This gospel presentation is great!  Isn’t it true that you can take your life to understand, but is still something a child can present and a child can understand.

     For those of you who know me and the “little woman”, you know how much we believe in and love Compassion International.  There are many reasons for this that I will not go into now, but one of them is the commitment to making sure the gospel is heard in every student center that Compassion works through.  This is important because a lot of folks nowadays believe social action and public involvment is the same as evangelism, and it is certainly not.  For all of you “emergents” (sorry Doug Pagitt and Dan Kimball) out there that believe this, I submit to you that it is not biblical.  Of course most emergents do not believe in the authority of scripture, but that is, again, another story.

     I have recently been reading a book written my Mark Dever called, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism.  He addresses this issue by explaining that social action may help you to commend the gospel, which is why Jesus taught, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven”(Matt 5:16).  Even though these works are good and appropriate, they are NOT EVANGELISM.  To be evangelism, the gospel must be clearly communicated, whether in written or oral form.(Page 75)  He goes on to say that, “when our eyes fall from God to humanity, social ills replace sin, horizontal problems replace the fundamental vertical problems between us and God, winning elections eclipses winning souls”. 

     Our testimony is a good thing, but does not save anyone.  Everyone has a testimony of something that has been profound or has made a positive impact in their lives, but does not provide salvation.  As God’s Word says in 2 Corinthians 4:4-5, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake”. 

     So lets be faithful to share the gospel with the lost.  For in it is “the power of God unto salvation”(Romans 1:16).

This is the email from a “normally” rather orthodox denomination.  it is a great example of the nonsense that passes for a gospel presentation nowadays.  The body of the card goes like this……        

“I am here to tell you that you are loved.  God loves you and wants you to be His Valentine.  The love that God gives us is not like the world’s love.  The world’s love is as sturdy as the paper that most Valentine cards are made of.  God’s Love is not a flimsy cheap imitation.  It is the real thing.  It is an all giving love that was and is willing to suffer and die for our deliverance.

Will you be God’s Valentine? It is your choice.  Say yes and return in kind the love that God first gave you.  And when you do, remember the first Valentine and the way he gave everything, including his life, to the God he loved.”

Please check out the post in the Irish Calvinist about this.  As he says, “  “If your gospel message can be preached by liberals, Roman Catholics, Mormans and Hindus then you are probably not preaching the gospel.”   Amen to that brother.

I know this may not be a good thing, but I saw this video, and had to post it.  Don’t know anything about this person, but as the apostle Paul said “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice”(Philippians 1:18).

This weekend is normally one of the busiest shopping times of the year.  So the mall should be a busy place.  We are planning on going to the Citadel Mall this Saturday evening to share the gospel to the busy shoppers.  Maybe we could impress on them the real reason for the season, instead of buying and getting stuff. 

Also, I got an email this morning that was disappointing.  It was about a pastor from the Vineyard church who went to Salt Lake City to start a church.  This move was, apparently, with the blessing of the Vineyard church, but they changed their mind after he got there.  Looks like his recent statements concerning the lack of effectiveness of friendship evangelism has angered many in the church.  His call instead for repentence, and faith has caused the leadership of the Vineyard churches here in Colorado to speak out against him.  And his support from the Vineyard church is not going to be there.  A very sad development for him, the church and the state of “evangelicalism”  today.  It seems those who push “friendship evangelism” think that you can convince someone to convert.  Conversion is only from God, and anyone trying to make a convert from being a friend does not understand how God saves.  Those who are non Christians are dead in their sins and are enemies of God due to their wicked works.  They do not understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned.  Only those that God draws to Himself can be saved, no matter how much you are a friend to them.  Salvation is of the Lord, and not from you being a good neighbor.  Now, will you do all of those things if you are a Christian?  Sure.  But it will not save anyone.  You are a friend and a good neighbor because you are a new creation and will have a love for your neighbor that you could never have before you were saved.  But salvation comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God.  For how can they believe in Him who they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone telling them?  For we are not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God to salvation for those that believe.  Be a friend, but tell them the truth.  That is the measure of truly loving someone and being a “friend”.  As far as the pastor in Salt Lake City…….good for him.  May he be obedient to God with or without the Vineyard church and speak the truth in love to the folks of SLC and the churches today, who are wandering from the truth…..in case they would offend anyone, and they would leave the church.

I preached at the DMV again this morning.  Afterwards I talked to everyone individually.  A small group of folks told me that they were Mormons and did not appreciate me “pushing my faith on them”.  Well, isn’t it ironic that these folks, ESPECIALLY, would have a problem with this?  Aren’t these the same people that send out missionaries all over the world and they ride around on bikes with ties “pushing their faith” on everyone?  Wow.   Afterwards, we went next door to McDonalds for coffee.  I gave a tract to the employee across the counter and he read the gospel tract to the entire lobby of customers and all the employees!  Awesome!   This is a video of him “preaching”.

It is coming.  So many folks are telling me that I should not share the gospel with people.  Most of these folks are within the church.  Many within the church tell me to just “be nice” or “live out your faith”, but PLEASE don’t say anything that may offend.  Well, if you love your neighbor, you will tell them the truth. 

If that is the opinion within the church, imagine what is going on out in the unregenrate world.  Many will try what they can do to supress the gospel preached in the churches and many will censor it in public.  Recent links HERE  HERE  HERE …   Hate legislation is being passed around the world and government is using it to jail people for preaching the truth of the bible.  And, of course, many are being killed around the Islamic world for even mentioning the truth of the gospel.  Sharia law is creeping into countries like England and many others.  Those that consider themselves tolerant and open minded will NOT tolerate the gospel. 

Many in the United States consider the government their religion.  Salvation is through government programs and saviors are the government officials.  Any opposition to this will be violently opposed, and those that preach the truth of the gospel, especially in public, will be punished.  We will be considered …enemies of the state.   A clip on this from Paul Washer….

OK… I am taking notes of this Paul Washer sermon. This guy is awesome.

Why did Paul have to say that he was not ashamed of the gospel? (Romans1:16) He makes no attempt conform to the culture. To the Jew and Greek, the gospel was absurd. Paul knew that he would be ridiculed and scorned unless the Holy Spirit moved on the hearers. If the gospel is not a scandal, then it is not the gospel. Most modern church growth strategies try to get around the exclusivity of the gospel. The gospel contradicts the “isms” today. Relativism …we applaud those who look for truth, but publically execute those who say they have found it. The carnal man hates the gospel because he is morally corrupt and want to be in charge of their own life. He hates God because He is righteous and His moral laws because they censor him and expose his evil deeds. Hates the truth because it exposes him as he is and troubles what is left of his concience. So he will suppress the truth so far as to say there is no such thing as truth, or it has no bearing on our lives. The problem is never the intellect, but the will. No such thing as athiests. If there are no moral absolutes, then the natural man can put out of his mind the judgement that MUST come. The gospel does what the natural man wants to avoid, confront his sin, repenting and putting his faith in Jesus Christ. When everything is true, even things that are opposite, then truth dies.

The early followers of Christ were marked as athiests. That is why they, and soon you, ended up in jail. The world looked on Chrisitans with “jaw dropping arrogance, to be exclusive”. Pluralism does not fix things, but it makes those believing such things as numb to the truth. The gospel IS RADICALLY EXCLUSIVE! Christ is the only way. This is what is happening today. If Chrisitanity would change the definite article…Jesus is A way instead of THE way, then the scandal would go away. Then Chrisitanity would cease to exist and the world would be without a Savior. The secularlist is very religious. Man has managed to make himself the center of the universe. Self realization and actuallization is everywhere…even in the church (Your Best Life Now). Any suggestions that exposes his guilt or tells his concience that it is right in it’s testimony against him is unthinkable. The gospel convicts of concience and guilt..Thus the world HATES true gospel preaching. It ruins mans party, rains on his parade and exposes his make believe.

More later…………….

The Idolatry of “Decisional Evangelism”…

In this political season, it can be very discouraging to hear the rhetoric from all the political parties.  John MacArthur has a great article on this …   excerpt..   

If we do not evangelize the lost and make disciples of new converts, nothing else we do for people—no matter how beneficial it seems—is of any eternal consequence. Whether a person is an atheist or a theist, a criminal or a model citizen, sexually promiscuous and perverse or strictly moral and virtuous, a greedy materialist or a gracious philanthropist—if he does not have a saving relationship to Christ, he is going to hell. It makes no difference if an unsaved person is for or against abortion, a political liberal or a conservative, a prostitute or a police officer, he will spend eternity apart from God unless he repents and believes the gospel.

When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization. Such an antagonistic position toward the established secular culture invariably leads believers to feel hostile not only to unsaved government leaders with whom they disagree, but also antagonistic toward the unsaved residents of that culture—neighbors and fellow citizens they ought to love, pray for, and share the gospel with. To me it is unthinkable that we become enemies of the very people we seek to win to Christ, our potential brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Full article HERE.

It is important to be informed and vote.  There are candidates who share a biblical world view that we should support.  But all this craziness of the election just makes me even more fired up to share the gospel.  Eternity is what is really important, and glorifying God in sharing the good news of the Gospel.  That gets my vote!