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Years ago, I heard a pastor talk about baptism and why do we take people up out of the water after we baptize them.
After all, they're now believers and they might as well just go straight to heaven. Keep them under.
Why do we pull them out of the water? Well, it's a complex question. Of course, it signifies the resurrection of Jesus.
But there's more work for the Christian to do. Why do you exist?
Now that you're a Christian, why do you live? And you say, my chief end is to glorify God and enjoy
Him forever. That's true. It's to worship Him. That's true. To have communion with Him in prayer.
That's true. But why are you alive? Why do you exist as a Christian? Why does not
God just immediately take you to heaven, rapture you up into heaven upon your belief?
One of the answers is that you are here as a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ and you are to tell the good news that Jesus Christ forgives sins.
You're here to evangelize, to bear witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I think at Bethlehem Bible Church, we do a pretty good job of evangelism.
I commend many of you for being people who don't necessarily go down to the common to witness, although that's good too.
But you have a desire. You see someone and you think, I want them to go to heaven. My children, my parents, my friends, my workmates.
You see them as lost people and you have a desire for them to be reconciled to this great holy
God. But all of us, I think, could become better evangelists.
Don't you think we could evangelize more and more of a God -centered way? I think the answer is we all should desire that.
Yes. Now, sometimes I get motivated by encouragement and sometimes by conviction.
And so, I'd like to do a little bit of both of those today. How about a little conviction to start? Spurgeon, every
Christian is either a missionary or an imposter. He said, will the heathen who have not heard the gospel be saved?
It's more a question with me whether we who have the gospel and fail to give it to those who have not can be saved.
An evangelist once said, could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?
Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn, and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
I mean, even if you think about the thrill of telling people about Jesus, isn't it just a great feeling?
Isn't it wonderful to say, you know, God orchestrated this in such a way where I could tell them about sin and a
Savior. I could tell them about the King of the universe, Jesus Christ, the eternal God who cloaked
Himself with humanity to be a representative and a substitute who triumphs over the grave, and you can be right with God.
You can see His face one day. It's thrilling. I could ask it this way, when's the last time you evangelized?
When's the last time you as a Christian said to someone, I'd like you to consider your soul?
Well, let's take our Bibles this morning and get some help from Matthew chapter 28. Please turn your Bibles to Matthew 28.
I'd like to talk a little bit about evangelism here in the final instructions from King Jesus in Matthew chapter 28.
And it's fascinating because these 11 men, these 11 disciples who heard this from Jesus must have been shocked.
How can you turn the world right side up with 11 people, 11 relatively ignorant people compared to the world's standards?
Matthew chapter 28 is what we call the Great Commission. Now, I will have to tell you that I think it's not the greatest commission, but I think it's a great commission.
How could I not call it the greatest commission? Because I think the greatest commission was the Father's sending the
Son to go save the bride of Christ. I think that's the greatest commission. In eternity past, the triune agreement to go rescue sinners.
I think that's the greatest commission. But this is our Great Commission, the King's final instructions that almost seem impossible if it weren't for His strength and power.
Let me read to you verses 16 through 20. And this morning, we're going to talk about evangelism, ways to evangelize.
Should we defend the Bible or proclaim it? And I want all this to help us to be better evangelists by the grace of God.
Matthew 28, verse 16, Jesus has been raised from the dead.
And it says now in verse 16, Now, the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
When they saw Him, they worshipped Him. Some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them,
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, the singular name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold,
I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Or as the ESV says, to the end of the age.
Jesus, it says, do you notice in verse 18, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Who talks like that?
Who do you know that makes such a claim? Insane people, maybe. Hitler would maybe want to say that.
Lenin might want to say that. Who dares make such a claim? The whole universe on earth and in heaven is under my control.
No right -thinking person says that unless you're the eternal Son. Clearly alluding to verses like this in Daniel chapter 7,
I saw in the night visions, behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him.
And to him, talking about Jesus, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
Isn't that fascinating? Daniel chapter 7, there's this God -man who's going to have all dominion, and it'll never pass away, it'll never be destroyed, unlike Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar had a fleeting kingdom. He had power for a while, and then he lost the power.
What a change when it comes to Jesus from the incarnated state to now he's resurrected.
What a change from the man who's sorrows, acquainted with grief, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
He gets complete authority on heaven and on earth. No more limitations from the incarnation, no more poverty, the official right to rule, superior jurisdiction,
Lord of lords and King of kings. He'd become obedient to death, even death on the cross, and so God highly exalted him and gave him a name above every name.
Here we have the sovereign Jesus, sovereign King, and now he gives the issue, he gives the command to go tell people about him.
Listen to what Kuyper said. The Great Commission is a command of the sovereign God. Obviously, the more seriously one takes divine sovereignty, so much the more will one feel oneself in holy duty, bound to carry out that command.
Isn't that interesting? The more you understand the sovereignty of God, King Jesus, the more you'll want to be a good evangelist.
And by the way, in church history, the best evangelists, of course, equipped by the grace of God and empowered by the
Spirit of God, have been the evangelists who have not thought man -centered salvation.
Man and God cooperating with salvation. But the best evangelists have been the ones who have understood that God has all authority.
The Son has all authority. The best evangelists in church history, from Paul, to Stephen, to Peter, to John, to Whitefield, to Hudson Taylor, to Mary Slessor, to Edwards, to Calvin, whether you're a preacher or an evangelist, the best speakers and presenters of the truth of God for the good news in evangelism have had a high view of the sovereignty of God.
You say, I'd like to be a better evangelist. Here Jesus says, I've got all authority. I've got all power. I'm the
King. And you understand that sovereignty and evangelism are tied together.
How different it is when people say, well, you believe God's in charge of who goes to heaven and who doesn't.
Then why bother when it comes to evangelism? On the contrary, here we have all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
This is the authority that Jesus has received, Revelation 2 says, from his Father. He just doesn't have authority on earth, but also in heaven.
Knox said this, Jesus was given heaven and earth to do what he liked with it.
And the more you understand the sovereignty of God, the more you'll have confidence in evangelism.
The more you'll have authority in evangelism in the sense you'll think, you know what, I've been sent by one who has authority.
Fascinatingly, Jesus' authority in the gospels up to this point, he had the authority to heal diseases, sickness.
He could cleanse lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead, give authority to the 12, give authority to the 70.
He could forgive sins. He had the authority to execute judgment, to lay down his life and to take it up again.
But all of that falls short to now his expansive, comprehensive authority of heaven and of earth.
I have authority. Matthew, unlike Mark, doesn't end with the resurrection.
It doesn't end with the ascension. He ends with the great commission, which leads me to a question.
If this is so critical that the king of the universe, he saved us from our sins, out of our sins.
He's rescued us from Satan's clutches. And we are redeemed people.
We're reconciled people. We now want to do what the king says. And at the top of the list, as it were, we need to go tell people about the
Lord Jesus. The way we evangelize matters. How do we make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that's in us?
1 Peter chapter 3. And so eventually when it comes to evangelism, you've got to ask yourself this question.
How does apologetics and evangelism go together? Do apologetics fit under evangelism?
Vice versa? How do I think philosophically, logically, biblically when it comes to evangelism?
What's the best way to evangelize? So I'll ask another question. When someone says to you,
Yes, but I don't believe the Bible. What do you say? If someone says, I don't believe
Jesus was raised from the dead, what do you say? If someone says, I don't think I'm a sinner, what do you say?
What is your approach when it comes to evangelism and apologetics? Well, evangelism means to tell the good news.
I have good news. Jesus offers clemency. If you'll lay down your arms of sin and self and flesh, bow your knee and believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Savior. What's apologetics? Well, apologetics comes from a
Greek word, apologia, which means to give a reason, to give a defense.
Back in the old days in Greece, you would have somebody who would be like today, a defense lawyer who would try to clear your name.
They would make a modern day defense for you on your behalf.
Whatever you do, don't think apologetics is something you do when, you know, if you stub someone's, you hit their toe.
I don't know how you stub somebody else's toe. I don't know. But if you hit their toe and you say, oh, I'm sorry,
I apologize. Kind of regretful acknowledgement, according to the
Oxford English Dictionary. It's not that. But in the context of evangelism and Christianity, apologetics is a reasoned defense for the
Christian faith. These are the truths for the Christian faiths. These are the answers against the
Christian faith. These are rebuttals against opposing beliefs. And there's probably four main schools of evangelism.
And so let me give you the four main schools and then talk about why we believe a certain school here. I don't mean school like RTS or Ligonier or something like that.
I mean a view of apologetics because I think it's helpful. There's one view that says we are classical apologetics, apologists, classical apologists.
Why is it called classical? Because it's kind of the oldest and you have kind of the three A's, Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas.
They would do this. And they would prove or attempt to prove the existence of God through rational arguments, through logic.
And they would focus on the life of Jesus, His miracles, His resurrection. And let's reason, let's go through logic.
Ravi Zacharias, C .S. Lewis, Geisler, those kind of men. Problem is it's fraught with danger because if you just have the right argument, you mean to tell me that those people would actually believe, overcome the objections and they'll convert to Christianity?
And why we don't do that here at the church or try to teach it or model it as elders is because you get stuck talking so much about does
God exist or not and you miss out on talking about who Jesus is.
Well, let me just give you a couple of these others and we'll get back into the text. Classic evidentialism, classic apologetics is the first one.
Evidentialist is the second. Evidentialism is a form of evangelism, a form of apologetics to be more technical.
And they try to prove the existence of God through what? Any guesses? Evidence, there you go.
You've probably all heard the book Evidence Demands a what? Verdict. And so this could be intelligent design.
It could be Josephus talks about Jesus, philosophical arguments to persuade people that the
Bible's true and Jesus is true. Josh McDowell, Ken Ham, it is said with archaeology.
Hey, Sinai is there. It's uncovered. Petra is there. It's uncovered. Every time a spade hits the dirt in Israel, a skeptic is converted is the kind of logic that they would have.
And if archaeology doesn't work, then let's bring in experiential evidence.
You know, before I got saved, I was a drug addict, a licentious, horrible lowdown sinner.
And now I'm an upstanding citizen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. My life has been changed.
I'm completely different. What about prophetic testimony of Jesus and his first coming and the second coming?
What about moral arguments, cosmological arguments? And friends,
I'd like evidentialism for you, the believer. I like it because it strengthens your faith.
And you say, yes, archaeology, yes, external sources, yes, experiential testimony and evidence.
Yes, that's all true. But evidence doesn't demand a verdict in front of the unbeliever.
It boosts the faith of believers. That's what it does. Let me give you one other one that we don't use here at Bethlehem Bible Church, and then we'll talk about the one we do and show you from Scripture about that.
The third view, not just classical, not just evidential, but this is called reformed epistemology.
You say, Mike, you've never talked about reformed epistemology in the 17 years you've been here. I know because I could hardly pronounce the words is what
I could hardly do. Christianity, these folks would say, is true.
It's valid. And it is more superior to not believing. Our view of Christianity and believing in the
God who made everything is more superior than your view that nothing times everything equals something.
It's more negative apologetics, challenging people. So, Mike, if I'm bound to tell people about Jesus and I'm bound to interact with people, what about trying to say, does
God exist? Classical apologetics. What about evidences? You know, my life's been changed, therefore the gospel's true.
What about negating their view? What should I do if those things you don't recommend? Well, what we teach here at the church and what we will attempt to prove this morning as well and convict you and encourage you as you evangelize is something called presuppositional apologetics.
Presuppositional apologetics. We have all kinds of presumptions. We presuppose that everyone believes that God exists.
Romans 1 .20, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
We don't need to try to prove that God exists. We know they think he does. We presuppose that the
Bible is true. We presuppose that man is sinful. We presuppose that the only salvation is found in Jesus, the
God -man. We presuppose that the only way an unbelieving person can go from death to life is through the preaching of the gospel and then the sovereign spirit at his will changing people.
We presuppose that the issue that everyone has at the highest level as an unbeliever is they need to be forgiven and reconciled to God.
Now presuppositional apologetics was formally named by Cornelius Van Till and then made very popular by a man named
Bonson, Greg Bonson. But what we do with presuppositional apologetics is this.
We're going to skip over a lot of, I'm going to prove to you the Bible's true. I'm going to prove to you that God exists.
And let's jump straight to the issues of sin and the savior to spend time on those issues.
Issues. Now turn with me if you would to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 for a moment. I want to make sure we have a biblical mindset when it comes to doing things
God's way. How many people here served in the military, United States or any other military?
Okay, quite a few. When you left your civilian life and went into the army, navy, air force, marines, there's a new way to think.
Dress differently, act differently, think differently, different vocabulary. Everything you did was the military's way, no longer your old civilian way.
And what happens when it comes to spiritual warfare, and I think spiritual warfare is involved in evangelism obviously, you've got to think counterintuitively.
And I think if you can think counterintuitively, you will resist trying to spend a lot of time with the unbeliever on proving the
Bible, proving that God exists, and you'll get to the issue of the Bible says. Here's what I'm after. When you evangelize,
I want you to regularly say, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says.
And this kind of counterintuitive thinking, Paul discusses in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 3.
It's just good to be brief before you go out on the mission. For though we walk in the flesh, 2
Corinthians 10 verse 3, we do not war, strategies not according to the flesh.
Why? For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
Friends, how do you fight an enemy you can't see? How do you fight
Satan? How do you fight forces that are more powerful than you are? You've got to choose your weapons wisely.
In any battle, in any fight, you've got to make sure you don't pick up the pea shooter when you've got a howitzer available.
You've got to make sure you use the weapons that God has ordained. You know what?
I'm in a conflict with Satan. Let me get out my... What would I do when I was a kid? Well, we would take a big pen, take out the center of the big pen, stuff up the side a little bit, and then make great spitwad shooters.
I mean, I think my third grade classroom probably still has spitwads on the ceiling.
You know what? There's an enemy invasion. Get the spitwads out. Conventional warfare will simply not do.
There's a special set of rules of engagement for gospel ministry.
Why? Well, because God said so. And the battle is spiritual. Paul said elsewhere, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.
And when it comes to this strategy, it's all about the mind. Look at verse 5. Here's what we're doing.
It's all about the mind, the unbeliever's mind. We are destroying. That's casting down.
That's a military term, by the way. We're casting down speculations. It's like their thought life is a fort on top of a hill, perched up on a hill, and we've got to take the fort.
We're destroying speculations in every lofty thing, every high thing.
Same thing. It's a military term. A fortress up on the mountains. If you've been to Gettysburg, you can see certain perfect fortresses that make for good retreats against every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
We're taking prisoners of war, thoughts, their mind, storming the stronghold, thinking rightly, doing things in God's way.
So here's what I'd like to do. In the time we have left, let me give you some reasons why you should preach the
Bible to your unbelieving friends. Talk about the Lord Jesus Christ to them instead of defending the
Bible. Let me give you some reasons. I've got several of them. I think I've got six or seven, but we won't get through them all today.
Here's my goal. My goal is for you to have a heart for the lost. Jesus had one great command here at the end of his life.
He's sovereign over everything, and he says, I want you to go preach the gospel. So how can we preach the gospel?
I'm telling you, when I get involved with people on a plane or anywhere else, I just feel myself getting drawn into arguments about, well, how do you know
God exists? You know, men wrote the Bible, and you know all the contradictions in the Bible, and around and around we go, and I have to stop, and I have to think, listen,
I like to preach to myself, Mike, you know better, and so why don't you do what you've been taught, and that is, we need to talk about sin and the
Savior, because I'm not after intelligent design victories.
I'm not after a variety of things. I'm after I need to talk about the
Savior. And so let me give you some reasons why you should proclaim the Word of God and not defend it.
Wasn't it Spurgeon who said, I would just as soon defend a lion as I would the
Bible? I think your favorite evangelists are going to be people that just said, this is what the text says.
This is what the truth is. Reason one, to preach the
Bible and proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Instead of defending the Bible, instead of trying to prove the existence of God, reason one, because you cannot prove the
Bible to be true with anything less than the Bible. Because you cannot prove the Bible to be true with anything less than the
Bible. Please turn to Luke 16. Scriptures are greater than miracles, and so if Scripture doesn't do the work, you mean to tell me miracles will?
Why go to something that's less powerful, less effective?
I think it's futile to try to prove the Bible to be true. And if people don't believe the
Bible to be true, they're not going to believe any kind of evidence either. Take a look at Luke 16, verse 19.
I can't prove the greater by the lesser now, can I? Luke 16, 19. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple, fine linen, feasted sumptuously every day.
At his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, desired to be fed with what fell from the sky.
He sat on the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came, licked his sores.
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw
Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me.
Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water, cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.
But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things.
But now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you is a great chasm that has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.
Verse 27, And he said, Then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
Listen, congregation, verse 29, But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets.
Let them hear them. He said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
He said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, if they don't hear the Bible, if they don't hear the revelation from God, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.
Friends, this is why we tell people, the Bible says, the Bible says, one man said, this passage speaks powerfully of the singular sufficiency of Scripture to overcome unbelief.
The fool has said in his heart, there's no God. And it's not an intellectual problem, it's a moral problem.
So what can fix that moral problem? Paul knew, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
It's the word that's got the power. Sovereignly applied, John 6, It's a spirit who gives life.
The flesh is no help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.
For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.
And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come unless it is granted him by the
Father. You are made born again through what vehicle? Through the preaching of the gospel.
First Peter 1, Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.
Friends, even if you are a classical apologist, even if you are an evidentialist, even if you are a reformed, whatchamacallit, an epistemologist, you still will say with me,
Mike, it's good to tell people, let's stick to the Bible. You're not wrong for saying, let me tell you about sin and salvation.
I've seen John on TV lately. The old days when John MacArthur was on the Larry King show, it would have been very easy to be
John MacArthur in preparation because they'd pick a topic, you know, what's going on with the world in a particular moral dilemma.
And John MacArthur would be asking a question. And no matter what the question was, he would go back to, this is who Jesus is.
Fascinating. When he had said these things, he cried out, this is not in your text, by the way, with a loud voice,
Lazarus come out. The man who had died came out, his hands on his hands, excuse me, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. Many of the Jews, therefore, had come with Mary and had seen what he did believe in him.
But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priest and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, what are we to do?
For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him.
And the Romans will come and take away our place and our nations. Hey, we see a sign from Jesus.
We see evidence. And that will just propel us. That will accelerate us to try to go kill the guy.
If you can't prove the Bible's true with a miracle, maybe you shouldn't try to prove the Bible's true at all.
Turn to Hebrews chapter four for a moment. Let me remind you the power that's found in the word of God. Even if you disagree with my apologetical convictions, you won't disagree with this.
I'm sure. Hebrews chapter four, verse 13. I know we're parachuting right in here, but what
I'm after congregation is this. When you have an opportunity to preach after some niceties and after a few other things,
I just want you to get to the Bible says as soon as you can, whether you think fruit comes from it or not.
I never say to myself, you know, thank you, Lord. I just put a tick mark in my Bible and led somebody to the
Lord on row 30 of the airplane seat B. I'm so thankful for that.
I closed the deal. Every head bowed except the captain and the pilots. Every eye closed. No, you know what
I say? Lord, thank you for letting me open my mouth, for giving me the strength to obey your word.
And I just told them about Jesus. Thank you for that. I praise you for that.
Friends, the Bible isn't a dead book. It's active. Verse 12.
For the word of God. Now, if I was going to be a smart aleck, I would say for evidences that demand a verdict are living and active.
No, the word of God's living and active and sharper than any two edged. And it's not a huge sword there.
It's like a surgeon's scalpel. When I used to work in the operating room, they'd open up all the different scalpels and all the different things on the table, on the operating room table.
And they'd open up a scalpel. It was almost the first thing that they would do. They take a scalpel and they'd open that patient up with fine cutting.
This is the idea here. Two edged sword piercing. I mean, can anything evade this word?
Can anything hide? Everything comes into judgment because it divides the soul and spirit, joints and marrow, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Calvin quote, There's nothing so hard or firm in a man, nothing so deeply hidden that the efficacy of the word does not penetrate through to it.
See, that's a lot different than me saying my life got changed because I know Mormon's lives that got changed.
I know Buddhist life were changed. I know a lot of weird people in Santa Cruz who are worshiping vegan food.
Their lives are changed too. How do you get into the inner crevices of a man's heart and mind and thought process?
Well, you can't, but the word like a polygraph, every thought, every word, every deed, every event, every detail.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4, Disclosing the motives of men's hearts. It's like an x -ray to the soul.
It discerns. It's where we get the word critic, a criticus. Verse 13,
And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open, naked.
So we get the word a gym. Everybody's laid naked and open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
When it comes to the word applied by the sovereign spirit, there's no kind of airbrushing my spiritual state, no kind of funny carnival mirror that will make me look better.
Open and laid bare. What's that word laid bare from? It's where we get the word trache, tracheotomy, trachealus.
It means neck, means throat. You would have a wrestler and what they would do is they would try to bend the head a certain way to open up the throat because you were very vulnerable there.
What's the most vulnerable part of a person? The throat. And with whom we must give an account, with whom we have to reckon.
God exposes mankind's thoughts and motives and thinking through the word of God.
And so friends, get the word out of its scabbard. The Bible says, you know, you may critique
Billy Graham for lots of different things over the years, but I will tell you this, that I commend Billy Graham for him saying often and regularly when he preached, what would he say?
The Bible says. Number two, reason two,
I'd like you to proclaim the word, to defend the Bible by proclaiming it, not to waste time with the existence of God or does the
Bible have contradictions? You can't prove the Bible to be true with anything less than the
Bible. Number two, remember the depravity of man. Remember the depravity of man so that when you proclaim the
Bible, you realize to whom you're proclaiming it. Let's take a look at Ephesians chapter four.
Years ago, I remember Arthur Pink. He said, there's two keys to evangelism. Here's key one, preach for the glory of God, not results.
Number two, don't forget the depravity of man. Because if you forget the depravity of man, you'll try to do man -centered things in your evangelistic techniques and methods.
If you remember the depravity of man, his whole depravity, total depravity, not utter depravity, but total, that means his mind, his will, his emotions, his conscience are all fallen.
If you realize you're dealing with a fallen person, then you will want to give the Bible. I just want to remind you that when you're talking to unbelievers, they might be awake, they might be smarter than you, intellectually brilliant, high
IQ, but they, as an unbeliever, are depraved. So what can you do?
By the way, this is so wonderful because if you met somebody who is a nuclear physicist, you think, you know,
I have to evangelize this person. What would you do? I met a guy once and, you know,
I said to him, yeah, some kind of rocket scientist. And he's like, I am a rocket scientist. What do
I do? What if you meet a professor who's got a PhD from Harvard in comparative religions?
Then what do you do? What if you haven't been taught these different things? How are you able?
It's super simple. You say to yourself, the King of the universe, Jesus Christ, has given me delegated authority.
He's given me a command to go tell people about Him. And I'm like F .B.
Meyer, he once said, I'm an errand boy for Jesus, and I'm going to go tell them about sin and the
Savior. That's what I'm going to do. I do know who He is. And I talk to these kind of people, the mind is affected,
Ephesians 4 .17. And if the mind is so affected, why am I so rational with my apologetics?
I ought not to be. Now, this I say and testify, Ephesians 4 .17, in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the
Gentiles do, pagans, in the futility of their minds. They're darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of heart.
They become callous in giving themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Their mind doesn't work, the Bible says, for spiritual things. Oh, they might know calculus, but comes to spiritual things, it doesn't work.
Their mind is meaningless, useless, worthless. That's what that word futility means, empty.
One translation, a Bible translation, a looser translation says, their mind is full of good -for -nothing notions.
And as my professor used to teach me at seminary, when you meet someone who's an unbeliever, it's like they have an antenna.
And their antenna receives FM signals. And their antenna is broken.
It's an FM antenna and it's broken. And now you come up, and if you're not careful, and you're trying to say, well, the
Bible's true, these are the reasons, it's why God exists. It's like you're talking through AM frequency to an
FM broken antenna. Defective minds, they don't understand.
Feudal minds, they're excluded from the life of God. Oh, they know they're idols, but they've got a hard heart.
Verse 19, and they have become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality. One man said, human depravity has rendered autonomous reason incapable of satisfactorily anchoring its truth claims to anything objectively certain.
You say, I have no idea what that means. Well, I don't either, but it sounded good. No, just kidding. Their minds aren't working.
You're not going to try to win some argument, and even if you do win the argument, then what? Don't assume that the natural man, the unbeliever, has a capacity to grasp things.
Don't think their mind's neutral. If I just give enough proofs, they'll have to bow the knee.
Instead, how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How they are to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they're sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the what?
Good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
So, if you're a Christian, the King has given you a commission. May I implore you, may
I exhort you, may I remind you, when it comes to telling people about Jesus Christ, I dispense with the pleasantries early and get right to the issue of sin.
My mentor would say when he would sit on a plane and people would sit by him and they'd say, well, what do you do for a living? He'd say,
I go all around the world and tell people that they can have all their sins forgiven in Christ Jesus.
Are you interested? And if they say no, then they say no.
If they say yes, off we go. I'm not saying you're always wrong if you say,
I said to my chiropractor, you know, he's like, well, you know, what about blood and lowest common denominators and irreducible minimums?
And if you get cut, then if your blood's thicker, it won't pump.
If you get cut and your blood's thinner, you'll leak out, you'll drain out, you'll bleed out. But you can believe in intelligent design and still not be a
Christian, still not go to heaven. So I dispense with those pleasantries early and get to Jesus and what he's done.
And by the way, don't you like to talk about Jesus? Isn't he the one that's good to talk about?
That takes everything away from me and I'll just tell them about Jesus, what he's done by loving sinners enough to die on the cross.
One last comment. Friends, do you know if you believe the
Bible is true? You don't believe it's true because you made yourself believe it's true.
You can't even prove the Bible's inspired to yourself. You can't say the
Bible's authoritative, sufficient, inerrant, infallible, clear. If you think that way, it's the internal testimony of the
Holy Spirit that's made that clear to you. So why, if you can't prove the
Bible is inspired to yourself, why would you go around trying to prove it to unbelievers? Calvin, the highest proof of Scripture derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in it.
The testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. He's got it right.
By the way, when you say these kind of things to your unbelieving friends, if God has chosen them and is drawing them, they will believe.
And if they're not going to believe at the time, don't forget that some people might think you're insane.
Festus to Paul. Paul, you're out of your mind. Your great learning is driving you out of your mind.
So you're on a mission. Here's the mission. The Jesus Christ that's saved you from your sins and given you new life has told you to go tell other people about him.
So let's not try to prove the Bible. Let's not try to prove existence of God.
Let's just tell others about Jesus. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for Bethlehem Bible Church. I thank you for the Scriptures that are powerful.
I thank you that even though Satan's alive and active, your sword is so much more powerful.
Father, deceivers out there, the Antichrist is out there, not acknowledging Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh, as 2
John says. What are we to do? We're to trust in you and we are to proclaim the gospel that will give life to the dead and eyes to see to the blind.
Father, help us to have a heart for the lost like your son did, like you do. In Jesus' name,