Evangelism According To Jesus - [Mark 10:17-22]

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This morning, with the Mozambique team about to depart, it seems to be the appropriate time for a sermon on evangelism.
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And so, team, this is for you. It's also for everyone else.
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Turn with me, if you will, to Mark, the 10th chapter. We spent a lot of time in Mark this morning.
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Mark, the 10th chapter. Now, we have a lot of evangelistic efforts that are going on in the world today.
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There's all kinds of evangelistic teams, evangelistic crusades, evangelistic this, evangelistic that.
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And the primary question that seems to surround all too many of these efforts is, how come they don't work any better?
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Why don't they produce results? There seems to be a whole lot of effort for very little result.
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And so, how come we don't seem to be winning the world for God? After all, we've been at it a long time.
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What are we doing wrong? The last true great revival occurred in the 19th century in England and Wales and Scotland.
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And since then, we want to ask, what's the problem with our time? Maybe it's lack of organization.
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But as I said, we've got evangelistic organizations everywhere. You trip over them every place you turn.
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Or maybe it's poor technique. But we have a society which can sell refrigerators to Eskimos.
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And you would think that surely anybody that can come up with the ability to do that can convince people to come to Christ.
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Or maybe it's a lack of unity. Yeah, that's it. If we could only get rid of those pesky doctrinal issues that keep dividing us and cause all the trouble, we can go forward in lockstep and we can drag sinners kicking and screaming into the kingdom.
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But the inconvenient truth is Muslims are doing a much better job of gaining converts than Christians are.
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So the problem is an organization. It's not a lack of unity. It's not a lack of technique.
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At its root, at the bottom, the problem is the message. In our rush to get results, to get numbers, we have so watered down the message that it would be unrecognizable to the likes of Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield or Charles Wesley.
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If they heard the modern, the average modern come to Jesus message, they wouldn't recognize what you were talking about by and large.
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And so this morning I want us to take a look at the prince of evangelists, Jesus Christ himself.
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I suppose we might learn a thing or two or three about how to do evangelism from him.
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And so we're going to uncover five basic principles of effective evangelism. As we study evangelism the way
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Jesus did it, how did Jesus do it? And before we get started,
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I want to call your attention to a little book. It's entitled Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic by Walter Chantry.
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It was first published in 1970, Banner of Truth. It's still in print. That should be required reading for every one of the
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Mozambique team before you leave here. It's a little short book.
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You can read it in a couple of hours. If you took the CET course at any time, you got a copy of it.
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But you really ought to read that. And most of today's message, quite frankly, comes right out of that little book.
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I recommend it to you highly. But turn with me to Mark chapter 10, if you will. This is a very familiar story.
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We all know the story from Sunday school of the rich young ruler that came and knelt before Jesus, wanting to find out how to get eternal life, and yet he went away sorrowing.
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So, Mark chapter 10. In all the references this morning, all the Scripture reading will be out of the
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ESV, the essentially superior version. Just kidding.
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It's the English standard version. Mark chapter 10, verse 17.
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And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must
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I do to inherit eternal life? Now, if there was ever a perfect opportunity for evangelism, this has got to be it, right?
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Here comes a seeker. He's sincerely asking a question.
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And it seems like to be the perfect question. It's a great setup. Look at this,
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Jesus. All we have to do is hit him with the four spiritual laws, get him to pray the prayer. Presto. He's in the kingdom, right?
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And what a convert this guy is going to be. He's courteous.
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He's clean cut. He's religious. He's a man of good moral character. After all, he said,
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I've kept the commandments since I was a young man. He's honest. He's a man of integrity. He's a noble man.
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And he's probably loyal and brave and conscientious and loves his mother and all of those sorts of things.
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He's a real Eagle Scout, isn't he? Nothing wrong with being an Eagle Scout, by the way, for those of you that are.
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But this, in fact, this sounds just like the type of guy Jesus needs, right? He needs to add a little class to this group of rowdy fishermen and ex -tax collectors that he calls his disciples that are following him around.
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This guy's perfect. And to top it off, he's rich. The building fund is going to be rolling after we get this guy.
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You know, perfect, perfect setup. But notice
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Jesus' response. The first thing Jesus does is issue a rebuke to this man.
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Now, that's hardly the way to win friends and influence people, is it? Obviously, Jesus needs to work on his evangelistic technique, doesn't he?
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But wait a minute. Jesus is the great evangelist. Perhaps there's more here that meets the eye.
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Because very often in his earthly ministry, Jesus would be asked a question, and his answer would seem to change the subject.
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But the point is, Jesus is the only one who knows what the subject is. He's the only one who knows what the subject is.
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The rich, young ruler is focused on himself and on his felt needs.
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And that's the wrong place to start. It's not about him.
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It's first and foremost about the character of God. And so Jesus focuses there.
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Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
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That's verse 18. And so, why are you calling me good? Only God is to be revered.
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And you're not calling me God, are you? What's he calling? He calls him good teacher. Well, practically everybody in Jewish society in that time would refer to Jesus as good teacher.
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We saw that a lot this morning during our Sunday school class. Good teacher. The teacher.
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The teacher this, the teacher that. But not God. Even the disciples had not really grasped that this man is the sovereign
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God of the universe. And Jesus takes the time to demonstrate his power over creation.
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That nature obeys me. I say, be still, and the waves immediately stop.
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He's driving a lesson home to the disciples about who I really am. But this young ruler doesn't understand that.
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He's ready to flatter men, but he has no real reverence for God. But this is where all evangelism has to start.
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It has to start with the character of the thrice holy creator
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God. This young man has no clue about the character of Yahweh or why he has offended him.
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He has no concept that he has offended him. It's the very same thing today.
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The very ones we are trying to evangelize have no clue who God is or why they should be concerned about their relationship to him.
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At least the Mozambique team, the people you're going to, are not laboring under the misapprehension that they understand who
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God is. They at least know that they've never heard of the one you're going to talk about.
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It gives you a leg up, actually, because if you go down to the square at Worcester, you're going to run into all kinds of people.
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They know the name. They know the word God. It's kind of like God bless
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America. You know, they've heard that phrase, but it's a long step from God bless America to understanding that God is really there.
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That he created each and every one of us in his image, and therefore we are accountable to him.
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We are responsible to him. And they have no idea, no concept of how much
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God isn't like us. God is not like us. It's what
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R .C. Spruill refers to as the otherness of God. We don't really grasp.
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We think of God as kind of a grandfather type sitting up there, a nice, indulgent grandfather.
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No, God is not like us. God is not like us. He has his own standards.
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There's a great chasm that separates us from him. And to such a person, though, the sentence that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life is meaningless.
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Their reaction, at least maybe silent, but their reaction is, who is God? And why should
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I care about any plans he might have for my life? After all, I want to run my life. I don't want anybody butting in.
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And so with no understanding of God, how can they grasp their need of a savior? And so the first principle of effective evangelism is this.
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All effective evangelism begins with the character of God. Evangelism always requires preaching on the attributes of God.
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The sinner must first understand who God is. Because if he doesn't, he doesn't understand or grasp why there's a problem or why it's a problem that needs to be solved.
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The modern evangelist's first mistake is that he centered his message on man. He's got the sinner in the wrong place.
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The invitation is always come to Jesus for what you can get. When was the last time you heard an evangelistic message that said come to Jesus because he is the
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Lord of the universe and he is due worship from you? Or when have you heard it brings glory to God whenever he shows mercy to a lost sinner and brings him to himself and regenerates him and gives him repentance and the faith to believe?
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And notice in this passage that Jesus did not assume that the young man knew who God was.
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The young ruler comes running because he's concerned that he might not merit eternal life.
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But he has no idea why this might be. He has not a proper view of God, so he has no idea that he is a criminal.
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Much less any idea as to the enormity of his crime. And so although Jesus felt a genuine love for this young man, that's verse 21, and all evangelists must have a love for those to whom they preach, love was not the characteristic that Jesus focused on.
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Instead, he focuses on God's holiness. All too many of today's evangelists build their message around the love of God to the exclusion of all of his other attributes.
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And yet the Bible speaks of God's holiness far more than it speaks of his love.
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And to quote John MacArthur, to emphasize one of God's attributes at the expense of others is idolatry.
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Every part of the evangelist's message must rest on the character of God. The message of God as creator is essential.
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The message of God as holy is essential. He made us and we are answerable to him.
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He is thrice holy and we have offended him. The message of God as sovereign is essential.
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He is the sovereign ruler of the universe and he does as he pleases in all things.
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And if he lays out a way for us to go in front of us, it would behoove us to go in that way because his ways are right.
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His ways are best. And so preaching
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X easy steps to heaven is not evangelism. Preaching the whole counsel of God is evangelism.
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Look at the next verse, verse 19. Jesus goes on. You know the commandments.
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Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.
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Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. It's verse 19. Jesus moves on.
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He starts with the character of God. The second thing he brings up is the law of God.
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He moves on to the law of God. He's already set the young ruler back on his heels by talking about God's character.
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That was not the answer that the young ruler expected. I can guarantee that. And Jesus spends most of the rest of the encounter talking about God's law.
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Now he's already addressed the first three commandments by implication. You don't know who
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God is, young man. And therefore, by definition, you are not worshiping him with your whole heart and soul and mind and strength.
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You have other gods before you. So he's talked about those three by implication already.
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And now he rolls off the next six. And he's going to get to the last one in a minute. But surely
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Jesus isn't implying that this young man is going to earn eternal life by keeping the law.
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Why doesn't he talk about grace? Why doesn't he offer himself a savior?
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How come he doesn't just tell this inquirer to just accept me as your personal savior?
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And so the second principle of effective evangelism is this. A knowledge of God's law is an essential ingredient of all successful gospel preaching.
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Romans 520 says, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The works of the law can't save.
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But the law, the knowledge of the law, makes you aware of a need of a savior. Did you get that?
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The works of the law aren't going to save you. But the knowledge of the law makes you aware that you need a savior.
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And so God's law is essential to evangelism. Because apart from the law, and at this point
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I'll point out that we mean for the rest of this message, we're speaking of God's moral law.
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The word sin doesn't make any sense apart from the law. The Bible defines sin as the transgression of God's moral law.
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Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.
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Sin is lawlessness, 1 John 3, 4. So without the knowledge of the law and the condemnation that it provides, there's no personal significance to Christ's death on the cross.
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There's no personal significance to Christ's shed blood. Apart from a knowledge of the law,
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Christ's death might invoke sympathy, but it won't evoke saving faith. Christ was set forth as the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sin.
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He died on the cross to satisfy the righteous demands of a holy God. He died to make atonement for sin.
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Somebody has to die. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, the
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Bible says. And I have to come to the place where I understand that he died in my place as my substitute, that I was worthy of death.
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I had earned death. That's what I merited. And Jesus died in my place.
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And each person who comes to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ must first come to that knowledge.
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There's no point in offering salvation to someone who has no awareness of danger. The sinner has to understand that he is, in fact, a sinner.
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And the average how -to witness book does acknowledge that, and it insists on an answer to the question,
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Do you believe that all men are sinners? But there's no definition of sin. So what do we mean by that question?
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Just about anybody will agree with the statement that nobody's perfect. But the average person that answers that question tacks on a silent, but I'm pretty good.
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You know, I'm pretty good. But here's a newsflash. Jesus did not come to seek and save the pretty good.
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He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to seek and to save sinners.
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As he put it, the righteous don't need to be saved. You know, the people that aren't sick don't need the physician.
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And so our rich young ruler denied that he was a liar.
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He denied that he was a thief. He denied that he was an adulterer because he didn't understand where he really stood in God's eyes.
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He didn't grasp that if he was guilty of one commandment, he was guilty of all of them. He didn't understand that he was personally liable before a holy
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God. It isn't enough to see men as not perfect.
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The one who would come to Jesus must first see himself as personally responsible for his sin before a holy and righteous
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God. Like Rembrandt, the artist, we have to see ourselves in the crowd at the foot of the cross.
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Some of you may have made that in his famous series of paintings, Rembrandt painted himself in the crowd at the foot of the cross.
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That was his way of saying it was my sins that put him up there. He died for my sins, not the sins of some amorphous crowd, me personally.
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Until one understands the demands of God's law, he will never understand how far he has missed the mark.
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He will never understand that only God's grace can help him. He will never prostrate himself before Jesus and beg for mercy.
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But most modern day evangelicals break out in hives at the mere mention of the law. They don't want to even discuss it, apart perhaps for a passing nod to the
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Ten Commandments as something that we need to hang in the courtroom. But wait a minute, we can't do that anymore, can we?
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Somebody might be offended at that. Somehow we have allowed ourselves to be bamboozled.
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That's a Greek term. We've allowed ourselves to be confused, to be bamboozled into thinking that love and law are mutually exclusive.
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In truth, the opposite is true. Love makes law enjoyable and law makes love practical.
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The Bible itself defines the fulfilling of God's moral law as love.
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Paul says this, Romans 13, Oh, no one anything except to love one another for the love for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
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The commandments you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet and any other commandment are summed up in this word.
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You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor.
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Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13 verses 8 to 10.
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You might have heard missionary messages that proclaim that men everywhere crying out for the gospel. Well, here's the second newsflash.
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They aren't. They aren't. If they were, we wouldn't need missionaries, would we?
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They would seek us out. And that's not happening. Men are not crying out for the gospel because they have no sense of sinning against God.
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They have no idea what sin is or how any definition of sin applies to them.
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And why is that? Because we've stopped preaching the law. You don't reach for your life preserver until you understand that then that the sinking.
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Do you? The rich young ruler thinks he's in pretty good shape.
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So Jesus goes right to the number one issue for this particular individual, which is greed.
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You're greedy. Now, wait a minute. We might the young ruler might exclaim,
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I don't covet anyone's wealth or property. I'm perfectly happy with my station in life.
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I'm rich enough. You know, and it won't help here for Jesus to simply quote
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Exodus 2017. So he makes a practical application. If you really don't covet.
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If you're really not greedy, go and sell everything you have. Give it away to the poor.
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Come and follow me. Practical test. Just get rid of it.
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Come and follow me. A very, very practical test. Rich young ruler.
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Are you aware? Are you willing to abandon everything and follow me? And as we all know, unfortunately for this young man, the answer is no.
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He's not. Mark tells us he went away sorrowing. He would have preferred to have
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Jesus if he could have Jesus and his wealth, too. But the price Jesus demanded was too high.
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He goes away finally realizing that he is a covetous center, but he loves his wealth more than he loves
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God. Note also that Jesus did not try to get him to agree that all have sinned.
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Instead, he pins him down to his personal besetting sin. In personal evangelism, one on one evangelism.
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It doesn't matter that all have sinned, but that you individual have sinned.
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You personally are a rebel. You personally are shaking your fist in God's face every moment of every day.
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And it's only because of God's incredible mercy and forbearance that you aren't dead.
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It is the law of God applied that produces conviction. Convicted sinners are ready to hear the gospel.
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And note also that rather than compromise with God's truth,
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Jesus lets the young man go. Even though he loved him. Righteousness trumps love every time.
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Jesus cuts him no slack whatsoever. How different we are.
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We seem determined to see how low we can get the bar. How little can we say and still get converts?
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We preach salvation as a free gift, which it certainly is. But we strongly imply that it comes with no strings attached, which it doesn't.
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Jesus doesn't do that. As we're going to see next, he demanded everything.
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Salvation is absolutely free in the sense there is nothing the center can do to earn it, to merit it.
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But there are inevitable life changing consequences when one genuinely repents and believes in Jesus.
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And we do a grave disservice to anyone if we imply that that is not true. And so first Jesus preached about God, God's character.
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Then he preached about God's law. And now the rich young rulers original question can be answered.
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He asked, how can I inherit eternal life? And the answer is deceptively simple.
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Repent and believe. First, repent.
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Whatever direction you're going in, turn around and go the other way. Turn your back on whatever sin it is that you value most.
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Notice that Jesus has no place for formula evangelism. He goes right to the heart of the matter with each individual he deals with.
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For the woman at the well, it was turned from your adultery. For Zacchaeus, it was turned from your thievery.
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For the rich young ruler, it's abandon your wealth. The fundamental message is always the same.
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Repent and believe. Not the unbiblical, except Jesus as your personal savior. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong in saying that, okay?
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But Jesus is the personal savior of each one of his children. The problem is it sends the wrong message if you say it as part of an evangelistic campaign.
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It's you accept. The focus is back in the wrong place again.
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So the third principle for effective evangelism is that true repentance is necessary for forgiveness.
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True repentance involves a genuine turning from sin. And you can't turn from a sin to which you're blind.
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True repentance also involves turning to God. And you can't turn to a God of whom you're ignorant.
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True repentance also involves a godly remorse at having offended a holy God. But don't confuse that with the remorse of the apprehended criminal who's sorry he got caught.
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All criminals are sorry they got caught. And there's sorrow over the consequences that they're going to have to bear.
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But there's never any real sorrow at having violated the law, is there?
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What we're looking for is the remorse of David expressed in Psalm 51 against you and you only have
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I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
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Psalm 51 4. Sinners might be sorry to know they're going to perish but have no remorse whatsoever at having offended a holy
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God. We might talk about confession of sin in our evangelical message, but rarely do we mention repentance.
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We'd prefer to tell the seeker that he can have Jesus and keep his sin too, that just accept
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Jesus and don't worry about it affecting your life. After all, salvation is a free gift, isn't it?
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But if we preach the whole counsel of God, we might have trouble getting a decision for Christ, might we?
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But confession without repentance doesn't cut it. Jesus is not a fire escape. Jesus said, so therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
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Luke 14 33. Jesus demands everything from those who would follow him.
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Now, does that mean that you have to give up everything, that you're not supposed to have any possessions, that you're not supposed to perhaps have a measure of wealth in your life?
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No, it doesn't mean that. But it does mean the willingness to give up everything and follow
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Jesus, to put Jesus ahead of everything else, to view everything that you have, as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes, as a gift of God.
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And if God gives you something, then I'm going to enjoy that, because God gave that to me, but I'm not going to pursue it as an end in itself.
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Jesus isn't condemning the rich young man because he's rich. He's condemning him because he's greedy.
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He's condemning him because he will not set aside his wealth and follow Jesus. He places his wealth ahead of his love for God.
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And that's the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Tragically, churches today are filled,
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I'm afraid, with professing Christians who have never heard that Jesus demands repentance from any who seek eternal life.
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They've never been told that there is a price placed on having treasure in heaven, and that price is repentance.
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These are the same folks that are going to be shocked on Judgment Day when they stand before Jesus and hear him pronounce,
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Depart, worker of lawlessness. Take a look at Matthew chapter 7.
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Now, there's a second part to the answer to the young ruler's question.
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The first part is repent. The second part of the answer to the ruler's question is believe.
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Believe what? Place your faith in what? Simply believing is not enough.
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Simply having faith is not enough. The object of faith is crucial.
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True faith always involves repentance. True repentance always involves faith. They're twins.
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You can't ever have one without having the other. And once the heart has been cleansed, something must be found to fill that void.
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Something has to give direction and purpose to one's life. If it isn't going to be the sin we have abandoned in repentance, who or what will it be?
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And the answer simply is Jesus is the one to be followed, obeyed, imitated, learned from.
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This is not optional. This is not a second step for super -Christians.
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We sort of invented the idea of the carnal Christian. Well, you don't find that biblically.
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You find the word carnal in the Bible for sure. But the idea that someone accepted
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Jesus as Savior and is just going on with their life the way it was, you will not find that in the
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Scripture. There's no backing for that idea. Jesus will be master and he will be
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Lord. The idea that one can accept
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Jesus as Savior and not as Lord is ludicrous. We don't sign a permission slip for Jesus to save us while demanding that he stay out of our lives.
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I've used this illustration before, but too often Jesus is pictured as a cosmic bellhop whose job it is to bail us out of trouble and difficulty and to meet our felt needs.
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That's unbiblical, folks. Jesus certainly does promise to meet the needs of his children, and he knows what our needs are.
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We do not. Sometimes our need is for us to be placed in a boat that looks like it's going to sink so that Jesus can teach us something.
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Salvation is not a two -stage process. We don't get to accept Jesus as Savior right now, and then sometimes later, if we feel like it, we can take step two and become his disciple and begin following him.
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The narrow gate is at the beginning of the narrow way, not halfway down.
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It's not an afterthought for the more enthusiastic believer. The sinner must know that Jesus will not be
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Savior to any man that will not also bow to him as Lord. So the fourth principle for effective evangelism is that the practical acknowledgment of Jesus' leadership by yielding to his rule in every area of our lives is the very fiber of saving faith.
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Believing is obeying. True faith is not a nod of the head to certain facts.
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It is following Christ. Now, Jesus set this before his audiences during his earthly ministry very clearly.
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Following him would involve pain. It would involve sacrifice. It would be costly.
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He told his hearers, count the costs before you think you're going to come and follow me.
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We've replaced that kind of challenge with the appeals of cheap grace. From somewhere we've gotten the curious idea that it is the evangelist's job to persuade men to come to Jesus.
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So we use a combination of psychological manipulation and sales technique. We throw in a few
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Bible verses for good measure, and then we close the sale and get a decision, don't we?
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Perhaps it would be better for us to preach, sit down and count the costs, instead of stand up and come forward.
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There's no indication in Scripture that the rich young ruler ever abandoned his wealth and followed
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Jesus. But he was honestly confronted with the claims of the gospel and his implications for his life.
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Can we do less than to preach the whole counsel of God to anyone that we are privileged to evangelize?
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Now, what about assurance? A good part of success in the business world lies in knowing what your job is and what it isn't.
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Christians frequently confuse their job, which is to present the gospel clearly, completely and accurately, with that of the
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Holy Spirit, particularly in the area of giving assurance to the new believer. Now, may it be that in God's providence, we have the opportunity over and over again to present the gospel to someone with an open heart, who is ready to receive it,
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God's work to work of grace in their lives, they're ready to receive it and act on it. So what do we say to those people after the prayers are over, after we get up off our knees?
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If you're like most people and if you're honest, we have an almost overwhelming urge to assure the new convert that he or she is absolutely, positively honest and for true in the kingdom.
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Resist that urge. Unlike Jesus, we cannot look at a man's heart and see what's there.
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And so time and trials alone will prove the genuineness of conversion.
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The greatest evidence of genuine salvation is the working of the
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Holy Spirit in the believer's life over time. It's not having some date where I can say, on that date
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I went forward, I signed the card in the counseling room and that was the date
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I got saved. Well, maybe it was. But more to the point is, is the
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Holy Spirit, are you conscious of the Holy Spirit working in your life right now?
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That's a far more accurate indication than some date that you can remember.
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It's the Holy Spirit who gives assurance to the believer. The assurance can certainly be had, and it will be had in due time.
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The Westminster Confession has a great deal to say about this, but the operative verse is the
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Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That's Romans 8 .16.
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Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us.
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1 John 3 .24. And so that being said, perhaps the most honest thing that we can do is to send the inquirer or new convert home.
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Maybe wondering still about their eternal state and maybe still counting the costs.
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Now, some new believers have an instant and unshakable assurance in their salvation from the very first moment.
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It never changes throughout their entire life. Many others struggle sometimes for years before they come to a firm assurance of their own salvation.
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If you've ever read Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan, that's sort of autobiographical. Say that fast three times.
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John Bunyan struggled with this almost all of his Christian life. And you'll see this reflected in his characters in that book.
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Faith and repentance are an inward movement of mind and will. And you can't measure that by go -no -go test.
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They just aren't there. And I personally think that the appeal of some other groups is that they offer you these experiences that you can point to.
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But the trouble is experiences fade over time. And the Bible itself tells us to work out our own salvation and also to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith and also to make our calling and election sure.
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There are definite marks of grace. And they will be present to a greater or lesser degree in all genuine believers.
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Some believers produce more fruit, some produce less. But no genuine believer produces no fruit.
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Examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourself, that Jesus Christ is in you?
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2 Corinthians 13, 5. We have several new babies in our church.
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And we love them and we delight in holding them and catering to their needs and bouncing them on our knee and all of that.
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But as delightful as infants are, we would become very concerned if they stayed infants.
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If a newborn fails to gain weight or fails to acquire motor skills at the proper time or doesn't begin to talk at the proper age, the parents are going to have that child in the doctor's office right away to find out what's going wrong here.
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We expect the human newborn baby to grow. We also expect the newborn spiritual baby to grow.
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We expect them to grow. We expect to see spiritual growth in newborn believers.
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Otherwise, we begin to suspect something's wrong. Paul got after the Corinthians because they were still on spiritual milk long after they should have been on spiritual beefsteak.
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Growth is a sign that all is well in spiritual babes as well as in human ones.
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Now, by contrast, don't assume that outward morality is proof positive that a man possesses eternal life.
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The rich young ruler was a morally upright man to all outward appearances. Also, do not mistake religious enthusiasm.
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That's not a valid test of one's spiritual state. The rich young ruler had kept all the commandments, at least outwardly, for all of his life.
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And finally, serious conviction doesn't always lead to a genuine conversion. It says the rich young ruler went away sorrowful.
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He went away sorrowful, but he went away. Now, finally, we have to speed up here a bit.
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Not every evangelical effort is going to succeed. The majority of the thousands that actually heard
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Jesus preaching didn't respond positively to his message. In fact, many thousands turned away once they realized that the free lunch wasn't going to come forward every day.
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Following Jesus was going to have a very high price. And so Jesus uses the failure, quote, unquote, of this encounter with the rich young ruler to further instruct his disciples.
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And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how difficult will it be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God?
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And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, children, difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God.
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It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
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And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, then who can be saved?
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Jesus looked at them and said, with man, it is impossible, but not with God.
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For all things are possible with God. That's verses 23 to 25.
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Now, the disciples display the attitude of the time, which regarded physical wealth and high position as absolute proof positive of God's favor.
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If a rich man isn't going to heaven, then who is? That's the question that they have. Because that was the attitude that most people had.
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And he's going to expand on this theme in other places, but Jesus' bottom line is that men by themselves and apart from the gracious regenerative work of God in their lives cannot be saved.
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There is absolutely no hope apart from God. And he decides to whom he will show mercy.
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The young ruler was commanded to repent, but he had no native ability to repent. There was no pure or even neutral element to his character that would equip him to respond to Jesus' command.
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There wasn't even a spark of divine goodness in him that might allow him to respond to Jesus' message.
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He needed to be born again. But just as with physical birth, he was not in charge of that.
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He had no way to access or trigger the new birth in and of himself. But everyone who has ever responded positively to the gospel did so because there was a miraculous work of grace in their lives of which they were totally unaware prior to the conversion.
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All the believer knows is that he heard repent and believe, and his reaction was, yeah,
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I got to do that. It's only later that he becomes aware of God's work in his life, that God called him,
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God drew him, God regenerated him, God gifted him with the faith to believe.
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And so the fifth principle for effective evangelism is although it is right and proper for us to reason with men, to persuade men, to plead with men, there will be no response unless God in his grace empowers the words that we speak.
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Now, if we really grasp that last principle, we will be much more ready to depend on God for success in our evangelistic efforts rather than organizational unity or modern -day psychobabble.
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We'll be much more careful to start our evangelical campaigns on our knees instead of in committee meetings to plan our outreach.
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And far from being a discouragement to effective evangelism, this principle, this last principle is rather a guarantee that some of those we preach to will respond.
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God has ordained that some of his creatures to eternal life, some of his sheep will respond, will hear the command and respond positively to the command, repent and believe.
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Jesus has promised that all of the sheep that the Father had given him will come.
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Not one is going to slip through the cracks. Not one is going to get missed. Nobody is going to get lost.
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Every last one of Jesus' sheep is going to stand with him on the last day and he will present them to the
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Father. And isn't it great that we get to be a part of that great gathering process?
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And shouldn't we be concerned then that when the unsaved turn away from their only way of salvation? Of course we're concerned.
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Of course we're concerned. We need to have a love for those that we preach to. And all the more so when it's our own loved ones or our friends that we're dealing with.
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But fundamentally it isn't our job to drag sinners kicking and screaming into the kingdom.
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It's not necessary for us to trick sinners into the kingdom. When we lived in Germany, I knew a very earnest young man who was so pleased that he had come up with an evangelistic scheme that he and a friend of his had cooked up.
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One would invite the unsuspecting Mark to lunch and the other would just happen to come by so that he could share the gospel with the poor unsuspecting sinner who was usually too polite to get up and leave and was therefore trapped into hearing the gospel.
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Well, brothers and sisters, that is not evangelism. That's dishonesty. God is not honored by such tactics and he doesn't need them.
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So here's your third newsflash. God does not need our help building the kingdom. As an act of grace, he allows us to participate in the mightiest endeavor that the universe has ever seen.
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But we are not necessary. The stones would cry out if he required that of them and I suspect they'd do a better job.
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At the bottom line, our job is to present the gospel accurately and completely without watering it down.
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It's God's job to draw the sinner to himself, to regenerate him and to give him new life and prepare him to respond positively when the message is heard.
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We preach, he gathers. Sounds simple enough to me. So finally, preachers are hemmed in with only one guarantee of success.
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If God empowers their words and gives repentance to the hearers. The greatest oratory in the world will be unsuccessful if it's only man's effort.
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On the other hand, when God empowers the message with means, the word preached from the poorest of speakers will raise the dead.
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Sinners too are boxed in with only one way out of their dilemma. If God gives repentance.
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But if God gives is an infinitely brighter hope than if man will get.
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With if God before him, the center may cry out to God to save his helpless soul.
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The chief error of today's evangelistic preaching is not method or approach, but the heart of the message itself.
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We have diluted the message so much. We have placed the bar so low that it's not surprising that thousands come to Jesus, quote unquote, without a clue of what that means to their lives.
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Likewise, it's also no surprise that only a relative few of those that come stay around very long.
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The emotional high wears off. And it's business of usual as usual after that.
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Frankly, the average army recruiter does a better job of explaining what will be required of the new recruit than we do of explaining to a seeker what it really means and what is really required of one who will follow
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Jesus. So it's time to reexamine the gospel as it's being preached today and return to preaching the whole counsel of God.
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So I challenge our Mozambique team to preach his attributes, preach his law, call centers to repent and bow before their sovereign
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Lord. And above all, preach with a firm and complete dependence on God.
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Preach with a dependence on God and his providence. And don't be discouraged if there are no visible results.
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Leave that in God's hands. And finally, start from your knees.
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And be assured that those of us that are back here will be on our knees as well.
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Let's pray. Our heavenly father, as we look at this passage,
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Lord, we confess that so often we cut corners. We dilute the message.
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We do not preach the whole counsel of God. And so father, we would confess that we would pray that you would empower the missionaries that we send out, that they will preach the whole counsel of God, that we will support them.
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We praise you and thank you that the message is there, that you have given us the message.
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We know what to preach, Lord, help us in our daily endeavors, in our daily contact with men and women to preach accurately, to preach completely, to preach fully and call centers to repentance.