The Speech of the New Man, Part 2 B

Avoid experience-centered evangelism, ego-centered evangelism, and expedience evangelism. Don't work just for a commitment. Don't work just to try to pacify people's problems, and don't try to get somebody hooked just because you got hooked. Give them the truth in its totality so that they're making an intelligent response to the total testimony concerning Christ. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In July 2021, a series of devastating wildfires swept through Southern California. One of these blazes, known as the Dixie Fire, burned over 900,000 acres and destroyed hundreds of buildings, massive destruction, all sparked by a tiny flame. Well, consider this. The Bible compares the tongue, the words you say, to a fire. As one match can set a wildfire, an unchecked tongue can cause huge damage, more than you may have realized.

So what does it take to restrain your words before they burn out of control? Find out today on Grace to You as John MacArthur shows you principles for taming the tongue. And with the lesson now, here's John. Now, I want to tell you about Christ.

I tried it, it doesn't work. The second thing is you want to avoid ego-centered evangelism, the idea that how would you like, how would you like, how would you like, how would you like, how would you like it, wouldn't you like, wouldn't you like, would this make you happy? So, you know, I had occasion to receive a phone call from somebody who said to me in one occasion, I've just had the most terrible thing happen to me. I tried to lead this person to Christ and, oh, she had all these problems. And a very conscientious person, a very dear person, and I told her Christ could solve your problems and Christ can heal your marriage and Christ can bring back your son who was in a mental institution and Christ can do all of this for you. And she received Christ.

Who wouldn't? Under those conditions. And a couple of weeks later, she came back and she threw Jesus in this lady's face and she said, your Jesus doesn't work. Well, I mean, that's not really fair to do. I know some people that just got saved and their troubles started. Don't promise people that. That isn't the gospel. So avoid experience-centered evangelism. Avoid ego-centered evangelism and by all means avoid expedience evangelism where all you want is a commitment no matter what they know.

Make sure you don't just run the quickie by them to get them to the commitment. I always remember the guy in the church who brought me a copy of the Hollywood Reporter that had an advertisement for that biblical Disneyland they were trying to build. You know, they had all those crazy things.

They were, $26 million biblical Disneyland. One time I was telling this to a group of pastors and the guy who was doing that was there. Never forget it.

Boy, he was really not too thrilled. He had told the pastors about it apparently. I get into those things now and then, but anyway.

But you've got to watch it. This guy was trying to build a biblical Disneyland and he had some ads in the Hollywood Reporter, a trade paper for the movie industry, and he was trying to recruit people to get into this thing and it was a very serious thing. He paid money for a big ad and it had...they needed certain people who could design a Red Sea that parted and they wanted a guy who was seven feet at least to play Goliath and they wanted a kid who was good with a slingshot. And you know, all of those kinds of things, they wanted all kinds of, you know, various and sundry things. They wanted somebody to build a whale. They were going to have a whale ride.

And I don't know, it was crazy stuff, you know. But the key thing that just knocked me over flat said, wanted male, tall, dark, handsome, over six feet to play the part of Jesus, must know four spiritual laws. Nothing wrong with the four spiritual laws, but when the world thinks that that's what Jesus knows, somehow they've gotten the quickie without getting the whole message. Avoid experience-centered evangelism, ego-centered evangelism, and expedience evangelism. Don't work just for a commitment.

Don't work just to try to pacify people's problems and don't try to get somebody hooked just because you got hooked. Give them the truth in its totality so that they're making an intelligent response to the total testimony concerning Christ. And that, of course, is the way verse 4 is really hitting me, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. I want this gospel to be, the word manifest means clear in the way that it ought to be clear. So Paul says, pray that God will give us doors of utterance. The new man then is going to have the speech of prayer and the speech of proclamation. Thirdly, verse 5, the new man is going to have the speech of performance, the speech of performance. Now this departs from the mouth a little bit, but really is the most essential speech of all.

We're not going to spend a lot of time in it. Let me just give it to you generally. Verse 5, walk in wisdom toward them that are outside redeeming the time. Now here he's talking about the speech of performance, or if you like, the speech of behavior. You want to know something? The most important thing you say is not what you say, it's what you are.

Is that right? Because it's what you are that gives credibility to what you say. The old line, I remember my dad saying so many times when I was a kid, your life speaks so loud I can't hear what you're saying.

That's essentially what we're talking about. Walk, look at verse 5, walk, walk. Remember, walk comes before talk. Walk comes before talk. Now he says, walk in wisdom. What is wisdom?

Properly evaluating circumstances and making godly decisions. Walk with a carefully planned, consistent Christian lifestyle. And if you have any question about what that walk is, you can just look at the book of Ephesians chapter 4, 5, and 6, and it will tell you all about it. Walk in wisdom. We can walk in wisdom because we have that basic wisdom. Colossians 1, 9, we saw that. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. You have been saved. You have been given wisdom.

You need to be filled with that wisdom that you might walk in it. You know, a Christian can walk like a fool. And then when he tries to talk, nobody believes him. Nobody hears. Nobody listens. We've been given wisdom.

Sometimes we turn our back on it. You say, well, how could a Christian play the fool? Well, one way to walk like a fool is in 1 Timothy 6, 9. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts.

One way to play the part of the fool is live for money. That will confuse your testimony to the point where nobody will understand what you say. Another way to play the fool is to try to live the Christian life legalistically. In Galatians chapter 3, verse 1, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth. Verse 3, Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, do you think you are made perfect by what? By the flesh. You want to be foolish? Then work in the flesh. Function in the flesh.

Operate in your own strength or live for money. There's just a couple of ways that a Christian could play the part of a fool. Another way is in James 3 where he says, Who is a wise man, an endued with knowledge among you? I'll tell you who, the one who shows out of a good life his works. You know how you can tell a wise man?

The way he behaves. But if you have bitter envy, strife, hmm, that's not wise. That's foolish. Confusion, every evil work. Oh, we see another way the Christian could play the fool, by envy, strife, division, confusion.

You see, these are just ways the Christian can play the fool in his lifestyle. But Paul is saying here, don't do that. Walk in wisdom. And what is wisdom right here, isn't it? Set your priorities according to the book. Set your priorities according to God's pattern.

Let me just give you four hints that'll help you. Four ways to get wisdom. Number one, worship. Worship.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of what? Wisdom. Proverbs 9, 10.

When you begin to really worship God, that's wise. That's where wisdom begins. Secondly, prayer.

James says, If any man lack wisdom, let him what? Ask. Worship. Ask.

Take it another way. Study. You will gain God's wisdom when you study God's truth. Colossians chapter 2, verse 2, That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and into all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

All right? It's in Christ that all wisdom exists. Now go to 3 16. If it's in Christ that all wisdom exists, then 3 16 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all what? Wisdom. You gain wisdom by worship, prayer, study. And one other way, instruction from godly teachers. Colossians 1, verse 28, Christ whom we preach, warning every man, teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

Now listen. There are some sources in the Christian life for gaining wisdom. Through the act of worshiping God, God imparts to us His wisdom. Through prayer, through study, through instruction from godly teachers. That wisdom is available, that wisdom is to be maintained, and that wisdom is to issue in a wise lifestyle, not the foolishness of living for money, not the foolishness of living legalistically, not the foolishness of living according to the carnal mind, as in James 3, but the wisdom of walking according to the truth of God's Word. And you know what happens? When you walk in wisdom toward them on the outside, then what you say is going to mean something.

And frankly, not until. Just think about the Colossians. How did they advertise their faith? First of all, they were a minority, I mean a little tiny minority.

They had no church building. They had no building, no big cross in the air, no billboards, no radio, no signs, no bumper stickers, no tracts, no books, no musical productions, no New Testament. How did they get the message out? You want to know how they got the message out? They got the message in and they lived it. And that was and still is the only credible method of evangelism in the world. Walk, then talk.

And you can be on TV, radio, billboards, bumper stickers till you're purple. But if Christians don't live it, nobody's going to buy it. So He says, walk in wisdom toward them that are on the outside. Non-Christians, believers are on the inside. Now He says, redeeming the time.

Well what do you mean, Paul? Time there is not chronos from which we get chronology or chronograph which means time in terms of clock time. It is kairos which means time only in terms of its opportunity. It should translate redeeming every opportunity.

Psalm 90, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. It's a matter of buying opportunity. Well I tell you, opportunity is here and gone. Life is short. People are dying.

You're dying. Jesus is coming. The Bible talks about the door being shut. The Bible talks about the night that's coming when no man can work. The Bible talks about Jesus removing the candlestick.

Romans 13, read it, verses 11 to 14. It's a tremendously potent passage. It warns us that there's a time coming when it isn't going to be possible, knowing the time that it is high time to awake out of sleep.

The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Cast off the works of darkness. Put on the armor of light.

Walk honestly. It's time to get your lifestyle connected up with your message, people. Not in wild parties, drunkenness, immorality, wantonness, strife, envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and don't make provision for the flesh.

See, it's time to get the lifestyle shaped up. When are you going to begin to live the way God wants? How much opportunity are you going to wander? When are you going to begin to share Christ with that friend? When are you going to use those abilities and gifts God's given you? When is God going to receive that money that you promised Him long ago? Your walk talks.

I hope it says the right thing to those on the outside. Every time you have an opportunity, redeem or buy up that opportunity. Purchase it for eternity. Life is so short.

It's so stupid for the Christian to waste it. So the new man has a new mouth, and that new mouth has a speech of prayer, a speech of proclamation, and then the speech of performance which makes what he says believable. That leads us to the fourth, the speech of perfection. Consistency of life is followed by consistency of speech. I love this verse.

I wish we had more time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Now he's not so much talking about preaching the gospel here.

He's just talking about general conversation. The mouth of a Christian should utter the speech of perfection. Never out of the mouth of a Christian should come that stuff that I listed, lust, evil, deceit, cursing, oppression, lying, perversity, destruction, vanity, flattery, foolishness, babble, madness, verbosity, idle talk, false teaching, plotting, boasting, hatred, swearing, filthy talk, or gossip.

That's all characteristic of an unregenerate mouth, not a Christian. Let your speech be always with grace. Make gracious speech a habit. Whether you're being persecuted, whether it's a stress situation, whether it's difficulty, whether you're before a worldly judge, whether you had been wronged, whether it's with your wife, whether it's with your child, your neighbor, whether you're teaching a Bible study, whether you're leading a class, whatever it is, let your speech be gracious. You say, well, John, what do you mean talk with grace? Do you mean speak the grace of God? That's not primarily what it means. It means let your mouth speak what is spiritual, what is wholesome, what is fitting, what is kind, what is sensitive, what is purposeful, what is complimenting, what is gentle, what is truthful, what is loving, what is thoughtful.

Not bitter, abrasive, vindictive, sarcastic, shady, angry, cutting, boastful, none of those things. Let it be gracious. But just so you don't come off as sort of a dribbling out all the niceties only, he adds this, seasoned with salt.

Not just gracious but it ought to have some kind of effect. Now what do you mean seasoned with salt? Well salt does a lot of things. It stings once in a while when there's a wound, right? But after it's done stinging, what does it do?

It heals. Salt also prevents corruption and your speech should be a purifier that prevents corruption. Your speech should act as a purifying, wholesome, cleansing influence rescuing conversation from the filth that so often engulfs it. Ephesians 4.29 says the very same thing.

Let your speech be gentle, gracious, thoughtful, but let it sting when it needs to. When there's a wound to be healed, let it go right to the sore and let it be that which is pure and beautiful to rescue a conversation from corruption. The Greeks had another thought here. They said the idea of salt was the idea of wit and wit is the ability to say just the right thing at just the right time.

And isn't that what he's saying? That you may know how you ought to answer every man. You got just the right answer for just the right time and just the right person. The Greeks would translate this as Plutarch did, charm and wit, the right word at the right time to the right person, the speech of perfection. Never filthy communication. Always answering every man who asks a reason for the hope that is in you, 1 Peter 3. But just in conversation, being able to say that right thing, your mouth is so important.

It's got to come to that sooner or later where you speak the truth and by what you say you either open the opportunity or close it so many times. Listen, the ungodly claims this in Psalm 12.4, our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us? Who can rule me? I can say anything I want. But the Christian says this, Psalm 141.3, instead of watch, O Lord, before my mouth and keep the door of my lips.

What comes out of your lips? Prayer? Proclamation? The speech of perfection?

Just the right thing at the right time for the right person. That's the way the new man talks. You're a new man, do you know that?

And along with those other things in your new lifestyle should come a new speech. Let me remind you of something as we close. The problem with you, and I know what it is. You say, you don't know me. Oh yeah, I know you. I know your problem. Same problem I've got. The problem with us new people, new creatures, is not that we have two natures, the good and the bad, the old and the new.

The problem is that the new nature, the new eye has been so strongly influenced by the flesh that it just can't shake it. An illustration. You might take a whiskey bottle. You don't have to actually do this.

This is an illustration. You might take a whiskey bottle and empty it. You could do that. Empty it of all that rot that's in there. And you know what happens? Smell it. It stinks. The odor remains. You want to know something?

That's not unlike a Christian. You are a new creature. The old contents are gone. You are new.

But you know something? Some of the old stink is there. Some of the old odor is there. Some of the old scent. You're a new man, but you've got an old scent. It's got to be removed.

How's it going to be removed? Look what he says. Put off some things.

Remember those? Chapter 3. Put on some things. Chapter 3, verse 15, let the peace of Christ rule. Verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell. Verse 17, let the name of Christ rule.

Take care how you live in the family, wives, husband, children, fathers, servants, masters. Take care of your mouth, as we saw in our study from verses 2 to 6 of chapter 4. And when you take care of all of those things and the energy of the Spirit of God, then the new man is going to be the man that God created the new man to be. Listen, beloved, Christ is sufficient, isn't He? He's sufficient to make you a new creature.

And when you've been made a new creature, He asks that you have the aroma of a new creature. That means taking care of some of those old things by the cleansing agency of the filling of the Spirit of God as you yield to Him. John MacArthur showing you some biblical principles for taming the tongue. That's the title of his current series, and John is a pastor, author, and a featured teacher here on Grace to You. Now, John, thinking about the speech of proclamation evangelism, you talk about it in today's lesson.

We talked about it yesterday on this program. What do you think is the biggest hurdle people have to overcome in being a witness for Christ? Is it lack of skill or lack of interest or lack of information? Yeah, I think the reason people are hesitant is that they don't know exactly what to say. That's the most common issue.

They don't feel adequate. So to overcome that, you need to make sure that you have in your mind a clear understanding of the gospel that you can express. Maybe it's explained in 2 Corinthians 5 21, you know, God made him who knew no sin to be sinned for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Or maybe it's John 3 16 or verses in the book of Romans.

But you need to have an understanding of the gospel so that when you get to the gospel, you can make it clear. The second thing is, instead of seeing this as an adversarial confrontation, you need to find a way to walk together with someone. Find common ground. Find common ground.

What can we agree on? I was having a conversation the other day with Joel Rosenberg, who lives in Israel and obviously is an evangelical Christian in Israel, writing and ministering and reaching out to Jewish people with the gospel. And he commented to me, he said, your interview on Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro was amazing to me. And he said, tell me more about that interview. We were discussing, obviously, Isaiah 53 and the gospel.

He said, what was your strategy? And I said, I knew there were many things on which Ben and I agreed. I knew we agreed politically. I knew we agreed morally and ethically. We agreed about the priority of family and children and that he believed in the Old Testament God. And he even said, you know, you and I believe so much the same because obviously the same God wrote the Old Testament and the New doesn't change his moral standards. So I just tried to find that common ground until I got to where you have to make a break.

And I went right to Isaiah 53. And I think this is what created in that discussion amiable attitudes, because we had walked together in agreement. And then when it came to the disagreement, there was a kind of honest integrity, kind of even a kind of kindness that was expressed because we had walked together. So I think in effective evangelism, you learn not only to communicate the gospel, but to find common ground and walk with the person in that common ground, earn a hearing for the truth. We want to help you to know the truth. You've got to have the gospel in mind. So we want to mention again, as we did yesterday, the book, Nothing But the Truth, Upholding the Gospel in a Doubting Age. This book will teach you about the reliability of scripture, the nature of God, the reality consequences of sin, the saving work of Christ much, much more. A great training book to help you with the gospel so that you'll be ready for opportunities to proclaim Christ, to be able to give an account for the hope that is in you. The book, Nothing But the Truth, will help you prepare you for effective evangelism, which is your great commission, as you know.

So order a copy today. Yes, friend, this book organizes and examines foundational truths about your salvation with an eye toward equipping you to bring others to Jesus Christ. To help cement in your mind the essentials of the gospel, pick up John's book, Nothing But the Truth, when you contact us today. Call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. This book is great to review with a small group or put it in a friend's hands, particularly someone who doesn't know what it means to be a Christian.

The title again, Nothing But the Truth. To order, call 800-55-GRACE or go online to gty.org. And while you're online, make sure you tap into the thousands of Bible-related resources we have available free of charge. You can read articles on a wide range of issues at the Grace To You blog, catch any episodes of this broadcast that you may have missed, and download or listen to any of John's 3500 sermons free of charge, including all four messages from this current study, Taming the Tongue. Our web address again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times, and be here tomorrow when John continues his look at biblical strategies for taming the tongue. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.