Revival's Golden Key (17 page)

From what I could gather, the officer had waved the van over and they had failed to stop. Some of the passengers in the van had thought the incident funny, which had caused the officer to boil over. Here was a wrath-filled, slightly out-of-Control officer of the law, “God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil” (Romans 13:4).

We decided that it wouldn’t be wise to preach there with the law so upset, so we moved to the entrance of a bar about 30 yards across the parking lot. While Jeff preached, semi-drunken teenagers came out of the bar and mocked him. It was a replay of what I had just seen in the natural realm. These teens were refusing to listen to the Law, and they were storing up wrath that would be revealed on the Day of Wrath. The Day would come when an angry Law would pull them from the seat of the scornful, and from that there will be no escape.

After about five minutes, the manager came out and stopped Jeff from preaching (the local church members didn’t patronize his bar).

As we wandered back to the van, we passed the youths the officer had stopped. I went over to the group and asked what had happened. The driver was obviously still upset and told me that he had driven through a stop sign, had his lights out, and had failed to stop when the officer first waved him over. His six friends who were with him were also shaken by what had taken place. I couldn’t help but sympathize a little with the driver and shared how I thought the officer had clearly lost control of himself. He agreed.

I wanted to witness to them, but felt I lacked the right approach. They were like a distressed child who had just grazed his leg, and I had arrived to put salt in the wound. I was sure that if I mentioned sin, righteousness, and judgment at that point I would be told in no uncertain and
colorful
terms to depart from the area. I reluctantly told them I would see them later and walked back to our group.

As I stood there, someone asked if I had witnessed to them. I said I hadn’t. I told the person that I didn’t know how to approach the subject and that I needed a little time to get some thoughts together.

A moment later, I walked back to them determined to say something about their eternal salvation, even if I did get abused. Suddenly, I remembered that I had put about ten one-dollar bills in my wallet to give away at the open-air, something I often do to illustrate a number of points. When I asked how much the fine would be, the driver looked up and said, “About $200.” I took my wallet out, pulled out the handful of bills and said, “This isn’t much, but I would like to give this toward the fine.” As I referred to the money, I looked down at it in amazement. Clearly visible in the middle of the wad of bills was a $10 bill, making it look like far more than it was.
It looked like a fortune!

Different teens in the group said, “Wow... you can’t do that... that’s really nice of you... you don’t even know us.” The driver graciously declined the money, but the offer struck a chord in their hearts. They could see that I really cared for them and the suggestion had given me license to speak to them about their salvation. I said, “I’m a preacher. Here is a gift for each of you.” I then handed each of them a penny with the Ten Commandments pressed onto it, and asked if they had kept the Law. When I asked if they had lied, stolen, lusted, etc., every one of them admitted they had broken the Commandments.

Then I turned to the driver and asked him if he was scared when the law pulled him from his vehicle. He said he was terrified. I then said, “Tonight you transgressed civil law, but now you know that you have also transgressed the Divine Law. If civil law scared you, wait until you face God on Judgment Day... it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” I explained the gospel, asked if they had Bibles, and told them to dust them off and read the Gospel of John. I then shook their hands and thanked them for listening to me, and left them in the hands of a faithful Creator.

While I had been speaking, the driver was peeling masking tape from around his ankles. He had strapped sealed plastic bags of whiskey under his socks—some-thing the law hadn’t found when he was frisked. God only knows what may have happened that night if the driver had downed the whiskey and driven home with six drunken friends in his van.

The officer of the law missed that hidden offense, but God’s Law won’t miss a thing.

Both the civil and the Divine Law did a deep work in some young hearts that night. It was my prayer that seven “steaks” were seared to a crisp, and that
some day
seven
tenderhearted
and faithful
laborers
would enter the harvest fields and gladly toil for their Master.

By the way,
Winkie
Pratney’s
talents were not con-fined to cooking steak. The man is not only an excellent Bible teacher and author, but a brilliant
ping-pong
player as well, as I found out two days later. I also discovered that his style of demonstrative play was reminiscent of a pregnant woman in the latter stages of
labor
. Despite the sweat, groans, and screams when the man missed a shot, I learned that he was extremely talented. He played with the grace of a master. His speed, his genius, his reflexes, his dazzling shots were executed with astounding agility. Only occasionally does one get to witness such incredible brilliance.

I beat him.

CHAPTER 15

AN ANGRY GOD

I
f our theology leaves out the Law and thus the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin, we will see nothing wrong with leaving a sinner with false peace. Remember that in Jeremiah 8:11 God said of the prophets and priests of Israel:

They have healed the hurt of the daughter of
My
people slightly, saying, “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace.

This is how to give false peace to a sinner. Simply ask, “Do you have assurance that you will go to heaven when you die?” Who in his right mind doesn’t want to go to heaven? So a good number will say something like, “I
hope
I’m going to heaven when I die.” Now say, “God wants you to have that assurance. All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but God sent His Son to die on the cross for us so that we could have peace with God. When we repent and trust in Him, God will give us everlasting life. He writes our name in the Book of Life. Would you like to accept Jesus into your heart right now and have your name written in heaven? I could lead you in what’s called a ‘sinner’s prayer
’
right now. Would you like to pray?” Many do.

You may ask a predictable, “What’s wrong with that?” Let me see if I can answer that question with an anecdote:

A blind sinner is unwittingly heading for a thousand-foot cliff. Modem evangelism draws alongside him and says, “Blind man, I am going to give you a wonderful gift that will give you peace.” He then hands him a CD player and adjusts its earphones over his ears. The sightless man hears “Amazing Grace” being sung by a choir of ten thousand voices. His blind eyes widen with delight. He smiles and says, “What you said is true. This is truly wonderful. Thank you very much.” He shakes the man’s hand, turns up the volume on his newfound gift, and continues tapping his way toward the thousand-foot cliff.

What has modem evangelism done? It has failed to awaken the blind sinner to his true plight. Instead, it has given him
false
peace. Now he is not only still heading toward a horrible death,
but he is deaf toward any further verbal warning.
It has done an unspeakable dis-service to the blind sinner.

Millions have been given assurance of salvation, but are strangers to biblical repentance. The Law has never awakened them. They have never been warned to turn from the cliffs of eternal destruction. Now, because of the techniques of contemporary evangelism, their ears are deaf to the true message of salvation.

A religious studies professor named Wade Clark Roof, in his book
Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion,
says that one-third of America’s seventy-seven million Baby Boomers identify themselves as “born-again Christians.” According to Roof, that means they’ve had a “highly personal spiritual experience that has changed their lives.” Roof says only about half of those who call themselves “born again” today attend a conservative Protestant church. Twenty percent don’t belong to
any
church at all, and a third of those who say they’re “born again” believe in astrology and reincarnation.

There is even another hidden tragedy that has re-suited from the efforts of modem evangelism. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this nation has lost God’s blessing. The American Cancer Society estimated that in just one year there were 1,382,400 new cancer cases. Add to that an onslaught of killer bees, massive hurricanes, devastating floods, earthquakes, droughts, tornadoes, etc. After years of evangelization by modem preachers, most of America’s concept of God is one of a
benevolent
Father figure. Therefore, the terrible tragedies of “natural” disasters and deadly diseases that come her way are considered the mere rumblings of Mother Nature, El Nino, La Nina, global warming, global cooling—anything
but
the dealings of a holy God with a sinful nation. The thought that a God who is love would judge our nation with these catastrophes is unthinkable to many.

From there comes a tragic dilemma in which the Church finds herself: To go from preaching “God loves you” to “God is angry at the wicked every day” is too great a leap for her to take. Consequently, few preachers have the courage to say that America is under God’s judgment, and those who do so are considered a little fanatical. Again, this is simply because just over one hundred years ago, modem evangelism forsook the scriptural
stepping stone:
the Law of God. Without it, the world cannot conceive that God would be angry at humanity. Remember, without the use of the Law, judgment is totally
unreasonable.
C. S. Lewis said, “When we merely say that we are bad, the ‘wrath
’
of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our badness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God’s goodness.” The Law helps us perceive our badness.

God is Nice

A sincere young lady once heckled me as I expounded the Ten Commandments to a crowd of mainly unsaved people. She boldly called out, “Don’t listen to this man!
God loves you.”
I stopped speaking and asked her if she cared about the salvation of those to whom I was speaking. She said she did, so I gently coaxed her up onto the soapbox and asked her to give her testimony. After she had (bravely) spoken for a few moments, I asked her where her hearers would go if they died without the Savior. She hesitatingly said, “Hell...” Then she began to weep and added, “...
but God is nice.”

God is many things—holy, perfect, righteous, loving, good—but there is no biblical foundation for saying that He is “nice.” The young lady was nice. She was charming. But to tell sinners that their Creator is “nice” will give the impression that He is “pleasant, sweet, delicate, and agreeable.” If that was her image of God, no wonder she was offended by the biblical revelation of His nature. Sometime after that incident, another young lady publicly reproved me for preaching about future punishment. She called out “God loves you... just
ask
Jesus into your heart right now!” When I asked her where the crowd would go if they died without Jesus Christ she said, “They won’t go to heaven.” I asked where they would go. She said, “They won’t go to be with God.” Again I pressed her as to the specific location, and she said, “To a
not very nice
place.” Her dilemma was that the mention of hell, without the Law to make it reasonable, made her God look like a tyrant and brought with it the scorn of the world.