Why Evangelize? (Part 2)

Well, you can tell this isn't a rerun with this new music. Pastor Steve, welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Thank you very much.

Can I just say, that doesn't exactly make me want to scream, rock and roll!

Somebody said to me the other day in Ohio, they said, we know when there's a rerun because you've got the English beat and the newer stuff has this Do It Right song.

The newer stuff has Elvis Costello. Oh!

Anything new in your life, Steve, before we get right to the subject matter at hand? Because last week we talked for probably five minutes about life, and now we're going to get right into the message.

Anything new? Well, you know. What are you benching these days?

255, 265. Nice! Well, we're going to have a celebration when you're back up to 275. That'll be great. You think you'll do it as a 60 plus? You're 63 now? Yeah.

Well, I hope so. I mean, I, you know, I don't really have a, what I should do is talk to, what's it, Josh Niemi and get a, like a program so I could go, okay. Is that what he does? Are you kidding? Have you ever seen him?

No. Dude! Oh man! No, no. Oh man. Okay. I'm going to, like on the air, I'm going to pull him up because this is just like, I can't believe you've never actually seen him. No. He just writes me for favors.

That's all. If you want to write us, it's Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you want to find an old show somehow, we've got an old website that we're trying to redo. You can write info at NoCompromiseRadio .com and Spencer will find the show.

You've got to be kidding me. No, I'm not kidding you. I'm taking a look at the picture right now. Okay. Well. Do you think he knows something about lifting weights? Well, I think maybe that's Photoshop.

I think he probably used to listen to this show. Who knows if he still does?

It says, you know, in his thing, Christian husband, dad, licensed engineer, author, natural pro bodybuilder. Wow.

I guess it's all natural. I endorse that book there on the cover, his Leviticus 16 book. Greater than Aaron. Uh-huh. I like that. Yom Kippur. Well, last Tuesday, we talked a little bit about evangelism, the good news.

Of course, about the risen savior and trust in him. Why evangelize? And we looked at last week because it's a command. That's a good reason, right, Steve? It's an excellent reason. Okay.

What if I don't feel like it though? I mean, listen, we can do a whole show about I don't feel like it, right? I don't feel like loving my wife. I don't feel like, you know, teaching my kids. I don't feel like they're, I mean, me, I should, me, I'll just make a list of things I don't feel like doing.

And when that happens, by the way, and I just start doing the things that I know I'm supposed to do, I kind of get in a mode, right? Yes.

And I'm off and running. Well, and not only that, do you feel better or worse?

Right after, yeah. I'm all for the feelings, especially the feelings after with a conscience. Yes. Okay. Secondly, we said we should evangelize because you give the father glory. In other words, it's okay when you're evangelizing, if people don't respond positively, if they don't respond or if they respond negatively, you still have talked about the one that the father loves and sent into the world, right?

So that glorifies the Lord. Thirdly, we talked about the privilege of getting to evangelize that you and, let's see, you and I get to be an evangelist. We are ambassadors, right? Instead of having the stones cry out, he uses us.

Could there be a greater honor, Steve? Absolutely not. It says, number four, which is new today, why evangelize? Number four. Don't we have a drum roll somehow? Is this our modern drum roll? Set phasers on stun.

That is not a good drum roll. That's terrible. I mean, I love Charlton Heston, but that is...

I know. I have trombones and crickets, but I don't have drum rolls. Number four, because there's no salvation alternative. It says in Acts 4 .12, there's salvation in no one else, for there's no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

What I mean by that, Steve, is if there were 10 ways of salvation and forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, then evangelism, talking about the Lord Jesus, well, that's one out of 10 ways that we could do something else.

It wouldn't be that important.

I've heard it said, just talking about the import of this, that if we really felt, if we really understood the terrors of hell, that is to say, the eternal wrath of God, if we had any sense of that within our souls, we could not but evangelize because we would have so much compassion, even for the people that we despise, that we just think are the worst of the worst, that we really don't like, whether it's the way they treat us, the things that they've done to other people, whatever, that we wouldn't want our worst enemies to go to hell.

Steve, I agree. You think about the worst people in the world, the Hitlers and the Stalins and all that. I don't really know how to say this without either sounding weird or offensive or just off my rocker, but I would imagine if you could see the wrath of God poured out on them.

You know, with a glorified mind, you'd say they deserve it, but with an unglorified mind, something might cross your mind like, wow, I wish relief for them somehow. Does that make sense?

You know where I'm going? Well, because I think we also, if we understand ourselves rightly, we understand depravity rightly, we understand that, but for the grace of God, really, in a sense, you know, that would be us and in many ways, it should be us.

Well, I'm not as bad as Hitler. No, you're not, but you're bad enough. Our own sins condemn us.

Steve, what about the wrath of God? This ties in kind of as a sub point to their salvation and no one else. There's wrath of God on people that are going to be in hell forever. Is there another system, another religion that somehow can assuage the wrath of God?

What other options do we have?

We have none. You know, I think about my own background and the concept that eventually I would perfect myself, right? I mean, that's the idea that you just keep doing the things that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells you to do, and then as you gradually put off sin, eventually you will rise to the level of Godhood.

You'll be perfect. And I mean, what is the, what's the solution for sin? Well, it's, you know, they would tell you it's Christ's atonement, but then they would deny that by the fact that they're saying, eventually, Steve, you will perfect yourself.

Well, what does that mean? Right? Jesus gets me back up to neutral and then I make myself perfect from there. Thanks.

That's not good news. Yes, but Steve, what if I've done bad things in the past, but everything from now on I'll do well?

I wish you the best of luck with that. It's not going, luck being completely empty, by the way, that is not going to happen. You know, we all sin and that sin does not stop at any point in life, no matter how good we are, how much time we spend studying scripture, worshipping the Lord, you know, doing all these things.

We don't do it with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We just don't. And anybody who says that they do is lying. Right.

They lower the standards of God's laws, His holiness. To sin for themselves. Yeah. The parable in Luke 18, that tax collector that was standing far off said to God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And literally he's saying, may your wrath be assuaged upon another for me, the sinner.

You have to have God's wrath assuaged. Otherwise you have a God that's not holy and you become a Unitarian Universalist. Everybody goes to heaven. I've been to a lot of churches before and worship services, but have you ever been to a Unitarian Universalist service?

No.

And you know what? Maybe, maybe that might not. If that one is Saturday, we should go. Yeah. I was going to say that might not be such a bad field trip. I mean, I don't know if I could take more than, you know, 15 or 20 minutes.

I'd probably sit in the back. And, you know, when I started feeling the retching started, I would leave then. But yeah, if there was a Saturday one, maybe that'd be okay.

Evangelism. Why should you, dear listener, evangelize? Number five, because it's still a necessity. In other words, God ordains the end who goes to heaven. He's sovereign, election, predestination. He also ordains the means.

And what are the means, Steve?

The means are us doing the work, right? Yeah. We are the means. We are the means. I mean, just like, you know, when we show up on Sunday, if nobody preaches, right, we go, well, what happened there? Well, somebody didn't do the work.

When we Imagine living in a world where no evangelism ever took place. And by the way, who would like that?

I think that was going to be Israel if those right-wingers got in charge.

But I mean, who would like that? And the answer is, well, the secular world. Oh, well, who controls the secular world? Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Hate speech. You're a sinner. That's hate speech. It's coming.

I mean, it is satanic. It's demonic, this idea that you should never evangelize, right? They say, well, if it's good for you, that's fine, but just don't spread it to anybody else. Okay, so be obedient to the world and disobedient to the Lord.

Steve, when I got here to the church in 97, they did a lot of things really well. One of the things they didn't do well, though, is they had a soup kitchen ministry, which is fine, but that the leadership of the soup kitchen said to our folks, you can't talk about Jesus.

You can't evangelize. You just serve food. Made me think, this does not need to be a church outing. If you'd like to go serve the poor food as an individual member, fine. Yeah. Go right ahead. You get to roll with that.

You know, you feel bad on Christmas, so you get up early and serve or something. I don't know. You don't even have to feel bad. But once they say you can't do that, it's no longer a Christian ministry if we can't preach the gospel.

And so, we had to get rid of that, and I think that cost me a family or two, maybe. What, I don't like the soup kitchen? Well, no, it's just not a church function anymore, church outreach, because church evangelism is, well, we tell about the evangel.

It sounds like there's a dividing line between Christianity and liberalism. It sounds just like it, doesn't it?

Romans 10, how then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him with whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Gotta have one.

Ordained ends, election, ordained means, evangelism. Speak to us, please, Steve, about the common misconception. Well, why pray? Because God answers anyway. And in this regard, why evangelize? Because God saves who he wants anyway.

Well, I mean, you just read it from Romans 10, but just imagine, how did you get saved? You know, how did I get saved? How does anyone get saved? Well, it's by hearing the gospel. Somebody has to announce it, right?

There has to be a proclaimer of the gospel.

Steve, are you telling me that lifestyle evangelism is empty? Yes.

I mean, listen, there's certain times like I'm about to engage in, I guess you could call it good neighbor evangelism, because we've got an issue with one of the neighbors. And I don't want to raise, you know, I don't want to, like, go to neighbor or whatever that is.

So, we'll ultimately probably wind up taking care of the problem ourselves, even though it's not, it shouldn't be our responsibility. But that's not going to save that person. You know, only the Holy Spirit's going to do that.

And the Holy Spirit can only, he can only work through, well, he's determined to work through ordained means, which is through the preaching of his word.

Amen. Mike Ebenroth with Steve Cooley today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, info at nocompromiseradio .com. We want to evangelize because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

But what about all these people in the Middle East that are having dreams and coming to faith? Oh, that's interesting. I don't believe a one of them.

I don't either. The only thing I could foresee that might be a possibility is if people already learned something about Jesus, right? They've learned something about Jesus in the Quran, and then somebody else has told them something else about Jesus.

And, oh, they understand he's a prophet and then how he's a sin bearer and a risen savior and faith in him saves, you know, Jesus saves through faith in him. And then they had a dream about it and somehow the Lord used already given information to make a decision.

But just coming up with a dream evangelism, they've never heard about Jesus. I guess the Lord can do whatever he wants, but what he wants, obviously and plainly, is for his people to go tell the good news.

This is the ordained means. Plus, you know what, Steve? How can I argue with that? There's a guy over in Iran that got saved by this dream.

Well, it's like arguing with leg lengthening. You know, I mean, it's all these inexplicable, unrepeatable, unverifiable, quote unquote miracles. Right. If somebody is a believer, great.

But the dream evangelism thing, I think they used to have a thing here in Worcester, the Dream Center. Do they still have the Dream Center downtown? Yeah, I don't think so. I think it was from another church and then maybe it closed.

Who knows? It was the number nine dream, so. Oh, okay. I could have said it.

What's the latest thing with John Lennon there? He's trying to say Chapman didn't shoot him. Somebody else did. What? Yeah, just a couple days ago in the news. Some kind of grassy knoll or something? Uh-huh, totally.

Uh-huh. Where the bullets were shot from and the angles and everything else. Oh, come on.

It was actually Paul McCartney, you know. What? No. What is all this? Is this like a new movie from what's his name? The guy who did the Kennedy movie, the crackpot director?

I don't know his name, but I know his face. Yeah, I can't think of his name.

JFK, he did. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know, like another one of these conspiracy things and. Oh, it is for sure. Pull it up. I think it was on the dredge report. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't go there, so.

I go there to see how left it is now. It's a sad time. Why evangelize? Steve and I are talking about that today on No Compromise Radio. Number six, because hell is real. He referred to it earlier, but because hell is real.

Hebrews 10, it's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God. If it was a dead God that you carried around in your pocket, or it was that statue, if it fell into their hands, it wouldn't be too bad.

But the living God, it would be a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Hell is real. Is that a good motivation to evangelize? It's a great...

Well, let's just put it this way. Let's get a little graphic, because we've both been there when people die. To just think, to sit there with somebody and to think in a few moments, you're going to meet your creator.

And then to say to them, well, you know what? For your sake, I hope you're going to heaven. And I hope it's not the other place, because that would be really rough. And then walk out of the room or whatever.

Why would you do that? Who could be so cruel and so heartless? And why would you not want to give somebody the good news? You say, well, you know what? He's or she is probably not going to believe anyway.

I mean, look, I haven't seen anybody come to faith in my entire life. So why would I ever?

Well, Steve, I have been in hospital rooms with brain dead people. Yeah. And I've had family members say, well, you know what? We know God's Word's powerful. This person didn't make a profession of faith while they were conscious.

And would you mind just preaching the gospel to my father's body that's on life support? And I said, you know what? I'd be glad to, because I have no idea what the Lord might do or give him some cognitive moments where he'd have his mind come back.

And I think, you know what? Otherwise, I'm just going to preach the gospel. And the people here whose family member is laying there, they could be encouraged. The gospel is powerful and probably nothing happened.

But can you imagine, can you imagine what kind of forget about pastor? Can you imagine what sort of Christian, what kind of human being you would be? The complete lack of compassion if you just look back at them and said, no, I'm not going to do that.

Because like you said, we don't know. There's a heartbeat. There's some semblance of life. You know, the doctors say there's no brain activity. How do they know really? I know. Ultimately, we don't know.

They measure brain waves, but okay, have they ever talked to a person that has zero brain activity and, you know, and then has come back to life or whatever? We don't, there's so many things that scientists observe, right?

But they don't know. They don't, I mean, they observe a lot of things about life, but they don't ultimately understand life. And we have to trust the one who does, who gives life.

Well, my motivation at the time was to come for the family. That's true. But it was also because I knew hell was real. And that person, maybe they were already getting judged by God, right? Maybe they were not in his, you know, gracious presence.

But if they were still in that body, if their soul was still in the body, I thought, well, I know hell's real, so I'm just going to do it. What's the harm of preaching the gospel? And I know that God's not going to save outside the gospel.

So, I'll give them the gospel and I'll let the cognitive things be in the Lord's hand.

Do the right thing and trust the Lord for the results.

If you look at scripture and see how hell is described and just do a little study on hell, that would be one of the best motivations for evangelism, right? When I study hell, I think of two things. I'm thankful I'm not going there.

Praise the Lord. And I should probably evangelize more. Every person we meet, they're going to go to hell when they die, unless the Lord saves them, right?

That's a, that's like a really good sermon. You could just preach right now. You know, I'm thankful I'm not going there. Right. And it motivates me to share the gospel because I don't want anybody to go there.

Doesn't that sound like kind of Romans and guilt, grace, gratitude, Heidelberg, doesn't it? Calvin said of hell, for there can be no doubt, but that by such modes of expression, the Holy Spirit intended to confound all our faculties with horror.

In other words, punishment, torment, fire, destruction, the worm that doesn't die. Those descriptions, Calvin said, should make us horrified.

Why wouldn't we be? I mean, I mean, just, and again, you know, knowing, knowing that we have been rescued in such a dramatic and glorious way, do we then just turn to other people and go,.

Man, it's tough to be you. You know, second death is going to be your new best friend, weeping and gnashing of teeth for you. You deserve it. Yeah, of course they deserve it, but we deserve it too. And we're supposed to give people the good news.

I mean, part of the rejoicing that comes in salvation is just looking around at the people around you and going, being horrified at where they're going and thinking, I need to get busy. I got work to do.

Steve, evangelism, deathbed confessions, if somebody's on their deathbed and you go evangelize them and tell them the truth, and they seem to accept it and believe, what's your response?

My response is, I hope that that was the case. I mean, if they, you know, like I give them the gospel, then they die. And there are a lot of reasons for that. I mean, I have family members where, you know, similar sorts of things happen.

And I think, well, I want that for them. But here's the thing. I trust God. I trust him that he's able to do that. And I trust him that he will do what's right. And I also believe that there are going to be a lot of people in heaven that I didn't expect to see in heaven.

It's so true. Was it Spurgeon who said something like, there's only one deathbed conversion in the Bible, the thief on the cross, only one so that you can be encouraged, right? Many of us have talked to folks here at the church who their dad's dying and they get to go to the bedside of their father and preach the gospel.

And the dad doesn't say, I hate that. Get that out of my face. He says, I believe. And so, that gives encouragement. But also, what was I just talking about before I went on that rabbit trail?

Peter There's only one deathbed confession. Jared Oh, yeah.

But there's only one so that you're not too presumptuous. So, that if you're living on earth now and you're not a believer, don't wait. Don't hesitate. Don't say, well, you know, I'll sow my oats now.

And you can get saved on your deathbed like the thief on the cross. That's a bad way to go.

Pete. But that also goes for our motivation for evangelizing, right? Not just like, you know what, not today. I'll wait till next year, maybe two years from now. Maybe some other time, maybe at Christmas, because we never know.

We never know when somebody is just going to be gone. So, you know, the time is today, both for the person receiving it and for the people who have the knowledge and ought to be sharing it, preaching it.

Jared. People think we don't like Arminians. I think it's the Arminian D .L. Moody. Well, he's not an Arminian now, but... D .L. Moody, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies.

Pete. That's right.

And, you know, every time I hear that quote, I always think like, we're like the football players trying to stop people from jumping over the cliff, right? And that's not a bad picture to have in our heads because that's the picture.

We're not going over the cliff. You know, sometimes we might think, well, wait a minute, if I don't do this right, we're not going anywhere. But we want to stop them from going to hell.

I try not to, in no way do I mean this to make light of something. We used to play the game Red Rover, Red Rover, and you would hold hands with other people, right? And someone else on the other side of the field would run full blast and try to break through your arm lock with the person next to you.

Find the weak link, right? There was two, you know, skinny kids or something like that. It's almost what we're doing. There's like this phalanx of people and we don't want you to go. We don't want you to go to hell.

It's, I mean, Spurgeon who said, could all the misery that ever startled the keepers of our hospitals be conceived? It would not convey the least idea of the pains of the spirits that are doomed to dwell in eternal fire and everlasting burning.

I don't want them to go. You see, what about, what about maybe more, you have to kind of be careful and you think, you know what, I'm just going to do a little preach praying here. You go into the hospital room and the people will not let you proclaim the gospel or you start to proclaim the gospel and they shut you down like my grandma did with my grandfather.

What if you went into a hospital and said, would you mind if I pray for you?

Because, you know, most of the time, I mean, there could be some people that are so opposed to anything that they might say, yes, I would mind.

You know, I don't think in my entire life, someone has said to me when I've asked them when they've been sick, may I pray for you?

I don't think they've ever said, well, that's because you're nice.

I put on a good show, a good front. None of us want our family members, our coworkers, our even disgruntled neighbors to go to hell. No, that would not be the mind of Christ. You think about Jesus's rescue mission and from Pharisees like Nicodemus to Mary Magdalene and everyone in between from self-righteous to those that are having no righteousness.

And I think in his humanity, I think even, you know, Judas Iscariot, there's not a bit of the man Christ Jesus who said, oh, I'm glad Judas is going to hell. I think it was kind of like it was painful and meant to be painful.

Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, reasons to evangelize. I could have said reasons to compromise on No Compromise Radio. Oh, it's too scary. Lastly, number seven, there's a huge and full harvest waiting to be reaped.

In other words, there are elect people out there and we don't know who they are, but the Lord does and the way they get saved, the means is through preaching the gospel. And we have to be very, very encouraged that when we go out and evangelize, we know there are elect people hearing the message.

The most amazing thing, of course, is when people do get saved, right? I mean, how many times, I won't even ask you that, but I mean, it's been so interesting to me to hear people years later say, you know what, I got saved when you did this or, you know, such and such happened and then I got saved or whatever, or even all sorts of things where you just think, how could anybody have gotten saved during that?

Or when I, you know, when I taught that message or when I preached that sermon or whatever, and you go, that was a train wreck, right? I mean, that was, of all the messages I've ever preached, that might have been the worst.

But it's not about that. You know, it's God, the mighty God, the God of the universe who says, do this, glorify me and do this. We do it. And he says, trust the results to me.

Amen. And if there were no people elected by God, then no one would get saved and we would have a lot of negative things to say about evangelism because it would be fruitless. But there are people out there, I mean, I think you do a good job, Steve, of thinking about what happened in your life.

And now I think about in my life, there were people that were so concerned about me and wanting to glorify the Lord that they preached the gospel to me, or they talked about how I needed a savior. I mean, I knew who Jesus was, not in a saving way, but I think it took the law of God and to talk about my own sin for me to really flee to him.

But those people cared for me. And probably in heaven, we'll know all kinds of things, including the 900 people that prayed for our salvation, right? The Sunday school teachers that taught us about, in my case, Sunday school teachers for you.

What did he call Mormon's Sunday school?

Well, I mean, we had all kinds of things. We had seminary, but we had regular Sunday school too. But I was just like, I was getting a little weepy just thinking about this. If you could just imagine a meeting like this, you know, and this won't happen, but can you imagine you get to heaven and you go, hey, at 10 o 'clock, I don't think they have clocks there, but at 10 o 'clock, we're going to have a meeting and we want all the people that evangelized Steve and prayed for Steve and everything to show up and Steve will be there.

And I'm like, can you just imagine that, right? You'd just be like walking around, just hugging people and going, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And of course, they would be saying, don't thank me. You know, I'm just...

Well, then if the meeting analogy held true, they'd say, well, we can't do this for too long because those 900 people that prayed for you and preached for you, they had to wait each and individually for the other 900 that prayed for them.

Yeah, exactly. And so on and so on.

And you think the grandma's prayers and you think of the mom's prayers and of course, heartaches that parents have with wayward sons, and then they come back and then they believe and it's a lot of rejoicing.

Only wayward sons though, never wayward daughters.

That's right. Mike Havencross, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio, evangelism. I think it'd be good to go out and preach the gospel to somebody today, don't you? Great.