When you open God’s word you can’t lie to yourself anymore. Because the Bible is constantly emphasizing how sinful, how broken and how unworthy you are of salvation. It is impossible to believe in works-based righteousness if someone solely believes and reads the Bible. 

I’m a big proponent of using the Bible in evangelism. I want the book open with me when sharing the Gospel. I want the unbeliever to be looking down in the Bible, I want them to be hearing the Bible, If possible I want them to be able to quote some of the bible by the end of our conversation.

I believe with all my heart that faith (only) comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God. (Rom. 10:17)

But over the years I have found myself using the pilgrim’s progress at some point during an evangelistic encounter.

Early on at the end of a long gospel conversations, I found myself not knowing what to do next. Of course, I’m not going to lead someone in a sinners prayer. As a believer in God’s sovereignty in salvation I didn’t want to manipulate someone into making a false profession. At the same time I wanted them to understand the urgency of what they heard and the importance of what had just occurred in their life. So, I always had this dilemma, how do I finish this conversation?

How do I lead them to realize the importance of going home and thinking about what we talked about?

Many of people I’ve talked to over the years simply did not care. They were apathetic. Especially college students.

I usually explain to them the urgency about responding to what they heard. I tell them that they could die on their drive home. That they could get a brain aneurism. Not to manipulate them or to scare them into salvation but to challenge the observable indifference to the words they heard.

On many occasions the person, sensing the gravity of what I was saying, asked me how do I get to the point where I care about what you told me today? How can someone generate concern for the things you told me today?

I was encouraged by this question. It means that I had conveyed the gravity of the situation well. And over the years I found myself using the pilgrim’s progress more and more.

After explaining to them that you can’t drum up faith on your own, I would quote Romans 10:17 and tell them about Christian in the Pilgrim’s Progress.

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