Obviously, of course, I want to thank you
for taking the time to get together and
hang out with us.
It's a huge blessing.
But just real quick at the beginning, could
you share a bit about your walk with
the Lord and how He brought you into
this ministry?
Yeah.
I was opening up preaching for about 10
years.
That's a really long sermon.
And you probably know that I stumbled on
the use of the law and evangelism.
The thing that caused it was a portion
of a sermon by Charles Spurgeon.
Take this and share this portion.
This is what I read Spurgeon said.
He said, Soul, you will find it a
hard thing to go at war with the
law.
When the law came in peace, Sinai was
altogether on a smoke, and even Moses said,
I exceedingly fear and quake.
What will you do when the law comes
in terror?
When the trumpet of the archangel shall tear
you from your grave, and the eyes of
God shall burn their way into your guilty
soul.
When the great book shall be opened, and
all your sin and shame shall be punished.
Can you stand against an angry law in
that day?
I remember looking at that sermon and thinking,
boy, that's a little different from God loves
you and has a wonderful plan for your
life.
And so that was the seed thought.
What is Spurgeon doing?
And I thought, he's using God's law to
cause a sinner to tremble and come to
Christ.
And I stuck that in the back of
my mind.
And then about two days later, I was
reading Galatians.
Galatians 3.24, wherefore the law was our
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.
But I didn't read it as that.
In my mind, I read it as, wherefore
the law was our schoolmaster to bring Israel
to Christ.
That's how I read it.
I thought, yes, just talking about history.
And I thought, it doesn't say that.
And I thought, wow, I wonder if it
is legitimate to use the law as a
schoolmaster to bring sinners to Christ in a
vandalism.
So I ran out, found a sinner, experimented
on him.
The guy just got blown away.
He just stood up and he said, I've
never heard that put so clearly in all
my life.
And I thought, whoa.
It just brought the knowledge to sin.
It was a schoolmaster to teach him.
And so I studied literature, Spurgeon, Wesley, and
others that God used.
Found the law was always there.
And I thought, boy, I'm going to be
separated as a legalist because I had a
reasonably respected ministry.
And if I start preaching this law stuff
from the pulpit, they're going to say, legalist.
But the exact opposite happened.
Doors just opened up.
Got invites to Hawaii.
Passed from Hawaii.
Was in Hawaii when I was.
Listened to the teaching.
Was convinced it was of God when he
studied scripture.
He wasn't convinced at first.
And then he invited us to base our
ministry in Southern California.
And then doors opened up after three years.
Waiting for three years.
Doing dumb things like producing dumb books.
I can't explain the stupid things I was
getting into.
I wrote a book called You've Got to
be Choking.
About the smog in L.A. It was
just a cartoon book of skydivers and that
getting caught up in the clouds.
It didn't make it through because of the
smog.
It's just silly things like that.
So I think God said, Angel of the
Lord, get in there and do something for
company.
He's gone nuts while he's waiting.
So then doors opened up.
Dave Wilkerson and Bill Gothard and others.
But the big boost came when Kirk Cameron
called our ministry three years ago this month.
And God transformed him overnight through the teaching
to a point where he said, I want
to give my celebrity name to this ministry
to get the teaching to the church.
And probably about 15 times over a period
of a year on the phone he said
to me, How can we get this teaching
to the church?
How can we do it?
And I just said to him, Welcome to
Club Frustration.
I've been trying to get it for 20
years.
But the big breakthrough came when we got
the teaching onto TBN, Christian television.
And Kirk preached Hell's Best Keep Secret word
for word.
Our website got over a million hits in
one day.
And from there it's just exploded.
TBN said their ratings went through the roof.
Would he come back and host the show?
And he said, No, but I'll tell you
what we'll do.
We'll produce a television show that brings these
principles out.
And we'll make it available to you independently.
And so that's what we did.
And it won People's Choice Award, 2004 People's
Choice Award.
And we're into the second season and planning
a third.
And for me it's so exciting because God
knows for years I've looked at huge crusades
where a well-known evangelist or whatever would
stand up and preach to 80,000 people
in a combined church crusade.
And I'd think to myself, that crowd of
80,000 people in the stadium is made
up of combined churches.
There's probably 200 churches there with a certain
amount of people from each supporting this crusade.
So odds are probably 10% are unsaved.
So wouldn't it be better to preach to
the 90% that are Christians and say,
Why aren't you evangelizing?
Challenge them as their moral responsibility.
Equip them.
And then preach the gospel of the 10%.
Because Bill Brighton's book, The Cunningham Revival, said
only 2% of the contemporary church share
their faith regularly with others in the U
.S. So that 90% needs to be
stirred up to do what they should and
to realize that if you let a child
drown beside you, it's called depraved indifference.
And how 98% of the church is
guilty of the sin of depraved indifference and
the need to be challenged.
So that's what I wanted to do.
But what God's done is exceeding abundantly far
above all I could ask or think.
Our program just isn't going to 80,000
people.
It goes to 70 countries.
And it's been repeated four times on TV
just this year.
And five other major networks have picked it
up.
So it makes me smile because I could
never have gone onto Christian television and said
the things I'm able to say.
And that's because it's comfort wrapped in Cameron.
It's jalapeno coated in candy.
Cameron, movie star.
Come in.
Who's this guy with you?
It doesn't matter.
We like you.
So it's been a wonderful blessing and something
that makes me continually smile at what God's
done.
Can you turn this on now?
It's on.
Oh, good.
I think it goes into it, segues into
it, but how you're talking about how Bill
Bright commented that maybe less than 2%
or 2% of Christians actively share their
faith on a regular basis.
From many men of God in the past,
even like Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, Bhagat Singh.
I don't know if you're familiar with him.
But they gave some numbers where on the
average they'd said about 5% of Christians
are saved.
In America, talking about specifically.
Do you think that could be true?
What would explain the reason so many Christians
who claim to be Christians are living like
the world?
Yeah, what we've done is open the straight
gate and said it's wide and easy to
become a Christian.
When Jesus said the opposite.
He said, agonize and strive to enter the
straight gate.
And when Peter said, how many will be
saved?
Jesus said, few in the world will be
saved.
And I think it's interesting if you look
at that scripture.
Strive to enter the straight gate, for straight
is the gate and narrow is the way
that leads to life.
And few that be that find it.
And then Jesus said, because broad is the
road that leads to destruction or the path.
So people that don't enter the straight gate
go into the wide gate.
It's false conversion.
And there are multitudes out there that say,
I'm a Christian.
Yeah, I love the Lord.
And they'll blaspheme in the next sentence.
Their lives don't match their claims.
And it's something that should greatly alarm all
of us that are Christians.
And we've got a program coming out called
True and False Conversion that we deal with
the whole thing and speak to it.
And show people being interviewed that say, I'm
a Christian.
Blank, me blank.
Blame their living and lust.
All sorts of things.
Just terrible stuff.
And what's happened is that the contemporary church
has lost the fear of God.
We have seeker-sensitive churches that drop anything
offensive.
Christians that say, well, you know, people don't
understand what repentance means.
Well, tell them.
Don't dumb down to them.
Educate them.
Lift them up and say, repentance is this.
And so they drop words that offend and
words that non-Christians don't understand.
Well, there's the offense of the cross, the
offense of the name of Jesus.
We didn't drop that.
So I think we need to get the
fear of God back into the church.
And the way to do that is to
preach the law.
It tends to do that when you realize
God's holiness and His perfect standards.
Which are exemplified in the law.
It tends to produce the fear of the
Lord in your heart.
And makes you realize that all His judgments
are righteous and true altogether.
And we have to stand before Him on
the day of judgment.
And I've been living in Ezekiel 33 for
the past three or four nights.
And it's just so powerful.
You know, you say to the wicked, when
God says to the wicked to warn them.
And you don't, then you're guilty of His
blood.
We're to lift up our voices, the trumpet.
And show these people their transgression.
And to warn them.
And it says, turn.
Turn from your ways.
It doesn't say change your mind.
Which is what repentance is defined as by
many contemporaries.
Just change your mind.
No, it means turn from your wicked ways.
Let the wicked forsake his way in the
unrighteous man's thoughts.
So there needs to be some thunder of
Sinai and flashes of lightning to bring the
fear of God back into the church.
And it's the law that does that.
Do you think there's a need for a
revival in the church?
I mean, we're kind of talking about that.
Yeah, absolutely.
What are the reasons though?
What are a couple of the reasons that
you think?
I know we've touched on all this stuff.
Yeah.
Or I think maybe better yet, I think
we're all agreed on that there's a need
for a revival in the church.
What you're talking about.
Yeah.
But what do you think are some of
the ways that could be used to bring
that?
Bring about a revival?
Yeah.
Yeah, I love what A.W. Pink said.
He said, It is true that many are
praying for worldwide revival.
But it would be more relevant and more
scriptural for prayer to be made to the
Lord of the harvest, that He would raise
up and thrust forth laborers.
He will preach truths which are calculated to
bring about a revival.
And what we have is a lot of
Christians say, We need revival.
And they look on revival as being a
sovereign move of God.
And so they give the job of taking
the gospel of every creature back to God
and says, We're going to stay here and
pray.
And so what we've got to do is
put legs to our prayers and realize that
if we say, God, send revival, but we
don't preach the gospel, we're saying, God, we
know the gospel is the power of God
to salvation, but we'll stay here and pray.
We know how will they hear without a
preacher, but we'll stay here and pray.
Because it's easier to talk to God about
men than to talk to men about God.
And so we've got to discipline ourselves to
take the gospel of every creature as we're
told to.
And there's so few Christians that do that.
Still laborers are few.
There's a lot of talk, obviously, about revival
sweeping across North America and the world.
And God's always moving.
God's always working.
God's word's going forth.
But there's an opinion that the church is
closer to God's judgment than it is to
revival.
Would you agree or disagree with that?
A lot of people say revival is a
whole lot of Christians praising the Lord.
But revival is when a nation is transformed
by the power of the gospel.
And if the average church made as much
noise about God on Monday as they do
to God on Sunday, we'd see revival.
They tend to be praising the Lord, hands
raised, and not lifting their hands out to
the unsaved and pulling them from the fire
on Monday.
I remember sitting in a plane once and
two girls walked down the plane wearing gospel
t-shirts.
And I said, are you gospel singers?
They said, yes, we're Christians.
I said, oh yeah.
And she put her earphones on and I
sat there waiting for her to witness to
me for about an hour.
Nothing happened.
So I tapped her.
I said, what are you doing?
Listening to music.
I said, how can I get to heaven?
She said, I don't know.
You don't want to go to hell and
then put the earphones back on.
And I thought, boy, that's just typical of
the contemporary church.
They just love the music.
They love the fellowship.
They love everything except obedience to God's word.
And so those that are like that need
to examine themselves and see if they're in
the faith and then begin desiring to see
true revival and bring it about with God's
help because the power is in the gospel,
the transformation.
We know a brother in Christ that has
the burden to see every church get active
on the streets of their city daily and
track distribution and preaching and caring for the
homeless.
Do you think that's too extreme?
Should everybody be doing that?
I love what Spurgeon said.
He said, more of a case has to
be made for staying in the church than
preaching outside it.
And I thank God the disciples didn't stay
in the upper room and have a glory
session, a healing meeting or a worship service.
They went up in the air like they
were told to.
And so definitely we need to break down
the walls of the church and get out
there.
Instead of being a whole lot of monks
and monkettes fellowshiping together in this monastery without
walls that we call a church.
We preach the gospel every day out here
in the courts.
To count that just a wonderful privilege and
we come back.
We call it dragging feet, clicking heels ministry.
Every day we've got to preach we're dragging
our feet.
You get the negative thoughts.
Every day we come back clicking our heels.
People listen and it was great.
Got a heckler this morning.
Some guy was saying blankety blank.
He said, this isn't church, it's court.
I said, it is church.
He said, church is on Sunday.
I said, no it's not.
Church is on Wednesday today.
So it's a great privilege we have and
it's something we need to take incredibly seriously.
Because we have a moral obligation to those
that are around us to take the gospel
to them.
I think of what Paul said to Timothy
where he said, nowhere does scripture, correct me
if I'm wrong, does it say that Paul
was gifted as an evangelist, but Paul told
him to do the work of an evangelist.
Yeah, just do it.
Just do it, right.
Absolutely.
I guess maybe the last thing is, I'm
real familiar with, Greg's kind of familiar with
your ministry.
I'm really familiar with it.
You can tell because you're finishing my sentences.
Is there, like you said, the last few
days have been Ezekiel 33.
Is that, what's the Lord been showing you
personally just today?
Where do you find your heart, your mind
being drawn to as you look into the
Lord?
What's going on in your heart today?
Just the same as always.
I just do everything I can, every ounce
of energy.
Every ounce of energy I have to reach
the lost in any way I can.
We have new books coming out.
One's called How to Bring Your Children to
Christ, or Child of Christ, and keep them
there.
I know we can't keep our children there.
That's the job of the Lord.
We can't bring our children to Christ, but
to say how to faithfully preach the gospel,
the seed of God's word, and have God
water it in His faithfulness, save those that
call upon His name, and then He'll keep
them through the power of His Holy Spirit.
That was a bit long for a book
title.
So we cut it back to that.
And there's another book coming out called What
Did Jesus Do?
And it's the unscripture nature of the seeker
-sensitive message and how Jesus preached future punishment
law.
James preached future punishment law.
Jude did.
Peter did.
All these stories.
Book of Acts, people have written to me
and said, No, we're in the Book of
Acts.
It's the law used.
So I send back examples.
And they go, Oh, I'm sorry.
There it is.
I used to have a Beatle V-Dub,
and I didn't see any on the streets
until I got one.
Then when I got one, everywhere I looked,
there they were.
It's because I had a mind to look
for them.
And it's the same with once you understand
the function of the law, then you see
it everywhere in Scripture.
You see Jesus using it.
You see Peter and Paul and James.
And so that's what's in my heart, to
equip Christians and challenge unsaved people and reach
out to them.
Because the key to reaching out to them
is through Christians.
I like what D.L. Moody said.
He said, I'd rather send 1,000 to
work than do the work of 1,000.
Just stir up all that potential that's out
there.
Because it is the last time.
I was watching the news this morning, and
it was like the newsreader came on and
said, Good morning.
Here is the news.
Nation is rising against nation.
Kingdom against kingdom.
There are earthquakes and floods.
Famines and pestilences.
I mean, it was one after the other.
I might as well just read Scripture.
And so we've just got to see of
all the generations that we have a tremendous
responsibility to be faithful to what God's called
us.