Millions Believe Their Lies

This is not some cult, this is us! Stop it!

The Problem With a Love-Only Gospel Presentation

As a college student, I was taught to share the gospel using the four spiritual laws, which began with, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. However, there is a serious problem with presenting the gospel in this way.

Walk up to someone and say, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Can you imagine telling that to an American? Sir, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. What? God loves me?

Love me too! Oh, this is wonderful! And God's got a wonderful plan. I've got a wonderful plan for my life too. And if I accept Him into my life, I'll have my best life now. This is absolutely wonderful!

That is not biblical evangelism!

Most gospel presentations today start with and focus on God's love in a way that either leaves out or de-emphasizes the importance of God's wrath against sin.

God will never love you any more than He loves you right now!

Evangelism Begins With the Holiness of God

Instead, our gospel presentation should begin with an explanation of who God is and what it means that God is holy.

Let me give you something in its place. God comes to Moses and He says this, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin, yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

The reaction of Moses. Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship. Evangelism begins with the nature of God. Who is God? Can a man recognize anything about his sin if he hath not a standard with which to compare himself?

If we tell him nothing but trivial things about God that tickle the carnal mind, will he ever be brought to genuine repentance of faith? We do not begin with God loves you and has a wonderful plan. We begin with a discourse of the full counsel of who God is.

Why Sin Cannot Be Left Out of the Gospel

Often times, sin is completely left out of the gospel. Presentation and invitation.

You don't have to remind people they're sinners. They know. You don't have to remind people they fall short not only of God but of who they would want to be themselves.

And when sin is mentioned, it's not treated with the seriousness it deserves.

Just say, Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. Come into my heart. I'll make you my Lord and Savior. If you prayed that simple prayer, we believe you got born again.

A proper understanding of the seriousness of sin is an essential part of any real gospel presentation.

After that, we have exploratory questions. Hey, you know you're a sinner, don't you? That's like a few years ago, my mother died of cancer. It's like the doctor walking in on the day and saying, Hey, Barb, you know you've got cancer, don't you?

We treat it so superficially. No weight. Nothing solemn. Sir, there is a terrible malady upon you and a judgment coming. The question is not, do you know you are a sinner? The question is, is the Holy Spirit so at work in your heart through the preaching of the gospel that a change has been wrought so that the sin you once loved you now hate, and the sin you once desired to embrace, you're wanting to run from it as though you were running from a dragon.

The Difference Between Wanting Heaven and Wanting God

I remember being asked in vacation Bible school, Do you want to go to heaven? Of course, I said yes. Then the adults told me that if I prayed a prayer, I could be sure that I would go to heaven. In retrospect, I now see how worthless that question and that prayer were.

Absolutely nothing in my life changed after praying that prayer.

Then the question, do you want to go to heaven? This is the reason I would not let my children go to 98 of the Sunday schools and vacation Bible schools and evangelical churches. Because some well-meaning person stands up and says, Isn't Jesus wonderful after showing the Jesus film?

Yes. How many of you little children love Jesus? Oh, I do. Who wants to accept Jesus into their little heart? Oh, I do. Would you like to go to heaven? My dear friend, everybody wants to go to heaven.

They just don't want God to be there when they get there. The question is not, do you want to go to heaven? The question is this, do you want God? Have you stopped being a hater of God? Has Christ become precious to you?

Do you inspire Him? That's what political theory is all about, my dear friend. Everybody wants to go to heaven. But men are haters of God. So the question is not, do you want to go to a special place where you'll no longer hurt and you'll get everything you want?

The question is, do you want Him? Has Christ become precious to you?

True Conversion Involves More Than Repeating a Prayer

True conversion and salvation involve far more than merely repeating a prayer.

And if you just raise your hand right now in a moment of receptivity and say, I believe, or I receive the forgiveness of Jesus, you are forgiven forever. And I want to say to you, sir, to you, ma 'am, congratulations.

And thank you for making the most important decision of your life.

Often if a person prays, they're told, after that, would you like to go to heaven? Well, yes. Would you like to pray and ask Jesus into your heart? Now, my dear friend, let me say this. There are people who get saved using that methodology.

But it's not because of it, it's in spite of it.

Regeneration and the New Birth

True saving faith is always accompanied by being born again, which is a miraculous work of God that completely transforms the direction of a person's life.

Sir, do you desire Christ? Do you see your sin? Oh, yes, yes, I do. Sir, let's look at a few scriptures here that lay out for us what repentance looks like. Does the Spirit bearing witness that this is happening in your life?

Do you see brokenness? Do you see the disintegration of everything you've fought? And now your mind is filled with new thoughts about God and new desires and new hopes. Yes, I see that, sir. That may be the first fruits of repentance.

Now, throw yourself upon Christ. Trust in Him.

Trust in Him. Today, millions of people have been deceived into thinking they are saved because they prayed a prayer.

I'm looking forward to my new life with you. Amen. Well, congratulations. You have just become part of the family of God.

However, more often than not, the reality is that their lives of disobedience to God's commands demonstrate that they have not yet been born again by God.

And they may walk a little bit because they've been raised in a Christian culture, sort of, a church culture, anyways. And then when they turn 15, 16, when they have the strength of will, they begin to break the bonds.

Begin to live in wickedness. And then we go after them saying, You're Christian! You're just not living like it! Stop your backsliding! Instead of going to them biblically and saying this, You made a confession of faith in Christ.

You professed Him even in baptism. But now it seems as though you have turned away from Him. Examine yourself. Test yourself. There's little evidence of any true conversion in you. And then when they're 24, 25, after college, maybe 30, they come back to church and they rededicate their life.

And they join right in with that pseudo-Christian morality that encompasses churchianity in America. And in the end, they hear this, Depart from me, you worker of iniquity! I never knew you!

But instead of telling them that they might not be saved, they are merely treated as backslidden or carnal Christians, since their one prayer, one time in their life guaranteed their salvation.

If they're ever challenged regarding their conversion because of a lack of fruit or overwhelming worldliness, they defend their hope of salvation by once again affirming the sincerity of their prayer and the confirmation of their religious leaders.

If any counseling is done, a person is usually admonished to turn from his or her backsliding and to begin serving the Lord again. However, the validity of their conversion is never examined or ever challenged.

It is faith alone that saves. But everyone with true saving faith has been born again. And all who have been born again will love God and pursue obedience to His commands, not perfectly, but in a way that characterizes their lives.

When we don't teach this doctrine of regeneration, we deceive countless people into thinking they are right with God, when in reality, they are still headed straight to hell.

The New Birth Is Necessary for Salvation

You must be born again here in America. Because of the last several years, several decades of evangelism, the idea of born again is totally lost. It only means that at one time in a crusade, you made a decision and you think you were sincere.

But there is no evidence of a supernatural recreating work of the Holy Spirit in your life. If any man, not if some men, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.