I like to post videos of Paul Washer. It is because he so confidently stands for the Gospel as proclaimed in the Bible. There is no ambiguity. Every time he speaks you must deal with the truth of God’s Word and how it applies to you. Here is another dose of truth.
Below is the testimony of Paul Washer’s wife who once thought she was saved then realized she wasn’t. We can easily deceive ourselves.
Before the Israelites crossed over to take possession of the promised land, the Lord called for Moses to speak to them a message of remembrance and of obedience.
And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
Deuteronomy 29:2-4 ESV
In the 40 years they had traveled in the wilderness, the Israelites had experienced many blessings of God along with His holy judgment. Yet in all those years they never completely understood. As Moses said to them, “the Lord has not given you a heart to understand”. So it was the Lord that kept understanding from them. They never seemed to learn from their experiences. We see in the New Testament the same concept. When Jesus is asked why he speaks in parables, he does not respond with a popular answer. He says:
And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
Matthew 13:11-13 ESV
So the understanding of the parables was a gift of God not a product of the parables themselves. They were used by God either to reveal truth to those He gave understanding or to hide truth from those that did not have understanding. In this we are reminded of the sovereign power of God in salvation. Our ability to understand the truth of the Gospel is a gracious gift of the Lord.
As we take this to heart, believers must…
Respond in humility before the Lord and others. It is not by our own cleverness, birthright, nationality, education, or position that we understand anything of God. It is only by the power and will of God. We did not choose Him, He chose us. John 15:16
Give thanks to the Lord for His gift of understanding that flows from a new heart born from above.
Obey the command of the Lord to share the Gospel message with those we come in contact. The Lord has chosen to work through the weakness of believers to save the souls of people in all walks of life. We must act in faith out of love for God and for mankind to bring the life giving message of the Gospel to others. Romans 10:14-15
Be comforted that the miracle of salvation is not a work we are responsible to perform. We are not even required to create the atmosphere or determine the setting for the proclamation of the Gospel. It will never be because of a convincing argument, the right music, the right prayer, or other contrived methods that brings salvation. It is only and always a work of the Lord in spite of our methods and weaknesses. We are commanded to go and make disciples. As we are faithful to the Lord, He will respond in faithfulness to His Word and bring new life to dead souls.
That may not be the best opening line to share the Gospel. But Don Whitney at The Center For Biblical Spirituality lists some opening questions to get the conversation started along spiritual lines.
Many Christians suffer with unnecessary fears about sharing their faith. Once they finally get a conversation turned to the subject of the Gospel, however, most believers find that they’re able to manage quite well. Much of the time the biggest problem is simply moving a conversation from small talk to “big” talk, the biggest subject of all—the Gospel. Here’s a list of questions that can help. Some of them aren’t original with me, though I don’t recall where years ago I first heard the ones I’ve borrowed. I’ve found that the last one opens more doors for the Gospel in the widest variety of situations.
- When you die, if God says to you, “Why should I let you into Heaven?”, what would you say? Are you interested in what the Bible says about your answer?
- If you were to die tonight, where do you think you would spend eternity? Why? Are you interested in what the Bible says about this?
- Do you think much about spiritual things?
- How is God involved in your life?
- How important is your faith to you?
- What has been your most meaningful spiritual experience?
- Do you find that your religious heritage answers your questions about life?
- Do you have any kind of spiritual beliefs? If what you believe were not true, would you want to know it? Well, the Bible says . . . .
- To you, who is Jesus?
- I often like to pray for people I meet; how can I pray for you?
Copyright © 2002 Donald S. Whitney.
I don’t believe that face to face proclamation of the Gospel should ever be abandoned. Declaring the Gospel to thousands or one on one is the model of obedience to the Great Commission. Most often that is done in person, face to face, but living in the 21st century provides us with additional tools to reach people. Those people may be your neighbors or your close friends. But by God’s grace, with internet access and some basic skills, you can make contact with people across the country and all over the world. It’s scary and exciting all rolled into one.
When I was trying to decide how to share the Gospel on the internet, I found the Internet Evangelism Day website helpful. It offers ideas on how to get started; either as an individual or as a group ministry. Although I don’t agree with some of the content of the Gospel presentations, the site does provide good information regarding the operation of blogs, church websites, social media, podcasts, etc.
Internet Evangelism Day is an annual focus day for churches. This year, it is scheduled for Sunday April 25. It’s an opportunity for any church to explore with its members the opportunities for sharing the good news online. Perhaps surprisingly, you do not need to be technical to share your faith online. You can even volunteer to be an email mentor to inquirers with several large online outreach ministries.
Internet Evangelism Day is an initiative of the Internet Evangelism Coalition, based at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton.
More information: http://www.InternetEvangelismDay.com
An Appeal for the Use of House Churches to Extend Sanctuary-Style Churches
Jim Elliff of Christian Communicators Worldwide, along with being an author and conference speaker is the founding pastor of Christ Fellowship of Kansas City. As Jim Elliff states, “This church is a family of home congregations using the homes of members as the principle meeting places.” With the desire to spread the Gospel and reach the local community for Christ, many churches decide at some point that it is time to expand or build a new church building. Jim Elliff, based on his experience with the house church model and his study of the New Testament church, presents an alternative to building campaigns.
In the online version of The Briefing Phillipp Jensen writes about church planting. Before he begins addressing the topic, though, he lists three things that we must assume about church planting.
“Firstly, true Christian churches are planted only where the pure gospel of Christ is preached. We must not vary from the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified, with its accompanying call to faith and repentance. This is the foundation for building Christ’s church. This is the seed for planting. And we must not think that the church of Christ can be planted by any other method. If we are not preaching the gospel and seeing people come to faith through the power of the Spirit, then we are not planting churches. We may simply be transferring existing believers from one place to another. (This may be a good thing in some cases—especially if they are being ‘transferred’ from churches which are not teaching the Bible. But it is not planting so much as transplanting.)
Secondly, we cannot preach this gospel of Christ without carrying the cross, as he did. This is not optional. We cannot preach Christ and expect to avoid suffering. We cannot preach Christ and be popular. We cannot preach Christ without being willing to lay down our lives for the salvation of others.
Very often, the suffering will come in the form of persecution. And most painful of all, it will often be from other Christians. Just as for Christ it was his co-religionists who persecuted him most, so for us it will be members of other Christian churches and denominations who are most hostile towards church planting. Most Christians are all for evangelism and church planting, so long as it doesn’t affect them—the NIMBY syndrome (Not In My BackYard). But in a country like Australia, it is almost impossible to plant a church without affecting someone else. And when it does, tension and disagreement inevitably occurs. We cannot discuss church planting, and get involved in it, without being prepared to suffer for it.
Thirdly, any discussion of church planting assumes a passion for the lost. Millions of Australians will be born, grow old and die without ever hearing, in a meaningful way, about what Christ has done for them. The Bible may still be a top seller, but there is little evidence of it being high on the list of what people actually read. The lost are all around us. There are many areas, communities and sub-groups in our society which have little or no Christian witness within them. How can we reach them? We cannot expect them to come to us. We must go to them, and plant churches in their midst.”
Granted Ministries sells “The Gospel of Jesus Christ” tract. It is an excellent two sided tract that presents the full Gospel message using the Words of God. There are also scripture references that define assurance of salvation. The preview version is available in PDF format here.
Paul Washer gets to the heart of the matter when comparing defending the faith to proclaiming the Gospel.
This is a great sermon on election preached 26 years ago almost to the day by W.A. Criswell the pastor (at the time) of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The video certainly gives evidence of the age but the message is clear. God chooses according to His good pleasure and for the sake of His glory those that will be saved. The video is here and the transcript is here.
Below is a short biography of Dr. Criswell taken from the Criswell Sermon Library:
W. A. Criswell was born December 19, 1909 in Eldorado, Oklahoma. He received his B.A. from Baylor University, and his Th.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as pastor of First Baptist Church Chickasha, Oklahoma and First Baptist Church Muskogee, Oklahoma prior to being called as pastor of First Baptist Church Dallas in October of 1944. He served for fifty years as senior pastor of First Baptist Church, for many years the largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention, and preached more than four thousand sermons from its pulpit. He became Pastor Emeritus in 1995.
Dr. Criswell published fifty-four books and was awarded eight honorary doctorates. The Criswell College, First Baptist Academy, and KCBI Radio were started under his leadership. He served on the board of trustees of Baylor University, Baylor Health Care System, Dallas Baptist University, and The Baptist Standard. He also served as a member of the Annuity Board and as Chairman of the Trustees of the Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Resources). The Baptist Banner characterized his contribution to the Southern Baptist Convention as “historic”:
He is known as the patriarch of the “conservative resurgence,” returning the
SBC to its Bible-believing roots. Twice elected president of the SBC, in 1968
and 1969, during the 20 years that followed he was perhaps the most popular
preacher at evangelism and pastors’ conferences in America, while also preaching
extensively to mission fields worldwide.
As founder and chancellor of the Criswell College, Dr. Criswell gave his later years to preparing young preachers to preach the Word of God, emphasizing that a sermon should take God’s truth and “make it flame, make it live!” “The word we preach from our pulpits,” he declared, “ought to be like the Word of God itself–like a fire and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces (Jer 23:29).”
W. A. Criswell went home to be with the Lord January 10, 2002. His ministry continues through the messages he preached and the lives he touched during seventy-five years of pastoral service.
I am reading The Soul Winner by C.H.Spurgeon and have restrained myself from posting from virtually every page. But I wish to give in now and quote from the chapter titled Qualifications for Soul-Winning Manward. In that chapter Spurgeon lists evident earnestness as one of the qualifications.
“What earnestness our theme deserves! We have to tell of an earnest Saviour, an earnest heaven, and an earnest hell. How earnest we ought to be when we remember that in our work we have to deal with souls that are immortal, with sin that is eternal in its effects, with pardon that is infinite, and with terrors and joys that are to last for ever and ever! A man who is not in earnest when he has such a theme as this,—can he possess a heart at all?”
I saw this at Christ is Deeper Still blog and wanted to post it here as a continuation of my previous post.
Horatius Bonar, writing the preface to John Gillies’ Accounts of Revival, proposes that men useful to the Holy Spirit for revival have been marked in these nine ways:
1. They were in earnest about the great work on which they had entered: “They lived and labored and preached like men on whose lips the immortality of thousands hung.”
2. They were bent on success: “As warriors, they set their hearts on victory and fought with the believing anticipation of triumph, under the guidance of such a Captain as their head.”
3. They were men of faith: “They knew that in due season they should reap, if they fainted not.”
4. They were men of labor: “Their lives are the annals of incessant, unwearied toil of body and soul; time, strength, substance, health, all they were and possessed they freely offered to the Lord, keeping back nothing, grudging nothing.”
5. They were men of patience: “Day after day they pursued what, to the eye of the world, appeared a thankless and fruitless round of toil.”
6. They were men of boldness and determination: “Timidity shuts many a door of usefulness and loses many a precious opportunity; it wins no friends, while it strengthens every enemy. Nothing is lost by boldness, nor gained by fear.”
7. They were men of prayer: “They were much alone with God, replenishing their own souls out of the living fountain, that out of them might flow to their people rivers of living water.”
8. They were men whose doctrines were of the most decided kind: “Their preaching seems to have been of the most masculine and fearless kind, falling on the audience with tremendous power. It was not vehement, it was not fierce, it was not noisy; it was far too solemn to be such; it was massive, weighty, cutting, piercing, sharper than a two-edged sword.”
9. They were men of solemn deportment and deep spirituality of soul: “No frivolity, no flippancy . . . . The world could not point to them as being but slightly dissimilar from itself.”
