Question and Answer Session — Paul Washer

Does anyone have any question about anything that they would like to address today? Anything from A to Z, from evangelism to marriage to purity to holiness to anything else? Yes? Well, first of all, the question is how are you in the world, but not of the world?

Renewing the Mind Through Scripture

How do you relate to people and maybe cross part of the bridge to meet them without compromising your faith and things like that? First of all, you have to understand that the Bible in many areas answers our questions directly.

There is a specific command or a specific principle. Then other times, the Bible does not answer directly and so we must have our lives governed by foundational principles. Now, even if you know the principles in your head and you have a great deal of knowledge, you're still in danger.

One of the best ways to describe this is this way. Many people really don't renew their mind in the Word. And when something comes up in their life when they need to know the will of God, then they take a hold of the Bible as though it were almost a magic book.

And they start searching the Scriptures to find out, has God spoken? And then if that doesn't work, they come to the point where they kind of just throw it open and close their eyes and put their finger down and all sorts of things hoping God will speak to them.

But the underlying foundation to answer your question is found in Romans chapter 12. In verse 2 of chapter 12, he says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So, it is going to be hard for any person to look at a situation, pull out a principle from God's Word and apply it if that person isn't building a foundation of renewing their mind continuously. As we renew our minds in the Word of God, what happens?

He says here, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is. A man who is constantly renewing his mind, or a woman, in the Word of God, they are more given to discerning the will of God in specific situations.

So the first thing you have to do, saturate your life in this book. How do we keep from sin? The psalmist tells us, he said that he hid God's Word in his heart. That's another way of looking at it. Now, with regard to reaching the world, there is an error that has literally made its roots into Christianity.

Godliness Rather Than Worldly Relevance

It began probably with my generation, and the underlying principle of it began actually when I was a little boy, so it wasn't my fault. And it's this. It's that in order to be relevant, or to reach out to someone, we have to be like them.

There is no biblical precedent for that. I know the passage that's always taken, you know, To the Jew I became like a Jew. But here's what you need to see what he's saying about that passage. He's not talking about culture as much as he is talking about religion.

He's talking in the context of the Jewish people and the great history that they had. That he wasn't going to go in there and just mow it down and do things that he now had freedom to do because it would lay a stumbling block before them.

He wasn't saying, he wasn't teaching that with this verse it means go out and be like the world so that you can reach the world. But there's a principle, and it started back with the generation gap, that peoples, people groups, and age groups are different.

That's why we have segregated learning in our schools because this age group has to be taught this way, another age group has to be taught another way. This people group, it's in missions, has to be taught this way and another people group this way.

This generation, X or Y or Z or the baby buster, the baby boomer, and all these different generations, they have to be related to in a different way and reached a different way. I don't find that in Scripture at all.

As a matter of fact, the more I study Scripture, the less I find it. What is going to make you relevant to them and to reach them? It will be godliness, love, kindness, and service. I was preaching one time years ago in this small town, maybe 10 ,000 people, and there was a guy sitting there, and I mean, he looked like the street dude.

I mean, he was as cool as you could get. And afterwards, he came up to me after my preaching. He goes, you guys understand, Mr. Washer, you know I'm working on the streets. And I said, man, this town's only got like 10 ,000 people.

How many streets do you have, you know? And he said, well, I said, listen, son. I said, I actually lived in a mission on the street with street people, male prostitutes in my room with me, where I lived.

Drug addicts, everything else. And I said, when I walk the streets of Dallas and Fort Worth, I said, I look like a Midwestern Illinois farm boy, the very thing that I was. That's what I was. And I said, none of those guys, none of the dealers, none of the prostitutes, none of those people cared.

Here's what they cared about. When one of them tried to jump off the overpass in I -35, I knocked him almost completely out, wrestled him to the ground and carried him on my shoulders back to the mission.

That's what they cared about. When they were in the hospital in the emergency room, which is a place we almost had to go every other week to get one of our guys back out of it because he'd been stabbed or something, and I came in there and hauled him back to the mission.

Or when I went out and found him OD'd or laying there drunk somewhere and I pulled him in. That's what was relevant to them. You see, that's what I want you to see. As a matter of fact, it's not that we know everything that they know that's going to draw them to us.

That we're as wise in the world as they are, that we know all the lingo and we know everything. That's not it. You know what's going to be? Innocence. When literally you don't know what they know. And it breeds out of your face.

They can see it. You don't know the worldly stuff they know. You don't know their coolness. You don't know anything about it. But you're this transparent, simple Christian. That's what's going to have the biggest impact.

I remember when I'd been converted at the University of Texas and I worked as this waiter. And there was this guy who was a Golden Gloves boxer. I was a weightlifter. He was a Golden Gloves boxer. And, man, he was always trying to get me.

I had become a Christian and he was always just every day, every day, just on me, just pushing me, pushing me. And one day I was in the kitchen and he was there and he said something to me and that was it.

I was carrying a big thing of glasses. I just set it down and I said, I said, right now, you and me. You and me, right here, right now. I'm sick and tired of it. And he looked at me and he was in shock.

And when he didn't come at me, I just picked my tray up and I went back out. You know what the Holy Spirit did. I went back in there and I was practically crying. I said, please forgive me. Please. I said, what I did was wrong.

And I'm so sorry. And he said, I can't believe you're saying this. He said, you really, you're a Christian, aren't you? He said, man, I'm sorry. I'm pushing you all the time just because of your faith and I'm trying to get you to, you know, I just thought everybody was a hypocrite.

You see, that's what's going to matter. That's what's going to matter. I remember one time in Peru, Daniel Franz and I, we were working there as missionaries. And we walked by one of our neighbors. We had just first got there and he was a young guy, about 20.

And he starts talking all kinds of stuff, girls, parties, everything in the world. And I just stood there and he says, so what do you guys do? And I said, well, I don't do any of that. Used to, don't anymore.

Well, have you done that? No. No, I don't know any. No. Well, what do you do? You see, it was the difference. It was the difference. I have seen this so often. And who was the fellow? David Wilkerson.

He's a perfect example. In The Cross and the Switchblade, if you've ever seen that movie. Just a farm boy. Goes up into the meanest streets of New York, I think it was. And I mean, they should have killed him.

He was a country boy preacher and look what happened. Now he's one of the pastors there in Times Square. And so, I want you to be like Christ. There's a simplicity and a purity. One of the things, I used to go up to this wood mill up in Illinois to buy wood to make bows with.

And it was run by the Amish. And now the Amish aren't, you know, they're not, just because they're Amish, they're not Christian. And many Amish don't know the Lord at all. But there was such, you'd see those men sit around and just listen to them talk.

There was such a simplicity and a child-likeness and innocence. I mean, they did not know. All the things that really don't improve our mind, they just contaminate it. They didn't understand it. And I was drawn to it.

I was drawn to their simplicity and their innocence. And so, if they ask you, you know, Hey man, go out to the bar with me? No, I don't. You don't have to go to the bar with them to win them. You want to go to the bar with me?

No. Why not? There's a lot of danger there for someone like me. What do you mean danger? Well, I want to walk with Christ. And I'm told in the Scriptures not to put myself in that predicament. I'm not going.

Really? Man, that's kind of Puritan, don't you think? Well, whatever it might be, I don't know. But I love Christ and He died for me, and I'm not going to put myself in a situation where I could fall.

And so, that will impact them more than you going there and kind of wondering the whole time, I'm in the gray. Do I do this? Do I not do this? You see? But God will lead you. Just renew your mind in the Word, and He'll show you.

He'll show you. A really good thing that when a drop of filthy water enters into a clean glass of water, that drop of water doesn't get cleaner, but the glass gets dirty. And holiness is absolutely essential.

Holiness, Service, and Witness

Purity. Purity. Another question? Or a follow-up on that?

Yes? What do you mean by a follow-up on that? Something to add to? Well, if you'd like. Paul and Silas in the book of Acts chapter 16, as they were arrested, in like an Acts chapter, it's an end to the meaning as a Christian as being a woman's wife.

You brought up a very important point. One thing, someone who's filled with the Holy Spirit, they are a witness. And I find that everybody's trying to do external things to become a witness, where if you're concentrating on being filled with the Holy Spirit, which means not grieving the Holy Spirit, you will be a witness.

Another thing is service. Men, one of the best ways, women, ladies, one of the best ways to make Christ known is to be kind and to serve people. Serve unbelievers. Bless them. I mean, it'll literally shock them.

You live in a world where that just doesn't exist. Okay, another question? Boy, I need to go back to India. Yeah. To walk in the Spirit. Walk in the fear of the Lord. Okay. We can go to a classic passage.

The Fear of the Lord and True Knowledge of God

If you go to Proverbs 1, the fear of the Lord, verse 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. We see here a couple of things. First of all, we see that it's an attitude.

It's an attitude toward God. So, first of all, it's going to involve the knowledge of God. You can't have a proper attitude toward God unless you have a proper knowledge of God. Secondly, we can see here that it is related to wisdom and instruction.

So, the fear of the Lord is going to be a proper attitude toward God, proper response of heart toward God based on a true knowledge of God and based upon instruction, which deals with also commands, your attitude towards God's command.

And so, it'll be proper knowledge and a proper response in obedience. Now, the fear of the Lord, a lot of people will say, when it says fear, it means reverence. Well, that's true, but it doesn't mean reverence without fear.

You see, I remember one time that I had gotten really, really scrawny and Charo and I were back from Peru. And I was probably weighing about 175 pounds or something. And we went into this gym in town.

And all of a sudden, this man walked in. It was early morning. It was just Charo and I. And this man walked in, kind of scarred in his face and things. And he was about six foot, I don't know, six, and had to go at least 270 pounds, somewhere around there.

And he looked mean. And he looked over at me. And I just thought to myself, alright, this is going to be interesting. And I actually thought in my mind, okay, what do I do? If this guy tries something, I can't whip him.

So I was just making my way over to the dumbbells, because I figured I'm going to hit this guy with a 10-pound dumbbell. And he looks at me. He comes straight across the gym right at me. And I just put my hand around that dumbbell.

I thought, you know, I'm going to get one swipe at this guy. And he went like this. Hey, my name is so-and-so. He turned out to be the nicest guy in the world. Now, when I looked at his power, his strength, everything about him, it was terrifying.

When I realized that man could break me in half. That man held me. Literally, he could hold my life and the life of my wife in the palm of his hand. He was a monster. His power made me afraid until I knew that he was good.

And then, it had a way of balancing itself out. I would have been terrified if it wasn't for his goodness, because his power and his strength was so great. In the same way with God. He holds you in the palm of His hand.

Have you ever just sat down for a moment and tried to imagine what it would be like if the God that you worshiped that you knew in Scripture was not good? Do you have any idea what that would mean? The very God who created the universe with a Word and He's not good.

It would be better that you had never existed. Never. And so the fear of the Lord is as you study the attributes of God and you begin to see who this God is, it would literally terrify you if it were not for the fact that you're also learning how good He is, how loving He is, how kind He is.

And so you have this healthy fear and yet confidence growing up together. To walk in the fear of the Lord is to walk in the reality of what the Bible says about Him. Who is He? And what should be your proper response?

The Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer wrote a book years ago, How Then Shall We Live. If you have a correct biblical view of God and you respond according to that view in obedience, in submission, seeking to please Him, then you will be walking in the fear of God.

You will be walking in the fear of God. Now, if you go into the book of Proverbs and I would recommend you do this, just get a concordance and look up fear, fear of the Lord, in the book of Proverbs and you'll find out that it will define many things.

Part of the fear of the Lord is to turn away from evil. It's to turn away from evil. Now, I just want you to look at the ramifications of fearing the Lord. It's kind of the same thing as the ramifications for the glory of God.

You see, if I recognize God's infinite value above everything, then it changes everything. It changes my desires, the direction of my life, the things I'm going to think of. It changes everything. In the same way, if I walk in the fear of the Lord, it just changes everything.

Okay? One of the things that it will change that this is something that has been a principle in my life. I had someone come to me one time and it was after I preached. They said, you've got to be the bravest man in the world.

And I said, what do you mean? He said, everybody in this church right now hates you for what you said. There are some people I think here that would beat you up right now. And I said, well, actually I'm not the bravest man in the world.

I'm probably one of the most insecure and frightened men you've ever met. He said, then how did you get up there and do that? I said, it's relational. He said, what do you mean? I said, let's say that there's a little kid about this big.

A little girl. She's about this tall and she weighs about 25 pounds and her arms are no bigger than little toothpicks. And she wants to fight me. And I won't fight her. I won't fight her because I'm scared.

And you find me crying over in a corner. What would you think about me? He said, man, I think you're pretty much a coward. I said, right. I'd be pretty much a coward, wouldn't I? What could make a coward like me jump up and fight her?

He said, well, I don't know. I said, some burst of self-will. Some burst of strength. What could make me do it? I just collect up. I get psyched up. I get motivated and I go out and fight her. What could make me fight her?

He said, I don't know. I said, I'll tell you what could make me fight her. If her dad walked in the room and he was six foot eight and had muscles coming out of his ears and was a mixed martial artist and everything else and he looked at me and said, you've got a choice.

You fight her or you fight me. I said, now I'm going to fight her. I haven't gotten any braver. Do you see that? I haven't gotten any braver. My character really hasn't changed. It's just a matter of I've got to fight somebody.

So I'm taking the weaker of the two. It's the same way. You've got a thousand men out here that hate you. You stand your ground. Why? Because those thousand men, compared to the God who created this universe, they're nothing.

And if I've got to fight somebody, I'm going to choose the weaker of the two. And the weaker of the two is any army on this planet compared to God. And so here's something, and I know we're getting kind of off course here, but here's what I want you to see about Christian strength that most people don't understand.

When you see, I suppose there are certain Christian men that do a lot of bold things because maybe it's just in their character. They are bold men. But I have met in most cases and seen in history that men who have done the boldest things have been the weakest men.

Desperation, Weakness, and Entering the Kingdom

Now I want you to think about something. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is pressing forward violently and the violent take it by force. Now what does that mean? Does that mean that these violent, self-willed, strong men who are just determined are going to just break their way into the kingdom?

Absolutely not. Well, what does it mean? It means this. You take the three strongest men in this room. Okay? Could all beat me up with no problem. If they all got together, they would have no problem in fighting me.

None whatsoever. Alright? But if we change the scenario around a little bit, I could probably kill all three of them. Well, how do we change the scenario? Well, if those three men walked up to me and started fighting me, they'd put me on the ground in a second.

But let's say that I was out in the ocean and I was swimming and I was drowning and I was going down for the third time and I was insanely desperate. I mean wild. And all of a sudden, you three biggest men, you jumped in to save me.

You know stories of guys who have literally drowned two or three guys that have tried to save them. They drowned them out of just sheer desperation. That's where the violent coming in and entering by force.

You see, it's not strength of will or determination. It's realizing if I do not enter in, I'm going to die. I have no place to go. I have nothing else. I am going to go to hell. I am going to perish if I do not enter in.

And it's that desperation that makes someone strong. You see, your greatest problem is that you're too strong. Because you don't get up in the morning and say, if I don't pray an hour, I'm going to die.

If I don't read the Word, I'm going to act like just a troll to my wife. I'm going to be a monster. You see? The problem is that we're too strong. We're too strong. The fear of the Lord. You sit there and temptation comes.

Fear of Sin and the Goodness of God

And when we fight temptation, for example, the classic passage is the book of James. And right after speaking about temptation, it's amazing that he says that every good and perfect gift comes from where?

The Father of lights in whom there is no shadow, there's no shifting, there's no variation. So one of the greatest motivations to help us defeat temptation is God's good. Satan puts something out in front of you and you say, I'm not going to take that.

Why? Because God's good. You're offering me a counterfeit. Whatever you're offering me is secondary. It's far inferior to what God would offer me. So I reject it because God is good. I also reject it because of what God has done for me.

I have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. I can't betray Him. But I also reject it because of fear. Fear in two ways. First of all, I do fear sin. Remember what God told Cain. Sin is crouching at the door like a wild animal.

Sin is crouching at the door. And its desire is to have you. So a fear of sin. Let me give you a perfect example. When I was out in Montana several years ago, I walked in this store and there was this little girl there.

She couldn't have been more than 5 foot 2 or 3. Just a little tiny thing. She was about 20 years old or whatever. And they started telling me how she had killed a huge grizzly bear. And what she had done is she had come into where they have these corrals where they're out in the middle of nowhere where they'll bring all the cows in and bring them into that corral.

Well, she was working out checking cows and she came to this corral and it was pitch dark. And as she got off her horse, she heard that grunt right behind her in the dark. She knew what it was. She pulled the rifle out of her scarab or whatever.

She cocked. She turned and she fired just from the hip. And she didn't hear anything else. But she didn't know what was going on. It was so dark she couldn't see. She had no idea. Have I shot the bear?

Have I not shot the bear? What? And a grizzly, one swath of it would take your head off. And so she laid down with her back against the corral like this with the gun. Her jacket was up in the saddle. She was freezing.

It was cold. But she was so terrified that if she moved one inch to the left or the right that that bear might pounce on her that she sat there all night and almost froze to death. But she sat there because she was terrified of what that beast would do to her.

That's the same way you and I ought to be about sin. You should not be as nonchalant or as bold about sin as you are. You should not. I wasn't so much terrified today to go to the campus to witness. I was terrified to go to the campus today with regard to what I might see.

Do you see that? And I'm an older man. But that's what I want you to see. So there's the fear of sin. But then I don't want to sin. I want to reject that temptation because of the fear of God. You see, the Bible tells me to fear Him.

It is a healthy fear. It is a sound fear, but it is fear. As I shared Sunday, the difference between the fear of immorality and the fear of morality in this sense, a little boy goes to his dad with a picture that he's drawn and says, Daddy, look at my picture.

And the father looks at it and says, Oh, that's wonderful. So the next day, the little boy has boldness and he goes back and shows another picture to his dad, but his dad's in a bad mood. So he knocks the picture out of his hand and smacks the little boy across the room.

The little boy fears his dad because his dad is inconsistent, immoral, all sorts of things. Do you see that? We do not fear God for that reason. We fear God because He is consistent. And we're not. Listen, years ago I was teaching on discipline to a family member.

And they said, Well, you don't want your little boys to fear you, do you? And I said, Yes, I do. You see, these little boys know that I would die for them and they know that I love them. But I'm not their brother.

I'm their dad. And they know if they do wrong, it can be terrible. It can be terrible. And that's a healthy, healthy thing for them. They know their daddy will die for them, but they also know their dad will discipline them.

Okay? And so walking in the fear of the Lord. Now again, let's look at that. You can't walk in the fear of the Lord apart from knowing Him. And can you see now what's wrong with Christianity? How much, how many sermons, how many books, how many Bible studies are dedicated just to knowing God?

You know, you can have all the principles in the world and you can be brilliant and memorize every one of them. They're not going to help you. Well, to help you, you may be as dumb as a stick, but if you know who God is, it will do a lot to make you holy.

It will do a lot. Okay? Well, let's have one more question. Anything else? What about marriage? We haven't talked anything on marriage or anything like that. Okay, we're going to count down. We don't have one.

God's Providence and Guidance

One of the things that if you look in the Old Testament, you see men being tremendously led of God. Guys like Abraham, Moses, Jacob. So many are being led of God. We don't see them like the king of Babylon cutting open a liver and casting lots and trying to figure out which road they're supposed to take.

The first thing you must recognize, if you are a child of God, God is going to lead you. Boy, that takes a lot of pressure off. That doesn't mean we can be nonchalant about it, but He is going to lead you.

And what's amazing is, not is He going to, He is. And most of the time that He's leading you, you don't even know it. He's moving you. He's putting you where He wants you to be. And He can do that because He's the Sovereign Lord.

So when we went out today to do witnessing, I hadn't thoroughly thought about where I would stand. And I didn't even really think, wow, I just heard God's voice. He told me to go stand over here. But where I was standing, when I got done, I realized, man, that's the very place I needed to be standing.

Do you see that? So God's providence will lead you. I see, particularly students, and I did this when I was young, I'm always worried about the decretive will of God when I was young. I was always worried about the decretive will of God.

What has God decreed for me? In the sense of, what has He decreed with regard to where I should live? Or what my major should be? Or who should I marry? Or all these different things. The Bible tells me that instead of looking so much at the decretive will of God, which is often hidden and a great mystery, that I should look at the perceptive will of God.

And that is, what has God commanded me? And if I will concentrate my life on studying what God has commanded me, He will lead me. He will lead me. He will. Because part of that, in studying those commandments, I'm going to be renewing my mind.

I'm going to be renewing my mind. Now, I have a very childlike way of looking at the will of God. And I'll share it with you. And I learned part of this actually from something I heard John MacArthur say one time.

Someone called him up a few years ago or something like this and said, we want you to come and preach at our church maybe in view of a call or something like that. To come here and maybe be our pastor.

And we just want you to pray about it. And he said, I don't need to pray about it. He said, it's not God's will. And they said, how do you know it's not God's will? He said, because I don't want to do it.

And they said, well, that's kind of arrogant, isn't it? Or something like that. Here was his point. And I want you to think about this. He said, the Bible tells me in Romans 12 -2 that if I'm renewing my mind, I will know what the will of God is.

The Bible also tells me to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And the Bible also tells me that God will give me the desires of my heart. He said, to the best of my ability, by the grace of God, I have settled the question of what am I seeking.

I am seeking first the kingdom and by God's grace, what He asks me to do, I'll do. I've settled that issue. Secondly, I am renewing my mind in the Word of God daily. And third, God has given me the desires of my heart.

Now, a lot of people just go to the last one. Well, it's all about my desires. God's given me the desires of my heart. They're not renewing their mind seriously. And they haven't settled the question about doing anything.

That's what you need to do. Settle the question. God, by Your grace, to do whatever You want me to do with my life. Secondly, I am going to work synergistic. It's a work of two cooperating together. God is working in your life.

You are working now as a believer working out your salvation in fear and trembling. Memorizing Scripture. Studying the Scripture. Renewing your mind. Walking in holiness. Then, you will see that when those things are really accomplished, God will give you the desires of your heart.

I love the outdoors. When God called me to Peru, I knew that I would be spending most of my time in what was known as one of the worst cities in the world. A city of 8 -10 million people of the dirtiest smog you've ever seen.

It's cleaned up a lot since then. It's really nice. But it was during the war and everything else. It was the exact opposite of me. But here's the thing. I was renewing my mind in the Word of God. I had settled the matter of what would I do.

And when God called me there, He also gave me the desire. It was amazing. I had the desire to live in Lima and be in Lima. Then, God took me out into the jungles and I spent a lot more time in the high jungles that I loved.

I loved it there. Running mule trains, carrying Bibles, preaching. I didn't have to organize anything. I just went from village to village preaching. And I was the happiest person in the world. And one day, I was standing in a place between the Genil and Tambolik way up in the mountains looking across at a waterfall.

It's my favorite place in the world to be. And at that moment, I realized something. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go back to the United States and organize a mission. It was the desire of my heart.

Okay? So if you do that... Now, another thing about the will of God that's very practical is years ago, I realized I'm exhausting myself. I'm literally exhausting myself by trying to figure out what God's will is all the time.

And so this is what I said. I said, Lord... And this is the way I prayed. Lord, I'm exhausted. I can't keep doing this. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep doing exactly what I'm doing right now.

And I'm going to keep doing it until You make it so clear to me that I need to do something else that I know if I don't do it, I'm in sin. But up until that moment, I'm not even going to worry about it.

I'm going to renew my mind. I'm going to follow You. I'm going to try to obey Your commands. And if You want me moved out of this situation into another, then You're going to have to make it so clear to me.

Because here's what will happen. You'll be walking around that campus and you'll be in such a funk about where you've got to be and what you've got to do and what God wants that you'll pass a hundred people that maybe you could have witnessed to.

You see that? The devil can get you so distracted. I have discovered that if a man or woman will dedicate themselves to doing God's commands and doing whatever ministry is in front of them, that God will lead them.

And most of the time, you'll ask them, man, how did you get here? And they'll go, you know, I don't have a clue. I don't know. I was just working and God moved me. You know, God moved me. Visit our website at heartcrymissionary .com.

There you will find information about the ministry, our purpose, beliefs and methodologies and extensive information about the missionaries we are privileged to serve.