Salvation and Godly Rule

Salvation and Evangelism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Salvation and Evangelism

Genre: Speech

Track: 65

Dictation Name: RR136AJ65

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture lesson is from the Book of the Acts to the Apostles 2:22-24, and 36-41. Acts 2:22-24, 36-41. The intervening verses we considered two weeks ago. Our subject is Salvation and Evangelism. “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”

Verses 32-41: “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

The godly pattern for evangelism is given to us here in Pentecost, and it is important for us to recognize the difference between the God-given pattern of evangelism as we meet it here and throughout all of scripture, and that which we meet today. The difference is very great. Moreover, the difference marks the difference, very often, between two different religions. The apostolic preaching, as well as the Old Testament preaching, follows a particular pattern. First of all, men were declared to be sinners under the wrath of God, under the sentence of death. Their judgment was plainly set forth so that men cried out, “What shall I do to be saved?”

Then second, God was presented as man’s only savior through his incarnate son, Jesus Christ, and it was declared that God, in grace and mercy, hath provided a way of escape, the atonement and the resurrection, and Christ was set forth as our mediator and the captain of our salvation.

And third, it was declared that salvation meant, indeed, the release of a condemned man, but released into a new life, into baptism, into Christ and his kingdom, into obedience to his law, and to fellowship with his saints in the church, to communion with God through Christ, and much, much more.

Evangelism then and now, is thus, diametrically opposed. Some years ago, a campus worker, in discussing his method of evangelism, set forth the ideas of his group and I very clearly expressed my opposition to him, because his approach was to tell everyone, “God loves you,” whereas I said, “The scripture declared to the sinner that you are under the judgment of God, and this is the starting point,” and he said, “I use the soft sell and you use the hard sell.” Now, he was very wrong up to a point, but very accurate in describing what he was doing; the soft sell versus the hard sell. His language was the language of salesmanship. Now, the ability to sell is a real virtue. It has its place in a very important one in our world, but it is out of place in evangelism, and here it’s the heart of the {?}.

Evangelism today operates as though Christ were on sale, as though Christ were a commodity to be appraised by the buyer, who is the sovereign man, but Christ is not merchandise to be presented to a sovereign buyer, as though he were a possible asset for the wise shopper. Merchandising appeals to the buyer. It works to bring them into a favorable mood and to present him the values of his purchase. He soft peddles the problems sometimes, or the liabilities, but basically it tries to say, “This that I want to sell for you is good for you. Buy it. It will be an asset to your home, to your life, to your future.”

Now, when we are shopping, this is what we want; good salesmanship. In shopping, we are the key. We are the deciding person, and therefore, the appeal should be salesmanship. It should commend something to us as an asset to us as something useful and worthwhile, but the blasphemy of modern evangelism is that it is salesmanship. The buyer is told that he needs Christ for a richer and a happier life. Therefore, buy Christ. Sign up. Get the best deal possible through Jesus Christ, the best insurance possible. Sign up for a life in eternity, and you are sovereign. You choose or refuse, the Christ that is offered by modern evangelism. This is blasphemy, because true evangelism is very different. It is more like a warrant for arrest on a death penalty offense, and this is precisely the nature of the preaching throughout scripture. This is why men cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” The declaration of God’s word to sinners was, “You have sinned against the sovereign God. You deserve death,” but at the same time is offered a gift from the sovereign. True evangelism therefore, does not sell to a sovereign buyer. It indicts on the part of a sovereign God, and it offers sovereign grace. To accept the indictment is to admit the justice of the death penalty, and to sue for pardon{?} and to receive grace, and to obey the word of the sovereign God.

Now this is precisely what St. Peter did on the Day of Pentecost. As we read his sermon then, we see he began by an insistence on the sovereignty of God, on his determinate counsel and foreknowledge, and God’s determinate counsel and foreknowledge are so great, St. Peter said, that they were behind and governed, and ruled even in their sin, whereby they crucified Christ, and yet they are responsible, and the death penalty stands against them.

Thus, St. Peter plainly sets forth not only the sovereignty of God, but the responsibility for sin, and the sinner must see himself, not merely as a sinner because sin is not in a vacuum, nor merely is a sinner against man, or against himself, but first of all, as a sinner, before God and against God, and this, St. Peter plainly does on his sermon on Pentecost, but the sovereign power and wisdom of God is so great, he declares, that it uses man’s sin to redound to the glory of God. The very sin of Israel was a means of setting forth Christ’s work, so that what the psalmist had declared of old, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee. The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain,” was indeed true. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it,” and what Peter does not say but implies and what is over and over again stated by St. Paul is, that when God can bring good out of evil, when the most fearful evil that man ever committed, to crucify Christ, was made to work for the salvation of man in terms of God’s plan. If God can bring good out of evil, and out of our sin, how much greater good will he not bring out of our obedience? And so the summons is to repent. “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

They had crucified the Lord of Lords, but “God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ,” and therefore, they must repent, and they must seek his baptism. They must be made new creatures in Christ through the Holy Spirit, “for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” The promise thus, is a magnificent one, and an indictment that saves those who are indicted and accepts the indictment is also a marching order for the conquest of all things in Christ, and a promise to generations yet unborn.

The scripture gives us abundant evidence that this is the nature of true preaching. We are told that our Lord precisely followed this pattern and the apostles took it from him. In Matthew 4:17 we read that Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom to heaven is at hand.” In Luke 24:27, “Repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in his name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” In Acts 3:19, where in the apostolic preaching is again encountered, we are told, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sin may be blotted out from the times of refreshings shall come from the presence of the Lord.”

Moreover, again and again through the scripture, not only is this indictment sounded, but also the glorious promise to those who receive God’s sovereign grace. “And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” In Ephesians 2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” Now, this was the pattern of evangelism for centuries, in every age of health of the church, but whenever the pattern of preaching has changed, and when evangelists have acted as though man were sovereign and we’re shopping around and Christ were offered to him to buy, as though, “Here is a good asset,” not an indictment, the end result has been, while tens of thousands have been responding to that kind of appeal, the church has declined, the nation has declined, and the world has declined.

There was no lack of evangelism in the latter part of the Middle Ages. There was probably more than there had been earlier, and yet, the Medieval civilization collapsed, because the evangelism was faulty, because it was selling Christ rather than indicting sinners and offering them sovereign grace.

The same thing happened in the last century. There was a tremendous burst of evangelism, more than before, but that new evangelism was of this variety, selling Christ, and the result was a decline.

It would be easy to cite passages from the evangelism of a century and more ago, to point out what was happening and how it destroyed Christianity in this country, but to cite one, and this is not as bad as others, because some are so bad as to be blasphemous, and I would hesitate to read some of the preaching that has taken place among evangelists in the last century, because I find it too upsetting, but this is one that Fredrick Law Olmsted quoted, published in 1860 and representing his travels in the 1850’s. This happened to be in the South. Much worse examples could be cited from the North, and he cites the preacher whom he does not even want to call such, “The speaker presently was crying aloud with a mournful distressed, beseeching shriek, as if he himself were suffering torture. ‘Oh, and if any of you {?} parents who know that any of your dear, sweet little ones may be oh, at any moment, snatched right away from your bosom and cast into hell fire, oh, there to suffer torment for ever and ever, and ever and ever, oh, come out here and help us pray for them. Oh, any of you wives that have got an unconverted husband that won’t go along with you to eternal glory, but is set upon being separated from you, oh, and taking up his bed in Hell. Oh, I call upon you if you love him now to come out here and join us in praying for him. Oh, if there be a husband here whose wife is still in the bond of iniquity,’” etc., through a long category. Olmsted goes on to say the whole point of it was to buy fire insurance for yourself, and to urge then, all your loved ones to get fire insurance, and that was the entire content of the sermon, nothing more. “Think how much better your life will be.” That was the jist of it.

Of course, my life will be better if I have ten thousand dollars more in the bank than what I have, which is nothing. Of course my life will be better if someone gives me this and that, and the other thing, and of course it’s very appealing if an evangelist offers me and anyone else all these marvels if I only buy Christ, and so, there is no problem with such evangelism. More people ostensibly were saved in this country from the middle of the last century to the present than ever before, and a larger percentage, and the country has gone downhill, and what was once a Christian nation is today, a humanistic nation, because not Christ, but man is sovereign in such evangelism, and people who feel they’ve made a good buy are going around happy, happy on their road to destruction. They’ve made a good buy, but have they?

Sometimes, let it be said by way of conclusion, preaching of this kind does save people in spite of the preacher. St. Paul made that point. He called attention to the fact that there were some who were preaching Christ who were unconverted who were dishonest, who were contemptible. He expressed gratitude that in spite of these people, their preaching at times did convert man, but he did not say that this is any reason, therefore, to approve of these worlds{?} who were preaching. He still condemned them.

Today, the great and crying need is for godly evangelism. Evangelism in which sovereign grace is presented, because the preacher believes in the sovereign God, nothing else will please the Lord. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou art sovereign, and we pray that in thy sovereign mercy and grace, thou wouldst be merciful to this generation, that thou wouldst, O Lord, call men, women, and children unto thyself, and make us again a godly people, glorifying and serving thee with all our heart, mind, and being. We thank thee for thy grace. We thank thee, our God, that thou art our sufficiency, that all things are in thy hands who doeth all things well. Bless us and use us. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all, on our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] I was wondering if {?} Whitfield {?}

[Rushdoony] Whitfield definitely stressed sovereign grace, emphatically, and of course, this was the thing that divided him from many, and lead to a growing split between himself and Wesley, and Wesley was closer to Whitfield than he is to his successors today, but Whitfield was emphatic on his insistence on sovereign grace. Yes?

[Audience] You {?} for a short time {?} you present the gospel, and what short presentation of the Gospel would you use? {?}

[[Rushdoony] Well, St. Peter here gives a very short one. He makes it clear that men are sinners, his heirs are sinners, they are under the indictment of God, and they must accept the sovereign grace of the sovereign God, and what we need to, however we do it, it’s to emphasize to the modern that his idea that he is sovereign, that he is lord, that he is the ultimate judge in every sphere, is wrong. We have to hit hard at that and then present God’s indictment and grace.

[Audience] But I find {?} with people {?} believe on Christ, and {?} a lot of people believe, “Well, I believe in him,” {?} “I believe in him,{?} and then you acknowledge that you’re not saved, and I wished I knew about it, and they’ll say, Well, I believe, you know, that for me, but you know, {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, then God is not sovereign. It just, you believe it because it’s a good thing for you. The devils in Hell believe and tremble, we are told. This does not make them saved. This is the heart of the matter.

[Audience] Do you think it’s right for an evangelist to say, Well, you {?} Christians that come out and say, You are {?}

[Rushdoony] Certainly, certainly. If you know them well enough so that you know that their profession is not real, because there are too many people who feel that because they signed a decision card at a crusade or an evangelistic service, that’s it. It’s as though they have nothing more than that to give, and occasionally a check or going to a service that constitutes being a Christian. You see, they’ve bought something. This is the psychology.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Of course it’s not pleasant to be under an indictment. No one likes to feel bad, and this is the trouble with modern evangelism. You’re shocking and you’re getting something that you need. Now, there’s a difference, you see, between a need. I may be hungry and need some food. The food is something I can use, and a great deal of evangelism today appeals to a need, and it’s trying to sell you this. This is what you need. Now a very good example of this kind of humanism I found when I, during the late thirties, early forties, was a youth worker in the Chinese Presbyterian church in Chinatown in San Francisco, and the very definitely humanistic character of Chinese culture was very clearly brought home to me, it was very, very easy to get people out to meetings, and I was teaching a boys class every Sunday and I filled a huge room. It was very easy to get them, and it was very easy for others to get them, and they enjoyed it, but after awhile they were gone, and one very brilliant young man who was a hospital administrator there, and a leader in the community came without fail every week for almost a year, and then he quit coming, and when I met him on the street and urged him to come, he was surprised. He said, “Oh, it did me a great deal of good but I don’t need it anymore, but I recommend it very strongly to my friends, because I know it’ll do them a great deal of good.”

You see, the centuries old Confucianism, the humanism, the relativism of Chinese culture made them feel that, “Whatever meets our need, this is good for us.” But after all, if you need an aspirin, you take it when you have a headache. You don’t take it when you don’t have a headache, and Christianity is like that. You may need it, and this is then one of the problems in the old China with missionary work. They were called rice Christians, but it wasn’t necessarily because they came just when they needed the food, although they did that too. It was the basic pragmatism. This is why Dr. Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy, a sociologist, very brilliant one, the finest in this century to my knowledge, and he died just this year, spoke of John Dewey’s philosophy as the Chinafication of America, because he said the pragmatism of Dewey had sold this country, through the public schools which adopted Dewey’s teaching, the same basic pragmatism, the same attitude that the only test is, “Do I need it? Is it good for me? Does it work for me?” and of course, this has changed the face of religion drastically in this country, because you had generations of children who have adopted this, because before Dewey you had Purse{?} and James{?} and Colonel Parker, but they’re a tremendous influence on the public schools.

So from the latter part of the nineteenth century till now, almost a hundred years, you have been trained in this basic pragmatism. So, like the Chinese, they’re for something, if they need it, and this is why movements like Youth for Christ, and Campus Life, and now the Jesus Movement really flourish for awhile, and then they’re gone. They meet a need. They buy an item, and then they pass on. They don’t need it anymore. I’ve encountered people who, much younger than myself, bought evangelism of one sort or another when they were in school or on campus, at the university, and they’ll laugh about it, how they went overboard on it and they’ll say, “It was good for me, didn’t hurt me any, and I needed it then,” and that’s it. The Chinafication of America.

Now, this is why I believe that God, in his wisdom, has brought communism to Red China. This is why, when the communists took over, I told many of my friends that obviously, this was the purpose of God, his eternal counsel, to shatter them out of an almost 2,000 year history of this radical relativism and pragmatism, a radical humanism, and ours isn’t as deep, but I suspect that the growing monetary crisis and some of the disasters that will come out of that will simply serve the same purpose here, to shatter us out of that humanistic thing that says all things, including God and Christ, are there for us to use when we need them. Yes?

[Audience] What was the name of the sociologist?

[Rushdoony] Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy. Oh, there will be a reference in the June Chalcedon Report to his great work, Out of Revolution, the Autobiography of Western Man. I’m quite sure I have a reference to it, but I believe that book is still in print. It was first written in 38. It’s one of the most important of this century, and its thesis is that modern man has been in revolution for some time, revolting against Christ, and seeking to go back to Adam. That is, to the natural man, denying the supernatural man, denying that man must meet a law beyond himself, and saying that man, as he is, whatever he chooses to be is his own law and standard. Now, he traces the history of this through the centuries and its proliferation in our day. It’s a very important work, about 1200-1400 pages.

[Audience] What’s one {?} historic evangelism prevails? In what form?

[[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience] In what form does historic evangelism prevail in the medieval times?

[Rushdoony] Yes. In the Medieval times, it became very much as it is today. In fact, you can take some of the preaching that I’ve just cited, the one the Olmstead quotes, and others from the same period, and you can go right back into the late Middle Ages, and it’s virtually the same thing, word for word, the same kind of appeal, and this is why, of course, the whole idea of indulgences, you see, grew up, and indulgences was just buying insurance. It became that open, and really, the Protestant evangelism of today is not too far away from the idea of indulgences, only it hasn’t offered an outright purchase, and they went this far. Now, throughout the latter part of the Middle Ages when the church was promoting indulgences, there were many theologians who opposed it, but the tide of things was running against them, because philosophy, theology, politics, everything had become so radically humanistic.

Well, our time is just about up. I’d like to remind you that this Thursday, we will have our class on the Biblical Doctrine of Knowledge at the Gutierrez home in Eagle Rock, this Thursday, 8-9:00.

Let us bow our heads now for the benediction.

And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape