Dr Greg Bahnsen - Evangelism Seminar: The Message of Evangelism (Part 4)

Tonight we're going to be studying primarily the message of evangelism on the background of the motivation, the various kinds of evangelism we've looked at, as well as the key to power in evangelism. And I think, especially given last week's lesson about prayer, you can see how appropriate it is that we start all of our meetings, but especially now, this meeting with prayer. Let's pray. Father, we thank youk that we have opportunity to gather together as yous people and to study youy Word. We pray that tonight yout might give us a heartfelt appreciation, a renewed appreciation indeed, that we might love youe with all of our hearts because of the message that yout have given us in the Scriptures. We pray that we would see the goodness of this news that is to be found in the Scriptures, and that we might appreciate it in our own lives and thereby wish to communicate it more effectively, more pervasively, to others, to our neighbors and our friends, our relatives, and all those with whom we come into contact. Lord, we pray that you might give us also a sense of the urgency of this message. We might understand that indeed the eternal well being of those to whom we speak rides on how winsome we may be in presenting it, so that those who hear it would be persuaded, converted, they might come to the Savior, even as we have. For it's in his name we pray. Amen. Well, I ask you to read this week the booklet entitled God's Good News, which I have compiled for evangelistic purposes, as well as a nice summary of our faith with the Scripture passages written out so you can make use of it that way. But primarily it's been written as an evangelistic tool. And has everybody gone through the booklet now? Can I count on that everybody has read the booklet? No. Well, then we'll try to make up for that tonight. I want to begin by reading, however, second Corinthians, chapter five. You'll turn in that in your Bibles. We'll begin at verse 11 and read the paragraph that is found there, 2 Corinthians 5:11. Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. But we are made manifest unto God. And I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. We are not again commending ourselves unto you, but speak as giving you occasion of glorying on our behalf, that ye may have wherewith to answer them that glory in appearance and not in heart. For whether we are beside ourselves, it is unto God, or whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you, for the love of Christ. Constraineth us because we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died and he died for all. That they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. Paul indicates here the urgency of the proclamation of the Good News, and he says it in two ways. It's interesting that there are two facets, two faces to this presentation or the motivation for presenting the Good News. Paul begins by saying, because we know the fear of the Lord, we seek to persuade men. I want to suggest that if you are not zealous to persuade men of the need that they have for the gospel of Jesus Christ, you do not know the fear of God. Paul says, those who know the fear of God are going to be persuaded, are going to be motivated to try to persuade men. What does the fear of God mean? What is the fear of God? Respect and awe. Often enough we emphasize that. I don't know how many times you've heard this. People will say, fear of the Lord does not mean we're afraid of God. It means simply that we have reverence for Him. I've heard that many times over simplistic explanations of the fear of God. And of course, there's a sense in which that statement is thrusting at the truth. Because we as Christians shouldn't be afraid of God in the ultimate sense, because our sins have been paid for. But as a matter of fact, in the Bible, the fear of God is fear and trembling before God. Now, why should man tremble before God?

Is that connected to where he says that you would look to this man that trembles in his words? Because we know that God has the power of life and death.

Yes, we know God has the power of life and death. But we know even more than that. We know that we deserve death. Men tremble and fear God because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Our God is a consuming fire, Hebrews tells us. And because God is a consuming fire, it should put dread into the hearts of men if they ever were to soberly consider who God is and what they are. So Paul reflects on that. He says, we know the fear of the Lord. We know what it is to be under his wrath and his curse. We know what it means that God is a consuming fire. And because we know that, we seek to persuade men. Frankly, I don't think we all are fully convinced that men are going to suffer eternal damnation or else we don't have a very clear apprehension of what that eternal damnation means. The Bible uses Some very fearful images of it, the lake of fire, the worm that never dies, those sorts of things. You see, if you stop and think about that and take it seriously, that God will forever without relief, damn people in torturous circumstances that will never be relieved. We know the fear of God. In that sense, we're not going to pass by lightly the idea that, well, whether my neighbor hears it or not is not all that important. We're going to take it seriously. We're going to try to persuade him. But then Paul goes down and there's another side to it. What this shows us is that evangelism should have an element of fire and brimstone. As much as that's mocked and made fun of, ridiculed. Today, a genuine presentation of the gospel includes the fear of the Lord. We need to let people know they have every reason to be afraid of God. And yet Paul goes on and says, there's another side to the story. Verse 14. For the love of Christ constrains us. The love of Christ constrains us just as much. We should see our evangelism being a presentation of Christ's love. That's what's motivating, constraining us to be out there witnessing to people. So we know that Christ died for men. We should therefore be motivated by the charity, the karis, the grace of God, his goodness and mercy toward men, especially that mercy shown toward us. Our evangelistic message is going to incorporate at least two elements, fear and love, judgment and satisfaction. And the reason I begin with that point tonight is because so often evangelistic presentations attend to one or the other. I suppose we all know that churches that aren't very Calvinistic, don't take the Reformed faith seriously or don't believe it at all, tend to make their evangelism a matter of presenting the goodness of God, the love of God, God's mercy, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. As a typical statement of the leading feature of that evangelistic method. But now, what I've seen in my own life and experience, not only Calvinists reacting to that, but Calvinists just in virtue of their own personality or understanding of theology, tend to present the opposite extreme. Evangelism is a matter of really coming down hard on people and letting them know they're under the wrath of God. And if we do that much, then we've done our work. We don't have to reflect the goodness of God and the love of God and the charity of God in our personalities, method and message. What we need to show is this awesome and challenging message of wrath. But Paul in this one passage or one paragraph tells us it's both the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ that constrains us, leads us to try to persuade men. So both of those facets have to be in our evangelistic presentation. Now there's another way of talking about the facets of our evangelistic presentation in terms of two poles that have to be kept in balance in the first place. Evangelism is man centered. It's the sense in which evangelism is man centered, isn't it? I mean, if it weren't man centered, we wouldn't be taking it to men. We'd just be speaking a general message into the air. And if anybody happens to hear it, that's fine. But that isn't what evangelism is suited to, a particular need, and it's a need of men. You notice that the gospel is good news. It's good news because God has taken care of a need. God is taking care of a problem that we have. And so that is man centered. It's for man's good that the gospel comes. And so when we witness to people in our presentation of the message, we should make it very clear that this is for you. This is something styled right to your. Your need. God has an interest in you. God is concerned for you. That's what the gospel indicates. God cares for men. But on the other hand, quite obviously, the good news is God's good news. And therefore it is God centered. And as RB Kuyper said in his book titled, we need to engage in God centered evangelism. An evangelism that isn't just a form of what I call Christian hedonism. Does anybody know what hedonism is as a school of philosophy? That's right. Pleasure is the soul. Not the soul, but it's at least the highest value, the thing that we seek. And so many times evangelistic message comes to men in the form of, you want to really be happy, then you need to have Jesus. As though that's all God is interested in. He's just some kind of celestial popcorn machine, you know, dispensing pleasures to people. Christian hedonism, now that is making evangelism so man centered that I dare say it distorts the message of evangelism. Evangelism must be God centered. And that means we say what God tells us to say, and we say it for the reasons God tells us to say it. And then in the end, the reason for evangelizing people and the Reason for which they should be converted is the glory of God. For whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, Paul says, do all to the glory of God, for all things are unto God. Okay, so evangelism must incorporate the fear of the Lord and yet the love of Christ. Another way to see the two sides of evangelism. It must be suited to the needs of men, and yet it must be God centered, the glory of God being our overarching purpose and goal in evangelism. Now, there's another aspect to methods of evangelism, or at least ways of putting the message of evangelism that I'd like to take up for a brief discussion. Some people maintain that when we are evangelizing people, we ought to get down to the brass tacks, just kind of forget all the peripheral doctrines, forget all the theological disputes, and just get down to what might be called the lowest common denominator between all evangelical Christians. The lowest common denominator. Now, of course, it's interesting when you ask people what that lowest common denominator is, you get a number of different explanations of it, but it usually has something to do with man's sin, God's provision, and something that men have to do to take advantage of that provision. Some people say that's all we should do in evangelism. All the rest is Christian nurture. Well, the difficulty with that, of course, is that when you read the New Testament, you don't see the apostles doing that sort of thing. They get into some pretty heavy theology in their evangelistic witness. You look at Paul on Mars Hill before the Areopagus Council. Actually, Paul there in Acts 17, is talking to pagans, people who don't have the advantage of Old Testament revelation. And yet he gives a very thorough presentation of Christian theology. Creation, the sovereignty of God, the coming of the God man, Jesus Christ, his resurrection, and the eschatological theme of judgment. Paul lays out, you see, a real compact systematic theology there. He doesn't leave it to the lowest kind, common denominator. Then on the other hand, when Paul is talking to the Philippian jailer, Philippian jailer says, what must I do to be saved? And by the way, I think we can hardly overlook the fact that when the jailer asked that question, he probably meant, how can I get out of this mess I'm in? How can I be saved from the punishment that's going to come because all these prisoners have escaped? Paul took advantage of that. And you notice he didn't say, well, now, first of all, you have to understand The Old Testament teaches that God's the creator, men have been created. You are wrong before God because of your sin. You're under the wrath of God. You must understand the law of God. You must fully come to an apprehension of your sinfulness and the goodness of God in presenting the Savior. And then finally you can understand what you must do to be saved. Paul didn't go through any of that in that situation. He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You will be saved, you and your house. And so there is a flexibility in the New Testament witness here. The one hand, even before uneducated pagans, Paul gives his systematic theology in the evangelistic context or with an evangelistic purpose. In another situation, he doesn't give a lot of background and context. He goes right to the heart of it and says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, now, in this booklet that I put together, I couldn't go ahead. He was thinking about taking his life. Yes, Well, Duncan, I think that's a helpful insight, that there was in a sense, a greater urgency for a response on the part of the jailer because he was threatening to. To do himself in, whereas the philosophers on the areopagus were not necessarily in that state of mind. However, the question is, what is the message that has to be gotten across to people? Is the message simply, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved? Well, from a philosophical standpoint, if I can talk this way for a moment, in a sense, that's all that we have to say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the whole story. The difficulty is that whole story can be said a lot of different ways, and a lot more detail and explication can be given to that as well, which is what you find in Acts 17 before the Areopagus. And so I guess my point would be that even though there was an urgency to what Paul had to say to the Philippian jailer, what he had to say to the Philippian jailer had to comprehend everything that he said in the areopagus. It's just a matter of how full blown the message is. Now, today we are going to be looking at this booklet that I've put together, and I couldn't be so bold as to suggest that I've lived up to everything I've now taught, that I've got this perfect balance between the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ, between the suitability to men's needs of the gospel and yet the glory of God. The idea that there's got to be a full context presented to our witness. And yet we've got to get to the heart of the matter so that people understand exactly what is necessary for them to be saved. But I've made that effort. I've tried to do that. This is not the lowest common denominator. In fact, I've already had one member of our church comment on that. Not all of us will necessarily agree with every theological distinctive that is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith, for instance. Yet the Westminster Confession of Faith is the doctrinal creedal standard of our church. And so when I put together this booklet, I tried to reflect the theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Now, hopefully that doesn't mean that this booklet will be entirely without use for people who have grown up in a Baptistic surrounding. For instance, although I talk about infant baptism in here, that's clearly not a hobby horse that's being ridden. The whole booklet isn't geared to that. So we finally get to the conclusion. Infant baptism is right. But in the process of presenting the gospel, I don't believe in this lowest common denominator idea. There's a reason why we are Presbyterians. There's a reason why we are Calvinists or Reformed in our outlook. And if that reason doesn't affect the crucial nature of our evangelistic witness, then I dare say we probably have no justification for having a separate denomination that holds to these distinctives. Now, if it is that important, then it's important enough to be incorporated in our evangelistic witness as well. And so I tried to reflect in a balanced way, in a systematic way, the distinctives of our church, as well as we understand the biblical teaching. So it's not the laws common. I believe that's appropriate. Yeah. I think that if they're to get a full picture of God's covenantal dealings, that infant baptism from a Presbyterian standpoint is part of that. Now, again, if I were evangelizing somebody who's on their death bed ready to commit suicide, I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about infant baptism. Well, if they did, I would spend more time on it, but just because they probably won't, I would get more personal about their own particular situation. But if we're going to present the covenant, then we need to present the covenant keeping God in the way he deals with people. It's interesting, isn't it, that right there where Paul's dealing with the Philippian jailer, he says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Period. No and thine house. Now, from a Baptist standpoint, that's Paul being elliptical for saying, and we'll go home and tell it to everybody in your house. And maybe they'll be saved, too. From a Presbyterian standpoint, that's Paul saying, and your whole house will be drawn into a covenant relationship with God. They'll be in that saving sphere, the gospel. So I think that even when Paul's being brief about it, he doesn't overlook the covenant context of evangelism. However you understand the covenant, there's something about the household of the person being saved that is drawn into the picture. Okay, let's go through the booklet now then. I just want to go page by page and give kind of a running exposition of what's being said. And they make some suggestions as to how this can be used. Do you have any questions about my introductory remarks? I'm obviously just trying to put things in context, present a sense of balance. I have some extras here for anybody who might need them. Okay, page one begins where everything begins, with an introduction, obviously. And the point of the introduction is to tell people why this booklet is being compiled and put into their hands. Now, the introduction should be valuable to you as well. Because if it turns out that you don't have time to have somebody read the entire booklet or even to give the booklet to them to be read, the introduction tells you that in one sense, you can summarize the gospel very briefly. In that center paragraph, you'll see two passages of scripture written out. My own personal conviction, I can't give you a Bible verse to say God, memorize these Bible verses. In particular, my personal conviction is that you are a real loss if you haven't memorized at least these two verses. I hope you memorize a lot more. I think it would be a grand goal if everybody would take it to heart to memorize this entire booklet. I need to do that as well. Obviously, you look at that, that's very little of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. And we say we live by that, if we live by it. I think we could all make a point of working through this in three or four months and trying to memorize the passages. But if nothing else, if you're going to talk to people about the gospel, you need to be able to present the gospel in God's words. I don't imagine many people do what I'm going to talk about here, but they should. When you tell somebody, God says you need to do such and such. And this is your circumstance, and this is the way God's going to take care of your need. Somebody should say, what makes you think God says that? Where does God say that? That's what you say. Where does God say it? You need to be able to say, thus saith the Lord. Now, this is not my words, friend. This is not my summary of it all. This is God speaking directly to you. I think the two passages that very clearly present the gospel in this brief capsule form. Romans 6:23. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Then of course, John 3:16, which I hope everybody knows already. For God so loved the world that he gave his. In your archaic language, say only begotten Son. More modern translations say his one and only Son, meaning His unique Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Life. And as I say, in one sense this short account tells us the story. It is simple enough for any child to understand. The one passage talks about our problem, sin leading to death, God's provision freely given Jesus Christ for salvation. The other passage tells us from the standpoint of God's love, that he so loved those who are alienated from him. The world that he gave his unique Son. They're talking about the character of Christ and tells us that belief is necessary, that we'll be saved and have everlasting life. Now, from those two verses I have extrapolated a seven point outline and I'd like you to master the seven point outline again. Whether you know all the verses or not, you need to know how the whole story can be laid out. Let's say you're evangelizing and you wonder, well, now, I've just been kind of hit and miss at this. Have I really rounded out the picture? Has a full presentation been made? Well, I think these seven points tend to draw the whole circle, if you will. And so let's go over them and pay some attention to them. The booklet is organized around these seven points and summarizes at the end with them. With a little bit tongue in cheek perhaps, I would suggest that these seven points would be better than memorizing the four spiritual laws. Four Spiritual Laws has been in one sense a successful and another sense a deplorably unsuccessful method of evangelism. But the success, the extent to which we see the success of the four spiritual Laws I think is tied to the fact that they give a hat rack on whichever they can be hungry. I don't think they're adequate enough to hang everything on them. But the purpose of them was to let every Christian be able to say something to get the story out. I think those four are inadequate. And these seven come a lot closer to giving the full picture. Hopefully you can memorize these, be able to put them into your own words. But this is the presentation that I think balances out the various facets that we've been talking about. First, we want to let people know that a loving Creator continually blesses us. Why is that the first point? Because that sets up a sense of obligation. A sense of obligation? You know, if we tell people, do you know that everybody is born in sin and stands under the wrath of God? Well, tell them the truth. But we will automatically start them thinking, well, where's the fairness of God? What kind of justice is that? I didn't have any choice in the matter. And then, although that is wrong for them to think that we've gotten the discussion, if you will, over onto apologetical turf, we've set up the situation so that now we need to give an explanation. And they're not any position to receive that explanation, really. I mean, if it happens that that's where the discussion goes and God uses it, I'm sure that a person can be saved in that way too. But I wouldn't suggest we go out and try to antagonize people as our opening point. Our opening point shouldn't be, it may not seem fair to you, but you're going right to hell and you couldn't have helped it. I think our opening point should be more God has a positive attitude towards humanity. He didn't put you at a disadvantage. In fact, God put you at an advantage. And although I can imagine some people in Reformed circles thinking that this is really soft, peddling the message in a real sense, I hope it is deftly, that is with some sense of ability and agility, showing people how much more they are in sin. You see, we increase their sense of sin by saying, look, even though you were born in sin, God continues to bless you. That brings up another theological dispute. There are some Reformed people who go so far. The Protestant Reformed Church, in fact, is denomination that formed precisely out of this distinctive that we should never tell people that God loves them and that it is wrong to suggest that God has any grace that is shown to the sinner whatsoever. The only grace God shows his saving grace. And therefore there's no such thing as grace, common grace. Well, I don't know exactly, apart from political matters and personalities, why that debate in the early 1900s of this century had to be carried out within Calvinistic circles. But let's stop and think about it. If you begin with the premise that a loving Creator continually blesses you and you believe that the people being blessed are under the wrath and the curse of God, there's a sense in which undeserved favor is being shown. That's what we mean by grace, undeserved favor. Now those who deny common grace say, but it isn't in the long run favor, because God will use it to judge them all the more. Well, that's true, but if it weren't grace in its initial character, in the long run, it wouldn't intensify their judgment. The reason God's goodness increases the judgment of men in the end is just because it was good what he did. And yet they didn't respond. If that wasn't goodness, if all along was God being mean to people, that wouldn't intensify their guilt, would it? What intensifies their guilt is that God is being gracious, even though they don't deserve any of that. And so I'm suggesting that, given all the debates in the reformed circles about these things, that there's a sense in which we should say God loves you. If you have any doubt about that, you need to pay attention to Acts 14, which I cite here in this opening section. In Acts 14:17. You'll find this at the bottom of page two in the section where I go over God's goodness to man. He has not left himself without testimony. He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons. He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. That's a beautiful way of saying God loves you. God's given you food to eat and he's given you joyous hearts, and you haven't deserved a bit of it. And so Paul is willing to say to sinners, God loves you. Notice Paul doesn't say Christ died for all of you. He doesn't say that the penalty has been paid for all of you, and you just need to fill your name in on the blank check. Any of these approaches to evangelism tend to distort the message. The general love of God he presents is the love of the Creator. God continues, have you ever noticed that when the sun comes out or when the rain is falling, that the sun and the rain don't come only to certain houses on the block? God indiscriminately sends rain and sun, and so that your pagan neighbors get sun just like you do, and their crops grow just like Your crops grow. God the Creator is good to all men. He loves them, gives them the needs of life and joy for their hearts, and yet they don't deserve any of it. So I want to suggest that it is entirely appropriate, even for Calvinists who don't believe that Christ died for every man in a saving way, that even Calvinists should say, a loving Creator continually blesses us. But now that we've set that up, the second point follows. We are ungrateful. As ungrateful creatures, we rebel against him. I think even in our jaded late 20th century culture, with all of the sin that we take for granted, the sex, the embezzlement, the lies, and everything else, that even in the late 20th century, people have a real sense of what is needed in terms of gratitude. Even thieves get put out at people who don't show some appreciation for being treated well, especially when they don't deserve it. We teach our children that when they're given gifts, but even if it's not exactly what they wanted, nevertheless, they haven't deserved anything and they should show gratitude for that. And when we see people who don't show gratitude for what they're given, we really think poorly of them. And we should. And what we want to say in our evangelistic witness is God has every right to think very poorly of you because you've spurned his favor, you haven't taken account of his love, and you haven't been grateful at all. So as ungrateful creatures, we rebel against Him. And that rebellion, of course, is the heart of sin. We want to take our lives into our own hands and be our own authorities. Thirdly, because of this, righteous judgment awaits us all. Now, if you had begun your evangelistic witness with you're under the wrath of God, the natural question for your hearer is, why? What did I ever do that's unfair? Well, now you've hopefully taken away, not that you're not going to hear it anyway, but you've taken away the ground for that by saying the reason you're under the righteous judgment of God is because you haven't been grateful for everything he's given you. So as a loving Creator continually blesses us as ungrateful creatures, we rebel against Him. And so righteous judgment awaits us all. In one sense, you can draw a line between premise three and four, because this is the hinge. All of this has been set up to present the wrath of God. Why we're under the wrath of God, why there is such a thing as human need. But at 4, we turn the corner, we shift now and we say, but God has made a covenant of grace. Seems a little unduly theological, doesn't it? Why don't I just say, but Christ died for sinners? Well, because I honestly believe that people misunderstand the gospel if they don't put it in the context that the Bible gives for Christ's death. You know, we assume an awful lot about people's ability to integrate the teaching of the Bible in terms of the context of biblical teaching itself. What does it mean? Christ death died for sinners. Why did he do that? Why should that mean anything to God? Well, the reason he did it and the reason that means something to God is because of this covenant, this compact of grace. And so a good deal of the booklet, probably the heaviest section, deals with the covenant of grace, the concept of God's covenant, the kind of God that enters into covenant, and the graciousness of the covenant. Now, in terms of this covenant, Christ accomplished undeserved salvation for sinners. Numbers 5 and 6 distinguish between the accomplishment of redemption and the application of redemption. And if we don't make that distinction between what Christ accomplished and what the Holy Spirit applies, then we're bound to present in some sense a work salvation scheme. See, the Bible talks about salvation in terms of what the Holy Spirit does in our life, like sanctification. Our sanctification is in a sense our salvation. Does that mean we're saved by making ourselves holy? Not at all. Sanctification is part of the application of redemption. But Christ did something, he accomplished something, he gained something, even before the Holy Spirit applied it to our lives. So 5 is talking about that accomplishment. Christ did something, he accomplished something. And what he accomplished was salvation. And that salvation is undeserved. And it's undeserved for sinners. Every facet of that you want to draw out number six. What do we have to do to take advantage of that to be saved? We must repent and believe, enabled by the Holy Spirit. There's something of a paradox there. The Bible says you can't believe until God enables you to believe. I hear a lot of Calvinists get upset about inviting people to believe the gospel, but the Bible invites them to believe the gospel. Jesus says, come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden. There are invitations in the Bible and for all of that, the Bible clearly says, jesus says, all that come to me, I'll in no wise cast out. But he goes on to say, and all that the Father gives me will come. So if the Bible is willing in one verse, in one passage, in one unified message, to present both facets. We should be willing to too. There's a sense in which you must do something. God commands you to repent and believe. Yet the Bible says you won't be able to do it unless God by his grace enables you through the Holy Spirit. So that's number six, telling people what they must do and explaining to them even that is a matter of grace. And then finally seven, which is the thing that is persistently left out of evangelistic messages that we call easy believism. Most evangelistic messages today, I imagine, present the idea that God has done something to save you. And if you'll just have a kind of ghostly experience, something happen in your head like you say I do to Jesus in your head that you'll be saved. And as provocative as it may sound, I want to tell you tonight from the bottom of my heart that's dead wrong. Nobody will be saved by saying I do to Jesus or by saying I believe it. For you see, you can say all these things and still not know the Lord. Salvation because it's enabled by the Holy Spirit. Salvation involves repentance, a turning from our sin and a turning to the Savior in faith. And those who have turned in faith, therefore, are going to walk a life in a new direction. Those who are saved lead new lives. They've been turned around. That's what repentance, conversion is all about, turning around the direction of your life. So we need to let people know it's not a matter simply of signing out your name on a decision card and then going about leading the kind of life you want to. God saves you not so that you can relish your sin, but so that you'll have the power to forsake your sin. Or to put it another way, salvation is not simply a matter of dealing with man's guilt. It's also a matter of dealing with man's pollution. You stop and think about it. There's a difference between guilt and pollution, isn't there? Guilt is a man's status. Pollution is a man's condition. Now, I don't happen to believe the psychological thing theory of kleptomania, and I have to preface my illustration with that remark so that you don't misunderstand me. But I'm going to use that little story, we'll call it a mythological story here for the sake of illustration. Let's say that a kleptomaniac has been caught red handed and goes to court and a Kleptomaniac, according to the story, has this unquenchable desire just to take things that are not his or her own, may not even need them. But there's this sense of entitlement or this sense of excitement that is found in taking things from the store, getting away with it. Now, that kleptomaniac, according to the story, has this tendency. You can almost imagine the kleptomaniac standing before the judge, wondering, what can I get out of the courtroom that's not mine? There's that condition, right? That impelling drive to do what is wrong. But now the judge is not looking at the condition of the kleptomaniac. The judge is looking at the fact that the kleptomaniac comes into court with a charge against him or her that, let's say, in due time is proved. And now that person stands guilty before the judge. Let's say the judge says, I find you guilty in the eyes of this state. You will remain in that condition until you have made restitution and you must pay $150 to the storekeeper. Now the kleptomaniac's friend, who happens to be sitting in the courtroom, says, well, I can pay the fine. If that'll clear the record, I'll pay the fine. So let's say the guilt is no longer a standing fact. The eyes of the law. The law says, your guilt's been satisfied. You've paid your fine. Has that taken care of the polluted condition of the kleptomaniac? Has the friends paying the kleptomaniac's fine taken away the desire to take things? No. As I told you, the kleptomaniac may be sitting there in court wondering what he or her can steal out of the courtroom. There's a difference between the guilt, the status of the kleptomaniac and the polluted condition that leads to kleptomaniac to do what he or she does. Now, we are that way before God. We are guilty for our sins, but we are also under the power of our sins. We are guilty and polluted. And when God saves us, salvation is not simply a matter of saying, well, I'll forget about your guilt. You're forgiven. Salvation is saving us from the power of sin as well. Salvation washes us clean. The Bible says salvation is a matter of removing our pollution as well as our legal status of guilty. So number seven has to be there. In a true presentation of the gospel, those who are saved must lead new lives. You notice that I didn't Incorporate that in number six. We must distinguish between repenting and believing. Leading the new life. Lest we give the suggestion that our leading new lives saves us. The way I said this, I think is accurate. Those who are saved lead new lives. It's not. Those who lead new lives will be saved because that suggests that it might be on the basis of their new lives. They'll be saved. Okay, so this introduction then gives you two verses I want you all to memorize so that you'll be able to give the gospel and God's words at the most minimal level anytime you have to. But then in terms of how you should understand the categories of what you're going to present, so you give a full picture. You want to make sure you emphasize the fear of God, the love of Christ, the suitability to man's need, and the glory of God. In a word, you want to show that this is good news that God has. It has some terrifying aspects, but it's good news in the end. Anytime our evangelism becomes pervasively bad news to people, or we're just beating them over the head about judgment and guilt and all the rest, it ceases to be a biblical presentation. Because the biblical word for evangelism, euongalias, meaning good or well in the Greek, and ongalos, would be a message. The good message, the good news of God. Anytime we present God's message, it must have that character to it. And I hope these seven points do it. Any questions now on the introduction? Okay, let me show you how this book is put together. Now, where do we begin our evangelism? A loving creator continually blesses us. Now, if you turn to page two, we can see the format of the booklet. I first of all, give an explanatory sentence or two. In this case, the living and true God created all things by his powerful word. And everything was very good. Man was made to know, enjoy, and serve God in loving dependence. Originally, man was morally upright, submitting to God's will. Now, that, of course, is my summary of the theological point that I want to get across. But the elements of that summary are now laid out in bold type underneath. Basically, I'm talking about creation, God's the creator, and man's condition at creation. So under creation, in bold print, I've written out some verses that teach us that God created everything. And under man, I've written out the condition of man at his creation. You see how that works? An unitalicized, unemphasized summary statement from Dr. Bonson. This is my theological summary. But from that summary, you can now take the major points. Those are in caps, capital letters, creation and man. And then underneath it, which is the thing that we've dreamed up, you see, we're trying to summarize what we find in the Bible. And so over and over and over again, we're going to quote the Bible. Thus saith the Lord, Lord. Thus saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord. And you know the advantage? Well, there's a lot of advantages of that. Not only is it honoring to God, but, you know, anytime somebody doesn't like what you say, you've got the upper hand already because you're going to say, well, I guess in my own human wisdom I might not like it either, but thus saith the Lord. Don't ever get the idea that we have to, if you will step down to discuss the word of God on a human plane and satisfy sinners. Never get the idea that you have your opinion based on God's word and this person has his opinion based on what he wants and what he's seen in the world. And somehow we've got to make it all jive. We've got to satisfy this person. We don't have to satisfy this person. We don't have to say, well, I realize your sense of fairness tells you that people shouldn't have to go to hell forever, but God says, you will go to hell forever. And, you know, that settles it. There's a bumper sticker that gets at that. I don't know who puts it out, but it says, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. That's true. That's the short and easy method. In the end, you say, well, it's really not a matter of whether you like it or not. In the ancient world, when a messenger came running to a city with the king or the Lord's word, he didn't come to debate the point. He came to announce the point. People can try to get around it and usually are going to be under the wrath of the king if they don't listen to his announcement. Or they can try to kill the messenger for telling the truth. But when all is said and done, they don't have the right to dictate the message. That's what you want to tell sinners over and over again. Just because you're a sinner, just because you're a creature, just because you're finite, you're not in a position to debate the point. You can't dictate God's message. You can't reformulate It. And that's why in our booklet I'm trying to put you on firm ground when over and over again you can say, thus saith the Lord. It's written right there. God said it, I believe it. And that settles it. So this is the way the booklet's put together then our first major point is in that dark print at the top. The loving Creator continually blesses us. Then a theological summary. And then the elements of the summary are put in capital letters and the word of God then written out underneath. Let's see if you can. See if you can use the booklet in that way. Let me just jump in here randomly. How about page seven? We'll let Linda Byrd explain to us from number four there, just the style of the booklet. Tell us what function each one of these things down the page has.

Okay, the dark print beside the number four goes back to the very beginning. Underneath that following paragraph is a theological family. And then the other capital letters are taken from that theological summarization and they have scripture verses.

Okay, can you do that for us in terms of the first point of God has made a covenant of grace. Why don't you read it and then point out for everybody how the rest of the page fills it in.

In mercy toward undeserving sinners, God established a bond between Himself and those he would trust and submit to him as his people. A covenant of grace. This was a sovereignly imposed, one sided, yet thoroughly gracious transaction entered into by God for the undeserved benefit of scrim Bonia. It stemmed from his loving kindness. His aim was that he would be their God and they would be his people. And then starting with the first, the covenant keeping God, we have the scriptures that are taken from the Old Testament that back up that fact and so forth.

What is basis? The basis here then would be the basis for the covenant. Okay, there's a sentence in the summary that says it stemmed from his loving kindness. So basis here is backing up that element of it. The basis of the covenant. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people. So forth. And then the end of the statement says that the aim of the covenant would be such and such. And then down below you can see that the purpose of the covenant. And I wrote out the verse there. Okay, everybody understand just the mechanics of the booklet. I'm not claiming it's the best way to do it, but I hope you'll find it a convenient way and easily followed. Usable. Let's go to the Work last page. Well, no, I need to say one more thing. The theological summaries that I told you about are all progressive. They tend to build on one another. Through the section, for instance, on page seven where we were just looking, that first statement that Linda just read for us does not summarize everything that I want to teach in terms of God has made a covenant of grace. Once you go through that statement and the backup from Scripture, then the next one builds from it. In the covenant of grace, God made a promise of eternal salvation to sinners, okay? Then you see the backup for it, the next one. The provisions of God's promise were progressively made known. Then the next one. In accord with the developing anticipation of the Old Testament, it was God himself who came to save his people. So you see how this is developing. Plot down to the end of that section. You finally come to page 14. Christ accomplished undeserved salvation for sinners. Then you begin all again, building point by point by point, with all the substantiation from Scripture under each one of the sub points. Now we can go to the end and the conclusion. In the booklet we say, and I hope that in the way that you present it to people, it will be clear to them their response now is an urgent matter. There's only so much we can do. We can't save people by evangelizing, right? We can only set up the conditions under which they can be saved. And so presenting the booklet, and they're reading the booklet, we're not going to gain them anything unless they respond. And we want to let them know that it's the most important decision that they'll ever make in life. Don't ever let people think that religion is just one category of life. And that even as they've gotten their home life worked out and their occupational purposes worked out and their recreational life pretty much laid out sorts of things that like to do. And now what you're coming along is you're just adding one more facet in terms of all the various aspects of life. You want to get your religion worked out too. Because you see, people may have time to redesign their homes or to change their occupation or to alter their hobbies, but they haven't got time just to, in due course, get religious matters kind of straightened out. You see, they are day by day and minute by minute under the wrath of God. And it's urgent, therefore, that they make the decision. And it's not a decision like any other decision they'll ever make. It's even more important than the Decision who they would marry. This decision is the most important one they can make and you want to let that be known. And then I review here what the good news has said. Again, the seven points, the seven spiritual laws, if you will. And then the invitation of Christ. Christ is there. He who comes to me, I'll by no means cast out. And note how I act immediately. God has invited you, but God also commands you. It's kind of like God has set a banquet feast and he goes out in the highways and byways and says, everybody who wants to come, come. But God also says, you have no right to refuse the invitation. You have to come. God commands you to come. And I have declared to both Jews and Greeks. Paul says that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. Then the second to last paragraph explains what they should do in prayer, because most people are going to be very awkward about this if they've prayed at all. It's usually been in a tight situation where they hope that there is this power that goes beyond them that will help them out of the mess. Well, that isn't a very good prayer. And most cases, well, I think in every case it's not heard by God in the deepest and most meaningful sense of hearing a prayer. So you have to teach them how to pray. And I think what they need to know are these three things. They have to confess their sinfulness and sorrow for it. They have to begin there. Then it will begin by saying, well, God, I have a few questions about infamy, baptism. I'm not really sure about that. That would be a peripheral point, as important as that is, as we see it, to the covenant of grace. That isn't where you begin. You begin by saying, I am really wrong in the sight of God and am broken over it. Sorrow for their sin. Secondly, they have to call upon the name of Jesus Christ as the only one you trust to save you in God's sight. Now, I don't know how I can get this across clear clearly enough. You do not teach people to say, I believe you died for my sins. The Bible nowhere encourages, much less warrants us to teach people to pray. I believe Jesus died for my sins. Now we should come to the point where that is a conviction that we have. But that isn't what saves you. It isn't saving to be believe that Jesus died for my sins. It's saving. When you say, Jesus, you're the only one who can save me, please do it from the standpoint of converted person's prayer he might not be saved. Jesus might say no. Now in terms of the promises and the covenant of grace, we know better than that. But I'm just trying to illustrate by way of exaggeration that the point of conversion is not not to have the conviction Jesus hung on the cross knowing my name. The point of conversion is to say for whomever Jesus died that's the only way I can be saved. And dear God, please don't leave me out. You're turning to Jesus is the only way of salvation. That's why I say you call upon the name of Jesus Christ. It's the only one you trust to save you and God's sake as far as you're concerned, I have no other hope in heaven or earth, life or death, but you Jesus, you're my only hope. There's a certain form of self confidence and arrogance involved in saying from the very moment of God I'm a sinner and I'm broken by my sin and I'm really sorry but I know that I'm all right. No, you know, you're not alright and you just hope God will take you for the sake of what Jesus does did. And then thirdly, you ask for new life by the Holy Spirit and commit yourself to walking in the paths of righteousness. You say, God, give me new life. I want to belong to you and I want to do the things which are pleasing to you. Now on that basis the Bible says you can then call God Father on the basis that you have resigned yourself in utter abhorrence for your sin to the saving mercy of Jesus Christ and committed yourself to walking as he's told you to walk. Then you can call on the Lord as your father. Then the last paragraph talks about what you have to do after that. A lot of evangelistic methods say, well now we get one more name on the conversion card and we go on. You see that's just the beginning of the new life, if it's the beginning at all. That's just the opening of a new existence. And now the person needs to grow, find fellowship, be nurtured, edified and that sort of thing. And that's why I end by saying they need to find a Bible believing fellowship. It would be very tempting at this point to go on and on and on about how they need our church, right? I believe they do need our church. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't be an orthodox Presbyterian and hold to our distinctives and, and have a creed and all the rest. I think they do need Our church. That's why I invite them to make our congregation their church home. But in the end, I have to recognize that the main point is that they find a church that's Bible believing. I think it's a little early in this baby's new existence to say now not everybody who says they're Bible believing does a good job of interpreting the Bible. In time that will come and hopefully with this little booklet they'll realize that they go to a church that teaches them things that are contrary to this booklet. Let's say they happen to wander into, God forbid they happen to go to a Jehovah's Witness assembly and it dawns on them they don't believe Jesus is fully God. Well, they know from this booklet anyway that the Bible says otherwise. So that will help them find what a Bible believing church really is. Not just one that says it believes the Bible, but teaches the things, at least most of the things that are found in this booklet. Well, now, what are you going to do with the booklet? Well, apart from your own devotional and study use and having it there to look up Bible verses real quickly for theological points that you know are in the Bible, you're not sure where to go to for them. That's all well and good, and I meant for it to be used that way. Apart from that, this booklet's got to get into somebody's hands. Give it to you at Ren. Well, I think what my wife means by that is that this booklet is so thorough in its explanation that even if you're not around, they'll be able to get a good presentation. But she certainly didn't mean by that you should give them the booklet and assume that's all there is to it. But the point of tonight, lesson after you remaster the message of evangelism, is that that's where it begins. If this booklet's going to be any help to you, you need to learn to use it to find ways to say, I think you'll be interested in this. It's God's good news. Did you know that God had some good news for us to present the book with in our subsequent weeks? What I want to do is to go through various styles of evangelism, basically ways to bait the hook so that you can get people to take an interest to talk to you about these things. And I will be talking more particularly how you can get this from your hand into somebody else's hand. It's one thing to tell you to do it, it's another thing to see how it can actually happen. You'll feel very awkward. I want to talk about student evangelism, hospitality, evangelism on the job, and that sort of thing. This is the first, third now of my lesson plans for our evangelistic seminar. What we've talked about up to this point is the motivation we have for evangelism, the forms of evangelism, corporate and personal, and the power of evangelism, holiness of life and boldness through prayer. So all of this in terms of motivation and priority preparation to evangelize. This, of course, is the main point, the message of evangelism. But after this, we're going to be taking the rest of our time to talk about how we can facilitate the communication of this in interesting people and what we have to say. Do you have any questions or remarks you want to.

When I talk to people, it's. I'm. I'm fine to talk about. To talk about God and scriptures, and that's fine. But when they start to show an interest, then I get scared.

Yeah.

And I just. I feel myself backing up because what would I do if it starts from the sun and say, yeah, that looks good. I'll just, you know what, what should I do?

Okay.

Oh, wait a minute. You know, I could. Because we can't just say if they praise unfair. We can't just do. Okay, it says right here because. So you don't want to go through that.

Okay. If I can use the jargon of the sales world, what you're asking here is how do you complete the, you know, the sale, the transaction? What do you do now that you've interested your person? How do you bring it to a head? How do you complete it? Well, did you see that in the case of the Philippian jailer, Paul says, now look, I'm going to have you read the Ten Commandments over a few times, and when you get feeling pretty miserable about it, then I'll know you're ready to be saved. There wasn't any preparationism there. Now, on the other hand, if the person says, well, I don't know, I guess that could be true. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. You say, oh, okay, well, let's have our prayer then, because it looks like you're ready to become a Christian. That's not looking for preparationism. But it is saying, this person is not prepared. This person obviously has just got a remote interest in it and is willing to think about it a little. But if somebody. I'll give an example in my own life what happened in terms of how you have to mop up everything at the end. I was doing a preaching series in Tennessee one week, and actually it wasn't even on evangelism, it was on Christian ethics. However, I had presented God's demand and man's guilt and that sort of thing in such a way that somebody came to me afterwards and said, could I have some time to talk to you? I was staying at the pastor's home, and so I invited the person over and we sat in the front room and I talked for about 15 minutes. The person said, well, I know that I'm really guilty, but I don't understand, what am I going to do about it? That's like looking down a cannon. The person is just asking for this message just to be blasted directly at him. So I said, well, you've got to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because he's the only provision for sin and salvation. And on and on and on. I went for about 15 minutes wondering, now this guy's going to have this objection or that objection or going to need this elaboration. I'm undoubtedly going to have to say, and I'm sure the pastor would be glad to have you come back and ask some questions. But after I gave this 15 minute things, the person said, you know, that's right. What do I do now? It was just kind of disarming because I'm so used, especially in terms of my work in apologetics and so forth, to having very long, protracted periods of talking to people to get their problems worked out and their objections answered and all that, that it just came so easy from the human standpoint that night that I almost felt kind of, well, what should he do? Naturally, what he had to do is pray. And so I said, well, if you really feel that you're guilty before God and Christ is the only way you're going to be saved, then you need to pray and ask God to save you. And so I prayed with the person and I went through those three things. I didn't open the a little booklet and say, now it says here you go through step one, step two, step three. I mean, it has to come from the heart, obviously, but I think you need to be willing to lead people in prayer to say, I know that it's uncomfortable for you and new for you to pray. So how about if I pray and to the degree that these words express your feeling, you can use your own words, you can pray after me, but let's pray together. When the person gets done praying, then you have a tendency to Say, well, now what do we do? It's not like watching a TV show and it's over and the commercials are done. You turn it off. No, you have to tell the person, you've got a new life here on your hands and we're going to do everything we can to support you. And here's what I'd suggest you do. You tell them to start reading the Gospel of John or the book of Romans or whatever you feel you can help them with, but you got to start decipling that person right at that point. You got to give them something to do. Now, it'd probably be good for me to have, as part of one of our lessons, if not a lesson itself, something on this very question of what do you do? When people finally say, yes, I want it, I won't leave it just these brief remarks, but hopefully this will help you a little bit. When people start showing an interest, you start thinking, can I get them to pray now that Jesus will save them. I think that's what you're aiming for, is for them finally to bow their heart and their mind to the Lord.

I've talked to so many people that have given their heart to Jesus at the same time, and it just seems that this is how it's happened, that somebody came and talked to them and seemed like a really good idea at the time. And I said it was really too much.

Yeah, well, part of the answer. See that. That I would consider a special problem in terms of finishing out your evangelistic witness with the person. The special problem of somebody who's been saved over and over and over again. And there. I think you especially need the very firm, distinctive points of our evangelistic method here, because you're not going to ask them to have Jesus come into their heart. What you're going to say is you need to cry out that God in some way by his mercy is going to save you. That's all I want you to do. I don't want you to say, hey, I've got it made, I'm going to heaven. I've got my ticket. I want you to pray, God, please don't pass me by. So you are going to have a different emphasis. Their prayer is going to show that from their heart they are dreadfully afraid they are going to be lost and that Jesus is the only way they are going to be saved and that they commit themselves. They say, jesus, I am going to follow you. And then when you get done praying with such a person, you obviously have to say, now, if you mean business, if you meant what you said to God, that commitment has to show in leading the new life. So you might even turn to the booklet and say, here are some things you'd better start thinking about. Are you willing to tell people you're a Christian? Are you willing to witness for Jesus, so forth and so on? I've gone way past what I promised you I'd do, but we'll come back to that and deal with that. That's a good question. Do you have other remarks, quick questions maybe you want to ask before I stop? Yeah. Yes. In terms of our method of evangelism, I'm going to be emphasizing that there's no need for you to get through all 30 pages of the booklet with somebody. Every time somebody in the store says, I could just kill myself, I'm so sad. You don't say, well, wait before you get to your car, I've got 30 pages of material to get through. Sometimes you just to want plant the seed. That's right. And we are successful. If we've done that in a God honoring, faithful way, it may be that we don't see the response. We don't see it at all. We never know that this person became a Christian later on, many years later. But the planting of the seed itself takes some finesse and winsomeness, and we'll be talking about that in future meetings. I come from a pagan background. You know where they come from. You're not asking that. You're not asking what is their character and function. You're asking what are they actually. Okay. The force mutual laws, as you know, is the evangelistic technique used by Campus Crusade for Christ. First one is God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And, and you know, I'm not sure that I know all the four spiritual laws. The reason for that is because I don't use that as my evangelistic method. What's that? They're probably in Gary's book about campus Christianity. I'm sure they'd be found there. I have them at home. I can bring them. Well, that's true not just as the four spiritual laws, but of a lot of techniques saying that, you know, God's done everything, now you've got to take the place final step, which isn't true because God's going to make you take the final step too. That's how good he is. But the four spiritual laws, even though I can't recite them, the point is there's a gap between God and man that's been bridged by the Cross, that is the metaphor, if you will. I'm using the idea of gratitude here. The idea that we are guilty before God and Christ has satisfied the guilt. And the idea there is one of reconciliation of the four spiritual laws. God and man are separated. They've been brought. Brought together by the cross of Christ. Okay, let's close in a word of prayer. Lord, for all of our discussion of the character and contour and facets aspects of the message of evangelism, we pray that tonight, as we leave the thing that we would focus on and that would warm our hearts, there's not all these formal matters, but the message itself. Truly, you are good to us. We've seen that in the message that is presented in outline form in our booklet and more fully and grandly and faithfully in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. And we pray that you would make us, people who are so committed to that message, so interested in that message, so fully in love with what you have done for us and who you are, that we would study it, to master it, to be able to explain to people what that message is and that you give us hearts willing and eager to share it, to tell people what you have done for them. Lord, we pray that that message would indeed form our lives. And it would be that which we faithfully present to others. And Lord, we ask for good success in that presentation. That we wouldn't simply have done our job and leave it at that, but that we would see success come from that, that sinners would truly be converted to you, that others would come to love the message that we've talked about tonight, even as we love it. For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.