Personal
Evangelism
By T. C. Hortori
B ^ H
' Lesson 5.
tient with some of these people, for they have lived all of their'lives, with- out consciousness of the fact that they are the chief of sinners. You will be inclined to be harsh and severe with them, but you must seek to be gentle as Christ was with the rich young man. 1. The demand of God from every living soul. Matt. 22:35-40. To love God with all the heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. Let the inquirer carefully read these verses and then ask if this command has ever been kept any one day. 2. Show why it is impossible for any one to keep this command, be- cause of the weakness of the flesh. Rom. 8:3. No matter how anxious one is to keep the law, the flesh is too weak. If oijly one commandment is broken in God's sight all are broken. Jas. 2:10. 3. Then prove from Rom. 8:7-8 what the carnal mind of man is and how im- possible it would be for any unregen- erate one to please God. 4. Read Gal. 3:10, and show that those who are trusting to their own works are under the curse of God, and can never be justified in the sight of God, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Gal. 3:10. 5. You will be able now to probe a little deeper and let the light of God's Word into the heart of the inquirer, so that the sinfulness of the heart may be revealed. Show Christ's interpreta- tion of the heart of man, Jer. 17:9; Matt. 15:19. 6. You can now show that because man was born with a sinful nature and without power to keep the law, that the Son of God came into the world and kept the whole law in order that He might be a perfect sacrifice for us. Rom. 10, Gal. 4:4-5, and redeemed us from the curse of the law. 7. Now show the necessity of a new nature, inasmuch as our nature is at enmity with God, Rom. 8:7. If we are to please Him and live with Him we must have a nature like His. We must he born again. Jno. 3:8-7. For your illustrations t a ke Nicode- mus the moral Pharisee in John 3, and the insistence of Christ "You must be born again," the publican and Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14. The Pharisee was a good man outwardly, but he failed to
, Before we study the lesson for this month, let us stop and ask ourselves some pertinent questions, for we will learn that the attitude of heart, when studying, will have much to do with our learning the lesson. 1. Am I conscious of the fact that souls out of Christ are tost? 2. Do I have any real apprehension what that word lost means? 3. Have I any real love for those who are lost or am I doing personal work from other motives? 4. Is my own relationship to God what it ought to be, so that He can im- part the truth to my own soul, in prep- oration for the work of saving others? 5. Am I consistently and faithfully doing all I can now to save those who are upon my prayer list? Follow this heart interrogation with a season of prayer, seek to get your heart in real fellowship with the Son of God, who loved you, died for you, who loves all men and will have all to be saved. We have looked at three classes of inquirers, the indifferent, the anxious and those who claim to be too great sinners, and in this lesson we want to consider a very large and growing class. The Self-righteous. You will be able to detect this class very quickly. They will say, "I am not a great sinner," "I am doing my best," -') "I pay my debts," "I think if I do the best I can, God will not be hard upon [A me," "I am better than your church members." You will find many of them belonging to clubs, societies and lodges, and engaged in philanthropic work; many of them will be persons who are living outwardly clean moral lives. They differ from the indifferent in that they pride themselves upon their own good- ness and are seeking to work out their own salvation. These people know but little, if anything, about the Word of God. They have no conception of the Holiness of God or the subtility of Satan. They do not know the sinfulness of Sin and the exceeding righteousness of God. God demands absolute perfection. You must compel them to measure them- selves with God. They must understand that God has only one standard, and that Himself. You must be very pa- * k *.>- »
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