Provoked: Evangelism with Bobby McCreery (Part 2)

The Church’s Identity, Lawlessness, and the Call to Repentance

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity. I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are.

This is where we hold them. This is where we fight.

Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct. You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir. That's being a thug.

We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends,.

And we are teaching our children to do the same.

God's word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice, and mark my words, they will have their day in court.

Evangelism Means Preaching the Gospel, Not Merely Inviting People to Church

Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ, we're not loving Him, no matter what we're doing with our hands.

Here's kind of a hot-button item that I always get in trouble with. But people believe that, okay, yeah, go and let's do an Easter bunny egg giveaway, or let's do a big community event, let's link arms with the city, and yeah, the city doesn't want us to share the gospel, but we're going to invite people back to church, and we're going to share the gospel there.

We're going to invite people back to church, and then we're going to have our pastors share the gospel with them. So is it, and this is for you, Bobby, is it biblical? Can we find in Scripture that type of methodology to where you invite the lost people back into the community of God's worship to share the gospel with them there?

Yeah, no, brother, I don't think it's biblical at all. I don't think we have one example in the Scriptures where you see a preacher get up or someone sharing the gospel with someone where what they're doing is ultimately inviting them to church.

And so, yeah, I don't think it's biblical at all. Also, I think that you touched on something. I mean, there is so much that you guys mentioned that's so true. I think, you know, someone said so goes the pulpit, so goes the church.

And so some of the objections you guys touched on were like people saying you're going to turn people away by sharing the gospel with them or by preaching or whatever. I mean, those are usually professing Christian objections because that's what they've been told by pastors.

Now the flip side of, you know, well, let me get someone to church and then the pastor will share the gospel with them is, you know, what I want to say is, well, show me in the Word of God where it says that's only the pastor's responsibility.

Right.

And I want to say to a person that says that, well, suppose this person dies in between the time they committed to your church invitation and the time you get them to the pastor.

Yeah.

That's a good next one.

So I think, you know, we lack a sense of urgency about people's souls. You know, I mean, 150 ,000 approximate people dying every day. I mean, why do we think these people are going to make it to church?

That's exactly right.

I mean, that is a sacred cow. And I remember I put a Facebook post maybe a couple year and a half ago that said inviting the lost to church is not biblical evangelism. And I had all sorts of people come out of the woodwork.

I remember that.

But I'm going to say it again. Inviting the lost to church is not biblical evangelism. You cannot find it there. The church is the people of God. It makes up the people of God. And in the church is where the people of God worship the Lord.

It's the home of the regenerate, the community of faith, the elect, right, the faithful remnant. It's where we who are saved, we come together one with another to worship the Lord, to observe the sacraments.

It's not a place for the lost.

Yeah.

We don't see that. And so what we do see in Scripture is Jesus' evangelistic command in Acts 1, verse 8. Then we see the model of the early church. And the early church went out proclaiming the gospel everywhere.

That was everyone preaching the gospel, getting beat up, starting riots, getting martyred for it. And then they would come back to the household of faith. They would come back together to worship collectively to get encouraged to be equipped and then go back out.

So it's always the biblical model of Christians in the early church is going out, going to, sacrificing their lives. I mean, it was a mobilized church into the community, into the public marketplace. And as they did that, what did the Scripture say?

Then God would add to the church. He would save people through the proclamation of the gospel. And then the regenerate person, the spirit of God, would bring them into the community of faith. Right? It's not us bringing lost people so we could share the gospel.

Again, what do we do? We abdicate our duty to share the gospel that God's given every single Christian, thinking that it's just the pastor's job to do it. But pastors, we really, as pastors in the pulpits, we really have to, we got to reject this idea of evangelism if we are going to get our people evangelizing, right?

And unfortunately, I think, and I'll stop here, we have to get away with am I really wanting the lost to come so that I can share the gospel with them? Is that my motive? Or do I just want a bigger church because I'm just focused on butts, buildings, and budgets?

I'm just focused on actually getting people to sit down to listen to me preach so I can feel good about myself, so I can be quote unquote successful. Go ahead, Bobby, I think you're going to say something.

The Idol of Reputation and the Offense of the Gospel

Well, I was going to say, you know, I know you talked about having Pastor Luke on to do this show on cultural idols, but what about church idols?

Yeah.

You know, I think, you know, I get in trouble for saying this sometimes, but I think the biggest idol in the Western church is the idol of reputation.

Yep.

You know, Jesus said things like, woe to you when all men speak well of you. And the modern church in the West, I mean, it's almost like they retranslate that as, you know, woe to you if anyone speaks ill of you.

You know, I mean, I know Desi's going to get to at some point today about something, you know, really just awful that happened to you guys when you're on the streets recently. But how many times you talk to a professing Christian about something that happened to you when you're out on the street and they look at you like, what did you do to bring that on?

Right.

You know, and it's, you know, but like you said, you look in Acts and they went out and they preached and the gospel is offensive. It's moronic to those who are perishing.

Right.

Right. You see Paul's experience in Athens, you know, some mocked him. Others said, we will, you know, hear some more of this and others believed and followed him. People say, what kind of reaction do you get when you go out in the street?

I said that the same one that he got there, you know, to varying degrees, but.

That's good. So let's, that's a, that's a question I have here. I'm going to kind of scroll down on the list that we have, because I think we're covering a lot of this, but that's a great question. What does it mean to be a successful evangelist?

Faithfulness, Not Numbers, Defines Successful Evangelism

What is successful evangelism? So are we called to produce fruit? You hear that all the time. Oh wait, where's the fruit? And I remember trying to lead evangelism teams in churches and just saying, Hey, you know, you're out there preaching the gospel, but I don't see anybody sitting in church.

I don't see any addition to our church services. And so what the American evangelical church is, they'll discard any type of evangelistic any type of evangelistic definition or evangelistic endeavor if it's not filling up the pews.

So I think we need to get into it. What does it mean to successfully evangelize?

Can I say something? Because I already know once this comes out, we're going to start getting people commenting on this. I just want to touch on something really quick, because when we've talked about this before, when I've talked about this with other believers, it's always just made sure to be said that, and I want to be clear on it too.

And I think that we are inviting people to church is good. And discipleship is an essential component of the Christian walk. We want people to go to church. Of course, you're a pastor. You want people to come to your church.

What we're saying is it's not evangelism. The definition of evangelism is literally telling the good news. So call it something else. Call it inviting people to church. Call it giving people hot dogs or serving people.

Just don't call it evangelism if you're not sharing the gospel. That's the big thing is the redefining of the word evangelism. So people take that word evangelism, and they just spray it like, okay, evangelism is hot dog distribution.

Evangelism is inviting people to church. Evangelism is going to Peru or Machu Picchu.

Exactly.

It's just that redefinition. And so I just want to make it clear that we're not saying don't invite people to church. Invite people to your church, especially if you go to a church that preaches the gospel.

Christians need discipleship, and they need a covering of the local church.

Yeah, that's a good way of explaining it. I'm glad you did that, just kind of parsing that out a little bit more clearly. Yeah, invite people to church, but if I had a genie popped up, a big old blue fat genie popped out of a little genie thingy and gave me three wishes, one of my wishes would be that person would have such a change of mind and philosophy of evangelism that just says, okay, I'm going to invite Jack to church so he can hear the gospel.

And you hear it all over American Evangelical Church. You need to get in church. You need to hear the gospel. If I could change it in a minute, it would be him saying, no, I'm going to share the gospel.

Jack's going to share the gospel. I'm going to share the gospel with Jack rather than say, I'm just going to invite him to church and have him hear this great, this great eloquent pastor preach the gospel.

That's what we need to get into the heart and the mind of the broader church is that evangelism is just simply knowing how to do it and you doing it yourself. Then we're going to see massive amounts of people getting saved here.

And the truth is people do get saved in church. They get saved going and hearing, I was saved in church.

Oh, sure.

I heard you preach the gospel and God broke me at that moment. You had given me the gospel prior to that, but it was actually sitting in church that I got saved because you were preaching the gospel because God sovereignly saved me.

I like what Sai says. What does Sai say, Bobby, about that? God can strike a straight blow with a crooked stick. Something like that. Okay, let's get back to that. Successful evangelism. What is successful evangelism?

Every time you share the gospel, you're successful in evangelism. And I would say a pastor of mine, probably about eight years ago, he was preaching through Acts and he got to Acts 13 when Paul preaches outside the synagogue.

They asked him to come back. He preaches again and it says, All who were appointed to eternal life believed. And he talked about that and he just talked about Paul being faithful to the message. And he said, you know, we have all these ways of measuring what we call success or we call fruit in the modern church today.

But he said the only way you can or ever should measure that is by faithfulness to the word of God.

Awesome.

And so as far as successful evangelism, every time you speak the gospel to someone, that is successful evangelism. And if I can, you know, you talked about something like fruit, right? So some of these things, you know, these things where people say, you know, how many people have you led to the Lord?

Things like that. You know, I remember years ago somebody asked me that. And I think the Lord just gave me the answer in the moment. I looked at him. I said, I think millions. And they said, what do you mean?

Like, you know, they look at me like, how come I haven't heard of you? Like Billy Graham or something. And I said, well, you know, by God's grace, I've had the privilege to preach it outside of like 10 Super Bowls and eight Kentucky Derbys and the Olympics in London.

And I think probably over these years, you know, millions of people have heard me preach the gospel. And I led them all right to the foot of the bloodstained cross.

Right.

You know, and they say, how many decisions have you seen? Well, I mean, again, same answer, because every single person that heard that proclamation or took that track made a decision to either rejoice in what they heard is true or to continue on in their rebellion towards God.

Excellent.

But, you know, you talk about fruit. I mean, Paul talked about it. First Corinthians three. He said, I planted, you know, a polished water, but God gave the growth. He said it's neither he who plants or waters or is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

So, you know, if you like, you talk about if you get so concerned with putting people in the seats, which let's let's just face it. I mean, the seeker sensitive church in America. I mean, the church that my wife and I were saved in, I believe that.

The man that led that church was a good brother, but he he used these, you know, sort of Willow Creek, you know, Saddleback strategies, get the lost in, build a church full of tears. Well, what also comes with that is a lot of money coming in and then a big budget and then you start bringing on staff.

And so then you got to worry about not saying anything that offends the tears, you know, because if you offend the tears, then, you know, the the the tithing or however you want to use the word, the giving goes down.

And and so, I mean, when you talk about fruit, I mean, I guess for me, sometimes I say to people, it depends on what you call that. I mean, I've seen the word of God sober up a drunk. You know, I I see that as like something fruitful.

Mm hmm. I've had I mean, I've had college students that come up to me and they say, I've been avoiding this corner when we're in Athens for 10 years on the same corner every Friday night. And so I've been avoiding this corner for four years, but I'm about to graduate.

And before I go, I just got to hear your message. Tell me your message. Yeah, I mean, I see that I see those things as fruit. But I mean, you know, so it's it's tricky when they say fruit. Well, what do you mean?

Like, you know, how many decision cards did you get filled out or how many people, you know, walked an aisle or prayed a prayer? I mean, what is that when you said you must be born again?

It's just so important to talk about. Of course, all these are leading questions in a way of of opening up the eyes of people who are throwing around biblical phrases that don't necessarily apply to a situation.

So, I mean, if we are if I'm producing anything in evangelism other than the message, they're going to be saved to me. And if I'm the savior of any man, I'm a horrible savior. And you can you can do that by just trying to force somebody to repent or force somebody to have some type of positive reaction.

What I'm getting at is we're not called to produce any fruit. Fruit is something that God produces. I mean, you look at Galatians 522. It talks about fruit. Jesus is big on fruit. And John chapter five talking about being the vine and how if we don't produce fruit, we'll be thrown out.

And also we glorify God in our fruit producing. But what is that fruit? If you look at it biblically, fruit is the work of the spirit in the heart of the of the Christian to put on the character qualities of Christ.

That's what it is.

The fruit of the spirit, not the fruit of the evangel.

Yeah, exactly. And if any type of evangelistic or evangelism, evangelist fruit is going to be no fruit at all. What we like to do, unfortunately, is we like to say, well, I've and I've talked to a lot of guys.

Well, I've had this many people bow the knee or I've had this many salvations. One guy said, I went out and got salvations. I'm like, you did. Oh, yeah, we're in trouble there. But what we like to do is we like to boast in our own selves.

We like to boast and receive the accolades of men. I mean, it's one of the greatest temptations out there is something that we have to fight with every single day. Am I doing what I'm doing all for the glory of God?

Am I going about this evangelistic effort to give him honor and to boast in Jesus? Or am I changing it all just so I could say, look what I've done here and let me let me show you my pedigree or my capability as a man or an evangelist based upon the fruit?

No, I don't think that's the way we see it in Scripture. What I think we see is we see people sacrificing their lives, the foolish things of the world confounding the wise, not some great people, but some people with a great God.

Like Paul Washer says, people who go out proclaim the gospel, God saves. And, you know, bro, I mean, really, we've preached the gospel to hundreds of thousands of people and we don't know who God's going to save.

John chapter three talks about the movement of the spirit through the gospel is like the movement of the wind. You can't see it. So you're out there heralding the gospel message, hopefully doing it accurately.

God saves Joe Schmo that's walking down the street. Maybe then, maybe later on when that seed is watered and when all is said and done, we're going to boast in Jesus Christ and him alone for the work that he's doing.

So we go about this evangelistic effort just trying to say, look what I've done. Look at the fruit that I've produced. We are we are doomed at the at the outset. God will not bless that. We need to become nothing.

So he becomes we need to decrease so that he would increase. And again, successful evangelism, like you said it so well, it's just the failure to evangelize. You succeed every single time you get that word out.

Because that word, the gospel is going to harden one and God will be glorified in his hardening or will soften one to salvation and God will be glorified in his grace. Every time you go out and you share the gospel, you are successful in that.

You know, obviously the gospel isn't just for the lost, too. It's for the believer. We need it and we need to be reminded of it. And just a little while ago, my family and I were like in Chick-fil-A and we we always bring tracts with us because it's easy way.

You know, our little paper missionaries, they do the work for you. And we were sitting there. My son actually was like, we should give a tract to somebody. I'm like, you're right. Let's give a tract to somebody.

And right behind us was a group of teenage boys that were laughing and stuff. And so as we were leaving, we gave him a tract said, you know, we hope you read it. We prayed for him as we were walking out or getting in our car.

And one of the boys runs out and his friends are inside. And he just said, hey, I just wanted to thank you. I'm a Christian, but none of my friends are. And I've been praying that God would give me the boldness to share the gospel with them.

And so you've really helped in that area. And we were just like, wow, that was so cool and so unexpected. And so something that only God could have done in the timing and everything like that. But it just goes to show that just being obedient, God is going to produce the fruit.

I couldn't have produced that if I tried. That is all the working of God. And he's going to do what he wants with that young man all to his glory. And so I think if we get so caught up in like making a checklist of like, how many people have you had say the sinner's prayer, you know, then we're in trouble.

We're missing the point. And the point is obedience, what God calls us to do.

I just don't think we're even biblically warranted to even speak that way. Again, biblical fruit just doesn't apply. It doesn't apply to the evangelistic efforts. Do we want to see people save? Of course.

And when we see babies saved at abortion clinics and we see people bow the knee to Jesus and break in front of us, which doesn't happen as much as you would hope it happens. And that's all a part of God's sovereign plan for that individual.

And that's based upon his own pleasure and his own decrees. I mean, we want to see that. But as evangelists who are going to continue at this mission through the ups and downs, and I know you guys can agree, we have to be motivated not by results or not by fruit.

And unfortunately, you see within the broader American Evangelical Church, and I've seen it so many times, people will show up to an evangelistic event. There'll be one. There'll be me there too. And it's an immediate discouragement because not a lot of people there.

And, you know, it just doesn't fit within their framework of what they think evangelism should be. And our motivation to do what we do every day is because we love Christ. And it doesn't matter if we don't see any results.

It doesn't matter if we're spat on or if we go through even increased, which we might as a nation go through increased persecution, you know, death, whatever it may be, jail. We have seen nothing yet.

You should study the covenanters and the prison that they had to stay in. I mean, these people went through tremendous pain. We haven't even seen that. But if we're going to be evangelists who stand the test of time and can get up every day in the joy of the Lord, it's got to be based upon not results, again, not fruit that we can produce we can't, but just surely based upon our love for Christ, our love for neighbor.

Right. And like the ease and comfort of evangelism, because it's not fun sometimes. It's gross.

Especially in the summer in Arizona.

Evangelism in Suffering, Family Life, and the Cost of Obedience

Yeah. So that's why I want to talk about my husband going out recently. And Bobby, my husband, Don, he just really, you know, loves you. And you've been such an encouragement for him. You guys are the same age, too.

And you guys got saved around the same time. That's pretty cool. And we love watching. Yeah, we love just listening to you and watching your family out there. It's just your family has encouraged our family tremendously.

So I just wanted to thank you for that. But recently, Don was at the abortion clinic, and it's hot. It's super hot. He goes in the later part of the day. So it's, like, pretty much the hottest you can get because that sun's been baking the asphalt.

But anyways, he's there, and they get started. They're preaching, and they start seeing these bottles being, like, launched over this wall that was in front of them. And he's like, it was a Gatorade bottle.

And he's like, oh, Arctic blue isn't usually. Yeah, yeah, that's urine. That is urine. And then as he was saying that, he could just smell the disgusting smell of urine. And they did it a couple times.

Praise the Lord. Nothing got on them. And, you know, the guys were cowardly and ran away. It was a big group of probably teenagers or young men. And there was nothing that could be done in that moment.

But anyways, they kept preaching. He goes out with another real faithful brother, Steven. And I'm, of course, like, that's gross. Did it get on you? Are you okay? And he's like, yeah, it's gross, but, you know, whatever.

But that just goes to show, like, it's not flowers and, you know, lambs hanging out with you and butterflies landing on your finger. You know, sometimes it's ugly and dirty and hot and uncomfortable, but the Lord will give you the strength to do it.

I think, you know, especially here in America, we're so used to being comfortable. We would rather go into a I mean, I would rather go and sit in a church that has AC and have my pastor do the work for me.

That's a lot easier than going out and doing that.

I mean, if we're honest with ourselves, that's why we reduce doctrine and not only evangelism. But evangelism is kind of like a wax nose. You know, we like to twist it to where we want. And it's all because we're creatures of comfort.

It's all because we want to acclimate to the greatest level of comfort that we have that's in front of us. And so we say, well, going out into the public place, you know, looking like fools to men, like Bobby said, looking like absolute morons and idiots and receiving vitriol and hatred and a lot of other worse stuff, that's not fun.

That's actually going to cost me. Why not reduce this to where I don't have to do it, where I can pass the buck onto another individual, an evangelist or a pastor? But, man, it's just not biblical evangelism.

And our culture is the report card of this type of evangelistic methodology.

Especially when you start doing it and you begin to share the gospel with your family members and your friends, and I would say especially people who call themselves Christians, it's going to get ugly.

And I feel like that is probably one of the hardest things about evangelism is dealing with the closest people within your circle and them being confronted by the gospel.

Yeah, especially when you have to, like Bobby was talking about, true and false conversion. One of the toughest conversations you can have with a person is to say, hey, 2 Corinthians 13 5, Paul says, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith lest you fail the test, but it's so needed.

And are you willing to hate mother and father?

Yeah, are you willing to do that? And that's just confronting them with the truth. But, Bobby, you want to get the most out of you in the next 10 minutes? We've got about 10 more minutes to go. I've got some questions.

Do you have anything you want to speak on right now?

No, go ahead with your questions, brother.

Courage, Self-Control, and Responding to Abuse on the Streets

Okay. Well, maybe one, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you out there? She had just talked about pee-pee bottles being launched at a good old Don.

I don't know. There's been a number of things, a lot of threats, physical threats. I mean, I've taken a few shots in the mouth. I mean, two or three times in 10 years, I don't look at that as that big of a deal.

One really, I don't know, sometimes I hesitate to talk about this stuff because I know unbelievers listen to stuff like this. I don't want to really give them ideas. But I was preaching in Newark, New Jersey, my friend Don and I, and a guy, it was like a drug corner.

And we're preaching, and it's just this crazy corner, drug selling, prostitutes getting picked up, dropped off. I think it might have been the store owner who might have been the kingpin because he kept sending guys out from the store, and they were taking these huge bottles of soda, like these 20-ounce bottles of soda, and popping them just enough to get them fizzing and shaking them up.

And from like 30 feet away, like an almost full bottle of soda, they were just launching them at us. And so soda was flying everywhere too, but if one of those things would have hit us from that far away, it probably could have done some damage.

But the blessing from God that day was I figured out another use for scripture signs that day because they became my shield against the bottles.

Yeah, I've used it.

I don't know. I mean, a lot of things have happened. But one time someone asked my wife, are you afraid somebody will just shoot them one day or something? And she said, I was so grateful to God. She said, I never really think about it because I know that no one could ever lay a finger on his head unless God permits it.

Right.

And so I think even, I mean, is that to say like I've never been scared or nervous? I mean, that is one thing I was going to say. I mean, even after being on the streets for over 10 years, I mean, there's still times.

I mean, every time before I preach the word of God, I tremble. I'm afraid. I mean, it's not to say that familiarity in doing it doesn't help that, but I'm still always afraid. I'm still, believe it or not, I mean, I don't know if this would be a popular thing to say, but there are some days that I wake up and I go, God, I don't want to go get cursed out again.

I don't want to go on that college campus and listen to all these people who are going to call me an idiot and a moron and all that. But one of the things, too, we have to get away from just seeing the Great Commission as a sense of duty, which it is, and so that's good.

But a friend of mine years ago, he said, you know, that's a compound word, co-mission. And so I never really, I guess, that was maybe two or three years after I saved, I hadn't really thought. But what about the privilege that God, the God of the universe, that could have chosen to save people any way he wanted to, has allowed us, these lowly beings, to be part of his co-mission to redeem his elect.

Right.

You know, that's a huge privilege. It's a humbling privilege. And it's an exciting privilege.

You're right.

And we have to keep that mindset, too, because you can only go so far or last so long if it's just white-knuckle duty. And duty and obedience is huge. And, you know, Jesus says, you love me, obey my commands.

So our duty ultimately flows out of just a loving, a loving worship for Christ. But, yeah, it's important to keep these. And, you know, that's why Desi was saying earlier, we have to preach the gospel.

We have to preach to ourselves every day because I'm the same. I get up and I'm like, I really don't want to go stand out in front of that clinic. And I really, you know, and it's just this, okay, let me remind myself this is a duty.

I mean, I am unworthy to even proclaim anything about Christ or his truth. And this is the master, including me, in his business. So it's these.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I thought of one thing. You know, you asked what's the worst thing that happened. So I won't be specific, but probably the worst heckler I've ever had, and we just don't have time for the specifics, but just very vile heckler who was actually a I found out later was a teacher in a local school.

And even as he was heckling, Scott, some of his students being really profane and all is just this horrific thing that happened. Two years later, this was at that spot we're at every Friday night in Athens for 10 years.

Two years later, I see that guy come back. I don't see him for two years. And he's sitting there listening to preaching to hecklers that night. A college student and an older gentleman got in a fight.

And this guy's watching the whole thing go down. And when it all wraps up and I finish preaching, he comes over to me and he says, I need to talk to you. I said, OK. He said, you remember me? I said, yeah, sure.

Pretty hard to forget, man. I said, but listen, before you say anything, I want you to know I hold no ill will towards you. I want to see you know the Lord. And this guy, he said to me, he said, my mother committed suicide three weeks ago.

And I came here just to talk to you about that. And so it was like this thing that God just, you know, I mean, it's definitely the most vile experience I've ever had with a heckler. But a friend of mine, John Speed, I heard him say something years ago.

He said when it all hits the fan for an unbeliever, they want to go find someone they know is going to give them just the dead level truth. That's right. And I think that's what happened with that guy.