The Gospel is simple: we are sinners. The wages of sin are death. Because of sin, we are eternally doomed. However, God has had compassion on us and sent Jesus to die in our place so that we can have forgiveness of sin and live with Him forever.
Jesus died and is now resurrected, and if you want to have your sins forgiven, simply repent and believe the gospel.
Because all people are sinners, we all need God’s forgiveness; there are no exceptions. (Romans 3:23) God’s forgiveness is only offered through Jesus. There is no other way.
So, if you don’t repent and believe the Gospel, then you will die in your sins and spend eternity in Hell.
These facts are all a person needs to know when they reach out to Jesus for His forgiveness.
We do not need to make the gospel more palatable by softening it at the edges; anyone who reaches out to Jesus, turns from their sin and believes in His name will be saved.
As that person follows Jesus, their life and their behaviour will change. As they read God’s word, they will grow, and more information and personal revelation will come into their life. You don’t have to be a theologian to get saved; you just have to put your trust in Jesus.
So, if salvation is this easy, why isn’t everyone saved? Why is there a resistance to the gospel?
Veils
In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul writes this.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Paul had been talking to the Corinthian church about the Gospel, and here he says that some people are not saved because the devil (the god of this world) has placed a veil over their hearts that stops them from understanding the Gospel and acting upon it.
Previously in 1 Corinthians 1: 18, Paul wrote
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
We can put these two scriptures together. The reason people think the gospel is foolishness is because of the veil that the devil has placed over their hearts.
Church-going is not salvation
Once we were all in such a position. Sure, some of us may have even grown up in the church, but our values and behaviour outside of the church building may have been very contrary to God’s laws, and we were still sinning. With a veil over our hearts, we thought we were ok and that going to church was enough to save us. However, going to church won’t save you of itself; only repentance and faith will. Every believer at some time in their life was a sinner who has had an encounter with God. In everyone’s life, there was a time when they met Jesus and repented of their sins and believed that everything He did on the cross for them was enough to pay the price for all of their sins. It is at this point that they became a born-again believer.
Going to church should put you in an environment where you are hearing the Gospel, and learning how to live in a broken and sinful world; but church attendance on its own makes you as much of a Christian as going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger!
So, we have a planet full of people, many with veils over their hearts that are stopping them from understanding the truth of the Gospel and acting on it. So, what do we do? We live our lives openly and share the message of Jesus plainly. Life brings events that often lift the veils on people’s hearts, and for a short time they are receptive to the Gospel message. But to hear it, they need to be around people who are living it and telling it as it is.
The nurse who changed
On my life’s journey, I once worked as an orderly at a hospital in Canberra. I just did my daily duties and wasn't aggressively evangelistic, but people knew I was a Christian. One day, a nurse came to me and said,
I was surprised I could not remember talking to this nurse about Jesus, but the veil over her heart seemed to be shifting. I began to pray for her. A few weeks later, she came to me and said that she was going to a local church and was enjoying the fellowship. I continued to pray. Then one day in the staff room, she told everyone that last Sunday night she had gone forward in church and given her life to Jesus, and she was feeling the presence of God in her life in a real way, and she knows that all of her sins are now forgiven, and she is going to heaven when she dies. Most of the staff in the room didn’t know what to say.
I congratulated her and encouraged her to continue in her walk with Jesus. She then turned to me and said … “and my conversion is your fault. Whenever you came to work on the ward I was on, God started getting on my case.” To this day, I do not see how I could have had a direct effect on her life, but I trust God and His timing for her.
Not a score board.
For a long time, I have been uncomfortable when I hear people say things like: “I got 93 people saved this week!”
When I hear that, I think, “Really!!” The Bible says that God is the one who saves; we sometimes have the privilege to be present when someone gives their life to Christ.
It is Jesus who is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:29
It is the Father who draws people to Jesus. John 6:44
It is the Holy Spirit that convicts the world of its sin. John 16:8
We have nothing to do with the salvation of another person; we are called to be witnesses of what God has done in our lives and what He is doing now, and sometimes we happen to be there at that critical time in a person’s journey when they give their life to Christ. Jesus said,
… and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1:8
Our job is to be faithful witnesses. Evangelism is not like a scoreboard at a sports ground; it is a process in which many people may contribute, but God deserves all the glory.
Shifting veils
The veils over people’s hearts shift from time to time. A death in the family, sickness, war, a marriage breakdown, or just the realisation one’s life is empty, may be a time when the veil over a person’s heart shift. Shifting veils provide the opportunity for people to clearly hear the truth about Jesus. When a veil has shifted, the people who we work alongside or even pass on the street may find a piece of the Gospel through their encounter with us. Continued encounters may bring a person to the point where they give their lives to Christ.
Salvation is a journey; for some people the journey is very quick, for others it takes years, but it is a journey, nonetheless.
The Engel Scale
The Engel Scale is a conceptual framework or tool used in understanding a person’s spiritual journey from unbelief to conversion.
This scale was developed by Dr James Engel, and you will find it in his book, What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest!
In the book, Engel puts forward the idea that coming to Jesus is a series of steps that are of no measurable length, but still steps people need to go through in order to come to Christ and be successfully discipled. These steps have become known as the Engel Scale, and they help us to understand that we too are part of the process of other people finding faith in Christ.
Over the years I have seen many versions of the Engel Scale; here I am going to outline a simplified version.
-8 Awareness of a supreme being – no knowledge of the Gospel
Many tribal peoples would fit into this category; they may worship the spirits or a god, but they do not have knowledge of the Gospel.
I was once in secondary school in a NSW country town that had many strong churches. There I met a white Australian teenager who had never heard the Gospel, did not know what Easter and Christmas were about and thought that Jesus Christ was an expletive you said when you were angry or hurt. This young man was at -8 on the Engel Scale.
-7 Initial awareness of the Gospel
Many people say that they understand the Gospel, but who really would not have a clue. They will tell you that Jesus died on a cross, but they do not understand the reality of the Gospel message and its implications. They may have seen something on the internet or on TV but seen it without understanding. Proverbs 4:7 says … with all your acquiring, get understanding.
-6 Awareness of the fundamentals of the Gospel
In the opening of this article, I explained the fundamentals of the Gospel. We are sinners; God is holy. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) Because of sin, we are destined to spend eternity in Hell. Jesus came to die in our place and pay for our sins. He offers us forgiveness of sins and eternal life if we will repent of our sins and believe that all that He has done for us on the cross, plus nothing, is enough to pay the price for all of our sins and that with our sins forgiven, we can live with Him forever.
Some people can rattle off these facts and still not want to do anything about it because of the veil over their heart.
-5 Grasp the implications of the gospel
These are the people who one day wake up to the fact that they are dead in their sins unless they do something about it. They might say, “When I am dying, I will do it then, but now I am just too busy.”
They understand the implications, but their attitude is that it is not a high priority for them. One could argue here that they say they understand the implications, but really, they don’t.
Sin is not an inconvenience, it is a wretched and horrible state from which we need rescuing. The key truth we all have to grasp here is, this is a problem that only God can fix.
-4 Positive attitude towards the Gospel
After grasping the implications of the Gospel, the person must develop a positive attitude towards the Gospel where they see it as the truth that will set them free.
Once they have this attitude, these people are on the edge of making a decision to do something about it; these are the people who might attend a crusade meeting or talk with a street evangelist, or even visit a church.
-3 Personal problem recognition
This is a fancy term for when a person is convicted by the Holy Spirit about their sins.
Part of the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of its sin. When the veil has moved, and the Holy Spirit convicts a person of their sin, this is a likely time when the person will decide to act.
If they decide not to act, then on the Engel Scale they slide back to -5 because they obviously do not appreciate the full implications of saying no to the grace of God extended to them through Jesus. For them, they will have to continue their journey until at last they decide to follow Jesus.
-2 Decision to Act
Once a person has grasped the implications of the Gospel, has a positive attitude towards the gospel, and has been convicted of their sin by the Holy Spirit, their next step is to decide to act. They decide to give their life to Jesus.
-1 Repentance and faith
At this step, the person prays and asks Jesus to forgive them and to be the Lord of their life. Then receive God’s offer of forgiveness and eternal life because of the death of Jesus.
Here the miracle happens: all their sins are forgiven, the power of sin in their life is broken, and their name is written in the Book of Life. They are a New Creation.
0 New Creation
By the time the person says amen to the prayer they pray, they are a New Creation. They are not the same as they were a few minutes ago. But this is not the end; the Engel Scale continues for 5 more steps.
+1 Post-decision evaluation
The question every new Christian needs to ask is, now that I belong to Christ, how should I live my life? This may lead a person to change their friends, habits, or occupation. Perhaps, like Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10), God will lead them to make restitution to people they have wronged. This is the time when the journey when the new convert finds their footing in their new life with Jesus.
+2 Incorporation into a church body
Within a church body are the keys for sustained and continued growth. The next steps in their Engel Scale journey presume that they have a fellowship or church to which they belong where they can receive teaching and can worship and participate in a way that will help them grow in Christ. Bible study groups will be a key element of their spiritual growth.
+3 Conceptual and behavioural growth
In a fellowship or church, the nitty-gritty of daily life as a Christian is fleshed out. Here other Christians can give new converts pointers as to how they handle the dilemmas of daily life. Here the new convert learns about the more complicated matters of faith, such as the incarnation, Baptism, Holy Communion, and the Trinity, just to name a few.
It is also within the fellowship of the church that the new convert is taught how to worship God and the importance of reading the Bible, the importance of tithing, and much, much more.
+ 4 Communion with God
At church and at home, the new convert needs to know how they can prayerfully practice the presence of God. Read the Word, pray, worship, and experience God’s presence in their daily life.
+5 Lead others to Christ
This step could well happen before some of the other post-conversion steps. But every Christian should know how to lead someone else to the Lord, should they ever have the privilege to do so.
Evangelism is not just for the evangelists; it is for those who are part of God’s forever family.
Why the Engel Scale is important
Veil movement and opportunities to share the gospel are important in evangelism. There are some people who are gifted evangelists who find it easy to share their faith in a public forum. Some are terrified of sharing their faith in case they get it wrong, especially in a public forum.
The Engel Scale shows us that because a person’s conversion is part of a process, we may already be affecting people’s lives without knowing it. That person you work with may have slipped from -7 to -6 on the Engel Scale because of the chat you had with them over morning tea. The little old lady who visited your church, whom you spoke to at morning tea and who you drove home, may have developed a positive attitude towards the Gospel based on your kindness.
Evangelists are very good at working with people at -4 through to conversion on the Engel Scale, but there might have been 100 people God used to get them from -8 to -4.
Evangelists may also be very lacking in discipling new converts. This is the job of those with pastoral and teaching gifts, and Christian friends that they make in their local church. So in the bigger picture, we all have a part to play.
The veils on people’s hearts shift, and opportunities arise; as Christians, we need to be living our faith openly and clearly so that those around us can hear the message that will change their lives for eternity.
