Dr Greg Bahnsen - Evangelism Seminar: Bold Prayer: The Key to Evangelism (Part 3)

Our Father, we do beseech you tonight to grant unto us that we would have clean consciences as we come to you and stand in your presence. We pray, Father, that you might give us hearts that are truly repentant. That we might turn away from all of our misdeeds, our transgressions of your law. We might turn away from everything that is offensive in your sight. And we might be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, our Savior. And so filled and sealed by his Spirit. That we truly know that we are the sons of God. That we have the boldness to cry unto you as our Father. And that with that boldness that we also can lead the Christian life with the strengthening your spirit gives us. We pray that your church around the world, but more particularly here in this local congregation. Might be filled with the spirit of prayer. That it might beseech you continually, daily to grant to us not only the supply of the Spirit for our individual lives and our corporate worship and witness, but also that the Spirit might prepare the hearts of those with whom we come into contact. Might prepare indeed our community at large to hear the witness we present individually and corporately. And we ask that that spirit might bring great revival. That many would turn to know Jesus Christ, turn from their sins and from their worldly living. And to consider the Savior and to embrace him in faith. Lord, we pray that you would grant to us the promises throughout the Scripture. That indeed the day would come when this would happen. That it would happen in our experience. And that it would happen in a marvelous way, in an extensive way, in a God glorifying way. We pray for this to take place not simply for our personal satisfaction, but more particularly for your own glory. And it's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. The first week that we started our evangelism seminar. We talked about the motivation for evangelism. And I hope that you've been feeling some sense of encouragement and impetus to get out and to be more evangelistic. And various circumstances in which you find yourself. What are some of those motivations? Can we review for a moment? The apostolic example. That's the normal life of the church. Okay. We've been promised success. It is ordered by God. Supposed to do it because he said so. We owe it to people. That's right. We are debtor to people. Yes. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. The jealousy of God's name. That's the best one. Thank you. That's great. There's one more. Love. Love to God and to our neighbor. So These things should. Should keep us constantly worked up to be evangelistic, causing us to be witnessing for our faith. Then last week we talked about the two different forms of evangelism, corporate evangelism and individual evangelism. How do we evangelize corporately as the church? How do we as a group evangelize through our worship? When people come in, they're going to fall down on their faces and say, God is with these people. So that should affect the way from the pulpit, because that's a corporate function. Of course. We are preaching to our community as we call a person to preach for us in our pulpit. And then, John. That's right. Our loving fellowship. People will see our unity and know that Jesus came from the Father. Okay, that's corporate evangelism then. Individual evangelism has some advantages. What advantages can you see to be individual evangelism following up our corporate witness? Everybody can do that. That's right. Not just people ordained to the gospel ministry. John. That's right. There are plenty of opportunities. In fact, I think we'd all be embarrassed if somebody were to come in and do an audit of 24 hours of our life and just point out, did you know that there was an opportunity? You could have said something. This is what you should have done here and there. I. I think we all know that we have plenty of opportunities. What else? That's right. We show people that it isn't just a matter of professionalism, that it really does come down to the nitty gritty of life and affects us. Everybody wants individual attention, and that's precisely what personal evangelism can do. And we can gear our words to the particular needs of the individual as well. Now we have impetus to evangelize. We understand what the program of evangelism and the advantages of personal evangelism are. But what requirements are there to be an evangelist, to be a witness for Jesus Christ? See, here comes the rub. Here's the difficulty. And in all honesty, this is what keeps us from evangelizing. We don't have the qualifications. What are they? Earnestness before God, sincerity toward men, tenderness of heart toward men, evident holiness of life, a lively faith, and on and on. You probably have in your notes the full outline. But you see, those are just things that don't characterize us. When we're honest with ourselves. We have to say that we have moments when these things are true and we have better days and worse days. But overall, we all fall short of the ideal. And that makes us timid and powerless and prevents a bold witness now, tonight's theme has to do with the boldness of evangelism and how we can get through this problem and how the church overall can present a dynamic, powerful, courageous witness before the world, even if it's a hostile world. I think I'm going to use a little bit different method tonight for our discussion. I'm going to just go through these verses that I have laid out and go around the circle and give them to you all. And if you'll have them looked up, then we'll just discuss them a little more breezily than we have been able to as we all wait to turn to them. So I'll begin. John, do you have a Bible? Okay, why don't you get that? Get one for your mom. Let me begin with Greg. Hebrews 10:22. And then Duncan. Hebrews 10, verses 19 to 22. Okay, we'll skip Duncan Sinclair. Go to Rita. Acts 4:13, Then Danny. Acts. Excuse me, 8, verse 4. Acts 8, verse 4. If you need a Bible, we have some in this room right over here. Jim. Isaiah 64. 7. Judith. Luke 11:1 13. Amy. Luke 24:49. Shelley. Acts 1:13, 14. David. Acts 2:1 4. Priscilla. Acts 6:4. Then Jonathan. Acts 2:42. Kathy. Acts 4:22, 31. David Bonson. Philippians 1:19. And that brings us full circle. Pass out some more after we go around. Okay. Acts 4:22,31. Okay, now that we have these, we can go through this lesson. We've come up with a problem. The problem is we all fail in our lives to have all of the virtues the Bible commends to those who would be godly and present a godly witness for the Lord. And so what can we do about this? How can we gain the boldness that is necessary for effective evangelism? Hebrews 10:22, I think, gives us the key. Let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Now, I just got done saying we all fall short of the requirements of God to be effective evangelists. But here we are told that we are to draw near to God with a true heart, one that has been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. We all have an evil conscience, don't we? If we don't, it probably is a sign that we have a hard conscience, a callous conscience, because anybody that has a sensitive conscience knows that they're polluted in God's sight, that they're sinful, they're undeserving and they have offended God. They have not followed his word. They're disobedient, they're unclean. But the Bible says we can have a clean conscience. Indeed, it can be sprinkled clean. What is that talking about? How is our conscience cleans? By the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ. The beautiful thing about this is that the tense of the Greek verb for sprinkled clean is one that talks about a past action that has continuing results into the future. It's called the perfect tense. Something done in the past, but has enduring and continuing effects. We have been sprinkled clean that took place once and for all in the past, but its effects continue so that day by day we can draw near to God and have our heart sprinkled clean. Through daily confession of sin, we can have a clear conscience before God. And by the way, I want to say to you all that if that is not your experience, then you need to talk to your pastor about that. You need to talk to God about it, obviously, but you need some counsel on that. We all need daily cleansing from our sin. Daily. We need to know that we have a clean conscience before God. Not that we've earned it, not that we've really become in fact as holy as God wants us to be, but in fact we can be forgiven and cleansed. I don't particularly like bumper sticker Christianity, but there's one anyway that I've seen that I think has a good message and says something to the effect Christians aren't perfect, they're just forgiven. It really is a hindrance to our Christian lives when we don't day by day actually experience that forgiveness to know that we start clean with God. One of the things that everybody has a different personality, I realize, but my own personality, I really struggle with debt. If I have something that some past debt, like having not paid my income tax or something that weighs on me day by day, I'm bothered until I finally say, hey, my account is clear and now I have a fresh beginning. Well, whether it's finances or just whatever in your own life, we all know what it is to have that feeling of we're starting again, everything's been cleared away and we get to begin again. Well, in our Christian lives we do that every day. We have a cleansed conscience before God, knowing that our sins are forgiven by Jesus Christ. What do we do with this cleansed conscience? Let's put this into a broader context. Hebrews 10:19, 22. Jesus by a new way and the living way which he hath come before us who veiled, that is to say, his flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God from as John knew, with a true heart, full assurance of faith, telling her hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and the bodies washed with pure water. See, this is put into the context of drawing near to God. We can draw near to God because Jesus Christ is a great high priest. Have you ever had the experience of walking into a place you weren't supposed to be and then realizing, once you get into it, I'm not supposed to be here. Maybe there's a meeting going on in a room and you didn't know the room was being occupied. You walk through ready to get something and you're about three steps into the room and you realize, everybody's looking at me, I don't belong here. You don't have this boldness to draw near because you don't belong here. Well, you know, we all should have that experience when it comes to prayer. You know, we have this tendency to say, well, I'm just going to go to God in prayer. We should stop saying, wait a minute, we don't belong there, do we? Why? Because God's a holy God. So holy that he can't look upon sin and we're sinful and polluted. Even our best efforts are not acceptable in God's sight because he's perfect and our best efforts don't match up to that. But the author of Hebrews says, don't have that feeling. You don't have the feeling of, well, maybe I can't go into God's presence because he says, Jesus Christ intercedes for us. He is a great high priest. Christ is the one who has provided the sacrifice for our sin. And Christ mediates to the Father for us. And therefore, brothers, we have boldness to enter. It's kind of like opening the door to the corporation board meeting and just walking right in, presenting your desires. There you have boldness to enter. You do belong there. God wants to hear your prayer. God is willing to hear it. And then he uses this example of going through the veil. The veil that is provided through the flesh of Jesus Christ, his offered up body for sin. See, this is one of the biggest differences between the old covenant and the new covenant. If you think about it for a moment. Prayer was not easy under the old covenant, by the way. It wasn't common either. We're going to see that in just a moment. But even when people had a heart to pray, they were always at a distance from God. And that was symbolized in a very physical, geographical way. They were physically separated from the presence of God. Where did God dwell? In the midst of his people. Anybody in the temple. And specifically, where in the temple? In the holy of holies. Holy of holies. Remember, this is a Hebrew expression, like song of songs. It means the best song. Holy of holies means the holiest place. Now, there's also the holy place, which is the second room in the tabernacle temple. And then, of course, then there's the general temple confines as well. And so not anybody could come into the holy place. Right. Who could go into the holy place? The priests. Those who were in their appointed weekly order or monthly order could enter into the holy place and do their service before God. Who provided sacrifice for sin? The priest did at the altar. You came, if you were one of the people of God, and you provided the sacrificial animal or the offering that was going to be given, but the priest had to present it. So you see, right there, you had to have somebody else step in for you. And you couldn't go into the holy place beyond the altar either. But now let's talk about where God dwelt. The holiest place. Who could go to the holiest place? Any priest. On any given day? Not at all. Only the high priest. And only one day a year. And then he dare not come in without the blood of atoning, sacrifice. And so all these things, not everybody could come. Only the priest and not all the priests could come. Only the high priest. And not every day, but only on one day. And then only sacrificial blood. And he went what he went through the veil of the temple. You see the significance of the fact that when Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the temple was rent in two. It was torn apart. What was God saying by that? God was saying, through the death of my son, there's now no barrier between me and my people. You can come right into my presence. Now, the difficulty we have, I think, in emotionally and psychologically feeling the depth and drama and importance of that is that all of our lives we've lived in a Christian culture. And in our Christian experience, we've all known that we pray without ceasing. But to tell a Hebrew who grew up in that day and age that the temple veil has been torn apart. Now everybody can come to God at any time. That's just phenomenal. All of us are like high priests. But the reason for that is because Jesus is our great high priest. So the difference between the old and the New Covenant, Hebrews says, is that we have boldness to enter into the holy place, and so that guilty conscience we've had can be dealt with day by day. Because Christ has cleansed us and because he's a great high priest, we can boldly enter into God's very presence with our prayers. So repentance prepares our heart for a bold prayer of faith. We repent of our sins. We come through the merit of Jesus Christ, our mediator, so that our lives will not be hindered as we evangelize, as we present a witness for Jesus Christ. Now, the key to tonight's lesson is that bold prayer is necessary to bold evangelism. Bold prayer is necessary to bold evangelism. That simple thesis is what I want to elaborate on in our period together. Now, I began by saying how we can have bold prayer. The difficulty that I left with you last week is that there are certain things that should be true of our lives that aren't liveliness of faith, evident godliness and sincerity and earnestness and tenderness and all that. Well, where we lack that, we can still have bold prayer because of the work of Jesus Christ. And if we learn to pray boldly, then we will learn to evangelize boldly. And I do believe it is probably a virtually unbroken generalization in the spiritual realm, almost a law of the Spirit, that if you don't have bold prayer, you will not have a bold life of evangelism. I've yet to see it. I've yet to know anybody who was boldly evangelizing for Jesus Christ that wasn't an evident man or woman of prayer. The two just go together like horse and carriage, love and marriage, evangelism and prayer. Boldness of one means the boldness of the other. You'll notice that the normal life of the early church after the day of Pentecost, the normal life of the early church was one of bold witnessing. Just think of the example of Peter and John in Acts 4:13. Now, when they saw the bold heads.

Of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned, different man in marvel and the technology.

What did they find striking about these men? They were unlearned and not very sophisticated. They had been with Jesus. But what is it that stood out? They were bold. Where did they get this boldness? Do you get the impression that that Peter and John were very bold before the day of Pentecost? Now, don't confuse boldness with impetuousness. Peter was certainly impetuous. But where's the boldness Peter denied his Lord three Times all the disciples fled. They all misunderstood. Remember how John wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who didn't welcome Jesus as he's going through to Jerusalem? You don't get the impression these people were very understanding, certainly were not bold in the way they should have been before the face of men and resistance. But now, after the day of Pentecost, they are so bold that people look at them and that's what stands out. They are courageous in their witness for Jesus Christ. Nothing daunts them. They just are unafraid. Or Stephen. Stephen wasn't even an apostle. He was a deacon. When Stephen was hauled before the Sanhedrin, what did he do? He stood there and put the Sanhedrin on trial. He said, you Jews are always resisting the word of God. This has been your constant thing. And so he goes through the Old Testament and he preaches the Gospel, shows the fulfillment in Jesus Christ and lays the blame on the Sanhedrin. So much so they are so aggravated, they are so cut by his accusations that they stone him to death. And Jesus honors the courageous witness of his servant because as he's dying, he looks up and there's the vision of Jesus in heaven receiving Stephen bold witness after the day of Pentecost, or the whole church for that matter. Not just the apostles or the deacons or that, but Acts 8:4 tells us the whole church was bold. Now, what is it that sent the church every which way? What is it that made people scatter?

Persecution.

Persecution. Now, I think our natural response to persecution is to kind of hush up, keep things under wraps. The thing that. Let's say that every time I said a certain word. Remember the old Groucho Marx show, where if the word was said, then what was? A duck or goose or something came down? Well, let's just imagine that throughout our lives we found out that every time we said a certain word, we got whapped on the knuckles, really hurt, kind of smart. We'd have a tendency to do what? Be very sure that our vocabulary was altered so we'd steer around that word. And the tendency for people who find out that bringing up certain subjects is unpopular is to steer around the subjects, not just the individual words, but the varied subjects. As commonly said, you go to a party, you avoid talking about religion and politics, Right? Because those are the sorts of things people get angry about in a party. You don't want to be angry, so you avoid those things. Well, persecution came because these people were talking about Jesus Christ. But as they were scattered The Bible says they didn't follow the natural reaction, the natural reserve of avoiding those things that cracked their knuckles and get them into trouble. They went about preaching the Word. That's the whole church. How is it that the church could have this boldness? Well, I kept saying, and I hope you've caught it by now, it's after the day of Pentecost that this happened. It wasn't true before Pentecost. This was not at all the general situation in the Old Covenant either. Where you'll notice in the Old Testament, God's people were not notorious as people of prayer. Look at Isaiah 64, and there is no one who calls on thy name, who arouses himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hidden thy face from us and hast delivered us into. What's the problem? Nobody calls on my name. They were not generally people of prayer. And undoubtedly that had to do with their own distance from God, because God was physically in the holy of holies, but also because of their slothfulness and sinfulness and their fear. The condition of their life without the Holy Spirit was weak and beggarly. Then after the day of Pentecost, God's Spirit fills the church and the Holy Spirit equips God's people for service. Pentecost is the turning point. Most of the references to evangelism in the Old Testament, apart from prophesying the day of the New Covenant, most of the references to evangelism have to do with the nations coming to Israel. Ever notice that Isaiah 2 and all nations will flow into the mountain of the Lord, that sort of thing. When it said that the hostile nations will be evangelized? You'll find Egyptians in the land of prison promise. The prophets speak of people coming to Israel. That's the evangelistic direction, if you will, from outside into Israel. But after the day of Pentecost was the direction from Israel out to the world. See, that indication right there tells us that the day of Pentecost is the turning point in terms of what we consider an evangelistic witness. Now the word is going out. The Holy Spirit makes all the difference in the world. For now, the believer has new access to God in prayer. And now the believer has the assurance of sins forgiven. Remember in Romans 8, the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit, that we are indeed the sons of God. And the Spirit equips the church for service. See, the Spirit's the turning point, the Spirit's the hinge. The giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost makes all the the Difference then to evangelism. But now, how does one appropriate the Holy Spirit's power? How is it that the Spirit makes a difference in our individual lives? That is the crucial question. And the answer the Bible gives us simply is prayer. The Holy Spirit makes the evangelistic difference. The Holy Spirit makes a bold witnessing church out of people who are fearful and unequipped. The Holy Spirit makes the difference, and we appropriate the power of that Spirit for evangelism in prayer. I'd like to go through a few passages that teach us the importance of the Holy Spirit in prayer and witnessing. First of all, Christ taught his followers to seek the gift of the Holy Spirit in earnest prayer. Luke 11:1 13.

Came to pass that as he was praying in a search close when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, when ye pray, say, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And he said unto them, which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto him, friend, lend me free loave, for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before me. And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give him. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunities he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given me. Seek, and ye shall find knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth it. To him that moutheth it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them? Good passage.

Now, this is a long passage and has many things that could be taught, and I have to avoid the temptation to get very detailed about it. But two things stand out first of all, it's about prayer and how God is going to answer our prayers. God is willing to answer our. Our prayers. We say those words. But how often do I pray? And I don't really believe that. I feel like I have to kind of cajole. The Bible says he is willing to answer our prayers. Knock, and it shall be opened. Seek and you shall find. And then it goes on to give an illustration of that. It says, if you, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your good Heavenly Father know what to give you? So the first lesson, of course, is that God wants to answer our prayers and we don't have to be hesitant about it. But then lastly, and this is really kind of the climax, it's the best part of the lesson. What is it God gives in prayer? You see, there's this parallel, this comparison drawn in verse 13. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them? That ask him when your children ask, you know how to give good gifts. So when you ask your heavenly Father, he knows how to give, and you would expect him to say good gifts. But what is the good gift, the best gift that the Holy Father gives us? It's the Holy Spirit. And so we seek God's favor in prayer, and especially we seek the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In Luke 24:49, Jesus commanded his followers to wait until they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke 24:49, The promise of the Father will be given. You'll be clothed with power from on high, and you should wait for that. Well, I realize that deals with the historical situation, and we can't say that that was being spoken directly to us. We weren't there on the day of Pentecost. But there is a significance in the principle that they weren't to try to do this evangelistic work of witnessing for Christ until they had the power of the Holy Spirit. We all have that after the day of Pentecost. But that shows how necessary it is. And then the church was in constant and united prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit to it, according to Acts 1, 13, 14.

And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, that is Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind, were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

And they were continually with one mind, devoting themselves to prayer. The first thing said about the early church continual united prayer. And it's in the midst of that context prayer that the Holy Spirit is given. Acts 2, verses 1 to 4.

And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise, violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them, tongues as of fire, distributing themselves and rested on.

Each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

You may begin to see a pattern here in terms of the outline that I've given you. And it all comes from Luke's writings. Brother Way Jesus tells his followers, the Father wants to answer your prayers, and he will give you the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, you wait for the Holy Spirit before you begin this evangelistic work. The church is constantly unitedly in prayer, and then the gift of the Holy Spirit is given. In Acts 6. 4, we see that the apostles were unalterably committed to prayer as their first priority as well. Acts 6, verse 4.

We will turn this responsibility over to them and we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

What were the apostles to do? The deacons were going to relieve them in terms of taking care of the widows and the financial burdens of the church. The apostles were going to be given to. We usually say the ministry of the Word. And that's not untrue. But interestingly, the Bible says first to prayer. They were going to be men of prayer. They were going to have time to pray so they wouldn't have to worry about all the financial ledgers and all the rest. They were going to be given time to pray. We usually think we give our elders and our pastor time to prepare sermons, but the Bible says time to pray first of all. That was the first priority for the apostles. And this was a distinguishing feature of the new church, that it continued in the practice of public prayer. Acts 2, 42. And actually the Greek says, and to the prayers it was a constant public thing. They were devoted to prayer. What was the result? Then Jesus said, God wants to give you the Holy Spirit in prayer. You wait for the Holy Spirit. They constantly were united in prayer for the coming of the Spirit. The Spirit came. They were unalterably committed to prayer. The church was praying continually. And the results given in Acts 4, verses 22 to 31 there is the power then to confront the hostile world with a bold and courageous witness. Acts 4:22 31 for the men more.

Than 40 years old, until the miracle of healing had been torn, and when they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported off the chief priestly elm dead stead. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God 24 and said, O Lord, it is thou who make heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them. So by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our Father David, thy servants did say, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's device be the saints? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, who magistrate both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and peoples of Israel, to do whatever thy hand and thy cripples predestined to occur. And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that thy bondservants may speak thy words with all confidence, while thou dost extend thy hands and heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of thy holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they gathered together was shake and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God with boldness.

This account follows right after the release of the apostles. Having been threatened and told not to speak about Jesus, they were threatened and they went back and the first thing the church did is have a prayer meeting and they praised God that they were threatened. Obviously they're having an effect that people have to use threats. They can't be ignored and they're in prayer. And verse 31 puts it all together for us. When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they gathered together. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. Have I gotten the point across yet? These passages make it rather clear that bold witness is tied to boldness in prayer, even in the face of persecution and threatening adversity and trial. It is the boldness of our prayer life that puts boldness into our witness. The power to confront the hostility of the world with the word of God in a courageous fashion comes through seeking the supply of the Holy Spirit. Now there are two errors that I think we have to warn against right now. Now that we've said this, you can go two ways. One is virtually to ignore this and make it mainly a paper doctrine. And the other is to turn it into some kind of automatic and magical formula. On the one hand, you have people who are interested in doctrinal science. And I'm speaking sensitively here, because in our own denomination, I think we find this. A lot of people who know a good deal about doctrine and I think rightly want to preserve soundness of doctrine and make that a high priority. They seek it. The difficulty is that among such people, and I'm not saying everybody, but generally among us who are interested in doctrinal soundness, there also tends to be a lack of sensitivity to the connection between evangelism and prayer. I don't hear this very often. Evangelism is usually tied to, first of all, criticizing other methods that are not sound. And they aren't, by the way. It's not that I disagree. There's plenty of really hokey and unfaithful methods of evangelism being used today. I don't like them. I think they're unbiblical. So that's all right. But obviously, our understanding of evangelism shouldn't simply be negative. But even where we do understand evangelism in a more positive way, we tend to pride ourselves in the strength of pure teaching rather than in the strength of a powerful life. That powerful life comes through the Holy Spirit as well as the purity of truth. We kind of fear enthusiasm, don't we? If I were to ask somebody to close in prayer tonight, and that person just really got enthusiastic and emotional and worked up about coming into the very presence of a holy God and beseeching him to give us the city of Placentia for Jesus Christ, we'd all tend to be just a little bit worried about that. We shouldn't be. That should be the normal life of the church, where we get excited about prayer, where we get powerful in prayer. You see, those of us who want doctrinal orthodoxy are very unorthodox when it comes to understanding that in evangelism we need the supply of the Spirit. Philippians 1:19.

For I know that this shall turn.

Out for my date.

Through your. Okay. Through your prayers or supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. There again, it's the connection between what? Prayer and the Spirit. Your supplication and the supply of the Spirit are going to turn out to my salvation. Paul here is talking about his being released from prison. And in prison there are people who are preaching the gospel really to make it worse for him. But he says it's all going to work Out. All right. Because. Because of your prayers and the supply of the Spirit. So the one error is to really just look at this as a matter of orthodoxy. Well, we all have to say, of course, that prayer is necessary for the Spirit to be powerful in our lives, and the Spirit must be powerful in our lives for our evangelism to be faithful and effective. We can all say that, right? I probably go around the circle tonight and we get you all to say that. The question is, can I get you to live that way? Orthodoxy doesn't mean a whole lot without a true practice of orthodoxy. But on the other hand, there are people, and I think this is just as grievous an error, that turn this idea of prayer and the power of the Spirit and evangelism into some kind of mechanical formula so that prayer is kind of viewed as a commodity, the automatic tool for evangelistic success that can be magically used. Kind of like if we go through the. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, but it's analogous to if we just do this certain hocus pocus, then we can just count on the consequences. You go through the ritual, and then the results come, right? We do the ritual of prayer. We get the results. And so you'll find any number of groups, and this happens even in those where I'm a board member. It happens, and it makes me feel awkward. But you have people who are looking for prayer support, and they talk about it as though it's no different than financial support. So that some people go out and they try to elicit from people offerings, let's say, of $100,000 for this project. And then others, of course, are going to parallel that by going out by looking for 100 people who are going to give prayer support. It's as though, you know, you can lay down your money and lay down your prayers and just all works out well. It doesn't do that. You have to understand that we cannot manipulate God. First Samuel, the fourth chapter, I've written down here in my lesson plans. I didn't give it to anybody to read because it's a long chapter. But let me just try to briefly recount the incident there. It's in the days of Eli and his two sons who are governing Israel. And Israel has gone to battle against the Philistines, and things have gone really poorly. Now, what's wrong with Israel? Why are things going badly? Because Israel has sinned against God and Israel doesn't really care about the covenant. Israel has broken God's Covenant, and it's really bad. And so they go to battle and they find out the Lord of Hosts is not with them. So what do they decide to do? Anybody remember they come up with a great plan for dealing with this difficulty. John. That's right. They said, let's go get the Ark of the Covenant and bring our magical box out here on the battlefield. And that'll fix everything up. You see, God is present in the Holy of Holies, there above the Ark of the Covenant. We bring the Ark of the Covenant, we bring God onto the battlefield. We got it made. But you see, God should have been with them anyway, right? Why wasn't God with them on the battlefield? Because of their sin. And instead of dealing with that, they tried to manipulate God. They tried to physically bring out the Ark and thereby assure themselves in some automatic way of his presence. Well, the Philistines were worried. They had heard about this God and the Ark and all that. But what happened, of course, is that they went ahead and went to battle with Israel anyway. And it was a complete rout. Israel turn and they all ran. And the Ark of the Covenant was taken by the Philistines, by the way, not as the Lost Ark movie that's out now puts it the Egyptians, but the Philistines were the ones who took the Ark of the Covenant. The point of the story, though, is that you can't manipulate God through religious ritual just by claiming the Ark or by just going through so much prayer. We're not going to have the evangelistic success. Prayer is not a commodity. Prayer is a living, active reality. Yes, my wife is reminding me that there are people who say you can put your hand on the television set and God has to honor that and heal you because your hand is on the hand of the person who is putting his hand up to the camera. But that's another example of trying to manipulate God. Failure to have a prayerful life and to think purity in our teaching is enough is one error. And the other error is to think that we can just elicit so much prayer support and things just magically and automatically work out for us. Well, our time is running short here, so I won't look up all these passages, but let me just give some concluding thoughts here about boldness. In Psalm 67 we have one of the most beautiful brief psalms talking about how all the world will turn to Jehovah. And that psalm is given. You'll notice in the Prayer of Israel, as Israel prays, the vision is given of a converted world. In Luke 10, verses 1 to 3 we see that it's prayer that sets in motion the missionary work of Christ and his people. In Revelation, the eighth chapter, the first five verses, there's this grand vision given of the angel who goes to the altar where the coals are on the altar, and the angel takes the coals from the altar and places them in the censer and then flings the coals out the world, which is the falling of God's judgment. Now, the point here is not conversion, it's really historical judgment from God. But what are the coals of the altar prayers of the saints? The prayers of the saints put into historical motion God's promises and plans for history, including the vengeance upon the persecutors of the church that Revelation is dealing with. In Acts 13:1 4, as Barnabas is going to be sent out, you notice that the church comes together and prays for his evangelistic work. You see, it's as we pray that the Lord is going to ripen the harvest. Jesus tells us that we are to pray to the Lord of harvest that he'll send forth reapers into his harvest. Prayer is crucial to evangelism. The passage I want to end with is Zechariah 8:2023, another one of these Old Testament passages that gives us the promise of success in evangelism, the promise that the gospel is going to be heard and it's going to be prosperous in the world. Zechariah, the eighth chapter, And I'll read verses 20 to 23. Thus saith Jehovah of it shall yet come to pass that there shall come peoples and the inhabitants of many cities, and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go speedily to entreat the favor of Jehovah and to seek Jehovah of hosts. I will go also.

Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of Jehovah.

Thus saith Jehovah of in those days it shall come to pass that 10 men shall take hold out of all the languages of the nations. They shall take hold of the skirt of him.

That is a Jew saying, we will.

Go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. Again, that is in terms of Old Testament imagery, coming to Jerusalem, coming to Israel for salvation. And in that day 10 people are going to grab the skirt of the Israelites and say, take us with you. We want to be the people of God too.

But what day is that? That's the day in which people are.

Entreating the face of God. They are coming before God in prayer. In that day, 10 will be converted by the one Jew. And so that all the nations will turn and flow into Jerusalem for salvation. Bold prayer motivates the harvest that God has in terms of evangelism. And bold prayer is going to activate those of us who are laborers.

You.

Know, if we were left to ourselves in terms of our habitual relationships with.

Friends and with relatives and with acquaintances and those with whom we work. Our habitual relationship is one of conventional reserve. We're taught that in terms of our maturing and everything in our society reinforces it, that we should have this conventional reserve about the people.

It's become a habit for us.

Not only do we have that conventional reserve that in and of itself keeps us from being bold and excited about our witness, but there's also our unclean consciences that I think get in our way. We know we don't have the evident godliness and the sincerity, the tenderness and.

The love that we need to be good evangelists. But the Bible has provided us an answer tonight. Bold prayer. First of all, because we have the.

Boldness to pray based on the work of Jesus Christ and daily forgiveness of sins, we can come boldly into his presence. And when the church prays boldly, the result throughout the Bible is a bold, courageous witness to the world and evangelistic success. Tonight concludes my three evenings of discussing, if you will, the preface to evangelism. We have the motivation for it been given. I've discussed the forms of evangelism, the requirements of the evangelist, and now the key to boldness. And next week, I want to summarize the message of evangelism. And then in the remainder of the time, I want to talk about evangelistic technique, how can we get the word out, and our methodology. So do you have any questions before we close in prayer tonight? If you don't have any questions, I have one question for you. Will you obey Jesus teaching about prayer? I don't want anybody to give me their indications tonight. Because the only indication that I need is that you do it. Because if you do it, it's going to make a difference in our church. We're going to have bold, courageous witness that's going to be successful. Jesus said, when you pray, pray like this. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth even as it's in heaven. That's the pattern of prayer. And if that's the pattern of prayer, I take it that means that daily and virtually in all of your prayers. But at least daily you should be praying for the coming of God's kingdom, that it will grow and grow and grow. So my concluding question is, will you commit yourself to this very simple task of every day praying that our church will have evangelistic boldness and success. And if you will sure your prayer will be answered. God did say, after all, ask, and it shall be given to you. Let's pray. Lord, we ask tonight first that you would indeed cleanse our consciences. We know of our guilt and our sin and our disobedience. We thank you for the shed blood of Jesus Christ that indeed washes us clean and gives us a new slate. A clean slate indeed makes us righteous in your sight, that we have a new beginning. And we pray that day by day, as we enjoy this new beginning, this forgiveness of our sins, that you would give us the boldness to come right into your presence and to make our petitions known through our mediator, Jesus Christ. Indeed, we pray that you would make the church active in prayer, individually and corporately. That we would daily pray according to the pattern that our Savior has given us. That we might look to you to grant the petition that your kingdom would come, that it would grow, that your will would be done on earth. Lord, we thank you that we have the privilege of prayer, that we can have this boldness through Jesus Christ. And we do look to you now tonight to give us a vision of victory for the preaching of the Gospel. And not in just some general sense or in a widespread way, but that you would give it to us very particularly right here in our own location. We ask, Father, you would motivate us to evangelize, that you would give us the proper qualities of an evangelist. That you'd make us bold in our prayer and expectant, that you would answer for it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.