EVANGELISM
Acts 1:8
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses...
G. Campbell Morgan “Witnesses” on Acts 5:32 “We are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost, Whom God hath given to them that obey Him.” wp02-21.docx (live.com)
"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, Whom ye slew, hanging Him on a tree. Him did God exalt with His right hand to be a Prince and Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." That is the Evangel! Christ is risen. "God ... raised up Jesus". Christ was crucified. "Whom ye slew, hanging Him on a tree". Christ is enthroned. "Him did God exalt to be a Prince and a Saviour". Christ is at work, "to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." The risen Christ, the crucified Christ, the exalted Christ, the working Christ. "These things." "We are witnesses of these things." That is the Church's mission.
(A witness) is one who is first convinced of truth, and then yields his life to the claims of the truth of which he is convinced, and who, therefore, is changed by the truth which he believes, and to which he has yielded himself. We are evidences. We prove the accuracy of our doctrine by the transformation of our lives. The world awaits the evangel of transformed, transfigured lives.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, “God’s Sovereign Purpose”
There is no better test of our spiritual state and condition than our missionary zeal, our concern for lost souls. That is always the thing that divides people who are just theoretical and intellectual Christians from those who have a living and a vital spiritual life.
2 Corinthians 5:20 (NASB)
We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Pastor Greg Allen “Seeing People Through God’s Eyes” on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
www.bethanybible.org/archive/2001/050601.htm
Archbishop’s Committee on Evangelism, Towards the Conversion of England, 1945
The work of evangelism is “to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Saviour, and serve Him as their King in fellowship of His Church.”
A.W. Tozer The Size of the Soul: Principles of Revival and Spiritual Growth
No matter how many persons we touch with the gospel we have failed unless, along with the message of invitation, we have boldly declared the exceeding sinfulness of man and the transcendent holiness of the Most High God. They who degrade or compromise the truth in order to reach larger numbers, dishonor God and deeply injure the souls of men.
Mark 16:20
Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
Luke 21:13 (KJV)
And (they) shall turn to you for a testimony.
Philemon 6
I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
John Calvin, from a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:1-4
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone...This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Prayer is the first and foremost exercise expected of God’s children. It is by prayer that we test the genuineness of our faith, when we turn to our God and call upon his name, and when we do not think only about ourselves and our concerns but generally include all who are joined to us and who are in one way or another close to us. God has established the bond of unity between all men, so that they should acknowledge each other as brothers or else as neighbours.
So in our prayers this is the practice we should follow: our prayers should not be concentrated only on ourselves or on our acquaintances; our love and concern should extend to everyone, whether great or small, whether intimate friends or strangers. Of course nothing stops us respecting those relationships which Scripture itself commends to us. If we want to pray to God for all men, we must begin with those who are united with us in faith and in obedience to the gospel, for they are members, so to speak, of God’s household.
Nevertheless in our payers for the faithful we should feel compassion and pity for helpless unbelievers who continue to walk in error and ignorance. We should entreat God to draw them to us, so that together we may be of the same mind.
The Life of Richard Baxter, From His Own Narrative, Leonard Bacon
“God breaketh not all men’s hearts alike.”
Since God enlightens, convicts, humbles, and converts through the Word, the task of His messengers is to communicate that word, teaching and applying law and gospel. Preachers are to declare God’s mind as set forth in the texts they expound, to show the way of salvation, to exhort the unconverted to learn the law, to meditate on the Word, to humble themselves, to pray that God will show them their sins, and enable them to come to Christ. They are to hold Christ forth as a perfect Saviour from sin to all who heartily desire to he saved from sin, and to invite such (the weary and burdened souls whom Christ Himself invites, Matthew 11:28) to come to the Saviour who waits to receive them.
The gospel of God requires an immediate response from all; but it does not require the same response from all. The immediate duty of the unprepared sinner is not to try and believe on Christ, which he is not able to do, but to read, enquire, pray, use the means of grace and learn what he needs to be saved from. It is not in his power to accept Christ at any moment…and it is God’s prerogative, not the evangelist’s, to fix the time when men shall first savingly believe.
(It is the duty of the pastor)…in the course of his public and private ministry of the Word, ‘diligently to labour for the conversion of souls to God’ (John Owen). What God requires of him is that he should be faithful to the content of the gospel, and diligent in imparting it. He is to seek by all means to make his sermon clear, memorable and relevant to the lives of his hearers; he is to pray earnestly for God’s blessing on his preaching, that it may be ‘in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ (1 Corinthians 2:4); but it is no part of his business to study to ‘dress up’ the gospel and make it ‘appeal’ to the natural man. The preacher is not sent of God to make a quick sale, but to deliver a message. When he has done that, his work in the pulpit is over. It is not his business to try and extort ‘decisions.’
William Carey, in a letter to his missionary son, William
The conversion of one soul is worth the labour of a life time. 'Unto us is this favour given that we should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.' (Ephesians 3:8) Hold on, therefore; be steady in your work, and leave the result with God.
A.B Simpson on John 20:21 "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you."
God will not give the Holy Spirit in His fullness for the selfish enjoyment of any Christian. His power is a great trust that we must use for the benefit of others and for the evangelization of the lost and sinful world. We have no right to claim the purchase of the Savior's blood for ourselves alone, and we are guilty of selfishness, dishonesty and base ingratitude if we can be content to be saved without having done everything in our power to give our fellow men an equal opportunity of eternal life. Have we understood this? Have we lived it?
John Bunyan
When all refuge fails, and a man is made to see that there is nothing left in him but sin, death, and damnation, unless he flies to Christ for life; then he flies, and not until then.
C.H. Spurgeon
If you have lived to bring one sinner to Christ, you have not lived in vain.
God save us from living in comfort while sinners are sinking into hell.
No man will come to the Saviour unless he knows that he needs a Saviour; and no man will feel that he needs a Saviour until he feels that his is a sinner.
Treasury of David
On Psalm 18:46 "Let the God of my salvation be exalted."
We should (proclaim) abroad the story of the covenant and the cross, the Father's (electing love), the Son's redemption, and the Spirit's regeneration.
On Psalm 19:7 "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul..."
The great means of the conversion of sinners is the Word of God... It is God's Word rather than man's comment on God's Word which is made mighty with souls.
"The Soul-Winner"
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-soul-winner/#flipbook/
http://www.thesoulwinner.org/ebooks/The%20Soul%20Winner%20-%20Spurgeon.pdf
5 additional sermons
http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/misc/soulwinr.htm
"Open Their Eyes That They May See"
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/young-man-a-prayer-for-you/#flipbook/
We speak to them of the glories we ourselves behold, and set before them the truth of God; but we cannot make them see. To bestow spiritual vision is as great a wonder as to make a world, and requires the same fiat of omnipotence. Only he who created the eye can give this second sight. Beloved, let us, after we have done our best to make the people see the glory of the gospel, ever fall back on the God of the gospel, and entreat him to do his own blessed work.
Octavius Winslow Morning Thoughts
Oh, to have the word of God dwelling in us so richly, and our hearts so intensely glowing with the love of Christ, as to be ever ready, to open our lips for God.
Mary Slessor, Dundee jute mill girl who at age 28 became a Presbyterian Church of Scotland missionary to Nigeria in 1876; after the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910
Where are the men? Are there no heroes in the making among us? No hearts beating high with the enthusiasm of the gospel? Men smile today at the old fashioned idea of sin and hell and broken law and perishing world, but these [ideas] made men, men of purpose, of power and achievement, and self-denying devotion to the highest ideals earth has known.
J.C. Ryle Holiness "Christ's Greatest Trophy!"
http://www.gracegems.org/Ryle/holiness12.htm
Luke 23:43 "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
Tell them about Christ. Tell the young, tell the poor, tell the aged, tell the ignorant, tell the sick, tell the dying — tell them all about Christ. Tell them of His power — and tell them of His love; tell them of His doings — and tell them of His feelings; tell them what He has done for the chief of sinners; tell them what He is willing to do to the last day of time; tell it them over and over again. Never be tired of speaking of Christ. Say to them broadly and fully, freely and unconditionally, unreservedly and undoubtingly: 'Come unto Christ, as the penitent thief did; come unto Christ, and you shall be saved.'
CAUTION
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Professed converts (often) begin with a sadly mistaken notion of what is true Christianity. They imagine it consists in nothing more than a so-called "coming to Christ" and having strong inward feelings of joy and peace. And so when they find, after a time, that there is a cross to be carried, that our hearts are deceitful, and that there is a busy devil always near us — they cool down in disgust and return to their old sins...because they had really never known (were never taught) what Bible Christianity is.
“God’s Way of Reconciliation: An Exposition of Ephesians 2”
The trouble with all false evangelism is that it does not start with doctrine, it does not start by realising man’s condition. All fleshly, carnal, man-made evangelism is the result of inadequate understanding of what the apostle teaches us in the first ten verses of this second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. If you and I realised that every man who is yet a sinner is absolutely dominated by ‘the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,’ if we only understood that he is really a child of wrath and dead in trespasses and sins, we would realise that only one power can deal with such an individual, and that is the power of God, the power of the Holy Ghost. And so we would put our confidence, not in man-made organisations, but in the power of God, in the prayer that holds on to God and asks for revival and a descent of the Spirit. We would realise that nothing else can do it. We can change men superficially, we can win men to our side and to our party, we can persuade them to join a church, but we can never raise the spiritually dead; God alone can do that. The realization of these truths would of necessity determine and control all our evangelism.
“Studies in the Sermon on the Mount”
https://www.monergism.com/blog/no-true-evangelism-without-it
True evangelism, I say, because of this doctrine of sin, must always start by preaching the law. This means that we must explain that mankind is confronted by the holiness of God, by His demands, and also by the consequences of sin. It is the Son of God Himself who speaks about being cast into hell. If you do not like the doctrine of hell you are just disagreeing with Jesus Christ. He, the Son of God, believed in hell; and it is in His exposure of the true nature of sin that He teaches that sin ultimately lands men in hell. So evangelism must start with the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the demands of the law, the punishment meted out by the law and the eternal consequences of evil and wrongdoing. It is only the man who is brought to see his guilt in this way who flies to Christ for deliverance and redemption.
True evangelism starts like that, and obviously is primarily a call to repentance, ‘repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Acts 20:21)
Romans Chapter 7:6-25, "The Law: Its Function and Limits"
https://www.gospeltruth.net/ljrom7.htm
True evangelism always suggests the whole of the doctrine. It always has an element of law and of condemnation. It always has a reference to God. There is a superficial evangelism which puts the gospel entirely in terms of human beings. Are you unhappy? Are you worried? Do you want this or that? Come to Christ and you will get it. And so people come. They have never trembled under the holy law of God, and that is because they were never taught it..and they do not know why a person is saved.
Lloyd-Jones preaching at Royal Albert Hall, London Nov. 28, 1935.
Can many of the evangelistic methods which were introduced some forty or fifty years ago really be justified out of the Word of God? As I read of the work of the great evangelists in the Bible I find they were not first and foremost concerned about results; they were concerned about proclaiming the word of truth. They left the increases unto Him. They were concerned above all else that the people should be brought face to face with the truth itself.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones preached 3 times on weekends; Friday night was primarily word-for-word exposition of Scripture (he preached over a period of 11 years on Romans and 3 years on the Sermon on the Mount) and Sunday morning was more topical and doctrinal directed toward church members. On Sunday evening, students from all over London came to hear his messages (including J.I. Packer) which were primarily evangelistic.
An anointed example http://articles.ochristian.com/article538.shtml
Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon and Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons are available
"The Evangelistic Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones - Lessons for Today"
A.W. Pink “Present Day Evangelism”, 1948
https://gracegems.org/Pink/present_day_evangelism.htm
Most of the so-called evangelism of our day is a grief to genuine Christians, for they feel that it lacks any scriptural warrant, that it is dishonoring unto God, and that it is filling the churches with empty professors.
A.W. Tozer
The Size of the Soul
All any Christian worker can do is to point the inquirer to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29). That was all John the Baptist did. He did not attempt to create faith in any of his hearers. The Spirit alone can open the heart, as John well knew. It is our task to arrest the sinner’s attention, give him the message of the cross, urge him to receive it and meet its conditions. After that the seeker is on his own. The individual is out of the hands of the instructors and helpers and in the hands of the God with whom he has to do.
Treasures From Tozer
Any objection to the evangelistic methods of our present golden-calf Christianity, is met with the triumphant reply, “But we are winning the lost!”
But what are you winning them to?
To true discipleship?
To Cross-carrying?
To self-denial?
To separation from the world?
To crucifixion of the flesh?
To Holy living?
To nobility of character?
To a despising of the world’s treasures?
To total committal to Christ?
THE ANSWER TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS IS NO!
J.I. Packer
Evangelism is Christians being Christians in the world.
Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God
http://books.google.com/books?id=kq9Twkm8V_AC&pg=PA42&source
"Puritan Evangelism"
http://www.the-highway.com/articleJune09.html
No man will or can come to Christ to be saved from sin till he knows what sins he needs saving from. Man’s first step toward conversion must be some knowledge; of God, of himself, of his duty, and of his sin. Since God enlightens, convicts, humbles, and converts through the word, the task of his messengers is to communicate that word, teaching and applying law and gospel. Preachers are to declare God’s mind as set forth in the texts they expound, to show the way of salvation, to exhort the unconverted to learn the law, to meditate on the word, to humble themselves, to pray that God will show them their sins, and enable them to come to Christ. They are to hold Christ forth as a perfect Saviour from sin to all who heartily desire to be saved from sin, and to invite such (the weary and burdened souls whom Christ himself invites; (Matthew 11:28) to come to the Saviour who waits to receive them.
Paul Baloche "The Same Love" Isaiah 43:1b "I have called you by name..."
A paraphrase of Adoniram Judson's letter to Ann Hasseltine's father, in which he asked permission to marry
http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/how-few-there-are-who-die-so-hard
I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your loved ones, to see them no more in this world? Whether you can consent to leave to a heathen land, and be subjected to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to exposure to the dangers travel and disease; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death?
Can you consent to all this, for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of God’s glory? Can you consent to all this, in the hope of hearing in heaven one day the acclamations of praise which shall redound to your Saviour from the lost, saved through you, from eternal woe and despair?
What would be your answer?
John 4:35b (NIV) "...lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest."
(The Message) I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. These fields are ripe. It’s harvest time!
Evangelism (showing and sharing Jesus) is not just a part of our faith, it is the point of our faith.
2 Corinthians 5:20a - "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us..."
1 Peter 2:9 - "You are a chosen people...belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Lottie Moon, Tungchow, China, September 15, 1887
How many there are … who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God.
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