According to Second
Corinthians 4.13, the Apostle Paul attributes a believer’s faith to the Holy
Spirit: “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I
believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.”
No person’s faith is
conjured up by that individual. Neither is faith produced by manipulative
means. The preacher does not generate faith in an audience by his oratorical
skills, nor does any individual produce faith in his own life in response to
his determination or personal decisions. The Spirit of God produces faith.
That said, the Spirit
of God makes use of means to produce faith. When I speak of means, I am
suggesting that the Spirit of God does not zap people and spontaneously produce
faith in them. Rather, He produces faith using a mechanism, an implement, a
tool, or an activity. His primary means of producing faith is the declaration
of the truth of God’s Word when someone hears it preached or taught (and, of
course, when it is read). Romans 10.17 addresses this reality: “So then faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
James 1.18 also
addresses this reality: “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
There is no
indication from Scripture that faith is always
produced when someone hears the Word of God preached or taught. In
Second Thessalonians 3.2, the Apostle Paul declared to that congregation, “all men have not faith.” Thus,
some who are exposed to Bible truth by various means are not given faith by the Spirit
of faith. Also, and this bears on the faith of the eleven remaining apostles in
John 16 following their departure from the Upper Room, there is no indication
that faith will necessarily be produced instantaneously by the Spirit of God as
one hears Bible truth.
In some cases, faith
is given by the Spirit of God as
they are receiving Bible truth. In other cases, faith is given by
the Spirit of God after the
passage of time and their hearing of Bible truth. My conversion to Christ
occurred seventeen years after the Gospel was presented to me.
I bring this up
because the apostles were exposed to Bible truth as they heard the Savior
preach and teach for three and one-half years. Yet, their faith was not always
the immediate result of the truth they were exposed to. I would suggest the
Spirit of God gradually gives
faith, with that faith not always being either strong or of much depth
initially. The apostles seemed to recognize that reality when, in Luke 17.5,
they said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
With these
introductory remarks made, I would now like to offer an opinion. Some would say,
“Well, everyone is entitled to his opinion.” Perhaps everyone is legally
entitled to his opinion, but everyone is not logically or rationally entitled
to his or her opinion. Concerning the principles of logic, there is a thing
called “The Law of Sufficient Reason.” “The Law of Sufficient Reason” demands
that a person have a reasonable and rational basis for an opinion that is held
or advanced. Therefore, it is not true that everyone is entitled to his
opinion. I am about to express the opinion that I am entitled to both hold and
express because I have rational and reasonable bases for my opinion.
Let me get two more
things out of the way before I begin in earnest. The naïve among us frequently
insist that no adverse opinion be held or expressed about another person’s
position or practice without first confronting that person personally and
privately. Of course, that is utter nonsense, based upon a misunderstanding of
Matthew 18.15ff, which portion of Scripture governs only matters between
members of the same church. Additionally, it is felt by some to be a low blow
to deal with matters related to a person who is now dead, as though any criticism
of positions and practices held by those deceased is, for some reason, no
longer legitimate topics of inquiry, discussion, or criticism. That, too, is
poppycock and balderdash. Whenever an individual proclaims his positions and
practices into the public sphere, he enters the realm known as the arena, where
all ideas that are practiced and proclaimed are subject to public scrutiny,
public discourse, and public criticism. If you don’t want people to criticize
what you believed and how you behaved while you are alive after you have died,
then you’d best keep your mouth shut.
Now for my opinion, and the reasons back of my opinion. The late Jack Hyles knew nothing about evangelism. There, I said it. Following are the reasons I have concluded after years of reflection on the matter why I think Jack Hyles knew nothing about evangelism. Before citing my reasons, let me grant certain things about Jack Hyles, whose books I have read, whose tapes I have listened to, whose pastors schools I have attended, whose sermons I have listened to at preachers meetings, and who I have met on too many occasions to recall at this time.
Jack Hyles was undoubtedly
a genius. For many years he pastored the largest church in the entire world. He
was an organizational genius, a platform genius, and a genius at influencing
large groups of pastors and parishioners. That said, he knew nothing
about evangelism.
Jack Hyles wrongly
assumed a number of things Scripture simply does not teach to be true,
affecting his philosophy of personal evangelism and soul winning.
1. Jack Hyles
wrongly assumed sinners decide when to be born again. Such an assumption is
laughable and ludicrous, showing Hyles to be an Arminian at best or a Pelagian
at worst. The phenomenon the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to Nicodemus about in John
3 was a miracle that is performed by the Holy Spirit of God. But the Savior termed
it “born again,” showing some likeness between birth and the new birth. As no
child decides when to be born, so no child of God decides when to be born
again. The burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of anyone who maintains the
miracle of the new birth occurs when a sinner decides it occurs.
2. Jack Hyles
wrongly assumed sinners are saved from their sins by praying. In the books that
he wrote, in the cassette tapes he sold, and the soul winning programs he
advanced, sinners were always directed to be saved by praying, despite
the fact that there is no example of any sinner in the Bible who is
definitively shown to have been converted to Christ by praying. What sinners
are directed to do in the Bible is believe on Jesus Christ, trust Christ, or come
to Christ, not pray. The danger in encouraging sinners to pray to receive
Christ is that praying is undeniably a work, causing some unknown percentage of
sinners to imagine that it was their prayer that was the instrumental cause of
their conversion. But salvation is not the result of works of righteousness,
Titus 3.5. It is dangerous to encourage sinners by leading them to think that
they can become a Christian by praying.
3. Jack Hyles
wrongly assumed sinners are convicted by the Holy Spirit of God while
they are being witnessed to. There is no indication in Scripture that the Holy
Spirit of God necessarily convicts any sinner at the time they are being
witnessed to, at the time they are listening to a sermon, at the time the Bible
is being taught to them, at the time they are reading the Bible or a gospel
tract. While the Spirit of God does sometimes convict sinners while they are
being witnessed to, there is no guarantee in Scripture that this is the case.
Therefore, it is entirely presumptuous to assume the Spirit of God convicts
sinners of their sins concurrently with them being witnessed to.
4. Jack Hyles
wrongly assumed sinners are persuaded to trust Christ simultaneously with being
dealt with by a soul winner. Of course, this sometimes occurs. However, this
does not always occur. And, again, it is presumptuous and potentially dangerous
for the spiritual welfare of the sinner to assume that sinners are persuaded to
trust Christ by the Holy Spirit when they are being dealt with by the soul
winner.
5. Jack Hyles
wrongly assumed all sinners must always be dealt with by soul winners in the
same way. This despite the fact that Jack Hyles did not always deal with
sinners in the same way, as his soul winning stories reveal (in the days when
he went soul winning). Soul winners were trained by him, and by his devotees,
to almost always deal with almost all sinners in precisely the same way. Yet
Scripture does not suggest that the Savior, or any of His apostles, ever dealt
with two sinners in the same fashion. Such a cookie-cutter mentality of soul
winning is clearly not the pattern shown in Scripture.
6. Jack Hyles
wrongly assumed sinners are usually saved at their front door or in their
living room where they are led to Christ by soul winners. Nothing in Scripture
would suggest that this is the case. As well, John R. Rice, who did more to
promote personal evangelism than anyone in the United States during the 20th
century, insisted that the vast majority of people who turned to Christ did so
in response, not to personal soul winner’s efforts, but after hearing the Gospel
clearly presented in church worship services.
7. Jack Hyles wrongly assumed sinners must be
acknowledged to be saved who claim to be saved. Of course, this is a flagrant
violation of the Biblical principle of two or three witnesses that was set
aside by the infamous Pelagianism heretic of the 19th century,
Charles G. Finney. Prior to Finney, virtually all gospel ministers in the
English-speaking world referred to those who presumably had trusted Christ as
their Savior as “hopeful converts.” Believing in the Biblical principle that
matters of fact are established at the mouths of two or three witnesses (a
principal the Lord Jesus Christ adhered to during His earthly ministry, a
practice honored by God Himself, as well as the glorified Savior) Gospel
ministers of old would act upon the claim of those who insisted they had
trusted Christ by thoroughly investigating their claim with questions designed
to clarify their understanding of the Gospel, supported by an abandoning of
their sinful lifestyle practices. Even after most American Gospel ministers had
abandoned the practice of trust and verify, C. H. Spurgeon continued the
practice throughout his ministry.
You might disagree
with my opinion that Jack Hyles knew nothing about evangelism, nothing about
personal soul winning. That is perfectly fine. However, there can be no doubt
by those who are familiar with his ministry over the decades before his
passing, that he was a masterful manipulator and had weapons-grade persuasion
skills. I acknowledge this to be true. My claim is that his impressive skills
were not informed by an understanding of Bible truth.
You might also
counter my Ministerial Musings by impugning my motives. Before
you do that, take note that I have not challenged Jack Hyles’ motives. Neither
have I launched an attack on his morals or integrity, as many have done. My
comments are the result of a consideration of his practices, and my opinion
that his practices were at variance with Bible doctrine. If you believe I am
mistaken, I suggest that you take me to task using God’s Word.
The right approach to seeking the salvation of the lost must be advanced by clearing away that which is harmful and unscriptural.
