Introduction to Book
Forward “Hell? No!”
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There is a clever t-shirt that displays…
“Let’s eat grandma.
Let’s eat, grandma.
Punctuation saves lives”
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Extend that to the title of this book, “Hell? No!”
“Hell?” with a question mark…Punctuation matters.
The “Question Mark” tells us that Hell is still a question for the living people you encounter who are not born again in Christ. If they die apart from Christ, Hell moves from being a question to being a statement…an eternal reality.
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“No!” with an exclamation mark. The exclamation mark is there to punctuate the need for us to take evangelism seriously… we know from the Bible that time is short.
Joseph Stalin is credited with the quote, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." You and I can’t do much about the “statistic”, be we can do something to make the “tragedy” different. Do you know someone who, when death comes calling, will suffer the tragedy of dying apart from Christ and spending eternity in Hell?
Sadly, the person who first comes to mind might be one who will not listen to you. Perhaps this person proves what Christ said about “a prophet is without honor in his own land.” Please don’t let this person discourage you in your quest to obediently reach the lost with the Gospel.
You may be the prophet in that person’s life and you are pushing a rope trying to reach him or her. They have written you off. Accept it, pray that God will send someone else to them who they will listen to and move on. We all have these people in our lives. Perhaps God will send you to that person in my life and he will listen to you...I am confident he will never listen to me.
One of my proofreaders even suggested giving a copy of this book to that person in your life who won’t listen. Not sure of that one, but I guess you could say, “Here’s a book with a lot of questions I would like to ask you…please read it and let me know what you think?”
The good news is that there are plenty of people who will listen to you…you just need to know the right questions to ask to get their attention turned to the Gospel.
The heart and soul of this book is “Share your faith without an argument” from evangelist Bill Fay and “Don’t argue with the person, reason with their conscience” from evangelist Ray Comfort.
Until I became acquainted with the methods of these two gentlemen, I found the idea of doing the work of the evangelist about as enticing as getting a root canal. Name the excuse and I probably used it. My excuses ran the gamut… “I don’t feel qualified, you shouldn’t talk about religion or politics, don’t mix faith with business, I’m not a Bible scholar, etc.” A visiting evangelist actually gave me the best excuse ever while giving a financial report to our church. He said “Some of us are sent into the evangelism field and some of you are senders” … That was ointment to my soul and a great excuse to remain silent. All I had to do was write a support check and my conscience was clear…I was a “sender”.
Then along came another evangelist looking for recruits, not funding. He asked, “What are you doing right now, right here where you live, to reach the lost for Christ?” Ouch, he burst my excuse bubble, especially when he made it clear that Jesus said to take the Gospel to the whole world, without any qualifiers, such as “if you are gifted in evangelism” or “if you have plenty of time and nothing better to do.”
Shortly after that Bill Fay’s little booklet titled, “Share Your Faith Without an Argument” made its way into my possession. I don’t think that was just a “coincidence”.
That little book introduced me to asking questions instead of making statements and then proceed to answer questions with more questions. Specifically, asking the person I was talking with to read certain verses out loud and tell me what they said to them. The first chapter of this book addresses that method.
At that juncture, I had a method, but what about motivation? Looking inward, what did Christ mean in Mathew 10:33 when He said, “But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.”; and looking outward, did I care enough about the eternal future of people I encountered to deliberately tell them about Christ?
The second chapter moves on to cover a similar method that incorporates the ten commandments. The third chapter gives you a simple way to deal with “works salvation” and why God won’t “barter” when it comes to eternal salvation. The fourth chapter deals with reaching “make believers” and “false converts”. The fifth chapter introduces you to my favorite evangelism conversation starter.
The sixth and seventh chapters are “stories” that let you witness the methods outlined in chapters one through five in the context of actual conversations.
The first seven chapters address “How to”. Starting with chapter eight you are getting “What about…” questions and answers. They contain supporting information regarding subjects such as “What about repentance and sanctification?”, “What about the ‘Sinner’s Prayer?”, “What about abortion and the ten commandments?”, “What about the shepherds?”, “What about…?”
The information in this book is meant to equip you to quickly and confidently engage in doing the work of the evangelist. A “how to” manual of sorts.
If you want to fact check the “quickly and confidently” statement right away, combine the first question in chapter one and the first question in chapter two, call a handful of friends of various persuasions, ask the questions. You can continue the conversation sparked by the questions or simply thank them, note the response and make the next call. By the end of these calls you will see patterns develop. Don’t “over engineer the solution”, just ask the questions, note the responses and see for yourself how easy it really is to engage people in evangelism and discipleship conversations with these questions.
The two questions are, “Do you have any spiritual beliefs?” and “In your estimation, do you consider yourself to be a good person?” Now pick up the phone and let’s get started.
After this “fact check” of the “quickly and confidently” statement, resume your reading and then proceed with testing the other questions.
Competence creates Confidence: As your “competence” at asking the questions grows, so will your “confidence” to ask the questions. You will find that even your presentation of the need for salvation through Christ can be built on asking questions. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to do the work of the evangelist, you just have to pray about it and be willing to engage. Please visit us at www.Www.hellnobook.info and tell us how it is proceeding.
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Concerned about taking this on alone? If you are part of a small group, consider making this a group project and see where it leads. My prayer is that alone or in a group, your efforts will lead to people coming to Christ before it is too late.
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As you read, “Hell? No!”, please don’t stop at the “learning”; proceed with the “doing”. I pray that this book will be “a blessing to everyone you bless” with your willingness to “do the work of the evangelist!”