Beyond The Basics: Evangelism (part 4)

Father, we rejoice in your goodness to us, in your constant love

and blessing that you pour out upon us.

Father, we rejoice even this morning as we look to your Word, look to see what it says about

evangelism, not just from an

obligatory sense of, you know, it's our job to preach the gospel, but

it is our joy and our privilege.

Father, just bless this time, would you, in Christ's name, amen.

Well we were, we've been talking about evangelism for a few weeks, even while I was gone.

Elder Pradeep was teaching about it, and

it struck me that I might start this way.

You know, we were talking, we left off talking about evidentialism versus presuppositionalism versus

whatever other isms we were talking about, and I thought maybe I could put some

decorations on that tree.

I recently sent a letter to my aunt and uncle in California.

I think I mentioned before that when I was out in California, I went and visited with them and I

noticed they had a million dollar bill on their mantel, which caught my eye.

You know, I thought, wow, I knew they were doing well.

I didn't know they had that kind of money, and they sort of chuckled and

they told me that someone had given it to them, and I just found it intriguing that they had it there, and so we were, we

talked a little bit about the gospel, and then we got into other things, and I decided that I would

write them a letter, and in the letter, knowing that, you know, family, as I think I

said several weeks ago, family knows everything about you, and so I thought, how do I

preach the gospel, but not preach it in a way where their first response is just going to be,

you know, Steve thinks he's better than us.

So I thought, well, I can preach the gospel just by basically giving my testimony,

and just by laying out, you know, this is how I was, this is what happened, and

this is how I am by the grace of God, step by step walking through the scriptures and understanding,

or presenting my own understanding of how I came to recognize how holy God was, how sinful

I was, what Christ had done, you know, what God commanded me to do, and then how that has

impacted my life.

So I did that, and of course I've received no response, but that's not the point.

The point is, that is a biblical model, and I want to show you that this morning before we get back to our lesson.

By the way, does anybody need a copy of the notes?

I have several extra copies, if anyone needs a copy.

I wonder, Brad, if you could just, for anybody who needs a copy, if you could just hand them out.

See that's the problem with raising your hand first.

You get stuck doing that sort of thing.

But if we open to Acts chapter 26, Acts

chapter 26, and Paul basically does this exact same thing.

Although he's not talking to a relative, he's before Agrippa,

King Agrippa, and he's really on trial

in ultimately what will be for his life.

But listen to what he does, starting in, I'll just start in verse 1.

Agrippa said to Paul, you are permitted to speak for yourself.

Then Paul stretched out his hand and proceeded to make his defense.

In regard to all things of which I am accused by the Jews, I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, that I am about to

make my defense before you today, especially because you are an expert in all customs and questions among

the Jews.

Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

So then all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up.

What's he doing right now?

He's giving a testimony, he's saying, listen, this is who I was, this is my former life.

So then all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own

nation at Jerusalem.

I grew up in a Christian home, only in this case I grew up in a Jewish home.

Since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a

Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion.

I was a good kid, I did everything I was supposed to.

And growing up, furthermore, as I became an adult, I was super strict in my

obedience to the rules.

And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.

The promise to which our 12 tribes hope to attain as they earnestly serve God

night and day, he says, well, wait a second, this is how I lived.

And then there was a change, and let me explain it, let me preface it by saying,

this isn't really a change.

This is the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews.

Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?

So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

In other words, he's getting into this, I was a persecutor of the Christians.

I was a super Pharisee.

I was zealous for the cause of Judaism.

And this is just what I did in Jerusalem.

Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they

were being put to death, I cast my vote against them.

And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme.

And being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.

This is my life.

This is what I did.

And everybody knows it.

I'm not gonna deny it.

While so engaged as I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief

priests, at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter

than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me.

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect,

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

It is hard for you to kick against the goads.

And I said, who are you, Lord?

And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

But get up and stand up on your feet.

For this purpose, I have appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness, not only to the things which you have seen,

but also to the things in which I will appear to you.

Rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their

eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God,

that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith

in me.

He says, listen, this is how I lived.

This is what happened.

I had a defining moment.

Not everybody has that on the road to Damascus moment where Jesus arrests them.

Well, Paul definitely got arrested.

There was no doubt about the moment of his salvation.

He was given this commission.

And he goes on, he says, listen, this is how I was transformed.

And now listen to what God has done in my life.

So King Agrippa, verse 19, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but

kept declaring both to those of Damascus first and also at Jerusalem.

And then throughout all the region of Judea and even to the Gentiles that they

should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate of repentance.

For this reason, some Jews seized me in the temple and tried to put me to death.

So having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to great and small, or small

and great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place, that the

Christ was to suffer.

And that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, he would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish

people and to the Gentiles.

What has he just done?

He's preached the gospel to Agrippa in the form of a testimony.

He said, this is who I was, this is what happened to me, and this is what I do now.

This is how I live, and this is what I would want to tell you about how I live.

This is what's important to me, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, that he

came to save sinners.

Perfect example of what we ought to do.

Now, you say, well, how can I do that?

Well, like I said, I wrote a letter, and I wasn't saved on the road to Damascus.

I didn't persecute, I did persecute the church, but I didn't really throw people in jail or

kill them before I got saved.

But in each of our lives, we have that opportunity.

When we have baptisms here, what do people do?

I mean, this is, people say, I don't know if I can give my testimony.

It's pretty simple.

That's the model.

This is who I was.

You don't have to give us all the gory details.

Paul didn't.

Gave us a lot of details, but he didn't give us all the details.

This is who I was.

This is how I came to be convicted of the truth, and this is the impact the truth has had on my life.

Pretty simple way to present the gospel, and there's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing unbiblical about that.

But we were talking about evidences last time.

Is there anything wrong with evidentialism?

And I think Daniel raised the point about evolution

and all those kind of things.

And the problem with any of those sort of discussions is they tend to, we tend to get lost in the weeds.

We'll spend all of our time trying to refute whatever evidence they bring forth to refute the evidence we brought forth, and

we wind up with a battle of evidences.

And we don't have any, as I think I said last time, there is

no evidence that I can bring forth about the falsehood of evolution,

or about old earth versus new earth, or any number of things that is going to cause

someone to say, I get it.

We didn't descend from monkeys, and now I need to follow the risen savior.

Those, that doesn't flow.

That's not a logical, coherent argument.

Yes, Bruce.

Well, let me go at this a different way, because I, obviously that,

that worked.

Let, let me, let me just propose a, a different scenario.

Supposing someone hears an utterly horrific

gospel message and then gets saved.

Is that possible?

In other words, it was just, it was feeble.

You know, you, you did it yourself.

I did it.

You know, and it, it was just like, you just go, well, you know, you, you just have to believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ.

And they go, huh.

And that afflicts their conscience, and they go home, and they get saved.

Now, did you do the right thing?

Well, sort of, I guess.

Was it a full gospel message?

No.

Did they get saved?

Yes.

And so, the Lord can use a lot of different things.

My point in that is, you know, if you tell some, an unbeliever that, well, we have the Dead Sea Scrolls,

and that's evidence of the fidelity of scripture.

In other words, we, I mean, we, we, we have a book of Isaiah that is a thousand years removed from another one,

and it's still exactly the same.

You know, that's, that is, at the very least, testimony to the providence of God, the

power of God, and being able to keep the word consistent and pure and right.

You know, so this idea that somehow, you hear this sometimes from unbelievers.

I don't know if you've ever heard this, but that, you know, the Bible is some, like, great big conspiracy.

That it was, that it was edited, and that, you know, a group of guys put it together, so that it would all work together, or that, you

know, Jesus even did some things, just so that it would look like he was fulfilling Old Testament

prophecy.

And I'm like, well, that was brilliant.

You know, I mean, just imagine a guy who doesn't really think he's, you know, God, and hasn't done all these miracles

and everything, saying to himself, you know what, just to fool people, I think I'll go die on a cross.

That's crazy.

You know, but there are people out there who believe this sort of thing, and, and so, you know, is it wrong to say, well, we have the Dead Sea

Scrolls?

No, I don't think that's wrong.

I don't think that's wrong.

But, but I think the stronger method, because we, the, the stronger method is to go

to appeal to scripture.

Why?

Because sharp, scripture is sharper than any two -edged sword, and able to pierce between

joints and marrow.

Yes, sir, bone and marrow.

Yeah, show me and then I'll believe.

And I was even thinking this morning, you know, talking about the strength of the gospel

message.

Probably said this before, but I, I, the story of Spurgeon getting saved, you know, basically,

I, I paraphrased it earlier.

He went to a church, and he basically heard a guy say, you know, look to Christ, look to

Christ, look to Christ, and he got saved.

That's not you know, the full -orbed gospel that we would prefer to hear.

Who was the greatest preacher who ever lived?

Jesus Christ.

Did he give pretty compelling gospel messages?

Were they scriptural?

Did he experience a flood of conversions?

Thousands of people lining up and saying, you know what?

I repent, can I be baptized?

Was he packing them in?

No.

No, we know that there was a very, there were a relative handful of believers when Christ

died.

So I don't think, you know, we can't shy away from things just because we're like, you know, I don't, I don't really know

if I'm up to this.

I don't know.

Let, let's just look, again, we're taking a little detour this morning before we get back to this, but let's, let's look at John 3

this morning.

Was even reading an article about the Holy Spirit this week, and

our need to really rely upon him, not just in our own personal

lives, but in evangelism.

Do we really believe the Holy Spirit is the key?

I mean, if we did, if we trusted the Holy Spirit was sovereign in salvation,

and that it wasn't really, it, it wasn't the

determinative factor, whether our gospel presentation, whether our witnessing, whether our

sharing, whether our preaching was so definitive, and so

attractive, and so marvelous that someone just said, that is so profound.

I believe on the basis of your profundity.

If we really believe that it is the Holy Spirit, then we would be, what?

I think we'd be better evangelists.

Not in the sense that we would have a better gospel, but in the sense that we would realize that the most important thing we can do is

get it out there, cast our seed, let the Holy Spirit go to work.

Let's look at John chapter three.

Very familiar passage to us.

Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews, comes to Jesus by night.

And he says in verse two, about halfway through it, Rabbi, teacher.

We know that you have come from God as a teacher.

For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him,

okay?

Is he believing?

The answer is no.

But he understands that this is a man of God in some respect.

Certainly that he's doing things that he cannot naturally explain.

Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, that unless one is born again, he cannot see the

kingdom of God.

We know the story, Nicodemus says, how can I be born again?

What do you expect me to do?

Go back to my mother's womb?

What's the story?

Jesus answers in verse five.

Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom

of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again.

Now listen to verse eight.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it.

But do not know where it comes from and where it is going.

So is everyone who is born of the spirit.

The picture he's giving is, listen, we know the wind rushes around.

We don't know where it's coming or where it's coming from or where it's going.

He says this is the same way with the Holy Spirit.

We cannot predict who the Holy Spirit's going to visit, what direction he's going to take, who he's going to convict of

sin.

That's not our work.

That's not what we're here for.

We don't get to pick and choose.

We don't get to decide, hey, that person would be a good person to get saved.

Going back to Saul for a moment.

You think the early church was thinking, boy, if we could just get that Saul guy saved, that would

really be great, wouldn't it?

I don't think so.

I think they were probably, what do you guys think about Saul?

Let's go to the imprecatory Psalms.

I think that's what they, we need to

be bold, fearless.

We need to be biblical, and we need to trust the Holy Spirit to save people.

Now, problems with evidential, we're on page 45.

E, the problems with evidential approach to sharing.

I don't even know why I typed that.

I am fired again as my secretary, editor, whatever, sharing, witnessing, preaching.

And then I say, like the misuse of Isaiah 1 .1.

It should be 118, we did read that.

The idea of come, let us reason together.

Like the idea that somehow God wants to sit down and just kind of sort things out with us,

talk to us.

And that's not really what that passage is all about.

Like somehow we need to sit down and reason.

The whole idea, let's just get back up just a little bit.

The whole idea of preaching is proclamation.

It is not, do we want to interact with people?

Yes, but our primary goal is to give them the truth.

Once had the watchtower, Jehovah Witnesses, come to our door here in Mass,

actually.

And the man said, was wanting to talk to me about

all their material, and I don't even remember what his initial approach was.

But I was so slick, I was ready for him.

And I knew that they've changed various verses in their Bible.

And so I said, well, let me have yours.

And so he gave it to me.

And I was just gonna convince him that the Trinity was taught in the Bible.

So I said, Isaiah 48, 16, let me read it out of your Bible.

And they changed it.

I mean, they're good.

I mean, they've gone through it, they've changed everything.

Why?

Because unbelievers, people in the watchtower, know what the problem

is.

And instead of adhering to God's law, they'll change it.

Instead of listening to God's word, they'll ignore it.

Look there, unbelievers, spiritual bullheadedness,

stubbornness, unwilling to believe the truth.

Let's look at Luke 16, verse 27 to 31.

And when somebody has that, would you please raise your hand and we'll read that.

Luke 16, verses 27 to 31.

Paul.

Okay, parable of rich man and Lazarus.

And the point there at the end, hey, here I am in torment.

Don't let this happen to my family.

Send someone from the dead to tell them the truth, and then they'll believe.

And what's the answer?

No, they won't.

They have Moses and the prophets.

Maybe they read them every day.

Doesn't convict them.

They don't repent.

Why?

Spiritually resistant to the gospel.

When people hear the good news, they don't go, you know, that's the best news I've heard all day.

Naturally, they don't do that.

It has to be a work of the Spirit.

Apart from that, no one would ever believe even if someone came back

from spirit prison and said, listen, I've been dead for five years.

You don't want to go to hell.

That's really a bad place.

You're going to face eternal torment at the hands of Almighty God.

Don't do it well yet.

You know, thanks.

Really, that parable, you can look at it this way.

Here's evidence.

I'm going to, I want you to send somebody from here back to my family to present them with this

story of what's here so that they'll understand.

The answer is no, they won't believe that.

They've got the Bible.

They don't believe that.

Michael.

There's a tremendous hardness of heart that goes with

sin.

I mean, what happens, the more someone sins, the more

hardened they become in it.

I mean, you know, there are statistics.

I hate these statistics, but there are statistics.

I get these calls at the church.

You know, if we don't reach them by the time they're 15, they're done for.

Ninety -seven percent of the people who get saved, you know, get saved before the age of 15.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank the Lord that that's not true, huh?

I mean, think about that.

I mean, based on statistical analysis, I think I was done for.

And, you know, a lot of people, I mean, these are the kind of things, though, you know, that they call up and they, now, why would they do

that?

My guess is because they have a program.

I mean, you know, as soon as they call, we already know that, right?

By the way, not to just correct the record, but it was 500, 1 Corinthians 15, the

period before 500.

But the issue is just that, you know, evidences, and

I've mentioned this before, but think about not only did Jesus Christ preach the greatest gospel messages ever, but he did

miracles.

He did miracles.

We talked about it in John 6.

You know, he fed all the multitudes, and then he gives this difficult teaching about the cost of

discipleship, and they walk away.

And he finally turns to the disciples themselves, and he says, are you guys going to leave too?

And Peter says, well, where would we go?

You know, we have no other option.

If the miracles of Christ are not enough to convict a sinful heart,

what about all the debunking of evolution?

What about the evidence that proves that the flood was a

cataclysmic event that would have shattered all of our

constancy arguments about the consistent state of the earth and how everything had to be the same as it always was and all

that other stuff?

I think evidences are great, and I'm going to tell you who they're great for, believers,

for people who already believe.

Now, is there anything wrong with, you know, presenting some evidence to someone in the

hopes that it might engage them in a conversation where you can eventually preach the gospel to them?

I don't think it's inherently wrong.

I just don't believe that we, evidence alone, let's put it this way, evidence alone can never save anyone.

Scripture alone can save.

Moving on.

We have our own issues.

Believers, even, have their own problems.

You know, that's shocking for most of you here this morning because you do not struggle spiritually.

Okay, somebody's listening.

Luke, Luke chapter 24, verses 1 to 11.

And I'm going to read that.

But on the first day of the week, it's Resurrection Sunday.

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.

And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing.

And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek

the living one among the dead?

He is not here, but he has risen.

Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of

sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again?

And they remembered his words, and returned from the tomb, and reported all these things to the

eleven, to the remaining disciples, and to all the rest, all the other believers, the

small little band that consisted of the church.

Now they were to marry Magdalene, and Joanna, and marry the mother of James.

Also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.

So we have the women going to the tomb, visited by these angels, they get told what happened.

Excuse me, they put everything together, they go running back, they tell the apostles, or the

disciples.

Apostles, they are apostles.

Now listed is verse 11,.

But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.

I mean believers.

Well that's nonsense.

And then Peter goes and figures it out for himself by going to the tomb.

There is even a hardness that goes with us.

Why?

Because there's still some part of us that struggles to do what's right.

In Romans 7, what does Paul say?

You know, the things I want to do, I don't do.

The things I don't want to do, I do.

Who's going to deliver me from this body of death?

I hate who I am.

And I hate when my cell phone is on, even when I think I've turned it off.

Why do we go through this every week?

I really, I seriously thought it was off.

Probably nobody else can hear it, just me.

Okay, so we talked a bit about presuppositional apologetics.

What is it in a nutshell?

Scripture alone, let me amend that.

I don't mean to say that you just stand up before somebody and say, you know, Genesis 1 .1, in the beginning God

created the heavens and the earth.

There needs to be a conversation there.

You need to explain things to them.

You know, much like with the Ethiopian eunuch, you don't just throw scripture out there and go, well, he didn't get it.

I guess the Holy Spirit's not working on him.

It's perfectly fine to, you know, explain what you're doing as you discuss with them.

It's fine to answer questions.

But I think the more scripture you can bring to bear on a given situation, the better.

I think it would be good and right to say this, that when you are engaging someone in

an evangelism opportunity, what do you want to do?

What is it that would be the most pleasing to the Lord and the most

probably effective?

Let's say that this person thinks that they don't sin.

You ever met anybody who thinks they don't sin?

Are you then going to say, well, you know, let me just start by telling you there was another who didn't sin, Jesus.

No.

Or are you going to say, you know what?

I understand that you don't think you sin.

You need to repent.

There's a problem there.

The person doesn't think they need to repent.

Repent of what?

I've never sinned.

What did Jesus do with the rich, young ruler?

The rich, young ruler had this, like, force field out there.

He says, you know what?

I've done all those things since my youth.

I've always been sinless.

Jesus, now, we don't have the capacity to do this.

We're not divine.

But Jesus went around and basically found the weakness in that force field and

went right through it.

And for us, the issue in evangelism is to find that weak spot and to

go right for it, to find out where they don't.

I mean, you may be talking with somebody who has absolutely no clue about anything, and that's fine, then just give them the gospel.

But if you, for example, somebody says, well, I've never sinned, I think it's fine then to

go through the commandments of God.

I mean, you could go to the Old Testament if you want and go through the Ten Commandments.

I don't really prefer to do that because I'm not really sure, well, have you ever violated the Sabbath?

I don't want to get into that.

But even if I just stay with what Jesus said, here are the two great commandments.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

You think you keep those?

They might say yes and go, okay.

Well, in what ways have you shown your love for God today?

Waiting.

No one needs a Savior who does not know they're a sinner.

If I don't sin, there's nothing to save me from.

What did Jesus say?

He said about the sick, I've come here to do what?

He says, I'm sorry?

Yeah, it's not the well who need a physician, it's the sick, those who acknowledge their need, those who

get it.

I mean, imagine a doctor just kind of touring around the city and knocking on everybody's door and saying,

hi, I'm here to give you chemotherapy today.

You just go, I

mean, there'd be a lot of slammed doors and everything in his face because they wouldn't get it.

They don't need it.

We have a couple other.

Let me just, let's look at 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 to

5.

And who has that?

1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 to 5.

I wonder if Bruce Binning would be willing to read that.

I was going to say, it sounds great, but boy, that is really a different translation.

Okay.

So Paul went to the church at Corinth.

It wasn't a church.

But when he went to Corinth to be a missionary, he showed up with this PowerPoint presentation.

He had a lot of slick brochures.

He was really confident because he'd been to an 18 -week training seminar.

He was a nervous wreck.

He was there in fear and in trembling.

Who can identify with that?

You know, all of a sudden you realize, well, wait a minute.

I think there's an opening for the gospel here, and

I guess I'm it.

There's nobody to kind of tag team and go to here, you know.

Bruce, give me, Bruce Binning, Pastor Mike,

it's me.

Is it okay to be nervous?

Is it okay to tremble a little bit?

Is it okay to not be sophisticated?

Again, as I said in the beginning, let's just think, you know, can I share the

gospel with someone?

I hope so.

If you just think about your own testimony and you walk through that biblically, this is who I was,

then something happened.

I recognized that who I was was not okay, that who I was was not going to get to heaven

because I was a sinner.

God was holy.

God convicted me of that through his word.

And because of that conviction, I knew that I had to repent of my sins and believe alone on the

Lord Jesus Christ who died for my sins and was raised on the third day.

If you can do that and then say, and this is how the Lord has changed my life, then you can preach the gospel to anyone.

It doesn't take sophistication of speech.

Slick brochures might be nice.

PowerPoint presentation, probably not so much because unless you carry your laptop, hey, wait, wait, while I power up my

laptop, it is all about

what Paul says here, not coming with superiority of speech or wisdom.

That's not what's important.

Why?

Because at the end, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men.

Listen, I don't want you to think that you're saved because of

my presentation, because of what I said, because I'm compelling,

but because of the power of God, because of the message of God.

That's where we want people to be.

And that's why it's so important to use scripture.

Now let's talk about the obstacles of sin, self, and Satan.

We talk about total depravity, total

radical depravity.

Does that mean we're as bad as we can be?

Does it mean that every one of us is Hitler, Charles Manson,

fill in the blank, Attila the Hun?

No, no, but we're bad.

John Piper says, we're really bad.

John Piper's bad.

I'm bad.

We're all bad.

Somebody says, well, you're just saying these things to me because you think you're better than me.

No, no, it's because I know I'm not better than you.

I know I'm not in any way superior to you.

I stand here telling you these things because of the grace of God, not because of anything in me.

Let's look at Romans 5, verses 12 to 19.

I mean, what's the best defense when you're accused of something?

What's the best defense?

What's that?

To agree?

So if somebody says, you think you're better than me, you say, yeah, you're right, I do.

I'm kidding.

No, yeah, yeah.

I mean, the best defense, I would argue in this case especially, is the truth, right?

No, I'm not any better than you.

Let me just tell you some universal truths, things that are true about every single

one of us.

Listen.

Romans 5, verses 12 to 19.

Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world,

because of Adam's sin, sin entered into the world.

And death through sin.

And so death spread to all men because all sinned.

And you say, well, wait a minute.

That's not right.

You know, death spread to all men because all sinned.

All didn't sin.

Well, all sinned in Adam.

For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

It's not accounted against you.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of

Adam, who was a type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the transgression.

For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift

by the grace of God, or by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation.

But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions, resulting in

justification.

For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more

those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one

Jesus Christ.

So then, just as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men.

And all men stand condemned because of the sin of Adam.

Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.

For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

Even so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

I mean, it's fine, you know, shorthand, we could say Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the

glory of God.

We could look at Romans 3, verses 10 to 12, which we already have, which talks about there is no one

good.

The point is, we need to understand that because, and we need to proclaim that because of Adam's sin,

all men are in sin.

All men stand condemned before God.

We've talked about the deceitfulness of the heart as a result of sin,

Jeremiah 17, 9.

Ephesians 2, 1 to 3 says that before salvation, that all men were dead in their

sins and trespasses.

We need to understand that when we go to evangelize people.

Why is that impossible?

Why is that important to understand?

That apart from Christ, all men are dead in their sins and trespasses.

Okay, you can't expect a dead person to respond like a live one.

If you preach the gospel to someone and they say, I am so glad you

shared that with me, and they give you a hug, well, one of two things has just happened.

That person either just got saved or they already believed, and they're just excited that they met someone who

shares the faith with you.

But people are, they're dead.

They don't respond naturally.

If you do CPR on someone who's been dead for a couple weeks,

you can pretty much be sure that that person is not going to come back to life.

A man's profane heart or reputation in heart.

We talked about Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful.

You know, even, is this true of believers and unbelievers alike?

I think it is.

You know, can we have senses and feelings that are just wrong?

Absolutely.

Let's look at Job 4 .17, right

before the book of Psalms.

We have Job, Job 4

.17, and who has that?

Steve,

what's the answer to that?

The answer to those questions, I mean, those are rhetorical questions, questions that have a built -in response.

And the answer to both is no.

It can't be just before God.

It can't be pure before a maker.

It can't be right in the sight of God.

Why not?

Why not?

Because we're sinners.

We're fallen.

We don't seek to please God.

I just almost cringe every time I hear this term even.

Seekers.

You know, we're after seekers.

If you're here today and you're a seeker, I don't know what a seeker is.

I know that there is one seeker, and when I say, if I were to spell that, I would make sure to

capitalize that word, because there's one seeker who came to seek and save that which was lost, and that is

Christ Jesus.

Men, in and of themselves, do not seek the truth.

They're being drawn by the Father.

They're being convicted by the Holy Spirit, but they don't seek God on their own.

Why not?

Because they don't love God.

They don't love God.

Let's turn to Romans 5, and we'll just close on this.

This isn't in your notes.

It's absolutely free of charge.

No cost or obligation to you.

Well, you have the obligation to obey.

A very familiar passage in Romans 5, verse 8.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ

died for us.

Much more than, having now been justified, declared righteous by his

blood, by his death, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

For if we, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son.

Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Listen, before Christ, no one is neutral.

Not only are we spiritually dead, but we are also

the enemies of God.

Not neutral, opposed to him.

Not his friend, not seeking after him.

He reconciles the world to himself, not, you know, we reconcile God to us.

And all these issues are important in evangelism, because we need to know who we're evangelizing.

We need to go out there with the full knowledge of who,

I don't know how to, the quarry is, you know, who we're dealing with.

And it's not, again, and I want to make sure we get this right, we don't talk down to people.

Why?

Because we understand that by the grace of God, we'd be thinking exactly like they did.

We did think exactly like they did.

And it's not anything in us that is good.

We're afraid, we're nervous, but we have an obligation to God and to these people

to present the truth.

The most loving thing you can do for anyone is to preach Christ and him

crucified to them.

Give them the truth and let the Holy Spirit do his work.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you would just make us mindful that but for your grace,

but for the people that you brought into our lives to tell us the truth, we would not know you.

We were not good.

We did not seek you.

You sought us.

Father, would you just cause us to love you all the more, knowing that salvation is really by grace,

unmerited favor, nothing we did, but by your choice, by your love,

by the work of your Son, the conviction of your Spirit, by your drawing.

Father, we'll give you all the praise in Christ's name.

Amen.