Ankerberg Show

Guest (Male): Welcome to the John Ankerberg Show discipleship segment. Whether you've recently discovered your faith in Christ or have been a long-time follower, we aim to provide you with the tools and encouragement to strengthen your relationship with him.

We are dedicated to equipping you to confidently share the hope that resides within you, as instructed in 1 Peter 3:15. Join us now for the John Ankerberg Show discipleship segment as we embark on this journey of spiritual growth and learning together.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Sometimes when you share the gospel with others, they say it's not for them. Well then, what do you do next? You can't force the gospel on another person, but you really want them to know Jesus. How do you continue to reach out to them while respecting their decision?

Join us today to learn how you can continue to pray for them and provoke their interest in Jesus through your character and compassion, right here on the John Ankerberg Show.

Welcome to this session of our discussions about how you can follow the Lord Jesus Christ in your everyday life. And we're talking about how can you share your faith with someone that you know that you know is not a Christian? All right, this is part two.

I want to go back to what we were saying last week because I feel there are people that are saying, "I really want to know how to do this, but I want to know some of the things that have happened to you when you've done this." And we shared with them five verses in the Romans Road.

In the book of Romans, there's five verses that clearly explain what the gospel is. They were Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, 10:9, and 10:13. And if you read those verses, the fact is I had people just read the verses and then I would ask them questions, and the Bible itself led these people to the conclusion they ought to invite the Lord into their life.

All right, now what I want to get to is let's say that you get that far, but instead of them saying, "Yes, I'd like to pray with you," and you pray the sinner's prayer with them, they say, "That was very nice, but I don't think it's for me," and they walk away. Now, Sunder, when that's happened to you, what Bible verses come to mind and how do you work with that person after that?

Sunder: It depends on the relationship we have with them. If it was a one-off kind of thing and you're not likely to see the person again, which can happen sometimes, then you have to continue to pray for the person because, as we mentioned very briefly in last week's program, their eyes are blinded. That's why they cannot see.

And so prayer, sustained prayer, becomes continually important. And then I think of a verse like Romans chapter 10, which guides me in prayer, which says, "How will they call upon him whom they have not believed? How shall they believe if they've not heard? How shall they hear if they do not preach? How shall they preach if they are not sent?"

So you can actually take that and pray for these people. Pray that God will send somebody else to them to share the word of God with them. Pray that they will have open ears to be able to hear that, and pray that God will quicken faith within their heart because repentance, as we will talk about later on, is also a gift that comes from God.

And so there's a process that has been laid out for us. That's one set of verses that comes to my mind. Another set of verses that comes to my mind is Romans chapter 8, which says, "For whom he foreknew, he predestined; whom he predestined, he conformed; whom he conformed to his image, he called; whom he called, he justified; whom he justified, he glorified." It's all God doing that work.

So I just pray something like this: "I pray, God, will you in your eternal counsel set your heart upon this person? Will you mark out a destiny for them to be conformed to the image of your Son? Will you call them? And when you call them, will you grant repentance? Will you grant faith? And then will you justify them?" So that's another verse that comes to mind.

And then John 16 comes to mind when it talks about Jesus said, "When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Of the sin of not having believed on me, of righteousness because I go to the Father, and of judgment because the prince of this world is judged."

And so then I can pray those three things. "May the Holy Spirit convict them of the sin of not having believed on Jesus. May the Holy Spirit convict them to understand what true righteousness is, that their own good works are not good enough, but only Jesus' righteousness. And then may the Holy Spirit show them that God judged Satan on the cross so that they can be freed from that." So those are some verses that come to mind which I focus in prayer.

Dr. John Ankerberg: And I want to go back to this one and I want to read it just a little slower. Second Corinthians 4:4 says this: "The god of this age," talking about the devil, "has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

And Shamala, I have usually felt that if a person is willing to talk with me and I get a chance to share with them the gospel, that almost all of the time when we get to the end, that person is going to accept Jesus into their life.

But recently I have met some folks that are just the nicest people and I see them every week. And I have presented the gospel to them. In fact, I took out an hour and a half. I wrote it out, I typed it out, I gave them a new Bible, and then I presented what I'd shown to them and I gave it to them and it made absolutely no impact at all. It was like hitting a brick wall.

And they said, "Thank you for this," and then they went on with business. And so what do you do? What have you done? Because I know you've had experience with this. Some people up to 22 years you prayed for them. The devil's blinded their eyes to the Lord Jesus and the gospel. There is a curtain over there. It doesn't impact them. It doesn't seem like they realize there's the need for God even when bad circumstances come into their life. They can't get to the idea that maybe God is really there and could help them. So what do you do?

Shamala: I think the most important thing is that we need to continue to love them. Because I think too often people may feel that they're a project, that we're waiting for them to sign the line and so we make a deal. But I think just simply love them. And I've come to realize it's just like fruit. If you pick it before it's ripe, it's not good.

So the time may not be ripe, but to continue to love them. And then pray as Sunder prayed, that he will order the circumstances of their lives until they come to realize their need. And then at that point, if you're in their life, you are happy to pick up where you left off.

Or God may bring somebody else. The scriptures tell us that one sows, another waters, but it's God who eventually does the final work. And that happened with my father-in-law, where for 20 years he lived with us.

Exactly. He lived in the same house for 20 years and he knew you guys were Christians. And you're talking to him all of this time, and he didn't want anything to do with the Lord.

But we loved him. I honored him as my father-in-law. I served him. And then eventually when he was diagnosed with cancer, it was my privilege to take him for his various appointments. But then towards the end of his life, he began to realize he was not ready to meet God.

And so that was when his heart was much more open to receiving the truths that you just shared. And it was three days before he died. He realized he needed a Savior and he received Christ into his life.

And in those three years, I said to my husband, "Your father was more alive when he was dying than for the entire time that I knew him." So I think it's very important for the person to continue to receive the love of God. And for us not to take it personally that they've rejected the gospel and so I may not have presented it well. But I think to realize they're not ready yet, but to keep covering them with your prayers and asking the Holy Spirit to do the very thing that Sunder was talking about. Bring them to that point of realizing that they are sinners, that they need a Savior, and salvation is found in no other name other than the name of Jesus.

And so that's important, I think. It is a process, John. It in some cases it happens like you said, it can happen right at the moment because I think God has already been at work and they are ready. But then in other cases, it takes time for the fruit to be ready to be picked.

Sunder: One other thing, John, I think I forgot to mention is that in that verse that you read, it says the god of this world has blinded their eyes. So there's also some resistance praying that we need to do.

This is where it becomes important to find out what are the possible religious, cultural, socioeconomic obstacles to the gospel. Maybe even from their background, they might have been hurt in a church. They might have been betrayed by someone who was a Christian.

And so you have to pull down the strongholds. And Paul says we pull down the strongholds. Strongholds are firmly rooted ideas that have taken a hold in these people's minds that are the lies of the devil that are contrary to the gospel.

So we need to do some detective work, some reading, some understanding, and then in Jesus' name to pull down these strongholds. That is that resistance praying, warfare praying, that is another huge dimension. And she talked about my father. What Sham didn't mention was that near the end, when he was in that hospital bed when the final diagnosis of cancer had come, she and several other intercessors went into this warfare praying mode for weeks and weeks before those strongholds came down.

Dr. John Ankerberg: And also you have to finish up that story. When he accepted the Lord, his wife did not like it. So here you finally have victory after 22 years and all of a sudden she's mad at you. Tell that story.

Shamala: Well, and she is 91 years old today. That was in 1994, so that's what, 23 years ago? She's still not a Christian. And at that point, she said, "I will never become a Christian." So in many ways she has made a vow and that vow needs to be broken by Jesus. So we continue to love her and we're getting a little bit more revealing to her the fact that the issues in her life, some of the brokenness is becoming much more exposed. And she is not well at all. But it was a big ego blow to her that her husband, as she put it, went to the other side. In other words, became until that time Sunder was the only Christian in his family.

Sunder: And last August when we were in Singapore and we were able to see this sinfulness, she didn't believe she needed a Savior because she'd basically lived a clean life. Like probably many people in India and other places have.

She was faithful to her husband, she never cheated anybody. "Why do I need a Savior?" So we were able to show her her selfishness and self-centeredness, what sin is all about. And so we have boldly now with her permission prayed for that illuminating work of the Spirit in her presence.

Dr. John Ankerberg: I want to go one other step and that is community prayer. I learned this when I was in high school and we had this Bible club that just out of witnessing to people grew from just a few up to 400 coming on Tuesday nights. And so I was learning how God did things.

One of the things that we did is we met for prayer before school started every day in a room. We asked permission of the school, "Can we have this room for prayer?" At that time they said, "Yeah, go ahead. If it's all students, fine."

So I led the prayer. So we had like 40 students, 40 Christians that met every single morning 15 minutes before. And then I told them, I said, "You know, I've been listening to the bell ring in this school and we counted it up. The bell rang 22 times a day in our school, changing classes, going to lunch period, going for special things, 22 times."

And so we devised this system that I said, "All 40 of you, besides our prayer meeting every morning, I want you to make a list of 10 people that you would like that are students here among us that you would like to see the Lord bring to Jesus. And let's start praying. So every time you hear the bell ring, pull out your list and let's start praying for them."

So we started doing that and then in our club meeting, we always gave an invitation for people to accept Christ. Then there was one other thing. We met in a home on another night separate from the meeting where we had our club meeting. And these 40 guys, 40 girls, we got down on our knees and we prayed for this list.

And so I watched teenagers. I mean they're on their knees praying, "Oh God, give us this girl and this guy and they have problems," and they were doing all of this. So I was watching this and I was wondering what's God going to do?

So then I was over in our club meeting and I was watching from the back when people would give the invitation for people if they wanted to accept Christ. People were doing this every week. And I looked at the people and then I looked at these lists and I realized it was the very people that we were praying for 22 times a day, that we were praying for in these places.

And it was like you pray, he'll do something. You pray, he does something. So I want to encourage people that get a group of folks together and pray on a regular basis a lot for these people and expect God to do something for you.

Now when we come back, I want to talk more about some of the things that Sunder you suggest that Christians ought to do when they begin witnessing to people, talking about our words and other things. All right, stick with us. We'll be right back.

Guest (Male): Join us next time for part two of our discipleship series, Follow Me: Experiencing the Joy of Walking with Jesus, as Sunder and Shamala pick up where we left off this week. Thank you for joining us on our journey of discipleship.

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