Great. Here's another one from Elam. Uh, does Kingdom teaching— Before I read this one, um, the— If you have any follow-up questions, send them to Clark Ray. We have 5 more minutes. If we don't have any, we'll just continue with all the questions that were, uh, submitted. Okay. So, Elam Peachy says, "Does Kingdom teaching affect the way we evangelize? Would it tend to— would it tend to be a stumbling block for potential converts, or does it make it easier to reach people?" Okay.
My experience, uh, is it's harder to reach people, uh, with the Kingdom gospel today. But now, we should understand that originally there was only one gospel, and that was the, uh, Kingdom gospel. I mean, when Jesus went out preaching, he preached the gospel of the Kingdom. And, you know, he converted lots of people. When Paul went out, uh, he was preaching the, the gospel of the Kingdom.
I mean, turn to the last chapter of Acts, read those last couple of verses, you know, that, uh, he taught the Kingdom of God to the people who came to them, him in Rome when he was a prisoner there. So, um, yeah, I mean, originally it would be hard to say, uh, was it harder to evangelize with the Kingdom gospel? Because that's all the gospel there was. That's all the gospel there ever should be. So, uh, yeah, in itself, I mean, it's not that we back away from it.
Um, but nowadays, and ever since Luther, um, we have two gospels. We have the Kingdom gospel, and then we have— I, I call it— it's a little bit unfair, maybe— the gospel of easy believism. Uh, okay. Or to put it in more neutral terms, the gospel of salvation by faith alone. Um, which has been accompanied, from the days of Luther, with "Once saved, always saved." Okay.
Now, if you're going to go out and, and preach on the streets, preach at a college campus, whatever, it's a whole lot easier to make converts if all that's required is, um, if you— you know, we're going to ask you to come forward, or maybe just stay in your seats and say this prayer, uh, invite Jesus in your heart, and that's it. Now you're saved, you're guaranteed heaven. If your conversion was real, if you really meant it when you prayed that prayer, that's it, you're saved.
Well, if that's what you're going out and preaching, well, yeah, it's a whole lot easier to make a lot of converts with that kind of message. Now, I'll go on to say that a lot of the people who— that's how they came to Christ, was with a message like that— they go on to become very committed Christians. Sometimes they never are taught the full Kingdom gospel, but, um, they are strong disciples of Christ in most areas of their life.
Like I say, there's usually a little bit missing because they haven't heard the Kingdom gospel. Um, so I'm not saying that, you know, none of those people are, are Christians. Um, but it's a lot easier, yeah, if that's all that's required, to get a lot of— you can go back and say, yeah, we made it this many converts, or we had this many decisions at our, um, revival meeting, or that sort of thing. This many people came forward, uh, etcetera.
When you're preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, particularly nowadays, you're competing against the gospel of easy believism. And, and so, yeah, now you're not just competing against the world like they were in the beginning, but, yeah, you're having to compete against a, a different gospel. So it makes it harder. But, um, I mean, so be it. I mean, the gospel of the Kingdom is what is true. And we shouldn't shrink back, like, oh, this is too hard, no one's going to accept this.
They accepted it back in the early centuries when it meant they were going to be put to death very likely. Um, and yet they were still willing to accept that. So, yeah, we shouldn't think, oh, yeah, this is too hard today. There's no point trying to go out and, and spread this gospel, it's too difficult. Um, no, it's harder for people to embrace, obviously, than a, one of just invite Jesus in your heart. But, um, again, it's the gospel Jesus preached. It's the gospel Paul preached. Gospel Peter preached.
And they made lots of disciples. So we can do the same today. There are still people hungry today. And we have to always remember, as Jesus said, no one can come to the Father unless— can come to him unless the, the Father draws them. So the Father is out there drawing people to himself, to his Son. He just needs us to go out there where he can use us as tools to work along with him. So we shouldn't imagine that we have to do this by, you know, our wits. You know, how do we make this more pleasing to people?
Um, or, um, by being a great speaker or anything like, like that. It doesn't depend on our power. But we should use our best efforts. And we should certainly, uh, prove ourselves to be, uh, good workmen, working along with God. But, like I say, the exciting thing is he's there. Uh, his Spirit is what's going to open people's hearts and, and make it possible for the Kingdom gospel to penetrate. So we, yeah, we shouldn't shrink back like, oh, this is going to be too hard to spread this gospel. Yeah, great.
Thanks a lot, Elam, for those questions. I totally agree. Um, it's, uh, the gospel that calls for sacrifice in every part of our life is, uh, much more difficult to accept than, uh, you can just believe this and you don't have to change anything. Um, and that's not the true gospel.
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