Path of Evangelism XI: Walker's Shorter Scheme | Behold Your God Podcast

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Welcome to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Media Gratia, and I'm here again this week with Dr.

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John Snyder, author and host of the Behold Your God study series, as well as pastor here at Christ Church New Albany in New Albany, Mississippi.

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We're in episode 11 of our evangelism series on the podcast, the first 10 episodes of which dealt with Samuel Walker of Truro's first scheme of private instruction in evangelism, which was published in a book that we've talked about a good bit on A Cornish Revival.

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This week, we're going to give an overview of what Walker gave, what he called it his second scheme of private instruction in the

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Christian salvation. It's a much shorter, more abbreviated approach to the concept of evangelism, and it first appeared in the

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Christian Guardian magazine in November of 1802, which was published in Bristol, and it's a simplification of the first scheme.

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It's set out in an interrogatory form or for the use of his assistants.

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So there are questions you would interrogate a person you would ask them these questions. So just to get right after it, tell us the very first element or ingredient to this four -part, shorter scheme of private instruction in evangelism.

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Walker begins with the reality that we need to beget in a person a sense of guilt in combination, which sounds so gloomy, you know, and certainly does not sound 21st century.

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It may sound 18th century, but actually it was probably pretty unpopular in his day, especially dealing with church members, who as good

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Church of England church members would have already been baptized, you know, and why are you talking to them in this fashion?

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So under that he gives a number of points. He gives actually three sub points, three aspects that go into helping a person see the truth about their guilt and their combination.

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On the first one he says this, and I'll just read it and then maybe we can discuss it and then we'll give his question.

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He says this, you are a sinner, so we're helping people to come to see these truths, either you have lived careless and unconcerned about God, never having set in earnest about the business of religion, or else your own conscience will tell you that you have many sins of omission and commission to answer for.

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Try yourself, he says, by God's commandments. You have broken them all, and if you have lived carelessly, have been in a constant breach of them.

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Yeah, so sins of omission and commission, what is he talking about there? Yeah, sins of omission, things that we have not done that would have pleased our

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God, our Creator, things He has commanded us to do and we've left undone. And then sins of commission are sins that we've committed, we've done them.

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Right. We've done what we shouldn't have done. Right, but where do, you know, he gives a really helpful statement here.

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We try ourselves, not by our family. I mean, you know, it's just so easy to look around and say, well, of the brothers and sisters in the family,

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I'm the best behaved, or I'm not the worst. We try ourselves by our neighbors, we try ourselves by our fellow church attenders, our co -workers.

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But he says, no, you must try yourself, you must put yourself to the test by the law of God.

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So there are a couple of ways that we could do that. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, we can think, what is the greatest commandment?

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Well, Jesus says it's to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And there's a very real sense in which none of us have ever done that for even a moment of our lives, even at our very best.

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So there's a very real and very serious sense in which every moment that we've been alive, we've been breaking the greatest commandment.

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But if that's too general, and it's sort of like, well, we all do that, well, what's the big deal?

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Well, there is another sense that we could look at it. And for this, we can find help from our forefathers in the faith who have given us the confession and catechism.

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I'm specifically thinking about, you know, if we think a little bit more biblically about God's moral law, as it comes to us comprehensively summarized in the

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Ten Commandments, then we can really begin to think rightly about it.

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I mean, I think, okay, it's possible, it's not me, but it's possible that I could meet a person who says, look, it says, what's the

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Eighth Commandment? Well, Exodus 20, 15 says that thou shalt not steal.

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Well, to my, you know, on my honor, I've never stolen anything. You know, I've always tried to be upfront.

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I've always tried to be good about it. Well, when you go to the catechism, the question 80 in Keech's catechism, which is the catechism that we use here, is what's required in the

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Eighth Commandment? And you could be forgiven if you said, well, it's required that you don't steal things, because that's what

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Exodus 20, 15 says. But when we come to realize that the moral law, as it's summarily comprehended in the

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Ten Commandments, is really, you know, it takes all that God says about a subject throughout the scriptures and it summarizes and condenses it and presses it into this little short statement, thou shalt not steal.

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Then we can understand why question 80 in Keech's catechism says, the answer is the

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Eighth Commandment requires the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward state of ourselves and others.

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And so I can try myself by that. Have I done that? Where do we get that in the scriptures?

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Well, in Leviticus 25, 35, if your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

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Have I supported, you know, my friends and any person that I see who can't maintain himself?

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Deuteronomy 22 at the very beginning of that chapter, part of the civil law that was given to the theocracy.

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You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother.

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And if he does not live near you and you don't know where he is, you shall bring it home to your house and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it.

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Then you shall restore it to him. And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment or with any lost thing of your brother's, which he loses and you find.

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You may not ignore it. You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down on the way and ignore them.

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You shall help him to lift them up again. So even though we don't live in the theocracy and that specific element of the civil law doesn't apply to us, there's a general equity in that that says something about what

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God means in the Eighth Commandment when we're required not to steal. So if we just, you know, it's interesting to think of using the catechism to try ourselves by the law of God to really give us a fuller sense of what does the law of God require of us in these sins of commission?

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Maybe I haven't actually stolen, but what about sins of omission? Have I done everything in my power at all times to try to make sure that I'm furthering the outward estate of myself and others?

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Have I ever ignored or turned away from a duty? I think it won't be long before even the most self -righteous of us have to admit, yes,

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I actually have broken all of these commandments. Yeah, if we think of the moral law, which is summarized in the

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Ten Commandments, and then summarized again in those, you know, as you mentioned, to love the Lord our God, to love our neighbor.

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If we think of that as a mirror of two things, it's a mirror of God's moral perfection.

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We see in these simple statements, we see just the edge of a perfect moral beauty.

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There is one being who has always hated all that is wrong and always loved all that is right.

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And so we see our God's perfection reflected in His laws. But we also see a mirror of ourselves, and we don't like what we see, you know.

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And again, if a person takes maybe a childish approach to the

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Ten Commandments, well, I didn't steal, kill, anything, then they might come away feeling, well, for some of them, actually,

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I'm pretty clean, but the Bible tells us to break one is to break all, to be guilty of all. Sermon on the

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Mount is very clear. It's not just the outward actions. God is also very interested in the thought life being controlled by His law.

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Men's laws only bind the hands, the feet, the mouth, the eyes. Don't go here, don't say that, don't look at that, don't do that.

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God goes far beyond that and binds the heart. Don't think that, don't imagine that, don't yearn for that.

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You know, if we think of the negative side of the commandments. But also, it's clear, you know, you mentioned that the

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Ten Commandments are a summary, and you gave some Old Testament examples, but the New Testament bears that out very obviously.

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Paul says in his epistles, don't steal anymore now that you're Christian. Some of you used to steal. I mean, it's just the way you lived, so stop it.

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But then he goes further, and he says, in fact, you are to work hard. Well, as the

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Catechism says, which is drawing on Paul's words, well, you work hard so that you can provide for your family. But also, he says, so as to give to those who are in need.

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So the Catechism is just taking the whole Bible, summarizing it up. But it wasn't that long ago that you and I and another friend were sitting in this room, and you were talking about this

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Catechism, and it was the first time. I mean, I have a PhD in Puritan theology, in soteriology.

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But I had never actually read Keech's words there. And so I remember when you presented that to us,

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I thought, I like the Puritans, but this guy's lost his mind because the Bible doesn't say anything like that in that passage.

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Like, we've got to look at the passage. We've got to be clear. And then I backed up and looked, and I thought, you know what?

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Actually, they're right. I'm wrong. And it is a summary, and we do, and the reason

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I thought I was wrong was not because Keech said it, it was because Jesus said it, and Paul said it, and Moses said it.

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And so while we're dealing with evangelism, and we bring the law to bear upon a person, don't just run through the commandments and say, you're not supposed to steal.

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You ever stole? And a guy might say, well, yeah. I mean, I remember when I was a little kid, I stole some candy. Yeah, nickel gum.

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God's going to put me into eternal conscious torment over that nickel gum. No, so we say to them, actually, the law, it permeates every aspect of your being.

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And you owe the Creator an obedience, a loving, gracious, a loving, grateful obedience from every aspect of your life.

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And the law really touches every single area. And have you understood the depth of the law breaking?

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But another thing he mentions in there is carelessness. And that certainly is something that we don't generally, you know, we don't find people coming up after church and weeping and saying, you know what,

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I'm just so brokenhearted over my carelessness. And I think we need to remind them that Esau was careless with the promises, just didn't really care enough to do anything about religion.

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Jacob was a bit of a scoundrel. Later, God got a hold of him. But at the end of Esau's life, what do we read?

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He sought repentance with tears, never found it. So the question that follows that point is, do you believe yourself a sinner?

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Your heart convincing you. And that last part, I mean, how easy would it be to answer with a glib, sure.

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Yeah, I believe myself a sinner. But when your heart convinces you that you've lived against God and as you said, this touches every area of my life.

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I'm not just a sinner because of some things that I've done. It's what I am by nature.

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Then, you know, it takes a careful dealing with the law of God to bring a person by God's help to that place.

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Yeah, and I think the next, the little sub point under there, before we go to our break, is he says, do you do deserve to die?

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Do you understand that, you know, whatever your conduct has been, you know, really gross, ugly sins, kind of respectable sins.

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Every sin earns a paycheck. It's the same paycheck. It's death. The wages of sin is death.

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And God is just. And you know that a man has begun to see himself in light of the law of God when he himself kind of stands up at the bar of justice and points his finger back at himself and says, that man there, me,

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I do deserve death. So to summarize his first ingredient in this shorter scheme is you are a sinner and you deserve to die.

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And this, whatever your conduct has been for the wages of sin is death.

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All of sin. God is a just and righteous God and King who will not suffer the breach of his law to go unpunished.

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And this punishment is eternal death. So we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get back from this break.

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At every conference we attend these days, people stop by our booth to tell us how one of our studies or our films has helped or influenced them, their families, or their churches.

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Eventually we started asking if they'd let us record those stories and share them with you. This is

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Jordan. Anthony Methenia, one of the contributors to the Behold Your God series, gave him a copy of Behold Your God, The Weight of Majesty.

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What it does, I think, very well is explains clearly the attributes of God while at the same time connecting them to these great men in history that we look up to and how they were held up by the attributes of God, by the knowledge of God, and then at the same time applying that to your own life in a practical way.

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So it's not just scholarly, it's not just historical. It's also practical, and it pulls them all together through the stories that Pastor John tells, through the workbook, through the sermons, and then through the application.

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It does it all very well. I would say the Behold Your God series is the best series on the attributes of God as far as contemporary series go, especially with all the materials that they have.

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No one's going to take you to the text more consistently. No one's going to connect it to history more consistently, and no one's going to apply it to your life more practically than Behold Your God.

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For more information about Behold Your God, The Weight of Majesty, visit themeansofgrace .org.

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Welcome back to the Behold Your God podcast, evangelism series number 11 in the series.

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As I said earlier, we're working through the second scheme of private instruction in Christian salvation by Walker of Truro, which is shorter.

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Whether we make it shorter or not, it remains to be seen. But we've just come to point two and the question that follows.

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Now we're going to move into point three, which is you cannot turn away from this punishment.

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For should you sin no more, your past sins would be your eternal ruin.

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But your best endeavors will be imperfect. In the best day of your life, you are impure and defiled.

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Yeah, now that is such a difficult thing for a man to understand apart from the work of the

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Spirit, and he just never comes there. But as we're talking about these things, pleading with the

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Lord, as we're looking at a person across the table from us to open their eyes, if he does, they'll see it.

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And, you know, in a sense, they'll tell us themselves. They'll interrupt us sometimes and say, look, so what you're saying is no present righteousness can pay for the past debt.

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I mean, if you owe God 100 % obedience today, and you gave Him 100 % obedience today, which we have never done, but if we could do it, you still haven't paid for yesterday.

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And it is enough to damn us that we lived one day to ourselves and against our Creator. And then this other aspect of, well, what about my religion, though?

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You know, isn't that kind of, isn't that like extra? You know, maybe it's 110%, but, you know, he points out what the

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Scripture is very clearly saying, that even the holy things that we do need washing in the blood of Christ.

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You know, we see that in the Old Testament picture. The lamb, you know, the Old Testament system, the lamb is slain, the blood is poured out.

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And part of the priest's duty was to sprinkle the holy thing, the altar. And, you know, the other things used in worship, because anything that man has to do with, even our religion, is flawed and ultimately unacceptable apart from the intervention of a mediator.

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So the question following up that third, that third point is, do you think that you can make up the matter by doing better than you've done?

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Or do you see yourself unable to help yourself and in need of a pardon as a condemned criminal?

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Now, there's going to have to be a biblical weight of what sin is for a person to come to that place.

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And, you know, again, if we turn to the catechism, summarizing what the Bible says, what is sin?

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It's question 18 in our catechism. Sin is any want or lack of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

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Well, that's good. But, you know, John Piper kind of famously wrote this little summary of what sin is.

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And, you know, let this land. Sin is the glory of God, not honored, the holiness of God, not reverenced, the greatness of God, not admired, the power of God, not praised, the truth of God, not sought, the wisdom of God, not esteemed, the beauty of God, not treasured, the goodness of God, not savored, the faithfulness of God, not trusted, the promises of God, not believed, the commandments of God, not obeyed, the justice of God, not respected, the wrath of God, not feared, the grace of God, not cherished, the presence of God, not prized, and the person of God, not loved.

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I think if we let the full weight of just what this, what is this sin that I'm guilty of land, then we'll be done with this.

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Well, look, I'm going to try to do better. I'm going to, I'm going to do better than I, than I have done. We will begin to see ourselves unable to help ourselves and in need of a pardon as a condemned criminal.

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The next thing he leads us to is second big point, second ingredient as we're calling it, is that we need to stir up a sense of inability to do good.

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That is, we need to use the scriptures to help the people see that they cannot, you know, live the life that they're required to live.

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And so he gives a couple of sub points under here. The first says, sin is your greatest enemy.

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It has consigned you to death. And made you unworthy before God.

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And especially, it has made you unfit for heaven. He follows that with the question, have you an earnest desire to be free from it?

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Second point under that he says is, you have no power of yourself to cast it off.

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So the first point, do you really want to be away from this slave driver sin? But do you realize you have no power?

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Your inclinations are naturally evil. You cannot of yourself do good. So God tells us, in your own experience, may do the same.

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So sin is a prison. It's not external. It's not the people around you that are your problems.

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Not your family or your work or your church. The prison is internal. It goes through and through.

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And the witnesses to that daily, not only God, but your own experience cries out and says to you, you are not what you think you are.

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You are a slave. Going back to the first point, that sin has made us unworthy before God.

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And it's made us unfit for heaven. I think a lot of times we think of it only from the sense that God is too purized to look upon sin.

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And that the hand is up. The flaming sword is there, you know, guarding the entrance to the garden, if you were to use that as an example.

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We're unfit in the sense that we're unwelcome because of sin. But it was J .C. Ryle who wrote in his book,

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Holiness. Suppose for a moment that you were allowed to enter heaven without holiness. What would you do?

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What possible enjoyment could you feel there? To which of all the saints would you join yourself?

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And by whose side would you sit down? Their pleasures are not your pleasures. Their tastes are not your tastes.

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Their character is not your character. How could you possibly be happy if you had not been holy upon earth?

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And he goes on. That's a really powerful section of his book, Holiness, which we would both highly recommend.

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Wonderful book. So to think that sin is our greatest enemy because it is, it has made us unfit to enjoy the greatest joy that there is, to be in the presence of God.

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The next, he finishes that section, he finishes that section with the question, what sense have you of this weakness?

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So again, he's asking the person who's listening to the witness, he's using expressions like, what does your heart testify?

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Or what sense, are you convinced in your heart? Are you beginning to feel the realities?

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You know, that have surrounded you all your life and you have ignored. Yeah, what kind of, it's interesting.

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These are questions that he intends for us to ask. What kind of answers would you hope to hear? Yeah, I mean, obviously we don't want to, we don't want somebody to give us the

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Bible answer. Like, do you want to be free from this? Oh yes, yes. That's like, that's the Sunday school answer, you know.

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I think I would want, you know, we want to hear the right answer. There is a right answer. I want to be free.

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We want to hear it in their own words, not a religious phrase. But I think, you know,

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I'm not discouraged if a person were to be honest and say, I don't know if I can say that, you know.

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And at least you know where they're at and you know how to help them. You know, where they're at so you know how to apply the gospel.

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But also I think, you know, a person expressing real struggle like, like the man that Christ came up to and said, if you believe.

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And he said, I believe, but help my unbelief, you know. I'm not going to pretend like I'm where I need to be.

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Yeah, I would be very encouraged. I want to want this. Yeah. You know, I know that I want to want it.

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I'm afraid I know myself, but I want to. So the third, the third instruction that he gives to the evangelist is to set forth

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Christ's sufficiency. You see, you're under two great evils, the wrath of God and the power of sin.

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Christ is able to relieve you in both by the satisfaction of his death from wrath and by the power of his grace from sin.

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There's that double cure that we talked about earlier. Consider how vast is the undertaking to satisfy

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God's justice in place of man's eternal punishment and to work with the hearts of men to bring them to God.

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Observe the fitness of the son and spirit as divine persons. So what is that?

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Observe the fitness of the son and spirit as divine persons. No man can ever see himself clearly apart from what

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Scripture says about him, what it says about our creator, what it says about our creator's morality. And we see ourselves there.

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But nor could we ever really see God clearly if it weren't for the gospel and the gospel really understood because a man has come to the place where he's honest.

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You know, so an appreciation of how desperate, you know, some idea of how desperate my need is prepares me to turn and look at Christ and the work of the

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Father, the Son and the Spirit in our redemption and to begin to see them for the first time in their true light.

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You know, it's almost as if before then, no matter how religious we were, we saw them with this terrible false haze, this lens between us and them that distorted him.

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So every attribute was, OK, it's there. He's there. OK, he's big. He's, but he's not lovely.

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I don't want him. And now that's been removed and we turn our face toward him expecting to see a face of hate and wrath toward us.

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But in Christ, we see him loving us. And suddenly, for the first time ever, we understand, you know, the beauty of the gospel.

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And, you know, I think, Matt, when I look at this, I think of, you know, two things, a debt being paid and a battle being fought.

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So as he talks about here, have we seen Christ's sufficiency? Never has any being paid a debt like this.

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Never has there been an immeasurable debt like this and never has anyone paid this and never has a man offered to pay this kind of a debt.

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So the God -man, by his perfect obedience and in his sacrificial death, doing all that is required to provide what we would call theologically a positive righteousness, being attributed to my life and providing the removal of the offense.

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Wrath is removed. I am washed by the death of Christ. You know, atonement.

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But also think of it as conquering. He has not just conquered our enemies, but we see the power of God in the gospel because he conquers us, the most unwilling of people, you know, and he makes us willing.

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Yeah, it's, as you were touching on earlier, it's really that evangelical side of God again, isn't it?

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I mean, we see the glory of Christ in his redemptive labors as one of the members of the

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Godhead. We see the glory of God there. We see the Spirit's sufficiency to apply all that he accomplished on our behalf.

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And we see the glory of God in that. And suddenly God is more closely aligned with what he actually is, which is the loveliest and most desirable of all beings.

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And so the question that he puts is, do you believe that Christ is able to save you from wrath and sin?

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And on what do you believe? I'm sorry. And on what do you build that sufficiency?

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And that's a very important question. Yes. On what are you building this hope? Well, on the scriptures, but not just vague.

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Well, the Bible says so. What does the Bible say? Oftentimes we have, you know, before baptism at church here, we ask people to give a testimony of the

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Lord's goodness to them. How has he saved you? And a lot of testimonies, because we, in the

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Mid -South, we feel like everybody already knows, like, well, of course, Jesus died for sinners, you know.

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Of course, you know, he lived for sinners, you know. So they skip that and they want to go immediately to the issues of conviction and regeneration.

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What God did in me to bring him to himself. So I try to encourage them. Look, I know you think everybody out there already knows about the cross.

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Don't skip that. Tell them. But here's what I ask them. Don't forget to tell them what it was that Christ did that you're hoping in, you know.

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And so to give a very, at least a biblical, and it doesn't have to be a grown -up, big theological answer, but to give a clear biblical answer, these are the things that he did that I hope in, because the scripture explains them.

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Well, before we get to the fourth ingredient, so to speak, of this second scheme, we'll take one more short break in this slightly longer than usual podcast, and we'll be right back.

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So we're here on the last day of the Shepherds Conference 2019 at Grace Community Church, and I've run into Justin Peters.

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Justin is an evangelist, and you will also recognize him from the American Gospel film.

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People who purchased this have been getting in touch with us, and I've heard from pastor after pastor.

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About every other week we'll hear from someone who says, Well, guys, we got four new families in our church, and they've come from the church across town, which they didn't realize was a prosperity gospel church.

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Indeed. Indeed, and here at the Shepherds Conference I've heard hundreds, literally, that's not an exaggeration, hundreds of comments from people here who have been impacted by this film, and I hear those same stories that I've heard pastors tell me that people have watched the film and come into their churches, and that's the thing, is that God delivers his own out of deception.

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That's right. You can't be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and stay in that level of deception indefinitely.

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If you truly belong to Christ, then the Holy Spirit will lead you out of that. If the

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Holy Spirit is strong enough to save us, he's strong enough to deliver us out of deception too. Amen.

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God in his good providence is using that film and the truth therein to open people's eyes and come out and get in good churches, and that's vitally important.

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Well, I know that I speak on behalf of so many of the people who will see this to say thank you. Thanks for spending time with Brandon, and Brandon, great job.

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We love your film, and we're grateful to see the Lord continue to use it. For more information about American Gospel, Christ Alone, visit themeansofgrace .org.

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Welcome back to the Behold Your God podcast. This is the 11th in our series on evangelism, and this is part three of this episode.

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We usually, we've cut ourselves to two. This is an overview of one scheme we wanted to keep together, so we're now talking about point four or ingredient four or the fourth thing that an evangelist should make sure that they do when they're sharing the good news of Christ with sinners.

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So, John, tell us what that is. Yeah, his last big ingredient is we must explain to them how to come to Christ.

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That is faith and repentance, and he gives two small sections under there.

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The first sub -point is you must be deeply sensible of the need you have of a

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Savior in both these respects, that is to save you from wrath and sin and that none other than He can save you.

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So, two things under that. Are you aware that you really do need rescued, and the rescue is a complete rescue, not just from the guilt or the wrath that comes from the guilt, but also the power of sin.

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And then the second thing, you know, really pressing a person. Do you feel you need deliverance from both of those?

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Well, do you feel that there is only one person who could give that to you?

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Because if you have other options, you still haven't come really to the place where you're embracing

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Christ. Yeah, you know, you could, I suppose, encounter someone who their other option may be they grew up as Muslims and they think, well, maybe there's another way to be made right with God, and there's another way, another religious option.

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But it's far more likely, especially here in the States, that that other person, it's going to be them.

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It's going to be us. Are you still hoping that maybe you can fix yourself a little bit?

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Because if so, you're going to have to let that go. You have to come to this Christ with empty hands.

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And the last thing to leave those hands is hope in yourself that you'll be able to clean yourself up and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and maybe you can save yourself.

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Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to say to the Lord, I'm coming to you and there's this narrow gate. I'm going to leave behind my lust and greed, my bitterness, my unwillingness to forgive, my pride.

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But do I have to leave my prayers that I prayed all those years and my little

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Bible studies I attended and all the good things I did and all the bad things I didn't do so I wouldn't be one of the bad people?

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And, you know, to really just lay it all in the dust because you see the superior worth of Christ.

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So the question following that is, are you thus humbly sensible of your want of him?

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And the second sub point is, you must be willing that he should save you from wrath and sin too.

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He will not procure your pardon unless you be willing he should save you from sin.

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In other words, unless you be heartily tired of it and desirous to leave it. Now this may be where the answer,

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I know that I want to want that, would be a good thing to hear. We, you know, we may already know of Augustine's famous prayer.

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So early church father, we call him St. Augustine. He said, you know, to summarize it, he said

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God, when God had brought him to a place, he lived a pretty, you know, debauched life at times.

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And when God had finally brought him to a place of real sense of his sinfulness, he said, save me from my sin, but not yet.

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That prayer cannot be the prayer of a person coming to Christ. It has to be a person that says,

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I no longer will lock the door between Christ and my favorite sin. I will not give sanctuary to any enemy of my savior.

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And though it terrifies me, you know, I mean, and it does sometimes to say to him, come and do anything you want with this life.

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But I will do that. You know, I think of C .S. Lewis's little Chronicles of Narnia stories for the children and his portrayal of Christ as Aslan, as a lion.

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And that, you know, one of the little girls comes to him and she's desperately thirsty and he's standing there beside a stream.

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It's the only stream in the area. And she asks the lion, will you promise not to hurt me?

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Will you promise not to touch me? You know, and he says, I'll make no such promises. And, you know,

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I've eaten lots of little girls. So she says, well, then I won't drink that water. And he says, well, then you will die because there is no other water.

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And I know it's Lewis's, you know, just imagination, but it's a very good picture. You come to Christ, you're handing everything to him.

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You're not just looking for a pardon. You're looking for someone to fix you. And that means everything is laid into his hands.

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And, you know, we want to say sometimes to Christ, so will you promise not to touch this area?

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No, I make no, I don't make promises like that. Well, then I'll go somewhere else. Then you'll die for sure. There is no other way.

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So we come and finally by the Spirit's work, we say, I trust you. And, you know, and we hand everything to him.

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Let's, you know, we need to never make light of the fact that it is by the Spirit's work because it is a terrifying thing.

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I mean, when all you've ever known are the pleasures of sin, whether that's the kind of, you know, raunchy sin or whether that's the pleasures of being a self -righteous

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Pharisee, I'm better than other people. And that's all you've ever known.

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I mean, those that's the food you've eaten. That's what has nourished you your whole life.

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And now you have come to see that for what it is. But it is scary to say,

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OK, I'm turning away from the only thing I've ever known. And you're doing that on the bare faith because you've had a glimpse, this evangelical side of God, that God truly is the greatest good.

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Now, I may not have experience. I haven't I've lived X number of years with these pleasures.

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I've lived no years knowing what it is to walk with the Lord Jesus to, you know, to drink of this water and never thirst again.

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And but by faith, I'm willing to believe exactly that you are exactly what you say you are and that you will be all of those things to me.

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You know, it's I don't want to make light of the fact that that is hard and that it's by the spirit that that takes place.

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You know, we we have to be given faith and then we have to exercise that faith to say,

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Lord, I'm going to swing out over eternity with nothing other than your word to me.

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And I believe it. And if it turns out not to be true, then I guess I'll be the first one who falls into hell because I've believed you.

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And I think that's why when we have lists of those that will be damned, we have things on that list that we think, well, that's what

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I expected. You know, idolaters, murderers. Why is the coward there?

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I mean, a man's just afraid. Why do you damn him for that? Because cowardice will keep a man from doing exactly what you said, from stepping away from all that he has lived upon and to say to the king,

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I will trust everything to you. I'm going to bank everything on your truthfulness. And it terrifies him.

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But the coward will never do that. He just stays back and says, well, I'm not sure. And it keeps his cowardice, keeps him from hope.

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You know, a testimony is not sharing the gospel. Sharing your testimony is not evangelizing.

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But if you maybe this you, you know, dear listener, maybe you've listened all the way through here and you know what it is that we're talking about.

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You know, there's we're asking you to step out into what is the great unknown for you. Listen to the testimony of two that have found the king to be a good king.

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You will not regret. You will only regret that you waited so long to believe what he said.

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So hear that testimony. The question that he comes with after that is, are you willing to trust yourself to him?

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And would you that he sanctify as well as pardon? Do you desire that he would make you holy as in actual experience as well as positionally?

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Yeah. And the person that has come to Christ, the answer is sometimes trembling and whisper, you know, and sometimes shouting for joy.

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Yes. You know, I want all of Christ, not a part of a savior. And I want all of the salvation, you know, and I want him to have all of me.

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