Equipping Eve: Equipped to Evangelize (Part 1)

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

Well, hello, ladies, and welcome to Equipping Eve. I am your host, Erin Benzinger, and you know what we're about at this show.

We are all about looking at God's Word and digging out the truth of the Word. It's not hard to do, it's not hard work, because the

Word is truth. It is all truth, it is all God's infallible, perfect, inspired

Word. And we look at the Word and we compare what we are hearing in our churches, in our

Christian radio shows, on our Christian television shows, what we're reading, in our commentaries, and everything we compare to Scripture to see if it measures up to that only one true, objective standard, and that is

God's standard, God's Word, God's truth. So thanks for tuning in, ladies, and today,

I have a topic I'm kind of excited to talk to you about, but of course, every now and then, we like to start the show with a little bit of humor, and this isn't a means of being relevant, it's actually a means of, it's one of those things where you either laugh or you cry, you know, so we look at things that are funny, they're humorous, but the sad reality is they are being touted and sold as being

Christian, Christian books, Christian calendars, Christian devotionals, and yet they are completely devoid of biblical truth, they're wrong, they're false, they're lies, and the authors and teachers and pastors who sell these books are perpetuating false, dangerous, ultimately damning doctrines, all under the guise of this feel -good, narcissistic, seeker -sensitive

Christianity, and so it's kind of ha -ha, funny, light -hearted for us to look at some of these things and read some of these things, but ladies, at the end of the day, this stuff should grieve you, this should grieve you that this stuff is out there, it should grieve you that people you know and love are reading it, they are deceived by it.

So today, I thought we'd turn to something new, I have a new, I have a new toy, if you will, it's actually a book, but I love books, so a book is like, it's like a kid getting a new toy when

I get a new book, and I was in the store the other day, it's kind of one of those hodgepodge stores, you know, like a

Big Lots type thing, it wasn't Big Lots, so this is not a promo for Big Lots, but it's that kind of a store, if you know what that is, they have a little bit of everything, and they have it cheap, and shockingly, this store has a rather large book section, and you never know what you're going to find there, they have a couple of aisles of quote -unquote

Christian books, I mean, I have found John MacArthur books there before, so it's not all bad, it's worth looking through, and so I always get a little excited if I find something good, but when

I went there the other day, there were no MacArthur books to be found, I'm hoping, hoping someone came and bought them all to give them away as gifts, so that the true gospel and wonderful truths of God's word will be dispensed and dispersed, but I don't know, but I did happen to find quite the opposite of John MacArthur, a book by Joel Osteen, and I don't normally like to purchase bad books, because it's a waste of money, but it was so cheap, and I looked at it and I thought, there is equipping

Eve Fodder for quite some time, so it's a book that's based on the number one

New York Times bestseller, Every Day a Friday, remember that, when Joel Osteen came out with that, and everyone was thinking, oh man, if every day is a

Friday, you never get the weekend, you're just constantly going to work on Friday, always longing for Saturday and Sunday and never getting there, never getting to fellowship with the people of God on Sunday, never getting to hear

God's word open on the Lord's day, never getting that day of rest on Saturday and Sunday, the rest from your week, you're stuck in a perpetual cycle of Fridays, well this book is based on that, and it is daily readings from the book,

Every Day a Friday, it is 90 devotions to be happier, 7 days a week, 90 devotions to be happier 7 days a week,

I mean this is fantastic, here we are, we're in 2016, it's a new year,

I can be happy now, 7 days a week, because I have this amazing book, or so I'm told, so I opened it up today in preparation for the show,

I thought, you know, I probably don't have to read through the whole thing to find something really great to share with you,

I opened it up to a chapter that is entitled, God will make it up to you, well there you go, that's interesting, isn't it,

God will make it up to you, Joel Osteen writes, many years ago a young man named

Saul was chosen to be the next king of Israel, the prophet Samuel blessed him and called him up in front of the people and said he is going to be our next king, most of those present were very excited and they congratulated

Saul, but when he returned home, many long time friends ridiculed him, Saul's not our king, he's not a leader, he doesn't have what it takes, they were actually jealous of Saul, they were so insecure, so intimidated, they had to try to push

Saul down so they would look bigger, remember this phrase, says Joel Osteen, when people belittle you, they are being little themselves, small minded people won't celebrate you, small minded people will be jealous, they will gossip to make you look bad, but they are not going where God is taking you, my friend, you are called to be an eagle, you are called to soar, to do great things, but we all have some crows squawking at us, some chickens pecking at us, some hawks attacking us, they are trying to bait us into conflict, don't get drawn into those battles, you have an advantage, you are an eagle, you can fly at heights to which no other bird can soar, soar above, leave them behind,

God hears what your critics say and if you stay in faith, it's all dependent on your faith, you know, he will make it up to you, hmm, there is no bible verse there to support that, by the way, in case you are curious, use your energy to improve your skills to be the best that you can be and God will bring others across your path who will celebrate and encourage you, there you go,

God will make it up to you, that is your happy thought for the day, ladies, may that take you all the way to next

Friday, it's sad, isn't it? People turn on Joel Osteen, they think he is a pastor, you know, he waves his bible in the air and they say that weird little mantra and people who are completely undiscerning, completely unfamiliar with the bible think that this man represents

Christianity, he does not, I am here to say publicly, Joel Osteen does not represent true biblical

Christianity and please never ever use him as a representative of the true faith, he fails in every single regard, but anyway, today's show is not about Joel Osteen, that was just a little something to get us started, what

I want to talk about today, ladies, actually is evangelism and you know, we have talked in the past about things like election and you know,

God does the choosing, God is the sole worker in our salvation, salvation is all of God, there is nothing you can do to save yourself, there is no amount of good works that you can do, there is no magic formula that you can pray, there is no choice that you make apart from the regenerating work of the

Holy Spirit in you to choose to be saved, God does everything, period, and we have talked about that extensively and we have talked about it more than once, but then why evangelize?

Why evangelize? And we have discussed this too briefly on the show in the past and we know we evangelize, we know we are called to evangelize, the scriptures tell us to proclaim the gospel, to go and make disciples, so we understand that God's word compels us, commands us to evangelize, to share the gospel,

I mean, how can they be saved if they do not hear, how will they hear without a preacher, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and the gospel is found in his word.

You know, something we haven't discussed, at least to my recollection, is bad ways to evangelize, one way to not evangelize, don't share your story, don't share your testimony as a means of sharing the gospel.

Now, you can certainly, God has, every one of us has an amazing testimony of God's grace and mercy and forgiveness and his saving power.

Some of us were saved under more shocking circumstances than others, some of us were raised in Christian homes and don't even have necessarily a mountaintop or pinpointed moment that we can point to and say, that is the day

I was saved, but regardless of whether your story is quote -unquote spectacular or mundane or ordinary, and I'm using all of those words just as a means of description and don't necessarily mean it, every salvation story is a miracle, it is

God raising someone from death to life, right?

We all understand that, and so I don't mean to belittle the gospel in any way, shape, or form, and there's a time and a place to share with people how it is that God saved you and what he's done in your life.

Just make sure when you're doing that that it's all about God and it's not about you. Hear me on that, ladies.

Do not make your testimony about you, period. End of story, because it's not. You didn't do anything except sin and receive grace.

But this idea of, well, just tell about this amazing thing God did in my life, and then everyone will want to be saved.

They'll all want Jesus so that they can be like me. No, that's not how this works.

That's not how we see evangelism in the Bible, right?

Talking about yourself is not going to save anybody. It's amazing that God did an amazing work in you, and that's wonderful, and we pray that more and more people will have those stories, because that means more and more people are getting saved.

But that's not the gospel. The gospel is all about Christ, and so when you are sharing the gospel, when you are evangelizing, you need to talk only about Christ, not about even what he's done for you.

No, you need to go to the Word of God and talk about Christ. That's the only thing that's going to save anybody.

So this whole me story evangelism thing is not a good idea.

Another bad method of evangelism is the friendship evangelism, you know, where you make friends with someone, and then maybe ten years down the road you'll be able to share

Christ with them. Or maybe even it won't take that long. It might just take a couple of weeks, and they'll just notice there's something different about you, and then they'll ask.

Well, to be sure, we should live lives that are sanctified and set apart and look different from the world so that people do notice that we are different from the world.

Absolutely, that is part of our witness for Christ. But that's not the gospel. This whole, you know, preach the gospel every day if necessary, use words, that's ridiculous, because the gospel must be verbalized.

It must be a verbal confession and a verbal call to people to repent and believe upon the

Lord Jesus Christ. So, you know, you can sit and have lunch with someone every week for years, and you're just, you know, waiting for them to ask why you're different.

There could come a day where they get hit by a bus, and they die, and they were on their way to lunch with you, and you never told them the gospel.

Your friendship evangelism just timed out. It's too late. They're gone.

They don't get another chance. It doesn't work. It's not appropriate to wait when we care about people's souls.

We are talking about people's souls. We're talking about the eternal destiny of the souls of men and women.

There needs to be an urgency, ladies. We must feel an urgency to evangelize and to share the gospel, to proclaim the gospel.

And so, I thought we'd look very briefly today at really four elements.

I'm not trying to give four spiritual laws or anything, but four things that we need to be really clear about when we are evangelizing.

We cannot compromise on these things. We must, as much as is possible, include these things in our calls for sinners to repent and to believe upon the

Lord Jesus Christ. So, this is not a little formula. This is not, you know, hey, check this box off.

Okay, now I got to tell them about this. These are just things to keep in mind that, ladies, I venture to say you all know these things, and I hope, and I would not be surprised if most of you are doing this in your evangelism.

And let's step back for a moment, too, ladies. When I say evangelism, I'm not saying we all need to go out and be street preachers, because there's a whole other element to that as well, being women.

However, I'm saying evangelism with your family at holidays or family gatherings, evangelism with your co -workers, you know, and that's always an interesting balance in office life.

Where's the line where you're, what you're allowed to say, and where do you cross that line when it's appropriate?

And we all need to pray that God would make things really clear to us in those types of situations, but He will open opportunities with those that you are in contact with every day, regardless of your relationship with that person, whether it is a co -worker, or a family member, or a friend, or someone you see at the bus stop, or a student in your class with you, or just maybe someone you, the checkout clerk at the grocery store that you see every couple of weeks or so.

God will open those opportunities if we pray for them, ladies. I know He will. He will not dismiss the prayer, the sincere prayer of those who love

Him to give them opportunities to share great, glorious gospel of salvation that is found in Jesus Christ alone.

So here are a few things to keep in mind, ladies, when we clearly and directly present the gospel, and that is how it needs to be presented.

Be clear and be direct, and I'm going to say right off the bat here, ladies, I've stolen this material.

Is it stealing it, if you admit to it? I don't know. But my pastor delivered a wonderful sermon on evangelism.

It was actually a two -part series, and I will link to that at the blog. And his teaching was just so clear and direct, and so simple yet profound, and so important for us to keep in mind when we interact in our everyday life with others who are unsaved, that I thought, you know, we need to kind of condense this down and think about these things and ruminate on these things a little bit.

And I hope that you'll go to equippingeve .com, link to the blog there, and you'll be able to listen to that two -part series by Pastor Don Green.

And I think you'll really be encouraged and provoked to evangelism, so provoked in a very good way and spurred on to share the gospel of Christ.

So there, fair warning, this is not my original material, but it's worth sharing.

It's definitely worth passing along, so I hope you ladies appreciate it as well. The first thing that we need to keep in mind when we are talking with unbelievers, ladies, is that we need to be clear about the authority of scripture.

Okay, just because someone that we're talking to does not believe the

Bible, does not affirm the authority of scripture, does not mean that we ignore it, does not mean that we try to find another way to present the gospel without talking about the

Bible. No, we need to be very clear that we believe in the authority of scripture over everyone and everything, because that is the basis for our faith, is it not?

Scripture itself says in 2nd Timothy 3, verse 16, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate and equipped for every good work.

Scripture makes a lot of claims about itself that attest to its authority. Psalm 19 says that the law of the

Lord is perfect, the testimony of the Lord is sure, the precepts of the

Lord are right, the commandment of the Lord is pure, the rules of the

Lord are true and righteous altogether. Psalm 119, verse 89 speaks to the immutability of the

Word of God forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. If it's not changing, it's authoritative.

It illuminates, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, that's Psalm 119, 105.

It makes us wise, Psalm 119, verse 97 and following says, your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine.

I have more insight than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the agent, because I have observed your precepts.

In 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verses 19 through 21, Peter, who witnessed the transfiguration, you want to talk about experience versus the

Word? He says that the Word is more sure than his experience. And so the

Word of God is fully authoritative over our lives, ladies, and so we must keep that at the forefront of our minds, and we must be clear about that with the unbelievers, that the

Word of God, this is truth. This is God's truth. This is unchanging, infallible.

This is God's Word. And because of that authority that it possesses, you must submit to it.

Period. There's always going to be one of two responses to God's Word, ladies. There is no gray area here.

There's no middle ground when someone is exposed to the Word of God. They will either be convicted of their sin and repent and believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, or they will reject it. There's no ambiguity.

There's no indifference to the Word of God. If someone says they're indifferent and they really don't care, they've rejected it.

Period. We need to understand this. We also need to be very clear when we are evangelizing.

We need to be clear with the other person that they are a sinner. Guaranteed, they're going to come back and say, well, are you perfect?

Or if it's someone you know, they're going to say, well, look at what you've done. Yeah, we're all sinners.

That's the point. Romans 3 verse 10 says, there's none righteous, not even one.

None who understands, none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There's none who does good.

There's not even one. We're all sinners. Ephesians 2 describes how we were before we were saved.

It says, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

And were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. In Ephesians 4,

Paul says, so this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their minds.

So Gentiles is basically speaking of unbelievers here. And Paul describes them as being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

And they having become callous have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

We are sinners. And the person you are talking to, the person you are evangelizing is a sinner.

And they need to understand and realize that they have sinned, not just against other people, not just against themselves, against a holy

God, a thrice holy God, who is perfect and righteous and just and true.

And because we've sinned against this infinite eternal God, we deserve an infinite eternal damnation.

Hebrews 4 .15 says, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Implying, yes, we are with sin, but Christ is the sinless one. Christ is the sinless one.

And he is the way to salvation. 1 John 1 .8

says, if we have no sin, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves. And the truth is not in us.

And so ladies, we are sinners and we need to be clear when we are evangelizing that all men are sinners.

All men have sinned against a holy God. You can't escape it. I don't care how much money you give to charity.

I don't care how many homeless people you feed or clothe. I don't care how many good deeds you do.

I don't care how many charity races you run. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Your good deeds will never, ever, ever outweigh your sins.

Period. Well, ladies, I think we'll stop there for today and we'll pick this up again next time with the final two points on evangelism.

But ladies, just a couple of quotes to leave you with from one of my favorite preachers, and I'm sure one of yours as well,

Charles Spurgeon. He spoke often of the necessity of evangelism and he spoke very clearly as to what we are to be presenting, what we are to be proclaiming when we share, proclaim, declare the gospel to the unsaved.

So just a few choice quotes from Charles Spurgeon for you to think on this week, ladies.

Charles Spurgeon says, quote, avoid a sugared gospel as you would shun sugar of lead.

Seek the gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills.

But that is the gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being as the rain soaks into the ground.

So pray the Lord to let his gospel soak into your soul. Ladies, do you present a gospel that is full of sugar or a gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills?

A gospel which destroys the sinner's view, high view, high incorrect view of himself.

That is the gospel. It brings man low and exalts Christ to the highest place.

Ladies, consider also this word from Spurgeon, quote, if the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the

Lord's will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption.

But it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do not suppose that the gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting

Christ as their Savior while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts are still in love with sin.

If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the gospel, insult

Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, end quote.

But isn't that the gospel that we hear so often? Just accept Jesus as your

Savior. Jesus loves you. You can keep doing what you're doing. It's okay. No, no.

Spurgeon is right when he says do not pamper to this presumption. Finally, ladies, consider this from Charles Spurgeon, quote, let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching, where Christ is everything and the creature is nothing, where it is salvation all of grace through the work of the

Holy Spirit applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus. Ladies, we must present the gospel as a work of God alone, and we must trust as we present the gospel that it is

God's work alone. There's nothing that we can do differently necessarily to save that person.

We must be faithful to proclaim the gospel, and God is the only one who can work in that person through the

Holy Spirit to bring him to salvation. So ladies, be faithful in your gospel proclamation and trust

God to do the rest. Okay, ladies, we will pick this up next time.

So until then, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped.

Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a

No Compromise radio production. If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com,

or you can check out one of our two websites, do notbesurprised .com or equippingeve .org.