Evangelism Basics

Thank you, Dr. Anthony, for coming. Let's put our hands together and please welcome Dr. Anthony Saveshwar.

Good morning. It's always good to be here, so thank you again for having us back, my family and I. Let's start with a word of prayer. Lord, I just thank You for gathering us together. Thank You for just giving Casey the right words to say today and be able to empower us to speak to Jehovah's Witnesses properly and give us some great nuggets to be able to use in the short time they usually afford us to witness to them. Lord, I ask that You also allow me to speak with clarity and just allow us to just be ready to listen and learn and our hearts be prepared for that for just evangelism basics so that we can go out and do what we're called to do. Thank You also for the powerful testimony that was given this morning, Lord, and may that show all of us that anybody can be saved, right? I mean, we are all wretched sinners, all wretched sinners, and to hear any powerful testimony is just awesome to hear. And may we all have the same vigor to go out with the gospel that that gentleman had. In Your holy name, we pray. Amen.

So, evangelism basics. We want to know how we're actually going to go do this, right?

And so, this chapter, we're going to learn how to start the encounter, how to use the law, and then give people the gospel. Very much Ray Comfort style. And so, how do we reach the lost? What's the number one thing we need to do to be able to reach the lost? And it's probably the number one thing that we forget to do. Pray.

So many of the saints of yesteryear, the George Whitefields and Wesleys and others, would say that they spent twice the amount of time in prayer that they would spend out evangelizing and giving sermons. That's a lot of time in prayer that they spent. Maybe we ought to think more like this. And I know as Baptists, we generally have a doctrine. We do really well with singing. And what do we usually not do as well with? Prayer. And so, I'm just as guilty as everyone else, right? So, this is something we need to get in the habit of, and especially when we're out to evangelize. Maybe even in the morning, as you wake up and you say your morning prayer, say, "Hey, Lord, can you please bring people in my path to share the gospel with?" Or open my eyes to the people, as you said, right? Open my eyes to the people that need to hear the gospel today. Please lay people on my heart to share the gospel with. So, not only do we talk about prayer, but also laying the groundwork — our conduct makes a difference, right? We aren't to go out there and use the gospel as a weapon. I mean, it is a weapon. It's a powerful weapon, right?

But don't use it with a wrong attitude, right? So, 1 Peter 3:15, we're to go out and give an answer to those who ask in gentleness and respect, or meekness in fear in some translations. So, have correct conduct when we're out sharing the gospel. Recognize one thing. Paul called himself the chief of all sinners. Why? Because he knew his sin better than he knew your sin, right? So, he understood his sin, right? I can guarantee you, anybody we walk up to, we know our sins are far greater than what we know of their sins. So, we should walk into all of our evangelism encounters with humbleness. That if God can save a sinner like me, He can save any other sinner out there as well. And so, we have to be very humble in this. Recognize that our job is to be polite. Why? Because they're lost. See, when we're empowered by the Holy Spirit being saved, we have the ability to be polite. We have the ability to conduct ourselves in a proper manner. Guess what the non-Christian doesn't have the same power to do, right? They aren't empowered by the Holy Spirit. In fact, as we get into this, we're gonna know a little bit more about the unbeliever. So, next is we want to pray. We want to make sure that we are humble. We have correct conduct when we are evangelizing. But then this: when we walk into any encounter with anybody, there's a couple things that we need to know. And there's a couple things that the Bible tells us that we know about them already. And so, first and foremost is this. As we talked about Wednesday night and as Pastor Casey mentioned earlier, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, right? It's not my ability to give great evidences. It's not my ability to try to win them over. It's not my ability to do whatever. The power lies in the gospel. And so, we trust that the gospel can do the work. The gospel does do the work. And be humble in the fact that God allows us to be part of the salvation process in terms of sharing His word, according to Romans 10, Matthew 28, and other areas. And so, I've taught on this before, but I want to just do a quick primer, a quick refresher on this. Every single person that we walk up to, there are things we automatically know about them right off the bat.

According to Romans 1, and I'm going to read this for you real quick. This starts in verse 18, by the way. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known about God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." What is this passage saying here? It's that every person we walk up to knows God exists. Everybody. And they know it by His creation. So, the fact is, when people look up at the sun, moon, stars, they look at trees, like the miracle of childbirth, they can look at all this stuff and they recognize God exists. Creator God exists.

So, the burden of proof is not on us to prove to somebody God exists, because they inherently already know. So, no matter how much they tell us God doesn't exist, guess what? They know, and God is so convinced of it, He says they are without excuse.

We also see in this passage that if they don't profess Christ, if they don't profess, that means they're suppressing the truth about Him in their sin. So, when they don't acknowledge Him, they're lying to you, because they know who God is.

Now, as I said earlier about our conduct, this person who's an unbeliever is suppressing the truth about Him in their sin. So, they know He exists, but they're pretending He doesn't exist. Just like when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit, what's the first thing they did? They covered themselves with fig leaves, covered their shame that they now had, and then they went and attempted to hide from God.

This is what every unbeliever does. They all try to hide from God. And think of this as a beach ball. I've used this example before. Imagine, you know, here in sunny Florida, you're holding a beach ball underwater. It takes effort to do this, right? You're actively holding this beach ball down. That beach ball wants to pop up on you in every different direction. This is what the unbeliever is doing with the truth of God by creation. They are suppressing the truth about God actively, because they don't want to acknowledge Him, because they don't want to be held accountable to Him. And so, when we come up to them, and we have the truth of Scripture, oftentimes, how are they going to respond to us? With anger, with disdain, with upset, right? Because as we're peeling those fingers back, and they're so desperately trying to hold that ball down, that ball wants to come up on them. And so, we have to maintain our composure, maintain our conduct, and fully expect that they may not. Because we're challenging them on this worldview that they have. We're challenging them on the fact that they don't want to know God exists, or they want to continue to pretend He doesn't exist. So, we have to keep this in mind. Everybody knows He exists, and that they're suppressing the truth about Him in their sin, if they're not acknowledging Him. Now, we can go on to Romans 2, which we've also taught on in the past here, verses 14 and 15. It says this, "For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." The moral law is written in everybody's heart. So, every single person we walk up to knows God exists. If they don't acknowledge Him, they're suppressing the truth about Him in their sin. And guess what? They know they're sinners. Because the moral law is written on their heart. They know exactly what they're doing. And so, we can rest in the fact that every person we walk up to has these things going on. It applies to every single person we encounter. This idea of the moral law written on their heart is... You've probably seen old cartoons where somebody's deciding what to do, right? Do right from wrong. What do we see depicted? An angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, right? This is what's going on in everybody's mind. It says their conscience testifies, their conscience bears witness. So, everybody has this battle because they have an absolute sense of right from wrong that comes directly from God. So, as we put these together, again, I'm repeating this now for the fourth time: everyone knows God exists. The moral law is written in everyone's heart. People who don't profess Him suppress the truth about Him in their sin, and their sin condemns them to hell. Like, they know there's a punishment for their sin. Maybe they don't know it's hell, although I think they inherently do. And then ultimately, they're going to stand without excuse. They're not going to be able to stand in front of God on Judgment Day and say, "God, You didn't give me enough evidence. I just didn't know You existed." And then somebody's going to say, "Hogwash, I gave you all you ever needed to know."

And so, this is the background now that leads us into a proper encounter with an unbeliever. So, we want to start the conversation with them, number one. Number two, give them the good person test. And number three, give the gospel. These are our three points that we're going to go through right now. So, number one, how do you open a conversation with someone? You said it best. It was outstanding during the testimony.

But there's a couple of ways I'm going to give. Number one is the easiest way: gospel tracts. So, you've got a bunch on your tables. I've got some gospel tracts here. As you walk down the street, as you check out of the grocery store, as you are leaving the bank from the bank teller, "Hey, have you gotten one of these yet?" And just hand it to them. Hand them a tract. The great thing about these is they're called paper missionaries, because they go everywhere you don't go.

So, you can, in fact, even when drunk people walk by, hand it to them. Say, "Just put it in your pocket." And oftentimes, they listen to you, and they just do. And so, you pray the next morning they'll go through their jeans pockets and, "What's this?" And read it. There are people who've gotten saved that way. So, these can go a lot farther than where we can go.

It's also great to use these tracts. What I love when I get credit card offers in the mail — the self-addressed, right? They're already stamped for you. What I'm thinking is that they sent this to me specifically because they want a gospel tract. So, I save them. I actually open all my junk mail just to see if I got a postage paid envelope in there. And I have more mail going out today from that than anything else.

So, my gospel tract's going there. When you go to the store, you can drop them in the 24 cases of beer, you know? You can just drop them right in there in the handle. There are people who've gotten saved that way. So, I got a lot of great ideas that I didn't come up with. These are all from other people, right? But you can use gospel tracts in so many ways. One of our favorites — how many of you pump gas?

After you put your credit card in there and you stick the nozzle in, for those two minutes you're waiting for your car to pump, stick this in the credit card slot. The next person that has to go get gas will have to pull this out first before they get to the credit card in. So, like, there's all kinds of things you can do with these gospel tracts. They're absolutely wonderful. Now, of course, in the context of today's talk, it's going to be how do we get into conversations with people, right? And so, gospel tracts do a great job of that. You hand them a gospel tract. Oftentimes they'll ask, "Well, what's this?" You can tell them, "This gives you the message of Jesus Christ." And oftentimes just that alone will allow you to get into a conversation with them and just start talking. Now, there's a lot of different gospel tracts out there. I don't have time to get into all these today, but there are different tracts out there. If you're walking on a beach, one of my favorite ones to use is the man card. So, the biggest of guys you might be intimidated to go up to, you'd be like, "Hey, have you gotten a man card yet?" And the girl next to him will always laugh, which makes him have to take it. And then that has a good man's gospel message on the back of it. But there's a lot of great ones. Christmas time, one of the things my wife and I love to do every time we come down here for Christmas to Orlando is on Christmas morning or Christmas Eve, we'll walk International Boulevard and we'll give away 500 of those Santa card tracts. Merry Christmas. Here you go. And people will take them. This year, on our way down, my wife gave away all 500 of them. We didn't even get a chance to walk International Boulevard this year because she gave them all away on her way down. So, we have to buy more for next year. So, yeah, praise God, right? They all went. But these are some great ways that are just kind of fun and they're lighthearted to give to somebody. There's some more serious ones that aren't as funny, but, you know, "Faith Alone" is one of these on the screen. I don't always give it to people. "Have you gotten one of these yet?" Let them read it. Some great tracts, great messages. The best thing about companies like this, Pastor Casey, is that you can actually order your own tracts. You can put your own messaging on the back and you can put your church information on the front of them. So, you can use it as a way to go out and tell people about your church and the gospel's on the back of it. So, it's a wonderful way to get out there and share not only good news, but also the good news about your church here. In saying all this, I don't know if this has been done yet, but if it's not, I've talked to Pastor Casey about it already. So, under your church Facebook group, you guys are going to start a Facebook group page for evangelism. We've done this with other churches that I've taught at and it's a wonderful thing for anybody who's on Facebook. The next time you take a tract and stick it in a gas pump, take a quick picture on your phone, put it on your Facebook page, on this Facebook page, and encourage one another in your church to continue to evangelize. When you start doing your... What we used to do is a tract placement of the day. Friends of mine and I would do this. So, we'd come up with those clever places to put a tract, take a picture, stick it online, and we would entice everyone else to want to do it even better and do another one somewhere else. And so, these things would be really effective if you all get on board and do it. So, it's a lot of fun. One of my other favorite ways to get into conversation is by the question that you asked before. "If you die today, what do you think will happen to you?" "If you die today, would you go to heaven or hell?" Now, that sounds like it's a very forward question, right? Like an intimidating question. I promise you that every single person on this planet thinks about that question. Even the atheists, because they know God exists too. Yes, they do, right? They know He exists. So, even they will respond to this question. And so, ask it. Because people — here's the thing. Here's a big secret, right? This is a big secret in dating, even in Christian dating, right? That if you ask questions, people want to tell you their answers, right? This is a big secret. Men, trying to court your female, just ask lots of questions. Women love to talk. And the more they talk to you, the more they're being drawn to you, right? Well, all of us are like this. Let's be honest, right? Who do we love the most?

Ourselves, right? I mean, you know how much we try not to? We do. And we love to talk about ourselves. So, if you ask us questions, guess what? We're going to want to give you answers, right? We want to give you our opinions. And so, asking this question, which is a question everybody thinks about, will almost always elicit a response. And when they give you an answer, guess what you get a chance to do? Respond. And say, "Let me tell you what God says." And you give it to them. You go right into it. It is amazing how effective — so thank you for bringing it up. This is, I think, the most powerful, most effective question you could possibly ask. It's my favorite one to use, and it's the one I almost exclusively use. So, remember that question. Here's another one. If you don't want to be quite as forward, I use this. I don't have time to get into all my stories. I have some great ones with this. But next time you go to the bank or anywhere where you have just a quick minute to talk to somebody — bank teller, do your deposits on a Thursday or Friday, cash or check, paycheck, whatever. You go to the bank teller and you ask, "Hey, what good plans do you have for this weekend?" And she'll say... And guess what question they'll almost always ask back to you. How about you? "I'm glad you asked. Well, you know, I've got this going on tomorrow and I'll be going to church on Sunday. By the way, where do you go to church?" And see what they say. And now you've got the door open to the gospel. Another really effective question or tool to use. That sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. I gotta get better at this one. Restaurant server — next time we go out to eat. I'm always faithful to leave a tract. Sometimes I'm not as faithful to remember to do this in the beginning. But right after you sit down and they take your water order, your drink order, you can say, "Hey, we're Christians and we'll be praying before we eat. What can we pray for you in your life right now?" And it's amazing how often they'll say, "You know what? Thank you for saying that. I've got stuff going on in my life." Even people who don't believe in God will still give you something to pray for them for a lot of the time. So it's another powerful question which will open up a conversation later on in your meal. So great, great question. And even if you don't have an opportunity — because servers are really busy, right? You don't get an opportunity maybe to get into a more in-depth conversation during that meal. But when you leave that gospel tract at the end, with a nice tip, by the way — don't leave a cheap tip. Leave a nice tip. Leave a gospel tract. They are much more inclined to read that gospel tract that you've left. Okay, so those are some great points. This is how we can get ourselves into a conversation. The next important part of this is that you want to make sure you swing your conversation from the natural to the spiritual. Jesus did this with the woman at the well in John 4. We see Paul doing this in Acts 17. It'll be covered in this book, Gospel Reset. But Paul looked at the statute of the unknown God and said, "You know who that is? Jesus Christ." So we have an ability in conversations to channel conversations to the spiritual. Let's do those things. This past year and a half, we've had people running around like madmen — masking, face shields, hiding in houses, all kind of... I mean, I would walk down through Costco aisles, because we didn't believe in wearing masks for real science reasons. We'd walk down aisles and we would see people slay themselves in the sides of aisles because they wanted to avoid us, right? All because of fear. And so we had — what a wonderful ability we had in the last year and a half and continue to have — to say, "Look, Christians, we don't fear death. God has numbered our days. We have an appointment when we're gonna die and no virus is gonna take us out any faster than what God has already ordained for us." Yep. It's there already, right? Appointment made, days are numbered. And so we had a huge opportunity and still do to talk to people about the fear mongering that is out there and say, "Look,

the only one you have to fear is God. If you fear death, there's an inherent reason why you fear death. It's because, let's be honest, you know God exists. You're gonna have to face Him one day. How do you think you're gonna fare on that day in regards to your sins against Almighty God?" And yes, I have that conversation that fast with somebody. Because when you know somebody's so captivated by fear, you can transition like this. I'm not saying they're gonna like your conversation, right? They may reject you completely, but it doesn't matter because your job is to stand on the Word of God and to say, "Look, this is why you really fear." And you know how you've got a gospel transition like this and you give them the gospel. So, so very powerful. Now we're gonna talk about how do we walk through the gospel presentation, right? So as I've said before here at the church, I'm gonna repeat again. Imagine I'm a medical doctor who just discovered the cure for cancer. Now imagine that, if you looked at everybody in this country today, somewhere around four to six percent of the population has cancer at any given time, most don't know it yet.

So at some point they're gonna get that diagnosis and start to get treatment for it. But imagine that you run up and down a parade route. You just discovered the cure for cancer. You're up and down a parade route saying, "I got the cure for cancer. I got the cure for cancer. I got the cure for cancer." Now most people in this crowd don't know they have cancer, right? So what are they gonna say to you? "Well, you know what? That's cool. I'm glad you got that. It seems like a good thing, but you know what? I don't have cancer. I don't have the disease. I don't really need that." And so they're gonna by and large ignore us because the cure doesn't mean anything to somebody who doesn't have the disease first. So we have to understand that if we just talk about Christ to people, or if we just talk about — which is infamous in horrible churches today — just talk about the love of Jesus. If all we're doing is talking about the love of Jesus and, "Oh, He wants you to go to heaven. He wants this. He wants this." By and large those things are true, but unless they understand their condition first, unless they understand their disease of sin first, they don't understand the cure. And so this is what I call the great equalizer: the law. Almost every single person that you walk up to today, if you ask them if they're going to heaven or hell, most people will say, "I'm going to heaven," or think they're going to heaven. Almost everybody will, even the atheist. To which you say, "Well, why do you think you're going to heaven?" And guess what response they give you? "Well, I'm a good person," or, "I treat people well. I love people. I walk old ladies across the street." I mean, they've got all kinds of reasons, all pointing to the fact that they think they're good enough, that somehow their good is going to outweigh their bad, or somehow God's only gonna look at their good and not their bad, that somehow the scales of justice will tip in their favor and they'll be just good enough to get in. And so we use the law to show people their true state of where they're at. Galatians 3:24 says, "Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." And there's plenty of other passages in the Bible to talk about the use of the law. And so what we like to do is use the Ten Commandments. I mean, those are easy, right? Because pretty much everybody knows the Ten Commandments. And if they don't know the Ten Commandments, guess where they're written anyway? On their heart. So they inherently know that murder is wrong. They inherently know that stealing is wrong. They inherently know that adultery is wrong. They inherently know all these things. And so what our mission is to do is to not ourselves point to them as sinners, but to use God's word in the law to show them they're sinners. Let them have to look in the mirror of God's law. And so our job is to, as Spurgeon said for the unbeliever, preach 90% law, 10% grace. Give them the law. And so we look at some of the commandments, right? First three commandments: "Have no other gods before me." Number two, "Have no idols or graven images." Number three, "Do not take the Lord's name in vain." We can go to, "Do not murder. Do not commit adultery," — the sixth and seventh commandments. Last three: "Do not steal. Do not lie." And I think I got a typo there. "Do not covet" is the last one. But so these are just a rundown of some of the Ten Commandments that we can use. Now you can imagine how some of these commandments might be pretty powerful to use in a witnessing encounter. And so what we want to do is use several of these commandments to show people they're sinners. So this is how it looks. I'm first in this good person test going to use myself as an example, that I am a sinner, that I have broken God's law continuously. And so what I'm going to do in this good person test is when somebody says... When I ask them, "Hey, are you going to heaven when you die?" And they say, "Well, I think so," or, "I'm pretty sure I will. Why? Because I'm a good person." Okay, so always get their name, by the way, in this conversation. Okay, so Frank, would you mind taking the good person test with me? I want to take it with you. Let's see how good we actually are. I do it with a smile, right? And almost always they're like, "Okay, sure. Let's do the good person test together." See? Cool. And say, "Have you ever told a lie, Frank?" I mean, I have. I've told lies in the past. And Frank will say, "Well, yeah, I mean, okay, I've told lies." So good. So what do you call someone who's told a lie before? A liar, right? You're right, Frank. You're a liar. So am I. Sometimes they'll just say, "Sinner." I say, "Okay, what's the specific thing you've done?" Okay, you're a liar. Now, sometimes they get offended, right? "Wait, wait, I'm not a liar. I've only told a lie a few times." Okay, Frank, if you shot somebody and killed them, what would you be called? Even if you only did it once? You'd be called a killer, a murderer, right? So guess what — if you only told even one lie, you're a liar, right? Like, you only had to do it once and you get labeled with this. Inherently they know it; we use a real-life example for it. Okay, so you're a liar. Frank, so am I. Have you ever stolen anything in your life? Even something small. Maybe even playing on your phone during work hours, because that's stealing time from your boss. Uh-oh, I think we've all done that a bunch of times. And Frank will say, "Well, okay, okay, maybe I've stolen — maybe just small things." Some people tell you, "Well, I don't... Maybe as a little kid, I stole like a pen." Okay, well, it's still stealing, so you're still a thief. Right? So, okay, so Frank, you're now a liar and so am I, and we're both thieves. Okay, now let me give you a little harder one. Frank, have you ever lusted after someone before, had impure sexual thoughts about a woman before?

To which men and women will usually say, "Well, yeah." You know, Frank, Jesus calls lust committing adultery in your heart. Did you know that? It's a pretty serious case. You know, Frank, have you ever spoken ill of someone before or hated somebody?

You know, Jesus called that committing murder in your heart against that person.

You know, Frank, by your own admission, you're a liar, you're a thief, you're an adulterer at heart, and you're a murderer at heart. Now, how do you think God is going to view you on Judgment Day? I mean, every man has an appointment — he's appointed to die, and then the judgment. Every one of us is going to have to give an accounting for everything we've ever done. And we're going to face God Almighty when we die, and He's going to see our long list of sins. He's going to see that we're a liar. He's going to see that we're a thief. He's going to see that we're an adulterer at heart, a murderer at heart. How do you think He's going to look at your sins? Are you going to be deemed innocent or guilty? Now, a lot of the times, they'll say guilty. To which, what do we do? We go into the gospel message, right? We give them the good news of the gospel and say, "Look, I agree, you'd be guilty based on your own merit, and so would I. But let me tell you what God has done for me." And you give them the good news of the gospel. Now, sometimes, they're going to give you some objections, right? Sometimes they're not going to be so quick to say that they're guilty before God. They're going to say things like, "Oh, well, I'm more good than bad still. I mean, isn't God a forgiving God anyway? I mean, I've still done a lot of good in life, so why would He look at me in this light when I've done a lot of good? I mean, I've donated a lot of money, and I love people, and I treat people well in general. And I mean, isn't He going to let me off?" To which, if you weren't here on Wednesday night, you've got to go back and watch the video from Wednesday. There are ways around that issue, right? There are ways to talk to people about the fact that if you've broken even one law here on earth, if you've robbed one bank, if you've accidentally run over one person, you're not going to be able to go in front of a judge and say, "Judge, can't you let me off this crime because I've done a lot of good works?" The judge is going to say, "No, it doesn't matter how much good you've ever done. You still ought to be punished by the law, and if you've done something wrong, you must be punished for what you did wrong. It doesn't matter how much good." And so, that's how we walk through this issue. And once we've done this, we give the good news of the gospel. See, this is how simple it is. We open up a conversation, we ask them where they're going to go when they die, heaven or hell. We walk them through the good person test to show them that on their merits alone, they deserve hell. And now we say, "Here's some good news for you," because everything right now, Frank, has sounded pretty bad, hasn't it? It's pretty bleak right now, right? To which they will usually agree with you, and you go into the good news. Here's the good news, Frank. The very God

who is going to sit on His throne and judge the living and the dead, the same judge who's going to judge everyone — that judge is God Himself, who came down to make a way for you. Jesus Christ, fully God, who's going to sit on that judgment seat, came down, took on flesh, and that Jesus lived this perfect life that you and I are incapable of. I mean, think of the thousands, tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of sins you commit in your life. By the way, Frank, here's some quick math for you. If you've committed even three sins a day — now granted, we probably commit three sins every minute if we think about our thought lives, right? But let's say just three sins a day; you've broken God's law three times a day, times 365 days a year. In one year, you've broken God's law over a thousand times. In 10 years, over 10,000 times. Frank, you look to be around 30, 40 years old — you've broken His law 30,000, 40,000 times if you've only done it three times a day. You've got a laundry list of sins. You've got a rap sheet as far as I can see. Jesus lived a life over 30 years on this planet, not breaking even one law, not having even one bad thought cross His mind. Jesus Christ came, lived that perfect life we're incapable of, and went to the cross — to die for His own sin? No, He had none. He had to die for the sins of those who repent and believe, and through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, He paid that penalty in full. See, Frank, it goes like this. Either you will have to suffer the consequences in eternity where the wrath of God — the full wrath of God — will be put upon you for eternity. Or, the better option is that Jesus on the cross took that same full wrath from His own Father. He paid that penalty in full, and that payment can be applied to you through repentance and faith. Jesus commands repent and believe, and the moment you repent and believe, your sins are transferred to Him on that cross, and His payment for sin is transferred to you. Oh, and Frank, it gets even better, because according to 2 Corinthians 5:21, which was covered earlier today, not only are your sins paid for, but you've actually been given the righteousness of Christ. That

when we die and we face God, we go immediately to heaven. Why? Because the Father is going to see His Son's righteousness cloaking us, and that's what gets us there. It's an amazing, powerful gospel that we can give in this manner to people. And so, we can frame the gospel however we want, right? I gave you one presentation. Sometimes I do it different ways, but here's the important thing about the gospel presentation. As Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says, "This is the gospel I preached to you, unless you believed in vain — that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, and is raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." As we did on Wednesday night, we practiced this idea of knowing Christ died according to the Scriptures. He was buried, raised according to the Scriptures. Remember these key words: His death, burial, and resurrection to pay the penalty of our sin. That's the gospel message we must proclaim. It is nothing less than that, and honestly, nothing more than that either. We can talk much more about the gospel, fill in a lot of the blanks. We can go back to creation and talk about how all this started, but this is the gospel. Now, what if somebody says, "You can't judge me,"

right? Happens all the time. I mean, doesn't the Bible say, "Judge not," after all? To which we have explanations for that, right? We can say that the Bible doesn't actually say, "Judge not," period. The Bible says, "Don't judge hypocritically." In fact, Christians are called to judge one another — if we see one another in sin, we're to call it out in gentleness and respect, one on one, not gossiping to other people about it, right? That's your first step in Matthew 18. But the fact is, "Look, Frank, I'm not the one judging you." All I did is pull out God's law, and I let you see yourself in comparison with what God's law says. This is not me judging you. This is the God of the universe judging. And this is how He's going to judge you in the end when you die. So it's easy to transfer this idea of them trying to pin it on us, right? Because that's what people often want — those who are non-Christians, right? They want to be like, "You Christians are telling me this. You Christians are judgmental. You Christians believe in this stuff." Hold on a second. This is what God believes. This is what God says. All I'm doing is repeating what He says. Don't kill the messenger. I'm just telling you what God says. And then you leave it up to God, right? We leave it up to the power of the Holy Spirit to convert the heart. We're just being His messenger. Now, here's what's interesting — oftentimes people will say, "Well, that doesn't sound loving." And you know who usually says that? Professing Christians. Professing Christians who aren't saved are the hardest people to reach, in my opinion. And so I can't tell you how many times I've preached on street corners. College campuses are horrific for this. I have had Campus Crusade for Christ — now called CRU, which is a completely heretical organization — come up to me, and it's always fun. You know, you're out preaching and you've got this group of like three or four people that are just standing there so patiently waiting to talk to you. And I'll always know who they are, because the ones that are angry at you aren't waiting that same way, right? They're shaking their head while you're talking, right? They're just waiting patiently, so kind, and you get down off your box, the next guy comes up and preaches and they're like, "You know, we're glad you're here, but you know, we think you're doing it all wrong." I can't tell you how many times I've heard this. Really? How do you think I'm doing it wrong? And I know what's coming. "Well, you're not preaching about the love of Christ. The gospel is about love." To which I say, "Hey, let's open to 1 Corinthians 15 and let's see what Paul says."

I don't see love written here. Oh, in fact, if I went through the book of Acts — which is, would you agree, Campus Crusade for Christ, would you agree that the book of Acts is the greatest evangelistic book ever written, which has numerous presentations, numerous times of the gospel being presented? Do you think this might be the best book ever written? Guess how many times, when you go home tonight, you read through the book of Acts, the word love is written in there. I can promise you it's less than one. It's not that the word love isn't in there. Now, it doesn't mean that it's not about love, right? I mean, the cross is all about all of God's attributes being there. His love, His wrath, His mercy, His justice, His omnipotence, His omniscience. I mean, all of His attributes are fully on display on that cross. The thing is, go to 1 John 4, and if you want to turn there, go there with me, because this is a passage that if you're going to start doing a lot of witnessing, you want to put a sticky note on 1 John 4. You also want to do the same on 1 Corinthians 15, by the way. But I want to read this to you because when you go to homosexual parades, you talk to homosexuals, you talk to people who are non-Christians, they always want to tell you you're not preaching love.

To which I say, how are we supposed to define love? And I say, we can't actually define love unless we define it in God's terms. What does God say about love? 1 John 4, verses 8 through 10. "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love," right? Everyone has to quote this fact that God is love. But read on. "By this the love of God was manifested — that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." What is this saying? God is love, and the greatest manifestation of His love for human beings is through the cross. That's His greatest expression to us. You cannot talk about God's love absent of the cross. Everywhere you see God's love in the New Testament, for people, it is connected to the cross. How about John 3:16? We're Baptists here. We all have this memorized, right? "For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son."

It's always there. Love and the cross cannot be separated. So if somebody comes to you and says you're not preaching about love, you say, "Yes, I am, because His love was manifest on the cross." And unless you preach the cross, unless you preach sin, you aren't actually preaching God's love. You're preaching a false gospel. And we know what Galatians has to say about that. You're anathema.

I can't be any more clear about this issue. As for those of you who are disappointed from Wednesday night, this is one of the things I was going to cover. I'm going to cover two more quick topics and then we're going to end here. "That's just your interpretation." How many of you heard this one before? "It's just your interpretation." And I'll say, let me just read it to you. Just open up your Bible, read the gospel. Open your Bible, read the Ten Commandments. Open your Bible, read what it says about homosexuals. Right? I mean, there's always a Bible passage for that. And we don't have time to get into all of these today. Maybe in the future, you guys can put together a list of all these objections. I've got a list of them as well. And I can show you everywhere in the Scriptures to mark, to talk to somebody about every single thing they'll tell you. But here's the key. When they say that's just your interpretation,

your response is always, "No, this is what the Word of God says." Stand on the authority of Scripture. Whether you open up the book or not, whether you have time to open it or not, whether they let you open it or not, it doesn't matter. You claim the authority of Scripture and you let them wrestle with the Holy Spirit. So the last thing I'll cover is what about kids? Right? How do we witness to kids? Guess how? The exact same way. I've done this. Oh look, kids — actually, kids are really fun to witness to. Okay, Johnny.

Have you ever told a lie to your parents before?

Oh, I got a better one. Hey, Johnny. Have you always, 100% without fail, always listened to your parents? And guess what kids will readily tell you? No, they don't. They'll actually say it. Kids are truthful, right? Unlike adults. They'll tell you the truth — like, "I haven't always obeyed."

You're right. And so usually that's all I have to get to, right? Have you ever told a lie? Have you always obeyed your parents? Have you always honored your parents — going to the fifth commandment? You can ask them if they ever stole anything. I mean, you can do some others, but the fact is, kids are readily going to tell you the truth to which, guess what you do?

Give them the gospel. The same way you would an adult. Probably not wise to talk about lust with a six-year-old. Leave that one out. But really, yeah — not appropriate, but some of these other commandments are absolutely wonderful to use. So we talked about the encounter already, what we're going to do. As a church, maybe on a Wednesday night you guys can do this. Practice. And so I can leave these slides with Pastor Casey. Have two people and you actually practice the encounter because the more you hear yourself giving the good person test, the more you hear yourself giving the gospel, the more you're going to be inclined to do it out there.

So this is something to practice. We've talked about our books in the past. My book on the Origin of Kinds — I wrote it, I think it's almost five years now — I came out with this. Great book on evangelism, great tool. I think a lot of you have it already. It teaches you how to evangelize the same way we talked about today, with creation apologetics, presuppositional apologetics. If you want to know more about what we believe as Christians and want a really good resource — like, a lot of people don't want to read Wayne Grudem's systematic theology, which is this big, or others, right? You can read Andrew's book, which is this big. It gives you all the same stuff. Great book to read. He's also got a great book, "Witnessing to the Cults." So giving a lot of information — Pastor Casey did a great job today dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses. Pastor Andrew goes through his book on Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims, and several other religions on what they believe and really how to witness to them. And so, do I have time for one more, Pastor Casey? Thank you. Give us some more. This is great. Okay. So we're going to end on this one here. I'm going to walk through this for just about five minutes. Probably in the future we'll go through this a little bit more in depth. But the most common objection that we hear today, the most common thing that we hear is, "Oh yeah, Mr. Christian, Mrs. Christian, if God is so powerful, so good, why do bad things happen?"

I've got numerous stories on this. And so we have to know how to answer this question properly.

So how do we do that? Well, as I say, every doctrine the Bible teaches goes back to Genesis,

and so does this one. In Genesis 2, we're going to explain to them what happened. We're going to explain to them what happened in Genesis 3. What happened in Genesis 2? Right there in the middle of Genesis 2 around verse 15: "God came to Adam before Eve was made," by the way. He "came to Adam and said, 'Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.'" We see in Genesis 3, after Eve was now made, Eve is being tempted by the serpent. She gives in. Adam, who stood by her side, didn't protect her,

didn't correct her, maybe didn't even teach her properly to begin with. Amen, right? Which is why Paul, later on in the New Testament, talks about why women are to be subject to men, why men are to be the ones teaching in the church, why women are not to have authority over men, right? We say all these things because of the fall, right? So in Genesis 3, in the fall, what happens is that immediately they died spiritually, right? Their eyes were now open, they realized they were naked and now ashamed from that, and so they covered themselves with fig leaves.

By the way, that's the first time that works righteousness ever occurred.

They tried to cover their own shame. God deemed it not good enough and replaced that with animal skins — the first animal sacrifice that would carry through the entire Old Testament.

So when that happened — immediate spiritual death. God curses creation, and then at the end, Genesis 3:19 says, "From dust you are, to dust you shall return" — the promise of future physical death. In this cursing of creation, we have to recognize that the creation was meant to be perfect in the beginning. It was through Adam's sin that the entire creation fell. Death entered, and with death, all the bad things. So death, disease, famine, thorns and thistles, cancer — you name it — entered into creation because of Adam's sin. So if we understand Genesis 3, who's to blame for all the evil in the world? Mankind, not God.

This is easy for us to answer.

Now, one of the clever ways we can do it is this. We can answer from Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, right. This is a great way to answer this question — to walk them through the fact that it's not God's fault, it's man's. God is reconciling His creation to Himself as time goes on. Oh, by the way, you know why He still tarries right now? Because if He came down and ended the creation today, if He came down today and ended all sin, guess what? You'd be in hell for eternity.

The reason why He allows this sinful creation to continue is because He is long-suffering. It's His grace and mercy allowing you to breathe another day to repent and believe.

Be very pointed with somebody who asks this question. He allows this to occur because of you.

Repent, right? I mean, we can be very direct. When they ask a question like this,

it's because of them that He allows it to continue. Make it a point. But one of the other things I like to ask is this question. When they say, "If God is so good and so powerful, why do bad things happen?" I like to ask the question, "Hold on a second,

based on your statements using these terms 'good' and 'bad,' you're making a moral claim. How do you define good and evil? Where does that come from?

Because here's the reality: for you to claim good and evil, you have to have an absolute standard of good and evil.

You have to have a true measuring stick for this." Now us as believers — you guys don't mind if we go a few more minutes? You guys good on this? You mind? Okay. So keep in mind they have the moral law written in their heart, right? They have an absolute sense of right from wrong. But the problem is, in their worldview they can't account for it. When they don't acknowledge God as the one who sets all things right, when they don't acknowledge God as the one who is the keeper of good and evil, as the standard of it, when they don't acknowledge Him, they have a humanistic method for it. They have to explain away God because they're suppressing the truth about Him, and they have to now come up with their own standard. There are only four ways they can do this. The first one is going to be personal opinion. The second one is going to be what benefits society. The third one is going to be the laws of society. The fourth one is going to be their personal feelings. This is all they can ever come up with, right? This is how we're going to show that their standard is the wrong standard — that's what's responsible for wrong. When we ask them, "What is your absolute standard for good and evil? Your absolute standard for right from wrong — what is it?" Usually the first thing they'll say to you is,

the moral code is based on what I believe.

Right? Very common for them to say this. Now we have to put our thinking caps on, us Christians, right? If they're saying it's based on what I believe to be right from wrong, then we can say, "How can you condemn murderers and rapists and burglars? Because the person who murdered thought it was right to murder. How would they be wrong if it's just about personal opinion?" Oh, how about this? What if they murdered your entire family?

That would be right, wouldn't it? Because that's what they believed.

So, once we do that, then they're like, "Okay, well, maybe it's not about personal opinion anymore." So maybe then instead, the standard — and by the way, oftentimes they'll go through this list without even recognizing it. Sometimes it's out of order, but a lot of times it's right down this list. So, once you show them it can't be personal opinion, because that's not an absolute standard — that's just a humanistic standard — then they'll go to, "Well, the moral code is based on what benefits society as a whole, right? So, what benefits society?" To which you can say, "Well,

different cultures have different conventions, don't they? Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime carried out what they believed benefited society — to exterminate six million Jews, along with many mentally disabled people, Christians, and Catholics.

Was that right?

So, maybe it's not about what benefits society, is it?" To which then there's usually a third response. "Well, then it's based on the laws of society. Like, people in general are good people, so people can come up with laws that are generally good." Oh, really? So if that's the case, then that means slavery was okay 150 years ago.

That means Jim Crow laws were fine 70, 80 years ago.

Oh, you don't think so? So, maybe it's not about the laws, then. Oh, and by the way, if the standard is absolute, but laws can change over time, does that mean it's absolute if it can change? No, that doesn't work either. So, it can't be that the standard is based on the laws of society.

To which then they usually go to the last one: "Well, you know what? It's just what makes me feel good, right?" This is what people always rely upon — their feelings. Almost every cult today, ultimately, is based on their own feelings and emotions. Most of our Christian cults out there, like the New Apostolic Reformation Movement and some of these soft-gospel churches out there, want to promote feelings rather than doctrine, and there's a reason for that, because they can pull people into their cult that way. Feelings are powerful, and so they'll be like, "Well, the moral code is just based on my feelings." Oh, really? Well, how do you think it makes a rapist feel when he's raping people, including your wife? And yes, I will get that personal with people, because you have to make sure that they understand how foolish their statement is.

And so, here's the bottom line, unbeliever. Here's the bottom line, Frank: you've given me four different reasons. You've tried to claim the absolute moral code, the absolute moral law, comes from either personal opinion, the benefit of society, the laws of society, or feelings. Here's the reality. There's no way to come up with an absolute standard among human beings, because no matter what, it can change. We can have differences of opinion. The only way you can have an absolute standard is if it comes from God, who projects it down onto us. One who is higher than us gives us a universal, absolute moral code that is always in effect. That's the only way it works. So what you've done with this question — when they ask you, "If God's so powerful, so good, why do bad things happen?" — you say, "Look, by the mere fact that you think there's an absolute standard, that you know there's an absolute standard, proves you know God exists." Repent and believe. It's literally as simple as that. I'm gonna cover one last thing — two minutes, I promise. Because some people are going to ask this question: "What about the believer?"

Believers ask this question, right? They ask, "Well, I don't understand. Why did God take away my child? Why did God take away my spouse? We're so young." How do we answer that to the believer?

Well, the Bible gives us answers as it always does. John 9, verses 1 through 7, the blind man. The apostles asked Jesus in this encounter, "Who sinned — this man or his parents?" What was their assumption? That this guy was born blind because of some sin. And Jesus said, "Nope, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." You're like, "What? What did You say, Jesus?" "That the works of God might be displayed in him." That means that God has a purpose for evil in this world. God uses all things for His good; everything is to His glory. Even Adam's fall — which, by the way, He knew was going to happen before the foundation of the world — was used for His glory. Here's another one. A case study: the Tower of Siloam. The apostles said — and they're insinuating to be 17, I think it was — "These innocent people, when the Tower of Siloam fell and killed them, were these Galileans sinners above all other Galileans? Is this why the tower fell on them?" What was Jesus' response? "No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish." What? Did You not hear our question, Jesus?

Oh, He heard it. Repent.

Here's the reality, and I want you... This is what we're gonna end on. We have a false view of who we are on this earth, and the unbelievers have a false view, but even a lot of believers do. We all fall into this trap. We believe inherently that we deserve good things in life. Yeah. We do. R.C. Sproul — if you haven't read his book, "The Holiness of God," buy it. It is a great book to do a study through. I'm not a big fan of book studies; I'm a fan of studying the Book, the Bible. But this book is a top five every Christian should read, probably a top two. In the middle of the book, he talks about a guy who was found guilty for raping somebody, served like 30 or 32 years in prison for it, and then when DNA testing became available, the DNA test proved his innocence. So he got a retrial, and he was actually found free after 30-some years. Free man now. And R.C. made the point to say, "Look, in man's economy — man's system, right — this guy was done wrong because he didn't deserve that penalty.

But in God's economy, he was allowed to live for 32 more years. He was able to continue to breathe God's air. If he wasn't saved, he was able to continue to hear His message to be able to repent and believe." So the take-home message that R.C. gave was that in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned and broke God's law, their eyes were opened, and they were spiritually dead immediately. Could God have taken their life right then and there? Absolutely. He had every right to do so. Why didn't He? Out of His grace and mercy. He let them live another day, and another day, and another day — obviously with the goal of repentance. And so, in God's economy, we have to understand that every one of us is born with a sin nature. Every one of us is born in sin. Every one of us sins. Every one of our sins should result in death. Every one of them should. And yet, it's only by God's grace and mercy that He allows us to continue. And even for the believer, it's His grace and mercy on our lives to allow us to continue to live another day.

So why does God allow us to continue? He is purposely allowing it to go on in His long-suffering forbearance. And in the end, He will do away with evil. And when He does, that's it.

So on that, I thank y'all so much. I know we went over, but it seems like you guys really wanted to do this, so I'm glad we got a chance to go over this today. And we'll be here for lunch. I'll be here afterwards — ask me all the questions you want. Pastor Casey, thank you for putting this on today. It is enriching. I enjoyed listening to you talk, and I hope this talk was enriching for everyone in here. Let's close in a word of prayer and maybe open up in prayer for lunch as well.

Let's do that. Lord, I just thank You for gathering us today for these couple of hours. Thank You for Your grace and mercy in our lives to even allow us to wake up on this beautiful sunny day here in Florida. Lord, I just ask You to bless this food, bless the hands of those who prepared it, and just allow us to be able to speak and reflect on this conference today and going forward in the future. Lord, I ask that You give us this fire to go out and evangelize. The purpose of this morning was to start off a year here at Beulah Baptist to encourage the saints to go out and evangelize. Lord, I just ask that You use this powerfully in our lives to go out and do this. Give us the courage to go out and do this. Give us the fire to go out and do this.

We just thank You so much. We love You so much for opening our eyes to who You are, Lord. And we just ask that You give us that fire to go out and share that same good news with others. In Your holy name, we pray. Amen.