Dr Greg Bahnsen - Evangelism Seminar: The Forms and Requirements of Evangelism (Part 2)

Father, we thank you for bringing us together again tonight as your people, to enjoy each other's fellowship and our mutual support and concern for each other. We pray especially that tonight our minds might be focused on the word of God, that it might strengthen us and nourish us and build us up and guide us, that we might live our lives in a way that's more pleasing to you. We pray, Father, especially that in the way that we live our lives, we would become more effective servants and evangelists, that the good news might shine forth in our behavior as well as in our words. We pray that you would give us good success in our efforts, that men might be drawn to the Savior Jesus Christ, and that his church might be built up around the world because of our efforts to that end, for we pray in his name. Amen. Well, last week we began our series on evangelism, and I thought it would be a good thing to begin with the motives for evangelism, the sanctions for evangelism, what it is that leads us to engage in evangelism in an enthusiastic way and hopefully in a successful way. And why don't we begin by reviewing that? Why is it we should become more evangelistic? Anybody have any recall from last week? Anything that's success? Ah, that's a very big one. God has promised it's going to be successful, and that motivates us to do it. We are told to do it. That's right. We are commanded to be engaged in evangelism. And that's another reason why, if it helps, I've given you six, and so there's two of them. The example of the apostles we see, that's the normative life of the church. What the apostles set forth in terms of their behavior and example, evangelistically. Yes, we should be jealous for God's name. When we see people following after false gods, false lifestyles, and that sort of. We should be jealous that God would be uplifted in his glory, protected. Yes, John, that's been mentioned. It's commanded out of love. We should evangelize love for God and love for our neighbors. And finally, Paul says, we are indebted to all men. We owe it to all men to evangelize. So these are reasons that aren't simply for some kind of an examination. You can write down on a piece of paper. Paper next week. These are reasons that it would be easier to recall if they are motivating us during the week. So now, between now and next Wednesday, you see one of your neighbors or friends or some associate who is tied up with some lifestyle that's not pleasing to God, then what you should do is be jealous for God's name and want to speak a good word for them. Yes, sir. Right back there. We should feel the force of God's command and the example of the apostles. Throughout the week, we should stop and ask ourselves, do we love our neighbors? If we're willing to let them go to hell by our silence when we get up in the morning and ask God to make us more loving, to show our love for him, we should speak a good word, the good news. So during the week, I want this to be not simply something in your head, but something that's lived out in your life as well. Now, tonight, I want to add to the motives for evangelism a little discussion of the work of evangelism, both as a corporate task, how the church together evangelizes, and then secondly, how we individually engage in personal evangelism. And then, as time allows, I want to talk about the power of evangelism, how we can be more powerful evangelists. First of all, the work of evangelism. In Acts, the second chapter, it's rather clear that evangelism is a mark of the church. Acts chapter two, of course, is the day of Pentecost. And at the end of the chapter, we learn what the church was doing in those days. Not only was it engaging the preaching of the Gospel and drawing men to the Savior evangelistically, we read fear came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things in common. They sold their possessions, parted them to all according as any man had need, and day by day continued steadfastly one another in accord. In the temple, breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to them, day by day, those who are being saved. That should be the experience of Christ Church. Day by day by day, people are being added because they're being saved. So evangelism is a mark of the church. I won't digress too far here, but it's interesting to me in theological circles, one of the things that's talked about in Christian theology is what is it that makes a church a true Christian church? What are the marks of the church? We have some people who say, well, there's one mark of the church, apostolic doctrine, the teaching of the apostles. Others say there's three marks of the church, the teaching of the apostles, the faithful exercise of discipline, and the Pure use of the sacraments, okay? And then others say, no, those aren't three. That's still only one. Because if you don't faithfully discipline your people and observe the sacraments, and you're not following apostolic doctrine. So some say there's one, some say there's three, and I think there are five. I think all of that discussion is true as far as it goes, but doesn't go nearly far enough. And one of the things in reformed circles that we have such a tendency to overlook is evangelism is a mark of the church. To sit around and to discuss, for instance, the sovereignty of God and to say some prayers and even have the sacraments does not make you a church. The church, as we read right here in Acts, the second chapter, was evangelizing, was drawing people to the Savior, Jesus Christ. The church is also. I will end my discussion at this point. I would add as another mark of the church, mutual care for one another. Believe that you have icicles getting together, hearing the right words out of a microphone, and you don't necessarily have a church. The church is a loving, it's a body, life sort of thing. And consequently, I think there's five marks of the church. But my point is that one of those marks, one of the things that makes a group a church of Jesus Christ, is that it's evangelistic. We already know from Matthew 28, of course, the greatest commission given to the church is that it should disciple the nations to teaching them to observe whatever Christ has commanded in 1 Peter 2. Let's turn to 1 Peter 2. We see why God has elected the church as a holy nation. 1 Peter 2 and let me see. Can I have Linda read verse 9? 1 Peter 2. 9. So why has God elected the church to be this peculiar people, the special chosen people, to do what? That's right, to sit around and say, we're the blessed possessors. Isn't this great that we have all of this? No. God has chosen us as his people to proclaim his grace, his mercy, his goodness, his excellencies, all his characteristics. In Revelation 1:20, how is the church characterized? Gray. Let's have you read that. Saw in my right hand and turned.

Up the seven golden lamps. And I knew this.

The seven stars of the angels of the seven churches and the seven lamps of the set in church. So how are the churches characterized there? What's the metaphor used for the church? A lamp stand. Okay, so you have a stand on which you place your candle or your lamp. And the idea is that that shines Forth, then that is supposed to spread the light. The church is a light spreader. The greatest commission given to the church is to evangelize. The metaphor for the church in the book of Revelation is a church that is evangelizing. It's spreading the light, sending it out. The reason God has chosen the church to be a holy people is to proclaim his excellencies to those who haven't enjoyed as yet the transition from darkness to light. And so evangelism is a mark of the church in all these ways. We see this. How does the church evangelize? Any suggestions there? How does the church evangelize? Okay, what does that mean, though? Tell us the meaning of the metaphor. Okay. How do we corporately do that, though? Yeah, see, we're going to come to the personal or individual standpoint in evangelism, but how do we together evangelize? I'm going to suggest there are three ways that I can see in the Scripture. The first and most obvious way is, you see, the preaching from the pulpit here is the corporate work of the church. God has empowered certain people and ordained certain things, people to do that as individuals. However, the preaching is not done as an individual. You know, I don't come down here when nobody's around and just preach my sermons. The preaching is part of the public worship of the church. And therefore, when somebody comes into the church and hears that preaching, that is part of its corporate ministry. Now, this can be abused, of course. I've heard that some people, some Christian ministers have said that. That evangelism isn't the job of every individual in the church. That's the job for the minister. So if you want to evangelize, you invite somebody to church. And then when they come to church, then they'll hear it from the pulpit. Now, of course, the error in that is thinking that's all there is to evangelism. I'm going to get to something beyond that tonight. But that is part of evangelism. There's an element of truth in that. It's not the whole truth, but it is true that when visitors come to our church, our church has a corporate opportunity to evangelize through the preaching of its pulpit. So we should, it seems to me, remember that in our sermons we aren't simply talking about Christian nurture and edification. The tendency, especially in churches that are doctrinally strong, or at least pride themselves in being doctrinally strong, is to preach sermons, usually that speak to the people on the assumption that they're already believers. And we take you from There, and we try to teach you some more or get you to do other things in your life that you should be doing as we try to build you up in your Christian faith. But the preaching of the pulpit should also include the calling of men to repentance. Not simply because there are some people who claim the name of Christ who don't really own Christ and therefore need to be saved, but because there are people who are constantly being exposed to us. There should be visitors, friends, that sort of thing, who need to be evangelized. So we should be training for evangelism individually, but we should also be looking for the pulpit to be preaching evangelistically. Well, that I said, is the obvious answer. But I want to know, how else do we evangelize corporately? Well, let's look up some verses here. First Corinthians 14, 24, 25. Let me see if I can get Duncan to read that for us. 1 Corinthians 14, 24 and 25. Here Paul says, if somebody comes into the worship service, you see, and the worship service convicts him of his sin, so he falls down on his face and he says, God is indeed among you. See, that's an evangelistic activity. Worshipping God as he wants to be worshiped should bring the presence of God to bear on the life and conscience of an individual. That's not divorced from the preaching of the church, which I have mentioned as my first point. But nevertheless, this does go beyond the preaching of the church in terms of the corporate worship of the church, so that somebody in the midst of our worship service should be evangelized because of the way we praise God, the way we conduct our services. Congregational worship makes a very strong impact on unbelievers. Sometimes the impact is not for good, though, is it? You know, sometimes people leave church, and not always the church's fault by any means, but often people leave church. And it's interesting to get their impression. What is it that sticks out in their mind about church? For a lot of people, it's that they take an offering. You know, a lot of people think that's all the church exists for, is to collect money from people and to put it to somebody else's use. And by the way, that's one of the reasons in our own local church we do not take a public offering, because when visitors come, we don't want them to think that that is what we exist for. We try to teach our people, and we probably are a bit lackadaisical in reminding you, but we try to teach our people that it's your duty to bring your offering and to give it in our offering chest over here. If you want to support the work of Christ's bride, then you will see to it that Christ's bride gets supported. But we don't take an offering because we don't want that to be the impression in people's minds. But beyond that, there are other things, too. You listen to popular music, and when religious or Christian subject matter comes up, that often is the key to you, how people have perceived what the church is doing. Then think of Neil Diamond. Just to take one example, he has this song. I'm not sure if it's entitled this, but it's about Brother Love Traveling Salvation show. Now, I don't think that Mr. Diamond sat down one day and tried to maliciously come up with a song that would paint the church in a bad light. I'm not even sure that he would think that he painted the church in a bad light. However, he's obviously come into contact with church services or evangelistic crusades where that's the impression that's been made that the church is Brother Love's traveling salvation show. And that's what it's all about. Okay, What I'm saying is we ought to pay attention to the impression we make in terms of our corporate worship. Do people come into our worship services and say, well, these are people that are doing basically the same thing you do when you go to the library for a public lecture on some work of art, when they're sitting in chairs somewhat waiting for the hour to get up finally and doing it because I think it's the right thing to do. There's a little bit of interest, there's ups and downs and so forth. Is that the impression we give? Or when people come in just being in the worship service, is their heart convicted and they say, God is with these people. That's an evangelistic function. Thirdly, the church corporately evangelizes by its fellowship. John 13:35 and John 17:21. Stacy, would you read John 13:35? And Shelley, John 17:21, John 13:35. Want to know one of the easiest ways, in one sense? Easy? One of the least explicit ways you can evangelize people by loving your brothers and sisters in the Lord. When people see that we care for one another, we love one another, we support one another, we weep with those who weep, we rejoice with those who rejoice when we are supportive and knit together, when we're functioning in a harmonious way, when the church is integrated, when all these things are happening. Men will know that Jesus was sent from the Father. And you know why that is? Because you may find a certain form of harmony in the Boy Scouts, in the Brownies, you may find it in the Rotary and all the rest. But you won't find anything like Christian love in any of these organizations. When genuine Christian love is being expressed, people are going to know the difference. They're going to say, these people, not only is God among them, because when they worship, the very presence of God is felt, but when they love one another, we realize this didn't come from the world. There's something supernatural about this kind of interpersonal relationship. John 17:21. The world will believe that Jesus is who he claimed to be when the world sees the unity of the body of Christ. So one of the most eloquent witnesses, evangelistic witnesses, is the love of the church. First, John 1 tells us that the unseen God is revealed in his Son and that God's people cannot credibly claim to know God if they don't love one another. It cannot be that they truly love the invisible God if they don't love the brother whom they have seen. So love is a very important aspect of our corporate witness. How do we together evangelize? Now, let's get this all together. One, from the pulpit. Two, in terms of our corporate worship. Three, in terms of our love and fellowship. Now, that isn't just the preface to the good stuff. Now. Now we go into personal evangelism. Now that we've done our duty to the theological outline. Now we can get on to what you're really interested in. No, you see, we have got to, as a church, begin to stress this more. We need to preach it. We need to worship. We need to love in such a way that people are drawn to Jesus Christ by these things. So we have a corporate task to do it. Remember, evangelism is a mark of the church. The day of Pentecost showed that the fact that daily God added to the church the Great Commission, the purpose of our election, the fact that we are characterized as a lampstand tells us that our fellowship, our love, our corporate worship, and our preaching have all got to be geared toward evangelism. Revelation 2.5 says, Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first work, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. Am I unfair if I say that we really need to repent? We need to take fear that God would remove our Witness from the city of Placentia, Fullerton and roundabout. As far as God gives us influence, that we should worry that God would remove our witness because we are unwilling to repent and to do our first works. God has given us a great work of evangelism. And if we aren't going to do it, God's going to find somebody else who will. So corporately we have this task of evangelism. However, as I do go on, I want to add that there are advantages to personal evangelism as well. The church corporate has this opportunity and this duty. But then you individually, personally need to be evangelists as well. And I'd like to give you six reasons why. I think there are some advantages to adding to the corporate evangelism of the church. Your own individual evangelistic work. First of all, all of us can do it. That's a great advantage. All of us can evangelize. First Corinthians, chapter 12, as we've studied the last four or five weeks in our worship services, reminds us that the Holy Spirit has distributed to all of us gifts for the edification of the Church. The Holy Spirit has sovereignly distributed gifts to every individual Christian. And you should not be burying your talents. Jesus told a story about that. I've always found it somewhat fascinating that the word there used is talent. And what is meant by that, of course, is an article of coinage. Certain talents are given to people. But of course, the word talent in the English language also talks about our abilities, things that we can do. We shouldn't be burying our talents, either our money or our abilities. Everybody can evangelize. Everybody can speak the good news. You know how I know that? Because all of us talk about the news all the time anyway, don't we? Some people more explicitly, maybe more consistently and more thoroughly than others. But we all remark on what we saw on the TV or what we've heard on the radio, what we saw on the paper. We all give the news. We talk the news to each other. And God says, you can talk about the good news, the best news, too. We all can do it. There are certain things in this world that individuals, from individual to individual, cannot do. I cannot replace the cracked head gasket on my car. I really wish right now that I could. It would save me a lot of money. I can't do that. Maybe you can do something else. I mean, maybe you can do that, but there's something you can't do. Maybe there's some specialization that you don't have and some ability I have that you don't. But all of us have individual abilities like that. But evangelism is not one of those sorts of things that only certain people can do. Everybody can evangelize, everybody can speak the good news. So that's the first advantage of individual or personal evangelism. The second one is that opportunities abound for it. When I talked about the corporate witness of the church, you notice that we preach on the Lord's day. That's one day out of seven. Now our, hopefully our love is expressed throughout the week and not just on Sunday. But nevertheless, the opportunities for showing that love in a public way are not continuous. And our worship, of course, is one day out of seven as well. However, the opportunity for personal evangelism is as often as you go to the store, see a friend, make a telephone call. I mean, the opportunities are daily hours. Probably in all of our lives, there's not many of us who spend probably many more than two or three hours all by ourselves. We're always running into people. We always have the opportunity then to evangelize. And we need to recognize those opportunities. Sadly enough, I think we try not to see them sometimes, you know, when an opportunity to evangelize has arises, sometimes we, you kind of turn away and say, well, somebody should say something one of these days to this person, or why do I have to feel so awkward? But you see, the Lord wants us to be looking for an opportunity to get a foot in the door to say something for him. That kind of eagerness, that kind of seizing upon every opportunity, redeeming the time because the days are evil doesn't characterize very many of us. And I'm willing to admit it doesn't often characterize me. I sometimes leave situations where I talk to people and say, you know, I could have said more to that person. What I tend to do is this little self deceptive thing. Well, this is a business relationship. I'm talking to somebody at a gas station while my car is being serviced, for instance. That's just a business relationship, right? Well, no, it's not just a business relationship. Unless I'm looking for an excuse for why I didn't say more to this person who's having personal problems and all the rest. We need to seize those opportunities. From John, the first chapter, let's read verses 35 to 46 and I'll read this because I want to point out something here. Just out of this 1 chapter, verse 35. And following again on the morrow, John was standing and two of his disciples, and he looked upon Jesus as He walked and said, behold, the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and beheld them following and said unto them, why seek ye, or what seek ye? And they said unto him, rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, teacher, where abidest thou? He saith unto them, come and ye shall see. They came therefore and saw where he abode, and they abode with him. That day it was about the 10th hour. One of the two that heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon, Peter's brother. He findeth first his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, we have found the Messiah, which is being interpreted, Christ. He brought him unto Jesus. Jesus looked upon him and said, thou art Simon, son of John. Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, Peter. On the morrow he was minded to go forth into Galilee, and he findeth Philip. And Jesus saith unto him, follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael and saith unto him, we have found him, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, come and see. Now here I've just read 10 verses out of one chapter of the Bible. Notice the various evangelistic situations, the context, social context in which the evangelistic word goes out. John the Baptist tells his disciples, behold the Lamb of God. That takes away the sin of the world. Andrew goes home and tells his brother, we have found the Messiah. Philip tells his friend that Jesus, the son of Joseph, is the one that the Old Testament was talking about there. In just those verses, we see he had this official relationship, the teacher to the disciples. You have the family relationship and you have the friendship relationship. And all of them are avenues for giving an evangelistic witness. The opportunities abound for evangelism. We just need to be looking for them. The third reason why personal evangelism has such an advantage, I think, is that it focuses attention on the individual. I don't care who you're talking about or who you're talking to. All people like attention. They don't always like the kind of attention they get. And they make mistakes in the way they try to get attention. But nevertheless, everybody likes attention. Nobody likes to be ignored. Nobody likes to be made to feel they don't count. And so in any personal event, in a personal evangelistic encounter, that individual attention is given. The sort of thing that I think initially appeals to people and is needed. Each man, by the way, is a very special case in the eyes of God. Every man has a distinct personality, distinct background, distinct personal need, and a distinct approach is needed. And individual evangelism allows for that kind of distinctiveness in our approach. When I preach from the pulpit, I have to try to reach a mass audience, okay? And it's going to be inevitable that the way you preach will please some personalities and not others. I mean, if it pleases any, I guess. But there's no preacher that can say things in the way that is going to be most effective for every different kind of person. But when we personally, even we have the opportunity to tailor our witness to the sort of things that are going to be helpful and winsome to the person to whom we're speaking, and God does that. You see, God didn't send Jesus to die for the mass of humanity, did he? J. Gretchen Machen has this excellent passage in his book the Christian Faith in the Modern World, in which he says that he praises God that Jesus didn't die for the mass of humanity, and that his testimony isn't simply that Jesus shed his blood for every single individual in this faceless, nameless way, and that somehow, in the midst of all that math, he is included simply being a human being. Though Machen says the beauty of the Gospel is that Jesus died for me, me for me. And that when he died, he knew my name and he knew me. Indeed, the Bible says that our names are engraved on the hands of God. He cares for us individually. Let's Think of Galatians 2:20. Paul tells us in terms of his testimony that he is crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, Paul says, I live yet not I, for Christ liveth in me in the life that I now live. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Look at the individualism of the Gospel. Jesus dies for individuals, for people. The Psalmist said in Psalm 47, the Lord thinketh upon me. God thinks about us individually, and personal evangelism reflects that because we can take a personal interest in people. A fourth advantage to personal evangelism or individual evangelism is that it can deal with individual problems, which is similar to the point I just made about focusing attention on individuals. But because of personal evangelism and not just mass evangelism, we are able to witness to people in terms of their own individual objections. That isn't to say we should be debaters. We are still witnessing to people and educating people. But nevertheless, the types of objections they have, you can deal with directly. They don't have to filter back to the preacher to be dealt with in two or three weeks from the pulpit. You can deal with those individuals, things that they come up. And the care that you can show to people and the application of the gospel to their particular difficulties of life can be more tailored, more individual. As I've been saying. A fifth advantage to personal evangelism is that it gets away from the professional idea of religion. When you take the gospel to people, it's often much more advantageous than if I take the gospel just in terms of my mass preaching. Because, you see, I'm paid to do that, right? I'm supposed to be a religious person. Ministers are just expected to talk about those things. But what unnerves people and what often grabs their attention is when all of a sudden makes a difference to somebody who's not paid to be religious, who doesn't make a profession of being a Christian. And so getting away from the, I think professional idea is very good. Besides, the satisfied customer, as you know, is the best salesman anyway. And so if we see that God has satisfied customers, if I can use that weak analogy, then I think that helps other people to take an interest. And then finally, as an advantage of personal evangelism, we see is a actual fact that it succeeds where other methods often fail. People can go to church month after month after month, year after year, and often doesn't make any impact on them. And yet, when an individual approaches them and faces them with their need for the Savior and deals with their personal problems and gives them individual attention, that often turns the corner where the mass preaching of the gospel was doing that. And so there are advantages to personal evangelism. We have an opportunity and an obligation to engage in corporate evangelism through our loving fellowship, through our worship, and through the preaching of our pulpit. But then there are advantages to each and every one of us being witnesses to the gospel too, because we all can do it. The opportunities abound to do it. We can focus attention on the individual. We can deal with individual problems, problems as such, we can get away from the professional idea of religion. And that often succeeds where other methods have not been found to succeed. God has given certain evangelists to the church. The Bible tells us, as a special gift. Ephesians 4:11 speaks of that. Let's turn to Ephesians 4:11. There are certain people who are to be ordained as evangelists. Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 11. So, Kathy, can you read that? It was he who gave some to Be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, as some. So in laying out the special offices in the church, you notice evangelists. This is special office. Certain people have that ability to publicly speak the evangelistic word. Mass audiences especially effective in doing that. However, all of us are to be witnesses. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. The Bible says all of us are to be witnesses to the Savior. Jesus. Jesus Christ. What I've been saying, I think can be summarized in one little expression here. Maybe somewhat sloganistic, but I think it will help you. I've been trying to emphasize then that the whole church must bring the whole gospel to the whole world. The church corporate and the church individually. What we must bring is the gospel and all of the gospel. And we must bring it to all men, to the whole world. Evangelism isn't just an optional extra feature, by the way. It isn't like, now that we're doing other things, let's see if we can have a special season of evangelism in our church. Kind of like an optional feature. No, evangelism is the normal life of the church, the regular life of the church, and essential to the life of God's people at all times. Now, having said that, the church corporate evangelizes and then the church distributed individually evangelizes. We need to add some background to that. We need to remember that behind all of it lies the fact that God himself is the evangelist. God is the one who calls people to himself through the ministry of the church and through individuals. God has provided the gospel. He conceived of the gospel. He gave the gospel. Its content comes from him. And he is the one who publishes the gospel. We don't publish the gospel. Like, hey, we found this great idea, let's find a publisher for it or some way to get the word out. We're taking the word out because we've been told to take the word out. And the word we take out isn't something for us to tamper with. In the ancient world, when a king sent a messenger to another city or to somebody to take a message, the ambassador of the king had no right to alter the message. You can just see this guy running from one ancient city to another along some dusty road, thinking, well, now, maybe a better way to put this would be. And he's running along and he's saying, well, maybe I shouldn't quite say what the king said there, they'd be a little bit happier to hear. And then by the time he gets to the other city, of course it's not the king's message at all. It's his own message. In the ancient world, when a person did that, he was executed. You have no right to tamper with the king's message. Now the king, the great king over all heaven and earth, has sent us with a message to the world. It's his message. We can improve on it. We can't tamper with it, can't alter it. We must take the whole gospel as he conceived of it and as he's published it, and in the way that he has ordained for us to publish it. We must take the whole gospel to the whole world. So the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world. That's the point we've been making here, both in terms of our corporate and our individual witness. Haven't had too many questions so far tonight. Maybe I better pause since I've been going so fast and see if you have some. Because I really want you to break in and say, wait a minute, I don't quite understand that. Go ahead.

But my question is, the frustration I have is when you read the New Testament and they told one holy brother and then the one, but somebody else, and he said, yeah, come on. And everybody was enthusiastic. And when you read the New Testament, you know that the Holy Spirit is at work in a fantastic way and thousands were being saved. Now we do that, we get blind work and, you know, don't give me that old stuff. You know, I've had all that before. And the question is, is it me? I can't blame the Holy Spirit and say, well, you're not working now the way you did then. But then he isn't, you know, we're not living in time from the Holy Spirit. And yet I'm going to say, well, it's my fault, you know, because if.

I was living.

Well, I'm going to be talking, actually, I'm going into a section right now about power and evangelism and what's necessary. So we have evangelistic power as a church and as individuals. So that I'll touch on some of that. And some of it is our fault individually. You know, the way we evangelize sometimes doesn't really appeal to people. You know, if you ever talk to a person who's really sold on his product or really wants you to be sold on his product, even if he's not, he never says, well, I guess if nothing else, you can try this. The attitude is very enthusiastic. No, I've got something you need, and you're really going to be happy with it, he's excited about it. I think sometimes we fail to show that enthusiasm again for fear that men will think that we're weird or strange. We don't like that ridicule, especially the silent ridicule. Remember what I said last week? I actually think that if people made fun of us for being Christians, we might kind of get our back up. We'd be more willing to go ahead and face that sort of thing. But what we really don't like is the idea that we'll show some enthusiasm. This person will kind of walk away with this kind of strange over there attitude without saying so or making a big deal of it. We don't like that. We don't want people to think poorly of us. And so maybe we aren't as enthusiastic as the guy people in the early church were. So some of it is our fault. Then we must remember too that we have no guarantee that every individual we even take an enthusiastic witness to is going to have his heart changed by the Holy Spirit or changed right then and there. There is a growing process sometimes where the seed is planted and watered and other people enjoy the benefits of the harvest. We have just started the process long. So I think the answer to your question is not a simple one. It's somewhat your problem and it's somewhat the Holy Spirit not bringing conversion at that time or not at all. But I think overall in our lives we should be seeing success individually and corporately. And when we don't see success anywhere, I think we have to start asking some pretty serious and probing questions. I think it very well can be.

For me more of a comment on the same line. I spent most of my life in unbelief. So I think with evangelism what always struck me was a few things. Raising this in the evangelist I do be dead. To me that was maybe that's one.

Way of putting it.

And it may shock some people into belief or concern, but now it doesn't. One was the have you been saved? And sort of no, that's you go, I'm going to cross you off the list. So he felt there was two types. There was aggressiveness with no real concern and there was sort of light heartedness with no concern. What really came through the whole thing.

Was that personal interest that I've been talking about just wasn't there. Yeah, I. I suppose that one of the most crucial things we could have if we're going to see evangelistic success is just a genuine interest in the welfare and the well being of the person to whom we're talking if we ever make it stylized and impersonal and just a matter of habit, then of course it's not going to do that much good. Not that God can't strike a straight blow with a crooked stick. I mean, he can even use our weak efforts to praise his name and glory, bring people to himself. But from a human standpoint, we should do as good a job as we can. And one of the best things we can do to do a good job is to really care for the person whom we're talking. And I think that comes out well. Let me talk about certain qualities, personal qualities. Was there a question? Go ahead, please. And.

Struggles to buy down. And in doing so, so he ended up for the next 40 years as a farmhand for his father in law. I mean, all these abilities and all this education and training that he had, that God was preparing him with for what he wanted him for, was all set aside for 40 years because of the common mistake in taking something into his own hands instead of sitting back and getting across the care of this or a long doctor through him. He did it on his own. And it wasn't until the burning bush that didn't quench that he actually.

Well, being self willed, I think is something that really can stand in the way of evangelistic success in doing things in terms of your own wisdom or cleverness rather than in the way God has ordained. That's very true. God's ways are always the best ways, and we need to be convinced of that in practice and not just by being able to answer on a piece of paper. Moses, I guess, needed that lesson to be driven home to his heart. What are some of the qualities of a successful soul winner? I think Spurgeon listed them very well in a book that's been very influential in my life, entitled the Soul Winner. Spurgeon says that a soul winner must have personal qualities. First of all, Godward qualities and manward qualities. And of the godward qualities, he lists the first, Holiness of character. Holiness of character. Secondly, a deep spiritual life. Thirdly, humility. Fourth, living faith, a lively faith. Remember how James says faith without works is dead Earnestness or sincerity. The Spurgeon mentions another one. It's interesting. Simplicity of heart. Simplicity of heart. Soren Kierkegaard once said that purity of heart is to will one thing. Simplicity of heart doesn't mean just that you're a simple tongue. Simplicity of heart means that you are not consumed with this interest and this interest and this interest. There may be a lot of details to your Life. But there should be only one focus of your life to will. One thing. We need to have that simplicity of heart, that focus on the glory of God and living a life pleasing to him. And it's Virgin Minton's complete surrender to God, to his will, not being self willed, as we were just saying a minute ago. But just look at those characters, those characteristics, and ask yourself, wouldn't it in fact improve the witness that I have with others if they would see in me holiness of character, a deep spiritual life, humility, a lively faith, earnestness, simplicity of heart, and complete surrender to God? I'll tell you, if we met people like that, we would really be impressed. We would really one respect them that in a proper way. We would respect what God has done in that person, those godward qualities, and we would tend to hold them in high esteem and listen to what they said. Manward Spurgeon says we need to be people of knowledge. We need to be knowledgeable. We must show sincerity in what we say to people. You know, one of the problems in teaching the evangelistic technique is that when you learn, for instance, the four spiritual laws or what have you, even the best of messages, when it just becomes kind of a canned sort of presentation, loses its sincerity, doesn't it? We need to have knowledge, sincerity, evident earnestness, if you will, love for the person to whom we're speaking. I think Duncan was mentioning something very important there. We don't really show love to people when we come on, say, are you under the blood, brother? You know, people who don't even know our terminology are going to think there's something terrible and hideous about that under the blood. You have to remember, people who aren't used to our evangelical lingo, if you will, are going to misinterpret our words. Under the blood probably sounds to people as bad as saying, are you under the pus? Nobody wants to be under blood. And so to go up there and say, are you saved? Or under the blood thing? And say, what do you mean saved? Saved from what? Blood. Why blood? No, love for people takes account of where they are and what they need. And then unselfishness. To say that one strikes me right through the heart quite honestly, because I'm afraid one of the reasons I tend not to be as evangelistic as I should be is I'm very selfish about my time, about my efforts. And frankly, if nothing else, my experience as a pastor and as a teacher has taught me that once you get involved in one of those things, it takes a lot of time And a lot of effort, and there's usually a lot of grief and a lot of prayer. It just takes a lot out of you to take an interest in people. But you see, it's going to take a lot out of them. If I don't take an interest in them or somebody doesn't so that they'll hear the good news, then seriousness is something in terms of our manual, qualities we need to show forth. And then finally, and one that I think is really important. Tenderness, that's something you can't. Tenderness, that's something you can just warp up inside yourself. You know, I'm going to be a tender person to. No, you have to genuinely have the fruit of the spirit that makes you a tender person. So when you show love to people and when you say hard things to people like they're going to go to hell and that they are living in sin and they do need the Savior and they do need to be made right with God, that you can say it in a winsome way, in a way that comes across that shows that you're not saying this by way of indicating I'm a step ahead of you when it comes to spiritual matters, my friend. And if you really want to get your life together, you'll get on the winning team with us. You know, there's the us and the you, and you're in the you category. And we want you to become part of the us, or else you're not really with it. So often I think that is the attitude that is portrayed rather than a tender, compassionate, loving, concerned, sincere desire to see the person have God's best for their life. Well, next week I'll have to finish this lesson since we're running out of time tonight, I need to stop a little bit early because of my car problems. But Al Martin once said in a talk I heard when I was a college student that truth bears the sign of its vehicle. And I wrote that down. I haven't forgotten that. It's worked its way into my notes for tonight, as you can see. And that's kind of the thought I'd like to leave you with. Truth bears the sign of its vehicle. If we have broken down lives like my broken down car, it's going to show when we try to communicate the truth. And the truth that we communicate isn't going to be delivering the goods. It isn't going to be effective. Apart from God's mercy, He always must overcome our weaknesses and our failings. But if we want to see power, evangelistic power in our church, Then let's tonight remember that that's first of all a corporate task. Our love for one another, the quality of our worship, the interest of our preaching, and then individually taking interest in others and showing these attitudes of holiness, of character and tenderness toward people. All the things I've been talking about, that's where evangelistic power is going to come from. Now, the one thing that we need to talk about that's missing, and we'll begin with next week, is prayer. I think there are two really big problems that I have that we have, I think most orthodox Christians have when it comes to prayer and evangelism. One is the tendency to downplay it, and the other is the tendency to make it mechanical. And when we come back next week, I'll talk about that. But power and evangelism comes from seeing its corporate and individual advantages and understanding the qualities, the personal qualities we need to have if people are going to take us serious in what we have to say. Do you have any final remarks or questions before we stop tonight? Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, we pray that tonight you might truly give power to us as yous people. Lord, we wouldn't ask just in some general way that yout would give youe church power and that people might be drawn to the Savior and that the church might grow daily as people are saved. Lord, we ask this very particularly for ourselves that yout would give this church power, that yout'd give our corporate work witness genuine power by the Holy Spirit to convince people through our worship that God is present, through our love, that Jesus truly came from the Father and through our pulpit, that people need to be made right with God. Lord, I pray that you give every individual here, indeed every individual who worships with us in this church, power as a personal evangelist. Power that comes through holiness of life and evident earnestness and living faith. Power that is seen because of the tenderness of heart shown to people. Genuine love demonstrated in the way that we talk to them and take an interest in them. Lord, take away our selfishness, take away our fear of ridicule, and give to us tongues that are clean. Live for the gospel, indeed. Give to us a winsome witness that the nations might be drawn indeed, that people who will otherwise suffer an eternity of damnation unto your wrath. The people might turn to the Savior, Jesus Christ, and receive the salvation that is present there. Lord, give us concern for the nations. Give us concern for our neighbors, for our friends, for our relatives. Make that concern active in what we say, in the way that we live and we pray that all the glory be given to our Savior. For it's in his sight that we have met tonight, and it's in his name that we pray. Amen.