Using The Law To Witness Essay, Research Paper

Today I am going to share with you something that I have found to be the most important part of how we witness to other people. In the late 1970’s, a man named Ray Comfort began to explore Church growth records. He found that 80 to 90 percent of those making a decision for Christ are falling away from the faith.

A major denomination in the United States reported to have 11,500 churches in the U.S. This same denomination reported to have obtained 294,000 decisions for Christ in 1991. This same church could only find 14,000 of those people in fellowship today. Modern evangelism is preaching the benefits of salvation, with out using the law to show the sinner why they are lost with out God. These statistics are the normal results of modern evangelism.

The way that we present the Gospel determines the kind of response the person will make. We need to present the Gospel with the law in mind.

Here is an illustration that Ray Comfort uses in his Book, “Hells best kept secret”:

Two men are seated in a plane. A stewardess gives the first man a parachute and tells him that it will improve his flight. The passenger is a little skeptical, but after hearing the persuasion of the stewardess, he decides that what she says is true. After he puts it on, he notices the uncomfortable weight of the parachute, and that it makes it uncomfortable to sit with it on. Eventually other people in the plane start laughing at him. The passenger decides that it isn’t worth it to wear the parachute anymore and he takes it off. He feels that he has been lied to.

Another stewardess gives the second man a parachute. She tells him to put it on because at any moment he will be jumping out of the plane. The second passenger gratefully straps the parachute on. He doesn’t notice its weight upon his shoulders. All he can think about is that he would die without the parachute. When other passengers laugh at him, he thinks, “You won’t be laughing when you’re falling to the ground!”

The first person was promised that the parachute would only improve his flight, but he wasn’t told why. But the second man was promised that the parachute would save him from would otherwise be the death to come.

We can now see that when someone is promised love joy and peace and they do not receive it, they feel like they were lied to. So how can we prevent this from happening. We must use the law when we witness to the unsaved. Psalm 19:7 says “The law of the Lord is perfect for converting the soul.” You must show each man or woman that they have broken God’s law. Everyone at some time has stolen something, and many people who are not saved use God‘s name in vain. Show them that stealing is breaking the ten commandments, and that using Gods name in vain is blasphemy. Therefore, we have all broken the entire Law of the Lord. We must present the consequences of breaking the law. Explain to them that we will all be judged for the sins we have committed. In Romans 7: 7 Paul says I did not know what sin was until the law told me. In Romans 3:19 we see that God says the law will stop the mouth of the sinner. It will stop the sinner from justifying his sin. We have all heard the argument that “I am not that bad, or there are plenty of people who are worse than me.” When people use these arguments you must show them that we have all broken God’s law, and because of that we are in need of his grace.

If you approach a sinner and say Jesus loves you and he died on the cross for your sins, it will offensive because he doesn’t think he is a sinner.

But if you show him that he has offended God by breaking his law, he will realize that he is a sinner and want to avoid God’s wrath. A great verse to use here is Romans 6:23. Once you have established to the person you are witnessing to that they have sinned, explain to them that the wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life.

The best way to do that is to start off with a regular conversation about anything that you may have in common, and swing it to a conversation about God. You can use tracks to help you change the subject during your conversation.

Christianity does give you love joy and peace. But these are what I would call the benefits of salvation. Having benefits does not insure against the less exciting parts of the Christian Faith. Using love joy and peace to witness will only give people a false motive to come to the Lord. Trials should bring us closer to the Lord because we draw near to him in times of trouble. So use the law to witness to the unsaved and you will give them the true motive to come to Jesus Christ. A. B. Earl was a famous evangelist from the 19th century. He was responsible for leading over 150,000 people to the Lord in his life. He said, “I have found by long experience that the severest threatening of the law of God has a prominent place in leading people to Christ. They must see themselves as lost before they will cry for mercy, they will not escape danger until they see it.”

Bibliography

Barclay, William. The letter to the Romans. Philadelphia, Penn.: The Westminster

Press. 1955

Bright, Dr. D. (1994) Bringing words of hope to the world around you. [Online]. Available: http://www.ccci.org/10steps/step7/lesson1/index.html [1994]

Comfort, Ray. Hells best kept secret. Bellflower, CA.: Living Water Publishing House

1998

Hayford, Jack W. A study of Romans. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers

1980

“The Holy Bible.” New International Version. Psalm 19:7, Romans 3:19, Romans 7:7