Revival's Golden Key (7 page)

A report was quickly relayed to the fast-folders. Many were heartbroken, and immediately went back to the instruction book and corrected their mistake. With great sobriety and care, they began painstakingly folding each parachute exactly as the book instructed. Their knowledge of the tragedies motivated them to make sure that they did their job with uncompromising conviction.

Yet, there was resistance from a few. Even though they knew that so many lives were being lost, they still refused to follow the instruction book. Unbelievably, they ignored the mass of mangled and rotting bodies, for which they were directly responsible.
Instead, they pointed to those who had survived their fast-folding method as justification for their technique.

Free From Their Blood

Since the
Fall
of man, there has been a great battle for the souls of men and women. Those who have gone before us in past centuries have not had an easy task.
Labor
in the gospel was often slow and arduous. But they knew if they followed
according to the pattern of God’s Word,
with His help, they would eventually do liver sinners from death and hell. If they sowed in tears, they would reap in joy. They wanted, above all things, to be “true and faithful witnesses.” If they preached the whole counsel of God, they would be free from the blood of all men. These ministries, of men such as Wes-ley,
Wycliff
, Whitefield, Spurgeon, and many others, were greatly effective in reaching the lost.
The key was in the careful and thorough use of the Law to prepare the way for the gospel.

As time went by, certain men discovered that the message of the gospel could be condensed and presented in a much faster and easier way. Unfortunately, this quick and easy method had a number of problems.

First, its presentation was unbiblical.
It didn’t follow the scriptural example of presenting the balance of Law and grace, as Jesus did. He always preached Law to the proud and arrogant, and grace to the meek and the humble (Luke 10:25
,26
; 18:18-20; John 3:1-17). Never once did the Son of God give the Good News (the cross, grace, and mercy) to the proud, the arrogant, or the self-righteous. He followed His Father’s example: He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). Paul did the same, as seen at Athens when he used the essence of the First and Second Commandments to reprove their idolatry, and on other occasions (Romans 2:22). Biblical evangelism is
always
Law to the proud and grace to the humble. With the Law, we should break the hard heart, and with the gospel, heal the broken heart. Martin Luther, commenting on the right use of the Law, said, “Wherefore this is the proper and absolute use of the Law, by lightning, by tempest and by the sound of the trumpet (as in Mount Sinai) to terrify, and by thundering to beat down and rend in pieces that beast which is called the opinion of righteousness.”

Without the Law, there can be no knowledge of sin: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary,
I would not have known sin except through the Law...
For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the Law, but when the Commandment came, sin revived and I died” (Romans 7:7-9, emphasis added).

The Law was the instrument of the death of the old nature. It made sure that sinners were truly born again, that the
Adamic
nature was dealt with by nailing it to the cross. It made certain that the convert was a new creature in Christ.

According to Romans 7:7, the Law of God—specifically the Ten Commandments—is the biblical means of awakening sinners. John Wesley said, “The very first end of the Law, namely, the convicting men of sin; the awakening those who are still asleep on the brink of hell...The ordinary method of God is to convict sinners by the Law, and that only. The gospel is not the means which God hath ordained, or which our Lord Himself used, for this end.”

A. W. Pink said,

The unsaved are in no condition today for the gospel till the Law be applied to their hearts, for “by the Law is the knowledge of sin.” It is a waste of time to sow seed on ground which has never been ploughed or spaded! To present the vicarious sacrifice of Christ to those whose dominant passion is to take fill of sin is to give that which is holy to the dogs.

Charles Spurgeon, in speaking of preparing the soil of the heart with the
plow
of the Law, stated:

One other reason why this soil was so uncongenial was that it was totally unprepared for the seed. There had been no
plowing
before the seed was
sown,
and no harrowing afterwards. He that sows without a
plow
may reap without a sickle. He who preaches the gospel without preaching the Law may hold all the results of it in his hand, and there will be little for him to hold.

Robbie
Flockhart
, when he preached in the streets of Edinburgh, used to say, “You must preach the Law, for the gospel is a silken thread, and you cannot get it into the hearts of men unless you have made a way for it with a sharp needle; the sharp needle of the Law will pull the silken thread of the gospel after it.” There must be
plowing
before there is sowing if there is to be reaping after the sowing.

To what was Jesus referring when He said not to give what is holy to the dogs? To what was He pointing when He said not to cast pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces (Matthew 7:6)? The most precious pearl the Church has is “Christ crucified.” Preach grace to the proud and watch what they do with it. They will tram-pie the blood of the Savior under their feet with their false profession, and, what’s more, they will become enemies of the gospel. If not physically, you can be sure they will tear you in pieces verbally. They have “insulted the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29). That means they insult the Holy Spirit. “Bitterness” and “backslider” are bad bedfellows for the Church. The proselyte becomes a twofold child of hell.

Those who make a profession of faith without having a humble heart (which the Law produces) have the experience described in 2 Peter 2:22: “According to the true proverb: A dog returns to his own vomit,
’
and ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.’” This is the tragic result of casting pearls of the gospel of grace to the proud, or what the Bible calls “dogs” and “swine.”

The false convert has never “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). He, like the pig, must go back to wallowing in the mire. Pigs
need
to wallow in mire because they crave the slime to cool their flesh. So it is with the false convert. He never repented, so his flesh is not dead with Christ. It is instead burning with unlawful desire. The heat of lust is too much for his sinful heart; he must go back to the filth.

Yet, the new and modern method of evangelism for-
sook
the Law in its power to humble the proud heart and convert the soul.
It did, however, speed the process of evangelism, making it much easier to get commitments. Also, it stirred less opposition and it seemed to get results. So everyone rejoiced.

Second, it failed to mention the fact of Judgment Day.
The Bible presents the great and terrible Day of the Lord as
the very reason
to repent and trust the Savior: “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to re-pent,
because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness”
(Acts 17:31, emphasis added). The new presentation was not faithful to God—it didn’t even hint of Judgment Day’s approach.

The reason Jesus died on the cross was to save us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). That is the essence of the message of the gospel, but there wasn’t even a mention of hell’s existence. The “
fast-fold
ers” ripped the heart out of the body of the gospel. General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, warned that in the twentieth century a gospel would be preached which promised heaven without mentioning hell. Modern evangelism did just that. Take the time to study closely the contents of today’s popular tracts and see the flaws of the fast-folding presentation:

1.    No mention of Judgment Day.

2.    Not a hint of hell.

3.    No use of the Law of God to bring the knowledge of personal sin.

4.    The gospel is held up as a means of happiness, rather than a means of righteousness.

That is a perfect recipe for a false conversion—a stony-ground hearer. He receives the Word with joy and gladness, but in a time of tribulation, temptation, or persecution, falls away. He is like the “young man” in Mark 14:51
,52
, who had a “linen cloth thrown around his naked body.” When persecution came, he cast off his covering and fled naked.

False converts are nothing new. George Whitefield said of his day, “That is the reason we have so many ‘mushroom
’
converts, because their stony ground is not
plowed
up; they have not got a conviction of the Law; they are stony-ground hearers.”

Charles Finney said, “Evermore the Law
must
pro pare the way for the gospel. To overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the Church with false converts... Time will make this plain.”
²

God knows that I hesitate to be critical of the authors of modern evangelistic literature. They are sincere, earnest, loving, godly brethren, but their zeal for the lost has lacked knowledge of the use of God’s Law, and the results are a devastation that cannot be ignored.

After discovering the rampant hypocrisy among pro-fessing believers, the author of the most popular of the “God Loves
You
and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life” tracts, said, “A belief that Christians are entitled to the ‘good life
’
can result in demoralizing church members. Expecting the Christian’s life to be a bed of roses can be very discouraging to a new Christian—and to more mature ones as well—when they are jostled by the storms of life.”

In a book by the same godly author, he weeps at the evident sin in the contemporary Church. Sadly, the horse of holiness has bolted, simply because the gate of the Law has been removed.

Third, the modem method also glossed over sin.
Probably the mainstay of the mention of sin in modern evangelism is Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” On looking at that Scripture, the question I would ask if I were not a Chris-
tian
is, “What is meant by ‘glory’?” Often we hear how the word “sin” was shouted during archery, to let the archer know that the arrow had fallen short of the tar-get. If I have fallen short of a mark, I would at least want to know what and where the target is
to measure how much I have fallen short,
to know whether I should give up or try another shot.

The Greek word used in the text is
doxa
,
which literally means “
honor
, worship, praise.” Humanity has fallen short of the
honor
, worship, and praise of God by failing to give our Creator the
honor
, the worship, and the praise due to Him. We have failed to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, which is the essence of the Law (Mark 12:30). In fact, “all have sinned” comes in the context of Paul saying that the Law has left the whole world guilty before God (Romans 3:19). By calling “sin!” to a sinner, but failing to tell him anything about the mark he is aiming for, is to let him think that he can still give it his best shot. However, to display the Law in front of him is to leave him without hope of ever coming near the mark, so that his only hope will be in the Savior.