Path of Evangelism IV: Sufficient and Willing | Behold Your God Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Media Gratiae, and I'm joined again this week by my good friend and pastor, Dr. John Snyder, the author and host of the Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically and Weight of Majesty DVD series for small groups and Sunday schools.

The Goal of Evangelism Is Scriptural Clarity, Not Religious Slogans

We are on episode four of a series on evangelism, and the big theme of our series thus far, has been 1 Corinthians 3, 9, how is it that we are God's fellow workers? How do we cooperate with God in evangelism?

And if you've missed anything so far in the series, you can go to mediagratiae .org and look under our podcast link to go back and catch up with us. Last week we talked about the issue of conviction and the role that it plays in evangelism.

Does it play a legitimate role in evangelism? What is the use of the law in coming in and plowing the ground to prepare for the gospel? And then this week, we want to go into, okay, so what about when a person is under conviction?

There's a certain set of problems that present themselves then as well, and so we're going to talk about some of those things. But before we get started, real quick, just tell us again, what are we talking about here in this issue of how to cooperate with God in evangelism, John?

Well, we don't want to simply give people kind of an indiscriminate group of religious phrases that we tend to think of as gospel phrases. They may not even really be biblical. They may be kind of truths that we find in the Bible, but they've been so sloganized that they no longer are accurate to what God says.

Yeah, not to put too many current events here, but sort of like Nancy Pelosi's favorite Bible verse that she just got busted for earlier this week in a speech that turns out it's not in the Bible.

Yeah, I mean, we might point our finger at her, but we would probably have a lot of fingers to point back at ourselves. That's right. I mean, I'm a pastor, and I so often find myself, when I go back to the verse that I think I just quoted, realizing, you know, you didn't really have that clear in your mind, and it was important.

So we need to know what the Scripture says about the gospel, and we need to know what the Scripture says about the human need, the condition of man, and we need to know how does God generally do evangelism?

How does God bring a sinner from love of all the lies that go along with sin and love of a self-righteousness that says, I can fix myself if I have problems? How does He bring them from that condition to a repentant, believing heart?

And for that, we've been looking at Samuel Walker, a pastor in the 18th century, so extraordinarily used in the evangelical revival at that point in a town called Truro, that his friends ask him, would he be willing to write down the basic principles he used in dealing with souls in evangelism, and he did, and we have that in one of his biographies, and we've been kind of covering his basic approach.

Conviction Must Lead to the Sufficiency of Christ

Yeah, so I mentioned last week we talked about the first part, conviction. What truths do we emphasize to help a person see their need of rescue so that they'll turn from sin and so that they'll give up hope of self-fixing?

But then, what about now? What about a person who's actually under conviction?

Yeah, so there's, as you mentioned, there's a whole other set of problems. The enemy understands us, and his lies are perfectly crafted just for that situation. What we really need to show them is not only, now that they feel that they need a Savior, we need to really show them two things, that there is one who can save them.

There is a sufficiency in Christ, and there is one who will save them. There's a willingness in Christ, because before conviction, you know, we don't really struggle with those questions. We think, well, can I be saved?

Well, of course I could be saved. I'm not that bad. And would God be willing to save me? Well, of course He'd be willing to save me. I'm a great catch, you know. I mean, I could be really helpful to God if I wanted to.

So we need to deal with those questions, because after conviction, it is very hard for a man to see himself in the mirror of the Bible and say, I believe that Christ could save even this, and I believe He would want to save this.

And that's where, you know, Walker gives us some guidance.

Now, let's pick up and unpack those two things that are so important, the sufficiency of Christ to save even sinners like us, and His willingness.

So in the sufficiency, He says immediately, after sharing the gospel with them, make sure you stress to them that they need to take the Scriptures and cry out to the Lord that His Spirit would open their eyes to these things, because these are not things that we naturally will believe once we feel the weight and stain of our sin.

And He gives a number of just some, kind of some basic guidelines. So let me run through those. He gives four things, and they're connected. First, He says, make sure the sinner doesn't deceive himself by a supposed conviction of the truth.

And I think that what He means is this. He's talking to Englishmen who are all Church of England members. And so you can imagine sharing the gospel, and right in the middle of talking about the sufficiency of Christ, a man interrupting you and saying, Matt, I already believe all that stuff.

I mean, come on. I'm a church member. And so Walker says, wait, there is the kind of faith, the thing that pretends to be faith, where you're just accepting what the culture's told you. And that's not what we're talking about.

And again, he says another thing. Make sure that their faith is based on what the Scripture says. So again, a man might say, look, I've grown up in a Christian home. I already have heard these things.

So we need to stop and say to them, yes, but what word from the Lord in this book is it that you're banking all of your soul upon? Are you just taking a cliche that you heard? Or can you turn me to a page and say, this is what God said?

Another thing he points out is the reason he's emphasizing those is that unbelief is our natural stance before the Lord. And so to believe that God is capable and willing, that will take a work of the Holy Spirit.

And he says the Spirit does that through Scripture. And I mean, you can imagine how that would change many people's evangelistic approaches just if they took those short, you know, hints from Walker. Oh, absolutely.

I mean, when we encounter this, you know, we've told the listeners before we live in New Albany, Mississippi, which is a very religious part of the world. And we when we go out to do evangelism, the park and that sort of thing without fail, when we talk with people, they they'll interrupt you and say, oh, yeah, I know I'm already a member of a church here.

I know all the things that you're about to say. And so, you know, to stop them and actually say, well, then just could you tell us what it is that you're believing about God and Christ and where do you find that in the scriptures?

What scripture do you are you holding on to to make sure that that's the case? I mean, these are very, very practical and it just shows that men don't change and our need doesn't change. We have a book here, The Cornish Revival by Tim Shenton from Evangelical Press.

It's on the life and times of Samuel Walker. And there's a quote here that we wanted to point out. Walker explains exactly what he would emphasize about Jesus to show the sufficiency of Christ. If someone's doubting, I don't know if Christ could really save someone like me, then he mentions what he would say here.

And so he says that he would that that person must be shown the fitness of the Redeemer in his double nature, his obedience to death with the design, fullness and proofs of his atonement, his exaltation, dominion and intercession.

He must be made sensible how in the execution of his merciful contrivance, Christ has magnified the law, satisfied divine justice, taken away the curse and how the scheme of being purposed at the instance of God's infinite good, sorry, and how the scheme of being purposed at the instance of God's infinite goodwill towards sinners, planned by his infinite wisdom and actually engaged for by repeated promises.

All the perfections of God, his love, wisdom, truth and faithfulness stand at stake for the performance of the whole and every part of it. That's wordy, old timey language, but there's a lot of truth to be mined out of that.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's just kind of go over the basics there and put it into our language. What a wonderful list he gives. The dual nature of Christ. I mean, why? Why is that part of evangelism? I mean, Matt, if someone were to say to you, why would you even bother talking about that at this point?

What would you say? Oh, I would say, I'm glad you asked.

Yeah. He must be God because no angel, no parent, no minister can ever do us the good that we need done to our souls. But he must be man because he's going to be a representative. He's going to be the final Adam, not the representative that fell in the garden and sinned and brought this terrible curse, but a representative who in a hostile environment obeys every dictate of the father, who loves to obey the father, whose very life becomes my obedience, whose death becomes the thing that removes the curse between me and God.

And so to take time to explain that.

Christ's Obedience, Atonement, and Divine Justice

Yeah, and to the degree that he is truly man, he is your representative. And if there is any area of his life where he's not truly man, then you have no redeemer there. You have no substitute there.

It's incredibly important. Yeah, you know, any place you see Christ's obedience in the Gospels, take his prayer life. Well, look at yourself as a Christian. I look at myself, I think, well, my prayer life is not what it ought to be.

If Christ didn't have a perfect prayer life, the father would have a right to look at me and say, John Snyder, Christ provided everything except for this. He did not provide a perfect prayer life because when he prayed in those times in the Gospels, that was just play acting.

Yeah. So you're going to have to provide a perfect obedience here. And I cannot. And I would be hopeless. So that dual nature. Think about his obedience to the point of death, again, suffering the curse on the cross for us.

And he mentions there the atonement. What is the design of the atonement? Why did he die? Was it just an expression of love? No, it was more than that. What is the fullness of the atonement? As we've mentioned, every aspect of every sin, past, present and future is washed.

Yes. What is the proof that God accepted the atonement? I mean, we're asking people to bank their whole souls on this. We need to give them where the scripture says, this is how you know the father accepted this.

On, he goes on, he even says that you need to tell them that by doing these things, Christ is offering them salvation in a way that magnifies the law of God and satisfies the justice as well as removing the curse.

God is not saving us by doing damage to his honor, which is such an amazing truth. And then he says, all of that was born out of divine love and eternity past. It was crafted by divine wisdom. It has been emphasized or, you know, guaranteed by these repeated promises.

And if you have any fear that God wouldn't keep his word to you, all of his honor, all of his perfections are at stake here. If he fails, then how do we know he's who he says he is? And so we know if we lay these things before people, we're giving them a solid foundation for answering this question correctly.

Why are you telling me Christ could save a person like me?

Yeah. There's all the power of a Trinitarian God behind this redemption. The father plans it, Christ comes, the son and accomplishes it. And the spirit even now is willing to come and apply that redemption to anyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

The Glory of God and the Assurance It Gives

We're going to stop for just a second for a break. And when we come back, we'll think a little bit about his willingness. So we've established that God is sufficient to accomplish it. But would he, would he save a person like me?

So we'll be right back.

There is one being whose immensity is beyond calculation, whose mighty deeds will be discussed from one generation to the next.

God has no beginning, has no end. He is an eternal being. And let's face it, we can't comprehend that. However, it is revealed in scripture.

His wonder, his greatness, his glory, that's really what gives us assurance. Looking out to him and resting upon his character. Lord, show me your glory.

That word glory, the Hebrew word kavoth, has the idea of weight to it.

The God who is, does all that he pleases. If it pleases him to do it, he does it. Because he's the king and he has no rival.

We need to make clear, I think, that he's a person who is constant, that he is true and faithful and good and righteous and just and holy. And he is all of this all of the time.

What a glorious truth that this all-knowing God, he himself says, I will remember your sins no more.

On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wonderful works, I will meditate.

The strange thing is that the closer we get to this holy God, it makes us want to be more like him.

Is this us? Is there still a stretching of every nerve as we open the Bible, pleading with the Lord that we might know him, being willing to count everything as loss?

And this God then is without beginning and without dependence. He is the ever-blessed God.

The contemplation of God through the scripture just keeps bringing me back to this point, that it's in him that I live and move and have my being. I could be in a Roman prison cell like Paul and find my full sufficiency in God.

He is from himself. He's of himself. He simply is.

This is why he says, I am who I am. And you say to yourself, I just barely scratched the surface of this majestic God. His majesty permeates all his attributes, all his character. It's all majestic because he's God and there's none else.

Men shall speak of the power of your awesome acts and I will tell of your greatness.

Christ's Invitations and the Doctrine of Election

Welcome back to the Behold Your God podcast. This is session four on evangelism in a series. We've been talking about the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save. We just talked about his sufficiency, but another obstacle that often comes to the minds of those who experience conviction of sin is, okay, this good king that I've lived against my whole life, why would he be willing to do anything but destroy me?

I mean, I deserve it. I know that he could save me, but would he be willing to save a sinner like me? And we need to be able to help a person from the scriptures to come to see this great truth of his willingness to save.

I think it's a great test as we're talking with people to kind of be listening to their responses to see if they've come to the place where they're asking that question. If a person is still saying like, look, God would be really, it would be really great for God to have a person like me, I could be helpful.

And of course he would want to save a person like me, I'm worth saving. Then perhaps we need to revisit the whole issue of sin, the gap between God and man. But if they're asking that question, you know, in a sense if they're almost interrupting you with this question, you know, you see it in their face, but why?

Can you give me any hope that he would really want to save me? Then you know the Holy Spirit has brought them to that place and you just want to give them, you want to continue to give them the seed of the gospel truths.

And you know, there are a couple of things in the scripture that are really simple and helpful. One is the invitations that we find in scripture between God and the sinner, and another is the parables, the parables of the kingdom in particular that show the heart of God toward the sinner.

We're going to have to take them to the scriptures because I know what goes through the mind is of someone who's, there's been a law work, the spirit has convicted them, they see themselves, they see something of the holiness of God.

When they hear, yes, but Christ is willing to save, they think, yeah, but you don't really know me. You wouldn't talk to me that way if you knew me. Well, God knows you. He knows you better than you know yourself.

He knows the depth of your filth far more than you know it, no matter how much of it you know. And so, how does God speak to someone like that?

So, take us to the Word. Yeah, let's just take one, Matthew chapter 11, verse 25 through verse 28. And it's a wonderful passage because we see a lot of things happening here. We see a wonderful window into the dynamic of the son's trust in the Father and how that affects his evangelism.

So let me read that passage. At that time, Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for this way was pleasing in your sight. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Now, those are wonderful background truths. And then comes the invitation. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So, if we were to take just kind of the key concepts there, that if we can walk a lost person through this passage, these things ought to give them hope. One is that even in this situation where Christ has just faced rejection by another crowd, He is not fretful.

He is confident that God, His Father, hides the gospel truth from the arrogant, self-sufficient person, and loves, delights to show it to those people who are more like spiritual babies, who would say to God, I need help.

And so right there, just the character of the Father is displayed for the man who says, but would He want to save a person like me? And then the next thing, we find the command, Christ commands, come to me.

This is an invitation, but it is an invitation from a king, and we have no right to tell a king no. That's right. So, it is a royal invitation.

It is a command, come. Yeah, I remember Frances Havagal pointing that out in her little book, Royal Invitation, and that might have been the first time that it sank in that, okay, God's invitations, because of who and what He is, are commands.

Yeah, we even have some folks in our church who don't like when I call them invitations because it is a command. But I don't know, I don't want to say command and lose the sense of invitation. There is this call.

What a gracious command, a merciful command. Come to life. So, the command, come to me, who's invited? Weary people, heavy laden people, people who are tired of trying to fix themselves, people who can't be fixed by you adding another rule to their life, people who can't bear the weight of their shame any longer.

And then there's the manner of coming. Come to Christ, take His yoke, learn from Him. So, we come and we embrace His authority. I'm yours. I take the yoke of Christ, and the arguments to encourage them, His character, I'm gentle, I'm humble in heart, and His promises.

You will find rest for your souls. Yeah.

Yeah, we know this verse if we're familiar with our Bibles, but I agree that carefully walking a person through these things is a great way to show God's sufficiency and God's willingness, the willingness of Christ to save them.

If we think about invitations and using them to help people answer the question correctly, would God want to save a sinner like me? I think there's a couple of things that invitations really help with.

One is the lie of the enemy that says, you're a unique kind of sinner, and we all feel that, but we don't know that we each feel that because we don't tell people that. So we think that every other sinner that comes to church with us, that's the common sinner.

That's the kind of sinner that God likes to save, but I'm actually isolated. I'm a special kind of sinner. So you can think of things like this. The things I've done are worse than the things they did.

The things I did wrong, I did them for longer than the things that they did. And the things I did, I did it against clear scriptural light. I mean, I knew better. They didn't have godly parents. I did.

They weren't in a good church. I wasn't. And so there's a thousand reasons the enemy will give you and say, okay, okay, fine. You've already learned the truth. It's too late for me to lie to you. Jesus delights to save sinners that come to Him, normal sinners.

You're actually a unique case. And so the invitations answer that by describing the very kind of sinner Christ loves to save. And when the sinner reads those invitations, he can't help but say, that's me.

Another thing, of course, is the doctrine of election. When people begin to look at God and they see a big picture of God in the scriptures and not the little God that they were told about, perhaps in the culture, they begin to say, well, what if I'm not one of those elect?

And the enemy can use a wonderful truth of God's invincible love, His eternal love, His incomprehensible and unmerited love. And he can use that instead of, as Spurgeon said, what ought to be a policeman's hand to a child who's lost in London.

And the policeman says, come, I'll show you, I'll show you the way home. Instead that doctrine of election becomes a policeman's hand that says to the person, no, you can't come this way. You don't know if you're elect.

So how does a person know if they're elect? Well, the Bible doesn't give a list of names, but you can go to the invitations and you can read your name there. I'm weary. I'm heavy laden. I don't have any other hope but Christ.

And so that really helps a person who struggles with those things.

I think it's incredibly important for us to understand that if we do believe the lie that Satan tells us, either, well, sorry, you're a unique kind of sinner. You're not like the kind of sinners that God likes to save.

Or if you believe that little nagging voice that says, well, I'm just not elect and I guess I just won't ever, you are doomed because you are refusing to believe the gospel. You're refusing to believe the good news that it could be you.

It is you. You're the very kind of sinner that Christ died for. And so to stop there is eternal death. You have to press through that and we have to be wise guides to Christ when people are stuck there.

Yeah.

Yeah, certainly. Another tool that we mentioned is just the parables. Parables are everyday events that Christ points to. It's almost as if you can see him walking down a street and as he goes to teach, he looks over and something's happening.

There's the man sowing the seed in the field and he just stops and says, do you see what's happening? And he brings a spiritual truth through it. So anybody, a person that's never picked up a Bible can understand the parable.

And so, you know, if we think about parables, two of them come to mind, particularly parables dealing with the kingdom and how God receives sinners. One in Matthew chapter 22, the parable of the wedding feast and the invitations are sent out.

And we remember that parable. The king sends out invitations. He's going to have a great wedding feast and he wants to invite all of his friends. So you can imagine the who's who on that list, the noblemen, the important people.

So the messengers go out and they invite them to come to the great feast to celebrate the wedding. And those people are just too important in their own mind. I'm busy. I got stuff to do. I just got married.

I just bought some. I just bought an ox. I got to go see if it works. You know, I got business. I got family. I look, tell the king I'm sorry. And none of them respond. It's really a picture of the religious man.

He's so self-satisfied. He says to God, thanks, but but really I don't need it. So they come back and the king is furious. He's grieved. He's offended. And he sends them out again and he says, now, I want you to go with the same invitation, but this time forget that list.

Go to every nobody. Go down every country street. Go to the hedges. Go to the byways. And everybody you find, you tell them the king wants you to come. What a wonderful picture of how even if the most religious people have no interest in this gospel, the least, the person with the least knowledge of God, the person with the least that they would think, well, this would recommend me to God is commanded to come.

Yeah, I can't help but think of the parable of the prodigal son as well.

Yeah, a father, two sons. They're both treated generously. We know the story. The younger son says, well, actually, thanks, dad, but really I like what you have in your back pocket more than I like you.

So you give me my inheritance now and we'll, you know, we'll be good. And I'll leave. He leaves and he goes and he spends all the kindness of his father, all the provision of his father on the most wicked life.

And what a picture of a different kind of religious person. I go to church. I hear all about the gospel. Imagine a man that takes all those gospel phrases and uses them almost like money. I'm saved by grace.

We're not saved by works. Jesus loves sinners, not good people. And he uses that as an excuse to live his life for himself. And he hits bottom. And then, of course, there's a very painful question. Why would my father take me back?

I used what he gave me. I used even his loving provision for wickedness. I mean, imagine that. We've done that. And he turns back. He has enough hope in his father's mercy to risk it. And he starts back and he finds the father has already started out looking for him.

And so, again, a parable that clearly shows us a simple message. Not only the sufficiency, but the willingness of God to save even the worst of sinners.

Supporter Appreciation and Closing Announcements

We've talked about the object of our faith this week, Christ's sufficiency and his willingness to save. And next week, we're going to talk about faith itself with some biblical descriptions of what faith is and what it does.

And then following in a couple of weeks, the twin gifts of faith and repentance, repentance and faith. It's the way in. It's the way up. It's the Christian life. We really appreciate all of you who come alongside of Media Gratia monthly with your support.

This supporter appreciation episode is just a tangible way that we like to say thank you by producing a little more content. There's other things in that supporter appreciation. We go to conferences. We go on filming trips.

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