A friend and I are co-teaching an evangelism and apologetics class at Tulsa Bible Church on Sunday evenings. We're now in the on-the-job training portion of the class where we take the class out on the street and help them begin to put what they're learning into practice. We went to a local mall. Inside the food court, one of the restaurant employees called out to me and asked me if I wanted to try some of their chicken. Often our natural tendency is to shy away from solicitors, because we don't want to be disturbed. I've learned, though, that solicitors are an open invitation to sharing the gospel.
He offered me some chicken. I politely accepted the offer and then told him that I had something for him, too. I handed him a million dollar bill gospel tract. I told him it was a gospel tract and asked him if he knew where he'd go if he were to die today. He shook his head, no. He didn't know. I told him that the good news found in the bible is that he can know for sure what his eternal destiny would be. I asked him if he wanted to know how he could know for sure. He said, yes.
So, I proceeded to give him the biblical "test" for how good someone must be to enter heaven. He admitted that he had broken each of the commands that I asked him about. He also admitted that he would be judged guilty by God if he died today and were judged by God's moral law. He also realized that meant his destiny would not be heaven, but hell. He didn't know that Jesus spoke more about hell than heaven. He didn't know what Jesus said about what hell is like, so I told him, leaving out none of the graphic details used by Jesus himself. I used to think that talking to people about hell scared them into the Kingdom. It definitely should concern people that their destiny would be hell. After all, we tell our children in love not to stick their finger in the electrical socket and tell them it will fry them in order to spare them of such a tragedy. But, hell actually accentuates the depth of God's love and the degree of his holiness, because he suffered the worst suffering of all--bearing the full weight of an infinite amount of all of man's horrific sin--in order that we could avoid hell. We share the worst of hell with people so that when we then share the greatest news of the gospel, it makes the glory of the gospel shine that much brighter and the radiance of God's undeserved love that much more overwhelming and appealing. Just as the blackness of darkness of a clear Rocky Mountain night sky makes the brilliance of the Milky Way stand out that much more brilliantly, so the unadulterated truth about hell makes the glory of the Gospel that much more glorious.
Horge heard the gospel. He understood the need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation. I also explained to him the importance of following Jesus with his life and how a truly born again person has a new heart with new desires as evidenced by wanting to live a new life on the narrow way following the giver of life himself. I explained that it involves continuing in God's word daily (John 8:31-32) and learning to fish for men (Matt. 4:19).
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