How to Speak to Someone’s Soul
October 18, 2006
Pastor Matt Black
Midweek Service
Jeremiah 4:3-4
Open your Bible to Jeremiah 4. The title of tonight’s message is “How to Speak to Someone’s Soul”. We are looking at verses 3-4.
Jeremiah 4:3-4, “For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. 4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.”
Introduction: Tonight I want to explain to you how you should approach someone who is without Christ. Jeremiah was delivering the message of repentance to the people, and notice he is aiming for the heart. That is what we need to aim for. We need to aim for their very soul, or what the Bible calls “conscience”. When a person violates his/her understanding of right and wrong, he/she has a "guilty conscience." Conscience as you know means “with knowledge”; con=with, science=knowledge. People because of sin have hardened and seared their conscience.
I. Aim for the Conscience
Let me say just because you aim for the conscience doesn’t mean that the person will want to talk with you. In fact they most likely will not want to talk with you. Why is it that lost people get uncomfortable around us? The Bible gives us this principle. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth” (Proverbs 28:1).
The reason the wicked flee is that they have a bad conscience. The conscience is the echo of God. Our conscience by nature and by choice is defiled. We are born under condemnation. We all by nature are constantly running from God.
You see God has put within each of us the ability to hear His footsteps! We know one day we are going to meet God. We all know inherently that we will stand before a just a holy God.
We know this is true because of two things: our own experience and Biblical examples.
A. Our Own Experience
When you see a police cars lights in your rearview mirror, is your experience one of peace or fear and avoidance?
Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever done something where you knew you had to talk to someone and get it right? Is your natural attitude
We flee when we're not even being pursued because we have a defiled conscience. There are enough stored up bad things we've done, that a voice inside tells us someone is after us even when they are not. Guilt is the parent of fear. Our conscience creates the pursuer that ought to be there even when he is not there.
B. A Biblical Example
Adam: Now where is a Scriptural example of the wicked fleeing when no man pursueth? Adam: God said, “Adam, Where art thou?” To which Adam replied, “I was afraid and I hid myself”.
The earliest example of this is Adam in the garden of Eden. He sins against the Lord. He acts wickedly, believing the serpent instead of God his Father. Then Genesis 3:8 says that Adam and Eve "heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Not stalking, just walking. He is not pursuing. He is there, as he often was for the good of his people. But things were not the same now. Adam and Eve now have a bad conscience. And a bad conscience makes breezes into burglars and shadows into ghosts and police into adversaries and parents into police and God into an enemy--even when they are not.
Verse 8 goes on: "And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." And then the Lord called to the man and said, "Where are you?" And Adam said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid."
Never before did Adam have to flee at the arrival of God. And now he flees when no one is pursuing. Why? Because his conscience condemns him and he hears this condemnation in every breeze that blows and every creak in the door and every whistle on the field; he sees it in every shadow and every flashing light; and he feels it in the presence of God.
A guilty conscience will create pursuers out of anything unless we drown it with alcohol, or numb it with drugs, or silence it with endless blasts of music and flights from quiet solitude, or harden it with constant denials. The wicked are people who will not make right what they have done wrong nor set their face to do good. And while the grace of God persists they flee when no one pursues. But woe to the wicked who cease to hear the footsteps of God in the garden.
II. Avoid Debate. In other words, you are not wanting to have an academic debate with them. If you look at verse 3, you will find that Jeremiah is not dealing with the intellect. He’s dealing with the part of our being that judges moral matters, “For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. 4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart”.
Now obviously Jeremiah was using an illustration that was very clear and obvious to the people of Israel. Agriculture was their livelihood.
A. Confrontation is necessary. Jeremiah gives God’s message to these people by name. He says in verse 4, “ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem”. This confrontation is borne out of love and concern for their souls.
We need to have the same spirit as the Apostle Paul in Romans 10:1, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” We need to desperately desire the salvation of those around us.
B. Count on hardness of heart.
Not everyone reacts well when you aim at their conscience. Stephen aimed at the Pharisees conscience, and it cut them to the heart, but they became angry. Look at Acts 7:54, “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.”
You may not break through to their heart, or if you do, you may have a reaction that you were not expecting. There is a principle in Scripture that we need to realize. Every time Christians preached the Gospel there was either rejoicing or rioting or both!
Acts 17:6 says those in Thessalonica knew about the power of the Gospel. Remember what they said? “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also”.
The Bible says that when Paul preached at Lystra in Acts 14:19 that they reacted with hostility toward the Gospel, and “having stoned Paul, drew [DRAGGED] him out of the city, supposing he had been dead”. Hopefully you will not receive that kind of reaction from people, but expect people’s heart to be hardened.
C. Cut through the hardness of the heart. How?
Look at Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.”
Now a good way to do this is to ask them, “Have you ever considered that you are going to stand before God on Judgment Day?” Of course they have thought about it. They are running from it, but they have thought about it. All we are doing with this question is proposing the same question that God gave Adam in the garden, “Adam where art thou?” We are asking the person, “Where is your relationship with God.”
By the way we all have a relationship with God. Even atheists have a relationship with him. They are like the child who has run away from home and refused to admit that his father exists. You see there is a relationship there, it is one of hostility.
All men will have to give an account to God, and we want to prepare men to meet God. It is our responsibility. The only way you can do that is to cut right to the heart of the matter.
Charles Spurgeon, said this:
I do not believe that any man can preach the Gospel who does not preach the Law. The Law is the needle, and you cannot draw the silken thread of the Gospel through a man’s heart unless you first send the needle of the Law to make way for it.
I Timothy 1:9-10, “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine”.
Every person on this earth is “lawless and disobedient”. Unless your mother, brother, friend, and co-worker come to that same conclusion, they will be reprobate for ever.
Psalms 19:7, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul”.
A person must understand that he is a liar, an idolater, an adulterer, a blasphemer, and a thief, and that none of these kinds of people enter heaven. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
A person must understand that he will not inherit heaven in his current condition. This person must be humbled by this.
Remember the following verses:
James 4:6, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
A great way to know if a person is truly humbled, is to ask them:
1. If you were to die today and stand before God, do you think you would be innocent or guilty of breaking the Ten Commandments?
Most people are going to say guilty because they’ve just admitted it to you. Then you can ask the following question…
2. Based on the fact that by your own admission you are guilty of being a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer at heart, do you think you would enter into heaven or hell?
The answer to the second question will give you a good idea of where the person is spiritually. It will do you no good to give the Gospel to a proud person. It is casting your pearls before swine. You must give the law first so that the person might be humbled.
Once a person is humbled, you give them the Gospel, the good news!
3. Preach to them the Love of Christ! God gives grace to the humble! Now you can give the Gospel to the person who is humbled.
You might ask, “Do you know that God did something wonderful for you so that you wouldn’t have to go to hell?”
Many people don’t’ know the answer to that question. Here it is:
1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”.
Romans 5:6, “Christ died for the ungodly.”
Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity was made human flesh to take the punishment for your sin. He took our wrath!
4. Urge the person to Leave their way. Matthew 4:17, “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Christ put it many ways in his ministry:
a. Crucifixion: Matthew 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
b. Forsaking: Matthew 19:29, “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”
Repentance from implies turning from something to something. As Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, “how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…”
So we need to Aim for the Conscience, Avoid Debate, and thirdly…
III. Be Authentic. We all understand this. Some people have built an unbiblical method of evangelism on this one point. There are two types:
v First you have the calloused Gospel presentation. Maybe you’ve known someone that would present the Gospel with a spirit of judgment. There are those who speak of hell as if they are glad people are going there. These kinds of people share the Gospel with the lost, but they see very little lasting fruit (though they may see a lot of false conversions!).
v The second type is the cowardly Gospel presentation. They hope that if they wait long enough and pray long enough, and show God’s love in their face that somehow the lost person will approach them! These kinds of people rarely share the Gospel with the lost.
How can we reach the balance here? The Gospel must be presented “meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15). In other words, we need to…
Have a genuine concern for their soul. God address these people in Jeremiah 4:4, “ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem”. Spirit-filled evangelism is not about numbers, nickels, noses, and nonsense. It’s about souls! This is not a business or a social club or a competition! This is about real people with eternal souls that will spend forever in a genuine Lake of Fire if they do not turn to the Lord. We are among people all around us that are all on the verge of eternity. Understand that God may require their soul tonight.
Richard Baxter a Puritan of in the early 1600s in England gave the secret to his success in evangelism:
"I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men."
Do you preach the Gospel to every creature as “dying man to dying men”? You are going to die! “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last”.
Do you love souls? When you are witnessing to someone, can they see the concern in your eyes and in your heart and soul?
Conclusion: As we close, let me encourage you to aim for the conscience when you speak to someone about Christ.
Closing Hymn: 302 Jesus Led Me All the Way
Members’ Meeting