Secondly, if the parent is also not a Christian, you have left a bad witness to the parent. By resisting the parent you are telling the parent that to be a Christian or for her child to get involved in Christianity would mean that, that child would be influenced to disregard the parents wishes and authority over the child. The end result would be that you would not only lose your possible influence over the child, but the parent would be all the more closed to considering the Gospel themselves. If, however, you show regard for the parent’s authority over their child, this will leave a good taste in their mouths that they will not forget. They will probably also read the Gospel tract you left with them out of curiosity because of the respect you showed for them as a parent.

As Christians we must remember that we cannot save anyone. Only Jesus through the Holy Spirit can bring a person to Himself. We are simply the messengers of the truth of the Gospel to others. The Holy Spirit does not work in a vacuum. He works in the hearts of men according to what they know. This is why we as Christians need to go out and sow the seed of the Word of God in men’s hearts so the Holy Spirit has something to work with. At the same time, we should never be frustrated if in the presenting of the Gospel we are suddenly cut off. It is not our problem. God is faithful and will reach that person again at another opportune time. When we respond politely to a person saying no to our sharing with them or in respecting the wishes of a parent, this is also something that the Holy Spirit can use in influencing the child as well as the parent in bringing them to Christ. It will keep them open to hear the Gospel at another more opportune time because of the influence of your kindness, love and respect toward the person or parent’s wishes.

How we respond to the person’s free will prerogative is as much a witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as successfully giving the full presentation. You have left a good taste in their mouths that will influence how positively they respond to someone else’s attempt to present the Gospel to them when they really have the time to hear the whole message.

When Philip resisted the mother a second time, he gave her strong incentive in the future to turn down anyone approaching her personally about the Gospel since he showed a total disregard for her wishes and parental authority. She experienced nothing that should encourage her to do otherwise. Philip also put a false light on the message of Christianity. The end result is that not only did he turn her off to considering the Gospel but he grieved the Holy Spirit as well. It is not our responsibility to make sure a person hears the Gospel whether they want to or not and make sure they receive Jesus whether they want to or not, or make sure that a parent fulfills their responsibility to make sure their child hears the Gospel. Our responsibility is to share what it means to be a Christian and how to become one in love to someone who has willingly given us permission to do so. It is Jesus’ responsibility to bring the person to the place of being willing to hear what you have to say and to positively respond to the message.

The Apostle Paul states that we are to preach the truth in love (Eph 4:15). Love in this context means respecting the freedom of choice of the individual as to whether he wants to hear the Gospel or not, or respecting the authority and wishes of a parent over their child.

I have shared the Gospel for thirty-four years and I can honestly tell you that in that time only a handful of times have I been hindered from sharing the Gospel through outside opposition. The bible is plain that we will be opposed in sharing the Gospel with men and as our society moves further and further away from God, that opposition will become stronger and stronger.

What I want to share with you here is how to deal with and respond to this opposition when it comes. What I am going to share is from personal experience and as a result of much prayer, what I believe has been the Lord’s instruction to me on the matter.

Jesus said, "For whoever wishes to save his soul shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul for My sake shall find it." A year after I accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord, my earthly father told me not to share the Gospel with my brothers in the home. I lived in his home. I told my father I could not make this promise, that if I did I would not be disobeying him but God. Two weeks later my younger brother asked me to talk with him about Jesus. I did. he prayed and received Christ. A week later my father asked me to make a choice between Christianity and the comforts of home. I moved out. If you want to bring men and women to Jesus, you must be willing to accept the consequences of doing so. Satan does not take lightly our pulling his subjects out of his kingdom and transferring them to Jesus’ kingdom. He will do what he can to hurt you when you lead people to Jesus. I could not obey my Father’s request to not share Jesus with my relatives, but I did have to submit to the consequences if I continued to do so.

I have found much fruitfulness in sharing the Gospel with people in indoor malls. They usually are sitting on benches or leaning against rails while waiting for their wives. They welcome any distraction. As a result I have led many men to Christ this way. I have only been opposed three times in 34 years by security while witnessing in indoor malls. What do You do when this happens? You are on private property, you handle it the same way you would handle knocking on someone’s door. You respect their wishes and leave if asked to do so. Wait a few months and try again. Security changes guards very quickly. I have done this and had no problem continuing sharing the Gospel.

What do you do if your boss tells you that you cannot share the Gospel with other employees? Assuming it is not because you are doing it on company time or in hindrance to your work, you tell him you cannot do that, that to do that would be to disobey the Lord, that you are not ashamed of Jesus or His gospel; then be willing to accept the consequences. I have lost many jobs over this issue. Jesus said, "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38). Your allegiance is to Jesus first, your job second. Jesus is Your source, not your job. Lose the job or you will lose your soul. Read Matthew 16:24-27.

If you are opposed in public places such as parks or outdoor malls, be willing to accept the consequences of the opposition. If removed, go back later. Public Property is fair game.

Jesus said: "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matt 10:16). What is Jesus’ point?  Unless the Lord, like in some of the cases of Paul in acts, leads you to do otherwise, our objective is not to fight or argue with the opposition or to make a point but to share the love of Jesus Christ with men. You will have to deal with each situation individually as the Holy Spirit leads you. Once when opposed at an indoor mall, I simply turned and said to the security guard, "Sir, did you know that Jesus loves you and has wonderful plan for your life. . ." and proceeded to share the Gospel with him. The end result was that it disarmed and frustrated him and he left. Jesus said to love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you (Luke 6:20-38, Rom 12:17-21).

Question: What do I do when someone responds negatively to the presentation of the Gospel?

Answer: Respond in the following way, "Thank you anyway. May I leave a copy of this with you (Salvation Tract) to read on your own?" Ninety-eight percent of the time the person will say "Yes." You never want to try and force yourself on anyone. How you respond to a "No!" is just as much a witness of your faith as to what you say about your faith. Even though the person may say no, because you thanked him anyway and showed respect for the freedom of choice God gave Him, you will leave him with a good taste in his mouth. He will know that you respected his free will and this will do more to motivate him to here the Gospel the next time someone approaches him. Also, because you considered his person and free will he will be more motivated to read the booklet you left him because it will have been his choice, not forced upon him. He will want to know what kind of beliefs you have that teaches you to respect and treat politely his wishes concerning your even trying to witness the Gospel to him.

Question: What do I do when someone is argumentative about religion?

Answer: You never want to argue with someone. First of all, you cannot reason with rebellion. People who are argumentative are not looking for answers. They are looking for excuses. They are simply trying to feed their egos and put you down. What you need to do is discern between what are legitimate hang-ups to the Gospel and just smoke screens to get you off track. This kind of discernment only comes about through repeated experience of sharing the Gospel on the field. If you discern that the statement the person is making is a genuine intellectual hang-up to their being able to release their faith in the Gospel, then certainly you want to take the time to answer their questions, but in love of course.

The way to tell whether a person is simply arguing with you and not really making inquiry of why we believe what we believe is how he initially responds to your answers. If the person argues with you no matter what you say, he is not looking for an answer but is just making excuses for rejecting the Gospel, not whether he believes it is true or not. If the person’s inquiry is genuine, when you give him a legitimate answer, he will give a response of "Oh! I did not know that. Do you have any more information on this you could give me?" This is a person who has genuine things in his heart that are blocking him from releasing his faith. This is what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5: when he comments about Strongholds of the mind. If a person has genuine hang-ups about the Gospel, he will not be able to release his faith until he finds the answers to his questions. But if the person just keeps arguing with you despite the facts, that person does not have genuine hang-ups about the Gospel, he has a willful moral problem. He does not want to believe no matter what the facts are.

This is one of the reasons I am sold on using a tool like the Evangelism Tract, What Is Eternal Life? It gives you the ability to stay focused on Jesus and their need of Jesus and not get side tracted to other non-relavent issues that might be brought up to try and distract from the message of the Gospel. For example: I might have (and have had) the following conversation with someone:

Pastor Kruse (PK): Second, receiving Jesus as Lord means to repent of your sins. Paul wrote...

Potential Convert (PC): What about those who never hear the Gospel? Are you saying they are all going to Hell?

PK: Sir, I would really like to get your reaction to this little booklet. Let me finish the presentation and then I will be more than happy to take as much time as you like to answer any questions you have.

PC: Okay.

When I have given this response to a smoke screen, I have never had anyone say, "No! I want the answer now!" They always say "Okay" and when I get to the two different kinds of people, Self-Controlled and Christ-Controlled, when I ask them which person represents their life, I do not get an argument of "I do not believe in this stuff." I get without exception in this kind of case, the person on the left, the self-controlled life. In some of these cases I have seen the person say when asked which person he wants to represent his life, "The one on the right," (Christ-Controlled). We pray the sinners prayer together and the original questions that came up never come back up. In fact, I can recall very few situations where the questions did come back up at the end regardless of whether they responded positively to the Gospel or not. This is because it was not the issue in the first place. It was just a conscious or unconscious attempt to avoid the message at hand. It was not a matter of belief or an intellectual hang-up, but rather a Lordship problem. They are using what they think are legitimate questions to resist the Lordship of Jesus over their lives, not because they are hang-ups to their faith.

You must remember, we are not called to convince people that the message of the Gospel is true. Jesus has simply called us to share the message of the Gospel. When someone does ask a legitimate question, then yes certainly you want to do whatever you can to help them release their faith, but you never want to get caught into the trap of arguing. Our goal in Evangelism is to explain to a person what it means to be a Christian and how to become one and then leave how they respond to that message between them and God. Our goal is not to argue with them why we believe what we believe.

It is okay to reason out your faith with others if you choose to do so, but only after you have accomplished your goal in Evangelism which is to explain to the person what it means to be a Christian and how to become one. If you have accomplished that, you have planted a seed in their hearts that the Holy Spirit can now use successfully to bring the person to Jesus. This is because the Word of God is Spiritually-Alive!⁸⁸ and Energetically-Effective!⁸⁹ God's Word is not just further knowledge that sits in one’s memory, but is Spiritually-Alive and able with the power of the Holy Spirit to bring a person to Salvation.

If after sharing the Gospel with the person, you want to debate with them and convince them of your superior intelligence, fine; but only after you have successfully shared with them what it means to be a Christian and how to receive its saving message and are sure they understand how. Once you have accomplished that, though I am not encouraging you to argue, go ahead and reason with them as far as you feel you are being led to through the Holy Spirit. It is more important that you leave them with a good taste in their mouth about you and the Gospel than that you win an argument.