Dr Greg Bahnsen - Evangelism Seminar: Conclusion and Procedures (Part 6)

Lets begin with a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to study your word and more particularly for the privilege of coming into your presence to speak to you as a father. We thank you that you have loved us with an everlasting love and made us your children, that you've changed our hearts from hearts that are full of rebellion and hatred, the hearts that have been softened to receive the gospel and to know your we pray that this night we might learn to effectively communicate your love to others as we show them the good news that you have given us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you might grant to us the fulfillment of promises throughout the Scriptures that many men indeed would be converted, that we'd see your church grow, we'd see the kingdom advance even in our lifetime. We pray that toward that end you would make us effective tools for the gospel and its sure increase. For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. I have passed out, or Jim has passed out. The outline that I prepared that covers the introductory principles portion of our course. Tonight we'll finish these principles and then what we're going to do is go through probably a number of weeks. We touch on different types of evangelism, hospitality, evangelism, friendship, evangelism, evangelism of strangers. As it turns out, the Journal of Christian Reconstruction came out this week. Jim has a copy of it there in his hand, and the symposium this time is on evangelism. And I read through, at least skimmed, the Journal today, and it's very good. So we're going to, as a church, purchase copies for every family that you can read the articles and probably we'll have one session where that's kind of discussed and summarized. Richard Jones is going to lead a session. The possibilities there that one of the navigators, the leaders down in San Diego, that's an elder in one of our churches, may come up to speak to us. So we're going to be going through a number of things to help you get some ideas of how you can implement evangelism. And while I'm on that, let me just say I was very encouraged by a call that I got late Sunday night from one of the couples in our church. They had been thinking all day, well, now what can we do to help the church grow? Even before I heard what their plan was that really picked me up as the pastor of this group because the fact is they were thinking practically, what is it that we can do? The longest journey begins with the first step. And if we're going to See this church grow. What can we do? Specifically, they have a nice little plan to get couples over to their house for periodic dinners with me coming to talk on marital relations and interpersonal relations, that sort of thing. This is what I'm hoping the last portion of our summer will stimulate in you. How can you have an effective program of your own, individually or in your family, to evangelize? Well, anyway, the principles that we're laying as foundation for all of this, that will continue after tonight, are summarized in this outline. Let's look at it real briefly. The motives for evangelism. We've done enough times that I trust you'll recognize those six motives that are listed. Then the next portion of our course was on evangelism as a mark of the church. The New Testament commissions the church to evangelize and characterizes the church as a witnessing organization. And then evangelism is collective in terms of our fellowship, worship and preaching, but there's also personal Evangelism and its advantages are laid out for you. Then we talked about the power for evangelism in terms of the qualities of life that are essential for the credibility of our witness. And then we had a whole session on the question of boldness in prayer and how we can achieve that and why that's necessary for boldness in our witness. The following week, we dealt with the message of evangelism. And some of the ideas that I presented are listed there in those five points. Number four is where we spend our most time going over the booklet, the seven theological truths. I dubbed the summary to take the place of the four spiritual laws. Okay, what's that? I looked them up and I didn't bring a copy again with me tonight. And Charlie's not here. Yes, we all know the first one, but. Yes, he did. And I was just thinking if he.

Were here.

The second one was very.

Sinful and separated from God.

I think something like that. I don't know the order you had.

To be converted and Jesus was the only one. Well, anyway, the seven theological truths is just shorthand for the seven Roman numerals in that booklet. Then the method of evangelism last week began and I pointed out out that God does hold us accountable, not just for the faithfulness of our message, that's the most important, but also for the winsomeness and persuasion that we employ. And essentially, there's only one means of evangelism. Without reading what is it? Effective explanation of the gospel. That's what evangelism is. Then specific questions that we should use in evaluating any method that comes. Okay, these are general points of evaluation. Is this method calculated to impress on people that this is a word from God? Is it calculated to promote or to impede the work of the Word in men's minds, not just their emotions? Does it convey the doctrine of the gospel in its whole, not just in part? Does it convey the application of the gospel in whole, not just in part? And is the manner of presentation appropriately serious? Then toward the end of our hour last week, I said that fishers of men must be skilled. I can't offer you an algebraic formula for success in evangelism, but there are some relevant factors. We have to evaluate our own personality and disposition. What are our gifts? If your gift is not for understanding modern philosophy and scientific challenges to the faith, it's not likely that you should be devoting a lot of your time on college campuses dealing with the professors there. Not everybody has the same field of service. Quite clearly, not everybody has the same personality. You might find it very easy to entertain people in your home to have, if you will, approach of hospitality and talk over the dinner table about the Lord. Whereas I might find it a lot easier to deal with people in private, making an appointment with them, going to their homes at night or something like that. It all depends on your circumstances and personality. You have to evaluate your particular situation, too. You're dealing with somebody who is a Roman Catholic, dealing with somebody who knows nothing about the Bible, somebody who's a Buddhist or a Methodist. Or are you dealing with somebody who's a sexual degenerate? You know, all these things make a difference as to what you're going to say and how you're going to approach them. And then also we must remember in every case that our method depends on the wisdom power given to us by the Holy Spirit. Okay, now we come to the lesson tonight. That would be 5, 6, and 7 on your outline. And I pointed out that if we are fishers of men, there are different aspects to the operation not only of evangelism, but of fishing. A fisherman has to cast his net. Then he waits for his work to be done. That's somewhat different than. But anyway, there's the casting of the net, the laying of bait, and the pulling in of the net. In the same way, our operation involves casting out the net, approaching people, then instructing them. That's getting the work done, laying the bait, giving some appeal, and then following it up, which is similar to pulling in the net. And I want to talk about those four aspects then of the operation or the method of evangelism. Tonight we begin with the importance of a right approach. As you approach people in evangelism, something that's true across the board in selling or anything, public relations, you just have to realize that first impressions are going to count for good or for ill. And if the first time you present the gospel, it's in a context where, say, the credibility of your own witness or your own personal grooming even sets the person off and makes them think, well, you know, why take this seriously? That's going to be a hard thing to overcome. So we have to remember that, that our first impressions should be good ones. The wrong approach to a person can easily arouse resentment in them because, say, the tone in our voice, the way we answer questions, it can arouse or predispose the person to a determined resistance. You can go to the person and be so arrogant and haughty and holier than thou that they say, well, I don't want anything to do with this thing called religion. So in terms of the right approach, we need to begin with the right mental attitude. That's where the battle, I think is won or lost in terms of approach having the right mental attitude. To have the right mental attitude, the first thing we should do, I think, is to rid ourselves, rid our mind of any sense of superiority. Perhaps the most fatal thing to soul winning on an individual basis is a holier than thou attitude. It's very difficult for Christians to avoid that because we're going to come across as those who are know it alls. We know what the Bible says. We've got our lives taken care of. You don't, we're going to heaven, you're going to hell. You have to see that just and all that's true. By the way, we do understand the Bible and they don't. Our lives are holier than theirs and we are going to heaven and they're going to hell. And so you just better realize that in the nature of the case, the situation structured, that it's going to seem like we are coming with a haughty attitude. And so we've really got to counterbalance that and make sure that every trace of a legitimate, not legitimate, but actual holier than thou attitude is not present in us. And of course, the holier than thou attitudes match often, I think, in what we say in the wiser than thou attitude to the unbeliever as well. God tells us in his word. Paul says in First Corinthians that God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. That by the way, should be the motto that is over the door of everybody who teaches apologetics because it's so easy for us to know. And it's true that the wisdom of God, of course the foolishness of God is wiser than men. Paul says what the world calls foolish is not foolish. There is a sense in which we should be able to combat people on an intellectual level and have the truth on our side. That's all well and good, but when we come across the people as smarter or wiser than they are, we're forgetting that God uses what the world will consider foolish. And I'd much rather have somebody say, you know what a back hills hick this guy is. He just depends upon the word of God. As though that really were identical with the very statements from God's mouth. It'd be far better to give the impression, as I said earlier, that this is a word from God than to leave the impression that this guy's a smart aleck and he has all these arguments worked out.

So.

Let'S avoid a holier than thou attitude. And I have in my notes here that I think we should avoid, on the other hand, a false sentimental pity. I think sometimes we present that too. You know, we're just so sorry for these people just don't understand or so lost in sin, so forth. That doesn't help anything. So have the right mental attitude. Rid your mind of superiority. Now you ready for this one? Secondly, rid your mind of inferiority, because that's going to kill your effort. If you go with an inferiority complex or that attitude, then that will surely spell the demise of what you're trying to say as well. You must not be apologetic so often. We are, you know, we have to say, you know, I'm really sorry to get into this. I'm really sorry to touch on some sensitive point. You know, I'm really sorry to talk about God being an ogre who sends people to hell. We can't give that attitude. We've got to give the attitude for the sake the vindication of the glory of God and his name in the world. I tell you, you must repent. Okay, so you mustn't go to the opposite extreme in fear of the holier than thou attitude, then coming across with this idea of inferiority. We are doing the people to whom we speak the greatest of favors in the world and we should do them that favor, even if it means losing their friendship. Ironic, but that happens. Trying to do good to people sometimes loses their friendship. I can assure you that that does happen. We must not quail before men's supposed superior positions. Their abilities, their intelligence, their way of life, their self confidence. You know, not many people are going to come right out and wear on their sleeve. Boy, I don't know what life is, is all about and where I'm going and what's up and what happens after death and I'm really fearful and all that. They're going to come across like, you know, everything's just great. You know, we've got our camper and we've got our plans and I've got my hobbies and I've got a good job and a good marriage and everything's super. It all may be a lie, but that's what people want to portray. And so when you go to them, don't expect them to all of a sudden say, you know, you're right, I got a miserable life and I need to find out what you've got to offer. They're going to try to to pretend, well, you know, that's good for you, but I've got something for me that's just as good. Got to push through that. Don't quail before their superiority, whether it be a position like a college professor or president of a corporation or what have you. But don't quail before the superiority of their self confidence either. Don't be ashamed of what you're saying. You must have an assured confidence. What Dr. Van Till used to say was a humble boldness. That in the eyes of the world of course sounds like you can't have the two, but in the Christian context you can. We can be humble because we know it's only by the grace of God that we understand what we do and we are where we are. But just because it's the grace of God, it must be a humble boldness with which we approach people. So the right mental attitude is the first thing in terms of your approach. Got to work on that so you see things correctly then secondly, you have to have the right personal qualities in approaching people. And just because we're trying to be systematic, I'm going to mention some obvious things here. I sure hope they're obvious. The first thing is you've got to be courteous no matter what and at all times you must be courteous. Righteous indignation has a place in the scheme of godly emotions. But even righteous indignation does not come to expression in being impolite. And so courtesy is something that you must exemplify. You should exemplify tact in the Way you put things as well, being a bull in the china closet, just because we're fools for Christ or because we have to be bold in our witness is nothing. It's not going to mark us up any further in terms of the estimation God has of us. To be tactful means to have the right touch. Tact, touch. It means you have to know how to approach, when to push, when not to push, how to push, on what level to push. Thirdly, we need to be wise, by which I mean at least have a modicum of common sense. Decide what type of meeting lays on you the responsibility to evangelize. I have seen Christians in secular universities. Let me use this as my illustration. Take it upon themselves at every point to harass a professor in class, to keep their hand up, constantly stop the lecture, constantly challenged, constantly suggests the professor doesn't know what he's talking about, on and on and on. And then when you talk to them about that, they think they're just suffering the offense of the cross of Christ and they're really taking a bold stand for Jesus. Well, as a matter of fact, the university was not set up for students to instruct the professor. And when they pay their money and they register and go to their classes, they should realize that that kind of meeting is not an appropriate time to evangelize. There's nothing wrong with dropping hints, asking a strategically placed question and all that. But to think that God's given it to you to do that or another. Here's another illustration. I knew a man once who came to me for counsel, had lost three jobs in a row because he would evangelize on the job. He essentially was a factory workman. And so it was a matter of getting the work done and passing it on to the next stage. Well, he'd stop and talk to his fellow worker about Christ and get started and lose two or three hours of work, and his employers would not put up with that. Well, he thought he was suffering for the kingdom of God. Well, he wasn't. He was suffering for his stealing from his employer. And so let's make sure that we have some common sense to decide what kind of meeting we're in, what the circumstance is, how much witness, what kind of witness is appropriate.

Okay.

Another thing in terms of having these qualities of courtesy, tact and wisdom, is we should strive to avoid embarrassment, to avoid embarrassment to ourselves and to the kingdom of Christ. For instance, being ethical and not evangelizing in the boss's time, or at least obviously in my case, I'm always Evangelizing on the boss's time. Somebody like a salesman who, you know, determines the length of time he has for this or that project in his own schedule, that's one thing. But, you know, if you're working for the post office and you've got to do something, you can't just say, because of the higher calling of religion, you can avoid doing what you're supposed to do. So avoid embarrassment to the kingdom of Christ. Know when to desist. Don't embarrass this other person. Sometimes I think we can push the sinner beyond the point of being interested in the gospel to the point where he's so uncomfortable that he doesn't want to have that experience again. Now, in terms of the right approach, I want to say some extended things in one sense, in terms of the amount of time I want to spend, this should have its own place in the outline, but it doesn't fit into a balanced and systematic outline. So I didn't do it. But I want to say some extended things would be friendliness in evangelism. How crucial it is to be friendly when you evangelize. We can think here of the example and the teaching of Jesus in particular, where I think it's a powerful rebuke to the idea of being isolated from the world. I was once walking on a beach, and as I was walking along, along near the shoreline where the water laps up on the shore, just a few feet ahead of me comes this weight and this fish line and hook, you know, right in front of me. And I stop short.

I look up, and way back there.

Across the beach is this guy casting, you know, toward the ocean. And I went over and I asked him, I said, what are you doing? I mean, he almost hit me with this thing. And I didn't like the idea of being split beard with a fish hook. And he said, well, I'm trying to fish. I said, well, what are you doing way back here? And he says, well, I like to fish, but they're so smelly, I don't want to get close to them. No, that didn't really happen. Which being interpreted, means there are a lot of Christians who would like to fish and get people out of the world, but they're afraid to. It's so smelly. Get the point? The fisherman is the man who stands. The allegory should be plain enough. A lot of Christians act like that. As ridiculous as it is in the realm of literal fishing, we do do that. We tend to become isolated from the world. But you think about Jesus when He came from heaven, didn't avoid contact with men, did he? In fact, one of the leading criticism of Jesus is that he was a friend of wine bibbers and sinners, that he associated with the publicans and the prostitutes and all the rest. In fact, he was called a friend of sinners of all things. Now I stop and think about it, I wonder if people could indict me in that way. I wish they'd be able to. We're not a friend. Well, I will include you because I think if you're honest, you would have to admit what I'm admitting about myself. We're not really a friend of sinners, we're a friend of saints. We like to stay in our monastic circles and with people that agree with us, where we're comfortable and safe and all the rest. We don't spend a lot of time associating with people outside of our circles of religious influence and camaraderie. But Jesus did. Jesus didn't find 12 men that basically agreed with him and then hole up someplace in the desert. Jesus was constantly with the crowds. And as far as I know, Jesus never once stopped to help somebody who was in need. Jesus was constantly in touch with the world. John Stott, in a little booklet put out by intervarsity on evangelism, asked what are the causes of our disengagement from society? Lack of living contact with man is a symptom of a more serious spiritual malady. I know that sometimes it is shyness, a false view of holiness, an understandable fear of contamination or of being led astray. But more often it is because a real, living, personal contact with non Christian people is a very costly experience and we are seldom willing to pay the price it will cost us both our selfishness and our sin. Consider our selfishness. We often cannot be bothered to offer real friendship to non Christian people. Only love cares enough to make contact. It is comparatively easy to distribute cards or handbills advertising a meeting or a mission. It is not difficult to organize the meeting or mission itself. It is much more costly to befriend someone and stay beside him over the years in the give and take, time, patience, sympathy and sacrifice of real friendship. Though I am free from all men, wrote the apostle Paul, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win. The more of how many people are we the slaves? That's what we're called to be. Again, Jesus Christ is our supreme example, as the Father has sent, sent me, even so I send you, he twice asserted. Of course, the purpose of Our being sent into the world is different from the purpose of his coming. He was sent to redeem. We are to proclaim his finished redemption. But is not the mode of our being sent into the world the same in principle as his? Jesus had to be made like his brethren in every respect, according to Hebrews chapter 2. For him it meant becoming flesh at his birth, sin and a cross curse at his death. Down, down, down. He came to make himself one with us in our need. Since this is true, we cannot stand aloof from men. We are called to go into the world as he came into the world. To enter freely and fully into people's lives, into their sorrows and doubts, their sins and their fears. It is costly to our selfishness and consider our sin. Close contact with people involves an uncomfortable experience, exposure of ourselves to them. It is much easier in both fellowship and witness to keep our distance. We are more likely to win the admiration of other people if we do. Only at close quarters can idols be seen to have feet of clay. Are we willing to let people come close enough to us to find out what we are like and to know us as we are? True witness, born from friendship, requires a great degree of holiness and us as well as love. The nearer we get to people, the harder it is to speak for Christ. It's very true. He contrasts in this booklet, by the way, the attitude of Jesus to that of the Pharisees. A Pharisee, by the way, in Hebrew, means one who is separated, separated from the contamination of the world. And that's why the Pharisees usually would lift up their robes and flee. A place of a prostitute came in. Jesus rather let a prostitute wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. The Pharisees would have nothing to do with the publicans, certainly with those who compromised the secular power like Rome. Yet Jesus ate dinner with these people. And so the attitude of Jesus, just the opposite of isolationism, it Pharisaism, separation. His was a ministry of coming into the world and identifying with men and their needs. And we need to do that too. Some Christians make the mistake of supposing that God intends for them to speak a word for Christ to everyone they meet. Stott says the responsibilities involved in such a widespread ministry are so heavy that surely few can be called to it. And yet a few feel that God has called you to evangelize everybody you meet. You can't really do that. But what you will do is you'll become haphazard. You run into somebody in the market or you're waiting in line to pay for your groceries. And you think, well, God wants me to evangelize in this particular situation. And Dr. Stott points out he doesn't say it in these words, but he points out that's really quite foolish. It's ridiculous to think that God wants you to evangelize every single person you run into under every circumstance. And so he goes on, what does God want? Then he says, it's fairly safe to say that it's hard to win somebody's soul unless we have first won his confidence, if not his friendship. We cannot preach Christ to someone as a professional undertaking, like a doctor prescribing a medicine. That's a great sentence. You know, if you stop and think about that, a doctor can get away with being impersonate. You may not like it. You may even change if you don't like his bedside manner. But in terms of what he's supposed to accomplish, for the most part, you know, he just has to dispense these prescriptions and analyze the problem, that sort of thing. He can be very impersonal. He can almost be gruff, but you can still get what you've gone to pay for. You can't do that in religion. You can't just say, well, you've got a problem. Here's the answer. And just treat people, you know, like dirt and expect they're going to respond. It's much different. We aren't doctors in that sense. We must go out of our way to get to know our friend. This will involve real sacrifice. It may mean spending a good deal of time with him, inviting him to meals, cultivating his interest. And this should not be done artificially. That's the hard thing here, because here I'm trying to teach you. How do you evangelize? Well, you befriend people, but you can't befriend people in such an obvious way. The that the only reason that you're spending time with them is that you always want to get this little jibe in about religion. To befriend somebody means to be a friend, not appear to be a friend, but actually be a friend to this person. So this should not be done artificially as a thinly disguised pretext for preaching Christ to him later, but genuinely, because we are really interested in him for his own sake. All the cunning or persuasion or love in the world will not win him for Christ unless the Holy Spirit is drawing him, however. So we must not only befriend, we must now pray for this person. No one can come to Me, said Jesus, unless the Father who sent me draws him. And the hand of God, which gently moves the sinner to Christ, is released into activity by our prayers. Just as those four friends brought the paralytic and laid him at Jesus feet, so we must bring our friend into his presence in prayer. And it was when Jesus saw their faith. The Bible says that is the four that carried them in. When Jesus saw their faith that he pronounced the paralytic sins forgiven. Haphazard prayer, when we are in the mood, will be unavailing.

That really hurts.

It's not just when you're sitting around saying, well, now what should I be doing? Well, maybe I should pray for this person. No, it must be systematic, calculated, consistent, intended, persistent. We shall need to be systematic, definite, persevering. It will be essential to have a prayer list to remedy our natural lack of discipline. It is here that our real Christian love for the Master and for souls will be tested. There is no glamour attached to this service. We will receive no commendation from men, for it's done in secret, but it's the key to all the rest. So you must befriend him. You must pray for, for him. Thirdly, he says, you will strive to live a consistent Christian life before him. We shall not do this ostentatiously in order to attract attention to ourselves, but humbly in order to direct attention to our Lord. One day we hope to be given the chance of speaking to our friend about Christ. It will be tragic beyond description if our past behavior contradicts our words on that day. He will not hear of Jesus from our lips unless he has first seen Jesus in our lives. And Paul, you'll notice in Second Corinthians 6. Three, was anxious that we put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. And then fourthly, Stott says, we will take him to hear the Gospel preached if he knows little or nothing of the facts of the Gospel and received no biblical teaching in childhood, much so in of the seed will probably be necessary before the harvest can come. We must curb our impatience if we can bring our friend regularly to a church where he will benefit from the systematic ministry of the Word. The time will come later when we can reap. As John 4:38 says, others have labored and you have entered into their labor. Well, those two booklets on those points anyway, and others too, are very helpful. It's costly, but we must befriend people systematically, pray for them, have our lives, be a genuine witness for Christ, and then of course, expose them consistently to instruction in the word of God. Well, the second aspect of the operation, I must move on here unless you have questions and if you do, I want to hear them. Stop me at any point. The second aspect of the operation, after we have the right approach, a good mental attitude and the right personality qualities, is that we engage in some basic instruction. If our initial approach was rebuffed to somebody, we must be careful not to have the attitude that says let's beat a hasty retreat here or become argumentative about this. Grace and wisdom at this point could change a rebuff into an inquiry with people. Often at a juncture like that, I think it's helpful to give firsthand evidence of the reality of your Christian faith in the face of the kind of rebuff you get. Remember, I didn't think of this answer myself. I don't want to give myself false credit here, but once when I was witnessing on the beach in Manhattan beach when I was in college, that's where I began my ministry, was a beach evangelist. I went to somebody and, you know, began my opening line and so forth and he just started using the Lord's name. Oh, it was just terrible, just swearing at the storm, you know, saying God this and God that about all sorts of things. And I praise God that. He brought to my mind something I'd heard in chapel at Westmont illustration similar to that. And I said, well, said to him, you know, you just don't know him, do you? Because if you did, you wouldn't talk about him like that. And I was surprised. I thought that was going to be, you know, I thought that would be the final thing and I'd have to move on to the next blanket, you know, on the beach and talk to somebody else. But the guy was totally devastated by that. You know, here he was, you know, swearing up a storm and he didn't even think about that. And he said, yeah, I don't know. And I said, well, I'd be glad to talk to you about it. And I don't know what happened to this person's life, if anything came of that eventually. But you see, there I thought frankly was just, I'm being chased off from another encounter here. And it turned out to be a nice half hour conversation. And again, I don't say that's because I'm just so clever. I don't often think of those things. But if we are thoughtful, we can turn rebuffs into and an approach for instruction. The second thing I have in my notes here is that we should be careful never to jump from our approach to our appeal. If you look at your outline, I have the right approach. Basic instruction, making the appeal and following up. It's very easy. Sometimes it seems like we can go right from our approach to somebody. Well, now let's lay the appeal, put the bait out there and follow up. We don't need the instruction phase here. But that's never true, or if it is ever true, it is so incidental and unlikely that it's fair enough to generalize to say that you should never jump from your approach to your appeal. The instruction phase is necessary if you're going to give a stable and enlightened understanding of the gospel so that somebody can be converted. It's just for lack of this instruction phase in evangelism that so often people go through repetition of their conversion experience. Again, that summer that I was on the beach and had statistically, probably more encounters with strangers than I probably had any other time in my life, I was surprised probably half a dozen times in three months. I ran into people who said they had been converted once or twice already. And they weren't talking theology to me. They weren't intelligent Arminians who felt they had fallen away and been reconverted. They just felt that every time somebody came through and asked them to make a commitment for Christ that they had been converted, then converted again, then converted again. And here I was coming, giving them another opportunity to be converted. They'd never given up living, shacking up with somebody or stealing from their employer or taking drugs, but they've been converted three or four times. Well, where that comes from, essentially, is from jumping from making a basic approach right into the appeal. Now, I'm not going to mention the evangelistic organization that does this, but it has been said by the head of this evangelistic organization that if you can't convert somebody in about four to four and a half minutes, I think he said, then you're wasting your time and you should move on. Well, if you believe that the person has to show interest and definite commitment within four minutes, you're undoubtedly going to skip the phase that I'm saying is crucial instruction. And instruction takes time. See, if we don't ever break out of the. We've been given this image of what an evangelist is, and we all suffer from that terrible image. The guy who meets a button, somebody gives them one or two words. The guy says, oh, yes, I'm really destined for hell. What will I do? You give him three or four lines, and his life has changed and you may never see the guy again. But that was an evangelistic encounter. Hogwash. It was an evangelistic encounter. Evangelism is costly. You think about what Stott said about friendship. It may take you years to finally instruct this person adequately so you can make an intelligent decision about Jesus Christ. And even on the beach, if you're talking to people, you have to at least talk long enough to find out how much they do and don't understand about who Jesus is, what their sin is, and all the rest. So don't ever jump from this general approach to making your appeal. Make sure the instruction period is there. Now, how do we instruct? Well, we pull out Charles Hodge, right, and give him the three volumes of his systematic theology. No. As hard as it is for your pastor to say this, simplicity is crucial to our instruction. Do remember also that sometimes you think you're being simple, when in fact you're not. There's a lot of difference between intention and execution, and I want to say that in my own defense. But simplicity is something you must be striving for, genuinely trying to make the point elementary based on clear scriptures. It won't do us any good to begin talking to somebody about baptism for the dead in First Corinthians 15. You're never going to get to the point if you start way out on an obscure point like that. So you want to be clear and elementary at the grassroots level, uncomplicated. But for all that simplicity, doing not sacrifice authority, the note of authority, and the note of authority should be that of the truth, obviously, not that of ourselves. I'm not asking you to have an air of authority like, well, I know better. No, I don't want you to have a personal air of authority. I want your words to be speak authority. Because you're always saying, thus saith the Lord. Now, you may not say it in that archaic expression, but you're saying it because you're saying, John tells us, or Paul tells us, or we read in the Bible, or God says in His Word. We want them to know this is.

A word from God.

Now, I've known people that don't think preaching has a very important place in the life of the contemporary church. And I don't agree with that. I think the Bible makes preaching central to the corporate worship of his name. However, in personal evangelism, preaching is out of place. So after the qualification is made, when it comes to personal evangelism, God hasn't called you to preach. God has called you to warm dialogue. This is not a moment for beseeching and exhorting. This is a moment for discussing and doing so in a warm and friendly way. I think I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. You don't have to present the whole message in the first sitting either, you know. If you're using our evangelism booklet, you don't have to go through all seven of the points the first time the person's with you. If you get them interested just in God being the Creator and the fact that we owe our lives to the Creator, you've made a good start. Now, if the person's more interested, or if it's more pointed to get to the fact that God's taken care of our sin by sending His Son, then fine, move on as much as you can. I'm not saying after you get to a certain point you should artificially stop, but on the other hand, don't artificially push it so that you think that you have to get so far or else you've wasted your time. Let's remember as well as we instruct people that our message should satisfy them emotionally as well as intellectually. Please don't drop the last words in that sentence as well as intellectually. But on the other hand, we don't want to present our message so that we give the impression this is only a matter of the head, and it really doesn't affect the way you feel, and in what way you feel doesn't count. The way you feel does count. We believe the way you feel should be based on the way you think, and you should think truly so that you feel correctly. But nevertheless, we want to appeal to people in such a way that we show that Christianity satisfies the whole man and not just one part of life. The other things I have here I'm going to for the sake of time. This is another juncture in the outline. Do you want to ask any questions before we move on to appeal? If you have the right approach with your mental attitude and personal qualities, and you're using basic instruction, simplicity, authority, personal satisfaction, then the time comes when you want to make your appeal. Teaching ought to eventually issue inaction because instruction that you do with the person without their due response is going to turn to condemnation for them. So let's not lose a pleading note. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5, as though I did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God. That must be something that is part of our witness. I haven't said as I've said there's an instruction phase where you're laying the foundation. But the point must come now where you finally make the appeal and you say, I beseech you to get right with God, be reconciled to God. You've got to seek action on their part. This is the hardest thing for us. We think if we've got enough time finally over the weeks and months or even over the last few minutes to get the message out, we've finally done our evangelistic task. We haven't. We mustn't think that was hard, but God got me through it. The hardest part is yet to come. You've got to in some way initiate action on that person's part. You've got to move them to saying, I want to make a commitment for Jesus Christ, I want to commit my life to him. You must seek action. We are seeking a verdict of the will and not simply the ascent of the intellect either. We're not saying now do you have any objections to what I've said? The person says, well, no, I don't. Oh good, we got another Christian. No, we don't have another Christian. We simply have a satisfied pagan. That what you said he can't fault. No, he's got to himself say, and I want my life to belong to the Savior. So we have to aim at the act of submission to Christ as Lord, self committal to him as Savior. And so eventually you've got to press the question, use your own words. What comes natural to me is, but what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? How will you respond now while you're appealing to this person, putting the bait out there, beseeching, however you want to put it, pushing for action. Remember that you must not over pressure the person either so that you get them doing something that's artificial or premature. Most evangelistic techniques that are taught to people so they can get it down and it's simple, eventually get to the point where you say, well, will you pray this prayer of commitment with me? Well, you just have to understand that in our culture, even with the brashness of Southern Californians, there are going to be a lot of people who just don't know what else to say. But I guess okay, and then you go, and then you go through this little memorized prayer, you repeat after me line by line and then we assume that the person has become a of Christian. Just like if you set them in the oven long enough, they become a cookie. I guess it doesn't happen that way. And so it's not. You see, I'm trying to balance my presentation here. You've got to press for action, but you mustn't press in such an artificial way that you get premature commitment for Christ. When people prematurely commit themselves to Jesus Christ, that often leads to a stiffening against the gospel. Eventually.

You do not get people saying they're Christians before they are Christians.

Rita.

What'S that? It's absolutely crucial. Without the commitment, they aren't Christians. It's only important to God that you.

Remember he's called us to do this.

Work of evangelists, and we haven't done it unless we're pushing to the point of commitment. It may be that what you're trying to get at here and correct me if I'm wrong, is, is it all that important for us to know whether he's committed?

Well, it's kind of like.

What illustration should I use?

If you were a carpenter and you were doing well, say you're a conflict contractor. You're in charge, making sure that from beginning to end the project's done.

You see to it that so much.

Is done in the last phase of it, somebody else is going to finish.

And you say, well, there's only that.

Last phase, and as long as people don't complain eventually, I guess I can assume it's done well. That's not good contracting and it's not good evangelism. It's possible that the contractor would get away with it.

It's possible that I could evangelize, get it to a certain point and say.

Well, now, now only God will know if he made a commitment. I'll go my way. There's two problems with that. One, God didn't call you to only take it to a certain point. He called you to do the work to completion, depressed to the point where they are reconciled with God. And secondly, how can you follow up, which is the fourth point of the outline, if you don't know where the person is?

So, yeah, you have to press for commitment.

Now, I grant there are some cases where you may not see the person again and you may not get that far. But in the normal evangelical situation, which I consider friendship, evangelism and everything else is an offshoot from that. You should have some continuing contact with the person if at all possible, and you won't know what you know the next time, do you start all over.

Again from square one, or do you say, well, now that you've made this.

Commitment, how can I help you grow as a Christian so you can't avoid the commitment thing that can't be shrouded in some kind of mystery. So, yeah, do push for it. But what I'm saying now is don't push so that you get it ahead of time. Obviously planned too much for tonight, but let's do the follow up part and I'll try to finish up the other things next week very briefly. And we will get on to plans for methods of evangelism we've talked about after you have had the right approach, given your basic instruction. Major appeal seeking action from the person. There is the necessity of following up. And follow up involves at least three explanation, counseling and continued interest in the person. First of all, explanation. When this person has made, let's say you have gotten them to pray out loud, to confess their sins, to throw themselves on the movement of the Savior and to commit themselves to the Christian walk right after they've done that, they're going to need to understand what they've done. They have to understand that when a baby is first born, the baby doesn't understand everything about the birth process and about health and growth and nurture and all the rest. And so you need to give an understanding to this person of what's taking place coupled with how assurance of salvation can be cultivated. I do not believe in the idea that as soon as the person said this prayer which says, now are you sure that you're saved? It doesn't make a bit of difference whether they're sure they're saved, because if they are, they're saved, and if they aren't, they shouldn't be sure. And so assurance of salvation is developed as they read the promises of God and they understand the promises of God. It's not based on their feelings.

It's not based on we had a.

Decision card signed or anything of the nature of that nature, but we should talk about that assurance of salvation and the proper way of gaining it. Secondly. Well, thirdly, we need to give them understanding of what's happened to them. You know, you've just become a baby in Christ. Here's how you can develop assurance of your salvation. And I think we should aim to send them on their way rejoicing. And I usually, in cases where people have been converted, in particular at a particular point in my presence, try to point out that the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner that is lost now being found. And if God is rejoicing, it's highly appropriate for you to be rejoicing. And I'm rejoicing with you. We want them to be happy in their newfound faith as they become children of God. So we explain then secondly, we counsel. We need to counsel them about four specific exercises to be urged in their lives as Bible reading, prayer, constant confession of sin, witnessing to Jesus Christ and finding a local church. Bible reading. And if you're going to encourage your friend to read the Bible, you're going to have to be present to help him understand the Bible. Don't think that now that they belong to Jesus Christ they can open it and just everything falls right into place. That doesn't happen for people who study for years. The person, you're going to have to stick right with them. You think, well, I've given all these months or years and everything, well, that's just the beginning. Now that you have this little baby in Christ, you got to help this person grow. So Bible reading, helping persons understand it, prayer, carrying everything to God is prayer encouraging a time every day when that can be emphasized. And getting close to God. Confession, daily confession of sin. The person shouldn't think that I've gone through this process once and now forever. I don't have to worry about my sins. No, every day they should be concerned for their sins, witnessing to Jesus Christ. The redeemed of the Lord should say so the Bible says. And then lastly, the need for, for nurture and fellowship in a local church. You must help the person find a Bible believing church to attend. In our particular situation, I trust you would help them come to our church. And then thirdly, your follow up beyond explanation and counsel means continued interest in the person. Do stand by this person, but I encourage you not to stand over. What this person needs is a Christian friend, not an overlord. And often I've seen Christians who have friends that have been converted tend to become almost like nagging mothers in the new life. Well, don't do this.

You should be doing that.

Come with us here. That person still has some individuality, has to make some decisions for himself or herself. Himself, herself. And let's remember that second Peter 3:18 says that we should grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And you want to see to it this person continues to grow in that way. So what I'm saying is after the explanation of counsel, you need to continue to show the same interest in the person. So what's your evangelistic method? First, you have the right approach. Your mental attitude, your personal qualities have to be correct. You have to offer basic instruction that is simple, authoritative and offers satisfaction. You must make an appeal to the person Seeking action without going so far as to prematurely pressure them, and then fourthly, follow up with explanation, counsel and continued interest in that individual. And I have some general observations relevant to method I'd like to talk about. And I added a special section on closing your witness with the interested hearer, as I promised I'd do.

But I think we'd better wait till next week and take the first 10, 15 minutes for those things.

On tonight's lesson, would you like to ask any questions or offer any further comments? Well, in the end, of course, we're not really worried about the application of a word, whether it's evangelism or not. I'm simply pointing out that in the method, what steps are going to be, what you're going to go through, that in some way those four aspects are going to have to be incorporated in a full evangelistic witness. And that all I think, Garita, is you, you can't get to the point where I've given all the explanation. Now it's really in this person's hand. You know, the ball's in their court sort of attitude. I got to pursue the ball and say, now what are you going to do with it? You know, and help them make the right decision and follow up that decision. If it is married.

Oh, it is.

Remember I've said this could take months or years. That's why you've got to get close to people.

That's why I think we have just.

Been poisoned by this idea of buttonholing people and having a four minute session with them, praying the prayer of commitment. And now you've got a new Christian on your hands. I don't want to say that it can't happen that way, but it just is not the ordinary normal way for people coming into the kingdom.

So then you wouldn't really say that your conversation with the man on the beach when you left Younger was really evangelical?

No, I would say that it was evangelism and that I may only have gotten as far as the right approach and a little basic instruction. You can try to befriend somebody and.

Continue it, but they say, no, I.

Don'T want anything to do with it.

Don't talk to me again about this. I don't want to see your face again. But evangelism is the attempt to get through these steps. It wasn't a complete evangelistic witness because we didn't get through to the appeal and the follow up, but it was evangelism in the sense that the process that I was in was an evangelistic process. But it was stopped short by the fact that the person didn't want to hear that anymore. Well, I'm not sure statistically. Well, probably most hitting people, cold encounters are that way. And I think we should expect it. I don't think that should discourage us. I mean that in the nature of the case, not the best way to sell anything. But it is the way to get it across to some people. And the church I was working for felt a real obligation. They were four blocks from the ocean and they had young people, probably a thousand young people a day walking right in front of the church and never taking any interest. And they felt they had to do something to try to raise some interest. And that may have been limited. It may not have been the most effective way of doing it. But there were some conversions and you know, there was some value to it. I would say it was evangelism and the attempt was an evangelistic attempt. But what I'm saying here is this is evangelism as it ought to be in terms of its fullness. I mean, if you're going to get a complete evangelistic witness, you're going to have to get all this in there somehow. It's going to have to be instruction, action and follow up.

It doesn't all take place at one time.

No.

And it doesn't take place at one time anyway. Question. So they go into their discussion, they don't really answer for. I like two quick comments. The person who has been repeatedly saved. And I'll give two examples from Alcoholic anomaly. I know one guy who supposedly stopped drinking to follow the A program well over 10 times.

And so he knew all the words.

And all the answers. Every time when somebody would come to him, he knew exactly what the guy was going to say. And yet eventually, you know, he would give up. He was put away forever in a time. Eventually he did that. The fact that it was my church. So they will give you that excuse. And he had that excuse right now. Work for me, may work for you. That's what it is. See you later. But then since he's in the tunnel, he would still had to go through it. Because if you want to meeting get confident. So there's never any reason to give up. One of the very effective things that they do do and if we don't do is that they encourage the new member always to find the sponsor. If they don't have that in that group, you don't necessarily familiar with a friend left that you've been moving. But they encourage, they find somebody going to talk to all these people. And I think we should. We should do that with any new Congress somebody here besides the pastor because what a tendency is where everybody thinks after that would be the guide. But really it's better generally to have somebody in the congregation be specifically responsible for that person and be calling them two or three times work. See how their new vertical actors coming out, never calling. But that is. Will keep this. You know that's what keeps people falling away. Somebody who is really concerned about you and just you now of course and the AAP of like oh, some of them have 15 or 20 babies and they do call them babies. This is one of my babies. And you know that's kind of degrading to the point that people come in there. You know there's. They need to have to go to their day anyway and they shouldn't have a drinking problem. So it's not quite the same that when you come into the church. But it does have this effect on the person who's called the baby. And if they. They do not then sense of the wisdom that they're bringing in through that encounter is so great that they need to start changing what's happening. They do realize. Yeah.

In the sense that it. It describes it as if everything were right in place and everything got done.

Yeah.

In a sense what we're going to be doing. We didn't complete the principles tonight, but let's say we had the remaining meetings of the summer are ways of getting them into the front door. To use your expression whether it be of the church or of your home or something. How can you get it underway? I think our biggest problem is getting the stone to begin rolling. Hopefully we can keep it going after that. But that initial inertia is our real problem.

Before I was a Christian I spent a six months in an uploading church. But these people were so aloof. They were so worried that I felt if I touched them they would be hard. And big Manpike got there. Nobody ever invited me to the house. They would say hello and you hear a dance or nine. And my life was getting worse because I was trying so hard to reform it and it wasn't. It wasn't working. And I was getting so confused. And it was an Armenian lady who was having one of their evangelistic. She had never even had a grace or anything else. Hatred me and. And she did what you said.

She was.

She said what are you going to do? You know. And she goes away. When she stood near her house for a whole weekend, she sat and she told me. Thank you. She didn't even notice I sent the calling, but she was so friendly. And it was real.

That personal experience. Experience speaks volumes of what I'm getting at. Obviously, having all the truth in the world didn't help very much until a friendly approach was used. And we have to remember that being friendly is going to be costly. There's no cheap, easy, automatic way to do that. But something to think about it, Christ gave up a great deal for the cost of our salvation as well. Word of Prayer Lord, we pray that you would turn us into effective evangelists. We pray that you would tear from our minds all the false images of what evangelism amounts to. And, Lord, that you would replace it with biblical concepts. And, Lord, more than that, we pray that you teach us to follow out what we know so well in our minds that we might get the stone rolling, that we might overcome our hesitancy and that inertia, that we might indeed make the first approach and follow up and befriend people and speak the right words in a timely way, in a way that's going to be winsome and persuasive. We pray, Father, that all those around about us, in our neighborhoods and around about our church, our relatives and our friends that are destined at this point in their lives because of their sin to eternal damnation would become supreme objects of concern for us because we were once supreme objects of concern to you.

For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.