They Came, They Talked, They Heard

They came to our community-wide yard sale and when they did, our in-house, trained, and passionate evangelists were there to meet, greet, listen, and talk to them about Christ and Him crucified.  The evangelists asked them questions they’d never been asked before and gave them biblical answers most had never heard before.  Teens, children, middle-agers, and the elderly, each in turn, sat at the tables, talked, listened, and shared their hearts with evangelists eager to relate the good news.

Once seated at the interview table, the evangelists asked diagnostic questions: “Would you say that heaven is a free gift or something you have to earn?”  “Assuming that you will go to heaven, why should God let you in?  That is, what reason or reasons would you give God to justify why you should get into heaven?”

And their answers came, sometimes quickly, sometimes after a pause for thought.   The first question, more often than not, took no thought whatsoever; to most it was a no-brainer: “Heaven? You have to earn it,”  most said, without missing a beat.

When asked by what right should God let you into heaven,” (i.e. “Then how are you earning it?”) the answers came from one person after another: “Because I fight for Him.”  “Because I try to do what’s right.”  “Because I follow Him and live a life of repentance.”  “Because I’m giving and always willing to help the less fortunate; I think of others first, and I’m a fighter and God respects you when you give your all.” “I talk to others about God and I save souls.  When I talk to them, God cleans them up.  [God should let me in because] I also correct people when they’re wrong, like when they cuss.  I show them their sin.” “You have to live right and do right,” most of them said in one way or another.

In answering the question, “Would you say that heaven is a free gift or do you have to earn it," seemingly sane, rational adults answered, “It’s free, if I earn it,” “You don’t earn it; it’s a choice you make to do right,” “Heaven is free for the taking if I do what I’m supposed to do,” and “It’s closer to earning, but it’s the grace of God.”

Wait a minute.

Each of those answers is at one and the same time self-contradictory and illogical nonsense.  How can something be “free, but you have to earn it?”

All their spiritual knowledge, they said, came from “My upbringing," "My church," or "The Bible.”

Three words condense all their religious nonsense: “Works.” “Works.” “Works.”  Works is in their heart, it’s in their soul, it’ll be their breath should they grow old.  Talk about ingrained—religion is ingrained in the human heart.

After hearing those answers, the evangelists went to work, drawing a diagram which begins where salvation always begins—with God and who He is.  He’s holy, righteous, just, sovereign, and love.  Since He’s sovereign, He’s the Number One Ruler who makes the rules and man has broken those rules in thought and deed, committing sins of omission and commission, making man a curved in on himself sinner whose sins have built an impossible-to-cross barrier between himself and God.

The drawing continued with the pay-off for man the sinner—hell forever.  “The wages of sin is death,” they explained.  Then they pointed out the good things the person seated next to them had done, the good things he or she had mentioned earlier as to how they could earn heaven: he had helped people, she had fought for God, and we all know that God respects a fighter; another had tithed.  But the pride-crushing bad news came at all of them from the evangelists: none of those good things will get them past that impossible-to-cross sin barrier.  “All your righteousness are filthy rags,” the evangelists told them.  (That takes courage!)

And then it was on to the good news: God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for their sins, to pay it all, and this was a 100% grace move on God’s part. (Now they saw that their definition of grace was faulty; now they saw that getting past that barrier wasn’t by some good they did or points they earned.)  They understood that grace means salvation is “on the house,” “a gift,” and as all gifts must be, free, absolutely free!

They heard that Jesus rose from the dead and makes a promise to them—eternal life if they trust Him and Him alone for it.

Then the evangelists moved to life’s biggest question: “Is there any reason why you can’t trust Christ right now?”  There were those who secured their eternal future when they said, “No, there’s no reason for me not to believe in Christ right now.”

Children came to the tables and saw evangelists draw John 3:16 and heard the gospel in the story of the Wordless Book.  (From a follow-up report about one of the children who heard, the evangelists later learned that he took three copies of the Wordless Book, kept one for himself and later gave the two others to two children at their respective birthday parties, only after all those attending the parties listened to him give the gospel by explaining the Wordless Book and reciting John 3:16.  The youth evangelists did their work well, reproducing themselves in that one.)

The evangelists did several things during those two days of talking to over thirty people: when they met those who were ignorant of the gospel, they declared it; when they met those who were confused about the gospel, they clarified it; when they met those who didn’t want to hear it, they made sure they left with it in writing in “The Gift,” “The Gospel,” "Things One Must Understand and Believe in Order to be Saved," and the “County Line-Grace Line” publications.  (Everyone whom they interviewed left with those gifts.) The evangelists sent more than ninety copies of the gospel home with those who sat and talked with them.

The response was gratifying—some of those interviewed expressed their appreciation for a church which is reaching out (as someone said, "A church must either evangelize or fossilize.")  Some hugged the evangelists in gratitude. One woman summed it up when, after having trusted Christ, she said, “Thank you for caring about me.”

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor
County Line Church