Revival's Golden Key (11 page)

It was obvious by her sinful lifestyle that she had mere head knowledge of God’s love. She didn’t consider it a love worthy of her attention. When I told her, “Jesus said, ‘
Don’t
fear him who has power to kill your body, and afterward can do no more. But fear Him who has power to kill the body and cast your soul into hell; fear Him,
’
then she said, “I think that you were
sent
to me today.”

A. W.
Tozer
wrote in
The Knowledge of the Holy:

God’s justice stands forever against the sinner in utter severity. The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws every day nearer and the command to repent goes
unregarded
. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future.

A close friend of mine told me that as a professing Christian he lacked the fear of God. To him, God was just a good friend. One day he found out that his girlfriend’s parents were out of town. He immediately dropped to his knees and earnestly prayed, “Lord, this could be of
You
. I want to lose my virginity today. I will know it’s of
You
if she says to come on over.” She invited him over and he became a fornicator that day. Then he earnestly thanked God for what he saw as the Lord giving him his heart’s desire.

He found a place of genuine repentance some time later, and is now soundly saved and fervently serving God.

A lack of the fear of God isn’t confined to the pews. Some years ago,
Christianity Today
found (in a confidential survey) that nearly one in four
pastors
in the U.S. had been involved in some sort of sexual sin.

Those who lack the fear of God will not stop at fornication. A wise man once said, “Most I fear God. Next to Him, I fear him that fears Him not.” If someone has no fear of God, he will lie to you, steal from you, and even kill you... if he thinks he can get away with it.

How Many Lies?

A six-year-old boy once approached his father, who, as a pastor, understood the importance of a sinner having knowledge of sin. The child said that he wanted to “ask Jesus into his heart.” The father, suspecting that the child lacked the knowledge of sin, told him that he could do so when he was older, then sent him off to bed.

A short time later, the boy got out of bed and asked his father if he could give his life to the Savior. The father still wasn’t persuaded of the son’s understanding, and not wanting the child’s salvation to be spurious, he sent him back to his room. A third time the son returned. This time the father questioned him about whether he had broken any of the Ten Commandments. The young boy didn’t think he had. When he was asked if he had lied, the child said that he hadn’t. The father thought for a moment, then asked him how many lies he had to tell to be a liar. When it was established that one lie made a person a liar, the child realized he had lied, and broke down in uncontrollable tears. When the father then asked him if he wanted to ask Jesus into his heart, the child
cringed
and nodded his head. He was cringing because he now had a knowledge that he had sinned against God. That produced fear. At this point, he could do more than experimentally “ask Jesus into his heart.” He could find a place of godly sorrow. Even at his young age, he could exercise repentance toward the God he now understood that he had offended.

After speaking of the importance of the place of fear, L. E. Maxwell said:

Is the majesty of the Moral Ruler to meet with no respect? Is the authority of His Law of no consequence? Is there nothing in God to fear? An effete dilettantism would feign tell us so. Nevertheless all history and Scripture and experience cry out against such an emasculated and effeminate theology.

It is the fear of God that should stop the Christian from flirting with the eternal well-being of sinners by diluting the message with which he has been entrusted. His devotion to the truth will be rewarded: “Those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them” (Proverbs 24:25).

It seems that John Wesley had those in his day who refused to preach the Law to bring the knowledge of sin. They justified their method by saying that they preached “Christ and Him crucified.” So Wesley pointed to Paul’s method of preaching Christ crucified:

When Felix sent for Paul, on purpose that he might “hear him concerning the faith in Christ;” instead of preaching Christ in
your
sense (which would probably have caused the Governor, either to mock or to contradict and blaspheme,) “he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” till Felix (hardened as he was) “trembled,” (Acts 24:24,25). Go thou and tread in his steps. Preach Christ to the careless sinner, by reasoning “of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come!”

The Bible gives us further insight into Paul’s reasoning. In Acts 28:23 we read, “When they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening.”

Our aim in preaching is to persuade sinners “concerning Jesus.”
He
is the way, the truth, and the life. Without Him they will perish. How does Paul do that? He used
both
prophecy and the Law of Moses. Prophecy appeals to a man’s intellect and creates faith in the Word of God. As he realizes that the Bible is no ordinary book—that it contains numerous indisputable prophecies that substantiate its supernatural origin—he begins to give Scripture credibility. However, the Law of Moses appeals to a man’s
conscience
and brings the knowledge of sin. Paul used “both” because prophecy doesn’t bring an awareness of sin.

A New Gospel Presentation

A well-known charismatic couple, whose aim is to reach millions with the gospel, say that they have discovered a new method to get people saved. They maintain that an angel told the woman how to get instant decisions. Let’s assume that you are in a restaurant and you want a waitress to make a decision for Christ. This is what you would say:

“Do you know there are two kinds of beautiful waitresses?” Their answer: “Really?” Then you say, “Yes!
Those who are saved and those who are about to be.
Which one are you?” If their answer is anything other than, “I am saved,” say, “Repeat this after me: ‘Father, forgive my sins. Jesus, come into my heart. Make me the kind of person
You
want me to be. Thank You for saving me.’” Now, ask the person: “Where is Jesus right now?” If they answer, “In my heart,” say, “Congratulations on being a child of God!” If their answer is any-thing else, have them repeat the prayer after you again.

The couple also insist, “When you talk to someone, use the same words the angel said. It works! If you change the words, it does not work!”

This technique that the “angel” gave the woman isn’t new. It is the age-old selling approach of manipulating a customer so that he will answer in the way you want him to. However, there is one important difference. Waitresses are trained to be congenial to customers—not only for the sake of their job, but because the size of their tip depends on it.

Why would an angel of God, after 2,000 years of evangelism, suddenly announce a method that isn’t in line with God’s revealed Word? Did God suddenly figure out a new way to reach the lost, and then send His angel to tell us? Did He change His mind about how to reach the world?

If an angel from heaven told me of a gospel (or a method of gospel promotion) that wasn’t in line with Holy Scripture, I would reject it without a second thought. Why would I do such a thing, even if it
seemed
to work? Simply because I fear God in light of the apostle Paul’s sober warning in Galatians 1:8: “But even if we,
or an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (emphasis added).

Again, I cannot express my anguish over this type of “evangelism.” My heart’s cry is for people to be saved from hell, and yet modern methods work
against,
not
for
that end. Dare I say it, but they are doing the
devil’s
work rather than the Lord’s. In Matthew 13:25 we are told, “While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.” As Christians we must be alert to the workings of the enemy, under-stand about true and false conversions, and fear God enough to follow in the steps of
biblical
evangelism. We should heed Paul’s warning against “peddling God’s Word [
shortchanging
and adulterating the divine message]” (2 Corinthians 2:17, Amplified). John Wesley said that those who didn’t bother to use the Law were either “babes in Christ, or strangers to regeneration.”

A pastor of a large church in the South told me that almost every person in the “Bible Belt” parrots the same phrase. As soon as they are personally challenged about their salvation they say, “I have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. I’ve dealt with that,” and yet he knows in his heart of hearts that there are no signs of regeneration. He said that it’s as though they have been inoculated against the truth.
They have.

I received the following letter from a very concerned mother:

It was at a youth camp that my oldest son “gave his heart to Jesus” and was baptized, but since then has shown no real desire that I can see to live for the Lord. I don’t want to seem critical, but I just don’t see the desire in any way, shape, or form. I don’t want to see the same thing happen with my other two kids.

God only knows how many others have had the experience of seeing false professions of loved ones. When these false converts fall away, they become bitter, and their latter end becomes
worse
than the first. They are
inoculated
against the truth. What can this mother now say to her son?

I deal with so many who are more than fruitless
converts,
they are venomous “backsliders.” They have enough ammunition to do great damage to the cause of the gospel. Yet, as they pour out their hatred and filthy blasphemy, my heart goes out to them because they are the sad product of manipulative modern methods.

The next time you find someone who is into the occult or some weird cult, dig a little, and then don’t be surprised when you find that they once “gave their heart to Jesus.” Scripture warns that many false converts will leave the Church: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times
some will depart from the faith,
giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1, emphasis added).

The Driving Power

Charles Spurgeon reiterates the importance of stressing the coming Day of Judgment:

God [has] appointed a Day in which He will judge the world, and we sigh and cry until it shall end the reign of wickedness, and give rest to the oppressed. Brethren, we must preach the coming of the Lord, and preach it somewhat more than we have done;
because it is the driving power of the gospel.
Too many have kept back these truths, and thus the bone has been taken out of the arm of the gospel. Its point has been broken; its edge has been blunted. The doctrine of judgment to come is the power by which men are to be aroused. There is another life; the Lord will come a second time; judgment will arrive; the wrath of God will be revealed.
Where this is not preached, I am bold to say the gospel is not preached.
It is absolutely necessary to the preaching of the gospel of Christ that men be warned as to what will happen if they continue in their sins.