An Encounter with Him

I don't believe Peter or Andrew or John or James or any of the other disciples ever stepped forward to pray to receive Christ, but they left everything they had to go and follow Him. When Jesus watched the rich young ruler turn his back on Him and walk away, Peter commented, Aloh, we have left all and followed thee. I wonder how many in our churches who have responded to an emotional appeal by an evangelist and said the sinner's prayer ever really counted the cost of following a crucified Christ.

I wonder how many of them actually met Christ and experienced change. I wonder how many pastors who stand in our pulpits as unconverted men who merely walked an aisle in a church as a child and gave their heart to Jesus when they didn't even know what that meant at the time. I wonder how many of the dozens of people I prayed with in living rooms when I was an evangelism explosion trainer actually passed from death to life.

I don't believe one of them did because when I'd go back the next week to do follow-up work, not one of them would answer the door even though the lights were on and I could hear their TV playing. What we call evangelism today must make the devil happy as it secures folks into a false hope and a false faith and keeps them in his kingdom of darkness even though they managed to get on the church roll. I wonder how much damage has been done by asking people to receive our little Jesus and our shrunken God who we placed on man's level.

I'll never forget sitting at a banquet table at my seminary graduation dinner and it was testimony time and a young evangelist jumped up on the platform and said he just finished a week of meetings and 1,200 had come forward to get saved. The room erupted in shouts of amens and people were clapping all around me as I sat with a sinking feeling of embarrassment of what we call evangelism in our day. I wonder how many times George Whitfield finished a sermon by saying, now friends, if you want to receive Jesus as your personal Savior, step forward and I will lead you in a prayer so you will know for certain when you die you will go to heaven.

I wonder how many times Jonathan Edwards asked his hearers to close their eyes and raise their hands if they wanted to accept Jesus. I believe both those men of God would be ashamed of us today and would cry out against what we call evangelism. When Jesus preached his crowd away with hard truths like, therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my father and the text reads, from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will you also go away? But we don't want to preach our crowds away today so we water down our gospel message to make it more palatable to sinful man. We place so much emphasis on the success of our ministry by the size of our church that we want to get as many members as we can to join so we can look good within our denomination. I know God's not impressed by numbers like we are, but Baptists are like mathematicians.

They love numbers, and I believe the Baptists will be easy to spot in heaven because they will be the ones going around counting everybody. But we must ask ourselves, friends, to burn in questions in our churches today. Is God the agent of salvation, or is man? And secondly, are men saved as a result of a decision they make, or as a result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit? How we answer will determine our methodology in trying to reach centers with the Christ of the Gospel.

I don't believe it so much in accepting Jesus in response to an emotional appeal, but salvation lies more in receiving a revealed Christ. Has he been revealed to you, friend? Have you ever been the subject of receiving spiritual life from God and regeneration? Or are you born again, or did you just make a decision and join the church? We must get back to preaching a God-centered gospel and point centers to the bloodstained Christ of the Gospel so he can save them. When Jesus was here in his earthly ministry, as he passed through towns and villages, those who had an encounter with him experienced change.

Why don't we stop handing out free tickets to heaven and instead warn men and women and boys and girls about a burning infernal called hell and their need of a work of grace upon their hearts so they can exercise repentance toward God and faith in Christ Jesus? Let us pray about how we handle the truths of the gospel as we tell hungry souls about the one who came down here so we can go up there. Let us pray.