Here are another couple questions that I received via e-mail recently. If you are getting tired of this question & answer format, I apologize, however I still have 3-4 more questions to go before I am through!
It is my desire that my responses can help many people who are dealing with the same issues as the man who wrote me these questions.
It is much better to have a passion to reach the lost, but lack a little bit of knowledge, than to think that you know-it-all about how to evangelize, but don’t have a real and passionate desire to do so.
I have a hard time understanding how to approach people here (at my job in New Jersey) who:
1) believe that they are Christians, but whose lives don’t match that claim (hypocrites)
)
2) those I have talked to about the gospel, and they thoroughly understand it, but also thoroughly reject it
To answer the first question, I want to simply recommend that you listen for free (or read the transcript) to the message, “True and False Conversion“ by Ray Comfort. This sermon will help you understand what the Bible teaches about this difficult subject, and it will give you a ton of insight on how to go about conversing with such a person.
I don’t really agree with the premise of the second question. I would bet that those people “who have been talked to about the gospel, but thoroughly reject it” do not really comprehend it at all. They might understand the “letter” of the Gospel, that is, the story of Jesus coming to earth and dying for mankind. However, I am almost positive that they do not comprehend the “spirit” of the Gospel, the depth of the love of God seen in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Most likely, they do not understand the Gospel because they do not understand the heinousness of their sin. The Gospel means nothing to a man who doesn’t understand his fallenness, his wretched sinfulness, and his desperate need for a Savior.
It would be like a doctor telling his patient that he had sold everything that he owned in order to purchase a certain medicine, and that he wanted to give it to him as a free gift. The patient would understand the words that the doctor spoke, but he would consider him a little crazy, because he doesn’t see his need for the medicine.
Now what if the doctor had first sat the patient down and began to describe in-depth to him the 10 clear symptons that were evident in his flesh of the deadly disease that would kill him within days? And as he saw the patient begin to tremble and faint from fear of his disease and his certain death, then when he explained the good news that he had sold everything that he owned in order to purchase the cure, and that he wanted to give it to him as a free gift, then the patient would not only understand the doctors words, but he would receive them and hang on to them with all his strength, because they are words of life to him.
So there is a need to use 10 commandments to show a lost person the utter sinfulness of their sin (Romans 7:7-13) so that they can truly comprehend the Gospel and be able to appreciate and appropriate the Good News of Jesus Christ in their lives.
