The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-5, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

My question relates to "Discipleship Evangelism" [DE].  After you go through DE and you begin to train others, you find yourself losing your fear to witness or to present the gospel to others, to the point where you really become bold.  Even to where you start to challenge the cults.  My question is: Is this a problem when you begin to pray and ask the Lord to lead people into your life, and the next thing you know, you see Mormons knocking at your door and Jehovah Witnesses?  Well, should we be greeting them and having them come into our homes?  I know we are not supposed to be cordial to them.  I just want to know what the Bible says about that and in your opinion.

Answer

Let's take a look at what the Bible says.  Turn first of all, to 1 John, chapter 2, and this is a good place to start.  Just to put things in perspective, he says in verse 12 of 1 John 2, "I write unto you little children;" he uses a general word "tekna" (Greek) which basically means offspring.  It doesn't identify any particular age.  So, he's writing in general to all who are children, "Your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake," that is, all the redeemed.  Then he sorts out this whole collective group of children into their various spiritual ages: "fathers" are identified as those that "have known Him that is from the beginning."  And then "young men" are identified as those "who have overcome the wicked one," who is Satan.  And then "paidia" (Greek) infants, another word for children in verse 12, actual infants, "because you have known the Father." 

Now, he sorts everybody into three categories: you're either a spiritual infant who knows the Father, "Da Da," that's spiritual "goo-goo."  You know God--that's it.  On the other end of the spectrum is a spiritual father who has plumbed the depths of the eternal God; "he knows Him who is from the beginning."  We are all on the way from being an infant to being a spiritual father.  We don't want to be an infant very long, Paul says in Ephesians 4, that they are, "tossed too and carried about by every wind of doctrine."  We would like to be a spiritual father, mature, comprehending the truth of God, and knowing God in an intimate way.  That is, we know the God behind the page.  We are not stuck just with what the Bible says, we understand the God behind it; we've come to the place that she was asking about where we begin to know God in a personal and intimate way--beyond just the Word.

But the middle step of growth he identifies as being a young man who has overcome the wicked one.  Now, in what sense has a spiritual young man, at the growth point in his spiritual life that this identifies, "overcome the wicked one?"  Verse 14 explains it, "I have written unto you (middle of the verse) young men because you are strong."  How did you get strong?  Because the "Word of God. . . ."  What?  "Abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one."  Now, you asked a simple question, "With what does the wicked one occupy himself?"  Well, according to 2 Corinthians 11, Satan is primarily disguised as an angel of what?  Of light.  I think his primary occupation and primary function is in the realm of false doctrine and false teaching and false religion; therefore, what a spiritual young man is, in my mind, is one who has overcome the wicked one in the sense that he no longer is weak in understanding the faith to the point where he can be victimized in his doctrine. 

It is inevitable, and I have seen this in my own experience, that when someone reaches that level of understanding the Word of God, understanding what he believes and having overcome the wicked one in terms of false religion it is very frequently manifested by an aggressive approach towards evangelism, particularly to people who are in systems of false doctrine.  That's very common.  As a pastor, I can tell you, I can almost label a guy when he gets to that level, because invariably he wants to take on the cults, and he wants to straighten everybody's theology out, because he's there, in terms of understanding.  Cults aren't a problem to me; they can't woo me away; they do not confuse me at all, because I have become strong in the Word of God and I have overcome the wicked one in that sense of his deceptiveness. 

I am still on the way to becoming that spiritual father.  So that's a very common thing.

Now, what do you do when you are in that situation?  Well, first of all I think it is important for us to preach the truth.  I don't think that we need to go in and defend that Biblically.  Right?  We are to be able to (Peter says) "give an answer to every man that asks us of the reason for the hope that is within us."  Right?  1 Peter.  So, when anybody comes along, I don't care what cult they are in, we should be able to answer them with a reasonable answer in meekness and fear, with reverence, but nonetheless a direct answer.  We should even be able to confront them as we are encouraged in Titus to confront the heretics.  So I don't see anything wrong with that. 

The thing that you don't want to do is get in the position where you become the student and they become the teacher.  If you can set the ground rules--fine; if you can't then I think that you don't want to victimize yourself, because you do not want to expose yourself to unsound doctrine.  You do not want to expose yourself to the kind of thing that Paul says, "Eats like a gangrene and begins to consume."  Also, you don't want to be gracious to them to the point where, as John the Apostle writes in his epistle, "You are actually bidding them Godspeed and therefore becoming a partaker of their evil deed."  So it all depends on what the ground rules are.

Now, we have to realize several things: realize number one, these people are victims.  They are victims.  They are deceived people and they desperately need the truth, so if there is some way in which you can get to their vulnerability and establish the ground rules by which you can give them the truth--that's the seed planted.  You shouldn't shun that if you are a spiritual young man, if you are at the point where you can do that.  But at the same time you don't want to expose yourself to their gangrenous kind of teaching, and you do not want to give them a platform.  Let me tell you something: they don't need the reinforcement of restating their system again, and reassuring themselves by our inability to respond adequately to it.  So, whenever they come around me the ground rules are always the same: "I would be happy to tell you what I believe--if you are open to that, but if you not--I am not interested in what you believe."