Sharing the Gospel in a Godless Age

The Christian Apologist’s Calling in a Godless Age

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

The Dividing Line is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries, Calvary Press Publishers, the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and Bethany House Publishers. Your host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now by dialing 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Romans 1 and the State of Fallen Humanity

How do you defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ? In fact, how do we present it in such a way that is honoring and glorifying to Him? And even more so, in light of what we talked about last week, man's deadness in sin, the fact that Jesus Himself taught in John 6 -44 that no man is able to come to Him unless a Father who sent Him draws that person.

How do we present the Gospel and defend the Gospel in our godless age, in our godless society, in a way that is honoring and glorifying to God? That's an important question all of us are called upon to defend the Gospel.

All of us have that opportunity as we work in the workplace, as we attend school, as we go about our daily duties, to present the Gospel and to defend the Gospel. How do we do that in a way that is honoring and glorifying to God?

Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today on The Dividing Line, in light of the subject that we covered last week, that being the deadness of man in sin. This week we want to look at Romans 1 and what the Bible says about the state of man and how we can present the Gospel in a meaningful way.

Romans 1 has always been a passage that has fascinated theologians and Christians, and I guess I shouldn't use that term because all Christians are theologians. If you're a Christian, you believe in Jesus Christ, you are a theologian, you are called to have a knowledge of God.

But it's a passage that, down through church history, has drawn our attention because of the striking way in which the Apostle Paul begins his argument there in the book of Romans. And if you're not familiar with it, I would invite you to listen for just a moment to what the Apostle Paul says about man.

And think about the situation in our world today, think about the situation in our nation today, and see if the Apostle Paul did not have his finger directly on the heartbeat of mankind when he said these words.

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, But the righteous man shall live by faith.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise. They became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over, and the lust of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.

They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful, and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

It almost sounds as if the Apostle had been watching modern American television and was commenting on the type of philosophy and worldview that unfortunately we see on any channel we turn to, almost any program that we might watch.

The Apostle Paul knew what filled the heart of man, but I especially want to draw your attention not so much to the list of sins that automatically causes us to consider so many of the things going on in our nation these days, but what the Apostle says at the beginning.

He says in Romans 1 .18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And that's where I'm going to focus, and I want you to think with me about how we view those to whom we speak the gospel.

When we seek to simply explain the gospel to someone, when we seek to answer objections, what is their standing? What is their state? The audience that we seek to reach with the gospel, what are they?

What is their attitude toward God? What is their relationship toward God? Well, I think this passage is extremely important to us, and if we believe in all of Scripture, if we believe in applying all of Scripture and Scripture alone, then the quote-unquote methodologies that we use, the types of means that we use to reach other people, has to take into consideration what the Bible itself teaches about the state of man and sin.

And what the Bible teaches about the state of man and sin is not popular, as we saw last week. But this week I want to focus upon the question of how we do apologetics, how we defend the faith, and specifically, I ask you, each person listening to me today, to think about your attitude, your viewpoint, when you think about a lost person.

Remember last week we talked about Romans chapter 3, it says there is no God-seeker, there is none who seeks after God. Well, do we take that into consideration? Is that a biblical truth that impacts how we think?

Does it impact how we act in the church? Does it impact the programs that the church uses? And do we take seriously what Romans 1 .18 says? The wrath of God is literally being revealed from heaven. It's an ongoing action.

Are we embarrassed by that? Are we embarrassed to proclaim the biblical truth that God is a God of wrath, that the true God of the Bible has wrath against sin, that he has wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness?

Or have we bought into our society's viewpoint that, well, it's not all ungodliness and unrighteousness, it's only bad ungodliness and bad unrighteousness, whatever that is. Have we dumbed down our God so that his standards are not the standards of Scripture?

That's certainly the case in our society. As long as you aren't blatant about your sin, it's okay, and then even then you go over to some cities in the United States and you can be very blatant about your sin, that's okay too.

The Bible says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, all unrighteousness, the standard is very, very high. God's wrath is revealed from heaven, is being revealed. You wonder why things happen in our nation?

You wonder why things are taking place in our nation? I think it's the wrath of God. I think it's the wrath of God against a nation that has had more light and more truth than any nation ever has, and has sinned against that light in a way that no nation ever has.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who do what? You see, so many people have the idea that we approach men as if they're neutral moral agents.

All you've got to do is show them the right arguments, give them the right data, quote the right verses, do it in the right order with a smile on your face, and you can close the deal. That's not what the Bible teaches about man.

How is man described in this passage? The unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. What are men doing? The Bible says that man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. First of all, he's doing it in the sphere of unrighteousness, in the sphere of being sinful.

But he is suppressing the truth. What does it mean to suppress the truth? Well, we get the feeling these days that that's almost a prerequisite of being a politician, knowing how to suppress the truth.

But that's not really what this is referring to. To suppress the truth, first and foremost, the Greek term that is used refers to possessing it, but to holding it down. You cannot suppress something you don't have.

Men have the truth, but they suppress it. They are actively involved in holding it down. They are expending energy in holding down truth in an unrighteous fashion. That is, they're in rebellion against God, they're in rebellion against his truth, and they are expending energy to suppress that truth and to hold it down.

Now obviously, if a man is suppressing that truth, holding that truth down, then showing him more of that truth is not going to change him. He's already holding it down as it is. Look what else Paul says, because that which is known about God, Paul does not say that all of God's revelation is known to everyone.

That's what you need the special revelation, the scriptures for. But that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. Well how do you do that? What's Paul driving at here?

Verse 20, for since the creation of the world, this is nothing new, this has been since the very creation of the world, his invisible attributes, that is his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.

God has revealed his existence, his eternal power, his divine nature, in what he has created, both in the external creation around us, as well as in ourselves, since we are created in the very image of God.

Now notice it doesn't say that everything there is to know about God is revealed in creation. I know there's some folks who run around and they say that you can find the gospel in the stars, and you can find this and that, and you can find the cross in a tree, and the gospel in this, and all the rest of that stuff.

That's not what Paul says. He specifically says that God's invisible attributes, that is his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen. So that man is without a defense, he's without an excuse.

Specifically, men should know that God exists and that they need to be thankful to him for being their creator. But men refuse to do that. And then look at what it says in verse 21, for even though they knew God.

There's the statement. Man knows that the true God exists, but he suppresses that truth. He holds that truth down. Why? Because he's a rebel. Because he's in rebellion against God. And if you rebel against God, you don't want anyone talking to you about the true God that you're in rebellion against.

In fact, you could get downright angry and mad at someone who brings out to you the truth of that God that you're in rebellion against. And so they know God, but they do not honor him as God or give thanks.

That's what every man can be held accountable for doing. Honoring God and giving thanks. But they won't do it. Instead, even though they knew God, they did not do what they had to do, what is right for every man to do, that is honor him as God and give thanks.

Instead, they become futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. That refers to the very inner essence of man, his thought process in his heart. That means sin touches every aspect of man.

That includes the mind. So let me summarize what Paul is saying here. And then let's think about it together. In summary, Paul is saying that men suppress the truth of God. That which is known about God is evident to them.

They know God exists. They can see his eternal power and divine nature, but they refuse to honor him as God or to give thanks to him as God. Instead, they become futile in their speculations. Their foolish heart is darkened, professing to be wise.

They become fools and they exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-foot animals and crawling creatures. That is, man must, must either worship the one true God or be an idolater.

There is no middle ground. There is no morally neutral position. There is no person who can honestly say, well, I just haven't decided. No, you have. And if you do not honor the true and living God, you are engaged in idolatry.

You say, wait a minute. I'm an atheist, for crying out loud. I'm not an idolater. Yes, you are. What do you mean? You have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And you see, God has created you to be a worshiping being.

You will worship. The question is, what will you worship? If you don't worship the one true God, then what are you worshiping? I would submit to the atheist who listens that you worship yourself. Maybe you worship your mind.

Maybe you worship science, humanism. But you worship. You ascribe honor. You ascribe glory. You worship. You just worship something in the created order, part of the creation, rather than the creator.

In fact, one of the biggest religions in our nation today, one of the biggest religions in our nation today is to worship scholarship. Oh, yes. The great high priests of the land today wear white smocks, and they have many letters at the end of their name.

And so we worship scholarship. We worship scholars. And whatever they say, even though they hardly ever agree with one another, whatever they say, we worship. That's humanism. That is the religion of our land.

We encounter it in most of our institutions of higher learning. But you see, every man will worship. The religious man worships, too. You see, false religion is idolatry. Religion that is not in accordance with God's truth is idolatry.

If you're not going to worship the one true God in the way that he has prescribed, you are engaging in idolatry. That's not a nice word, idolatry, but it is a biblical word. And if we love the truth, we'll use it, and we'll explain what it means, and we'll call people to repent of it.

False religion is idolatrous worship. To worship God in a way outside of what he has commanded, to worship God in a way that involves a denial of his truth, is to engage in idolatry. So, everybody has to deal with this issue.

Everybody has to answer the question, who do I worship? And see, as Christians, as we share the gospel, and as we defend the gospel, why is it that the majority of people have the viewpoint that what we need to do when we defend the gospel, and when we engage in Christian apologetics, giving a defense of the faith, or a reasoned defense of the faith, is that we just need to give them more facts.

You see, they just don't have enough facts. And so I want to get all my arguments ready, and I want to get all my facts ready, and I'm going to line up all my archaeological stuff on this side, and all my fulfilled prophecies over here, and all I've got to do is hit them with both barrels, and if I'm really prepared and I do a good job, it's guaranteed that by the end of the conversation, they're going to be on their knees repenting.

Well, isn't that how it works? Isn't that how apologetics are done? Well, there are a lot of folks that think that way. But they're the same folks that I encounter all the time. We have a chat room in the Internet, in the IRC, Internet Relay Chat, and Alpha Omega Ministries has a chat channel called Prasapalagian.

It's in the Internet. If you have any idea what I'm talking about, you know how to find it now. It's called Prasapalagian, one word. You can find information about this chat room on our website at www .aomin .org.

There's a section there about our IRC chat room. And people come in there all the time because we try to provide apologetic information to folks. And sometimes we'll have folks come in who are from another perspective, another religious viewpoint, and we'll have discussions there.

But it's not so much a debate room. There's no channel for doing that as it is a resource area. And I'll have people come in all the time. They've just been over talking to the atheists. They've just been over talking to a cult group or something like that.

And they come in so frustrated. And they say, you know, I presented all the data. I presented all the verses. I thought I presented it in a clear way. And it was like I was shooting .22s at an M1 tank.

They were just bouncing off all over the place. It was like there was no power in what I was doing. And they're frustrated. Because they can see the truth of these things. And they may have done an excellent job.

They may have done a wonderful job in presenting the truth of the resurrection and demonstrating the historical data for that. And all the rest of it. They may have done a wonderful, fine job. And there's certainly nothing wrong with knowing those truths, presenting those truths.

But it was the mindset and the attitude that brought them to a point of almost despair. Why? Because they had the wrong understanding of the people they're trying to deal with. So many people go into the apologetic task thinking that it's up to them to have the right arguments and the right words in the right order.

And if we just do our job right, bingo, since they are in reality morally neutral before God, then just giving them enough facts is going to change their mind. And my friends, I can tell you something.

That's not biblical. You see, when you're talking with someone who's already suppressing the truth of God, as you hand them more and more of that truth, what are they going to do with it? They're just going to suppress it.

They're going to twist it. In fact, some of the most amazing examples of the ability of man to twist truth, to deny what is self-evident in front of them, have come as I have talked with people and shared the gospel with people and made the truth as plain as I could to them.

You would not believe the ability of man to close his eyes and cover his eyes with his hands so as to not see the truth that's in front of him. And you say, well, then why bother? What's the use? I mean, if that's really what you believe, why is it that every six months you're standing outside the temple in Salt Lake City?

Why is it that you do all of these things? Well, I'll tell you. Because I believe that it is God who saves. Because I believe it is God who can break through that rebellion, break through that suppression.

It is God who can raise the spiritually dead to spiritual life. It is God that can remove that stony heart of rebellion and place within a man a heart that loves God's truth. I cannot do that. It is not within my power and ability to do so.

But it is within God's. And the role of the Christian apologist is not to try to change the heart of man. That's God's work. The role of the Christian apologist is to honor and glorify God in the presentation of His truth, always with the understanding that that truth will fall upon deaf ears unless God in His grace moves.

But the flip side of that understanding is this, that when I stand in Salt Lake City, when I stand anywhere and present God's truth in a way that is honoring and glorifying to Him, in other words, I don't shave off the edges.

I don't try to worry about whether I'm going to offend someone when I talk about sin and rebellion and repentance. But when I preach all of the Gospel, the way the Bible presents it, then I have the promise that God will honor His word.

And there is no power in heaven or in earth that can stop the sovereign God from drawing His elect people under Himself when He chooses to do so. That is the promise that I have as I proclaim God's truth.

I feel so for every pastor who labors so hard in the church and thinks that in reality the burden is upon him to somehow change hearts and minds. That's the Holy Spirit's work. We are called to preach the Gospel and to honor God and to leave the results in His hands.

But we dare not ignore the fact that we deal with men who are in rebellion against God. We are not dealing with morally neutral agents. And that will change how we approach the task of apologetics. That will change how we approach the lost man and how we present the truth of God to him.

God’s Sovereign Grace and the Apologist’s Responsibility

Well, what do you think? Why don't you get involved in the program right now by calling 1 -888-TALK -960. 1 -888-TALK -960. Perhaps you've had an apologetic experience. An experience where you attempted to defend the faith and you ran up against that very same wall I was just mentioning in regards to man's ability to twist the truth and to ignore the truth that is right before him.

I'd like to hear about it at 1 -888-TALK -960. 1 -888-TALK -960. My name is James White. This is The Dividing Line. And I'd like to hear from you right after this break. How do you present the Gospel to the lost man?

How are we to view him? That is an important subject. And that's what we're looking at here on today's edition of The Dividing Line. And we're inviting your participation at 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960.

In the future, we are right now thinking about who can we get on to do some interesting debates. For example, we just mentioned my new book on the Trinity and the fact that we have a holiday promotion.

You know, every once in a while I drive around the city here and it's now, what, January 9th. And every once in a while I still see somebody with Christmas lights on and I go, there's a diehard for the holidays.

Well, I guess we are, too. Because we're going to hold over the holiday special until this Friday. And that means when you order the Trinity book, you also get two other books, Justification by Faith and Drawn by the Father.

Drawn by the Father, by the way, would be relevant to the subjects we've been dealing with the past couple of weeks. And then next Saturday we will have a new offer for you. But we obviously could be looking at folks in regards to the issue of the Trinity.

I've got contact with some Jehovah's Witness individuals, but of all the groups, Jehovah's Witnesses are the hardest to get them into a media-type situation where you've got give and take. The Watchtower Society will not do that, obviously in an official capacity.

And very rarely do you encounter too many Jehovah's Witnesses who want to engage in that type of dialogue. Most of the time they'll tell you that we are looking for sheep-like individuals. And sheep-like individuals are individuals who won't give a fight, basically, and will not cause them to defend their position, basically.

So I've got some contact with some folks like that. I would like to try to work something out like that, where we could deal with the deity of Christ, we could deal with the doctrine of the Trinity in a debate format.

I've got some leads on some LDS individuals, not here locally, but at least some that are fairly well-known in regards to that issue. And certainly a number of individuals that I know of who are Roman Catholic apologists, who hopefully we could possibly arrange some debate-type situations.

We would probably basically divide the hour up into two 20-minute segments where we could present our case on a particular topic. I'd like to find a Roman Catholic apologist, for example, who would deal with the issue of my book, Mary, Another Redeemer, and deal with the Marian doctrines, possibly do a couple of weeks on a subject like that, and then use the last 20 minutes of the hour for give-and-take cross-examination.

That's when it always gets very, very interesting, as they say. So we're looking at all these subjects, but fundamental to doing any of those issues, addressing any of those topics, is we have to define the faith we're defending before we go out to defend it.

Most of the time that I see Christians getting in trouble, they're getting in trouble because they go running off, they get on their steed, and they grab their sword, and they get all zealous for the truth and go running off to defend it, and to be honest with you, they don't have the foggiest idea what they're defending.

And so they come up against someone who has some tough questions, some probing questions, some questions that require you to have a very in-depth understanding of what you believe, and all of a sudden they stumble, and they're in trouble.

And frequently, sadly, a lot of people who get involved in apologetics do so, I think, in an unbiblical way. What do I mean? They do it outside of a relationship with the church. They sort of become experts unto themselves, and they go out without guidance, without that grounded foundation that you get in being a part of a local assembly of believers, and they get into trouble.

And I'm telling you, I've seen people who knew certain cult groups backwards and forwards join those very groups because they went out there and they did not have a solid foundation in and of themselves.

Apologists, let's be honest, have a bad rap. A bad rep, I guess is a better way of putting it. A bad reputation of being somewhat arrogant, of being somewhat boastful, and not being a part of the local church, and hence becoming imbalanced.

And you know what? There's a reason why that is. And I guess we need to deal with that and need to be honest about it. So, anyways, 1 -888-TALK -960, 1 -888-TALK -960. I'd like to hear from some folks also, what are some of the topics you'd like to hear us address?

We're in a series right now on the Gospel, and we're going to be talking about God's electing grace next week. And then we're going to start a firestorm the week after that when we address the issue of the atonement of Christ.

We're going to talk about how God brings men to himself. And then we'll have another one that'll undoubtedly get a few people on the phones when we talk about the perseverance of the saints. But when we finish this series defining the Gospel itself, where would you like to see us go?

What type of topics would you like to see covered? What type of debates would you like to hear? Yes, we do debates. I know that's politically incorrect. I know that's very unusual in our land these days.

But we do debates because we feel that the truth shines the brightest against the backdrop of error. And hence, when you have the opportunity of getting two sides together, you can cut out all of the semi-answers, half-answers, circular answers.

You can force people to really deal with the truth. And that's one of the things that we definitely want to do on the Dividing Line. So give us a ring, 1 -888-TALK -960, what you're interested in hearing in the future as well.

The Parable of the Sower and the Soils

We have a caller online. Hello, Dennis, how are you doing?

Dennis, are you there? I was just thinking of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Yes, sir. And you've got four people and only one of them receives the gospel. Well, you know, it's interesting, Dennis.

A lot of people are, and I agree with you, but a lot of people are listening right now and they know what the parable of the sower or probably we should probably call it the parable of the soils is. And they're going, no, no, no, wait a minute.

I've been taught that there's only one type of soil that doesn't receive the gospel. That's the hard, rocky soil where the birds come along and eat the seed. All the rest of them do receive the gospel, but they just have different results in their lives.

And it is very, very common in our land for that to be the interpretation, the parable of the soils. I agree with you. I think it's very plain that what Jesus is indicating there is that there is only one type of soil that bears fruit.

The other types of soil, while they have growth, do not bear fruit. And as a result, they may look like the real thing, but they are not the real thing. They do not have spiritual life within themselves.

And I think a misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches about this is one of the things that leads so many pastors and workers in the church to such great confusion and, in fact, disheartening because the fact that they look out their congregation, they see a lot of leafy plants, but they don't see much in the way of fruit.

And it's really hard to get those plants that are in the rocky soil or in the shallow soil to do much because they have no root within themselves. So, I believe, though, that you're quite right in your understanding of the parable of the soils.

And the only differences, really, are that Jesus says in that good soil you get 30, 60, 100-fold increase. So, obviously, there are those who have greater fruit than others, but the point is in them there is life because in them there is fruit.

Well, James says if you really think of the thing as fruit, it's Christian.

Exactly, but it has to be fruit that is defined by the Scriptures themselves. And, of course, that is a passage, James 2 .20, that we deal with all the time when we go out and talk to our Mormon friends because instead of seeing it the way that we just presented it, and that is that if you have saving faith, if it is a true and living faith in Christ, it will have that result.

Most of the cult groups want to reverse that and make the doing the works the prerequisite for having the saving faith, for having the relationship with God, and as a result, I think, end up undermining the entire gospel of Jesus Christ.

I wonder what you think about, say, verse 10 and onward, that the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? He said unto them, Because to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

But to them it has not been given. Out of Jesus,. I don't know if a good campus crusade has a plan, loves everybody and has a plan for everybody.

Matthew 13, verses 10 and 11 is what you were just looking at, and obviously those passages are some of the many that you can look at that very clearly indicate that there is a specific element of God's grace, there's a specific purpose that he is accomplishing, and when individuals do not open their eyes to that fact of scripture, it can become very, very confusing, especially when we see people who come into the church, they confess faith, they're there for a while, and then all of a sudden, poof, they're gone.

And we wonder, well, that means they've lost their salvation, that means that Jesus isn't really a perfect savior. When the Bible is very clear in telling us there are going to be those who have an immediate response to the presentation of the gospel, but it is not a response that lasts.

It's not that initial zeal that is evidence. It is the long-term consistency in the Christian life that is evidence of a work of grace. And unfortunately, in the United States, where everything is supposed to be instant, you get instant spirituality, you get instant sanctification, you get instant maturity, just follow this program and poof, you've got it in two weeks, maybe even shorter if you're really good, that kind of theology just doesn't fly very well, but it is most definitely biblical theology.

Well, thanks for your call today, Dennis, I appreciate it.

I'd be interested if maybe you could debate Lutheran, because I've heard Lutheran kind of mishandle this and speak against eternal security or the preservation of the saints.

Well, that's interesting. Some of the discussions we could have with Lutheranism would revolve specifically around the issue of what baptism does or does not do. That's an important area. Yeah, that would be an interesting area of discussion.

Maybe I can get one of my good Presbyterian friends. We can do a program someday on paedo-baptism. We did a debate on that, what was that, about three or four years ago now, somewhere around there, out in Mesa on the issue of paedo-baptism, and it was very friendly, it was done between brothers, and I thought it was very useful for everyone that was there.

I was thinking it was during the summer, and we had over 200 people show up. I don't think 200 people show up to anything in Phoenix during the summer, especially at night, it was so hot. But anyways, I appreciate the call, Dennis.

Thank you very much for calling today. We'd like to hear from you at 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960. We're talking about the issue of how you share the gospel with folks today. We'll be right back, right after this break.

Preaching the Whole Counsel of God and Expecting Rejection

The Apostle Paul said to the Ephesian elders, I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus is to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

And now, behold, I know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will no longer see my face. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.