Conference uid_5399538517671936

This call is being recorded. All right, there are two areas of church life that we easily talk about in a very superficial manner, but rarely engage in with any meaningful energy. It is the areas of prayer and evangelism. The church prayer meeting is by far the least attended, and the church's evangelistic efforts rarely get any Christians to volunteer. here.

Call Christians out for a social dinner and you will find that it is difficult to even have standing space remaining because the place will be packed. Then call the same Christians for a time of prayer for some evangelistic activity and they disappear like snow under a heat wave. Any true pastor knows and bemoans this reality. That's the beginning of the forward, Or that's the beginning of the of the forward by Conrad M.

Bewey to Ryan Denton's book, Even If None. And I have Ryan on with me today to talk about his book. Hey, Ryan. Hey, thank you for having me on, Michael. You're welcome. I wanted to bring you on and talk about your book, because I think that this is a book that people. well, I'll just be frank.

I think it's a book people need to read. I don't want to say, oh, it's a book people like, or I think people need to hear some of the things that are in this book. I think that we have a situation where I guess I'll, you know, I'm like you, man, you and I are on the street doing evangelism. And we are the ones that are out there engaging people. And we're the ones that are inviting others to come with us.

And it's hard to find Christians that'll go. And so I'm excited that, that, uh, I feel like you give us some legitimacy, man. I mean, we're like, we're like the crazy guys in the church and you're writing this book and I I'm reading through it and there's no typos and you're using, uh, you know, just, just academic language. So they have word processor on the, uh, on the word program.

Now they have the, the red squiggly line that comes underneath when you misspell a word. So I had that, and then I also have a thesaurus to put in the scholarly words. So I can't really take credit for that part of the book. You just sold all your secrets for free, man. But, hey, I wanted to ask you some questions about the book because I'm riveted by it.

Let me read this endorsement that you got. I think a lot of people know who Cy Tenbrug and Kate is. And Cy wrote, even if none is written by a man who evangelizes on the streets, which, you know, I read that. I thought, oh, yeah, of course, that's the kind of person I'd want to learn from. And he says, but remarkably, he doesn't rely on his personal experience to make its points.

The authority of this book is scripture. And that just struck me that that is that's our goal. The fact that you happen to be a regular evangelist on the streets, a preacher, that that isn't your authority. It's the scripture alone. And that's that to me is a testimony to the type of work that you've done on this book. So let's start out.

Why did you write this book? You wrote another book already with Scott about street preaching. And so why why this book? Yeah. So so, you know, to me, the big burden is to have more material on on distinctive reformed evangelism. I think there's a lot of, you know, so when you look into the reform community today, there's a lot of conferences going on, a lot of good sermons, a lot of good books out there that are being written.

But the area that always lags is evangelism. And it's just one of those situations where I started seeing that a lot of reform. And it's something I think any of us, if you look at it long enough, you'll see this as well. But you see a lot of Reformed churches still hung up in pragmatic or Arminian evangelism. And so that was the first concern, seeing a lot of that.

And so there's a big part of the book is just simply about going back to the basics of Reformed evangelism, talking about why theology is so important, so critical when it comes to evangelism. It's not something that we need to just kind of be willy nilly about when we go out. In other words, it's almost like when you're in the church. Yeah. Doctrine matters.

Theology matters, etc. But somehow when you go out and evangelize, that is not being taken with you in the sense of our our methods go. Not in the sense of what we're saying so much, but in the sense of our methods. And then the other the other, I guess, concern I started having was when you do go out and evangelize. evangelize. And the first thing that so many people are concerned about, including again, you know, reform guys, a lot of times are quote unquote results or quote unquote fruit.

And so that's usually the question you hear, you know, was anyone saved? What kind of fruit do you see? And then I started thinking, you know, I mean, of course we want to see conversions. We want to see fruit, but are we unsuccessful if we don't see that? And so it started kind of just, I don't know, the ball kind of started rolling in the sense of saying, okay, we need to go back, go to the scriptures.

And a lot of the book actually looks at church history as well. Go back to what it is to be successful, what it means to see fruit in evangelism, what that means, what that does not And so that's why, you know, the book in itself is not, and I guess strictly just for evangelism, it could also be used for pastors, you know, as far as church growth, there's this huge movement out there that's talking about how to grow your churches, how to build your churches, how to have successful churches, and that the same thing So it going back to the basics going back to the Bible going back to church history and asking asking ourselves what does it really mean to be effective What it mean to be successful And again as reformed Christians we have we should have a completely different answer than someone who not reformed as far especially when it comes to things like soteriology and what it means to be converted anyways. And, you know, who's behind that?

That's the main problem that I think that we're seeing. And so that's what this book is trying to address. So who who would you expect to read this book? I mean, is this just for pastors or just for guys like me that already evangelize? Like, who do you think would benefit from this? You know, I mean, this is a book that first and foremost.

So all Christians are supposed to evangelize. And, you know, it's not just for the quote unquote evangelist. It's not just for the pastor. It's not just for the specialist. Everybody is Christian. we're all called to evangelize. And so we all need to be equipped in the area of evangelism.

And so this book, you know, I intentionally tried to keep in mind the people who were not quote unquote evangelists when writing this book, the person who has a nine to five job, the mother who has children, the person who's going to be, you know, at a Thanksgiving meal with family members who are lost and they're trying to figure out how do I evangelize? What do I say when we're in this situation? Part of this book addresses apologetics and defending the faith and how you can't really dissociate the two when it comes to evangelism.

And so it's not all just about methods and pragmatism. A lot of it addresses how we should evangelize. A big section of the book talks about what happens if you're in a situation and you might get fired for evangelizing. So it's definitely geared towards every single Christian who calls themselves a Christian and, you know, by God's grace, they want to be more equipped in evangelism.

That's who the book is intentionally written for. So I see you divided it in three parts. Part one is right belief. Part two, right practice. You're kind of following the standard. I don't know if it's just reformed or, you know, even just Christian concept that what we believe will turn into how we live.

And then part three is the cost. And so I think one of the concerns we have is a lot of people, and maybe you address this in the book, I haven't got to read the whole thing yet. I don't want to spoil the book for people either. I want people to buy it. But do some people not evangelize because they don't feel like they're equipped to? Is that one of the things you address?

That is. And also I feel like people don't evangelize because it's when you go out and you evangelize it. Okay, so in our area in America or in the West, England, Scotland, Ireland, you know, Australia, Canada, wherever. In our areas, we are, I mean, I don't, by and large, we're not seeing a lot of conversions. You know, good biblical solid churches are not seeing, by and large, in general, a lot of growth, a lot of hunger.

Now, within your congregation, you are in here and there. There might be people. But I mean, the reality is, is when you go out and you evangelize, you're not you're not seeing just on the spot conversions. You might if anything, you're seeing the opposite. You're being persecuted. You're being reviled.

You're being mocked. You're being scorned. And so the question becomes, well, in an area like this, if I go out and I evangelize and then I go back to, let's say, other Christians and they're saying, well, did you see any fruit? And I have to tell them, no, I didn't. If you mean by that conversion, I didn't see any fruit. And they're saying, well, maybe you should try something else.

Maybe you went about it in the wrong way. And you're thinking, well, I mean, I just went out and I was just sharing the gospel. What other way is there? And the point is, there is no other way. That is the only way. But what happens is, is we become so obsessed with results.

On the one hand, it's results. And on the other hand, I think it is, and you see this all the way back in, let's say, Galatians. You see, there's a fear of being reviled for your evangelism. In other words, the reason why we don't want to the reason why we look for pragmatic efforts or ways in evangelism is it protects our flesh. It protects us from being seen as the scum of the earth.

It's a way to almost like spray paint the gospel, make it more attractive than it already is to those who are who are being saved. Of course, not to those who are perishing. And so I think those are the two fundamental errors that people make. They want they think the main purpose of evangelism is success in the realm of conversion. That that is incorrect.

You know that. And that's what the book argues. And secondly, there is the notion that you can actually evangelize in a way that will protect you. And man, that is that is something that the early disciples, even the early church, All biblical churches should just vehemently say, no, no, no, that we have to guard against that. So this is in grave contradiction to a lot of what we're hearing today in Christianity.

You know, like the hospitality movement that, you know, well, if I just open my door for people, people are going to start getting saved in droves, right? Because God's going to use that as a path for the gospel. And this is it's insidious, frankly, when we try to change not only the message that God has given us, but the method that he's given us to reveal it to people.

It I would. Would you agree with this? It's kind of self-fulfilling for people in the church that maybe aren't on this page already that you assume that the evangelist or the guy that's doing some evangelism, he's kind of a jerk. You know, he's he's the scum of the earth. So he goes out and he evangelizes and no matter how he acts people oppose him And then you say well he must have done something wrong because you know he got arrested or people are mad at him Well or of course people are mad at him.

He's got a bullhorn at their parade. You know what I mean? And they say things like that. So I think that, I like that there's an academic review of these things so that people can consider, you know, what does it mean to really evangelize? So, so if you, you said you went through church history. So if, can you pull one person or story from church history that you used in the book that, that someone could read about if they, if they got your book that really, you know, something that stands out to you that this is one of your favorite parts of it?

Yeah. So there's, there's a story about Justin Martyr and, And so this is, again, going back to one of the problems that we have, I think, in our day is that we think that if the lost world is upset with us, then we are doing something wrong. And we're going to harm Christ's cause, in other words. We're going to push people further away if people are upset with us.

And and so we've lost the art of scandal, scandal in the sense of when we go out and we preach the gospel. I mean, when you see Paul, for instance, in the in especially in the book of Acts, but his life post conversion is an example of gospel scandal. He's going out. I mean, what's the Bible even say? They're turning the world upside down. You know, things are moving.

Things are happening. People are they want to kill this guy. They love this guy. They hate this. You know, he's trying he's having to escape cities out of a basket. I mean, everywhere this guy goes, there's a scandal.

And we in the contemporary West as Christians, we look at things like that. And we say that has to do a lot of damage to the cause of Christ whenever things like that are going on. And and the what's concerning, I would look at it and say it's concerning because that that mindset really did not come about until like the 1960s, 1950s. And and not only that, of course, there were always pockets of people who had that mindset.

But by and large, you know, biblical Orthodox churches, that was not their view. They realized that when I share the gospel, it's going to be a reproach to men. The men of the world, they're going to think of this as foolish. They're not going to they're not going to like it. The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. They don't see the beauty, the attraction of Christ.

And the church had always realized that the Orthodox Church, they've always realized that up until a very recent time. And one example is with Justin Martyr. You know, so there was there were these stories and he was a philosopher and he was hearing about these Christians being persecuted and being ridiculed and going to the stake and going into the arena and being, you know, eaten by wild beasts and he was hearing these things.

And it was those stories that actually piqued his interest about Christianity because he's hearing, wow, these guys are causing this kind of, this kind of outrage. And yet they, they hold true. They hold the line in contrast to our contemporary Christianity. When the world gets mad at us, then we compromise and we say, okay, we'll tamper it down a little bit.

We won't be. But what attracted Justin Martyr was the fact that they refuse to do that. And so these guys are going, I mean, they're, they're, they're suffering atrocious deaths and everything else. And he's hearing about this and it piques his interest. And then he looks into it. And of course, and later on, I think he had other people kind of sharing the gospel.

So he had a, he almost like a team that the Lord was bringing to him. But one of the very influential, one of the things that was very influential was the Christian who is out there and he's being brutalized for his faith. And the reason why that's so important is because do you think, and this is what's amazing, do you have, I mean, think about it. So these guys are out there, they're sharing the gospel, they get arrested, they go to the Coliseum, they face down the line, they're eaten by wild beasts.

Do you think they have any idea that this is going to actually lead to the conversion of one of the most, for all his flaws, you know, influential, notorious, I would say early Christian apologist ever, you know, that we have in the church. And of course, they would not. So if you were to ask them, do you really think this is working? I mean, you guys are about to be eaten.

You know, everybody hates you. The world doesn't like you. I mean, this it doesn't seem like it's working. And in reality, God is using that very thing to continue the work of conversion down the line. And that's why you cannot ask the question, is it fruitful? Is it successful when you go out and evangelize?

That question, if you're talking about conversion, that's an inappropriate, that's an unbiblical question to even ask. That's why the book's called Even of None, because even if none are saved, it's still successful. Even if none are converted, it's still successful because God is the author of conversion. God's the one who converts and God uses. If you're out there preaching the gospel, you're successful.

And so that's there. There's there's even if even if you're in the middle of this, you know, this raging mob and they do kill you, you're successful if you were preaching the gospel in the right way. When you're not successful is when you're out there and you might see conversions, you might bring people to your church. But if you're out there using unbiblical means to evangelize, then that is that's what's called unsuccessful, because it's been unfaithful to God's prescription of evangelism.

And so that's why you have the two contrasts. And that's why you cannot gauge things by the eyes. So what you're saying is that faithfulness to God's message and methods is the measure of success, not necessarily the outcome of it. Exactly. And that is all the fruit of your soteriology, of course. So if you believe that God is the one who converts sinners by the hearing of Christ right then just getting people to hear Christ as much as possible basically with a megaphone the tracks even you know at the store at the gas station that's how you're going to try to do evangelism.

If you think that evangelism is successful because A, people make a decision, and or B, people like you as the result of your evangelism, then of course we're going to have to change the method. So the way I see it is you take everything you just said and all the, not statistics, all the ways people evaluate evangelist that you just pointed out, if we apply all that criteria to Jesus Christ, our Lord, in his earthly ministry, then he's a failure by every standard of today's evangelism. Yeah.

And not only that, absolutely, right? Because he hardly had anybody following him whenever he's crucified. Not only that, but can you think of anybody who's ever walked the earth who was more compassionate, nicer, gentler, patient, more. And so, you know, those people that say, well, I try to win people by my lifestyle. Well, it didn't work for Christ.

You know, try to be more holy than Jesus. In fact, they even found things because and here's the other problem. If you're looking for a reason not to believe the gospel and you're out there trying to win people with your lifestyle, they'll find something about your lifestyle that they don't like. Look at I mean, they called Christ a wine bibber. They said, well, he's eating with tax collectors and sinners.

I mean, they're going to, so it's not, it's not your lifestyle. Now, of course, we, and they accused his cousin of the opposite, right? Yeah, right. So he was either too much or too, you know, nobody was good enough for him because they didn't like the message. And he had his head chopped off. Yeah.

You know, so I mean, that's exactly right, Michael. So when you go and of course, the prophets before Jesus. So that's that's you know, that's the guide as far as well. That should be our guide. You know how look at look at what's going on in scripture. These guys are clearly more unsuccessful than me because I've never been stoned.

I've never been crucified. I'm doing a lot better than these guys. And other people are looking at you and they're saying, yeah, but but, you know, people are still mad at you, et cetera. And once you go in that direction, we're way off track. And the problem is, OK, from, let's say, an Arminian. I do.

You know, I mean, that's that's kind of the last sentence. I yeah, I expect I expect that kind of mindset from Arminians who have that soteriology, who think I need to do something to save that person. Now, of course, as Reformed believers, we say the same thing as far as I am a means for their conversion when I bring the gospel to them. But, you know, the problem is, is that within the Reformed community, too, and I think it's probably just a simple fact that evangelism is kind of left on the side.

You know, it's kind of like, oh, well, everyone knows how to evangelize. We don't really have to look into it that much. But I think, you know, when it comes to, let's say, worship, you know, there's a new movie out on worship. There's a new movie out on Calvinism. There's a new movie. I got conferences, everything.

You know, again, I think it's honestly always kind of like the last thing, the fringe thing. And for whatever reason. And I think that's kind of part of the problem that we haven't really investigated evangelism like we have these other subjects. And it's good to investigate all these subjects, you know, to make sure we're doing everything in accordance with Scripture.

But that includes evangelism. And so, you know, as reformed Christians and as Christians in general, I think we've got to go back to square one, look into the Scriptures and then look and look and see how God has used the church throughout the last not only 2000 years, But, you know, even the Old Testament church, go back and look and see how God is moving and using people and what they're doing and what's happening when they're doing that. And that's that's you know, that's all this book is trying to do.

So one final question I want to ask you about the book at the very beginning, it says the largest Protestant denomination in the West, we'll leave it unnamed, provides an unfortunate example. It says, when a potential church planner visits their North American missions website, the first caption under the Go page is the following. And then this is the quote.

Every day of your life is an opportunity. God designed you with unique skills and experiences, and your story has the potential to reach someone in a way no one else's can. We want to help you connect your story to others. and then you say in your book you said notice there is no mention of the gospel so there's no mention of jesus christ and then instead evangelism and missions has become about spreading you in your story that is that that is lamentable man it's nauseating isn't it well i mean from it it's what you said earlier even if you lived a really great life your your life is not what converts people.

And how sad that these, oh, that kind of made me sick when I read it. Yeah. And it's still up there too. I mean, I think I checked about a month ago and yeah, it's unfortunately still there. Yeah. And so this is where some of our money is going when we give money to these big missions organizations, when some of us give money at church, Our money is going to help, you know, basically millennials who've made a decision for Christ do world travel and make friends, right?

And I just, you know, I just find it, I find it sickening on a personal basis. And just from personal testimony, I think you knew this. I was saved when I was 30 years old. I lived, I lived. long time as a pagan. And I did a lot of things that were very dangerous. Now we know in the providence of God, I was going to, you know, I was going to make it to my salvation day, but you know, I had like near death experiences and, and I can look back now and think that, that for how many years there were not Christians trying to reach me with the gospel.

They weren't trying to come make a convert out of me. And, and so I hope that people will, will be motivated to do that. And, and so how do, how do people order your book? Right now you can get it at Amazon. Um, and that's, that's so first love publications is the one that's publishing the book and they're working on, um, setting it up on their website.

But for right now it's just Amazon. And so go to their page, type in, even if none, um, reclaiming biblical evangelism, and you should be able to see it should pop right up. And then there's the, you can get the ebook version or the paperback version. And I try to make both versions as literally as affordable as possible. Um, so the paperback is $6.99 and the ebook is $3.99.

I, you know, these, what I found out with the last book with Scott Smith is you, you, you're not going to make any money on this stuff anyways. I mean, all the monies, all the money goes to the people that, that take care of the, the, um, I guess in this case, the, the, the publication of it, but, um, so it's, it's not about money. What's that? You're not retiring.

No, no, no. And in fact, you know, I realize now why all the professors, when you go through school and you realize, you say, well, why are the professors always assigning their own books? Yeah, that's, that's probably why, you know? So if, if a professor assigns 25 students, 25 copies of their book, that's roughly about $25 for his pocket. So that's usually what the cost is.

So when you publish a book, you get about a dollar a book. Unless you're, I don't know, one of these, maybe John MacArthur, you're not going to make it, right? If that's all you're living off of. So the money's not the issue. We just want the book to get into as many hands as possible. That's the main thing.

You think about a professor signing his book. If a professor wouldn't assign his own book, what would that tell you? I'd be like, maybe I should just be a different professor. Yeah, that's true actually. Never thought of that. Right.

That's a good point. Yeah. So now what about your personal life, Ryan? So people get to know you a little bit. We already know you're retired with a big mansion somewhere. Yeah, right, right, right.

I'm kind of tucked away over here. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your wife and your child? Yeah, so I live in El Paso, Texas. My wife and I, we actually just had our first child.

And so he's about 10 months old now, almost 11. And that's been a joy. And it's been quite a revealing scenario as well. It's just kind of seen a lot about some of the things that I still need to see mortified. anyways but it's it's it's I tell you what though before when I was single I was always thinking I don't know if I'd want kids you know just because not so much because I don't like kids but just because you know it's it's I don't I just never felt competent enough and I still don't feel competent enough but man when you know when you have a child and you I tell you one thing you learn is is a different and a new kind of love and just a different format of love I mean it's it's unbelievable.

And so, um, it's just another motive to lean on Christ and to, to look unto him for wisdom and for help. And, you know, just, just every single day, it's just like, Lord, help us. We have no idea what we're doing, but just, and, and he always does, you know, the Lord comes through and, and, um, you know, it's been a blessing. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And so, uh, you're a co-elder at a church.

Yeah. Yeah. And so so when we moved to El Paso, that's when I started Christ in the Wild Ministries. And, you know, we go out, we preach, we open air preach, we evangelize one on one. We try to equip, you know, whatever church will have us to to help the saints do more evangelism. And then locally, yeah, we're I'm a co-elder here in El Paso at a at a reformed church.

And I tell you, you know, El Paso, it's kind of off the map, but we've really enjoyed our time here. And one of the perks is it is affordable. So that helps out with these book deals. And then you do abortion ministry too? Yeah, yeah, we go out. Now, when I'm in town, we're out there every other week at least.

And then we do have even, so if I'm out of town, we still have a, you know, by God's grace, I mean, this is one of the things when you're faithful, when you go out and evangelize, you do see little pockets of guys coming out and not a lot, like you said earlier, Michael. But but you do see, as you know, you know, you'll you'll you'll have a group of guys. You'll have a little team, a nucleus.

And so it's been nice because we're I mean, these are young guys. These are guys I've met for the most part through evangelism at the local college campus here. And now man they come into the church and we discipling them and we going out Now they preaching and they evangelizing And so it been really neat to kind of see them pick up the reins and really take ownership of this area And they great guys And so somebody out there We make sure we have a witness out there.

But yeah, so abortion ministry, college campuses here. I used to do a homeless shelter ministry, but for various reasons that that's not working out right now. Although I do, I would like to get back into that. I used to do a lot of jail and prison ministry, so I would like to get kind of back into that. But for right now, most of the evangelism is outside, you know, under God's blue sky or usually blue over here.

Of course, up where you are, it's gray, under God's gray skies, usually. I hear about that country, guys. Last time we saw each other was at University of Cincinnati, and that was cold and rainy. Yeah, it was a tough place. Cincinnati. Nobody likes Cincinnati.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. I'm in Ohio. That's Kentucky, basically.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry to any Cincinnati listeners. You started a Bible study on one of the campuses with students? Well, yeah. So we went out and we started.

In fact, when I came here, man, I was by myself. That's not ideal. You know, you always want some guys with you, but you got to do what you have to, I thought. And so I just started going out to the local college here and started preaching. And slowly, you know, I started meeting guys that wanted more instruction on kind of what I was preaching on doctrine.

There is a hunger out there. I mean, God really is doing a work. It's really cool to see that. It's not a huge work. I mean, there's 28,000 students at UTEP, for instance. And, you know, after a year or so, we had a we started actually probably a little less than a year.

We started meeting students and we take them into our house and we just have Bible studies. And then from there, we actually kind of started maxing out. We don't have a big house here, but we kind of started getting a little too big for our living room. And so we went to the local college cafe and we started with the. And so what we did is, first of all, these people were, they had never heard of Reformed theology at all.

So it's like, where do we start? Well, we just started with Tulip, but I didn't tell them it was Tulip. I just went through the scriptures saying, okay, here's what the Bible says about man. Here's what the Bible says about God saving people, you know, and just kind of went through that. And by the end of it, their eyes were just, they're blown away. And they were like, wow.

And, you know, they started coming to our church. And then from there, we just started kind of tacking on. And then I opened it up. And so now the whole church is involved. And I mean, you know, last week, we just and this is we have done this probably for two and a half, three years now. And and and last week we I don't know, maybe 30 people, you know, and just a lot of a lot of it from from Utah, a lot of it from our church, just kind of a combination.

And and so that's how I, you know, I would encourage now because, you know, one of the things that's really lamentable out there as far as ministry evangelism missions go are the campus ministries by and large. So when you go to your local college campus and you look and inquire into how these campuses, what they're doing, first of all, number one, it's lamentable that they they they in themselves become like a church entity. And so when I talk to these students and I say, OK, well, do you have a church that you're going to?

They say no, but I've been going to this, you know, and it's like the BSM Baptist student ministry or whatever. And it's basically like a church service. And so they might be loosely affiliated with another church. But the problem is, is that becomes the church for a lot of these students. And so I've you know, how we do it here is if someone is saying, hey, do y'all have a Bible study?

Y'all we say, yes, we do. And we tell them about the Bible study. But we try to make sure that, look, this this Bible study is part of our church. You know, in other words, it's not like a separate thing. This does not replace the church fellowship, the church itself. You know, I mean, this is an extension.

This is through the church, in other words. And so that's that's kind of the mindset that we take down here just to make sure that we're not doing the the parachurch kind of stuff. Yeah, that's excellent. I appreciate that. And one of the reasons why I asked that question that I asked was, I think one of the caricatures we have of like campus preachers is that we just show up, shout, and then leave.

And that's true some days. but it's the idea that that somehow or other we have no interest in actually starting that study with the people or actually doing any more type of discipleships and just, you know, shouting from our, from our loudspeaker for an hour. And so I want people to hear your heart in that, that, that, yeah, when you're there and you're either, you know, we'll say making converts, everybody knows we're reformed. So they know what I mean.

And when people, come to you and say okay yeah I believe you I a Christian but I want more than what you would do in a typical open air sermon I wanted people to hear your heart that that what you willing to do that you and your wife were willing to open your home for this And I think that's something that people need to know actually happens. You talk about, you know, is there any fruit? Well, I think having too many people that fit in your house that want to do a Bible study. hey there's there's your fruit you know if somebody really wanted some i mean but uh to me that that shows the faithfulness and it shows that that uh let me put it this way i think there are people who do what i said uh they're just willing to show up scream a message and then they're not they're not going to talk they're not going to bear with people in love and some of them that's their situation maybe they're itinerant um so they're not going to be able to continue but But I want people to know that there is more to this and it's local church centered, which is what you just expressed.

Yeah. Go ahead. No. And that's the thing. I think I think we just, you know, when and again, that's why you can't look at evangelism as like as far as the fruit of the success is just like a one one size fits all, you know, where it's like, OK, if nobody saved that, it's not successful. Most of these guys, I'll tell you a quick story.

There was one of the guys that was converted through open air preaching at UTEP. And I'd been out there preaching for two and a half, two, two, two and a half years by now. And he came up. This was the last week of the semester. And I even went out there thinking, man, there's nobody out here. I don't even know if I should preach or what, you know, maybe just go home.

But I thought now I'll just, you know, the Lord, I tell you, it was all the Lord. It was a weird thing. He I almost tangibly knew I just needed to preach. And so I went out and I started preaching and there was this there was this student about five minutes after I started. And he came and he sat down about 30 feet from me and just listened the whole sermon.

And, you know, about 30, 35 minute sermon. And then afterwards he came up and he says, how can I live for the glory of God? And I was thinking, oh, man, I've heard this before. You know, I'm telling them. But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking how many times did they look like they're interested, but they ended up not being interested. Anyway, so long story short, you know, to this day, that kid, he was converted.

He has been with us. He is a faithful churchgoer. He is, you know, like one of our right hand men up here in the evangelism crew. This guy and what he tells me is I had heard you preaching. he said over and over and over and over. But today, this is the first time I had the guts to actually come up and say, okay, I've got to, this kid used to be an atheist.

He was on his way to his truck where, um, I can't remember the story. He was, you know, maybe it has some dope or whatever. He's on his way. He passes me, knew I was going to start preaching. And then he turns around to come back and listen. Cause he thought I've got to, I've got to like trace the Lord.

And I tell you, man, it's just, it's just one of those things. So again, you go out there and you're preaching and I had guys, man, you're not seeing any conversions, but he, you know, the people saying this and myself included, we had no idea that the Lord was working on people that behind the scenes, we had no idea that eventually he's going to convert through this. That's phenomenal.

You just never know, you know, and that's the thing, be faithful, preach the gospel, trust in God and things happen. And even after death, right? I mean, how many people have been converted by, uh, you know, hearing of sermons of other people or, you know, like you were reading about the martyrs, you know, and we hear the stories of these guys. And, you know, we read guys like Isaiah and Jeremiah that, you know, had to feel somewhat like abject failures to some extent from a conversion standpoint.

And so, yeah, praise the Lord. He's always able to work. I heard a quote multiple times now from people who we would consider, you know, good reformed men. And it was a quote, it was, well, let me think about it. It was, somebody's asking, how do they know if they should go into ministry or if they should, and I think I've heard it two ways, whether it's going into being a preacher, like a pastor, or whether it's going to be a missionary.

And one of the criteria that I've heard men give multiple times for deciding if somebody should do that is have they made any converts? Exactly. Yeah. And, and, and I sat there and I thought, well, wait, so if, if I'm faithfully preaching the gospel on a regular basis, right. And, and, and you're going to judge whether I'm qualified to basically continue to do it or do it in another location by the response of the people where I happen to preach, then what's your goal here?

Is your goal to be faithful to God? I'm with you. I saw in the book, we want to see converts made. We want to take everyone to heaven with us. I'd love that. In the end, the fruitfulness is... is like you said it based on our faithfulness And then B though of all the people that ever gave out the gospel in the world the ones who brought it to me are the ones that matter to me Amen.

You know, I got saved because I heard the gospel. And I don't care how many people rejected the people that brought it to me. Right. Because to me, it's like, I'm glad you kept going. That's right. I'm glad you didn't quit because it wasn't enough.

And I don't want to think that because, you know, because a lot of people didn't get saved as a result of that mission, as a result of that ministry, that it wasn't fruitful because I'm fruit. And so to me, it's important that you brought the gospel to me. And that's why I said, somebody asked me recently about a positive experience preaching. And I said, you know, the most positive experience is when you're preaching the word and thousands of people are walking by.

And you do what I do. You go places with big crowds sometimes and everyone's ignoring you. Or if they had rocks, they'd be throwing them at you, some of them. And, you know, and thank God these guys love their beer enough. They don't throw full beer cans at you. They won't waste it, right?

That's right. And a Christian walks by and says, hey, thanks for doing this. You know, just that one Christian that says, hey, praise the Lord. Amen. That is what makes it worth it. And so when we think about that, we preach for the elect, both the small E-elect and the capital E-elect, right?

We preach for our fellow future brothers and sisters and some that already are. And we preach for the glory and praise of Jesus Christ who alone is worthy of to be preached. Right. Not my life, not my goodness, not my conversion. Hey, I used to smoke or do drugs or porn or whatever it was. And now I don't nobody cares.

Nobody cares how good I can communicate that I've become. People will only care if God's spirit changes their heart to believe that they are a sinner in need of forgiveness and that they will believe the gospel that Jesus Christ died for sinners and rose again and ascended into heaven. And it's by faith and faith alone they can be saved. Right. Yeah. I don't I don't want to make honestly, I don't want to make converts to me. right right my life isn't gonna isn't gonna persevere you to the end right my philosophy is like my best thinking it it might get you you know a better job in computers if i could help you with that but i can't really help anybody ultimately and so we preach the one who can and so i appreciate you brother you know you taking the time oh go ahead well one last thing William Carey, 10 years in India before he saw one convert and he kept going, you know, and the Lord eventually brings a huge harvest.

And so who's to say that won't happen either. I mean, the Lord always brings a harvest somewhere right now, perhaps not in America, but, um, you know, it could be next generation. So this is the generation we're called the plow. We're called a plow. We're called a plow. And, uh, and so the seed and, and it never goes void though, or returns void never does yeah we have to walk by faith not by sight and we believe that god is he's going to do things with his word and we need to be faithful i appreciate you brother and thank you for coming on here uh so christ in the wild ministries yeah christ in the wild.com you can find out more information on that christ in the wild.com if people want to see your preaching videos preaching videos go to youtube and type in christ in the wild ministries we Yeah, we have a lot of videos now.

So definitely have a lot of video interactions with students. There's a lot of good apologetics people would learn just from listening to the interactions there. So people want to support you as a just Christ in the wild. They can just go there and they can sign up to donate if they want to. Yeah. Yeah.

Go to Christ in the wild dot com. And then there's a there's a donate or maybe it says give or some kind of page like that. And then it's a tax deductible donation if you want to do that. Of course, another way is just to buy the book and we'll get a dollar from that. So, yeah. Yeah.

But buy the book. And what if somebody wanted to buy a bunch of books like to go through it at church or to give away as gifts? Is there a discount now? Yeah. Yeah. If so, let me know.

You can email me at Christ in the wild at Gmail dot com. And so that's easy enough to remember. Christ in the wild at Gmail dot com. Yeah. If you want to get a bulk order, contact me. let me know and I can get you a discounted price for that. So definitely do that.

If not for free, I might be able to work something where I can get it for free. So yeah. If you let me know for, for sure on that. Yeah. Yeah. You're not retiring anytime soon.

If you know, no, no, no, no, not planning on it. All my favorite Christians give away all their stuff for free. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Keep some work until they die.

Right. Why not though? You know? Yeah. Well, Hey, we, it was freely given to us. So amen.

Amen. Well, Hey, thanks a lot, brother. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it, man.