Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Published by:
Gene Keeth
3407 Heather Lane
Katy TX 77449
www.masterskeyministries.com
© 2004 by Gene Keeth. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means - electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopy), recording, or otherwise - without prior written permission from the author, unless it is for the furtherance of the gospel and given away free.
Scripture quotations are taken from the "KJV Evidence Bible."
What you are about to read is my version of the heart-changing message Hell's Best Kept Secret, by Ray Comfort of Living Waters.
If ever there had been an instrument invented to gauge one's frustration, I would have blown the fuses. It had been approximately thirty years since the day I realized that there was absolutely nothing good whatsoever within Gene Keeth, and that only the righteousness of Christ would spare me from hearing the fateful words, "Depart from Me, I never knew you" on the Day of Judgment. Looking back, I can honestly say that there is not enough treasure in Heaven or earth that could possibly compare with the peace and joy that I have in knowing Jesus Christ as Lord of my life. The frustration I speak of slowly materialized over the course of those years as I grew as a Christian, and also grew in my understanding of what God expected of me, according to scripture, as a child of His.
I came to realize that after all of these years, I had more questions now than ever before. Why is the church so hard to tell from the rest of society? If we are supposed to be a Christian nation, why can't we outlaw the killing of the unborn? Why is the divorce rate amongst professing believers equal to that of the secular world? Why had I seen so many people receive the gospel with joy only later to fall away from the faith? Why is evangelism the last "program" to receive attention within the church? Why have I seen a church that Satan has absolutely no reason at all to fear?
These and more just like them were questions that neither I, nor anyone around me had any reasonable answers for. I couldn't for the life of me understand what was going on. Then came the day my life was turned upside down when, seemingly out of nowhere, the answer came and completely opened my understanding like I never dreamed possible. An answer so simple, yet so powerful, you will be both shocked and disturbed as you see it for yourself. It is my prayer that this message will change your life so radically, Satan himself will take notice and be forced to alter his plans on account that one more sanctified warrior has risen within the ranks of his enemy.
In the fall of 1998, I found myself sitting on the front row of a large church in south Louisiana awaiting the start of an evangelistic crusade of which I had never seen the likes of before. Our church had invited a group of men to come and share their faith in the powerful way that they were known for, and this was the third night in a row that the building had been pushed to standing room only. These men put on a dazzling show of super human strength that most people will never see, and while they have a captive audience, they share the gospel in an equally powerful and emotional way. This night was especially exciting for me though, because in attendance was a dear friend of mine whom I was deeply concerned for because I knew that the world had a firm grip on his heart. I knew this was the perfect opportunity for him to hear the full blown gospel at least once in his life. This power thing was right up his alley, so getting him to attend a possibly life changing event such as this was no problem at all, and he even brought a friend with him. I was fortunate to have front row seats, because I had been assigned to be the interpreter for the hearing impaired guest that would be attending that night, and I had several seats reserved down front for that occasion. When I saw that I would have a few extra seats available, I was able to bring my friend down front for what I hoped would be the most important day of his life.
Busted boards and bricks, telephone books ripped in half, and handcuffs snapped by human hands took a backseat to personal testimonies of how the world can only offer a false peace and joy that leads to ultimate destruction, but putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ leads to true peace and joy and a power that the one and only living God can provide. Then the call came for those wanting to experience the power and forgiveness that can only be found in the blood of the cross, and with every head bowed, along with around two hundred other raised hands was the hand of my friend. Tears filled my eyes as I tried to continue with my responsibilities as an interpreter while the speaker led the crowd through a sinner's prayer. After they were finished, I proudly led my new Christian brother to a back room for some follow-up paper work and brief counseling. As we made our way down the hall, I was able to share with him how different his life would be now that his heart belonged to God, and how he would look at things in a whole new light. I had no sooner gotten those words out of my mouth, when out of nowhere, an incredible eerie feeling came over me that set me back enough to zap most of the joy I was feeling at the time right out of my body.
You see, I had been a born-again Christian for 30 years and I suddenly realized that I was counting chickens again before the eggs hatched. I knew from experience that chances were as soon as this new convert left the building, the backslide into his old lifestyle would begin. I knew from experience that the message of the gospel that he just heard was more than likely going to be nothing more than an emotion filled drama that would have the same effect as going to a good concert. I had seen it too many times in many different situations, and now, as I started noticing this disturbing trend through the years, I realized that I had come to a point in my life where I had little faith in the gospel's ability to really sink its teeth into today's society and then keep them. I wasn't sure what the problem was with the modern gospel, but I do know that because of what I had personally witnessed through the years, it had led me into a type of evangelism that I now understand is known as Lifestyle Evangelism. Vocally sharing my faith with others around me had really subsided, and I allowed my Christian walk to do my talking for me to keep from offending anyone or be labeled a Jesus freak. Then whenever I did get the opportunity to share my faith with someone, I would relate the wonderful things that God had done in my life and how I never knew what true peace and joy were until I gave my heart to Jesus. Just telling people about my own personal experience didn't seem to offend or turn them off as much as telling them about the sin in their own life, and how that sin separates them from God. At least this way I would be able to keep my friends.
Then I read the book of Acts and had something revealed to me that was like a punch in the stomach. I saw what it was like to be a true follower of Christ. I saw men that were totally sold out to spreading the gospel because that was what they, and me, were commanded to do. Commanded to go in to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. They took up their cross and were obedient to their Savior. The punch that I'm talking about was when I realized that compared to a Biblical description of a true believer, I was in the danger zone of being what scripture calls a "lukewarm" Christian. It's not that I didn't have a desire for those I loved to come to Christ, because I did. I even felt a strong concern for total strangers to escape the jaws of Hell. But after an intense study about the Apostles , it was obvious that I was doing little about my concerns. And then whenever I did try to witness to someone, I felt as though I was bear hunting with a BB gun. Have you ever wondered why it's like that?
Think about this. If you saw your neighbor's house engulfed in flames and you had five minutes to react and save the parents and three small children from certain death, what would you do? Would you knock on their door and casually try to convince them that they need to come and stay at your house tonight or would you bang on their door, breaking it down if necessary, in order to rescue them from certain death? You know what you would do. And if you are a born-again believer, you also know that you pass thousands of people every week that are going to die and spend eternity apart from God in unspeakable agony, yet we just continue to pass them by. Their house is on fire but we just keep on walking. Why do we do that? Why is sharing the gospel so difficult? Why do we not even take the time to place a gospel tract in their hand?
You would think it would be as easy as going fishing and having the fish jump in the boat. People jumping over each other to get to God. But it doesn't work out like that. At least not for me it didn't. It turned out to be more like trying to sell ice to an Eskimo. Some people were even offended. Sure there were some bright moments when I would get someone to come to church for a special drama, musical presentation, or maybe even to see a bunch of men on stage bench pressing trucks. On a rare occasion I would even see someone I know make the ultimate decision to give their life to Christ. But a short time later, where were they? They couldn't be found. At least nowhere near a church, that's for sure. It turned out they weren't interested in church, God, or any commitment for that matter. They were only checking this Christianity thing out to see if it was exciting as we Christians say that it is and when they didn't find it to be what they thought, what they were told, they just slid right back into the world where their heart was at all along and started searching for something else. Another backslider, as we Christians call it.
Then came the day when I learned that I wasn't alone. Everyone from mass crusades to the local church was getting the same results. Did you know that we have something in our churches today called the fall away rate? Most people would know it as the backslider rate. I don't really care for the term backslider anymore because, as you will see in a minute, a person has to actually slide forward before he can slide backward. The fall away rate is made up of people who have made a decision for Christ and then fallen away. Right now, it is around 80% to 90% of all who make "decisions." That means modern evangelism, the way we share the gospel, is producing somewhere around 80 to 90 false converts for every 100 decisions.
Look at this alarming statistic: In the March/April 1993 American Horizon, the national director of home missions of a major U.S. denomination disclosed the fact that in 1991, a major U.S. denomination was able to obtain 290,000 decisions for Christ. Unfortunately, they could only find 14,000 of those in fellowship, which leaves 276,000 left unaccounted for. I then went on to learn that this was not an isolated incident but the normal results that modern evangelism was producing. I was shocked. Something is terribly wrong here. What have we done to the gospel that is producing such a small success rate? Have we done anything?
What would we do if someone came running up to us and asked, "Can you tell me what I need to do to inherit eternal life?" After someone helped us up off the ground, how would we handle it? What would we say? We'd probably say something like this: "Do you know that you are a sinner and you have a God shaped hole in your heart that only God can fill? Did you also know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and if you will put your faith in Him and repeat this prayer after me before you change your mind and really mean it when you say it, you can rest assured that you will live eternally in Heaven when you die."
I know there are several different approaches, but most of them are very similar. It's all about getting them to recognize that all people are sinners, but God loves them in spite of their sin and He sent his Son to die on the cross for them and He has a wonderful plan for their life. All they have to do to accept the free gift of eternal life is to put their faith in Jesus Christ, and then they will discover the true peace and joy that only He can give.
I never thought that sharing my faith was rocket science and that the only way I could fail at this Godly command was to not say anything at all. Boy was I wrong. And it wasn't any modern method of how to witness that revealed this to me. Instead of doing what modern evangelism says to do, someone told me to look in the Bible in Mark chapter 10 and see how Jesus himself handled the opportunity of getting a "decision."
To my surprise, I found something that I was faintly familiar with but had never realized what Jesus was doing. In Mark chapter 10 we see that a man did come running up to Jesus, fell to his knees and said "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life." Look at what Jesus told him. First notice that he did not say "I am so glad you asked me that, friend. If you will acknowledge that you are a sinner and then put your faith in me, you can have the assurance that if you died tonight you would go to heaven. Would you like me to lead you in a prayer?" That's not what Jesus said at all.
Instead, He said "Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, that is, God." Jesus corrected this man's understanding of what good is. And then He pointed the man to the Ten Commandments, actually to five of them. He said "Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness (lie), Defraud not, Honor your father and mother." The man replied to Jesus, "I have kept these since my youth." Then Jesus gave him the essence of the first and second commandments, "You shall have no other Gods before me," and He showed the man that his god was his money. Scripture then says that the man went away very sad. That was it. Once I read this, I started wondering "What was Jesus doing? How come He spoke to him that way?
He just let the man walk away without telling him anything about the eternal life that he was seeking. This lost sinner just asked the master preacher of all time how to obtain eternal life and all Jesus did was show the man his sin. What about God's love and the wonderful plan He had in store for his life? What about mercy? Grace? The cross? Jesus would have been a huge failure by today's standard for not trying to get a "decision."
Then I learned that what Jesus was doing was using a principle that's extremely effective and absolutely necessary in preparing a person's heart for grace. Some of the greatest men of faith through the ages also used this same principle. Men like Moody, Wesley, Whitefield, Luther, and Spurgeon. It's a principal that's been largely forgotten by the modern church. You hardly ever hear of it anymore. Even after forty-two years of faithful church attendance it was still a secret to me. But not any more. This knowledge has totally changed my life and the lives of many others that I've crossed paths with and it's the last thing that Satan wants to see get out. Don't allow him to keep you from the most important message you will ever hear.
It all starts in Psalm 19:7 where the Bible says "The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." I'm sure God uses the word perfect here for a reason. Scripture makes it clear that nothing is better for converting the soul than God's Law. You say, "What does the Law have to do with a person's salvation? That went out with Christ death on the cross."
I said the same thing until I read what you are about to read and decided to research a little further for myself and discovered the true function of God's Law. Look at this following demonstration where you can actually see the function of the Law using our own Civil Law.
Imagine if I walked up and said, "I've got some good news for you. Someone just paid a $25,000 speeding fine on your behalf." You'd probably look at me and say "HUH?! What are you talking about? That's not good news. That doesn't make sense. I don't have a $25,000 speeding fine." My good news wouldn't be good news to you at all. It would actually sound pretty foolish. But more important than that it would be offensive because I would be insinuating that you had broken the law when you didn't think you had. Maybe if I said it this way it would make more sense: "This afternoon on your lunch break, the law clocked you going 55 mph through an area set aside for a blind children's convention. There were ten clear warning signs stating that 15 mph was the maximum speed limit, and you went straight through doing 55. What you did was extremely dangerous, and because of that, there was a $25,000 fine. The law was about to take its course, when someone you don't even know stepped in and paid your fine for you. You are very fortunate."
Can you see how me telling you exactly what you've done wrong first actually makes the good news make sense? If I don't help you clearly understand that you've broken the law, my good news will be foolishness and offensive! But once you understand that you've broken the law, then and only then will it truly become good news to you.
Now in the same way, I could walk up to a normal, unrepentant sinner and say, "Do you know that God loves you?" or "Do you know Jesus Christ died for you and has a wonderful plan for your life." I wouldn't say that because it would only be foolishness to him, and offensive. It would be foolishness because it's not going to make sense to him. The Bible says, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness." (1 Cor. 1:18). And it would also be offensive because I'm insinuating that he's a sinner, when he doesn't think he is. As far as he's concerned, there are a lot of people out there far worse than him.
But if I take the time to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and open up God's Law, the Ten Commandments, and show him precisely what he's done wrong first, that he's offended God by violating His Law, then when he's convinced that he's broken the Law, or like the Bible says, "convinced by the Law a transgressor," then the good news of the fine being paid for him will not be foolishness nor offensive but it will be the power of God unto salvation.
1 Tim. 1:8 says "But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully." That is if we use it for the purpose it was intended and designed for. What was it designed for? Verses 9-10 tell us that the Law was not made for the righteous but for the unrighteous, for sinners, and then it lists them. It also says in Rom. 3:19, "Now we know that what things so ever the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." Not just the Jews, but "All the World". So one function of God's Law is to stop the mouth. Stop sinners from justifying themselves by saying "There are plenty of people worse than me. I'm not a bad person." God's Law prevents that and stops the mouth of someone trying to say they are a good person and leaves the whole world guilty before God.
Next verse. "For by the Law is the knowledge of sin." So now God tells us how we identify sin. 1 John 3:4 says "For sin is the transgression of the law." The apostle Paul said in Romans 7:7, "I had not known sin, but by the law." So even Paul didn't know what sin was until the Law showed him.
Then came the scripture that truly showed me why Jesus talked to that man the way he did. Galatians 3:24 says "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." God's Law actually acts as a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ that we might be justified through faith in His blood. Scripture makes it clear it's God's Law that drives us to the cross to seek forgiveness. The Law doesn't help us, it leaves us helpless. The Law doesn't justify us, it leaves us guilty before a Holy God.
Can the Law save us? Of course not. We are saved by Gods grace through faith. The Law simply acts like a mirror that shows us our filthy, dirty hearts in need of God's cleansing.
Unfortunately around a century ago, modern evangelism decided to by-pass this "perfect" blueprint and disregard the Law and it's function in converting the soul so it had to therefore invent it's own perfect plan in attracting sinners to the gospel. The perfect plan that it chose to go with was one that said "Come to Jesus. He'll give you peace, joy, love, fulfillment and lasting happiness." The "new" gospel said that Jesus can pretty much be your best friend and help solve your problems.
To understand how unscriptural this extremely popular teaching really is, pay close attention to the following analogy and it will make more sense.
Two men were seated on a plane. The first man was given a parachute and told to put it on because it would improve his flight. He was a little skeptical at first, because he couldn't see how putting a parachute on in the plane could possibly improve his flight, but after a while he decided to "experiment" and see if the claim was true. As he did, he immediately noticed the weight of it upon his shoulders along with the fact that he couldn't sit up straight, but he comforted himself with the fact that it was going to improve his flight. At least, that was what he was promised, so he decided to give it a little time and as he waited, he noticed that the other passengers were laughing at him because he was wearing a parachute in the plane. He started to feel humiliated as they pointed and laughed at him until he just couldn't take it any longer. He stood up, unstrapped the parachute, and threw it to the floor. Disillusionment and bitterness filled his heart, because, as far as he was concerned, he was told an outright lie. Now, the second man was given a parachute also, but look at what he was told. He was told to put it on because at any moment he'd be jumping 10,000 feet out of the airplane. He gladly put it on and didn't notice the weight upon his shoulders or the fact he couldn't sit up straight. He hardly even noticed the other passengers laughing at him because his mind was consumed with the thought of what would happen to him if he didn't have that parachute.
Now let's analyze the motives and the results of both passengers experiences. The first man put on the parachute solely to improve his flight. The result was that he was humiliated by the other passengers. He was disillusioned and gained a bitter attitude toward those who gave him the parachute. As far as he was concerned, it would be a long time before anyone got one of those things on his back again. The second man put on the parachute solely to escape the jump to come. And because of the knowledge of what would happen to him without it, he had a deep rooted joy and peace in his heart knowing that he was going to be saved from certain death. This knowledge gave him the ability to withstand the mockery from the other passengers, and his attitude toward those who gave him the parachute is one of heartfelt gratitude.
Now look at what the modern gospel says: "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He'll give you love, joy, peace, fulfillment and lasting happiness." In other words, Jesus will improve your flight. So the sinner responds, and in an "experimental" fashion puts on the Savior to see if the claims are true, and what does he get? Just what Jesus promised. Trials, tribulation, persecution. The other passengers laugh at him and make fun of him. So what does he do? He takes off the Savior. He's offended that people have mocked him. He's disillusioned and embittered and quiet rightly so. After all, he was promised peace, joy, love, and an end to his sorrows. All he got was more problems. His bitterness is directed at those who gave him the so called good news and now he's worse off than when he started because now that he's given Jesus Christ a try, all he got was a big let down. Another inoculated, bitter casualty of the modern gospel.
So instead of telling people that Jesus will improve their flight, we need to be warning the passengers that they are going to have to jump out of the airplane. That it's appointed a man once to die and then comes the judgment (Heb. 9:27). When a person understands the horrific consequences of breaking Gods Law, he will run to the Savior to escape the wrath to come and if we are true and faithful witnesses, we will be warning them of the wrath to come the same way scripture say's that Jesus, Paul, and Peter did.
In Acts 17:30 God commands all men everywhere to repent. Why? Because he has appointed a day in which he is going to judge the world in righteousness and the fact is that almost all non-Christians and many "professing" believers judge themselves according to the standard of man so they can comfort themselves with the thought that they are a good person.
Have you heard the one about the little girl that was looking out a window watching a sheep graze in some beautiful grass? She was amazed at how white that sheep looked against the backdrop of the green grass, but then it started to snow. Once the ground was completely covered, the little girl noticed at how dirty and unclean the sheep looked now against the back drop of the freshly fallen snow. That's exactly what happens when we use the backdrop of God's law and allow a person to see themselves against the whiter than snow righteousness of God. It's not an issue of goodness, but of righteousness. It doesn't matter how happy a person is or how comfortable he is in his current lifestyle. Without the righteousness of Christ, he'll perish on the day of judgment.
Bogging our lives down with worldly things and activities including religious activities that take the place of the real work of the church, which is taking the gospel to the world, doesn't seem to fit the Biblical description of taking up our cross and following Him. The Bible says that riches are worthless on the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
What about peace and joy? Sure, peace and joy are legitimate fruits of salvation. They are the results of being saved. According to scripture however, it‘s not legitimate to use these fruits as bait to lead someone to salvation. If a self-righteous "good" person comes to God to find peace and joy but he doesn't come with a broken heart, stripped of his self-righteousness, and in repentance and full surrender to the Lord, he's not going to find peace with God. His sin will keep him separated from God and separated from Christ. He'll remain an enemy of God in his mind because of wicked works.
Remember the second passenger; he had peace and joy. Why? Because he knew the parachute was going to save him from certain death. He didn't put it on for a better flight. He put it on to save his life. And the result was a joy and peace from knowing he was going to survive the jump to come. I know that in my life, like Paul, I have a joy and peace in believing, because I know that the righteousness of Christ is going to save me from the wrath to come. If we continue to attract people to Christ using the promise of a happy, peaceful life, they will likely respond with impure motives, lacking repentance, and then fall away when trials and tribulation come. To see what happens to a true born again Christian when tribulation hits, let's take a look at an incident back aboard the airplane.
There's a new stewardess on board, and she's carrying a boiling hot pot of coffee. It's her first day on the job, and she wants to leave a good impression. Well that's exactly what she does, because as she's walking down the aisle, she trips over someone's foot and spills that boiling hot coffee into the lap of our second passenger. What's his reaction when the boiling liquid hits his tender flesh? YEEEEEOOOW! He lets out a scream that was heard on the ground. It hurts. Sure, he feels the pain. But then does he stand up, unstrap the parachute, throw it to the floor and say "STUPID parachute?" Of course not. Why should he? He didn't put the parachute on for a better flight. He put it on to save his life. And if anything, the hot coffee only made him cling tighter to the parachute and even look forward to the jump.
And in the same way, if you and I put on the Lord Jesus Christ for the right motive, to escape the wrath to come, then when trials and tribulation come, which they most certainly will, and the flight gets bumpy, we're not going to get angry at God. We're not going to lose our peace and joy. Why should we? We didn't come to Jesus for a happy lifestyle. We came because we know that we violated his law and we ran to Jesus and His mercy on the cross to escape the wrath to come. If anything, trials and persecution drive the TRUE believer closer to the Savior, not away. Instead, we sadly have millions of professing believers that lose their peace and joy whenever the flight gets bumpy. Why? They are the product of a man centered gospel. They came forward lacking true repentance without which you cannot be saved.
I was practically raised in the church and this is the "man centered" gospel that I had learned to share with unbeliever's. "Do you know that Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and He died on the cross for you? If you will repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ and say this prayer after me and really mean it in your heart, you can receive His free gift of eternal life and rest assured that you will be in Heaven when you die."
Here's what John MacArthur says about that approach: "We need to adjust our presentation of the gospel. We cannot dismiss the fact that God hates sin and punishes sinners with eternal torment. How can we begin a gospel presentation by telling people on their way to Hell that God has a wonderful plan for their lives?" Mathew 10:16 says "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Verses 17-22 along with many others throughout the scriptures tell us that we who are true followers will be hated by men. There seems to be a glaring contradiction between these verses and the promise of modern evangelism that "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life."
You would think after learning about the persecution and sufferings the Apostles went through, along with my own personal experiences, I would have figured out earlier that trying to use the wonderful plan hook to get someone to respond to the gospel wasn't such a good idea. Whenever someone did respond, I knew from experience that more than likely this person was going to slide right back into their old way of life. They weren't sincere, so sooner or later most of these people would just fall away. Now looking back on it, I have come to understand that in their heart they really were sincere. They sincerely wanted to give this Jesus thing a try to see if they could get a buzz out of it. Why not? They had tried sex, drugs, alcohol, money, sports, parties. Why not give this Jesus thing a try and see if He really is as good as we Christians say that He is? See if He can fix all my problems. All those things don't happen right away, so they just move on to something else. They weren't escaping the wrath to come because I hadn't told them there was wrath to come. They weren't coming broken over their sin either, because they didn't know what sin was. Remember what Paul said, "I had not known sin but by the law." If the great apostle could say that, how are we supposed to know? How can a man repent, turn away from his sin, or desire to do so, if he doesn't know what sin is?
Unless a man knows that he's in danger, you're not going to convince him that he needs to be saved. Imagine if you were at work and you knew you had a co-worker that was deathly allergic to bee stings. He's just sitting over there minding his own business when you spot a bee the size of a hummingbird light on top of your old buddy's noggin. You don't want to alarm him of course, so you very quietly roll up the Friday edition of the Wall Street Journal, and with the stealth of a hungry leopard you manage to sneak within range of the unseen danger. Then you take your hastily fashioned weapon and with a swing that would rival Tiger Woods, you remove your former friend from harm's way and then you rather proudly stroll back to your work station while someone else helps him pick up his glasses and dentures from across the room. All of this without telling the poor guy anything! Guess what? He's not gonna be too happy with you. Why should he? He never knew he was in any danger.
Imagine if you walked up to me and said, "Hey Gene. This is a cure for lymph node cancer. I sold my house to buy it for you and I'm giving it to you as a free gift." I'd probably look at you at say, "Cancer! What are you talking about? You sold your house to buy this for me and you want me to have it as a free gift? Look, I just remembered somewhere I'm supposed to be. I'll see ya later." I'd think you were about a french fry short of a happy meal, and that's probably how I'd react if you told me that you sold your house to buy me a cure for a disease that I didn't think I had. But if you said it to me this way, it might make more sense:
"Hey Gene, I have some serious news for you. I've been studying about a very deadly disease and I'm afraid that I can clearly see all of the symptoms on your flesh. You have less than two weeks to live unless you do something about it."
Then you spent twenty minutes showing me the facts about this terrible disease, and I became convinced because the symptoms were so evident. "I see what you are talking about. What am I going to do? What about my family?" And you said, "Please don't worry. I have the cure right here. I sold my house to buy it for you and I'm giving it to you as a free gift." Do you think I would walk away from you thinking you were a nut now? Do you think I would reject your sacrifice? No way. I would take it. Why? Because now that I've seen the disease, I can appreciate the cure and the sacrifice that you made that I might have it.
I believe you can see how this relates to the modern gospel, because sadly what has happened is that we have preached the cure without first convincing of the disease. We have preached the gospel of grace without first convincing men and women of the Law, that they are transgressors.
The fall-away rate is a direct result of this unbiblical method, along with the fact that you can't tell today's church apart from the rest of the world. That's the reason we have so many stony ground hearers that the parable of the sower, found in the gospels, speaks of. The stony ground of their hearts was never plowed up, and they never received the conviction of the Law which brings the knowledge of sin.
Look at what these men said about the function of the Law:
"It is the ordinary method of the spirit of God to convict sinners by the Law. It is this which, being set home on the conscience, generally breaketh the rock in pieces." - John Wesley
"The Holy Spirit convicts us. He shows us the Ten Commandments, and we see ourselves in that mirror." - Billy Graham
"The only way we can know whether we are sinning is by knowing His moral Law." - Jonathan Edwards
"The proper effect of the Law is to lead us out of our tents and tabernacles, that is to say, from the quietness and security wherein we dwell, and from trusting in ourselves, and to bring us before the presence of God, to reveal his wrath to us, and to set us before our sins." - Martin Luther
"I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law. They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy God." - Charles Spurgeon
"God's grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until His Law is preached and man's corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God's grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God's Law. It is impossible to realize his need for mercy until he realizes the magnitude of his guilt. It is therefore pointless to preach grace until the impossible demands of the Law and the reality of guilt before God are preached. Grace means nothing to a person who does not know he is sinful and that such sinfulness means he is separated from God and damned." - John MacArthur
Telling a person that "All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory" does nothing to personalize his sin. In his eyes, without the Law to bring the knowledge of sin, he thinks that deep down he's a "good person" that deserves the favor of a kind, loving and gracious God. Because he doesn‘t know what sin is, he believes that his good works will be what makes him presentable to God. He doesn't have a clue as to how far he really misses the mark because he doesn't know what the mark is. Only after the Law enters the picture can a person see how totally helpless he is to clean himself up before his Creator and therefore totally reliant upon grace and not his own goodness.
Look at what Martin Luther said about the gospel of grace. "Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all, which of all other, I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he hath raised up a sect as such as teach…. that men should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ." Luther could see the lawless gospel that was perpetuated by Satan springing up all around him even in his day. This doctrine that he could clearly see as satanic forsook a main ingredient of the true gospel, the Law which brings the knowledge of sin, and then it offered Jesus as a friend to the unrepentant sinner by gently preaching the gospel of grace.
This sounds exactly like the model presentation of the gospel that modern evangelism has brought to the majority of pulpits in today's church and it is not New Testament evangelism. Nowhere in the scriptures is the gospel of grace preached to an unrepentant, proud sinner. It is always (100% of the time) Law to the proud, grace to the humble.
Look at what Proverbs 16:5 says. "Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord."
James 4:6 says that "God resist the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
To preach grace to a proud heart that has no knowledge of personal sin is to give what is Holy to the dogs and casting your pearls before the swine. Yes, we should preach grace, but only after the hard soil of a sinners heart has been properly and Biblically prepared to remove the stones of self-righteousness. The cross is our ultimate destination, but we must get there by the map that has been given to us or we will continue to see the greatest pearl of all, Christ crucified, trampled underfoot by the proud, self-righteous, unrepentant products that modern evangelism is producing.
There are many things that God has set in place with a certain design that man has found a way to manipulate through actions such as cloning, homosexuality, plastic surgery and illicit drugs to name a few. The design of the gospel can be added to that list, and the devastating effects it is having upon our society, especially within the professing church, cannot be overlooked.
Imagine this scenario: A young doctor a few years out of medical school wanting to make his mark in the world decides that heart surgery would be the best place for him to make major advances within his field. His research shows him that the extensive length of time to complete this surgical procedure could be vastly improved, resulting in not only huge savings for the medical facility, but also create far less trauma for the patient. He then develops certain tactics that has the medical community heaping praises upon these marvelous new discoveries that have now been widely accepted as standard practice the world over. After several years had passed, a medical journal conducted an in-depth study and soon afterwards released their shocking results that revealed only a 20% survival rate amongst all heart surgery patients in the preceding years. Their findings clearly showed that for every 100 patients, 80 of them left the hospital and immediately checked into the county morgue. Confronted with these grim numbers, the medical professionals quickly pointed at the surviving 20% as justification for their practices.
How many instances in life can you think of where a 20% success rate is deemed acceptable in any worthy endeavor? On the contrary, numbers such as these would and should signify that something is wrong. To see these harsh statistics in real life situations, visit www.masterskeyministries.com
We have a modern church (people filled building) that you can't tell from the rest of the world. Take a look at these disturbing facts. Despite the overwhelming numbers of professing believers, the killing of the unborn hasn't been outlawed. The Barna Research Group learned that professing born-again believers are more likely to divorce than non-believers. They also discovered that more Christian teens watch MTV (42%) than non-Christian teens (32%), and other studies have shown that they are almost as sexually active. Materialism is also an issue that doesn't seem to line up with scripture, along with the fact that evangelism is usually the "program" that receives the least amount of attention. As the years went by and I grew as a Christian, learning what it was that gave me the desire to go against the flow, I became more and more perplexed as to why I was seeing these things happen around me. Then came the day I learned of the lawless gospel that was now being preached, and I'm sure the enemy whole heartily endorses, was the root cause of the implosion of the Church from within it's own walls. This had been right in front of me all these years and I couldn't see it, because I had been programmed to believe what was being preached. Because I knew the gospel was about grace, I thought God's Law was outdated and no longer useful.
So if we have strayed from the most important design in God's master plan for man, and Scripture clearly bears that out, how do we correct it? The perfect example was laid before us two thousand years ago. We simply do what Jesus did by putting a mirror in front of them, the mirror of the Ten Commandments, and let them see it for themselves.
Think of the woman caught in the act of adultery, a violation of the seventh commandment. She didn't try justifying her sinful act by claiming that there are two sides to every story, or try to use any other excuse. The Law condemned her actions and called for her blood. She found herself between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go but to fling herself at the feet of the Son of God for mercy, and that's the function of Gods Law. It condemns. John 3:18 says "He that believes not is condemned already." The Law shows a person himself in his true state, and it doesn't matter who that person is.
What do you do if you want to bring an atheist to Christ? One thing you don't do is get caught up in an intellectual debate with him. He'll be ready for you. I'll show you later how to prove God's existence in less than a minute. Just give him the Ten Commandments and let his own conscience convict him. God has given even atheists a conscience. If you want to bring a Jew to Christ, do the same thing. The weight of the Law is very heavy. Let it prepare his heart for grace. What about a Muslim? They respect Moses as a prophet, so give him the Law of Moses and strip him of the self-righteousness that is blinding him from a bloodstained cross. If you know you're speaking to a homosexual, it's not wise to try and convince them that the choice they've made is offensive to God. Simply use God's mirror to show them they are damned despite their perverse lifestyle and let God and the Holy Spirit deal with the other issues. Family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, teammates and strangers all are stricken with the same disease that is no respecter of race or position. Only by the light of God's law will they clearly see the symptoms of sin upon their flesh.
To any ladies reading this, I'm sure this has happened to you before. You wake up one morning and notice that the dining room table needs dusting, so you get all of your materials and do a thorough job of dusting it clean. When you are finished, you draw back the curtains to allow the early morning light in. What do you see on the table? Dust. What do you see in the air? More dust. Did the light create the dust? No, it merely exposed the dust. Much in the same way, when you and I take the time to draw back the curtains of the Holy Scriptures and let the light of God's Law shine upon a sinner's heart, it is then that he can clearly see his heart black with sin. It shows him his sin in its true light. The Bible says that the commandment is a lamp and the law is light. That's why Paul said that "By the law is the knowledge of sin" and "By the law sin became exceedingly sinful."
That brings us to the most exciting part of how to put true Biblical evangelism into practice. All we simply need to do is to do what Jesus did and it really is simple. I don't mean to confuse simple with easy because it's very easy to let fear creep into the picture and bring everything to a screeching halt. I can honestly tell you it took me a while to advance from being totally mortified to being just plain terrified when it came to speaking with someone about spiritual things, but when we concentrate on the eternal fate of the thousands of lost souls that surround us daily, Love will drive us to overcome the arrows of fear and doubt that Satan uses as one of his strongest weapons. Hey, even Paul had to pray for boldness in proclaiming the gospel (Eph. 6:19), but as with anything else, practice makes perfect and, we have already looked at the fact that the Law of the Lord is the perfect tool for the job (Ps. 19:7).
Proverbs 1:5 says "A wise man will hear, and will increase learning". Knowing what I know now, never would I walk up to someone anymore and say "Do you know that God loves you and sent His son to die for you?" Or even something as simple as "Could I talk to you about Jesus?" I'd never do that because one, it's not scriptural and two, if I wanted to awaken you from a deep sleep, I wouldn't sneak up on you, rip open your eye lids and shine a flashlight in you eyes. Chances are that would annoy you. It would be better for me to use a dimmer switch and bring the lights up slowly. It's the same when you are trying to witness to someone. First the natural and then the spiritual. Just look at how Jesus, the Master himself, dealt with the woman at the well in John chapter 4. He started in the natural realm talking about water and then He swung the conversation to spiritual things and brought conviction using the 7th Commandment, "You shall not commit adultery." Then He revealed Himself as the Messiah.
Now when I meet someone, I'll start a conversation by simply talking about natural things so they can see that I'm a sane person (debatable). It could be the weather, their job, do they know any good churches in the area or anything in our surroundings all work very well. We start conversations everyday without really thinking about it.
Now I know what you are thinking because I was there also. How do I get from talking about everyday things to spiritual things. What you need is an icebreaker and I use some of the most incredible gospel tracts to do just that. Break the ice. I'm not talking about tracts that turn people off the minute they see it. The tracts that I use start in the natural realm and then swing to the spiritual. One of my favorites is in the shape of a curved optical illusion that people really have fun with. I have some others with little brain twisters on them that are a blast. I just show it to someone and ask them to try and solve it. I'll tell many people that I'll give them a dollar if they can figure it out. It's a lot of fun and people have a good time with it. You ought to see the million $ bill tracts. They actually look real and along the border the gospel is written out.
What I am doing while using these tools is building a relationship with this person in just a few short moments. Then I'll tell them that it's actually a gospel tract. I love these tracts because they're not offensive to people. 1 Cor. 2:14 says, "But the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Many tracts are offensive to people for that reason and they end up on the ground or in a trash can somewhere. It's like a different language to them. A tract is of no use unless someone actually reads it, and the tracts that we use are not offensive. They start in the natural realm so they will read it in the first place, and then swing to the spiritual side by using God's Law to speak directly to their conscience.
When using tracts you need to be aware that the modern gospel has manifested itself here as well. Today's most popular tracts are a perfect blueprint for a false conversion because there is no hint of Hell. No mention of Judgment day. No use of God's Law to bring the knowledge of personal sin. And the gospel is upheld as a means for happiness instead of righteousness. At www.livingwaters.com you will find the highest quality tracts that can be found anywhere. Tracts that strip away a sinners self-righteousness by allowing them to see themselves the way God sees them.
These tracts are so good that I have actually had people who see me handing them out walk up to me and tell me that they didn't get one. I also have some pennies with the Ten Commandments pressed into them that are great to use. It's legal here in our country, as it's considered art. These are all available through Living Waters also. When using tracts, I'm just checking to see if this person is open for spiritual things. They may not be, so I just allow them to read it in their own time. If you just laid tracts down where someone could find them, that would be better than doing nothing at all. If after handing a person a tract and they don't walk away from me, one of the approaches I like to use is to give them one of my pennies and tell them here's another gift for you. "What's this?" he may ask. "It's a penny with the Ten Commandments on it. Don't lose it. I did it with my teeth last night. It's yours to keep. Do you think you've kept them?" They usually say some of them so I ask them "Have you ever told a lie?" You'll see in a minute where the conversation goes next. This is only one scenario. I have included several other approaches in later pages that work amazingly well in different situations. It's still hard for me to believe how simple this really is. Time after time, total strangers being humble right before my eyes when being confronted with the standard by which they'll be judged by the day they face God.
When I heard this teaching for the first time, I could hardly sleep. I was overwhelmed at what God had shown me in these last days knowing what He intended for me as a believer to do with it. From then on everyone I ran into was fair game, and I realized that not too many people were going to come running up to me, fall to their knees, and ask me how to be saved. I was going to have to "go" to them, and that would mean restructuring my life to accommodate what should be our foremost duty as Disciples. I am not saying that everyone should be an evangelist, but it should go without saying that all born-again believers should evangelize.
Listen to what happened the very first week that I put these principals into action. But first, I want you to know that scripture makes it clear that we are successful every time we share the gospel. While modern evangelism rejoices over "decisions," Heaven reserves it's rejoicing over the repentance of a sinner (Luke 15:10). It's not our job to get "decisions," but to warn people of the wrath to come. Scripture makes it clear that no one can come to Christ unless the Father "draws" him (John 6:44). If you are able to get a decision, but there is no conviction of sin which the Law brings, you will almost certainly end up with a stillborn on your hands. The day that we face God, we are not going to hear "Well done thy good and successful servant," but "Well done thy good and faithful servant." Always remember that.
My family was brand new to the Houston area, and I had recently met a man at work named Larry. To get to know him better, I talked to him about those things that interested him. Turned out we both had an interest in car racing, and I was able to build a quick relationship with him and could obviously see he was a troubled man. I invited him to come eat lunch with me in my truck in the parking lot one day and he gladly took me up on it. We only had 30 minutes for lunch, and it goes very fast, so I wasted no time in asking him about his family. His home life was in a great amount of turmoil, and from his response I could tell that he felt that everyone one else was the problem, not himself. I asked him if he thought he was a good person. He felt as though there was still plenty of room for improvement, but he considered himself to be a good person.
I asked him if he was familiar with the Ten Commandments and told me he knew of them but couldn't name them, so I asked him, "Have you ever told a lie?"
He said, "Sure."
I asked him, "What does that make you?"
He thought about it for a second and said, "A sinner."
I encouraged him to be more specific. "If I killed one person you would call me a murderer, right? So if you tell even one lie that makes you what?
He said, "A liar."
"Have you ever stolen anything in your whole life, regardless of the value?"
He hesitated for a moment, so I told him to think it over carefully, he'd already told me that he was a liar. He chuckled at that one and then admitted that he had, so I asked him what that made him.
He said, "A thief."
I said "Larry, have you ever looked at another women with lust in your heart?"
By now, he had stopped looking at me and the smile had disappeared as well. He was just staring out the window, and I could see his eyes starting to tear up. I asked him again," Have you, Larry?"
He said he had. I told him Jesus said that "You shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart."
I said "Larry, by your own admission, you are a lying thief and an adulterer at heart. We've only looked at three of the Ten Commandments, and you have to face God on judgment day."
By that time this rough, life hardened man had tears running down his face. I asked him, "Larry, if God judges you by that standard on judgment day, do you think you will be guilty or innocent?"
He quickly admitted he would be found guilty, so I asked him, "Do you think you would go to Heaven or Hell?"
Through his tears he said he would probably go to Hell. "Are you hoping that God will be the kind and loving God that you've heard about and maybe He will overlook your sin, is that what you are trusting in, Larry?" He agreed that it was, and I told him that I wanted him to consider trying that in a court of Law.
"Imagine you're standing before a judge and you've been found guilty of some serious crimes. Murder, rape, armed robbery. The judge looks at you and says, ‘All the evidence is here, and by your own admission, you are guilty. Do you have anything to say for yourself before I pass sentence?' You stand up and say, ‘Yes sir. First, Your Honor, I want you to know that I am very sorry for what I have done, and I promise to never do these things again, and second, I know you to be a good man and I am asking you to over look my crimes today.' Larry, the judge is probably going to look at you and say, ‘You should be sorry. What you've done is very wrong. But you are right about one thing, I am a good man. And because of my goodness, I am going to see that justice is done in this court room here today. Because of my goodness, I am going to see that you pay for these crimes."
So you see, the very thing that so many people are hoping is going to save them on the day of judgment is the very thing that is going to condemn them. Because if God is good, holy, and just, then He must by His very nature punish liars, thieves, adulterers, blasphemers, idolaters, and everyone who has violated the conscience that He has given to every man and woman. Conscience literally means "with knowledge." Con is with, science is knowledge. Isn't it true that every time that you've lied, stolen, looked with lust, you've done it knowing it was wrong? And the Bible says in Rev. 21:8 that all liars with have their part in the lake of fire. 1 Cor. 6:9,10 says no sexually immoral person, idolater, adulterer or thief will inherit the Kingdom of God.
I told Larry it would take a corrupt judge to turn a blind eye to his crime and let him go without justice being served. I said, "If God gives you justice, if He gives you what you truly deserve, do you think you will go to Heaven?"
With tears streaming down his face, he just stared out the window. It was about now he realized the predicament that he was in, but more importantly, he understood why. He realized if it came down to his eternal destiny being weighed on the scales of God's justice, he was in serious trouble. He could see now his need for a payment for his sins, so I asked him if he could see his need for God's forgiveness, and he said he did.
I said, "Larry, let me tell you the most incredible news. Imagine yourself back in that courtroom. You have been found guilty of several crimes and you must pay a fine of 5 Million dollars or you go to prison for the rest of your life, but you don't have two nickels to rub together. The guards grab you and start leading you out of the courtroom to the prison where you will spend the rest of your life, when someone you don't even know comes bursting into the courtroom, walks up to the judge and gives him a check for 5 Million dollars saying, ‘This is for him. I'm paying his fine for him. Let him go.' The judge says, ‘Larry stop. I don't know who this man is, but this is the most incredible demonstration of love I have ever seen. Your debt to this court has been paid and you are free to go.' I said, "Larry, that's what God did for you. He paid a debt he didn't owe because you owed a debt that you couldn't pay. While you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. We broke the law and He paid our fine. It's as simple as that. All you have to do is ask God to forgive you and then repent of your sins. Turn your back on them. You won't be perfect, but God will give you a new power over sin and a new desire to seek his ways and not the ways of this sinful, wicked world. Then put your faith in Jesus Christ the same way you do a pilot when you get on an airplane."
Sitting right there in my truck on a beautiful spring day, the jaws of Hell were pried open and darkness was defeated by the light as this man asked God to cleanse him in the precious blood of Jesus. God's Law totally stripped this man of his self-righteousness and then acted as a schoolmaster to lead him to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It took no prodding from me. This man came to Christ with a "humble" heart, broken over his sin and crying out to the Savior in whom he had now seen and understood the sacrifice that had to be made on his behalf.
The Law is still the hoe that prepares the soil for the seed. It's still the needle that makes way for the thread of the gospel. Times may change but God and His design never will. Without that hoe or needle, the gospel cannot take root in good soil or penetrate a sinners hardened heart. It sure wasn't me or any special words that saved Larry on that day. All I did was take the initiative to take the true gospel into the world and vocally share it with others. Arm yourself with the ten cannons of God's Law instead of the BB gun of modern evangelism and blow your fears out of the water. You arm any soldier with a BB gun and he's not going to be very courageous when he feels outgunned. He's going to sit back and allow others to do the fighting for him. Are you sitting back?
Our churches are full of people who, because of modern evangelism, have never had a conviction of sin. They believe that being a "good person" and warming a pew on Sunday will bribe God on the day of Judgment, but walking into a church makes you no more a Christian than walking into a garage makes you a car. They don't understand that the difference between believing and actually trusting Christ is the same as just believing a parachute under your seat will save you as opposed to actually putting it on. Are you living in sin and finding ways to justify it? Are you in danger of being part of the multitude that will cry out to Him on that day "Lord, Lord." Will He say "Depart from me you worker of iniquity, lawlessness. I never knew you?" Jesus said "But why do you call me Lord and do not the things I say?" He said that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. Modern evangelism says to never question your salvation, but the Bible says the opposite. It says to make your calling and election sure. Maybe you've made a commitment to Christ before, but now you realize the impure motives behind that commitment. Maybe you don't have a passion for the lost. You're not on fire for God. He hasn't been number one in your life and you know something has been wrong. You've just been going through the motions and it's never been real and today you realize that you are in danger of being one of the ones that God will call lukewarm and will be spit out of the mouth of Christ on the day of Judgment. Well the day that the prodigal son finally came to his senses and realized his terrible mistake, he came running back home to find a father waiting with open arms to forgive him. If God is speaking to your heart at this moment, please don't deny Him. Please do not let pride stand in your way. Just having a head knowledge of God, or being raised in church and having made a "decision" for all the wrong reasons will not count on the day of wrath. He pinned his arms open wide for you two thousand years ago, and He's waiting for you right now. Run to Him and ask for His forgiveness. Confess your sins to Him. You don't need me or anyone else to pray with you because it's just between you and Him, and He knows your heart. Pour your heart out to Him and ask Him to change your heart. Then through the power of the Holy Spirit, repent of your sins by turning your back on them once and for all. You won't be perfect, but God will change your heart and give you the power to stop drinking from the fountain of iniquity and will make you thirst for His righteousness. Then stay in God's word, the Bible, obey what you read and God will never let you down.
Thank God the Apostles didn't stay in the upper room, carpet the floor, form a choir, and put up a sign outside that said "Church meeting here Sunday and Wednesday." They didn't do that because they were obedient to the commands of our Lord and Savior to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." If we love Him, we will keep his Commandments. What about your co-workers? Friends? Relatives? Total strangers? Remember that family next door that you had 5 minutes to save? You may have only 5 minutes. Now that your BB gun has been replaced with God's Ten Cannons, what's stopping you? The very next day after hearing this teaching, I put my fears behind me and found someone to witness to who said, " I'm Catholic." Oh yeah! "Have you ever told a lie?" "The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul" (Psalm 19:7)
Before we look at how to use the Law properly, let's take a quick look at what the Law means. Remember that "you" don't have to convince people that their heart is black with sin. If you had dirt on your face after a hard day's work, people can tell you that your face is dirty, but the bathroom mirror is going to prove it to you. The Law, when used as a mirror, convicts and exposes sin that the sinner doesn't want to recognize. "Have you ever told a lie" includes ‘white lies,' half-truths, exaggerations, etc. How many people would I have to kill before you called me a murderer? Just one, right? Telling one lie makes you a liar, and the Bible says that liars will not enter into the kingdom of Heaven (Rev. 21:8) If you have ever taken something that doesn't belong to you, regardless of the value, that makes you a thief. A pencil, piece of gum, an apple off of your neighbor's tree, fudging on your taxes is all theft in the eyes of God. And how long ago it was that you did it is irrelevant. If I murder someone on Monday, I'm still a murderer on Tuesday. Time doesn't forgive sin. Jesus said if you look with lust, you have committed adultery in your heart. If you have ever held hatred for someone in your heart, you are guilty of murder according to God. Scripture tells us that God sees our thoughts. Have you loved God above all else? Has He always been first in your affections? Have you ever had your own beliefs about God that don't line up with Scripture? Then you've made a god to suit yourself, and that is called idolatry. The Bible warns that no idolater will enter the kingdom of God. Have you ever taken God's name in vain? What you are doing when you do that is taking the name of our Holy God and putting His name in the place of a four-letter filthy cuss word to express disgust. Not even Hitler is despised so much that we use his name as a cuss word, and the Bible says that God will not hold him guiltless who take His name in vain. God gave His son as a payment for our sin's. Have you kept the Sabbath holy asking Him what He requires of you? One day a week. Have you always, in words, thoughts, and deeds honored you parents? Have you ever been greedy and desired the things of others? The final nail is that whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles in one point is guilty of all James 2:10
Do you believe there was a builder that made this building? Have you seen him? The fact that the building exist tells you that there was a builder. Have you ever seen a painting without a painter? A car, but no maker? You can't see the wind, but you can see its effects on creation. The fact that the world exists proves that there is a God. You can tell a child not to touch the stove because it's hot, but he's not going to understand what hot really means until the blisters of curiosity move him from just believing that it's hot to actually knowing that it's hot. What you are experiencing right now is called circumstantial priorities. If I offered you a glass of water or 10,000 dollars, you'd take the money without hesitation. But if you were lost in the desert for several days and on the verge of death, you'd take the water without even looking at the money. Right now you might say you don't believe there is a God, but one day your circumstances are going to change, and I pray that it will not be experiencing the eternal blisters of Hell that makes you wish you could change your position.
Try to think of an explosion that has produced any kind of order. Does a terrorist bomb create harmony or total chaos? Could a Big Bang produce a sunset, changes in seasons, a rose, thousands of different animals with there own reproductive systems? How about a newborn baby that immediately knows how to look into his mothers eyes? If that doesn't convince you, then try this experiment. Empty your garage of every piece of wood, metal, glass, paint, rubber, and plastic. Make sure that absolutely nothing at all is left. Then wait for 10 years and see if a Mercedes evolves. If that doesn't work, wait for 20 years. It might take 100 or even 10,000 years. But if you really want to do what is necessary to produce the blind faith to make the evolutionary process believable, leave it for 250 million years. The Big Bang actually bears an uncanny resemblance to the command God gave in Genesis. God spoke and Bang, it happened.
How can you be sure that George Washington was the first president of the United States? Because of documented facts, you say. In the same way, the Bible is full of thousands of historical facts spread out over several thousand years, yet no one has been able to identify one single mistake. These facts along with documented eyewitness accounts would even be admissible in a court of law because they are documented facts. The Bible was originally written with 25 percent of it's text predicting future events and to this day, all but a few of these prophesies have been fulfilled to their fullest. The only ones remaining are those that deal with the actual return of Jesus Christ. The Bible was written over a period of 1,600 years by more than 40 writers from all walks of life, from three different continents, who wrote in three different languages on many different controversial subjects. It is so perfectly balanced, mistake free, and in agreement that it is not humanly possible. There are also several other historical ancient writings outside of the Bible confirming the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The truth is though, that people are going to believe what they want to believe, and you might think that the Bible is just a bunch of fairy tales right now and it's not worth your attention, but your circumstances will eventually change, and you'll have eternity to give it your full attention.
If someone raped and murdered your mother or sister and was standing before a judge in a court of law, do you think the judge should punish him and bring him to justice? If the judge turned a blind eye to this terrible crime, would you say that he would be corrupt? If God sees this same crime, do you think He should punish him? Scripture tells us that God is a God of Love and Mercy but He is also a God of justice, and if man cares so much about justice, think about how much more our just and holy God must feel about it. He would have to be corrupt to turn a blind eye to our sin. The fact that He is good insures that not only will He punish murderers and rapist, but also liars, thieves, blasphemers, and adulterers. His Word tells us that every time we sin, we are storing up wrath to be revealed to us on that fateful day (Rom. 2:5). If you still believe God doesn't care about justice, then you are in violation of the Second Commandment by creating a god in your own mind to suit your own purpose. A God that doesn't line up with scripture. One you are more comfortable with. You may think that way because it's what you were taught, but God calls it idolatry and Scripture says that no idolaters will inherit the kingdom of Heaven.
This statement should always be followed up by taking the person back to the courtroom. Ask the person if a judge should let a convicted criminal go free simply on the basis that he was sorry and promised he would clean up his act. Of course he shouldn't. Only once the fine is paid and justice is satisfied could he or should he go free. The fine was paid in full two thousand years ago and is made available to all those who have been stripped of their own self-righteousness and come to the Savior with a humble heart in full repentance. God resists the proud but He gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).
Sometimes we feel like we will compromise a relationship if we are too bold in witnessing to certain people that we know. A very good way to speak to someone both boldly and softly at the same time is to speak in the "first person" or testimonial form. Once you swing the conversation to spiritual things, tell them you had no idea that the Bible warns that for every idle word that I have spoken, I'm going to have to give an account for on the Day of Judgment. I thought that as long as I believed in God and was a good person, lived a fairly clean life, then I would go to heaven when I died. Boy was I wrong. Jesus said that if I so much as looked with lust, then I had already committed adultery in my heart and there was nothing I could do, no amount of trying to be a "good person", could ever make that go away. Ask them if they have ever felt the same way. Continue moving through the "good person test
In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus gives us the parable of the sower and tells us the key to unlocking the mystery of all of the other parables lies in our understanding of this one. He wants us to understand that there are many that claim to know Christ, but are simply impostors. In Matt. 7:22,23, we read what might be the most frightening verses in the whole Bible. It says that vast multitudes of professing Christians, people that call Him Lord are going to cry out to Him on Judgment day for mercy, yet there will be none for those that practiced lawlessness. I can honestly tell you that of all the people that I have spoken to, the ones that seem to have the most problem with God's Law are professing believers. Some see it as outdated and archaic and not applicable anymore. After talking further, it seems that anything that limits their "freedom in Christ" is considered apostasy because they came through the door of modern evangelism. The Law was never used to bring the knowledge of sin, and now that it is introduced, the weight of it is too great upon their conscience. The freedom they believe that they enjoy as a Christian is actually storing up wrath that will be revealed to them the day they face God. Without the knowledge of sin that the schoolmaster brings (Gal. 3:24), Adultery is justified, Lying (white lies) is fine for the right reasons, Stealing ( including white collar) is acceptable depending on the value or the circumstances. When the Law enters the picture and points a righteous finger at their adulterous affair, they immediately flee to the gospel of grace and denounce the Law as Old Testament stuff. A true born again believer doesn't keep God's Law because he feels in debt to the Law. He keeps it because he has seen the sacrifice the Father has made for him and being crucified with Christ, he only wishes to do that which pleases the Father. The "proud heart" of an unrepentant sinner will justify his sin while the humble heart of a "true believer" will repent of his.
The true and false convert can actually seem very much alike in several ways. They both may hate sin but for different reasons. The true convert hates sin because it's repulsive to God and it therefore hurts them as well. The false convert hates sin because it hurts himself personally. It's not uncommon for people to hate their own sins yet not forsake and repent of them. While it is true that we are all human and we will eventually and often fall into sin, there is a stark contrast between falling and jumping in head first and swimming around in it. Another area that they may seem the same in is their desire to see conversions made. The true saint's drive to see soul's saved is that God may be glorified. The deceived person's intent is to gain favor with God and in many cases, his lifestyle will reflect that as well. He may spend his or her life trying to gain favor with man as well through materialistic efforts. The better things in life including the nicest homes, vehicles, and clothes to mention a few, are the things that attract the attention and accolades of a materialistic society, and the false convert's effort to acquire these differ greatly from what scripture says about what our mindset should be. Is there anything wrong with having money? No. But when money has you is when the problem arises, and that's what happens when the gospel is held up as a means for happiness instead of righteousness. If you are a professing believer, what should your mindset be? Should it be on earthly things or eternal things? Remember the rich young ruler in Mark chapter 10? He looked every part the perfect convert until Jesus showed him where his heart was really at and he wasn't willing to give it up. He was simply playing the game for all those years. Doing the things needed to improve his "good person" status. If he were living today, I'm sure he would have been involved in every church activity possible in order to gain favor with God, but unwilling to lay earthly gain aside and pursue the eternal treasure we are told we should be seeking instead.
Dr. D. James Kennedy said, " The vast majority of people who are members of churches in America today are not Christians. I say that without the slightest fear of contradiction. I base it on empirical evidence of twenty-four years of examining thousands of people."
What must it take for us to turn our backs on the quick-fix, get the decision method of modern evangelism and use the pattern that God so clearly laid out in scripture. Many people choose methods other than the blueprint that God gave us for various reasons.
They don't want to offend.
Today's society feels too condemned already.
They don't understand God's intent for the Law.
Like Ford, they have a better idea.
Times have changed.
As a machinist for many years, I knew that if I manufactured anything that wasn't in line with the blueprint I was given, it was then what we called DEAD. It's that simple. There was no other way. The key for me to do a quality job was to follow the blueprint. The truth is that when people call themselves liars, thieves, and adulterers, they don't get offended. Today's society and all of those before ours should feel condemned because without the righteousness of Christ, they are condemned. Those who don't understand the scriptures after putting forth the effort like the Ethiopian eunuch would do well to read 1 Cor. 2:14. If you think you have a better idea than God, I'm sure you'll have a chance to take that up with Him one day. Times might change, but sin and the way God deals with sin doesn't. Thank God the disciples didn't sit around trying to devise new ways of presenting the gospel. We have been given the key to reaching sinners and it is a very rusty key. Don't allow the lie of modern evangelism that Satan has propagated to rule your actions. Get into God's word and see for yourself the one and only plan that will stand the test of time.
This is an area where discernment is critical. Most of the time when we are witnessing, we are only planting seeds that allow the Holy Spirit to work within a person's heart that will hopefully be harvested in due time. Never be too quick to get a "decision" by leading in a sinner's prayer. That's not Biblical in any way. As a matter of fact, the sinners prayer is something that is fairly new. Decisions are easy to get by having someone repeat some special words, and that can easily do far more harm than good if the Holy Spirit is not involved. Most all people would rather go to Heaven as opposed to Hell and they'll tell you so. If the person is not broken over his sin and coming to God with true repentance in his heart, he'll remain alienated from God, an enemy in his mind by wicked works. (Col. 1:21) What should you do if you feel someone is truly repentant and the Holy Spirit is at work? John 6:44 tells us that if they are really ready to come to the Savior, it is only because he is being drawn by the Holy Spirit, so we should allow the Holy Spirit to do His work. Simply encourage them to pray in their own words, ask God's forgiveness, and to forsake their sins, and that afterward you will pray for them. If they are truly repentant, the words will come from their heart, not yours. Look at it this way. If a husband was unfaithful to his wife and she was willing to take him back, if he was truly sorry and repentant of his sinful act, should you have to write out an apology for him, or would the words be pouring from his mouth?
2 Cor.7:10 tells us that it is "Godly sorrow" that leads to repentance and salvation. Praying a "sinner's prayer" with someone who is lacking this necessary sorrow will create a "decision" that modern evangelism prizes, but scripture says Heaven reserves its rejoicing over the repentance of a sinner. It's not our job to save them, but to be faithful to our Lord and Savior by following the example and blueprint that He left us.
If you have a desire in learning more about how to effectively share your faith in a biblical way, you must check out www.wayofthemaster.com and your life will never be the same.
If you live in the Houston area and would like to come along with me and see the gospel presented in an up close and personal way on the streets of our city, you can contact me through my web-site at www.masterskeyministries.com
Satan knows that his time is short and he would like nothing better than for you and me to commit ourselves to other activities while 150,000 "good people" die every day with most of them going straight to Hell.
Stop and think for a moment of the impact that you yourself could have in reaching the lost with the gospel. Even by simply putting a tract in someone's hand. Is that desire even in your heart. If it's not, then I pray that everything you just finished reading will in some way reveal to you who's side you are truly on. Please don't be guilty of being called "lukewarm" in that terrible day.
John Wesley said "Get on fire for God and people will come and watch you burn". What an honor that would be. I pray that through the reading of this book, you have come to know the Savior in a way that you never have before. Go out today and show your love for Him in a way that you never thought you could have before.
May God bless you and I truly thank you for taking the time to read this book.
In Him, Gene Keeth