FREE ESSAY ON USING THE LAW TO WITNESS

USING THE LAW TO WITNESS

Today I am going to share with you something that I have found to be the most important
part of how we witness to other people. In the late 1970's, a man named Ray Comfort began
to explore Church growth records. He found that 80 to 90 percent of those making a
decision for Christ are falling away from the faith. 
A major denomination in the United States reported to have 11,500 churches in the U.S.
This same denomination reported to have obtained 294,000 decisions for Christ in 1991.
This same church could only find 14,000 of those people in fellowship today. Modern
evangelism is preaching the benefits of salvation, with out using the law to show the
sinner why they are lost with out God. These statistics are the normal results of modern
evangelism.
The way that we present the Gospel determines the kind of response the person will make.
We need to present the Gospel with the law in mind.
Here is an illustration that Ray Comfort uses in his Book, "Hells best kept secret":
Two men are seated in a plane. A stewardess gives the first man a parachute and tells him
that it will improve his flight. The passenger is a little skeptical, but after hearing
the persuasion of the stewardess, he decides that what she says is true. After he puts it
on, he notices the uncomfortable weight of the parachute, and that it makes it
uncomfortable to sit with it on. Eventually other people in the plane start laughing at
him. The passenger decides that it isn't worth it to wear the parachute anymore and he
takes it off. He feels that he has been lied to.
Another stewardess gives the second man a parachute. She tells him to put it on because
at any moment he will be jumping out of the plane. The second passenger gratefully straps
the parachute on. He doesn't notice its weight upon his shoulders. All he can think about
is that he would die without the parachute. When other passengers laugh at him, he
thinks, You won't be laughing when you're falling to the ground!
The first person was promised that the parachute would only improve his flight, but he
wasn't told why. But the second man was promised that the parachute would save him from
would otherwise be the death to come.
We can now see that when someone is promised love joy and peace and they do not receive
it, they feel like they were lied to. So how can we prevent this from happening. We must
use the law when we witness to the unsaved. Psalm 19:7 says "The law of the Lord is
perfect for converting the soul." You must show each man or woman that they have broken
God's law. Everyone at some time has stolen something, and many people who are not saved
use God's name in vain. Show them that stealing is breaking the ten commandments, and
that using Gods name in vain is blasphemy. Therefore, we have all broken the entire Law
of the Lord. We must present the consequences of breaking the law. Explain to them that
we will all be judged for the sins we have committed. In Romans 7: 7 Paul says I did not
know what sin was until the law told me. In Romans 3:19 we see that God says the law will
stop the mouth of the sinner. It will stop the sinner from justifying his sin. We have
all heard the argument that "I am not that bad, or there are plenty of people who are
worse than me." When people use these arguments you must show them that we have all
broken God's law, and because of that we are in need of his grace.
If you approach a sinner and say Jesus loves you and he died on the cross for your sins,
it will offensive because he doesn't think he is a sinner. 
But if you show him that he has offended God by breaking his law, he will realize that he
is a sinner and want to avoid God's wrath. A great verse to use here is Romans 6:23. Once
you have established to the person you are witnessing to that they have sinned, explain
to them that the wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life.
The best way to do that is to start off with a regular conversation about anything that
you may have in common, and swing it to a conversation about God. You can use tracks to
help you change the subject during your conversation.
Christianity does give you love joy and peace. But these are what I would call the
benefits of salvation. Having benefits does not insure against the less exciting parts of
the Christian Faith. Using love joy and peace to witness will only give people a false
motive to come to the Lord. Trials should bring us closer to the Lord because we draw
near to him in times of trouble. So use the law to witness to the unsaved and you will
give them the true motive to come to Jesus Christ. A. B. Earl was a famous evangelist
from the 19th century. He was responsible for leading over 150,000 people to the Lord in
his life. He said, "I have found by long experience that the severest threatening of the
law of God has a prominent place in leading people to Christ. They must see themselves as
lost before they will cry for mercy, they will not escape danger until they see it."
Bibliography
Barclay, William. The letter to the Romans. Philadelphia, Penn.: The Westminster
Press. 1955
Bright, Dr. D. (1994) Bringing words of hope to the world around you. [Online].
Available: http://www.ccci.org/10steps/step7/lesson1/index.html [1994]
Comfort, Ray. Hells best kept secret. Bellflower, CA.: Living Water Publishing House
1998
Hayford, Jack W. A study of Romans. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers
1980
"The Holy Bible." New International Version. Psalm 19:7, Romans 3:19, Romans 7:7