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500,000+ Page Views for Faithsaves.net!
I am thankful that the Faithsaves.net website recently passed 500,000 page views. I suspect that is a larger number than the number of people who live in many of the towns and cities that blog readers here live in. I am thankful that the website continues to impact people with God’s glorious truth. Lord willing, I look forward to 1 million views as the next significant milestone.
As discussed on the page here, one can get bumper stickers, car magnets, T-shirts, and shirts with collars promoting the gospel and faithsaves.net. We have appreciated the opportunity for our vehicle to be an instrument that gives people the opportunity to spread the truth. Many businesses have information all over their company vehicles; why should not those who are about their Father’s business do the same? (Of course, if your church already has decals or other information they recommend, by all means consider them.) (If you buy something on the link above–or practically anywhere else on the Internet–you can save by doing what this article says–click through a portal first, or, for Amazon, do this first.)
–TDR
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 5
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
Anyone who might want to start a church in the San Francisco Bay Area likely understands two difficult realities, one, it’s hostile to Christianity, and, two, it’s very expensive to live there. My wife and I went there because of the former. We trusted God with the latter.
Our Dodge Omni did not make it through the first year. We bought a used Subaru Wagon with a three year loan. It was our last car loan. We drove it until it dropped by which time we had saved for another used car. We also moved to a different apartment that was fifty dollars cheaper a month.
In my twenties in the 1980s, no one could force you to buy health insurance. I was taught by wise men to get it, even if we “didn’t need it.” This paid off our first year. Jumping into the car again and again in door-to-door evangelism resulted in surgery for a pilonidal cyst surgery. It’s minor but very expensive without health insurance.
How did the church grow? No one knows who will listen to preaching and who will not. No one knows who will respond well. An important part of starting a church is pressing through the difficulty and rejection.
What helped me persevere were two factors. One, I experienced hardships already. I carried a heavy load through college and grad school that was tough. I majored in biblical languages. Greek and Hebrew were not easy. Our family lived in difficult conditions, my dad working two jobs and taking a full load of classes, driving junk cars and living in harsh circumstances. I played competitive sports and lost a lot of games in college. Our teams won in high school. I played quarterback and we won. Our basketball team won. In college, we lost and lost and lost at every sport.
In football, you don’t just lose, but you get beat up too, especially playing my position. It was tough getting in and staying in shape with many other responsibilities. I could never quit. It was drilled into me by my father never to give up. It wasn’t winning that got me through. We had very few wins in those four years. As our coach liked to say, we were small, but slow.
Two, the Bible gives great encouragement. Most of you reading probably know this one, but 1 Corinthians 15:58 helped.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in. I thought of it all the time.
What a great verse from the Apostle Paul in God’s Word. When things are not going well, I thought, as can you, my labor was not in vain in the Lord. Even if I got no or negative results, I abounded. God said so.
I hit every door in Hercules, around 20,000 people, 1 1/2 times in the first year. We never had a single service with twenty or more that first year. This occurred to someone who thought he would have 100 in his first service. I had already lost a lot, been literally beaten up, had my bell rung, as we called it then. It was hard.
In the first few months Bridget and I had a few hundred dollars to our name. I lived in an urban area for the first time. I was not a city boy. Someone called our church number, said he was a pastor stranded without gas on a long trip. Out of compassion, I gave him half him a hundred dollars. This might seem crazy, but it really was how naive I was to this kind of situation. It wasn’t the last time someone fooled me in a similar way.
We had some great stories though. God saved some and the church did grow by His grace. God used my wife and I to start one of the Lord’s churches.
In December of that first year, my wife got me an unusual Christmas present. We had no television. She knew I liked watching bowl football games at the end of December and early January. She would rent a television from rent-a-center. Up to that point, I had never heard of rent-a-center. Fundamentalists would preach against television and I understand, but I evangelized the man at the counter. I invited him to church.
The story was that this newly married couple wanted a church, but he didn’t want her Catholic Church. They came on a Sunday night, and besides my wife, those two were it. Four people. They were the Brants, Dan and Van, the latter Vietnamese. On Sunday night, I did a series through Ecclesiastes, which I saw and still see as also evangelistic. It did impact the couple. They kept coming back.
Within a few weeks, I went to visit them to preach the gospel. After preaching the entire message, I asked if they wanted to believe in Jesus Christ, to follow Him. She was ready, so she stood up on her own, and moved to the chair right next to mine. She received the Lord. We baptized her in her swimming pool in their back yard. Van Brant, Mrs. Brant, we now call her, stayed with us from that time henceforth. She is still a faithful member of Bethel Baptist Church, gloriously saved.
To Be Continued
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 4
Bridget and I arrived in San Francisco in late August, joining Calvary Baptist Church there. We found our first apartment in the Marlesta apartments in Pinole. She succeeded at finding a job as a teller at Mechanics Bank. I found one at the Big Five sporting goods. We rented the multipurpose room at Ohlone Elementary School in Hercules. We printed brochures and hired someone to paint two street signs. Our first service we set for Sunday, October 18, 1987. We copied flyers as an invitation for that date.
My wife and I moved into our first apartment. Both of us started working about thirty hours a week. Our missions support would cover only part of the immediate expenses of the new church. I knocked on the first door next to Ohlone School and started covering the town of Hercules with the gospel. For the first month and a half, I invited everyone to our first service.
After arrival, I heard people use the terminology, North Bay. I thought Hercules was North Bay. Early I wanted a name that included a larger geography, so I chose “North Bay Baptist Church.” No one told me, “Hercules isn’t North Bay.” It wasn’t. Hercules is East Bay. Despite that, we still used that name for the first year and a half of our church. We designed a logo with the name.
At least 100 people promised to come for our first service. I was too ignorant not to know how unlikely that was. I expected it. Bridget’s uncle and aunt, who lived down in Santa Cruz, would drive up. We had one family from the sending church who lived in Hercules. They would come. Until that first service on October 18, Bridget and I attended all the services at Calvary Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Every late Saturday night, I set out two wooden portable handmade signs in front of the Ohlone school. I also did this for the very first service. One was larger that sat near the street pointing toward the parking lot. The other sat closer to the multipurpose room, visible from the parking lot, pointing toward the multipurpose room. It was a sandwich board style with the same image on both sides, hinged and propped up against each other.
My wife and I were paying for the multipurpose room in a public elementary school by the hour on Sunday. We rented it for five hours in the morning and two hours at night. This time allowed for us to set up and take down every week. The school had a piano and a podium. We brought a table in front of the podium.
I hung a banner behind the podium that said, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth,” which was the scriptural theme from the beginning of our church. In the back we had a table with literature and offering plates. All the tables had table cloths. The front table had some kind of flower arrangement on it. This was a ritual every Sunday.
The philosophy I held for the building was that God built the church through His Word. Such a building, good or average, would not stop someone with a true motive from visiting or coming. Even though 100 people promised to come the first Sunday, 7 came.
As you read this, having 7 new people come to church might sound good today. I really did think they would all come. One family of four, the one that lived in Hercules from the sending church, came the first Sunday. We had several others, family and people traveling from other churches, but only the seven invited who said they would come our first Sunday.
What would happen next? I folllowed up on the seven and the 93 or so others who said they would come, but didn’t. From that point, I could start telling the story of those who came, those who stayed a little while, and those who were with us for years. Some from that first year are still in the church. No one from that first Sunday stayed. A couple kept coming off and on that first year, then they were done. The work had begun though.
That first Sunday I started preaching through John and my first sermon was in John 1:1. I continued that series on Sunday mornings until I was done. Every sermon was typed with a manual typewriter on regular typing paper.
I believed preaching was most important to the founding, strength, and continuation of our church. Long term, I believed it was most important in every way. Jesus told Peter, Feed my sheep. I didn’t have many sheep yet, but I knew this church would grow from evangelism, yes, but also from exposition of scripture.
People had personal computers in 1987. I knew one person with a computer at that time. It wasn’t until later that first year that I bought a used IBM Selectric with a removeable ball. The first half of that first year I typed a bulletin every week on a manual typewriter. All my flyers were literally cut and paste. That’s where the terminology, cut and paste, came from. Each letter was cut from a sheet of stylish letters and then pasted. We really have it good today when it comes to laying out printed materials.
My wife and I were working, so we had regular work hours at the bank and the sporting goods store. We lived in an second floor single bedroom apartment in Pinole. We bought a used bed, used mattress, used sofa, used kitchen table, used chairs, and a used lamp. I think all our furniture cost us two or three hundred dollars total. When I wasn’t at work, I jumped into the Dodge Omni and went door to door. Sometimes my wife came with me. We started covering every house and apartment in Hercules, moving out concentrically from the building where we met.
During the first year, up the street from Ohlone School I rang a doorbell with my wife and preached the entire gospel to a man, I remember, named Brian. I know his last name too, even though this was the last time I ever talked to him. Why? He prayed a prayer. He made a profession of faith. My wife was with me and afterwards, I asked her, “Do you think he really got saved?” She said, “No.” We argued a little bit, but the reason I still remember it is because Brian didn’t really receive Christ.
I had evangelized for years, since I was a teenager. I preached to hundreds of people. Nothing compared to what I was doing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I felt like I knew little to nothing about what I needed to do. I began studying evangelism, reading my Bible, studying books, and listening to recordings. How would a church start without anyone hearing the gospel and receiving Christ? That was why we came to California.
To Be Continued
Could There Be Practical Reasons Why Some Evangelists See More or Better Results than Others? Pt. 3
Every time I begin to consider the problems in this country and then the world, I go back to the gospel. Whatever path you ponder, it comes back to necessary conversion. Someone can make moves that might postpone the inevitable, but the actual solution is the gospel. Everything else is “peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
Last Monday I wrote two reasons and Wednesday a third on why some evangelists see more or better results than others. Here’s a fourth.
4. A Difference in Diligent Work
Scripture emphasizes work in evangelism, diligence, as if it would make a difference in the salvation in men’s souls. Jesus said in John 9:4: “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” Even Jesus saw the need for urgency in getting something done sooner than later. This was an example from which the lyrics to a song come (here verse 2):
Work, for the night is coming: Work through the sunny noon; Fill brightest hours with labor: Rest comes sure and soon. Give every flying minute Something to keep in store; Work, for the night is coming, When man works no more.
The Apostle Paul also talked about the diligence to his work. He explains in what I call his “how-to book for the ministry” in 1 Thessalonians 2:9: “For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.” You read there, “our labour and travail: for labouring night and day.” Paul connected this to his success.
Even as I wrote about Paul, I thought about Philip the evangelist, when he evangelized the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. This is one of the most well-known, famous evangelism stories in all of scripture. Here are the last two verses in the chapter:
39 And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.
Almost anyone else would have gone back to his lazy-boy and had an iced tea. He put in his 1.5 hours of evangelism for the week, time to head home. Not Philip. After the Ethiopian eunuch was saved, a great evangelistic moment in history, Philip “preached in all the cities” from Azotus to Caesarea.
What I’m describing is related at least to love. The 1.5 hour person is the one who is the legalist. Don’t get me wrong. I do think that having a habit, temperance of a fashion, putting it on the schedule, is and can be good. It’s not enough when it’s love. It isn’t laboring for the night cometh when no man can work. It isn’t labor and travail, laboring night and day. It isn’t preaching in all the cities. Everyone has other things to do. I agree things need to be done.
Every little bit helps. I’m happy when someone at least does evangelize. I’m writing about how some see more than others and in a legitimate way, true evangelism. Diligent labor is another difference.
Could There Be Practical Reasons Why Some Evangelists See More or Better Results than Others?
When I say, “evangelist,” for purposes of this discussion, I mean men preaching the gospel, perhaps in missionary status but also men preaching in their own churches. Over my thirty plus years in full time preaching, I have won many to Christ, saw them baptized into the church, and then discipled. I did this without a smidgin of pragmatism or gimmicks. It was pure preaching, dependence on the gospel.
On the other hand, I saw men who rarely saw results. They still do not see very many results. They go years, even decades without discipling one person. Some see many. Some see very few to none. Could there be practical reasons why this occurs? I believe so. I want to enumerate reasons not necessarily in order.
1. A Difference in Love
Some men are faithful to do evangelism. They do it all the time. These men have knocked on many doors. They do what God wants in that way. In one sense, you could say that they are loving God in that they are keeping His commandments on evangelism.
At the end of Jude, Jude talks about having compassion, making a difference. Jesus very often in the gospels is said to looking at the people with compassion, connecting His success to that attribute. Paul mentioned how much he cared again and again.
I’ve noticed that men treat people like they are objects of their preaching. They very often go about the task like they are putting in the time, and the sheer time-spent counts as loving faithfulness.
It’s important to be faithful. It is very good to persevere. I’m thankful for those who will do this. However, you’ve got to love the people for whom you are reaching. This includes wanting them to be saved, not just limiting yourself to accomplishing the task. People know when you care about them. They can tell when you are going through the motions with them.
Some love people enough that they take record of those with whom they’ve talked. They remember their names. These unique individuals will pray for those they evangelize. They go back and visit them.
Have you ever had someone talk to you, and it seemed like it was an exercise in hearing their own voice? I know a few pastors this way. You exist for them to preach to. You’re there for them to supply their pearls of wisdom. When you talk to them, you’re not sure if they are listening. When they talk, it is not personable. It sounds like a speech written off of a script. They don’t make a connection in a relationship because they don’t show that they care.
Compassion makes a difference in the results of evangelism. I know some reading here think they love people. They’ve convinced themselves. They rarely see anyone come to Christ, baptized, join the church, and made disciples. Perhaps you should consider that you don’t care enough. That’s the reason why.
Both of the churches I started, what I’m writing made a huge difference. Those people knew that I loved them. They still do. Some missionaries act in many ways as pure place setters because they lack the love they need to see more occur than they already do.
2. A Difference in Spirit-Filled Boldness
Many men are easily turned away. A person shows resistance and they move on. This is related to number one. They can’t get through those situations because maybe they don’t care enough. They don’t love enough. They give up on the person very quickly.
Sometimes men will dance around what needs to be said. They don’t get to the crucial point toward salvation, the particular stronghold, because they don’t want to say it. They are either too fearful or they don’t want to look bad. Both of those are similar but slightly different.
The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 4 asks the churches to pray for his boldness. That is an important evangelism prayer. When the Holy Spirit fills someone, Acts 4 says that they preach the Word of God with boldness. This is a significant manifestation of Holy Spirit filling.
Having or not having boldness might mean speaking or not speaking. Some don’t get to the evangelism because they don’t have boldness. They don’t have boldness because they are not filled with the Spirit, that is, controlled with the Spirit. They also might not be praying for boldness. Boldness relates to results someone will see.
Many, many times I have gone out with someone else evangelizing. He talks and he’s done with a person. He doesn’t get to the gospel. I pick up the conversation where he left off and I get through the whole gospel and with great conviction on the person. Boldness is the difference in these situations.
When I write this, I’m as far away as 1-2-3 pray-with-me as a person can get. This is not manipulation. I’m writing about practical, biblical differences that result in someone seeing more or less results. I’m not guaranteeing results, but there are scriptural reasons some will see more than others, even why someone will never see any results and he should check his heart because of it.
Obviously the two, love and boldness, relate with one another. Love is fruit of the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills someone, he speaks with boldness. When I preach boldly, the Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.
To Be Continued
Charles Spurgeon: My Conversion Testimony
Have you ever read the conversion testimony of the famous Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon?
It is a blessing to read. Here it is:
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, of tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now, it is well that preachers should be instructed; but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was,—
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” [Isaiah 45:22]
He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus:—“My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look’. Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pains. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!” said he, in broad Essex, “many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me’. Some on ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says. ‘Look unto Me.’ ”
Then the good man followed up his text in this way:—“Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me!”
When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death,—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then, lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said,—I did not take much notice of it,—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.” Yet it was, no doubt, all wisely ordered, and now I can say,—
“E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”
I do from my soul confess that I never was satisfied till I came to Christ; when I was yet a child, I had far more wretchedness than ever I have now; I will even add, more weariness, more care, more heart-ache, than I know at this day. I may be singular in this confession, but I make it, and know it to be the truth. Since that dear hour when my soul cast itself on Jesus, I have found solid joy and peace; but before that, all those supposed gaieties of early youth, all the imagined ease and joy of boyhood, were but vanity and vexation of spirit to me. That happy day, when I found the Saviour, and learned to cling to His dear feet, was a day never to be forgotten by me. An obscure child, unknown, unheard of, I listened to the Word of God; and that precious text led me to the cross of Christ. I can testify that the joy of that day was utterly indescribable. I could have leaped, I could have danced; there was no expression, however fanatical, which would have been out of keeping with the joy of my spirit at that hour. Many days of Christian experience have passed since then, but there has never been one which has had the full exhilaration, the sparkling delight which that first day had. I thought I could have sprung from the seat on which I sat, and have called out with the wildest of those Methodist brethren who were present, “I am forgiven! I am forgiven! A monument of grace! A sinner saved by blood!” My spirit saw its chains broken to pieces, I felt that I was an emancipated soul, an heir of Heaven, a forgiven one, accepted in Christ Jesus, plucked out of the miry clay and out of the horrible pit, with my feet set upon a rock, and my goings established. I thought I could dance all the way home. I could understand what John Bunyan meant, when he declared he wanted to tell the crows on the ploughed land all about his conversion. He was too full to hold, he felt he must tell somebody. (C. H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records, by His Wife and His Private Secretary, 1834–1854, vol. 1 [Cincinatti; Chicago; St. Louis: Curts & Jennings, 1898], 105–108.
Note that Spurgeon was not told to come to the front of a church building and repeat a sinner’s prayer, or told to ask Christ to come into his heart–those methodologies did not yet exist, as Dr. Paul Chitwood demonstrates in his history of the sinner’s prayer. Spurgeon was directed to embrace Christ directly by repentant faith–the right thing sinners should be counseled to do today, and which, enabled by the Holy Spirit through the power of Scripture, will lead to multitudes of true conversions.
Note as well that in Isaiah 45:22 the word translated “Look” commonly means “turn.” One turns from his sin to look to Christ alone for salvation–repentance is implicit in saving faith.
Spurgeon directed people to embrace Christ directly by faith, rather than telling them that if they sincerely repeated the words of a prayer they would be saved, throughout his ministry. Here are some examples of the evangelistic counsel he gave to seeking sinners, from his book Around the Wicket Gate (cited from here):
When the Lord lifts His dear Son before a sinner, that sinner should take Him without hesitation. If you take Him, you have Him, and none can take Him from you. Out with your hand, man, and take Him at once! When inquirers accept the Bible as literally true and see that Jesus is really given to all who trust Him, all the difficulty about understanding the way of salvation vanishes like the morning’s frost at the rising of the sun.
Two inquiring ones came to me in my vestry. They had been hearing the Gospel from me for only a short time, but they had been deeply impressed by it. They expressed their regret that they were about to move far away, but they added their gratitude that they had heard me at all. I was cheered by their kind thanks, but felt anxious that a more effectual work should be brought about in them. Therefore I asked them, “Have you indeed believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you saved?” One of them replied, “I have been trying hard to believe.” This statement I have often heard, but I will never let it go by me unchallenged. “No,” I said, “that will not do. Did you ever tell your father that you tried to believe him?” After I had dwelt a while upon the matter, they admitted that such language would have been an insult to their father.
I then set the Gospel very plainly before them in as simple language as I could, and begged them to believe Jesus, who is more worthy of faith than the best of fathers. One of them replied, “I cannot realize it: I cannot realize that I am saved.” Then I went on to say, “God bears testimony to His Son, that whosoever trusts in His Son is saved. Will you make Him a liar now, or will you believe His Word?” While I thus spoke, one of them started as if astonished. She startled us all as she cried, “O sir, I see it all; I am saved! Bless Jesus. He has shown me the way, and He has saved me! I see it all.” The esteemed sister who had brought these young friends to me knelt down with them while, with all our hearts, we blessed and magnified the Lord for a soul brought into light. One of the two sisters, however, could not see the Gospel as the other had, though I feel sure she will do so soon.
Did it not seem strange that, both hearing the same words, one should remain in the gloom? The change which comes over the heart when the understanding grasps the Gospel is often reflected in the face and shines like the light of heaven. Such newly enlightened souls often exclaim, “It is so plain; why is it I have not seen it before this? I understand all I have read in the Bible now, though I could not make it out before. It has all come in a minute, and now I see what I never understood before.”
The fact is, the truth was always plain, but they were looking for signs and wonders, and therefore did not see what was there for them. Old men often look for their spectacles when they are on their foreheads. It is commonly observed that we fail to see that which is straight before us. Christ Jesus is before our faces. We have only to look to Him and live, but we make all manner of bewilderment of it, and so manufacture a maze out of that which is straight as an arrow.
The little incident about the two sisters reminds me of another. A much-esteemed friend came to me one Sunday morning after service to shake hands with me. She said, “I was fifty years old on the same day as yourself. I am like you in that one thing, sir, but I am the very reverse of you in better things.” I remarked, “Then you must be a very good woman, for in many things I wish I also could be the reverse of what I am.” “No, no,” she said, “I did not mean anything of that sort. I am not right at all.” “What!” I cried, “Are you not a believer in the Lord Jesus?” “Well,” she said, with much emotion, “I, I will try to be.” I laid hold of her hand and said, “My dear soul, you are not going to tell me that you will try to believe my Lord Jesus! I cannot have such talk from you. It means blank unbelief. What has He done that you should talk of Him in that way? Would you tell me that you would try to believe me? I know that you would not treat me so rudely. You think me a true man, and so you believe me at once. Surely you cannot do less with my Lord Jesus.”
Then with tears she exclaimed, “Oh, sir, do pray for me!” To this I replied, “I do not feel that I can do anything of the kind. What can I ask the Lord Jesus to do for one who will not trust Him? I see nothing to pray about. If you will believe Him, you shall be saved. If you will not believe Him, I cannot ask Him to invent a new way to gratify your unbelief.” Then she said again, “I will try to believe.” But I told her solemnly I would have none of her trying; for the message from the Lord did not mention trying, but said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). I pressed upon her the great truth, that “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36); and its terrible reverse: “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
I urged her to full faith in the once crucified but now ascended Lord, and the Holy Spirit there and then enabled her to trust. She most tenderly said, “Oh sir, I have been looking to my feelings, and this has been my mistake! Now I trust my soul with Jesus, and I am saved.” She found immediate peace through believing. There is no other way.
There are numbers of resources that can help churches follow the Biblical evangelistic methodology of Spurgeon today, rather than the corrupt “1-2-3, pray after me, 4-5-6, hope it sticks” salesmanship of people like Jack Hyles. May the number of Baptist churches who counsel the lost Biblically increase greatly for God’s glory and for the multiplication of true conversions.
–TDR
The Judgmental Church: Apostolic, New Testament, and Seeker-Friendly?
The Judgmental Church!
Everyone knows that being judgmental is one of the greatest sins that a person can possibly commit. The sin of being “judgmental” is mentioned and condemned in the following verses in the Bible:
The sin of being judgmental is regularly mentioned in 1st and 2nd Opinions, books which most people are much more committed to living by than they are, say, the Pauline epistles and the Gospels.
While being “judgmental” is not mentioned in the canonical New Testament, only in the pseudepigraphical 1st and 2nd Opinions, and the passage in the Sermon on the Mount that people misuse to prove this position actually commands one to help one’s brother remove even a speck or smaller sin from his eye (that is, Christ commands one to judge) as long as one does not hypocritically have a beam in one’s own eye (Matthew 7:1ff.), there are plenty of memes and commonly supported cultural images for it, which, in the eyes of many, should be a sufficient substitute for the total lack of support in the inspired text of Scripture.
Were the New Testament Churches Judgmental?
Did the apostolic, New Testament churches judge? In addition to Matthew 7:1ff., Christ commanded: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment (John 7:24). So Christ commanded people to judge–it was not only not a sin, but it is a sin to fail to judge. Did the New Testament churches follow Christ’s command to judge? Consider 1 Corinthians 14:23-25:
23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? 24 But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: 25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.
Wow! Not only did this New Testament church fail to recognize the (alleged) sin of judging, but Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wanted every member of the congregation to be judging. In fact, if a new visitor comes to a church service, “all” are supposed to judge him, with the truth of Scripture, and by this means he will not be turned off by their being so “judgmental,” but on the contrary, he will fall down on his face and will worship God, recognizing that God is in them of a truth.
Consider also Isaiah 1:21:
How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
It was good for God’s people to be “full of judgment.” That was being “faithful,” and was characteristic of “righteousness.” When that stopped it was unfaithfulness, spiritual harlotry.
The second greatest commmand is to love your neighbor as yourself–the only greater command is to love God with your whole being. What is involved in loving your neighbor? Note Leviticus 19:17-18:
17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. 18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Rebuking others is showing your neighbor love–just like not hating him, not avenging, and not bearing grudges. Sin is the greatest evil, so rebuking your neighbor, so that he does not sin, is one of the kindest and most loving things you can possibly do.
The Apostolic, New Testament Way to Be Seeker-Friendly
Do you want visitors to your church to come to true conversion? Do you want your church to glorify God and follow the New Testament? Then start having lots of judging of others go on, so visitors can fall on their faces and confess God is in you of a truth. Exercise lots and lots of God-glorifying, loving, non-hypocritical, but Biblically accurate judgment. That is part of loving your neighbor as yourself. Reject the Satanic advice of the world, the flesh, and the devil that you are not supposed to judge anyone or anything. As in so many other situations, this idea is exactly the opposite of what the Bible actually says.
John 7:24; 1 Corinthians 14:23-25; Isaiah 1:21, and Leviticus 19:17-18 should be carefully expounded in every evangelical “church growth” book that actually cares about what God says about the church and that wants genuine growth, not cancerous pseudo-growth. So should the fact that “come as you are” is a lie-the Biblical advice is “sanctify yourselves.” But I’m not holding my breath–I suspect that, in the minds of many, the sin of being judgmental, as condemned in 1st and 2nd Opinions, will continue to greatly outweigh the evidence to the contrary from Christ, the apostle Paul, Moses, and Isaiah.
“You mean I am wrong in saying being ‘judgmental’ is a sin condemned in the Bible? How DARE you judge me about that!”
–TDR
Videos on How to Lead an Evangelistic Bible Study
Numbers of churches have found the evangelistic Bible study series here helpful in their practice of Biblical evangelism. If you have never led someone else through an evangelistic Bible study, the link above provides an example a lost person can watch that could also be helpful for a believer in learning how to do them. A series of videos on how to teach these Bible studies is also going up on YouTube. Study #1 on the nature of God’s revelation in the Bible, study #2 on the nature of the Triune God, and study #3, on God’s law and sin’s consequences, now all have extensive exposition, and study #4, on the gospel, namely, on Christ’s redemptive death, burial, and resurrection, is in progress. Lord willing, when they are complete they will provide as much helpful teaching as a solid college class on Biblical evangelism.
Watch the series on how to lead an evangelistic Bible study by clicking here.
Of course, a fantastic way to learn to do an evangelistic Bible study is to go with your pastor or other experienced soulwinner to regularly preach the gospel, and learn how to do an evangelistic Bible study from that knowledgeable person in your church. Watching the videos above may supplement, but cannot replace, faithful evangelism in a faithful local independent Baptist church.
–TDR
Evangelistic / Apologetic Pamphlet for Buddhists on Buddhism
Since there are many Buddhists in the San Francisco Bay Area, and not a great deal of literature available to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have written an evangelistic pamphlet for Buddhists. You can view it at the link below:
The Buddha and the Christ:
Their Teachings Compared
Because Buddhism does not consider the sovereign, Almighty God important for its religious system, the presentation of the gospel is designed to be especially God-centered, explaining the work of the Trinity to reconcile sinners. It also seeks to assume that someone has no preexisting knowledge of the BIble or of Christianity, as is the case with great numbers of Buddhists.
Both the persons of Buddha and of the Lord Jesus Christ and their respective teachings are compared. The evidence overwhelmingly favors Christ, to the detriment of Buddhism.
If your church does not already have something to evangelize Buddhists, let me encourage you to add it to the resources available on your tract or pamphlet rack. An easy link to keep in mind with many different resources for the various world religions and groups in Christianity is also available here.
Learn when Buddha lived; how much we know about what he did and taught; the evidence, or lack thereof, for the truth of Buddhist Scriptures; the preservation, or lack thereof, of Buddhist Scriptures; the evidence, or lack thereof, for the many teachings of Buddhism; and how these compare to the evidence for the Bible and for the Lord Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Lord.
–TDR
The Prime Directive Isn’t a Biblical Directive
The Star Trek series began in 1966, when I was four years old. In my home in a small town in Indiana, I grew up watching our black and white tube television set. I became a “trekkie” with Captain Kirk, Spock, Scottie, and McCoy. If someone held up his hand with only his middle fingers separated, I knew that meant, “Live long and prosper.” It isn’t unusual in this country. Many watch and read fantasy and science fiction.
I’m not endorsing Star Trek or even the genre of science fiction. I lay down a full disclaimer. I would argue for disinterest as the superior position.
Star Trek shows a naturalistic world view. It imagines that everything came about by accident and evolved, producing whole other galaxies full of living creatures and intelligence. Having progressed in technology to the extent that people can travel at light speed to get to those galaxies, the science fiction of Star Trek says this is how good things should be. None of this mirrors a Christian worldview, which is the only true one.
Christianity, of course, reveals the best possible outcome for people. God wants people to have it and it could not be better.
In the Star Trek imagination, the future sees very evolved, sophisticated people visit less evolved ones. They study them like scientists, almost like humans watching an ant farm. The speculation is that this is bound to happen. All these different creatures evolved in their separate locations.
When the main Star Trek characters visit, they cannot interfere with development or evolution. Some of you reading know the law. They call it the “prime directive,” which “prohibits Starfleet personnel and spacecraft from interfering in the normal development of any society, and mandates that any Starfleet vessel or crew member is expendable to prevent violation of this rule.”
While traveling, my wife and I used a laundromat (also called a launderette some places). At one location, while I went to get cash for change, she started into evangelism with a woman, who was a secular humanist. I didn’t hear the first half of the conversation, but the woman was arguing against Christianity interfering with indigenous people. Why should Christians see their point of view superior to tribes with subsistence living and their accompanying religions?
I had walked in to hear the woman say this to my wife. I smiled to myself, because it sounded like the prime directive. Just leave people alone. Just because they’re different doesn’t mean they’re inferior. I also recognize this as multi-culturalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:
While the term has come to encompass a variety of normative claims and goals, it is fair to say that proponents of multiculturalism find common ground in rejecting the ideal of the “melting pot” in which members of minority groups are expected to assimilate into the dominant culture. Instead, proponents of multiculturalism endorse an ideal in which members of minority groups can maintain their distinctive collective identities and practices.
The prime directive says “don’t assimilate” the minority culture. This philosophy further associates with “cultural relativism.” Foundational to this thinking is the absence of objective truth, goodness, and beauty. With cultural relativism, one people cannot say that they are better than some other people in their beliefs, practices, and aesthetics.
If there is objective truth, goodness, and beauty, which there is, you help a culture when you intervene with the truth, goodness, and beauty. There is one God, no other. He is also the judge of the world. Every person, whatever culture he’s in, will face the same God.
The Bible teaches the polar opposite of the prime directive. Something is better than something else. One culture is superior to another.
Multiculturalism, the prime directive, or cultural relativism reject the truth. Satan wants men going down the broad way unaware that it sends them to eternal death. They think they’re fine, because no one can say with certainty what the truth is.
Cultures are different dependent upon their relationship to the truth. The closer to the truth, the better they are. If they aren’t following the truth, someone can help them by preaching the truth to them. God requires the violation of the prime directive.
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