We're told in Scripture to be prepared to give a ready defense for the hope that we
have in Christ Jesus, but many of us Christians have no idea why we believe what we believe.
Welcome to Skywatch TV, a special broadcast for Monday, February 27th, 2017.
I'm Derek Gilbert.
In studio, a pair of special guests, we met in a very, well, let's just say the Holy
Spirit was part of this.
We were at the Ark Encounter for the grand opening last year.
Maybe you remember that program and encountered this couple who are connected to a ministry.
I just spoke into the president of like a week before because James Walker, the president
of Watchman Fellowship had just attended that President-to-Be Donald Trump's summit with
evangelical leaders.
So lo and behold, we encounter a couple who play an integral part in that ministry at
the grand opening of the Ark Encounter.
They have just authored a book, and it is a topic that compared to much of what we do
at Skywatch TV wouldn't be considered, dare I use the word sexy, no giants, no UFOs pretending
to be aliens from outer space.
And I say that tongue-in-cheek and with love because I love those topics, but at the end
of the day, what we do here at Skywatch TV and what we do in our everyday walk as Christians
has to be about Christ and Him crucified.
And so we need to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that we have in Christ.
And that's what this book is all about.
By which we are saved is the title of the book.
The authors are with me today, Kelly and Preston Condra.
Welcome to Skywatch TV.
Thank you.
It's great to be with you, Derek.
This is where the rubber meets the road.
We are called as Christians to carry out the Great Commission, which is to make disciples
of all nations, to spread the gospel to the end of the earth.
Not all of us are called to go serve in foreign fields, to go to Africa, to go to the Aborigines
in Australia, to visit the natives in the South Pacific, places where life as we know
it would be so different from what we're accustomed to here in the Western world.
For me, roughing it is having to stay at a motel aid or something.
But we are called to be prepared whenever the opportunity presents it to share the gospel.
Your book, what inspired the writing by which we are saved and what is your hope, what was
your goal in writing the book, Kelly?
Well, Preston works in ministry, and we find that very often when he speaks with people,
they say they believe in Jesus, but they're not able to articulate a clear gospel message.
They feel intimidated about sharing it.
They're not sure exactly what to say, what verses to use, and they're afraid they're
going to be asked questions that they can't answer.
So they don't feel comfortable sharing the gospel, and they also are afraid in our politically
correct culture to offend people.
And we want Christians to feel completely equipped to share the gospel.
Now, Preston, associate director of Watchman Fellowship, Watchman.org, which is an apologetics
ministry.
Why did you take the approach that you took with the book?
And how would you describe the book by which we are saved?
Well, we really want to give a clear, precise presentation of the gospel, first of all,
and then have a tool for people to have in their hands that answer common questions about
the gospel.
You know, Watchman, we answer specific questions from cults and new religions.
Well, this is specifically aimed at, you know, it's a book for help for personal evangelism.
We want to help the believer answer specific questions about the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which we, of course, will be discussions in 1 Corinthians 15, 1-4.
And so our heart for evangelism and for the church is for that.
And Derek, you know, you know, as well as we do, we live in a politically correct society
and talking about matters of faith and politics are not real socially acceptable.
And so we want to help talk about things of faith in the context of a politically correct
culture.
So we also want to present, you know, helpful ways to present the conversation in a helpful
way.
In other words, sort of a practical guide on how to show the gospel.
Yes.
And I think something too for pastors is something they can pick up and teach their church folks
or a Sunday school teacher can pick it up and the way it's formatted can pick it up
and use it in a small group.
Okay.
Go right.
The verses are right in there.
We put them in there specifically for that.
You can pick it up, get copies for your class members and go right through that because
these are concerns any believer has who is trying to share their faith.
It's things we've encountered through the years.
I've been a Christian since I was a teenager.
And I've come across these things that you have, I'm sure sharing your faith too.
And so we want to put something combined altogether here that are some of the most common things
that people are going to encounter as they try to witness because witnessing does seem
like a real daunting thing to most believers and it's intimidating, especially in a politically
correct culture.
And so we want a helpful guide for that.
You mentioned first Corinthians 15 and we'll get to some of these objections and obstacles
that people need to overcome as the conversation continues.
But I was curious when you opened the very first chapter of the first book with first
Corinthians 15 and the first eight verses of that chapter instead of say John 3 16.
Kelly, what was the reason behind that?
Why did you choose first Corinthians 15 to open the book?
Well, it started probably 20 years ago when I first got saved and my sister got saved
and we were looking for gospel tracks to share with other people.
And when we got saved, we were taught first Corinthians 15 one through eight is the contains
the gospel specifically versus three and four, but we couldn't find any gospel tracks that
had those verses in them.
They had lots of great verses about salvation like John 3 16, which is what the father did
or Ephesians two eight nine, which is that it's the method grace through faith.
But the actual gospel presentation that Paul says this is the message by which you are
saved was not in the gospel tracks.
So it was something that I had always wanted to do was to have a better gospel track and
eventually turned into our desire to write a book about it.
First Corinthians 15 is one of the most amazing chapters in the entire New Testament.
Not only does it lay out the gospel very clearly and the elements of the gospel later in that
chapter.
He also gives some very specific details that allow the members of the church at Corinth
that they'd wanted to go back to Jerusalem and ask around and confirm what Paul had said
was historically true and accurate and not just Paul making stuff up out of thin air.
What are the basic elements of the gospel then?
Well, we go back through the gospel mentioned there in first Corinthians 15 that says the
gospel by which we are saved.
I want to emphasize that again, very important.
It says by which we are saved, we know what gospel means.
It's good news.
It's a message by which we are saved.
That seems to get skipped, I think.
And then he goes on and tells us in verses three through four what that specific saving
message is that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures was buried and on the third
day he rose from the dead according to the scriptures.
So those elements are right there, Jesus, well, that's who he is, right?
And it's specifically the Jesus of the Bible.
Paul warns us of other Jesuses, so we're specific to talk about who Jesus is.
So we have Jesus died for our sins, well, that's what he did.
So you have who and what he did, he died for our sins.
Which also talks about why he died, well, he died for our sins.
We're sinners in need of a savior.
So Jesus died for our sins, was buried and on the third day he rose from the dead.
So you have what he did, who he is, what he did, why we need it, and then how do we get
that?
Well, it's by faith.
And then importantly also is something he mentions twice in those verses that I think
gets overlooked a lot too that according to the scriptures is mentioned twice.
Where do we find that?
Well, we find the saving message, the gospel message in the Bible, in the scriptures, it's
according to the scriptures.
So those are the elements right there.
And those short passages there in 1 Corinthians 15, 1-8.
Now why would that be more effective or preferable method or say, if I can use the word better
verses in order to explain the gospel to somebody, then John 3.16, for God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
What are the differences there and why are they important?
Well John 3.16 is very important and it's a verse everybody loves and many people know.
I mean, people that have very little religious training often know John 3.16, so we certainly
aren't diminishing John 3.16.
It just doesn't have the cross in it and perhaps if someone was presenting the gospel
using John 3.16, they would know to mention the cross, but if they didn't, they would
be missing that element of the cross.
So if you use 1 Corinthians 15, 1-4, nothing is missing.
It says this is the message by which you are saved, so you know the whole message is there.
The other thing that helps is that nothing else is there.
So if someone thought there was something else to salvation, well Paul says this is
the message, this is the good news by which you are saved, and so there's nothing additional
there which should teach someone that it's just grace through faith and nothing added.
Why do we in the church have such a reluctance to share?
You mentioned political correctness out there, but even before political correctness was
a thing.
I remember in my early days, even 15 years ago when the climate wasn't nearly as toxic
as it is today, early in my walk after the Lord applied a spiritual 2 by 4 to the side
of my head and woke me up, I was still very reluctant because of the fear that I didn't
know enough in order to make the case.
Is that a big part of it or are there other objections that Christians in the church have
to sharing the gospel with others?
And that's something we've talked about, each believer needs to see what is causing
that reluctance.
Fear certainly is, I would think, one.
And that could be fear of, yeah, that I'm inadequate, I don't know enough.
Well we want to arm you right here so you don't have to be a scholar, you don't have
to know everything.
The verses are right there for each question, we didn't just give the reference, the verses
actually stated, which I find very helpful.
I can tell that to someone.
That's why people find long passages of scripture in my book so you don't have to go to the
end of the book and then look back or you don't have to have three texts open at the
same time.
Because if you're in a conversation with someone you don't know the answer, you know what,
it's okay to say, you know I'm not sure, can I get back to you?
Because you can come back and continue the conversation.
So you don't have to be afraid of not knowing everything.
In other words, you don't need to be, you don't need to be a degreed scholar in this
material in order to share.
Exactly.
Okay.
And then another, with fear I think related, which we've talked about, maybe they're afraid
of, is the person going to get mad at you?
That's why the approach we suggest is asking questions, because if you enter into the conversation
with their permission, what do you have to be afraid of now?
Right?
Yeah, let me ask you about that.
It was something I picked up on when I was reading through your book, and I'll confess
because of the schedule we've had the last week or two I've not read all the way through,
but I was scanning through and picking out things that I thought were really intriguing.
Why in the book by which we are saved do you ask, or do you make the case that asking is
better than telling?
Well, the gospel is a message.
So our tendency is to tell.
We want to tell the gospel.
We want to share it.
But when you purpose to share information with someone, you have to, are you going to
corner them?
Are you going to try to pin them down and give them to give you the response you want?
They might not even be interested in talking about it.
They might not feel comfortable talking about faith.
They might be afraid of the politically correct thing, but if you ask somebody, if you ask
their permission, are you interested in talking about this topic?
Then they've agreed to talk about it already, and it's not me pressing you into a conversation
that you're not comfortable with.
I'm going to ask your permission.
We've been neighbors for years, and I've never asked you if you're a Christian or what you
believe about the Bible or about God, and that can strike up a conversation.
Now at that point they can say, you know, I don't like to talk about religion, and now
you know where they stand.
But they also know that you're someone that is interested, and maybe at that point when
they do want to talk to someone about matters of faith, maybe they're sick or someone in
their family died, you have let them know that you are interested in that topic.
You're someone they can go to, but you are not the person that cornered them and tried
to press them into agreement with a message.
And I suspect if I had to guess that that pressed in your background in sales has something
to do with that too, because I know that my training in sales said, you know, never tell.
Always ask questions because you can't develop a conversation unless you're asking.
Right, and that's the thing we need to look at it that way.
It's a conversation.
It's an ongoing conversation.
It's not a formula.
It's not a system.
It's nothing like that.
These are real people.
We're having real conversations with about real issues here, saving issues, eternal
issues.
And so we want to have a real ongoing conversation.
And that involves and we ask because we want to know what they believe and we care about
them.
Yeah, we care about them.
We do want to understand.
We want them to understand all the all the elements of the gospel.
And you know, that takes some back and forth conversation in the right attitude, you know,
of the, and us being in having the right attitude and the right spirit in that conversation.
So I guess in a short way, yeah, the sales background does asking the question.
Absolutely.
Yeah, we've got to ascertain what, who they are, what they believe on each of the issues.
And one of the things I found, and this was drilled into me at a, one of my broadcasting
stops along the way in my career, don't ask yes or no questions, except maybe for the
first question about, would you mind if we had this conversation?
But if you want to generate a conversation, you have to ask questions and astute viewers
will notice that when I rarely ask yes or no questions of guests, and that's why you
get more information when you don't ask it that way.
So all of my questions are why, how do we, and, you know, instead of, you know, it's
and so forth.
It's also helpful to know how much they already know and what they already believe.
Because we are bringing up this topic because we care about their eternal destiny.
And because we care, we want to know if they're interested, if they want to hear more, if
they're not ready, if they already know something, but maybe they don't know the whole gospel,
and where do we need to fill in the holes of their understanding.
Right.
And one thing I've learned is that, and again, this is based on my sales background, not
necessarily witnessing, but people are open to accepting and trusting somebody who may
not be as knowledgeable as someone else, and I found this in my sales career to be true.
I might not have been the most expert salesman when it came to how to fabricate steel, but
my customers knew that I cared about doing a really good job for them.
And if I think in the same way, if people understand that you approach them from a sincere
desire because you genuinely care about them, you don't need to be a professor of ancient
Hebrew or Greek in order to share the gospel and get them to trust you.
As you said, it's okay to say, I'm not sure, but let me find out and I'll get back to you.
And that's why we tried to make this a complete handbook, that it's something you could literally
keep in your purse, keep in your glove box in the car, keep in your desk drawer at work.
And if you have a chance to talk with someone about the gospel, and they said, well, I don't
believe God is a trinity, you can just turn right to that objection.
And there are 10 verses on the trinity that you can say, well, here's what the Bible says.
You may not believe it.
You may not agree, but I just wanted to share with you what the Bible says.
That way it's not me as the expert trying to press you into agreement, but I'm just
showing you what God says, and then it's the Holy Spirit's job to convince that person
that this is the truth and that they need it.
That I think is one of the key issues here, and I know in this conversation on Skywatch
TV, we'll only scratch the surface because we could spend hours on this topic.
And I will point out that we're going to have an extended version of this conversation on
my personal podcast and YouTube channel, and I'll tell you about that in just a few minutes.
How does a person's reaction to or their understanding of the Bible as the Word of God affect our
ability to witness?
I guess, and this relates to what we see in the culture around us.
We've rejected the authority of the Bible, and so people feel that they're free to do
whatever feels right, how do we deal with that where people say, well, yeah, the Bible
says that, but how do I know that that's true?
Well, that's a good question.
Ascertaining their view of the Bible, I think, and we talk about this in the book, it's a
good starting place because the message we're asking them to believe is in the Bible.
First Corinthians 15, 1-4 is in the Bible.
We're asking them to believe that saving message.
And so if they already don't believe the Bible, then does that mean they're not open?
Well, that's something we need to ascertain.
Are they anti-Bible?
Well, then I might not have very fruitful conversation with them.
Is it a sincere question about the Bible?
Well, you know what I can do?
I can suggest and ask them, would you be interested in reading a resource that I consider to really
explain our position as believers on why we believe the Bible?
And if they have a sincere question, they'd probably be open to that.
So it's a good starting place.
Plus, if they just openly reject the Bible, it tells me, too, you know what, it's probably
not a believer here that I'm talking to.
And so if they have a general respect for the Bible, and we know that upfront, then
we know, okay, we can probably have a good fruitful conversation and go into more of
these issues.
So in the book, then you address that and then say, okay, based on their response, here
are the potential ways you can approach the situation.
And the reason is because let's say I said to you, are you a Christian?
There are so many different definitions today of what a Christian is.
You could be affiliated with a church that's a cult, but they call themselves Christian.
So sometimes asking a question like, are you a Christian is not going to give you the information
as to whether this person really is born again.
But if you ask them what they believe about the Bible, and they said, well, I think it's
God's word.
Great.
Then that can lead into another question, well, what do you think about Jesus and other
topics?
And that's why we make an issue of, according to the Scriptures, being in the gospel twice,
that it's hard to trust a message.
I would maybe think it's almost impossible to trust some message from an unreliable source.
But if they, you know, if we're saying this message is according to the Scriptures, that's
the source.
This is God's word.
That's a great place to start talking about the gospel.
Preston, you made a mention here, and this time is flying by.
So I want to leave with one final question because you raised a good point and you made
a comment earlier and used the words, other Jesus is.
How important is it to understand when somebody uses that name, what they mean, getting them
to define that term, and how do we know when we're talking about the same Jesus?
Well, and that's something we're going to find out in the conversation, asking them
questions.
What do they believe about Jesus?
And this is, you know, this is assuming this is an ongoing conversation where, you know,
the atmosphere is comfortable, and it's, you know, they're willing to answer these questions.
Yeah, we're presenting a specific Jesus.
We're presenting Jesus who is fully man, fully God.
He's the Jesus of the Bible.
He died physically on the cross.
He was physically buried on the third day.
He physically rose from the dead.
He is who he says he is.
He's the one way of salvation.
He's the Old Testament prophesied Messiah.
These things are the, he's, he's, he's God the Son, the second person, the Trinity, right?
He's all these things.
This is who we're talking about.
And this is who we want to be sure they understand we're presenting to them as the Jesus presented
in the Gospel, 1 Corinthians 15, 1-8.
So and that comes again by asking questions and seeing if they understand who we're presenting.
Fully God, fully man, sinless life, all of that was essential.
And the only way.
And the only way.
As Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except
through me.
Right.
Amen.
It kind of makes it difficult to accept that there are other paths because Jesus did not
allow for that in his own words.
That's right.
But again, it comes back to their understanding and acceptance of the Bible as true and authoritative
word of God.
That's right.
Which also reminds me that the book can be used before the factor, after the fact, because
if the conversation happens and then they ask you a question and it's in the book, you
can use the book to answer the question, but you can also read the book in advance and
it'll bring to mind things to ask them.
Like, well, I never thought about asking them, what do they think about Jesus the man?
Is he God?
But the book will bring to mind things to ask.
Yeah.
And that's helpful because there are probably other guys like me who assume that people
can hear what's in their heads and even though as often as Sharon has reminded me that that's
not true, I still make that mistake from time to time and assume that I'm speaking the same
terminology when that's not necessarily the case.
And it's important because if they have a different understanding as Paul wrote, if
anyone comes presenting a different gospel, even an angel of light, let them be accursed.
The book is by which we are saved, Kelly and Preston Condra are the authors.
Where do people find a copy of the book?
Sufficient word publishing.com.
You can go there and click on the books.
You can purchase it there.
We also have it on Amazon.
Okay.
And it can be ordered anywhere you can buy books.
It can be ordered from any bookstore.
So somebody goes into a bookstore, if it's not there on the shelf, they can go up to
the counter and ask and they can pull it up in the distribution software and they can
find it and bring the copy in.
But again, Amazon, if they want to go there and that's probably the most common method.
Okay.
And again, the website, sufficientwordpublishing.com.
Sufficientwordpublishing.com.
All right.
And now because we've only scratched the surface, Kelly and Preston are going to stick around
for a bit.
We're going to continue to record.
And my own personal podcast, which has the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title, A View from
the Bunker.
Because our bunker is sitting up there on the ridge here in the Ozarks and everybody
can see where it is.
It's not like we're hiding.
That's kind of the joke.
A View from the Bunker, which is VFTB.net, there'll be an audio version of this entire
conversation and a video version at my own personal YouTube channel, youtube.com slash
derekgilbert.
We will continue the conversation there.
But for now, we will leave off for today here on Skywatch TV.
Kelly Kondra, Preston Kondra.
Delighted that you guys made the trip up here.
It was definitely a divine appointment when we ran into each other at the Ark and Count.
Absolutely.
Well, you think so too.
Well, we're glad you came up.
Thank you.
The book by which we are saved.
Because again, at the end of the day, if what we're doing, whether it's Skywatch TV or
just us living our daily lives at the checkout counter at the Walmart, there may be a divine
appointment there.
Somebody who needs to hear the hope we have in Christ Jesus.
And if it's not about Christ and Him crucified, all of this is in vain.
We thank you for watching as we keep watching.
I'm Derek Gilbert and this is Skywatch TV.
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