The Biblical Gospel & Evangelism - Paul Washer

let's look in the Book of Luke the last chapter chapter 24 verse 45 verse 45 and he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem you are witnesses of these things and behold I am sending forth the promise of my father upon you but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high we're talking about evangelism and it is an extremely important topic it is something that flows out of true piety and true devotion to Christ it is also something that flows out well kind of secondary our devotion to Christ will always include also a love for men a love for all kinds of men a love for our brothers and sisters in Christ and a love even for our enemies and one of the greatest expressions of that love should be to tell them about the one who is the very center foundation and goal of our life and that is Jesus Christ the believer is a person who must express his faith he must share his faith and he says here in verse 45 it says he opened their minds to understand the scripture I find it's very important that we see here that fire to the great commission prior to speaking about sending them out prior to even speaking about the filling of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit he opens their mind to understand the gospel many people do not evangelize because they do not understand the gospel you see the gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest catalyst to any any exercise of piety what do I mean by that you want to be holy what should you do study the gospel you want to be more like Christ what should you do study the gospel you lack motivation in your Christian life what should you do study the gospel anyone who truly has an understanding of what God has done for them in Christ will be motivated to evangelize it's too great of a story not to tell so many people do not evangelize because they do not understand the gospel others evangelize even though they do not understand the gospel there are so many people today sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and it's not what they're doing there are many evangelists preachers television preachers who call themselves evangelists but they are not evangelists because their minds have not been opened up to understand the gospel the gospel cannot be reduced down to four spiritual laws are five things God wants you to know if you're going to be effective that is useful to God in evangelism you must understand the gospel many people consider the gospel of Jesus Christ to be like Christianity 101 and once you get past that you go to deeper things there is nothing deeper than the gospel do you understand it do you know the gospel i sat with a group of students years ago and I asked them I said why did Christ die and they said because of our sin I said but why did Christ die well because of our sin okay why did he have to die because of our sin well I mean because sin is does bad and sin is this and sin is that they didn't know that Christ had to die for our sin because of the character of God because it all comes down to who God is that if God is a just God he cannot merely pardon men his justice must be satisfied and that occurred on that cross when Christ died how did he die well that he was nailed to a tree they stuck a lance in his side though the Lance came after his death he died having experienced the wrath of God being crushed under the full weight of God's judgment against the sins of his people he satisfied God's justice and now God can be both just and the justifier of the wicked so you see when we talk about going out and doing evangelism we need to understand that most people that we send out on the street to do evangelism don't even understand the gospel so before we have a great class motivating people on how to do evangelism we need to have several lessons on what is the gospel of Jesus Christ why did Jesus die what does it mean why is his resurrection important what is repentance and faith what is the true gospel call how is it applied to men these things aren't taught very much but they ought to be now we don't have time to go through all of that I'm to talk to you today about evangelism but I want to hit just a few things here in this text he opened up their mind to understand the scriptures the Gospel according to verse 46 is centered in around the person of Jesus Christ his death on that cross and also the reservoir action from the dead on the third day then he goes on and says repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem the gospel call is not now that you've heard the Gospel message would you like to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart that is not the gospel call the gospel call is the saying that Christ spoke when he first came to Israel and that is repent and believe the gospel turn from your sins and throw yourself upon Christ as the only sure hope of salvation Christ his merit his virtue his work I feel honestly kind of scattered right now because there's so many things that I want to teach you about this but we must go on now he says this you are in verse 48 witnesses of these things now there's something very important about a witness they of course were eyewitnesses of these things you and I are not eye witnesses of these things if someone comes to you claiming to be an eyewitness of certain spiritual realities you should write them off as a hoax we are not I witness 'as of christ's death we are not I witness 'as of his resurrection but we are witnesses it is not in this case these men had not just heard information they had experienced what happened on that cross they knew Jesus Christ in the same way even though we were not there in order to be an effective witness for Christ this has to be a reality in our life I get joy out of sharing the gospel with people because I get joy out of the gospel the Gospel message means something to me it means everything to me and so when I share it with people I am sharing it as a witness I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good I have come to understand that my salvation is found only in this message of what Christ has done for me it is a part of my life I'm not just handing out a tract this is everything to me my whole life is built upon the truth of this message and if this message is false I'm of all men most to be pitied what I want to encourage you to do is to go deep into the gospel to drink it down deeply to study it to meditate upon it to read good books with regard to the gospel and there are not many at least written in modern times but it's more than just going out and handing out a tract it's more than just going through a few little things it's about sharing something that has become the thing in your life and people know the difference they know the difference your eloquence your brilliant mind will still betray you they will know whether this really means something to you or not you are to be witnesses now we're not only witnesses with our life we are witnesses with our mouths if Jesus had only lived a good life if Jesus had only healed people he would have never been crucified he would have never been rejected Jesus did not get in trouble until he opened up his mouth it's the same with us we are to be witnesses we are to speak although not all of us have been called to be evangelists we should all evangelize although all of us are not prophetic in our message there is a sense in which every one of us should be prophetic we should speak we should not hold our tongue we should speak correctly we should speak with the right attitude but we should now why don't we primarily fear but fear that comes out of self-love a desire for self-preservation a desire for people to like us a desire for people to think well of us it's all about us it's about self preservation self promotion and we need to be very very careful now but I want to say this I have preached on the streets quite a bit it's not easy for me to do not at all but I do it I felt like the Lord led me to do it when I've done it it's not easy but I also want to tell you this I am NOT going to put that burden upon another person I am NOT going to take street preaching as a badge of spirituality or that I love Jesus more than other people not everybody is called to jump up on a park bench and start preaching though some of us have not everyone is a bold bold bold witness in the sense of standing out in the public domain and crying out the gospel but every one of us should be a witness in the way that God wants us to be but let me tell you this no matter what that way is it will involve you opening up your mouth the idea I think of Saint Francis of Assisi that said preach the gospel everywhere use words when necessary I understand what he's trying to say but that's very misleading you must be a witness with your life you must do good deeds so that men will see them and glorify your father who is in heaven but if that is all you do you are not a witness every person with which you come into contact you ought to be praying crying out to God thinking about how can I witness to this person but don't think about it too much because you'll think so much about it that they'll end up walking away and you still haven't opened up your mouth Lord you never have to ask this question Lord do you want me to share the gospel with this person he's already answered that now you may pray for wisdom with regard to how but he does want you're speaking now you say but I have no power well that's not the problem now if you were to give yourself to preaching and while you were preaching and while you were sharing the gospel you were you were bothered that you had no power that's different but your first problem is not that you have no power your first problem is that you have not bended your will to God's you think more about self-preservation and you need to open up your mouth and start talking if you open up your mouth and start talking God will help you but let's go on to this this other statement here that is very very important he says and behold I am sending forth the promise of my father upon you but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high I wonder how many people died and went to hell while they were in that uh while they were in in the city praying for power from on high I wonder how many people died went to hell a lot well then why did he send them back into the city to wait until they were clothed with power from on high because in order to be effective witnesses that's what they needed now there is a balance and it's very important to maintain and excuse me for jumping around because I'm trying to force about seven different lectures into an hour some of you need to witness a lot more with what you have and some of you maybe need to cut back on ministry a bit and form up what you don't have young ministers will often run around crazy I've done it doing all kinds activities and then when they get older they realize that much of what they did just went up in smoke there needs to be a balance between being zealous for evangelism and doing things serving the Lord and also a realization that I am NOT where I should be I lack in many things and I need to tarry before the Lord and before his word you know there are men in this world that can teach on a lot of things and they're great scholars and they're great Bible preachers my brother Charles yeah guys like you know that are known for expository preaching john macarthur guys that are scholars and philosopher I'm not in any any of those categories but just look at this for a moment I preached one sermon having tarried before the Lord I preached one sermon and that one sermon has gone around the world a hundred times now the point is you don't have to do a lot of activity a lot of times sometimes it's more important just to wait upon the Lord to cry out for his power for his wisdom his strength I preached a message for one hour a message no one wanted to hear and everybody hated me when I walked out of the place it's not my best sermon I've ever it's not super scholarly it's not super eloquent but God used it more than years of other things have done the point that I'm trying to make so clumsily is it you need to be a person who first and foremost Terri's before the Lord who waits before the Lord who studies Scripture before the Lord who listens for his voice who depends upon him you know when you train a dog to hunt which isn't probably something a lot of you do but when you train a dog to hunt the type of dog that you want is a very active dog I mean the problem is not getting the dog to do something the problem is getting the dog to stay still that can happen with us we're wanting to run around doing all kinds of things but are you willing to tarry before the Lord Terry before the Lord you know conferences like this are very dangerous what I'm doing here and what I'm going to do in Holland for me spiritually because things are planned so rigidly to do so much teaching am I going to have time today to spend a couple hours before God if that's that's taken away from me the most important part of my life isn't it amazing when we all gather together for spiritual conferences we take away the most important thing that all of us need and that's just tarrying before the Lord honestly I tried to get up and do it but I was such a zombie it's like I just fell back in the bed you see we he said go to Jerusalem and tarry wait upon me now of course it was preceding the day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the holy spear and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit these men were changed I know that I've been regenerated and I know that God has given me the Holy Spirit but there is a sense in which every day of my life I need to tarry before him I need to feed on his word I need to cry out for greater and greater manifestations of the Holy Spirit when I'm walking down the street I need to walk down the street praying I need to be discerning a mind set on the things of God a mind that waits upon him can accomplish so much more than a mind that just runs all over let me give an example before I go back to our text if you ever heard of Frank Lombok anybody Frank Lombok well I need that anybody ever heard of the Philippines okay really have you ever heard of Frank Lombok all right we're at in the Philippines Mindanao what part I've been in Duvall and okay all right I was in the jungles of Mindanao for a while it's very beautiful a lot of big spiders well when I was in the Philippines I would ask people especially older people you ever heard of Frank Lombok oh yeah yeah yeah uh-huh you heard of Frank Lamba oh yes I went to a school that uh that it was actually it was named it was his name and on and on and on who's Frank Lombok Frank Lombok basically taught all of the Philippines to read he taught all of the Philippines to read so that the Philippines could read the Bible now the unique thing about him is if you read his his little journal that he kept do you know what the greatest this man was responsible for the Bible and the understanding of the Bible to get into more people's hands in the Philippine Islands is just about anybody it's phenomenal his life how many people were converted and everything through him do you know what his number one goal life was what he shot for every day of his life he said he never attained it but this was his goal he wanted to spend one day of uninterrupted thought about Christ that's what he worked at harder than anything else in his life one day of uninterrupted meditation upon the person of Christ now have you ever heard the statement he's so heavenly minded he's no earthly good well most of us are so earthly minded were no heavenly good here is a man who his greatest desire was even while he was doing all this work translating teaching countless students everything else his whole thing was to dwell before Christ to be before Christ to be meditating upon Christ that's the way we must be as evangelists we must be people who are saturated with the Word of God saturated with the person of Christ that that evangelism isn't something that like an accessory something we add to our life like a buckle on a pair of shoes it should be just the outflow of our life I was in I was in Virginia a few weeks ago and I walked into a little store and kind of a really you probably won't know what this word is Hillbilly area really backward in the woods store kind of scary I pulled in there to get something to drink and I walk in there about 10 people in the store and and so I walk in there and I go up to the counter and right when I go to the counter this man came up on the other side with big thing of beer on both sides is gonna buy him some beer I think his name was Billy or something like that and he walked up and right before he got to the counter the lady who was waiting on me turned around goes hey Billy how's it going how are you doing and everybody in the store kind of turned around a bunch of people and he goes oh I'm doing all right I won't be long on this earth I'm gonna be leaving it soon and I know when I leave here it's not over but I don't know where I'm going now I didn't sit there I didn't walk into that place necessarily to witness and I didn't think you know when he said that okay what do I do I didn't probably I should think more because I just shout it out well Billy I know exactly where I'm going and everybody in that store turned around and looked at me and I said I tell you where I'm going I'm going to heaven when I die and this is the reason you see you walk into a store but maybe that morning you prayed God open doors open doors open doors Hillah don't pray open doors because he will open doors and then you'll have to apologize or ask forgiveness that night when you don't go through the doors he asked you to open but it's an expression of your life wouldn't went up when I pastored in Peru when I pastored it and when I go back to Virginia if we start a church there we're gonna have days when we go out and do evangelism and stuff because it's good but that's just kind of like a primer it's kind of a thing to help people remember this is what we need to be doing but that's not the way I want evangelism necessarily to be done in our church I want it to be done by people on their jobs housewives at the supermarket it's an expression of your life you see that now how many of you everyday are crying out for greater and greater manifestations of the Holy Spirit's power in your life good do you see how important that it that's what we should be doing we'll not our Father give the Holy Spirit to them elastin that doesn't mean we that the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell us but we're asking for greater and greater manifestations of his power because we cannot be witnesses as Jesus is teaching us here without the power of the Holy Spirit in our life we need the Holy Spirit we need grace we need to live in constant dependence upon God constant communion with him and then evangelism will flow out from that now I want to share with you the prayer of the Evangelist okay let's go to Colossians Colossians chapter 4 if you pray this sincerely not as a method or a gimmick but this is the desire of your heart it will change evangelism as you know it in your life he says in verse 2 of chapter 4 devote yourselves to prayer well wing all stop there can't we devote yourselves to prayer how do you do that you do it by doing it he doesn't necessarily say devote yourselves to good praying great praying powerful praying he says devote yourselves to prayer how do you learn how do you learn to ride a bicycle do you read a book how many of you know how to write ride a bicycle raise your hand okay some of you don't some of you do okay how did you learn did you study a book on how to ride a bicycle you got on a bicycle didn't you you got on a bus fortunately to learn how to pray we must pray but fortunately we also have a book to teach us how to pray by studying the prayers of that are in the book but devote yourself to prayer devote yourselves to prayer devote yourselves to prayer get on your knees and talk to God and develop such a relationship that when you get off your knees nothing's changed you're still crying out to God you're still thinking thoughts of God you're still depending upon God to the point where when you when you see something someone coming toward you say a brother in Christ is coming toward you without even thinking you're already lifting prayers to God lord I need wisdom Lord direct me here Lord what can I do you walk into a store you're praying I pray for this person that's waiting upon me I pray for this store I pray for everybody who walks in brother Charles is telling us about telling me about a friend of his and and I'm an acquaintance of his who when he would get in his car and leave his home and he would drive down the road he'd pray for every neighbor as he was going down the road and I think most if not all of them have been converted over the years it's walking devoting yourselves to prayer now some of you may say well I really don't pray much on my knees but I just pray all day when I'm walking around I know you don't you don't because it is the testimony of all the works I've ever read on prayer that the only way to learn to practice the presence of God is by meeting with God by setting out time to meet with him and it's from there it's from there that you learn to practice the presence of God and pray without ceasing okay devote yourselves to prayer now he says this keeping alert in it with an attitude of Thanksgiving just real quickly something you might want to look at here prayer is a way of keeping alert as you pray maybe what I will do sometimes is look through that day my own weaknesses weaknesses I saw in my son's my wife my daughter's only two so I really can't tell when she's got weaknesses but I look at those I think about it I meditate on it and ask and try to close up those gaps in prayer Lord today I was too quick with my tongue Lord I've been alerted to that please protect me I need to pray for grace in that area Lord I saw my son today he was at he was given over to foolishness too much being alert in prayer watching for people watching for yourself lifting it up to God where you see that there are open gaps where the devil could do a great work and a great deal of harm but he says praying at the same time for us as well that God will open up to us a door for the word now most people how many of you have ever shared Christ with somebody you didn't really know a stranger is it not true that the hardest part of doing that was the first words that came out of your mouth and after those first words got out of your mouth then it really wasn't that hard it was that first how do I you know how do I do this I mean how do I do this well maybe you're trying to knock down a whole bunch of doors that you don't have the power to knock down are you praying every day Lord open up a door for the word are you praying Lord in this day open up a door for the word in relationships I have with people as I go out even even today Lord were going out to do some evangelism how many of us have prayed Lord opened up a door with someone I want to go through it I want to share the gospel open up the door you see witnessing is supernatural God can do so many supernatural things I was praying one time saying God Lord just opened up the door I went to the mall and all these kids out in the back you know like a bunch of you know shopping centers all together and all these kids are out in the back you know in their cars and they're drinking smoking and everything else and I was praying Oh God open up a door open up the door and there were I'll never forget there were three boys sitting on this bench right beside the sidewalk and I'm walking Lord just open up a door open up the door and I walked I walked past him and got about right here and one of them jumped up fell on his knees threw his hands up in the air and screamed who can save me that's the door I was getting ready to get on an airplane one time coming it was in Amsterdam actually I'd been preaching in Romania and I got on the plane in Amsterdam and I was praying Lord I'm really taught it was one of those really bad prayers you know Lord I'm really tired but if you want me to witness to someone open up the door so I go and I sit down and sit down beside this gentleman that seemed rather you know very intellectual very sat down beside him start talking to him for a second and then he says what were you doing I said well well I asked him I said what do you do and he said well he worked in the government at Washington DC and he used to be the former aide of George Bush Senior and all this kind of stuff very important man and he said what do you do and I said well I was preaching the gospel in in in Romania and I said do you go to church anywhere he goes I'm Dutch Reformed and I said oh that's Reformed okay I know some theologians from the Dutch Reformed movement and things like that and said but do you know Christ and he said you know it's funny you should ask that I'm Dutch Reformed but I don't go to church or anything and I've never really understood what Christianity all about we got about six hours could you just explain to me Christianity it's all about I'm thinking I had to open my big mouth now that doesn't always happen that way but I'm telling you God can give you supernatural open doors now but be careful don't get beside someone on plane and and and not even attempt to witness to them because there wasn't some supernatural manifestation I sat down beside a guy coming here and I deal hello how are you fine yeah okay what do you do engineer okay my name is Paul I don't care yeah that's kind of thing but finally you're going okay this this nut isn't gonna crack you know you go you go to church anywhere and the guy just starts you know trembling I got it yeah I got to witness to him from maybe 45 seconds before he just totally had an explosion and just kind of melted down there in his seat didn't want to talk at all it made some attempt okay I didn't need a supernatural choir of angels coming down to tell me at least I need to try to witness to this man now you say well that's easy for you that you know that's what you do know it's not easy for me one of the greatest things I ever heard one time came out of Ray Comfort Ray Comfort will witness to he witnessed to a dog he'll witness to a wall he'll witness to anything but when he shared that it really made him nervous to witness it really isn't easy and I thought well it isn't easy for him and he does it isn't easy for me I'll do it you see but praying for an open door and look at this again we're talking a lifestyle devote yourself to prayer praying at the same time for us as well that God will open up to us a door for the word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have also been imprisoned that I may make it clear in a way I ought to speak so look what he's saying if you got up every morning and part of your prayer life was this Lord open up a door that I may speak forth the mystery of Christ and give me grace that I might speak it clearly as I ought to speak God will bless that God will answer your prayer and you're sitting there you know sometimes I've prayed that and I have not been sincere I'm like I really don't want to witness to anybody right now I'm tired but God opens up doors and gives us opportunities to witness now I just want to share some practical things really quick they're very important I've seen a lot of street preachers lately and especially when I went down to Peru this last time a lot of our guys are street preaching and I had to really pull them aside and say look I don't like what you're doing I like your street preaching and everything I like that you're out here but I didn't like what I saw when I saw you up on that park bench why they were they were preaching but they weren't connecting with the people they were trying to be Jonathan Edwards they were are are they were trying to be George Whitefield massive people walking by they're standing up on this thing and they're screaming at everybody repent and da-da-da-da-da and going on and saying you're going to hell and all these different things listen to me the gospel is to be explained you live in a secular society you stand up on a park bench somewhere and start screaming out you're all a bunch of sinners you're going to hell here's the problem though what you're saying is true but there's no context in which you're working when when when Whitfield got up he was basically speaking yes to two bums and thieves and robbers and and wicked men but in the context of people who knew something about God righteousness so on and so forth if you jump up on a park bench in the middle of whatever city were going to and just start screaming at people they may throw things at you and you may be able to boast about the fact everybody was against you but how effective were you at communicating the gospel so when we went out preaching in in Peru I said you know let me let me preach and again I'm not the greatest street preacher in the world I got up on a chair we took a chair because if you bring your own chair the policeman can't make you get off of it brought our own chair and got up there and just the fact that here's this big gringo standing there in the middle of a park in Peru people kind of looking I stood there for a moment I said how's everybody doing fine well I'm here today to share with you the gospel of Jesus Christ now I know I know cuz see I knew automatically people were getting ready to ya know I said I know what you're thinking crazy man standing in the middle of a park teaching people about religion I beg just give me a few minutes just a few minutes now you believe in God I know you do I believe there's a god okay a God now let's go from there you see what I'm doing I'm not just up there preaching so that I can walk back and tell everybody well yeah I'm a street preacher and everybody got mad at me and I'm really spiritual I want to reach these people I just don't want to get up there and scrape I need to know where they're at who they are and so I get up there and I start and then I start preaching nice I said something about sin and a guy over there laughed right when I said sent about sin he laughed now I could have gone yeah you're laughing now you won't be laughing in hell that's not what I did I went as soon as he laughed I called out corner Margo you laughed and he kind of went like I said I saw you laugh don't you deny it I see you laughed and it what it did is it drew him in into me right then we built a relationship we laugh together I said now you stay here you've got to stay here now because you've already offended me so if you leave now I'm really gonna be offended okay you're going to stay okay your step the point is you don't preach because you want to preach you preach because you want people to be saved you want God to be glorified now that's in street preaching now here's another thing I found this out before I was a Christian let's say I'm walking across campus okay walking across campus I'm not a Christian and there's a park bench and someone is seated on the park bench and I was tired so I would walk by like this and this park manager sit down normal after I'd sit down are these chairs after I'd sit down you know there'd be another person seated there already I just sit down how's it going all right what you doing working on my homework yeah I just talked I found discovered that after I became a Christian and I knew I needed to witness to people I'd be walking across the campus and I'd see somebody on a park bench and I just freaked out I'd start getting nervous my palms would get sweaty and I'd be like I got a witness to him I got a witness to by the my walk towards him like this he's thinking oh my gosh I'm prey to be attacked by a madman it's all this stuff heaped upon me that that's not really it doesn't create any power anything it just creates these burdens so I thought you know one of the best ways to be a witness write this down is to be normal to be normal so I got to the point where I'd again just anybody sitting here no and then I would talk and you know as I talked to somebody usually an opportunity opens up to witness but here's something that's very important don't try to trick people into letting you share the gospel with them you know how you're sitting there and you're just kind of trying to sneak in somehow the back way to be able to turn the subject over about to get everybody about Christ what kind of one-liner can I use here's one of the things I do I sit down and talk to people and if something opens up praise God if it doesn't I learned this from John MacArthur and I think it's very very helpful I say hey you know I've enjoyed talking to you I had a question for you I I'm a Christian and the Christian faith is very important to me I I believe in Jesus Christ and and he's really changed my life I believe he's the son of God and the Lord have you ever understood the gospel you ever heard of the gospel yeah I've heard but have you ever understood it no would you give me five minutes just five minutes of your time and let me share with you the gospel of Jesus Christ and a lot of times I'll say things like you know the reason one of the reasons I want to do this is because you know all those TV preachers and all those characters circus clowns asking for money and everything I said do you like that no man I hate that well that's one of the reasons I want to share with you because so many people think that's what Christianity is and that's not what Christianity is at all and you know I've had people tell me you know I really don't want to hear what you've got to say even after a nice conversation but I've had a lot of other people say yeah sure one of the neatest things you can do is just be honest hey would you give me five minutes just so I I would like to share with you about the gospel of Jesus Christ it's so simple straightforward no tricks nothing now do you know why a lot of people there are at least some people like my messages on the youtubes it's it's for the same reason a lot of people follow David when he was being chased by Saul they didn't really love David and they really didn't love David's God they just hated Saul there's a lot of people out there just with kind of an axe to grind against religion they want to be really radical and they hear me and think I'm radical then they meet me and they realize this guy isn't at all like what I thought I thought he was a fire-breathing dragon you know when I preached a lot of the sermons that you've heard our sermons that I preached while the whole room was filled up with a bunch of older preachers who preached a gospel that was wrong and they should have known better and a battle was on it was a fight when I witnessed to somebody it's not like that I don't try to hurt somebody crush somebody's spirit I remember that I think it was was it it wasn't he a Quaker Fox he was debating a another brilliant man was a Christian was debating Fox on the matter and on a certain matter Christianity and he really cornered Fox and in front of everybody and showed that Fox was wrong and Fox goes well I guess you're going to crush me and the the opponent said my dear brother Fox I would never crush the light that's in you when there's I'm witnessing to a person I don't care if it's a prostitute a homosexual whatever it is I'm not intending to crush them I want to demonstrate the love of Christ to them I will talk to them about their sin and I will hope to show them the heinous nature of their sin but I want to do it in such a way that respects at least the fact that they are a creature made by God I also want to be their servant I don't have the right to some degree just to sit down and interrupt people they give you an example I was in Ohio this was years ago back in nineteen probably nineteen eighty five in Ohio Trinity Baptist Church I think it was and we were going door to door and we were witnessing well I was walking like this and we visited this one house and there's the next house so I walked in we went around this big tree and I got ready to go like this there was an old man sitting up on the porch and I got ready to go around the tree and the pastor grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me back behind the tree I'm like what what are you doing he goes don't go up there I go what don't go up there listen man he is he's mean we tried to talk to him before nobody talk to Dumbo up there I'm like he's a little old man what can he do to me I think I could take him in a fight you know it's like you don't want me to go out there he goes I go look stay here okay so I went up there and he's sitting there like this boy he was just all bowed up and he was just ready for a fight you know so I sat down in front of him how you doing you don't care maybe I do maybe I don't how are you doing I started asking him questions about him for an like an hour and 15 minutes it went on and I was really enjoying it because the pastor had to stand behind that tree well I'm just I'm just asking him questions and ask them questions found out his wife died his kids basically abandoned him they lived across the country had nothing just but his home there all alone sat out on the porch all day everything else found out about his World War 2 career everything at about an hour and 15 minutes into that conversation of me just asking him questions being a servant because you see everybody wants to talk about themselves and nobody wants to listen to him after about an hour and 15 minutes he goes well alright I said alright what he said you've listened to me for over an hour now what do you got to tell me so I said and I shared the gospel with him I said this is what I came up to tell you one of the things be very careful about being quick with people be very careful now we might go out today and just hand out tracts and everybody kind of think we're kooky and just go on but if the slightest crack opens first of all just be normal just be normal because look the cards the deck is stacked against you when you go out there they're gonna think you're cold they're gonna think you're some kind of a bunch of weird people or something the thing is is don't prove that they're right talk to them share with them do it in a way that is direct truthful but also kind witness to a guy I'm a homosexual okay he's trying to make it the point of the conversation you know what he's trying to do don't allow it to happen talk to him about Christ what do you think homosexuality is a sin well yeah but it's not the biggest sin right there you got him because all he's ever heard from Christians is homosexuality is the worst sin you can possibly commit no it's it's not the big sin as a matter of fact it's just the result of another sin that we all we've all committed but what's that although they knew God they did not honor him as God nor give thanks because they would not honor God in their life God let us go he let me go do you go you the way you went was different than the way I went but we both went into sin I had to repent of my sin are you going to repent of yours because see now I'm not telling him something that he has to do that I didn't have to do I'm not giving him a sacrifice he has to make that I didn't have to make I can say look I had just as strong a bondage it was a different kind of sin but it was just as strong a bondage and I had it had to let it go to be saved so sir I'm not asking you to do anything or give up anything I didn't have to give up asking God to give you wisdom to help you to witness okay does anyone have any questions is anyone afraid to go out and witness one well there's an honest man well sometimes people say it's difficult to start the conversation but I think it's more difficult to enter I mean now that I'm aware of this with people called decisional regeneration I think they call that so how do now a conversation with the last person ends it depends if if they don't want to talk and they want to shut everything off I'm not going to force the conversation to keep going I'm not going to be rude for example if I get on a plane I sit down try to talk with someone about the gospel and they don't want to hear it I'm not going to keep prodding them why because I'm just giving them ammunition and they get off the plane and they go sit in the the bar with their friend and say man I'm glad I got off that plane some evangelical nut wouldn't shut up and just kept prodding me about his beliefs all right so I'm not going to keep prodding him when he shuts the conversation down what I'm going to do is honor that be very kind to him and when he gets off the plane it's going to be like a man with heaping coals on his head who's ashamed that he treated me that way even though I treated him with dignity so you know I'm not going to prod a conversation and just keep it going if the person has been very interested and and and wants to know more but in no way is has God been working to the point of bringing them to conversion then I say look hey would you like to exchange phone numbers or just give me your email or I'll give you mine or and and try to maintain that contact a lot of times I'll ask them hey you know there's a few small books I'd like to just send you for free if you'd read over them something to keep the contact going if they're you know like where I've had people at times say look uh a guy on a plane I was witness into about three years ago and after about 20 minutes he said he just start crawling he says what I got to do what do I got to do I want to be saved I I I've never seen my sin like this before I'm going to hell I want to be saved so then I just simply said well let me ask you a question the Bible says repent and believe just let's look at what God's done in your heart at this moment is there evidence of repentance and we went down through there and he goes yes and I said you lack one thing believe on the Lord Jesus Christ he said just trust me I can see that he died for me I trust him and then he kind goes I'm saved and so give me your email things like that it just each conversation is different what I'm not going to do is try to get somebody to pray some prayer at the end of my conversation I'm going to see how God is working and then lead them in that you mean a person crying out and asking Jesus to come into their heart I think sometimes when we say oh we're not going to get them to pray a prayer people might think oh well so you know you saying you can't do that at all well well I think that you have to do it very very cautiously over the last few years that that I've been witnessing to people I've almost had no one pray and ask Jesus to come into their heart or anything like that it does say who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved but I'm working in the South where they are orientated towards calling on the name of the Lord means praying and asking Jesus to come in and that's not the same thing so I have to work diligently to make them see is there evidence of repair repented and yes I have do you believe yes I really believe I believe he's done this when that is sure you know which have you called upon the Lord have you asked him to save you are you believing it and and and that type of thing I try to keep it totally and completely away from this thing of okay you repent now you believe now so now you like just one little thing now you've got to pray and ask him to come in that's not true there is actually a one person who's on been critical of you and not for the sake of defending yourself but the issue of he he was quoting you and he was saying we are saved and saved by faith alone and then you're going to say and that faith is preceded and followed by repentance and he was trying to refute you saying that's a contradict a self-contradictory statement and would I be right in saying that really that the faith we are meant to have is a repentant faith that the two go together that if you turn to Christ you turn away well let me put it this way according to his logic then if I only said we are saved by faith and faith alone that would still be a contradictory state by were saved by believing or by faith and it's a work of grace that would be a contradictory statement see his problems what he doesn't understand is that faith and repentance are the result of regeneration they're our work of grace a result of grace therefore if I tell someone to repent of their sins that is know'd it is no different than telling them to believe believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is a work unless that belief is the result of regeneration repentance is a work unless it's a result of regeneration that's his problem I'm sure poor that you would say that every true faith is repentant faith and every repentance this permeated by believer yes exactly and I think that was the content of your of what you affirmed with that expression and everybody ought to to understand that well time has gone and that may I ask you to close for us in prayer sure and playful

Channel: I'll Be Honest

Views: 35,427

Rating: 4.8704453 out of 5

Keywords: paul, washer, biblical, gospel, evangelism, open, air, preaching

Id: drWCWgAb0d4

Length: 63min 7sec (3787 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2009