IGNORING THE WARNINGS
The ignorance of creating false converts

Ray Comfort's message, 'Hell's Best Kept Secret', forever changed my approach to sharing the gospel and helped me to understand why so many people "backslide". The message hit close to home because growing up in the church, I spent so many years believing I was saved but living in a luke-warm, "backslidden" condition most of the time. What I didn't know at the time is that I wasn't saved... I was a false convert. that changed years later when a repentance preacher thundered the law into my conscience.

False converts are those who make a "decision for Christ" in order to receive the promised life-enhanced "fulfillment" and "lasting happiness". They want the supposed benefits of becoming a Christian, but lack repentance and faith. In fact, they usually aren't informed of what repentance is or why they need to repent in the first place. The false convert is the one that hears the gospel and responds, but is not converted because all he heard was grace. The Law of God was not first applied in order to make grace amazing. Any gospel message that lacks the use of the law, takes away the contrast the gospel needs in order to be properly conveyed and understood.

The false conversion dilema often occures because the modern gospel presentation is really "a different gospel", and is usually laced with promises of a better, more meaningful life. It fails to inform them that truly following Christ does not make life easier, but harder. That it required a full surrender of ones life. It more importantly fails to emphasise the issue of sin and judgment as a precursor to the cross. In other words, the law is not used as a schoolmaster to bring sinners to Christ. That was removed in our post-modern age because some believe it is just too harsh. The problem is, there is a heavy price to pay for leaving it out.

A false convert lacks the necessary trade-marks of contrition and godly sorrow because there was no conviction of sin and unrighteousness brought by an understanding of the law. The recipient of such a message will not repent and turn away from sin because there has not been a clearly articulated presentation of the law before the gospel was explained. The fault is with the one proclaiming the message.

Ray Comfort puts forth some very sobering warnings to the modern church regarding this. If we leave out the Law and Repentance when presenting the gospel, we will continue to produce false converts, which inevitably become bitter "backsliders" and are worse off than they were before. He uses an anecdote titled, "The Key Was In The Folding" (Revivals Golden Key, Chapter 9). He says that those who preach grace without the Law look to the percentage of converts who have been saved as a result of responding to a "grace only" message. They feel their methods are justified because "some people are getting saved." The fact is, some may get saved under a grace only gospel message because they are ripe for harvest... they have already been struck by the law and they are contrite and humble of heart. The sad reality is that many false converts are being produced in the meantime! That's right, this fact is being ignored and disregarded by those who fail to preceed the gospel of grace with the law. So maybe ten people respond. Of those ten people 2 or 3 might experience a true conversion. But if the other 7 or 8 later fall away and become hardened in their heart towards God, the church, and Christians in general, what good have we accomplished?

What drives me crazy is that the modern life-enhancement gospel continues to flourish in spite of the warnings about how it creates false conversions. We have resigned ourselves to getting decisions for Christ rather than genuine conversions. It looks good to see those hands raised and people run to the front, but how many are really being set up for a false conversion? Even after hearing Hell's Best Kept Secret, and the warnings to avoid making false converts, it grieves my heart to know that that this warning is being ignored. We mustn't measure our success by the visible results, but by the word of God. That is why decisions for Christ don't impress me. When done in response to a grace presentation that excludes the law, there is a 95% chance the person is a fals convert. If we do not apply what we have learned, that wll continue to happen.

We are accountable for what we have knowledge of.

Reverend Chris J Curry
www.LivingWatersCanada.com

To Learn more about using the Law in Evangelism, visit www.LivingWatersCanada.com and Listen to "Hells Best Kept Secret" for free.