Saturday, February 28, 2009

How Should We Present the Gospel?

by Bruce Mills

Last week when I was teaching my Sunday School class about some of the things included in the previous post on "The Law and the Gospel," one of the ladies there made the observation that "you don't hear any 'fire and brimstone' preaching anymore," and then she followed that statement with the question, "Why do you think that is the case?"

My response was that she is correct, such preaching has fallen into disrepute in our culture. It is considered insensitive and intolerant to confront people with their sin and what God's law has to say about it. And while I do not subscribe to the ranting and raving that characterizes much of what is commonly known as "fire and brimstone" preaching, I do believe that the gospel we present must confront people with the fact that their sin has offended an absolutely holy, just, and righteous God who must punish that sin. And we must call them to turn from their own self-righteousness, repent, and turn in saving faith to Jesus Christ who died as the propitiation for every sin of every person who ever trusts in Him.

How we present that gospel truth will vary from one situation to the next. Sometimes when we present that message, we should do so with passion and fervor. Other times, we should present it with persuasive gentleness. But regardless of the style we use, we cannot and must not water down, diminish the importance, or leave out such critical issues as God's holiness, man's depravity, the seriousness of sin, the necessity for repentance, and the exclusivity of Christ as the only answer.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit draws unbelievers to Christ through a gospel presentation characterized by passionate pleadings such as those of a John Piper. Sometimes He draws unbelievers through the in-depth exegesis of a John MacArthur. And on other occasions, He uses the confrontational style of a "fire and brimstone" preacher. Regardless of the style of the presenter, it is the content of the gospel message which is the crucial issue.

If you want to read more along these lines, click the link to the Pyromaniacs blog in the right column and read Phil Johnson's Friday post titled "James 4:4." Phil is a great writer and he really got my thoughts going on this issue. I hope he gets you thinking also.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Law and the Gospel

by Bruce Mills

I have been studying Romans 7:7-13 in preparation for teaching in my adult Sunday School class. As I have dug into this passage and read what great Bible teachers such as John MacArthur, Leon Morris, James Montgomery Boice, and Douglas Moo have written in their commentaries, I have been struck by the gravity of what Paul has to say in this passage as it relates to the gospel that is typically presented in our contemporary culture.

Romans 7:7 states, "What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'" Paul clearly states that man becomes aware of the gravity of his sinfulness through an examination of the Law. So it would seem that using the Law as a means of evangelism is extremely important.

I think we would agree that the typical attitude that most people have about their spiritual condition is to sort of shrug off any question about it with an answer such as, “Oh, I do some bad things but God couldn’t send a good person like me to hell. I think my good things outweigh my bad things. I’m very religious, I try not to do things that hurt or harm others,” and so forth. You’ve heard it all.

But when a person comes face-to-face with the full reality of God’s moral Law, sin is seen for what it really is, and that is what is absolutely necessary to drive a person to salvation. For evangelism, preaching, teaching, or witnessing to be effective, you must bring people under the tyranny of the Law. What leads to true salvation is an understanding of the absolute righteousness and utter holiness of God. And the Law of God expresses His perfect righteousness and holiness and puts a demand on every soul that if you break this Law in one place, you’re damned. What leads to true salvation is an overpowering, frightening sense of the implications of breaking the Law. Truth about righteousness and holiness and sin and judgment is what awakens the slumbering sinner.

You can’t just go to people sitting out there thinking they’re pretty good and say, “By the way, Jesus would like to come into your life and make you happy.” That’s the wrong approach. Long before you talk about what Jesus is prepared to do for the sinner, you’ve got to talk about the sinner’s situation.

Salvation is not about making you happy, salvation is about delivering you from the consequence of violating the Law of God. And the language of evangelism is the language of Law and sin and guilt and curse and judgment and fear.

Let me say it this way: the most necessary and the most successful evangelism is that which aims at a radical conviction of sin. And sinners will not become concerned about their sins until they are face-to-face with God and His holy Law. The great Bible teacher, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones stated, “The sinner is a monstrosity in God’s universe and he needs to be aware of it.”

Why is anybody going to change his life if he has no fear of God? We have to alarm the sinner. We have to activate his conscience by informing him about the truth; not by letting him have a conscience that responds only to a watered down morality that he has been taught by the world.

We have to take the sinner, turn him face-to-face with the Law, hold it up like a mirror, and make him see the standard of perfect righteousness. Jesus said, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). We have to preach righteousness and Law. That’s how people understand the awfulness of their sin, and they understand the consequence of their sin, and the helplessness in which they exist. When conviction of sin is absent, conversion is usually false.

We need to recognize that the initial objective for evangelism is not to get people to be attracted to Jesus. The initial effort in evangelism is not to get people to be attracted to the happy life of a Christian. Salvation doesn’t come that way. The objective is to bring upon the sinner a fear of the judgment of God upon him for his violations of God's holy Law that are going on all the time in his life. What we want to do is convict that person by the work of the Spirit and the Word through us so that he comes to a place of such conviction and fear and dread of divine wrath that he desires to flee to the rescue available in Christ.

And then, after a person comes to saving faith in Christ, the on-going, continuing exposure to the holy Law of God through the pages of Scripture is what drives the saved person toward sanctification. So I am convinced that we must preach the Law. We must preach the Law to bring sinners under conviction that they might be saved, and we must uphold the Law to bring Christians under conviction so that they might pursue the path of sanctification.

The whole effort of the Law comes down to this: it is to bring men to a sense of their sin so that they know they need to be saved and they know they need to be sanctified. As John MacArthur has stated, "It is to produce in them a permanent beatitude attitude in which they mourn over their sin and feel inadequate, unworthy, and weak."

Preach the Law to the lost. Preach the Law to the saved. It is the Law that drives the lost to justification. It is the Law that drives the saved to sanctification. Where there is absence of conviction, there is absence of repentance. Where there is absence of repentance, there is no salvation and there is no sanctification.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Lazy Christians

by Bruce Mills

This past Sunday morning, I was concluding a study through Romans 6:15-23 in my Sunday School class. In Romans 6:18 Paul says of believers that "having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." He goes on in verse 19 to say, "so now present your members as slaves of righteousness."

We discussed the implications of those statements for Christians; how slaves have no choice but to serve their master, and since our new master is righteousness, there is a sense in which we are compelled, forced even, to live righteously. Our Lord has commanded us to present the members of our bodies to serve Him as slaves of righteousness, so righteous attitudes and actions are to be the pattern of our lives. As we do that, we will find that righteousness will become the continuous progression of our lives.

Because God has made us slaves of righteousness, the matter is really not up for debate. What we need to do is realize what God has done for us and then discipline the parts of our bodies—our minds, eyes, ears, tongues, hands, and feet—to act accordingly.

No one stands still morally and spiritually. So we have to be on our guard against Satan’s efforts to bring shipwreck into our lives in terms of our walk with Christ. We need to be continually seeking to grow spiritually, because a believer who is not growing in righteousness, although he cannot lose his salvation, will slip further and further back into sin.

At this point in the discussion, a man in the class asked a very important question: "What about those Christians who are true, genuine believers, but who never grow? They may be Christians for many years, but they never seem to progress, they just remain 'baby' Christians. It's like they are just sitting on the shelf. What about them? What's their problem?"

Now please understand that our discussion had nothing to do with those who claim to be Christians but whose lives are continually controlled by and given over to the pursuit of sin. They may profess to believe the truth, but their lives give evidence that they are still slaves of sin, and thus, not genuine Christians. We had previously discussed those matters, so that was not the focus of this gentleman's question. He was asking about those who are true believers, whose hearts have been regenerated and given new birth through faith in Christ alone, yet they never seem to grow very much at all. Instead they continue to be immature and weak believers.

My one word response to his question was, "laziness." After getting some rather surprised and somewhat perplexed looks from some of the members of the class, I went on to explain what I meant.

We live in a day and age in which Christians avoid the difficult work of sanctification and search for a quick fix. That is thinking just like the world. How does the unregenerate world deal with problems in their physical or emotional lives these days? If they are depressed, they escape into television shows, or go shopping, or pop a pill. If they are having trouble with a personal relationship, they go to a weekend seminar to pick up pointers, or to the local nightclub to find a new person with whom to have a relationship.

And Christians do the same thing in their spiritual lives. Some believers are always looking for some kind of special “victory” formula, such as “let go and let God,” “take it by faith,” “name it and claim it,” or some other catchy slogan. Others search for some kind of emotional experience or miracle that is going to instantly resolve their problem.

I recently heard an advertisement on a local Christian radio station for a weekend seminar titled “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage,” and the announcer was telling the married female listeners that “this is one marriage seminar that your husband won’t complain about having to attend with you.” As I listened to it, all I could think was, how stupid can people be to think that they will solve their marriage problems by going to a one day seminar where some guy makes you laugh about those problems! They are looking for a quick fix rather than undertaking the difficult work of studying the Word, applying its truths to their lives, and then disciplining themselves for the purpose of godliness (1 Timothy 4:7) so that they change to be more like Christ.

God has already done everything necessary for our salvation and given us everything we need to live a consistent, godly, Christ-honoring Christian life. He is not withholding something from us, some special secret which, if discovered, will instantly bring maturity and consistency to our Christian walk. So, if we fail to do it, it is either because we have not been taught what God has done and therefore do not know how to conduct ourselves as Christians, or we are simply too sinful and lazy.

One of the greatest (if not, the greatest) Bible teachers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Here's what he wrote in his commentary on Romans 6 in regard to these verses: “You have already received all things that pertain unto a life of godliness. You do not need another experience. You do not need some new gift. You have been given everything in Christ; you are ‘in Him’ from the beginning of your Christian life. You are just a slacker and a cad, just lazy and indolent, indeed ‘a liar,’ if you are not living this life.”

So I call on all of us to lay aside the desire for the quick fix, the instant solution, the magic sanctification pill. Rather, let us read and meditate on the Word, apply its truths to our hearts and lives, and then train and discipline ourselves with the perseverance of a Olympic athlete (cf. 1 Cor. 9:24-27) "to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age" (Titus 2:12). Such a process is time-consuming and difficult. It will take every ounce of your effort for your entire life. But the end result will yield "the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Heb. 12:11) in your life.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The World's Response to Jesus

by Bruce Mills

I have been pondering a completely hypothetical issue. What would be the response to Jesus if He was to return to earth in the exact same form as He did in His incarnation? That is to say, rather than returning in the clouds with power and great glory in righteous judgment (Matthew 24:30), suppose He was to return as as a man--God incarnate in human flesh--and live among us like He did the first time. What would be the world's response?

I realize this is an impossible hypothetical question because, according to the Scriptures, such will never happen. And I don't want to be misunderstood as wasting my time on some kind of ridiculous hypothetical discussion like those who spend their time pontificating about such matters as what would Jesus say about global warming, nuclear disarmament, or alternative fuels. Jesus never spoke to those issues because they are not the most important issues facing mankind. Man's greatest problem is his sin and the eternal death that sin brings. Man's greatest need is for a Savior who is qualified to pay the price for that sin and offer forgiveness and eternal life. Those are the issues to which Jesus spoke.

But I ask this question because one might wonder what the world's response would be if Jesus returned, performed the miracles He performed, and taught as He taught in His first coming. After all, there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who claim to be His followers; who embrace His name and claim to love Him. So one might hypothesize that Jesus would be joyfully and warmly received by hundreds of millions of people in the world. But is that true? Would the world's response to Him today be any different than it was when He came 2,000 years ago?

I believe the answer is no, the world would respond to Him exactly as it did in His first coming. I base my answer on Jesus' statement in John 15:18-25. He explained that the world hates believers because the world hates Christ. We have been chosen out of the world, we are no longer a part of its ungodly, sinful system, and thus, Jesus said, "because of this the world hates you" (John 15:19). Genuine Christians are Christ's ambassadors, His emissaries, and the world responds toward them as it does because the world hates Christ.

The world loves its sin, it loves its pursuit of self, it loves its sensual desires. And when believers show up and call the unregenerate people of the world to repent of their sin and turn to Christ in saving faith, they respond to them exactly as they did to Christ--with hatred, contempt, and disdain.

Jesus was the epitome of love, graciousness, compassion, and kindness, and He demonstrated those characteristics in the miracles He performed and the things He taught. Yet, even then, He recognized that the hearts of men were motivated more by what they could get out of Him rather than a desire to obey Him by turning from their sin and receiving Him as their Lord and Master. For example, in John 6 the story is given of how Jesus fed a crowd of thousands with a small boy's lunch. But instead of recognizing the miracle as a sign that He was the Messiah who had come to them, they were only interested in following Him because they saw Him as means of obtaining more food (John 6:26). When Jesus pointed out that the miracle was only a sign to point them to Him as the true Bread who offers eternal life to those who follow Him, they became upset and began to grumble and finally, the Scripture tells us that "as a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore" (John 6:66). They were only interested in Him for the physical benefits He could bring to them, not for the spiritual life He could give them.

That would be the world's response to Him today. They would see Him as a wonderful source of physical supply--food, health, wealth--but when confronted by His hard demands of repentance from sin, submission to Him as Lord and Master of their lives, and righteous living that considers others as more important than one's self, the world would turn on Him with a vengeance and slaughter Him, just like it did the first time.

The evidence of such a conclusion is seen in how the world has treated Christ's representatives throughout history. Men and women of God have been torn apart by lions, burned at the stake, and executed in a myriad of ways for no other crime than standing for truth and righteousness.

You say, "But Bruce, what about the two billion people in the world who claim to be Christians? Wouldn't they respond differently to Christ than the rest of the world?" No. Most of those people are "Christian" in name only. Perhaps they were born into a family that identifies itself with the Christian faith, or perhaps they live in a nation in which Christianity is the dominant religious group, but they only practice a religion of external ritual and not one in which they have been internally transformed by Jesus Christ. Those who truly trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord are very few.

So if Jesus was to return in the same manner which He came the first time, the majority of those who identify themselves as Christians would respond like the Jews of the first century did to Jesus. They were looking for a Messiah who would come as a conquering hero, destroy their Roman oppressors, and make them the new rulers of the world. But when Jesus came, He sought to rule their hearts rather than to conquer their enemies so they rejected Him. And if Christ returned to earth today as a humble servant-king as He did in His first incarnation, most of the people in the world who call themselves Christians would become quickly disillusioned with Him and turn on Him along with the rest of the world.

Don't ever think that the world loves Christ. It hates Him. It hates Him because of His claim to be only way to God (John 14:6), and His demands for submission to Him, repentance from sin, and holy righteous living. And it hates anyone who faithfully represents Him. But that's just the way Jesus said it would be (John 15:18-25).

A Conversation with Paul Washer

This video is part of a documentary on revival which was produced at the 2008 Revival Conference sponsored by SermonIndex.net. It is a conversation with Paul Washer, the Executive Director of HeartCry Missionary Society. Paul is on the forefront of those men who are seeking to restore biblical integrity to the gospel message which is being proclaimed by the church today. In this video, Paul really nails down what is important about our presentation of the gospel, what true revival really is, and what is important in the church. We have far too many people who have no idea what "church" is really supposed to be about. This explains it.