Introduction to Apologetics and Evangelism

Let's open with a word of prayer here.

Lord, I just thank You for gathering us together on this beautiful day. Lord, I just ask that Your words, not mine, come out of me, Lord, and that You prepare the hearts and minds of everybody in here as we just continue to learn more in Your word. Your holy impression we pray, amen.

So I love the book of Genesis. I wrote a book on it. And in this book, I show you how the book of Genesis, specifically the creation account, is connected with biblical evangelism and connected with apologetics. And so we show you how to work all those things together. I know you guys have also been going through the book of Genesis here on Wednesday nights. So I have the privilege tonight of being able to show you how the book of Genesis, the creation account, plays a major role in evangelism.

Now, let's be honest. If I said all of us right now are going to go out and do some evangelism, forget Bible study, and then we're going to do some evangelism, how many of you would crawl into a hole really fast?

You know, I find as I travel around the country and teach on evangelism, that the reason why people don't like to evangelize is because they're scared of what somebody's going to say back to them, they're scared of what kind of questions are going to be asked. So what I hope to do tonight with Romans 1 and a few other select passages is to show you that we have literally no fear in evangelism because God has done all of the work for us.

So on that, what I want to start with is talking about presuppositions.

This is a big word and normally I have a rule — I don't like big words. So I promise you this is going to be the only big word tonight. But we're going to break it down for you.

Presupposition is a word that we can break down into pre and supposition, the prefix and the root word. What does pre mean? Before or prior. What does supposition mean? It's a belief or assumption held to be true without proof. These are pre-beliefs. So that means this is what somebody assumes to be true from the beginning.

Now why is this important? Because every one of us and every person we ever go up to and talk to in evangelism is going to have these presuppositions in their head, their starting points, which make up their worldview.

Why is that important to understand? Because every single time we walk up to this person or any person and talk to them and we give them evidences to try to convince them of our faith, we're giving them evidences based on the worldview that we live in — the Christian worldview, the one correct worldview. But how are they taking those evidences? How are they filtering them? Through theirs.

Do you think that they see evidences the same way that we do? No, they don't, because of the worldview. And so their presuppositions, again, make up the worldview by which they test everything. This is their foundational tool to test everything. And because of our worldview, every worldview makes use of what we call faith commitments. For example, the origin of the universe. So you guys have been learning through Genesis that in origins, God created everything, right? Six literal 24-hour days, God created everything.

But yet from the other side, what do they think? That the universe either created itself, always existed, multiple universes, right? They've got different theories on this. Why? Because their starting points are different. Their worldview is different.

And so here's the reality today. Every social issue, every issue that comes up today — creation versus evolution, pro-life versus pro-death, the abortion movement, morality, why am I here, view on marriage, religion, all kinds of issues — when we talk to somebody about them, their worldview shapes how they view these issues. We have to recognize that. That means that we as Christians have to speak to their worldview.

So here's a great question. With all the religious systems out there, how many worldviews exist biblically? So that means that as a Christian, I stand on God's word, right? So God exists, His word is true. Well, we also have, let's say, the Buddhist, who believes in their energy stuff, right? I think it's more complicated than that, but that's what they stand on.

I could go on down the line, I could have 50 chairs up, and I could talk about 50 different worldviews pretty fast, or what looks like 50 different worldviews. But here's the question. Of all of these different religious systems out there, how many worldviews are there biblically? That's right, two worldviews. And what are they? Biblical and not biblical, right? So biblical — I stand on the word of God. Everything else is not biblical. Two worldviews.

Which brings up something really interesting. Oftentimes, the person who is in a different religious system will say, you know what, you're standing on the word of God, which I don't believe in. I'm standing on whatever it is. Why don't we meet on neutral ground?

Okay, the Christian — they want to meet on neutral ground. Are we meeting on neutral ground? Why not? Right. Because the moment I move off of my foundation into whatever they claim is neutral ground, common ground — we've all heard this if we've talked to anybody who's an unbeliever — what have we done? We've left truth. And we can't do that.

So this is the concept that there is no such thing as neutral ground. In fact, there's actually a fallacy called the neutrality fallacy. The reality is the person who says let's meet on neutral ground is not being neutral. They're not. And therefore we also should not be.

There's no neutrality. Biblically, how does this work out? In Matthew 12:30, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters abroad." Biblical, not biblical. Romans 8:7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." Biblical, non-biblical.

Read this one. James 4:4, "Adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" God literally calls it adultery of our minds when we pretend to be in a different worldview. "So whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

When we understand neutrality, neutrality applies in everything we do, everything we talk about. And so in science, we're not to be neutral. In apologetics, we're not to be neutral. In morality, we're not to be neutral.

Think about what's going on in the church today. This LGBTQ movement that has come in, and they want us to be neutral on these issues. They say, well, they love God too, and it's just love, right? They're partners, just love. No, not according to God. Not according to His morality. And obviously evolution.

Greg Bahnsen coined this quote here: "Those who wish to gain dignity in the eyes of the world's intellectuals by wearing the badge of neutrality only do so at the expense of refusing to be set apart by God's truth."

So when we as Christians say anything when we're talking to an unbeliever that seems to take us away from the word of God, even a little bit, we've literally gone on to enemy territory. We're leaving the sure truth, we're leaving the sure foundation.

Well, this battle of the worldviews applies in all kinds of ways, right? Abortion versus what we know biblically — life begins at fertilization. Euthanasia versus sanctity of life. Marriage to be one man and one woman, as you guys have learned in Genesis, right? God ordained marriage right from the beginning. Relativism in morality versus moral absolutes. And then obviously man's word, naturalism, versus God's word. These are two conflicting worldviews.

And so as I said earlier, the biblical worldview — our foundation is that God exists and His word is true. This is our foundation, this is what we stand on. And the moment we're asked to leave this into neutral ground, we're literally in enemy territory.

So we must at all costs stay where we belong.

And so now this is going to get into the meat of what we're talking about. This is a necessary backdrop as we get into Romans here.

Romans 1:19-20. I'm going to read this to you here. "Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

According to this passage, who knows God exists? Everybody. Okay, wait, wait, hold on. You mean to tell me that that person that is born and grows up on that remote island somewhere, that they don't have a single Bible on this island — you mean that person knows God exists? That's right, everybody knows. And you're absolutely right, it's by His creation, right? And this is what God says. He says everybody knows that He exists by His creation in the things that have been made.

Now, let me ask you this question. Is it just any God that they know exists? Is it just some generic God? The God, right? It says His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature — they know exactly who the real God is. Okay, wait a minute. What about that Buddhist who just really loves his religion? I mean, he really loves God. I mean, is it his fault that he grew up in a family that wasn't Christian and so he just decided that Buddha was the right way? I mean, he still believes in a higher power. What about him? Does he know the true God that exists? He knows. Yeah, he knows. And he knows it's not Buddha, by the way. We'll talk about that here in a moment.

One of the ways I demonstrate this is when we are on college campuses. It's really easy with college students — you can do this anywhere. I ask them this question to demonstrate this. I say, that building that's behind you right now, if I took that building apart, brick by brick, window by window, every wire, door, every piece of it, and I put it in a really nice, neat pile — and I'm not going to ask you where the doors and stuff all came from, like we're just going to assume that they're made and designed for the building and they're just sitting right there — how many billions of years would it take of tornadoes, lightning strikes, and earthquakes for that building to reassemble?

And yeah, guess what they answer to me. That would never happen.

Fair enough. I mean, but wouldn't it be really cool if you could just — I mean, housewives especially — just one time, you could take your clothes from the washer and put them in the dryer, and when it got done with the drying cycle you'd open up the door and your clothes would all be perfectly folded in a pile. I mean, wouldn't that be cool?

And as silly as this sounds, right — it's only five shirts and a couple pairs of pants — would we ever expect that randomness to have those clothes neatly folded and piled in a stack? No.

So that means then that the biologist who has that idea of the original simple cell in mind — notice how biologists always start with a single cell. They never want to tell you how the pond scum somehow magically created the single cell to begin with, but whatever. Let's imagine that single cell. Do you know how many machines are in that single cell? How many millions of perfectly designed parts that make up these perfectly designed machines into a cell that is living, that is actually taking in nutrients, excreting waste, replicating?

Wait a minute. So you mean to tell me that the building behind you, when you already start with the parts, would never erect itself, but then you tell me that this single cell that's infinitely more complex than that building behind you somehow came together on its own? Is that what you're telling me? This is what Romans 1 is talking about — the fact that everybody knows He exists by His creation and the things that have been made.

The miracle of childbirth? Do you know how many pieces and parts needed to work for that to happen?

And the list goes on. Where did the trees come from? Billions of trillions of stars — which by the way, as you learned in Genesis 1, God said He created the sun and the moon, right, the luminaries to have the light, and then He says, "And He made the stars also." Like billions of trillions of stars, He made them. Incredible, He made them. And then named them all — that's right. As R.C. Sproul used to like to put it before he passed away to eternal glory, he said, imagine this: us human beings, the pinnacle of His creation, we haven't listened since day one, being born in sin, and yet the stars when He made them went to exactly where He told them to go and they obeyed Him immediately and continued to. Billions and trillions of them. It's astounding to think about.

But this is exactly what this passage is saying. And God is so confident that everybody knows He exists by His creation and the things that have been made that He says here, "so that they are without excuse."

That person on the remote island is without excuse. That Hindu is without excuse. The atheist is without excuse. Every one of us before we got saved was without excuse. This is what this passage is teaching here.

And of course, we can go back to the Old Testament and see this same type of thought. Psalm 14, as well as Psalm 53: "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God." Now look, is God calling people names here? No. What He's saying is that this is foolish thinking for anybody to believe that He doesn't exist. It's foolish. Psalm 19:1 is kind of like the Old Testament parallel to Romans 1, in that "the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." In the ESV, "the sky proclaims His handiwork." This is the NASB. So we see, Old Testament and New Testament, that creation screams of the one true God.

Okay, so we've got that down now.

Romans 2 — I'm going to try to challenge you a little bit more. Verses 14 and 15: "For when Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."

So what do we see here? What did God write on the hearts of every single person alive? His law. His moral law is written on every heart. So that means then that when we watch the cartoons or commercials where they're depicting an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other just chirping in the ears — what is this meaning? It's pointing back to the fact that God has written the law on everybody's hearts. Everybody has an absolute sense of right from wrong. Their conscience bears witness to God's existence.

So, so far we know two things about the unbeliever. The person that we are going up to to witness to, whether it be a family member, a friend, a stranger — we walk into the conversation and immediately we know they know God exists. And number two, the moral law is written on their heart.

Now I'm guessing a lot of you have watched Ray Comfort's stuff because you guys just did something here a couple of weeks ago. Now imagine this — you've got this Australian guy. He's a friend of mine, I love Ray. I'm short, he's like — I'm gigantic compared to Ray. But in all seriousness, Ray gets up on the box and he does what? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever — and he goes down several of the Ten Commandments. What is he doing? Their conscience is being pricked. Why? Because the moral law is written on their heart, and all he's doing by using the law is exposing the fact that they know. So that means a person that we're talking to in evangelism, when we're using God's law, we are literally speaking to their heart in the law that they have written there against the God they already know exists. Brilliant.

Of course, Ray didn't think of this first, right? I mean, we see this in the Bible. But the point is that God lays some groundwork here for us in evangelism.

Number three. Romans 1, we're going back to Romans 1, verses 18 and 21: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened."

So what is this saying here? Person knows God exists — they either profess Him or they do what? Suppress Him. They suppress the truth about Him. So now we're starting to make some connections. When they say that they're a Buddhist, what are they doing? They're suppressing the truth about the one true God and then worshiping something else.

Now, I want you to think about something here — suppression. What does suppression mean? If we understand what Romans is talking about here in suppression, it would be like this. So you guys are in Florida, you have many more swimming pools than we do up in Ohio. But imagine — how many of you try to take a beach ball or a volleyball and try to hold it under water? Not very easy, right? So you hold this down. Is this a passive suppression when you're holding that beach ball down? Or is it really trying to pop up and you've got to actively hold this beach ball down? Right, we're actively holding it down.

This is the active suppression that Romans 1 is talking about. That person that we are talking to who doesn't profess God but instead suppresses the truth about Him — it's an action that they are actively holding that beach ball down. They're actively trying to suppress the truth about the one true God they know exists.

One of the most interesting things I will say is this. I have had countless people tell me, "Prove to me God exists." Right, we hear this. And yet the Bible tells us they already know.

So let me tell you a little trick. I do this a lot, and probably the most dynamic example of this would be back when we owned our dental practice — we sold it about two years ago now so we could do this more often, come out and speak at churches. When I owned my dental practice, I would save all the deposits for the week and then on Friday afternoon I would go to the bank and I would be there for 25 minutes in line waiting to do the deposits, actually with the teller doing the deposits. And so of course in that time I would strike up a conversation with the teller. And so what would I normally say? My opening line would usually be — and this is a great opening line by the way for like Fridays — "Hey, so you got any good plans for the weekend?" And they'll tell you some of their plans, and guess what question they ask you back every time. "What about you? What kind of plans do you have?" I say, "Thank you for asking. You know, I'm going to be doing this and this this weekend, and of course I'll be going to church on Sunday. But do you go to church?"

That opens up tons of conversations. Well, this particular day, this bank teller — a female bank teller, probably in her mid-to-upper 20s — she says, "You know, I stopped going to church about nine months ago. I don't believe in God anymore."

Now we're in a normal conversation for a few minutes at this point. And so I changed my entire countenance and I leaned in and I said, "You and I both know God exists." She burst into tears immediately.

Now you don't get that every time, but what I find the great majority of the time is that when you do it like that and people see your sincerity, they break down pretty fast and they're willing to talk. The hardest of atheists in New York City breaks down when you change your countenance. I've even had people tell me, "Oh, you're just trying to play whatever game," and then two minutes later, guess what they're doing? Telling me.

In her particular case, it was really tragic. I don't want to leave you hanging on her story, but it was really tragic because she said that she stopped going to church because her and her husband and then her best friend and her husband were going to the same Lutheran church, and her best friend and her husband had a one-year-old kid. They got into a car accident and the one-year-old died in the car accident. Mom and dad survived, the one-year-old died. And so they went to get counsel from their Lutheran pastor, and the pastor said, "What sin did you do that caused God to take your child away from you?" Horrific, horrific, right?

And so what do you think they did? They said bye, gone, and then they said God doesn't exist. They suppressed the truth about God because of the hurt that they had. And so all it took was for me to ask this simple question, and she was willing to talk to me. And then I was able to share the truth with her. I was able to walk with her about Genesis — which I'm sure you guys have done already in early Genesis — why do bad things happen in this world? I'll cover this on Sunday as well, by the way, more in depth. Why do bad things happen in this world? Is it God's fault? Nope. It's Adam and Eve, and by proxy, us.

And so the reality is that when we're going to talk to people practically, this is how it looks.

Now think about this too. We have the person we're talking to and they're suppressing the truth with their beach ball. We as the Christian go up to them and start talking to them, right? And we're talking about the things of God, maybe using the law to show them their sin. They're desperately actively suppressing the truth. We're talking about God. What are we effectively doing? We're literally peeling their fingers off that beach ball as we're speaking about God's truth. This is why people often respond in anger, upset, all kinds of stuff. Why? Because we're literally using God's word, affecting their ability to suppress the truth about God.

By the way, this is no different than what happened in the garden. What did Adam and Eve do right after they sinned? Eyes were opened, realized they were ashamed, right? Sewed themselves fig leaves to close and then they ran and hid. They suppressed the truth. They were walking with God and then went to hide to suppress the truth about Him.

By the way, you can take every Bible doctrine, everything, and trace it back to Genesis. And this is just one of those ways you can do that. By the way, works righteousness comes from Genesis as well. When they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves, that was the first act of it. The first in a long line of thousands of years of bloodshed of animals — guess where that started? Genesis, when God deemed their works not good enough so He made animal skins for them and clothed them Himself. All goes back to Genesis.

I'll share one other story since we've got some time as we're working through this. This was really interesting.

The first ever homosexual parade I went and preached at was in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was handing out gospel tracts that on one side had "Ticket to Heaven." The other side said "Ticket to Hell." Now, every homosexual that was walking into the festival — I was standing on the outside — I was handing them the "Ticket to Heaven" side up. Guess what every one of them that came out to yell at me — which was about half of them — came out to yell at me a minute later and tell me, "Why are you telling me I'm going to hell?" "Ma'am or sir, I gave you the side up that said ticket to heaven." What was happening there? It was conviction. That's that truth that they're suppressing. They were convicted by that.

There's more to that story, by the way, and I'll share that on Sunday. It's a very interesting one.

Psalm 33 — this is number four — Psalm 33:13-15. Everyone has the same Creator. God has fashioned their hearts. Every single human being is fashioned by God. And obviously we know we're all from Adam and Eve. This is why, when the term racism is used out there, it is not a biblical concept. The biblical concept is one blood, one race. Racism is an evolutionary concept where five different monkeys supposedly evolved into different humans, some more evolved than others. Completely Darwinism.

Number five. Back to Romans 1, verses 22 to 23 and 25: "Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen."

Now, God exists by His creation. They suppress the truth about Him in their sin. When they suppress the truth about Him — because we are made to worship and they're not worshiping the one true God — guess what they do? They start to worship other things, other gods. Literally they exchange the truth about God for a lie. Enter false religion.

This is when people — the same people who say, "I'm Buddhist and I hate God," I hate the Christian — what? Doesn't make any sense. But you hear this stuff all the time from people. Or they say that they don't believe God exists and they hate Him. A lot of atheists do that too. Doesn't make any sense, right? But they've literally suppressed the truth and exchanged Him for a lie, for a false religion. So we have to recognize that as we walk into these encounters.

Number six. Romans 3:9-12: "What then? Are we better than they? Not at all, for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin." Everybody is in rebellion against God. So the person we walk up to and talk to, we know a number of things about already.

God has literally laid out an amazing path for us in order to be able to evangelize. Why? Because what do we know about the unbeliever? Everybody knows God exists. God's moral law is written on their hearts. And when they don't profess God, what do they do? They suppress the truth about Him. Every person we walk up to, every person, they fall on these right here.

That means the burden of proof to prove God exists, when I talk to somebody, is not on me. The burden of proof to prove that they've done things wrong like sin against God is not on me. They know.

What is our job? Our job is to help them understand that they are a sinner, using the law. So as they suppress the truth about God, they do their best to suppress the truth about the moral law against God too. Isn't it amazing how the unbeliever will often say — if you ask him, would it be wrong if somebody murdered your entire family — they would say yes, that would be wrong. But then they wouldn't know where that standard actually came from, or don't acknowledge that that standard must come from God.

So they know they're a sinner with our help, but the most important thing for us to do is it's our job to tell them they need a Savior. The Savior, Jesus Christ.

And so as we continue to walk down Romans 1, we see in Romans 1:16 the power of God for salvation. So here's the verse. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." Not my good looks, not brilliant evidences I can come up with, not amazing philosophy that I can give you. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes."

The gospel is what breaks down the strongholds. The gospel is what breaks down the barriers. The gospel is what causes the truth that they're suppressing to bubble up and pop back out of a swimming pool.

So here's what's amazing about it all. Because oftentimes the evangelist says, okay, Dr. Sylvester, I'm buying into what you're telling me. I'm buying into the fact that God has made Himself known to everybody. That the moral law is in the heart of everybody. That they suppress the truth about Him if they don't profess Him. Okay, I'm buying into that. But you know, I still got to do everything I can to get them converted. I need to put another notch in my belt and convince them.

What does God's word say about that?

Ezekiel 36 — if you guys are not familiar with this passage from Ezekiel 36 from around verse 24 to around verse 42 — read that passage tonight and see how many times God says, "I will do this. I will do this. I will do this. I will do this." And one of them He says, "I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you." God does these things.

Second Timothy 2:25, "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to knowledge of the truth." God grants repentance.

Yet we have a responsibility, right? Because so far I'm kinda making evangelism a lot easier now, right? Because God has laid the foundation for us to do evangelism. God also says I'm going to take care of converting the soul. What do you do? Well, I'll tell you.

First Peter 3:15, "But sanctify — set apart as holy — the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." Be ready to give answers. Be ready when they have questions and concerns to talk to them. They're not our enemies. Remember, we were once in their shoes. So be ready to give them an answer. And you know what, sometimes they ask you a question and you don't have the answer. It is perfectly acceptable to say, "You know, I don't know. But give me your email address, I'll get back to you."

Jude 3, "I found it necessary to write to you, exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." This "contend earnestly" — agonize. We need to go out there and contend earnestly for the faith. The context of this passage is within the church. Of course, an application of it is for us to contend earnestly everywhere. We're to contend for the faith unashamedly.

One of the things that really irks me is when I hear some of the most famous apologists out there — the William Lane Craigs, the Lee Strobels, the Josh McDowells — these guys who have done some nice work, don't get me wrong. And Ravi Zacharias, another one. When Ravi was asked the question — and look, he's done some wonderful work — but when Ravi was asked the question in front of live audiences, huge audiences, "Is Jesus the only way?" his answer would be a five-minute philosophical soliloquy before he'd kind of get to the answer.

Let me tell you as a Christian what you're supposed to do. When somebody asks you, "Is Jesus Christ the only way?" your answer is yes. Now let me explain it to you. That's what we're supposed to be doing. We're to contend earnestly, unashamedly, in telling the truth. Now look, we do it with meekness and fear. We do it in gentleness and respect, but we are to tell the truth and to do it right up front.

Second Corinthians 10:4-5, "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." There are some people who have roadblocks in their minds. Right, so they're suppressing the truth about God. They've suppressed Him for a long time, and there are other roadblocks that creep up. Maybe some scientific stuff, maybe some other things. Is it okay for us to answer some of those questions, help break down some strongholds? Absolutely. Always knowing, though, that if we don't have answers, guess what's always still effective? The law and the gospel. We can always go back to that, regardless of how smart the person is we're talking to, whatever PhDs they have, whatever questions they ask. We can always go back to that, because ultimately that's what breaks down every stronghold.

We see in Titus another passage that by sound doctrine we can go and exhort and convict those who contradict God's word.

But most importantly, as we end on this — and then I'll open up for questions for a few minutes here — is the role of the evangelist. So God lays the entire foundation for us, right? We see in Romans 1 and Romans 2: everybody knows God exists. That person we talk to knows God exists. That person we talk to has the moral law written on their heart. That person we talk to is suppressing the truth about the one true God. That person we talk to is without excuse.

On the other side of things, God is the one who will convict through the Holy Spirit. God is the one who changes the heart. And yet God makes us feeble-minded sinners a role in salvation of others.

Romans 10:15, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news." Tells us to go out and preach the good news. And in Romans 10, there are pastors out there, and I've heard them, that they say, "The way you cut the grass in really straight lines, your neighbors will see you one day and they'll say, you know, there's something different about that guy."

I can assure you, people do not see Jesus in you because you're cutting the grass straight. I can also assure you, by the way, that if you think people are going to just see your actions — that you in general do good things — they're not going to see Christ either. Why? Because the moment you say you're a Christian and they follow you long enough, like for a couple of minutes, they're going to see you're a sinner.

No, God doesn't lay that out either for the evangelist, for the Christian. What God says is this: "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." Our job, our single job, is to get up and go give God's word.

God's word does the convicting. Hebrews 4:12, right? God's word is like a sword, a two-edged sword, and it's so sharp that it pierces soul from spirit, bone from marrow. God's word does the work. And so we are charged with going out and giving God's word and giving it accurately, and let God do all the work.

It is amazing to think about. And why we talked about this tonight is, one, I think Pastor Keith and I talked about a little bent for evangelism, but number two, this hinges upon God's general revelation that He speaks about in Romans 1 that goes all the way back to Genesis.

See, God in Genesis 1:1 did not say, "Well, let me tell you about this person out there that may have made some things." He said, "In the beginning, God."

Let's pray.

Lord, I just thank You for this day. And Lord, I just ask that You allow Your word to continue to permeate all of our hearts, Lord, in that. And most importantly, Lord, that as we sit in churches, and in a solid church like this one, Lord, that we don't just take the word for ourselves selfishly, that we don't just sit on the couch six days a week and just absorb the word, but that we take that word that we're absorbing and go out into the world as we're called to do, Lord, and share that word to an unbelieving world as You've charged us with.

So, Lord, I just ask that You help each and every one of us in here to continue to get over the fears that we have in evangelism, and that You help us trust Your word in what You say. Romans 1, Romans 2, Romans 10 — Your entire Bible is so clear.

And I just ask that You give us that confidence in Your word, and that it turns into actions for us to go out and use it the way that we're called to use it. In Your holy and precious name we pray, amen.