Practical Evangelism

The Law as the Tool That Exposes Sin

All right, good morning, gentlemen. We are continuing this morning. I know I was out last week and Brother Andy taught for me, but we're continuing today on the little mini-series that I started on the subject of evangelism.

I know there are some of you who are new, and that's fine. So to give you a little bit of a background as to what we normally do, my name is Keith. I'm a pastor at Sovereign Grace Family Church. I normally teach a 12-week rotating theology course.

And in between, because it rotates... Thank you, thank you. Appreciate you. Because it rotates, every time we finish the course, I'll do a little mini-series just to break up so that we don't go right back into the same thing for another 12 weeks.

So what we're doing right now is we're doing a couple of extra weeks on the subject of evangelism and discipleship. And I'm sorry, but I did wake up with a little bit of a sore throat, so I asked for a cup of coffee.

I don't know if I asked for that. That was strong as a motor oil.

That is what we call jet fuel. Mercy.

Well, I'll be up for the next three days. That's tough stuff. Okay, so we started a couple of weeks ago talking about evangelism. And this was based on a request. I don't know who requested it, but somebody asked to learn how to share their faith and how to proclaim the Gospel.

And so far, what we have talked about, we've talked about how to engage with folks. We've talked about using Gospel tracts. I brought a whole stack of Gospel tracts in a few weeks ago. I don't know if you guys remember that, but I brought in some to show you the things that I use particularly when I'm going out to evangelize.

And I keep these in my wallet all the time, which is in my truck right now, so I don't have it, but I keep Gospel tracts in my wallet just so I have an opportunity. If I see somebody, I don't know if I'm in an elevator and I've only got 20 seconds with somebody, I say, hey, can I give you this card?

And it tells the Gospel. It gives some information about the church. It's not a church advertisement, though. I try to tell people I'm not advertising for the church. I'm telling people about Christ. But I do want people to be able to contact us if they have questions.

If somebody reads this and the Lord works in their heart, I want them to be able to have somebody to make contact with. So it does have my name on it. It does have the church's name on it, and things like that.

And so if you do decide to get tracts, I recommend somehow putting contact information on it so that people aren't just left sort of in limbo. If the Lord works in their heart, then you want to have some kind of contact with them.

But we use Gospel tracts to reach out to people, make connections, start conversations. And the last time I was here, we talked about the tool that God has given us for the proclamation of the Gospel.

The one tool that God has given us to, in a sense, incise or cut into the human heart and lay it bare for the Gospel to be able to penetrate. Does anybody remember what I said the tool from Scripture is to open up the heart and make way for the Gospel?

The law. The law. Who said that? Good man. That's right. The law of God. The Bible says the law of God is perfect. The law of God is perfect converting the soul. So it is God's law that cuts the heart bare, lays us open, and shows us that we are guilty and in need of a Savior.

Open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 3. We're going to read the same passage we read last time. We're going to look a little further into it today. We're going to read 3 .19 -20. So just two verses. Alright.

I'm going to read and then I'm going to pray. It says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God for by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we come to You in Jesus' name. I pray, Lord, that as I speak today, first and foremost that You would keep me from error. Lord, because I know how easily I am susceptible to error and I don't want to preach what is untrue for the sake of You and Your name and for the sake of Your Gospel and for the sake of these men and their hearts.

And I pray, Lord, that we would all have a right understanding of the purpose of evangelism that our goal is to proclaim the truth that when we go to seek to make disciples that we're not out there trying to manipulate men's hearts but we're trying to point them to You the only one who can make a true and lasting change to a heart.

We pray all this, Lord, in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. So this text tells us that we know that whatever the law says that speaks to those under the law that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

That phrase every mouth may be stopped is a picture of what I think it's going to be like on Judgment Day. Because I have heard many atheists and other anti-believers there's some people who aren't atheists necessarily but don't believe in Christ who have said this on Judgment Day I'm going to tell God what He should have done.

One very famous atheist said that because he was asked what would happen if you die and found out God does exist? He said, well I would look at God and I would tell Him I just didn't have enough evidence to believe that He existed.

That's what I would say. And here's what's really going to happen according to the Scriptures. The Bible says that when we face God our mouths are going to be stopped because we're not going to have anything to say.

And any man that thinks that he's going to bring a word of correction to the Almighty is a man whose arrogance is off the charts. Any man who thinks he's going to talk back to his Creator is a fool. And the Bible says that.

It says anyone who thinks that he can counsel the Almighty is a fool. He's not going to counsel God. He's not going to correct God. He's going to do nothing except close his mouth. And the Bible says at that day every knee will do what?

Every knee will bow. And every tongue will do what? Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now I think that confession is going to come in two ways. It's either going to come through the first confession which is the believer who will say I trusted in Jesus as Lord.

But I think that confession is also going to come through those who say oh Lord I was wrong. But it will be a confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. The Bible tells us that very clearly. So this text tells us every mouth will be stopped.

And no one or rather everyone will be held accountable to God. Every man is accountable to God. Now it says in verse 20 by the works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight. No one's going to be able to say God I kept your law.

Because if I went around the room and I asked you have you broken God's law you will either be honest and say yes or you will lie thereby having broken God's law right then and say no. Because no one here can say that they have kept the law of God.

No one can say that they've never told a lie. No one can say that they've never stolen anything. No one can say that they've never looked with lust which Jesus said is what? Adultery. No one can say that they've never hated.

The Bible calls that what? Murder. Jesus said if you've hated someone you've murdered them in your heart in fact he says murder stems from the heart. In fact Jesus said very clearly that what we do is a product of our hearts.

It comes out of the heart. Out of the heart comes wickedness Jesus says because the heart is wicked. And so no man is going to be able to stand before God and say God I kept your law. In fact all the law will do is condemn.

How many of you have seen the film. It's a recent one I think they watch it here Pilgrim's Progress. Y 'all haven't seen it here? Okay I think that I remember a while back them showing it I've been doing this four years so it could have been a real while back.

Yeah. It was a couple years ago. Okay. It's a digital film so it's like you know what Pixar type film so it's not a movie movie it's not a cartoon but it's sort of like that in the middle you know digital movie.

Pilgrim's Progress is a book written by John Bunyan who was a Puritan pastor and it is an allegory for the Christian life and it really is not a difficult allegory because everything has a very simple name like the guy who is the Christian his name is Christian it's like there's no there's this he's not trying to fool anybody Christian is Christian.

The Evangelist is named Evangelist that's his name it literally it's that it's that straightforward he's not trying to he is not you know he's not C .S. Lewis he's very clear this is the allegory this is a Christian this is Evangelist this is the Shepherd who is Jesus that's the only one that you have to kind of figure out that that's actually Jesus but there's throughout the story there's all these people like there's the worldly wise man who thinks he knows everything because he's very worldly and then there's the slew of Despond which is this this basically this pit that you can get drawn down into and Despond is an old word for depression so it talks about depression right slew of depression is basically or the pond of depression which you can get sucked down into so there's all these allegories.

Well one of the points in the movie which is also in the book but the movie is very vividly pictures this is Christian is trying to is trying to unload his burden and his burden is this sack that he has on his back and it's meant to represent his sin right.

And he's trying to get rid of it but he can't get it off and so he goes to Law Mountain and the Law Mountain is literally just a big mountain with all these commandments written on it and he starts to try to climb Law Mountain because at the top he can take the pack off.

The problem is every time he gets past another law a new law pops out and knocks him back down. And finally he realizes there's no way to there's no way to get up there. I cannot conquer Law Mountain.

It's not possible. And the allegory there is you can't get saved on Law Mountain. You have to get saved on Mount Calvary not Mount Sinai. You know Galatians talks about that right. The two mountains the mountain of the law and the mountain of grace the mountain of the ten commandments and the mountain of the cross.

And if you try to climb this mountain which is Mount Law you'll never get to the top. You're never going to get saved because the law can't save you. It can only condemn you. But the grace of Christ can save.

And we don't scale that mountain. God literally picks us up and sets us there. Ephesians chapter 2 says he seats us in heavenly places with Christ that we were dead in trespasses and sins. He reaches down into the muck and the mire of our sin lifts us up and puts us there.

We don't climb that mountain. God again by grace places us there. And so that's the two pictures people who say to you when you're trying to share the gospel. Hey man I'm good. I'm going to heaven because I'm good.

What are they saying. The law is going to save me because I kept. I'm good. I kept the law. But you haven't. You can't get saved that way. And so the very first thing that I like to remind people when you are sharing the gospel with someone is you have to address the fact that they are sinners and the fact that they because of their sin stand before God as guilty.

I don't want to talk to people about their guilt. They'll get offended. The gospel is offensive because the first thing it tells us is that we are not good. What does Romans 3 say. Go back real quick.

Go back to Romans 3 9. We're in that same chapter. You don't have to turn the page. It says what. Then are we any better off. No. Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin.

As it is written. None is what. No not one. No one understands. No one does what no one seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become what worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet is swift to shed blood in their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now if you were to read Romans 1 and 2 what you would see is that Paul is talking about the whole world. Because in Romans 1 he is addressing primarily gentile unbelievers.

And then in Romans 2 he's talking about Jewish people. And the reason why you know that is because he talks about those who are under the law. Those who have the law those who have the oracles of God which is the word of God which was the Jewish people.

And when he gets to chapter 3 he says what shall we say. Are we Jews any better off than the Greeks. No. We're all under sin. Everybody's under sin. Whether they're Jew or Greek everybody is under sin.

And then he gives this verse 10 down to verse 18 he gives this litany of things that prove that we are under sin. That we have turned aside. We become worthless. We don't do good. None of us not even one of us that our throat is an open grave.

The venom of asthma is under our lips. All of these things are mentioned in the passage. And this is an indictment against all of humanity. You say I don't think. So I think this is only about a certain subset of people.

It's not. And we know this because he goes on to say in verse 23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's the same context. And who's the all in that context. Are you in the all. Yeah me too.

Right. One finger points at you. Three point back at me. Right. So all of us. And so when we talk about sin there is a universality that is an application. It applies to everyone. And so our goal our first goal in evangelism is helping people to understand that they are sinners.

Because if a man doesn't know that he's sick he will not seek a physician. If he does not know that he is in danger he will not run for safety. If he does not know that he is in trouble he will not seek out any protection.

That is the problem with most people. You talk to most people they have no idea of the condition that they are in because in the grand scheme of things they don't think that they are that bad. I heard a guy just this week he said I don't know why God would have any problem with me.

I didn't do anything to him. I thought you haven't sinned against God. You've never sinned against God. God has no reason to have any issue with you. This week in church I'm preaching Genesis 39. For those who don't remember Genesis 39 is when Joseph has been sold into slavery.

He is in the house of Potiphar the captain of the guard. While he is in the house of the captain of the guard the wife of Potiphar takes an interest in young Joseph. The wife of Potiphar wants Joseph to sleep with her.

In fact that's what she says. She says lie with me. And he says to her. The response is very important. He said how can I do this wicked thing and sin against God. Now. That's a very important phrase.

Because if he sinned with her he would be sinning against his master Potiphar. Right. He would be sinning against her because even though she'd be engaging too he would still be sinning against a married woman by taking her into the throes of adultery.

He'd be sinning against his community because he would be bringing shame upon the household that he lives in. He would be sinning against all kinds of different things. But he didn't mention any of that.

He said how could I do this wicked thing and sin against God. Because he knew the person we sin against most is not our neighbor. The person we sin against most is not our family. The person we sin against most is not even ourselves.

The person we sin against the most is God. In Psalm 51 we have David's prayer of repentance. Remember when David repented of his sin after he had sinned with Bathsheba. What does Psalm 51. When David is crying out he's lost his child.

He is praying to God because Nathan the prophet has stuck that little crooked finger and said thou art the man. Sorry brother. You just have been pointed at. And thou art the man. And David realized he was guilty.

And David writes Psalm 51 as a prayer of repentance. Right. And what does he say against thee. And thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. David knew that his sin was ultimately against God.

Joseph knew if he sinned he would be sinning against God. We need to understand that our sin is ultimately first and foremost high treason in the courtroom of the almighty. And we stand guilty before the king of kings having broken his law.

And therefore we are responsible to him having broken his law. Now that's the way you start evangelism help people understand where they are. They're standing helpless before the judge who has every right to bring about their total final and eternal destruction.

And yet that same God who is willing to bring judgment is also willing to extend mercy to those who will repent and trust in the work of his son. You see that's the transition point. Once you get them lost then you can get them saved.

Now I'm not saying you get them saved. Understand. That was just a clever way of saying that. But you have to get lost before you ever been out in the woods walking around and before long you realize you're lost.

You weren't looking for a way out until you realized you was in. You weren't looking for the escape until you realized you were trapped. That's where we have to take people. We have to take people to the end of themselves.

Because as long as a man is trusting in himself he'll never trust in the Savior. As long as a man is looking inside he'll never look outside. He'll never look for something else. So as long as that man is trusting himself he's not going to be able to trust in Christ.

So you have to take him to the end of himself where he realizes he can't trust in himself. And then say now that you realize you're not good enough. And that's okay. Because I'm not either understand.

I'm not saying you James are awful and I'm great. No no no. We're both on the same level. We're both worms in the dirt. In fact we're worse than worms. Because worms never sin against God. Worms do what worms do.

Worms worm that's what worms that's how they are. But we've sinned against God. We've sinned against our creator the holy one of Israel the one who made us and commanded us. We have broken his law. What do we do.

What can we do. That's we get to the gospel. In the gospel you begin to share about what Christ has done and what God did through Christ. That God loved the world so much that he sent his son into the world.

You see John 3 16 doesn't make sense unless you understand that you're a sinner. Because listen John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

That doesn't make sense if you don't understand you don't deserve everlasting life. Because people who think they deserve everlasting life. People who think they deserve salvation hear that. And it doesn't make sense because their answer is well I should get eternal life whether I believe or not.

Because I deserve it. No you don't. You deserve hell. But God loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in him will not perish. What's the implication of that.

That's right. Thank you. The implication is whoever does not believe will perish. And we have to trust. We have to push that into the conversation too when we're talking. Let me finish my thought. When we're talking getting to the point of the urgency of the call.

This is an urgent call. It's like being on the titanic. Everything's fine. Until you hit the iceberg. Nobody thought they were going to be in the icy water that night. Nobody thought they were going to be doggy paddling to their own destruction in just a few short hours.

And then they hit the iceberg and everything changed. What happens if today is the day you hit the iceberg in your life. And today is the day you're going to face the Lord. All right. Go ahead. Well the question I always get from other people.

People I've said this over and over again. People have told me this a lot of people this little kid sticking their head. So Christ came and died for our sins for all of mankind. If he did why is there still sin upon the earth.

I know sinful creatures. I hear all this. So if sin or killed sin what's the point. Okay that's a legitimate question but it is based on an incomplete understanding. Okay so if somebody were to ask me let's say you and I are having a gospel conversation.

We're sitting on a park bench watching our kids play. I talk to you about Jesus and you were to ask me that question I would say first of all Christ came to take the penalty of sin for those who believe he did not come to eradicate sin from the world that will happen when he comes again.

The Bible says when he comes again all sin will be dealt with and be done away with his first time coming was to be a sacrifice for those who believe to take the penalty not the presence but the penalty of sin but one day he will come again and he will take the presence of sin when he comes and we will be ushered into a new kingdom where there will be no sin there will be one of two conditions where there is no sin and joy and pleasant happiness for the rest of eternity or you will find your place in a place of so that is my answer his purpose was not to come and eradicate sin the first time very important distinction he came to take the penalty of sin and he did he took the penalty for everyone who would believe.

Yeah, so that's how I would answer that question. All right, so having looked at basically all I did so far is kind of bring up the speed. For those who weren't here, that's what we've talked about, using the law to point people to Christ and give them the gospel.

Today, what I wanted to do for the rest of our time, because we're about about halfway through, for the rest of our time we're going to look at responding to objections to the gospel message, sort of like what you just did.

You gave me a response, not an objection, but you gave me a question, and I gave you the way I would answer it. So I'm going to, right now, we're going to, I'm going to write on the board two different categories, and we're going to talk through these.

The first one is, the first one is objectors, and the second one is objections. All right, and what I mean by that, if you have a paper, if you want to write this out, you can, you don't have to, but I think this is helpful.

Objectors is the people that we face. Objections is the arguments they make. So let's, let's go to the first, easiest one, is atheists. That would be a type of objector, right? If you share the gospel, and someone says, well, I don't believe in God, that would make them a confessing atheist, right?

So atheist is the type of objector, and their objection is, God doesn't exist. All right, now, we're going to come back and deal with these, but I'm just, we're making categories now. So before we deal with these, let's, let's, let's go through.

What's another type of objector that we might run into? What's another type of person that we might run into? Huh? Why don't we just, you're right, Corey, but why don't we put that in a bigger category, and say other, other faiths?

So we could say, I'm not even sure other faiths would be right, huh? False religions. Okay, so false religions. So false religions, what's an argument they would make? I can only hear one at a time, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Nanny, nanny, boo, boo. Yeah, so we could say, they would say, you have the wrong God. Yeah, wrong God. Okay. All right, what's another type of objector? You might say that's the only two. No, there could be others.

Okay, so explain that. A lot of times they would still be coming from one of these two groups, but we could, we could look at, why don't we call them intellectuals? Because I've dealt with a lot of those guys.

Okay, so intellectuals, I'll get to, I heard what you said, I'll be there in just a second. So what would an intellectual would just say, I'm too smart for that? Yeah, right, too smart, I'm too smart to believe that.

Yeah, too smart for that. Okay. Evolutionists, yeah, why don't we put that under, we'll just say, okay, we can do that. Evolutionists, they have a different understanding of the whole world, right? So we would just say a different, different worldview.

I do this, I have an eight-week course I teach in apologetics, which is eight weeks on how to defend the faith, and we do, we talk about all kinds of stuff, history of the Bible, all those things. So I'm sort of really condensing this down into a, into a short time, because I'm trying to give you what, what someone might call like, like, like brass tacks apologetics, because I'm going to show you how none of this matters.

All I'm doing is, all I'm going to show you is, is none of this matters, but these are the things that scare people. What if I run into somebody doesn't believe in God? And we'll talk about that in a minute, but that's the thing people get, like they get afraid of evangelism because they're afraid of this stuff.

What if I run into somebody who's evolutionist? What am I going to say? What if I run into somebody who's really smart? What am I going to say? Was there anybody else? Yeah, go ahead. Like agnostic? Agnostic, that's a good one.

Yeah, we could, and I do think, I do think the agnostic is, and they would just say, I don't know, and actually what they normally say is, you can't know. That's the difference. They would say, I don't know, and you can't know.

I have one of those in my family. She's very convinced that you just can't know anything. I mean, she doesn't even know she exists. You know, she would say, I maybe exist. I don't know, could just all be an illusion.

Well, yeah, well, hey man, let me tell you something. You say the matrix and you laugh about that. There are, there are scientific studies and research that are going out throughout the universities about multiverse, and you think that's movie stuff.

It's not. This, this garbage is going out in the universities that there are multiple realities, multiple dimensions, multiple universes, where all of this is an illusion, and we're just experiencing real time that's not real.

Well, it sounds stupid, but when you got a guy with a PhD that's publishing a paper, and it's peer-reviewed, and it's being sent out to all the universities. I mean, again, how many of you have ever seen, I know it's a TV show, how many of you have ever seen the Big Bang Theory?

What's the Big Bang Theory? It's about scientists, right? Quantum physics. Quantum physics is string theory. What is string theory? String theory is a, is a, is a theory about the creation of the universe, and it's a, and it's an idea of multiple, you know, multiple strings, multiple versus multiverse.

It's a multiverse theory. The whole idea, and you say, wait a minute, that's Spider-Man. It's, it's, it's, it's, there are people who believe these things, and then they get mad at us for believing in God.

See, they laugh at us for believing in the divine, but they're believing in some really crazy things. All right, so we have our objectors, we have their objections, right? You with me? Don't worry about him.

All right, so let's talk about the atheist. Let's say I walk up to, and this happens, and again, when I tell these stories, I promise I'm not making these up. We've gone to so many different places and shared the gospel, and we've gone out, I've gone out with Brother Mike, he preaches on the street, I hand out gospel tracts.

I've got a lot of funny stories. None of this is made up. I try not to even embellish. If I, if I can help it sometimes, it's hard not to just make stuff funny, because it's tough. I did have a funny story.

This has nothing to do with this, but one time I was at the Jaguar game, and all these people out there, no, it was Florida Georgia game. So we were, Brother Mike was preaching, I'm handing out tracts, and I walk up to a group of people who were dressed in tuxedo t-shirts, I'm sorry, not t-shirts, tuxedo shirts and black pants, and I thought they were like a chorus.

I thought they were gonna sing like America the Beautiful or something, because, you know, they have, you know, all they had like drumlines and stuff. I thought they were performers. So I walk up, I hand out gospel tract, we start talking about the gospel, and now I'm surrounded, because everybody wants to hear what I'm saying, and we're talking, and I'm engaging with people, and having a great time.

They were very sweet. They were young people. It was fun. I said, so when are you guys performing? They said, what do you mean? I said, well, look how you're dressed. You're dressed like you're gonna perform.

Are you gonna sing? They said, man, we're the waitstaff. They were gonna go up to the box seats where the, you know, those real rich people have those boxes, and they were gonna be the ones. That's why they were dressed so nice, because they were the waitstaff.

I don't know why I told you that story. The point is, been around, been, had conversations with hundreds of people, and I want to tell you how I do it. Again, I'm not perfect, and I sometimes fumble over my words.

Sometimes I strip and fall too, so it's not a big deal, but when you're having these conversations, you always got to bring, you always got to bring it back to the law, because when I start talking to a person, I say, hey, I want to ask you a question.

If you, let's just say I start this way. If you died, you faced God, and God said, I, why should I let you in heaven? What would you say? Now, I'm not saying, I'm not asking you, I'm saying that, that's a way to, that's a way to begin a conversation, right?

Or at least to shift the conversation. Let's say we're talking about, like when I was talking to those people that were all dressed up. The first thing we talked about was the game. Hey man, you guys here, aren't you excited?

Florida, Georgia. Can I show you a magic trick? That's the thing I do, because I used to do magic professionally. So I'll show a quick magic trick, and I'll begin a conversation that way. And that's again how I get a crowd.

And then as I'm talking, at some point I'll say, hey, there's something really serious that I want to share with you. Do you mind if I share with you? And I usually pull out gospel tracts at that point, and say, I have a message on these tracts.

Can I give it to you? And they'll say, sure. And I say, okay, can I ask you a question? While I hand this to you, can I ask you a question? I'll either ask them one of two things. I'll say, if you were to die, and face God, and God said, why should I let you in heaven, what would you say?

Or I cut through that, and I say, would you say you're a good person? Now that's even easier, because everybody says, yep. If you say, would you say you're a good person? The person says, yes. I say, can I, can we do a test to see if that's true?

Can we, can we do a test to see if that's true? And then I take them through the commandments. Have you ever told a lie? Yes. What does that make you? A liar. Okay. Have you ever stolen anything? Yeah.

What does that make you? A thief. Have you ever, Jesus said, if you ever look with lust, you commit adultery in your heart. You ever look with lust? Yes. Okay, so your name? Craig. So by your own admission, Craig, you're a lying, thieving, adulterous at heart.

Do you still believe you're a good person? No. See that? Okay. See, I've already, I've cut through everything. I've used God's law to penetrate the heart. I've already done all that. Now this time, a person may say, well, I don't believe in God.

So do I stop believing in God because he does? Do I abandon ship? Oh my gosh, Craig doesn't believe in God. You know, I gotta hide. No, I'm not afraid of Craig. I'm not afraid of his unbelief. Because my response to him is, Craig, listen, if I didn't believe, if I didn't believe in gravity and I stepped off a building, do you think gravity's gonna care whether I believe or not?