 10.
22:48: You should memorize Ephesians 2 8 through 10 because it's an exact understanding of how we are saved.
22:55: We are saved by grace through faith, not of works for the thing that we've been saved for is the good works.
23:03: That's not what we're saved by.
23:04: That's what we're saved for, that we would go on living a life for Christ.
23:08: We are his workmanship created in him for these good things.
23:12: And that's a great explanation of how most people get it wrong.
23:16: They want the good works before the salvation.
23:21: And it ain't gonna happen.
23:24: That's bad English, good theology.
23:26: It ain't gonna happen.
23:31: So that's key.
23:34: We don't preach moralism.
23:35: We preach the gospel.
23:37: If somebody asks us, does Christ want me to stop sinning? The answer is always yes.
23:41: We were calling you to repentance.
23:43: We're calling you to faith.
23:46: But we're not saying that these things are what are going to save you.
23:52: Christ and Christ alone saves.
23:54: And that's such a huge difference.
23:58: All right, number four, answering the questions we do not understand.
24:04: I thought about different ways of how to say this.
24:10: Remember, I wrote all these.
24:11: So some of these, hopefully, it's making sense.
24:14: Answering the questions we don't understand.
24:17: All right, I'm sharing Jesus with somebody.
24:19: And they asked me a question to try to get me off topic.
24:24: We call this chasing what? Rabbits.
24:28: And the unbeliever wants to do that.
24:30: The unbeliever wants to talk about anything but his sin.
24:33: He wants to talk about anything but Christ.
24:35: And so if I'm trying to guide the conversation towards Christ, he's going to try to guide the conversation anywhere else.
24:42: And what happens is, he might ask me a question that I don't understand.
24:47: And if I spend all the time trying to focus on that, I've allowed him to derail the conversation rather than get him back on point.
24:54: So trying to answer questions we don't understand, you know, can God make a stone that he can't lift up? You know, something like that.
25:02: That's an old philosophical question.
25:05: Yeah, it's dumb.
25:06: I would say no because God doesn't do dumb things.
25:10: And I move on.
25:10: I just, boom, right past it, you know.
25:13: And I'm not calling them dumb.
25:15: I'm saying that is a philosophical silliness, is what you're trying to bring into this conversation.
25:20: I'm talking to you about your eternal destiny.
25:22: I'm talking to you about something more important than rocks.
25:26: I'm talking to you about your soul.
25:28: So we just get right back on task.
25:32: Now, there are some questions you should be able to answer.
25:34: What is sin? Why is salvation necessary? Those are typical questions that you as a believer should answer and know how to answer.
25:41: That's what this whole course has been about.
25:44: But you don't have to know the difference between infralapsarianism and superlapsarianism.
25:51: What I'm saying is those type of questions, that's a more, you won't get that from an unbeliever, but you might get that from somebody if you're talking about reform theology.
26:02: Those type of questions might be used to throw you off.
26:06: And if you get a question that you don't know the answer to, guess what? Say, I don't know and move on.
26:13: Don't make up a question.
26:14: Don't make up an answer, rather.
26:16: That's not good.
26:17: It demonstrates that you don't have integrity.
26:20: If you make up an answer, it's a lack of integrity.
26:23: Just say, I don't know.
26:24: But that's not what we're talking about.
26:26: Or if they ask a question that's relevant, say, I don't know.
26:30: I will get the answer for you, but can I ask you a question and move right on with what you're dealing with? But seeking to answer questions that we don't know the answer to or we don't understand is just a way that Satan uses to derail an otherwise beneficial conversation.
26:48: And it's a huge thing.
26:49: It happens all the time.
26:50: I listen as people are sharing their faith, and I hear it happen all the time.
26:54: The unbeliever throws out a canard or some kind of thing, some kind of question, and boom! They're off the rails.
27:01: And it's hard, but this is one thing.
27:04: Just get over trying to answer something you don't understand.
27:08: Number five.
27:10: I'm kind of breezing through these.
27:11: We might get out on time tonight.
27:12: Woo! Amazing, isn't it? Number five.
27:18: Huh? No, don't count.
27:20: Okay.
27:21: Number five.
27:24: Focusing on getting people to pray the sinner's prayer or ask Jesus into their heart.
27:32: And I'm not going to write that on the board, but you just say the sinner's prayer and asking Jesus into the heart.
27:43: That's the two things.
27:52: I'm going to kill a sacred cow right now.
27:55: They make the best hamburger.
27:57: Sacred cows make great hamburger.
28:00: There is no such thing as the sinner's prayer.
28:05: Not from a biblical perspective.
28:07: There is no prayer in the Bible that magically turns somebody from an unbeliever to a believer.
28:14: Where it comes from is the scripture that says, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
28:20: So they have derived that into a prayer whereby a person calls on the name of the Lord.
28:24: What they don't often realize is that if you look at Matthew 7, it says there are many that will say Lord, Lord, and yet will not be saved.
28:32: So you have to understand that those two don't contradict one another but what calling on the name of the Lord is is not simply a verbal exercise.
28:43: Calling on the name of the Lord particularly in the context of what Paul gave us that in the book of Romans when he talked about calling on the name of the Lord was in a situation where a person is calling on the Lord in trust and particularly in trust for his own life.
29:02: For instance, Paul Washer gives a great example.
29:04: He said that imagine there is a group of workmen who are working on the Colosseum in Rome back in the first century.
29:16: And they are some of them are Christians.
29:19: They're doing their work at the building there and here comes a group of soldiers and the soldiers come and they stand before the men and the men know that Christians are now trembling because they know what's expected.
29:39: When the soldiers come they would bring a pot of incense and your job was to take some incense and offer it to Caesar and say Kaiser Kurios.
29:47: Caesar is Lord.
29:51: And they would say to the first man Kaiser Kurios and he would say Kaiser Kurios and he would take his incense and he would give his pinch of homage to Caesar.
30:03: And the next person Kaiser Kurios and he would give his homage to Caesar.
30:09: And the next man said no Yeshua Kurios Jesus is Lord.
30:18: And off goes his head.
30:22: The next guy trembling and with tears Yeshua Kurios and off goes his head.
30:35: You see the difference in what that means? Whosoever shall call in the name of the Lord shall be saved.
30:42: That's different than just praying a little prayer.
30:47: And that's what Paul meant.
30:48: And that's how we understand calling on the name of the Lord and trust.
30:55: That's what it is.
30:55: So when we tell somebody just pray this little prayer we are often times leading an unbeliever in a prayer that doesn't save and giving them confidence in something they don't possess.
31:16: Yeah again and this is the other thing this will really get some of you.
31:22: In the Muslim religion Islam they have a statement of faith that a person must say to become a Muslim.
31:36: You must say it in Arabic because that they believe is God's language.
31:42: The statement of faith for the Muslim is there is one God Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.
31:50: If you say that there is one God Allah and Muhammad is his messenger in Arabic you are by virtue of that statement alone a Muslim.
32:05: That's one of the five pillars.
32:10: Let me finish please because I want to compare that to how we have how we have taken Christianity and done the same thing.
32:21: Just say this prayer.
32:22: Repeat after me and now you are a Christian.
32:29: We borrowed a false method.
32:36: So yes I am very opposed to simply leading a person through a prayer.
32:40: A broken man who is broken under the weight of his sin who is in desperation for a savior needs not another man to lead him through a staggered prayer.
32:52: Now he may need to be taught something he may need to be led into the Scripture to understand the God to whom he is calling on.
32:59: But it's just as you know it's just the simplest thing in the world for a person to come to know Christ and it's not just repeating words.
33:08: And the same thing is asking Jesus into your heart.
33:10: Asking Jesus into your heart is a modern expression which does not find it's way from Scripture.
33:22: The only thing where it normally comes from is from Revelation where it says Behold I stand at the door and knock and if any man would open the door I would come in and sup with him and he with me.
33:34: Right? And that's what they say.
33:35: Jesus is standing at the heart's door he's knocking and if you would just let him in he will come in and what they don't understand is they're not even using that verse correctly.
33:45: That verse has nothing to do with the heart.
33:47: That verse is about a church where Jesus is no longer there.
33:52: And it says if any man will open the door of the church not the heart, the whole context is off.
33:58: Then Jesus will return into that church.
34:02: It's totally different than the context that we robbed it from and made it something it's not.
34:09: Asking Jesus into the heart is an unbiblical phraseology.
34:15: When we get saved who comes to live within us? The Holy Spirit of God.
34:22: Where is Christ? In the sense of the Trinitarian economy.
34:29: He's at the right hand of the Father forever making intercession for believers.
34:32: The whole concept the whole idea and we could say the Spirit of Christ is an interchangeable language that's used in Scripture but again if we look at it from a purely theological perspective the whole idea of asking Jesus it's how we emotionalize the situation.
34:51: Jesus is knocking, just let him come in.
34:54: And we do it with children and we manipulate them.
34:57: Just let Jesus in.
35:00: He's the homeless beggar who just needs a warm place to sleep.
35:07: So this is what some people call closing the sale of evangelism.
35:16: Getting them to say the sinner's prayer or getting them to ask Jesus into their heart and they call that closing the sale.
35:25: Because that's what it's all about.
35:27: It's salesmanship.
35:28: We had little girls come to our house one day and I'm going to embarrass my son.
35:36: It won't be too bad.
35:40: I'm going to be careful.
35:41: But I thought it was funny because I know Cody knows what the gospel is.
35:45: We've talked about it so many times.
35:46: These little girls come up, knock on the door they're from a local church.
35:50: He answers the door and they said do you know how to go to heaven? And Cody said no, tell me all about it.
35:57: Laughter Laughter Laughter And so but you know cute little girls.
36:05: Oh that was a couple years ago but it was so funny.
36:07: I just love this story because Cody was like please tell me all about it.
36:11: Laughter But that's what the methodology is is simply get someone to want to go to heaven.
36:24: Everybody wants to go to heaven.
36:28: So if your request is do you want to know how to go to heaven? Everybody says yes.
36:33: Pray this prayer.
36:35: Yes! And the person leaves twice as much a son of hell as when he came.
36:39: And all we do is create false professors.
36:43: We create more Simons.
36:46: I tell you what this study of Acts 8 has really affected me because the more I read it, the more I see this person Simon the magician the more I see the reality of how powerful false profession is.
37:01: He was such a good, he was so good at faking it.
37:04: He was able to fool Philip, a man full of the Holy Spirit, preaching the gospel and doing miracles.
37:10: He was willing to, he had enough to fool him into baptizing him and letting him follow him around.
37:15: That's how good he was at faking it.
37:20: So again the whole idea of focusing on the prayer, focusing on this it's the closing of the sale that's not what we're doing.
37:29: We're proclaiming the gospel.
37:32: We're calling people to repentance, not a prayer.
37:38: Next inviting people to church rather than sharing the gospel.
37:44: This is very very common.
37:49: We invite people to church rather than sharing the gospel.
37:54: And that one can seem tricky because the reality is we want people to come to church.
37:59: We want people to be part of the church and we want people to be part of the body of Christ.
38:04: So I'm not saying that you shouldn't invite people to church but what I'm saying is that's how most of us get out of preaching or telling people about Christ.
38:13: We simply say, hey why don't you come to church and what is the expectation? The pastor will tell them about Jesus.
38:20: The preacher will tell them about Jesus.
38:24: I don't need to.
38:25: Keith will do it.
38:29: And that is the way that a lot of people say.
38:31: It's not just me.
38:33: It's any pastor knows this that the thing that people do is they invite people to church.
38:38: And you know what? It's gotten to the point now that pastors just kind of, okay just do it.
38:43: Whatever it takes to get them here.
38:44: We'll have a hot dog party.
38:45: We'll have a pizza party.
38:46: We'll have a laser tag or we'll have a skate park or whatever it takes.
38:50: Just get them here and I'll tell them about Jesus because y'all aren't going to do it.
38:54: I mean that's the attitude that a lot of people have adopted.
38:57: They've made the church into Disneyland to try to get as many people as they can because they've got one guy who's willing to tell them about Jesus.
39:03: So gather them in so I can tell them.
39:06: It's not the biblical model.
39:12: We don't want to seem like we're selling someone a church membership.
39:19: That's often what it sounds like.
39:21: It's the same as inviting someone to become a you know a moose lodge or something or whatever social club.
39:28: It's like saying come on down and join the lodge.
39:30: Come on down and join the church.
39:32: We've got great after Sunday dinners and we have a great ladies game day and we have a great this or that.
39:38: We say come because we've got all these great things and we never tell them about Christ.
39:42: We just say come and do these things.
39:46: And we don't ever tell them about Christ.
39:49: We expect someone else to do it.
39:51: We expect them to hear it from the pulpit.
39:53: They won't hear it from us.
40:00: Part of our obedience is being faithful to a church.
40:03: So I'm not telling you again to not tell people that church is important or to leave that part out.
40:10: But I am saying that just inviting someone to church is not what we're called to do.
40:16: We're called to tell them about Christ.
40:18: And why coming to church is important.
40:21: Because we don't come to church for the fun stuff.
40:25: Not that we don't enjoy the fun stuff.
40:27: I mean I enjoy everything we do here.
40:28: I love, well to me Sunday's fun stuff.
40:31: I love to come and worship.
40:33: I love to preach.
40:34: I love worship.
40:35: So that part is fun for me.
40:37: But that's not fun for an unbeliever typically.
40:42: But like I said, you all understand what I'm saying with number six.
40:45: Number seven is going to be the most controversial thing I say all night.
40:50: I'm going to invite you to please give me the benefit of the doubt on this one.
40:55: Because I will make sense.
40:57: I promise.
40:58: But at first you're going to, you may want to take me and chastise me.
41:04: What? Yeah, take me behind the woodshed.
41:10: Common error in evangelism.
41:12: Telling people that Jesus died for their sins.
41:31: That's number seven.
41:36: I'm going to give you three reasons why I don't do this.
41:41: Theological, scriptural, and practical.
41:43: If you want to make a note or something.
41:46: Theological reason, scriptural reason, practical reason.
41:48: Okay? From a theological standpoint, the doctrine of the atonement is that Christ's blood pays the penalty for believers.
41:59: That a person who goes to hell goes to hell for their sin.
42:03: So that means that the atonement has not been applied to them.
42:07: So that on a theological level would cause me to not say to a person whom I don't know and who I don't know will ever be a believer that Jesus died for their sin.
42:18: Now you might want to take me to a couple of Bible verses and I can show you how I understand them and how they have historically been understood in the Reformed faith.
42:27: But the end of the day is this.
42:29: If Jesus died for their sin and he paid the penalty for their sin and they go to hell, that's unjust.
42:41: That's simple.
42:41: That's unjust.
42:42: Because God has accepted payment on their behalf and yet he still punishes them.
42:47: The reality is the payment has not been made for them because they're not believers.
42:52: Christ died for his church.
42:54: I lay down my life for my sheep.
42:57: It's very simple.
42:58: The believer is the one who receives the benefit of the atonement.
43:02: That's a theological reason.
43:03: I told you I'd give you one.
43:06: Scriptural reason.
43:08: You will not find anywhere in Acts or anywhere in the New Testament where that was the model of evangelism that Paul went around telling everybody Jesus died for their sins.
43:17: It's not there.
43:18: Paul said repent and believe the gospel.
43:22: That's the model of evangelism.
43:23: It's never this thing.
43:26: We've said we've got to tell people Jesus died for their sins.
43:28: No, we tell people Jesus died for the sins of those who believe.
43:31: That's what we tell people.
43:33: That's what Paul tells people.
43:35: Throughout Acts, throughout the New Testament, Jesus died for those who believe.
43:39: That is so important.
43:41: This is where I disagree with Ray.
43:44: Because Ray would just tell people, yeah, Jesus died for you.
43:46: He paid for your penalty.
43:47: Here's where it becomes practical.
43:48: Remember I said there was going to be a theological, scriptural, practical? Practical.
43:52: Well, if Jesus already died for my sin, why do I got to do anything? It doesn't make sense.
43:59: For them, it becomes an out.
44:01: Because everybody I've ever talked to, and I have done upward of 50 funerals in the last 10 years, because I work for a funeral home and I do that part time.
44:09: And in 10 years, I've done upward of 50 funerals.
44:11: I've never met a person yet who would say that they weren't saved by Jesus.
44:15: Even though the vast majority of those 50 people that I have presided over their service had no demonstration in their life at all that they were believers.
44:25: What do they say? Jesus died for sin.
44:27: I'm a sinner.
44:27: Jesus died for me.
44:29: I'm going to heaven.
44:32: So there is an issue.
44:34: Like I said, theological, scriptural, and practical reasons why I don't just tell people, I say Jesus died for sinners.
44:42: That's true.
44:44: I can say that.
44:46: And I can say that Jesus' blood atones for all who believe on Him.
44:49: I can say that.
44:53: But I'm careful not to apply the blood of Christ to someone.
44:57: And this is where you could say my Reformed theology is kicking in a little.
45:01: But I think it's biblical.
45:03: And as I said, find me somewhere in Scripture where an apostle goes up to somebody and says, hey, Jesus died for you.
45:08: And they're an unbeliever.
45:09: And I'll change my mind.
45:15: So, okay.
45:16: That's the most controversial thing of the night.
45:18: Limited atonement always is.
45:19: And that's the L in TULIP, by the way.
45:21: Limited atonement.
45:22: That Christ's blood atones for believers only.
45:25: It's not a hard concept.
45:26: I remember standing in Lifeway.
45:28: A guy wanted to argue with me about Calvinism, which is the shortened version.
45:33: He said, well, I don't like the L.
45:37: I don't like that limited atonement.
45:39: I said, do you believe in hell? He said, yes, I do.
45:42: I said, do you believe that there are people who are going to go to hell? He said, yes.
45:47: I said, then you believe that in some form or fashion Christ did not atone for their sins.
45:53: Well, I believe everybody gets a choice.
45:55: Well, then your problem is with unconditional election, not with limited atonement.
45:58: If your issue is choice, it's not limited atonement.
46:01: It's unconditional election.
46:02: You got your TULIP mixed up.
46:03: That's what I told him.
46:04: He didn't like that, but he didn't understand what he was arguing.
46:08: So, like I said, that's the most controversial.
46:10: If you want to spend some more time with it, there is a booklet we have out here called For Whom Did Christ Die? by Charles Spurgeon.
46:17: We have that little booklet.
46:18: That's a good one to read if you have questions about this particular doctrine.
46:22: I think it would be helpful.
46:24: Yes, dear.
46:33: You know what? Add that one, too.
46:36: Because that's not one of my 10.
46:39: The whole Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life won't work when you're on the Titanic.
46:48: If everybody's going into the drink, you don't want to be walking up to somebody saying, you know, Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life.
46:54: And prosperity gospels sure don't work on the deck of the Titanic.
46:58: You know, who was it? Was it Baxter who said I want to preach as a dying man to dying people? Maybe it was him, maybe it wasn't, but it was one of those great Puritans.
47:08: Was it? Yeah, Richard Baxter who said, I want to preach as a dying man to dying people.
47:14: As if I were not going to live tomorrow and I didn't think they were going to live tomorrow and I want my gospel to be that penetrating.
47:20: And you go up and start telling people Jesus has a wonderful plan for their life and all this pseudo new age Christian garbage.
47:28: That's what it is.
47:29: It's pseudo new age garbage.
47:30: It's not Christianity.
47:32: And that's what happens.
47:35: Ah, man, I missed it.
47:37: I had you guys all excited too, didn't I? Okay.
47:42: These last three are pretty simple.
47:44: I think you'll catch them pretty simply.
47:46: Number eight, accepting that because a person goes to church that he or she is saved.
47:53: The answer there is goes to church.
47:57: This one's hard.
47:58: I'm going to admit this one's hard.
48:00: It can be one of the most difficult because you start talking to somebody about Christ and say, oh yeah, I go to church.
48:07: Right? And that conversation, I had a great conversation with a guy yesterday.
48:11: I talked for a guy with an hour and a half with a guy.
48:16: I went there to talk about banking and I was opening up a new account.
48:19: And he said, you're a pastor.
48:21: I had an appointment so he knew I was coming.
48:23: I've been wanting to talk to you.
48:24: We talked for an hour and a half about the gospel before we ever talked about my bank account, which was awesome.
48:30: And he was an awesome young man.
48:32: But again, he is in a church.
48:34: He feels like he's called into the ministry.
48:36: So already we're two steps in.
48:38: He's already in church.
48:38: He's already called the ministry.
48:40: But at some point in the conversation I wanted to ask him and say, do you understand the gospel? Because I want to know.
48:46: Even if you do go to church, even if you do, thankfully I do believe he is a saved young man.
48:52: And in the conversation I felt very good about it when we left.
48:56: But like I said, that's important to me, even if you are in church.
49:01: And that's a very, for me that's a safe question.
49:04: How would you explain the gospel to somebody? How do you witness? That's a simple, somebody says I'm a believer.
49:10: How do you witness to somebody? Can you tell me? Because I'm really having trouble with it.
49:15: Because I am.
49:15: I'm always wanting to learn more about being a better witness.
49:18: I'm not lying.
49:19: I'm always having to make myself do this.
49:22: How do you do it? And some people hang their head, well I don't.
49:27: Okay, well let's talk about that.
49:29: Because it's a command.
49:30: If we're not doing it, we need to repent and do it.
49:34: So, why aren't you doing it? You know that leads into a whole new conversation.
49:37: And can lead you into the gospel.
49:39: You don't have to go up and say, I know you go to First Baptist Church, but a lot of those folks ain't saved.
49:43: That is not a good way to do it.
49:45: You can, all these things, you can say, you can say so many things that can lead you into a good conversation without having to necessarily say, I don't think you're a believer.
49:55: Just ask them, can you tell me how you share the gospel? And that's what I see.
50:02: That gives you an opportunity to say, well this is how I do it.
50:05: Ha ha! Now I'm sharing the gospel.
50:07: And they know why.
50:08: Because I'm teaching them something and maybe they've never heard it.
50:11: You see? If you don't do it, let me show you how I do it.
50:15: I just took an eight week course.
50:17: Uh huh, yeah.
50:21: Oh well, yeah, I guess I do need to print those.
50:23: We got them in there, I got to print them out.
50:25: Remind me to do that.
50:27: Alright, number nine.
50:32: Believing that a person, oh excuse me.
50:35: Believing that because a person is from another faith, that he or she is unreachable.
50:40: Unreachable.
50:47: I'm going to admit, again, I'm bearing my soul.
50:51: Reaching people from other religions can be hard.
50:54: But I typically don't find it to be any harder than reaching people that are lost and just aren't in any faith.
51:01: You say, why? Because at the end of the day, I'm preaching the gospel.
51:05: I'm doing the same thing to whatever.
51:08: It's not changing what I do.
51:10: Because I'm going to eventually get to sin, the remedy of sin, and the reality of that being the only way to heaven.
51:17: That's going to be where I get to, whether it's a Muslim or Jew or whatever.
51:22: That's where I want to go.
51:24: The atheist, you know, I tend to the hardest people for me, honestly, are the atheists.
51:30: Because they tend to be the most aggressively anti-supernatural.
51:35: Where the Muslim at least believes in a god.
51:38: So he has already accepted the supernatural.
51:41: So we don't have to jump that hurdle.
51:43: The atheist to me is the most aggressively difficult.
51:46: Because also they typically don't have a moral standard by which they must account.
51:51: And, you know, they can fuss and cuss and do whatever.
51:54: And I'm not saying all atheists are that way.
51:56: Please don't confuse me with saying that all atheists are mean, bad guys.
52:00: Often we do that.
52:01: We mischaracterize them.
52:03: But at the end of the day, they're willing to, that's why I haven't ever invited an atheist to come and debate me here at the church.
52:11: Because I do want to do more debates in the future.
52:13: But one of the difficult things I have with an atheist is there's not a standard.
52:17: Like if I invited a Mormon, one thing I got, I ain't going to cuss.
52:20: They're not going to bring a Coca-Cola.
52:23: They got some rules and some standards that an atheist wouldn't necessarily have.
52:29: And I don't want someone, I do have that concern about introducing someone within the church who might be willing to blaspheme or something in the church.
52:41: And I wouldn't want that to happen.
52:42: So there is some concern there.
52:44: But like I said, no one is unreachable.
52:47: God's elect are in every tribe, tongue, and nation.
52:50: They're in every college classroom.
52:52: They're in every mosque.
52:53: They're in every church that's preaching bad theology.
52:57: There are some of God's elect there and we can reach them.
52:58: They're not unreachable.
53:01: If you think of it like a sales thing, you're thinking wrong.
53:05: That's what we think about with sales.
53:08: We think about the unreachable people.
53:09: We don't even go to them because we need to go to where the sales are easy.
53:13: It's not a sales pitch.
53:14: It's a gospel message.
53:16: So just we address the conscience of whoever we're speaking to.
53:22: Lastly, and finally, refusing to obey the command to go and share our faith.
53:30: That is the number one error in evangelism.
53:35: It's not evangelizing.
53:39: Not obeying the command.
53:41: Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.
53:46: As you go into the world, if there's another way to translate that phrase that Jesus said, as you go into the world, preach the gospel to all nations.
53:56: Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
54:02: Evangelism is command.
54:03: Disobedience is sin.
54:05: That really got on my heart recently.
54:09: In fact, last night in the Dads and Dudes meeting, I took an opportunity to confess something that I felt like was a sin that I wanted to repent.
54:20: Because while I was in the hospital, and you might think that I'm being somewhat self-serving here, but I want to share this with you because it was really on my heart.
54:29: But I really thought about this afterwards.
54:31: There were times where I had opportunities to speak to the nurses, but I didn't.
54:39: You know what I did? I said, oh man, I'm sick.
54:42: I don't have to do this right now.
54:43: I'm off the clock.
54:45: That's really the way I treated it.
54:48: And I thought about it later.
54:49: You know, I had these ladies captive.
54:50: They can't go nowhere.
54:52: She's taking my blood pressure.
54:54: She's not going to squeeze my arm off.
54:55: I could talk.
54:56: I could spend two seconds and ask this lady if she has a religious background.
55:00: Does she know Christ? That would have been all.
55:02: I mean, I'm a sick man laying in bed, but I wasn't so sick I couldn't talk.
55:06: I watched some TV while I was in the hospital.
55:08: I wasn't always dying.
55:09: They gave me Dilaudid.
55:10: I was feeling pretty good for certain portions.
55:12: I'm saying there were times when I could have spoken, but I chose not to, and I used that as an excuse.
55:20: Maybe not on Dilaudid.
55:21: I should have been sharing the gospel.
55:23: But my point being is I actually had to repent of that.
55:28: I had to say to myself, you know what? That was a time where I was disobedient to God because I knew I should have done it, and I even said to myself I should do it, and I refused to do it, and I used an excuse not to do it.
55:38: How often do you...
55:40: Yeah, well, my point, though, is what excuses do we use? What excuses do we use? Paying my...
55:49: It wasn't for me because I knew better.
55:52: At that time in my life, I should have done better.
55:54: And I'm not saying that to lift myself up as a saint or any type of a martyr.
55:59: I'm saying that at that time in my life, there were times where I said in my brain, tell her about Jesus, and I said no.
56:06: Hm? Yeah.
56:09: I said no when I could have said yes.
56:13: Every Christian is a missionary or an imposter, Charles Spurgeon said, and I agree, and that's becoming more and more convicting into my heart, and I hope for you, too.
56:20: Let's pray.
56:22: Father, thank you for your word.
56:24: Thank you for the command to evangelize.
56:25: May it be that we find every way we can and stop, Lord, as I have done, finding ways that I can't.
56:33: In Christ's name, amen.