Evangelism. Strategies From Heaven In The War For Souls by Stop Co-governance Publishing

Chapter One

EVANGELISM LOST! EXPOSING THE TRUE STATE OF EVANGELISM IN TODAYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CHURCH

Acknowledgements I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people for the production of this book: Sheryl Kampenhout, who transferred a mountain of material from Power Point shows into Word documents and who served and encouraged me in such a loving and kind way; to Matthew Old, a faithful friend and fellow evangelist, who has been a Barnabas. He reached out his hands when the hills seemed steepest, loved me in spite of my failures, stimulated me with his sharp mind, and made me laugh when I wanted to cry; to Janice Teo, and her intercessory prayer team who are as vital to the ministry I direct as the heart is to the body; to the team of editors, including Ken Francis and Julie Belding; to all the financial supporters who have given so generously to me over the years. I especially want to thank Paul and Tina Richards, of Club Physical, owners of a gymnasium chain in Auckland, New Zealand, and Derek van Beynen, who have faithfully sponsored my ministry for over a decade. Few people have the privilege of being able to leave secular work to write and produce resources to further the cause of the evangelisation of the world, and to motivate and equip the Church to do the same. You, and all my other financial supporters, have made this possible; to those I live with who have not seen me for years because I have been locked away in my office writing, I give my sincere thanks. Special thanks to Neil Pollock. To Jenny Windeyer, the graphic artist, who designed the cover of the original 800 page book, and to Jenny’s husband Drew for going beyond the call of duty so that Jenny could focus on this project; to faithful Bernie Anderson who has sacrificed and given way beyond what a leader would expect of a dedicated co-worker; to Eleanor Goodall and Sue and George Jeffrey who epitomise love and true friendship; to the team at ESI for keeping all the various aspects of the evangelism ministry moving forwards whilst I directed most of my time to writing this book; for Dr Martyn Bowis who did all the programming for the electronic version of the gospel called “Proclaim it!”; for Henoch Kloosterboeror for producing all the brilliant drawings; Dr David Stewart, retired Principal of the Bible

College of New Zealand for nearly two decades of encouragement and mentoring; Denise James and Anne Bartley, staff at the Bible College of New Zealand for helping with research; all those who have helped proof read the manuscript and given comment, particularly Dr Marie Sewell, Gill Donald, Gill Lukey, Donna Hansen, Ainslie Vines, Ann Hunter, and Miriam and Ted Martin; to the academic staff of the Bible College of New Zealand for giving me a grounding in theology; for all those who have given financially and sacrificially to pay for specific aspects of the publishing of this book; for my friend Ray Comfort, for his inspiration and encouragement. There are few evangelists today who have journeyed on the road of trial and tribulation to achieve breakthrough as Ray Comfort. For John Stott, the academic evangelist for his coaching and input via his many books. For all the people who we have trained in evangelism around the world who are out there doing it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you are the heroes in the battle for souls; for the many hundreds of pastors, leaders, and lay Christians around the globe who have contributed to my life as a Christian, and to this book; and finally, I thank Jesus Christ, whose amazing grace and love has inspired and kept me. All the revelations in this book about evangelism and the gospel were given by Him â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to Him be all the glory.

How To Read This Book Truth is of utmost importance to Jesus. This book is about being aligned with Jesus and the Truth about evangelism and the gospel. 3 John 1:4 says “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” I know from working with Churches and Christians all around the world for the past 40 years that 98% are not walking in Truth when it comes to their understanding of evangelism and the gospel. This is a tragedy beyond words. I want you to understand at the very start that the insights and revelations in each chapter of this book are hierarchical i.e. chapter two builds upon chapter one, chapter three upon chapters one and two, and so on. Hence, the ideal is to try and read all the chapters in the book in sequence. If you skip chapters, or even parts of chapters, you might miss something vital, and open yourself to misunderstanding or even defeat. Having said this, after you have read chapters one to seven, which are the foundational chapters, each chapter thereafter is designed to stand alone. So, read chapters one to seven first. This is essential. With respect to evangelism, if you follow the advice I am giving here in the pages of each chapter, you’ll position yourself perfectly to be used by the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus in ways you’d not imagined possible. How so? Read the book and find out. Start by completing the “Evangelism Fitness Test” in chapter 27. This is a diagnostic survey which will tell you the extent to which you are out of alignment with the Truth about evangelism and the gospel. Sit this test before you read anything. Then do the same test again after you have read the book to check to see if your mind and thinking has been thoroughly re-aligned with Biblical Truth. Enjoy the journey!

Evangelism Lost! Exposing The True State Of Evangelism In Today’s Church.

et’s face it, most Chrisitans struggle with “evangelism,”1 even the very thought of it.  Just the sound of the word causes the vast majority in the Church to shudder and recoil in horror. Try blaspheming in a church service. Today, you’ll get much the same reaction when you mention the “E” word. There are reasons, and this book will reveal what they are. If you are a Christian who struggles with evangelism what you’ll learn in this book will be the key to your personal breakthrough. I am going to introduce you to some revolutionary tools and strategies which will make evangelism easier than you ever dreamed or imagined - even if you are a shy, timid introvert, really elderly or really young, or disabled, or someone who has never engaged in evangelism ever before. I will also answer most, if not all, of the hard questions you might have about this critical subject. For example: 1 By “evangelising” I mean the proclamation of the gospel or the spread of it through gospel tracts or some other medium like video. This is the biblical definition. There is currently tremendous confusion in the Church about what this word means. When I talk about “failing to proclaim or spread the gospel” I am referring principally to personal evangelism i.e. most Christians no longer go about their daily activities doing this as they go. Book Three is dedicated to defining evangelism. I also show how many wrong definitions of evangelism have infiltrated the Church, each hindering Christians from evangelising. In Book Four, I define “the gospel” and show how distortions of this phrase have also worked against our efforts to evangelise the world.

• “How do I overcome my fear of evangelism?” • “Why do I have this fear in the first place?” • “Why do I feel nervous and worried when I think of myself doing evangelism?” • “When I start a conversation with a non-churched person, how do I know what to say?” • “Is everyone in the Church to evangelise, or only those with ‘the gift’ – what does the Bible really say?” • “What is ‘evangelism?’” • “What is ‘the gospel?’” • “As a pastor, I have found motivating and equipping my people for evangelism extremely difficult. What do I need to do to remove the blockages? If all my people have the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit was given for witness, how come they don’t do it?” • “In our evangelism today, why don’t we see signs and wonders like they did in the Early Church?” • “What does the research say about creating an evangelistic church or an evangelistic culture? How have other churches done this successfully? What must I, as a leader, do to make this happen? Is there anything I am unknowingly doing and saying which might be putting my people off evangelising?” These and other critical questions will be answered as we progress through each chapter.

hat this book is really all about…

The main thrust of this book, however, goes much deeper than answering questions about evangelism and giving you access to revolutionary tools and strategies which will make doing evangelism easier. What I really want to do is explain step by step how you can mobilise yourself and your whole church for evangelism. You’ll never be able to do this until your eyes have been opened to the 6

truth you are about to read in this book. In fact, it’s more than truth. It’s revelation directly from heaven, a gift imparted by the merciful benevolence of the Holy Spirit. What you are about to read could never have been arrived at by the cleverness of man alone, his intellect alone, or his senses alone. What I am about to reveal to you is a detailed critique of the cosmic battle which is constantly raging in the unseen world between light and darkness for the souls of men and women, and, most important of all, the glory of God. And why is this critique so absolutely critical? As I have just said, you’ll never mobilise yourself or your church into evangelism (and keep it going) if you don’t study and understand what is going on behind the scenes in this battle. It’s what is going on behind the scenes which is stopping you and the people in your church from doing evangelism. That is to say, this book unveils root causes. And how do I know there is a battle going on? Well, you’re about to read statistics and facts which show beyond doubt that the evangelisation of the West is currently at its lowest point in the history of the Church. It’s under attack. It’s in crisis. As with any crisis, if we don’t isolate the cause(s), we’ll have no hope of fixing it. A good doctor carefully diagnoses a patient’s sickness before prescribing medicine.

on’t be like an irresponsible doctor…

It’s the same with the current crisis in evangelism in the Western Church. Diagnosing why you and the people in your church don’t evangelise must precede prescriptive action. At all cost, resist being like the irresponsible doctor who was quick to prescribe pills (e.g. “Oh quick, let’s run a seminar on evangelism!”) for a problem he had not thoroughly diagnosed. If you are a pastor or a leader who is looking to mobilise all your people to evangelise their world, then let me tell you as 7

plainly as I can (after thirty years of experience) - pumping out a few rousing, tub thumping sermons and beating the drum from the front will never cut it. Neither will organising a couple of training sessions to equip your people to evangelise. The current crisis in world evangelism is way too deep and complex for hype, or shallow, quick solutions. My prayer is that as a result of reading this book, you’ll put to the sword what’s causing you to not do evangelism, and you’ll start doing evangelism yourself. Most important of all, you’ll know how to mobilise everyone in your church. That is to say, you’ll be ready to be used by the Holy Spirit to help cause a resurgence in evangelism in the Western Church.

ood news and bad news…

However, before I unveil the models and maps of the war zone, and take you right into the heat of the battle, I need to give you some good news and some bad news. Let me explain.

rom 100% to 2% in 2000 years…

I was saved in 1984 and spent most of that decade studying. After completing degrees in both educational psychology and theology, I went teaching, and was appointed principal of a primary school in 1990. But, after receiving a call to become a full-time evangelist, I never took up that position. For the next eight years, I trained and motivated young people from local churches for short-term beach missions in New Zealand. They travelled to stunning beaches to take Christ to the holiday-makers, and hundreds of non-Christians were swept into the Kingdom. We ran exciting programmes for children, teenagers and their parents. At night teams gave Christian messages in marquees, and bands played Christian music. All kinds of performing artists supported the cause. It was a wonderful season in my life. During this time I undertook a serious personal study of the 8

book of Acts. When I came to Acts 5:40-42, the Holy Spirit spoke powerfully to me: “His speech persuaded them. They called the Apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The Apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped proclaiming the gospel.” (Acts 5:40-42). What struck me was that the Apostles, the Church leaders, those who’d actually walked and talked with Jesus, the original twelve, were modelling an evangelistic lifestyle.2 These were men who has been personally mentored by Jesus for three years. One can’t get any closer to the fullness of the revelation of Jesus than that! Don’t rush over what I have just written here. It’s crucially important. Let me say it again. “Those who’d actually walked and talked with Jesus, the original twelve. These were men who has been personally mentored by Jesus for three years.” If you want to know what a true Christian leader looks like, put aside for a moment all the books you’ve been reading on Christian leadership, and meditate on Acts 5:40-42. These verses answer the question “What does a true Christian leader look like?” True Christian leaders deliberately leave their homes each day (or if you are a leader reading this, your office at church), eager to find lost people. Once they find them, they seek to explain the gospel to them. Essentially, this is what it means to be active in evangelism - daily seeking out lost/unsaved people, or those we meet as we go about the course of each day, and graciously/lovingly explaining the gospel to them. I am not saying that this is all that a Christian leader should do all day (obviously), but it ought to be their priority, 2 In Book Three I discuss in detail how I came to define evangelism as the proclamation or spread of the gospel.

their ‘30-minutes-each-day-never-to-be-dropped’ hallmark. It was so when the Church was birthed in Acts, and it ought to be today. Period. After a careful study of Church history, I discovered that virtually the entire Early Church had been mobilised to do this (led by the excellent example of the Apostles) and they reached the known world with the gospel. Who says virtually everyone was mobilised? Church Historian Michael Green reports: “The biggest difference between the New Testament Church and our own,” he says, “is that every member was a witness.3 The responsibility of bearing witness to Jesus rested fairly and squarely upon every single member.” It was a stunningly wonderful discovery to know that it was possible to mobilise virtually the whole Church to evangelise. It happened because the leaders of the day were leading by example. I reasoned that if it had happened before, it could happen again. Eusebius, the third century Church Father and historian observed how and why the Early Church grew so prolifically. “At once, in accordance with the divine Scriptures, the voice of its inspired evangelists and Apostles4 went forward to the whole earth and their Word [i.e. the gospel message] to the end of the world. In every city and village arose churches crowded with thousands of men like a teeming threshing floor.”5 Wow! But how things have changed today! I found out that today personal evangelism in the Western Church is at an appalling all time low. Only 2% of Christians regularly engage in it. How do we know this? 3

There is much confusion about what “to witness” means today. It means to proclaim or spread the gospel. It does not mean engaging in social action, not mowing one’s lawns on Sunday, or not smoking etc.

4 Some have taken this to try and prove that only those with the gift of evanglism and the Apostles did all the evangelism. This is not what Eusebius is saying. I discuss why evangelism is the responsibility of all believers in Book Eight. 5

Michael Green. Evangelism in the Early Church. Highland Books. 1969. p 201.

isten to what the experts say…

For example: 1. The late Bill Bright, Founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, reported that only a tiny 2% of the Church body is currently walking in obedience to Jesus’ command to “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15).6 2. According to Christianity Today, only 1% of its readers said they had “witnessed”7 to someone that day.8 3. American evangelist Greg Laurie reports 75% of people in Church do not even know what John 3:16 says.9 4. George Barna, Director of the Barna Research Institute, concluded the majority of Christians in the West had stopped proclaiming the gospel. He writes: “How ironic that during this period of swelling need for the proclamation of the gospel, the ranks of the messengers have dissipated to anaemic proportions. The world’s greatest gift (the gospel) is now faced with becoming the world’s greatest secret.”10 5. Widely-travelled author and pastor Dr John Piper, in addressing his own church on the subject of evangelism said, “Virtually every earnest Christian is grieved by his weakness in this area. Did you know that? There is not a zealous Christian in this room who feels content with his effectiveness in personal evangelism.”11 Other respected scholars and leaders confirmed what these leaders were saying. 6

ited in: Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, C Effectively, Biblically…The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2004, p.1.

In Book Three, I discuss the difference between “proclaiming the gospel” and “witnessing.”

ited in: Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, C Effectively, Biblically…The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2004, p.18

Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale Books, 1999, p.48

10 George Barna.  Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995,  pp.22 – 24 11 http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper88/pipe001b.htm

For example, Dr William Abraham, Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Texas, said: “One cannot gainsay the fact that there has been a steady decline in the fortunes of evangelism over time. The situation is one of serious crisis for the Church in the West.”12 Billy Graham said: “A few years ago, an official of the World Council of Churches stated at a consultation on evangelism in Switzerland that …evangelism was the most important task facing the Church. He pointed out that the Church was rapidly losing out in the world population explosion.”13 Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Centre at Wheaton College, Illinois, says: “It is the view of the authors that gospel proclamation is in decline in much of the Christian world, especially the West. Books on church growth, conferences on church leadership, and even missions’ gatherings and writings give little ink or emphasis to gospel proclamation… the general talk [in the Christian world] is that gospel preaching is archaic and ineffective.”14 “Research shows that despite the extraordinary missions’ efforts of the Church, three out of four people alive on Earth today still have not heard the gospel,” says Kevin Swanson, president of Mission Aviation Fellowship.15

e are a generation living in The Dark Ages of evangelism, and we don’t know it…

What Jesus intended to be the main thing is now on the brink

12 Dr William J. Abraham. The Logic Of Evangelism. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002, p.10 13 C ited in: Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Rowe, 1976, p.7 14 L on Allison and Mark Anderson. Going Public With The Gospel. Reviving Evangelistic Proclamation. IVP, 2003, pp.23-24 15 Cited in: Challenge Weekly, A New Zealand Christians Newspaper. June 26, 2006. Volume 64, issue 24, p.1

of extinction. Most alarming of all, most Christians, including leaders, are completely oblivious to this appalling situation, just as leaders in the Dark Ages were oblivious to the situation they were in. And here’s the thing - in the the Dark Ages16 (roughly the 1000 years between 500AD and 1500AD), the Catholic Church dominated. It believed that salvation came through works, indulgences, and partaking in the sacraments etc. Salvation by grace through faith was there, right before their eyes in the Bible. For 1000 years, this crucial truth was lost. It wasn’t until Martin Luther burst onto the world scene in 1517 that the covers were dramatically pulled off, and the heresy of works righteousness exposed. What amazes me is this - why did God allow this heresy to dominate for 1000 years, and for the truth about salvation by grace, held by the tiny remnant, to struggle? Why didn’t God raise up a Martin Luther 1000 years earlier? The answer? God works through people, and for 1000 years His eyes were roaming the earth looking for a man or a woman who would stand up and expose the heresy and fight against it (2 Chronicles 16:9). Why don’t you be that man or woman in your church/town/city who will stand up and fight for the cause of the gospel, evangelism, and the Great Commission? Right now, our generation is living right in the middle of another Dark Age - this time the Dark Age of evangelism. Today, as I have already pointed out, only a remnant (2%) personally and regularly engage in it. Tragically, the error of non-involvement in personal evangelism now dominates Western Christianity, just as salvation by works dominated the Dark Ages back then. Today, God is looking for men and women who will stand up and be God’s Martin Luther in the current crisis in evangelism. That is to 16 There is wide and varying understanding among historians about what we mean by ‘The Dark Ages’

say, men and women who will expose the crisis, and dedicate their lives to fighting against it. Will you be one of these people? As you read this book, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would speak to you to reply “Yes! I will be one of those people!”

How are you going with evangelism? Do the test…

The sources I have quoted so far which cite the decline of evangelism are reliable. Yet, there is a far more telling piece of research - the voice of our own conscience. When I am preaching in churches I explain what ‘The Gospel’ is,17 and what it is not, and give an example of a Gospel message.18 Then I ask the following questions of the audience: “How many of us, honestly, would have gone out of our way intentionally to give the full gospel to a nonChristian in the last twelve hours?” Usually, no hands go up. “How many in the last 24 hours?” Again, no hands go up. “How many in the last week?” No hands. “The last month?” One or two hands.19 I then ask people in the church to look around to see how few hands have gone up. Most people are completely shocked. For the first time in their lives they realise that what they thought was happening was not happening at all. Most Christians are aware they are not sharing the gospel but they are completely unaware so few in the rest of their Church are doing it. Replicate this experiment in almost any Western church and see for yourself. What are some of the consequences, in the West, of a Church 17 I have found that I need to define all my terms carefully in churches, otherwise people think that having a casual conversation about God, saying “Jesus loves you”, “giving a testimony”, or even bringing up the subject of God is the same as “proclaiming the gospel.” 18 You can view this at www.biblein11.com 19 W e have also found that usually when the faithful few have raised their hands and are further questioned about what they mean by “proclaiming the gospel” they back down admitting that the message they shared with the non-Christian was not the full gospel at all. It was either their testimony (which didn’t include the gospel) or it was just a good general discussion about God and Christianity (which touched on aspects of the gospel but was not a clear, succinct full gospel presentation). This is why I show a clear example of a gospel presentation before asking the question.

which has stopped proclaiming the gospel? First, more people are exiting the Church than entering it.

hurch attendance falls…

A team of researchers from the University of Manchester found that church attendance in Britain dropped from 20.3% of the population in 1991 to 16.8% of the population in 1999.20 A 3.5% fall equates to 426,300 people who dropped out of attending church over an eight-year period. This is equal to 4,000 churches with congregations of 100 closing down. Take Australia as another example. Church attendance in Australia plunged from 9.9% of the population in 1996 to 8.8% in 2001 – a substantial 1.1 fall in just five years. A 1.1% fall equates to approximately 184,000 people who dropped out of attending church over a five-year period. This is equivalent to 1,000 churches with congregations of 184 closing down.21 Significant leaders in New Zealand are taking notice. Pastor Tak Bhana, of West City Christian Centre in West Auckland has pastored a large growing church for almost 19 years. “If I was ruthlessly honest,” he said, “I would have to admit there are hardly any more Christians in West Auckland today than when I started. I believe the same scenario is being played out in many parts of our nation. The end result is that the percentage of Christians in this nation has remained unchanged for the last 50 years.” 22 Rodney McCann, leader of New Zealand’s Baptist Churches agrees that: “overall the Church in New Zealand is not growing.” 23 20 S ee Maria MacKay. Faith In God Declining Faster Than Church Attendance. www.christianitytoday.com, 16 Aug, 2005. 21 A s per NCLS Research. Church Attendance As A Percentage Of The Australian Population. www.ncls.org.au, 2001. 22 Cited in: Challenge Weekly magazine. Volume 65, Issue 37. October 1, 2007. p. 8 23 Ibid, p.8.

America fares no better: “The inescapable conclusion is this: the Body of Christ in America is not growing – either numerically or spiritually. It is, relatively speaking, shrinking – burdened by the crass commercialism and the quest for power and glory by celebrity preachers.”24 According to pastor and author Jim Cymbala: “Despite all the Christian broadcasting, and high profile campaigns, the Christian population is not growing in numbers nationally.”25 Southern Baptists are equally alarmed: “In our own congregations, we see falling rates of baptism and other signs of concern. In 2008, Southern Baptist churches baptized more than 33,000 fewer people than in 1950 – and that was with more than 17,000 additional churches. Baptism rates among teenagers have fallen dramatically, and many young people become disengaged with the church soon after graduation from high school. In 2008 we baptized only 75,000 teenagers. In 1972, we baptized 140,000. Why? Research conducted by LifeWay Research on the Millennial generation and research by Thom Rainer on previous generations indicate that every American generation from early in the twentieth century forward has been less evangelized than generations before. Tracing generational patterns from the World War II generation to the Millennials, the estimated number of Christians has fallen from 65% to 15%. Churches in America

24 Cited in: Challenge Weekly Magazine. Volume 65, issue 3. February 5, 2007. p 2. 25 Jim Cymbala. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. Zondervan. Grand Rapids, 1997, p.90

are losing ground with each successive generation.”26 Allison and Anderson report: “In 1992, the median adult attendance per church service [in America] was 102. By 1995, it dropped to 95 and in 1999 it fell to 90 – an eleven percent drop in seven years…. interestingly….during this time the number of Christians sharing their faith also declined.”27 Say Rusaw and Swanson: “Attendance at two-thirds of US churches has either plateaued or is declining.”28 Many denominations are haemorrhaging. Take, for example, the Episcopal Church. In February 2005, it announced to its members: “The most urgent message the Commission has to convey to the Church is not a happy one. Current data indicates we are going in the wrong direction. So far, what has doubled is the rate of decline in attendance. The numbers should alarm and disturb us.”29 And it’s not just the Episcopal Church which is squealing. It’s all denominations: “In 1960, mainline church members made up 14.4% of the American population. In 2000, mainline church members comprised only seven point four percent of the American population. Looked at as a percentage of the population, membership has decreased almost fifty percent in 40 years.”30 And is the Protestant presence in the U.S.A. declining? 26 “Embracing A Vision For A Great Commission Resurgence Among Southern Baptists. Final Report Of The Great Commission Task Force Of The Southern Baptist Convention June 15, 2010.” Cited at: http://www. pray4gcr.com/historic/report.pdf 27 Cited in: Lon Allison and Mark Anderson. Going Public With The Gospel. Reviving Evangelistic Proclamation. IVP, 2003, p.30 28 Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson. The Externally Focussed Church. Group Publishing. 2004, p.27 29 http://www.episcopalarchives.org/e-archives/bluebook/13.html 30 Marth Grace Reece. Unbinding The Gospel. Real Life Evangelism. Chalice Press. 2008, p.25

Yes. “Recent research from the University of Chicago shows the America’s Protestant majority is fading rapidly and will be gone by the time you hold this book in your hands. From 1972 to 1993, the percentage of Protestants in the U.S remained fairly stable at sixty-three percent. However, by 2002 the number had dropped to fifty two percent. Protestants are in steady decline.”31 What is the overall picture? At worst, “All across Western Europe, church attendance [1991-1998] has plummeted…”32 Dr William Abraham: “There is no going back on the thesis that the proportion of the population [in the Western World] who take Christianity seriously has shrunk drastically.”33 Are there other consequences for a Church in the West which has stopped proclaiming the gospel?

elief in God among non-Christians falls…

The team of researchers at the University of Manchester, England, also found there was a dramatic decline in belief in God among non-Christians. All this disturbed me greatly.  I had always had the impression from the songs we sing in church, the mission reports, magazines, books and general Christian information we read, hear, or see, that the Church in the West was a great army making massive advances into the kingdom of darkness, steadily and consistently taking ground.34 31 Ibid, p.26 32 Lon Allison and Mark Anderson. Going Public With The Gospel. Reviving Evangelistic Proclamation. IVP, 2003, p.29 33 Dr William J. Abraham. The Logic Of Evangelism. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002, p.13 34

Some churches are making great gains, and we rejoice in this, but their number is small compared to the total number of churches in existence in the West. It is perilous to conclude from observing the prolific growth of some churches in the West that all churches are faring well. The truth is, many large churches are growing at the expense of smaller churches i.e. people from small churches are simply transferring to the larger churches. As such, much large church growth is actually transfer. I discuss this issue in Book Seventeen. Furthermore, many large ‘successful’ churches are growing not through evangelism, but through clever marketing.

Discovering these impressions were shockingly inaccurate and left me feeling deflated.

oincidence or consequence?...

I asked myself, “Are these declines in belief in God and Church attendance just coincidences, unrelated to the Church ceasing to do evangelism? Or are they consequences?” I believe they are consequences. How so? First, if the Church stops evangelising, the lost stop hearing the gospel. And not hearing the gospel, fewer are being saved and assimilated into churches. Second, when the Church stops evangelising, Christians lose life, direction, meaning, and passion for their faith. Doing evangelism fuels all four aspects of a Christian’s life. And when Christians do not have these aspects of their Christian life fuelled, they drop out of Church. I am not alone in my thinking. “There is a clear connection between [plummeting] Church attendance and proclaiming Christ,”35 say Allison and Anderson. Their conclusion fits with Scripture; “…whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly” (2 Corinthians 9:6).36 I found myself drawn to the writings of many great Christian statesmen, authors and leaders around the world – men and women who had observed how evangelism was being hindered in the West.

ignificant leaders are saying the same thing…

Billy Graham used the phrase “the un-seeded generation”37 to describe those who had never heard the gospel.38 He said this when he turned down an invitation to hold a 35 Lon Allison and Mark Anderson. Going Public With The Gospel. Reviving Evangelistic Proclamation. IVP, 2003, p.30 36 True, the context of the Scripture is money, but the principle still applies. We cannot expect a harvest from a field not sown with seed. 37 I n the Bible the gospel is represented as a seed (e.g. 1 Peter 1:23) and the human heart as the soil (e.g. Luke 8:15). 38 C ited in: Jack R Smith. Fifty Great Soul Winning Sermons. Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, 1994, p.11

crusade in a city where the non-Christians had not heard the gospel. This was because the Christians in that city had not been proclaiming it. In using this phrase, he was effectively saying, “What is the point in expecting a harvest from a field not sown with the seed of the gospel?39 I don’t want to waste precious time and resources by going to such a city.” Graham’s comment now applies to virtually every city and town in the West. In 1967 Dr John Stott wrote a book called Our Guilty Silence: the Church, the Gospel and the World. In it he spoke of the reluctance of Christians to go into the world and proclaim the gospel.  There I was in 2013, reading a book written in the 1960s about a crisis that had apparently existed for decades. Jack Hanes, author, pastor and missions’ mobiliser, wrote in His Last Command, Our First Priority40 that “35,000 people were dying daily without having heard the name of Jesus.” Hanes’ insights added fuel to my desire to write this book. Mark Mittleberg of Willow Creek Church said: “Unfortunately, the work of evangelism has been pushed off onto believers by pastors, pushed onto pastors by believers or pushed off to those believers with the gift of evangelism.”41 Mark Conner, Senior Pastor of the 5,000 strong Waverley Christian Fellowship in Melbourne, Australia, said: “In most churches, evangelism just isn’t happening.”42 Greg Laurie, US evangelist said: 39 N otice that it’s the seed of the gospel we are talking about here. “Seed sowing” is a popular theme in church circles. We are often exhorted to sow the seeds of kindness, love, righteousness, purity, money, time or whatever. Such exhortations ought to continue. But the seed Billy Graham is talking about is none of these things. It’s the seed of the gospel. Only this seed is the power of God for salvation. Exhortations to sow this particular seed are becoming increasingly rare. In this book, you will discover why. 40 Jack Hanes. His Last Command, Our First Priority. Megalife Ministries, Kingswood, Sydney, Australia, 2002, p.17 41 Cited in: Bronwyn Hughes and John Bellamy. A Passion For Evangelism. Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, p.157 42 ibid, p.157

“It is my personal opinion that most Americans – much less the rest of the world - have not really heard the gospel.”43 Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Centre at Wheaton College: “The West, including North America and Europe, is post-Christian at best. Vast populations are unaware of the Christian gospel.”44 With so many significant leaders saying virtually the same thing, I knew this was a crisis situation, a new Dark Age. The Lord showed me it was not just Christian statesmen, authors and leaders who were concerned. I thought of evangelism ministries around the world with whom I had had contact who were trying to mobilise Christians for personal evangelism.   Most were finding the task agonisingly difficult. As if my concern from research was not high enough, in 1998 the Holy Spirit took me to new levels by giving me a vision of a waterfall.

vision of a waterfall…

I was standing next to a large waterfall, like Niagara Falls. It was a calm, clear day. Suddenly, right before my eyes, the water was filled with people. Instead of water going over the falls, it was people. They were trying to stop themselves from falling into the abyss, but it was too late. The faces of the tumbling bodies were filled with terror and panic as they fell into the great chasm below, their screams and cries bloodcurdling. Some distance from the edge of the falls, way up stream and to my left, the river was filled with happy, carefree people frolicking in the warm sun and gentle current. Most seemed completely unaware they were nearing the 43 Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale Books, 1999, p.47 44 Lon Allison and Mark Anderson. Going Public With The Gospel. Reviving Evangelistic Proclamation. IVP, 2003, p.72

falls. Then I looked over to the other side of the falls. Mature trees were dotted around a beautifully manicured lawn.  Sunlight filtered through the leaves onto the grass where groups of people were engaged in various activities. Some were worshipping, some were studying the Bible, some were praying, and some were prophesying. Some were praying for the sick while others just talked. Still others were listening to a sermon, and one group was dancing.  What I noticed particularly was that everyone faced away from the water and all seemed completely oblivious to the screams of the people right behind them who were tumbling over the falls.

e are everywhere, but they are just not hearing…

Was this a picture of much of the Church in the West today?  I believe so. While we are busy with many good activities, a spiritual disaster is happening right behind us. Millions45 of unbelievers in the West are pouring into hell, never once having heard and understood the gospel. They’re not from some lost tribe. They’re your neighbours and mine, family members, co-workers and co-students. Christians, are everywhere, but non-Christians are just not hearing the gospel. Overwhelmed by the situation, I went to prayer. I considered: • The vision of Niagara Falls. • The research regarding the decline in gospel proclamation. • The similarities between the Dark Ages and the Church today. • The research showing the Church in the West had not 45 U sing the word “millions” might seem like a wild exaggeration which cannot be substantiated by research. Not so. We have been surveying a large sample of non-Christians. After presenting the gospel to them, we have asked them the question, “Have you ever heard this message or anything like this message from somewhere else or someone else?” and their answers are remarkably consistent. Upward of 95% say “No.” If only 2% of Christians in the West are evangelising, then it figures that most non-Christians are not hearing the gospel.

grown in real terms for decades. • The observations of the Christian leaders mentioned above. • The reports from ministries worldwide that were seeking to mobilise Christians for personal evangelism. My conclusion? Most Christians in the West had stopped going purposefully and regularly into their world to proclaim or spread the gospel but there was no natural or logical reason for this.

or example...

It is not as if we lack finance. The Western Church has billions of disposable dollars. Our communication tools include the web, video, DVD and CD, TV, radio, satellite, Facebook, Twitter, Google, ipads, iphones, ipods, tablets of every make and model etc. We have wonderful graphic design and printing capabilities. All John Wesley had was a horse, a Bible, and the Holy Spirit. Power to proclaim the gospel is available. Acts 1:8 speaks of the coming of the Holy Spirit, through whom there is power for every believer today (Romans 5:5). Jesus’ command to“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” is not too complicated to understand. It is not as though we cannot find anyone to whom we can give the gospel. There are billions (literally) of people who have not once heard and understood this message. Many of them are in the West where there is a church on every corner. Finally, we are not on our own for Jesus promised, “I will be with you” (Matthew 28:20). So, how have we moved from everyone evangelising in the Early Church to only 2% doing it today? Who or what has caused this gigantic shift? How have we regressed 98% over 2000 years? I clearly felt the Holy Spirit challenge me to find answers to these questions. For 16 years I sought God and undertook serious, prayer, study, and research. 23

During this time I was working directly with churches all over the world so my findings are not theories. They are facts to which your spirit will attest as you read. Over this time He revealed 84 reasons for this dramatic decline. Behind each reason are principalities and powers.

rincipalities and powers to blame…

Each of these 84 reasons is a ‘device’ of the enemy which Paul speaks about in 2 Corinthians 2:11. A careful study of the word ‘device’ reveals that ‘devices’ are the thoughts, plans and schemes of the devil. For 2000 years he has been sowing these devices into the minds of Christians with the purpose of stopping the evangelisation of the world. And what’s behind this? In chapter two, I discuss the motives of the devil in detail. You’ll be stunned by what you read. Discovering that darkness is behind this collapse ought to be no surprise. Such a finding is entirely consistent with Scripture. Ephesians 6:12 says: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” I am not alone with this realisation. Listen to Dr John Piper: “From the cradle to the grave, life is war. Your soul, your mind, your body, your family, your career are fields of conflict. Until Satan is finally thrown into the lake of fire our peace with God will have to be a vigilant peace.”46 To reverse the 100% to 2% swing, our focus in the first half of this book will be to understand how our enemy has done this. Identifying the cause of a crisis will take us a long way towards 46 http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper88/pipe001b.htm

solving it. Why this focus in the first half? Well, think of a car which has broken down. The first thing a mechanic must do to get the car going again is isolate the cause of the breakdown. Similarly, if we isolate how principalities and powers have caused the 98% regression, by God’s grace, we can, like the broken down car, get the evangelisation of the West going again. In the second half of the book, I unveil specific ‘doable’ strategies which will, by God’s grace, go a long way towards fixing the crisis.

o what’s the bottom line?…

These devices are like voices whispering in the ears of Christians, subtly putting them off evangelising. What’s really important to understand is that most Christians will not be aware they are carrying them. You see, devices operate by stealth. Many are subliminal. If a Christian under the influence of just one device will not evangelise, imagine how paralysed is one who is influenced by all 84? This is the bad news. The good news is that once a person becomes aware of them and how they are operating in their lives, they can be eliminated. We can’t deal with a problem about which we are not aware. Hence this book. One of its goals is to bring people into a place of awareness so they can be truly liberated and set free to reap the rich bounty of benefits which come from being active in evangelism. Another way to think of these devices is to compare them with computer viruses. Computers which host viruses eventually crash they stop functioning. Most Christians are unwittingly hosting these ‘evangelism viruses’ in their minds, so their evangelism activity has crashed - they have stopped evangelising.47 The Holy Spirit will work through this book and the other 47 Sadly, these devices are so pandemic, many have never started!

Evangelism Strategies International resources48 to purge the 84 devices from our minds, just as anti-virus software purges viruses from computer hard drives. Without bringing awareness of these devices and then purging them from the minds of believers, we’ll never mobilise the Church in the West back into evangelism. So how can you as a pastor bring awareness of these devices to the people in your church and purge them of the same? There are three ways to do this. 1. Host “The Six Lost Truths” one day conference at your church and have all your people attend. 2. Access the book you are reading now on-line, and have people start reading it. 3. We can visit your church and deliver a 6-8 week series on evangelism on Sunday mornings or you (i.e. the pastor) can do the teaching and we provide the Power Point slides and handouts. This is the best option of the three because your whole church will then be united, moving forwards together, and your people will not have to come out to another meeting. Plus, if it’s coming from you, the pastor, your people will listen up and take it seriously. When you expose your people to this material, the Holy Spirit typically imparts: • A fresh vision for the Great Commission. • A revelation of what it means to be united to Jesus and His mission. • A new heart and mind for the lost and a renewed passion to reach them with the gospel. • Fresh excitment and joy into your church. There will be a new Holy Spirit inspired buzz in the air! • You’ll witness the lost being saved and joining your church. 48 See www.esisite.com for further details.

Grasping the main point...

The main point I want you to grasp is this - bringing awareness of these devices and purging them from the minds of your people must precede equipping them to evangelise. From my 30 years of experience mobilising churches back into evangelism, I have found that if a pastor wants to mobilise 100% of his people into evangelism, they must take their people through 3 distinct phases: 1. Prepare their church for evangelism. This means teaching them the 84 devices of the enemy and giving them time to process what they have discovered. 2. Equip their church to do evangelism. This means giving them tools and resources to do evangelism and showing them how to do it i.e. leaders leading by example. 3. Maintain evangelism momentum by implementing specific strategies which will keep a church flourishing in evangelism - or if you like, keep the momentum going until evangelism becomes as natural for your people as having breakfast each day is natural. To take your church through all 3 phases is to move in great wisdom. I reiterate, in this book, I am passing onto you the lessons I have learned from fourty years of experience. That is to say, if you are someone who want to mobilise others for evangelism, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Uploading new programs (i.e. teaching people how to evangelise) onto hard drives riddled with viruses (i.e. the minds of Christians) just won’t work. The computers will just keep crashing i.e. if you equip your people to evangelise without first purging their minds of the devices, they will exhibit enthusiasm for the evangelisation of the world for a while, but over time they will all default back to their non-evangelistic way of living. The long term effect of this? Your people will be resistent to further attempts to mobilise them. They will reason “Oh, we tried that before and it didn’t work. Let’s 27

not waste time trying again.” Jesus talked about the folly of trying to overlay the new on top of the old in the parable of the wine skins (Luke 5:36-39). Please also understand this - the revelations unveiled in this book will not just bring Christians awareness of the devices and purge them of the same. The Holy Spirit will work through them to create (to use computer language again) a fire wall to stop the devices infiltrating again. This is essential if you are serious about mobilising the people in your church to evangelise and retaining 100% of them in the habit. The 100% to 2% shift in the wrong direction can be reversed. Together with God we can come out of this appalling Dark Age of evangelism. By reading this book, you are about to become part of the solution.

ummary

• The hallmark of a genuine Christian leader is that they model personal evangelism before their families, and the people in their church. This fact is attested in Acts 5:40-42. • The Church in the West today is currently living in a Dark Age of evangelism and it doesn’t know it, just as the Church in the classical Dark Ages (500AD-1500AD) was living in darkness regarding salvation by grace through faith and didn’t know it. • Virtually the entire Early Church was mobilised to evangelise (because they saw the Apostles doing it) and they reached the known world with the gospel. • Today only 2% of Christians in the West engage in evangelism. • The number of Christians who are attending church in the West is in rapid decline, so are the numbers of people who believe in God. • Many Christian statesmen and scholars are noting these 28

appalling declines. • The vast majority of non-Christians in the West have not heard the gospel and are dying having not heard it once. • Fixing this crisis is going to first require careful diagnosis of its cause. • Behind the collapse of evangelism in the West are principalities and powers. And behind them is the devil himself. • He has sown 84 ‘devices’ (2 Corinthians 2:11) into the Church over 2000 years to cause the collapse. • The good news is that God in His grace has given us a three phase strategy which when implemented will help reverse the 100% to 2% decline i.e. cause a resurgence in evangelism. CTION POINT: You might be saying at this point, “How can I help?” Here are some things you can do. Start spreading awareness of the issues raised in this booklet to other Christians you know. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite.com. What’s next? In chapter two, I explain why we must take the devil seriously, and what is motivating him to try and shut down the evangelisation of the world. Criminologists will tell you that establishing the motive for a crime is a key to solving it. The insights you are about to receive in the next book are crucial if you want to activate yourself and your church into evangelism. Are you ready to be used by the Holy Spirit in this way? Great! Then let’s go to chapter two!

Real Life Story Prodigal Daughter on A London Train London

One Sunday in London, England, some friends and I went to All Souls’ Church in the middle of the city, where John Stott, the famous author and theologian, used to be on staff. He has since died and gone to glory. To get to All Souls, we had to catch an early train. I wanted to share the gospel with someone before church - but not at the train station, because I didn’t know how long I would have before someone’s train might come. It is awkward interrupting the presentation of the gospel in full flight. So I opted to give out a few tracts to people waiting on the platform. The train came and Vera, one of my friends, suggested we sit in the front carriage where the seats on both sides of the aisle face each other, with two people sitting opposite two people. There were four of us, so this left another four seats across the aisle free. I deliberately sat nearest the aisle so that I could talk to whoever sat on the vacant seats across from us. I had also forewarned the other three who were with me and told them to ignore what I was doing if I started giving someone the gospel. Nothing spoils a situation more than other people staring. For evangelism to work well, you have to learn to set the situation carefully. The trip into London was about 40 minutes. After about three stations a woman got on, taking a seat on one of the four empty seats across the 30

aisle. I let her settle down and then, after a time, leaned across the aisle and asked her quietly with a smile if she could help me with something. Whenever I share the gospel on public transport, I do so as discreetly and privately as possible, to minimise any embarrassment to the person listening. Other than our group of four, there were few others in the carriage. She was happy to participate and we worked through the 10-question ice-breaker which leads on to the gospel. Her name was Susan, she was in her mid-twenties, and she told me she was en route to London to do a quick job for her boss. We proceeded to go through the gospel. About a third of the way through, I noticed tears streaming down her cheeks. When she reached for a tissue in her bag, I stopped the presentation and gently asked her what was wrong. My friends, too, had noticed what was happening and were praying (not our loud!). Through her tears Susan explained she was a backslidden Christian. Her parents had spent time in Uganda as missionaries and all of the rest of her immediate family were zealous

Christians. Susan confessed she was living with her partner and was the black sheep of the family. Her life was falling apart and she was at crisis point. She invited me to keep going through the presentation. The tears continued to flow and I gave her more tissues. From time to time we stopped the presentation and talked about her life, her situation, and her torn heart. She couldn’t believe God would arrange to send someone 24,000 miles from the opposite side of the world to speak with her on a train to London. She asked me some penetrating questions. “Does Jesus love me so much in the midst of my sin and rebellion that He would send you to me?” she said. The story of the Prodigal Son came to mind. When I finished sharing the gospel, she allowed me to pray with her. The train stopped and I invited her to come to All Souls’ Church (picture on the right) with us. She said she hadn’t been to church for some time and the thought of it was quite scary. Still crying, she explained she would be about an hour doing the work for her boss and that she would think about coming to church after she had finished it. I told her it was okay to be late and that I would wait for her outside the church if she decided to come. We hurriedly swapped phone numbers and email addresses. She went her way and we ours. 32

En route to All Souls, we prayed for her as we walked the streets and gave out tracts to people who passed us on the footpath. I honestly didn’t think we would hear from her again. As we entered the church my cell phone beeped with a new text message. It said: “Susan here. I am coming to church. Can you wait for me? I’ll be 10 minutes late.” Vera reserved seats at the back of the church and soon Susan came bouncing around the corner, spotted me, waved and smiled. We entered the church and I picked up the Order of Service. I was astonished and delighted to see the sermon topic: “How valuable are we to God?” What’s more, the text for the day was Luke 15 with the parables of the lost sheep, the lost penny and the lost son. Which one did the minister focus on? The lost son! And all the songs were about the lost coming home, the Father’s love for those who have strayed and the lengths He will go to find His precious children. I could hardly contain my joy. Susan sang the songs, and wept quietly through the sermon. I was disappointed she did not respond to the altar call, but I knew God had done -- and was still doing -- a huge work in this young woman. To bring her back fully to Jesus, I reasoned, might take a while; but if the Creator of the universe had gone to such lengths to arrange the events of this Sunday morning, I had confidence He would bring her home at just the right time. 33

Julian’s comments.

This real life story gives us a lot of valuable insights into the strategies of those doing evangelism which prepares them for success. For example the person doing the evangelism: 1. Didn’t want to start giving the gospel to someone on the train station platform because he wouldn’t have time to finish it. He’d thought this through so he didn’t enter into a failure situation. 2. Had thought about where to sit on the train so as to be in the best position to give the gospel. 3. Had forewarned the others in his party not to stare and watch if he started giving the gospel. He’d thought it through. 4. Was discreet. He wanted giving the gospel to be as private as possible so as to eliminate any embarrassment factor for the non Christian. 5. Did a smart thing swapping phone numbers and emails. It meant he could keep in close contact with Susan should she decide to come to church. Once again, he’d thought it through. Conclusion? Successful evangelism is a thinking, planning, strategising exercise, not just the communication of vital Spiritual information. Also, God set the whole occasion up. I find this incredibly encouraging. In a very real sense, God was playing chess with Susan and the person doing the evangelism, moving them around on this divine chess board with perfect timing so they would meet just at the right time. How he was able to do that without either party knowing what He was doing, and get the timing right?! It’s mind blowing i.e. Susan and the person doing the evangelism had to get the right train, on the right day, and sit in the right seat. How does He (i.e. God) do it! It’s called the sovereignty of God. I firmly believe that God uses those who are willing and wanting to share the gospel to accomplish things like you have just read. Those who are not willing and wanting to share the gospel miss the thrill of Christian life. They miss being used by God. How tragic! They are like a chess piece glued to the chess board, making themselves unavailable to be used. 34

You can purchase individual chapters of this book. Each chapter has been made into a Mini Book. The Full List Of Books In ‘The Truth About Evangelism’ Mini Series is as follows Book One

Evangelism Lost! Exposing The True State Of Evangelism In Today’s Church

Book Two Seven Deadly Motives Exposing How The Enemy Is Shutting Down Evangelism.

Book Three

The Sorrowful Collapse Of The Great Commission- A Dangerous Redefining Of Evangelism

Book Four Evangelism Redefined? Six Subtle Yet Devastating Redefinitions Of Evangelism

Book Five Confusion Busters 7 Things You Should Know About The Gospel Message

Book Six

Six Ways To Move From Gospel Confusion To Gospel Clarity

Book Seven

The Evangelisation Of The World Is The Ulimate Purpose Of The Church. 7 Irrefutable Reasons It Is Time To Prioritise

Book Eight

A Gift, A Call, Or A Commission. Are All Christians Commanded To Evangelise

Book Nine

12 Keys To Fearless Evangelism In The 21St Century

Book Ten Take Them Down. 12 Road Blocks And How To Get Through Them

Book Eleven

The Key To Victory. Start Viewing Evangelism As An Event, Not A Process

Book Twelve

Confidence In The Gospel, Come Back! Four Essential Steps To Reclaiming Lost Ground!

Book Thirteen Prepare To Be Amazed! What Jesus Really Taught About Evangelism!

Book Fourteen

What Leaders Must Do To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

Book Fifteen

A Plan Of Action To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

Book Sixteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 1)

Book Seventeen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 2)

Book Eighteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 3)

Book Nineteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 4)

Book Twenty Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 5)

Book Twenty One

Climb On Board! 4 Reasons Why Doing Evangelism Will Help Create A Better World!

Book Twenty Two

Devastation! How Pseudo-Conversions Hinder Evangelism And What You Can Do To Stop The Rot!

Book Twenty Three

“Friendship evangelism.” What’s good about it, and what’s heretical?

Book Twenty Four

Unholy Grief! Five Ways Evangelists With The Gift Can Grieve The Holy Spirit

Book Twenty Five

The Highest Motive For Doing Evangelism? You’ll Be Amazed What The Bible Teaches! Conclusion

Book Twenty Six Appendix One : If We Fail To Evangelise, We Fail. Period. By Dr K.P. Yohannan

Appendix Two : The Pastor Evangelist. By Dr. Roger S. Greenway

Appendix Three : True Gospel Must Be Heard, By Kevyn Harris

Appendix Four : This We Believe Signatories

Appendix Five : Device 84. “I don’t like being told to do evangelism!”

Book Twenty Seven The Evangelism Fitness Test

To order, please visit www.evangelismtruthbooks.com

Chapter Two

SEVEN DEADLY MOTIVES: exposing how the enemy is shutting DOWN EVANGELISM!

Seven Deadly Motives: Exposing How The Enemy Is Shutting Down Evangelism

ight now, for three reasons, the devil is shaking in his boots. First, tiny pockets of the Church in the West are waking up to the problem of the shameful decline in evangelism. Says researcher Martha Grace Reece:“Signs of change are emerging. Evidence affirms that pastors are beginning to recognise that we face a predicament with evangelism....they are beginning to say it out loud.”1 This awakening is a nightmare for the devil because he doesn’t want anyone to know the real state of evangelism in the West. Second, the devil knows that through these book you are about to receive insight into exactly how 98% of Christians in the West have been knocked out of doing evangelism. You might even be an influential, passionate, and committed Christian who could pass on what you are about to learn to countless other Christians which in turn might awaken them to doing evangelism. Such a thought terrifies the devil. Third, the devil also knows that if you put into practice everything you learn, you will find life and life in all its fullness (John 10:10). Once Christians find life from doing evangelism, they become the ones who are most likely to activate others. Now here’s an interesting thing - some Christians are going to 1

Martha Grace Reece. Unbinding The Gospel. Real Life Evangelism. Chalice Press. 2008, p.32

miss out on what I am about to reveal in this book because they are averse to any literature which mentions the devil. They know he is a real being but they think that any mention of him is spooky, or that it gives him glory. Talking about him makes them feel uncomfortable. They seem quick to forget, however, that the greatest book of all time (i.e. the Bible) mentions him frequently, and that Jesus often talked and warned about him, as did Paul and the other biblical writers. The Bible takes him seriously, and I pray you do too. If you do, you are in the company of some very significant Christians. Who are these Christians?

piritual giants also take the devil seriously...

It was the late Dr Francis Schaeffer who wrote: “Do we really believe we are engaged in a cosmic battle? Do we really believe there are ‘powers of this dark world’ which rule our age? Or as the Apostle John says, do we really believe ‘the whole world is under the control of the evil one’? (1 John 5:19). If we do not believe these things (and we must say that much of the evangelical world acts as if it does not believe these things), we certainly cannot expect to have much success in fighting the battle.”2 C.S Lewis is another intellectual who took the devil seriously. He wrote: “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”3 Theologian Paul Karleen says: “We can count on the fact that [the devil] is always opposed to the will of God in our lives – both for individuals and the 2

Dr Francis Schaeffer. The Great Evangelical Disaster. Crossway books, 1984, p.24

Dr C.S Lewis. Christianity And Culture. Christian Reflections. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967, p.33

local church, and any kind of ministry. His name (Satan means “adversary”) tells us that upfront… and he would like nothing more than for us to be oblivious of what he is up to. It is part of his plan.” 4

heck out what the Bible says about him…

The Bible says of him, “Satan shall…go out and deceive” (Revelation 20:7-8, KJV). Speaking of Satan, Paul the Apostle said “…we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). Many Christians believe that Satan can no longer have any influence over them because they belong to Jesus. This is not what the Bible teaches. The devil is a real being, and he can hinder God’s purposes.5 “For we wanted to come to you — certainly I, Paul, did, again and again — but Satan stopped us” (1 Thessalonians 2:18). In fact his name also means ‘opposer.’ Missionary statesman, Oswald Sanders wrote: “[The devil] is uniformly regarded as a malignant, malicious personality, hostile to God and man, and working to thwart the Lord’s purposes.”6 What is the foremost ‘purpose of the Lord’ for His Church? It’s to complete His mission.7 In chapter six, you’ll discover that the mission Jesus gave us to complete is to ensure that every person on the earth hears and understands the gospel. That is to say, that everyone on the earth is evangelised, not just once but over and over. And what’s hindering the completion of His mission? 4 Sited in Logos Bible Software 2.1. Paul S. Karleen. The Handbook To Bible Study. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 5

Not ultimately, because God is sovereign.

J Oswald Sanders. Satan Is No Myth. Moody Press, 1975, p.25

7 By mission, I mean the main thing. In 1969, NASA had a mission, which was to make sure America was the first nation in the world to have a man walk on the moon. To achieve the mission they had to do a lot of other things like build a lunar craft, build a rocket, train astronauts etc. In order to succeed with the mission, the ‘to do’ list for NASA was almost endless. But here’s the point - everything on the ‘to do’ list was for a reason, which was to succeed with the mission. Similarly, Jesus has commanded the Church to do a lot of things (e.g. pray, fast, live holy lives, give, serve, teach, disciple, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison etc etc), all for one great ultimate reason, which is the evangelisation of the world (our mission). How I came to this conclusion is detailed in chapter seven.

Answer? The devil and his devices which are operating inside the Christian Church.

he devil’s devices…

What are “devices” as the word is used in 2 Corinthians 2:11? “....for we are not ignorant of his devices.” The Enhanced Greek Lexicon describes devices as “thoughts, mental perceptions; an evil purpose.” Satan thinks, dreams and plans to frustrate evangelism. As I studied, prayed and researched Satan’s part in hindering evangelism in the West, it became obvious that all his devices focus on changing the way we think about evangelism, the gospel, our priorities, and a myriad of other issues related to evangelism. He knows that if he can deceive us by changing the way we think, he will change our behaviour (Proverbs 23:7). His devices appear to have been working with stunning success. They are so subtle that most Christians are completely unaware that their minds have been sown with them. As such, many believers are living nothing like the Christian life Jesus intended. Let me explain.

iving the life…

One metaphor to describe the relationship between the work of the devil and the influence of his devices on Christians is to think of Christians as flowers and the Church as a garden. In a typical garden, flowers vary in health and vitality. It’s the same with the Church. A few Christians are blooming, making an impact, being mightily used by God. Sadly, many feel like they are limp, sickly flowers, not making much impact at all. So how can you be one of the bloomers? One key is to be active in evangelism. No matter how impacting and mighty your walk with Jesus is at the moment, if you haven’t been engaging in evangelism on a regular basis, you haven’t fully bloomed yet. Outside of 5

participating in evangelism, you’ll never reach the fullness of your potential in Christ. For you, the best is yet to come. Where does the Bible talk about this? Listen to Romans 10:15: “...how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the gospel.” The word ‘beautiful’ in this verse is the Greek word horaios (horah–yos) which refers to a flower in full bloom. This verse is in effect saying “...if you want to position yourself to fully bloom as a Christian, start evangelising.” So how do we get to become a fully blooming Christian? First, we need to be planted in weed-free soil. Most Christians, however, with respect to evangelism, are like flowers overgrown with a thick, dense mat of toxic weeds. Each weed represents a deadly device planted in our minds by the devil to hinder evangelism. Under these conditions, flowers have no hope of reaching their epitome of health and vitality, and blooming. For Christians to mobilise for evangelism and fully bloom, the weeds have to be cleared – and kept clear. As we progress through these book, we will identify each weed (i.e. each device of the enemy), name it, and show how to eradicate it. As such, chapter in this book is like spiritual herbicide. It will clear the weeds in your thinking about evangelism so that you can be a bloomer in the garden of God’s Church. The Holy Spirit is going to use this series to bring you out from under the devil’s influence. While there are many factors which contribute to a Christian reaching the fullness of their potential in Christ, let me tell you, no Christian will ever achieve this outside of active participation in evangelism (Mark 8:35). The good news is that if you are a pastor you can literally create a flourishing Great Commission church! But first you as the leader of your church must discover the 6

devices. Then you must help the people in your church discover them. Then together, you must work hard to systematically eliminate them.8

or starters, here are two devices of the devil which hinder evangelism…

First, the devil has us imagining we as a Church in the West are doing a lot of evangelism. But if research shows only 2% of us are doing it, not much evangelism is actually going on. I have heard many leaders announce triumphantly from the front “We are evangelising the world!” But on what basis can they say this? There is no basis. It’s just hype springing forth from our fertile imaginations. When leaders make such announcements those listening get the impression the job of evangelising the world is being done by others. We reason “Everyone else is doing such a great job, they don’t need me!” and so justify personal non-involvement in evangelism. We tell ourselves, “I must be unusual because I know I’m not one of the people doing evangelism, but that’s all right, because if my leader just said ‘we are doing a great job evangelising the world!’ plenty of others must be being obedient!” If the devil cons everyone in the Western Church into thinking like this, and if we do not cross-check with one another to verify our assumptions, it is easy to see how evangelism in the West has declined so dramatically. Second, Satan has us believing that New Zealand, Britain, Australia and the United States, and every other Western country, has already been evangelised. We read certain mission maps and exclaim, “Great! The job is done in the West! Everyone has heard the gospel! Look, there are churches on every street corner! They 8 At this point, go to chapter 27, and complete the Evangelism Battle Fitness Test. This test will assess how ready you are right now, to enter the battle for souls and win.

can watch Christian TV and listen to Christian radio. Surely all the non-Christians in our country have heard the gospel! How could they not hear!?” We know from chapter one that this is a completely false assumption. The way to defeat the devil with this one is to accept the truth that the West is a lost tribal group. Let me say it plainly and simply - the vast majority of people in the West have not heard and understood the gospel.9 These are just two devices. This book reveals another 84. At this point many Christians have asked: “Why is the devil so interested in stopping evangelism and the gospel? Why does the Bible say of him, ‘The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Corinthians 4:4)? Why are there no verses which show that he picks on prayer, or good works, or worship, or signs and wonders and miracles, or Bible reading, or some other aspect of Christian life?” These are critical questions and when we examine his motives we’ll receive the answers. So what motivates our adversary to stop the gospel? To stop evangelism? The devil has seven motives. Dr Michael Green uncovers the first two.10

OTIVE ONE: He wants the glory…

First, the devil hinders the gospel because he wants pride of place in the universe. He wants the glory. He hates the gospel because proclaiming or spreading it is the greatest way to bring glory to Jesus. You’ll read more about how evangelising is the greatest way to bring glory to Jesus in chapter twenty. The gospel also exposes the devil as a liar and deceiver and he doesn’t want 9 How do I really know this? I have reached literally 10’s of thousands of non-Christians in these countries in the last 30 years and can tell you categorically, they have never heard the gospel. In research terms, a sample of 10’s of thousands would be considered a very good sample size. That is to say, the resuls of the sample would mirror what is really the truth about those not in the sample i.e. the rest of the population. 10 Dr Michael Green. I Believe In Satan’s Downfall. Hodder and Stoughton, 1999. pp. 62-63

this fact published. As you read this series, you’ll see how he lies and deceives. What you are about to read is mind boggling. Put your seat belt on and get ready!

OTIVE TWO: He wants territory…

Secondly, the devil hinders the gospel because through it spiritual territory or the ownership of souls is lost. To the devil, souls are like real estate. He wants to own and have control of the lot. All people are born into the kingdom of darkness and Satan wants to keep them there. When non-Christians are won to Jesus, not only does Satan lose territory (i.e souls) but the pool of potential proclaimers of the gospel also increases. To regain territory lost to Jesus, he tries to entice Christians to backslide. The devil knows that when Christians wilfully and completely renounce Jesus, he regains precious real estate. He knows that the gospel is the most powerful weapon given to the Church for winning souls (Romans 1:16). So, for the sake of preserving territorial advantage, and increasing it, he must make sure the message of the gospel does not get out.

OTIVE THREE: He wants to delay the end of his life…

The devil wants to preserve his life. Let me explain. In Mark 13:10 and Matthew 24:14, Jesus speaks about His Second Coming, explaining that one of the conditions for His return is that everyone11 has heard and understood the gospel. Please listen to the words of eminent theologian and author, Dr Millard Erickson: 11 H ow can literally everyone be evangelised? They can’t. So I interpret “all” in the verse to mean the people in this generation who are able to hear and understand the gospel. This would obviously exclude the very old, the very young, and those with mental problems or certain sicknesses like dementia. For these people, hearing and understanding the gospel would not be possible. In chapter ten, I explain how, mathematically at least, it is feasible to have everyone (with exceptions) on the earth hear and understand the gospel. To evangelise a whole generation requires the mobilisation of a large number of Christians who are willing and able to obey Jesus’ command to go into the world and proclaim or spread the gospel.

“Certain events have to transpire before the Second Coming; for example... the gospel would have to be preached to all nations.”12 Let’s look at Mark 13:10: “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations…”13 Now Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” ‘Whole world’ means everyone. To what is ‘the end’ referring in Matthew? It’s the Second Coming of Jesus. And what must happen before He comes again? Everyone must hear the gospel14. And what’s going to happen to the devil at the Second Coming? Check out Revelation 20:10: “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” By carefully piecing these scriptures together, the message becomes clear. When everyone has heard the gospel, one of the conditions of the Second Coming will have been fulfilled. And when Jesus comes again, the devil, who is presently roaming the world like a lion wreaking havoc (1 Peter 5:8), will be cast into the lake of fire. If you were the devil and you knew the plan of God outlined in these Scriptures, wouldn’t you work tirelessly to prevent unbelievers from hearing the gospel? And to prevent believers from proclaiming or spreading it? 12 In chapter four, I discuss the difference between the missions task of the Church, and the evangelism task. They are very different, and we need to know the difference. 13 T he Greek word here is ‘ethnos’ which means people groups. What’s the message? God wants us to make a priority of reaching every people group with the gospel, and then to reach every individual in each people group. More about this is coming in chapter four. 14 They do not have to believe. They just have to hear and understand the gospel. This is a key point. Belief comes from God alone. Our job is to proclaim and spread the gospel. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit to bring belief.

The devil knows the implications of Christians living out Mark 13:10 and Matthew 24:14. He also knows what is written in Revelation 20:10. Satan knows that if he can thwart the gospel being preached to every people group (the mission’s task), and every person within every people group (the evangelism task), he can delay his sulphurous end. You’d think these first three motives would be sufficient, but there are four more.

OTIVE FOUR: He wants to foster disobedience…

He knows that if Christians don’t know what evangelism is, they won’t do it. If they don’t know what the gospel is, they won’t proclaim it. And not doing evangelism, they will be living in disobedience to the priority of Jesus.

OTIVE FIVE: He hates seeing people saved…

The more people who are saved, the more potential proclaimers of the gospel there will be. And the more potential proclaimers the faster the world will be evangelised. And remember, when the whole world has heard the gospel, one of the major conditions for the Second Coming will have been met. You’ll remember what this means for the devil.

OTIVE SIX: He wants to rob Christians of life in all its fullness…

Another motivation for the devil is that he wants to rob Christians of a rich source of real life in Jesus. Those who evangelise find a potent source of life in their Christian walk.15 Those who don’t have no idea this source of joy is available. According to the late Dr Bill Bright, Founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, the largest ministry in the world, 15 Of course, sometimes proclaiming the gospel can lead to persecution and death. Nonetheless, those who

have suffered in this way for the sake of the gospel have usually done so joyously, considering it a privilege.

For example, Acts 5:40-42

“After many years of working with thousands of Christians, I am convinced that one cannot enjoy the full and abundant life which is our heritage in Jesus Christ apart from the proper balance between Bible study, prayer and sharing Christ with others. Apart from the regular sharing of your faith in Jesus Christ with others, Bible study and prayer can often lead to a spiritually frustrating and impotent life.”16 Those are words of truth. Note them well. Lee Strobel, a former legal editor for the Chicago Tribune, Christian apologist and former teaching pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, writes: “The unparalleled adventure of evangelism begins when you are equipped to share your faith and then take risks to do it… once you begin to live out the evangelistic mission God has given you, you will never want to go back to being a mere armchair spectator in the most important enterprise on the planet.”17 John Piper puts it like this: “Giving the gospel away is one of the best ways of experiencing its power in your own life. The best way to taste the power of God for your own soul is to venture something on it.”18 he devil wants you busy or bored… He would never want you to find out that evangelism can bring a joy like no other activity – “life in all its fullness,” as John 10:10 puts it. He would rather your Christian life was mundane and routine, pleasantly busy but without risk or danger. But a Christian life without risk and danger and plenty of interaction with the lost world is not an authentic Christian life. Sadly, many Christians trudge from conversion to death without ever experiencing the thrill which comes from regularly engaging in

16 Dr Bill Bright. How To Walk In The Spirit. Campus Crusade for Christ Inc., 1971, p.29 17 Cited in: Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan, 2000, p.202 18 http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper88/pipe001b.htm

evangelism. If this critical element is missing, the Christian life risks becoming nothing more than an endless meaningless routine (an EMR): going to church on Sunday, singing three fast songs and two slow ones, giving a tithe, listening to notices, praying for this and that, listening to a good message, singing a closing song, and finishing with a cup of tea and a muffin down the back whilst chatting to our friends. In addition to this, some might attend a Life Group (i.e. a Bible study) one evening during the week, and the odd conference during the year. Seriously, is this all Jesus died for? Is that it? Did Jesus die for us to live an EMR life? How tragic if this is so. Surely, we were saved for more than this?

ow to know God’s blessing in every area of your life...

In his book The Heavenly Man, Brother Yun chronicles the phenomenal growth of the church in China, and highlights the connection between proclaiming the gospel and experiencing joy. After experiencing persecution and seeing the death of fellow believers followed by revival in China, Brother Yun visited the West. Comparing our way of doing church with the way they did it in China, he concluded: “The first thing needed for revival to return is the word of the Lord. Sure, there are many preachers and tapes and videos of Bible teaching, but so little contains the sharp truth of God’s word. It’s only when we in obedience share the gospel with people that we come to know God’s blessing in every area of our lives. This is why the apostle Paul wrote to his co-worker Philemon, ‘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 Jesus.’”19 19 Brother Yun with Paul Hathaway. The Heavenly Man. The Remarkable True Story Of Chinese Christian Brother Yun. Monarch Books, 2002, pp.296-7

Let’s invert this verse from Philemon so that it reads as follows: “I pray you may be inactive in sharing your faith so that you will have a shrivelled understanding of every good thing we have in Christ Jesus.” You get my point. Those who are not doing evangelism don’t know what they don’t know. The devil wants to keep them in this state. ther Scriptures which link evangelism with Christian life… Another Scripture which links proclaiming the gospel with experiencing joy is Mark 8:35: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will save it.” Then there is Mark 10:29-31: “...no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields, and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” The Greek word for ‘gospel’ in this verse is the same as in Mark 16:15, and so we know Jesus is referring to those who evangelise. No other command of God comes with such lavish promises! Jesus didn’t say to leave those things behind, “for Me and prayer,” or “for Me and good works,” or “for Me and worship” or “for Me and signs and wonders.” He specifically said, “…for Me and the gospel.”

OTIVE Seven: He wants to steer Christians away from being Christ-like, to encourage pastors to build their churches on foundations of sand, and to grieve the Spirit…

His final motive has to do with Truth. Truth is a compass for Christians. The Bible tells us what is Truth and what is not Truth. Jesus said of Himself that He is “The Truth” (John 14:6). He said that if we walk in the Truth, we’ll not only be set free but we’ll prove we are His disciples. Just look at this amazing 14

Scripture: “So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). John also said in 3 John 1:4 : “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” Why did John say this? Please think about this. The goal of the Christian life is to achieve Christ likeness, isn’t it? Yes it is. Because Jesus is the Truth, the more a man or a woman walks in Truth, the more Christlike they are. I met a pastor recently who said “Julian, I want you to come and teach our church about evangelism, but don’t go defining terms like ‘evangelism’ or ‘the gospel’. It will create division and controversy.” What this pastor said was astonishingly foolish. How so? The meaning of ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel’ can be clearly defined in Scripture. i.e. we can know the Truth about what ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel’ mean. By recognising that defining terms will create controversy, this pastor is admitting that there are many unbiblical definitions of ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel’ floating around in his church. That is to say, that many people in his church are not walking in the truth of these terms. What’s concerning is that he is happy to let this situation continue. Pastors are called to resist the devil, and flee from him, and help their people do the same. James the Apostle would say to this pastor “Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). This pastor is not resisting the devil, and he’s not submitting to God, through His Word. He is actually accommodating the devil. What would John the Apostle say to this pastor? Let’s invert 3 John 1:4 to find out. John would say “I have no greater sorrow than to hear that my children are not walking in the truth.” If all 15

of the Bible is God’s Word, and it is, then Jesus would agree with John. As such, Jesus would be filled with sorrow to hear what this pastor said. Because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One, the Spirit would be grieved also. And when the Spirit is grieved, the sense of His presence leaves. And if the sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit leaves a church for long enough, that Church eventually becomes a dead church. And if a church is dead for very long, the people in it will begin to scatter (i.e. leave the church, and even the faith). Can you see how foolish this pastor was to say what he said? He is saying to the devil “It’s Ok for you to camp in my church. I am ok with that, as long as there is peace and harmony.” But really, peace and harmony based on error is no peace at all. Rather, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. It’s building a spiritual foundation on sand. When true adversity comes, that building is going to crash with a mighty crash. (e.g. Matthew 7:24-27). According to this parable, anyone who builds their life or church on sand is ‘a fool.’ The same underlying problem prompted Jeremiah to cry “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). Knowing these seven motives of the devil ought to fuel our desire to define our terms carefully, and mobilise everyone in our churches to walk in the Truth about ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel’. After all 2 Timothy 2:15 says “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” This pastor is not doing his best to be approved by God. As such, the Apostle Paul would say he ought to feel ashamed because he is incorrectly handling the Word of Truth. There are just so many reasons to activate for evangelism, not least of which is playing a part in ushering in the Second Coming of Jesus and the final destruction of Satan. I have often wondered 16

why those involved in Christian social action don’t do evangelism alongside their excellent works. I know some do, but the bald truth is that most don’t. For if they did, they’d be helping to put a final end to the person who is creating the need for social action in the first place! They’d be the fence at the top of the cliff, rather than the ambulance at the bottom. You see, social action deals with the fruit of Satan’s work (e.g. poverty, nakedness, injustice, slavery, the sex trade etc), but doing evangelism deals with the root - changing the hearts of the people causing the fruit, and ultimately the destruction of Satan himself. Most Christians are completely unaware of the benefits and the spiritual implications of evangelising the world which I have unveiled in this chapter.20 Worst of all, most Christians now no longer believe that the evangelisation of the world is Jesus’ priority. In this respect, as you’ll read in Chapter Seven, they are completely out of sync with Jesus, Paul, the Apostles, and the rest of the Biblical writers. Today, the priority of evangelising the world has been replaced by a plethora of alternatives: “Let your light shine!” say some. “Build relationships!” “Serve!” “Pray and intercede!” “Be hospitable!” “Live a life of integrity and love!” “Stand up for justice!” “Social action!” “Worship!” “Seek the presence of God!” “Feed the hungry!” “Fast!” 20 In chapter Twenty One, I explore fully how evangelism blesses society.

“Live holy lives!” “Be generous and kind!” “Live by faith!” “Signs and wonders!” “Preach the Word!” “Fight for the poor!” “Be loving!” “Make disciples!”21 “Demonstrate the Kingdom for the lost to see!” say others. Let me be very clear at this point. Every one of these behaviours is extremely important in the process of drawing non-Christians closer to Jesus. All these behaviours are the commands of Jesus. Whenever non-Christians are drawn to Jesus, one or more of these behaviours will be ‘in the mix.’ Over and over again, Christians will testify that before they came to Christ, observing some or all of these behaviours in another Christian helped them come to the point of conversion. They are all part of God’s plan to draw people to Himself. Yet, in Chapter Six, we’ll learn exactly why the evangelisation of the world is Jesus’ priority. For Him, it’s the main thing. It’s our mission. With all that I have written so far in this chapter, it is easy to understand why Jesus’ last words to the disciples were “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15) and “you shall be my witnesses”22 (Acts 1:8). 21 One could argue that “making disciples” is the priority of the Christian Church. I would agree but only if the disciples we are making make a priority of the evangelisation of the world! Do you get the point? The truth is that today, most “discipleship” programs don’t even mention evangelism, let alone train people to do it, or teach that it’s the priority. This is how bad things have got. 22 The word “witness” in this verse is widely misunderstood. It’s a legal word. In short it means to testify as in a court to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and speak about the salvation significance of these events. It also means to speak about how these events have changed one’s own life. In other words, to “witness” means primarily to proclaim the gospel.

If the final words of great people are to be taken seriously, how much more so the final words of Jesus to His Church? The truth is, we haven’t taken Jesus’ last words seriously at all. Rather, we have taken matters into our own hands. We have decided other things are the priority. We have acted like we are God and omniscient. But we are not God. Speaking of God’s greatness and our puny insignificance, Isaiah said: “Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he? (Isaiah 2:22). So on what authority, or on what basis can we say to Him “Sorry Jesus. We are going to ignore your final words and your priority because we have different ideas than you about how best to run your Church and interact with the lost world.” Going by the research, 98% of us are now saying this. Now here’s the big question - how are we going to shift the thinking of leaders in the Church in the West to get back in sync with Jesus? i.e. back to how it was in the Early Church when virtually 100% of believers were active in evangelism? Answer? We are going to have to go to war - to war in the Spirit.

he war in the Spirit is on…

As I said in Chapter One, there is a colossal contest going on in the spiritual world over the evangelisation of the world. On one side is the devil and his devices. On the other side Jesus and the Church. In the great valley in between are the souls of men and women, and the glory of God. Ultimately, these are the prizes of our warfare. This book is therefore a battle manual. In Chapter One, we detailed the extent of the problem. In this Chapter, we’ve looked at the devil’s motives. Now what? Our next step is to know our enemy and the rest of his 84 devices. 19

o win this war, we must know our enemy…

In military circles, it is well known that knowing the enemy is critical for success. Writing in the 4th century BC, the Chinese scholar Sun Tzu clearly recognised the centrality of accurate and timely information for the military commander. “First among these is knowing your enemy. The more accurate one’s picture of the enemy the better.”23 From here on in, you’ll be faced with two choices. First, you could read this book, have your eyes opened to the devices and the solutions, and then take positive action i.e start evangelising and help others start. Second, you could have your eyes opened to the devices and the solutions, but turn a blind eye to them i.e. live in denial. I pray to God that you don’t choose the latter! Researcher Martha Grace Reece gives wise advice here: “The most dangerous way to face a serious threat or a dangerous situation is to ignore it, to be unconscious of it, to pretend it isn’t there. This is the way many of us have dealt with evangelism. We haven’t felt good about it, so we pushed the thought into the back of our minds for later, or for someone else to think about! Many of us are still so overwhelmed with our churches’ smaller numbers and lower funding that we trundle along concentrating on ‘business as usual.’ Ask any corporate executive, psychologist, doctor, or spiritual director what the first step to change is. Chances are the answer will be, ‘first you have to recognise there is a problem. Then you can do something about it.”’24 My prayer is that by now, as a result of reading Chapter One, you’ll recognise that there is a serious problem in the Western Church. 23 Carl Von Clausewitz. On War. (Translated by Col. J. J. Graham.) Penguin Books, 1968, p.163 24 Martha Grace Reece. Unbinding The Gospel. Real Life Evangelism. Chalice Press. 2008, p.26

Thankfully, as I pointed out at the beginning of this Chapter, tiny pockets of leaders in the West are waking up to the evangelism crisis and are at least starting to talk openly about it. If you are presently not one of this group, I am asking you to join them. Pastors, leaders at every level of the Church, elders, deacons, and evangelists, you are the key players in this war. You can influence a lot of people for or against evangelism. Through your influence you can either lead people into the evangelisation of the world (i.e. be a positive influence) or out of it (i.e. be a negative influence). Unfortunately, there is no fence with this one. You are either for the evangelisation of the world and doing evangelism, or against it, and not doing it. In Matthew 12:30 Jesus said clearly “He who is not with me is against me, and He who does not gather with me scatters abroad.” Commenting on this verse, scholar and Bible teacher Dr William Barclay writes “In this one piercing sentence, Jesus lays down the impossibility of neutrality. In this war against Satan’s strongholds, there are only two sides, for Christ or against Him, gathering with him or scattering with Satan. If our presence does not strengthen the Church [i.e. the mission] then our absence is weakening it. There is no halfway house. If a nation is at war, then the neutral nation is an enemy by withholding the help it might have given. In all things in this world a man has to choose his side. Abstention from choice, suspended action, is no way out, because the mere refusal to give one side assistance is in fact the giving of support to the other.”25 Did we get that? We can’t be neutral! Pastor and leader, I am talking to you now. You and your church can’t be neutral with this one. You and your church are either for Jesus’ mission or against it. 25 William Barclay. The Gospel of Matthew. Saint Andrews Press. Edinburgh. 1974. p.44

I have devoted Chapter Fifteen to showing you exactly how you can mobilise yourself and everyone else in your church for evangelism. Make the effort to contact us as a ministry. We’ll walk the journey with you and help you. But we can’t take this action for you. It’s up to you to make contact with us to get the ball rolling.

ummary

• We ought to take the devil seriously, as Jesus did. • The devil has orchestrated the collapse of evangelism in the West yet God has given us the resources to fix the crisis. All He needs is our willing co-operation. • 98% of Christians are being directly influenced by the devil with respect to evangelism. They are completely unaware of this fact. • Jesus said He would not come again until everyone on earth has heard the gospel. At the Second Coming the devil will be cast into the Lake of Fire. At the moment he’s roaring around the earth wreaking havoc. So to preserve his life, he must stop gospel proclamation (Matthew 24:14). • God can and does use many different things to save people. However, He has ordained the gospel message as His centre piece in the process of drawing non-Christians to Himself. • The devil has seven motivations to cause the shut down of the evangelisation of the world. • Pastors and leaders are currently either helping or hindering the mobilisation of their people back into evangelism. There is no middle ground. • For church leaders, the first step towards mobilising 100% of their people back into evangelism is to recognise there is a problem. Then it’s to determine to do something about it. • CTION POINT: You might be saying at this point, “How can I help?” Here are some things you can do. Publish as widely as possible the issues raised in this book. Email

this Chapter to everyone on your address book (or if you are a leader, everyone in your church) and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy of this Chapter, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite.com. “How can pastors, leaders, and evangelists have a negative influence?” you might ask. The answer may surprise you. The most deadly way darkness has been able to spread his devices is to work through unwitting church leaders. He figured, “How else will I get to the people in the pews?” His success with this strategy has been absolutely phenomenal. In the next few Chapters, you’ll learn exactly how he has managed to do this. Come with me now into Chapter Three. I am going to take you on an expedition deep into the battle, and uncover some of his major devices which are stopping you and everyone in your church from doing evangelism. Are you ready?

Real Life Story Being Relevant is not as Hard as You Think

Dr Scott Cameron is a medical doctor living in Blenheim, New Zealand. He is passionate about mission, both local and international. I became a Christian at age eighteen, in July 1991, and since then have felt a desire and responsibility to share my faith with others. I struggled with this and at the same time was perplexed as to why not many others in the Church were feeling the same way. I too bought into the commonly accepted definitions of evangelism either as any Christian activity with an outward focus, or else as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;winning souls.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; I would invite people along to a seeker service perhaps, or just drop the fact that I was a Christian into conversation and hope it would provoke inquiry. I was brought up in a traditional Christian home with good values and role models, but seeking to actively share your faith with others was frowned upon as an intrusion into their privacy 24

and could even risk putting them off the whole thing. Also the concepts of hell and of judgment were taboo, and the focus was very much on love and tolerance. I would often hear the quote from St Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” This, along with the fact that no one I knew was sharing their faith, somehow comforted me in my lack of active evangelism. If I am honest, however, I always felt there should be more to the Christian life than this. I have since found out that Saint Francis never said these words. Someone made up what he said, and sowed the idea into the Church and it spread. Then Julian Batchelor came to our church in Palmerston North, New Zealand, to run some training seminars on evangelism, and so I went along out of interest to see what he had to say. I was expecting the usual teaching and encouragement, but was soon challenged that this guy was actually approaching strangers and sharing the gospel in day to day situations – with results – and expecting us to do the same! At the same time his teaching was liberating. Converting people is God’s job. Our role is to be the messengers. I had also been to many church meetings and events that were trying to make the church relevant to nonbelievers, in order to 25

fulfil the Great Commission. One day it struck me that if we as individuals went out and engaged the non-churched world with the gospel (i.e. just went out and did what Jesus told us to do) we would naturally be in touch with where non-Christians were at. So instead of trying to become relevant to fulfil the Great Commission, if we just went out and did evangelism, we would naturally become relevant. Now back to the evangelism training seminar. As it got to the point where I was about ready to try the tool on someone, I was really freaked out. Also I was confronted with the reality of hell as a real place where real people go. I remember going to sleep one night, sick to my stomach thinking about who I was going to approach to try out this tool, and I woke at about 5 am in tears. It was as if God were saying to me, “Look Scott, it isn’t about you, and it’s not even about this tool you are learning to use. It is about these people you see every day who I love and died for and who don’t know Me. If this tool helps you tell them about Me then use it.” I remember that morning as clear as a bell. Since then I have been using the tools that Julian has developed. My first few times went really badly, and if I hadn’t understood the difference between sowing and reaping I would most likely have given up then. To be honest, I have actually never felt I had the gift of evangelism. I would call myself an evangeliser more than an evangelist. I am someone “doing the work of an evangelist” like Timothy in the New Testament. I still get nervous when 26

sharing with people, and especially struggle with sharing with workmates and family. But I now know that even if I’m not an Ephesians 4:11 evangelist, I still have the responsibility to share the gospel. I had also thought we didn’t have the right to share the gospel with others unless explicitly invited to do so. Now I realise the gospel is God’s message (not mine or the Church’s) to His Creation, and that He has actually commanded us to share that message. We not only have the right, but also the responsibility to share it with a lost and dying world. In recent years I have travelled to several different countries doing medical mission work, and have seen the power of the gospel in action. It occurred to me one day that the death rate in poor countries like India, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia etc, is actually the same as in Western countries – 100 percent! If I focus only on healing people’s bodies I am wasting my time really. I have also noticed that in countries where there is still knowledge of the basics of Christianity, people are a lot more ‘ripe for harvest,’ unlike in New Zealand. Here the challenge is to roll up our sleeves and get busy doing the hard and often non-rewarding work of sowing the seed of the gospel – always with an eye and a desire for harvesting if a person is ripe for it, but really just being faithful to 27

what our Lord has commanded us to do. I invite you to join me in these End Times in doing just that... If what I have written here resonates with you, I’d love to talk to you so please email me scott.cameron@inspire.net.nz

Julian’s comments.

Scott gives tremendous insight into the psyche of a believer. The number of devices he was carrying were significant: 1. Pressure from his parents not to evangelise. From them he learned to evangelise was an intrusion into the lives of nonChristians, it might put them off, and the mention of hell was taboo. 2. Negative peer group pressure from fellow church members i.e. no one else appeared to be doing evangelism. Understanding ‘evangelism’ to be the winning of souls. 3. The negative influence of ‘seeker services’ where Christians are advised not to challenge non-Christians in any way. And seeing the gospel is designed to challenge, seeker services had a dampening down effect towards evangelism for Scott. 4. The quote from Saint Francis which he Saint Francis didn’t ever say. 5. No one told Scott friends and family are hardest to reach of all because, as Jesus said, “the prophet is not accepted in his own home town” (e.g. Luke 4:24ff) 6. We have no right to share the gospel unless we are invited to do so. These are six devices, sloshing around in Scott’s mind! It’s an absolute full blown New Testaement miracle that he made it to the seminar! This explains why it is such a great challenge to get 28

people from churches in front of the teaching in this Mini Series. The solution is to teach ‘The six lost Truths’ (these are the top six devices of the devil) on a Sunday morning when everyone is in church. The fact is, Scott didn’t know what he didn’t know, and when he found out what he didn’t know, he was set free. Praise God!

L i s t

o f

D e v i c e s

According to the Greek in 2 Corinthians 2:11, a ‘device’ is a thought, a plan, or a scheme of the devil. The devil has sown ‘devices’ into the minds of believers all over the globe to stop them evangelising. These devices have been so successful, that now only 2% of Christians in the West ‘do’ evangelism. Below is a list of the devices we have discovered so far. Chapter 3

1 2

To mess up our definition of the word evangelism

3 4

To have us believe that evangelism equals the winning of souls

To have us believe that personal opinion has as much authority as sound scholarship To have us believe that every activity that brings a non-Christian closer to the point of conversion is evangelism Chapter 4

5 6

To have us believe that we are evangelising when we do good works.

Manipulate Christians into viewing evangelism as a team event where only one or two members in the team actually do evangelism

To blur the distinction between ‘sharing your faith’ and ‘proclaiming the gospel’

9 10

Have us misinterpret Matthew 24:14

To blur the distinction in the minds of Christians between normal and nonnormal evangelism

Mess up our definition of the word ‘witnessing’ Chapter 6

11 12

Have us proclaim ‘other gospels’ instead of THE gospel Cause Christians to confuse the words of the gospel with its works and effects

Blur the distinction between the general use of the term ‘gospel’ and its sharply-defined New Testament use.

14 15

Persuade us that the words of the gospel cannot be defined

If Jesus intended ‘hell’ to be a necessary component of gospel preaching, the New Testament writers would have made this truth clear in their writings. Acts and Paul do not mention hell at all. How can we then say “hell is a necessary component of gospel preaching” when it appears on the surface that the Apostles and Early Church don’t mention it in their preaching?

To persuade us to water down the words of the gospel in order to preserve unity.

Chapter 7

To scramble the priorities of the Christian Church Chapter 9

18 19 20

Persuade Christians they are inadequate

To convince us that by leading a good life and being a positive example for others is to be equated with evangelism

To persuade Christians that they are incompetent in evangelism so they will say nothing

23 24

To persuade us our faith is a private matter and should not be shared

To persuade us that God sometimes says things to us personally that

To persuade us that ‘love is the ultimate thing’ and that the most powerful way to express our love for non-Christians is not to preach the gospel but to meet their practical needs

To persuade us we should not share the gospel unless our life backs up the message

28 29

To persuade us we should not share the gospel unless our motives are right

To misquote great Christians from history To persuade Christians they must earn the right to speak into someone’s life before sharing the gospel with them

To persuade us that God is there primarily to bless us and prosper us. Doing His will and serving His purposes are secondary contradict what is written in the Bible

To persuade us we should not share the gospel with strangers. We should befriend one or two people and walk with them until they become Christians. Why? This enables them to witness our life not just hear our message. The success of our gospel message is dependent on people witnessing the authenticity of our lives

Chapter 11

To persuade us that evangelism is a process Chapter 12

Have us think we are proclaiming “the” gospel when really it’s been another gospel we have been communicating

Have us pay little attention to delivery issues so we give “the” gospel a bad name and stop using it

Have us over-react to the charge we are all talk and no walk

Convince leaders to create a new image of Christianity where the hard sayings of Jesus and the evangelisation of the world are taboo Chapter 16

To persuade leaders that making a point of doing personal evangelism regularly is legalism

To persuade leaders that if they find evangelism difficult it must not be their calling, and that personal evangelism should be left to those with the gift

37 38

To convince leaders that evangelism need only be a passive activity

To persuade leaders that when the gospel is proclaimed and there is no immediate result, the exercise was a waste of time and resources

40 41

To persuade leaders that all roads lead to God

To persuade leaders to view evangelism like a business venture. If we don’t see souls saved and won into our church immediately, we close down the business

To persuade leaders that people who have never heard the gospel will eventually be saved anyway

44 45

To substitute evangelism for sustained prayer, intercession, and fasting

To dupe leaders into assuming that everyone under their care and authority knows the biblical definitions of ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel’

To target leaders with extreme Calvinism and an unbiblical understanding of the theology of grace

To make leaders afraid of being less than competent and afraid of opposition from non-Christians Chapter 17

To persuade leaders to delay equipping their people for evangelism until they are ready i.e. “on fire”

To persuade leaders that personal evangelism is too confrontational

To persuade some leaders that the only valid form of evangelism is one in which signs and wonders follow

49 50

To persuade leaders that worship in a church is evangelism

To persuade leaders that when we die our souls are simply snuffed out and that hell is not a place of eternal conscious torment

To persuade leaders to equate evangelism with discipleship

To persuade leaders the most effective way to evangelise the world is through big events and tent-type meetings

Chapter 18

To persuade leaders that personal testimony and evangelism are the same thing

54 55

To persuade leaders that the gospel is not as powerful as the Bible makes out

To whisper in the ear of leaders “the simple gospel message cannot effectively penetrate the post modern mind”

To persuade Christians they do not need to check that the non-Christian has understood the gospel message – that it is enough merely to proclaim it

To persuade leaders it is not biblical to talk about hell in an effort to move non-Christians towards the point of conversion

To persuade Christian leaders the most important thing to tell non-Christians is “Jesus loves you”

To cause local church leaders to resent evangelists and cause evangelists to resent Christians who don’t evangelise

To whisper in the ear of a leader “the reason the gospel works for Billy Graham, Bonnke and Edwards was that they were special people with the gift. You don’t have the gift so there is no point in you proclaiming it.”

Chapter 19

Have leaders who are evangelising mix regularly with non-evangelising leaders

62 63 64 73

To target the leader with positive distractions

To make a leader feel threatened and insecure at the thought of making evangelism centre stage in their church

To hit the leaders with a tidal wave of other work to stop them evangelising To persuade leaders that it is better to hang out with Christians To persuade leaders to go away on a retreat or enter a season of prayer and fasting to seek God about direction for their church or to formulate their vision statement

To cause leaders to see “the gospel” and “the gospel of the Kingdom” as two different gospel messages Chapter 20

To persuade a leader that he/she must feel that they must “love God more than anything or anyone else” before obeying Him in evangelism so that when they do start, their motivation is right

77 78

To cause leaders to become out of balance in the expression of their faith.

To cause leaders to think that promoting the need to do evangelism is to be equated with doing good works in order to get closer to God

Our culture is different to what it was 50 yrs ago and this affects our approaches to evangelism. People are now sceptical to the truth, rejecting moral absolutes and have resulting indifference towards religion.

81 82

To convince us that Christianity is about being, not doing.

To persuade leaders that “bringing the Kingdom to earth” is the new priority of the Church

Teaching that we have to obey the commands of Jesus (e.g. the command to evangelise the world) is taking us back into legalism and the law! Chapter 22

To lull leaders into thinking the majority of people in church are already genuine Christians Chapter 26, APPENDIX 5

Have us react negatively to the thought that we are being told to do evangelism

Chapter Three

The Sorrowful Collapse Of The Great Commission: A Dangerous Redefining Of ‘Evangelism’

he most deadly device of the enemy to hinder evangelism is simple: mess up our understanding of the word “evangelism.” The late Dr Lewis Drummond, past President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote: “A proper theology of evangelism… will result in a profound zeal to win the lost.”1 In Chapter One we saw how gospel proclamation in the West through personal evangelism had all but ceased. I attribute much of this decline to the spread of an improper theology of evangelism which has been accommodated by many Christians. In this Chapter, I reveal how this has happened and its effects on evangelism. Who has caused this confusion? You know the answer: “While men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. And [the landowner] said to them, ‘An enemy has done this’” (Matthew 13:25, 28). ow the enemy mixes truth with error… The devil will not burst through the back doors of your church on a Sunday morning and boldly announce “Don’t do evangelism!” He knows we would not swallow this. This is too blunt and obvious. He knows that he has to be far more subtle, clever, and cunning. So what he does is warp the Biblical definition of evangelism,

Dr Lewis A. Drummond. The Word Of The Cross. Broadman Press, 1992, p.337

by mixing truth with error so that we will not detect the error. Devices always mix truth with error. According to Christian statesman J. Oswald Sanders, the devil deliberately includes just enough truth in his teaching to make it appear both credible and palatable. “So much seems good and true that an injection of error is not obvious. To achieve this end, Satan will quote or misquote Scripture as best suits his purpose. He is ingenious. He employs orthodox language while giving the old words new and heterodox content. That is especially true in theological circles, where theological double talk confuses the issues and conceals the error.”2 So, the first strategy from heaven in the war for souls is to properly define evangelism, which is how I begin this Chapter.

EVICE # 1 To mess up “Evangelism”...

the

definition

the

word

You would think Christians could easily define this word, but many cannot. Reverend Canon Dr Michael Green, one of the world’s leading evangelists and Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, England, points out three great words used in the New Testament for proclaiming the Christian message.3 The first, kerussein, means ‘to proclaim.’ The second, euangelizomai, means ‘to tell Good News.’ The third, marturein, means ‘to bear witness.’4 Where the word ‘evangelism’ came from… The chart on the next pages show these and other New Testament words which relate to evangelism. We learn that 2

J. Oswald Sanders. Satan Is No Myth. Moody Press, 1975, p.75

Dr Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1970, p.56

4 ‘Witnessing’ means to evangelise. This word has been so adulterated in its meaning that it’s come to mean any Christian activity or behaviour which indicates to a non-Christian that we are Christian e.g. holding a Bible under our arm, not mowing our lawns on Sunday, being seen going to church, peppering our conversations with terms like ‘Praise the Lord’ etc. I am going to discuss this word in detail later in this Chapter.

to evangelise means to announce Good News. What’s the origin of this word? When Greece ruled the world (324 -146 BC), it fought military battles on the outskirts of its territories. When a battle was won, a report of the victory was written on a scroll. The army general would send runners with the scroll in a relay all the way from the battlefield to the King, the ruler of the Greek empire.5 On arrival the last runner would kneel at the King’s feet, unroll a scroll, and announce the victory - the good news.6 The reading of the message had a beginning, a middle, and an end - it was an event. Evangelism is therefore an event, not a process. According to New Testament scholar C.F.D. Moule of Cambridge University, its meaning in the New Testament is, “to offer or communicate Good News, whatever the result.”7 The message the military runner carried was called the ‘evangel,’ the military runner an ‘evangeliser,’ and the act of announcing the message ‘evangelism.’ The good news Christians are commanded to ‘carry’ (i.e. communicate) to non-Christians is called the gospel.8 Any Christian who announces the gospel to non-Christians is evangelising, and the person who announces the gospel is an ‘evangeliser.’ Any event or situation where the gospel is being proclaimed is called ‘evangelistic.’ e.g. “We held an evangelistic crusade.” Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us some people in the Church have what is commonly referred to as the ‘gift’ of evangelism. They are evangelists. These people are to teach those in the Church who do not have the same ‘gift’ how to proclaim or spread the 5 Dr David L. Larsen. The Evangelism Mandate: Recovering The Centrality Of Gospel Preaching. Crossway Books, 1992, p.20 6 The Marathon has been run in the Olympic Games since 1896. It was named after a Greek soldier’s run from the town of Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to bring the news of a Greek victory over the Persians. . 7 Cited in: Dr David B. Barrett. Evangelise! An Historical Survey Of The Concept. Publication of the Foreign Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1987, p.11 8 In Chapter Five and Chapter Twenty One, the word “gospel” is further defined.

gospel to non-Christians.9 This is why Paul (an evangelist with the gift) can tell Timothy (a pastor without it10) to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). Paul was commanding Timothy to proclaim the gospel and to train others how to do the same. Discovering the truth about evangelism from biblical words Greek Word Euaggelion (root word)

Part of speech Noun. Used 77 times in the New Testament. Euaggelistes Noun. Used 3 times in the New Testament. Euaggelizesthai Verb. Used 53 times in the New Testament. Kerux Noun. Used 3 (root word) times in the New Testament. Kerugma Noun. Used 8 times in the New Testament.

Meaning Good News or gospel.

Kerussein

“To proclaim.”

Lalein

Verb. Used 30 times in the New Testament. Verb. Used 296 times in the New Testament.

Person who tells Good News. “To tell Good News.” A herald. The message or proclamation.

“To speak or talk” (a message).

Example Mark 16:15; Romans 1:16; Galatians 1:6-7; Ephesians 1:13. Acts 21:8; Ephesians 4:11; 2 Timothy 4:5. Luke 1:19; Luke 4:18; Acts 8:12. 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11; 2 Peter 2:5. Matthew 12:41; Luke 11:32; Romans 16:25; 1 Corinthians 1:21; 1 Corinthians 2:4. Matthew 3:1; Matthew 4:17; Matthew 4:23; Mark 5:20; Mark 16:15; Luke 9:2. Acts 8:25.

9 Any fully-functioning evangelist will not restrict his or her ministry to proclaiming the gospel and training others to do the same. Rightly, this will undoubtedly be their core business and take most of their time. However, like the great evangelist John Wesley, they will also be concerned to work with other leaders and pastors to help lay the foundation of Christian faith and practice for new believers. They will want to see their ministry as an evangelist organically connected to, and intertwined with, the ministry of local churches. As an evangelist, I have found myself also teaching, preaching, pastoring, moving in the prophetic, praying for Jesus to heal people and expecting the miraculous, and generally trying to help pastors and ministers disciple the people in their church. I will look to identify and nurture other budding evangelists. None of these behaviours, in and of themselves, is “evangelism” and they are secondary to my core business. Yet, they are expressions of my heart, part of what I do as an evangelist with ‘the gift.’ 10 How do we know that Timothy did not have the gift of evangelism? In 2 Timothy 1:7-8, Paul encourages him not to be timid or ashamed of the gospel. He goes on to encourage Timothy to join with him in suffering for the gospel. People with the gift usually don’t need to be exhorted in these ways – they are the people in the Church who are most likely to be found naturally doing evangelism. Therefore, Paul’s exhortations to Timothy here bear the marks of someone with the gift exhorting someone without it. People without the gift usually struggle most with timidity and shame with respect to the gospel and, because of this, are often the most reluctant to suffer for it.

Aggelos Martus (Root word)

Marturion/ marturia Marturein

Noun. Used 175 times in the New Testament. Noun. Used 72 times in the New Testament. Noun. Used 99 times in the New Testament. Verb. Used 76 times in the New Testament.

An angel (or messenger).

Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27.

Person who bears Mark 14:63; Luke 24:48; witness. Witness in a historical and legal sense as in a law court (Acts 22:20). Sometimes, one who is a witness by blood (Martyr). The substance Mark 6:11; of the witness or John 1:7. testimony. To give witness. Matthew 23:31; Connotes the John 1:8. declaration or confirmation of facts or events.

Christians with or without the gift of evangelism who announce the gospel to non-Christians are evangelising. However, when a Christian who does not have the gift of evangelism teaches others in the Church how to proclaim or spread the gospel, they begin to function as evangelists.11 Only God can give the gift of evangelism but anyone can function as an evangelist when they begin to motivate and train others to evangelise. Then there is the word evangelisation. For Barrett,12 and the Lausanne Movement,13 this word means ensuring everyone in a geographical area or people group has heard and understood the gospel. vangelism is an event, not a processâ&#x20AC;Ś As I have already said, we need to understand the announcement of victory by the Roman soldier before Caesar was an event, with a beginning, middle and end. Evangelism too is an event. For many, viewing it this way will immediately seem alien.

11 i.e. the distinguishing mark of a person with the gift is that they focus on training others how to evangelise. 12 D avid Barrett. Cosmos, Chaos, And The Gospel. A Chronology Of World Evangelisation From Creation To New Creation. New Hope Publishers, 1987. 13 Edward R. Dayton and Samuel Wilson. The Future Of World Evangelisation. The Lausanne Movement. Marc Publishers, 1984.

In Chapter Ten, I discuss why evangelism is not a process and how understanding it as such has had devastating effects on our mission to evangelise the world.14 The word evangelism is not found only in the New Testament. It also occurs in the Greek version of the Old Testament.15 Isaiah, for example, is the herald who announces the Good News of God’s salvation to Israel (e.g. Isaiah 40:9; 52:7; 61:1-2). Isaiah makes the most extensive and significant contribution to understanding the proclamation of the victory of God’s final salvation in its Old Testament promise form ( 40:9-11 ; 52:7 ; 60:6 ; 61:1 ). This prophet’s teaching is not only foundational for seminal New Testament passages, but it is also the source for the New Testament use of the term “gospel.”16 The table below shows the parallel between the king’s (small “k”) runner and the King’s (capital “K”) runner – a Christian. The table compares the king’s runner who announces his good news with the Christian who announces the gospel. Situation

To whom does he speak?

What does he say?

The king’s runner

Speaks as someone who has witnessed a military victory.

The king or ruler.

He announces the military victory..

The King’s runner

Speaks as though they are Anyone who has someone who has witnessed not heard about a great event – the birth, life, the events. death and resurrection of Jesus. We are also to explain the salvation significance of these events.

He/she explains the Christian gospel. i.e. why the person listening must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved, and the cost of becoming a disciple.

The way I have defined the word evangelism as announcing or 14 Most Christians have come to believe evangelism is a process. The devil has used this misunderstanding of evangelism to stop millions of Christians from proclaiming the gospel. 15 The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, known as the Septuagint (LXX), was carried out by 70 Alexandrian Jews in Egypt c. 250-215 BC 16 Elwell, Walter A. “Entry for ‘Evangelize, Evangelism’”. “Evangelical Dictionary of Theology”. . 1997.

proclaiming the gospel is accepted by Christian scholars worldwide. . ho are some of these scholars?... Dr William Abrahams, Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University: “Scripture, the history of the Church, and the religious experience of those called to do this work17 combine to make a weighty case for conceiving evangelism as the proclamation of the gospel.”18 After conducting the most extensive review of the literature ever on this subject, Dr David Barrett, of the World Evangelisation Research Centre concludes: “The entire range of theoreticians: biblical exegetes, Scripture scholars, biblical theologians, linguistic experts, lexicographers, Bible translators, professors of missions, professors of evangelism, mission specialists, missiologists… all of these unanimously affirm that to evangelise meant in biblical times, meant throughout Christian history, and still means today, the strictly limited range of meanings that we have termed The Big Six - Preach [the gospel]! Bring [the gospel]! Tell [the gospel]! Proclaim [the gospel]! Announce [the gospel]! Declare [the gospel]!”19 Barrett goes on to point out that Christians outside this ‘entire range of theoreticians’ (i.e. people in the general Church population) have wide-ranging opinions as to the meaning of “evangelise.” What he is saying is that if you asked 100 average church attending

17 This is not saying that the task of evangelism is restricted to a chosen few. This Chapter will explain how some are called to be evangelists but all are commanded to evangelise. 18 Dr William Abraham. The Logic Of Evangelism. Erdmanns Publishing, 2002, p.48 19 Dr David B. Barrett. Evangelise! An Historical Survey Of The Concept. Publication of the Foreign Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1987, p.79. Please note, I have added [the gospel] to this quote so as not to create further confusion. For example, with “Bring!,” some readers might have misunderstood what Barrett was saying, thinking that “Bring” meant bringing people to church or a Christian event constituted evangelism.

Christians to define evangelism, you would get 100 different answers!20 Conclusion? What our best scholars are agreed about, the average person in Church is terribly confused about. You would think that if the best Christian scholars have concluded that evangelism is the proclamation of the gospel, all Christians would happily concur. Why don’t they? There are at least two possibilities. First, the devil has managed to hide the biblical definition of evangelism from the vast majority21 of Christians who are not scholars. If he can hide the gospel from non-Christians, which 2 Corinthians 4:4 says he can, then it’s possible that he can hide the truth about evangelism from the non-scholarly Christian world. Second, Christians who are not scholars have read what the scholars have had to say, and have willfully rejected their findings, choosing instead to make up their own definitions. Either way, it’s the devil’s work. The effects on our efforts to evangelise the world have been devastating.

EVICE # 2 To have us believe that personal opinion has as much authority as sound scholarship...

If we were to ask twenty genuine believers, “What is evangelism?” and we received twenty different answers, who would be right, and how would we know who is right? When I ask this question in conferences, I usually hear: 1. Everyone is right. 2. No one is right. 3. The one who is bearing fruit in their ministry is right. 4. Ask the Holy Spirit who is right. Actually, none of those answers is right. So how do we find out 20 ibid. p.79 21 I have been conducting research on what Christians believe about evangelism, testing their beliefs with a simple test. A wide variety of groups have been tested. The results? No matter what their denomination, socio economic background, theological persuasions, racial group, leadership status, age, level of formal theological training, ethnicity, or country, the results are noticeably consistent. From a sample size large enough to be taken seriously, we found that upward of 90% of Christians were thoroughly confused when it came to their understanding of evangelism.

the truth? Yes, we should ask Jesus and the Holy Spirit and consult our Bibles and pray. But if twenty genuine believers did so and still reached different conclusions, surely it would make sense to consult authorities on the subject, wouldn’t it?

ho would you choose to perform surgery on your heart?... To illustrate the concept of appealing to ‘authority’, imagine that the world’s top cardiologist has performed various tests on your heart and concluded it is in terrible shape. You go to your neighbour and tell him the cardiologist’s findings. Shocked, your neighbour feels your pulse for a few seconds and announces your heart is in top condition. Now, who is the authority on the health of your heart in this situation?22 Who would you trust to give you a heart transplant? Surely, you’d choose the one with twelve years training, twenty years experience - the one who has read 367 books on the subject. Clearly, when it comes to medical knowledge of the human heart, the cardiologist is the authority. This is why hospitals are staffed by ‘specialists.’ Medical specialists are doctors who have completed advanced education and clinical training in a specific area of medicine (their specialty area) e.g. Allergist (immunologist), cardiologist, oncologist, obstetrician, orthopedic surgeon, etc. When it comes to Biblical matters, those with authority are Spirit filled Christian scholars who have dedicated their lives to studying the Bible,23 because God has called them to it. Spirit filled, proven scholars are to the Christian Church what specialists are to the medical world. Many Christians have based their definition of evangelism on nothing more than personal opinion. Or, to keep my illustration going, on the opinion of their neighbour. If we do this, 22 Assuming your neighbour is not also a heart specialist! 23 True, there are some scholars who are little more than blind guides because they have never been born from above and are not in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, they cannot discern Spiritual Truth. The Church Fathers (e.g. Luther, Augustine, Calvin etc) are examples of scholars we can trust. It is true also that some scholars who are true believers disagree on some issues. But what is important to note here is that there is widespread agreement among the best scholars in the world as to the Biblical definition of evangelism.

we are like the neighbour giving advice on cardiac health who fails to cross-check with the heart specialist i.e. the cardiologist. o who decides what ‘evangelism’ means?... So which other scholars, other than Abraham and Barrett, have concluded that evangelism is simply the proclamation of the gospel? They include the 2300 theologians and leaders who attended the Lausanne conferences on evangelism in 197424 and who formulated what is now known as The Lausanne Covenant. In it, they say: “To evangelise is to spread the Good News [i.e. the gospel] that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord He now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe. Our Christian presence in the world is indispensable to evangelism, and so is that kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively in order to understand. But evangelism itself is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ, as Saviour and Lord, with a view to persuading people to come to Him personally and so be reconciled to God. In issuing the gospel invitation, we have no liberty to conceal the cost of discipleship. Jesus still calls all who would follow Him to deny themselves, take up their cross, and identify themselves with His new community. The results of evangelism include obedience to Christ, incorporation into His Church, and responsible service in the world.”25 From this definition we conclude: 1 Evangelism is spreading a specific and defined message about Jesus. The focus of the message is personal salvation.

24 The Lausanne Covenant is a declaration agreed upon by more than 2,300 delegates during the 1974 congress. The majority of the delegates were scholars and Christian leaders. The Congress was chaired by Billy Graham. Those who attended agreed to be more intentional about world evangelisation. Since then, the Covenant has challenged churches and Christian organisations to work together to make Jesus Christ known throughout the world. Fifteen years later in July 1989, the more than 3,000 participants in the second International Congress on World Evangelisation (Lausanne II) in Manila, Philippines, produced another important document, the Manila Manifesto. For more information on this just Google “Manila Manifesto 1989.” 25 The Lausanne Covenant, from “Let The Earth Hear His Voice”. World Wide Publications, 1975, p.25

2 The word ‘spreading’ is highly significant. What does it mean? There are two ways to evangelise: spreading the gospel, and proclaiming the gospel. What’s the difference? PROCLAIMING: This means the words of the gospel come out of your own mouth. You are the one announcing the gospel. SPREADING: Spreading the gospel is different to proclaiming it. The Words of the gospel are coming out of somone else’s mouth. For example, if you direct a non-Christian to a web site, or TV program, or radio station (or any other media) where someone else clearly and succinctly in one sitting articulates the whole gospel message, then in doing this, you have spread the gospel. Or you could give somone a booklet which explains the gospel. This too is an example of ‘spreading’ the gospel. Whether the non-Christian actually went to the web site (for example) and listened to the gospel is out of your control. What matters is that by directing them to hear the gospel message, or to reading the gospel in a booklet, you were spreading the gospel. If they watched the video of the gospel on the web site, we could say they had been evangelised. If they didn’t, they hadn’t. The same could be said of you if you gave a non-Christian a booklet containing the gospel message. By giving it, you have done some evangelism. But it’s not until they have read it and understood it that they have been evangelised. But mark this carefully - reading and understanding the gospel is different from believing what they are reading, and making it personal to them. Belief comes from God alone, by faith, through the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), the Father (John 6:65) and Jesus (John 12:32). 3 The gospel message has definite content: Jesus died for our sins, He was raised from the dead, He offers forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and He is not just the Saviour of the world but also the reigning Lord. He commands us to make Him our 11

personal Lord. 4 Spreading this message happens in the context of our Christian presence in the world; that is, Christian conduct authenticates the message, but our Christian presence in and of itself does not constitue evangelism. 5 When we deliver the gospel, we ought to do so with love and sensitivity, seeking to understand the non-Christian, and to make the message understandable. 6 When we evangelise we are to do so with a view to persuading people to come to Christ personally and to be reconciled to Him. However, if someone hears the gospel clearly and understands it but does not convert, he or she has still been evangelised. 7 When we evangelise, we are not to conceal the cost of becoming a Christian. 8 While the results of evangelism include obedience to Jesus, incorporation into His Church, and responsible service in the world, evangelism is not to be equated with the winning of souls. In the year 2000 another landmark conference was convened, and from this conference a book was written called This We Believe.26 More than two hundred and twenty nine respected Christians, including J.I. Packer, Lee Strobel, Don Carson, John Stott, Joni Eareckson Tada, Jack Hayford, Bill Hybels, R.C. Sproul, Billy Graham and Ravi Zacharias attended it. These leaders produced a statement titled The Gospel of Jesus Christ: an Evangelical Celebration which detailed the essentials of ‘the gospel’ and ‘evangelism’ in a series of affirmations. At this conference they clearly defined what ‘evangelism’ was and was not. Affirmation 18 reads: “We affirm that Jesus Christ commands His followers to proclaim the gospel to all living persons, evangelising everyone 26 A full list of the leaders and scholars who attended can be found in Chapter Twenty Six. These 229 scholars and leaders signed a statement at the conclusion of the conference. They agreed evangelism should rightly be defined as the proclamation of the gospel.

everywhere, discipling believers within the fellowship of the church. A full and faithful witness to Christ includes the witness of personal testimony, godly living, and acts of mercy and charity to our neighbour, without which the preaching of the gospel appears barren. We deny that the witness of personal testimony, godly living, and acts of mercy and charity to our neighbours constitutes evangelism apart from the proclamation of the gospel.”27 The last sentence is telling. Because the devil has messed up our definition of evangelism, most Christians have come to think that when they are engaging in giving their testimony, living a godly life, engaging in acts of mercy and charity etc, they are are ‘doing some evangelism.’ Biblically speaking, say the scholars who attended the THIS WE BELIEVE Conference, nothing could be further from the Truth.

ut I thought I was already doing evangelism?... Some Christians have reasoned: “Hey, I am already doing evangelism by living a good life, by feeding the hungry, by letting my light shine, by visiting those in prison, sharing my testimony, befriending non-Christians, going on a mission, participating in outreach, inviting someone to church, loving my family, exhibiting peace, patience, kindness and all the other fruits of the Spirit!” We know that these behaviours / actions / attitudes are crucial and entirely Biblical in the mix of living the authentic Christian life. So why not equate them with ‘doing evangelism? Why make such a fuss to say they are not? What’s the big deal? Here is just one reason. If the people doing them think that in doing them (or in the case of the fruits of the Spirit ‘exhibiting’ them) they are evangelising, it is highly likely they will not go on to proclaim or spread the gospel i.e. ‘do’ evangelism. Why? Please think this through. Most 27 Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.248

Christians know, deep down, they ought to be doing evangelism i.e. spreading or proclaiming the gospel. Really, it’s a no brainer. However, if we say “there are lots of ways of doing evangelism, ranging from giving out a food parcel, to being a nice person, to inviting someone to church, to building a friendship with someone, to building relationships with non-Christians, to speaking out the gospel message (which includes the hard sayings of Jesus like sin, hell, judgement, etc) to a friend, family member, or stranger” what are most people, knowing the nature of most is shy and timid, going to choose, if they have all these choices? That’s right, they will choose the soft options. So when we don’t define evangelism Biblically, we end up with most of the Church choosing the soft option, thinking they are doing evangelism, when in fact they are not. This is one reason why we’ve come to 2% of Christians in the West doing evangelism. This is one reason why the Great Commission is on the brink of total collapse. But think of this also - of all the Christian attitudes and behaviours listed in the New Testament, which one, singularly and solely, is called ‘the power of God for salvation?’ (Romans 1:16). That’s right, the gospel. God has sovereignly appointed the gospel as His ‘first choice tool’ for the salvation of the lost. So when we define evangelism unbiblically, as we have been doing for decades, God’s ‘first choice tool’ is relegated to last place for 98% of Christians. This can be likened to a builder choosing to use an ice cream cone to hammer in a nail. The hammer is especially designed for the job, whereas the ice cream cone is not. Tragic. Who are the losers when we define evangelism unbiblically? There are at least five losers. The lost, since they don’t get to hear how they can be reconciled to God. They miss out on walking with God in this life. And dying not reconciled to God, they 14

unnecssarily end in hell. The Great Commission implodes. Second, Christians lose out, since they never get to experience the thrill and joy of feeling the Holy Spirit surge through them as they spread or proclaim the gospel. This experience is one of the greatest delights a Christian can experience here on earth and central to experiencing John 10:10. The third loser is God. Jesus doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t receive the glory due His Name, for gospel proclamation is the most potent way of glorifying God. His redemption plan for all humanity stalls. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get to see nearly as many of his precious creations (i.e. human beings) reconciled back to Him. The hand brake is put on His Mission, which is the evangelisation of the world. These are monumental losses. The fourth loser is the Church. Defining evangelism unbiblically fosters disobedience. And where there is disobedience, the Spirit is quenched. And where the Spirit is quenched, the light of the Church dims. And when the light of the Church dims, Christian life becomes dull, powerless, and stale. Not only this, but when the light of the Church dims, sin, evil, and corruption in society are free to run rampant. And when sin, evil, and corruption run rampant in a society, the pain and suffering in that society is spawned. Thus, society is the fifth big loser. I could write a whole Chapter on the negative outcomes of defining evangelism unbiblically! The five outcomes I have listed here are just the first five that come to mind. Oh how Jesus must weep over the consequences of our sloppy and careless exegesis of this word evangelism!28 Are you beginning to see the tragedy of defining this word unbiblically? I pray so. Ok, back to Affirmation 18 from the This We Believe conference. Please also notice that Affirmation 18 narrows the definition of evangelism. Whereas The 1974 Lausanne Covenant included 28 See 2 Timothy 2:15

spreading’ the gospel in its definition of evangelism29, Affirmation 18 restricts evangelism to ‘proclaiming’ the gospel. Many scholars are now adamant that a careful study of the Greek words from which we derive the word evangelism shows that the gospel must be verbalised. For example, in the report of the World Evangelical Alliance Commission on Evangelism,30 it was stressed that evangelism can mean nothing else than announcing a verbal message. “The verb from which we derive the word ‘evangelism’ is used in the New Testament to denote the spoken announcement of the gospel with a view to the divine regeneration of the hearers. The word evangelism should therefore be restricted in meaning to announcing the message of salvation.”31 Dr John Stott, the late chaplain to the Queen and past President of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, concurs with the conclusion of the WEA Commission32 on this point: “Evangelism is neither to convert people, nor to win them, nor to bring them to Christ, though this is indeed the first goal of evangelism. Evangelism is to preach the gospel.”33 To preach is to speak, so, for Dr John Stott, evangelism is to personally speak the words of the gospel. Old Testament scholar Dr Walter Brueggemann further strengthened the case for the verbal aspect of evangelism when he declared evangelism to be “the message announced, a verbal, out-loud assertion of something

29 i.e. giving a gospel booklet away without saying anything was still ‘evangelism’. 30 The WEA is a global ministry working with local churches around the world to join in common concern to live and proclaim the gospel of Jesus in their communities. WEA is a network of churches in 127 nations that have each formed an evangelical alliance and over 100 international organizations joining together to give a worldwide identity, voice and platform to more than 420 million evangelical Christians. 31 Report of the Evangelical Alliance Commission on Evangelism. Cited in: David Watson. I Believe In Evangelism. Hodder and Stroughton, 1976, p.26 32 WEA stands for World Evangelical Alliance. 33 Dr John R.W Stott. Christian Mission In The Modern World. Downers Grove: Illinois, Inter Varsity Press, 1975, p.39

decisive not known until the moment of utterance.”34 Dr William Abraham, Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology: “To be sure, we need to emphasise that by ‘proclamation of the gospel’ we mean the verbal proclamation.”35 Dr Tite Tienou, Dean and Professor of Theology of Missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, agrees: “…the gospel must be spoken and heard.”36 o which is it – spreading or proclaiming?... What are we to conclude then? Should we restrict evangelism only to proclaiming the gospel verbally, or should we include spreading the gospel through tracts and booklets and other means? Given that there is not complete agreement between the scholars on this finer point, we conclude: • Ideally the gospel should be proclaimed verbally and personally by one person to another person. To do so is to engage in personal evangelism. If the gospel is proclaimed personally by one person to a group of people, this is mass evangelism e.g. a Billy Graham crusade. • Evangelism includes spreading the gospel e.g giving someone a booklet in which the gospel is explained. • If you directed a non-Christian in some way to a web site or TV or radio station or some other agency where they heard someone else verbalise the gospel, it could be said of you that you were spreading the gospel, and therefore engaging in evangelism. In the evangelism ministry I direct, we have what we call, “The Six

34 Dr Walter Brueggemann. Biblical Perspective On Evangelism: Living In A Three-Storied Universe. Nashville: Abingdon, 1993, p.14 35 Dr William J. Abraham. The Logic Of Evangelism. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002, pp.44-45 36 Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.183

Step Master Plan of Evangelism,”37 which includes spreading and proclaiming the gospel. Have a look at the plan below.

The Six Step Master Plan of Evangelism Level Activity

Skill factor

Nil.

Spreading gospel tracts. Distributing business cards which direct people to where they can hear the gospel. e.g The Two Right Answers cards. Spreading gospel tracts. Distributing business cards which direct people to where they can hear the gospel. Spreading gospel tracts. Distributing business cards which direct people to where they can hear the gospel. Survey. Approaching strangers 1-2-1.

Christian identity level

Engage nonChristian in conversation Private + Invisible.. By this I mean you No. can distribute gospel tracts or www. biblein11.com cards where no one sees you doing it e.g. letter boxes, on ATM machines, around a library etc.

Nil.

Private + Visible. By ‘visible’ I mean that someone might see you leaving a tract or www.biblein11.com card. e.g. when you leave a cafe after having a drink.

No.

Low.

1st time verbal identification as Christian. “Did you receive one of these?”

Yes.

Low.

Public + Visible. Give out a gospel Yes. tract at the end of the survey. A sample survey can be seen in the appendices.. Or start using THE TWO RIGHT ANSWERS cards Survey. Moderate. Public + Visible. Present the full Yes. Approaching gospel at end of survey. Or start using strangers 1-2-1. THE TWO RIGHT ANSWERS cards

37 A 19 study small group DVD series on evangelism (based on this book) with study guides and a leader’s guide is available from our head office in New Zealand. These studies are foundational if you want the culture of your church to become evangelistic. Please see our web site at www.esisite.com

Approaching strangers 1-on-1

High.

Public + Visible. Verbalising the full gospel to a non-Christian, without the survey. Or start using THE TWO RIGHT ANSWERS cards

Yes.

How would this plan be helpful to a church? We reasoned that the majority of Christians would not be immediately ready to proclaim the gospel personally to non-Christians they do not know, let alone to friends and family. 38 What they needed was a realistic and achievable plan to work towards this point. So the first four steps of the Evangelism Master Plan involve gospel tract/ booklet distribution, and the last two steps proclamation. With this six step plan: 1 Step one involves the least risk, step six the most. 2 Virtually everyone39 in a local church can begin immediately to evangelise successfully. 3 Everyone can start where they are at and no one needs to feel excluded or condemned for not participating or not â&#x20AC;&#x153;succeeding.â&#x20AC;? 4 Everyone can move up the six steps at their own pace which avoids putting people under pressure. 5 Steps four and five involve asking the people in your church to go on to the street or door to door and do a survey with non-Christians. This is a very successful way of getting them used to talking to strangers. But it is not only this. It is also a way for people in church to understand how non-Christians are thinking and to tune in to their world. At the end of the survey, there is nearly always a request 38 To view an amazing strategy using simple business card size cards to direct non-Christian to a web site where they can hear the gospel, and be directed to your church, please write to me: julian@esisite.com. Through this one simple strategy, absolutely everyone in any church can now engage in Biblical evangelism. Wow! 39 The exceptions are the very old, the very young, and people with extreme disabilities. Ultimately though, anyone who fits any of these categories can decide for themselves whether or not they are able to hand out a tract. I have seen people with extreme disabilities handing out tracts.

from the non-Christian participating to hear the gospel. 6 Everyone can aim towards proclaiming the gospel, which is the ideal. 7 The true definition of evangelism is not compromised since the plan starts with spreading the gospel and ends with the ideal, proclaiming it.

EVICE # 3 To have us believe that evangelism equals the winning of souls...

I have already touched on this, but let’s explore it in detail now. This device has been so successful that it is common to hear the majority of Christians, including leaders, defining evangelism as the winning of souls rather than the proclamation or spread of the gospel. I was ministering in a church, when part way through my stay, the senior pastor had to go away on an overnight trip to another city. When he returned to the church, he told the people enthusiastically how he had led someone to the Lord in the hotel where he was staying. On one level, we ought to rejoice in this. After all, Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). But on another level, the danger is that if a pastor talks only of his or her experiences of winning someone to the Lord, the people soon get the idea that evangelism equals the saving of souls rather than the proclamation or spread of the gospel, irrespective of the result. How to motivate your people for evangelism... God forbid that we should downplay any salvation miracle! But this same leader should be honest about other experiences, too. He or she might explain to the church, for example that: “Even though I led such-and-such to the Lord on this occasion, if I had shared the gospel with him and he had not said “yes” to my invitation, the evangelism encounter would still have been a great success simply because I had shared the gospel with him lovingly and graciously and Jesus was glorified. I want you to always remember that 20

evangelism does not equal the winning of souls. Evangelism is the proclamation or spread of the gospel for the glory of God.” Wise pastors and leaders should also speak of times when: 1. Their attempts to give the gospel to someone were rejected and the non-Christian politely said, “No, thank you.” 2. They were ridiculed as they attempted to give the gospel to someone, who told them in no uncertain terms to, “Get lost!” 3. They felt the evangelism experience was very ordinary and nothing special seemed to happen. 4. They found themselves having to answer some hard questions asked by the non-Christian and struggled to give a good answer. 5. They struggled to pluck up the courage to go and reach someone with the gospel. 6. They failed to give evangelism priority in their lives. 7. They felt defeated in their desire to reach people with the gospel. 8. They agonised over a lack of desire within their own heart to reach the lost with the gospel. 9. They progressed from a place of defeat in evangelism to success. This is most important and should be given in detail. People don’t want to know so much that you are an “over-comer” in evangelism. How you overcame will be of much greater interest, and infinitely more inspiring. Anyone who is regularly reaching lost people with the gospel has experienced situations like those listed above. So why only share success stories? If we persist in doing this, we are fuelling a completely false impression of reality – and strengthening the devil’s plan to shut down evangelism. A leader who shows openness, honesty, brokenness and vulnerability in what they say about evangelism will encourage people infinitely more successfully than a pastor or a leader who shares only conversion stories. Of course, if you don’t do evangelism there will be no stories from the pulpit, successful or otherwise. For a leader not to report any 21

stories about their evangelism experiences is the ultimate fast track to ‘dulling down’ your people for evangelism. In my opinion, the single greatest factor contributing to the decline of evangelism in the West is lack of leadership modelling. I talk more about the importance of how leaders need to model personal evangelism in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen, and how the devil has tried to stop them in Chapter Fifteen. Dr J.I. Packer, retired Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, passionately exhorts us not to define evangelism as the winning of souls: “It would be natural to assume we are all unanimous as to what evangelism is. In fact, much of the confusion in present-day debates about evangelism arises from a lack of agreement on this point. The root of this confusion can be stated as our widespread and persistent habit of defining evangelism in terms not of a message delivered, but of an effect produced in our hearers. Evangelism is a work of communication in which Christians make themselves mouthpieces of God’s message of mercy to sinners. Anyone who faithfully delivers that message in a small meeting, from a pulpit, or in a private conversation, is evangelising. The way to tell whether you are in fact evangelising is not to ask whether conversions are known to have resulted from your witness. It is to ask whether you are faithfully making known the gospel message.”40 Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther (1484-1546), one of the giants of Church history, also defined evangelism as simply the proclamation of the gospel: “[Evangelism is]…nothing other than preaching, the speaking forth of God’s grace and mercy, which the Lord Jesus Christ has earned and acquired through His death.”41 Notice that Luther does not equate evangelism with the winning of souls, or any other effect produced in the hearers. 40 Dr J.I. Packer. Evangelism And The Sovereignty Of God. IVP, 1961, p.41 41 Cited in: Dr Darius Salter. American Evangelism. Its Theology And Practice. Baker Books, 1996, p.22

on’t add or take away from the way the Bible defines evangelism… We must therefore reject the suggestions of some who lobby to redefine evangelism as something other than preaching or spreading the gospel. For example, the late John Wimber,42 international Conference speaker, worship songwriter, best selling author and spiritual leader to the worldwide Vineyard Movement is one of my heroes in the faith. Yet he insisted that evangelism includes a “power encounter with the Holy Spirit.”43 To accommodate this view would be to define evangelism not in terms of a message delivered but an effect produced in our hearers. Peter Wagner,44 President of the Global Harvest Ministries and Chancellor of the Wagner Leadership Institute, is another spiritual stalwart. Yet his call to define evangelism as “church growth” cannot be accepted for the same reason. Both signs and wonders and church growth are highly desirable results of evangelism45 but they are not to be equated with it.46 One purpose of this Chapter is to show how defining evangelism as ‘something other’ subtly but surely undermines our mission to evangelise the world. Dr William Abraham affirms the truth that to evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel, irrespective of the results. “Whether or not people respond is not really the concern. The results are entirely in the hands of God. Hence there is no need for manipulation or 42 John Wimber and Kevin Springer. Power Evangelism. Harper and Row, 1986. 43 I believe that every time the gospel is proclaimed with love and grace, and the listener understands it, a “power encounter” with the Holy Spirit has occurred, irrespective of whether it is visible. The gospel has its own intrinsic power. But for Wimber, for a “power encounter” to have occurred, the work of the Spirit had to be immediately visible in some way. 44 Dr C. Peter Wagner. Strategies For Church Growth. Regal Books, 1987. 45 I beg you not to misunderstand me. The manifest power of the Holy Spirit is desperately needed in every sphere of the Church. We should expect and delight in powerful, visible manifestations of the work of the Holy Spirit. As for Church growth? It is one of the great goals of evangelism! Jesus said “I came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). However, Church growth is not to be equated with evangelism. 46 I deal with the topic of the place of signs and wonders in evangelism in Chapter Fifteen.

anxious concern if no one responds. What matters is that the gospel is appropriately presented.”47 So how does equating evangelism with soul-winning stop Christians from proclaiming the gospel? It does so in five ways:

It sets Christians up for failure...

If a Christian shares the gospel and the person listening does not convert at once, the evangelism encounter is perceived as unsuccessful. The truth is many people do not convert immediately upon hearing the gospel, but a Christian may reason, “Hey, I am just not cut out for evangelism. I’ll leave it to the experts who see someone saved every time they speak.” People can cope with only so much failure, and so they soon stop trying. One evangelist showed considerable vulnerability and honesty in his book on evangelism when he said, “I need to tell you that I am not a great witness. I try, but I never seem to be as successful as others are. My only successes in winning people to Jesus Christ have come through long term friendships, a lot of prayers, and lengthy conversations.”48 He thinks evangelism equals the winning of souls and when he doesn’t see “results” he becomes discouraged. If viewing evangelism as the winning of souls can discourage even a mature and seasoned Christian with the gift, imagine what such a view will do to discourage and devastate those without it? pastor testifies… Another pastor of 25 years and experienced in evangelism, wrote a book on how churches can interact with their communities. About evangelism he wrote: “In many secularised communities, traditional ways of reaching people have run their course and are no longer effective. Four years ago, I went door-to-door to twentyfive homes as part of a citywide evangelistic initiative. The strategy

47 Dr William Abraham. The Logic Of Evangelism. Eerdmans Press, 2002, p.47 48 Paul Borthwick. Stop Witnessing And Start Loving. Navpress. 2003, pp.144-45

was simple: I was to smile, introduce myself, and ask if I could give them a free video of the Jesus film – one of the most watched films in history. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing Christ with lots of people and have seen many come to faith; so, armed with prayer and hopefulness, I started knocking. How did I do? I was zero out of twenty-five. I won’t try to spiritualise this through a homily on the importance of just being faithful. I felt like a big loser! Common sense tells me to quit long before I got to zero out of twenty five. But I was trying to give something away – something beneficial, something spiritual. And I was experienced. At the last five houses, I just prayed no one would be home. I hated the rejection. Ever felt that way? Maybe we need to explore new evangelistic strategies. Evangelism doesn’t have to be reduced to doing something you don’t like with people you don’t know.” 49 Here’s another pastor who views evangelism as the winning of souls – which made him feel like a failure with evangelism. He went on to say, “Imagine how much more motivating it would be for those in your church if people were saying, ‘Thanks for coming by. You’re really making a difference in our town. I don’t go to church, but if I did, I’d go to one like yours.’ Do you think they’d be encouraged? Externally focused churches are discovering approaches that give them great favour with their communities. Externally focused churches are trying to position themselves so that everyone in their communities knows someone who follows Jesus.” Truth and error are mixed here. The truth is: a. We ought to do everything within our power to create externally focused churches and to win the favour of the community. b. Developing favour with the community through service, and 49

The quotes from this author are pregnant with devices. He doesn’t realise that by just giving the video he is evangelising. Sadly, this is one way the devil disseminates his devices inside the Christian community. The book written by this author would do a lot to put people off doing evangelism e.g. he suggests we shouldn’t go to people we don’t know. How else will the world be evangelised? See Romans 10:14-15 for a Biblical answer to this idea. Furthermore, in Mark 16:15 Jesus commanded us to go into “all” the world. We will never reach “all” people in this world unless we go to strangers as well as our friends and family.

relating to it face to face, will make it easier to share the gospel. c. It would be desirable to have everyone in the community know someone who follows Jesus. There are errors here and each is a device of the enemy: a. Don’t go to strangers with the gospel like I did. You’ll fail too and you’ll feel rejected. b. If you present the gospel, and the person listening doesn’t convert, you have failed. c. We must gain the favour of non-Christians before we can share the gospel with them. d. If you don’t like doing evangelism with people you don’t know, that’s okay. Of course we’ll win favour with non-Christians by doing good works for them. We’ll be appealing to their flesh which has an insatiable appetite. They’ll love us. Why? Because we are doing “nice” things for them, not confronting them with the fact they are lost sinners in need of a Saviour. But in only doing good works, we are avoiding the “bit” of Christianity which is most likely to offend and confront - the gospel message.50 We are avoiding the “bit” in Christianity which is the priority of the Church - the evangelisation of the world. I discuss this priority in detail in Chapter Seven. The ideal is to serve the community and proclaim and spread the gospel as we do so, whether we feel like it or not. So how should we summarise our response to this device? Evangelism is not to be equated with the winning of souls. It’s an unbiblical idea which sets us up for failure and it inhibits our efforts to evangelise the world.

Defining evangelism as the winning of souls encourages Christians into becoming high pressure

50 In chaper five I argue that this ‘bit’ (i.e. gospel proclamation) is actually our priority.

sales people and bullies...

When evangelism equals soul winning, Christians must see a soul won in order to say they have succeeded. But this can quickly move us from “persuading men,”51 which is biblical, towards bullying and coercing them into a decision, which is not. The thought of going to neighbours, friends and strangers, knowing that we must win their souls in order to say we have succeeded in evangelism, is abhorrent to most of us. The pressure to manipulate becomes immense. Feeling this pressure, and not wanting to succumb to it, many of us don’t even attempt evangelism. The pressure also knocks out Christians who have already mobilised. When they return home after coercing nonChristians to convert, they soon feel ashamed of their behaviour and convicted by the Holy Spirit of their error. Embarrassed, they give up proclaiming the gospel.

Defining evangelism as the winning of souls causes Christians to water down the message of the gospel...

If those proclaiming can’t ‘win a soul’ by proclaiming the full gospel, and they don’t want to bully non-Christians into a decision, the only other way to get a decision is to ‘dumb down’ the gospel message, stripping it of its vital content. Urging us not to water down the gospel, Dr John Stott writes: “If we do [proclaim the full gospel] we shall undoubtedly suffer for it, for the authentic gospel has never been popular. It humbles the sinner too much. And when we are called to suffer for the gospel we are tempted to trim it, to eliminate those elements which give offence and cause opposition, to mute the notes which jar on sensitive, modern ears. But we must resist the temptation. For, above all, we are called to guard the gospel, keeping it pure whatever the cost and preserving it against every corruption. Guard it faithfully. Spread it 51 In 2 Corinthians 5:11 the Bible urges us to persuade non-Christians to convert to Christ. “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.”

actively. Suffer for it bravely. This is our threefold duty.”52 Of course, if we can make Christianity easy to accept, more people will likely convert, and the greater will be our apparent success if we define evangelism as the winning of souls. Picture the following encounter. Christian: “ Hey, do you want to be forgiven and go to heaven when you die?” Non-Christian: “Sure, why not. Who wouldn’t?” Christian: “ Just say this prayer after me. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you that you forgive us and for inviting us to go to heaven. Amen.” Non-Christian: “ Dear Lord Jesus, thank you that you forgive us and for inviting us to go to heaven. Amen.” Christian: “Praise God, you’re a Christian!” Those who lower the bar like this soon feel pressure from two directions. On the one hand, they feel driven to ‘win souls’ by the pastor or leader and from Christian literature. But on the other, they feel convicted by the Holy Spirit for watering down the gospel message and not telling the whole truth. The combined pressures become too much, and they give up proclaiming the gospel.

Defining evangelism as the winning of souls can lead to disappointing results...

Imagine seeing ten people ‘saved’ through being bullied or deceived into a decision, and the next day you call these people to invite them to church or a Bible study or even a meal, and not one says “yes.” This leads to discouragement which, in turn, causes Christians to drop out of evangelism. When non-Christians are coerced into making decisions before they are genuinely ready, or when they respond to a watered-down gospel message, they have not been converted. 52 Dr John R.W. Stott. Guard The Gospel. The Message Of 2 Timothy. Inter Varsity Press, 1973, p.47

Even worse, those who have responded to a watered-down presentation are inoculated against the real gospel. When someone attempts to reach them later in life with the truth, they respond, “Oh, I have already heard all that stuff about Jesus. It doesn’t work. I’ve tried it. No thanks.”

Defining evangelism as the winning of souls can cause some leaders to abandon evangelism…

Because of the devil’s devices, many pastors and leaders worldwide now believe in error that evangelism equals the winning of souls, and subtly and innocently communicate this to their members. They say things like: “Church, evangelism is the main thing! We need to get out there and win our lost neighbours. Let’s bring them in! Church, get out there and win those souls!” There are, of course, elements of truth here. We do have to evangelise the world; we do want to bring souls into the Kingdom; and we do want lost people in our communities to be saved. We do want to fill our churches with new believers. But such announcements do not make it clear that evangelism is the spread or proclamation of the gospel, irrespective of the result. Such statements unwittingly connect evangelism with the winning of souls. Pastors and leaders would do well to avoid reinforcing the misconception that evangelism is soul winning. How exactly does equating evangelism with the winning of souls cause pastors and leaders to abandon the proclamation of the gospel? It causes them to evaluate evangelistic programmes and tools solely on the basis of their immediate results. They will say things like: “If the gospel is the power of God for salvation, every time the gospel is shared there should be evidence of fruit, surely?” Hence, any evangelism programme or tool which does not lead to an immediate harvest is deemed by these pastors and leaders to “not be of God.” Such thinking shows a grave misunderstanding of Jesus’ 29

teaching on evangelism. For example, the Lord taught the disciples in Mark 4:26-29 to expect a time delay between planting the seed and reaping a harvest.53 In this parable, He specifically taught them that something incredibly powerful happens every time the gospel is preached, but that this might not always be immediately visible to the preacher, i.e. the evangeliser plants the seed, and all God’s mighty, unstoppable power, flowing down from the throne of heaven, is directed to growing it. My own experience and the experience of other evangelists affirm this reality. Some leaders have discarded gospel tools and programmes when they don’t see immediate results from them. Leaders who have defined evangelism as soul winning unknowingly hinder gospel proclamation in three other ways: 1. They have subtly sent a message to all their members that if anyone shares the gospel and does not see immediate results, he or she has failed. 2. They have suggested that their members evaluate gospel proclamation programmes and tools on the basis of their ability to yield immediate fruit. The reality is, no proclamation tool on earth will result in the listener being saved every time the gospel is delivered. 3. They will often tell other pastors and leaders that they received little fruit from proclaiming the gospel. In turn, a bad report spreads through the Christian community that “proclaiming the gospel doesn’t work.” But it doesn’t stop here. When we define evangelism as the winnning of souls, and don’t see souls won immediately into our churches, we are often quick to make something other than evangelising the world the main thing.54 53 A full discussion of Jesus’ teaching on this subject follows in Chapter Thirteen. 54 How can we know that proclaiming and spreading the gospel ought to be the supreme priority of the Christian church ? Please see Chapter Seven.

For example, we turn to things like: • Superb marketing, excellence, and professionalism. • Inviting non-Christians to church. • Transforming communities through good works. • Building relationships with non-Christians • Prayer and fasting. I call the practice of replacing the evangelisation of the world as the priority with something else “priority replacement.” We must utterly reject any attempt to replace the priority with something else. However, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. The truth is, superb marketing is important. Churches desperately need to be excellent and professional in all their activities. Low standards and lack of professionalism have dishonoured the Lord, discouraged the saints and repelled non-Christians. We want to be attractive to non-Christians and to invite them to church. We also need to be penetrating our communities with good works and acts of kindness.55 And of course we should emphasise the need to build relationships with non-Christians, and engage in prayer and fasting. The churches who are doing this successfully are too numerous to name. owever… The error of “priority replacement” is simply that it allows something else to replace the main thing. The biblical balance for every church is to integrate at least the following nine elements: 1. Great marketing, excellence, and professionalism. 2. Inviting non-Christians to church. 3. Transforming communities through good works. 4. Building relationships with non-Christians.

55 I highly recommend Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson’s book The Externally Focused Church. Group Publishing, 2004

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Prayer and fasting. Powerful, deep, exegetical, Biblical preaching of the Word. Worship which glorifies Jesus. Authentic, open, honest relationships between church members. Mobilising 100% of the people in every church to evangelise the world.

Now here’s the point - if we asked Jesus, as hypothetical as it sounds, to make a choice between having His Church boom in 1-8 above but weak in 9 OR having His Church weak in 1-8 but booming in 9, He would choose the latter without question. Why this is so is detailed in Chapter Seven. From the discussion so far in this Chapter, it might seem I am teaching that we ought not to expect fruit from our evangelism efforts. God forbid. We are always to proclaim or spread the gospel with the intention of winning souls, pleading for souls in prayer, interceding as we go, expecting to win souls, believing to win souls, and persuading non-Christians to convert where we feel the Spirit’s leading. However, by definition, evangelism is not to be equated with the winning of souls. Period. Furthermore, we do need to evaluate the effectiveness of the tools we use to proclaim the gospel. If there is no fruit over a sustained period, then our approach may be faulty and we ought to fine tune what we are doing. It could be that the spiritual soil in the community we are sowing is hard and rocky and we need to ‘up’ our efforts to plough it with social action, prayer, holiness, and the like. I talk more about this in Chapter Ten. But here’s the point - if the spiritual soil of the community in which our church is planted is hard and we see little initial fruit for our efforts in evangelism, we are never at liberty to quit 32

evangelising. We don’t quit praying when we don’t see an immediate answer, so why should we quit with evangelism? I have heard some say, “Didn’t Jesus say the fields are white for harvest so shouldn’t we expect to always see immediate fruit?” In reply I would make four points: 1. Yes indeed, the fields are ripe for harvest, but they are not all ripe all the time. That is to say, not all non-Christians out there in the world are “ripe” and ready for harvest. 2. Jesus warned us to expect different soil conditions as we evangelise: there are rocks to remove, weeds to pluck, hard paths to plough, and birds of the air with which to contend (e.g. Matthew 13:1-23). To expect immediate fruit all the time is simply an unbiblical idea. 3. Actually, our chief motive for evangelising is not to win souls but to glorify God. This being so, we can rejoice every time the gospel is proclaimed because, in so doing, Jesus has been glorified, and that’s what really matters. I discuss our motives for evangelising and how evangelising glorifies God more fully in Chapter Twenty Five. 4. What also really matters to Jesus is that we pass the test of being faithful to His priority. Think on this: Jesus could save the world instantly without any of our efforts. So why doesn’t He? He is testing us, to see what’s in our hearts. For example, Deuteronomy 8:2 says: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” In both the Old and New Testaments, the words translated ‘test’ mean “to prove by trial”. Therefore, when God tests His children, the purpose is to prove that our faith is real. David Livingstone is one who passed gloriously ‘the test’ of being faithful to Jesus’ 33

priority. Let me explain.

amous missionary to Africa, David Livingstone – faithful with the priority to the end...

David Livingstone (1813-1873), after many years of faithfully sowing the gospel, saw no fruit. He wrote in his diary: “We are like voices crying in the wilderness; we prepare the way for a glorious future. Future missionaries will be rewarded with conversions for every sermon. We are their pioneers and helpers. Let them not forget the watchmen of the night – us, who worked when all was gloom and no evidence of success in the way of conversion cheered our paths. They will doubtless have more light than we; but we can serve our Master earnestly and proclaim the gospel as they will do.”56 Today, the location where Livingstone sowed the gospel boasts a city of 300,000 people. In a recent crusade held by Reinhard Bonnke, tens of thousands of people were converted. Did Reinhard Bonnke reap a harvest because he was superior to Livingstone and his band of pioneer missionaries? No. Bonnke attributes his great success to the work of Livingstone and other missionaries who preceded his visits and who faithfully sowed the gospel. What lessons can we learn from this? There are two. First, pass God’s test. Be faithful to evangelise. Second, relentlessly proclaim the gospel to everyone everywhere, irrespective of the results. Start training others to do the same. We are not at liberty to ever cry ‘ceasefire’ in our efforts to evangelise the world when fruit for our efforts is sparse. Yet if fruit is sparse, we must also continually seek to improve and sharpen our strategies and tools, and ‘up’ our ‘ploughing’ and ‘watering’. behaviours. I discuss what I mean by these terms in Chapter Eleven. 56 Reinhard Bonnke. Evangelism By Fire. Igniting Your Passion For The Lost. Kingsway Publication, 1996, p.84

EVICE # 4 To have us believe that every activity that brings a non-Christian person closer to the point of conversion is “evangelism”...

The idea, when one thinks about it, that “every activity which brings a non-Christian closer to the point of conversion is evangelism” sounds so right but it is actually another device. Many Christian behaviours have the potential to draw a nonChristian closer to the point of conversion: prayer, fasting, intercession, handing out food parcels, acts of mercy and charity, visiting those in prison, ministering to the sick, counselling, modelling generosity, living a Christian life of integrity and love, anointed worship, dance, drama and the arts, befriending a nonbeliever, special outreach services, giving a powerful testimony, being an awesome example at work and play, serving sacrificially, caring, being joyful, and so on. I call these behaviours VEOCLs (Vital Expressions of Christian Love). They are also things we are commanded to do, and each is a critical aspect of our walk. We are being obedient when, for example, we visit someone in prison. However, are any of these behaviours, in and of themselves, to be equated with ‘evangelism’? No, they are not. Someone even said to me, “Giving the gospel is only one of many ways of evangelising.” Such an idea plays on human nature. How so? As I have already said, if proclaiming the gospel is just one of many ways of evangelising, most people will quickly gravitate towards the nice, easy, soft, no-risk-of-rejection, pleasant ways of doing it. For example, when we give out a food parcel, the recipient is highly likely to like us and praise what we are doing. We will be admired, respected, and thanked. This will make us feel very good about ourselves. We all like to feel good about ourselves. When 35

giving out a food parcel, there is virtually no risk of rejection. With personal evangelism, on the other hand, there is risk, danger, and the possibility of rejection and humiliation. Our pride and reputation are at stake. We might even be surreptitiously mocked by other Christians for doing evangelism. With these choices at hand, what do you think most people would naturally choose? The devil knows all this, and he knows that most Christians want to do evangelism, so he invests heavily in propagating the idea that every Christian activity that brings a non-Christian closer to the point of conversion is to be equated with evangelism. racing the possible origin of this error… Apart from the devil sowing ‘devices’ like this into the Church, where else did we first get the idea that any activity which brings a non-Christian closer to the point of conversion is evangelism? I can only speculate. It was Engel57 who first developed a scale to illustrate how non-Christians progress towards conversion. The upside of Engel’s scale is that it showed perfectly how drawing a non-Christian to Christ is a process. He made it clear that God worked through various influences to draw people closer to Christ. However, over time, like Chinese whispers, the original and biblically accurate version of Engel’s message has been twisted by the devil. Now, many Christians believe the wrong idea that any activity which draws a non-Christian a little closer to the point of conversion is evangelism. Engel never intended to convey this misunderstanding. In summary, every behaviour which brings a non-Christian person closer to the point of conversion is a good thing, but only one activity is evangelism.

57 Paul Hazelden. The Modified Engel Scale. Working With God In Evangelism. http://www.hazelden.org.uk/ pt02/art_pt068_modified_engel_pt1.htm

o have us believe that we are evangelising when we do good works...

Dr John Stott writes: “…[Many in the church want to] escape from the call to evangelise by plunging into good works of healing, education and social reform. These are right and necessary. Yet the final and universal commission of Christ, recorded at the end of the gospels, was neither to heal the sick (as it had been when He sent out the twelve and the seventy), nor to reform society, but to preach the gospel. What then is the place of social action? And what is its relation to evangelism? Social action is not to be equated with evangelism, nor is it a constituent part of evangelism, nor is it primarily a means to evangelism. Like evangelism, social action must stand on its own feet and in its own right: both are the services of love, a part of the diakonia58 of Christ and of Christians, as He calls them to follow in His footsteps. Nevertheless, although they must not be identified with one another, they should not be isolated from one another either. The two walk together hand in hand, neither pretending to be the other, nor using the other as its cloak or prop. The Church then is committed to preaching the gospel to the world.”59 Dr Stott is not the only respected theologian who urges us to stop equating good works with evangelism. I have already noted “Affirmation 18” from the book This We Believe. Theologians there emphatically denied “…that acts of mercy and charity to our neighbours constitute evangelism apart from the proclamation of the gospel.”60 It appears this device has been around for a long time. Back in 58 Diakonia is a term derived from Greek and has different meanings. For example, sometimes it refers to helping any person in need. At other times, it means to serve at tables. At other times, it refers to the distribution of financial resources. 59 Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel And The World. IVP, 1997, p.34 60 Dr Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.248

1966 it was Dr Billy Graham who said: “There has been a change in understanding of the nature and mission of the Church, from ‘the Church has a mission’ to ‘the Church is mission.’ There has been a change of emphasis, from the spiritual nature of the Church task to one of secular reformation. This ‘new evangelism’ leads many to reject the idea of conversion in its historical biblical meaning, and substitutes education and social reform for the work of the Holy Spirit in converting and changing men.”61 What Graham is saying is that we have dropped evangelism, and replaced it with social action. He is asking “How does giving out a food parcel communicate the essential message of salvation?”62 Answer? It doesn’t. Giving out a food parcel is a work of the gospel and it communicates one vital and indispensable aspect of the love and compassion of Jesus, but it doesn’t communicate the words of the gospel message.63 Why not put a gospel booklet in with every food parcel? The ideal biblical balance is to combine prayer, social reform, and evangelism. To establish this balance is to advance rapidly towards victory in the battle for souls. And here’s the thing - if we equate evangelism with social action then all the non-Christian government and nongovernment agencies which feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and abound with good works (the Red Cross, Oxfam, the United Nations, etc) would be evangelising. But are they really? You know the answer. missionary speaks from first hand experience… Dr K.P. Yohannan, himself an Indian, is a noted missionary to Asia. In his famous book “Revolution in World Missions” he argues that our neglect of evangelism in missions’ work has

61 http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/berlinaddress.htm 62 In Chapter Five I define the content of the gospel. 63 In Chapter Five I differentiate between three vital aspects of the gospel: works, effects, and words. Giving out a food parcel is a work of the gospel, but it does not communicate the words of the gospel.

devastated the Church in poor nations. He wrote the following after working directly with the poor in India, exhorting us to get back to evangelism. Yohannan is not a guy who has been to India on a two week mission and come home. He has been a missionary for many decades. We dare not make light of his advice. “The lesson from the mission field is that meeting physical needs alone does not get people to follow God. Whether hungry or full, rich or poor, human beings remain in rebellion against God without the power of the gospel. Unless we return to the biblical balance – to the gospel of Jesus Christ as He proclaimed it – we’ll never be able to put the accent where it rightly belongs in the outreach mission of the Church. Jesus was compassionate to human beings as total persons. He did all He could to help them, but He never forgot the main purpose of His earthly mission: to reconcile men to God, to die for sinners and redeem their souls from hell. Jesus cared for the spiritual side of a person first and then the body. I am not trying to minimise the social and material needs of the Asian nations, but it is important to emphasise that Asia’s basic problem is a spiritual one. When the Western media focus almost entirely on the problems of hunger, for example, showing all these pictures of starving children on TV, it is difficult for Americans not to get the false impression that hunger is the biggest problem. But what causes the hunger? Asian Christians know these horrible conditions are only symptoms of the real problem – spiritual bondage to satanic philosophies. Despite all these social programmes, the problems of hunger, population explosion and poverty continue to grow. The real culprit is not a person, lack of natural resources or a system of government. It is spiritual darkness. It thwarts every effort to make progress. It dooms our people to misery – both in 39

this world and the world to come. The single most important social reform that can be brought to Asia is the gospel of Jesus Christ.”64 By ‘the gospel,’ he means ‘the words of the gospel.’ He means evangelism.

ummary

• The chief device of the devil to stop evangelism is to change its definition. • To evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel. This is the Biblical definition. • This definition was derived from the conclusions reached by leading theologians and church leaders who studied the word at two international conferences: 1) Lausanne, 1974 (To evangelise is to spread the gospel) 2) This We Believe, 2000 (To evangelise is to proclaim the gospel). • Only a fool would reject their conclusions. • Although the winning of souls is a desired outcome of evangelism, evangelism is not to be defined as the winning of souls. Defining it as such will undermine our efforts to evangelise the world. • Many Christians have wrongly equated evangelism with any behaviour which draws non-Christians closer to the point of conversion. • Doing good works, in and of themselves, are not to be equated with evangelism. • Jesus could save the world instantly without any of our efforts. So why doesn’t He? He is testing us, to see what’s in our hearts (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). Let’s pass the test. Let’s 64 Dr K.P. Yohannan. Revolution In World Missions. GFA books, 2004, pp.123-129

• •

•

be faithful to His priority, which is the evangelisation of the world. Our chief motive for evangelising the world is not to win souls but to glorify God. When we define evangelism unbiblically, there are at least five big losers: Christians, the lost, Jesus, the Church, and society. CTION POINT: You might be saying at this point, “How can I help?” Here are some things you can do. Help others come to an awareness of the serious issues raised in this Chapter. Email this to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy of this Chapter, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite.com. hese are the first five devices to confuse our understanding of the word evangelism. Unfortunately there are five more in the next Chapter which are just as subtle, toxic, and deadly. Stay with me as we seek the truth about evangelism and the gospel for the glory of God...

A T

Real Life Story God I Am So Sorry For Upsetting You From: Sue Smith To: seeyouatthetop@xtra.co.nz Subject: Response from Radio Rhema Interview… Dear Julian, Hello, I’m Sue and I recently heard you talk about evangelism on the Rhema Radio station and it really helped me out. I’m 15 years old and I used to live in Auckland and attended PRIMAL youth groups and moved to Rotorua. At school I would always tell people about God and bring them to youth group. It was really hard because they didn’t become Christian right away but I didn’t give up. Sometimes I thought I was a failure and that I upset God because even though I have proclaimed the gospel to many people, they didn’t actually become a proper Christian and I have felt useless. But when you said that evangelism is not about winning souls, it really encouraged me. 42

I wanted to write to you because ever since I was little I really enjoyed telling people about God and I was never embarrassed, so when I grew up I wanted to study psychology and be an evangelist. I would really appreciate it if you could tell me how to become an evangelist and… like… how to get there… because in about 3 years I will be graduating from high school and will need to pursue a dream. My ultimate dream/ goal is to please God and discover my spiritual gift because I’m not really smart and I worry about getting into university because I am really bad at math.  Anyways please email me back with some details and info on how I could become an evangelist. That’s the only thing I really want in my life. Thank you. Yours truly Sue

Julian’s comments.

Dear Sue’s email is the tip of the iceberg. It’s my belief that she represents millions of believers who have been put off doing evangelism because they think that evangelism is to be equated with the winning of souls. Furthermore, Sue is not yet aware that the chief motive for doing evangelism is to glorify God, not to win souls. These two truths, that evangelism is not the winning of souls, and that the chief motive of evangelism is to glorify God, are truly liberating. Once fully grasped, walking in these two truths will set people free from all kinds of devil inspired burdens and guilt. Pastors and leaders, please take note. If you don’t teach your people the truths in this Mini Series, you’ll be unwittingly inhibiting your people from doing evangelism. There will be people just like Sue in your church - many people. 43

Chapter Four

EVANGELISM REDEFINED? SIX SUBTLE YET DEVASTATING REDEFINITIONS OF â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;EVANGELISM

Evangelism Redefined? Six Subtle Yet Devastating Redefinitions of ‘Evangelism’

EVICE # 6 To blur the distinction in the minds of Christians between normal and non-normal evangelism…

This one is a subtle device. Let me explain. Sometimes God has revealed Himself to people outside of any human contact, supernaturally and mystically infusing them with the gospel message, and they have been genuinely saved. All Christian scholars would agree God can use many different means to draw people to Himself: a dream, a vision, a sunset, a number plate, a flower, a crisis, a testimony, a certain word written with chalk on the footpath. Recently I heard a Christian talking about a woman in a Muslim country who was saved by Jesus when He appeared at the end of her bed one night and gave her the gospel.1 “She was saved!” said the speaker. “God can save people when and how He likes. After all, doesn’t the Bible say ‘He is the Lord of the harvest?’” The inference given is that we don’t have to do evangelism personally. God will do it for us. The hallmark of the devil is that he mixes truth with error so that we will not detect the error. It’s true that Jesus is the Lord of the harvest and it’s true that He saves 1 Steve Beard. Visions Of The Living Christ. Good News Magazine, 1996, http://www.christianword.org/ revival/visions.htm

people when and how He likes. All true. But it’s not true that these facts relieve us of our personal responsibility to evangelise. The salvation of the Muslim woman is an example of “nonnormal” evangelism and we ought to rejoice in such works of grace. But the Christian who described it has, by subtle inference, unwittingly undermined God’s will to evangelise the world. We are commanded to be busy about the normal: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15). The realm of the exception belongs to God alone. We would be foolish to base our evangelism strategies for reaching the lost on unusual experiences and stories rather than on the clear teaching of the New Testament. For example, Jesus did not say “Go into the world and pray for non-Christians to watch a sunset,” or “Go into the world and encourage non-Christians to lie on their beds and wait for a vision from Me” or “Go into the world pray for the lost that they might be saved. Don’t worry about going to them with the gospel.” Christians who confuse normal, routine evangelism with non-normal, exceptional evangelism, are unwittingly aligning themselves with an enemy who wants to hinder our efforts to evangelise the world.

EVICE # 7 To manipulate Christians into viewing the task of evangelising the world as a team event where only one or two members in the team actually evangelise…

This is another subtle attack on our forces in the war for souls. Working as a team is a Biblical concept and no right thinking person would deny that to win the world we are going to have to work as a team. However, if we communicate to the people in our church that “evangelism is a team event and everyone in the church is playing their part,” this can subtly undermine 3

evangelism. How? Since everyone in the church is part of “the team,” and the team is winning souls, some who are not doing evangelism have been subtly led to believe they are playing their part in the evangelisation of the world by supporting someone else in the team who is actually doing evangelism i.e. with this device, they come in error to believe that as long as they are supporting someone who is doing evangelism, they are off the hook, relieved of their duty to do it personally. It is more accurate to say the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ is a team event2 rather than the evangelisation of the world is a team event. Let me explain the difference. A church elder once said: “I accept that evangelism is not a process. The Great Commission is the process and within that process we must proclaim the gospel. In my church, however, there are a lot of people who would struggle to verbalise the gospel, through lack of confidence, being inarticulate, fearful or whatever. But they really want to see people won to Christ. So we operate as a unit. People bring their friends to church and I preach a loving and complete gospel. Others take out food parcels or run outreach events and I (or one of our leaders) visit the people and give them the gospel. So in our church we work ‘the process.’ Everyone does what they are able, and everyone celebrates when someone comes to Christ. For us, the mandate to go into the world and proclaim the gospel is fulfilled by working together. Where in the Bible does it say the mandate was given to every individual separately? I believe it was given to the Church as a whole and can be worked that way.”3 This argument sounds reasonable but it’s not Biblical. As is usually the case with the enemy’s devices, truth and error are mixed. The truth is that people within churches do and should 2

I discuss this in detail in Chapter Eleven.

The elder was from a Baptist church in New Zealand.

work as a team to draw people to Christ (the process), with each person’s gifting, talents and resources contributing. The concept of working as a team to evangelise the world is thoroughly Biblical and no right thinking person would argue otherwise. But defining “the evangelisation of the world as a team event where only one or two members of the team do evangelism” is not Biblical. For example, Jesus did not say “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel (p.s) I am only meaning those with the gift.” When Jesus sent out the 72 in Luke Chapter 10, He did not say “Right, you 10 stay here in Jerusalem and prepare food. You 15 go and get jobs to finance the mission. You 20 stay back and do maintenance work on the buildings at the base and make the gardens look nice. You 20 stay here at the base and pray. You 7 go out to the villages around here and evangelise.” No. When Jesus sent out the 72 He sent all of them out to evangelise. And since we are all His disciples today, He sends all of us as well. I discuss the universality of the command in Chapter Eight of the series.4 Don’t be satisfied with seeing only one or two members of your church mobilised for evangelism. Heaven’s Plan A is to relentlessly attempt to mobilise 100% of the people in every church to be personally active. This is how it was in the Early Church and to this level of obedience we must return. Any plan or strategy which attempts anything less than the 4 In Chapter Eight, I point out that the extent and level of proclamation will vary considerably between church members in a typical church. Some will be avid, natural proclaimers because of supernatural gifting. The avid proclaimers are usually people with the Ephesians 4:11-12 gift of evangelism. Some members of church don’t have ‘the gift’ of evangelism, but they love Jesus and are being obedient to His command to evangelise. Others in the Church, because of physical or mental disabilities, or age, may never get beyond spreading the gospel through tracts or www.Biblein11.cards. Some may be bed ridden and unable to either proclaim or spread the gospel. Their valuable contribution to the evangelisation of the world may be to pray for those who are evangelising or finance the work. The key point is that we should all take evangelism seriously and that those who can evangelise should.

mobilisation of everyone will always be something other than God’s Plan A. To be blunt, it is outright compromise. But defining “the evangelisation of the world as a team event where only one or two members of the team do evangelism” is not only unBiblical, it can also lead to deception. For example, those in the team who are not spreading or proclaiming the gospel may think they are evangelising because they are playing a small part in the Church’s overall scheme to evangelise the world. Take the Alpha course for example. Through an Alpha course, the gospel is proclaimed “bit by bit” over ten weeks so evangelism is taking place. However, those in a local church administering the course could not say they are personally evangelising because it is Nicky Gumbel via a DVD who is proclaiming the gospel. et’s be clear about this.... Having people believe that they are in some way evangelising by making cups of tea at Alpha for someone who is doing the evangelism (i.e. Nicky Gumbel) is a terrific result for the enemy. Why? Because with the idea that “the evangelisation of the world is a team event where only one or two members actually evangelise” not only will fewer non-Christians get to hear or read the gospel but fewer Christians will reap the benefits of maturing and growing in their walk with Jesus which comes through being personally active in evangelism. This is not to say the contribution of anyone supporting evangelism has no merit. God forbid. We desperately need people to support the evangelisation of the world through finance, prayer, good works and a host of other behaviours. The Biblical mandate is to both support the evangelisation of the world and do evangelism personally.

How should we summarise our discussion about this device? The idea that “the evangelisation of the world is a team event where only one or two members actually evangelise” is not a Biblical one. It’s heresy. Each of us needs to honestly ask the Lord how He would like us to be involved, whether by giving out gospel booklets or www. Biblein11.com cards, or by verbalising the gospel with friends, family, neighbours, work-mates, fellow students or strangers.5 With the revolutionary tools God has given us, and the power of the internet and technology, there is absolutely no reason now why virtually anyone could not make evangelising a habit for life.6

EVICE # 8 To blur the distinction between “sharing your faith” and proclaiming the gospel…

There are many ways we can “share our faith.” We can testify to God’s work in our lives, answer questions about the faith, point people towards God by serving them, invite people to events at church, live lives of integrity and love, and so on. The enemy has deceived many Christians into believing that if they share their faith in any of these ways they are evangelising. Granted, the behaviours I have just mentioned might include sharing the gospel (that is, if the gospel is interweaved as we go about doing these things). But Biblically, no evangelism has taken place unless the gospel has been proclaimed or spread. One major denomination recently defined evangelism for its members. One of its resolutions read as follows: “[We resolve]… that every lay person, bishop, priest and deacon of our church exercises personal evangelism by talking intentionally about 5 Eventually all of us need to go to strangers if we want to evangelise the whole earth, because there are just too few Christians and too many non-Christians. If we all restrict our evangelism to people we know, the Great Commission will falter. 6

To know what these tools and strategies are, please write to me: julian@esisite.com

what God is doing in our lives and what our church is doing, and by inviting neighbours, family and friends to worship with us.” Intentionally testifying about what God is doing in our lives and about what our church is doing does not constitute evangelism. The only way ‘sharing one’s faith’ is evangelism, is when we are doing evangelism!

EVICE # 9 Have us misinterpret Matthew 24:14…

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). In this verse of Scripture the word ‘nations’ comes from the Greek word ethnos. This word means ‘people groups.’ The enemy has caused some Christians to interpret this Scripture to mean that all we have to do before Jesus returns is preach the gospel to every people group on earth and when an indigenous church is established in each group, our mission is complete. i.e. we don’t have to go on to proclaim the gospel to every person in every people group. hat are we to make of this interpretation? To unravel this misunderstanding, I need to define three important terms: the reach task, the evangelism task, and the discipleship task.

1. The Reach task: We are to make contact with every people group7 on earth and communicate the gospel to them. When some people are saved in the group, sufficient numbers to start an indigenous church, we can say that people group has been reached. Our first priority is to ‘reach’ every people group in the world like this i.e. to reach every people group with the gospel and start a church in each group.

7 No matter how we define “people group,” www.joshuaproject.net shows how many people groups we have yet to reach and how far we are from fulfilling the Great Commission.

2. The Evangelism task: When every person in every people group has heard and understood the gospel, our world will have been evangelised. The evangelisation of the world is our second priority. Pivotal to (1) and (2) is evangelism. 3. The Discipleship task: Matthew 28:19 says “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” Those who are saved in each people group must be discipled. And why are we commanded to make disciples? So we have more disciples burning with passion and zeal to help complete the Reach and Evangelism tasks.

But what is the curriculum of most discipleship programs in most churches today? Is it not to teach people a little bit of everything, with nothing dominating? i.e a Spiritual smorgasbord? Sadly, this is true. Often the centre piece of Jesus’ discipleship curriculum that of teaching disciples how to evangelise the world - is missing. Sadly, this is true too. Please listen to me here - any discipleship program which does not major on teaching disciples how to evangelise the world, and maintain the momentum, is not a truly New Testament discipleship program. Why? Because it’s missing the whole point of why we are making disciples. And, dare I ask the question again, what’s the point? So that we have more disciples to evangelise the world8. That is to say, disciples who are are willing, able, and zealous to complete the Reach and Evangelism tasks. This is the point! If you are a church leader reading this, I urge you to do a serious audit of your discipleship program to see if it’s truly Biblical. If it’s not, please, make the changes immediately and permanently. Please notice that the epicentre of (1), (2), and (3) is proclaiming or spreading the gospel. At the risk of repeating myself, this is why mobilising 100% of the people in our churches for evangelism ought to be the priority of every church, the centre-piece of every true and Biblical discipleship program. Sadly, I can’t name a church in the West where the evangelisation 8

How we know this is discussed in Chapter Seven of the series.

of the earth is the central feature. The vast majority have not even started to attempt 100% mobilisation. This is because their discipleship programs are horribly deficient. That is to say, those writing the discipleship curriculum have lost sight of the Mission of the Church. They have forgotten why they are making disciples, or maybe they have never known the Biblical reason. Take New Zealand as an example of a country made up of many people groups. We have been ‘reached’ because at least one church has been established within all the people groups who make up this country. Therefore, in a Biblical sense the Reach task is complete, but the Evangelism task has all but stopped. We have failed to go and evangelise everyone in every people group in our nation. ho says every individual in every people group must hear and understand the gospel? Internationally renowned Bible teacher and pastor Dr John Piper writes: “Most mission leaders define a people group as ‘reached’ when there is an indigenous church able to evangelise the group. This is because the New Testament clearly teaches that a people group must continue to be evangelised once the Reach task is complete.”9 The 229 signatories to The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration, concur: “We affirm that the Church is commanded by God and is therefore under divine obligation to preach the gospel to every living person (Luke 24:47; Matthew 28:18-19).”10 Former Vice President of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Dr Leighton Ford writes: “Our goal is nothing less than the penetration of the whole world [with the gospel]… [but] we are not promised that the whole world will believe. The

Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad. The Supremacy of God in Missions. Baker books, 2003, p.194

10 R avi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.245

evangelisation of the world does not mean all men will respond, but that all men will be given the opportunity to respond as they are confronted with [the gospel of] Christ.”11

EVICE # 10 Mess up our definition of the word “witnessing”...

Acts 1:8 says “You shall be my witnesses.” Many Christians have come to think that “witnessing” simply means letting others know they are believers. They have come to believe in error that letting people know they are believers is to engage in evangelism. They might, for example: • Not mow their lawns on Sunday. • Not drink alcohol. • Not smoke. • Dress up on Sunday with a Bible under their arm. • Not dance. • Display a fish on their letterbox. • Ride a fish shaped bicycle. • Have a bumper sticker saying “Jesus loves you.” • Read a big Bible in a public place. • Use expressions like “Praise the Lord” or “God bless you” in conversation. • Smile permanently. Some of these behaviours could easily be exhibited by nonChristians. If so, would they then be ‘witnessing’ for Jesus? You know the answer. It is not difficult to see how this thinking would undermine our mission to evangelise the world. Christians who think they are evangelising by doing these things will not likely go on to proclaim or spread the gospel. Others think that when they show a Christ-like unifying love 11 C ited in: Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.44

for one another, it will be proof of their authenticity as followers of Jesus and that somehow this ‘proof’ constitutes engaging in evangelism. The trouble with this thought is that non-Christian sports clubs and hobby groups can demonstrate unifying love for one another. What makes their demonstration of love any different from ours? How would anyone looking on as we love one another know why they must be saved? How Jesus can save them? What they must do to be saved? The cost of being a disciple? The answer is they will never know. Not a show. These are the four crucial questions the gospel asks and answers. When Jesus said in John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” He was not meaning that this is all He wanted the non-Christian world to know about us! i.e. that we love each other and because we love each other, we are His disciples. God forbid! Loving one another is only step one in a series of steps. Step two is evangelising everyone who is watching us love one another. Many Christians have in error thought that all we need to do is focus on loving one another and that when we do this, somehow (miraculously) non-Christians will pour into our churches. What folly! When Jesus announced what He said in John 13:35, He was taking it for granted that His disciples would also be out and about in the world proclaiming the gospel, doing the priority. So what is ‘witnessing.’ The English word ‘witness’ comes from the Greek word martueo. Dr Michael Green explains its meaning: “It is primarily a legal term, and was frequently used in Greek to denote a witness to facts and events on one hand, and truths vouched for on the other.”12 What does this mean? If we are ‘witnessing for Christ’ we’ll be like a witness in a courtroom, telling the judge about the facts of 12 Dr Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1970, p.83

Jesus’ life e.g. His coming was prophesied; He was born of a virgin; He was fully man and fully God; He worked many miracles; He was crucified; He rose again etc. After we have given the facts, we’ll explain the meaning behind the facts e.g. He rose from the dead to prove He was God and to show that through Him we can be forgiven and beat death. After explaining the meaning of the facts, we’ll then vouch for Him i.e. we’ll give our testimony to explain the difference He has made in our life. There are many places where the root word ‘witness’ occurs in the New Testament. (e.g. Luke 24:48 “You are witnesses of these things”). We see this Biblical understanding of the concept of ‘witnessing’ lived out in the book of Acts. After Jesus announced in Acts 1:8 “you shall be my witnesses” the rest of the book literally overflows with accounts of believers proclaiming the gospel. Nowhere in this book is ‘witnessing’ equated with anything other than ‘proclaiming the gospel.’ So where did the idea come from that ‘witnessing’ means all these other things that I listed earlier? You know the answer - the enemy has sown this device into the Church. From this discussion I want you to see that ‘witnessing is much more than letting people know we are church-goers and exhibiting proofs. These activities are better categorised as ‘ploughing’ and ‘watering’ (see Chapter Eleven) but they are not to be equated with ‘witnessing. What I want us to grasp here is that ‘witnessing’ and ‘evangelising’ are the same thing. If we let people know we are believers in some way, as I have described in this Chapter, but do not proclaim the gospel or spread the gospel as we do so, we have not engaged in any evangelism.

ummary

• N on-normal evangelism is seeing people come to Christ through things like visions and dreams. Normal evangelism is going into the world to either proclaim or spread the gospel. Jesus commanded us to be about the normal. • We need to work as a team to evangelise the world. • It has always been the plan of Jesus to have 100% of the team members engage personally in evangelism. No one on the team is exempt. • Attempting to mobilise anything less than 100% of the people in our church for evangelism is a compromise. • A person can share their faith and yet not be evangelising. If faith sharing is to be called evangelism, the gospel must be proclaimed or spread as part of the sharing of faith. • Jesus’ plan is to have us go to every people group in the world with the gospel and to establish an indiginous church in each people group. This is the Reach task of the Church. • When the Reach task is accomplished for a people group, that group can be said to have been ‘reached.’ • After a people group has been reached we are to ensure every other person in that people group hears and understands the gospel. This is the ‘Evangelism’ task of the Church. • The focus of all true Biblical discipleship programmes ought to be to equip people to complete the Reach and Evangelism tasks. This is why Jesus places such a great emphasis on ‘making disciples.’ He wants more disciples to complete the Reach and Evangelism tasks. The more disciples we have, the faster the job will be completed. • When the job is done, one of the major conditions for the return of Christ will have been completed. • The Mission of the Church is a combination of The Reach 14

• •

•

• •

•

task and The Evangelism Task. When all people groups have been reached and evangelised, the Great Commission can be said to have been completed. Most people groups in most Western countries have been reached, but the evangelism task has all but stopped. Thus the Great Commission has stalled in the West. This is because the discipleship programs in most churches in the West are deficient. They don’t major on personal evangelism. The reason they are deficient is that the leaders in these churches are not stopping to ask a crucial question: “Why are we discipling people?” The Biblical answer is “To evangelise the world for the glory of God.” To “witness” is to tell someone about the facts of the life of Jesus: his birth, life, death, and resurrection and then to relay the salvation significance of those facts e.g. When Jesus died on the cross He was taking the punishment we deserve for our sin and opening the way for forgiveness etc. Therefore ‘Witnessing’ and ‘evangelism’ are essentially the same thing. CTION POINT: You maybe asking “How can I help others come to an awareness of the serious issues raised in this book?” Email this Chapter to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite.com. CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them.

A A

In this Chapter we have discussed some more of the devices of the enemy. These devices aim to confuse our understanding of ‘evangelism.’ Ultimately, the goal of all of these devices is to put us off personally engaging in the task of evangelising the world. If to evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel, then what’s ‘the gospel’ ? In the next Chapter I answer this crucial question. Who can forget the sobering warning of Paul in Galatians 1:8? “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.” To define ‘the gospel’ I undertook extensive research and visited Bible colleges and university libraries over a period of many years.  I took what I was studying to prayer. Many scholars helped me in my work, and, in the next Chapter, I will share with you a summary of the precious truths I found.

Real Life Story Out From Deception And Into Obedience

Hi, I am is a 41-year-old, middle-class, professional Australian woman who has been a Christian for most of my life. During my adult years I had no problem talking to people about God, but giving the gospel was another matter. I want to share my journey with you â&#x20AC;&#x201C; discovering what evangelism is and realising I could actually do it. In December I attended an Evangelism Strategies International evangelism course purely out of courtesy. I felt obligated to go because a pastor had invited me, and I had reluctantly said I would try. It was certainly not by choice, nor was it my initial intention to attend as I had three other engagements scheduled for the day of the course. But, as it happened, all three things were subsequently cancelled. Looking back I can see God wanted me there. The speaker was from Evangelism Strategies International and it was a remarkable day. My eyes were opened to what 17

evangelism really is – and I discovered just how blind I had been to the truth. I would like to share a little of my journey in life prior to attending the course, because I think you may identify with me. I moved house numerous times in my early childhood, and one of the few advantages of doing so, was that I learned very quickly how to make conversation with strangers. So I have had no problem talking to people and telling them about the “God things” in my life. The majority of my nonChristian friends and people I worked with all knew I was a Christian. However – and here’s the catch – I would never intentionally share the gospel with anyone. Just the thought of doing so made me feel uncomfortable and awkward. On numerous occasions Luke 9:26 would come to mind: “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words…” However, out of uncertainty and fear, it was more convenient to ignore it. I also turned a blind eye to the command to “preach the gospel,” choosing instead to stick with what I was more comfortable and confident doing – having “God conversations.” For example, I would explain to my non-Christian colleagues how God had helped me with such and such, or intervened in impossible situations. I would report how God had healed an injury through prayer, where the medical profession had had no success, and so on. From talking to other Christians, I knew there were many people who 18

struggled to have these kinds of conversations with non-Christians. Quite frankly, I naively thought I was actually doing a pretty good job for God. Why wasn’t I sharing the gospel? How had I arrived at a place where I had justified to myself that I didn’t need to share the gospel? Well, first I didn’t feel confident about what I should say. I sincerely didn’t want to “let God down,” so I rationalised it was best to leave such things to the experts, people who “knew what they were doing.” In other words, I left it to pastors and evangelists. Secondly, I believed God would use my sharing “God things” to draw people closer to Him, and that, in due course, someone else (definitely not me) would share the gospel with them. I also had many preconceived ideas as to what non-Christians would think of me. I’m sure I am not the only person who has cringed seeing well intentioned Christians shoving the Bible down someone’s throat. I definitely did not want to be labelled as one of those! Besides, I believed non-Christians would be disinterested in hearing me share the gospel. I was sure people would say, “Everyone is entitled to their own views, and so who do you think you are trying to push your views on someone else?” The enemy certainly had me where he wanted me – silent. The evangelism seminar opened my eyes as to how deceived I was. 19

I realised, for the first time, that all these thoughts which prevented me from sharing the gospel had been planted in my mind over many years by the enemy. There must be thousands if not millions of Christians out there deceived into thinking, like I was, that they are doing a pretty good job for Jesus sharing the “God things” in their life with non-Christians, but not actually sharing the gospel. Listening to Julian’s teaching, I quickly realised what had been going on and who was behind the deception. This was a shock and a real eyeopener for me. I had been lulled into a false sense of security. I truly believe the resources developed by Evangelism Strategies International have been created for “such a time as this.” The teaching is revolutionary, and brings such freedom and the peace of God For example, when I found out that I was only responsible for sharing the gospel message with people and that it was not my responsibility to convert them, I felt as though a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I didn’t realise the weight of it until it was gone. I am now passionate about helping other people to be released from this deception about evangelism. I believe awareness is the key to change. At the moment my aim is to try to share the gospel once a week with someone. To help me do this, I schedule sharing the gospel into my diary and have set up an accountability arrangement with a friend.

She and I meet together once a week, then we go out individually and share the gospel. That sounds fine and dandy, doesn’t it? You need to know that at the start of the week, when I think about going out and sharing the gospel, I am encouraged because I know I’m being obedient and that it is the right thing to do. But on the morning of the day I’m scheduled to go out, certain thoughts – the ones which used to stop me – try to rear their ugly heads. “Why am I doing this?” “Can I even remember how to start?” Most often, I feel like I don’t want to go. But God is faithful and He helps me to recognise and demolish the thoughts which come from the enemy trying to put me off (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). I feel He gives me the courage and strength to go ahead and do it. After sharing the gospel I feel elated – the joy which comes from the knowledge that God has been made known to someone and that a seed has been planted which can change their eternal destiny. The Holy Spirit often gives me a powerful sense of His presence. I never cease to be amazed at the closeness that I can feel towards a person with whom I have spent only fifteen minutes sharing the gospel. It is hard to explain, but there is a kind of bond which seems to happen – one which does not happen with small talk. Someone said to me recently that the uneasy feeling I have before I 21

share the gospel will go away with practice and confidence. But I honestly believe I will always have that uneasiness, ensuring I have to rely on God to get me through. This is a good thing, as it means I am not doing it out of my own strength. Since the conference, I am actually regularly sharing the gospel with total strangers of my own volition, and this has become a vital, lifegiving habit. If I can do it, anyone can.

Julian’s comments.

Dianne is so honest about all the devices of the enemy she was carrying which caused her not to do evangelism. Once again, she is proof of the debilitating effects of the devil’s devices. She is also proof of the freeing effects of Biblical truth. But I am not surprised since Jesus said “The Truth shall set you free” (John 8:32). One of the keys to Dianne’s success is being accountable to someone else, and going out with someone else. But even this, the devil can manipulate and twist, turning it into a device. He can cause people to say to themselves “I can’t go today, because I don’t have anyone to go with.” Being accountable to others is crucial. Being dependent upon them is not. Jesus did a lot of evangelism on his own e.g. The Samaritan woman (John 4:1-42) and Nicodemus (John 3:1-21). In actual fact, I have found it best to do evangelism on my own. There are many reasons, not least of which is the fact that when there are two of you, and you were talking to one person, it’s a two on one situation, which can cause the non-Christian to feel threatened and over powered. You want to avoid this kind of situation at all costs.

Chapter Five

CONFUSION BUSTERS: SEVEN THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE GOSPEL MESSAGE

Confusion Busters: Seven Things You Should Know About The Gospel Message

“

For good reason, Christian people love the phrase ‘the gospel.’ Tragically, however, multitudes of Christians fail to grasp the meaning of this phrase”1 Tullian Tchividjian, pastor and author.

agree. There is currently tremendous confusion in the Church about what the phrase ‘the gospel’ means. This confusion is having devastating effects on our efforts to evangelise the world. How so? First, there are many Christians who are confused about what the gospel is, so they say nothing, fearing that if they do say something, they might botch it up. Then there are those who think they know what the gospel is but really they don’t know. This group is unwittingly peddling false gospels. It is therefore in our best interests to define the gospel so we can clean up these two problems. THE FIRST THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. There is a wide and general gospel, and a sharply defined New Testament Gospel. So exactly what is ‘the gospel’? The word ‘Gospel’ means ‘good news.’ In one sense, the whole Bible is ‘the gospel.’ In fact, one version of it is called ‘The Good News Bible.’ When I use the phrase ‘the gospel’ to refer to the whole Bible, I am referring to it in 1

Tullian Tchividjian. Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels. Crossway Books. 2010, p.16

the wide and general sense. However, when Jesus said “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15) He was referring to a very specific message extracted from within the whole Bible - yes, from within the wide and general gospel. He was referring to a very specific selection of the Words from within the whole Bible2. Many authors today are very confused about the difference between the wide and general gospel and the sharply defined New Testament gospel. For example, Mack Stiles writes: “When I have led people to Christ over the year it has usually been because a non-Christian was willing to study the Scriptures with me. Perhaps it was a group of students looking into the gospel of Mark at a camp or conference. It could have been a couple of peole in a coffee shop or just one person during a lunch break. No matter where or with whom, the process is simple: we read the passage and talk about what it means. Over time, in ones and twos, people come to Jesus because they are taught the gospel. Such teachings may not be as exciting as a massive revival, but if every Christian did this with non-Christian friends, it would have far greater reach and authenticity. We don’t teach math or biology. We teach the gospel. It’s important to teach the gospel well because there is so much confusion about it around the world. There are two mistakes we can make about the gospel. We can make it too small or too big. Both mistakes turn on a very small hinge: misunderstands about 2 How do we know this? The Greek word for ‘gospel’ in this verse is εὐαγγέλιον (phonetically ‘yoo-angghel’-ee-on) which means: “the preaching concerning Jesus Christ as having suffered death on the cross to procure eternal salvation for men in the kingdom of God.” It may be more briefly defined as “the glad tidings of salvation through Christ; the proclamation of the grace of God manifested and pledged in Christ; the gospel.” The meaning of Jesus’ birth, death on a cross, resurrection, ascention need to be explained, as do terms like salvation and grace. To explain something clearly requires words. Notice also,the verbs ‘preaching’ and ‘proclamation.’ When one preaches or proclaims, one uses Words. Hence, Mark 16:15 is clearly about the Words of the gospel. There is no mention of signs and wonders, food parcels, prayer, social action, or random acts of kindness in the meaning of εὐαγγέλιον. Other verses in the Bible exhort us to these things, but not Mark 16:15. Mark 16:15 is only and exclusively about words.

implications of the gopsel. These implications flow out of our belief in the gospel message. We make the gospel too small by thinking it only “Get us saved” that it is a sort of fire insurance, without understanding that is has implications for all of life….we make the gospel too big when we say the gospel is everything.”3 Mack is example of an author who is confused about ‘the gospel’ as Jesus used the term in Mark 16:15. Let me explain. When Stiles says he teaches people ‘the gospel’ by studying one or two passages, he’s talking about ‘the gospel’ in the wide and general sense. In other parts of his book, Mack explains what he means by ‘one or two passages’. These are passages which address topics like love, reconcilliation, forgiveness, faith, humility, repentance, meekness, and so on. All these topics, and many more topics, are covered as one reads the whole Bible. As such, he’s talking about ‘the gospel’ in the wide and general sense. When he’s talking about the gospel being ‘everything’ he is also talking about it in the wide and general sense. Now here is the point I want to make - when Jesus said ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation’ He was talking about a very specific message which has been extracted from within the pages of the wide and general gospel. I call this very specific message ‘the sharply defined New Testament gospel’. Another term for this very specific message is “the Kerygma”. I will talk more about this term later in this chapter. For now, I will explain the content of the sharply defined New Testament gospel, or Kerygma. The point I want to make is that this message deliberately and necessarily cuts out a lot of the teaching of the wide and gernal gospel. We could say that it’s the irreducible minimum of the wide 3 J. Mack Stiles. Evangelism. How the Whole Church Speaks Of Jesus. 9 Marks Of Building Healthy Churches. Crossway Books. Wheaton. Illinois. 2014. pp.31-32

and general gospel. THESECOND THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. The sharply defined New Testament gospel has specific and definable content These words, this message, this Kerygma, explains to an unsaved person or group of unsaved people four essential truths about salvation4: 1. Why they must be saved. 2. How Jesus can save them. 3. What they must do to be saved. 4. The cost of being a disciple. This is the content I communicate when I share the gospel. I like to keep it simple, short and sharp, and jargon free. I always try and be as gentle and gracious as I can in the delivery. Let’s say I am talking to someone called Bill. 1. WHY WE MUST BE SAVED. Me: Bill, would you like me to explain what a Christian is, and how you can be sure of going to heaven when you die?5 Bill: Sure, that would be good. Go ahead. Me: There are some things you need to know. First, God and heaven are holy6. Holy just means perfect. Second, you have a body and a soul. At death your body is either buried or cremated, but your soul, the real you, lives on forever either in heaven or hell. There is no third place. Now unfortunately, we’ve got a bit of a problem. The Bible says that if we have broken God’s laws, like lied once, cheated once, hated once, just once, then our souls become imperfect and we can’t enter heaven.

Later in this Chapter, I show how I came to these four points of content.

E.g. John 3:16

E.g. Isaiah 6:3

Can I ask you two questions which will show you what I mean7. Have you ever told a lie in your life? Bill: Yes, of course Me: Me too. I have also told a lie. So what does that make us? Liars, right? If we have told one lie, we are a liar. Have you ever taken anything that is not yours, even something small like a pencil or pen? Or done some personal photocopying in your boss’s time when you didn’t have his permission? Or arrived late to work, or left early, which is stealing time? Bill: Yes. Me: Me too. So what does that make us? Thieves, right? Bill: Yes, that’s right. Me: So by our own confession, you and I are a couple of thieving liars. Me: Now do you think God is going to let thieving liars like us into heaven. If He did, it would no longer be heaven, would it? Bill: True. That’s right. Me: Given that absolutely everyone on the earth is exactly like you and me, and guilty before God for breaking His laws8, it looks like absolutely no one will make it to heaven, true? Bill: True. Me: So it looks like we are all headed for hell. If there was a way to get to heaven, in spite of the seeming impossibility, would you like to know what that way is? Bill: Yes. 2. HOW JESUS CAN SAVE US. Me: Let me explain. When you were born, God opened a book about your life. He does this with everyone. Everytime we break one of God’s laws, he writes it down9. Well you can imagine that 7

E.g. Galatians 3:24

E.g John 3:18

E.g. Ecclesiastes 12:14

as we get older, we have a whole library10 written against us. My library would be much bigger than yours! Bill: Mine would be pretty big too! Me: Ok, that’s the bad news, but here is the good news. Because Jesus was God, He is the only one who ever lived who had a perfect record. If you looked inside the book of His life, you’d find that the pages of his law breaking would be blank. When He died a cruel death on the Cross 2000 years ago, He was taking the punishment which you and I justly deserve for breaking His laws11. Through His death on the Cross Jesus made it possible for us to be forgiven and to have our record with God wiped clean. As best I can, I’ll explain what happens in heaven when you ask Jesus to forgive you. He takes your book, the record of everything you’ve ever done wrong in this life, and He rips out the pages and throws them into the deepest sea so they can never be seen again12. He deliberately forgets what was written on those old pages. He then takes a copy of his perfect record, and puts it inside the cover of your book13. This book, with your name on the spine, Jesus’s perfect record inside, is stored in heaven like a precious library book. The miracle is that this book is not touched again between the point at which you were forgiven and death, even though you are going to break more of God’s laws in that time14. Then when you die, you’ll come up before God at judgement15, and He’ll command the angels to get your book. They will get it and open it and say “This man Bill was perfect!” Jesus, smiling and with arms out-streched, will say “Bill, my beautiful son, welcome into heaven!”16 10 E.g. Revelation 20:11-15 11 E.g. Romans 5:6; Romans 5:8 12 E.g Isaiah 43:25 13 E.g 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:9 14 E.g. Colossians 2:14 15 E.g. Hebrews 9:27 16 E.g. John 8:36

Bill: Wow! Is that true? Me: Yes it is. All the miracles Jesus did in His life, all the prophecies which came true about Him, and especially His rising from the dead, prove that everything He said was true. Bill, can I ask you, how old are you? Bill: 20. Me: Say you asked Jesus to forgive you today, and you lived until you were 100. This means that for 80 years, there would be a book in heaven with your name on the spine, Jesus’ perfect record inside, waiting for you in heaven when you die. It’s amazing. Bill: Wow! That is amazing. Me: Yes it is. 3.WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE SAVED 4.THE COST OF BEING A DISCPLE. Me: There is one more thing you need to know. To be forgiven, and to have Jesus give you His perfect record, you must do two things: turn and surrender. Let me explain what these words mean. ‘Turning’ means being genuinely sorry for breaking God’s Laws and sincerely desiring to turn away from the sinful ways of our past, including the worst of all sins which is not putting Jesus at the centre of your life17. Are you ready to do this? The second thing we must do to be forgiven is surrender. This means making Jesus and His goals the main focus of our lives and committing ourselves to living fully for Him.18 Are you ready to do this? END.

17 At this point I often say to people “Who

is greater - the Creator or the created one? If God created you and the entire universe don’t you think He deserves to be at the centre of your life? Colossians 1:15-19 18 E.g. Romans 10:9

-------------------------------------Well, that is pretty much what I say when I communicate the sharly defined New Testament gospel. THE THIRD THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. There are two distinct parts to the gospel message - the kerygma and the didache I have touched on this earlier, but I’ll mention it again here. It’s important to note that when the Early Church Christians proclaimed the gospel, the message had two distinct parts. Part one, the Kerygma, was the bones, the irreducible minimum, the sharply defined New Testament gospel. After the Kerygma was proclaimed, then came the Didache, or teaching. This fleshed out the Kerygma. The Didache is the wide and general gospel. Accordingly, we have produced a little booklet which fleshes out the Kerygma which we spread or proclaim. The booklet is call “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die”. This is the Didache. As I have already pointed out (but I will say it again) The Kerygma is a carefully crafted salvation message which has been extracted from within the pages of the wide and general gospel.19 We could say that the wide and general gospel is about the entire Kingdom of God, whereas the sharply defined New Testament gospel (i.e. the Kerygma) explains what an unsaved person must know and do to enter it. The Kerygma covers the four essential areas of content. The Didache fleshes out the Kerygma. It’s extremely important to understand the difference between the wide and general gospel and its sharply defined New Testament counterpart. Why? Well, there are many reasons. For example, most churches think they are preaching “the gospel” faithfully each week via the Sunday sermon. But are they really? The answer is 19 You can view an example of the narrow New Testament gospel at www.Biblein11.com

yes and no. Let me explain. I have heard many pastors say “we preach the gospel every Sunday”. By this they mean they exegete (i.e. bring to life or unpack) a verse or a group of verses taken from somewhere in the Bible each Sunday. Yes, these pastors are proclaiming ‘the gospel’ in the wide and general sense. There is no doubt about this. But are they preaching the sharply defined New Testament gospel? The statistics show that the vast majority are not. The devil adores this kind of confusion for three reasons. Firstly, if the pastor is not preaching the sharply defined New Testament gospel from time to time on Sundays, the people in his church won’t know what it is. And not knowing what it is, they are less likely to be able to proclaim or spread it as they go about their lives outside of church. Sure, in the wide and general sense these pastors are preaching the gospel. But in the sharply defined New Testament sense they are not. As such, these pastors and their congregations have been duped into thinking they are fulfilling the Great Commission, but in fact they are not. Behind this confusion is the enemy. Second, if the people in a ‘we preach the gospel every Sunday’ church get the idea that ‘the gospel’ is being preached every Sunday (when in fact in the narrow New Testment sense it is not), and that any message from the Bible is ‘the gospel’, they will carry this wrong understanding into their lives outside of the Sunday services. That is to say, they will think (in error) that any mention of anything from the Bible in a conversation with a non-Christian equates to ‘preaching the gospel’ and a fulfillment of Mark 16:15 i.e. evangelism. The truth is that it is only when the sharply defined New Testament gospel has been communicated that evangelism has taken place. Once again, the devil loves to confuse us like this. Third, if the people in a “we preach the gospel every Sunday” church get the idea that ‘the gospel’ is being preached every Sunday, they may be tempted to say to themselves “our pastor preaches the 10

gospel every Sunday. We are a Great Commission obeying church!” That is to say, they will be duped into thinking that because the pastor is doing it every Sunday, and they belong to his church, they don’t have to i.e. they start thinking that because the pastor is doing it, and they belong to his / her church, by proxy they are preaching the gospel too. Remember, the devil’s agenda is to shut down personal evangelism and he’ll do anything to sow these kinds of seeds of thought into the minds of Christians to achieve this end. All of his devices have a ring of truth about them and all are incredibly subtle and clever which is why they have flown under the radar of most Christians, and why only 2% of us now in the West participate in evangelism. THE FOURTH THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. The wide and general gospel has three aspects: Works, Effects, and Words. Another crucially important feature of the wide and general gospel which we must also understand is that it has three aspects: • The Works of the gospel (e.g. social action, prayer, random acts of kindness, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison, etc) • The Effects of the gospel (e.g. miracles, signs and wonders, turning the other cheek, loving our enemies, going the extra mile etc) • The Words of the gospel (a carefully crafted salvation message otherwise known as the sharply defined New Testament gospel). For example, when I dig a water well for the poor in a third world country, my installation of the well is a Work of the gospel. When the poor start to receive fresh water from the well and their thirst is satisfied, this is an Effect of the gospel. But here is my question 11

have the people in the village where I dug the well heard the Words of the gospel? No, they have not. We could say the Works are the actions of Christians, the Effects are what results from the actions of Christians as God works through them, and the Words are a carefully-crafted salvation message. That is to say, to communicate the Words of the gospel is to communicate the sharply defined New Testament gospel message. As I have already said, when Jesus commanded “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15) He was referring to the Words of the gospel, not its Works or Effects. To evangelise is to communicate the Words, or the sharply defined New Testament gospel.20 As I have also said at the beginning of this Chapter, there is tremendous confusion about this phrase ‘the gospel’. Much of the confusion stems from people not understanding the difference between the Works, Effects, and Words of the gospel. For example, I have those who are ‘into’ signs and wonders coming to me protesting “the gospel is more than just Words Julian! It’s about signs and wonders and miracles! It’s about displays of power! People in the world are sick of just Words! They want to see, and deserve to see, power!”21 I agree with them that the gospel 20 In the next Chapter I elaborate on the truth that the gospel has these three aspects. 21. Sure, Jesus did say in Mark 16:17 that signs and wonders would accompany those who believe but He did not guarantee that signs and wonders would always accompany those who believe. As believers, we’d like signs and wonders to accompany the sharing of the gospel everytime we give it to a lost person, and everytime we pray for someone for healing, but unfortunately, to demand this of God, as some do, is not Biblical. It’s an expectation of God which He does not promise. At the same time, we need to avoid being sceptical that God can’t grace us with a sign or a wonder before or after the gospel is preached or when we pray. We need to evangelise with expectancy. So what shall we conclude? It’s heresy to teach that if the Words of the gospel are being preached and a sign or a wonder does not follow, it’s not the Christian gospel which is being preached. Those who teach such things have unwittingly done immeasurable damage to the cause of evangelism. Why? It sets Christians up for failure. How so? When the average person in the pew plucks up the courage to go out and give the gospel to someone in the world, and a sign and a wonder does not follow, they either give up going again, thinking God is not with them, or they conclude they can’t be a believer (since they have been told that signs and wonders will always follow those who believe), and so give up Christianity completely. Either way, the enemy loves this result, and more damage is done to the cause of evangelism. It’s for these kinds of reasons that only 2% of Christians now do evangelism. If Mark 16:17 teaches that signs and wonders will always accompany those who believe, why aren’t all believers regularly cruising their local hospital wards, clearing them of patients? You know the answer.

is more than just Words. I explain to them that ‘the gospel’ is about Works and Effects as well and that only one of the three aspects is to be equated with ‘evangelism’. After discussion, they usually eventually ‘get it’ and shuffle off wiser, more informed, their thinking more Biblically balanced and accurate. Then I have those who are ‘into’ social action coming to me protesting “the gospel is more that just Words Julian! It’s about loving people by doing practical things for them! Giving them food, and clothing, and building homes for them!” Again, I agree with them, but then explain the three different aspects of the gospel. They too ‘get it’ and shuffle off. Then I have Christians whose ministries focus on Christians being loving to people coming to me protesting “the gospel is more that just Words Julian, or about signs and wonders and miracles, or about social action! It’s about the quality of our interactions with others - loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile and all the other great truths Jesus taught in his sermon on the Mount!” Again, I agree with them, but then explain the three different aspects of the gospel. They ‘get it’ and shuffle off. Then I have evangelists coming to me protesting “the gospel is not about miracles, signs, and wonders Julian or doing practical things for people, or about the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount - it’s about a message which explains to the lost how to be saved!” I agree with them, but then explain the three different aspects of the gospel. They usually see that ‘the gospel’ is more than just Words, and they shuffle off. Each group only sees the gospel through the lens of their gifting, or personality type, or theological stream, or personal opinion, or area of interest, oblivious to the Biblical big picture, or the whole Biblical truth of the matter. The truth is that ‘the gospel’

encompasses all three aspects, but when Jesus commanded His disciples to ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel’ (Mark 16:15) He was referring to the Words, not the Works or Effects. This is not to say the Works and Effects are not important. We all know they are crucially important in the mix. No one would deny this. But they are not to be equated with evangelism. Jesus talks often about Works and Effects in other verses in the gospels, but Mark 16:15 is not one of those verses. This is a crucial point to grasp. What I find over and over is that very few people have seriously studied what trusted and proven scholars have to say about this topic ‘the gospel’. The mix up between Words, Works, and Effects is just one of the challenges which surround this phrase. But there are many others. For example, a Christian and a non-Christian were having a conversation along the following lines: Christian:

“ We need a bridge between us and God. That bridge is Jesus.” Non-Christian: “But why do I need a bridge? If God is love and all powerful, why doesn’t He just extend His allpowerful arm down from heaven and whisk us up there to be with Him?” Christian: “Because our sins have separated us from Him.” Non-Christian: “What do you mean by ‘sins’?” Christian: “All the wrong things we do in our lives.” Non-Christian: “Hang on a minute. Sometimes my neighbours have parties. They know I’m not perfect, but they invite me to their party in spite of my ‘sins’. They don’t cut me off, because they’re loving people. So why would God reject me because of my ‘sins?’ By accepting me unconditionally, surely 14

my neighbours must be more loving than God?” Christian: “Jesus died on the cross to show us His love and to make a way for us to be forgiven and to get to heaven.” Non-Christian: “But I don’t see why anyone had to die on a cross. Why isn’t God just like my loving neighbour who just invites me in? Like I said, if God is all powerful and loving, He could just haul us all into heaven when we die! Your explanation doesn’t make sense. Christian: “Mmmmm……” What can we learn from this about evangelism? First, it’s easy to be misunderstood. Christian terms and concepts, not properly explained can easily confuse non-Christians. Secondly, we ought to be sure about the content of our message. Dr Billy Graham found there was much confusion in the Church today about the message of evangelism – a fact which “should send us back to our Bibles, carefully and prayerfully studying to uncover the heart of God’s message to an unbelieving world.”22 Like an animal driven to extinction, some commentators believe the essential gospel message [i.e. the Words] preached by the Early Christians is on the brink of being lost. s the following man right…? One such writer is Dr James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organisation based in Phoenix, Arizona. He thinks much of what we preach today has lost its bite and substance. I hesitated to include this quote, because it appears so aggressive, but is he right? “The question I have to ask of many who stand behind pulpits today is this: is your preaching so wimpy it would never trouble a

22 Dr Billy Graham. Christianity Today Magazine. December 8, 1997.

religious hypocrite? Do you pull back on those elements of God’s truth that are the most offensive to the natural man because you do not wish to see that disdainful look, that annoyed shaking of the head? Do you so trust the ministry of the Spirit to make the Word of Christ come alive in the hearts and minds of Christ’s sheep, that you do not need to worry about those who will find offence at His truth? Or have you embraced the spirit of the age which places man’s fragile emotions upon the seat of prominence, and has bought into the idea that to be loving means to never give offence to anyone… well, except God. Do you offend Him by thinking yourself so wise you can edit out what should no longer be in the gospel in our day? …think about it.”23 Is this too harsh? Or is Dr White issuing a valid exhortation to jealously guard the content of the Biblical gospel (of the Words of the gospel)? International evangelist Greg Laurie says it is important to know the content of the Words of the gospel for two important reasons: “(1) We want to make sure that we have heard the true gospel and have responded to it, lest we have a false hope concerning a salvation we think we have; and (2) Jesus told us to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel’ (Mark 16:15). Those words are not addressed merely to pastors, teachers, evangelists, and missionaries; they are addressed to every follower of Jesus Christ. We cannot be disengaged or disinterested in this subject, for people’s eternal destinies hang in the balance. What would you think of a surgeon who just started cutting away at a patient without really knowing what he was doing? One mistake, and that person would be disabled for life or could even die on the operating table. Yet this message we bring has even more far-reaching consequences – for there are eternal ramifications. Still, so many are sloppy in this area.”24 Greg Laurie is right. We need to know the content of the Words 23 http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1270 24 Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale Books, 1999, p.48

of the gospel we are to proclaim. Other gospels do not have saving power. The enemy knows this. He has done his best to either confuse us about the content of the Words of the gospel, or hide its content from us. His motive? He knows we will be less likely to proclaim a message we are unsure about. In not proclaiming it, nonChristians will not hear it and, not hearing it, “the power of God for their salvation” (Romans 1:16) will be kept from them. Hence when we fail to carefully define the Words of the gospel, we lose vital ground in the war for souls. ight other good reasons to take care in defining the gospel. Between 1999 and 2014 I spent many hours in university and Bible College libraries seeking to answer the question, “What is the content of the gospel we are to proclaim to non-Christians?” I did this for eight reasons: 1. In Galatians 1:6-9, Paul warned the early Christians sternly that if they preached “another” gospel they would be eternally condemned. I reasoned that if my life’s passion was to mobilise the Church around the world to proclaim “the gospel,” then I had better get it right. If I did not do my homework I would risk bringing my students and myself under the same condemnation. 2. Many “other” gospels are already being preached today. I did not want to add another to the list. 3. I was aware of the danger of personal bias. All of us read and interpret the Bible through the lens of our own background and experiences, and I would be unwise to pass on to other Christians a gospel based solely on my own thinking. I needed to check my understanding against the findings of trusted scholars. 4. I wanted those whom I trained to succeed, so I could ill afford to pass on any other gospel than the one God would work through to win souls.25 I yearned to see not just God glorified and souls

25 This is not saying that evangelism is to be equated with winning souls. When the gospel is truly proclaimed, souls will be won, but very often it will not be the one who did the proclaiming who sees the conversion.

saved, but also Christians released into abundant fruitfulness so God could use them to save people through the gospel. I did not want to fail Jesus. As we saw earlier, when Jesus said “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15) He wanted us to deliver to non-Christians a carefully-crafted and well-defined salvation message. If I did not commit myself to finding out what this was, I would be in danger of disappointing my Saviour. In 2 Timothy 2:15, Paul exhorted his young disciple Timothy to “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” God calls us to accuracy. I wanted to empower evangelists Biblically. In Ephesians 4:11-12 we are told evangelists are not to do all the evangelism themselves. Their main task is to show everyone in the Church who does not have “the gift of evangelism” how to proclaim or spread the gospel. If the evangelists themselves cannot define it, they will be unable to show other Christians what to say. When this happens, evangelism at the local level atrophies. Dr Leighton Ford, past Vice President of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has said, “the Church cannot evangelise unless she is certain of her evangel [i.e. the gospel message].”26 We all have a propensity to critically analyse “the gospel messages” uttered by speakers, or which we read in booklets or tracts, or see on videos. But what I have noticed is that the most vociferous critics are usually people who have (a) never seriously studied what reputable/proven academics have to say about ‘the gospel’ and (b) they are not out there each day reaching the lost with the gospel. In short, they don’t know what they don’t know. To put it bluntly, they are speaking from (e.g. see John 4:37-38).

26 Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader: A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.24

a place of ignorance. I didn’t want to fall into the same trap of being one of these kinds of people so for three decades I have focussed on doing (a) and (b). hat I found from my study.... Evangelist Greg Laurie said: “The gospel in a nutshell is that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day. There are other elements I could mention, but that is the cornerstone – the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”27 Charles Spurgeon (1834-92), England’s best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century, was asked to summarise the Christian faith in a few words. He said, “Jesus died for me.”28 Theologian and author, J.I. Packer writes: “In short, the Good News was just this, that God has executed His eternal intention of glorifying His Son by exalting Him as a great saviour for great sinners. Such was the gospel Paul was sent to preach.”29 The Dean and Professor of Theology of Missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Tite Tienou, proposed two distinctive features of the gospel message: “1. The author of the gospel is God. 2. The core of the message is saving grace. The gospel is neither a plan devised by people nor a programme crafted by clever thinkers,” he said. “It is as dependable as God Himself. It is the good news that God, the ruler of the universe, is in the business of extending His saving grace to humans.”30 But what, specifically, is the content of this “saving grace to humans” message from God? iscovering the content of the gospel. Many Bible scholars have answered this question. What

27 Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale Books, 1999, p.43 28 Cited in: Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale Books, 1999, p.43 29 J.I. Packer. Evangelism And The Sovereignty Of God. IVP, 1999, p.47 30 Tite Tienou. This We Believe: The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan, 2000, pp.176-77

follows is a summary of my findings. The theologian and New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd said the gospel was a fixed message with five points.31 1. The age of fulfilment has dawned. 2. This has taken place through the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. 3. By virtue of the resurrection, Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God as Messianic head of the new Israel. 4. The Holy Spirit in the Church is the sign of Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; present power and glory. 5. The Messianic age will shortly reach its consummation in the return of Jesus Christ. The Kerygma 32always closes with an appeal for repentance, the offer of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit, and the promise of salvation. Commenting on Doddâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s understanding, Dr Michael Green said this view had found widespread acceptance in the English-speaking world, and scholars such as A.M. Hunter, J.O. Sanders, F.V. Wilson, C.S.C. Williams and F.F. Bruce had accepted it in broad outline.33 Another renowned author and scholar, Dr Bo Reicke, argued that the early apostolic preaching of the gospel followed a three point pattern: 1. Thesis: Jesus was the Servant of the Lord. 2. Proofs: a. His life showed Him to fulfil these titles. b. Scripture bore witness to Him. c. He was raised from the dead. d. The miracles demonstrated the power of His resurrection. 31 Cited in Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1984, p.63 32 Kerygma is a term scholars use to describe the essentials of the gospel message. 33 Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1984, p.293

Conclusion: Everyone must turn to the Lord, making Him Lord, including the Gentiles.34 Floyd Filson35 and T.F. Glasson36 broke the gospel into five points, other writers three37 and one seven.38 o where is “the gospel” defined in the Bible? Theologians, evangelists, and leaders at the Lausanne Conference in 1974 defined the gospel on the basis of two texts: Acts 2:22-39 and 1 Corinthians 15. They concluded it had the following content: At its very simplest, the gospel is Jesus. • His death and resurrection. • His birth, life, words and works. • His reign and return. • The apostles focused on the death of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and on His resurrection from death. • Jesus Christ died for our sins, to bear our condemnation and secure our justification.39 • He was raised to prove that His sacrifice for sin was accepted and that He had not died in vain. • He is the historical Biblical Jesus, the Christ of the Scriptures of both Old and New Testaments. • Jesus is now the reigning Lord. • As such, He offers forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

34 Cited in Harry L. Poe. The Gospel And Its Meaning. Zondervan, 1996, p.24 35 F.V. Filson. Jesus Christ The Risen Lord. Abingdon Press, 1956, p.41ff 36 T.F. Glasson. Hibbert Journal. Allen & Unwin, London ,1953, p.129ff 37 A.M. Hunter. The Message Of The New Testament. The Westminster Press, 1945, p.29 38 B. Gartner. The Areopagus Speech And Natural Revelation. Uppsala: CWK Gleerup, 1955, p.26ff 39 What is justification? Many metaphors could describe it. Here is one. It was the custom of kings and chiefs to keep a book or roll of their subjects. The book had two lists. One was the list of those who were true, good and loyal subjects. The other was the list of those who were disobedient, rebellious, and disloyal and who deserved nothing but punishment. Paul’s picture (in 2 Corinthians 5:19) was that our names were on the roll of those who deserve punishment, but, because of what Jesus did, our names were taken from that roll and put on the roll of those the king loved.

• To receive these gifts we must repent and believe. • Baptism. The Lausanne Covenant Documents called this outline “the irreducible minimum of the apostolic gospel.”40 Dr Millard Erickson, Research Professor of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary writes: “The essential points of the gospel are Jesus Christ’s status as the Son of God, His genuine humanity, His death for our sins, His burial, resurrection, subsequent appearances, and His future coming in judgment.”41 What’s interesting is that embedded in all these analyses of the gospel is the theology and reality of heaven and hell. I need to talk about this briefly. THE FIFTH THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. The theology of hell in our gospel messages is just as important as the theology of heaven. Don’t leave it out. ell and heaven. Ultimate eternal realities (i.e. heaven and hell) must also be included on our gospel messages, since Jesus spoke often about both in the four gospels. Christians today have no problem with heaven being included in their gospel messages but many want to take the topic of hell right out, claiming fear is not a good motivation to draw people to God.42 By doing this, their great error is that they are approaching theology emotionally, not Spiritually. John Stott explains this error better than anyone. “Emotionally, I find the concept of eternal conscious torment intolerable and do not

40 John Stott (Ed). Making Christ Known: Historic Mission Documents From The Lausanne Movement 1974 – 1989. Foreword by Billy Graham. Paternoster Press, 1996, pp.20-21 41 Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Books, 1988, p.1063 42 Imagine two people. One was warned about hell by a Christian, and the Holy Spirit worked through that Truth to fill him with fear and bring him to genuine faith. At death he found himself in heaven. The other person wasn’t warned about hell in their lifetime and as a consequence, never experienced any fear of this place. At death he found himself in hell. After death, which of the two men would be happiest? Would the first man regret that fear of going to hell motivated him to decide for Christ? Would the second man regret that “fear of going to hell” didn’t motivate him? Would he curse Christians for not warning him? You know the answer.

understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it . . . my question must be — and is — not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s word say?”43 So, what does God’s Word say? Jesus is the Gospel and He spoke more about hell in the four gospels than all the other books of the Bible combined. To put it bluntly, Jesus Himself is the hell fire preacher of the Bible. Not only does He approve of the use of fear as a motive to bring people to faith, but He promoted the idea. Why else would He have warned people about hell so often? Did he not know that His talk about hell would make some people feel fearful? Did He not know what He was doing? Did He not realise that He was using fear to motivate people? You know the answers to these questions. Friends, Jesus knew exactly what He was doing. God doesn’t make mistakes. Academic Peter Toon sums it up nicely when he says “to warn people to avoid hell means that hell is a reality.” 44 Please think this through. God has put a capacity in all human beings to feel fear. For example, when we get too close to the edge of a great cliff, we feel fear. We know that if we fell off the cliff, we’d die. God doesn’t want us to fall off a cliff and die, so He designs us to feel fear. In this sense, fear is an in-built safety mechanism. When flying in a plane for the first time, many feel a tinge of fear. Why? They imagine what would happen if the plane crashed. That is to say, feeling fear helps us avoid great danger, 43 Stott, Essentials, 315-16. 44 Peter Toon, Heaven and Hell (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986)

and helps us preserve our lives. In the same way, if fear of going to hell stops us losing forever our most valuable asset, our soul (Mark 8:36), then surely fear is the most wonderful of all friends? Jesus thinks it is! He said so in Matthew 10:28 “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” In this verse, He is exhorting people to be afraid of Him because He is the very one who casts people into hell. So what’s my advice? Don’t be afraid of making non-Christians feel afraid. In fact, make them afraid of hell, but do it lovingly and gently, with tears in your eyes. When you do this, you’ll be following in the footsteps of Jesus. If Jesus warned people about hell to motivate His audience to be reconciled to Him, who are we to disapprove of any mention of hell? Who are we to take it out? If we take ‘hell’ out, we become like the clay who says to the potter, “We know better.” If we take hell out, we are saying to Jesus, “Jesus, we are wiser than You. We are more compassionate than You. We know better about how nonChristians are drawn to You than You do. We know more about how the lost are wired than You do. We know more about what nonChristians need to hear than You do.” No sincere thinking Christian would dare take such a high and lofty stance before almighty God. On the contrary, the Bible exhorts us to walk humbly with Him. “And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). To include hell in our gospel messages is to walk humbly with our God. To walk humbly is to bow the knee to His greater authority, knowledge, and wisdom. It’s to accept what Jesus said, take it on board, and communicate what He said lovingly and gently to the lost world. In fact, He commmanded us not to hold back on anything He said: “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what 24

you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops” (Matthew 10:27). Tragically, many Christians do not approach Scripture like this. They are not proclaiming from the rooftops what Jesus taught about hell. As I have already said, to eliminate hell from our gospel messages is to approach the Bible emotionally saying things like “to preach hell is to go back to the days of fire and brimstone. We are now more mature than the preachers of old who used to preach that stuff. They just scared people and therefore we ought to drop it and talk more about the unconditional love of God. We ought to woo the lost with good works. Society today is way too sophisticated for all that antiquated wrath and judgement theology. The old style preachers used that to scare people, but today we know better!” This is exactly how the devil wants us to think. Sure, hell shouldn’t dominate our gospel messages, just as it didn’t dominate the gospel Jesus preached, but it must be in the mix, just as Jesus included it in the mix. So what ought to dominate? THE SIXTH THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. Justification by faith ought to be the epicentre of any genuine gospel message. ustification by faith. Dr Don Carson, Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, edited a book called Telling the Truth: Evangelising Post-Moderns.45 One of the contributing authors, John Nyquist, asserts the epicentre of the gospel we are to proclaim is found in Romans 3:21-26: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all

45 Don Carson et al. Telling The Truth. Zondervan, 2000

who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance, He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” Nyquist comments on this passage: “Martin Luther called Romans ‘the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest gospel.’ He believed every Christian should know it ‘word for word, by heart, and occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread of his soul.’ In the margin of Luther’s Bible, he referred to this passage (i.e. Romans 3:21-26), where Paul speaks of justification by faith, as the ‘chief point and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible.’” Leon Morris, in his commentary, suggests this passage may be “possibly the most important single paragraph ever written.” Murray Harris, retired Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and former Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, offered this simple logic about the passage from Romans on the occasion of his last faculty devotional before retirement in 1997: “Where is the centre of historic Christianity in terms of theology and significance? When you add up all the doctrines, statements, creedal pronouncements and attempts at systemisation, what do you have? Take the Bible, go to the New Testament, turn to Romans, find chapter 3, locate verses 21-26, and focus in on verse 24. There you have the central teaching of the Bible on the Christian faith.’”46 The gist of Romans 3:24 is that through grace Jesus justifies us. 46 Don Carson et al. Telling The Truth. Zondervan, 2000, pp.167-68

What, then, is justification? Theologian Louis Berkhof defines it as the “legal act of God by which He declares the sinner righteous on the basis of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.”47 What was the heart of the Christian gospel for John Wesley? It was sola fide, justification by faith alone.48 Historian and scholar Laurence Bates comments on what Martin Luther considered the heart of the gospel: “Martin Luther dealt the symbolic blow that began the Reformation when he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, on 31st October, 1517.49 That document contained an attack on papal abuses and the sale of indulgences by church officials. But Luther himself saw the Reformation as something far more important than a revolt against ecclesiastical abuses. He believed it was a fight for the gospel. Luther even stated that he would have happily yielded every point of dispute to the Pope, if only the Pope had affirmed the gospel. And at the heart of the gospel, in Luther’s estimation, was the doctrine of justification by faith – the teaching that Christ’s own righteousness is imputed to those who believe, and on that ground alone, they are accepted by God.”50 Defining justification, the late Dr William Barclay, a leading Greek scholar, writes: “It means that God, even when we have done wrong, still treats us and still loves us as if we had done nothing but right.”51 This means that through Jesus, God the Father sees you and me as perfect, having only ever done what is right – the same way as He sees Jesus. So, as we seek to define the Words of the gospel we are to proclaim to non-Christians, justification by faith should be at its 47 Louis Berkhof. A Summary Of Christian Doctrine. Banner of Truth, 1938 rp1962, p.128 48 Cited in: Robert E.Coleman. Nothing To Do But Save Souls. John Wesley’s charge to his preachers. Wesley Heritage Press, 1994, p.61 49 To read all the 95 theses, go to http:/www.historyguide.org/earlymod/95 theses.html 50 http://www.educ.msu.edu/homepages/laurence/reformation/Luther/Luther.htm 51 William Barclay. Ambassador For Christ. The Saint Andrew Press, 1973, p.166

very core. Sadly, many other topics other than justification dominate the many false gospels being preached today. For example: “Come to Jesus. He will… 1. Fix whatever problems you have. 2. Give you purpose and destiny. 3. Heal you, your marriage, your business, and your relationship failures. 4. Help you have a better quality of life. 5. Fill the God-shaped vacuum in your heart. 6. Give you success and help you lose weight. 7. Make you financially rich. 8. Help you find your lost budgie. As always, there are often slivers of truth, to one degree or another, in these false gospels. The great problem with the false gospels above is that the core of the genuine gospel, justification by faith, is missing. The extent of our deviation from this core will determine the extent of the loss of Holy Spirit power in our messages. The epicentre of the Words of the gospel is justification by faith and the crown and glory of it is Jesus Christ. Dr John Stott warns against the dangers of formulating the content of the gospel merely on the basis of our own experience and opinion: “We are not to preach a vague Christ but a precise and particular Christ, namely the Christ of the New Testament. There is no other Christ to preach. The gospel is about Christ who came to save us. It is tragic beyond words that the Church has frequently diluted this high and holy purpose of God to save men through Christ. Instead of the faithful proclamation of the gospel, evangelism becomes a pathetic exhortation to bad men to be good and (more often) good men to do better, or an attempt to induce people to come to church and worship, or to apply Christian principles to industry, or even to find the highest common factor between Christian faith and nonChristian faiths so that we minimise the differences and join in 28

corporate devotion.”52 So evangelism has much more in mind than attempting to make bad people good, and good people better. It is about Jesus Christ who came to reconcile people to Himself.

ummary so far…

1. The author of the gospel is God. 2. The core of the message is saving grace or justification by faith. 3. The Lausanne Covenant’s definition of the Words of the gospel represents the broadest sweep of recent scholarship. 4. There is scope for creativity and versatility in preaching this essential gospel content. 5. Jesus promoted, and approved of, the use of fear as a motive to bring people to faith. 6. Scholars would agree with the conclusions of the Lausanne Covenant, that the gospel we are to proclaim to non-Christians can be defined. Yes, we have a precise body of truth about salvation through Jesus Christ to communicate. The gospel, as Jesus used this phrase in Mark 16:15, can rightly be described as a carefully-crafted salvation message from within the Bible. he essential gospel in outline… As I sought to distil the research, I came to the conclusion that the Words of the gospel we present to non-Christians must cover FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT. I have mentioned these earlier, but they are so important, I note them here again: 1. Why we must be saved. 2. How Jesus can save us. 3. What we must do to be saved. 4. The cost of becoming a disciple. This four point outline details the content we ought to cover

52 Cited in Dr Harry L. Poe. The Gospel And Its Meaning. Zondervan, 1996, p.37

when we communicate the Words of the gospel. The words are different from the gospel’s Works and Effects. We cannot say “we have preached the gospel,” as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15, unless this content is covered. These words explain to a non-Christian how they can enter the Kingdom of God. They explain what they must do to enter it. The Works and Effects of the gospel do not communicate these four great truths to a lost person. Likewise with signs, wonders, and miracles, social action, digging water wells in India, praying etc. This is why the Words of the gospel are so important. This is why the Words of the gospel are the epicentre of the Great Commission. This FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT outline defines the Words of the gospel, or the content of our gospel message. It is sufficiently general so as not to constrain evangelism, yet sufficiently well-defined as to ensure critical content is covered. I would strongly advise you to memorise this four point outline. Then when anyone asks you ‘What ought to be the content of our gospel message? you’ll know the answer. You’ll also know what content to cover when you get an opportunity to explain the gospel to a lost person. Now we know the content of the Words of the gospel, is that it? No. Before we move onto the next Chapter, I want to discuss five issues about how we communicate the content of the gospel to the lost world. We need to understand: 1. We Christians are a sub-culture with our own language and customs. When we become aware of this, we’ll try and ‘declutter’ our gospel messages, taking out ‘religious’ jargon. 2. The truths of the gospel must delivered in the right order. 3. That non-Christians must know they are completely lost and doomed before they will fully appreciate the love of Jesus. 4. That most non-Christians are hungry to hear the gospel. 5. Evangelising is a discipline which requires faith and an act of 30

the will. For the remainder of this Chapter, I am going to discuss each of these issues in turn. THE SEVENTH THING YOU SHOULD KNOW. To successfully commmunicate the gospel to the lost, there are also communication issues to consider

OSPEL COMMUNICATION ISSUE ONE: We Christians are a sub-culture with our own language and customs. When we go into the non-Christian world and proclaim the Words of the gospel we must presume that our audience has never read a Bible or entered a church. Many of the terms and concepts in the gospel message will be completely new to them, and the Words foreign. For example, to satisfy the first essential area of content we could simply say, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But is that really helpful to non-Christians? What is “sin” to a non-Christian? What is the “glory of God”? And, for that matter, what does “fallen short” mean? “And what does falling short have to do with me?” a non-Christian might ask. “And what God have I fallen short of? Buddha? Krishna? Allah?” Here is another example of how we could miscommunicate these critical truths. To explain why we must be saved we might say, “because we are sinners.” To explain how Jesus can save us we might say, “He died on the Cross.” Similarly, regarding “what we must do to be saved,” we might answer … “Repent.” To explain the cost of becoming a disciple, our answer might be, “Take up your cross and follow Jesus.” Taking care to define our terms… These answers may satisfy the criteria, and be theologically correct, but they don’t explain and clarify the gospel for a non31

Christian in today’s culture, making it easy for them to understand. If we want to truly succeed with proclaiming the gospel to nonChristians today, we must define all our terms carefully, steer clear of religious jargon, and as I have said, assume non-Christians know absolutely nothing about our subject. We do all this because we want them to truly understand the message. In the Parable of the Seed and the Sower (e.g. Matthew 13:1-32) the person who bore fruit was the one who heard the gospel and understood it (Matthew 13:23). Being loving and gracious and helping them understand the message is our job. Bringing belief in the message is the Holy Spirit’s job. Let’s not get these two job descriptions mixed up. The discussion at the start of this Chapter between the Christian and the non-Christian illustrates the care we must take if we want to be effective in evangelism. The non-Christian in that conversation wanted to know why God could not just haul us into heaven if He truly loves us – and why sin is such a big deal if it is simply part of human nature. Some gospel presentations and tracts circulating today potentially satisfy THE FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT outlined above, and Christians could understand them, but for many nonChristians they don’t make much sense at all. In other words, the person who wrote them is out of touch with the culture of the audience for whom they were written. Evangelism is about truly understanding how non-Christians think (i.e. the culture) and how God thinks (i.e theologically accurate), bringing the two together, and delivering it with love, tenderness, and grace. Understanding the way God thinks determines the content of our message. Understanding what non-Christians think determines how we present it. With this thought in mind Paul writes: “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means 32

I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel…” (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). Knowing the Bible solves the problem of what to say. Knowing the non-Christian culture around us solves the problem of how to say it. We must anticipate how non-Christians could misunderstand what we are trying to communicate. So many presentations of the gospel, either spoken or written, are constructed by Christians who have little knowledge of how non-Christians think because they are not regularly evangelising. They think they know how non-Christians think but really they do not know. For example, a tract I recently reviewed said – in answer to the first question “why we must be saved” – “We have all done wrong things like lying, cheating, stealing, hating etc.” But does this really explain why we must be saved? Many non-Christians would retort, “Everyone does these things. They’re just natural! Why would God cast me into hell for doing these things. A loving parent wouldn’t do that. So, are my parents more loving than God?” To hit home, lying, thieving, cheating, stealing etc must be communicated as behaviours which break divine laws. And what must precede this truth is that we live in a moral universe which was created by a God who is perfectly just. And because He is perfectly just, He must punish lawbreakers. These are serious questions to consider as we seek to communicate the gospel meaningfully. So far we have discussed only the first of the FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT (i.e. “why we must be saved”). The other three areas require as much care and consideration – if we want to communicate the gospel effectively. sk non-Christians to critique your tracts… Before you print your next run of gospel tracts, why not test a few samples on some non-Christian strangers? Ask them to critique them honestly and tell you if they make sense. Then ask

them four questions: “From the booklet you have just read, can you tell me: • Why you must be saved? • How Jesus can save you? • What you must do to be saved? • The cost of becoming a disciple?” But proclaiming the gospel is not just about fully appreciating that Christians are a sub-culture with unique language and customs. It’s also about ‘de-cluttering’ our messages, taking out religious jargon. It’s more than just making our messages understandable. It’s also about unpacking the FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT in the right order. This is the second crucial communication issue we need to discuss. OSPEL COMMUNICATION ISSUE TWO: The truths of the gospel must be delivered in the right order. It’s crucial to unpack the FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT of the Words of the gospel in the right order. For example, the reason God cannot haul us into heaven “just as we are” is that He is holy and just. In this respect He is utterly different from my neighbour. This is why, with the tools we have developed in ESI (Evangelism Strategies International), we start our gospel presentation with an explanation of the holiness of God. It was Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones who said ‘‘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 wrong-doing.”53 We must presume non-Christians will not know what “holy” means, and so we define it. After this, we explain what is being saved, hence a discussion of the difference between body and soul. We don’t presume non-Christians know they have a soul, and so, we

53 Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones. Studies In The Sermon On The Mount. (vol. one) Inter Varsity Press, 1959. p.235.

define the soul. Then follows a discussion about where the soul54 goes at death, either to heaven or to hell. What creates the need to be saved in the first place comes next, which is where original sin and Law breaking is detailed. We use “The Law” at this point, because God works through it to awaken people to their need to be saved (e.g Galatians 3:24; Romans 7:7). From here until the end of the presentation of the gospel, the same care and thought is needed at each point. What’s important to grasp here is that an effective presentation of the gospel will build truth upon truth in a carefully thought through, logical, Biblical, jargon free, easy-to-follow sequence. To view just our example of this gospel message, please visit www.Biblein11.com. To learn an incredibly easy way to evangelise using this video, just email me: julian@esisite.com. No discussion about the importance of delivering the truths of the gospel in the right order is complete without mention of the crucial function of “The Law” in evangelism. This is our third gospel communication issue. OSPEL COMMUNICATION ISSUE THREE: NonChristians must know they are completely lost and doomed before they will fully appreciate / understand / comprehend / receive a revelation of the love of Jesus. Non-Christians do not know that they are spiritually lost. They are “dead in their trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:5; 2:1 etc). Hence, left to themselves, they will see no need for a Saviour. They must be awakened to this need. This being so, any effective gospel presentation will cover “The Law” very early on (Galatians 3:24). Dr Francis Schaeffer in his book Death in the City asks: “What would you do if you met a really modern man on a train

54 We do not go into a discussion of the difference between the soul and the spirit at this stage, as this would unnecessarily complicate the message. Non-Christians can learn about these differences after they are saved and assimilated into a church.

and you had just an hour to talk with him about the gospel?” Schaeffer says, “I would spend forty-five or fifty minutes to really show him his dilemma; to show him that he is even more dead than he thinks he is; that he is morally dead because he is separated from the God who exists. Often it takes a long time to bring a person to the place where he understands the negative. And unless he understands what’s wrong, he will not be ready to listen to and understand the positive.”55 C.S. Lewis said much the same thing. “Christianity has nothing to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the Law, and that you have broken that Law and put yourself wrong with that Power - it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate, you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about.”56 John Newton, the slave trader turned Christian, is a brilliant example of what Schaeffer and Lewis are talking about. Let me explain. Newton penned the famous hymn “Amazing Grace”. In this hymn, he says “It was grace that taught my heart to fear”. Here he is referring to the Law, or the commandments of God. Newton heard the commandments, the Spirit of God touched him, and he was filled with fear. That is to say, he realised he was a law breaker and therefore a sinner deserving of, and headed for, hell. This scared him. Newton considered it was an act of God’s grace that he had been brought to this realisation, and this fear-filled emotion. But that is not how the hymn ends. It also says “..and grace my fears relieved.” The Holy Spirit also gave Newton a revelation of the cross and the loving, saving 55 http://www.brfwitness.org/Articles/1978v13n4.htm 56 C.S Lewis. Mere Christianity. Harper Collins. 1997. p26

work of Jesus. Newton was saved! What’s the point? Newton needed a revelation of his exceeding sinfulness, and, through the Law, to feel fear, before he was given a revelation of the unconditional love of God, through Jesus and the Cross. Both revelations were acts of God’s mercy, love, and grace. Newton then went on in the hymn to sing about how great God was / is and the intimacy he had with Him. Are you starting to “get” what I am saying here about the content of the gospel? About “fear” as a legitimate motivation for bringing people to Christ? About the theology of hell? I pray so. So far I have discussed three issues concerned with effectively communicating the gospel. But there is a fourth, and this one you’ll find really encouraging. When I said that most non-Christians have never read a Bible or entered a church, I don’t want to give the impression that they are not interested in spiritual things. The truth is, they are really interested. Let me explain. OSPEL COMMUNICATION ISSUE FOUR: Most nonChristians are hungry to hear the Words of the gosepl. After thirty years as an evangelist specialising in personal evangelism, I have concluded we tend to overestimate how much non-Christians know and we underestimate how much they want to know. By this I mean that the vast majority are genuinely interested in God, heaven, hell, and spiritual issues. This is not the impression of the lost which circulates in most churches today. Like the 10 spies who returned from the promised land with a negative report, we “talk up” how bad the world “out there” is, and how non-Christians are not interested in us, our message, or our God. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. After reaching tens of thousands of non-Christians with the Words of the gospel, my impression is that non-Christians are designed by God to hear these words. It is in their very DNA. They

are wired to hear it, and be interested in it. Like moths drawn to a flame, the vast majority “connect” with this message when they hear it. For them, the Words of the gospel register as relevant, interesting and important. The late David Watson, one of Great Britain’s most successful and effective evangelists, reflected on what he had learned from many years of frontline evangelism about the state of the soil in the hearts of most non-Christians: “I have learned that most people, if not all, are basically hungry for God, even though they show little sign of this on the surface.”57 From my own experience I would agree.58 With the right training in evangelism, and a good attitude, you too can have the same testimony as David Watson. On the subject of non-Christians being designed by God to hear the gospel, the Rev J.D. Jones writes: “Let us never forget that the heart of man is made for the reception of the Divine Word. We say that the heart of man is ‘desperately wicked’ (Jeremiah 17:9) and that is true. We have to remember the truth expressed by Augustine in that well known saying, ‘O God, Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.’”59 The small numbers who reject the Words of the gospel have usually been damaged by a bad church experience or by the poor 57 David Watson. I Believe In Evangelism. Hodder and Stroughton, 1976, p.101 58 For this reason, I cannot agree with the idea proposed by some that we ought to “look for what God is already doing and then join in.” If this means what I think it means, there are three assumptions here with which I contend. First, this idea presumes that God is not working in the lives of some people, which I cannot accept. Through conscience and creation He is always working in all people. Furthermore, many people around the world are praying general prayers for the lost, and God is answering those prayers. The hearts of all lost people are being softened through these prayers. Secondly, it assumes that we will easily be able to recognise where He is working. In evangelism, when I am observing a crowd, and considering to whom I will give the gospel, I am not enough of a spiritual giant to be able to x-ray the hearts of each person to “see where God is working and then join in.” Yes, the Spirit does sometimes lead, but often I simply choose the person who looks like they have time for a chat. It is not until I actually open discussion that I will have any idea of what He has been doing and where they are at with Him. Finally, the idea assumes that if I don’t see God working, I don’t need to do anything. This is not at all what Jesus taught. He specifically commanded us to be proactive with our evangelism. We are to “go to all” (Mark 16:15) rather than “look for what God is doing, then join in.” Conclusion: the idea to “look for what God is doing, then join in” is being used by the enemy to hinder evangelism. 59 J.D Jones. The Gospel According To Mark. 1-6. London Religious Tract Society, 1913, pp.149-152

behaviour of a Christian.60 They are not born with a disdain for God and Christianity – it is developed. The final gospel communication issue I want to touch on as I bring this Chapter to a close is the issue of the relationship between evangelism and faith. OSPEL COMMUNICATION ISSUE FIVE: Evangelism is a discipline of faith. When we go into the world and proclaim or spread the Words of the gospel, we do so by faith. What does this mean? It means that we evangelise believing that God will honour His Word by growing the seed of the gospel that we plant. It means we put our trust and hope in the God who formulated the message and in the Holy Spirit to convict the person listening. It means believing that God will use us, and that the person listening will receive our message by faith and believe. Thinking in this way pleases God for the Bible clearly says, “It is impossible to please God without faith” (Hebrews 11:6). And if we don’t see the fruit personally, we can believe, by faith, that someone else, somewhere, sometime, will. We can be sure that if we plant the seed of the Words of the gospel, over time, the Holy Spirit will at the very least bring conviction and then in many instances conversion.61 Let’s never forget the indispensable need to move in faith as we set out to evangelise the world. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (Luke 17:6). “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Ask God to fill you with faith as you move out into the world with the precious Words of the gospel in hand.

60 This does not mean we have to be perfect before God can work through us. I talk extensively about this in Chapter Thirteen. Do not be discouraged when you feel like a weak, puny, pathetic Christian. Do the work of God anyway with all your heart, and He will make you stronger and better - as you go! 61 In Chapter Thirteen, I discuss in detail how ‘evangelism’ works and how God grows the seed of the gospel once it has been planted.

If you want to hear a truly amazing testimony of the faith one man had in God to grow the seed of the gospel he planted, and how he saw God deliver in the most remarkable way, please visit the home page our web site www.esisite.com and listen to the Mr Genor audio testimony. As you listen to this testimony, you’ll literally feel faith rising within you! Now, let’s bring this Chapter to a conclusion. onclusion Let me ask you a good question - if you were with a nonChristian on their death bed, and they had three minutes left to live, and they asked you how they could make peace with God and be forgiven and saved, what would you say? What you would say would reveal your understanding of the gospel, as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15. Make no mistake. The enemy does not want you to know all that I have communicated in this Chapter. For once you know the content of the Words of the gospel, you’ll have the recipe in your hands to make a divine message which God will work through to divinely save people. You’d have exactly the right answer for the person on their death bed, especially so if you have acted upon the five crucial communication issues I have raised concerning the delivery of this message. For once you have a clear understanding of the THREE DIFFERENT ASPECTS of the gospel (i.e. Words, Works, and Effects), and you memorise the FOUR ESSENTIAL AREAS OF CONTENT of the words of the gospel (i.e. why we must be saved, how Jesus can save us, what we must do to be saved, and the cost of becoming a disciple) you’ll be able to proclaim these Words, announce these Words, share these Words, teach these Words and spread these Words effectively for the glory of God. Wow! Evangelists with the Ephesians 4:11-12 gift - you’ll be able to transfer precious truth to other Christians, and in doing so, release

them to help evangelise the world. In turn, millions of nonChristians will, for the first time, begin to hear or read the Words of the gospel clearly and understand them. Through your training and equipping efforts, and through the work and power of the Holy Spirit, the Words of the gospel will become for them “the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16).62 If we in the Church are sure the Words of the gospel can be defined, and we define these Words Biblically, we will be in a perfect position to out-manoeuvre the enemy in the battle for souls. We’ll transition from being part of the problem to being part of the solution. We’ll help reverse the appalling truth that only 2% of believers in the West engage in evangelism. That’s right, only 2% of Christians in the Western Church now spread or proclaim the Words of the Gospel.

ummary

• ‘The gospel’ can be defined. • ‘The gospel’ has three aspects: the Works of the gospel, the Effects of the gospel, and the Words of the gospel. • The author of the Words of the gospel is God. • The One who empowers and brings life to the Words of the gospel is the Holy Spirit. • The One who causes the Effects of the gospel is the Holy Spirit. • The One who inspires the Works of the gospel is the Holy Spirit. • The core of the message of the Words of the gospel is saving grace or justification by faith. If you hear ‘the gospel’ being proclaimed, as the word ‘gospel’ is used in Mark 16:15, and 62 ESI can train you and your church to proclaim the gospel. There are many other excellent evangelism ministries which can also assist with training. e.g. Evangelism Explosion; Living Waters; OAC Ministries; Matthias Media. A search can be done on the internet to find your local contact.

•

justification by faith is not the core of the message, it’s not ‘the gospel’ which is being proclaimed. Mention of ultimate realities after death (i.e. heaven and hell) must be in our gospel messages since Jesus included both in His interactions with the lost. To say ‘we have proclaimed the gospel’ we must have covered certain content: • Why we must be saved • How Jesus can save us • What we must do to be saved • The cost of being a disciple There are five crucial issues which concern the communication of the gospel. 1. Christians are a sub-culture with our own language and customs. 2. The truths of the gospel must be delivered in the right order. 3. That non-Christians must know they are completely lost and doomed before they will fully appreciate the love of Jesus. 4. That most non-Christians are hungry to hear the gospel. 5. Evangelising is a discipline of faith. That is to say, none of us naturally feels like reaching a lost person each day with the gospel, but the love of God compels us. Ultimately, it’s an act of the will which flows from a heart which loves God and loves people. All human beings are designed by God to be receptive to the Words of the gospel. In fact, in the vast majority of cases, they are hungry to hear them. It is not enough to proclaim the Words of the gospel. We must do all we can to help non-Christians understand them conceptually. Only the Holy Spirit can bring revelation (i.e 42

belief), as was the case of John Newton, the slave trader. Only the Holy Spirit can bring belief about the Truth of the Words of the gospel message. • CTION POINT: You might be asking “How can I help get the information in this Chapter out to others?” Please teach the people in your church the four essential areas of content of the gospel message. Teach them the three different aspects of the gospel. These are fundamental truths every Christian must know.

•

CTION POINT: Help others come to an awareness of the serious issues raised in this Chapter. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@ esisite.com.

iven we now know the essential content of ‘the Words of the gospel,’ next I want to show how the enemy has assaulted the truth of what you have just read in this Chapter. His attack on this phrase ‘the gospel’ is nothing less than ferocious. Come with me to the next Chapter and I’ll show you what I mean...

Real Life Story A Man In Big Trouble...

It’s Sunday, 11:30 am. It’s a crisp, still, fine, autumn day. I am leaving a church in the centre of Auckland City, New Zealand. As I am about to get onto the motorway heading for West Auckland, I notice a hitchhiker standing at the lights. He is mid-thirties and dressed in black. He looks European, has short, curly dark hair, and is fashionably dressed. I pull over and invite the hitch-hiker to get in. With great enthusiasm he runs around the car to the passenger’s side. We shake hands and introduce. He tells me he wants to go to Blockhouse Bay which is a suburb in West Auckland. I ask him what he has been up to. He tells me. Bill: “Last night I picked up a girl at the bar, got a hotel room for the night and when I woke in the morning, she was gone. My wallet with $300 in it, plus my rings, credit cards, and car keys – everything I owned was gone. I had been fleeced.” Bill went on to explain how his car had also been towed away because in the morning he did not have his keys to start it. He explained how he had phoned the police to report what had happened. The police told him this kind of incident was becoming a regular thing in Auckland, and that there was a racket operating in the city. “There is not much we can do, sorry,” they said. Bill explained to the police that he had the phone number of the girl. They replied, “Well, if she denies her crime there is really nothing we can do sir.” Bill doesn’t know I am an evangelist. I am just listening 44

to his story. He goes on to explain that he’s divorced and in his midtwenties. He has three children “No, make that four,” he says. He tells me the first one died while his wife was giving birth. He and his wife called this lost child Christopher. “The baby never took its first breath. Oh yes, and there was another child that I fathered. I only just heard about this one recently. It was a girl. She is now five. So really I have five children.” Bill gives lots of detail. Completely captivated by his story, I say I will take him to where he wants to go. As we drive along, he continues. He explains how he has split up with his first wife and how his brother is about to marry her. The wedding will be in two weeks. Bill owns a house in Palmerston North1 and lives there alone but pays the mortgage on that and the mortgage on the home of the mother of his three children. He doesn’t say anything about the fifth child he has discovered recently. I assume he will soon have to pay maintenance for this child too. I don’t ask, because it might make things worse. Nearly crying, he pours out his heart about how hard life is. He works seven days a week as a car salesman. He explains how he can’t stop working and how he feels completely trapped – like an animal on the run, with nowhere to hide. “I am living on the edge,” he says nervously. “I have mortgages, power bills, rates, food, child support payments, etc. I have had these feelings of being on the run for years. I am exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.” His weekend in Auckland was supposed to be a two day holiday after endless days working. “I have scrimped and saved for this weekend. Nearly all of my meals have been from fast food outlets. When I am working, this is the kind of 1

Palmerston North is another city in the North Island of New Zealand.

food I eat all the time. I am living like a scared rat. My elder brother committed suicide. So did my uncle. There is a pattern in the family.” We stop outside the house he is staying in. He continues to pour out his heart.  An hour later I explain what I do and ask him if I could explain something to him, how Jesus could help. He couldn’t work out why things were SO bad for him and always had been. After I had shared the gospel with him, he asked some great questions: Are our lives pre-determined? Is this all there is to life or can there be something different? 1. Is this stuff happening to me as payback from a past life? 2. W hy did Christopher die? He was only a baby. He was completely innocent. Where is Christopher now? How do I know? 3. Why is there all this suffering in the world? If God is all-knowing and sovereign, how come He didn’t know that Adam and Eve would sin and so bring the curse of evil into the world? Why didn’t God stop ‘the experiment’ with human beings before evil was unleashed? 4. I s there a purpose in suffering? When is it going to end for me? 5. Are Christians really happy? Or are they just acting happy? 6. Why can’t I make a decision to become a Christian at the last minute in my life? He explains that if he became a Christian, he would be a serious one. He would go to church, learn how to pray, read his Bible. Then he asks another good question. “Julian, living a life of a Christian is going to take time! If I spend my time ‘praising God’ when am I going to get time to earn money?” We spent nearly another hour together sitting in my car going over all these questions he was asking. 46

Thankfully, the follow up booklet we have produced as a ministry tool answered many of them. At the end of this extraordinary encounter, Bill and I prayed together. I asked him if he wanted to make today the day where he made a fresh start. I asked him if he wanted to become a follower of Jesus. He said he wanted to think it through some more and read over the follow up booklet. I agreed and affirmed his sincerity and thanked him for being honest. He looked me in the eyes, and with tears in his own said “thank you...I have really enjoyed this time.” It was a great time connecting with this prodigal called Bill. I felt a sincere, God-given love for him. His life and questions were haunting. How many more like Bill are out there in the world, silently suffering? This is why we must go to them. They will never come to us. His life is so complex, only God could sort it out. The only way for him to connect with God is through evangelism. That is, to intentionally go to them with the gospel. What do you think? Will you be part of the solution in your church? Will you lead the way? Why not set a start date now and be accountable to follow through. Now there’s a thought....

Julian’s comments.

I am haunted about what else I could have done for this man in a practical sense. But here is the thing. Nearly every day I am meeting people with needs, some with great needs, like this man. I could have taken him to my home, and told him he would live with me to save him his rent, paid for his food, organised his transport. I’ve just done that with another poor fellow, a psych patient. Soon after he left my home, he committed suicide. Not because he had stayed 47

at my place but because he was desperately ill. I simply don’t have the time or resources or money or emotional energy to be taking into my home every person I meet who is in trouble. I’d be overwhelmed with a tsunami of needs. I have decided to keep it simple. I try and give people a meal, or some money, or a ride in my car to where they want to go, or to meet whatever their immediate need might be. But the most valuable thing I can give them is the gospel. Why? Because it hits the ball into God’s court. This is why he said “My yoke is easy” (Matthew 11:30). He alone has the power and the wisdom and the timing to sort their desperate situations out. Only God can unscramble an egg. I can’t. With the seed of the gospel planted in them, we are, in effect, releasing them into the loving hands of Jesus. Why else would the gospel be called “The Power of God for Salvation” (Romans 1:16)?

Chapter Six

SIX WAYS TO MOVE FROM GOSPEL CONFUSION TO GOSPEL CLARITY!

Six Ways To Move From Gospel Confusion To Gospel Clarity! “The message of the true gospel has been lost and is rarely preached anymore.”1 Mark Anderson, International Leader of Impact World Tour, Youth With A Mission

hen it comes to knowledge of the gospel, there are basically three groups of Christians. The first don’t know what the words of the gospel are, and so cannot proclaim them. American Evangelist Greg Laurie says many people who say they are “preaching the gospel” have no idea what the term actually means or what the gospel message really is.2 The second group do know but find it hard to articulate it to others so they don’t proclaim it. The third group know what it is and are proclaiming it. This third group is tiny and shrinking. Actually, it’s only 2% of the Church.3 So we have three challenges if we want to mobilise 100% in 1

Lon Allison and Mark Anderson. Going Public With The Gospel. IVP, 2003, p.33

Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale books, 1999, p.47

3 The truth is, because of all the devices of the enemy, many godly, gifted people have been misunderstood and marginalised, and have dropped out of evangelism. They are now using their skills in real estate sales, insurance, or business. For them, the discouragment they encountered whilst trying to clear the spiritual weeds (remember the analogy I used in Chapter Two?) has proved to be all too much. When I say we have already suffered heavy casualties in the battle for souls, this is partly what I mean. Where have all the evangelists gone who are supposed to be “equipping the saints for the work of ministry”? (Ephesians 4:11-12)

all churches to “go into the world” according to the command of Jesus. First, we need to educate the first group as to what the Words of the gospel are. Secondly, we must motivate and equip the first and second groups to communicate it. Thirdly, we must fund, encourage, cherish and empower the third group. With 98% of the Church in the West falling into groups one and two, we face a monumental challenge. It will not be until group three is pregnant with church leaders and pastors that the Great Commission will experience a resurgence. And since pastors and leaders generally come from theological colleges, seminaries and Bible colleges, it is only logical that these institutions take a strong lead. If evangelism does not return as the Queen of their curriculum, and if graduates leave without knowing what the Words of the gospel are, and how to communicate them, and start evangelising, what hope is there? According to researcher Martha Grace-Reece, out of 72 mainline seminaries surveyed, only 10 required a pitiful half course in evangelism.4 Thankfully, some leaders are waking up to this tragic situation. David Neff, for example, editor of Christianity Today, has noted that “many evangelicals lack a thorough knowledge of the gospel and few can actually articulate it.” In fact, when it comes to setting forth just how Jesus saves, he says, “most of us flounder.” 5 Our enemy in the battle for souls wants to keep it this way. His priority is to target leaders, pastors and evangelists. I talk more about his special attacks on leaders in Chapters Fourteen to Nineteen. Here are eleven key questions for leaders, pastors and 4 http://churchexecutive.com/archives/no-more-whining-handwringing-over-evangelism-—-just-do-it-now 5 Cited in: Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan, 2000. p.15

evangelists that the enemy would love you to answer with a “No.” 1. Do you really know what the Words of the gospel are, as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15? 2. Is your knowledge of the Words of the gospel based on Biblical understanding? 3. Have you ever seriously studied this subject? 4. Are you leading by example? That is, are you proclaiming or spreading the Words of the gospel regularly, on a one-on-one basis, to non-Christians? 5. If you do know what the Words of the gospel are, can you show others in the church how to proclaim it to non-Christians? 6. Are you accountable? Would anyone know if you were or weren’t doing it? 7. Are the rest of the people in the leadership of your church accountable in evangelism? 8. Do you know whether the people in your church know what the Words of the gospel are and whether they are proclaiming or spreading them? 9. Is there serious, on-going training in personal evangelism happening in your church? 10. Would you say that the culture of your church is evangelistic? In other words, if someone was to ask random people in your congregation what is most important to you as their pastor, would “Evangelism” be their first response? 11. Did you know that evangelising the world and mobilising all believers to do it is Jesus’ priority for His Church? The enemy’s plan is for you to answer ‘no’ to all these questions. One of the purposes of this book is to move you out from under his influence so you can say ‘yes’ eleven times. In Chapters Three and Four we discussed his ten devices to redefine ‘evangelism.’ His next cluster of devices are designed to mess up our understanding of ‘the gospel’. 4

“Hmmm,” he murmurs. “There are some Christians who know evangelism is simply the proclamation or spread of the gospel. So my only way to stop them being effective in evangelism is to confuse their understanding of the phrase “the gospel!”’ Five devices to confuse our understanding of the gospel… First, he has persuaded us to proclaim ‘other gospels’ instead of the gospel. Secondly he wants us to confuse the words of the gospel with its works and effects. His third device is to blur in our minds the distinction between the general use of the term ‘the gospel’ and the sharply-defined way it is used in the New Testament. Fourth, he has subtly persuaded some Christians that ‘the gospel’ cannot be defined so that we will never come to grips with its content. Fifth, he wants us to water down the gospel in order to preserve unity. He wants us to fear losing our non-Christian friends and family if we tell them the genuine gospel. For this reason many Christians proclaim only the bits of the gospel they think their friends and family will like. He also tries to persuade Christians to water down the gospel in order to preserve unity between churches and church members. In this Chapter I am going to discuss each of these five devices, revealing how they undermine our efforts to evangelise the world.

EVICE # 11 Have us proclaim “other gospels” instead of THE gospel.

Jesus didn’t say He would return when everyone had heard any gospel. In most of the references to the gospel in the New Testament, the definite article the is used.6 For example: “Go into 6 Occasionally Paul calls it “my gospel” (e.g. 2 Timothy 2:8) or “our gospel” (2 Thessalonians 2:14) or “the glorious gospel” (1 Timothy 1:11) or “this gospel” (Colossians 1:6). These are exceptions rather than the rule.

all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15). “The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). “The gospel must first be preached in all the nations” (Mark 13:10). The definite article suggests the message is both specific and definable. After careful study of the New Testament, distinguished professor of theology at Western Seminary, Portland, and the author of the widely-acclaimed Christian Theology, Dr Millard Erickson, came to this conclusion. He maintains Paul was the New Testament writer who used the phrase ‘the gospel”’ more than any other. Erickson says it clearly had “…a meaning sufficiently standardised that Paul’s readers knew precisely what he meant. It is apparent that when Paul uses ‘the gospel’ as the direct object of a verb of speaking or hearing, he has in view a particular content, a body of facts.”7 When Mark, Jesus, Paul and others used the term they knew their listeners understood what it meant. Sadly, many Christians no longer have that understanding. Once Christians come to believe that ‘the gospel’ cannot be defined, the dangers for evangelism are threefold. First, any Christian message becomes ‘the gospel’. Secondly, Christians, not knowing what to say, say nothing. When these things happen a third danger emerges. We open the door to the spread of ‘false gospels’. ow not knowing the content of the gospel helps propagate false gospels… Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us non-Christians have “eternity in their hearts.” Through conscience and creation, human beings are either consciously or subconsciously seeking spiritual things. Many nonChristians have no doubt there is a God, and in their pubs, clubs, restaurants and homes they sometimes discuss ‘God’, who He

7 Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Books, 1988, p.1062

is, and what He is like. I was one of them. Having not heard the true gospel from the lips of a Christian, they formulate their own answers to these questions. Then, as they share their conclusions with others, false gospels are spawned and spread. In a sense, they falsely ‘evangelise’ their friends and family. Tragically, many Christians have adopted these ‘other’ gospels also. And why have they done this? If a bank teller doesn’t know what a genuine $20 bill looks like, he’ll lack the capacity to detect a counterfeit. Not knowing the content of the genuine gospel message has left Christians vulnerable to taking on board that which is false. xamples of false gospels… Here are just some of the ‘other’ gospels circulating in nonChristian circles today – and in some churches: • “The liberal gospel” which states that everyone is already a Christian because God loves everyone. • “The universalist gospel” in which all religious people worship the same God. • “The we are all Christians gospel” where everyone is already a Christian because this is a Christian country. • The “I go to church at Easter and Christmas gospel” which states that attending church at special times (like Easter and Christmas) makes you a Christian. • “The Christian rituals gospel” which states that participating in rituals such as baptism or christening makes you a Christian. • “The good luck charm gospel” which sees Jesus as a good luck charm. In many countries people wear crosses around their necks and say they believe in Jesus. But they have never turned and surrendered to Him and have no personal relationship with Him. • “The good works gospel”, in which I am going to earn my ticket to heaven. • “The Jesus-loves-you-anyway gospel”, where no one needs to

change any aspect of their current lifestyle to become a Christian. With this gospel, the cost of discipleship is hidden. When you become a Christian you come as you are, and stay as you are. • “The denomination gospel” which tells me I am saved if I belong to a particular denomination or church. • “The keep-your-fingers-crossed gospel” where nobody can be assured of salvation and ‘followers’ live under a cloud of uncertainty. • “The set-of-scales gospel” where a person hopes all the good things they have done will outweigh the bad things, so that God will judge them favourably after death. • “The being kind to others makes me a Christian gospel”. These are people who believe they are saved because they are kind. Kindness is the fruit of genuine salvation but never its root. • “The do unto others as you would have them do unto you gospel.” These are people who think they are saved because they are living according to this motto. Doing good unto others is the fruit of salvation but never the root of it. Thus, the enemy confuses our understanding of the gospel by drip-feeding into the Church and the non-Christian community many “other” gospels – with stunning success. But Paul has warned us: “Even if an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:8). Be clear about this: there is just one gospel. Theologian Dr Millard Erickson writes, “Because the gospel has been, is, and will always be the way of salvation, the Church must preserve the gospel at all costs. When the gospel is modified, the vitality of the Church is lost. The Church dies.”8 Signatories to the document entitled The Gospel Of Jesus 8 ibid, p.1066

Christ: An Evangelical Celebration have this to say: “This gospel is the only gospel: there is no other; and to change its substance is to pervert and indeed destroy it.”9 These are strong words.

EVICE # 12 Cause Christians to confuse the words of the gospel with its works and effects.

I touched on this in the previous Chapter and I am going to elaborate here. Let’s say I build a house for a poor family. The building is a work of the gospel. The poor family who own the home find protection from the rain and the sun, and experience the joy of living in a proper house. These are the effects of the gospel. But the family has still not heard the words of the gospel. This differentiation helps lift the heavy fog from the minds of many Christians about what the gospel is and isn’t. The following are just some of the verses in the Bible which relate solely to the words of the gospel. • “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15) • “The gospel must first be preached in all the nations”(Mark 13:10) • “Woe to you if you preach another gospel”(Galatians 1:6-9) • “The gospel is the power of God for salvation”(Romans 1:16) We know these verses are referring to the words because the Greek word for ‘gospel’ in these verses is either the same or a close variant of the Greek word euaggelion meaning “good news.” Whenever this word appears in the Bible, we understand it to mean the words of the gospel. The following table shows some examples of the difference between the concepts. The Works of the gospel

The Effects of the gospel

The Words of the gospel

9 Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan, 2000, p.240

• Feeding the hungry. • Clothing the naked. • Visiting those in prison. • Setting up orphanages. • Setting up hospitals. • Christian aid projects. • Penetrating society through the arts, literature, politics, education, sport, etc with Biblical principles and perspectives. • Praying for people. • Serving people. • Loving people. • Sending Christian sports teams abroad to bring testimonies. • Constructing buildings for people in poor countries.

• Physical, emotional and mental healing. • Spiritual deliverance. • Personal liberation from the power and presence of sin through the power and work of the Holy Spirit. • Changed societal attitudes. • Transformed lives and attitudes. • A full stomach replacing hunger; clothing replacing nakedness. • Freedom replacing oppression, and justice replacing injustice.

A carefully crafted salvation message which explains why a person must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved, and the cost of discipleship. These words are concerned with the state of a person’s soul, the regeneration of their heart, whether they have been reconciled to God or not, and their eternal salvation.

When Christians confuse the works, the effects and the words of the gospel, usually the words are left unproclaimed. Let me give you some more examples. ow the confusion stops evangelism… A local Christian newspaper10 ran an article about a large Christian organisation’s annual conference. The president described what his organisation was trying to do as follows: “What are our marching orders? We read in the Great Commission about going into the world and proclaiming the gospel. What are we doing about this? Are we serious about it?” The article went on to report testimonies from three men about how they had advanced the Great Commission. But really, they had not advanced it at all. All they had done was share their testimony

10 Challenge Weekly, New Zealand’s Christian Newspaper. Vol.62, Issue 39, October 18, 2004, p.7

about the effect Jesus had on their lives. No presentation of the words of the gospel was given as they gave their testimonies. Evangelism hadn’t taken place. One had been in a spiritual battle with suicide and told how God had helped him overcome. Another was an Olympic bronze medallist and told how God had helped him succeed. The third was an older man who told how God had prompted him to change his lifestyle and become a policeman. Victory over suicide, success in sport, and a change of lifestyle are effects of the gospel – not to be equated with going into the world and proclaiming its words. If the message is that victory over suicide, a change of lifestyle, and success in sport are comparable to going into the world and proclaiming the gospel, what happens? These Christians will not go on to proclaim the words of the gospel because they think they are already doing it. Worse still, these devices were spread through the Christian community by the Christian newspaper. Remember, the enemy is fanatically committed to confusing our understanding of the Great Commission and “the gospel” and he’ll jump on any willing vehicle to do it. Two more examples… Imagine a Christian aid organisation undertaking a project in Africa where they are digging a water well, a work of the gospel. The aid project creates an effect, because the poor in Africa now have water. However, the leaders would be mistaken if they thought the project was fulfilling the command of Jesus to go into the world and preach the gospel.11 Another example: When I hear the phrase “Go into all the world and 11 Interestingly, the Lausanne Covenant asked and answered an important question. “If we had to choose between the words of the gospel or the works of the gospel, what should have priority?” Their answer was the words. Three reasons were given. 1. The immensity of the task. World evangelisation requires the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. 2. The Church is God’s agent for evangelism. 3. The Church is God’s appointed means of spreading the gospel. The Lausanne Covenant, from Let The Earth Hear His Voice, World Wide Publications, 1975, p.29

preach the gospel,” I think of a verbal message with specific content. Other Christians might hear the same command but understand it differently. They might picture, perhaps, someone being prayed for and healed from a physical illness in the name of Jesus. This differing interpretation plays into Satan’s hand. As long as people think that being used by God to effect a physical healing is the same as preaching the words of the gospel, the enemy is happy. Sure, he is not pleased that someone is healed, an effect of the gospel, but on another level he is delighted – because the words of the gospel are not being proclaimed.

EVICE # 13 Blur the distinction between the general use of the term ‘the gospel’ and its sharplydefined New Testament use.

Given that the word gospel means ‘good news’, the whole Bible is in one sense ‘the gospel’. We could use the term gospel in this way because there is indeed much good news in the Bible. David slew Goliath, the five thousand were fed, liberty replaced bondage, the sick were healed etc etc. All good news. Christian newspapers and magazines often report encouraging stories and testimonies and call them ‘Good News’ papers. They may even say they are a ‘gospel publication’ meaning they report stories of God at work within the Christian community. They are using the term ‘the gospel’ in a wide and general sense. But the gospel, as Jesus referred to it in Mark 16:15, is different from a good story or testimony. In Mark 16:15, Jesus is referring to very specific good news. The particular good news is a carefullycrafted message about personal salvation which lies within the pages of the Bible. We could say that this message is the gospel within the gospel. I have called this message “the sharply defined New Testament gospel.” i.e. the SDNTG 12

he enemy is the author of confusion… The enemy is committed to making Christians confuse the wide and general gospel (i.e. TWAGG) with the sharply-defined New Testament gospel.12 (i.e. the SDNTG) He is constantly targeting you, your family, your pastor, your elders, your Christian radio and TV station, your theological colleges and your training centres. But he shudders when Christians wake up to the difference. In fact, it is his worst nightmare that you are reading this book. Below are four examples of how the confusion between the TWAGG and the SDNTG has stopped Christians from proclaiming or spreading this vital message: xample one: A pastor exhorts the people, “We need to get the gospel to the lost” (and he means the SDNTG). Those in the congregation who do not know what he means may default to the TWAGG meaning of the word, and think they are already doing what the pastor says. “Hey, I sponsor a child in a poor country,” thinks one person. “I’m already getting the gospel to the lost.” “I’m being a friend to non-Christians,” another thinks happily, “so I am preaching the gospel through my kindness!” “I have been learning to love my wife like Jesus said, and my marriage has really improved,” thinks yet another. “I’ve told some of my non-Christian mates about how it’s a Biblical principle and how it has been such good news for me. So am I not already getting the gospel to the lost?” Thinking that they are already proclaiming the gospel through their actions and words, these TWAGG Christians will not go on to

12 From now on in this book I shall use “the words of the gospel,” the “sharply-defined New Testament gospel,” and “the gospel” interchangeably. They are the same thing.

proclaim the SDNTG. It’s easy to see why the enemy is resolutely committed to propagating the confusion. xample two: I was visiting a church one day when a man approached me. “Julian,” he said, “I don’t agree with your definition of the gospel. It’s too narrow. I believe the whole Bible is the gospel. If I communicate truth from the Bible to a non-Christian, I am proclaiming the gospel.” This man doesn’t know the difference between the TWAGG, and the SDNTG. The enemy is pleased that every time this man explains a truth from the TWAGG to a non-Christian person, he thinks he is proclaiming the gospel the SDNTG. The enemy knows the man is not likely to go on to proclaim the SDNTG. xample three: Imagine a Christian lawyer who fights for the disadvantaged in court to ensure they are not being treated unjustly. In the wide and general use of the phrase ‘the gospel,’ the lawyer is “good news from God to the poor.” The lawyer believes he is thus fulfilling Jesus’ command to go into the world and proclaim the gospel. However, there is a great difference between being good news (a vital aspect of the wide and general gospel) and proclaiming the SDNTG. As long as the lawyer thinks one equals the other, he will not go beyond achieving justice for the disadvantaged and move on to preaching the SDNTG. The enemy hates to see lawyers working to bring justice for the poor, but he is just as delighted when the SDNTG is left unproclaimed as they go about their excellent work. xample four: A Christian group inside a university is planning an evangelism initiative. They decide to flood the university with the Gospel of Mark. One member of the group, who is acutely aware of the difference between TWAGG and SDNTG, exhorts the group: Brian: “We need to explain the gospel clearly, at the back of the

Gospel of Mark.” Another student on the organising committee objects. Mary: “I am not sure what you are talking about, Brian – the Gospel of Mark is the gospel!” Brian: “Yes, the Gospel of Mark is ‘the Gospel’ but it’s not the same as the gospel as Jesus used it in Mark 16:15. The Gospel of Mark we are distributing covers a multitude of topics and issues. The gospel we are to proclaim narrows right down to cover four essential areas of content: why we must be saved, how Jesus can save us, what we must do to be saved, and the cost of being a disciple.” Mary: “If you read through the whole Gospel of Mark, I am sure you will find those points in there!” Brian: “True. But if we really loved and cared for the non-Christians that are going to be reading this Gospel of Mark, wouldn’t we want to help them discover the essential, core message inside? Shouldn’t we explain what it is really all about, rather than just leaving them to discover it? Remember the classic account in Acts 8 where the Ethiopian eunuch was reading through the book of Isaiah and didn’t understand what he was reading? Philip went over to him, and helped him understand what he was reading. After that, he went on to explain the gospel to him.” See the table below for more examples. Examples of statements Christians make which indicate they are talking about the wide and general gospel 1

Examples of statements Christians make which indicate they are talking about the sharply-defined New Testament gospel

1 Some of these (in both columns) could also be in the other column., e.g. “I shared the gospel with my neighbour” – the phrase could mean either wide or sharp, depending on what was being referred to. If I gave my neighbour a whole Bible, I would be sharing the wide and general gospel. If I explained how his soul could be saved, I would be sharing the sharply-defined New Testament gospel.

• On a poster: “Taking the gospel to the nations!” • In a magazine: “We must get the gospel to the poor.” • From the pulpit: “The gospel will liberate the disadvantaged.” • On a flyer: “The gospel brings justice.” • A book cover: “We must take the gospel to the whole world.” • “The gospel broke their bondage.” • Speaking of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: “There is great truth in the Gospels.” • “The gospel calls us as Christians to express hospitality and care for the poor, the displaced and the foreigners.”

• “He was convicted by the gospel message.” • “She preached the gospel with power.” • “I was able to share the gospel with the man.” • “We used gospel tracts on the outreach.” • “We went door-to-door proclaiming the gospel.” • “I shared the gospel with my neighbour.” • “I explained the gospel to my friend but he didn’t agree with everything I said.” • “I took my work mate through the gospel at lunchtime today.” • “The gospel was explained very clearly.”

Summary There

is a big difference between the TWAGG and the SDNTG but the enemy doesn’t want you to see it or understand the difference. He wants to keep you oblivious to the subtle but all important difference.

EVICE # 14 Persuade us that “the gospel” cannot be defined.

I have already touched on this device at the beginning of this Chapter, but I expand on it here. Dr G. D. James, founder of Asia Evangelistic Fellowship, writes: “In order to proclaim or communicate the gospel effectively, we need to have a clear definition of its meaning and message.”13 The enemy knows this and so he reasons, “If Christians cannot define the gospel, then they will soon think that anything they say to non-Christians is the gospel. If everything is the gospel, then nothing

13 Dr G.D James. Equipment For Evangelism. G.D James Publishers. Epping, Sydney, 1985, p.54

is the gospel. Perfect! I’ll sow a seed of doubt along these lines.”14 Hasn’t he done well! As I have taught about evangelism around the world, I have heard many Christians unwittingly promote the idea that the content of the gospel cannot be defined. xample one: “When we talk to strangers about God, we should just flow with the Spirit and say whatever He tells us to say. The gospel we give to non-Christians is going to be different for every person and only God knows what each person needs to hear.” xample two: “The gospel is not like a ‘one size fits all’ garment. Each person is different, and so what we say to each person should be unique. As long as what we say is relevant to them, we can say we are proclaiming the gospel.” As usual with the enemy, these two examples contain a mixture of truth and error. What is the truth? We should flow with the Spirit when we deliver the gospel and we should be ready for the Spirit to give us words of knowledge or particular insights into people so that our conversations truly connect with them. We should also be sensitive to cultural and social differences between people as we deliver the gospel, while recognising that all need the same salvation. We should understand that each person comes to the evangelism situation with a unique set of life circumstances, and that tuning in to that uniqueness helps build rapport. However… The gospel can be defined… listen to the experts. The gospel is essentially the same for every person, and, according to the experts, it can be defined. Church historian Dr Michael Green writes, “What Mark says about the gospel is important (i.e. Mark 16:15). In the first place, it

E E

14 The thought that “the gospel” cannot be defined is reinforced by the spread of false gospels. When Christians hear of so many different gospels they soon conclude any Christian message must be “the gospel.”

is a message with quite specific content… a recognisable message which a man can proclaim and believe in.”15 Theologian and author Dr David Larsen concurs: “The Christian communicator is called to proclaim the gospel of Christ, not with fuzziness but with forcefulness. Essential to this mission is certainty of message and clarity in articulation. The gospel is not ‘almost indefinable’ as some maintain. We must part company with those who seem to revel in uncertainty. It is little wonder that many mainline denominations are haemorrhaging to death. We dare not stammer …as to the essential content and core of the redemptive gospel.”16 Evangelist Greg Laurie, too, has insisted, “…the essential gospel is the same for every person.”17 In a defining document released by the churches in Britain, the authors state, “It is the presentation of the gospel, not its content, that changes with succeeding generations and their varying conditions.”18 Past President of the Southeastern Baptist Theological seminary Dr Lewis Drummond has conducted his own review of the literature on this topic and concludes: “Believers have a definite gospel to proclaim.”19 Dr R.C. Sproul contends that an indefinable gospel is an oxymoron:20 “Before we can believe the gospel,” he says, “we must have some idea of its content.”21 Theologian Dr Harry Poe, Professor of Faith and Culture 15 Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Suffolk: Highland Books, 1970, p.62 16 David L Larsen. The Evangelism Mandate. Recovering The Centrality Of Gospel Preaching. Crossway Books, 1992, p.90 17 Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale Press, 1999, p.29 18 ‘Towards the Conversion of Britain.’ Cited in John Stott, Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. Hodder and Stoughton, 1997, p.33 19 Lewis A Drummond. The Word Of The Cross. Broadman Press, 2001, p.214 20 According to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, an oxymoron is “a figure of speech or expressed idea in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. bittersweet). 21 R.C. Sproul. Getting The Gospel Right: The Tie That Binds Evangelicals Together. Baker Books, 1999, p.27

at Union University, Jackson, Tennessee, concurs: “Though the apostles used different terms in different settings, they spoke about the same basic matters, telling of Christ from eternity, through earthly ministry, to eternity.”22 Dr Ray Ortland, on the council of the Gospel Coalition, states “This [gospel] has specific content. It can and must be defined, and from the Bible alone.”23 So on one hand, we have scholars affirming we have a precise gospel to proclaim. On the other, we have Satan suggesting to millions of Christians that the gospel cannot be defined. Those who believe it to be indefinable will proclaim something vague and wishy-washy or nothing at all. But proclaiming an insipid gospel is something Paul specifically warned against in Galatians 1:6-9. s a result of this device, wishy-washy gospels multiply... On top of the ‘other gospels’ I have already mentioned, wishy-washy ones include: • “Jesus loves you. Come to Him and He’ll make everything in your life sweet.” • “God is exciting and awesome. He is fun! He is the Father you never had!” • “If you want eternal life, peace, joy, happiness, love, just come to Jesus! He’ll give you everything you ever wanted!” As we have seen, the enemy likes to mix truth with error, and so each of the above examples contains an element of truth. For example, it is true that God is our Father and that He does forgive. It is also true that God the Father could be the dad you never had. Moreover, He is a God of love and the Christian life can be exciting. The problem is that whilst none of these appeals represents the sharply-defined New Testament gospel, they can pass smoothly under our heresy radars as ‘the gospel.’

22 Harry L. Poe. The Gospel And Its Meaning. Zondervan, 1996, p.44 23 Dr Ray Ortlund. The Gospel. How The Church Portrays The Beauty Of Christ. Crossway, 2014, p.15

ay good-bye to wishy-washy gospels… Wishy-washy gospel messages will have little impact (they are like a feather duster) on the non-Christian listener. This being the case, the Christians delivering them, thinking that their wishy-washy gospel is the gospel, will lose confidence in further proclamation.  Thus, these ‘other gospels”’ give the gospel a bad name. Sadly, the wishy-washy gospel messages never go away. Young Christians, seeing that the Bible clearly says we should be proclaiming something, run with them, and they spread like wildfire. There is certainly nothing wishy-washy about the gospel. Leading nineteenth century Scottish theologian Dr R.C.H. Lenski parallels preaching the gospel with plugging an appliance into mains power: “When we come into contact with the gospel in any way, we come into contact with this blessed power [i.e. the very power of God flowing down from His throne to save people] and when we preach the gospel, we bring others into contact with this power.”24 et the gospel’s power flow… When we proclaim the gospel, we plug non-Christians into God’s saving power. His saving current flows into their precious minds and hearts. “When we proclaim it [i.e. the gospel],” writes pastor, teacher and author, Dr Norman Harrison, “it becomes ‘direct current’ to human hearts.”25 Theologian and prolific author, Dr Thomas Robinson calls the gospel “…the highest manifestation of divine power.”26 Dr Rob Frost, National Evangelist of the Methodist Church in

24 Dr R.C.H.Lenski. The Interpretation Of St Paul’s Epistle To The Romans. Wartburg Press, 1960, p.74 25 Dr Norman Harrison. His Salvation As Set Forth In The Book Of Romans. Moody Press, 1926, p.28 26 Dr Thomas Robinson. Studies in Romans. Expository And Homiletical. Kregel Publications, 1982, p.61

the United Kingdom, describes the seed of the gospel as having “…mind-blowing power.”27 This is why, in the battle for souls, our most powerful weapon is the gospel. he Early Church - following their example… There are many accounts in the Bible which indicate that the early believers were sure about what they were preaching. Here are just two Scriptures: “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they (i.e. the Apostles) never stopped teaching and proclaiming the Good News (the gospel) that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:42). “You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:20-24). These Scriptures quoted above give us further insights into the gospel: 1. Since they went door to door, the message must have had a beginning and an end. 2. The message must have been sufficiently short for the Apostles to have preached it throughout the city, house to house. 3. The message must have been succinct, pithy and potent enough to have sustained the attention and interest of the occupants of each house. 4. If they had been preaching ‘other gospels’ the Apostles would have got a poor response. When proclaimers keep getting poor responses, they become discouraged, and stop proclaiming. 5. Paul and his colleagues viewed the proclamation of the gospel as their core business. aving a definite gospel to proclaim helps non-Christians understand the Bible…

27 http://www.goodnewsmag.org/magazine/1JanFeb/jf00frost.html

Understanding the gospel as being a specific and precise message means, among other things, that giving out whole Bibles or large portions of Scripture to non-Christians cannot truly be called ‘evangelism’. This is not to say that Bible distribution is unimportant. If we could, we ought to flood the world with Bibles, since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). I like what the Gideons do. They put a gospel message in the back of every Bible they distribute. This is the ideal. When Jesus said, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel,” He did not intend for us to simply give out the whole Bible in the hope that non-Christians might stumble across the sharply-defined gospel inside. Why leave it to non-Christians to piece the SDNTG together from inside the Bible, when we have been commanded to do it for them? We have a divine duty as ambassadors of Jesus to make the gospel clear and accessible to seekers – as He did. Paul said, “…setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2). We are not making the SDNTG plain to nonChristians if we just shove a Bible in their hands and expect them to work out what the SDNTG is.

EVICE # 15 To persuade us to water down “the words of the gospel” in order to preserve unity.

Christians tend to water down the content of the words of the gospel for two reasons. First, they fear that if they proclaim the gospel to their friends they might lose the friendship; and secondly, they worry about causing disunity within the Church. I want to discuss each of these in turn. (a) Not proclaiming the gospel for fear of losing friends Not wanting to risk their friendships, some Christians dilute the message to make it more palatable. The extreme outworking of this is to only tell your friends and neighbours, “Jesus loves you,” thinking 22

you are fulfilling your obligation to evangelise. But when your message to others becomes simply and only, “Jesus loves you,” you are guilty of proclaiming ‘another gospel’. I say, “Let God choose your friends.” If you proclaim the gospel lovingly and graciously, when the time is appropriate, and you lose the friendship, so be it. At the final judgment, we will not be judged unfavourably for putting Jesus first and losing a friend. But we will be judged unfavourably for disobeying Jesus and putting a friendship first. I don’t see Paul or the Apostles compromising on the gospel for the sake of preserving friends. In fact, I have found that the friends I have made as a result of proclaiming the gospel are infinitely better than the friends I chose myself! When you let God choose your friends, it’s way better. Ultimately, we have to leave to Jesus the consequence of proclaiming the gospel. Having said this, I freely admit that losing a friend for the sake of the gospel can be heartbreaking. Jesus Himself experienced this many times. The Bible tells us, “He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). hat would you do if you were Betty? I once went to a particular church to teach members how to proclaim the gospel. Soon afterwards one woman who had been trained emailed me. Betty said that for ten years she had got on well with her non-Christian neighbour and that they had become friends. Betty took the liberty to share the gospel lovingly and graciously with this neighbour, who discovered in the process that she was a sinner, out of relationship with God and headed for hell. She subsequently stopped talking to Betty, and their friendship was possibly over. Betty expressed her regret to me at having shared the gospel with her. My question is, what do you think Jesus thinks of this situation? Betty could have shared “another gospel” with her neighbour.

She could have simply told her, “Jesus loves you” and gained favour and strengthened the friendship. But would Betty have gained the favour of Jesus? Some might argue Betty could have started softly with “Jesus loves you” and then, as the relationship deepened, she could have found the opportunity to present the full gospel. I would make four comments about this situation: 1. Most often, despite good intentions, Christians never get beyond “Jesus loves you” or “Why don’t you come to church?” 2. People frequently move to other locations. What happens if Betty’s neighbour moves away and all she remembers is “Jesus loves me”? When facing eternal judgment, she will say, “For heaven’s sake, why wasn’t my Christian neighbour Betty honest with me?” It could be argued that Betty’s neighbour may move to a street where another Christian could share the SDNTG with her, but we should never presume this. We should take opportunities while we can, for Jesus specifically commanded us not to delay by making excuses. He said “Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22). As we have seen, one of the great issues we face with the collapse of evangelism in the West is that everyone thinks everyone else is doing it – or going to. So we must work on the presumption that if our loved ones or friends don’t hear the full gospel from us, they will never hear it. And if people get to hear the SDNTG several times over, well and good. 3. Merely saying to people “Jesus loves you” is like spreading another gospel, which Paul warned us not to do (Galatians 1:69). In Matthew 10 Jesus warns us to expect trouble, division and unpopularity when we evangelise. The question is, then, to whom should we be loyal? 4. If Betty shared the SDNTG with her neighbour, and her neighbour understood the message, but didn’t believe it, that’s 24

OK. Why? The Holy Spirit will go to the neighbour, in His own perfect time, and convict her of the truth of the gospel Betty shared. You see, evangelism is not all about us. It’s about us co-operating with God. God is the big player in evangelism. We just need to be faithful with our bit and He will do His bit.

We have to remember our time on earth is so limited. While we are discussing the lost and why we should or shouldn’t proclaim the SDNTG to them, millions are pouring into hell, never having heard it once.28 We don’t ever want to end up on our deathbed with a thousand regrets about some person to whom we should have given the whole gospel but didn’t because of this, that or the other reason. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1150) once said, “Hell is full of good intentions.” So it is wise to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and on Judgment Day and let that motivate today’s behaviour and decisions. “We fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). By the way, this is my all time favourite Bible verse. on’t leave it too late… One day, during another seminar in which I was teaching people how to proclaim the gospel,29 I was talking with the group about taking opportunities and leaving the results with God. One

28 Many people ask me if those who have not heard the gospel will go to hell. What about babies? What about the intellectually handicapped? We have produced a set of readings called ‘His Gift, Our Opportunity’ which answers these and other tricky questions. These readings can be purchased at www.esisite.com 29 I don’t want you to become worried and stressed about the thought of going to all your neighbours and friends with the gospel. Before you are able to do this, you need training on how to do it. Going to your friends and neighbours in your current untrained state would be extremely stressful! After good training, your confidence will increase. When your confidence in your skill increases, and knowing that God is really helping you, your anxiety will decrease. And when your success increases, so will your joy and love for evangelism. So, rest easy. Start by being trained in evangelism. The best place to start is to attend our ‘Six Lost Truths’ Conference. Why don’t you host one in your church? Contact me : julian@esisite.com. Or we have a home group style DVD series with work books and study guides for small groups called Evangelism! Strategies from heaven in the war for souls. In this way, you can learn from home.

lady began to cry and asked if she could come to the front and speak. “I had an elderly neighbour for ten years,” she said. “He came to our place for dinner often and I used to take him cakes. Over the years he became like a member of our family. We talked about God and Christianity in a light and friendly way, but for a variety of reasons I never got around to sharing the full gospel with him. I must admit I didn’t know how to, and I didn’t want to lose the friendship. One day he committed suicide. It just dawned on me that with what happened I had suffered a double loss. I didn’t honour Jesus and I didn’t love my neighbour.” et Jesus choose your friends… Our faithfulness is first to Jesus. If we lose all our friends as a consequence of doing the will of God, then so be it. I have found that since I started proclaiming the gospel I have lost some of my non-Christian friends but gained others. It seems to me, as I read the New Testament, that people either loved or hated Jesus and Paul. There was little in between. One thing Jesus and Paul did not do was compromise the message of the gospel in order to preserve unity with their friends. Betty is not an isolated example. The pressure to proclaim ‘another gospel’ weighs heavily on many Christians because they love their friends. But do they really love them? hat it means to truly “love your neighbour”… Charles Spurgeon says we cannot really love our friends if we don’t share the gospel with them: “We are to seek our neighbour’s conversion because we love him, and we are to share God’s loving gospel with him in loving terms, because our heart desires his [or her] eternal good.” 30 So far in this discussion, I have explained how the enemy has tried

30 Charles H Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Focus Publication, 1992, p.14

to persuade us to water down the gospel for the sake of preserving unity with non-Christians friends and family. Now I want to show you how he tries to manipulate us to water down the gospel in order to preserve unity with fellow church members. (b) Not proclaiming the gospel for fear of causing disunity within the Church Think about this for a moment. When someone in a church defines the content of the SDNTG – explaining clearly what message we should be proclaiming in the non-Christians’ world – and their definition contradicts the ‘in-house gospel’ being proclaimed by the leadership of that church, controversy is likely. The leader proclaiming the ‘in-house gospel’ will likely feel threatened. And not only the leader. For some church goers who hear the gospel for the first time it can be an offensive, even shocking, experience! So at a leadership level and a congregational level, introducing the gospel can have explosive consequences for so called ‘unity’. How will this fear of creating disunity stop believers from proclaiming the gospel? To avoid the charge of fostering disunity the person who wants to introduce SDNTG ends up shelving it and they learn to live with the resident “in-house gospel” being proclaimed in their church i.e. the SDNTG gospel is shut down. The suggestion that we must preserve unity at all costs is a clever device of the enemy, with three positive outcomes for him. First, most Christians will never come to know what the SDNTG is because its nature and content are muted. Secondly, those who are proclaiming “the in-house gospels” are left unchallenged and their false gospel messages freely propagate within the community. Thirdly, and directly resulting from the first two, non-Christians don’t ever come to hear the SDNTG from the Christians meeting at the “in-house gospel” church. 27

nglican vicar witnesses the power of the gospel… Recently I taught a group of ministers how to proclaim the gospel. One of the tools they learned to use can be viewed at www. Biblein11.com. Among the trainees was an Anglican vicar who went back to his church and used the tool to proclaim the gospel on Sunday morning to his congregation. Now there were two Sunday morning services in this particular church, the first being more conservative. When the gospel was shown with a lot of grace and love during this service, two church members walked out halfway through. At the end of the service, one threatened to leave the church if ‘that presentation’ was ever shown again! The reasons given? He objected to the suggestion that there was a literal place called hell. The other member was offended at the thought that Jesus would not accept her on the basis of her good life alone. The vicar told me he hated controversy and disunity. I think we all do. He did not enjoy being disliked and scorned. He also confessed he would miss the tithes from those members if they left. Yet at the same time, he said, he felt strongly that he should not be intimidated by these threats and should stand with Jesus on the truth of the SDNTG. All of a sudden, having shared the gospel, he witnessed its raw power. But that is not the end of the story. alvations at the 10 am…! The reaction of the second congregation, at the 10am service, was completely different. They applauded spontaneously after the gospel was proclaimed, and there was an altar call and a response. People were saved. When I thought about the vicar and the threats of the members in the earlier service, I remembered Matthew 10, including verse 34: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Verses 37-38 go on to say: “Anyone who loves his father or

mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” My Anglican friend continues to proclaim the SDNTG. He concluded that not compromising on the content of the gospel was more important than not ruffling the feathers of the parishioners, character was more important than the lost tithe, and faithfulness to Jesus was more important than membership numbers. Unity built on compromise, he concluded, was no unity at all. He is still working with everyone in the early service, processing the concerns of those who were deeply offended and planning to lead them into a place of genuine faith. The Anglican vicar is a hero in heaven because he did not dilute the SDNTG message in order to keep the peace. ow the quest for Christian unity and the goal of evangelising the world can cancel each other out… Paradoxically, this device of the enemy, to cause us to water down the content of the gospel in order to preserve unity among Christians, does hinder evangelism most severely when Christian leaders in a town or city are working hard to build unity between their churches. Let me explain. Right around the world, there has been a desire among Christian leaders of different denominations to unite and work together. This is a brilliant initiative and long overdue. These leaders are standing on certain promises in the Word of God which connect unity with God’s blessing (e.g. Psalm 133:1-3) and powerful witness (John 17:20-26).   However, if we try our best to get along with one another but have to compromise on the essential content of the SDNTG and on the priority of Jesus to evangelise the world in order to do so, we become a big disappointment to Jesus. What help will it be to the Christian soldiers if they are getting on well, but enter the fray with cheap rubber swords and fail to do what Jesus commanded them to

do? You know the answer. If we don’t have unity with respect to the SDNTG, we don’t have unity. Period. Dr Billy Graham urges us to work towards unity in the uncompromised content of the gospel. “Our greatest need is for the Church to be baptized with the fire of the Holy Ghost and to go out proclaiming the gospel everywhere. We must first have spiritual unity in the gospel.”31 hen we unite on the basis of the content of the gospel and the priority of evangelising the world, we have the basis for true Christian unity… When we align ourselves with the priority of God’s revealed will which is to evangelise the world, and we don’t compromise on the gospel content, Jesus promises to show up. “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and show Myself to him” (John 14:21). Who else believes that the foundation of our unity ought to be our commitment to the essential content of the SDNTG, and to evangelising the world? First, there is Dr Joseph M. Stowell, past President of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. “To keep truth as the standard or basis for unity,” he freely admits, “has been an ongoing struggle for the Church.”32 Dr Stowell then goes on to discuss what ought to be the basis of our Christian unity. The doctrine of the Trinity is first, followed by the doctrine of salvation and the doctrine of Jesus Christ.33 These lie at the heart of the gospel. Conclusion: if we are united regarding the SDNTG, and in our priority and responsibility to spread and proclaim it universally, (i.e. the whole Church taking it to the whole world) we have a true foundation for Christian unity. Charles

31 http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/berlinaddress.htm 32 Cited in: Ravi Zacharias. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ To The World. Zondervan Publishing, 2000, pp.212-213 33 ibid. p.213

H. Spurgeon is another leader who wrestled with the difficulty of getting along with one another but not at the expense of compromising on the content of the SDNTG. “To remain divided is sinful! Did not our Lord pray that they may be one? (John 17:22). A chorus of ecumenical voices keep harping the unity tune. What they are saying is, Christians of all doctrinal shades and beliefs must come together in one visible organisation regardless… unite, unite! Such teaching is false, reckless and dangerous. Truth alone must determine our alignments. Truth comes before unity. Unity without truth is hazardous. Our Lord’s Prayer in John 17 must be read in its full context…Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth. Only those sanctified through the Word can be one in Christ. To teach otherwise is to betray the gospel.”34 on’t think for a moment that being united in the content of the gospel and in the priority of evangelising the world is going to be easy… Pastor and theologian Walter Chandry has written an excellent book urging leaders not to compromise on the SDNTG for the sake of unity.  He warns of the challenges ahead as we wrestle with the issues. In the following extract he pulls no punches. There is a tinge of sarcasm here, but please don’t let this put you off what he is trying to say. “In a large congress of evangelism,” he writes, “we could not insist on a truth of God’s word that would offend any evangelical brother. Thus we must find the lowest common denominator to which all born-again Christians hold. The rest of the Bible is labelled ‘unessential’ for missions. It is for this reason that mission boards are hesitant to answer the question, ‘What is the gospel?’ Thoroughly to answer that would condemn what many of their own missionaries preach. It would destroy the mission society, which is the federation of churches who have differing

34 Cited in: Ravi Zacharias. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ To The World. Zondervan Publishing, 2000, ibid. pp.212-213

answers to that question. To adopt the position of one church would be to lose the support of five others. The whole system built on unity and generality would crumble. The local church may not get too specific about truth either. It may affect its harmony with the denomination or association. To define the gospel carefully will bring conflict with the organisations working with teenagers. Giving too much attention to the gospel will mean friction with other evangelicals.”35 I believe there are enough strong Christian leaders on the earth right now who have the depth of character, grace, passion for world evangelism, and love of truth to overcome this toxic device of the enemy. If you belong to a ministers’ association, and you are working with other ministers to build unity, ask your colleagues the following questions: 1. Is the foundation of our unity a united commitment to the essential Biblical content of the SDNTG message? Are we agreed about the content of the SDNTG message? 2. Is the foundation of our unity a united commitment to the priority of Jesus Christ which is to evangelise the world for His glory, starting with our own Jerusalem? (Acts 1:8). When you can say “yes” to these questions, you have a true basis for Christian unity, and you have positioned your churches to receive the fulness of God’s blessing on your dreams and visions. You will have made massive advances in the war for souls. eep it pure…! In his excellent book, Tell The Truth, Will Metzger shares the same concerns as Stowell, Spurgeon, Graham and Chandry. “Man-centred evangelism,” he says, “shortens the message. It so focuses on man that it reduces God. It so fears doctrinal division among true Christians that it allows the most imprecise gospel

35 Walter Chandry. Today’s Gospel - Authentic Or Synthetic? Banner of Truth Trust, 2001, pp.11-12

messages to become common currency.” 36 he gospel is worth fighting for… Theologian and author Dr R.C. Sproul presents a passionate plea to love and defend the content of the gospel and to be united in our commitment to proclaiming and spreading it to everyone everywhere. “The loss of Christian unity at any point is tragic and destructive,” he says. “When that loss threatens our unity in the gospel itself, it is catastrophic. To work towards unity in the gospel is not a matter of ecclesiastical politics; it is a matter that touches the soul of the church itself and the souls of all its members. To seek unity in the gospel is neither a quixotic crusade nor a frivolous search; it is a matter of the most urgent priority for the Christian. All who embrace the gospel and love its content are visited by a divine mandate to preserve that unity and to defend it together. The gospel is our hope and life, the most excellent and sweet truth we have. Beside it, lesser theological differences pale into insignificance. In the gospel we experience the power of God unto salvation and hear not only ‘good’ news but the best of all possible news. This unity is so priceless that it is worth contending, fighting and dying for. It is a family matter for the people of God… the truth of the gospel must be maintained for Christ’s sake and for our own. Indeed it is our eternal link to Christ and the means through which we become His in the first place. In the gospel we meet the One who is our only hope, who will never leave us ashamed.”37

EVICE # 16 “If hell is a necessary component of gospel preaching it would be included in the summaries of the gospel message. Acts and Paul do not 36 Will Metzger. Tell The Truth. IVP, 1984, p.31

37 R.C. Sproul. Getting The Gospel Right: The Tie That Binds Evangelicals Together. Baker Books, 1999, pp.9-10

mention hell at all. How can we say it is “necessary” when the apostles and early church don’t?”

Someone wrote to me with this question. They were basically saying ‘Julian, hell is part of the gospel you teach people to proclaim. I don’t think hell should be part of the gospel message.” The doctrine of hell can cause pastors and Christians to divide which in turn has caused some to drop out of doing evangelism. So the questions above is a good one. Here is my answer to this question. Jesus refers to hell more than all the Biblical writers combined. When scholars form their opinions about what the content of the SDNTG is and isn’t, they use systematic theology. That is to say, they look at what the whole counsel of God (i.e. the Bible) has to say about a subject (i.e. in this case ‘hell’), not just isolated verses or even portions of scripture, or even only what Paul (for example), one author of the books of the Bible, or Acts (for example), one book in the Bible, has to say about a subject. Having said this, it is a fact that theologians draw heavily on the four gospels when they are considering what the content of the SDNTG ought to be, but they are not restricted to the four gospels. Hence, they use systematic theology. To undertake Biblical scholarship in this way is to be true to the whole counsel of God. Their conclusions? Hell was a vital component of the preaching of Jesus, describing ultimate final reality for those who rejected Him. Although Paul never mentions hell directly, he does refer to it very obviously in veiled terms all through the New Testament e.g. Romans 2:3-6 says “So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God 34

will repay each person according to what they have done.” Romans 5:8-9 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be SAVED FROM WRATH through him.” Ephesians 2:3-6 says, “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature THE CHILDREN OF WRATH, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 5:5-6 “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person— such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.” I Thessalonians 1:9-10 “...for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” The writer of Hebrews had this to say about it: Hebrews 10:31 “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” So why didn’t Paul (or Luke, the author of Acts) use the word “hell” directly? We could ask the same thing about other writers of Scripture, why they did not mention, or deal with other topics in depth in their particular book? For example, not all the books in the New Testament talk about divorce and remarriage, faith, works, the Trinity, etc. Why? The obvious answer is that each author, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, dealt with exactly the topics that God wanted. 35

Conclusion? The doctrine of hell is a vital component of any authentic SDNTG message. After 30 or so years of giving the gospel to the lost, I can say that the doctrine of hell is one of the components of the gospel which must never be omitted. Over and over, I can see with my own eyes that when it’s mentioned with love and tenderness, as part of the overall SDNTG, it has a positive impact on the lost.38 I can see why Jesus spoke so much about it. By ‘hell’ I mean eternal conscious torment39. There is no room to let this doctrine stop anyone from evangelising. If we say “Well, I am not going to give any gospel message which mentions hell to the lost” and we stop evangelising, the devil has won a great victory in our lives. Don’t let him have this pleasure! If you are one who really struggles with the doctrine of hell, and speaking about it to people you meet, I urge you to go to the Word of God and study this topic. Read the gospels over and over. See what Jesus had to say about it. Read what the great Christians in history have had to say about it. Read Bible commentaries. Examine your own heart. Are you afraid of losing friends? Do you fear rejection? Have you made Jesus the Lord of your life? If after all this, you still struggle with saying the word ‘hell’ in your evangelism, just substitute it with the word ‘down’ e.g. “At death, our soul goes either up to heaven or down.” Non-Christians will know exactly what you mean. They already know about hell because they have been hard wired by God to know about it40. This too has been my observation over the 30 years I have been an evangelist. But whatever you do, don’t stop evangelising!” This discussion about systematic theology is a reminder to us that we need to be faithfully reading through the entire Word of God as we seek to find answers to important questions. There are no contradictions in the Bible, but God used different authors to deal in depth with different 38 Even if I didn’t see this impact, I would not take hell out. We don’t just take content out of the gospel based on our own observation about what we think personally is right or wrong. It’s not our place to do this. We are not God. We must let Scripture speak and bow to it authority. 39 Later in this book, I discuss the doctrine of annihilationism. 40 Ecclesiastes 3:11

topics. Above all, don’t compromise on the essential content of the SDNTG, and don’t succumb to his devices which are designed to cause you to water down or compromise on the content of the SDNTG.

ummary

• Realise the gospel has immense power to save people. • Proclaiming the gospel brings real life to the believer. • Everyone on the earth needs to hear the essential content of the gospel message, as detailed in this Chapter. Generally speaking, the content should not change from person to person. • CTION POINT: Urge fellow Christians not to compromise on this content for the sake of unity. It takes courage and fortitude to proclaim the gospel in a situation where a false gospel is the accepted norm. Have the fortitude to stand strong for Jesus. • CTION POINT: Proclaim the gospel to everyone everywhere and leave the results to God. If you lose all your friends, so be it. God will give you others more precious and wonderful than the ones you lost. • The true foundation of Christian unity is unity with respect to: 1. The missions task (i.e. establishing a church in every people group) 2. The evangelism task (i.e. making sure every person in every people group hears and understands the gospel) 3. The content of the gospel (i.e. agreeing to proclaim only the Biblical, historic SDNTG gospel). • The doctrine of hell is a vital component of the gospel.

A A

•

CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Start spreading awareness of the issues raised in this Chapter to other Christians, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy of this Chapter, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite. com.

Make no mistake, however. Even if we are clear about what ‘evangelism’ is and isn’t, and what ‘the gospel’ is an isn’t, and what the devices of the enemy are to confuse and distort the two, he will not let up. His next dirty device is to convince us that mobilising everyone in our churches to proclaim the gospel is not the priority, and that other things are more important. In Chapter Seven, I show how I came to the conclusion that evangelising the earth is the priority of Jesus – and therefore ought to be my priority, your priority, and the priority of your church. Come with me and I’ll show you how I came to this earth shattering, life changing, church revolutionising, conclusion!

Real Life Story Never Too Late To Start Levin, New Zealand.

This is a testimony of how an elderly couple decided to learn how to evangelise â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and ended up with a vision to evangelise their entire town going door-to-door. For approximately 30 years we sat faithfully in a church, enjoying worship, fellowship and the usual activities. I had no idea we would be sharing the gospel with the lost, but God always knew we would do so. One Sunday, Julian Batchelor preached in our church about evangelising, and described the tools his ministry had developed to help Christians proclaim the gospel. This was interesting and made sense. The tools seemed effective, especially because they were designed for the way people think today. Our pastor saw the potential in this style of sharing the gospel and sent us to an evangelism training school in Auckland. He was keen for us to lead evangelism in our church. We felt totally inadequate, of course, but, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we learnt a lot and put the teaching into practice. It was scary but also fulfilling. By taking the first steps and learning how to proclaim the gospel, we knew we were starting to do what all Christians are meant to do. We live in Levin, a North Island town of about 19,000 people. Four or five times every week, we aim to go out sharing the gospel door-to39

door. When we started, we set a goal to reach the whole town with a clear, loving, uncompromising gospel message. We just wanted to obey Jesus when He said we are to first focus on our “Jerusalem” (Acts 1:8). We keep persevering, encouraging each other and pushing towards the goal. To date, and by God’s grace, we have reached about two-thirds of Levin. As well as doing evangelism ourselves, we have been training and equipping others in our church. In doing this, we realised we were starting to function as Ephesians 4:11-12 evangelists. A big part of the mandate of an Ephesians 4:1112 evangelist is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” – to teach others how to share the gospel. Some of the other members of our evangelism team are now also going door-todoor sharing the gospel. In order to fulfil our vision of reaching the entire town, we have adopted a systematic approach. We use a street map, marking off each house after someone in that house has heard the gospel. Sometimes, if we find no one at home, we visit the same house three times! Our goal is to share the gospel with at least one householder in every home. Of course, we don’t always succeed. Some refuse to listen, some never seem to be home, and fences and dogs guard other houses. This disappoints us, but God asks us only to go, and to try, and we pray someone else with the gospel will reach those we miss. Every recipient of the gospel is different, and it is a great honour to share God’s precious message with him or her. There have been various reactions – some think they are going to heaven because they have been to Sunday school or attend a particular 40

church, others because they are just “good” people. This last group would be predominant. Most are completely dumbfounded when they discover that just being a “good person” does not make us acceptable to God. They are stunned when they discover that without repentance and faith, they are going to hell. Our experience is that most people in our town have never heard the gospel. Yet there are churches everywhere. It has become obvious to us that we are living in an unevangelised town. Most people have no idea that Jesus took their place and was punished for them. We often watch and listen in awe as people discover and understand God’s great love for them. There have also been Satanworshippers who try to shock us with abominable remarks, but God is greater and whatever they say makes no difference to our determination to push on. The good times far outweigh the difficult. People have often commented that they don’t usually allow people to talk to them about “religious” things but they found the presentation “so good” and appreciated us calling. Going door-to-door has given us so much joy, and a sense of God’s approval, that we now understand why the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons have this focus. I encourage you and your church to get going so you don’t miss out on the blessing. Any success we have had is the Holy Spirit’s enabling and we praise him for guiding and empowering us to carry on loving people with the gospel. We never dreamt we would be actively involved in helping to fulfil the Great Commission in our later years in this way. It has been one of the highlights of our entire lives. 41

Julian’s comments.

Ron and Jean are a remarkable couple for so many reasons. First, they have a heart for God. What was in their heart was to serve God and to do what was right. This led to them going to the expense and trouble of attending an evangelism school in Auckland. Second, they were committed to doing what they learnt, or putting it into practice. So many of us attend conference camps, and listen to sermons, but we don’t follow through. Not so with Ron and Jean. They were ‘doers of the Word, and not merely hearers only’ ( James 1:22). Third, they showed great character. They were disciplined. To reach 2/3 of their town, over a few years, shows just how much character they had. Fourth, they speak a lot about the joy they experienced. This is the John 10:10 life I wrote about in Chapter 2. Its my belief that the vast majority of the Church are just going through the motions, not really experiencing John 10:10. If we want to know where to find it, follow Ron and Jean’s excellent example!

Chapter Seven

THE EVANGELISATION OF THE WORLD IS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH. 8 IRREFUTABLE REASONS WHY IT IS TIME TO PRIORITISE

The Evangelisation Of The World Is The Ultimate Purpose Of The Church. 8 Irrefutable Reasons Why It is Time to Prioritise

ne day I was talking with a pastor in his office and he opened up to me about what it was like being a pastor. “Julian” he said (sighing) “I have everyone come into my office telling me their ministry is the priority - the prayer co-ordinator, the worship leader, the intercession leader, the deliverance team, the Bible study co-ordinator, the men’s ministry, the signs and wonders and Holy Spirit group, the counsellor, the “seek God’s presence” leaders, the women’s ministry, the children’s church leader, the youth leader, the hospitality team, the ‘show people the Kingdom’ group - literally every one of them sits in the chair you are sitting in and explains to me why their ministry is the priority. And you know what, they all have good reasons and sound plausible. Who is actually right?” What are we to make of this? This pastor is confused. He is confused because he hasn’t taken the time to study diligently, at an academic level,1 to discover for himself what the priority of the Church really is. 1 Many pastors read books and articles written by a fellow pastor about a subject and take what they say as the whole truth about a subject. Is there anything wrong with this? Often there is. Too often the experiences, opinions and thoughts in these books and articles are just that - one man’s experiences, opinions and thoughts, not the findings of serious study of the Bible undertaken at the highest level. Hence pastors often only see part of the truth because they are so caught up in the life of their church and don’t have time to study widely and deeply on a particular topic. To find out the whole truth about a matter, one needs to study the whole spectrum of reputable, Spirit-filled scholars with proven and widely accepted ministries who have studied at the highest academic level. These men and women, filled with the Spirit, have the brain power and time to study at the level required to unearth and bring to us ‘the whole Truth’ about the Truth.

If the devil can manoeuvre a pastor into a confused state, he knows he has won a great victory. The devil knows that most pastors run their churches like a spiritual smorgasbord - a little bit of everything in equal balance, hoping and praying that one day God will ‘break out’ and do something amazing i.e. bring a revival. The ‘a little bit of everything’ churches are not God’s ‘A’ plan for a church. Rather, it’s exactly how the devil wants it. He wants their eyes on everything except the main thing. This begs the question “Does Jesus even have a ‘main thing?’”2 Answer? Absolutely He does. Theologically, Biblically, objectively, something actually is the priority of the Christian Church, and therefore the priority of every individual in the Church. You see, something is our ultimate goal, the bull’s eye at which we are to be aiming. Jesus left us something to do, something to accomplish, something to complete, something which is measurable and definite and do-able, something of supreme importance. I am going to come right out with it: it’s to evangelise the world. This priority, and the plan for executing it, was given by Jesus in “The Five Great Commission Announcements” (John 20:21-23; Luke 24: 44-49; Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8). It’s on the basis of these five announcements that academics come to the conclusion that evangelism is the priority. By ‘evangelise the world’ I mean two things: (1) that every person on the earth actually hears or reads an uncompromised gospel message, delivered/written with great love and grace, and understands it, at least once, but preferably multiple times. This is our mission. (2) that every person in the Church is regularly spreading or proclaiming the gospel to ensure (1) becomes a reality. (1) above will only become a reality if everyone is active with (2) above. The fewer the number of Christians who are active in (2) the less likely (1) will be accomplished. Currently in the West, only 2% are active. 2 In answer to this question, many people say “Yes, He does have a main thing. It’s to love God.” This answer is right, of course. But what they have not considered is how this first and greatest commandment is outworked. That is to say, how do we show we ‘love God’? We show we love him by obeying His commands (John 14:21). And the priority of His commands, say the scholars, is to evangelise the world.

Every person who is doing anything in a church, from making cups of tea to preaching sermons, needs to ask “Why am I doing what I am doing? What is supposed to be the ultimate end or outcome of all our Church activity?” The answer to both questions is ‘the evangelisation of the world for the glory of God’. Lutheran missionary Justinian von Welz (1621-1688) first coined the phrase “The Great Commission” to describe this mission. Legendary missionary Hudson Taylor (18321905) picked up the phrase and popularised it.3 Now this is where things get interesting. There was a time when I didn’t know what the scholars had to say about the priority of the Church. Yet, I had come to the conclusion that evangelism was primary just by reading the Scriptures myself and my study of Church history. When one reads the New Testament as a whole, from beginning to end, over and over, it becomes obvious that the evangelisation of the world is the main thing. Jesus, Paul, and the early Christians appear to have doing evangelism virtually the whole time. The New Testament is awash with accounts of people doing it. We know what their ultimate goal was – to “reconcile people to God”4 and “to seek and save the lost”5 for the glory of Jesus. Look what happened when they kept their focus on the priority – the Church grew like wildfire. For example, in the period A.D. 260-300, “Thousands, perhaps millions,” says church historian John Terry, “gave up their old gods and accepted Christ.”6 Eusebius7 (A.D. 275-339) was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. He is often referred to as the Father of Church history because of his work in recording the history of the early Christian Church. “As soon as the gospel was heard,” he reports as he observed the Church evangelising, 3

The Great Commission actually has four parts: go, proclaim or spread the gospel, baptise those who are saved, and disciple those who are baptised.

Ephesians 2:16

Luke 19:10

Terry, John Mark. Evangelism. A Concise History. Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994, p36.

7 Eusebius of Caesarea (c263 or 265 to 340). As a Church historian, Eusebius spent much time espousing the Old and New Testaments as inspired writings that were commented upon by the successors of the apostles. He also wrote much about the canon of the New Testament in his Ecclesiastical History. It was Eusebius of Caesarea who was commissioned to make fifty copies of the Scriptures following the Council of Nicea (325AD).

“men voluntarily in crowds, and eagerly, embraced the true faith, with their whole minds.”8 It is no fluke that Jesus’ last words were “…you shall be my witnesses”9 and “…go into all the world and proclaim the gospel,”10 or that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write the words “…the gospel is the power of God for salvation.”11 It appeared to me that the early Christians made evangelism the priority for at least five reasons: 1. Many of them had witnessed12 Jesus’ life (including all His miracles), crucifixion, and resurrection with their own eyes. Thus they were convinced He was God and that everything He said was true. This created tremendous excitement. This being so, nothing could shut them up. If you were one of them, what would you do? Obviously, you’d be so excited you would be unable to stop talking about it. This is exactly what they were like. 2. They “clicked” that He was the One whose coming had been prophesied in the Old Testament. This brought them to boiling point in their desire to tell others. 3. Because of 1 and 2 above, they wanted to glorify Him by telling others about Him - who He was, and what He’d done. 4. They were empowered by the Holy Spirit. Fizz, excitement and enthusiasm would not be enough. God knew they needed His direct involvement. The work of the Holy Spirit was the vital dimension in the mix. 5. Because of 1-4 above, they desired with all their hearts to obey His commmand to evangelise the world, even if it meant their death. After all, He was God. And being God, how else could they respond to his command ?! What other appropriate response could there be to a command to evangelise the world from the Supreme power of the universe? Now here is the point 8

Cited in: John Mark Terry. Evangelism. A Concise History. Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994, p.34

Acts 1:8 Please refer back to Device 10 for a discussion on the Biblical definition of ‘witnessing’. Witnessing and evangelism are the same thing.

10 Mark 16:15 11 Romans 1:16 12 The word ‘witness’ is crucially important. When the Bible talks about being a witness, it is as I have described it on this page.

I want you to grasp - they didn’t need to be told ‘evangelism is the priority’ by Jesus. It was just an absolute given that they would go everywhere telling people what they had seen and heard, and the significance of what they had seen and heard. Not only were they under orders from their commander in chief, but it was simply the natural, logical thing to do. As I said, these were my personal observations of Scripture and Church history. But how could I be sure my observations and conclusions were accurate? They might be quite wrong. For example, I could be reading and researching in a biased way. I am an evangelist, so will have a strong bias to seeing things only from an evangelist’s point of view. This opens me to the possibility of seeing something in Scripture and history which is not really there. Or, I might be missing some vital information which would change my conclusions completely. What I needed to do was to put my conclusions to the test. How does one do that? What I am about to say now is really important. We test our conclusions and opinions about what we think the Bible is saying by comparing them with the conclusions and opinions of reputable, timetested, Spirit filled, proven, widely recognised Biblical scholars in the academic world13, especially (in my case) those scholars who do not have the Ephesians 4:11-14 gift of an evangelist. Well, this is what I did. My beliefs were confirmed in a dramatic way. The truth is, I couldn’t find a scholar who didn’t believe that the evangelisation of the world was the priority of the Church. You’ll see who some of these scholars are as we progress through this Chapter. So how has the modern Church strayed so far from this priority?

EVICE # 17 The enemy has scrambled our priorities.

One of Satan’s most potent devices to stop us evangelising the world is to scramble our priorities. He has worked hard to get us to put personal evangelism in last place because he knows things that are last on the ‘to do’ list simply don’t get done. 13 Some so called ‘scholars’ are not to be trusted e.g. Bishop Spong, who believed that when Jesus walked on the water, there were rocks just underneath the surface! So not all scholars are reputable and trustworthy.

Christian scholars say that there are eight reasons why the evangelisation of the world is the priority of the Church: 1. Jesus established the idea. 2. Paul and the Early Church carried it on. 3. Scripture teaches it. 4. The apostles believed it. 5. Biblical scholarship supports it. 6. Spiritual giants from the past promoted it. 7. Significant contemporary leaders are advocating it. 8. The logic of the matter. Let’s look at each of these 8 reasons in turn.

Jesus established the idea… Take a close look at the start, middle and end of His ministry. It is significant that Jesus quotes Isaiah’s prophecy about preaching the gospel just as He starts His ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel” (Luke 4:18). During His ministry, this emphasis does not lessen. For example, in Mark 1:35 Jesus withdraws to pray in a solitary place. When found by Simon and his companions, He announces, “Let us go to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. This is why I have come” (Mark 1:38). It was clearly His plan to ensure His followers maintained this emphasis. In fact, when Jesus appointed the twelve, preaching the gospel is listed first in their job description (Mark 3:14). Then, at the end of His ministry, His final words were, “preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8). The last words of great people are usually not just a summary of their life work, but a clear statement of what they consider to be their priority. In Acts 1:8, just before He ascended into heaven, it’s as if Jesus said “OK, I am going now. I want you to remember one thing above all others I have told you. Be my witnessess!” Jesus identifies “witnessing” as the very reason for the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). I explained the meaning of the word ‘witness’ in the previous Chapter because misunderstanding about it abounds. Just to re-iterate, it means to proclaim the gospel. And when a person is proclaiming the gospel, they are evangelising. In Acts 1:8, He could have said, “When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you 7

will be My worshippers, My prayers or My miracle workers.” He could have said, “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be My social action task force, My students of the Bible or My fellowshippers, My people who build friendships with non-Christians, My demon-deliverers, My lightshiners, My salty ones, My committee members, My tithers and givers, My cake stall organisers or my people who have gentle ‘God conversations’ with the lost.” Without demeaning these activities in any way, none of these are what He said in Acts 1:8.

Paul and the Early Church carried on what Jesus initiated… “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the gospel that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:42). After Paul had received his call from Jesus, he didn’t take his foot off the gospel accelerator for one second. For him, reaching everyone with the gospel was his very reason for being. Listen to what he says: “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24). It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Why was he so committed to this task? Jesus had spoken to him audibly on the Damascus road, telling him to go and proclaim the gospel (Acts 26:1618). He never forgot these instructions nor did he waver from them. His passion was infectious. Even when social action begged to take top spot, the Early Christians did not succumb (Acts 6:1-7). ait a minute… Some have interpreted Acts 6:1 quite differently. They argue this passage teaches that when the group of believers was chosen to look after the widows, social action became their main thing. That is, the disciples’ main thing was preaching; the seven chosen believers’ main thing was looking after the widows. With this interpretation, the whole body of believers works together, each person focusing on what is their strength. What are we to make of this? orting truth from error… Truth and error are mixed. It is true that the seven who were chosen made care for the widows their main thing, while the disciples’ main thing was evangelism. The seven didn’t stop doing evangelism, nor did

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the disciples stop doing any social action. It’s a great error to think that anyone whose main concern is social action is exempt from the responsibility to evangelise. It is also an error to think that anyone whose main concern is evangelism is exempt from involvement in any social action. Each has a different emphasis, but both have common responsibilities as disciples of Christ.14 he radical commitment of the Early Church to evangelism … Dr Timothy George, Church Historian and Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Alabama describes how enthusiastically all the early Christians devoted their lives to proclaiming the gospel: “Imbued with ‘glad tidings’ of new life in Jesus Christ, the early Christians fanned out from Jerusalem and Judea to carry this gospel into all the world. They went everywhere – into the arena, the academies of learning, and the marketplace, to faraway lands such as India and Ethiopia, into every nook and cranny of the Roman Empire. When, in the early fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea set out to chronicle the course of Christian history from the days of the apostles up to his own time, he described the activity of those heralds of faith through whom the spread of the gospel was first carried out. ‘Leaving their homes, they set out to fulfil the work of an evangelist, making it their ambition to preach the word of faith to those who as yet had heard nothing of it, and to commit to them the books of the divine gospels. The last word in the Greek text in Acts is ‘unhindered,’ an adverb used to describe the unstoppable progress of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome.”15 Wow!

Scripture teaches that the proclamation of the gospel ought to have priority… A key scripture is Mark 13:10. “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.” The context of this scripture is the second coming, and ‘first’ indicates a priority. That is to say, Jesus will not return until everyone on the earth has heard the gospel. 14 The next Chapter is dedicated to showing how evangelism is the responsibility and privilege of all believers, irrespective of such things as their position in the Church, personality type, interest set, age, or spiritual gifting. 15 Cited in: Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan, 2000, pp.232-233

As I have said in a previous Chapter, the word ‘nations’ here means ‘people groups.’ This verse therefore teaches we are to make a priority of reaching unreached people groups in the world with the gospel. Most mission leaders define a people group as ‘reached’ when an indigenous church, able to evangelise the group, is established.16 This is phase one. Phase two is for the indigenous church to make a priority of reaching every individual in the rest of that people group with the gospel (i.e. evangelise their group). I discussed these concepts in Chapter Four. So, how is the Church in the West going with these two phases? he majority in the West has not heard the gospel once… Most people groups in the West are ‘reached.’ Phase one is looking good. But what of phase two? The tragedy is that large percentages of people in the West, and I mean upward of 99 percent of non-Christians, have never heard the gospel even once. Cities in the West are peppered with churches, yet phase two, where the local church makes sure everyone in their neighbourhood or town has heard and understood the whole gospel at least once (let alone multiple times), has all but collapsed. In the Lausanne Covenant on Evangelism, Dr John Stott says that world evangelisation requires the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.17 “Unless the whole Church is mobilised, the whole world is not likely to be reached. Thus, God’s purpose and the world’s need together bring to the Church the insistent call to evangelise.”18 How are we ever going to achieve this? It will never happen unless we mobilise the whole Church for personal evangelism. In Chapter Thirteen, I roll out detailed plans and strategies showing how a church can succeed with this. Ok, let’s get back to Mark 13:10. How do first-rank scholars and leaders interpret this verse?

16 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy Of God In Missions. Baker Books, 2003, p.194 17 Some would protest by saying ‘How can we possibly reach every person in the world with the gospel?! What about babies, the infirm, those with disabilities who are not capable of hearing and understanding the gospel!?’ By ‘every person’ we mean everyone who is capable of hearing and understanding. At judgment, we are going to be held responsible before God for achieving what was possible, not for the impossible. The impossible belongs to God alone. 18 Making Christ Known. Historic Mission Documents From The Lausanne Movement.1974-1989, p.29

ommenting on Mark 13:10, Dr Morna D. Hooker, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, writes: “This saying [of Jesus] becomes a reminder to the disciples that their primary task is that of evangelising.”19 Since Christians alive today are also disciples, it is our primary task as well. Citing the same verse, Dr William Lane, chair of Wesleyan and Biblical Studies at Seattle Pacific University, says, “The proclamation of the gospel to all men is an absolute priority.”20 Missionary statesman Oswald J. Smith asks: “Why did Jesus use the word ‘first’? Why did He not just say, ‘The gospel must be proclaimed among all nations’? That would have made sense. That I could have understood. But that is not what He said. He injected the word ‘first.’ He wanted to say that before we did anything else, we were to evangelise the world.”21 From Mark 13:10 then, we could conclude Jesus is saying to His disciples: “Of all the things I have taught you, make a priority of proclaiming the gospel to everyone everywhere. Start by targeting people groups who have never heard. Then, once you have reached a people group, go on to evangelise everyone in that people group with the gospel.” Conclusion? Jesus teaches in Mark 13:10 that we are to make a priority of evangelising the world. Other than Mark 13:10, are there any other scriptures which indicate we are to make a priority of gospel proclamation? esus’ last words, our first priority… These are the last words of Jesus just before He ascended into heaven: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Commenting on this scripture, and Matthew 28:1922, Dr Millard Erickson, who writes text books on theology for seminaries and Bible Colleges, states: “The one topic emphasised in both accounts of Jesus’ last

19 Dr Morna D. Hooker. The Gospel According To Mark. A&C Black Publishers, London, 1991, p.310 20 Dr William L. Lane. (General Editor Gordon Fee), The Gospel Of Mark. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974, p.462 21 Oswald J. Smith. The Passion For Souls. Marshall, Morgan and Scott. London, 1950, pp.48-49 22 A disciple is principally a proclaimer of the gospel. Think about this - if evangelising the world was Jesus’ priority, then what would dominate His discipleship program for His disciples? You know the answer.

words to His disciples is evangelism… this was the final point Jesus made to His disciples. It appears He regarded evangelism as the very reason for their being. The call to evangelise is a command. Having accepted Jesus as Lord, the disciples had brought themselves under His rule and were obligated to do whatever He asked. For He had said, ‘If you love Me, you will keep My commandments’ (John 14:15); if the disciples truly loved their Lord, they would carry out His call to evangelise. It was not an optional matter for them.”23 Conclusion: these last words of Jesus remain the priority of the Church today. aul’s challenge to us today to proclaim the gospel… At this point I must go back to Acts 20:24 again. “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” In this verse, which summarises Paul’s entire ministry, we notice: • Paul’s task came directly from Jesus. • This task was to proclaim the gospel. • P aul had many aspects to his ministry, but he never lost sight of his priority. • Paul’s goal was to proclaim the gospel. • He called it the task. It is as if Paul were saying, “In my other letters I taught you about family, love, intercession, service, ethics, church government, end times, dealing with conflict, prayer and fasting, caring for the disadvantaged, letting your light shine, being salt, living lives of honesty and integrity, and so on, but if, after all that, I have not proclaimed the gospel, then my efforts have been in vain.” on’t waste all the good works being done. See them as a means to an end. These scriptures challenge us too. If all our conferences, Bible College training, worship, church services, prayer meetings, home groups, studies, missions, relationships, outreach events, mothers’ groups, mens’ groups and so on (the component parts of our mission), do not end in our evangelising the world (our mission), then we are failing,

23 Dr Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Book House, 1985, p.1052

no matter how wonderful the component parts . At the end of this Chapter I discuss in more detail this relationship between our mission and its component parts . The apostles believed the proclamation of the gospel was the priority of the Church. The apostles of the Early Church were commissioned by Jesus to carry on the work after He ascended into heaven. He told them how to grow the Church, establish the Kingdom and expand Christianity. Their instruction should be our template. Who says so? Listen to Church historian Dr Michael Green: “The essential qualifications of the twelve apostles of Jesus were that they should be with Him, and that He should send them forth to preach. They were apparently given a ‘trial run’ during the ministry itself 24 but after the death and resurrection of their Master, preaching the gospel became their main concern. We learn from Acts25 how they found themselves becoming choked with administration, and deliberately delegated this work so they could give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.”26 Eusebius the third century church historian, describes how the Early Church made evangelism the priority and describes what happened when they did: “By the power and assistance of heaven, the saving Word [i.e. the gospel]27 began to flood the whole world with light like the rays of the sun. In every city and village arose churches crowded with thousands of men like a teeming threshing floor.”28 How could the gospel have flooded the whole world if every believer had not made it a priority?29 If the proclamation of the gospel was the chief concern of the apostles and documented by Eusebius, what

24 Matthew 10 25 Acts 6:4 26 Dr Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1970, p.200. 27 The words in brackets are mine. 28 Cited by Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1970, p.201 29 This is not merely hyperbole being used here. Later in this Chapter , I show how the early Church literally evangelised the entire known world.

reason could we possibly have, as leaders and pastors in the apostolic line, not to make it ours? Just imagine, for a moment, if today’s Church leaders were the first group to return to the pattern set by the apostles in Acts 5:41-42. For one thing, churches would re-structure so that administrative tasks were delegated to others,30 which is exactly what the Apostles did! Then leaders would not succumb to the business and busyness of church life. In the mix of all the other things pastors and leaders do, they would be seen out and about in the world of the non-Christians, giving the gospel just as Jesus, Paul and the apostles did. I have a vision to see a new breed of leaders setting aside time each day to go out onto the streets and shopping malls around their church, engaging non-Christians, giving the gospel. Seeing unfamiliar faces in the staff lounge of the church during the week would not be a rare thing. “Hey, guys,” the pastor would announce with a beaming smile, “this is Jimmy. We just met down the street. I have invited him back for lunch.” Pastors couldn’t, of course, be out there all day giving the gospel. To expect this would be folly in view of their many and varied responsibilities. But what about 30 minutes a day? The point is, this vision for the renaissance of a new breed of pastor evangelist is entirely possible, but only if we are willing to return to the pattern and priority for personal evangelism set by Jesus, Paul and the apostles.

Christian scholars and leaders support the idea that taking the gospel to the whole world is the priority of the mission of the Church. I have already cited a sample of scholars who believe that the evangelisation of the world is the priority of the Church. Here are some more. Dr Derek Prince said, “The supreme purpose of every true Christian church, the chief duty of every Christian minister, the main responsibility of every Christian layman, is to present to all who may be reached, in 30 Those to whom administration tasks were delegated would have ‘release time’ built into their job descriptions so that they too could take time out for the priority.

the clearest and most forceful way, the basic facts of the gospel of Christ, and to urge all who hear to make the definite personal response to these facts which God requires. To this, the supreme task, every other duty and activity of the church must be secondary and subsidiary.”31 Wow! Dr Prince was a brilliant man, wonderfully used by God. Do you know any church in the West which has made everything it does secondary and subsidiary to evangelism? Do you know any minister / pastor / church leader who has made evangelism their chief duty? They are extremely rare. I mean extremely rare. Can you see how far we have moved from God’s priority? Really, it’s tragic. By reading this Chapter, you could become part of the solution! That’s my prayer for you. Dr John Stott put it like this: “Our first duty is to communicate this gospel, to use old ways and seek fresh ways of making it known throughout the whole world.”32 Historian Dr Michael Green is another scholar who contends evangelism ought to be our priority: “In these first two centuries of the Church’s existence, we find evangelistic zeal and effort exerted by the whole broad spectrum of the Christian community to bring other people to the feet of their ascended Lord and into fellowship of His willing servants. This is a permanent reminder of the Church’s first priority. ‘Day by day, the Lord added to their number those whom He was saving’ (Acts 2:46-47). It could happen again, if the Church was prepared to pay the price.”33 Dr William Abraham34 writes: “Consensus [among scholars] is emerging that evangelism must become the top priority for the modern Church.”35 Professor E.M. Blakelock said: “Evangelism is the end and crown of all Church activity, social, communal and in every other device of service or penetration of society.”36 What he is saying is that all the things we do in church (e.g. praying, worshipping, Bible study, meeting on Sundays, singing, giving, serving, fasting etc) were always and only meant to be means to one great end - the evangelisation of the world. 31 Dr Derek Prince. Foundation Series. Volume 1. Sovereign World Books, 1986, p.145 32 Dr John R.W. Stott. Guard The Gospel. The Message Of 2 Timothy. Inter Varsity Press, 1973, p.47 33 Dr Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church. Highland Books, 1970, p.339 34 Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. 35 Dr William J. Abraham. The Logic Of Evangelism. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002, p.12 36 E.M. Blakelock. The Answer is in the Bible. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978, p.154

Dr Bruce Milne, lecturer in Biblical and Historical theology at Spurgeon’s College in London contends that the major work of the Spirit is to empower the evangelisation of the world. “Significantly, the major Biblical account of the ministry of the Spirit in the Church (i.e. the Book of Acts) centres on the spread of the gospel through the world (i.e. on the evangelisation of the world).”37 If it’s the central work of the Spirit, and the Spirit is God, then the evangelisation of the world must be at the top of God’s ‘to do’ list. he Anglicans are adamant… Canadian Anglican heads concur. At The Essentials conference in Montreal, 1994, they affirmed: “The task [of evangelism], which is thus a matter of priority, calls for personal training and a constant search for modes of persuasive outreach. We sow the seed, and look to God for the fruit.”38 In 1948, the Anglican bishops of England circulated a letter which affirmed that the “supreme task of the Church today is… to take the Good News [he means the words of the gospel] to those who have not heard it.”39 Theologian and teacher Dr Wayne Grudem,40 who also writes text books for Bible College and seminary students, writes: “This evangelistic work of declaring the gospel is the primary ministry that the Church has towards the world.”41 The late Dr Francis Schaeffer, founder of L’Abri International Study Centre and Christian Community, wrote: “Because we love the Lord Jesus Christ and know Him personally as our Saviour, we must, through God’s grace, love our neighbour as ourselves. And if we love our neighbour as Christ would have us love our neighbour, we will certainly want to share the gospel with our neighbour… [therefore] evangelism is primary.”42 Dr Ray Ortlund, serving on the council of the Gospel Coalition, and President of Renewal Ministries writes “The gospel is a message to be proclaimed and believed (Mark 1:14-15). It is the point of the whole Bible

37 Dr Bruce Milne. Know The Truth. A Handbook Of Christian Belief. IVP, 1982, p.207 38 http://www.stpaulshalifax.org/Essentials.html#11 39 Cited in: John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel And The World. IVP, 1997, pp.63-64 40 Former Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and now Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary. 41 Dr Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology. An Introduction To Biblical Doctrine. IVP, 2003, p.868 42 Dr Francis Schaeffer. The Great Evangelical Disaster. Crossway Books, 1984, p.39

(Galatians 3:8). It comes from God above (Galatians 1:11-12). It is worthy of our utmost (Philippians 1:27-30).” 43

and 7: Spiritual giants from the past promoted it and significant contemporary leaders are advocating it. Puritan leader Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was unyielding. “The work of conversion is the first and greatest thing we must drive at,” he insisted. “After this we must labour with all our might.”44 The Puritans knew that gospel proclamation not only preceded conversion, but conversion was dependent upon it. For the Puritans, evangelism was therefore primary. The late Dr Lewis Drummond, President of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and former Director of the Billy Graham Evangelism Centre, wrote: “There is no excuse for anyone not giving evangelism first place in individual covenant church life.”45 Evangelist Ray Comfort has noted: “Right from the beginning of His ministry, Jesus made it clear that His supreme mandate was to reach lost humanity with the gospel.”46 he Assembly of God: the Spirit was given for witness… In a review of the history of the Assembly of God movement in the world, Dr William W. Menzies47 wrote: “From the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, reaching the lost of this world for Christ (i.e. with the gospel) was the central passion. Early leaders recognised that the baptism in the Holy Spirit was an empowering for witness, not merely an experience for personal enjoyment.”48 nd the great Charles Spurgeon… Charles Spurgeon argued in the same way. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 9:22 (“I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some”) he said:

43 Dr Ray Ortlund. The Gospel. How The Church Portrays The Beauty Of Christ. Crossway, 2014, p.15 44 Richard Baxter. The Reformed Pastor. Reprinted in Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1979, p.94 45 Dr Lewis A. Drummond. The Word Of The Cross. Broadman, 1992, p.293 46 Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically, The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale, 2003, p.47 47 Long time educator with the Assemblies of God, and Chancellor of Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Baguio City, Philippines. 48 http://www.ag.org/enrichmentjournal/199904/084_lessons.cfm

“Paul’s great object was not merely to instruct and to improve, but to save. Anything short of this would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. Have our Christian labours been aimed at anything below this great point? Then let us amend our ways, for to what avail will it be at the last great day to have taught and moralised men if they appear before God unsaved? Paul knew the ruin of man’s natural state, and did not try to educate him but to save him; he saw men sinking to hell, and did not talk of refining them but of saving them from the wrath to come. To compass their salvation, he gave himself up with untiring zeal to telling abroad the gospel, to warning and beseeching men to be reconciled to God... this was the crown for which he strove, the sole and sufficient reward of all his labours and self-denials. Dear reader, have you and I lived to win souls at this noble rate? O that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men.”49 “In those early days,” writes church historian Herbert Kane, “the Church was mission. The missionary programme of the Early Church was based on two assumptions: (1) The chief task of the Church is world evangelisation. (2) The responsibility of carrying out the task rests with the whole Christian community.”50 nd Church Growth experts… Church growth expert Dr Peter Wagner: “I would love to see membership declines in the mainline denominations bottom out and begin to soar upward. But I am afraid they will not unless and until the evangelist mandate is restored to its Biblical position as the top goal.”51 What does he mean by “the evangelist mandate”? Wagner refers to certain people (listed in Ephesians 4:11-12) who are ‘gifts’ to the Church. One of them is the evangelist, who is given to the Church to equip and motivate other members to evangelise. One reason most Christians don’t proclaim the gospel is that they don’t know how. If you lead a church, one of your goals should be to enlist the help of gifted evangelists to equip the congregation to evangelise. How

49 December 7-Evening Reading. Cited in Morning and Evening Devotionals by C.H. Spurgeon www.esword.net 50 J. Herbert Kane. Christian Missions In Biblical Perspective. Baker Book House, 1976, p.65 51 Dr C. Peter Wagner. Leading Your Church To Growth. Regal Books. California, 1984, p.34

can an army expect to win a war without thorough training? As the leader of your church, it’s your call to make this happen. Are many church leaders doing this? No, almost none. Research findings about the church in Britain are alarming. “Of the 1017 churches in Britain who were surveyed to ascertain how many had trained their people for evangelism in the decade 2001 to 2010, only a staggering 36 (3.5%) said they had done so.”52 This is solid proof the Church in Britain is very confused about its mission. But let’s not be quick to point the finger at Britain. I have no reason to believe any other Western country would fare better if it were probed in the same way. Put simply, evangelising the world is now not even on the radar of most churches in the West. It’s literally and actually gone. In most Western churches, something other than evangelism has become top priority – usually social action, prayer, worship, seeking God’s presence or teaching, miracles, teaching, fellowship, and so on. Without in any way devaluing the necessity of these aspects of our Christian witness and service, the scholars and leaders who met at Lausanne in 1974 concluded that if anything other than evangelism was the priority, it ought not to be. The covenant they wrote concluded: “In the Church’s mission of sacrificial service, evangelism is primary.”53 isten to William Booth, the king of good works. He considered evangelism primary… Social action, for example, is vital. But it should not be our number one focus. William Booth, Founder of the legendary Salvation Army, declared: “Take a man out of the slums, heal his body, give him decent clothes, provide him a home in the country, then let him die and go to hell? Really, it is not worthwhile.”54 For Booth, social service was a critical and indispensable part of his mission (as he put it, he wanted to eliminate hell on earth), but it was primarily a means to a greater end. How do we know this? He said so: “I must assert in the most unqualified way, that it is primarily and mainly for the sake of

52 The Baptist Times, October 1st, 2010, page 1 53 Dr John Stott. Making Christ Known. Historic Mission Documents From The Lausanne Movement, 19741989. Paternoster Press, 1996, p.29 54 Cited in: Norm Lewis. Priority One. OM Literature, 1988, p.99

saving the soul that I seek the salvation of the body.”55 Booth’s primary vision was, “One of hell, and salvation, here and hereafter.”56 And what did Booth use to save the soul? The proclamation of the gospel. For him it was the priority. great missionary speaks from experience… Missionary to Asia Dr K.P. Yohannan57 agrees social action should not be the number one priority, despite the appalling poverty in much of the world. “The trouble with the social gospel,” he says, “even when it is clothed with religious garb and operating within Christian institutions, is that it seeks to fight what is basically spiritual warfare with weapons of the flesh. A spiritual battle fought with spiritual weapons will produce eternal victories. This is why we insist upon restoring a right balance to gospel outreach. The accent must first and always be on evangelism and discipleship.”58 ven Christian counsellors see evangelism as the priority World-renowned counsellor and author Michael Wells gives the following account of how he came to view evangelism as one of the priorities of the Church: “Recently, after attending a program professing to spur participants on toward spirituality (i.e. going to church, scripture memory, Bible reading, prayer, fasting, etc), I returned home perplexed at how difficult it can be to live as a Christian. I decided to search the scriptures to discover for myself God’s priorities. I thought, rather than looking at all we are to do [i.e to be ‘spiritual’], I would focus on a more serious topic: the things we are never to neglect. I found five things in the Bible that are never to be neglected (God’s priorities): prayer and sharing the gospel, Acts 6:2-4; our spiritual gifts, 1 Timothy 4:14; so great a salvation, Hebrews 2:3; and doing good and sharing, Hebrews 13:16. To my amazement, not one of God’s priorities was featured during the program that claimed to teach how to be a dynamic, successful Christian.”59

55 Major Malcolm Herring. Life Conference Workshop Paper. Auckland, New Zealand, September 2012, p.3 56 Major Malcolm Herring. Life Conference Workshop Paper. Auckland, New Zealand, September 2012, p.4 57 Please take the time to read Dr Yohannan’s excellent commentary on the interplay between evangelism and social action in Chapter Twenty Six. 58 Dr K.P. Yohannan. Revolution In World Missions. GFA books, 2004, pp.105-129 59 Michael Wells. Problems, God’s Presence and Prayer. Abiding Life Press. 1993. p.76-79

Michael Wells makes a telling point here. If evangelism is a priority to God (actually the priority), and a vital part of making dynamic, successful Christians, how can any church justify neglecting it? rayer must never become a substitute for evangelism… The place of prayer in the battle for souls cannot be overemphasised; the current rise of the 24/7 prayer movement around the world is timely and exciting, but prayer should never be a substitute for active participation in evangelism. As pastor and author Dr John Piper wrote, caution is needed. “I sense the danger of overstating the role of prayer in relation to the Word of God and the preaching of the gospel. I am not comfortable, for example, calling prayer the work of missions.60 The proclamation of the gospel is the work of missions. It is the weapon that God designed to use in penetrating the kingdom of darkness and gathering the children of light from all the nations (Acts 26:16-18). His whole redemptive plan for the universe hangs on the success of His Word. If the proclamation of the Word aborts, the purposes of God fail.”61 Spurgeon, too, warned: “Prayer and means [i.e. proclaiming the gospel] must go together. Means without prayer – presumption. Prayer without means – hypocrisy!”62 he Catholics agree on the priority... Pope John Paul II in a key document on mission described mission in this way: “Proclamation is the permanent priority of mission. The Church cannot elude Christ’s explicit mandate, nor deprive men and women of the ‘Good News’ about their being loved and saved by God.”63 astors who are leading the way… It is so exciting when modern day pastors catch on to what Christian statesmen through the ages have been saying. Here and there key churches are beginning to make proclaiming the gospel their number one priority. Mark Conner is one such pastor. He leads the 5000 strong Waverley Christian Fellowship in Melbourne, Australia.

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60 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 1993 2nd ed 2003, p.63 61 ibid. pp.64-65 62 Charles H.Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1948, p.140 63 Roger P. Schroeder. What Is the Mission of the Church? A Guide For Catholics. Orbis Books. New York. 2008. p.2

He writes: “If evangelism is heaven’s priority, then it must be the passionate priority of the Church here on earth... our top priorities can easily be replaced by other seemingly urgent or pressing matters. As we become busy with so many things in church life, we can begin to drift from our mission. That’s why the work of an evangelist also involves keeping the evangelistic passion of a church community alive and bright hot.”64 Bill Hybels is another pastor making evangelism the priority. Hybels is rightly “big” on Christians demonstrating love through acts of kindness. Willow Creek Church is renowned for this. Yet, he calls giving the gospel to a non-Christian ‘the ultimate act of goodness.’65 : The Logic Of The Matter. Imagine if Apple, the makers of the iphone, or Coke, the makers of the drink by the same name, never advertised their products. It’s a ridiculous thought. It’s even more ridiculous that the Western Church today does not advertise the real reason behind Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection i.e. share the gospel. We have a product infinitely greater than the iphone or Coca Cola, yet our product has become the world’s greatest secret. Apple and Coke spend more on marketing than any other company expense. It’s their priority. Once their product is designed and made, they pour everything into sales and marketing. Our product (the gospel) is ready and made, yet we spend close to nothing on sales and marketing i.e. training 100% of the people in our churches how to get the message out. We have a much larger sales force than Coke or Apple, yet we are not using it! What a tragic situation! How ridiculous!

From the discussion so far in this Chapter, there are twenty two reasons why Christian scholars, leaders and historians conclude that the evangelisation of the earth is the mission of the Church i.e. the priority. 1. It is the greatest way to express love for our neighbour (Dr Francis 64 Cited in Bronwyn Hughes and John Bellamy (Editors). A Passion For Evangelism: Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, pp.154, 161 65 Bill Hybels. Making Life Work. Puting God’s Wisdom Into Action. IVP, 2003, p.74

Schaeffer). 2. Jesus gave evangelism priority. We are modelling Him and so we are to do the same (Dr Millard Erickson). 3. The gospel is our most powerful spiritual weapon (Dr K.P. Yohannan). 4. Words and works (i.e. social action) ought to be bracketed together. Evangelising the world for the glory of God ought to be the ultimate end of all our Christian activity. (General William Booth). 5. Evangelism was Jesus’ supreme mandate (Ray Comfort). 6. Evangelism was the priority of the Early Church (Church historian Dr John Terry). 7. Evangelism is the key to church growth (Dr Peter Wagner). 8. Evangelism was the hallmark of everyone in the Early Church. Their example is our template (Dr Michael Green). 9. Evangelism, not prayer, is the work of mission (Dr John Piper). 10. Evangelism is heaven’s priority (Mark Conner). 11. Evangelism is on God’s ‘never to be neglected list’ (Micheal Wells). 12. To evangelise is to engage in the ‘ultimate act of goodness’ (Bill Hybels). 13. Evangelism is the priority of the Church’s mission (Pope John Paul II). 14. Evangelism is the surpreme task of the Church (Dr Derek Prince). 15. Evanglism is the primary ministry of the Church towards the world (Dr Wayne Grudem). 16. Evangelism must become the top priority for the modern Church (Dr William Abraham). 17. Evangelism is the end and crown of all Church activity (Professor E.M. Blakelock). 18. Evangelism is the primary task of a disciple (Dr Morna D. Hooker, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University). 19. Evangelism is our first duty (Dr John Stott). 20. The evangelisation of the world is the mission of the Church (Historian Herbert Kane). 21. The evangelisation of the world is the point of the whole Bible. (Dr Ray Ortlund, council of the Gospel Coalition). 23

22. The evangelisation of the world is the central concern of the ministry of the Holy Spirit (Dr Bruce Milne). You’d have to agree, this is an impressive list of scholars and leaders. If you were in a room with these 22 people, I think you’d struggle to argue successfully that something other than the evangelisation of the world was the priority of the Church. Each of the leaders I have cited are all saying the same thing, but for 22 slightly different reasons i.e. what these 22 leaders and theologians have done is give 22 reasons why the evangelisation of the world is the priority of the Church. Now this is where this Chapter gets really interesting! What I have not explained so far is that there are two hugely significant golden threads, woven into the fabric of the writing of all these leaders, which undergird the conclusions they have come to about the place of evangelism in the Christian life. These two threads ‘trump’ the 22 reasons given so far by these scholars. In this sense, I have saved the best until last! What are these two ‘golden threads?’ 1. The first is that these scholars and leaders believe that the ultimate point of the Christian life is to glorify Jesus, and that doing evangelism is the greatest way to do that.66 2. Second, they also believe that evangelism is the highest form of worship.67 These ‘golden threads’ are of such significance that I dedicate Chapter Twenty Five to discussing them. Really, these two truths alone are sufficent to warrant giving evangelism top spot! i.e. if to evangelise is the best way to glorify and worship Jesus, then these two reasons alone justify evangelism taking top spot in the Christian Church. Are there other reasons, aside from the twenty two cited so far in this Chapter, which justify giving evangelism priority? Yes there are. The twenty third reason why evangelism ought to be primary is that it is one of the most potent sources of Christian joy, pivotal to becoming fully mature as a Christian. The twenty fourth reason is that so much of Church life depends upon evangelism and relates to it. Let me explain. The gospel, you 66 See Chapter Twenty Five where I discuss why this is so.. 67 To know why evangelism is the highest form of worship, please see Chapter Twenty Five.

see, is a supernatural seed. As a general principle, if we do not sow, we will not reap.68 If there is no reaping, there will be no one to baptise. If there is no one to baptise, there will be no one to disciple. And if there is no one to disciple, there will eventually be no one to perform ministry, except those who are the products of biological growth. The Great Commission will shrivel and the Church will go into decline.69 As I outlined in Chapter One, there are strong signs in the West that this has already started to happen. It all started when we became confused about our priority. If you are a confused pastor, like the one I described at the beginning of this Chapter, move out of confusion, and into clarity. Lead your church into the priority of Jesus. Extricate yourself from the devil’s grip on your ministry. At this juncture I want to make an extremely important point. Please listen carefully. Many pastors and leaders, particularly in the mega churches, have been able to grow their churches without doing any evangelism. They have grown their church through marketing, not evangelism. By marketing I mean things like having beautiful people on stage at Sunday services, stunning modern buildings, amazing bands, music, air conditioning, and lighting, doing everything with excellence and professionalism, preaching exhortational / motivational messages, engaging TV advertising and promotion, providing well run programmes for youth, children, and older people, etc etc. These churches are the high end shopping centres of the Church world. The small neighbourhood churches can’t compete, and end up losing their people to the mega churches. The drawing power of the mega churches is just too powerful. Now this is where it gets interesting! Many mega churches have worked out that they don’t need to do evangelism, or mobilise their people to do it. Thus their goal has become not the evangelisation of the world, and mobilising everyone in their churches to do it, but how 68 I recently met a businessman who said he had led many families to Christ through relationships without proclaiming the gospel. Is it possible for people to be ‘saved’ without hearing the gospel? . No, it is not possible. I discuss this issue in Chapter Thirteen. 69 Yes, we could all throw our hands up in the air and just say, “Well, that will never happen. God is in control. He is sovereign. So let’s just rest and see what He does.” Such an attitude is hardly that of a committed disciple who loves the Lord, and the Lord’s purposes.

to improve their marketing so that more people will come to their church! Their goal becomes ‘how do we get more people to come to our church’ rather than ‘what do we need to do to mobilise 100% of our people to evangelise the world, the priority of Jesus!’ This is tragedy beyond words. But it gets worse. These churches often run large conferences on how to grow a church. Other pastors flock to these conferences thinking ‘these guys have grown a huge church. I want to grow a huge church so I will attend the conference to learn from them’. Thus this device of the devil propagates and spreads.

eing part of the solution… With everything within me, I believe that through the power of the Holy Spirit and prayer, and through diligent study, the generation of Christian pastors and leaders alive on the earth today possess the calibre and character to beat the devil and his devices. They can bring evangelism back to its rightful place as the priority. In this respect there are basically three groups of pastors and leaders: 1. Those who know the priority but have been sidetracked (a tiny few). 2. Those who have never known the priority (the vast majority). 3. Those who know and who have already made evangelism the priority (virtually non existent). Let’s look at these three groups briefly.

THE “I HAVE BEEN SIDETRACKED” GROUP Satan often sidetracks us away from the priority with the busyness of good, wholesome Christian programmes and activities. He knows that when we immerse ourselves in the sea of church activities, evangelism will be difficult to start, let alone maintain. There just won’t be room to fit it into the existing program. On this subject, Pastor Mark Conner, after growing a church of 5000, gives sound advice to other leaders: “We must decide that [evangelism] is a priority and begin taking steps to make it a reality. Over time, if we do not give up, a wonderful momentum will be created where the vision [of creating an

evangelistic church] starts to stick and then become a reality.”70 My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will work through this Chapter to cause pastors to stop and audit all they are doing. Really, how successful is your church (or your life) if it is busy but neglecting the priority of Jesus? Is obedience better than sacrifice or not? (1 Samuel 15:22). You know the answer.

THE “I HAVE NEVER KNOWN” GROUP: There are, however, leaders and pastors who have never known the priority. There is strong evidence that most are in this category. According to research by George Barna:71 • 90 per cent of American adult church attendees cannot accurately define the meaning of “The Great Commission.” • Nearly 70 per cent of American church attendees have no clue what “John 3:16” means. • Barely 30 per cent of all church attendees know the meaning of the expression ‘the gospel.’ (personally, I believe it would be a much higher percentage than this in reality). • Another 30 per cent described it inaccurately. • Just 4 per cent can accurately describe the meaning of the gospel, John 3:16, and the Great Commission. If the people in the pews don’t know these things, who is not telling them? It seems, from this research at least, that if we, pastors and leaders, don’t know what the priority is, how are we going to articulate it to those who follow? We can’t impart what we don’t know. Maybe many Christian leaders have never asked the question “what is the priority of the Christian Church?” You’d think it would be the first question they would ask as they seek God about plans and timetables for their churches, seminaries, paraChurch organisations, and Christian institutions. Governments, sports teams, corporations, businesses etc view asking this 70 Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy (Editors). A Passion For Evangelism: Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, p.162 71 Dr George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, p.35

question as crucial for their success, but somehow we don’t. Dr John Piper said: “It continually amazes me how few people [in Christian leadership] ask and answer with conviction and passion the most important questions – ultimate questions.”72

THE “I KNOW IT AND AM DOING IT” GROUP: This group is tiny, but as awareness of the issues in this Chapter grows, so will the size of this group. To bring this Chapter to a close, I want to focus on application, and in so doing raise two issues. (1) ISSUE ONE: The first is the relationship between our mission (i.e. our priority) and all the other ministries of the Church. For example, I have heard people say when they discover our mission: “Wait a minute. When Jesus came to earth He did a lot more than preach the gospel. Surely our mission is much wider and broader than simply evangelising the world?” How should we answer? Think of the mission of NASA73 which they accomplished on July 20, 1969. NASA had a mission, which was to make sure America was the first nation in the world to have a man walk on the moon. The mission had vital component parts . A component part is something that must be completed if the mission is to succeed e.g. building a rocket and a lunar-landing craft, training astronauts, undertaking reconnaissance of the moon, and so on. These component parts were vital for the success of the mission but they were not THE mission of NASA. Do you see the difference between the component parts and the THE Mission? THE Mission describes the overall goal. Likewise, all the component parts (i.e. multiple ministries) of the Church are vital and important, but they were never meant to be ends in themselves. They were always intended to be the means to one great end, which is the evangelisation of the world, the overall goal / THE Mission of the Church. Now here is the mother of all questions - if NASA had ticked all the boxes with respect to the component parts , but hadn’t been the first to 72 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad. The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 1993 2nd ed 2003, p.204 73 NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

land a man on the moon, how would you describe that mission? You know the answer. It’s the same with the Christian Church. If we ‘tick the boxes’ with every ministry in our church (i.e. the vital component parts of our mission), succeeding gloriously with each one, yet fail with THE mission, brothers and sisters in Christ, we fail.

What you have just read in the paragraph above is a point of monumental significance and really encapsulates the entire message of this Book .

When the component parts become ends in themselves, and those doing them never ask “Why are we doing this?, ‘church’ quickly degenerates into nothing more than a nice friendly club whose members meet for friendship, enjoying cups of tea and muffins, singing together, and listening to messages together which support their existing values. If THE mission is not being done, all the component parts ultimately become meaningless. And when church becomes meaningless, one of three things happen to the people in the Church. (1) They become bored and leave church altogether. (2) The resilient stay, toughing it out. To find fulfilment and purpose, they turn to taking up hobbies, making money, and other activities outside of church. For this group, Christianity becomes a compartment of their life, rather than something vital which effects all of their life. (3) They leave their church in search of another church which is more aligned with Jesus’ mission. In Chapter One I showed how most people choose option (1) above. What people who don’t do evangelism don’t realise is that doing evangelism injects excitement, thrill, purpose, and meaning into individual and corporate life. It’s the glue that holds all other aspects of Christian life together, giving them meaning, purpose, and context. God has designed it to have this effect (Mark 8:35). This is the twenty 29

fifth reason evangelism ought to be primary. When we lose sight of our mission, we become like two soccer teams playing the game without goal posts, golfers without the hole on the green, or basketball players without a hoop at each end of the court. The game can be a little fun for a while, but eventually it becomes meaningless. Eventually the players will stop and ask, “Errr.... excuse me...why are we doing this? What’s the point again?” Theologian and Scholar Millard Erickson, who writes theology books for seminaries and Bible colleges puts it like this. Watch out, this is sobering. “If the Church is to be faithful to its Lord, and bring joy to His heart, it must be engaged in bringing the gospel to all people...if it does not, it will become Spiritually ill, for it will be attempting to function in a way its Lord never intended.”74 Did you get that? ‘Ill’ was the word Erickson chose. If you are a pastor, and your church has not made the evangelisation of the world the main thing, its mission, then your church is ill. The dictionary defines ‘ill’ like this: unwell, sick, not very well, ailing, poorly, sickly, peaky, afflicted, indisposed, infirm, liverish. Canon Gordon Bridger, retired Principal of London’s Oak Hill Theological College and reader in theology at Cambridge had this to say about any church which makes the evangelisation of the earth central in all it does: “In my experience, when a church gives priority to evangelism, other things fall into place.”75 To try and stop people leaving church because they are bored, many churches, instead of focussing afresh on Jesus’ mission, putting it back on centre stage where it ought to be, turn to entertainment and ‘frills’76 . e.g. doing things like improving the lighting on the stage, improving the music, bringing in smoke machines, having only beautiful girls and guys singing, increasing the padding on the seats, putting on fun events, building cafes, starting businesses etc. Doing these things might result in a mega church and it might look successful, but if it’s not attempting to mobilise all its people to evangelise the world, and doing it, it’s a spiritually sick church. 74 Dr Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Book House, 1985, p.1054 75 http://www.e-n.org.uk/1996-09/242-A-tribute-to-God’s-sovereignty.htm 76 I actually think professionalist and excellence are crucial, but not at the expense of the completion of the Great Commission.

No entertainment will ever come near to replacing the deep inner joy which comes from engaging in evangelism. Find one of the 2% who are doing it. They will tell you. No entertainment will ever replace the gluing, uniting, disciplematuring, vision-giving effect which making the evangelisation of the earth a priority will have on a local church. Entertainment and marketing do not fool Jesus. He knows and sees that His mission is not being done. The more you focus on the mission, the more you’ll see and feel a wonderful surge in forward momentum and the infusion of supernatural life into your church. Try it and see.77 (2) ISSUE TWO: The second issue is raised by a question: “Now that we know the mission of the Church, how must this effect all the other ministries of the Church?” Good question. The following are some examples. If my church had a prayer ministry, I would ask the prayer team the following questions: • How much of the prayer team’s time and effort is given to praying for the evangelisation of the world? • Are the prayer team actually engaging in evangelism personally i.e. being the answer to their prayers? • Are they accountable to one another for their efforts in evangelism? • Are they praying for everyone in their church to be mobilised? • Are they praying by name for the people in their church who are already mobilised? • Are they praying by name for the people in their church who are struggling to activate for evangelism? If my church had a social action department, I would ask: • Are the social action team being trained to evangelise? • Are they accountable for their efforts in evangelism? • How much evangelism is going on as they go about their excellent 77 If you’d like to connect with churches who are experiencing this right now as a result of putting evangelism centre stage, please contact me. julian@esisite.com

social action? I would ask the worship team: • How is your worship helping to motivate, encourage, and stimulate the congregation for evangelism? • Are the worship team being trained how to do evangelism? • Do they do it? • Are they accountable for their efforts in evangelism? These kinds of questions must be asked of every ministry in a church, including all the administration staff if we want to cause a resurgence in world evangelism. Someone might protest “Wait a minute. I run a pregnancy clinic. How am I going to evangelise the world and yet still be faithful to what God has called me to do?” How should we answer? The clinic’s ‘immediate priority’ is saving babies from abortion. This is what they have been called to do by God, and this is good and right. It’s the particular and personal will of God for those in the clinic. In this respect, don’t change a thing. But saving babies from abortion is not the mission of the Church. Those who run the clinic need to think how they can give the gospel clearly, lovingly, and appropriately to the people who use their services. To get the gospel to the people who use their services is the ‘ultimate priority’ of the clinic staff. In other words, the staff at this clinic must find the best way to synchronise the particular will of God for them (i.e. saving babies) with God’s ultimate will (i.e. the evangelisation of the world). When they find a way, and do it, they are operating a truly Biblical, faithful, Great Commission honouring, Jesus glorifying ministry. Wow! Furthermore, when they are not at the clinic, they can and should reach other people with the gospel. In the final two years of my career as a school teacher, I tried to present the gospel to each of the twenty six staff. I had to pick my moments carefully and wisely, waiting for the appropriate time. It took two years to get the gospel to twelve of the twenty six staff. After two years at that school, I left teaching as a 32

profession and moved into ‘full time’78 ministry, doing what I am doing now. That is to say, I never did reach the other fourteen staff. But in those two years at that school, after school, I’d go to a local shopping centre and give the gospel to at least one person. My goal was to reach one person a day like this. I have kept to this goal, with a few very rare exceptions, for nearly 30 years. What am I saying? All of us are called and commanded to evangelise people inside our workplace, and outside of it. I am also saying that evangelising the lost at one’s workplace (i.e. giving the gospel to people we work with each day) requires a very different approach to evangelising the lost in a shopping centre (i.e. strangers), but both groups need to be evangelised. I actually find it a lot easier to reach people I don’t know, rather than people I do know. Family are hardest of all to reach because the prophet is not accepted in his own home town (Luke 4:24). Why is reaching strangers with the gospel so important? Well, it’s like this - if you reach strangers, you’d probably reach one of the staff of my school who I couldn’t get to, and members of my family who are difficult for me to get to. And if I reach strangers, I’d probably get to the staff at your place of work that you couldn’t get to, and your family members that you find difficult to reach. Do you get it? This is why Jesus said “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15), not just to friends and family. All means all. The bottom line is this - everything that goes on in a church must be filtered through the lens of Jesus’ mission because...well... it’s Jesus’ mission! It’s His priority. It’s what He commanded us to do. It’s what He MOST wants to see completed. Therefore, it ought to be our raison d’etre. It ought to be our main thing as a Church. It ought to be the priority in the life of every Christian, at the top of our daily ‘to do’ list.79 78 Really, everyone who is a Christian is in ‘full time ministry’ no matter what they are doing. 79 After preaching about this in a church one day, a man came up me and protested “If you ask people in the church to make evangelism a priority each day, you are going to burn a lot of them out and make them miserable! For most people, this is just not their gifting. It will drain them!” First, I knew this man had never done evangelism, let alone mastered it, otherwise he wouldn’t be talking like this. Second, the Christian life is not all about us. It’s about Him. Third, if to evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel, and spreading the gospel can be as simple as anonymously putting a gospel booklet in someone’s letter box, which is a 3 second activity, how can this possibly burden people, and cause their burn out? This is an issue of the heart, not an

Remember, if we succeed with all the component parts of our mission (e.g. prayer, fasting, social action, Bible study, serving, worship, raising healthy families, being a holy people, being a loving people, being used by God to work the miraculous, advancing the Kingdom on earth, etc) but fail with THE mission (evangelising the world), we fail. End of story. If to evangelise the earth is truly, Biblically, theologically, and objectively the priority of the Church, then let’s take whatever action is necessary to make it so in reality. If you as a leader are looking for the ultimate way to express your love for God, and help your people do the same, then make His mission your mission, and THE mission of your church (John 14:21). Loose yourself from the devil’s grip, reset the hard drive on your personal walk with Jesus, and the hard drive of your church, and get back to Jesus’ priority. Don’t be like a tumble weed, blown around by the wind of whatever ministry or visiting speaker rolls into your town or city, changing your priorities from week to week, month to month, year to year. Don’t be a smorgasbord pastor. Re-establish Jesus’ priority in your life, and the life of your church. Stay anchored, and watch what happens!

ummary

The evangelisation of the world is the priority of Jesus. It’s our mission. How do we know this? • He established the idea. • Paul and the Early Church carried it on. • Scripture teaches it. • The Apostles believed it. • Biblical scholarship supports it. • Spiritual giants from the past promote it.

issue of time. Rather than drain them, it will give them life. How so? When they lie down at night, after doing some evangelism during the day, and they look back on their day, they will have peace in their heart that they have been faithful to participate in the evangelisation of the world, the priority of Jesus. And nothing brings more peace and life than doing His will (John 14:21). And if they don’t feel peace and life in their heart at this thought, much more so the reality, and some joy, maybe they don’t have the Giver of peace in their heart? What other conclusion can there be? Now here is the thing - for genuine believers, doing God’s will is, ultimatly, all that matters. If we die doing it, as was the experience of 11 of the 12 disciples, then so be it. The right perspective is to do God’s will and leave the results to Him, not predict that doing His will will burn us out, make us miserable, drain us, and for this reason never start. This is not Biblical thinking. It’s the way the flesh thinks.

• Significant contemporary leaders advocate it. • To evangelise is to enter the highest form of worship. • It’s the fast track to one of the most potent sources of Christian joy. • It’s the greatest way to bring glory to Jesus. • It’s vital to distinguish between the component parts of our mission and THE mission. Think of the NASA analogy I gave. • All ministries must be filtered through the lens of our mission. • Every ministry in the church needs to be active in evangelism, and accountable for the same. • If we fail with the evangelisation of the world, no matter how successful we are in other areas of ministry, we fail. • It’s a device of the enemy to scramble our priorities. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Start spreading awareness of the issues raised in this Chapter to other Christians, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file by writing to julian@esisite.com. • CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. In the next Chapter I am going to reveal another of the major devices of the enemy which has stopped Christians from doing evangelism.

This is one of the dirtiest of all his tricks. Stay with me. I am going to take you right behind enemy lines. You are about to see some scenes I pray you will never forget. The war for souls is about to get hotter…

Real Life Story WHEN OUR GOOD WORKS DO NOT GLORIFY JESUS Greg McDuff is a plumber who, along with his wife Bianca, run a successful plumbing business in Auckland, New Zealand. I was reading Matthew 5:14-16 last night and it reminded me of when I hear Christians say â&#x20AC;&#x153;if we just go around doing random good deeds we glorify our Father in heaven.â&#x20AC;? This is true only when it is paired up with other truths in the Bible. Let me explain. I have a wonderful Muslim friend who runs a business in NZ and spends 6 months of the year in Africa and alot of money on educating poor children so they can have better lives. He loves and glorifies his god by doing way more good deeds than I do. The people for whom he is doing the goods works know he is a Muslim and that he is doing them for the sake of the name of Allah. Today I was approached by an Indian man in the city for help jump starting his car. It took about 20 minutes of my time to get him going and he was so 36

grateful. Jesus was only glorified when I gave him a Gospel booklet as we shook hands and parted. I could have just said “God bless you”, but I could have been glorifying any number of gods, or even myself. I believe this scripture about our good works glorifying Jesus is only so when the gospel is given together with the good deed. If I had not given the guy a tract with the gospel message inside I would have: • been putting my lamp under a bowl. • left the Muslim guessing as to what motivated me i.e. I could have been just a nice atheist for all he knew. • been most certainly glorifying myself (something God hates. He says He will not share his glory with another - Isaiah 42:8) • Jesus would most definitely NOT have been glorified. But there is another great lesson here. When we interpret scripture, we need to do so in the light of all of what Scripture says about a subject, not just pick out random verses here and there and build a pet theology around them. ESI, thanks for your team making tools that make it so easy for anyone to share the gospel with people. Love Greg (the plumber)

Julian’s comments.

How can we argue with Greg? He is absolutely right of course. Good works, done for any other motive other than to glorify Jesus, have no eternal value. How will people to whom we do good works associate Jesus with those works, but that we tell them, and in so doing, deflect the any glory coming to us onto Jesus. This won’t happen in the fullest sense unless we give the gospel message with the works. 37

Chapter Eight

A Gift, A Call, Or A Commission: Are All Christians Commanded To Evangelise?

eally, the question in the title of the Chapter is oxymoronic for any genuine follower of Jesus Christ. Let me explain what I mean. The dictionary defines an oxymoron in this way: “An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two seemingly opposing and contradictory elements are juxtaposed.” When one sees some Christians pouring over the Scriptures to look for verses and angles to justify not doing evangelism, isn’t that oxymoronic? Yes, it is. Over my 40 years as an evangelist, I have met many people like this. They are highly motivated to find ways to justify not doing evangelism. That is to say, they seem driven to justify keeping quiet about the Person and Work of the one who has changed the entire direction of not just their life on earth, but their eternity. Wouldn’t all genuine disciples earnestly want all those outside of Christ to have the experience which they themselves have experienced? You’d think so, but it seems that 98% of Christians want to avoid communicating the very message ordained by God to bring this about. Tragically, there are lots of ‘anti-evangelism’ people out there in our churches. The devil has worked hard with his devices to work through them to shut down evangelism in the Western Church. Actually, I met one such person recently when she 2

visited my home. he had been on an assignment working for an international aid organisation and it wasn’t long before we started talking about evangelism. I showed her the video of the gospel which you can see at www.biblein11.com. I encouraged her to load it onto her phone and use it on her travels. Alice: “Julian, I could never go around giving people the gospel like you do. It’s just not me.” Me: (very gently) “Why do you think it is just not you?” Alice: (a little defensively) “I would feel very awkward doing it. We all have different gifts, you know. You are good at this kind of thing and God has designed you to do it. You have the personality and I don’t. I am not that kind of person. I am better at just getting alongside people and befriending them. I have more of a relational evangelism style…you know…friendly and relaxed. I don’t like being pushy. I have found that people are attracted to who I am, not what I say… I have found that love is what attracts people…so I wait for people to ask me about my faith before I share the gospel with them.” Me: “I agree with you that being loving, relational, friendly and kind is all good. But don’t you think that all the other people of other religions, and even people who are not religious at all, can be nice and loving? What would make you different from all of them in the eyes of people you are working with? Surely, in all the relationships you are building, there must come a time when you know you should get to the nitty gritty and…well…explain what you are really on about…explain the gospel? Otherwise you’ll just leave people guessing about what makes you so nice! Also, Jesus did not say ‘Go into all the world and wait for people to ask you about your faith” which is passive. Rather He said “Go and proclaim” which is proactive. Geniune believers take the initiative. They make things happen, just like Jesus did. Jesus didn’t wait for the

Pharisees and Saducees to come to Him and say ‘Tell us about who you are and why you came.’ No. Jesus took the intiative. He made situations happen. For Him, his faith was never passive.” Alice: “Don’t get me wrong Julian. I talk about God with people But I don’t give them a presentation like you do. I sort of drip feed in bits and pieces about Christianity over a long period of time, maybe over dozens of conversations…often I don’t talk about God at all… only when it comes up naturally…yep, that’s pretty much how I do it.” Me: “How do you know the people you talk to are putting all the ‘bits and pieces’ you are giving over time together and making complete sense out of it? And how do you know all the bits and pieces are the gospel? What happens if you just tell them one or two bits and never see them again, and they never get to hear the gospel? What if the bit you gave them, on its own, might lead them astray? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I met someone the other day who told me she was going to heaven because a Christian had told her ‘God loves everyone.’ She assumed from this that she was right with God and there was nothing for her to do in her life about God. She expected a loving God would be ready to meet her the other side of death. Yet when I took her through the gospel she was shocked to find out she was headed straight for hell. Wouldn’t it be best to try and give the whole gospel in one go to those you meet, when the time and place is right, and take the discussion from there? At least that way you know they have heard it and understood it. And you have planted the seed of the gospel in them… for God to grow… and you have left nothing to chance. After all, Jesus did both. He was very relational and He proclaimed the gospel. He was full of grace and truth. He was pro-active. He never waited for people to come to him. He went to them to proclaim the gospel. Aren’t we supposed to be imitating Him?” 4

Alice: (laughing) “Julian, the bottom line is, you’re an evangelist and I am not. It’s just not me Julian, I am sorry, I am just not cut out for that stuff.” Me: (gently but starting to feel frustrated) “But what about all the millions of people out there who are not brushing with a Christian and who don’t have a Christian friend? Who is going to reach them? Eventually, we have to get beyond ‘bits and pieces conversations’ and get down to actually communicating the whole gospel. I have the gift of evangelism and I am supposed to train everyone how to do this. So if God’s assignment to me is to train everyone, then everyone must have a responsibility to do evangelism, and even make it a priority. God wouldn’t command everyone to do it if only a few people were capable. That would be cruel of God.” Alice: (defensively) “Ok, show me where the Bible says we are all to do it. I know for sure the Bible teaches that we are a body, each with a different part to play… (more light heartedly) …I am not the same body part as you Julian. Just prove what you are saying from the Bible!” on’t be duped… Many Christians want to know the answer to Alice’s final question. In this Chapter I show from the Bible that evangelism is the responsibility and privilege of all believers.1 If the enemy can dupe Christians into believing that only those with the ‘gift’ of evangelism are to do it, or those with a certain personality type, and few people in the Church have that gift or personality, then few in the Church will evangelise. But then again, fostering disobedience to God’s will in the world, especially in the Christian community, is the devil’s raison d’être. Dr Sidlow Baxter, theologian and author, writes powerfully on

1 When I speak of “all believers” I mean all who are physically and mentally capable. There are some in the Church, who, because of severe disability, or their age (e.g. babies) or mental state (e.g. dementia) cannot evangelise.

the subject of how the enemy tries to discourage Christians from doing God’s will. “The first temptation in Eden and the many temptations which have entrapped men and women since, are fundamentally identical. The tempter’s great purpose is to divorce the will of Christians more and more from the will of God.”2 So what is the will of God when it comes to evangelism? What do Christian scholars and significant leaders say? Are all Christians commanded to evangelise or not? Dr William Barclay: “It is the duty of the Church, and that means the duty of every Christian, to tell the story of the good news of Jesus to those who have never heard it.”3 It doesn’t get much clearer than that. But I’ll throw in more quotes, lest you think I’m relying on one or two scholars who happen to agree with me. Few opinions would be as respected as that of Dr Billy Graham. He is emphatic: “For too long we have assumed that evangelism was the province of only a few professionals, or a task that the pastor alone could do (in addition to the multitude of other duties the pastor faces every day). Such a view is not faithful to the New Testament, nor is it realistic if the challenges of the coming decades are to be met. The task is simply too overwhelming.”4 According to Dr Leighton Ford, the Latin American Mission researched the fastest growing movements in their field and found them to be the Communists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Pentecostal churches. They then sought to discover a common denominator – which was obviously not their message. Finally they came up with this proposition: “The growth of any movement is in direct proportion to its ability to mobilise its entire membership for continuous evangelistic action… Based on this thesis,” says Ford, “a 2

Dr J. Sidlow Baxter. Explore The Book. Zondervan, 1966, p.37

Dr William Barclay. The Gospel Of Mark. Saint Andrew Press, 1975, p.370

Dr Billy Graham. Christianity Today Magazine. December, 1977.

programme of ‘evangelism in depth’ has been moving from country to country in Latin America, training, uniting and mobilising ordinary Christians as never before, and making unprecedented impact in the life of these nations.”5 owing seeds of doubt and twisting scripture: hallmarks of the enemy. The enemy loves to stop Christians from proclaiming the gospel by sowing doubt in their minds regarding God’s instruction. “Did God really say all Christians are to proclaim the gospel?” he asks slyly. But he does not stop there. He plays on this doubt by persuading many Christians they are not gifted by God to do so, or that evangelism is for those with a certain personality type. Moreover, he often uses Scripture to bolster his case. For example, he will whisper in the ear of a Christian, “The Bible says the Church is a body with many parts. An evangelist is a special part of this spiritual body, as an eye is to the physical body. If you’re the heart, don’t even try to be an eye. Just rest in how God made you.” This line of reasoning sounds so right and so logical, but is it Biblical? It’s true that people in the Church have different personalities It’s true that they have different gifts. It’s true that we are to flow in the gift God has given us and not try and be something we are not made to be or do. But are all some Christians exempt from doing evangelism. Answer? No. So how do we counter the devil’s devices which would argue otherwise? As was the example of Jesus in His desert temptation, we do so from Scripture. efeating the enemy with scripture… Acknowledging there is no single Bible verse that tells us bluntly, “All Christians are commanded to proclaim or spread the gospel,” we reach this conclusion by systematically piecing together various scriptures.

5 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.47

First, each of the Gospels contains a command from Jesus to do evangelism: 1. Matthew: “...Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). 2. Mark: “Go into all the world and preach the good news” (Mark 16:15). 3. Luke: “…and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). 4. John: “As my Father sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). Together with Acts 1:8, these are viewed by scholars as Jesus’ five Great Commission announcements. Studying and meditating on these verses is an important strategy from heaven in the battle for souls. If we are not convinced from these and other verses that evangelism is for everyone, we will not do it. So what do I want you to notice in the five verses above? While only Mark talks explicitly about proclaiming the gospel, the other three Gospel writers do so implicitly. For example, in Matthew Jesus talks of making disciples. A disciple is an apprentice or learner, someone who imitates his master or teacher. So, if all Christians are disciples and imitators of Jesus, and they are, and Jesus spent a lot of time saying who He was and why He came (i.e. evangelising), then it follows that all Christians are to learn how to evangelise. That is to say, to tell others about who Jesus is and why He came. Serious disciples of Jesus will desire earnestly to imitate Him in this crucial work. We discovered in Chapter Seven that the evangelisation of the world is not just ‘crucial work.’ Rather, it’s the very mission of the Church. It’s the priority of Jesus. In John 20:21, Jesus is talking to His disciples. Since we too are Jesus’ disciples, ‘you’ in this verse refers to us as well. Furthermore, if all are sent, what are we all sent to do? I answered this question in 8

the previous Chapter. We are sent to proclaim or spread the gospel, just as Jesus and Paul did. As for Luke 24:46-49 and Acts 1:8, Luke has recorded the last words of Jesus before He was taken up to heaven. Again, Jesus is talking to all the disciples, and since all Christians are disciples of Jesus, He is talking to all of us as well. We are to actively participate in the great task of communicating repentance and forgiveness in His name to all the nations. To do so is to ‘witness.’ To communicate ‘repentance’ one must explain to the lost why they must be saved and forgiven. After they have heard why they must be saved and forgiven, the next logical step is to explain to them how Jesus can save them and forgive them. After this, one must explain what a lost person must do to repent and be forgiven. Repentance and forgiveness come with a cost, so we must explain the cost too. In explaining all this, what are we doing? We are evangelising. Conclusion? Luke 24:46-49 and Acts 1:8 are universal commands to the whole Church to evangelise the world. It couldn’t be clearer. on’t take on the absurd… Some have argued that Jesus’ command to “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” was only to the disciples of His day. That instruction, they claim, does not apply to Christians now. But remember Jesus also told His disciples to “Love one another.” It would be absurd to argue that the command to “Love one another” was only for the disciples in Jesus’ day. isten to respected leaders… Dr Jerram Barrs, Founder and Resident Scholar of the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary, says the Bible’s position is clear: “The apostles and the whole Church understood that the command to reach out with the gospel was not for the apostles only but for the entire Church of that day. It was also a command…for every day in the life of the generations

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to come.”6 Popular theologian and author Dr John Piper, agrees: “The first thing to make clear about [the Great Commission] is that it is still binding on the modern Church. It was given not only to the apostles for their ministry but also to the Church for its ministry.”7 Renowned missiologist Dr Norman Lewis exhorts us: “To evangelise the world with God’s good news is not an option for the follower of Christ. Nor is it the sole territory of a few idealists who choose to be different. Jesus Christ made the worldwide witness8 the business of every believer… every Christian will answer at last to Him based on obedience to His command. ‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to the whole world (Mark 16:15).’”9 Dr Leighton Ford rebukes churches which rely on evangelists and pastors to do their evangelism. “A church which bottlenecks its outreach by depending on specialists - its pastors and evangelists – to do its witnessing, is living in violation of both the intention of its Head and the consistent pattern of the early Christians.”10 Dr Peter Wagner chips in: “…the true mission of proclaiming the gospel begins in the local church and extends to the whole world and is the task of every believer.”11 he “gift of evangelism”…who has it and what’s it for? Now let’s look at Ephesians 4:10-14. Here, the Bible speaks of a person who is Christ’s gift to the Church. It is from this scripture that we get the idea of someone having the special “gift of evangelism.” “He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all

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Dr Jerram Barrs, The Heart of Evangelism. Inter Varsity Press, 2001, p.37

7 Dr John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad. The Supremacy of God in Missions. Baker Books, 2003, p.160 8 In Chapter Four, I explained the meaning of this word, so often limited by Christians to mean only ‘letting non-Christians know, somehow, that we are a Christian.’ 9

Dr Norm Lewis, Priority One. OM Literature, 1988, p.1

10 Dr Leighton Ford, The Christian Persuader: A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.46. 11 Dr C. Peter Wagner & Pablo Deiros Ed. The Rising Revival. Renew Books, 1998, p.51

the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe. It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:10-14). We can glean at least four truths from this passage of Scripture: 1. God has given certain people to the church as a “gift.” 2. The evangelist is given “to prepare God’s people.” What for? To show them how to evangelise. 3. These evangelists are given to the Church to prepare it “for works of service.” What service? The evangelisation of the world. 4. When each person in the Church is fully equipped by these people (i.e. by prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers), the task of preparing God’s people for works of service will be complete. Every Christian who is fully equipped can attain to “the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.” In other words, they can walk in the fulness of God’s maturity, fruitfulness, and blessing. vangelists were never meant to do all the work… Tellingly, it does not say, “He gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, so that they can go and do all the work.” Rather, it says certain people are given to the church to prepare God’s people to do the work.12 ecoming what we ought to be… Commenting on Ephesians 4:11-13, Dr William Barclay writes: “After Paul has named the different office bearers within the church, he goes on to speak of their aim and what they must

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12 Some people have asked ‘If evangelists teach us how to evangelise, does this mean prophets teach us how to prophecy, teachers how to teach, apostles how to be an apostle, and pastors how to be a pastor?’ The answer to this question is on our web site at www.esisite.com and look under ‘frequently asked questions’.

try to do. Their aim is that the members of the church should be fully equipped. The word Paul uses for ‘equipped’ is interesting. It is katartismon, which comes from the verb katartizein. The word is used in surgery for setting a broken limb or for putting a joint back into its place. In politics it is used for bringing together opposing factions, so that the government can go on. In the New Testament it is used in mending nets (Mark 1:19), and in the context of disciplining an offender until he is fit to take his place again within the fellowship of the church (Galatians 6:1). The basic idea of the word is that of putting a thing into the condition in which it ought to be. It is the function of the office-bearers of the church to see that the members of the church… become what they ought to be.”13 Christians who do not evangelise are like broken bones. They are not what they ought to be. Evangelists are God’s physicians, given to heal these broken bones. ow to maximise the health of your church… But that is not all. Paul teaches in Ephesians 4 that the Church is ailing because she is not united in the faith, not united in the knowledge of God’s Son; that she is immature and falling short of the fulness of Christ. So in Ephesians 4:10-14 the Lord is speaking to the Church as a doctor would to a sick patient. He says, “I am going to give you five gifts to cure this sickness – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Each of them has a unique and vital contribution to make you spiritually fit and vibrant. As each of these gifted people prepares you for works of service, and as each person in the Church puts into practice what they teach you, the body of Christ will be healed. Take out one of the five, and you won’t attain the radiant health I intended.” Some might argue, “Well, I don’t evangelise and I don’t feel spiritually sick. I feel close to Jesus and my spiritual life is awesome!” How should

13 Dr William Barclay. The Letters To The Galatians and Ephesians. The Saint Andrew Press. Edinburgh, 1985, p.149

we reply? Many forms of disease can be present in the body without the carrier being aware. Awareness comes later when the sickness becomes full blown, or by chance discovered through a blood test. It is the same with evangelism. When we don’t feel the need to evangelise, this doesn’t mean God is not commanding us to evangelise, or that our participation in evangelism is not necessary. It simply means that we are out of sync with the will of God in this area of our lives and we just don’t know it! It will only be as we begin to evangelise that we’ll become aware of just how sick we were when we weren’t evangelising. In short, those who are currently not evangelising don’t know what they don’t know about a grave sickness they are carrying. n antibiotics analogy… If you are sick and the doctor gives you a ten-day supply of antibiotics but you only take half the course, your medicine will not work. It’s the same with the five-fold ministry gifts. Take out the evangelism component (or any other ‘gift’) and the healing won’t work. In most churches in the West, serious ongoing training in evangelism is not on the calendar. Take Britain for example. Of 1017 churches in Britain which were surveyed to ascertain how many had trained their people for evangelism in the decade 2001 to 2010, only a staggering 36 (3.5%) said they had done so. All other Western countries would fare no better. How this situation must sadden Jesus. Out of the supply of His glorious riches and bounty He gives precious gifts – and we reject them.14

14 True, some evangelists deserve bad press. We can be insensitive, dogmatic, threatening, and one-eyed. These are just some of our weaknesses. Yet, in spite of this, God calls us, and the strengths we bring, ‘a gift’ to the Church.

This ought never to be. And the Church will never attain to “the whole measure of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) as long as this situation persists. A key battle strategy from heaven, then, is to utilise to the full all the five gifts God has given to His Church, including evangelists. he benefits of evangelising – what’s in it for you? We are not yet finished with this passage from Ephesians. It indicates there are many benefits for the Church when its members are equipped for, and practising, evangelism. It helps to: 1. Unite the body of Christ in faith. 2. Unite the body in the knowledge of God’s Son. 3. Bring the body to maturity. 4. Bring the body to a place where it can attain the “whole measure of the fulness of Christ.” But it is not just Ephesians 4 which highlights the spiritual benefits for the believer of being active in evangelism. There is also 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.” How does this passage teach that all Christians are to proclaim the gospel? Well, if it is God’s will that all Christians come to a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ, and sharing our faith is a vital part of this process, then all must be active in sharing their faith, surely? he gift of the Spirit and the call to witness belong together… Citing Acts 1:8, Dr John Stott argues that evangelism is everyone’s responsibility: “There is not room… for evasion by trying to limit the commission of Jesus to the apostles or to any subsequent section of the Church. Acts 1:8 is clear: ‘You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; you shall be My witnesses…’ We can only restrict the command to witness if we equally restrict the promise of power. The gift of the Spirit and the call to be witnesses

belong together and apply indiscriminately to all Christians. All Christians may inherit the promise; all must obey the command.”15 By “witnessing,” in this context, Stott means proclaiming the gospel.16 eing the ambassador God always meant you to be… Dr R. Kent Hughes, Author and Senior Pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, interprets Acts 1:8 similarly: “The command to be Christ’s witnesses is for all true believers in Him. There are no loopholes. No one can say, ‘This does not apply to me.’ Our mandate exceeds that of any worldly ambassador, whether it is to mainland China, France or the private offices of the Prime Minister of England. Christ’s last word is ‘You will be my witnesses.’”17 Dr Hughes also mentions 2 Corinthians 5:20 in support of his case. “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” “Paul is referring not to the requirements of believers,” Hughes writes, “but to the evangelistic duty of Christ’s ambassadors to go into the world and announce the good news of reconciliation to every creature, pleading with men to receive as their own what God has freely provided in His Son. An ambassador speaks and acts not only on behalf of but also in place of the Sovereign from whom he has received his commission. Since all Christians are Christ’s ambassadors, we must all perform the duty of an ambassador. If we are truly ambassadors, we too must proclaim, if indeed we are truly representing our Sovereign. We cannot claim all the benefits of

15 Dr John Stott. Motives and Methods In Evangelism. IVP, 1973, p.5 16 Many in the Church misunderstand “witnessing.” For some it means letting a non-Christian know you are a Christian. If, for example, a non-Christian asks the question, “What did you do on the weekend?” and I answer, “I went to church,” some may think I have witnessed. But there is much more to the true understanding of “witnessing” than this. I discussed this in Chapter Four, device 10. 17 Dr R. Kent Hughes. Acts. The Church Afire. Crossway Books, 1996, p.17

an ambassador (eternal life, grace, peace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, etc) without taking up the responsibilities.”18 old your head up high – you are a privileged person… Dr Warren Wiersbe, well known international Bible conference teacher and author of more than 80 books, adds further insight. He argues that since we are all ambassadors for Christ, we all must act as such by announcing our Sovereign’s message. “In the Roman Empire,” he writes, “there were two kinds of provinces: senatorial and imperial. The senatorial provinces were made up of people who were peaceful and not at war with Rome. They had surrendered and submitted. But the imperial provinces were not peaceful. They were dangerous because they would rebel against Rome if they could. Rome had to send ambassadors to the imperial provinces to make sure rebellion did not break out. Since Christians in the world are the ambassadors of Christ, this means the world is in rebellion against God. This world is an ‘imperial province’ as far as God is concerned. He has sent His ambassadors into the world to declare peace, not war. If sinners reject us and our message, it is Jesus Christ who is actually rejected. What a great privilege it is to be heaven’s ambassadors to the rebellious sinners of this world!”19 If all Christians are ambassadors, and they are, then all are to evangelise, surely? There is no such thing as a silent ambassador, just as there is no such thing as a soccer player who never kicks a ball, a boxer who never boxes, a writer who never writes, or a fisherman who never fishes. These are oxymorons. ow to grow your church… Dr Michael Green points to other scriptures to support the case that evangelism is for all believers: “The biggest difference between the New Testament church and our own,” he says, “is that every member was a witness. The

18 ibid, p.17 19 Dr Warren W. Wiersbe, 2 Corinthians. Be Encouraged. Scripture Press, 1984, p.68

responsibility of bearing witness to Jesus rested fairly and squarely upon every single member. You don’t just find it in the odd by-ways of the New Testament: Jude urges his readers in graphic terms to ‘save some, by snatching them out of the fire’ (Jude 1:23). Timothy, though naturally timid and not an evangelist, is nevertheless bidden to ‘do the work of an evangelist’ (2 Timothy 4:5) and to ‘be urgent in season and out of season’ (2 Timothy 4:2). You find it everywhere. In 1 Thessalonians 1:8, Paul rejoices that the Word of God has sounded forth from the newly-fledged Thessalonian Christians, and that their faith in God has spread like wildfire. And in Acts 8:1-4 we find the Jerusalem leaders shut up in fear in an upper room while the common believers were scattered by a persecution springing from the death of Stephen. What did they do? They went everywhere spreading the gospel. Evangelism was the spontaneous chattering of good news. It was engaged in naturally, continuously, easily and joyfully by Christians wherever they went. If you want evangelism in your church, do not hire a famous preacher. Build up the congregation for informal witness. And the church will grow.”20 Wise pastors and leaders take note. Michael Green is speaking here of another battle strategy from heaven. Three other scriptures are cited by scholars to show how the responsibility to evangelise is the privilege of everyone in the Church: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news [the gospel] to the poor” (Luke 4:18). “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). As I have already said right at the beginning of this Chapter, if the goal of the Christian life is to imitate Christ, and gospel 20 Dr Michael Green. Evangelism Now And Then. IVP, 1979, p.118

proclamation dominated His life, then surely, if we are truly in touch with our Master, and one of His disciples, we’ll want to imitate Him in this vital task. hat it takes to be like a top golfer in the world... Think how amazing it would be if you boldly and unashamedly added to your Christian experience the habit of regularly proclaiming the gospel. You could then say honestly that you were imitating the major aspect of the life of Jesus. I can’t think of any Christian behaviour which would put you in a better position to receive the fulness of all that Jesus has for you. To desire to be a sincere disciple of Jesus but omit regular personal evangelism is like saying, “I’m going to imitate the number one golfer in the world, but, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to hit any golf balls.” Jesus never gave his disciples the option of picking and choosing which aspects of His life they would like to imitate. The authentic Christian life can never be reduced to a spiritual smorgasbord. esus is so great, He is worth declaring… An Australian theologian, John Chapman, cites 1 Peter 2:910 to show how evangelism is a command for all Christians rather than just those with the gift: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” “The people of God are described in 1 Peter in terms taken directly from the Old Testament,” writes Chapman, who then goes on to amplify this. “First, God’s people are a special people,” he reminds us. “As chosen specially by Him, they cannot be ordinary. Had the choice of who could be Christians been left to us, we might have chosen

differently, which only shows how unlike God we are! He loves them and so should we. Secondly, God’s people have a special task – to declare the praises of God, and these praises are all associated with the work of salvation, when people move from darkness to light. To whom is this declaration in 1 Peter 2: 9-10 made? Since God’s people are here described in Old Testament terms which referred to Israel, the declaration is clearly to be made to ‘the nations’ (Isaiah 49:1) to whom Israel is called to witness (Mark 1:17; Isaiah 56:6-7). The declaration of God’s mighty deeds in salvation is to be made known to those who are not yet Christian. All Christians – not just those with the gift of evangelism – belong to the people whose purpose is to ‘declare the mighty deeds of God.’”21 Chapman continues, “There is a special gift of the evangelist as there is a special gift of faith (1 Corinthians 12:9), but that doesn’t mean all of us shouldn’t evangelise, any more than it means we don’t all need to exercise faith.”22 od the Evangelist calls us to be His fellow workers… The Lausanne Covenant documents cite 2 Corinthians 6:1 as a key scripture to support the truth that evangelism is the responsibility of all believers.23 “As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.” Commenting on that verse, Dr John Stott says, “God the evangelist gives His people the privilege of being His ‘fellow workers.’ For although we cannot witness without Him, He normally chooses to witness through us. He calls only some to be evangelists,24 missionaries or pastors, but He calls the whole Church and every member of

21 John Chapman. Know and Tell the Truth. The Why And How Of Evangelism. Hodder and Stoughton, 1991, pp.42-4 22 ibid, p.42 23 Cited in Dr Lewis Drummond. The Word Of The Cross. A Contemporary Theology Of Evangelism. Broadman Press, 1992, p.363 24 Stott means those with the Ephesians 4:11-12 gift of evangelism.

it to be His witnesses.”25 As Dr Leighton Ford says, “If our goal is the penetration of the whole world, then for the agents to carry out this task, we must aim at nothing less than the mobilisation of the whole Church.”26 atholics take a lead… Sadly, Protestants and Catholics often disagree on points of theology, but on the question of who is to do evangelism, we are agreed. The late Pope John Paul II, addressing Catholic young people at World Youth Day in 1992, had this to say: “Here we are before the Seventh World Youth Day. I chose these words of Christ as this year’s theme: ‘Go into all the whole world and proclaim the gospel’ (Mark 16:15). Through the Church, these words addressed to the apostles concern every baptised person. The same Spirit who made us children of God compels us to evangelise. Moreover, proclaiming means precisely proclaiming — becoming one who brings the word of salvation to others. There is indeed much ignorance about the Christian faith, but there is also a deep desire to hear the Word of God. And faith comes from listening. St Paul writes: ‘How can they believe unless they have heard of Him?’ (Romans 10:14). Dear young people, proclaiming the Word of God is not the responsibility of priests or the religious alone, but it is yours too. You must have the courage to speak about Christ in your families and in places where you study, work or recreate, inspired with the same fervour the apostles had when they said: ‘We cannot help speaking of what we have heard and seen’ (Acts 4:20). Nor should you be silent!”27 Bill Hybels said: “[with respect to evangelism] we need 100% participation [from

25 For a full discussion on what it means for a Christian to be ‘a witness’, see Chapter Four. 26 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader: A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row. 1976, p.45 27 http://www.pcf.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/youth/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_24111991_vii-worldyouth-day_en.html

our church members]. Every Christian in the world is part of the Church to which Jesus gave the Great Commission.”28 ow do I find the time? Despite all the evidence, many Christians struggle to see how they might fit evangelising into their daily lives. “Am I supposed to give up my job and be out there proclaiming the gospel all day long to everyone everywhere?” one might ask. “As a busy mother, how can I be obedient to this command when I spend most of my days just surviving with my children?” “I run a clinic for AIDS patients. How am I supposed to make proclaiming the gospel the main thing?” “I am a busy executive working 18 hours a day. Where would I find time to do this?” These are honest questions. The diagrams below help us to see the difference between how people with the “gift” of evangelism might use their day and how everyone else in the Church might fit evangelism into their routine. They also help us see how engaging in evangelism is much simpler and easier than we ever dreamed or imagined. With the revolutionary tools and strategies God has graced us with, now literally everyone in the Church can feel comfortable with evangelism and actually engage in it. How good is that!

28 Cited in: Mark Mittleberg. Building A Contagious Church. Revolutionising The Way We View And Do Evangelism. Zondervan Publishing. 2000. p. 169

The circles represent all the various things an evangelist (i.e. someone with â&#x20AC;&#x153;the giftâ&#x20AC;?) does in their day. One of them is shopping. When the evangelist leaves their office, they can give the gospel to someone while they are out shopping. In other words, they evangelise naturally as they go about their day. The rest of their time is spent organising training events for churches and preparing resources.

In contrast, the diagram on the above represents the waking hours of someone who has a talent or a calling in an area other than evangelism. Let’s say the person represented by the diagram above is a mother of three little children under five and she has a husband. Like the evangelist with the gift, she too gets out of her house. This is when she can speak to someone about the gospel or at the very least give them a booklet with the gospel written on it or a www.Biblein11.com business card.29 How else might this mother evangelise?30 She might: • Have coffee with a friend and share the gospel while the children play outside. • Attend a recreational activity while a baby sitter looks after her children and share the gospel with someone there. • Leave a tract in the doctor’s reception rooms after taking her preschooler to an appointment. • Give a www.Biblein11.com business card to the library assistant when she takes out a book. She might give a www.Biblein11.com card to someone she sees sitting in a car next to where her car is parked.31 What each of us must realise is that we are nearly all brushing with non-Christians everyday and each and every brush is a potential opportunity to give a lost person the key to entrance to eternal life. We need our eyes opened to see these opportunities and our 29 To find out more about this concept, just email me: julian@esisite.com 30 Most people in the world perceive they are extremely busy – and most are. It is easy to see how evangelism would quickly shut down if every Christian thought they were exempt from proclaiming or spreading the gospel just because they were busy. This is why I wrote Chapter Seven of this book – to show that what we make a priority will nearly always get done. To illustrate this truth, I have often put the following scenario before Christians: “Imagine if the richest man in the world became a Christian and he became radically committed to evangelism. In fact, he became so committed that he offered to pay any Christian $US1000 for anyone with whom they shared the gospel.” I am certain the priority of many Christians would suddenly change quickly. Courses on evangelism would be full to over flowing. Christians proclaiming the gospel would flood the world. Evangelism would boom. Conclusion? Money has become more important to us than obeying God. What other conclusion is there? 31 E.g. giving them to tellers at shops and banks, placing them at ATM machines, public telephone boxes; on the table in cafes and restaurants – any situation where we mix with non-Christians or where someone might pick it up and read it.

hearts changed so that we possess the heart of Jesus to take and make them. We also need great tools and strategies which make evangelism loving, gracious, quick, and easy. Thankfully, we now have these so absolutely everyone in the Church can now participate. e have to be intentional… For me personally, I have found that if I try to “fit” evangelism into my day, I will end up not evangelising i.e. when I go shopping, I intentionally take time out to reach someone with the gospel. How often should we do it? Really, this is a silly question. It’s like asking “how often should I love my children, read my Bible, or pay my bills on time?” As long as people have not heard, we must reach them. Anyone can evangelise in the course of a day by putting a tract or www. Biblein11.com business card in a strategic place. I can’t think of anyone in the Church who couldn’t do this. Really, how hard is it to give out a business card or leave it where someone will find it? e are all busy, but… No matter how busy we are, if we truly “get it” in our hearts and minds that the evangelisation of the world really and truly is Jesus’ priority, any genuine believer would make it their personal priority, surely? What would it look like for a busy person to make it their personal priority? Someone I know works in the inner city in a busy office. He has a wife and children at home and has one hour for lunch each day. Before he eats, he leaves the office to give the gospel on the busy streets. He won’t eat until he has evangelised. He has made this a habit. He also holds himself accountable to another friend so that he won’t slip back into old ways. Another lady simplified her lifestyle in order to make evangelism the priority. Instead of watching five hours of TV a week she watched only four, dedicating the other hour to evangelising the world. She

leaves her house one evening a week to go out and look for someone to whom she can give the gospel. Another whole family dedicated Saturday mornings to going out as a family to evangelise. They report that it bound them together as a family like no other family activity had ever done. Making evangelising a priority is, ultimately, just a choice. Every person in the world has 24 hours in their day. What each person does with it depends on what’s in their heart. roclaiming the gospel from the heart… Whatever commitment we make, it is the spirit with which we make it that counts. The heart of any genuine believer, though their time might be limited, will be to reach more people with the gospel and go out of their way to create opportunities. Their first motivation is for the glory of God, the second is because they love people. ix things that could stop us from evangelising… In my experience it is not just a question of time constraints. Most of us want to be able to evangelise, but six things stop us: 1. We don’t know how to start the conversation. 2. Once we’ve started, we don’t know what to say. 3. We lack training and tools that are contemporary, designed for today’s culture, and easy to use. 4. We don’t feel confident to answer the questions which non-Christians might ask when we share the gospel with them. 5. We fear others will respond negatively when we share with them. 6. We have been influenced by the enemy’s devices and think it is someone else’s responsibility. We want solutions to these problems. We want to evangelise in a way that is quick and simple, which glorifies God, and which does not compromise the content of the gospel in any way. What would you think of a gospel tool or method which omitted no important truth, which was not unnecessarily complicated, and which left the non-Christian feeling loved yet utterly convicted by the Holy Spirit

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of their need for Jesus? That’s quite some wish-list! Fortunately there are some tremendous tools available now which will enable you to evangelise in just such a way.32 hat’s in your heart? Do the test... You could react to the content of this Chapter – that the task of evangelising is given to all of us – in at least four different ways, each being a cunning device of the enemy to knock you out of active participation. First you could decide that it is true, but do nothing about it. This would be wilful disobedience. Next you could put the responsibility on the pastor, saying you will get serious about evangelising as soon as some training is organised. This would be passing the buck. Thirdly you could employ delay tactics: “I’m going to pray about this,” you might say, “and when God tells me to do it, I will.” This would be delaying obedience. Fourthly you could deny the truths outlined in this Chapter and return to your old way of life, clinging to the myth that evangelism is to be done only by those with ‘the gift’ or by people who are less busy than you. This would be suppressing the truth. Let’s not react in any of these ways. eing in the best position to flourish… Without doubt obedience positions you for the blessing of 33 God. James says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). We are called to obedience (1 Samuel 15:22); passing the buck is a sin which has been around since the beginning of time (Genesis 3:12); Jesus specifically taught against delaying obedience

32 Please email me at julian@esisite.com and I will give you access to an online library of tools and strategies. 33 There are exceptions of course. Obedience can sometimes bring torture, persecution, separation from family and friends and even death. Blessing may not always follow obedience, but obedience always precedes blessing.

(Matthew 8:18-22); and Paul (Romans 1:18) warned against suppressing the truth. In contrast, those planted in the house of the Lord [i.e. those who seek to live in obedience] will flourish (Psalm 92:13). on’t blame your pastor…. There is a sobering warning in Ezekiel 33:7-9 about not putting all the responsibility on our leader or pastor: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak [to you] and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.” od is talking to you too… Notice Ezekiel’s constant use of the pronoun you. The enemy would like us to brush this verse aside. We might say, “Oh, God was only talking to Ezekiel the prophet, and through him to Israel. This verse does not apply to believers today.” oes Ezekiel 33:7-9 apply to all of us today…? Why would Ezekiel 33:7-9 not apply to us today? What’s different between God’s charge to Ezekiel and Jesus’ command to us in Mark 16:15? The judgments Ezekiel was to proclaim are similar to those in the gospel. For example, Ezekiel is commanded to transmit a message given by God, and so are we. He is to alert the people around him to the peril of their ways and to call them to righteousness, as we are (e.g. Luke 13:3). The offer of forgiveness is certain for those who turn, which is the core of our gospel message (e.g. 1 John 1:9). If sinners don’t turn, they will meet with a violent and terrible end (John 3:18). There are consequences for not evangelising (e.g. Luke 9:26).

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e are all God’s sentries… Dr Christopher Wright, former principal of All Nations Christian College, London, is also convinced Ezekiel 33:7-9 applies to us today: “The implications for Christian ministry seem to flow naturally [from these verses]… those who are among the flock being pastored need the challenge of the evangelistic warning and appeal. The sentry is never off duty.”34 The fact that Paul in Acts 18:6 and 20:26 uses the same imagery as Ezekiel when his audience rejects the gospel, further strengthens the argument. Dr John Stott35 and Dr I. Howard Marshall36 are two other scholars who connect these two verses in Acts with Ezekiel 33. It is not only pastors and leaders who will be accountable for the blood of those who perish without having been warned through the gospel, but each of us, individually. If your church doesn’t provide training in evangelism, it is your duty to seek it out. atch out for self-deception… As for saying, “I’ll pray about it,” before deciding to actively evangelise, really, what is the point? The Bible already tells us clearly that proclaiming the gospel is the will of God for each one of us. Yes, we ought to cover our activities and decisions with prayer, but let’s not use ‘I’ll pray about it’ as a delaying tactic or a fobb off. I urge you in Jesus not to return to your old way of thinking. Consider the many exhortations in the Bible not to be deceived. For example: “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3). Of course, even once we are convinced it is true that we must

34 Dr Christopher J.H. Wright. The Message Of Ezekiel, IVP, 2001, p.221 35 Dr John Stott, The Message Of Acts. IVP, 2003, p.298 36 Dr I.Howard Marshall, The Acts Of The Apostles. An Introduction And Commentary, IVP, 1987, p.333

all take responsibility for being active in evangelism, Satan’s next cunning device is to suggest the “come to me” approach. He persuades Christians to pray, “Lord, if you want me to reach someone with the gospel, please bring them to me and make it obvious. Have them ask me to share the gospel with them. If you don’t do this, I will know you don’t want me to do any evangelism today.” esus created the opportunities… Don’t fall for this. Jesus specifically said “Go” (Mark 16:15).37 ‘Go’ means ‘make it happen.’ Once trained in evangelism, we must do more than wait for opportunities to fall into our lap. We must learn to create them, as Jesus did. In the parables of the lost sheep and the lost penny,38 the shepherd and the housekeeper went looking for what was lost. These parables illustrate important truths about evangelism: First, as God sought us, so we in turn ought to seek the lost around us and present the gospel to them. Imagine what Jesus endured in coming to us. In heaven He was worshipped and adored by the angelic host and yet He left the comfort of His home to come to earth and seek us out. For His efforts He was rejected, beaten, mocked, despised and eventually crucified. Jesus set the level of the bar with respect to inconvenience and discomfort.39 Second, seeking out the lost will cost us something. It will nearly always be a hassle, or at the very least an inconvenience. Having to leave the 99 sheep and look for the lost one was a major inconvenience for the shepherd. He probably had to find someone to look after the 99, and this may have cost him financially. Then there was the irritation of

37 Better still, ‘…as you go.’ 38 Luke 15 39 Often Christians ask, “If I go and look for lost people to present the gospel to, how do I know who to choose?” Please email me. I will direct you to resources which will answer this question. Julian@esisite.com

the actual search. Having to contend with steep hillsides, thorns, bushes, wild animals, heat, thirst, and an animal quick on its feet that delighted to resist capture was, overall, one gigantic inconvenience. Similarly, looking for the lost coin took a lot of the woman’s time. Moving all the furniture, getting down on hands and knees, endless back-bending. What a chore! Yet she did it because of the value of the coin. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).40 Putting ourselves out is one way to take up our cross. To commit to being intentional in evangelism is a vital battle strategy in the war for souls. ushing through… I will close this Chapter by telling a personal story of the blessing which comes from embracing the “inconvenience factor” in evangelism. One cold, rainy night in the middle of winter I was travelling home around 11:30pm. I had been ministering all day, and the last thing I felt like doing was reaching a non-Christian with the gospel. As I drove down a long, inner-city road near my house, a great battle arose in my mind. “Look, I’m weary!” I told myself. “The commitment I made to reaching one person a day is just legalism.41 I don’t have to do it. God can see I’ve been doing His work, and He will love me no less if I miss a day!” As I began to settle this in my mind, another “voice” spoke up.

40 This was one scripture which guided me to setting a goal of reaching at least one person a day with the gospel. By God’s grace, for many years, I have been able to keep this commitment, missing no more than a dozen days. Some days, I admit, I have gone out and given the gospel with a very poor attitude. I have wanted to ‘tick the box’ rather than really sincerely “love my neighbour” or “glorify Jesus.” But I reason that going with a bad attitude is far better than sitting at home piously congratulating myself for not going because “I would dishonour the Lord with my bad attitude.” This is yet another of the enemy’s devices. The truth is, God can grow a seed from the hand of a farmer with a bad attitude but never a seed from the hand of a farmer with a good attitude who doesn’t sow it. 41 On his retirement, I once asked Bob McNaughton, an old, greatly-used-by-God evangelist of many decades the question, “what is the one piece of advice you would give me as you retire from this organisation?” He looked at me with his piercing, clear eyes and replied with some force, “Julian, never stop actually doing evangelism. This is my advice to you.”

“You made a commitment – just do it! Hey, if you can’t push through the hard times, what kind of an example is that for others? You can only lead others where you’ve been yourself. If you make excuses, everyone else has a right to also. You know that in the past when you made big sacrifices for the lost, God came through. Just do it.” Thankfully I listened to the second voice. As I drove up the road, I could see a lone figure inside a McDonald’s restaurant. The person’s face was obscured by the rain running down the window. I parked the car and made sure I had the little tool we use to deliver the gospel, plus a follow-up booklet. Then I made a dash from my car through the rain. When I got inside, it turned out the figure I had seen through the window was in his fifties. He was reading the newspaper and enjoying a hot drink. own to the wire… By now it was about 11:40pm. I approached him in the usual way, but to my surprise he said politely that he would rather not hear what I had to say as he had had a big day and was “just unwinding.” There was no one else in the restaurant and time was running out. Would I have to go out in the rain to find someone? I decided to buy something to drink and think what to do next. The friendly woman who came to serve me was in her fifties. Suddenly, an idea came. “Hey!” I said to her. “I wonder if you could help me with something?” Immediately she agreed; and we went all the way through the gospel presentation. About a third of the way through, we were joined by two other McDonald’s employees who also seemed eager to listen and watch. At the end of the presentation, all of them agreed that if they died that night they would go to hell. This was clearly a shocking revelation. They had always believed that all you had to do to get to heaven was be a good person.

ore follow up booklets needed… I had brought only one follow-up booklet with me when I first entered, and so I quickly gave the one I had to one of the younger staff members and asked the other two to wait a moment while I dashed to my car to get two more copies. When I returned, the older staff member did a most surprising thing. She lunged forward and tore one of the booklets from my hand. Pressing it to her chest and looking upward, she exclaimed, as if to God, “Oh, thank you! I have always wanted to know about this!” By this time it was 11:59pm, but I felt refreshed both physically and spiritually. I drove off, listening to my favourite praise music on the stereo. When I got into bed I just lay there, basking in the Holy Spirit as I thought about what had just happened and the goodness of God to hold me to my commitment. What are the lessons here? It seems to me that the bigger the inconvenience/pain, the bigger the blessing. We will never grow unless we continually push our personal boundaries and limits. Why not make it your goal to progressively move up the levels in The Six Step Master Plan of Evangelism which I detailed in Chapter Three? o not leave it to chance – put it in your diary… Pastors and leaders, diary into your day – or your week – an appointment to reach someone with the gospel, either through a tract or through proclamation.42 Let it be an inconvenience for you. Feel the weight of the Cross. Set the example in your church. Take up Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to “…do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). Your sacrifice and discipline will give your people courage and confidence to follow your example.

42 To watch a short video of a Presbyterian minister who took up this challenge, whose life and ministry was completely changed by doing so, please visit http://youtu.be/g3E7Xt8mALY

have found that wherever the leader in a church sets the bar, the people will follow a little underneathâ&#x20AC;Ś For example, if you as the leader in your church evangelise once a day your people will evangelise once a week. If you evangelise once a week they will evangelise once a month. If you evangelise once a year they will most probably never do it. It is really that simple.43 So here is another divine insight in the battle for souls. If you are a leader and you are struggling to mobilise the people in your church to evangelise, and you are not doing it and you want to know why they are not doing it, the answer is that you are not doing it. Furthermore, if you are active in evangelism, please let your people know. I long for the day when pastors around the world drop stories of their evangelism experiences from the previous week into their Sunday sermons and general conversations. Tell your staff you will be out of the office for 30 minutes to go and reach someone with the gospel. Let them see you go and come back. Tell them what happened. Share your experiences in staff meetings. Tell them about what happened when you were on holiday sharing the gospel. As fire ignites petrol, so you will inspire people to follow your example. And please, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just relate your successes. Tell them of your inner struggles as you sought to establish this new evangelism habit in your life. Show them your heart. Allow them to join you on the journey. I experienced brokenness many times before I eventually broke through in evangelism. If you are a leader, be open, honest, vocal and visible about your evangelism experiences. For you, more than anyone, this is a critical strategy from heaven in the battle for souls. 43 I deal extensively with the topic of the role of leaders in evangelism in Chapters Fourteen to Nineteen.

on’t rely on feelings for motivation, they are unreliable… I don’t wake up every morning looking forward to going out evangelising. Some days, in fact, I dread the thought, and some days I don’t feel any compassion whatsoever. Most days, the prospect of going into the world and proclaiming the gospel even makes me a little nervous. So when I go to the lost, it is often just a cold, hard decision. But often the moment I open my mouth to start the conversation with the lost person, and during the giving of it, the fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit comes on me like a flood, and suddenly I feel alive! Then I want to reach others, one after the other. I feel oiled! Try it! You’ll see what I mean! eaching lost people with the gospel leads to a greater desire to reach more lost people with the gospel. I go out weeping but return with songs of joy! (Psalm 126:5-6). Then, when I wake the next day, the strong desire to evangelise and the sheer joy I experienced the previous day are gone. They are only a positive memory. Why is this so? I believe the Holy Spirit allows these feelings of joy from the previous day’s evangelism experiences to ‘leak out’ overnight for a good reason. He is trying to show me where to find a rich source of joy in the Christian life. He is saying, “Julian, I am trying to show you where to find living water. Keep going to the lost with My gospel. Keep planting the seed. Go and have a drink. See how sweet it is to be about my priority. Don’t sit around glorying in your past victories. Get living, water fresh every day. My supplies are limitless. Julian, people must hear my gospel. They must know about the great love I have for them and why I died on the cross for them. Every time you plant the seed with love and grace, the Holy Spirit will grow it. We, the Trinity, will do the hard bit which is to bring belief to those who hear my precious gospel. Go! And keep going! ”

The decision to evangelise each day continues to be an act of the will but the weight of the cross these days is not as heavy as it used to be. I have found that the more one does it, the easier it gets. Truly, it is a learnt skill! The Holy Spirit will be your teacher. The truth is, we will never ever succeed with evangelising the world if we base our decision to go (or not) on our feelings of the moment. If we let our feelings rule, the “not now” or “I‘ll do it another day” feeling will always win every time. Let me draw this Chapter to a close. The Bible clearly teaches that the responsibility to evangelise the world falls on the shoulders of every believer and there are no loopholes. Having said that, I am cautious when I hear teaching which is peppered with “red flag” phrases like “we have to” or “we must” or “we have no choice” or “we are to do it whether we feel like it or not.” Legalism is always lurking looking for an entrance into our lives, and we ought to bar and lock all possible entry points. But what is legalism? Legalism refers to any doctrine which states salvation comes strictly from adherence to the law. It can be thought of as a works-based religion. I never have thought of doing evangelism as contributing to my salvation. I am absolutely clear and convinced that I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone. You ought to be too. So how is what I have written in this Chapter not marching everyone straight back into legalism? After all, it’s pregnant with the ‘red flag’ phrases I have just mentioned. Answer? The command to evangelise the world was given by Jesus who is Almighty God. When you signed up to become a Christian you declared to Him (whether you realised it or not) “I will make you my personal Lord” (Romans 10:9-10). You invited Him to be your Master. You signed

up to become His slave.44 This slave / Master relationship is not the only way our relationship with Jesus is described in the New Testament. There are others. For example, at the point of salvation, you invited Jesus to become your commander in chief and you submitted yourself unconditionally to Him and His authority as one of His soldiers (2 Timothy 2:3). Now when a commander of an army in the natural world gives his troops a command, he is not being legalistic. He is being their commander. When his troops joined the army, the soldiers agreed to come under his authority and to submit to him. When the commander gives commands, He is simply commanding his troops to do something upon which a great victory depends. And when the troops obey, they are simply doing what they contracted to do when they joined the army. They do not cry “legalism!” when given a command. Rather, they cry “Yes Sir!” and willingly obey (e.g John 10:27; Matthew 7:20-24). And if his troops obey, and the commander is smart enough, and experienced enough, and has all the details of his battle strategy perfectly accurate, and the strategy is a winning one, that army will win the battle. We in the Church ought to have no worries about whether Our Commander is smart enough, experienced enough, or whether His battle strategy is a winning one. These things are not up for debate. They are settled. What is up for debate is whether His soldiers will obey His command and not reneg on what they contracted to do when they first signed up. Really, as I explain in Chapter Twenty Five, our chief motive for doing evangelism ought to be to glorify Jesus. But it ought not to 44 Literally, this is what you did! This is one of the ways the New Testament describes the relationship between Jesus and His disciples . It’s a slave / Master relationship.. Fortunately for us, Jesus is also the most loving Master in the universe.

be our only motive. There are others. For example, when I think of my motivation for doing evangelism, I also find myself repeating what King David said in Psalm 116:12 which was “What shall I return to the LORD for all his goodness to me?” Shame on those who suggest that having to do evangelism is legalism! If this were so, then why not say “the command to love people is legalism!” Surely, such thoughts are inspired by the devil himself. The idea that having to do evangelism is legalism is yet another of his dirty devices. As I bring this Chapter to a close, I’d like you to think about all this from Jesus’ perspective. Before He came to earth and was born as a man, He lived in heaven. He left that place of perfect bliss to come to earth to die. It was essentially a rescue mission. When He entered ministry, He suffered terribly, unimaginably, culminating in His crucifixion on a cross. He rose from the dead, and forty days later, ascended to heaven. His mission had been planned before the beginning of time. His death and resurrection are the high points of human history. How gutted He must feel to look down from heaven to see His children fighting, bickering, and arguing over whose job it is to go and tell the world what He did and what He accomplished! Surely, we have lost our minds! Surely we have become His disfunctional children! Shame on us! The bald truth of the matter is this - our world will never be evangelised and Jesus’ mission completed unless and until every believer is active in evangelism. If we don’t return to attempting to mobilise everyone, we are going to fail with this mission. As far as failures go, nothing gets bigger than this particular failure. Period.

ummary

• It is the responsibility of all believers to help evangelise the world. • There is unanimous support for this truth in the scholarly 37

world. • Evangelism will not happen unless we are intentional about it. • We must also be accountable to one another. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help others become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter to other Christians, particularly leaders. Email everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file by writing to julian@esisite.com. • CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Even if we overcome his devices just described, he does not let up. Our next challenge is to learn how to overcome fear. Trying to instil a fear of evangelism into the Christian troops is a key tactic of the enemy. If there is one device he employs ceaselessly in the battle for souls, it is this one. God has taught me how to overcome fear, and I want to share my secrets with you in the next Chapter .

A A

Real Life Story People Are Not Monsters Robin, a mother of three, is also a church leader. She sent me the following email. Hi Julian Thank you so much for coming to our church to teach and encourage us. I am so excited and challenged to do more in the area of evangelism. I want to grow and be pushed out of my comfort zone. In the past I have been very scared of telling people the Good News. I could talk about God and tell them that I went to church or something about what God had done for me. But the actual Good News that Jesus came for them and that they were sinners etc. was too scary to say. I was happy to pray for them too. I would rather just do the soft approach and hope they would find God through that somehow. Well, things have changed for me. I have gone out and bought some tracts and have been thinking about what and how I will distribute them and share the good news. I have found my Fishing Hole. A â&#x20AC;&#x153;fishing holeâ&#x20AC;? is somewhere where an evangeliser goes to do evangelism on a regular basis. For 39

example, I used to live near a large shopping centre. This was my fishing hole. After a few years, I knew every inch of that centre: where people sat, when was the best time to go there; where not to go; where the best “spots” were to approach people. All good fishermen (and women) find a good fishing hole! Ask God to show you where yours might be. It is usually close to where you work or live – or both. Thank you. I thought you might be interested, and so I want to share some things that God has been teaching me this past week with regard to evangelism. 1. I can do a lot of praying for the lost and (speaking to the East and the West to bring them in) and I have done this. But what I really need to do as well is go and meet people, talk to them and tell them. Without this how will they know? 2. It’s not all about me. I keep worrying about me and what I am going to say and how I will look or that I might appear stupid etc. My fears get in the way. But God has said to me it’s not all about me and my fears, but rather it’s about the lost and what they need, and His glory. 3. We can do lots of talking and planning, strategising and more role plays and more planning. But eventually we just have to bite the bullet and go. Go and tell. Go and do it. Be bold and make the first move. Ask the Holy Spirit to help and give me a God opportunity and then take it. 40

4. The first time approaching someone is the hardest one. Don’t wait and listen to the inner man of self-doubt. Just step out and do it. If you wait too long you will never approach anyone. 5. It’s all about seeing people as God sees them. See the need. At the end of the day they are just people, not monsters that will bite. Connecting with people is fun!

Julian’s comments.

What Robyn has written is just great. First, she alludes to being in a comfort zone. Most in the church are like this and their Christian walk lacks challenge, the thrill factor, and purpose. Doing evangelism provides all three. Second, Robyn mentions the inadequacy of God conversations. I have said all along, that most Christians are good at such conversations, but when it comes to giving the gospel they choke. Sadly, many so called ‘evangelism ministries’ equate ‘God conversations’ with ‘evangelism’ when in reality nothing could be farther from the truth. She is right about ‘a fishing hole’. Usually it’s close to where you work or live. Regarding praying for the lost, but not going to them. It was Spurgeon who said “Means without prayer is presumption, but prayer without means is hyprocricy!” So true. It is interesting that Robyn said “It’s not all about me!”. Scott Cameron said the same thing in Chapter Two. It seems that if people are going to breakthrough in evangelism, they have to come to this realisation. Really, they are only re-iterating what Paul said in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Jesus expressed the same ‘death to self principle’ when He said “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24-25). Finally, what she says about ‘monsters’ is so true. The fact remains, that most non-Christians are hungry to hear the gospel, and the better you get at approaching them and working with them, the more you’ll see this. 41

Chapter Nine

12 KEYS TO FEARLESS EVANGELISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY!

12 Keys To Fearless Evangelism In The 21st Century!

“

I have to be honest Julian, I am so fearful of evangelising!” confided my friend. “Don’t worry,” I reassured him, “you are not alone. Fear can paralyse even the most powerful people.” The following is a graphic illustration. During his years as premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev denounced many of the policies and atrocities of Joseph Stalin. Once, as he censured Stalin in a public meeting, Khrushchev was interrupted by a shout from a heckler in the audience. “You were one of Stalin’s colleagues. Why didn’t you stop him?” “Who said that?” roared Khrushchev. An agonising silence followed as nobody in the room dared move a muscle. Then Khrushchev replied quietly, “Now you know why.”1 We can all identify with Khrushchev and the heckler. The Bible clearly acknowledges that Christians, too, will feel fear, but it exhorts us not to give in to it. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope 1

Today in the Word. July 13, 1993

that you have” (1 Peter 3:13-15). When I minister in churches I often ask people, “What stops you from doing evangelism?” Fear is always near the top of the list. And when I ask them just what they fear, they say things such as: • “I feel inadequate. I would be so embarrassed if someone asked a question I couldn’t answer.” • “I could lose my reputation. What if someone saw me? I would look like some kind of social misfit or religious nut.” • “ People might reject me. It’s not worth the risk.” • “ I would probably do a poor job of communicating the gospel, and I don’t want to feel like a failure.” • “I fear the unknown.” KEY NUMBER 1: PUT YOUR PRIDE TO DEATH

ride is the root… I have come to the conclusion that pride is at the root of all fear when it comes to evangelism.. Pride wants to preserve reputation. It is normal to want to be respected and admired. Who wants to be rejected. It’s an awful feeling. Who wants to to look silly in public? None of us. But something greater has got to grip our hearts. It’s the glory of God. Jesus showed that His desire to glorify His Father was greater than His pride. Philippians 2:7 tells us Jesus made Himself “of no reputation” (KJV). So a key to overcoming our fear of evangelism is to follow Jesus’ example and make ourselves a person of no reputation by getting a right view of God. The bigger He is in our hearts, the more we’ll risk all to serve Him. John 3:30 says “He must become greater; I must become less.” So how are we going to get a breakthough here, and throw our pride and reputations to the wind? Actually, it’s easier than you think. So what’s the key? The key is to actually start doing evangelism. Ironically, the more 3

we do evangelism, and become skilful, the more Jesus will become greater in our hearts and the more we will become less. Increasingly, we’ll find ourselves giving Jesus His rightful place as Lord of our lives. These are some of the fruits of doing evangelism. So, the shortcut to breaking through in evangelism is simply to launch out, start doing it, and learn as you go. This is what I did. But for those who need some more coaching, and unpacking, read on! The following incredible story, which I first came across in a Bible study written by William Barclay, illustrates how becoming someone “of no reputation” can lead to tremendous advances for you and God’s Kingdom.2 “Late in the fourth century, a monk called Telemachus determined to abandon the world and devote his life to prayer, meditation and fasting in order to save his soul. But in this lonely life, in which he sought contact only with God, he felt something was wrong. One day as he rose from his knees, he realised his life was based not on a selfless but a selfish love of God. He saw that if he was to serve God he needed to serve people, and that the cities were full of sin and therefore of need. So Telemachus decided to leave the desert and set out for the great city of Rome, which was officially Christian by this time. He begged his way across land and sea, arriving at a time when Stilicho, the Roman general, had just gained a mighty victory over the Goths. Stilicho was to be honoured, but now things were different from the old days – crowds were pouring into Christian churches rather than heathen temples. There were processions and celebrations, and Stilicho rode in triumph through the streets, with the young Emperor Honorius by his side. 2 William Barclay. The Daily Bible Study. The Gospel Of Mark. Edinburgh, Saint Andrew Press, 1982, pp.203-205

One pagan activity had lingered on in Christian Rome. Now Christians were no longer thrown to the lions, but those captured in war still had to fight and kill each other to make a Roman holiday for the populace. And the people roared with blood lust as the gladiators fought. Telemachus found his way to the arena, where 80,000 people were watching. The chariot races were ending, and there was tension in the crowd as the gladiators prepared to fight. Into the arena they came with their greeting. ‘Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die salute you!’ The fight was on, and Telemachus was appalled. Men for whom Christ had died were killing each other to amuse an allegedly Christian populace! He leapt the barrier and stood between the gladiators. For a moment they stopped. ‘Let the games go on!’ roared the crowd. They pushed aside the old man who was still in his hermit’s robes. Again he came between them. The crowd began to hurl stones at him, urging the gladiators to get rid of him. The commander of the games gave an order; a gladiator’s sword rose and flashed, and Telemachus lay dead. Suddenly the crowd was silent – shocked that a holy man should have been killed in such a way. And they realised what this killing really was. The games ended abruptly that day – and were never resumed. The renowned historian Edward Gibbon said of Telemachus, ‘His death was more useful to mankind than his life.’” e have to forget what people might think of us… There are lessons here on the power of forgetting what people might think of us. Imagine the embarrassment of jumping into an arena before 80,000 people. Yet Telemachus wasn’t fazed. When you or I do evangelism, we will generally engage only one non-Christian at a time and no one will be watching us. The embarrassment factor for Telemachus was 80,000

times greater than most of us will ever experience! When I am doing evangelism, 98 per cent of the time I am not in any way embarrassed.3 In fact, most non-Christians who hear the message now actually thank me for taking the time to go to them. Sometimes people will politely say “No thanks” when I approach them – no big deal. When, rarely, someone is rude or abrupt, I get over it. The 98 gracious people make up for the two who react negatively. So the first thing to realise is that nonChristians are generally lovely people who are hungry for God. How we go about explaining the gospel and the tools we use is critical. ecide in your mind to come out of the closet… Telemachus, in his hermit robes, didn’t hide his Christian identity, but many believers have never come out of the closet with their faith. While few modern Christians aspire to solitude, many might as well be hermits! Busy with worship services, Bible studies, prayer meetings, camps, conferences and other church-related activities, they insulate themselves from the world. The first step is to decide to come out of the closet.

KEY NUMBER 2: REALISE HOW EASY EVANGELISM CAN BE

ealise how easy it is to evangelise… When I talk about doing evangelism, I do not mean standing on a street corner, or taking whole evenings or chunks of a day to do it. No. I am wanting you to weave evangelism naturally into the course of each 24 hour day. God has given us some absolutely 3 I was very embarrassed and self conscious when I first started. I found that the more I went public with my faith, the more I discovered that my fear of what others thought of me was not an issue at all. A lot of what I thought people were thinking about me was in my imagination. Most non-Christians are so busy with their own lives and issues, they are not sitting around discussing me, thinking I am a religious nut case. On the contrary, many have said, in a positive way, “I wish I could believe in Jesus as passionately as you do.”

stunning strategies which will enable you to do this. With one of our strategies, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even have to articulate the gospel yourself. Someone else will do it for you on the internet. You can evangelise in a very low key way.4 But if you want to go public and engage strangers one-on-one, and speak the gospel out yourself, then we can help you with that as well. We have strategies for everything inbetween these two extremes. elp to get started... To help us get started, first we must analyse the five types of fear which can come upon Christians who want to do evangelism: fear without foundation, a spirit of fear, experiential fear, natural fear, and the fear of God. Fear can influence our evangelism for good or bad. Understanding our fears can help us overcome them.

Type of Fear

Who or what creates it?

Type of Christian who experiences it

How to deal with this fear?

I. Fear without foundation.

Our imagination, but this fear is often exaggerated by the devil.

A Christian who has never actually done evangelism.

Do evangelism after receiving training. Do regular, meaningful Bible reading, prayer, and Scripture memory; mix with people doing evangelism regularly; read books on evangelism; listen to tapes, CDs, videos and DVDs on evangelism.

II. A spirit of fear.

The devil.

All Christians can experience this.

Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to deliver us from this fear.

III. Experiential Our past experiences All Christians. fear. in evangelism. The devil, through our imagination and through a spirit of fear, can exaggerate this kind of fear.

We can beat this fear by learning how to evangelise and breaking through to a place of success. As confidence builds this fear will gradually disappear.

IV. Natural fear. God created us with All Christians. a capacity to feel this fear.

We are not supposed to overcome this fear. It can save us from harm and danger.

To find out about these strategies, please email me at julian@esisite.com

V. Fear of God. The Holy Spirit.

All Christians ought to feel this.

We are not supposed to overcome this fear but respond to its prompting. We are to feed, nurture and encourage this fear.

EAR WITHOUT FOUNDATION.

One evening I was walking through a forest alone, in the twilight. As I rounded a bend on the path, I noticed the silhouette of a person crouching behind a bush. Suddenly I was filled with fear. “Hi, how are you” I said nervously. There was no response, and so I picked up a rock from the path and threw it near where I thought the person was. There was still no movement. Again I cried out. Still fearful, I slowly moved towards him, my body pumped with adrenalin and poised for a fight. To my relief, I soon realised that what I thought was a crouching person with his arms outstretched was actually a tree stump with two low branches attached. The feelings of fear had been real - but their foundation was imaginary. This type of fear is felt by Christians who have never, or rarely, done evangelism. And, given that most Christians don’t do evangelism, it is a common problem. en of the twelve spies suffered with this fear, and it robbed them of their destiny… In Numbers 13, we read how twelve spies went up into Canaan to check out the Promised Land. They returned to base camp and reported that there were “giants in the land.” In fact, one of the spies said “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes…” and they “spread a bad report” (Numbers 13:26-33). When the Israelites back at base camp heard this, they were afraid to go and take possession of the land God had promised them. The phrase “in our own eyes” is significant as we think about evangelism. Many Christians imagine themselves doing evangleism and their thoughts make them feel like grasshoppers! They imagine

each encounter to be much worse than it actually is. Our feelings of fear are real to us, but they have no foundation in reality. How does fear without foundation stop us proclaiming the gospel? First we tell ourselves how bad we imagine the experience will be: “No one will listen to me.” “I’ll be rejected.” “What happens if someone I know sees me?” “What if I put the person off Christianity?” “What if I freeze up and look silly?” “I feel bad enough about myself as it is. Doing evangelism might make me feel worse!” “I might mess it up and let God down.” These fears are largely without foundation, for most of the time they never eventuate. ear spreads… Secondly, we talk to other believers about our imaginary fears, thus spreading bad vibes about evangelism within the Christian community. Those of us who suffer from fear without foundation succumb to a condition known as “Non-Active Paralysis” (in other words, they cause us to take a NAP from evangelising). While there were real people for the Israelites to fight in Canaan, and while the spies really felt afraid, they’d forgotten about God and His role in their situation. In their imagination they focused on failure and left ‘the God factor’ out. They were thinking too much about themselves (pride) and not enough about God. In the same way, fear without foundation causes us to focus on failure in evangelism and not on how God can help us in the situation. Caleb focused on God, and victory through faith (Numbers 13:30) “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for

we can certainly do it.” od knows all about our fears, and He promises to help… God knows we will feel fearful in many situations, and so He reassures us in His Word. Just look at the incredible promise of victory God gave to the Israelites when they were about to enter the Promised Land. Please notice all the references to victory and success: “After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates – all the Hittite country – to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. ‘Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go’” (Joshua 1:1-9). Aside from Joshua and Caleb who didn’t give in to fear without foundation, a certain number of the Israelites missed out on all the promises because they let their fear run rampant. In the same way, we will miss out on the promises and blessings of God which are connected to evangelism if we don’t believe what Jesus has

promised us today. Believe that: • A loving, all-powerful God is with you when you evangelise. • Most non-Christians actually want to hear what you have to say. • Many people will actually thank you for sharing with them. • God will make the message live. He will “grow” the seed of the gospel you plant. • What you are doing is the priority of Jesus. • And so on. Then act on these beliefs by faith. ow to overcome fear without foundation… When fear is without foundation, the source is our imagination on which Satan plays to stop us proclaiming the gospel. There are six practical things we can do to overcome this fear. Each one is a divine strategy from heaven to help us in our battle for souls.

KEY NUMBER 3: RELY ON THE HOLY SPIRIT

Rely on the Holy Spirit Ask the Holy Spirit to help you overcome your fear. And if you don’t feel anything when you pray, evangelise anyway. Many Christians want to wait for a special feeling from the Holy Spirit before they will go and evangelise. What a perfect result for the devil when they don’t evangelise because the feeling didn’t come. What’s the truth about the work of the Holy Spirit in evangelism? This is how I see it. When we evangelise, and along with prayer, we have the help of: a. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When we were genuinely saved, we were given the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9; Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 3:16; John 14:17; 2 Timothy 1:14). b. The empowering of the Holy Spirit. There is a subsequent experience 11

after conversion where the believer receives the empowering of the Spirit. This empowering enables the believer to be a more powerful, effective witness (Acts 2:4; 4:31; 6:3 & 5; 7:55; 9:17; 11:24; 13:9). Having stated this, I know countless Christians who say they have had this experience, but never engage in Biblical evangelism. This is a tragedy beyond words. c. The authority of Jesus. Jesus said to the disciples “All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to Me. Therefore [you] go, and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:18-19). d. The convicting work of the Holy Spirit. As we are giving the gospel, Jesus said the Holy Spirit will convict the person who is listening of its truths. John 16:8 “I will send the Holy Spirit into the world to convict the world in regard to truth, righteousness and judgment…” This convicting work of the Holy Spirit goes on well after the gospel encounter has finished (e.g. Isaiah 55:10-11). Jesus also assured us specifically in Matthew 28:20, “I will be with you, even to the end of the age.” Understanding these truths means we do not have to wait for the empowering of the Holy Spirit before we can evangelise.5 Through the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus, we already have what we need. But, as a turbo-charger is to a car, so the empowering of the Holy Spirit helps a Christian to evangelise with a greater dimension of power. Why not ask God, and keep on asking Him, for this empowering work of the Spirit? It is also my own experience that when I proclaim the gospel, quite often the pleasure of God, through the Holy Spirit, comes upon me 5 I beg you not to misunderstand me. I am aware that we Christians can use the terms empowering, filling and indwelling of the Holy Spirit interchangeably. If you have a different understanding of the work and experience of the Holy Spirit than what I have described here, I respect this. But please, can you agree not to stop evangelising, or reading this book, because you have a different understanding of the theology of the Holy Spirit? What we can agree on, and what I would like us to agree upon, is that the Holy Spirit is vital to every aspect of evangelism, and that we need to evangelise the world – and we must not let anything stop us achieving this, including differences in theological understanding as to the work and function of the Holy Spirit.

while I am in the act of evangelising. The Holy Spirit gives me a supernatural love for the person I am reaching. Sometimes I sense this powerfully right in the midst of evangelising someone. Sometimes it comes at the beginning. Sometimes I don’t feel it, but I keep going anyway knowing that God blesses the gospel because it is “…the power of God for salvation…” (Romans 1:16). Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, said: “Many Christians estimate difficulty in the light of their own resources, and thus they attempt very little and they always fail. All giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His power and presence to be with them.”6 More than once I’ve heard Christians use the following scriptures to justify exhorting Christians in their churches not to do evangelism: John 15:5 “…Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Acts 1:4 “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about…” KEY NUMBER 4: DON’T WAIT FOR A SPECIAL FEELING Don’t wait for the special feeling… I can think of only one or two times, out of thousands of evangelism encounters, when I have had a “special feeling” prompting me to share the gospel with a particular person. Mostly, in choosing someone to reach with the gospel, I had just sought someone who looked as if they had time for a conversation and they were on their own. There was no special feeling which made me choose them. As part of the courses we run, we teach how to choose the right person. 6 Cited: Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from his Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d, p.29

KEY NUMBER 5: GET GOOD TRAINING

Get good training in evangelism No soldier without training will last long in a raging war. Training will give you competence, which will result in confidence. When confidence grows, fear shrinks. For example, most of us don’t feel fearful about getting out of bed in the morning, because we know we can do it. We’ve done it so often that we hardly think about the skills involved. Getting out of bed is a pushover. Because of the sheer time and practise I have put into evangelism, it is now, relatively easy for me. I have become increasingly skilled at it, and so my confidence has been raised. But certainly, when I first started out fear without foundation was my major battle. Good training means choosing an evangelism organisation which has certain features. a. Absence of hypocrisy. People training others in personal evangelism should be doing it regularly and consistently themselves. Only then will they have the experience and authority to be the best teachers. b. Proven tools and methods. Those training others in evangelism should use methods which have been tested with a wide range of people and which have been shown to communicate the gospel clearly, powerfully, succinctly, graciously, Biblically and appropriately for the culture. These tools will nearly always use the Law early in the presentation.7 Good tools will help you learn how to keep the presentation on track in such a way that the listener’s interest will be engaged and maintained. You will learn 7 By the Law I mean the Ten Commandments. In presenting the gospel, we often make a point of presenting some of the Ten Commandments to the non-Christians, asking if they have kept them. When non-Christians discover they have broken God’s laws, and that, for the sake of justice, law-breaking must be punished, their need for Christ is awakened. Galatians 3:24 says, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (NKJV). If non-Christians don’t know that they are in trouble with God, that they have broken His laws, and that God is just and must punish injustice, they will most often see no need for Jesus. To view a demonstration of how to use the Law as part of the gospel, go to www.Biblein11.com

to communicate the whole gospel, covering the four essential areas of content that we discussed in Chapter Five. c. Teaching which includes: • Who to choose to evangelise and how to approach that person. • How to start the conversation. • What to say once the conversation is under way. • How to answer the questions non-Christians ask. • The theology of evangelism, so we know why and what we are doing and saying. • How to duplicate ourselves. Ultimately, we don’t want to learn only how to reach people ourselves. We want to teach others how to do it. So the tools and methods for proclaiming the gospel need to be transferable. • How to mentor someone. A mentor will coach and personally demonstrate how to reach people with the gospel. In turn, we can expect to coach. When we see evangelism executed well by an experienced evangelist, we’ll find most often our fears really had no foundation at all. • How to develop a strong devotional life. This will cultivate in us God’s view of the world and of us. In turn, our desire to reach the lost will increase. • The importance of mixing with other people who are evangelising. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” If we mix with doubters, sceptics, fear-mongers, liberal Christians, and believers ripe with excuses about why they don’t evangelise, we will become like them. Choose your close friends carefully. KEY NUMBER 6: DO EVANGELISM REGULARY

Evangelise Nothing will help us overcome fear without foundation more powerfully than actually evangelising. If you can handle a learning curve when you start out, learning a few new skills, you 15

will quickly break through and experience first hand the openness of non-Christians to the gospel. If by chance you experience one of the 2% and are rejected, wear it like a badge of honour. We never court rejection, and we don’t want to do anything that invites it, but when it happens it helps us to identify with Jesus. And in doing so we will be drawn closer to Him (Romans 8:17). The apostles actually rejoiced when they suffered for the sake of proclaiming the gospel (Acts 5:41). I know this is hard to do, but it’s what the Bible exhorts us to do.

KEY NUMBER 7: LEARN TO PRAY

Pray Prayer is to evangelism as food and water are to soldiers. You just won’t succeed without it. We ought to pray for one another about our fears, asking God to deliver us from any fear associated with evangelism, and to fill us afresh with His Holy Spirit. KEY NUMBER 8: BECOME A STUDENT OF EVANGELISM

Study We will be encouraged and inspired to do evangelism as we read books by people who are doing it. Their confidence and experience help us to see that most of our fears about evangelism are imaginary. Reading about the lives of great evangelists will do the same, as will listening to CDs, MP 3’s or DVDs on the topic. KEY NUMBER 9: DEVELOP TH EHABIT OF READING YOUR BIBLE

Read the Bible Regular Bible reading is essential to maintaining momentum. I 16

like to think of it as receiving fresh motivation and inspiration from our Commander in Chief. Reading the Bible keeps us connected to the heart of Jesus for the lost, and fills us with faith in God, His gospel, and His promise to be with us when we evangelise. As Paul reminds us, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17 NKJV). We often think of this verse in relation to non-Christians i.e. when they hear the scriptures believing faith will come to them. Well, it certainly means this, but it also means that faith comes to the Christian as well. By regularly feeding on the word of God, our faith in God and all His promises about evangelism will grow. KEY NUMBER 10: MEMORISE SCRIPTURE

sing scripture to overcome negative thoughts… Memorising scripture has also been a great help. One day I went into a shopping centre to proclaim the gospel and suddenly felt fearful. Into my mind came the scripture: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). ow to overcome negative thoughts… Another time I was contemplating going out to proclaim the gospel when a stream of negative thoughts invaded my mind. The truth is, I just didn’t want to do it. I asked God to help me, and a number of scriptures popped into my mind: “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). “How, then, can they call on the one in whom they have believed? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Romans 10:14-15).

“He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation’” (Mark 16:15). ow to overcome rejection and abuse… Then there was the time I went to present the gospel to someone and received abuse. This made me feel strongly that I didn’t want to go out again. Why am I doing this? I reasoned. God loves me without having to do evangelism! If God wants to save the world, He can do it! Certain scriptures brought me up short: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (Matthew 5:11). “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!” (Matthew 10:24-27). These words helped me to control my unwanted fears, and act in faith to overcome them. So I went out and “loved” another person with the gospel. The Holy Spirit so ministered to me in this second encounter that my confidence and joy returned. ry this practical exercise… The following exercise was developed by British Evangelist J. John to help people overcome fear without foundation:8 “Question: What are your fears as you consider speaking to your friends? Imagine I have just asked you to go to your neighbour with the express intention of telling them about Jesus. Use a notebook to write down all your thoughts. First, write down the demand. Secondly, listen for the fear. ‘My mind tells me…’ and shut your eyes briefly, listening to

8 J. John. Natural Evangelism With No Artificial Ingredients. How To Share The Good News With Friends. Anglican Renewal Ministries, 1996, pp.27-29

everything you can hear your mind saying. Thirdly, name those fears. Write them down – go on, every one, however silly they might look on paper. Verify them as follows: when you have finished your list of statements, write down against each one T (true), F (false) or DK (don’t know). Remember that any statement you hold not to be true about the future is actually a “don’t know.” No one knows what will happen in the future until he or she tries it out. (When you don’t know, it’s not a truth, it’s just a “don’t know.” In fact, it is false!) For example: 1. Demand: Go to my neighbour and tell them about Jesus. 2. My mind tells me: • They’ll think I am off my head… • If I fail, I will be a useless Christian… • I’ll be unlovable… • My friend has told me to go and evangelise and I respect her opinion… • They’ll shut the door in my face… • There won’t be anyone in… • They like me and so I’m sure they’ll want to hear all about it… 3. Verify. • They’ll think I am off my head…DK (Have you asked them? You don’t know what they will think until you do it.) • If I fail, I am a useless Christian…F (Useless in whose eyes?) • I’ll be unlovable…F (Really?) • My friend has told me to go and evangelise and I respect her opinion…T • They’ll shut the door in my face…DK (Like the first one, how do you know this will happen?) • There won’t be anyone in…DK (Ditto!) • They like me and so I am sure they’ll want to hear about it…DK (Ditto again!) 19

4. Spend time confessing these fears and assumptions to the Lord. 5. Say out loud each statement, and whether it is true, false, or you don’t know. Don’t be shy. Only God is listening, and He knows the truth anyway. You really need to get past these fears! 6. Write out again and say aloud only the statements against which you have written TRUE; in this case, “My friend has told me to go and evangelise and I respect her opinion.” There are usually few true statements; often there are none! In other words, we are actually freer to take action than our minds would have us believe. For some of us these fears may be deep-rooted, and we may find it helpful to seek a friend who can pray with us for inner healing. But it can also be quite liberating to do this exercise just as it stands, with no extra help. To distinguish out loud what is really true and what is not, helps us to see and feel clearly. The truth will set us free. Finally, we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to heal us and give us boldness. We should not hurry this bit, as God may want to move deeply and powerfully within us.” Now that we have discussed “fear without foundation,” let’s look at the next type of fear.

A SPIRIT OF FEAR.

All Christians can be visited by a spirit of fear, particularly those who practise evangelism. This spirit will visit us either to knock us out of proclaiming the gospel or to prevent us from starting. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul talks about “a spirit of fear...” The Greek word for “spirit” here is pneuma, a word that appears 385 times in the New Testament, 47 times in reference to an evil spirit. The way to defeat a spirit of fear is first to pray against it. Pray against it… On deliverance from the spirit of fear, J. O. Sanders wrote: “It is essential that the soul winner should lose the fear of man. 20

A former employer of the writer, a Christian lawyer, was a fearless personal worker. One day, feeling my bondage to the fear of man, I ventured to ask him if he had always been bold in this work. He replied that he had been as timid as anyone, until one day he could stand it no longer. He fell on his knees and his Bible opened at Psalm 34:4: ‘I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears.’ ‘Lord, you did this for David,’ he prayed. ‘Do it for me now.’ From that moment his timidity was replaced by holy boldness. So long as we are in bondage to the opinions of this world, our work will be circumscribed. There are many who fail to engage in aggressive soul winning for fear of being thought to be peculiar. Do claim deliverance from this satanic fear. God will give a full deliverance to the most timid and fearful soul who dares to claim it.”9 Then move out by faith… But don’t stop there. After praying against it, and no matter how we feel, we ought to go, by faith, and do the very thing we fear. The spirit of fear will then say “Oh my goodness. We can’t stop him/ her. Let’s try someone else.” In Joshua chapter one, God knew the Israelites were filled with fear. A spirit of fear might well have been exaggerating their natural fear. Who knows? Scripture doesn’t say either way. God could have said to them, “Thus saith the Lord! Wait for your fear to subside, and then go in and take the land!” Or, “Thus says the Lord! Stay in the desert and pray about this situation until that awful feeling of fear leaves you. When it does, this will be a sign to go into the land!” Instead He told them, “Be strong and of good courage.” In other words, “I know you are feeling fearful, but just go and do it anyway.” This is the best way to defeat fear: “Go on, I 9

J.O. Sanders. The Divine Art Of Soul Winning. Pickering and Inglis, 1947, pp.36-37

am with you!” ow I overcame two types of fear in one encounter… Another antidote for a spirit of fear is courage, which comes from confidence in God. When David killed Goliath, he did not so much focus on the size of Goliath as he did on the size of his God behind the giant. The following story shows how fear without foundation and a spirit of fear can combine in a deadly cocktail. One night I was in a café, enjoying coffee with a friend. Across from where we were sitting was a man in his forties. He was dressed in a black sleeveless shirt, ragged pants and large black work boots. When I first noticed him my gut response was to share the gospel with him. I was the giant, he the grasshopper. But as I imagined approaching him, his tattoos seemed suddenly more pronounced, his clothing rougher, his earring larger, his facial stubble pricklier, his black boots bigger and his legs hairier. As I meditated on his muscles they seemed to grow before my very eyes. Continuing my scan, I also noticed his unhappy expression. Soon I began to imagine his negative, hostile response if I approached him and talked about the gospel. Then I began to meditate on my own life. I liked my teeth and didn’t want to lose them. I liked the shape of my nose and didn’t want it rearranged. It wasn’t long before my imagination had taken over and I became paralysed with fear. Then I remembered the story of David and Goliath, and the bad report mushrooming in my imagination halted dramatically. I drew from my back pocket my iphone which I use to present the gospel, and before I knew it I had made contact. To my surprise and delight, he was gentle and kind. The conversation went something like this: Me: “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” (I squat beside his chair) Bill: (smiling but avoiding eye contact) “Sure.”

Me: (pointing to my iphone) “What’s the world’s best selling book?” Bill: (still smiling) “Would it be the Bible?” Me: “Yes, it is. We just spent 10 years making a video which summarises the whole thing in 11 minutes. Here, have a look...” Bill proceeds to watch the gospel. About two-thirds of the way through, a tear started rolling down his cheek. I stopped the presentation and asked him if he was all right. Bill: (gently though watery eyes): “Do you know why I came up here tonight?” Me: “ No ... do you want to tell me?” Bill: (looking wistfully out of the window of the café): “Five years ago I was dating a lovely Christian girl. We were engaged to be married. It’s a long story, but we broke up. I was so heartbroken, I left church and Jesus and went back into the world. Well, I have been in the wilderness for the last five years. It’s been hell and I have been into all kinds of things that I am ashamed of. I came up here tonight to this café to pray and ask God if He would forgive me and have me back…(smiling and looking into my eyes) so I guess He has answered my prayer.” After finishing the presentation with Bill, I went through a prayer of rededication and suggested a good church he could go to in the area where he was now living. This story is not an isolated event. I have experienced this kind of unfounded fear before – and since. I am certain a spirit of fear latched on to the fear created by my imagination and exaggerated the feelings. Fear without foundation and fear brought on by a spirit of fear are the first two types of fear. But there is a third. 23

EXPERIENTIAL FEAR

This kind originates from a bad experience in the past. Let me recount my worst experience in evangelism for you. he worst encounter I ever had… I had been leading some training in a Presbyterian church in New Zealand, and most of the twelve people in my seminar were elderly. Near the end of the course, the time came to take each of these members out on the street and show them “live” how to reach a non-Christian person with the gospel. I was to do the evangelism while the trainee evangelists watched. I had told them many times that non-Christians were incredibly open and that they would see this when we came to the practical part of the course. Late on a summer afternoon, we piled into the church van and headed downtown to where the people were. It was quite an effort getting all the old people into the van with their walking sticks and walkers, and I sensed this was going to be a challenging afternoon! In the front seat was the only young couple on the course. They were deeply in love, smiling into each other’s eyes and holding hands as we headed for town. When we arrived I parked the van as close to the centre of town as possible. There were many people around, the air was warm and still, and the sun shone brightly. From the driver’s seat, I turned and spoke to the whole group. Me: “Okay, everyone, this is it. What I am going to do is take each of you, one at a time, and show you how to reach a non-churched person with the gospel. You will see with your own eyes just how open and friendly people are to it. All I want you to do when you come with me is watch and look interested in what I am doing. Stay focused on the conversation as if I were presenting the gospel to you personally. Okay, who would like to be first?” Mary and Ian, the young couple on the front seat, eagerly offered. I don’t usually take two people at one time because three is a bit of

a crowd. However, I reluctantly agreed. I asked those in the back of the van to open all the windows to keep the air circulating. I climbed out of the van and headed for the parking meter. The old people in the back of the van were watching eagerly and Ian and Mary were at my side. As soon as the coins had dropped through the slot I looked up and saw a couple of young women dressed in sports attire walking towards us. They were about eighteen, and each was eating an ice cream. They looked friendly and happy and in no hurry, so I quickly whipped out from my back pocket my iphone. Me: (smiling and holding the iphone) “Excuse me ladies, I wonder if you can help me?” The two women: (smiling) “Sure.” Me: (pointing to the iphone screen) “Can I ask you a question” The two women: “Sure.” Me: “ What’s the world’s best selling book?” The tw o women: (still smiling): “Umm...dunno...” Me:“It’s the Bible. It’s covers over 4000 years of history and we just made a video which summarises the main message of the whole thing in 11 minutes. Here, have a look…” hing were going well… They were immediately interested and we proceeded to work through the presentation of the gospel. We were standing about five metres from the van and pedestrians were passing constantly. There we were, Ian, Mary and the two young women in sports attire (let’s call them Bev and Sharon) standing on the footpath in a busy downtown area, huddling over the iphone as I spoke to them. All the way through the talk, the two young women munched on their ice creams and listened intently. They said nothing apart from agreeing with the points which are made during the presentation. Near the end of the video there is a part which asks the person listening to the gospel to project themselves forward in time to

judgment day. hen it all went wrong… “Say you never asked Jesus to forgive you, this is what it would be like for you at death. You would come up before God at judgment. He would look at you and say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you into heaven. I loved you so much that I tried six ways to get through to you while you were on earth. • First I died on the cross for you. • Secondly, I sent someone to you to tell you in a simple way how you could be forgiven. • Th irdly, I gave you a conscience so you could tell right from wrong. • Fourthly, there were churches all over the town where you lived. Some were good, and some I was ashamed of, but you could have found the good ones. • Fifthly, I created a world so beautiful that it was impossible not to acknowledge that I existed. • And finally, I rose from the dead to prove that I was God and that everything I did and said was true, yet you just did nothing. I am sorry, I can’t let you into heaven. I have to send you to hell.”’ At this point the video closes and they are asked, “If you died tonight, where would you go?” But on this occasion we didn’t get that far! About halfway through the list of ways God tries to get through to a person while they are on earth, Sharon stopped the video and interrupted angrily. With her head thrust forward, one foot in front of the other, her brow furrowed and her hands now on her hips she shouted: “Wait a minute….are you saying that if I don’t become a Christian I am going to go to hell?” Suddenly I had to make a quick decision. I had two options: ou have to think on your feet… I could delay answering by saying, “That’s a good question. Can we finish watching the video and then I’ll answer your question

at the end?” Or I could answer the question immediately. I could say as gently as possible, “Well, that is what Jesus did say…” and then carry on with the video. I chose to answer immediately. I was not ready for her reaction ot the reaction I was expecting… Right where she was standing, and only a few metres from the van, Sharon raised her hand to the sky and with forefinger extended exclaimed towards heaven: “Weeeeeeeell! F#%&* you, God!” Then she repeated it, this time louder, as Ian, Mary, Bev and I stood paralysed. Then she turned on me. “And F#%&*, you too!” She was so loud and angry that passers-by stopped and looked. Quite suddenly Bev scowled, joined in the chorus and repeated exactly what the first girl had screamed. “Yeah. F#%&* you, too!” Then both girls turned and walked past the van, letting off a tirade of abuse, shaking their fists skyward and repeating the previous one-liners. They walked round the corner, all the time furiously screaming their invectives. Their voices gradually faded in the distance. Mary, Ian and I were speechless. Exhaling for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I said to them, “I am soooooooooooo sorry! I have never had that happen before!” To my utter surprise, Ian beamed. “Wow!” he said. “They were really convicted, weren’t they!” I couldn’t believe it. Ian had just seen a Christian thrown to the lions and he enjoyed it! Feeling a combination of confusion, encouragement, shock and hurt, I suggested we go and find another person to “love with the gospel.” I didn’t want Mary and Ian to think I had lied to them when I said non-Christians were generally

friendly and accepting of our message. We presented the gospel to another couple of people, and this second encounter was (thankfully) wonderful. When we returned to the van to invite the next person for “practicals,” the response was hardly enthusiastic. As I slid open the side-door, there was a sudden rush towards the corner of the van furthest from the door and the sound of clattering walkers and sticks. I had the impression of cockroaches scuttling away from a room suddenly lit. “No, no, not me!” they seemed to be saying, their eyes filled with terror. But one by one, all those elderly people were taken out and shown how to proclaim the gospel; and all their experiences were positive. Some Christians have attempted evangelism (or seen others do it) and their experience has been negative. This becomes a stronghold in their minds, stopping them from continuing. They will say such things as: “I’m never doing that again. I was laughed at. No thanks... Evangelism is just not my thing.” “Evangelism is just not for me after what I’ve just seen.” “I have tried it. I just can’t do evangelism.” “This is really hard. I don’t think God wants me to do this.” “The guy really abused me when I attempted to explain the gospel. This is not for me.” “I approached a total stranger once and he said, ‘No thanks!’ So I don’t think people are very open.” ow to overcome experiential fear… First we must understand that evangelism is like any other endeavour. As with golf, embroidery, cooking, gardening or fishing, proficiency requires practise, and evangelism is no different. Those who pull out after a few little challenges simply do not understand that to become competent at it requires minor discomfort in the

early stages. When I first started playing golf, I spent more time in the trees, bushes and water than on the fairway; and my score card looked more like a lottery result. My golfing colleagues were constantly telling me to hurry up and I was too embarrassed to really enjoy it. They were always waiting for me on the next tee, while I was trudging along in the rear. But gradually, and with practise, my game has improved, and I enjoy it much more now than when I started. I’m no world number one, but if I had quit in the early stages I would never have come to the point of appreciating it. KEY NUMBER 11: BE COMMITTED TO IMPROVEMENT

e committed to constant improvement… Another way to overcome experiential fear is to evaluate ourselves when we have finished an evangelism encounter. Soon after I have given the gospel to someone I ask myself, “How could I have done that better?” This is because most “bad experiences” in evangelism can really be put down to our lack of skill and experience. If we constantly self evaluate and act on what we learn, asking the Holy Spirit to teach us, we’ll gradually become better and better, and our memories of bad experiences will fade and lose their power over us i.e. our skill and confidence will increase. The late President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr Lewis Drummond, said: “Those who would evangelise effectively must not only know something of the theology of evangelism, but they must be able to do something with skill.”10 etting go, and finding life… So far we have discussed three types of fear which can stop

10 Dr Lewis A. Drummond. The Word Of The Cross. Broadman Press, 1992, p.288

us from proclaiming the gospel: fear without foundation, a spirit of fear, and experiential fear. When we analyse them, we realise they have power over us only because we’re concerned about our feelings, our image and whether or not we will be rejected. I touched on this at the beginning of this Chapter and I want to develop the thought here. Jesus exhorts us to be selfless – to put Him first, along with His Kingdom, His commands, His agenda, His will and His mandate. Then we discover that in dying to self, letting go of our reputation, we actually find the fulfilment we thought a life of “self preservation” would bring us. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus teaches the principle of death to self as the door to life: “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.” Similarly Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Among other things this means he is dead to what others might think of him, his reputation, his image, his self preservation and his ego. No one can die to self for us; we have to do it ourselves. But in doing this we will discover a great liberty and freedom and we will never look back. I have never known a person to break through in evangelism without first taking a baby step in the direction of death to self. Every time we persevere, we die a little more to self. Every time we succeed, and it’s important that we experience success, we are encouraged and we gain confidence. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). 30

ear is relative… In The Way of The Master, evangelist Ray Comfort puts the issue of experiencing fear in evangelism into perspective: “These fears we have [of evangelism] are very real. However, certain principles can at least help us to bring our fears into perspective. Think of what you fear, then think of the terrible fate of those who die in their sins. Which is worse? Remember, when it comes to evangelism you have a similar responsibility to that of a fire-fighter. Think of his moral obligation as he looks at the mother screaming for help from a six-storey building. You must deal with your fears in light of the sinner’s terrible fate.”11 But not all fear is bad, as we are about to see. There is “natural fear” and this is good.

NATURAL FEAR

Natural fear is God-given. It stops us falling over cliffs, putting our fingers in power sockets, jumping out of planes without parachutes, diving with white pointer sharks, and so on. Natural fear keeps us from harming ourselves. In evangelism, when I approach a total stranger I am likely to feel a trickle of natural fear because I am unsure of the response. We anticipate danger because we are not sure what lies ahead. However, a spirit of fear can latch on to this natural fear and exaggerate the feeling. If we worry too much about what kind of a response we will get when we approach a stranger with the gospel, our tendency to fear without foundation will kick in, we will invite a spirit of fear upon us, and before we know it the trickle will turn into a tsunami. 11 Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master: How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically, The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2003, p.127

KEY NUMBER 12: LEARN WHO TO CHOOSE WHEN GIVING THE GOSPEL

ow to overcome natural fear… One key to minimising natural fear in evangelism is to learn who to approach. I advise people to choose someone who: •A ppears to be available. You shouldn’t choose people walking quickly, talking on the phone, deep in conversation, or hard at work. There are many people in everyday situations that are available. If we really want to see them, we will. •L ooks to be alone. This way no one else will be able to listen in when you present the gospel. Such privacy will eliminate any possible “cringe factor” for the non-Christian person. Also, people who are alone are sometimes lonely and would appreciate a conversation. •L ooks in the mood for a conversation. The body language of some people screams, “Hey, I would love to talk to someone!” Take your time looking for these people. Don’t rush into choosing someone. Slow down. Pray to Jesus. Ask Him to prompt you. If you don’t feel anything, take it that He is saying “Hey, just use the brain I gave you, and pick someone suitable!” If we don’t exercise faith in choosing people, how do we expect to grow in faith? Having made your decision, do not think too long about the kind of response you might get. Choose your person, smile, and then just do it. After you have said “Hi” and said a few words, the fear dissipates rapidly - like a cockroach when the light goes on. If you are still nervous after you have started a conversation just say to the person (gently) “I am so nervous about talking to someone I don’t know. Thank you for being patient and gracious.” If you are open, honest and gentle like this, everyone will help you. The fifth and final type of fear is “Fear of the Lord.”

FEAR OF THE LORD

While fear without foundation, a spirit of fear, experiential fear and natural fear can stop us from doing evangelism, the fear of the 32

Lord will motivate us for evangelism. Psalm 111:10 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” What does this mean? It means that when we tremble at the thought of disobeying Him, and let our reverential fear of Him guide our decision making, we are being wise. In the KJV Hebrews 10:31 says “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Why do we fear God? Because on Judgment Day our lives are going to be evaluated and the outcome of this evaluation will determine how we spend eternity. We also fear God because the decisions we make on earth determine how our life turns out. Having a healthy, reverential fear of God will help us walk wisely through life. It does so in two ways: 1. It stops us doing things we know would displease the Lord. Disobedience causes heartache and grief. 2. It motivates us towards doing the things that would please the Lord. Obedience brings blessings and honour. Proverbs 19:23 says “The fear of the Lord leads to life, And he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.” Having a healthy fear of the Lord will motivate us to serve Him with all our heart, mind and strength so that we can be filled with joy both now and on the Day of Judgment. Really, fearing the Lord is walking in the Lordship of Jesus. esus fuelled the disciples’ natural fear… In Matthew 10, when Jesus sent His disciples out to evangelise the world, He gave them a truckload of fuel to spark their natural fear. Here are the challenges and warnings He said would be ahead for them: • They would encounter demons and evil spirits. • They would find some people unwelcoming. • They would feel like sheep among wolves.

• • • • • • •

They would be handed over and flogged. They would be arrested. They would be an instrument which divided families. People would hate them. They would be persecuted. They would sometimes have to flee. They would need to have a greater love for Jesus and His work than for any of their family members. • They would be called names like “the devil.” • Some of them would be killed. • If they were ashamed of Jesus, He would be ashamed of them on Judgment Day. • They had seen how Jesus was treated and were not to expect anything better. • They should take no money. Just their clothing would do. After giving this list, Jesus said to His disciples, “Okay, go to it! Go and build a worldwide Church!” Do you think these disciples felt fearful? Of course they did. Even the bravest might have felt terrified. Have you ever seen a lamb surrounded by wolves? Yet they were told by the Master to override their natural fears with the fear of God. He said to them: “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). Ultimately, this is how God wants us to deal with our fear of evangelising. To overcome the first three types of fear which I have mentioned in this Chapter with the fear of the Lord ought to be normal for us. Yet so often I hear Christians say about evangelising, “I could never do that – it’s too scary!” This comment betrays a deficiency in this person’s “fear of the Lord” factor. I am certain that if Jesus was standing physically next to the person who said this and commanded them to “Go, present the gospel to that person over there” their reverential fear of Him would spark them into explosive action, no matter how scared they 34

felt. Where does the Bible talk about how fearing the Lord will spark us into action and help us overcome fears we don’t want? Proverbs 14:26 is one place. Dr Derek Prince comments on Proverbs 14:26 “In the fear of the Lord there is confidence.” Says Dr Prince, “Proverbs 14:26 is one of the most amazing verses in the Bible. It’s a very short verse, but it says so much about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord doesn’t make you timid. It doesn’t make you weak. The fear of the Lord gives you strength. When you fear the Lord you don’t have to fear anything else.”12 Given that most people fear doing evangelism, it would seem from this verse at least that fearing the Lord is a key to breakthrough. Another verse which connects fearing the Lord with success in evangelism is Acts 9:31. “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.” Wow! The Early Church Christians possessed a fear of the Lord and because of this were thrust out into evangelising the world. And what was the result? The Church experienced explosive growth. In Matthew 10:26-27 Jesus Himself taught the disciples to let the fear of God overrule all other fears. Listen carefully to His teaching here: “Do not fear them. For there is nothing hidden that will not be known. Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in your ear, preach on the housetops.” Commenting on these verses Dr William Barclay says, “[Jesus is teaching here that a Christian is commanded] to speak what he or she has heard from Christ and they must speak even if their speaking is to gain them the hatred of men, and even if, by speaking, they take their life in their hands.   12 Dr Derek Prince. The Teaching Heritage of Derek Prince. Understanding The Fear of the Lord. December 2004, p.4

Men do not like truth, for, as Diogenes said, “truth is like the light to sore eyes.”  Once,  Latimer was preaching when Henry the king was present.  He knew that he was about to say something which the king would not relish.  So in the pulpit he soliloquised aloud with himself. ‘Latimer! Latimer! Latimer!’ he said, ‘be careful what you say. Henry the king is here.’  Then he paused, and said, ‘Latimer! Latimer!  Latimer! be careful what you say. The King of kings is here.’”  The Christian with a message speaks to men, but they speak in the presence of God.  It was said of John Knox, as they buried him, ‘Here lies one who feared God so much that he never feared the face of any man.’ The Christian witness is the person who knows no fear, because they know that the judgments of eternity will correct the judgments of time.”13 Now here’s the thing - if only 2% of the Church today are engaging in evangelism, then from what Proverbs 14:26, Acts 9:31 and Matthew 10:26-27 teach, it would seem that 98% of us today don’t truly fear the Lord. For when the fear of the Lord is present so there will be unfettered evangelistic activity. The early disciples feared God so much that they gave their lives to evangelise the world, which makes our modern excuses look pitiful. Ray Comfort lists how some of the disciples died:14 Philip: Crucified, Phrygia, AD 54 Matthew: Beheaded, Ethiopia, AD 60 Barnabas: Burned to death, Cyprus, AD 64 Mark: Dragged to death, Alexandria, AD 64 James (the less): clubbed to death, Jerusalem, AD 66 Paul: Beheaded, Rome, AD 66 13 Dr William Barclay. The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1.  Saint Andrew Press. Edinburgh. 1965. p 397-8 14 K irk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master: How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically, The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2003, p.127

Peter: Crucified, Rome, AD 69 Andrew: Crucified, Achaia, AD 70 Thomas: Speared to death, Calamina, AD 70 Luke: Hanged, Athens, AD 93 Author and theologian Mike Yaconelli believes the fear of the Lord has gone from our churches and we ought to bring it back: “We have defanged the tiger of truth. We have tamed the lion. The tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified. I would like to suggest that the Church become a place of terror again; a place where God continually has to tell us, “Fear not”; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or a doctrine or theology, it is God’s burning presence in our lives. I am suggesting that the tame God of relevance be replaced by the God whose very presence shatters our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within. The Church needs to become a gloriously dangerous place where nothing is safe in God’s presence except us. Nothing - including our plans, our agendas, our priorities, our politics, our money, our security, our comfort, our possessions, our needs.”15 You see, it would be fair to say that those of us who don’t evangelise advertise that we don’t really fear the Lord. For when we genuinely fear the Lord we won’t care what other people think of us, or what we think of ourselves. Our only concern will be what God thinks of us and of obeying Him. His priority will naturally become our priority. His agenda for this world will preoccupy our thoughts and direct our actions. As we finish this Chapter, let’s get practical. How do we develop and nurture “the fear of the Lord?” Here are six suggestions: 1. Constantly feed your spirit with the teaching of Spirit filled, deep, godly, Biblical, proven, loving teachers. Get MP3 15 http://www.acts17-11.com/fear.html

files of their messages. Turn your car into a Bible college by listening to them as you drive around. Those that come to mind are people like Derek Prince, John Stott, Don Carson, John Piper and T.D. Jakes. Don’t listen to only one person all the time. As a good dietician would advise, make sure you get lots of variety. Good teachers move way beyond funny stories and tips for successful living. They expound the Word deeply. As you listen you’ll literally feel your soul being richly fed and your fear of God growing. 2. Practise being obedient, especially in the small things. Obedience produces a desire to be more obedient. As our obedience in every area of our lives grows, so will our fear of God grow. 3. Disobedience has the opposite effect. It will cause the fear of the Lord to diminish. So what’s the solution? For King David it was memorising scripture. He said in (Psalm 119: 11) “I have hidden your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” 4. Don’t just read the Bible, study it systematically book by book, one book at a time. The Bible is spiritual food which will nourish our fear of God. 5. Mix with “hot” Christians, especially those who are actually doing evangelism. They will spur you on to deepen your relationship with God. As this happens, so will your fear of the Lord deepen. 6. Engage in other spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, silence and meditation. Now here is my final thought on the matter. 1 Peter 3:15 says “But set Jesus aside in your hearts as Lord.” If Jesus is truly your Lord, the Lord of your life, you’ll evangelise whether you feel like doing it or not, because when He is Lord, it’s not about you at all. It’s about Him. Ultimately, this is the truth of the 38

matter.

ummary

• Fear is near the top of the list when it comes to things which stop people from doing evangelism. • Fear can be overcome. • Understanding the five different types of fear helps us become more self aware. This in turn helps us overcome fear. • (1) Training also helps overcome fear as does (2) prayer and (3) support from others. • These three factors need to be on-going if people are to be retained in the habit of doing evangelism. • Providing a wide variety of strategies and resources for people so they can start where they are at is an absolute key to success when it comes to overcoming fear of evangelism. • On one hand it’s extremely important not to push people into evangelism before they are ready. • On the other hand, and paradoxically, the way to overcome fear of doing evangelism is to do evangelism. • The more one does evangelism the less fear of evangelism a person will feel. • The less one does evangelism, the more fear of evangelism one will feel. • The Bible is pregnant with promises of God’s empowering presence for anyone who steps out in evangelism. • Developing a deep fear of the Lord is a key to overcoming all other fears which might stop us from doing evangelism. • If Jesus is truly your personal Lord, you’ll do evangelism. Period. If He’s not, you won’t. This is the acid test. • CTION POINT: Start spreading awareness of the issues raised in this Chapter to other Christians,

particularly leaders. Email this Chapter to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file of this Chapter. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com.

ow, what’s in the next Chapter? Even if fear doesn’t stop us from proclaiming or spreading the gospel, the devil will try and stop us through a cluster of other devices. These devices are a subtle blend of truth and error, which make them very difficult to detect - and particularly dangerous. Chief among them is the great quote supposedly from Saint Francis of Assisi: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel and if necessary use words” The truth? Saint Francis didn’t ever say these words. This and ten other deadly devices are in the next Chapter.. Don’t read these at night time if you are alone. They are scary....

Real Life Story Going To The Nations – Without Leaving The Country Hamilton, New Zealand.

Eleanor Goodall is a woman in her 70’s who has been faithfully proclaiming the gospel for about sixteen years. Two of the encounters which stand out for her demonstrate how we can be reaching people of all nationalities without even leaving our own country. I was out doing some shopping in Auckland one day when I came across a wonderful little shop selling Chinese clothing. It was the specials rack which lured me inside, and I ended up buying some coats for some of my thirteen grandchildren. The shop owner was a Chinese man named John, and before I left I asked him if he would like a tract which would explain clearly how he could get to heaven. He took it happily. I went back to his shop the next day to exchange one of the coats and noticed the booklet I’d given him on the counter. It looked as if it had been read. I asked John how he was finding it. He had a couple of questions for me which I answered, and then I offered to get him a Chinese/English translation of the Bible. He accepted gratefully, and I arranged for a Bible to be delivered to him. A few weeks later I called in and found he had read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts, and was halfway through Romans. It was obvious the Holy Spirit was working in his heart and he was hungry for 41

truth. So I asked him if he had thought about turning and surrendering his life to Jesus Christ. John knew what it meant to “turn and surrender” because the tract explained these terms in detail. “Well, how do I do that?” he asked. I explained how to invite Jesus in. We prayed together, with John repeating the phrases after me, and I felt a real stirring of the Holy Spirit within me. I live in Hamilton, a city south of Auckland so I arranged for a friend to drop by a few days later and give him a simple discipleship booklet called, “I’m a Christian. What now?” Several weeks later I heard from my friend that John was being baptised that Sunday and that his whole family and their boarder were going to church for the occasion. It was hugely encouraging to me. What I found amazing about the whole episode was the power of the Holy Spirit to follow up a simple tract. I encourage people who feel they are unable to actually proclaim the gospel. These people can start evangelising immediately by simply giving out tracts. Anyone can do that. The second encounter which impacted me powerfully was my meeting with Tomoko, a Japanese tourist. When I first saw her she was sitting in Garden Place, the town centre in Hamilton. I approached her and her friend in the way we had learnt through the ESI “6 Lost Truths Conferences”, and they willingly agreed to participate. Tomoko seemed especially interested and focussed. At the conclusion she pulled out a booklet and asked me what I thought of it. It was a Watchtower magazine which she had been given a couple of weeks 42

previously. I explained to her what the Watch Tower magazine represented, and also about the Christian Church. Then I asked her and her friend if they would like a Japanese/English translation of the Bible. They both seemed keen. Tomoko gave me her email address and I arranged for her to meet me at a Japanese Christian coupleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home where she was able to ask questions. We were also able to pray with her about a job, which she received a few days later, and about her fear of her motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reaction, should she decide to become a Christian. The presence of God was very powerful and she was really touched by the Holy Spirit. Later, when a few of us who go out regularly to share the gospel met for a pre-Christmas dinner, we invited her along. We wanted to get to know her better and for her to mix with other enthusiastic Christians. One day, quite unexpectedly, Tomoko emailed me to say she had decided to become a Christian. We met, and I led her to Jesus. I gave her a Bible study booklet and went over to her home each week to help her study it and to answer her questions. It was not long before she began regular attendance at a lively church and home group. Later she was baptised in water and in the Holy Spirit. I also trained her how to share the gospel and we went out on the streets together several times. Tomoko is now back in Japan attending an international church, and recently she went on a mission trip to Mozambique. It is now more than six years ago that I had the privilege and opportunity of learning how to share the gospel more effectively. I can say without reservation that through my new focus on evangelism and my obedience in this area, I have found a wonderful source of direction 43

and joy. Almost all of my children and grandchildren have received Jesus into their lives since I started using the tools produced by Evangelism Strategies International (ESI). Sharing the gospel has opened the door to a whole new world in my Christian life. There are ten lessons I have learned which I would like to share with you. 1. I have learned to carry on sharing the gospel regardless of the opinions of people around me. I have realised many Christians mistakenly believe that spreading the gospel through tracts/bible in 11 cards or proclamation is oldfashioned and ineffective. Nothing could be further from the truth. 2. I have learned that non-Christians want to hear the truth. At the end of the gospel presentation, many express their thanks that I have taken the time to show them their need of Jesus. 3. I have learned that the Holy Spirit does in fact sovereignly and supernaturally follow up the gospel, when it is either spread through tracts or proclaimed through what we say. 4. I have learned that it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter how old you are, God can still use you mightily in evangelism. You might not lead people to Christ personally, but you will plant the seed that God will grow. It is never too late to start. 5. I have learned that to share the gospel effectively takes time and effort to learn, but, if we persevere, the rewards are well worth it. 6. I have learned that sharing and spreading the gospel brings a 44

richness to my Christian life – one I would never have thought possible. I have been a Christian for 56 years and in that time found “life” in church worship, Bible study, prayer, fellowship, serving, giving and building deep relationships. But nothing has given me “life” like sharing the gospel. I can only assume this activity must please God more than anything else. It has also given me more confidence and boldness. I could never have gone up to people and shared my faith previously. 7. I have learned to make tract and gospel proclamation a priority in my life. This, by God’s grace, will never leave me. 8. I have learned that proclaiming the gospel makes my Bible reading come alive even more. When I read in the New Testament about how we are to proclaim the gospel, I feel a deep sense of joy, knowing that I am obeying Jesus in this vital command. Sharing the gospel has increased my need to study the Bible, because when non-Christians ask questions, I want to have strong answers. Hence I have become a junior theologian, stretched and challenged intellectually like never before. 9. I have learned that sharing the gospel increases my compassion. The more I give the gospel, the more I want to, and the more my love for the lost goes up. To love the people of this world, we need the love of Jesus. We don’t have it naturally, therefore it has to be given to us. God does this as we proclaim the gospel. 10. I have learned not to rely on my feelings. Some days I don’t 45

feel like going to the lost with the gospel. I don’t feel like giving myself or my time. But I go anyway - and always return blessed and happier afterwards. I have grown so much in Christ since I started doing evangelism. I would love to hear from you if I can encourage and help you in any way. Please feel free to contact me - eleanorg@ihug.co.nz

Julian’s comments.

Eleanor pretty much says all there is to be said. I think there are two things we should take from her Real Life Story. First, she was committed to learning how to evangelise. Many people ‘give evangelism a go’ and if they find it hard or uncomfortable, they give up and go back to their old ways. Not Eleanor. Because she persevered, she received tremendous blessing. Second, please notice the sheer weight of evidence for Christian growth which occurs in a believer when they start doing evangelism. Really, you’d have to say that if the Christian life was a wheel, then evangelism would be the hub, and inside that hub would be the Trinity. Doing evangelism gets us feeling very close to Jesus, and doing it positively effects all other aspects of Christian life. If you are a pastor, and you are wondering how to inject ‘life’ into your own life, and the life of your church, here is your answer.

Chapter Ten

TAKE THEM DOWN! TWELVE EVANGELISM ROAD BLOCKS AND HOW TO GET THROUGH THEM

Take Them Down!

Twelve Evangelism Road

Blocks And How To Get Through Them.

ware that most Christians struggle to evangelise, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous Steven Shoemaker once said: “The test of a man’s conversion is whether he has enough Christianity to get it over to other people. If he hasn’t, there is something wrong in it.”1 I don’t agree entirely. I think there are many genuine believers, fine Christians, who would really want to evangelise, and would be evangelising, if they became aware of all the issues that I am raising in this Book. They are not evangelising because they are under the influence of the devil’s devices. As such, they have been robbed of the key to experiencing ‘life and life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). Shoemaker is not alone in this opinion. Other Christian leaders are noting the problem of a Church which doesn’t evangelise, but very few have identified the cause. For example, Norman Nix, Director of National Ministries for the Baptist churches in Australia, observed that many Australian Christians, for one reason or another, show little interest in reaching out to people outside church. “They do not want to come to us. Frequently, we do not want to go 1 Cited in: Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.32

to them. The sad reality is that most attenders make very few attempts (or none at all) to reach out to people beyond church life, allocating most time and attention to good Christian fellowship, worship, and Christian meetings that build them up in their faith. The challenge of the Great Commission is, for the most part, ignored.”2 What Nix says here rings true doesn’t it? It’s just how it is. This is the bad news. The good news is that by identifying the devices of the enemy we can pinpoint what’s causing the issues which Nix describes, and fix them. Identifying the cause is 99% of the solution. ave you said any of these? In this chapter I identify twelve more devices which put Christians off evangelising. Each one is a fiery dart, hurled by the enemy. How often do we hear: 1. “When it comes to evangelising I feel inadequate and so I won’t do it. I don’t even know whether I really believe the gospel. Well, not enough to share it convincingly anyway.” 2. “Don’t you know? Saint Francis said ‘Go into the world and preach the gospel and if necessary use words.’” 3. “I think we must earn the right to speak into someone’s life before we share the gospel with them.” 4. “Leading a good life and being a positive example is the way I evangelise.” 5. “I am not confident about sharing the gospel. I might mess it up and put people off the faith. Leave it to more capable people.” 6. “My religion is a private thing. I don’t think we should go around speaking to people about the gospel, ramming it down their throats.” 7. “God is there to bless us and prosper us. Doing His will and serving His purposes is secondary.” 8. “God hasn’t told me to evangelise. Until He does, I am not going to do it.” 9. “Love is the ultimate thing. The most powerful way to express our love as Christians is to meet people’s practical needs not preach the

2 Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy (Editors). A Passion For Evangelism. Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, pp.115-116

gospel.” 10. “I shouldn’t share the gospel unless my life backs up the message. So I am not ready yet.” 11. “I shouldn’t share the gospel if my motives are not right. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.” 12. “We should all just select one or two people we know and walk with them until they are saved. We don’t need to go to strangers.” Satan loves to hear us saying these kinds of things – they are evidence that his devices are working. Let’s look at each in greater detail.

EVICE # 18 To persuade Christians they are inadequate.

The feeling of inadequacy with respect to evangelising is often rooted in a simple lack of skill and confidence. The truth is, most of us feel inadequate at the thought of going to someone we don’t know – and even someone we do – to present the gospel. On one of our evangelism training courses we had an intelligent man in his early 40s who had managed a stationery store. The day came when he had to put all his training into practise. His assignment was to approach a total stranger and “love them with the gospel.” Despite numerous evident opportunities, he walked around a crowded shopping mall for five hours, paralysed by a lack of confidence. ven great Bible heroes felt inadequate… It is comforting, at such times, to remember the long line of biblical heroes who believed they were not up to the task to which God called them. Moses, for example, protested, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to [me]. I am slow of speech and tongue.” After reproving him, God said that He would help both Moses and his brother Aaron to speak, and would teach them what to do (Exodus 4:10-15).

nother example is Jeremiah… “Sovereign Lord,” he pleaded, “I don’t know how to speak; I’m only a child.” But God rebuked him. “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Don’t be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you” (Jeremiah 1:6-8). Even the great Apostle Paul acknowledged his feelings of inadequacy when it came to evangelism. “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling,” he confessed to the Corinthian believers. “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Going by what Paul is saying in this verse at least, he was terrified of evangelising. So how could he continue? He had been through a spiritual death experience: “I have been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20). You see, we must come to a point at some stage where we say “Right, to heck with other people and what they think of me. I am going to be a person of no reputation. I am going to roll my sleeves up, trust God, rely on the Holy Spirit and get stuck in.” Many genuine Christians can say this at the point of their conversion. Others grow into it. Either way, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ in the battle for souls, you’ll need your death experience - and successive ones at that - if you want your breakthrough in evangelism. ain comes before the pleasure… Psalm 126:5-6 alludes to this death experience. Here, the Psalmist speaks of weeping at the thought of going out to evangelise. But notice the joy when he returns. “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping,

carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” Like the Psalmist, I never feel like going out to evangelise but I go anyway. I just shut out any negative thoughts or feelings and get going. I keep my legs moving until I have actually engaged a nonChristian and started ‘loving them’ with the gospel. This is what a death experience is all about. It’s about putting to death feelings and thoughts which would, if we allowed them, cause us not to evangelise. The following are some of the thoughts and ideas which darkness will work through to instantly stop you activating in evangelism: • “What happens if a friend sees me? I might look like a religious fanatic!” • “What happens if someone asks me a question I can’t answer? I’ll look like someone who believes in something they have not thought through properly.” • “What happens if I have a mental block? The person I am speaking to will think I am nuts!” • “I go to church and am a Christian but I don’t let strangers know that. If I suddenly came out of the closet, I might be laughed at. My self-esteem is low as it is!” • “I’m a business person and my business practices have not been that great. If I shared my faith, I’d look like a hypocrite.” • “I am in business. If I shared the gospel, I might lose the sale.’” • “I was abused as a child and it has made me feel rejected. Evangelism exposes me to a different kind of abuse and I won’t do it. I couldn’t handle any more rejection.” • “I was ridiculed for being different when I was young. Evangelism puts me again in the position of being different from people in the world and in the church.” • “I often seemed to fail when I was young. I felt I could never meet the expectations of my parents, my friends, my school or even work. Evangelism exposes me to the possibility of more failure, and so I won’t risk it.” 6

It might be comforting to know that I have said many of these things to myself. They were most plentiful when I was a new Christian. s a new Christian I felt I was a complete failure with evangelism. As a new Christian I didn’t know about Galatians 2:20. I felt completely inadequate when it came to evangelism because I continually allowed certain negative feelings and thoughts about evangelism to rule me. At least in Psalm 126:5-6 just quoted, the person got out of their house to sow the gospel. In the early days of my Christian walk, I didn’t even get that far. The following is a very brief overview of my journey in evangelism. I was saved at university when I was 22 years old. Soon afterwards I was told that the Christian group on campus was going to have ‘a crusade.’ I found this idea quite exciting, as I had just spent a year studying medieval Europe. “A crusade,” I thought. “Does this mean horses, chain mail, swords, plundering and the like?” I went to the ‘crusade’ planning meeting with my interest soaring, keen to know the strategy. When I walked into the room, about 50 people were present. Everyone had their arms in the air, their heads tilted back and their eyes closed. They all seemed to be speaking gibberish, and everyone was doing it all at once. What’s all this then? I wondered. Not wanting to look out of place, I quickly joined in, but with one eye open. I put my arms up in the air like fine-tuning a TV aerial, thinking this was how Christians tuned in to God. I began to speak like the people either side of me, thinking this, too, was some kind of behaviour for ‘tuning in’ to God and getting ready for the crusade. After some time the leader asked us all to stop, and with great authority announced: “OK, everyone, it’s time to go out! The first thing we are going to do is give out tracts!” Immediately in my mind I saw the tracks of a bulldozer or a tank, and wondered how on earth these could be part of the plan. I had not read about these weapons in my medieval studies. Not wanting to look ignorant, I smiled and nodded and looked excited, like everyone else. Then the leader pulled out from a box in front of him bundles of what

looked like small booklets. We all held out our hands, and as he walked by he thrust a bundle into each of our hands. I looked at the cover on mine: Jesus loves you! shouted the big bold title. “I want you to go around the campus giving these out,” said the leader. “And I want you to remember, God is with you!” He gave further instructions on how to do this. I tried to keep looking excited, like everyone else, but deep down I was cringing. “I can’t do this!” I said to myself. “What if some of my friends see me?” My mistake was to let negative thoughts and feelings rule me. If we lose this battle, we’ll lose every time. When the time came to ‘go out’ I was last down the stairwell. Feeling panicky and anxious, I waited at the bottom for everyone else to disappear. Then, when no one was watching, I surreptitiously threw all my tracts in the bin and went and had a coffee in the café. You see, I lost the battle in my mind when I caved in to negative thoughts and feelings. The thought of handing out those tracts filled me with embarrassment and shame. I had enjoyed hanging out with Christians, going to church, singing and Bible study when I was first saved, but letting others outside the Christian circle know I was a Christian in such a public way filled me with anxiety and fear. For many months after conversion, when I thought about ‘going public’with my faith, I battled with these feelings. I didn’t want to be regarded by my non-Christian friends and classmates as a religious nut or the naïve and newest member of a fanatical cult. I was exactly what Paul the Apostle exhorted us not to be: “…ashamed of the gospel” (Romans 1:16). ow to overcome inadequacy and fear of failure in evangelism… “So how did you get from then to now?” some people have asked. In the previous chapter I shared some of the keys I have discovered for overcoming fear in evangelism. Then in this chapter I have told you about the Galatians 2:20 principle of putting negative feelings and thoughts to the sword. Below are five more keys which will help you breakthrough in evangelism. Realise that our task is first and foremost to proclaim, not to convert. Knowing that evangelism is simply the proclamation or spread of

H 1

the gospel, I now know I don’t have to win a soul on every occasion.3 This has taken the pressure off cajoling people to make a decision, and made evangelism a more loving and pleasant endeavour. Having planted the ‘seed of the gospel’ in the hearts of non-Christians, I can leave it to God to grow it. I am going to explore this truth more in detail in chapter 11. Realise that the gospel is a specific message with specific content. This too takes the pressure off me. I don’t feel pressured to say something different each time.4 Use tools and resources which are proven to connect with nonChristians. Another stress reliever is having access to tools which have been carefully thought through and “road-tested” on thousands of people. It is a lot easier to communicate the gospel without a cringe factor if you know that the message you are giving is biblical, balanced, clear, logical, engaging - and actually works! n example of how good tools help… Just recently I had a wonderful evangelism encounter at my home with a tradesman. I was building a small water feature in my garden, and had phoned a specialist to help me. He was due to arrive at 8am. I prepared in advance, getting my iphone5 and a follow-up booklet ready; and said a quick prayer for God to help me. We’ll call the tradesman Brian. He was in his mid-forties, stocky and handsome. When he arrived we introduced ourselves and I showed him where I wanted the feature. Then we went inside to a whiteboard to discuss and draw plans and concepts. Wanting to create an opportunity to share the gospel, I asked him if he would like a cup of tea. He explained politely that he had a lot of quotes to do and

2 3

3 This does not mean we never invite people to accept Christ. Clearly we ought to and I do, frequently. 4 This is not saying there is no need to adjust aspects of our approach with each person we meet. We ought to be sensitive to these and other aspects. But the essential message is the same for everyone. 5

This video of the gospel can be downloaded and played on any device which can play video. For a free download, please contact Julian at julian@esisite.com. To see the video visit www.biblein11.com

did not have time. We continued to talk about the plans. Near the end of the discussion I simply invited Brian to watch an 11 minute video which summarised the bible. He agreed. I don’t know why he agreed when a few minutes ago he said he didn’t have time. He was attentive all the way through. At the end I asked him the final question: “If you died tonight, where would you go?” He immediately confessed “hell.” Me: (gently and feeling Holy Spirit-inspired compassion for him) “Brian, God doesn’t want you there, I don’t want you there, and you don’t want to go there. (softly) “Brian, is there any reason why you should not turn and surrender right now?” (We are standing in my kitchen leaning against the breakfast bar. No one else is at home). Brian: “No.” Me: (very gently) “Would you like to turn and surrender right now?” Brian: (suddenly looking ruffled and flustered) “Mmmmmm… I don’t think I would have time to do this. I mean, if I became a Christian right now, stood here, and let all the stuff that is bothering me just drop off my life, that would be cool… but I have so much going on… mortgages to pay, bank overdrafts, wife, children, obligations (looking wistfully away, breaking eye contact… on the verge of crying). You know Julian, I feel like I’m on a treadmill. Driven. I don’t know why I’m working so hard. I don’t feel I’m very fulfilled or happy… yet I have everything.” As he was speaking, scriptures were pouring into my mind – first, the story Jesus told of the man who built more and more barns to store his possessions and whom Jesus called a fool (Luke 12:16-21). Then the scripture which says, “we are fools if we are not rich towards God” (Luke 12:20-21). Also, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Brian went on to tell me more things about himself. He was on a roll and wanted to talk and it was the Holy Spirit working through the gospel which did this. He told me about the inner struggles he was having. After a long pause I felt I should speak. 10

Me:

“ Brian, there was a great Christian called St Augustine who said that all of us have what he called ‘a God-shaped vacuum’ inside us. Nothing will satisfy us until we fill this vacuum with Jesus.” Brian: “I think you’re right. You know, this is amazing what is happening here. My Mum has just become a committed Catholic and she is full on. So has my sister. They have been on at me about this… I mean, my Mum was really committed when she was younger, and then she slipped away for a number of years. And now she has come back more committed than ever. I’m not sure why she has had this sudden change, but it’s genuine…” Me: “Well, the truth never goes away. We can try to deny it, ignore it, run away from it… but it just stands still, unmoved and unshakable. North will always be north and south will always be south, whether we believe it or not.” Brian: “True. Then there is my grandmother. She died of cancer last year. Just before she died, she made this big commitment back to God… she was telling everyone about it. I have always been the odd one out in the family. All my brothers and sisters have had divorces and break-ups, but me and my wife, we’ve stayed together. Now some of my family come to me for advice. Even my Dad comes to me. By the way, he can’t handle Mum being so full-on for God. He likes to have control and now God has control. That annoys Dad (smiling). He is a Christian too but he doesn’t like competition. Mum is not fazed at all (still smiling)…she is just going for it. But you know, despite their differences, they have God and I don’t. Their lives might have been messed up, but they are going on for God, and here they are coming to me for advice. It’s nice, but it doesn’t seem right, do you know what I mean? It should be the other way around… I would rather have what they have.” Me: “I don’t want to sound spooky or anything, but as you were talking, certain bits of the Bible came strongly into my mind from Jesus about your situation. Can I tell you about them?” Brian: (eagerly) “Yes sure, go ahead.” I went over the verses from scripture and explained them. (Brian looked shocked). Me: “Brian, there are two things here. First, only God can fill the 11

hole in your heart. Second, if you first sort out the vertical, your relationship with God, put that first, get that right above all else, then God will help you with the horizontal stuff – your mortgage, your wife, your overdraft etc. God will show you where to go with all this and guide you into clear water. What He is most interested in is you, your heart… not what you can give Him - you getting on your knees before your Maker, not literally but with an attitude of the heart, and surrendering to Him.” Brian: (looking repentant) “Phew… it feels like He is here right now… or is that just me?” Me: “ No, that’s Him all right, He is on your case…your grandmother, your sister and now your Mum…God is sweeping your whole family into His family. Do you honestly think He is going to leave you out? You might as well just get on with it. You are the head of your immediate family; your wife and children will be next.” Brian: (thankful) “Phew! You have given me heaps to think about. This is going to be on my mind all day now!” Me: “ How about I just pray for you before you go…” Brian: “Please, go ahead.” (He took his cap off, bowed his head, stood to attention and clasped his hands in front of him. By this time we were standing outside on the deck.) Me: (smiling) “It’s okay to keep your eyes open. The neighbours might be watching and they would think we are falling asleep.” Brian laughed and I prayed. At the end of the prayer, we shook hands. He thanked me and told me he thought the video made “what Christians are on about” easy to understand. He told me he would send me a quote in the mail for the garden work and that he would read the follow-up booklet I gave him. I told him I looked forward to seeing him again when he came back to do the job. “So much for being in a hurry,” I thought. “He would have stayed all day!” I thanked the Holy Spirit for helping me and for the utter joy and love for people with which He had newly infused me. After such an encounter I felt I was swimming in a sea of blessing and joy. I imagined how his mother and sister would feel when they 12

knew about this. No doubt they had been fervently praying for him! I learned many lessons about evangelism from this encounter: Each lesson will contribute to overcoming feelings of inadequacy. a. Be ready to give the gospel. Before Brian arrived, I was ready for him. b. Giving him the gospel was something I planned. Plan your evangelism. c. I prayed and asked God to help me. I didn’t need to pray for 30 minutes, although that would have been good if I’d had the time. God knew this whole episode happened quite quickly, and He honoured a short, sincere, quick prayer. d. I used road-tested tools which I knew the Holy Spirit would work through to engage Brian. e. What people say at first is not always the whole story. At first Brian said he was too busy to have a cup of tea. But when I invited him to “watch something I had put together,” he was eager. f. If you don’t read your Bible, don’t expect the Holy Spirit to bring to mind relevant Scriptures. Better still, memorise Scripture. Build a memory bank for the Holy Spirit to draw on as you talk to people. g. Don’t be “super-spiritual” in your dialogue with non-Christians. When the Holy Spirit brought scriptures to mind, I could have said to Brian, “God spoke to me and said such and-such.” But does using such phrases help build a bridge to the person with whom we are speaking? Or does it make us sound spooky and weird? Better to err on the side of building a bridge. h. I let Brian talk and I didn’t butt in. While he was speaking, I was asking God to show me what the real issues were. i. I invited Brian to give his life to Christ there and then, but didn’t push it or demand it. If I had pushed it, I might have burnt a bridge. Sure, evaluate each person you meet case by case, but err on the side of not pushing it. Often I don’t even

invite people to commit. Challenge? Yes. Bully? Never. j. I got further with building a relationship with Brian in this 30-minute encounter than in the hours I have spent in casual relationship with other non-Christians where I didn’t share the gospel. In my experience, sharing the gospel is the fast track to building a relationship. When we share the gospel, the Holy Spirit opens people up and they often share from their deepest core. This should not be a surprise, for the Bible says of the Word that it “is living and active, sharper than any doubleedged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). This is doubly true of the gospel (Romans 1:16). k. Brian was easier to reach than members of my own family. This is so often the case: our immediate families can be the hardest to reach with the gospel. The prophet is not accepted in his own home town. But we can reach each other’s families. You reach mine, and I will reach yours. So let’s both get going! One of the great things about this encounter with Brian is that I knew he was coming back. Between now and then, I could get people praying. So in the email I said something like:

“Hi Brian, great to talk with you today. I really enjoyed meeting you and the time we had. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts about Christianity with you. Have you told your Mum or sister what happened? Have you had a chance to read the little booklet I gave you? I am interested to hear the rest of the story - and what is happening in your life. Thanks so much for sharing your heart. I felt privileged. Keep me posted. Julian.” Now, back to the keys which will help you experience a breakthrough in evangelism. 14

Make a decision to obey God, no matter what. I came to a crisis in my faith some months after our ‘crusade’ meeting. I realised that if I was going to be a Christian, I was going to have to go public with my faith. I couldn’t just take the bits of Christianity I liked, and leave the bits I didn’t. As I read my Bible in those early months, it became so clear to me that going into the world and proclaiming the gospel was essential. I had joined an army, not a club. Jesus was God, not just a person. Who was I to faint at His express command? I knew that if I wanted to keep going as a Christian, I was going to have to get over these fears and worries of public exposure. So, by God’s grace, and through His enabling and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, I made a decision to go on every crusade and give out tracts. This decision was my first Galatians 2:20 death experience which related to evangelism. Over time, as I kept practising evangelising I got better at it. I lost a lot of my non-Christian friends, and maybe they did think I was a nut case. Ultimately, I reasoned, who cares? I knew deep down that I was doing the right thing, and this thought drew me closer to Jesus and deeper into His purposes. As Proverbs 29:25 says, “To fear anyone will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” Learn to understand the enemy. I can detect quickly now where the devil is working and what he is doing to stop me proclaiming the gospel; and I have specific strategies to counteract him. I am sharing these with you in this Book. Realise that the more you do it, the more you will want to do it. I’ve discovered that the more I evangelise, the more I want to do it. The less I do, the less I want to do. People have asked,

5 6

“Why don’t I feel a passion for the lost like you do?” The answer is simple: If we don’t try to reach lost people regularly with the gospel, we will eventually lose the desire completely. Jesus gives us insight into this in Luke 19:26: “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”6 Those in the Church who are dead to evangelism have usually been dead to it for a long, long time. Even the desire they had to evangelise when they were first saved has been taken away. You can break out of this cycle, if you really want to. In The Christian Persuader, Dr Leighton Ford makes the same point: “It is as we obey Christ’s command [to evangelise] that urgency and compassion come.”7 he war is never completely over… I don’t want to sound as though I’ve found complete victory in evangelism. I haven’t. Even now, thousands of encounters later, I still feel a tinge of fear when I think about going to reach a nonChristian with the gospel. Why is this? It has to do with not knowing what is going to happen. Most of us feel adequate when we wake each morning and think about the day ahead, especially when our day is fairly predictable. Yet if we have an activity planned which involves a little risk (like a job interview) we will often experience some anxiety. It is the same with evangelism. Every day I try to reach at least one non-Christian with the gospel. I can predict more or less what will happen, but realise anything could! I’ll probably never lose the ‘fear factor’ entirely. And that’s not all bad, because it reminds me to be completely

6 The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984, Inclusive language version 7 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.38

dependent on God. Feeling inadequate is a normal experience for Christians who are advancing spiritually. Remember the story of Joshua and the people he was leading into the Promised Land? God encouraged them to be ‘strong and courageous’ rather than terrified or discouraged. Why did He need to give them a boost? Because He knew they would feel both terrified and discouraged as they tackled things they had never done before.

EVICE # 19 To misquote great Christians from history.

“Go into the world and preach the gospel, and, if necessary, use words.” These words, supposedly of St Francis of Assisi, have been used by the devil to discourage millions of believers from proclaiming or spreading the gospel. aint Francis never said it… A few years ago someone used the internet8 to contact eminent Franciscan scholars, seeking the source of this “use words if necessary” quote. After an extended search, no scholar could find it, although in chapter 17 of his Rule of 1221, Francis told his friars not to preach unless they had received proper permission to do so.9 Then he added, “Let all the brothers, however, preach by their deeds.” This misquote of St Francis has given rise to two ideas which have torpedoed evangelism: first, that we can proclaim the gospel without using words (which is impossible), and secondly, that using

8 Julie Zimmerman. Sorting Out The Truth About Francis Assisi. www.americancatholic.org/e-News/ FriarJack/fj092302.asp, 2002 9 By this he means permission from the superior of the Monastry to which they were joined, or to the priest of the church to which they belonged. This is consistent with Catholic theology which places a premium on submitting to the authority of the priest. Protestants have been freed from this authority structure. Our only authority is Jesus Christ. He said “All authority under heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go!” Not only do we already have the authority to preach at all all times, but we have been commanded to do so.

words should be a last resort (which is unbiblical). Saying “Preach the gospel and if necessary use words” is like saying “Feed the hungry, and if necessary, use food” or “Clothe the naked, and if necessary, use clothes.” As a result of the circulation of the St Francis misquote, millions of believers justified non-participation in evangelism. If Saint Francis had thought for a moment that his Rule 1221 would lead to this result, he would have shuddered. His intention was to remind us of the importance of good works as a vital part of our Christian witness which is something I detail extensively in Chapter Eleven. aint Francis would not have contradicted Jesus… Francis was no heretic. He would not have contradicted the clear command of Jesus to use words to express the gospel (Mark 16:15). In fact we can be sure that he and his followers were staunch evangelisers. How do we know this? The late Dr Lewis Drummond, former President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an authority on the life of St Francis, writes: “In early manhood, [Francis] searched for thrills and sensual pleasures; but after the disillusionment of an illness and a subsequent crisis he came to vital faith in Jesus Christ. Immediately he preached Christ in purity. Disciples soon began to gather about Francis and an order was established. The disciples fanned out all over Italy and into other parts of the Roman Empire to preach. The spirit of evangelism [the proclamation of the gospel] so gripped all the disciples of the Franciscan order that they learned the languages of the nations and travelled throughout the Empire sharing Christ.”10

10 Dr Lewis A Drummond. The Word Of The Cross: A Contemporary Theology Of Evangelism. Broadman Press, 1992, p.77

he Franciscan monks were relentless proclaimers… Another scholar adds: “Writing his first Rule in 1209, 27-year-old Francis called on his followers to preach to and convert Muslims: ‘Let any brother who desires by divine inspiration to go among the Saracens and other non-believers, go with the permission of his minister and servant.’ Francis, a radical who had renounced his father’s wealth to embrace a lifestyle of poverty and relentless preaching, sent his first missionary to one of the crusader states in Syria in 1217. Two years later he commissioned six more men to go to Morocco. News eventually filtered back that five of the friars reached Morocco and began preaching in the streets, but they were decapitated by angry Muslims.”11 hey wanted to keep words and works together… It’s obvious the Franciscans put evangelism at the forefront. Yes, they ministered to the practical needs of the poor, as per Rule 1221, but they never abandoned the proclamation of the gospel, the priority of their ministry.

EVICE # 20 To persuade Christians they must earn the right to speak into someone’s life before sharing the gospel with them.

This implies we cannot share the gospel with a non-Christian before certain conditions have been met. For example, before we have built a relationship, been good examples as Christians, been loving and caring, shown we are genuine in our faith, been praying for them, have earned their respect, have served them in some way, and so on. In another book on evangelism which I read recently, the author unwittingly promoted this device. He said, “In Luke 10, we read how Jesus gave His disciples 11 Steven Gertz. Christian History. May 2002, v21 i2 p.28(3)

some clear instructions for their outreach work. He told them first to be a blessing wherever they went, (‘speak peace’), then to build relationships with people (‘eat and drink’), then to meet people’s needs (‘heal the sick’) and finally to preach the gospel of the Kingdom.”12 Indeed, this idea has a ring of truth. But there is massive error here. es, we ought to walk the talk… It’s true that our Christian witness ought to be credible, and that we should ‘walk the talk.’ Certainly we ought to respect people’s feelings and life situations as we interact with them. We do want to share the gospel out of our love for others and for God, although not as a way to earn divine brownie points. But there is no biblical basis for the idea that unless we are someone’s friend, or have built a relationship with them, have served them in some way, we have no right to share the gospel with them. Jesus simply told the disciples to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel (Mark 16:15), and He gave them the authority to do so. As believers we all have that same authority.13 e have the same authority as Jesus… The Lord told His followers, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of

12 Reference details intentionally omitted. 13 It is also true that in some situations, we do have to build trust with groups or individuals we are working with. This is especially true where we want to develop a long term relationship. Take the ministry reaching out to prostitutes for example. Many prostitutes have become cynical and sceptical about people. To reach them, and to develop a long term relationship with them, trust must first be established. It’s the same with the people we work with, or our neighbours. Sometimes it is wise to ‘go slowly,’ developing relationship and trust first, because we know we are going to see them again and again. In such situations, we must discern the right time to share the gospel. Having said this, the danger is that the friendship and relationship can become so good that we feel sharing the gospel might spoil things, and we don’t end up sharing the gospel! In this way, ‘we must first develop trust before we share the gospel’ becomes a cop-out for not evangelising. When this happens, we have lost vital ground in the battle for souls.

the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). e have the power and blessing of the Holy Spirit… At the same time He encouraged them with these words: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). When Jesus said these things (e.g. in Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:18-19 and Acts 1:8) He would have known that the disciples would be speaking to complete strangers. The authority of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit are all we need as believers and we have them both. As well as this, and in Chapter Thirteen, I give another five reasons why the idea “we must earn the right to speak into the lives of non-Christians before we share the gospel with them” is not a biblical one. In the meantime, here are some more arguments which expose this device for what it is - a lie. he disciples didn’t win the respect of their audiences… Now look at Matthew 10. Jesus told the disciples to expect persecution, arrest, imprisonment, rejection, betrayal and even death. From this we may conclude they did not win the respect of their audience before they proclaimed the gospel. Remember, too, that ten of the twelve apostles ended their lives as martyrs.14 The exceptions are John and Judas. The ten apostles lost their lives not because they were respected, but because they were viewed as bitter enemies. They died preaching the gospel. ou don’t kill your friends… John Foxe wrote in his famous book, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: “Nearly all the [apostles] and evangelists [who wrote the gospels] died martyrs’ deaths, after living lives of toil and hardship while preaching the gospel of Christ to the heathen world.” 15 If we believe the idea that we must earn the right to speak into the life of

14 John Foxe. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Moody Press, Morgan and Scott, 1907, p24-35 15 ibid, p24

a non-Christian before we share the gospel with them, we naturally jump to the conclusion that we must make friends first. So how true is it that the early Christians used the strategy “make friends first, then share the gospel afterwards.” Let’s do a quick study of the word “friends” in the New Testament. The word friends is used five times in the book of Acts, but never in regard to evangelism. A more typical use of the word friends is found in 1 Peter 2:11. Peter says to the churches, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world…” Clearly the early Christians did not see themselves as fitting comfortably into their society. The idea of ‘making friends’ with non-Christians for the purpose of bringing them to Christ can’t be found in the New Testament. Radically different, in fact counter-cultural, they were on a mission of global takeover and whether they were accepted or rejected did not matter. As a commissioned people, they proclaimed the gospel regardless. They were not out to make friends! They were out to tell everyone about Jesus, who He was, and why He’d come, leaving the results of their evangelism to Him. In Hebrews 11, the great ‘who’s who’ of faith, some Old Testament believers also described themselves as “aliens and strangers on earth” (verse 13). Aliens and strangers? It doesn’t sound like they made a priority of making friends. he indications are that Jesus didn’t view establishing a friendship as a necessary prerequisite to successful evangelism. We know Jesus made friends with some people. In Matthew 11:19, for example, He is described as “…a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet He did not seem to address by name many of the people He preached to and healed. Think about it. If they had been His friends, don’t you think He would have done this? Isn’t this what friends usually do. The man with leprosy is a good example.

“While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged Him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him” (Luke 5:12-13). It was the same with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He didn’t address her by her first name, which is something friends would naturally do. It is clear Jesus had no prior relationship with many of the people He spoke to. rior relationship is not a prerequisite to effectiveness… Furthermore, He went from town to town preaching the gospel, teaching and healing. Itinerant preachers can and do develop deep friendships with certain people but not with the whole crowd. Yet many people who heard Jesus preach committed their lives to Him. Many thousands of people have been saved at Billy Graham crusades, yet he had no prior friendship or relationship with the vast majority of them. In Acts 2, Peter preached the gospel and 3000 were saved. It is unlikely he was friends with all of them. Most of the people with whom I have shared the gospel have been complete strangers. Yet more than 98 percent of those encounters were wonderful “God moments.” We have to conclude that the idea that we must make friends with non-Christians or gain their respect before we share the gospel with them in order to win them to Christ is not a biblical one. I discuss more about why this is so in detail in Chapter Thirteen. The untapped pool of total strangers can be reached effectively with the gospel without the need to develop prior relationships.

EVICE # 21 To convince us that leading a good life and being a positive example for others are alternative ways of evangelising.

No one would argue that leading a good life and being a positive example aren’t critically important aspects of a desirable Christian life. The problem is that the devil has been seeding this thought into the minds of Christians for such a long time that such things are now considered alternative ways of evangelising. Many like to quote 1 Peter 2:11 – 5:11 where Peter shows how Christian living can powerfully and positively influence non-Christians for Christ. On that basis many people say, “I don’t need to be explicit. If I live the Christian life, people will see Jesus in me and be drawn to Him.” This is fear of evangelism disguised as piety. ake sure you connect your good works with Jesus… Commenting on the subtle blend of truth and error in this reasoning, Theologian John Chapman writes that while godly living is critical for all Christians (Romans 8:29), it is not the whole picture. “People will certainly recognise that Christians are different if they live the Christian life. They will not, however, be able to work out why they are different. In a godly community, well-instructed in the Bible, and where goodness is associated with God, the connection is clear. In other communities it remains ambiguous. It is true that goodness and kindness cannot be hidden, and love and gentleness are appreciated, but God will hardly ever be seen to be the cause of these unless explanation is given. That explanation must be the gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). I have found that godly behaviour is hardly ever associated with God. When people “let

their light shine before others,” God is not necessarily glorified. What usually happens is that they themselves are glorified. The gospel needs to be heard as well as seen in action so that God will indeed be glorified. The hearing and seeing make a powerful combination.”16 Samuel Shoemaker makes an excellent comment on the inadequacy of relying only on the witness of a good life: “I cannot, by being good, tell [people] of Jesus’ atoning death and resurrection, nor of my faith in His divinity. The emphasis is too much on me and too little on Him. Our lives must be made as consistent as we can make them with our faith; but our faith, if we are Christians, is vastly greater than our lives. That is why the ‘word’ of witness is so important.”17 I concur with Shoemaker completely. However, the main reason to reject the idea that leading a good life and being a positive example for others are alternative ways to evangelise is that they outrightly contradict Scripture.18 Both good living and evangelising are vital aspects of Christianity, but as I have already sought to make clear in this book, if the words of the gospel have not been proclaimed or spread, no evangelism has taken place.

DEVICE # 22 To persuade Christians that they are incompetent in evangelism so they will say nothing.

The devil will whisper in the ears of Christians, “You know you’ll be no good at evangelising, so don’t even try it. If you do, you’ll muck it up, and put non-Christians off! It’s better not to try at all. Leave it to the experts.”  The devil does not want you to know that ‘the experts’ are people who started out incompetent in evangelism, but learned how to do it. You see, the skill to 16 John Chapman. Know And Tell The Truth: The Why And How Of Evangelism. Hodder and Stoughton, 1991, pp.43-44 17 Cited in Dr Leighton Ford. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.8 18 For a more in-depth discussion on why good works are not to be equated with evangelism, see Chapter Three, What is evangelism?

evangelise can be learned. In our ministry we have seen people full of the fear of ‘messing up’ begin training in evangelism, and with support, and the application of the other attitudes and keys I have shared in this book, they finish as competent and confident evangelisers. Proverbs 13:11 says “He who gathers money little by little makes it grow.”19 All Christians are capable of evangelising20 but not all are equally capable. Where capability is low, extra training is needed and God’s grace is sufficient. With coaching, anyone can evangelise with love, grace, skill and tenderness. I ministered recently at a camp for Christians with physical and mental disabilities and was amazed at their zeal and determination to share the gospel. One person who suffered from cerebral palsy went evangelising regularly in his wheelchair. The only words he could get out were, “Please read this” as he handed out tracts. His zeal for the lost was amazing! You see, it’s not how clever or smart we are, it’s what’s in our hearts. The good news is that I have seen many times how God will use our feeling of incompetence to work through us in a more powerful way. How so? Time and again I have heard of people who have gone out for the first time to give the gospel to a stranger, terrified of messing up, and God has led them sovereignly to someone who is open and appreciative. Paul tells us how the Lord assured him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” So Paul determined to “boast all the more gladly” about his weakness, so that Christ’s power might rest on him (2 19 Although this verse applies to money, the ‘little by little’ principle could also apply to any activity where skill is gained through practise. We could say ‘little by little, great skill in evangelism can be acquired. 20 Some will struggle to verbalise the gospel, but almost everyone can hand out tracts or www.biblein11.com business cards. Those who really can’t do these things can still play a vital role in evangelism by praying, giving financially etc.

Corinthians 12:9). Conclusion? I think God sees our weakness and fears and meets our need with a special outpouring of His grace. Jesus was not joking when He said He’d be with us even to the end of the Age (Matthew 28:20). on’t focus on what could go wrong - get training and keep asking God for the fresh empowering of the Holy Spirit… If I wanted to be a pilot, I would not let the thought of crashing put me off flying when I first started. I would understand that with training I could eventually fly a plane with such competence that the possibility of crashing would be virtually eliminated. The skill of evangelism is learned similarly. If you practise and become unconditionally committed to being trained, not taking setbacks personally and not focussing on what might go wrong, leaning on and trusting in the Holy Spirit, you will eventually be able to evangelise with such skill that your spiritual plane will not crash. od will use our genuine efforts, however feeble they might be… Many times I’ve seen God use the unpolished but genuine efforts of the least capable novice in evangelism to impact the lives of non-Christians. Ultimately it is neither our skill nor ability which effects salvation – or impacts the non-Christian world. It is the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit working through the gospel as we deliver it, however feebly.

DEVICE # 23 To persuade us our faith is a private matter.

This is a not-so-subtle attack of the devil, and genuine Christians will see through it quickly. Given that the Bible is our final authority for faith and conduct, any idea that clearly contradicts Scripture can soon be dismissed. The New Testament has many commands to publicly proclaim our faith, and so “private Christianity” is actually an oxymoron. How did Jesus teach that it was impossible to be a private 27

Christian? He said to His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). To preach is to speak. So if we are true to Jesus, Christianity cannot be private. Notice, too, that Jesus told us to go into ‘all the world’ not the little world of a few of our select friends and family. He did not tell us to go privately to one or two of our closest friends and those we know who will accept us. Going to everyone means going public and going boldly. he Bible is clear – genuine Christians will not have a private faith… Read carefully Jesus’ words: “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops” (Matthew 10:27). Proclaiming from the rooftops is hardly the mark of a private person with a private faith. Then there are the words of Paul: “If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:9-10). The Greek word for “confess” here is omologeo which means “to declare openly, speak out freely.” If a person declares openly that Jesus is their personal Lord, they will certainly be obeying His commands, chief of which is evangelising the world. It would appear impossible to love Jesus and at the same time keep our beliefs and convictions private. The Lord warns us not to hesitate on this issue, not for one moment: “Those who acknowledge Me before others, I will also acknowledge before My Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32). He seems to be saying that the public confession of our faith is a mark of its genuineness. “All who are ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).

Do not let the world silence you… George Barna, a world expert in evangelism research, notes how the idea of a private religion has been accepted by many believers with disastrous results. “The world’s greatest gift [the gospel] is now faced with becoming the world’s greatest secret,” he says. “…Many of the people whom Christ is counting on to spread the light of salvation throughout a spiritually-darkened nation have largely succumbed to pressures from the target population itself to maintain a reverent silence about a matter as personal as spiritual beliefs.”21 A “private faith” might be possible with some religions, but not Christianity.22 Since Jesus and the apostles were bold public proclaimers of the gospel, we who stand in their line and under their authority are called to do the same.

EVICE # 24 To persuade us that God is there primarily to bless us and prosper us. Doing His will and serving His purposes are secondary.

Believe it or not, there are some Christians who believe this device to be true. They have come to believe that God is there for them, to rubber stamp and bless their plans and ambitions and that serving Jesus and His purposes is secondary and optional. It’s not hard to see how this device would knock anyone who believes it out of getting stuck into the evangelisation of the world. For evangelising is not about us at all. It’s about God and His purposes and glory, and being used by Him to help the person to whom we are giving the gospel to be reconciled to Him. What we 21 George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, p.24 22 There are always exceptions of course. In some countries and places, Christians are forced to be secret about their Christianity, as in the underground churches in Communist or Muslim countries. The difference between these Christians and Christians in the West that have a “private faith” is that one wants to proclaim the gospel but cannot, while the other has freedom to proclaim but chooses not to.

get out of it is secondary. This device is so far off what the New Testament teaches, it’s hardly worth exposing. However, because some people believe it, we’d better deal with it. All the way through the four gospels, Jesus teaches that He is Lord. What does this mean? It means He is the absolute boss of the universe, of everything seen and unseen, whether we acknowledge Him or not. Of course, for non-Christians He is not acknowledged as their boss. It will not be until they get to the other side of death that this acknowledgment will come. What about Christians? What does “Jesus is Lord” mean to us? It simply means that we willingly and continually try to make Him our personal and absolute boss. At the point of our conversion, we confess “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9) which means “Jesus, I want You to be the absolute boss of my life. Whatever You want, I’ll do. Whatever is Your purpose will become my purpose. Whatever is Your priority will become my priority. My life is no longer mine, it’s Yours. Do with me whatever You wish.” Paul had made Jesus the absolute boss of His life so He was able to say: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” Romans 14:8-9 A wonderful poem about what it’s like to make Jesus Lord has been written by H. C. G. Moule (1841-1920) the Bishop of Durham. He was an acute scholar and a powerful communicator. It’s worth reading this poem carefully, prayerfully, and slowly because in it the heart of a true believer is beautifully described. My glorious Victor, Prince Divine, Clasp these surrender’d hands in Thine; At length my will is all Thine own, Glad vassal of a Saviour’s throne. 30

My Master, lead me to Thy door; Pierce this now willing ear once more: Thy bonds are freedom; let me stay With Thee, to toil, endure, obey. Yes, ear and hand, and thought and will, Use all in Thy dear slav’ry still! Self’s weary liberties I cast Beneath Thy feet; there keep them fast. Tread them still down; and then, I know, These hands shall with Thy gifts o’erflow; And pierced ears shall hear the tone Which tells me Thou and I are one. Clearly, the sentiments and thoughts expressed in this poem are a far cry from “God is there for me, to rubber stamp and bless my plans and ambitions and serving Jesus and His purposes is secondary and optional.” Walking in the Lordship of Jesus is THE major key to experiencing success with evangelism because when we make Him Lord, we’ll count it an honour to suffer for Him, just like the Early Christians did. Nothing will be too much trouble and no device will be able to influence us. ount it worthy to suffer for the gospel… The truth is, the Early Church Christians considered it a badge of honour to suffer for Him: “His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the gospel that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:40-42). Not only were the apostles not embarrassed, but they gave themselves a high five after suffering – and the whole exercise

produced in them a greater desire to evangelise. on’t expect it to be easy… The truth is, once in a while someone will reject us when we attempt to present them with the gospel. Yes, we’ll suffer. Let’s become good at accepting this. Look what Paul went through as he proclaimed the gospel: “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). Look at the suffering Jesus went through for us. And remember the martyrs, including the first century Christians, who were killed for their faith. “Besides being put to death, they [the Christians] were made [by the Emperor Nero] to serve as objects of amusement. They were clad in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs. Others were crucified and others set on fire to illuminate the night when daylight failed…”23 Let’s be proud of our heritage, and inspired by their example… How does our little bit of suffering for the cause of evangelising the earth compare with the suffering of millions of witnessing Christians over past centuries? As I have said, we ought to accept suffering for the gospel like a badge of honour.24 Relative to eternity,

23 Rose Dowsett. The Great Commission. Monarch Books, 2001, p.70 24 As long as it is the gospel that is causing the offence, and not ourselves, as evangelists, due to our insensitivity, brashness, pride or arrogance!

we only have to suffer for a short period of time. As the apostle Peter reminds us: “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:13-15). Three of the most sobering verses in all the Bible which relate to the discussion we are having here are Matthew 7:21-23. These verses speak of people who are busy with ‘church’ things, but who never made Jesus Lord: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” For a genuine believer, ‘doing God’s will’ is primary, not secondary.

EVICE # 25 To persuade us that God sometimes says things to us personally that contradict what is written in the Bible.

I have heard many Christians make statements such as these: • “God has told me that if I don’t want to share the gospel I don’t have to.” • “God has told me that evangelising is not my gift.” • “God has told me not to proclaim the gospel but rather to let my light shine.” • “God has told me not to proclaim the gospel but just to love people.” • And so on... 33

rivate revelations must be put to the test… These are examples of ‘private revelations.’ Anyone who accepts ‘a private word’ from God which contradicts Scripture is naïve indeed. If a Christian says, “God has told me not to evangelise,” and the Bible says “evangelise,” the source of this ‘private revelation’ cannot be from God. The voice might be from the devil, our subconscious mind, or it might be the words of a well- meaning ‘friend’ telling us horror stories about evangelism. But it is not from God. If a ‘word’ or impression clearly contradicts Scripture, then it must be from a source other than the Bible. In Chapter Eight we established that evangelism is the responsibility and privilege of all Christians. So why would God tell a Christian not to evangelise when He has already said the opposite in Scripture? He does not say one thing in the Bible and then contradict it in private. ometimes it is wise not to evangelise… There may, however, be plausible explanations why a Christian might say, “God hasn’t told me to evangelise” in a particular situation. In some situations, I have felt impressed by the Holy Spirit not to share the gospel because to do so would be inappropriate and insensitive. Exercising wisdom in this way is quite different from not wanting to share the gospel at all because “God hasn’t told me to evangelise.” The latter is just a cop-out. In my thirty years as an evangelist, I could count on one hand the number of times I have been impressed not to share the gospel. Anyone who accepts ‘a word from God which contradicts Scripture has succumed to yet another device of the devil.

EVICE # 26 To persuade us that “Love is the ultimate thing” and that the greatest way to show our love for non-Christians is not to preach the gospel 34

but to meet their practical needs.

Truth and error are so subtly blended here that the error is hard to detect. It is true that “…the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13) and that without love our fine words amount to nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). It is also true that meeting someone’s practical needs is a powerful expression of Christian love and that we are all called to express love in this way. So where is the error in this device? People who assert that meeting people’s practical needs is the greatest way to show love have got it wrong, for what is every person’s greatest need? Surely, it’s their salvation. 1 John 4:10 makes it clear that the greatest way to ‘love’ the unchurched is help them reconcile to God: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” In effect God is saying through this verse “The epitome of my love was most clearly expressed when my Son died for the lost on the Cross. If you help the lost find forgiveness through His atoning sacrifice, you too will have loved like my Son did when He died on the cross. You will have done the most loving thing a Christian can do for another person.” Evangelist Ray Comfort tells a story which exhorts us to put first things first. “A child who was running through a wooded area fell onto a sharp stick and cut his jugular vein. His father immediately swooped him up and pressed his thumb to the boy’s neck in an effort to stop the blood gushing while he rushed him to the hospital. In the emergency room, the child showed the surgeon a small splinter he had received in his thumb when he fell and begged the doctor to remove it. Of course the surgeon ignored the child’s plea and began work to stop the life-threatening injury to the boy’s neck. Modern evangelism preaches a message that calls sinners to come to God 35

for their “splinters” rather than for that which is life-threatening. It tells people that God will heal problems with marriages, drugs, alcohol and so on, when the real reason they should come to the Saviour is that their life’s blood is gushing from their throat. They are in debt to eternal justice. It’s as if a devious criminal might say to the judge, “I know I’m guilty of rape and murder, your Honour, but I have an important personal problem that I think the court needs to deal with first.” God’s priority is to deal with the fatal wound of sin before He even looks at the splinters of personal problems. We are to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, (Matthew 6:33). All other issues are temporal.”25 or Jesus, saving the soul was priority… The New Testament appears to have three broad categories of concerns about people: 1. Practical concerns to do with the body, including the mind and emotions. 2. Character concerns to do with the heart. 3. Eternal concerns to do with the soul. While Jesus was concerned with and addressed all three, which do you think He was most concerned about? I suggest it was the third category. For example: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matthew 10:28). “What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?” (Matthew 16:26). “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell where the

25 Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically, The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2003, pp.17-18

fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell” (Mark 9:43-47). From these verses we have to conclude that Jesus is teaching that nothing is more valuable than the human soul, not even the combined value of everything in the world. Do we have the same priorities as Jesus in our ministries or are we out of sync with Him? inister to the whole person, yes, but make every effort to secure the soul… When we meet the practical needs of people, we are, generally speaking, ministering to their bodies. But how concerned are we about securing their souls? Jesus summarised His Mission this way: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15). Jesus could have summarised the purpose of His coming in other ways: “I came to feed and clothe the hungry” “I came to heal people of diseases and infirmities” “I came to establish praise and worship” “I came to establish prayer meetings” His ministry, in fact, included all these things and so should ours, but His bottom line was, and still is, the evangelisation of the world for the glory of His name. e loving – proclaim the gospel… We discovered in Chapter Seven that evangelism is the priority. We already know that one of the foundational attributes of the nature of God is that He is love. Would a God of love set a priority which was out of sync with His nature? You know the answer. Make no mistake – when it comes to ‘being loving’, proclaiming

the gospel is the highest expression of Christian love. Yes, it’s agape love in action. Listen to the wise words of Dr John Stott: “The sight of the need and the possession of the means with which to meet it together place us in a position of solemn obligation. We have not only seen man’s spiritual need, but we have that which can meet it: not this world’s goods, but the knowledge of the gospel. God has made us trustees of the gospel for the benefit of others; we cannot keep its blessings to ourselves. It is the acme of callous selfishness to withhold the knowledge of the gospel from those who are perishing for lack of it. Now, if we do not see, or feel, or seek to relieve the great spiritual need of our fellow men, there is only one conclusion to be reached. Not only are we disobedient to the command of Christ, but God’s love does not dwell in us. Indeed, we have reason to ask ourselves if we have ever been born from above.”26 These are strong words. ove your neighbour… Spurgeon contends that loving God, loving people and evangelising are inseparable. In fact, the greatest way to express our love for God and love for people is to explain the gospel to people because it holds the potential of changing their eternal destiny. He uses the first and second Great Commandments as the basis of his discussion. “The love of God is first, but this by no means lessens the obligation of love to [people]. In fact the first command includes the second. We are to seek our neighbours’ conversion because we love them, and we are to speak to them in loving terms God’s loving gospel, because our heart desires their eternal good.”27 Look for the spiritual need of non-Christians and do something about it… James 2:16 says: “If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs,

26 Dr John Stott. Motives And Methods In Evangelism. IVP, 1973, pp.8-10 27 Charles H Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Focus Publication, 1992, p.14

what good is it?” Commenting on this verse, the Puritan Richard Baxter compares the attention we give to those with physical and practical needs with the attention we give to people’s spiritual needs. “If it may be said of him that relieveth not men’s bodies, how much more of him that relieveth not men’s souls: ‘If you see your brother in need?’ You are not such hard-hearted men but you will pity a leper; you will pity the naked, imprisoned or desolate; you will pity him that is tormented with grievous pain and sickness; and you will not pity an ignorant, hard-hearted sinner. Will you not pity one who must be shut out from the presence of the Lord? What multitudes round about you are blindly hastening to perdition – and your voice is appointed to be the means of reclaiming them! Oh, then for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of poor souls, have pity on them and bestir yourselves and spare no pains that may conduce to their salvation.”28 ouls are worth fighting for… In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19), Jesus indicates that the eternal destiny of the human soul is of utmost importance. Over and over, throughout the Gospels, He is concerned about securing the soul – at all costs. Why? First, He does not want anyone to go to hell. There are three things we know about hell: those who go there will be alone (James 1:17)29, they will be in pain (Matthew 8:12) and they will be there forever (Matthew 25:46). Knowing this, how can we meet a person’s practical needs over and above a concern for their eternal salvation? Second, saving the soul is primary because He created us and adores us. In our unsaved state, we are like wayward children, hence the prodigal son story. When we are saved, we come home.

28 Cited in: Dr John Stott. Motives And Methods In Evangelism. IVP, 1973, p.8 29 If every good thing we have comes from God, and one of the good things of God is ‘relationships,’ and hell is a place where the goodness of God is absent, then there can be no ‘relationships’ in hell.

Third, when people are reconciled to Christ, He is glorified. Fourth, as you’ll discover in Chapter Twenty, God works through redeemed people to bless society so the more who are redeemed the more society will be blessed. In summary, to love someone from a Christian perspective is to meet not just their practical needs but also their great spiritual need. It is to make a priority of saving their soul. God appointed the gospel for this very purpose (Romans 1:16).

EVICE # 27 To persuade us we should not share the gospel unless our life backs up the message.

Every genuine Christian wants their life to back up their message. However, the devil has infiltrated the minds of some by whispering in their ear, “Hey, your life is not perfectly right now so you can’t share the gospel. If you did, you’d be a hypocrite – and you know how much Jesus hates those kinds of people!” This is a very dirty trick of the devil. Let’s unravel his darkness. Is the above claim true? The answer is yes and no. hinking it through… In the natural realm, if a wheat farmer wakes up in a bad mood, shouts at his children, yells at his wife, and kicks the cat on the way out of the door as he goes to work, will the wheat seed he plants that day not grow because his private life was not up to scratch? You know the answer. What’s the message? The gospel will still ‘work’ even if the life of the one delivering it is not perfect. The truth is, under the blazing scrutiny of God’s holiness, practically speaking, no one is living perfectly before God. If only those whose lives are perfect can effectivley share the gospel, none us would qualify to evangelise. The evangelisation of the world would never ever start. Lest you think I am advocating that it’s OK to live an unholy

life, check out 2 Timothy 2:20-21 which says, “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.” Clearly, living a holy, Godly life matters to God and ought to matter to us. I have found that when I am closest to Jesus and walking in practical holiness, I seem to have more authority and power when I am evangelising. owever… If we know are lives are not right we should still proclaim and spread the gospel. The following story illustrates what I am talking about here. Bill30 is one person whose lifestyle was not in harmony with the message he was preaching, but his heart was right, which is what really mattered. On a ministry trip to America I was approached by Bill, who asked if he could have lunch with me. I agreed. When we met, Bill confessed that he was struggling with pornography. His pastor knew about it and was helping him. Bill expressed his passion to proclaim the gospel. His critical question to me was this: “Can I still proclaim the gospel even though I am struggling with pornography?” My answer was an emphatic “yes.” Who of us would qualify to minister in any capacity if we had to wait until our lives were perfect? Furthermore, I believe God sanctifies us and cleans us as we go about His work. Sanctification does not happen in a sinless vacuum. Doing the work of the Lord has a cleansing, maturing, renewing effect on our spiritual lives. It is so critical to walk in the freedom of the grace of Jesus. No

30 Not his real name.

soldier who is warring for souls will last long in the battle without walking in the reality and fullness of the grace of God. We need to be constantly reassured God will use us in spite of our shortcomings and weaknesses.

EVICE # 28 To persuade us we should not share the gospel unless our motives are right.

First, the truth: we do want our motives to be right. Our motive for sharing the gospel should not be to earn favour with God, or win the praise of the pastor or leadership, or “put another notch on the belt.” The highest motive to evangelise is to glorify God. I talk more about this in Chapter Twenty Three. t’s who you are that matters, not what you do… As one prominent pastor put it: “Remind [people] that their value, significance and identity comes from who they are, not what they do. When your value comes from what you do, your motive for faith sharing becomes toxic. You can begin to look at your success as an evangelist as the source of your identity, significance and recognition. Faith sharing can become a source of affirmation to feed your ego.”31 f you wait until your motives are perfect, you’ll be dead before doing any evangelism… The fact is, it is not possible to have perfect motives. Even when we think we have them, really we don’t. How do we know this? God clearly said through Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV). Sometimes I don’t feel like reaching lost people with the gospel and I feel little love in my heart for them. Yes, I don’t feel as if my motives are right, but I go anyway.

I I

31 Cited in: Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy. A Passion For Evangelism. Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, p.155

Here is the point: the wrong motives I might have prior to evangelising are cleansed and purified as I go about doing it. In Philippians 1:18 Paul alludes to this truth when he says “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.” What’s the message? If you feel like your motives are not right, don’t let this stop you from evangelising. If you did, you’d be succumbing to the 28th device of the enemy.

EVICE # 29 To persuade us we should not share the gospel with strangers. We should befriend one or two people and walk with them until they become Christians. Why? This enables them to witness our life not just hear our message. The success of our gospel message is dependent on people witnessing the authenticity of our lives.

This is a curly device and one which I hear suprisingly often. It’s one we need to expose and dismiss. Let’s say Pete, a Christian, shares the gospel with a total stranger called Andrew, the non-Christian guy sitting next to him on a plane. Andrew has no chance to observe Pete’s lifestyle or his character. In fact, Pete spends most of the flight sleeping and is not even awake long enough to demonstrate any Christian good works. Andrew returns to his home town where he observes the good lives and good works of other Christians. The point is, Pete’s Christian lifestyle is important for those in his own neighbourhood, but it is not relevant to Andrew. The way Pete lives his beliefs is critical to those observing him at his work, with his friends and family, and in his community, but not to total strangers whom he meets only briefly. This example of Andrew and Pete illustrates that the process of drawing a non-Christian to Christ is a team event involving the 43

whole Christian community. Paul alludes to this: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). With this device, Pete would be the one who had to plough Andrew’s heart, sow the seed, and water it. This is neither practical nor biblical. How so? 1. It’s unbiblical because Jesus specifically said to reach everyone with the gospel, and if we all only focussed on one or two people, achieving what Jesus said would be impossible. Jesus doesn’t set goals for us which are impossible to achieve. 2. It contradicts what Jesus taught in Mark 4:26-29 about how the Holy Spirit works through the gospel to save people. I talk about this in detail in Chapter Thirteen. In short, Jesus taught in this parable that the seed of the gospel once planted will grow in and of itself, outside of any external influence. To use the illustration of Andrew and Pete again, Andrew didn’t need to see Pete’s lifestyle in order for God to save him. Hearing the gospel would have been sufficient. 3. It smacks of a certain arrogance because it suggests that one doesn’t need God in the process of drawing people to Christ and that our good works and lifestyle are sufficient to convert people. Even if we walk with someone all their lives and exemplify a wonderful Christian life, and they hear the gospel, these factors alone do not guarantee conversion. Why? Because salvation is from first to last the domain of God (e.g. Ephesians 2:8-10; John 6:65). 4. What happens if the one or two people we have chosen to pour our lives into just didn’t want to be saved? And what happens if all the others we were commanded to give the gospel to, and didn’t, did want to be saved? And wanted 44

to hear the gospel? That is to say, they needed to hear the gospel from us but didn’t because we were stuck on one or two people who had made up their minds to reject God? ave a break and be inspired by Mr Genor’s audio testimony… At this point you might listen to the audio testimony of the late Mr Genor. Just google “Amazing Testimony of Mr Genor The George street evangelist”. Mr Genor was an Australian who committed himself to giving out gospel tracts on George Street in Sydney. He is an example of someone who gave the gospel to thousands of people. Not one of them witnessed his lifestyle, yet thousands were converted. What are four lessons we can learn from Mr Genor’s testimony? 1. We ought to relentlessly proclaim and spread the gospel to everyone, everywhere. If the person with whom we share does not get to see anything of our life, the love, prayers and positive witness of other Christians will help “water” the seed of the gospel we have planted. 2. We ought to be a positive example of Christianity ourselves, trusting that other Christians may have shared the gospel with non-Christians in our sphere of influence. In this way our lives will help water the seed they planted. 3. By faith we believe that God will “grow” the seed of the gospel we plant. 4. If we don’t see immediate fruit for our efforts, keep going anyway knowing that the highest motive for evangelising is not to win souls but to glorify God. Just be faithful to evangelise and let God take care of “results.”

ummary

• Don’t let feelings of inadequacy stop you evangelising. Everyone who does evangelism has these feelings, so join in and get going. 45

• Saint Francis never said “Go into the world and preach the gospel and if necessary use words.’” This saying was made up. It was sown into the Church and circulated by darkness to hinder evangelism. • We don’t need to earn the right to share the gospel with someone. God has given us ‘the right’ when He said “All authority under heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go.” There is no higher authority. • Good works are critical in the process of drawing nonChristians to Jesus, but in and of themselves they don’t constitute evangelism. • Don’t let fear of ‘mucking it up’ put you off attempting evangelism. Everyone has this fear when they set out and God always proves greater. • It’s impossible to be a Christian and be a private one. Jesus commanded us to speak out the gospel in public. • Don’t be embarrassed about sharing your faith. The vast majority of non-Christians are actually eager to hear the gospel. Get used to seeing yourself as someone who will be truly valued and appreciated by non-Christians. The other side of death, you’ll see many of the people you shared with and they’ll thank you eternally for the care and love you showed them when you shared the gospel with them on earth. • Good tools and resources will help build your confidence. Poor tools and resources will do the opposite. • Generally speaking (there are rare exceptions), if a voice inside your head tells you not to evangelise, ignore it. It’s not God speaking. It’s darkness. • Sharing the gospel with someone in a loving caring way is the ultimate expression of Christian love. • Don’t worry if you want to share the gospel and your life is not perfect. If we are truly honest about ourselves, there 46

•

• •

•

are areas in all our lives which are not up to scratch. Go and share the gospel anyway, and in so doing, God will work powerfully in you to clean up your imperfections. If you suspect your motives are not right, you are just like the rest of us. Go and share the gospel anyway. You are not being a hyprocrite. As you step out and share, God will work in you to clean up your motives. Don’t restrict your efforts in evangelism to one or two people. It’s an unbiblical strategy. Half the battle with evangelism is in the decision to do it. If you decide to commit to learning and keep taking baby steps forwards, you’ll get your breakthough. CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com.

• In the next Chapter I am going to dismantle one of the deadliest of all devices: persuading us to believe that evangelism is a process. This is a major, and is at the root of many other devices. You don’t want to miss this one!

Real Life Story HOW TO ENTER RETIREMENT WITH A BANG! George and Sue Jeffery are a retired couple. They attend a Baptist Church in New Zealand and have two children and lots of grandchildren.   George and I have been Christians for 24 years, and ever since our conversion we have had an interest in sharing our faith. We have held many different ministry responsibilities in the church, and have enjoyed each one immensely. Sadly though, and much to our disappointment, we had never personally led anyone to faith in Christ. Well, that’s until we came across the evangelism teaching that God has given Evangelism Strategies International. It is completely different from anything we had ever encountered before. God has used it to release us into a new passion and zeal for the lost – and yes, at last, through this teaching we have seen many come to Christ! Even though this is a great thing, and we are grateful to God for how He is using us in evangelism, 48

the greatest blessing has come from knowing that it is not up to us to “win” people to the Lord. Up until we did the course with Julian, we felt as though we were under a heavy burden to win people, and that if we didn’t win them, no one would. Sub-consciously, we had cut God out of the picture. Now we know better. We now know that if we plant the seed with love and grace, ensuring the person listening understands it, and then go to pray for those who have heard the gospel, God will do the rest. This thought has been absolutely liberating for us. Yes, we do invite some people to respond immediately, as we feel led by the Spirit to do so, but most often people don’t seem to be ready immediately. Not having to pressure or bully people into “a decision” has been very freeing. We feel like we have stepped out of darkness and into the sunlight because we now know and understand clearly where our responsibility lies, and what we must trust to God through the precious Holy Spirit. Another factor which has been part of this fresh liberty we have is a new understanding of the content of the gospel. No one had ever taught us this, or the difference between the words, works, and effects of the gospel, and so there was always an element of confusion in our minds.   Since learning all this, George and I have felt like our lives have become a real adventure and the thrill and joy factor has skyrocketed. There is nothing quite so exciting and freeing as knowing we are now actively participating in the very front line of the Great Commission. 49

Furthermore, teaching others in the church about this means we are involved in the discipling aspect as well, which is another bonus for us. As well, we have a fresh love for the lost. We have found that Julianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;reaching the lost gives you a love for the lostâ&#x20AC;? is so true. God has really changed our hearts for the non-Christian world and we now feel genuine compassion and love for them, like Jesus did. Before, when we tried to reach them, we were doing it more from a point of view of obligation and duty. The difference now is huge. Previous to actually going to nonChristians with the gospel, they had become a bit of an abstract entity, because we would sing about them, preach about them, have them in our mission statements, go to conferences about them, but we never actually went to them with the gospel. What is the future looking like for us? Well, we have purchased a data projector and lap top, and under the leadership of our church, have been teaching these keys in evangelism to others through home groups. When we retire we plan to travel the country doing the same, and who knows, maybe even other countries. It goes beyond 50

our wildest dreams that God might use George and me as international evangelists in our retirement years! Our great desire is to be used to liberate others out of confusion and misunderstanding about evangelism. This whole adventure has put our prayer life on a new plane as well. We always pray fervently before we go out and reach the lost because we are so aware that the ground must be “ploughed” before it can be “sown” with seed. We pray after sharing because seed must be “watered” as well. We also pray for courage because the flesh is ever present and fear is always lurking! But when we return we are filled with thankfulness for the blessings we receive from sharing and the cycle of prayer-sharing-prayer-sharing continues. We have found Psalm 126:5-6 to be so true for us. “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” I want to encourage you that if God can do all this for us, and give us a breakthrough, He can certainly do it for you! Please contact us if you would like to at gjeffery@eol.co.nz

Julian’s comments.

I want you to notice that right theology led to a zeal to reach the lost with the gospel. It was a wrong theology (e.g. evangelism equals ‘saving souls) that stopped George and Sue from evangelising in the first place. If you want to know what is stopping the people in your church from mobilising for evangelism, here is your answer. Getting to grips with the Biblical definitions of ‘the gospel’ and ‘evangelism’ is so crucial. If you are a church leader, just imagine if 51

everyone in your congregation had the zeal and love for the lost, for prayer, for worship, for others in the church, as George and Sue! How different literally everything would be at your church if everyone arrived on Sunday full to over flowing with “Life and Life In All Its Fullness” like George and Sue. Doing evangelism doesn’t burden people. On the contrary, it sets them free! This will only be possible if you teach the people in your church everything you are learning in this Mini Series on evangelism.

Chapter Eleven

THE KEY TO VICTORY! START VIEWING EVANGELISM AS AN EVENT, NOT A PROCESS!

The Key To Victory!

Start Viewing Evangelism As An Event, Not A Process!

EVICE # 30 To persuade us that evangelism is a process.

Once I discovered what evangelism was and wasn’t, and what the gospel was and wasn’t, and what the mission of the Church was and wasn’t, I began to notice how terribly confused people had become in the Western Church. To put it bluntly, and with respect to these issues, the Church was a mess. Everyone thought they were already doing evangelism, preaching the gospel, and completing Christ’s misssion! In fact most were not. Yet I didn’t want to poo poo all the excellent work that was going on in many many churches. At the very root of this mess was the thought that evangelism is a process and not an event1. That is to say, the devil has convinced the Church to believe that any behaviour which draws 1 In Chapter Three, I detailed the origin of the word “evangelism.” Just to re-cap, when a runner (or series of runners) ran from the site of a great military victory to their King or Ruler and announced that the Empire had had a victory in battle, the announcment had a beginning, a middle, and an end point i.e. the announcment was an event. The runner was “an evangeliser”, the message “the evangel”, and the act of announcing the victory “evangelism.” When we proclaim the gospel ( i.e. evangelise), the message has a beginning, a middle, and an end point. It too is an event.

a non-Christian closer to the point of conversion is to be equated with evangelism. The enemy knows he cannot poke his head in the back door of a church and announce blatantly, “Church, don’t proclaim or spread the gospel!” This would make his agenda too obvious. He knows he must be more subtle. So what he does is sow the idea into the minds of Christians that any behaviour which draws a nonChristian closer to the point of conversion is evangelism. This idea is another device. The truth is that drawing a non-Christian to Christ is a process. But at some point in the history of the Church, the devil has been able to subtly twist this truth. Drawing a non-Christian to Christ was replaced by ‘evangelism is a process.’ When this happened, a new device was birthed. It’s now common currency in the Christian community. he difference between the two is huge… At first glance the distinction between ‘evangelism is a process’ and ‘drawing a person to Christ is a process’ might seem insignificant. But the negative repercussions of this subtle difference for evangelism are huge. If we don’t deal with this

device of the enemy, and apply a strategy from heaven to defeat it, our battle for souls will fail. Let me explain. Above is a popular model which is often used in teaching evangelism, in which evangelism is described as a process. This model is heretical. With this pyramid, there are four tiers which precede a ‘decision.’ In this model, all four steps prior to ‘decision’ are presented as ‘bits of evangelism,’ so that if a believer does nothing other than ‘establish relationships’ with non-believers, they are still considered to have been evangelising. But is this understanding Biblical? No, it is definitely not. As we discovered in Chapter Three, to evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel. ‘Exposing need’, for example, is a great thing and to be encouraged. But here’s the thing: by itself, exposing needs cannot be equated with evangelising. If we label it as such, then we are not likely to go on to proclaim the gospel. By the same token, many mistakenly believe they are evangelising by: • Bringing their non-Christian friends to church. • Reaching out to the community. • Going on a short-term mission. • Modelling Jesus before non-Christian friends and workmates. • Answering the questions non-Christians have. • Meeting needs. • Praying and fasting for non-Christians. • Giving out food parcels. • Inviting non-Christians to meals… and so on. All these are vital aspects of our Christian witness in the world, and they all help draw a non-Christian closer to Christ, but none are examples of evangelising. The truth is, most Christians know, deep down, they ought to be evangelising. The devil knows this about us. So he has sown this device into the Church to get Christians thinking they are doing evangelism when in fact they are not. This is why this device is so terribly destructive for the Great 4

Commission. And here’s the twist: most Christians think that evangelism in the West is booming because the Church is busy with all of the above. This device of the enemy has worked like a dream for him. The Church has taken the bait - hook, line, and sinker. he critical issue… Most churches think they are doing really well in evangelism when they have lots of interaction going on between them and the community. But this is not the issue. The critical issue is not, “How much interaction is there between our church members and our community?” but, “How much proclamation or spreading of the full gospel is going on to non-Christians in the midst of all the interaction?” This is the heart of the issue. From the idea ‘evangelism is a process’, a host of variants have arisen to fuel the confusion. For example: • Relationship evangelism (where building a relationship with a non-Christian is equated with evangelism). • Hospitality evangelism (where inviting non-Christians to join us for a meal is equated with evangelism). • Apologetics evangelism (where debating critical issues with non-Christians is equated with evangelism). • Sports evangelism (where playing sport with non- Christians is equated with evangelism). • Workplace evangelism (where we come to belive that our good behaviour is to be equated with evangelism). • Prayer evangelism (where praying for people to be saved is equated with evangelism). • Penetration evangelism (where Christians venturing into non-Christian territory and mixing with them is equated with evangelism). • Kindness evangelism (where Christians are involved in things like child sponsorship, and acts of kindness such as putting money in parking meters. These behaviours are equated with evangelism ).

• Natural evangelism (where we talk about God when the conversation naturally arises. This has come to be equated with evangelism). • Servant evangelism (where we serve the community where we live, and in doing so attract them to us, and so to Christ. This has come to be equated with evangelism ). • Power evangelism (Where signs and wonders have come to be equated with evangelism). • And so on. I beg you not to misunderstand me here. If you run a ministry in one of the areas above, and you have called your ministry by the name of one of these things, or written a book on the topic, you are not being criticised. God forbid. I honour your work and your contribution. In writing about this confusion, I am holding out to you strategies and insights from heaven which are intended to cause your ministry to surge in its fruitfulness and effectiveness. To avoid the confusion, why don’t we categorise all these variants as pathways / bridges to evangelism, or doorways which open up to us the possibility of doing evangelism, or ploughing activities which till the soil of the human heart to prepare it to receive the seed of the gospel, rather than equating them with evangelism? Without doubt, building relationships, hospitality, apologetics, words of knowledge, prophecy, healings, outreach through sports, workplace interaction, prayer, penetrating our communities for Christ, showing kindness, bringing up conversations about Christ naturally, moving in the supernatural, and serving our communities are all behaviours which open up for us the possibility of doing evangelism. Each holds the potential to make evangelism a whole lot easier. Just imagine how much more effective our evangelism would be if all Christians were passionate about these behaviours! et’s stop fuelling the confusion… Unintentionally, however, equating these brilliant behaviours with evangelism has fuelled confusion and created a mess. So, how

do we correct this misunderstanding? There are several strategies from heaven that we can implement immediately. First, it would be biblically accurate if the pyramid I mentioned earlier was modified to emphasise the need to proclaim the gospel at some point prior to a decision. This would affirm the truth that evangelism is a specific event within the process of drawing a non-Christian to Christ. ome examples of how easily the confusion can spread… Here are two examples of how this device is spread. One friend recently said: “Think of evangelism as links in a chain, each link moving your friend closer to Christ. For most people it takes many links, many people, and many experiences to prepare their hearts for a life-changing commitment to Christ.” Another friend produced a glossy brochure advertising an evangelism conference. “Evangelism is not an event,” they wrote. “It is a process, a life commitment… we need to understand the importance of process. God works by drawing each individual person in many different ways, allowing them to grasp the reality of His love and the change only He can make. This process involves all of us, because we are the tangible tools He uses.” his is how the angel of light works. He mixes truth and error… At first glance, what was written on the brochure and what my friend said sounds so right, but when we examine my friend’s comment closely, and the advertisement, in the light of the biblical definition of evangelism, we raise a red flag. The statement of both friends, of course, contain truth. That’s what makes the enemy’s devices so hard to detect. For example, it is true that evangelism is a life commitment and that we need to understand the importance of process. It’s true that many experiences prepare the hearts of non-Christians for a lifechanging experience. It’s true that God does work by drawing each person differently, allowing him or her to grasp the reality of His

love and the change only He can make. It is true that this process involves all of us. There is no doubt we are the tangible tools He uses. The error is that evangelism is being communicated as a process, not an event. So what can we do to retain these truths and yet eliminate the errors and all the confusion? This is where the model “The six steps to drawing a non-Christian to Christ” kicks in. The Holy Spirit showed us these six steps.

THE SIX STEPS TO DRAWING A NON-CHRISTIAN TO CHRIST.

In His grace, God has given us a model which has helped clean up the mess. The model is called the “Six steps to drawing a nonChristian to Christ”. We designed a 3m x 1m ceiling-to-floor banner which shows these six steps in picture form. With this banner: • Every ministry in a church is honoured and esteemed, which is so important. • Every ministry can see where it fits in relation to the big picture, which is drawing non-Christians to Christ. • Churches are given a powerful, visual, and easy to understand picture of their mission and the reason they exist. The ideal is to have these banners hang prominently at the front of churches. They act like a spiritual compass, helping to keep a church ‘on track’ and focussed on why it exists.2 rawing a non-Christian to Christ is, indeed, a process… Drawing a non-Christian to Christ is a process with six steps, only one of which is actually evangelism. Six steps to drawing a non-Christian to Christ

D 2

To view a picture of this banner, please visit www.esisite.com where you will see one advertised on the home page.

Step one

Ploughing

Step two

Sowing

Step three

Watering

Step four

Growing

Step five

Harvesting

Step six

Discipling

Any influence upon a non-Christian which makes him or her more open to Christianity and receiving Christ. Proclaiming or spreading the words of the gospel. Same as ploughing except it happens after sowing has taken place. The supernatural work of God to bring non-Christians to the point where they are ready to be harvested. Inviting non-Christians to convert to Christianity. Those who accept our invitation are harvested. Bringing new believers to full maturity in Christ.

Evangelism is the sowing step – a specific event within the process. These six steps are sequential. For example, in the natural realm a farmer must plough the ground before he plants the seed. After planting the seed he must water the ground and perhaps fertilise and weed it. Then he has the joy of watching his crop grow. When the crop is ready, he harvests it. hese metaphors are all through the Bible… Five of the metaphors I use in this model, borrowed from the world of agriculture3, are peppered throughout the Bible. Each describes a certain aspect of the process of drawing a non-Christian to Christ. Ploughing, for example, the first step in the process, is alluded to in 1 Corinthians 9:10. “When the ploughman ploughs and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest …” Paul is using the agricultural terms ploughing and threshing to describe spiritual realities. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 3:6 he uses the terms watered and planted to represent part of the process of drawing a non-Christian to Christ: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.” Regarding ‘sowing’, Peter uses the agricultural metaphor when he calls the gospel message seed: “…being born again, not of

The only non-agricultural term is “discipleship.” This term is used frequently in the New Testament.

corruptible seed” 1 Peter 1:23 (KJV). And Jesus Himself likens the message to seed in Luke 8. In the parable of the seed and the sower, He compares the human heart to soil and good works as the crop: “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” (Luke 8:15). he lunacy of continually ploughing and never planting seed… The same imagery occurs in the Old Testament, for example in Isaiah 28:23-26. “Listen and hear My voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer ploughs for planting, does he plough continually? Does he keep breaking up and harrowing the soil? When he has levelled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not sow wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way… this comes from the Lord of hosts who has made His counsel wonderful and His wisdom great.” This passage is actually speaking about Judah and the Lord’s judgment of that nation. But it also alludes to the lunacy of the person who continually ploughs – prays and fasts for the lost, worships frequently in a church, or does works of service – but never goes out from their church to plant seeds of the gospel. Taken together, these agricultural metaphors help us to understand not only how non-Christians are drawn to Christ, but also where each person and ministry in the Church fits into the process. ow this model will help pastors and leaders… The six-step model above clarifies which Christian activities are evangelism and which are not. But it also has other benefits. irst, it honours every local church ministry. Literally every ministry in a church will fit into one or more of these six steps. For example ‘counselling’ would be

a ‘ploughing’ ministry if the people they are dealing with have not heard the gospel. If they have heard the gospel, the couselling becomes a ‘watering’ exercise. The counsellor might have an opportunity to share the gospel with someone. In this case, they are ‘sowing.’ Leading Bible studies for believers would be a ‘discipling’ ministry, and so on. Here’s the thing - what’s missing from most churches is an explanation of how each of the ministries of the church fits into the big picture. The big picture is drawing non-Christians to Christ. When NASA was building a rocket to land a man on the moon, literally thousands of people were involved from astronauts, to engineers, all the way down to people cleaning the toilets. Everyone knew their part, but they also all knew the goal of the mission which was to be the first nation in the world to have a man walk on the moon. If all the workers didn’t know the what the mission was, their work would have lacked meaning and purpose. Likewise, everyone in a local church must know their part, and they must know where it fits in relation to Christ’s mission, which is the evangelisation of the world. With the six-step model, people in a local church can see clearly where their ministry or gifting fits into the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ. This six-step model makes it clear. econd, it helps us stay focused on our priority and purpose. As I mentioned earlier in this Chapter, the banner with the six steps printed on it is like a spiritual compass for a local church. It helps the church stay focussed on true north. And what happens to people on a journey who don’t have a compass? You know the answer. Sadly, many churches in the West have lost their way. They have lost sight of: 1. the big picture which is to draw non-Christians to Christ i.e. to harvest lost souls. 2. the mission of the Church which is to evangelise the world. 3. the purpose of the Church which is to make disciples. 4. the chief motive of the Church which is to glorify God.

HE BIG FOUR.

These are what I call ‘the big four’ or true north on the Spiritual compass. Week after week, month after month, year after year, lost churches find themselves just going through the motions i.e. their people come to church, sing three fast ones, two slow ones, listen to a message, put something in the offering, listen to some notices, and finish with a cup of tea and muffin down the back. They don’t stop and ask the questions “why are we doing all this?” ; “What is supposed to be the outcome of all this behaviour?” With respect to ‘the big four’ lost churches have no clear cohesive, definable, measurable strategy in place to draw non-Christians to Christ i.e. to plough, sow, and water their community. There is no on-going training to equip their people to evangelise the world, and no accountability for the same. They wouldn’t know whether their people are evangelising or not. They can only guess. In these churches ‘discipleship’ is a vague and fuzzy smorgasboard of busy spiritual activity where church members get to pick and choose what they want and don’t want. Like cows in a field, they casually and randomly graze from one clump of spiritual grass to the next. Discussion about what should be our chief motivation for doing all we do in Church is usually absent. In short, their Spiritual compass is spinning. In this respect, Jesus was utterly different. He ‘discipled’ the disciples for a specific reason. And what was that reason? To evangelise the world and show them how to draw non-Christians to Himself (Luke 19:10) for the glory of God. For Him, He set His face like flint on the ‘the big four.’. The six step model will help your church find true north again, which will in turn get it fizzing! It will also be a huge help for Christians wherever God has planted them in the non-Christian world. It helps us see that we are missionaries, with specific and strategic Christian tasks to perform i.e. what can I do to ‘plough’ the heart of my fellow workers/students/neighbours? How can I create opportunities to ‘sow’ the seed of the gospel into each of their hearts? What can I do to ‘water’ those seeds? etc. For example, Keith Wilson in New South Wales, Australia, works the six steps into his job. Keith is part of the staff of a Bible College. On 12

the property is Tahlee House and the heritage site. Busloads of nonChristian tourists flock to see this site. Keith has been “wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove.” After showing the guests through the buildings and surrounds, he takes them through a high quality Power Point presentation of its history. At the end he simply says something like, “Thank you ladies and gentleman for coming today. I hope you enjoyed the presentaton and the tour. As you know, this is a Bible College and the staff here are all Christians. A short video has been developed which summarises this entire book (holding up a Bible) in eleven minutes. Most of the tourists in the past who have seen it comment on how they have enjoyed it and how informative it was. If you would like to see this eleven-minute presentation, please stay behind. For those who have other things to do, please feel free to leave at this point. There is a complimentary high tea lunch next door starting in fifteen minutes.” Keith reports that nearly all of the people stay.4 At the end he does not have an altar call, but gives everyone a little booklet which expands on the gospel presentation just seen.5 Keith is an example of a clear-thinking Christian who knows the purpose and priority of the Church. He is seeing the opportunities and making the most of them. The tour of the historical site and the Power Point show are examples of ‘ploughing.’ When he presents the gospel he is ‘sowing.’ The high tea lunch is an example of ‘watering.’ Why don’t you follow Keith’s excellent example and incorporate gospel proclamation into all your church programs and activities? hird, the six step model helps leaders in their planning and praying by showing them where the strengths and weaknesses of their churches lie. For example, it helps them see where evangelism is taking place in their church programme, and where it is not. If your church has

4 Keith is working on ways of increasing the number of people who stay behind. Please pray for this excellent initiative. See www.tahlee.org 5

The gospel presentation and follow up booklets are available from www.esisite.com. The follow up booklet is called “How to be sure of going to heaven when we die.”

meetings where non-Christians are present, you ought to regularly proclaim or spread the gospel there.6 Are all the Christians taking these groups trained and able to give the gospel? Are they doing it? How would you know? Even if the vast majority of people attending a meeting are Christians, there are still valid reasons to proclaim from time to time. our good reasons to proclaim the gospel regularly in your church services… One: You will be equipping your people. Many Christians don’t know what ‘the gospel’ is anymore, because many churches have stopped proclaiming it. We need to remind them regularly of its content. This prepares them to give the gospel to non-Christians with whom they mix. It also signals that this message is at the core of our faith. Two: You will encourage Christians to bring non-Christians to church. Christians who know that a clear, succinct, relevant, uncompromising, gracious, balanced gospel message is being proclaimed at their church are far more likely to bring their nonChristian friends along to hear it. There is a real place, of course, for sermons which strengthen Christians. But if that is all there ever is, you’ll unwittingly hinder evangelism. Three: It will bring the focus back to where it ought to be. It directs us back to the priority of world evangelism (i.e. our mission) and helps refocus churches which have unwittingly strayed from this priority. When church leaders examine the ministries of their church in light of this six-step model, the vast majority quickly discover they have drifted into the modes of ploughing, watering and discipling. Sowing is either absent or sorely neglected. Four: You will see pseudo converts saved. There are people already in local churches that look and sound ‘saved’ but they are not.7 Plus, one never knows just who is sitting in church. Just

6 An ideal option to proclaim the gospel is the 11 minute gospel presentation we have produced called “The Gospel Message!” available from www.esisite.com. 7

I discuss this issue in detail in Chapter Twenty Two.

before I was about to preach in a church I was once visiting, I leaned over to the pastor and said, “Do you want me to present the gospel at the end of my message?” He replied, “I think we’ll be okay this morning. I have had a look at who is here and it’s all the regulars.” A few minutes later he leaned over again and said, “Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to show the gospel message video. I would like my people to see it again. Go for it!” At the end of the service, I presented the gospel. Five people responded for salvation in a congregation of 100. One was a 64-year-old man who had been going to the church for sixteen years. Two were visitors who had slipped into the back of the church after the service had started. The other two were young people who had come to church for the first time with other young people in existing church families. Of course the devil doesn’t want leaders and evangelists to see and understand the six-step model. He certainly does not want church members to know how their church life activities fit into the big picture of drawing non-Christians to Christ. And undoubtedly he wants to perpetuate the lie that evangelism is a process. Now let’s look at each of the six steps in detail.

PLOUGHING

God uses at least five ways to ‘plough’ the soil of the human heart - that is, to prepare people to receive the words of the gospel and to receive Him. He will use: 1. Christian actions such as giving out food parcels, prayer, intercession, worship, fasting, making friends with nonChristians, setting up community projects, inviting people to church, giving a testimony, talking with people about God over coffee, apologetics, Christian counselling, dreams, visions, and so on 2. Creation (Romans 1:20) 3. Conscience (Romans 2:15) 4. The Law (Galatians 3:24) 15

Pain and difficult times (e.g. Psalm 119:67) The goal of ploughing is to create the right heart conditions in non-Christians so that when they hear the gospel and understand it, they will receive it with joy. The contribution of those involved in ploughing ministries is vital and cannot be overstated. After all, unploughed ground will not yield a harvest. The following is a recent example from my own experience which illustrates how our behaviour as Christians can ‘plough’ the soil of the hearts of non-Christians to make them more open to Christianity and to receiving Christ. ow returning some sunglasses ploughed the ground… One morning, I set out to buy a new pair of sunglasses. I wanted a good quality pair, but decided to visit a second-hand shop to see if I could snaffle a bargain. It was about 9:30am when I arrived at the shop. The weather was fine, warm and still; and sitting outside were two people enjoying a cup of tea and a cigarette. They looked relaxed and in no hurry, and so pulling my iphone from my pocket, I approached the older of the two people. She was a woman in her forties. Me: (smiling and casual) “Excuse me. I wonder if you can help me?” Betty: (smiling and drawing on her cigarette) “Sure.” Me: “What’s the best selling book in the world?” Betty: “Don’t know. What is it?” Me: “It’s the Bible. We just made a video which summarises the whole book in 11 minutes. Here, have a look” (handing her my iphone) Betty: “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I would rather not do this. I am not religious and I don’t really want to know about Christianity. Is that okay?” Me: (smiling) “Sure, no problem. Hey, you have a good day.” I left these two people on good terms and entered the secondhand shop, soon finding two pairs of sunglasses that I liked. I couldn’t decide which pair to choose and so I decided to ask the

person behind the counter if I could pay for both and take them to a friend who worked nearby as an optometrist. She would know which pair best suited the shape of my face. So I walked to the sales person, two pairs of sunglasses in hand. The assistant was the person whom I had tried to “love with the gospel” outside the shop only a few minutes earlier. It turned out she was the manager. We exchanged some small talk as I paid for the glasses with a credit card. One pair was $59 and the other $20. I left the shop and went to see the optometrist. She thought the $20 pair looked best. I returned promptly to the second hand shop and the manager credited my card for $59. I thanked her and left the shop. As I was driving along, I soon became aware that the glasses were top quality. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, these glasses are amazing. They seem so light and the view they give is fantastic.” I stopped the car on the side of the road to inspect them more closely. When I read the inscription on the inside of one of the arms I got really excited – Giorgio Armani! Yes, I had bought a pair of Giorgio Armani sunglasses for $20. I soon sobered up. “Those glasses shouldn’t have been $20. They should have been about $200 second-hand.” I inspected the little box that the manager had given me. Inside was the original price tag - $419. Just then my iphone rang. I told my friend on the other end about the sunglasses. She replied, “Don’t worry about it. That shop is always ripping people off by buying stuff from people desperate for money and then on-selling the goods for a huge profit. Keep them and enjoy them!” I hung up the phone and thought about the situation. I knew I would never be able to enjoy those glasses if they were not completely and honestly mine. If the shopkeeper had made a mistake, and I didn’t return them, the glasses would not be “fantastic” no matter what brand they were or how expensive they were. I already knew in my heart that I did not want to displease Jesus. 17

Furthermore, holding onto the glasses would wreck my Bible reading, because my conscience would plague me. So after finding the phone number of the shop from the sales docket, I rang the manager. Betty: “Good morning, Cash Converters. Can I help you?” Me: “Hi. My name is Julian. I am the guy that just bought a pair of sunglasses from you…” Betty: (cutting me off in mid sentence) “Yeah, what’s the problem?” Me: “I don’t think they are a $20 pair of sunglasses.” Betty: “Yes, they are. They are $20. You got them off the rack of $20 glasses.” She was a little defensive, as though I were accusing her of charging me too much. Me: “No, I don’t think they are $20. You see, I just looked on the inside of one of the arms on the frame and it says Giorgio Armani.” Betty: (after a prolonged pause) “Okay… you’d better come back to the shop.” Me: “Okay. See you in a minute.” When I entered the shop the manager was waiting eagerly. I handed her the glasses, and she quickly inspected the inside of the frame. She looked up and called to one of the sales assistants. He came over and I realised he was the person who had been sitting with the manager outside the shop during a break thirty minutes earlier. Betty: (loudly) “Get those glasses over there sorted out! They are all mixed up! We just about sold a $150 pair of sunglasses for $20!” (Turning to me and smiling) “Thank you for returning these.” The sales assistant took the glasses and scuttled off in the direction of the glasses case. I followed him, curious to see the price of the other ‘expensive’ glasses. 18

Under his breath, and looking furtively over his shoulder to make sure the manager was not listening, he said, “No one ever returns things if they paid too little!” Not seeing any other glasses that I liked, I returned to the manager and told her that I would still like to buy the Giorgio Armani glasses. I handed her my credit card. She swiped it and charged another $130 to my account. As she handed me the sales docket, the other assistant returned and stood beside the manager. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out two booklets. The booklets explained what a Christian was and how to become one. Me: (offering the books to the manager and her assistant, and speaking gently) “Here. Have one of these. They explain what a Christian is and how to be forgiven.” Betty: (smiling and extending her hand to receive the booklet). “Thank you. Look, I really appreciate your coming back with those glasses. I am going to read this.” The assistant: (also smiling) “Yeah, thanks, me too.” We shook hands, said our goodbyes and I left the shop. I can’t describe the joy and peace that flooded my soul as I walked out. I had paid a lot more for those sunglasses than I ever wanted to, but I knew the act of returning them had ‘ploughed’ the hearts of the manager and her assistant so they were open to Christianity and to receiving the seed of the gospel.

SOWING

‘Sowing’ is the proclamation or spread of the gospel. It is explaining to non-Christians why they must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved, and the cost of discipleship. Where does the Bible teach about ‘sowing’ and ‘seed?’ Earlier in this Chapter, I referred to passages in 1 Peter and Luke, where Jesus explained that the seed is the Word of God. ‘Sowing’ is the second and most crucial component of the four 19

component parts of the Great Commission.8

WATERING

‘Watering’ activities are the things Christians do that provide favourable conditions for the seed of the gospel to grow. They are the same as ‘ploughing’ activities except that they happen after someone has heard the gospel. Both seek to improve the likelihood of the seed taking root. That is, they move the non-Christian closer to the point of conversion. The apostle Paul recognised the importance of this: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6). It is easy to water the seed of the gospel once it has been planted. Recently I went into a café with a friend to present the gospel. I was training my friend to evangelise, and chose this café because it was empty. The staff members of empty cafés are often likely to have time to hear the gospel. The conversation went something like this: Me: “Just two coffees thanks – lattes, please.” Staff member: “No problem.” Me: (in a friendly way) “Hey, who is the manager here?” Staff member: “It’s me, actually. How can I help?” Me: (smiling and holding up my iphone) “Can I ask you a question. What’s the best selling book in the world etc.” She accepted my invitation to watch the video. After she had made my coffee, she enthusiastically watched the video. At the end, she confessed she was going to hell. I prayed with her and gave her a follow-up booklet. She then went back to work. When I went to pay the bill it came to seven dollars. I handed 8

The four basic components of the Great Commission are going, sowing, baptising, discipling.

her a $10 note and said, “Please keep the change. You were very gracious to give us your time and let us take you through that presentation. Thanks for helping us.” This is one simple way of ‘watering’ the seed we have planted. Another is to clear the plates off the table for the staff and take them to the servery. ‘Watering’ is an essential part of the process of drawing nonChristians to Christ. When people have heard the gospel message, do we just put our feet up and sigh with relief? No! We need to be more zealous than ever in giving out food parcels, praying, interceding, worshipping, fasting, making friends, setting up community projects, inviting people to church, giving a testimony, talking with people about God over coffee, serving, counselling and so on. But if we water without sowing all we get is mud.

GROWING

‘Growing’ is the supernatural work of God to grow the seed of the gospel – that is, to save people. Only God can do this. It is His sovereign work to convict non-believers of the truth of the gospel message that they have heard. Scripture tells us the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are involved in this process: “When He [the Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). While the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment, the Father draws the non-Christian to Himself. “…For this reason I have told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted by the Father” (John 6:65). Then there is John 12:32 “And I [Jesus], if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” nly God can grow the seed of the gospel… Read carefully what theologians have said about growing the seed of the gospel. Dr Leon Morris: “Left to ourselves, we continue in sin. It is only as God does a

work of grace in us that we have the desire and the strength to turn away from evil and respond to the message of salvation. People come to Jesus not because they are gifted with unusual spiritual perception, but because it is ‘given’ them from the Father. The whole of our salvation, from start to finish, is a work of God.”9 Dr Michael Green: “[Fruitfulness in evangelism] is something which depends entirely on the work of the Holy Spirit. All is the Spirit’s work, not ours. That must never be forgotten. We can speak the challenge, urge and encourage as we will, but we are unable to bring anyone ‘from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God’ (Acts 26:18). That is God’s sovereign work alone.”10 Dr John Stott: “God has only commissioned us to preach the gospel to all nations; the results belong to Him.”11 uh? If God wants everyone saved, and only God can save people, how come not everyone ends up being saved? Dr William Barclay explains why some people do not become Christians, even after they have heard the full gospel. “Jesus was well aware that there were those who would not only reject His offer but who would also reject it with hostility. Jesus had insight into human nature. He could read [people’s] hearts; and the greatest responsibility of the human heart is that there is a core over which we and we alone have control. No one can accept Jesus unless he is moved by the Spirit of God to do so, but… a person can resist that Spirit, and such a one is not shut out by God; he is shut out by himself.”12 Barclay, Stott, Green and Morris are explaining the interplay

9 Dr Leon Morris. Reflections On The Gospel Of John. Volume 2: The Bread Of Life. John 6-10. Baker Books, 1987, p.248 10 Dr Michael Green. Evangelism Through The Local Church. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, p.10 11 Dr John R.W. Stott. Christian Mission. IVP, 1975, p.38 12 Dr William Barclay, John. Volume 1. Edinburgh, Saint Andrews Press, 2001, p.236

between the drawing power of God and the free will of the person who has heard the gospel. The devil would like us to forget it is only God who can save people. Instead of understanding that it is God alone who convicts, we can be deceived into thinking it is we who must save people. In Chapter Three we discussed how our efforts in the battle are hindered when we perceive evangelism as the winning of souls. Never inviting non-Christians to come to Christ is wrong too… The opposite extreme, however, is to never invite someone to consider a commitment. The reason many people don’t come to Christ is because we don’t invite them! We need to be looking, praying and expecting to bring people to the point of decision after we have presented the gospel. I do this by asking two questions: “Is there any reason why you shouldn’t turn and surrender right now?” If they say “no” to this question I ask a second: “Would you like to turn and surrender right now?” If they say “yes” I pray the sinner’s prayer with them and lead them to Christ.13 But I don’t stop there. lways give away a follow up booklet which synchronises with your gospel presentation… Say the non-Christian I have just led to the Lord is called Bill. To avoid the twin disasters of “easy believe-ism” and “pseudo conversions” I say, “Bill, I believe the prayer you just said was genuine. I believe it came right from your heart and it was sincere. But I can’t see into your heart, and you can’t see into mine. I can’t be sure of what was going on in your heart. Here is a little booklet I would like to give you (showing Bill the booklet). In the middle section (showing the middle section) there are seven questions and a

13 This prayer is in the follow up booklet “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die” which you can purchase at www.esisite.com

genuineness test. If you read carefully through this section, you will be able to tell whether your turning and surrendering to Jesus really was sincere.” e discerning… There are provisos with this advice. First, in a one-on-one situation it is not always appropriate to ask these two questions. We must discern each situation, case by case, and be led by the Spirit. Secondly, if I am proclaiming the gospel in a crowd situation, I always give an altar call. This is because, unlike in a one-on-one situation, it is even more difficult to discern what the Holy Spirit is doing in the heart of each individual.

HARVESTING

Harvesting is gathering into the Church – the body of Christ – those who have been convicted and grown by the Holy Spirit. Harvesting is reaping what has been ploughed, sown, watered and grown. In essence, it is any situation where a non-Christian accepts Jesus as Saviour and Lord and joins the Church.14 NonChristians are harvested into the Church in two ways: a. By a sovereign act of God. For example, imagine a Muslim lady who lives in the middle of Iran where there is no Christian in any direction for 500 kilometres. One night Jesus appears to her in a dream and she converts to Christianity. b. By human invitation. This is what happens at altar calls, for example, or during personal evangelism.

DISCIPLING

Discipling is bringing the souls that have been harvested to spiritual maturity so that the cycle of all six steps continues to flourish. In the main, this is the job of the local church. hy sowing is a critical step… It goes without saying that if we neglect any of the five

14 By “the Church” I mean that body of believers on earth who have also accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. And yes, it’s good for them to identify with a local church and join in.

steps over which we have control,15 the consequences will be disastrous. The biblical blueprint is for all six steps to flourish. But if we neglect sowing, the penalty is severest of all. In the natural realm, if a farmer sows little seed he will get a small harvest, no matter how diligent and masterful his ploughing. It is the same in the supernatural realm. Given that little sowing of the gospel is going on, I don’t anticipate a great harvest. Presuming to expect a harvest without planting seed is not faith but folly. Imagine a wheat farmer who spends all his time diligently ploughing and fertilising his fields, building sophisticated irrigation systems, cleaning his farm equipment and devising pestmanagement programmes. He is also a devoted and disciplined Christian. One year he gets the idea that ‘by faith’ he is going to ask God for a crop of wheat without planting any seed. He is certain that if he prays and fasts, worships with fervour in his house, and continues preparing his fields faithfully, he will wake up one day and see a healthy crop of wheat in his well-ploughed fields. Is this farmer a spiritual giant or is he a fool? That’s right, he’s a fool. Here’s the thing: there is no difference between this farmer and the modern Church if the Church focuses only on ploughing, plants no seed, and still expects a great influx of souls. The devil laughs with delight when he sees us living in spiritual la la land. In short, we are fools if we think we can get away without sowing. What’s the lesson here? eep “The Big Four” firmly in focus in your church! Dean Comerford, a colleague in New Zealand and friend in the ministry, made an astute comment: “When it comes to

15 There is one step we do not have ultimate control over: growing.

revival,” he said, “we are all waiting around on earth praying for God to do the miraculous, while God is in heaven waiting for us to do the obvious.” The obvious is getting back to evangelising the world. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. People reap what they sow” (Galatians 6:7). nother reason why God does not instantly convert everyone… Sometimes people have asked me, “If God is the only one who can convert people, then, for heaven’s sake, why doesn’t He just do it? It’s so easy for Him, so hard for us. Why can’t we just move from ploughing to harvest? Couldn’t God save us the effort and sovereignly convert everyone, irrespective of whether they have heard the gospel?” Aside from the issue of breaking the law of sowing and reaping, there is another reason why God will not bring a harvest of souls into the Church without the proclamation of the gospel16: He will not honour disobedience. “Your word, O Lord, is established in the heavens. It shall not be moved” (Psalm 119:89). According to scholar A. A. Anderson, the phrase “Your word” is an expression of God’s all-embracing purpose and will, and it is fixed for all time.17 “You must not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it…” (Deuteronomy 4:2). The New Testament continues the theme: “Heaven and earth will pass away but My words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). The command for the whole Church to go to the whole world with the whole gospel still stands. God will not honour our efforts to skip ‘sowing’ – the priority – by focussing only on ‘ploughing.’ Without sowing, we will never inherit the fulness of God’s

16 Some churches have grown phenomenally without doing any evangelism. They have ‘grown’ through marketing. 17 Arnold Anderson. The Book Of Psalms: Volume II. Greenwood: Attic, 1972, pp.831-2

blessing and the non-Christian world will not be as impacted as it could be. Sowing is the task of the Church, and the redemption of the world, the salvation of sinners, and the glory of God really depend on our obedience. I believe God is in heaven crying out to the angels, “When will My people do as I commanded them? I long to save those who hear My gospel.18 I will not go back on My command in Mark 16:15.19 Once those that don’t know Me hear the gospel, I will honour My Word by drawing them, for My word will not return void.20 Holy Spirit, I know You long to go to those who hear, and convict them so they might be saved.21 I long to bring about an end-time harvest of souls into My Kingdom22 but I will not until My Church sows the field of the world with the gospel.” Paul the Apostle made a passionate plea to the church in Rome not to neglect sowing. “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?’” (Romans 10:14 -15). Amos goes on to say that to neglect any command of God can threaten our intimacy with Him. This threat becomes more acute when the command neglected is His priority. Amos 3:3 says, “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?” If we in the Church disagree with God about the priority (and clearly, judging by the collapse of personal evangelism in the West, we do disagree with Him), guess who needs to change?

18 2 Peter 3:9. Luke 15. The lost sheep, the lost son, and the lost penny. John 3:16 19 Psalm 119:89 20 Isaiah 55:10-11 21 John 16:8 22 Mark 4:29

hat is humility..? Many who desperately want to see a harvest of souls into the Church quote 2 Chronicles 7:14; “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Often when leaders explain this verse, they emphasise the need for radical prayer and turning away from sin, repentance, confession, holiness, seeking God’s face, fasting, worship, meditation, silence, etc - all great strategies and weapons in the battle for souls - but how often do we hear about the humility of which this verse speaks? Humility is simply doing things God’s way. The most humble person is not the quietest person but the one who most closely obeys Jesus. Proclaiming the gospel was the priority of Jesus. Wherever He went, He explained who He was and why He’d come. A big part of true humility, then, is to imitate Jesus’ evangelistic lifestyle. To return to the priority of evangelism would be an act not only of humility but also of repentance. It is futile to pray for a great harvest of souls and yet not go to them with the gospel, the instrument God has ordained to bring about their salvation (Romans 1:16). eep prayer and proclamation together… Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Prayer and means [gospel proclamation] must go together. Means without prayer is presumption. Prayer without means is hypocrisy!”23 “Preaching the gospel is spiritual chemistry,” writes Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. “Prayer brings power but preaching releases it. Preaching the gospel is like plugging into a power socket. The

23 Charles H. Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Grand Rapids. Zondervan, 1948, p.140

gospel cannot be used until it is spoken. Proclamation is absolutely part of the divine plan. People are saved in no other way.”24 nswer your own prayers… Once there was a wealthy farmer who lived in a country where there was a famine. He used to conduct family prayers in the house every day and used to pray that God would help the poor people who had not enough to eat. One day after prayers, his young son said to him, “Father, I wish I had some of your corn.” “Why do you wish that?” said the farmer. “Because,” said the son, “if I had, I would answer your prayers.” The boy was quite right. The farmer prayed to God to help the starving people and he could well have helped them himself.25 o, you want revival…? History shows us that if we want revival, or a great influx of souls into the Church, all six steps in the model I have discussed here must flourish. According to George Barna, every revival in the history of the modern world has been grounded in an explosion of prayer and evangelism.26 Dr William Hendriksen and Dr John Piper are two leaders who issue a stern warning as we consider the cost of neglecting sowing. Dr William Hendriksen: “The Spirit is working mightily, always in connection with the Word, the gospel.”27 Dr John Piper writes: “[The gospel] is the weapon that God designed to use in penetrating the kingdom of darkness and gathering the children of light from all the nations (Acts 26:1618). His whole redemptive plan for the universe hangs on the

24 Reinhard Bonnke. Evangelism By Fire. Igniting Your Passion For The Lost. Kingsway Publication, 1996, p.125 25 Cited in: Dr William Barclay. Ambassador For Christ. The Saint Andrew Press, 1973, p.70 26 George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, p.23 27 William Hendriksen. Mark. New Testament Commentary. Banner of Truth Trust, 1975, p.168

success of His Word. If the proclamation of the Word aborts, the purposes of God fail.”28 Missiologist and author Dr Donald McGavran pleads with church leaders to understand and act on what people like Barna, Piper and Hendriksen are saying. “Every expansion of the Church in all ages,” he writes, “has depended upon the Word [i.e. the gospel] being spread by believing Christians of all ranks.”29 vangelising the world is very achievable… Evangelising the nation you live in is very achievable.30 Take New Zealand for example. If there are 250,000 genuine Christians in New Zealand with its population of about 5 million, and each were to proclaim the gospel to one non-Christian every week, we could see New Zealand evangelised in a sizzling twenty weeks. Say Australia has a population of 20 million, and one million genuine believers, they too could evangelise their nation in 20 weeks. Say Britain has six million genuine believers out of 60 million, they could evangelise their nation in a smoking hot ten weeks. On a global scale, if all born-again believers mobilised in this way, the proclaimers would not only evangelise those who were already living in no time at all, but our proclamation efforts would easily outstrip population growth. And if they hear it multiple times? Well and good. And here’s an exciting thought - when everyone has heard, one of the major conditions for the return of Jesus will have been fulfilled (e.g. Matthew 24:14). Yes, this could be the generation which experiences the Second Coming of Christ. ur ploughing efforts so far have not been wasted… All our efforts so far through ploughing may not have

28 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad. The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, pp.64-65 29 Dr Donald McGavran. Effective Evangelism. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing. New Jersey, 1988, p.50 30 By “evangelising” I mean ensuring that everyone in the nation has heard and understood clearly the words of the full gospel, delivered graciously and sensitively by a Christian.

been wasted – if we now go and sow the seed of the gospel. Our faithful, relentless ploughing has been great preparation. There has never been a time when New Zealand and the Western countries to which I’ve travelled have been more ready to receive the gospel. The following story goes some way to prove statistically that New Zealand, at least, is ripe for sowing the gospel and that our efforts with ploughing have not been wasted. ntroverted nurse becomes prolific proclaimer… In 1999 a 23-year-old nurse attended one of my evangelism seminars at a Baptist church in New Zealand. Adelle, as we’ll call her, was a self-confessed introvert. About six months after the seminar I received a phone call. Me: “Good morning. Julian speaking.” Adelle: “Hi, my name is Adelle. You won’t remember me but I attended your seminar two years ago at Napier Baptist church.” Me: “Great! How have you been getting on, Adelle?” Adelle: “Well, I attended your seminar because I wanted to say to God at the end of my life that I had given the gospel to at least one person. When I attended your seminar, I was so shy I couldn’t even speak to people at church. I sat right down the back so I wouldn’t be noticed.” Me: “How have you got on? Have you managed to achieve your goal and reach that one person?” Adelle: “Yes, I have.” Me: “How wonderful! What happened?” Adelle: “It went really well. I so felt that God was with me that I wanted to try to give the gospel to a second person right away, which I did. That encounter was even better than the first, and so I thought I’d give the gospel to someone else.” Me: “God bless you! So you reached a few people then?” Adelle: “Actually, I went home and decided I would try to go

door–to–door around my neighbourhood. I work as a night nurse, go to work at eleven and get home at seven. I sleep until midday or so, have something to eat and then set out around the neighbourhood giving the gospel. I keep good records and work systematically, so I know who is in every home.” Me: (astonished at her courage and commitment) “So you go on your own?” Adelle: “Yes.” Me: “How long have you been doing this?” Adelle: “About six months.” Me: “And how many people have you reached with the gospel?” Adelle: “About a thousand.” Me: “Incredible. How have you found it? How many people have said they didn’t want to see the presentation, or have been aggressive?” Adelle: “Only two people. One was my father and the other was a drunken man.” Me: “What about all the others?” Adelle: “They were absolutely brilliant. About twelve families have come to the Lord. At Christmas time I received a stack of Christmas cards and when I’m out shopping, people often stop me and ask me questions about the Bible and things. I’ve had seven marriage proposals!” Me: “Wow, and you said you were an introvert?” Adelle: “I’ve been healed. Going with the gospel has completely changed me.” In Adelle’s own neighbourhood, only two out of 1000 people did not want to take the time to hear an in-depth explanation of Christianity and to find out how they could be forgiven. Why such a good result? The faithful ‘ploughing’ of many Christians. The positive responses are testimony to the excellent preparatory 32

work the Church has done. Now all that’s needed in that neighbourhood is for the churches to enter into radical and persistent “watering.” Ploughing, sowing, watering - all three are neccesary. he fields in most Western countries are well ploughed, waiting to be sown! In most Western countries, ploughing has been done well and the fields are ready for seed. We still need to press in and go further in prayer, service and good works. But it is time to sow. The non-Christian world is ready right now for the seed of the gospel. Their spiritual hearts are like soft, warm soil. God wants to save souls. He has made that clear in His Word. He has shown His hand. What are we going to do? No army ever won a war by hiding in their bunkers. If we want to win the battle for souls, we must enter the fray with a renewed commitment and passion to see all six steps in the model I have discussed here flourishing, particularly personal evangelism. You may want to pray with me right now: “Dear Lord Jesus, work through this book to cause me to take up personal evangelism. Please help me. I need an outpouring of Your Holy Spirit into my life right now. And if I don’t feel anything, I am going to start anyway, knowing you said you’d always be with me. I don’t want to continue being inactive in evangelism. I want to be a doer of the Word. Help me to lay down all my excuses and come out from under the influence of any of the devil’s devices and take steps for training. Help me to set goals, to be accountable and to fight for this “greatest of all” causes – not for a few weeks to see how it goes, but for the rest of my life, irrespective of how it goes or what other people think of me. You said You would be with me and I stand on this promise. I lean on You and depend on Your help and supply. Sometimes it will

be tough, Lord, and I expect disappointment and discouragement, but also great joy as I step out and learn how to evangelise . I will run the race, and run to get the prize. I’ll try to mobilise others to follow my example, but if they don’t, it won’t stop me. I am still going to learn and grow. I am committed. I’ve made up my mind. I will not turn back. So help me, Jesus. Amen.” Now, that is a great prayer!

S • • • • • •

•

• •

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ummary Thinking of evangelism as a process is heresy. Evangelism is not a process. Evangelism is an event within a six step process. There are six steps in the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ. The six steps are: ploughing, sowing, watering, growing, harvesting, and discipling. These six steps are to a local church what a compass is to an explorer. They help a church keep its eye on the mission and the purpose, and stop it from losing its way. It is vital for each ministry and person in a church to know where they fit in relation to the big picture (i.e.drawing non-Christians to Christ), just as it was vital for workers at NASA to know where they fitted in relation to the big picture of being the first nation on earth to have a man walk on the moon. The six step model will help achieve this. Want revival? Then engage in both radical prayer and radical evangelism. The most humble person in a church is not the quietest. It’s the person who most closely obeys the commands of Jesus, chief of which is to evangelise. CTION POINT: Purchase a “Six steps banner” and start teaching about the steps in your church. Order

from the home page on www.esisite.com. Relentlessly filter everthing that goes on in your church through this six step model. • CTION POINT: Relentlessly teach “THE BIG FOUR” in your church: 1. THE BIG PICTURE which is to draw non-Christians to Christ for the glory of God. 2. THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH which is to evangelise the world. 3. THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH which is to make disciples. 4. THE MOTIVE which is to glorify God. The greatest way to glorify God is to do His will. The priority of His will is to evangelise the world and make disciples who will join in with the priority. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com.

In the next Chapter I examine another four possible reasons why we have lost confidence in the gospel, and give four simple solutions. Meditating on these reasons and solutions will contribute to a resurgence in world evangelism and the Great Commission. If you and the people in your church are not doing evangelism, one reason maybe is that they have lost confidence in the gospel. Come with me to the next Chapter in the series, and I’ll show you what I mean.....

Real Life Story all she wanted was a clear presentation of the gospel I am a Presbyterian minister in New Zealand who has learnt to go door to door giving the gospel like the Apostles in Acts 5:40-43. Last week it was a real buzz going out evangelising with Colin, one of my parishioners. Colin recently attended the ESI evangelism conference in our town, so he was all fired up and keen to put into action his new love for Jesus and the Great Commission. It was his first time going out with me. We would have knocked on 12 doors before we met Glenda who is in her 60s. We introduced ourselves, telling who we were and asked if she minded answering some questions for us and she willingly agreed. When she found out we belonged to the Presbyterian church she shared how she has been involved in numerous churches over the years: Anglican, Presbyterian, Mormon, Jehovah Witness , Methodist and now associates with the Catholic church. Needless to say our ears pricked up at this stage. Glenda went on to tell us her experiences of these churches and how they all push their different religion. I shared how there is a lot of confusion out 36

there and asked if she would like to a clear presentation of a summary of the Bible. She agreed, and I showed her the gospel which is now on my smart phone. When it came to the part that talked about where she would go if she died tonight, Glenda pointed down. I said to her, “it sounds like you wouldn’t get to heaven. Would you like assurance?” She said yes. I had a sense she had been searching for the truth for years, but no one had taken the time to tell her what the gospel was and what she must do to be saved. I asked if she was willing to turn away from her sin and surrender her life to Christ. Again she said yes, and I led her in the sinner’s prayer, and broke off the confusion over her life. She looked radiant and said she felt like a weight lifted off her. We have agreed to meet next week and I will begin discipling her. God is so good!!

Julian’s comments.

IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM THIS TESTIMONY: Iain didn’t say what the response was like in the other 12 houses they visited. Doubtless, there might have been a variety of experiences: no one home, a rejection or two, someone disinterested, someone too busy etc etc. 37

This didn’t stop Iain and Colin. They persevered until they found the lost sheep, the lost penny. This is the whole point of those parables. Lost people have to be searched for. And often it’s an inconvenience looking for them. The shepherd looking for the lost sheep had to fight his way through bushes and shrubs, stumble over fallen trees, climb awkward rock faces etc – these are the 12 houses before finding the lady who is the subject of this story. It’s good to go in pairs when you are starting out and learning how to evangelise. I think this is why Jesus sent them out in twos. We need each other’s encouragement. But eventually, you want to get to the point where you can evangelise on your own. People want to know what the Church is on about. They want to know our message, what drives us, and what motivates us. The gospel answers their cry. We just need to get it to them. This dear lady had been searching all her life, looking for someone to tell her what it’s all about. The Holy Spirit works through clarity. Jesus said in Matthew 13:23 that understanding is critical when it comes to communicating the gospel. How long are we going to expect non-Christians to ‘get it’ when we throw out one liners and tit bits, bill boards, and news paper ads, hoping they’ll be able to piece together the disarray and make sense of it? How tragic she had to wait until her twilight years before finding the truth. Whose to blame here? The truth is, we all are. When was the last time you heard a clear gospel message articulated in your church? When did you last articulate it? Are all the people in your church being trained to be able to do this? If not, what is your plan to make this a reality?

Chapter Twelve

“CONFIDENCE IN THE GOSPEL, COME BACK!” FOUR ESSENTIAL STEPS TO RECLAIMING LOST GROUND.

“Confidence In The Gospel Come Back!”

Four Essential Steps To Reclaiming Lost Ground!

veryone of the devices cited in this Chapter are designed to cause Christians to stop evangelising. But some cause Christians to lose confidence in the gospel message as well. The following are four of the most toxic which do this.

EVICE # 31 Have us thinking we are proclaiming “the” gospel when really it’s been another gospel we have been communicating.

Over time the enemy has whittled away at the content of the gospel message we have been proclaiming so that at a certain point in our history it was not the gospel at all we were communicating, but “other gospels” (Galatians 1:9) i.e. The true gospel message was lost. We ended up with soft messages, stripped of all the hard sayings of Jesus, of the law, of hell, judgement, the wrath of God, and of the cost of discipleship etc. These ‘other gospels’ were not the powerful gospel Paul speaks of in Romans 1:16, and so it was no wonder few people were impacted through them. And seeing so little fruit for their efforts, Christians lost confidence in what they were spreading and proclaiming (as you would expect) and stopped ‘evangelising’. But here’s the thing - they thought they were proclaiming the powerful 2

gospel which Paul the Apostle preached, but really they weren’t. The real gospel was never put to the test, so the result of proclaiming and spreading it were never seen. In short, the gospel was given a bad name by false gospels circulating in the Christian community.

EVICE # 32 Have us pay little attention to delivery issues so we give “the” gospel a bad name and stop using it.

There are many factors which make for an effective evangelism experience and one of them is the skill of the delivery. The enemy knows this so he’s worked hard at getting us to pay little attention to delivery issues. He knows that when the gospel is delivered poorly, the chances of a bad experience increase dramatically. In turn these bad experiences cause those doing the evangelism to stop. “Non-Christians are just not interested in hearing the gospel,” is the conclusion they come to. “They are as hard as granite. Postmodern people are just not receptive to the gospel.” But really it was not the gospel which was faulty or the receptivity of the nonChristian to the message - it was one or more issues related to the delivery.1 hat ‘delivery issues’ can hinder evangelism? • Our dress. If we don’t dress like the people we are reaching, or if we dress in an odd way, we reinforce their suspicions that Christians are an odd lot. Yet when they reject us we think it’s the gospel they are rejecting. • Our manner of speaking. We may stumble, fumble and bumble because we have had no training in how to proclaim the gospel. Yet when they reject us we

1 That said, even if we are careful to avoid these hindrances, sometimes the gospel message will offend - and people will reject us for it. However, I can think of no more than a dozen instances when it was purely the gospel message which offended someone I was reaching with the gospel. With other instances of rejection, I can be sure it was one of the above hindrances which caused offence, not the gospel.

think it’s the gospel they are rejecting. • Our personal hygiene. Dandruff, bad breath and body odour don’t help our efforts to proclaim the gospel. • Our timing. We need to be discerning when seeking people to talk to. If we choose people who are busy they may brush us off – not because they don’t want to hear our message but because it just wasn’t the right time. • Our lack of respect for privacy. We may embarrass non-Christians by approaching them when others are within earshot or when others are looking at them. • Our tools. We present the message using shoddy, photocopied pieces of paper or visual aids which look cheap and nasty. The “cringe factor” is very high. Yet when they reject us we think it’s the gospel they are rejecting. • Our lack of clarity. The content may be all there but it may be disorganised and confusing. The listener gives up trying to understand. Yet when they reject us we think it’s the gospel they are rejecting. • Our daily demeanour and behaviour. Our behaviour around the office, home, classroom, campus or sports’ field might not befit a Christian. They don’t want to listen to someone who is not walking the talk. Yet when they reject us we think it’s the gospel they are rejecting. • Our over-estimation of how much non-Christians know about Christianity. We often use Christian phrases, terms and ideas which have a unique meaning to Christians (i.e. righteousness, the blood of the lamb, sin, saved, repent, redeemed, sanctified, etc). When we use these terms in our gospel presentations without defining them 4

carefully, those listening become lost and confused. Yet when they reject us we think it’s the gospel they are rejecting.

EVICE # 33. Have us over-react to the charge we are all talk and no walk.

At a certain point in the history of the Western Church, leaders observed that we were not doing much practically for nonChristians. It was perceived we did so much talking that social justice and action hardly featured. They feared we had become a Church which was “all talk and no walk.” Instead of addressing the issue Biblically which would have meant focussing on all the six steps which I mentioned in the previous Chapter, the enemy caused us to over-react and the Church swung wildly to the other extreme, dumping evangelism. Now we’re all walk and no talk.2

EVICE # 34 Convince leaders to create a new image of Christianity where the hard sayings of Jesus and the evangelisation of the world are taboo.

The enemy has been able to convince some leaders to become so uncomfortable with aspects of “old school” or “traditional” Christianity and teaching (e.g.calls to suffer, die to self, take up one’s cross, live a life of sacrifice; talk of such things as sin, final judgement, the wrath of God, hell etc) that they are re-inventing a new one. This “new image of Christianity” strips out the hard sayings and demands of Jesus and life becomes entirely about what Jesus can do for us, rather than completing His mission and what we can do for Him. These “new image of Christianity” churches become “psych centres” where one comes to church to be comforted, receive tips on how to live a more fulfilling, prosperous life, and be built up, 2 Many would argue that we are still very weak with social action and proclamation and we ought to up the tempo of both.

encouraged, and loved. Everything is done to the highest level of excellence. Instead of being the Saviour of the world and Lord of all, someone to whom we submit our whole lives, for His service and glory, in these “new image of Christianity” churches Jesus is portrayed as a mere life coach. He helps Christians do life better, and to live excellently. All of this is marketing Christians as positive-thinking, light-hearted, fun-loving, always smiling, cleanliving, generous, kind-hearted, moral, servant-spirited, nice, fashion conscious, upwardly mobile, relationally-driven people. The Bible appears to be central, but really it is not. Rather than it being the final authority for life and conduct, it becomes a reference manual to back up or justify the “tips” and points of view which the speakers have discovered from their own life experience. Large chunks of the New Testament, particularly the hard sayings of Jesus, are never unpacked or even talked about. In these “new image of Christianity” churches, as salt and pepper are to a meal, so Bible verses are sprinkled on everything that goes on, hiding what’s really going on. Phrases like “it’s all about Jesus” are frequently uttered, but in reality, “Jesus” is just a veneer. The whole purpose of Church is to make people who come feel good, loved, and accepted. Behind all this, usually, is the issue of money. Yes, many of these churches are businesses. If people leave, the money goes down, so great care is taken to not offend or challenge anyone, lest they leave. In effect, the people in these churches are constantly being groomed through the sermons, “the atmosphere”, the worship, and general culture of the church to stay at church, and keep tithing. The core of the problem with these “new image of Christianity” churches is that they have lost what historians call “the two world view” - living in this world with a clear eye on the world to come. Dr Paul N. Benware, professor of Bible and Doctrine at Philadelphia 6

Biblical University writes: “Christians seem to be expending great energy time and resources trying to create their own personal garden of Eden.” He then goes on to quote C.S Lewis who said: “A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things that a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this world. Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth, and you will get neither.”3 In these “new image of Christianity” churches, going into all the world to proclaim or spread the gospel breaks all the rules of “cool”. It’s un-cool for at least two reasons: • The subject matter in the historic Biblical gospel message is seen as unacceptable. It’s perceived as negative, harsh, confrontational, and “old school” or “traditional” because it mentions topics like hell, judgement, the wrath of God, holiness, original sin, and punishment. As such, it might put non-Christians off coming to church. Worse still, it might make those who deliver it look like odd balls or wet blankets. All of this is perceived as very ‘uncool.’ • The most serious issue is that the charge to evangelise puts pressure on people inside the church to do something they 3 Paul N.Benware. The Believers Payday. Why Standing Before Christ Should Be Our Greatest Moment. AMG Publishers. Tennessee. 2002. p.3-4.

might not feel like doing. This in turn might cause them to turn away from church which would in turn cause the tithe to go down. For these reasons leaders reject the idea of engaging with Jesus’ priority because it’s perceived as “high risk” and “counter productive” to the growth of the church and the tithe. n fairness to these “new image of Christianity” pastors, many are reacting against “traditional churches” which they perceive as boring, lifeless, directionless, sterile, and dry. The pastors of these “new image of Christianity” churches notice too that little is done in these traditional churches with excellence or professionalism. They also notice that the pastors of these traditional churches are not leading their people in any definite direction and lack clear vision. In this respect, I couldn’t agree more with “new image of Christianity” pastors in their desire to bring about radical change. Change is desperately needed in many traditional churches. The problem is, these “new image of Christianity” church leaders have over reacted, and have themselves dived headlong into seriously unbiblical and heretical waters, taking all the people in their churches along for the ride. The irony is that the traditional, boring, lifeless, dry, sterile, visionless churches and these “new image of Christianity” churches are both being unfaithful to the priority of Jesus which is to evangelise the world. For this reason, and in this respect, both are a stench in His nostrils. The double irony is that both see themselves as the apple of His eye! In summary, with this device, the mission of Jesus to evangelise the world is outright, deliberately, and unashamedly rejected by the leaders of these churches. The leaders of these churches don’t model personal evangelism. As a consequence, all the people in the pews of these “new image of Christianity” churches are actually subliminally taught not to ‘share the gospel.’ Instead, they are taught to ‘just love on people’. The people in the pew quickly get

the idea that sharing the gospel is ineffective and old fashioned, and puts people off Christianity. Thus, in these churches, confidence in the words of the gospel plummets. So toxic is this device, they eventually come to the place where they despise the idea of evangelising the world, even to the point of mocking those who do it. What would Jesus think of this attitude to evangelism? Well, to be frank, I believe He’d react as He did in the first century when He saw the temple being similarly misused. Yes, that’s right, He’d tip over the tables.

ummary

The enemy has launched four toxic devices each of which is designed to cause Christians to lose confidence in the gospel. 1. Have us proclaim false gospels so as to give the gospel a bad name. 2. Have us pay little attention to delivery issues so we have bad experiences with evangelising. This in turn causes us to stop doing it. 3. Have us over-react to the charge we are all talk and no walk. Now we are all walk and no talk. 4. Have us invent a new image of Christianity where the hard sayings of Jesus and the evangelisation of the earth are not “cool”. In the next Chapter I show how we can regain confidence in the gospel. I am going to unpack the central teaching of Jesus in the New Testament on the subject of evangelism which is found in Mark 4:26-29. Quite simply, what Jesus reveals in these scriptures is mind blowing. I always used to think that it was me who had to win people to Christ. This put a lot of pressure on me and I became anxious and worried and started putting pressure on people to convert. I felt so 9

uncomfortable about this. Then the Holy Spirit opened by eyes to Jesus’ teaching in Mark 4:26-29 and everything changed! When Jesus revealed these truths to me, my passion for evangelism soared. I was set free from a lot of ugly stuff, and was liberated. That was over fifteen years ago. What is more, by God’s grace my passion has not waned. I believe the truths you are about to read will do the same for you. Get excited. What’s coming up is my favourite Chapter!

Real Life Story Two Families In One Home Come To Christ Through The Use Of A Simple Survey! New Zealand.

Part of our “6 Lost Truths” conference involves teaching people how to actually do evangelism. This always involves “a practical” session where we actually go out and give the gospel to the lost. I went out with another pastor (John). We had an amazing experience using the 3 minute survey. (If you want to see this survey please go to www.churchdnachange.com/ resources and look for the section “Evangelism Team Leaders”). We went to a house near the church and knocked on the door. The door was open, and there were small shoes all around so I knew there were children in this home. When I knocked on the door it was open and I said in a friendly, light hearted way “Kia Ora!”1 A voice came back from inside the house “Kia Ora! Are you 1

This is a greeting in the Maori language. The Maori people are the indigenous people of New Zealand.

churchies?!” I said “yes” and laughed. I then said “Where are you guys? We are doing a survey and we want to ask you some questions.” With that I just walked further into the house. When I rounded the corner, there they all were: two mothers in their late thirties, and two children (about 9 and 5). John and I kept jocular and “light.” We bantered a bit with the mothers, telling them again we were doing a survey and we wanted them to be honest. They were more concerned about opening the windows and not troubling us with their cigarette smoke. We whisked our way through the survey. The mothers were answering beautifully, while the kids watched on. The last question on the survey asks “If there was a way of knowing how to be sure of going to heaven, would you like to know?” Both the mothers were keen. So, out came my iphone with the gospel presentation on it. We all huddled around on the kitchen table and watched, kids ‘en all. We stopped half way and I asked them the usual – had they lied, stolen, and hated? They instantly agreed to all three. I then told them how to be forgiven in my own words, pretty much summarising the second half of the gospel presentation. (If you want to see this summary go to www.churchdnachange.com/resources and look for the section “Tips and helps for delivering the 11 minute gospel 12

presentation”. Mark1615 is the password. We then proceeded to watch the second half of the gospel presentation. At the end, I asked them the key question “If you died tonight, where would you go?” The mums and the kids all answered “hell.” To cut a long story short, we led Mum and her children to the Lord. What’s amazing is that the JW’s and Mormons had been on the case of these mothers, and we were able to explain the difference between Christians and these other groups. They were fascinated. It was also interesting that these ladies had led a very hard life up to this point. Only last week they’d said to each other “let’s clean our lives up.” Both mothers saw the visit of John and me to their home as a divine appointment. AND, what’s more, these mothers had only just had a discussion about finding a church to go to! And you know what? They were just the loveliest people! So, this was indeed a divine appointment. Yesterday I received a call from one of the elders of the Huntly church which hosted the evangelism conference. The church leaders had made contact with these mothers and children and all is well. They are coming to church and will be assimilated into the life of the Christian community there. Isn’t that great?!

Julian’s comments.

What are the lessons here? Those who want to come to church and connect with Jesus are closer than we think. They are everywhere and they are probably right next door to your home and church. We just have to connect with them. Not just with a flyer or a tract. No, we need to meet them in person. Jesus didn’t do a flyer drop around Jerusalem. He engaged the lost personally and so must we. Jesus wasn’t joking when he told the parable of the lost sheep and goats. The lost must be sought out. How can we say to the lost “If you don’t come to church, you can go to hell!” By not going to them with the gospel, this is effectively what we are saying, is it not? God is at work in the people in your town and community. Don’t think you personally must do a good work for the person you are going to give the gospel to to build up credibility. The saying “they must see how much we care before they care what we say” just isn’t true. Sure, we must “plough’” the hearts of the people in our communities with good works, prayer, living credible lives etc. But here is the point: the gospel does not rely on these things. God will honour the presentation of the gospel in any situation because: 1. It’s the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). His word will accomplish what it was sent to do (Isaiah 55:9-11). 2. The Holy Spirit is continually ‘ploughing’ the hearts of the lost through conscience and creation. 3. Christians around the world are 24/7 praying for the lost to come to faith. Isn’t that just so exciting and liberating! There is much talk in Christian circles about how today’s society is not open to the 14

gospel because we are living in a post modern age etc etc. In my experience, this assumption is completely false. It’s a complete myth. Many of these assumptions we hear about the lost are imaginary, made up by people sitting in an office who don’t actually do evangelism. On the contrary, this generation is hungry for the gospel. I think it’s not the message but the messenger who puts them off. How we deliver the gospel and the tools we use are vital in the equation. The little survey we use is a wonderful ice-breaker. Try it and see. Just be ready to give the gospel at the end of it. Get hold of one of our tools at www.esisite.com

Chapter Thirteen

Prepare To Be Amazed! What Jesus Really Taught About Evangelism!

was teaching in a large church in Australia recently, when a woman in the congregation became rather upset with me. Ellen was a lovely woman in her fifties, who spent a lot of time working with the city’s poor and homeless communities – the kind of person I admire hugely for serving so generously. How great it would be if we all had Ellen’s commitment to the works of the gospel. She bailed me up after the service and told me she sincerely believed the only way to ‘share the gospel’ was to focus on the whole person – to meet a person’s needs and to minister to their hurts before sharing ‘the words’ of the gospel. She believed Christians had to earn the right to be heard – and that the best way to do this was to develop close relationships in the community and to be diligent in service. “Before churches will be heard, they must re-establish trust,” she said, describing passionately one of the excellent programmes the church was running in one of the poorer suburbs. “To establish trust, we must first show love.” inister to the whole person… At first glance, Ellen’s words sound right, and we find ourselves instantly agreeing with her. In one sense, she backs up what I have already expressed in this book about the need for social

action and good works in the process of drawing the lost to Christ. For example, in Chapter Eleven I detailed “The six steps to drawing a non-Christian to Christ” which placed great value on the need to “plough” the hearts of non-Christians. owever… On further inspection, there are subtle devices embedded in Ellen’s argument. Is it true we must always build relationship and trust with someone before we present them with the gospel? No, it is not true. What are the reasons? There are five. First, the Holy Spirit is constantly ‘ploughing’ the soil of the hearts of everyone in the world through conscience and creation (Romans 1:20; 2:15). As such the vast majority of non-Christians are ready right now to hear the gospel. The exceptions are the tiny minority who have been hurt by some church experience. Second, all non-Christians are born with eternity in their hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NASB). This means they are hard-wired to be interested in God i.e. the words of the gospel. Third, there are Christian ministries all over the globe who are praying for the salvation of the lost in the world. Their efforts also help to soften the soil in the hearts of non-Christians, making them ready to hear and receive the words of the gospel. Fourth, there is my own experience. When I evangelise, most of the time I am giving the gospel to total strangers. As I have said before, of the thousands I have reached, 98% are open and hungry to hear the gospel. Those in the Church who contend that the lost are not open to the gospel1 are either not speaking from experience or their approach to reaching the lost must be faulty. Fifth, there is the example of Scripture. Acts 5:40-42 says the Apostles never stopped going door to door with the gospel. They wouldn’t have had the opportunity to build trust, be diligent in

1 It’s my belief that those who say such things are following the example of the spies in Numbers 13-14 who came back to the Israelites with a negative report, putting the people off stepping into God’s best for them.

service, and show love in a practical way yet history records the Church exploded with growth. For them, going to strangers was the norm. At this point some ask, “If God is continually ploughing the hearts of non-Christians through conscience and creation, and ministries all around the world are praying for the lost, how is it that in the parable of the seed and the sower (e.g. Matthew 13) Jesus says the hearts of some are like a hard well-trodden path?” Answer: When we look out at a crowd of non-Christians we simply can’t x-ray the hearts of each one to see the condition of the soil in their heart. All we know is that forces are continually at work in the world to soften the soil of each one. So what do we do? We do exactly what Jesus said to do. We go to everyone and attempt to give them the gospel but if we can’t we’ll know that it has to do with the condition of the soil of their heart. If we find soil hard and rocky, we help soften it through kindness, answering questions, prayer and all the other ‘ploughing’ behaviours I talked about in Chapter Eleven. You see, if God had not been ploughing these hard hearts through conscience and creation, and ministries around the world had not been praying for them, the truth is, their hearts would have been even harder than what they were when we encountered them. They would have been like granite! After we have ploughed up the soil of the hard-hearted, we or some other faithful Christian sometime in the future will get the opportunity to sow the seed of the words of the gospel into the newly-ploughed, stone free, soft soil of their heart. This is how the Early Church believers did it - they went out into the world firmly focussed on the priorty of proclaiming the gospel to everyone everywhere, but they were ready to also plough or water depending on what they encountered. It was not a case of “shall we plough and water, and forget sowing the seed of the gospel?” Not at all. Sowing the seed of the gospel was a priority and mandatory. 4

Ploughing was optional, depending on the state of the soil. The great tragedy of today’s Church is that sowing the seed of the gospel has dropped from ‘first priority’ to ‘optional extra’ or even ‘not necessary at all’. We are jammed on ‘ploughing’ mode. e.g. doing lots of social action, good works, prayer, intercession, building relationships / friendships with the lost etc etc but never getting around to actually going into the world and proclaiming the words of the gospel i.e. sowing. This is the greatest challenge facing the modern Church. Conclusion? For the five reasons I have just outlined on the previous pages, it’s completely inaccurate to think that the hearts of non-Christians have not been ‘ploughed’ if we ourselves have not personally ploughed them. It’s also therefore wrong to think we cannot share the gospel with someone if we have not personally prepared the ground of their heart with a good deed or some social action; or if we have not built a relationship, established trust or built respect. In short, such thinking is most often just a cop out. As such, it’s another device of the enemy. With this device, we say to ourselves “I can’t share the gospel with this person because I have not done a good deed for them. I’ll leave it.” You can see how such thinking would quickly shut down evangelism. Think of all the people we might meet in the course of an ordinary day for whom there is no time to do a good deed? .e.g gas stations attendants, shop keepers, tradesman, school friends, etc. uch thinking puts the handbrake on the evangelisation of the world and any thought or theory or idea which does this is not Biblical. The fact remains, that if the world is ever going to be evangelised we must go to the largest pool of people, which is complete

strangers. And if we find we can’t sow2, then we move into ploughing mode. There are simply too few Christians in the world and too many non-Christians to limit our evangelism efforts to those we have personally served or those with whom we have personally built a relationship.i.e. friends and family. Despite the clear biblical mandate to go into all the world (i.e. to strangers and friends and family) many Christians argue against the idea of going to strangers. They say we ought to focus only on going to those with whom we already have a relationship. When they are saved, so the theory goes, they will in turn save others, who will in turn save others, and so on, until the whole world is saved. It’s called “the domino theory” for evangelising the world. This idea sounds plausible and attractive. We most certainly ought to try and present the gospel to our friends and neighbours. The trouble is, as I have pointed out, research shows only 2% of us are doing any evangelism at all so the domino theory is just that - a theory. By this I mean that even the 2% who are doing evangelism, if they are honest, will tell you that it’s not often (in the Western World) that people are instantly saved when they hear the gospel for the first time. If this is so for seasoned, gifted evangelists, how will the 98% who never do evangelism fare? You know the answer. In my observation, the domino theory is an idea which Christians who are frightened of evangelising hide behind to avoid the challenge of obeying Jesus’ command to evangelise strangers. One major reason why so many of us in the Church are so terribly frightened of reaching out to strangers with the gospel, and why we have gotten ourselves jammed in ploughing mode, is that we just haven’t heard of the majesty and beauty of what Jesus taught about

2 In my experience, only about 1% of the population are not ready to hear the words of the gospel. 99% are hungry and ready.

evangelism in Mark 4:26-29.3 The rest of this Chapter is about the remarkable, mind blowing teaching of Jesus which He gives in these four verses. But before I take you to this parable, I want to raise an important issue. It’s the issue of the busyness of our lives as Christians and how this works against our efforts to evangelise the world. If we are going to succeed with Jesus’ mission, we must take time to ‘notice’ strangers. Most of us are so busy and pre-occupied with ‘us’ we rush through life not noticing strangers. The very people for whom we were saved to reach with the gospel, we pass by. Jesus was utterly unlike us in this respect. Think of all the strangers He slowed down for, to pay them attention e.g. the Samaritan woman, the woman with the issue of blood, Zacchaeus, the ten lepers, the man with a withered hand etc. The list goes on. He was radically ‘others’ centred. If we are too busy to give the gospel to strangers, we are too busy. low down Take time out regularly to observe strangers. Go to a park or a shopping centre. As you meditate on one particular person, ask yourself the question, “Has that person heard and understood the gospel?” Then, presume two things. First, that they have not heard. Secondly, that if you don’t tell them, no one else will. Begin to see strangers not just as random, distant sinners, co-habiters on the planet who are hustling and bustling their way through life like you. See them as living, eternal souls, more valuable than the combined value of everything in the entire world. Each one is infinitely precious to Jesus and loved by Him. Try this exercise. Fix your eyes on a stranger and say to yourself, “If that person was the only one on the earth, Jesus would have

3 There are other reasons of course. We need good tools and strategies which make it easy for people to evangelise. We have these. Please email me: julian@esisite.com for more information.

died just for them.” Say, “If I don’t speak to them, there will not be anyone else.” Say, “If this stranger doesn’t hear the gospel from me they will never hear it.” If we do this often enough, Jesus will begin to give us compassion for the crowds. “When He saw the crowds, (i.e. strangers) He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). After slowing down and taking time to meditate on strangers and the love Jesus has for them, then what? We must go to them with the gospel, just as Jesus commanded. Engage them tenderly, lovingly, sincerely, gently, accurately, non-compromisingly. Explain the gospel to them. When it comes to the point where we must explain the gospel to a non-Christian, most Christians choke. And, as I have said, the main reason we choke is we have never heard of the beauty, wonder, and majesty of evangelism and how “it” works, as taught by Jesus. Where do we go to find this teaching? We go straight to Mark 4:26-29, THE PARABLE OF THE GROWING SEED. This is the central teaching of Jesus on the subject of evangelism. This passage is the most crucial “evangelism parable” in the Bible. AN OVERVIEW OF THE PARABLE: In this parable Jesus teaches that when we lovingly and tenderly ‘plant’ the seed of the gospel into the minds of non-Christians, the Holy Spirit promises to automatically ‘grow’ that seed. What do we mean by ‘grow’? First we must understand that for the majority of non-Christians ‘God’ is there, but on the vague outer edge of their lives, not central. When they hear and understand the gospel, all this changes. That is to say, through the seed of the gospel, the Holy Spirit brings the truth about Jesus in from the vague outer edge of their lives, to the place where He is central and in full view. 8

He brings them to a place of crisis where they have to make a conscious decision to either continue to reject Jesus, or bow their knee and accept Him as their personal Lord and Saviour. That is to say, through the power of the Holy Spirit, those who hear the gospel are convicted of the truth of the gospel message, and Jesus becomes central in their lives. The implications of Jesus’ teaching in this parable are monumental. The crucial point to grasp is this - it is not up to us to bring nonChristians to this point of crisis, just as it’s not the job of the farmer in the natural realm to grow the seed he has sown. Our job is to faithfully and lovingly sow the seed of the gospel. The Holy Spirit’s job is to bring belief, conviction, and crisis (John 16:8). Ultimately, the responsibility to ‘win souls’ is not ours. Only God can do this. What percentage of people who hear and understand the gospel accept it, believe it, and come to faith? We’ll never know, but what we do know is that it’s the vast majority. How do we know this? This parable ends with the promise of a harvest. The size of the harvest depends on the volume of seed sown, the condition of the soil (Christian ‘ploughing’ activities), the weather conditions (Christian ‘watering’ activities). Every pastor on the planet wants to see a great harvest of souls. Jesus in this parable promises we’ll see this harvest, but only if we obey the conditions for receiving a harvest. The main condition is that we sow seed. With a whole army of people mobilised, the whole world could be evangelised in a very short space of time. And once the whole earth has heard and understood the gospel, all that’s needed for the promise of a harvest to be realised, is for a mighty move of the Holy Spirit to ‘grow’ all the seed. This is the overview of Mark 4:26-29. From now on in this Chapter, I am going to unpack this parable, verse by verse, sometimes word by word. 9

Once we grasp what Jesus is teaching here, our view of the gospel and evangelism will never be the same again. The insights and understandings Jesus gives in this parable are truly life-giving and liberating. Christians in the Early Church acted on what Jesus taught here, and you know what happened. The Church experienced explosive numerical growth. This is what Mark 4:26-29 says: “This is what the Kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” To many commentators this parable remains a puzzle because it is not found in Matthew or Luke, and Jesus Himself does not explain it. It has been understood in various ways. Most scholars pair this parable with the next, the parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32). One sets forth the mystery and secrecy of growth (Mark 4:26-29), the other the astonishing contrast between small beginnings and great outcomes. In the context of this interpretation, the parable of Mark 4:26-29 might be summed up in the Greek word automate which is translated in English as “all by itself” (verse 28). When truly understood, this one word has the potential to ignite your passion and zeal for world evangelism like never before. Understanding this word, and acting upon it, is the key to mobilising the global Church back into evangelism. I discuss this Greek word in detail later on in this Chapter. ive over-arching lessons… In this parable Jesus compares a farmer’s actions with the workings of the Kingdom. The farmer has faith in the inherent

properties of the seed4 and of the reliability of natural law. The parallel with a Christian who evangelises is clear. There are five over-arching lessons Jesus wants us to grasp in this remarkable parable. 1. The seed of the gospel has inherent power. When we explain the gospel to a non-Christian, and they understand what we have said conceptually (they don’t have to believe it and take it on board immediately), we have ‘planted’ the seed. As soon as the seed is planted, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit start working on that seed to grow it. That is to say, to bring the person in whom the seed is planted from unbelief to belief. 2. Results5 from a lovingly-sown, and complete gospel message are inevitable, as long as the person listening understands the message (Matthew 13:23). The person listening doesn’t have to believe the message. They only have to understand it conceptually. Belief comes from God alone. 3. We can trust the Holy Spirit to “follow up” every seed of the gospel which we plant (John 16:8; Isaiah 55:10-11, etc). 4. It is the gospel we are to scatter. Our aim in evangelism ought to be to get beyond peripheral conversations about God6 and church with non-Christians and get to the nitty gritty. 5. If we want to see prolific Church growth again, and unprecedented harvest, we must return to the Early Church practice of mobi4

By ‘inherent properties’ I mean the seed has life, in and of itself. I expand on this truth later in this Chapter.

5 By “results” I do not mean that everyone who hears and understands the gospel will be saved. What we know is that everyone who hears and understands the gospel will be brought to a place of spiritual crisis through the work of the Holy Spirit where they have to either accept or reject Jesus. How do we know this will happen? John 16:8 – 9 says ‘He will convict...’ not ‘…He might convict…’ In the parable of the Sower (e.g. Matthew 13:1-23) there are four types of soil. Three out of four accept the word (i.e. they respond to the message): the rocks, the thorns, and the good soil. The only one which didn’t accept the word was ‘the path.’ The reason given? The message was not understood. Does this mean that if we determine to make sure non-Christians understand the gospel when we present it, we were loving and gracious in our delivery, and the message is not compromised, 25% of the seed we sow (i.e. one out of four) will result in conversion? At first sight, to draw such conclusions from Matthew 13:1-23 might appear fanciful. Yet, in Mark 4:26-29, they are a realistic possibility. Here Jesus teaches that the seed of the gospel will strike and take hold just as automatically as good seed planted under the right conditions in the natural realm. 6

This is not to say that having ‘light’ conversations about God are not valuable. Of course they are. The problem is, most Christians never get beyond these ‘light’ conversations to giving the full gospel message. That’s the problem. Even worse, some organisations are calling ‘light God conversations’ and ‘nudging people towards God’ evangelism, when in reality no evangelism has taken place.

lising the whole Church to reach the whole world with the words of the gospel i.e. return to focussing on completing the Great Commission. I expand on each of these five lessons as we progress through this Chapter. Throughout this parable, the natural and the supernatural lend meaning to each other. What I mean by this will soon become clear. Let’s break the parable down, verse by verse, and grasp the lifechanging lessons about evangelism. Verse 26: “A man scatters seed on the ground.” Who is “a man” in this verse? In the natural, “a man” is the farmer and “the ground” is the earth into which he sows the seed. e can succeed with evangelism, no matter who we are… In the supernatural, the Greek word for “man” here is the non-specific anthropos which denotes all humans, whether male or female. It appears 552 times in the New Testament. There are at least three reasons why the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to choose this word. First, anyone can evangelise - young, old, male, female, lightskinned, dark-skinned, introverted or extroverted; it does not matter to God. Secondly, everyone is called to evangelise. Jesus did not say, “A skilled, gifted farmer went out…” The initial skills and knowledge needed to be able to proclaim or spread the gospel can be learned in a few hours by virtually anyone.7 Spreading the gospel, which is distributing the gospel, for example,

7 Given that people live on average seventy-five years, which equates to 3900 weeks or 27,000 days, dedicating one of those days to learn how to proclaim the gospel is not a great sacrifice. All of us take weeks for holidays or to go on missions, or visit friends and family, yet dedicate so little time to something so eternally significant and important as evangelism. My prayer is that you will make this initial one day of learning at one of our conferences the beginning of a life time journey of learning how to become increasingly skilful in evangelism. You can purchase a DVD tutorial and learn how to do it from the comfort of your own home (or on line if you wish) by emailing julianbatchelor@xtra.co.nz

in written, audio, or video form takes virtually no skill at all, other than to pick a good gospel tract/booklet or purchase a packet of www.biblein11.com cards. Or, in the case of audio and video files, with the click of the mouse on a computer. Thirdly, everyone can experience ‘success’ in evangelism. In this parable Jesus teaches that ‘succes in evangelism’ is sowing the seed lovingly and uncompromisingly into the mind of a non-Christian, whether they come to Christ or not.8 What a liberating truth this is. The humble efforts of the sower in this parable produce an astounding result. The parable ends with the promise of a great harvest. By using anthropos, Jesus deliberately downplays the farmer’s significance in order to highlight the work, wisdom and power of God working through the gospel to draw non-Christians to Himself. he Holy Spirit is the big player in evangelism… New Testament scholar Dr L.W. Hurtado says “the main emphasis in this parable is the contrast between the puny action of the sower who merely scatters the seed in his field and the development of the crop. Jesus’ point is that the Kingdom of God begins with the apparently insignificant action of sowing the gospel message, but will finish with a great harvest.”9 God is saying to you and me, “Relax. I already know you are not Billy Graham. If you trust in My Word, and Me, I can work through you just as I worked through My servant Billy. Just learn how to sow the seed of the gospel, and watch Me grow it. I dare you!” This parable screams to us “It’s not all about your ability and skills. It’s all about Me, my promises, and My Living Word!” Theologian M.Mills writes:“The purpose of this parable is to

8 Of course, we earnestly desire people to come to Christ when we give them the gospel, but this is bonus when it happens. ‘Conversions’ are the fruit of evangelism, but never the root of it. The root is simply to succeed with lovingly and graciously sharing and uncompromised gospel message. This is such a liberating truth! 9 L.W. Hurtado. Mark. Good News Bible Commentary. Pickering Books, 1983, pp.62-63

reveal that the power of the Kingdom is in the Word and not in the preaching.”10 This surely is wonderful news for people in churches who feel they are too old, or introverted, or shy, or whatever, to proclaim or spread the gospel or who feel they are passed their “use by” date. God in his grace has given us strategies that will enable absolutely everyone in a church to be active in evangelism.11 e don’t have to be a spiritual heavyweight to succeed with evangelism… Dr Robert Gundry puts it like this: “The construction of the Greek de-emphasises [in this parable] the man’s contribution.”12 The mark of true evangelism is a small man factor and a big God factor. “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling,” said Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. “My message and my preaching (i.e. the gospel) were not with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on God’s power.” The more we put our faith and trust in God working through the inherent power of the gospel to save, the more we de-emphasise the man-factor. This is not to suggest we ought to dispense with “ploughing” and “watering.” God forbid. What I am saying is that ultimately it is God who gives success, not the sower. Proverbs 21:31 says, “The horse is prepared for battle, but victory belongs to the Lord.” We all know this verse too - “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6). When are we going to “get” this about biblical evangelism and be released from all our terrifying fears and hang-ups e.g. that it’s all up

10 M.Mills. The Life of Christ: A Study Guide to the Gospel Record (Mk 4:26–29). 1999. Dallas, TX: 3E Ministries. 11

Email me: julian@esiste.com and I will explain how you can implement these strategies in your church.

12 Robert Gundry. Mark. A Commentary On His Apology For The Cross. Eerdmans, 1993, p.220

to us to win people to Christ? Interestingly, in the Greek, “the seed” in this verse is singular. Usually a farmer would not sow just one seed but many handfuls of seed. So what does the singular in this verse mean? It could mean that from one seed comes a great harvest. Take Billy Graham for example. He would be an example of a single seed. Each evening in a great stadium somewhere, he would preach the gospel once and thousands would be harvested i.e. respond to the message Billy preached. That is to say, Billy preached one gospel message each evening and from that one seed (i.e. that one message), he saw a great harvest i.e. when he had his altar call, many people came forward to commit their lives to Christ. Or the singular in this verse could be a reference to the uniqueness of the gospel i.e. just as the seed here in this verse is singular, so there is only one gospel message. Or it could be a reference to the power of personal evangelism. If all the Christians in the world were committed to planting the gospel into the spiritual hearts of non-Christians, one person at a time, one seed at time, what would the result be? A great harvest! (verse 29). I think all three interpretations are right. All three interpretations are astonishingly exciting! In combination, they are mind blowing! hat is ‘the ground’ in Mark 4:26? Now let’s look at the “ground.” In the supernatural realm the ground is the spiritual heart of a non-Christian. It is into this “ground” that the seed of the gospel is sown. Their heart is accessed through their mind. Once planted, God begins to grow it. As it grows, the heart into which it’s sown is gradually changed, culminating in what theologians call “regeneration.”13 Between the time when the seed is planted and the moment of regeneration, the Holy Spirit is working to bring

13 E.g. Matthew 19:28; Titus 3:5; Acts 3:21; 2 Corinthians 5:17; John 3:5.

belief. Classical writers liken the change to the changes produced by the return of spring. Before regeneration, the spiritual soil in the hearts of non-Christians can be anything from rock hard and completely unreceptive, to soft, warm, and fertile, open to receive Jesus. o access the heart of a non-Christian, we must go through the mind… As many theologians and scholars point out, when people hear the gospel they process it with their minds. So to access the heart we must go through the mind. Dr Don Carson writes: “Evangelism that does not engage people at [the level of the mind], whatever other levels are touched, is necessarily betraying something vital.”14 Dr Norman Harrison puts it like this: “Its message of transforming power must speak persuasively to the mind (Romans 2:2); filter pervasively down into the heart (Romans 5:5; 6:17); and flow unceasingly out into the life” (Romans 1:17).15 His words are echoed by Dr Millard Erickson. “In creating belief, the Holy Spirit makes use of human minds and reason.”16 And Dr Derek Prince reminds us of where the battle is taking place: “Paul uses various words: imaginations, reasonings, speculations, arguments, knowledge and thoughts…Satan is waging an all-out war to captivate the minds of the human race. He is building strongholds and fortresses in their minds and it is our responsibility, as God’s representatives, to use our spiritual weapons to break down these strongholds, to liberate the minds of men and women, and to bring them into captivity to the obedience

14 Don Carson. The Gagging Of God. Apollos Books, 1996, p.509 15 Dr Norman Harrison. His Salvation As Set Forth In The Book Of Romans. Moody Press, 1926, p.28 16 Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Books, 1988, p.1065

of Christ.”17 When we proclaim the gospel to non-Christians, we are to speak lovingly, logically and mindfully. he gospel can demolish strongholds in the minds of those with whom we speak… The gospel demolishes all kinds of wrong thoughts in the listener’s mind, from “all religions are the same” to “I will go to heaven because I am a good person.” Jeremiah 23:29 speaks of the Word of God as a hammer, capable of breaking the most impenetrable strongholds. Whether someone believes in Darwinian evolution or reincarnation, or in being saved by good works, or something other than by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), the gospel is the weapon of choice when it comes to the mind. How does simply proclaiming the gospel demolish someone’s belief in Darwinism and the Big Bang, for example? God, through the Holy Spirit, manifests Himself through the gospel, becoming real and personal to the person listening.18 When this happens, the wrong beliefs of the non-Christian are frequently superseded or overridden (akin to over-writing one computer application with another) by the reality of Jesus and our need for Him. I see this time and time again with people who are freshly and genuinely saved. When a person has a personal revelation of Jesus through the gospel, and is saved, they instinctively want to believe everything the Bible says. And they instinctively don’t want to believe anything that contradicts it. Sure, they will no doubt still want to read about evolution and the big bang, but once saved they will do so from the perspective of wanting to defend Jesus, the Bible and Truth.

17 Dr Derek Prince. Spiritual Warfare. Whitaker House, 1987, p.33 18 Most often this does not happen instantly, but over time.

Through the gospel, people change sides!19 Evangelist and author Mark McCloskey puts it like this: “When the evangelist presents the gospel, they (i.e. non-Christians) gain perspective on their felt needs and come to grips with their real need.”20 he gospel cuts deeply and accurately… Of course, things such as apologetics, which appeal to the mind, are also tremendously effective in the process of drawing nonChristians to Christ. But my point is this: through the gospel, God can cut right through the wrong thinking of non-Christians and take them straight to the heart of the issue – their sin, their separation from God, and their need for a Saviour. It is only the Holy Spirit, working through the gospel, who does this demolishing. Once they are saved, the process of “breaking down” and “demolishing” wrong thoughts will continue for the rest of a person’s life, but it is kicked off most dramatically before salvation, through hearing the gospel. When you plant the seed of the gospel, you give God permission to unleash the fullness of His saving power. hen we present the gospel, we aim to ensure that the person listening understands it… There is one condition which must be satisfied if we want success on the battlefield with winning souls. Our goal in evangelism, aside from being loving, caring and gracious with the delivery and uncompromising with content, is to ensure non-Christians understand the gospel message. I cannot stress this enough. To bring

19 A .W Tozer said : “The way it works in experience is something like this: The believing man is overwhelmed suddenly by a powerful feeling that only God matters; soon this works itself out into his mental life and conditions all his judgments and all his values. Now he finds himself free from slavery to man’s opinions. A mighty desire to please only God lays hold of him. Soon he learns to love above all else the assurance that he is well pleasing to the Father in heaven.” Cited in: http://www.sendrevival.com/pioneers/awtozer/ in_word_or_in_power.htm 20 Mark McCloskey. Tell It Often – Tell It Well. Making The Most Of Witnessing Opportunities. Here’s Life Publishers, San Bernardino, 1977, p.43

belief and conviction of the gospel truth is beyond our control. It is the task of the Spirit alone.21 Our job is to present the message in a clear, easy-to-understand way. We know from the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1-23 that the person who heard the gospel and produced a great yield was the one who heard and understood it (verse 23). The truth is, many of our so-called “gospel presentations” are clear to whoever is presenting them, but to the non-Christian listener they are nonsense, a collection of disorganised, befuddled truths hastily thrown together. Little thought may have been given to the way the words and concepts we use might be completely new to those listening. When we do not define all our terms, we fail to communicate. When we present the gospel clearly, we give the Holy Spirit permission to release His full saving power upon the listener. When I was a student, the best teachers were the ones who made complex things simple. The better the teacher, the more I understood. And the more I understood, the more I liked both the teacher and the subject. Our primary focus in evangelism, then, is to make our message clear for the non-Christians listening so they can like Jesus and Christianity – and we, the presenters, can glorify God. hen they don’t understand, we give the enemy an opening… In Matthew 13:1-23 we also read that if the gospel message is not understood, the enemy can snatch it away. Paul said in Ephesians 3:9 that he aimed to make the gospel “plain to everyone” and in Colossians 4:4, “Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.”

21 Many Christians have said to me “What happens when non-Christians say ‘I don’t believe in heaven and hell and the Bible’….what do we do then?” I say to non-Christians at that point, “I respect your opinion because there are many different understandings of what happens after death. What I am presenting here is the perspective of Jesus. If what you have seen here is true, where would you go after death?” Once we have sincerely acknowledged and respected the opinion of the non-Christian, they are usually happy to continue to hear the gospel. Then it is up to the Spirit to bring conviction and belief.

ne reason why Jonathan Edwards was used greatly? He preached with clarity and logic… It is said of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), one of the greatest evangelists of all time, that he was not a “ranting revivalist.” “He spoke with a quiet voice and few gestures,” wrote Historian Carl Bogue. This ought to give us great hope! Most people can be like that – quietly spoken, gentle and logical. Carl Bogue continues. “The logic of what [Jonathan Edwards] said and the work of the Holy Spirit were the relevant factors in his success. The preaching of Edwards was clear. I doubt if any ever thought he was going over their heads. Probably they often wished he had.”22 I want to reiterate the point: clarity, simplicity and understanding matter enormously. Edwards did not try to whip up emotion. A logical gospel presentation, combined with the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, ignited holy dynamite. In Edward’s meetings, emotions were greatly stirred but the catalyst for a release of those emotions was a clear and simple appeal to the mind and conscience, made real by the work of the Holy Spirit. Thousands were converted. It can be the same for you with one-on-one evangelism. on-Christians really want to understand the gospel – will you help them? When Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ was being shown in London, I had the privilege of going into a secular theatre and presenting the gospel to a packed audience just before the movie started. When we finished the presentation we received a spontaneous ovation. At the end of the movie I asked a few people why they clapped. An older gentleman typified the answers given: “For the first time, someone has %#@* told me what you Christians are on about...!”

22 Carl W. Bogue. Jonathan Edwards And The Covenant Of Grace. Mack Publishing, 1975, p.27

This man, with tears in his eyes, was angry with the Church for making Christianity (i.e. the gospel) so hard to understand. eorge Whitefield made the hard things easy... George Whitefield, a mighty evangelist from the 18th century, went to great lengths to make the gospel simple. This was one reason God used him in an extraordinary way: “[When he preached the gospel] Whitefield used the words most easily understood. He abhorred long and involved sentences. His business was to make the hard things easy.”23 tirring the heart is also crucial… Presenting the gospel is not just about appealing to the mind and aiming for understanding. When I present the gospel, I also ask God to use me to touch the heart of the person I am speaking to. When they sense the presence of God through their emotions, something special, something divine, has just happened.24 A.W. Tozer rightly says: “The work of the Holy Spirit is, among other things, to rescue the redeemed man’s emotions, to restring his harp and open again the wells of sacred joy which have been stopped up by sin. That He does this is the unanimous testimony of the saints.”25 What are the key lessons so far from Mark 4:26-29? Anyone can proclaim the gospel. 1. Everyone should proclaim the gospel. 2. Seed exists to be planted. Unless we sow, we will not reap. 3. Our presentation of the gospel ought to be simple and logical, but not intellectually insulting. 4. The gospel is intended to engage with the mind in order to access the heart and the conscience.

G S

23 James Stephen. Twelve Famous Evangelists. Pickering and Inglis, (date of printing not supplied), p.22 24 We have all met and known people who have been genuinely saved but at the moment of salvation, there has been no tangible feeling of the presence of God. And we have met others who have had a strong tangible feeling of presence of God. There is no rule here. God can save with or without ‘feelings.’ Having said this, I long to see all people sense God in a powerful, personal way when the gospel is preached. 25 A.W. Tozer. The Divine Conquest. Fleming H. Revell Co, 1950, p.108

5. It is not enough that non-Christians only hear the gospel. They must also understand it. 6. It is not about the mind only. Our goal is to ask God to touch the heart and emotions of the person listening as well. Mark 4:27. “Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how…” nce the seed of the gospel is planted, He goes to work on it to grow it… In the natural realm, after the farmer has sown good seed, on good soil, at the right time of the year, he can relax.26 Natural law – the supernatural power of God working in and through the properties of soil, water, sunshine, and seed – will take over to produce a plant. “Night and day” means 24/7. Natural law is always operative. Even when the farmer is asleep and darkness has fallen, the seed is active and growing. Commenting on this verse, Dr Donald English writes: “There is hidden energy at work below the surface, as the gospel message is preached and enacted.”27

Straight away we see a key feature of the gospel message. It is

alive!

Many verses in the Bible speak about “the living Word” of God. For example, Hebrews 4:12: “For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (NKJV). The gospel is a living, powerful, penetrating phenomenon. It has a life of its own. Or what about 1 Thessalonians 1:5: “…our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” The biblical writers who penned 26 Aside from things like irrigation, weeding and pest control. 27 Dr Donald English. The Message Of Mark: The Bible Speaks Today. IVP, 1992, p.101

these verses knew about the inbuilt power of the Word. What Jesus is saying in Mark 4:27 is that after the seed of the gospel has been sown into the mind of a non-Christian (assuming the messenger was loving and the message clear and uncompromised), the Holy Spirit goes to work on that seed to grow it, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year, progressively convicting the person of its truth. Those who accept the conviction are saved. Those who resist are lost. ower encounter in a menswear shop… Let me give you a personal example of the willingness of God to work powerfully and reliably, through a simple, well-explained gospel message. One morning I was in a shop buying a necktie. No one else was in the shop except me and the shopkeeper, Liz, a woman of about 45. We introduce ourselves and make light conversation as she shows me the various ties. I choose one and take it to the counter for payment. As she processes the sale she asks, “Do you live here or are you just visiting?” Me: “I’m just visiting.” Liz: “What brings you here?” Me: “I am working with the mainstream churches here – Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc. What about you, are you a church person?” Liz: “No.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my iphone. Me: “What’s the best selling book in the world?…” Liz: “Dunno” Me: “It’s the Bible. We just made a video which summarises the whole book in 11 minutes. Here, have a look.” I ask her if it is okay to do this in work time. She says, “It’s fine. I am the manager.” She watched the video, and no customers interrupted. Half way through, I stopped it and asked her about thieving, lying, and murdering. When we got to the end of the presentation I asked Liz the key question.

Me: “If everything you’ve seen here is true, and if you died tonight, where would you go?” Liz: “To heaven.” Me: “Now why did you pick that?” Liz: “Because I am a pretty good person. I’ve not done anything worse than anyone else in my life.” Me: (gently) “But Liz, you told me just a few minutes ago that you were a thieving, lying, murderer. Liz what kind of a record do we need to have to get into heaven?” Liz: “Perfect.” Me: (as gently as ever) “Have you been a perfect person?” Liz: “No.” Me: “Neither have I, so we are the same. Have you turned and surrendered to Jesus yet in your life?” Liz: “No.” Me: “Then where is the only other place you can go at the moment?” Liz: “Hell.” Me: (softly) “God bless you Liz. You have had the courage to say where you honestly stand before God. What you have told me is true. You have told me with your own lips that according to the Bible, if you died tonight you would go to hell.” Liz interrupts me and pushes the iphone away from her. She is not angry but taken aback. Liz: “But I don’t agree with you. I think this is just your interpretation. I don’t think you should be scaring people like this...” Me: (still gentle) “Liz, I appreciate what you say. But I am just the delivery boy. If Jesus were standing here in my place, He would have explained the same message. I can see you are an open-minded, intelligent woman. What I want you to do is take this book home.28 Please read it thoughtfully. Try not to be negative or positive. Just neutral. When you get to the end ask God if it’s true. I know He will answer you.” 28 The book is a small follow up booklet we have produced which we give away to someone after they have heard the gospel. It explains what a person needs to do to be saved. It’s called “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die”. You can purchase this from our shop at www.esisite.com

Liz: (sheepishly) “Well… okay. But I still don’t agree with you...” (she’s smiling now) She takes the follow-up booklet. I change the subject, and chat about something else briefly. There are still only two of us in the shop. I say goodbye and how much I enjoyed meeting her, and thank her for taking the time to let me explain the gospel to her. Three days later… It’s nine o’clock in the morning and I’m now in another city. It’s Sunday and I’m about to leave the house where I’m staying to go and preach in a church. My cell phone rings. Me: “Good morning. Julian speaking.” Liz: “Liz here. Liz from the tie shop.” Me: “Liz! How are you?” Liz: “Not good.” Me: “Oh, why?” Liz: “Well, you know that book you left with me? I read it and it has really rattled my cage. Do you know of a good church I can go to in my city this morning?” Did I ever! I set about linking her up with some friends I had in that town. When I got off the phone, I was astonished at the inherent power of the gospel. How quickly the Holy Spirit had followed her up. Liz went from scepticism to belief and conviction in three days! To be honest, I had not prayed for her between Thursday and Sunday, and yet God still worked. She had not seen my good deeds or my works of service. The impression she gave me was that she had had little or no contact with Christians or the Church up to this point. t took six weeks for the seed to grow… Another example of the inherent power of the gospel happened after a group of my friends were faithfully proclaiming the gospel to strangers on the streets in their local area. One of the people they talked to was a 22-year-old woman, Susan, from a middle-class family. When Susan heard the gospel, she realised her sin separated her from God and that she was headed for hell. This knowledge had

little effect on her at first. But over a six-week period, the realisation became overwhelming. She devoured the follow-up booklet which explained the gospel in greater detail. Susan would go to bed thinking about these issues and wake up with the same thoughts. The booklet she was given had the name and address of the gospel proclaimer’s church in the back. ix weeks to the day after Susan had first heard the gospel, she decided to visit this church in her lunch hour. She walked in, found the pastor, and asked him if he would help her become a Christian. nd that is not all… She went home and led her younger sister to the Lord. A few weeks later, she and her sister were baptised in the church and the whole family came to watch. At that baptismal service her mother, father and older brother heard the gospel through the electronic version of the message called The Gospel Message!29 They didn’t respond to the altar call, but the seed of the gospel had now been planted in them as well. The Holy Spirit promises to grow the seed of the gospel planted in them, just as He grew the seed planted in Susan. Thus the life cycle in the Spirit continues. One caring Christian who took a risk and took the time to explain the gospel was a catalyst for Susan’s change of destiny, both in this life and the next. And maybe that of her whole family. Maybe someone, somewhere had been praying for Susan and her family. But the inherent power of the gospel is obvious. Some may ask, “Does this happen with everyone?” The answer is “yes” and “no.” Yes, everyone is followed up by the Holy Spirit. But no, not everyone is converted after hearing the gospel. The Holy Spirit

29 To view this presentation, please go to www.biblein11.com.

will put people in a place where they have to decide for or against Jesus. People still have free will to resist God’s drawing power, and a “no” to the invitation of the gospel is still a response. Dr Leighton Ford said: “God holds me responsible for faithful evangelism, not for success.”30 There it is again! Please ‘get’ this - ‘success’ in evangelism is not about winning souls. It’s about planting the seed! It is God’s will that all non-Christians should be put in the place where they have to either accept or reject Jesus, based on a full and graciously-presented understanding of the gospel (Romans 10:14-15). he human heart, spiritually speaking, is a lock, and the gospel is the key to unlock it. Someone once likened the heart of every human to a lock in which the only key that fits is the gospel. The only one who can turn the key is the Holy Spirit, and the only one who can insert the key is a Christian. This is an illustration of how God works through the gospel to save. nother example of how the Holy Spirit follows up. I had a neighbour whom I will call Andrea, who knew I was a Christian. One day she asked me what I did when I went away on overseas’ trips. I told her I trained people in churches how to explain to people what Christianity was all about. I asked her if she would like me to show her. She said “yes” and so we sat down over a coffee and I showed her the video of the gospel. We chatted for a while afterwards, and she asked me an interesting question. Andrea: “What’s the point of explaining this story to people?” (She was not being sarcastic, just genuinely interested.) Me: “Well, it’s like this. The message you just heard is like a supernatural seed. When you heard this message, you did so with your ears. Your ears are connected to your brain. That message I just gave you is now in your brain, plant-

30 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.122

ed like a seed. Whoever hears this message is fortunate. God goes to work on that seed and grows it.” Andrea: (intensely interested) “What does that mean?” Me: “It means He goes to work to convince a person of the truth of the message and the reality of Jesus. You’ll probably notice over time that your interest in Christianity will grow. You will probably become more aware of the issues we’ve just talked about. You’ll start to think about God a lot more. When you experience this, it is God growing the seed, drawing you towards Himself. He’s saying, “Andrea, I love you and died for you. I want to know you, and I want you and Me to walk through this life together.” Andrea: (wide-eyed) “Seriously! That sounds awesome … a bit scary though … when will I feel this?” Me: “I don’t know. God grows the seed at different speeds, depending on the person. If you begin to read your Bible, that’s a sure way of fertilising the seed. You can also pray that God would grow the seed…or go to a good church and see what God is doing. All of these things will help grow the seed, but if you do none of them God will still grow it because He’s promised to do so.” We continued to chat for a while and then I left. About a year later, Andrea and I were talking over the fence. We had not discussed Christianity since the earlier conversation. Andrea: “Hey Julian, remember how ages ago you talked to me about God and how I would become more interested? You know what? It’s happening. I’ve been getting library books out on Christianity. It’s really interesting isn’t it? Have they really found Noah’s ark? What’s it going to be like when Jesus comes again? How can I know the Bible has not been changed over 2000 years?” I answered her questions as best I could. Soon after this positive conversation, Andrea moved out of the house she was renting with her children and we lost touch. But I was thrilled to see how the Holy Spirit really did follow up. For Andrea the process took a year.

e don’t need to know how the gospel works… When Jesus said in Mark 4:28 “...although he does not know how...” He was saying to the disciples, “Hey guys, how I save people through a simple message is too deep and mysterious for you to grasp. Just trust Me and go do it.” New Testament Scholar Dr Arland J. Hultgren wrote: “Life is full of instances where a person sows seeds, and then proceeds with ordinary living. In the meantime the seed sprouts and grows. It happens all the time. The one who sows cannot and need not explain how the growth takes place.”31 When I go to the shop to buy grass seed, the attendant doesn’t give me a thick telephone book of instructions as to the genetic make-up of the seed, its DNA, protein structures, energy sources, how that energy will be translated into growth, the composition of the soil, the effect of water, etc. I don’t need to know all this to grow grass. When the seed meets the soil and the conditions are right, the natural law that God established sets the whole process going. All I need do is follow the instructions on the packet. The Bible is a packet of seeds which never empties. One of the seeds within the Bible is the gospel. The instructions are “Open the packet and get sowing the gospel!” (Mark 16:15). e can trust the Holy Spirit to follow up the seeds of the gospel we sow… In the natural realm, after the farmer has planted the seed he can relax. His responsibility in the process of growing the crop is largely complete.32 Yes, he must still water those seeds, and perhaps fertilise or weed the ground. But essentially he relies on God for rain, sunshine, and the marvels of the natural law to kick in.

31 Arland J. Hultgren. The Parables Of Jesus – A Commentary. Eerdmans, 2000, p.386 32 In Chapter Eleven, I mentioned other Christian behaviours which affect the growth of the seed of the gospel - prayer, fasting, observing the lives of Christians, acts of kindness and service, etc.

It is the same with supernatural law and the gospel. I don’t know how it works. All I know is that it happens. Even the angels don’t know exactly how the Holy Spirit convicts and converts people through the gospel - “Even angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:12). When the Bible says “no one comes to the Son unless they are drawn by the Father” (e.g. John 6:65), how does the Father do this? We’ll never quite know this side of death. Also, when the Bible says “When I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself.”(John 12:32), we see Jesus’ involvment in growing the seed. Exactly how does He draw people? Once again, we’ll never know this side of eternity. he strategy of the early Church was not complicated... The itinerant evangelists did not stay long in one place. They planted the seed as they pioneered new regions, ploughed and watered when they needed to, and then moved on. Yet the church grew prolifically. Those early Christians didn’t know how the gospel worked either. They just knew it had inherent power to save people, and went about passionately proclaiming it. Here are two more scriptures which affirm the mystery and inevitability of God’s follow-up: “I will send the Holy Spirit into the world to convict the world in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, so is My Word that goes out from my mouth. It accomplishes My desire and the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:9-11). t is okay if we never again see the person we gave the gospel to…33 It is unlikely I will ever cross paths again with the vast majority of people with whom I have shared the gospel. Because I am travelling a lot, I usually talk with someone for only a few minutes, long enough to share the gospel – and that’s it. Does this

33 B y this I do not mean that I don’t want to see them again! I mean that when we start giving the gospel to complete strangers, there are going to be a lot of people we might only see once.

make my ministry unfruitful and me irresponsible? Not according to Jesus in Mark 4:26-29, for He tells me the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son will “follow people up.” Sometimes they will do this by putting another Christian in the path of the person I have just shared the gospel with. Other times one or all of the Trinity might use a sunset, a sunrise, a dream, a vision, a bumper sticker, the prayer and fasting of Christians, or the shining example of a neighbour’s life, or a combination of all these things! But they will always do it somehow. owever, let’s not forget our responsibilities… As I have said, where possible and as time permits, we should follow people up. We should at least pray for those with whom we’ve shared the gospel. Many Christians hesitate to evangelise because they feel unable to fulfil a perceived obligation to follow up. Can you see how the enemy would milk this thinking to shut down evangelism? I hope you can see! Even if someone reads a tract and understands it then rips it up the seed has been planted and the Holy Spirit can begin to work. After all, what does it matter what the farmer does with the packet which held the seeds after they have been planted in the ground? I hope you get the point. Key lessons from Mark 4:27 1. When the gospel is “planted” in the minds of non-Christians, the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son go to work on it. 2. They continue to work on it, regardless of any other Christian behaviour. 3. The mechanics of how God saves people through the gospel is a mystery. 4. We need patience in evangelism after we have sown the gospel. In His infinite wisdom, only God knows when or if the point of conversion will come.

5. There is truth and error in the statement that everyone who hears the gospel must be followed up by a Christian.” Verse 28: “ All by itself, the soil produces corn – first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.”

You may not have realised it, but you have just read the single most significant word in the entire Bible with respect to evangelism. There is one word which dominates this parable, and we find it here in verse 28. I mentioned this word earlier. It is the Greek word automate, which translates “all by itself.” Greek scholar Kenneth S. Wuest reveals the full weight behind this word. The word means in its totality, “self-moved, spontaneously, without external aid, and also beyond external control, with a way and a will, so to speak, of its own that must be respected and waited for… ‘the earth therefore, brings forth fruit automatically. The nature of the soil, the weather, and the cultivation of the plant, all enter in. But the secret of the growth is in the seed itself.’ ”34 Obviously, the seed relies on and needs the Trinity to grow it, which is the same in the natural world. So when we talk about the seed growing all by itself, we mean in the absence of all human effort. What we are talking about here is a complex, mysterious, supernatural interaction between the seed, the Holy Spirit, the Father, the Son, and the person into whom the seed is planted! Martin Luther put it like this: “We should preach the Word, but the results must be left solely to God’s good pleasure . I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon 34 Kenneth S. Wuest. Mark In The Greek New Testament. Eerdmans Publishing, 1950, p.92

it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.”35 Wow! What great words from Luther! James Denney was a prominent New Testament scholar and theologian of the United Free Church in Scotland. He maintained that the gospel was so powerful that the Holy Spirit could work through it to plough, sow, water, grow, and harvest all at once. That is, he insisted that someone with no care for Jesus, who was not in contact with any Christian, and who had never visited a church, never read the Bible, and never seen Christians shining their lights, could hear the gospel just once and be instantly and thoroughly saved. He writes, “For the preaching of the atonement has something to do with producing the state of mind on which its reception depends.”36 The epicentre of this power is automate. Because of the promise of automate, the gospel, in itself, is not dependent on what comes before, with, or after its delivery.37 It has inherent power, and that power is God Himself. The 229 scholars that attended the This We Believe Conference in 2000 agreed: “We affirm that the gospel is the saving power of God in that the gospel effects salvation to everyone who believes, without distinction (Romans 1:16). The efficacy of the gospel is by the power of God Himself” (1 Corinthians 1:18).” 38 Because God, who is omnipotent, backs the gospel, it has unlimited power. American Evangelist Greg Laurie concurs: “We often underestimate the raw power of the gospel to reach even the most hardened heart. Don’t underestimate its appeal. Don’t be ashamed of its simplicity. Don’t add or take away from it. Just proclaim it – then stand back and watch what God will do. I have 35 Luther’s Works 51:77 36 James Denney. The Death Of Christ. Chicago: Inter Varsity Press, 1951, p.170 37 This is not saying that prayer, good works, social action, etc are of little value. In Chapter Eleven, I made it clear that ‘ploughing’ and ‘watering’ were vital aspects in the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ. 38 Razi Zacharius et al. This We Believe. Zondervan. 2000, p.331.

been amazed time and time again at how God so powerfully uses this simple yet incredibly profound message to radically change lives. I’ve seen it transform hardened Satanists as well as devoutly religious people who had previously not understood their need for Christ. I have witnessed its ability to heal broken families, break people’s addiction to drugs, and free individuals who have been deceived by various cults. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most powerful message ever given, and through it God can and does change even the most broken life.”39 In the supernatural realm, this concept of “an automatic seed” is astounding. We get the word “automatic” from automate. Jesus is saying that just as surely as good seed planted in good soil in the natural realm will produce a bumper harvest, so the gospel will because of its inherent power, automatically produce a bumper crop in the supernatural. No wonder the Early Church was so fanatical about proclaiming the gospel. They knew this about automate. The legendary English preacher and theologian Dr W. Graham Scroggie (1877-1958) comments on automate: “[the seed] springs up and grows without the sower’s aid…the seed has a secret energy of its own, a principle of life and growth within itself, and so it will obey the law of its being, and come to maturity... Having faithfully sown, he [the farmer] must believe in the vital potency of the seed.”40 Dr D. Edmond Hiebert adds, “[automate describes] growth produced by a self-acting, spontaneous power within the seed which acts independently of man’s agency. The earth itself does not produce the growth but is the medium for the germinating power of the seed.” 41 Dr B. Harvie Branscomb stated, “The emphasis on [this] 39 Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale books, 1999, p.52 40 Dr W. Graham Scroggie. The Gospel Of St. Mark. Marshall, Morgan and Scott, (publishing date not given), P.85 41 D. Edmond Hiebert. Mark. A Portrait Of A Servant. Moody Press, 1974, p.109

parable falls, not on the gradual growth of the seed, but on the fact that it comes ‘of itself,’ that the sower merely sows, and then waits for the earth itself to bring the seed to its full maturity.”42 The Interpreter’s Bible talks about the “indefeatable forces on the side of the Kingdom.”43 This is an outstanding thing to say. Think about it. We are in a battle for the souls of men and women. When the gospel becomes central, we become the undefeatable army of the living God. But when we don’t proclaim the gospel, we put nothing in the hands of the Lord with which to defeat the enemy. When we don’t proclaim the gospel, we give evil, darkness, and sin permission to take over. We have all seen the “undefeatable force” of a seed. Recall the last time you saw a tree push through solid concrete on a road or a footpath? What’s the parallel for evangelism? When we proclaim or spread the gospel, there is real hope for the lost. Hardened atheists, indifferent, yawning agnostics, people who have been hurt by Christians – all can be redeemed through the undefeatable gospel. Skeptical family members, proud employers, unbelieving neighbours and scoffing workmates – their attitude to God matters little to the undefeatable seed. The gospel is no respecter of persons. God delights to work through the seed of the gospel to win them all. • Can you see now why the enemy has launched all his devices to stop evangelism? • Can you see why Jesus considered the evangelisation of the earth a priority? • Can you see why He commanded us to make disciples? In His mind He wanted us to increase the size of the army who 42 Dr B. Harvie Branscomb. The Gospel Of Mark. Hodder and Stoughton, 1964, p.83 43 The Interpreter’s Bible. Volume 7. Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, Nashville, 1951, p.704

would proclaim and spread this supernatural seed! Lest you are still not yet convinced, please read on. Christian Schwarz, the expert on natural church development, comments on the principle: “The ‘all by itself ’ principle is not merely a nice word picture. I understand it to be the very essence of church growth. Growing churches utilise this principle.”44 The tropical rain forests, untouched by humans for thousands of years, are vivid examples of the self-regenerating power of vegetation which God has established on the earth. Everyone of those trees grows seeds, and throws out seeds. What God does in the natural realm, He wants to replicate in the supernatural, but He can only do so if we sow the supernatural seed of the gospel. Another scripture is Romans 1:16, “...the gospel is the power of God for salvation.” According to the Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon, the word “power’” in this verse means “inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth.”45 How should an understanding of automate change the way we are currently doing evangelism? First, we must return to the practice of reaching total strangers through personal evangelism. By total strangers I mean non-Christians who don’t have a Christian friend and who never listen to Christian radio or TV, or read Christian literature. They are a massive group of people.46 Up until now, reaching this group of people through personal evangelism has been put in the ‘too hard basket’ by most Christians – 98 percent of Christians if we go by the statistics I presented in the Chapter One. Yet, the Early Church relentlessly went to this group 44 Christian A. Schwarz. Natural Church Development. A Guide To Eight Essential Qualities Of Healthy Churches. C&P Publishing, Germany, 1996, p.12 45 Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems Inc, 1995. 46 For example, if 10% of the general population in a nation are genuine Christians, and each has three non-Christians they are actively befriending with the intention of bringing them to faith, we could say that the Christians in that nation were reaching 30% of the non-Christian population. Who is going to reach the other 60% with the gospel?

with the gospel, and in doing so experienced prolific Church growth. There is a second implication for evangelism when we truly comprehend this word automate. This is illustrated in a conversation I had with a Christian businessman. He was excited about a “new” strategy he felt God had given him. “Julian,” he began, “My wife and I have led a dozen families to the Lord since we became Christians 20 years ago, just by building relationships and letting our light shine. They have all been baptised...they went the whole way. Our whole family of five was involved. This is the most effective way to win the lost and glorify Jesus! If everyone in the Church did this – led one person to the Lord a year through being a shining light – and then those who were led to the Lord led one person a year to the Lord themselves, and so on, we could double the Church every year!” He was excited, but once again, his strategy contained truth and error. The truth? First, building relationships and letting our light shine are critically important “ploughing” and “watering” behaviours in the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ. Secondly, it is a wonderful thing to involve a whole family in leading other families to Christ. William Booth and his wife Catherine, founders of the mighty Salvation Army, were shining examples of this. Finally, the businessman’s mathematics are accurate. hat are the misunderstandings this businessman has taken on board? First, his idea promotes the device of the enemy that evangelism is the winning of souls, as opposed to proclamation. Secondly, letting our light shine, as important as it is in the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ, is not the most effective way to win the lost. Thirdly, it does not take into account the supernatural promise of the “all by itself” principle. For example, instead of adopting

the proposed “let your light shine” plan, let’s look at what would happen if this businessman spent 20 years proclaiming the gospel just by himself (i.e. taking no time to train anyone else how to share the gospel) and letting his light shine with the twelve families. Say he shared the authentic gospel lovingly and graciously, with one person a day. Not taking into account leap years, he would have planted the seed of the gospel in 7300 people. Let’s suppose automate kicked in but only a meagre 10 percent of the “seed” came up “automatically” (i.e. 10 percent of 7300 people were saved).47 A staggering 730 would have come to the faith plus twelve families. Let’s say the other four members of the businessman’s family followed his example and started proclaiming the gospel. Potentially, 3650 people (i.e. 5 x 730) would have been saved. It is no coincidence that the parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:32) follows Mark 4:26-29. Please take time to read these two parables and meditate on their intimate connection. y ordering these two parables in this way, The Holy Spirit, through Mark, is trying to communicate to us the enormous potential of gospel proclamation, but we are just not getting it. Jesus is trying to encourage the disciples to see, by faith, the stunning potential of true Biblical evangelism. He is trying to tell them that out of twelve disciples, a mustard seed of men, the worldwide Church as we know it today would grow, but only if they scattered automate seed. The disciples believed Him and did what He said. Look what happened. “...The largest of all the plants in the garden has sprung up [i.e. the Christian Church we see today]” Mark 4:32. Knowing what you now know about the gospel, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out why Jesus issued the

47 In the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1ff), there are four types of soil. Only one is ‘good soil’ which bears fruit. Purely hypothetically, let’s speculate that Jesus is teaching that 25% of the time the gospel is sown, it will strike good soil. With my 10% calculation, I have significantly under estimated the strike rate.

command to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.” In the long term, the most effective way to win the lost is through personal evangelism – if we are to believe Jesus regarding automate. Why on earth would Jesus give us that instruction if there had been a better way? Even if the current strategy of your church to win the lost is working, and you are not majoring on proclaiming the gospel, you are moving in, and living in, God’s second best. You are effectively saying to God “Move aside God. We know better.” If you are a leader reading this, why keep your people living in God’s second best? Surely, as their shepherd, you have a responsibility to lead them into the best? Yes? No? (James 3:1). Plan “A”, the best, God’s will, is right there for you. But you will only step into this plan when you take seriously His plan to mobilse 100% of your people for evangelism. The enemy knows all about the word automate, and the teaching in this parable, and that’s why he has majored on shutting down personal evangelism. Get a vision of everyone in your church skilfully and regularly proclaiming the gospel. Ask God to help you see the whole world as one great field, and 100% of believers as a great army of seed sowers. See all non-Christians as ready to be sown. Get a vision of you personally leading the way. When you do this, you will have captured the very core of Jesus’ heart for you, His Church, and for the salvation of the world. o evangelism by faith, not by sight… Make personal evangelism a feature of your life – and be patient when it comes to seeing results. Evangelist Greg Laurie testifies: “We need to keep sowing the seed of the gospel – because

it is not over until God has finished working.48 God tells me I need to be patient when it comes to sharing my faith. [Patience] is not an easy task. An important thing to remember, however, is that the harvest is not over at the end of the church service but at the end of the age. We have heard so many stories over the years of those who have attended our Harvest Crusades and did not commit their lives to Christ at the actual crusade but came to the Lord later. Sometimes it is no longer than when they step out into the stadium parking lot after the meeting. At other times it may be a day, a week, a few months or even years later.”49 Charles Spurgeon said much the same thing more than a century earlier: “You must have great faith in the Word of God if you are to be winners of souls to those who hear it. You must believe in the power of that message to save people.”50 ou give permission for God to open the iron gates to set prisoners free… Before I bring this discussion about automate to a close, let me show you a final thing about this word. The only other place in the New Testament where the word is used is in Acts 12:10-11. “They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself [automate], and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.’” God worked through an angel to “automatically” open an iron gate to free Peter from prison. The angel could have just prayed

48 Greg Laurie. How To Share Your Faith. Tyndale books, 1999, p.21 49 ibid. pp.17-18 50 Charles Spurgeon. The Soul Winner: Advice On Effective Evangelism. Christian Focus Publications, 2003, p.41

for him. He didn’t do that. He went to him and led him out. Is it just coincidence that this is the only other place in the Bible where this word is used? You know the answer. You too can be like one of God’s angels. Just find nonChristians, plant the seed of the gospel in the soil of their heart, and wait for God to “automatically open” the spiritual gates which are barring them from salvation. You too can be used by God to rescue prisoners held captive in the kingdom of darkness. Only you, one of God’s angels, can plant the seed. Only God can open the iron gates. You are the seed planter. He is the gate-opener. Verse 29: “As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” In the natural realm, good seed put into good soil, at the right time of the year, results in a harvest. There are two things we can learn from this, which apply to the supernatural realm: 1. The farmer has to discern when the crop is ripe. He does not put the sickle in until he discerns its readiness. After we have shared the gospel with someone, not all will be ‘ripe’ for harvest. When we present the gospel one-on-one, we must discern, case by case, whether to invite the person to convert to Christ. In the natural realm, if we pick the fruit before it is ready it is wasted and tastes sour. Yes, we can let the fruit ripen in the bowl, but fruit ripened in this way does not compare with fresh, tree-ripened fruit. If we put the heat on non-Christians to convert before they are ready, we can stall or even torpedo their progress towards Christ. Some may argue, “Hang on. Didn’t Jesus say ‘the fields are white for harvest?’” True, He did say this, but He did not say they were all ready for harvest, all of the time. You get the point. Dr William Barclay, in his commentary on John 4:35-38, gives 41

words of great wisdom and truth when he says “So in this passage there are two things. (1) There is the reminder of an opportunity. The harvest waits to be reaped for God. There comes times in history when men are curious and strangely sensitive to God. What a tragedy it is if Christ’s Church at such times fails to reap Christ’s harvest! (2) There is a reminder of a challenge [in John 4:35-38]. It is given to many a man to sow but not to reap. Many a ministry succeeds, not by its own force and merits, but because of some saintly man who lived and preached and died and left an influence which was greater in his absence than in his presence. Many a man has to work and never sees the results of his labours. I was once taken around an estate which was famous for its rhododendrons. It’s owner loved their acres and knew them all by name. He showed me certain seedlings which would take twenty-five years to flower. He was nearly seventy-five and would never see their beauty - but someone would. No work for Christ and no great undertaking ever fails. If we do not see the result of our labours, others will. There is no room for despair in the Christian life.”51 2. When the non-Christian we are talking to is ‘ripe’ we must not be afraid to apply the sickle. od wants us to expect certain and dramatic results if we faithfully sow… If we interpret verse 29 as a continuation of the previous verses of the parable, and most scholars do, we learn that in a well-sown field, most of the seed strikes. The point to grasp is that the harvest is certain. He does not say “...the harvest might come” or “...the harvest could come.” He specifically says “...the harvest has come.” This is a critical piece of information for us. If every believer was committed to planting the seed of the

51 Dr William Barclay. The Gospel Of John. Volume 1. Chapters 1-7. The Daily Bible Study. Saint Edinburgh Press. 1987. p.169

gospel everywhere as they went about their day, the results would be breath-taking. As I have already pointed out, the parable of the mustard seed which follows Mark 4:26-29, encourages us to look for a harvest of souls larger and grander than we have ever imagined – but only if we plant seed. From a tiny seed, and an insignificant beginning, something huge can grow. Are you “getting” this? losing the gap between theory and practice… The time of endless theorising, planning, praying, and conferencing about evangelism without executing a definite plan to mobilise everyone to actually do it must come to an end. I cannot think of a church or Christian organisation anywhere which does not have somewhere in its mission statement a reference to the priority of reaching people with the gospel. Yet I can think of only one or two churches in the world that are actually seriously attempting to mobilise their people to do it. The bottom line? The gap between theory and practice for many churches and individuals has become so appallingly large, an outsider looking in would conclude we are living in deep deception. We are living in spiritual la la land. Dr David Barrett, an Anglican historian, wrote: “The greatest enemy of world evangelisation is Christian rhetoric - the continual discussing and arguing, the endless talking and preaching about evangelising the world, without any of the crucial implementation.”52 We are experts at being diverted, distracted, delayed, and duped regarding evangelism. The time to obey Jesus and sow the supernatural, unstoppable, undefeatable, all-by-itself, Godordained gospel is now. The following poem illustrates our talent for putting off

52 Cited in George B. Duncan. One Race. One Gospel. One Task. World Congress On Evangelism. World Wide Publications, 1967, p58

participating in evangelism. On one hand it is amusing, but on the other, deeply challenging because it’s communicating truth about you and me.

The Fisherman’s Poem Now it came to pass that a group existed who called themselves fishermen. And lo, there were many fish in the waters all around. In fact the whole area was replete with streams and lakes, replete with fish. And the fish were hungry. Week after week, month after month and year after year, those who called themselves fishermen held meetings and talked about their call to fish, the abundance of fish, and how they might go about fishing. Year after year they carefully defined what fishing meant, defended fishing as an occupation, and declared that fishing was always to be a primary task of fishermen. Continually they searched for new and better methods and for new and better definitions of fishing. Verily, they said, “The fishing industry exists by fishing as fire exists by burning.” They loved slogans such as “Fishing is the task of every fisherman.” They sponsored special celebrations called “Campaigns” and “Fishing Month.” They sponsored costly nationwide and worldwide congresses to debate fishing and to promote fishing and to hear about all the ways of fishing. 44

New fishing equipment, fish calls, and whether any new bait had been discovered. Fishing HQ was built: large, beautiful buildings. The plea went forth for everyone to fish. Only... They didn’t. They organised a Board to send out fishermen to other places. Staff were hired, committees appointed, meetings held. Meetings to justify fishing and to decide what new streams should be targeted. But the staff and committee members did not fish themselves. Large, elaborate training centres were built, in which to teach fishermen how to fish. Studied were the needs of fish, the nature of fish, where to find fish, the psychological reactions of fish, and how to approach and feed fish. The teachers had doctorates in fishology, although the teachers did not fish themselves. They did issue licences. Many felt the call and were sent to fish. They built power plants to pump water for fish, and provided tractors to dredge new waterways. They made all kinds of equipment to improve fish hatcheries. Some said they felt called to furnish fishing equipment. Few of them actually fished. One young fellow, after a stirring meeting on “The Necessity of Fishing,” went fishing. 45

The next day he reported that he had caught two outstanding fish. He was honoured for his excellent catch and contracted to visit all the big meetings possible to tell how he did it. So he quit doing it in order to make time to tell others about the experience. They placed him on the Fishermen’s General Board as “A person having considerable experience.”53 According to the research I quoted at the beginning of this Series, this poem describes 98% of the current Church. Why don’t you make a decision right now to quit being part of the 98% and determine to join the 2%? Ultimately only you can mobilise yourself for personal evangelism. My prayer and vision for the Church is that within ten years, this ratio will be inverted. Now, back to Mark 4:26-29. o not be discouraged if we do not see results straight away...or even if you never see results. In Mark 4:29, the phrase “As soon as the grain is ripe…” follows the phrase, “first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.” This is an exhortation to patience. We are not wasting our time and resources if we evangelise and we don’t see a result straight away, or even after a long time. In fact, as I point out in a later Chapter in this book, even if the whole world was evangelised and absolutely no one was converted, Jesus will have been glorified through our evangelism efforts, which is what evangelism is ultimately all about. Whatever you do, don’t miss the Chapter which deals with our motivation for evangelism. It’s packed with thrilling revelations about motives!

53 Dr Darrell W. Robinson. People Sharing Jesus. Nashville. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995, pp.21-23

Bible scholar Dr Richard Glover comments on the meaning of this verse: “Put away all impatience and all fear as to its ultimate success.”54 I have seen the “ultimate success” of the gospel and the “putting away of all impatience” in the lives of others many times. On a recent ministry trip to England, for example, I went to lunch with an elderly man and his wife. I asked them to tell me how they were saved. She had been a Christian all her life, but had married a non-Christian. Early in the marriage she had shared the gospel clearly with him, but he had not responded. They had two children and the marriage became very difficult – he turned antagonistic towards Christians and Christianity and would not allow Christian literature or Christian talk in the house. The only thing he would allow was grace at mealtimes. One day, after nearly three decades of marriage, they sat down to breakfast and proceeded to say grace before the meal. On the surface, this grace was no different from any other. But this day was different. During this particular grace, the Holy Spirit came in sudden power upon the husband. In front of the astonished family members, he broke down at the table, and in tears confessed his sins, asked his family for forgiveness, and invited Jesus into his life. According to his wife, “You couldn’t stop him evangelising, and you couldn’t stop him smiling. He was ‘up’ for months!” God chose to move suddenly and dramatically. This real life testimony shows “automate” at its best. Drawing someone to God takes time. Factors outside of God’s convicting power can fertilise the seed (for example the quality and number of Christian friends, prayer, the influence of Christian family, TV, radio, books, tapes, reading the Bible, etc) but ultimately 54 Dr Richard Glover. The Gospel Of Mark. Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1957, p.70

only God can grow it. According to Dr David McKenna, Jesus is deliberately slowing us down by describing a process which cannot be sped up or shortcircuited: “Because we cannot control God’s timing for the growth of the Kingdom of God, we must trade in our stopwatches for calendars.”55 racking John Wesley’s meetings… It is worth noting that a researcher, Thomas Albin, once tracked people who had attended John Wesley’s meetings. Many people were converted during those meetings but many more went away without converting immediately. Albin tracked the latter group. He wanted to know how long it took for the seed of the gospel Wesley had preached to strike, grow, and ripen for harvest. Albin found that some took two minutes to convert after hearing the gospel after leaving one of John Wesley’s meetings, some two hours, some two days, some two weeks, some two years, and some twenty years. The average was two years.56 ow does this Parable sync with the Parable of the Seed and the Sower? (Matthew 13:3-9; Mark 4:2-9; and Luke 8:4-8.) In the parable of the seed and the sower, Jesus points out all the opposition the gospel faces: rocks, weeds, a path, and birds which turn out to be the devil, riches, tribulation, persecution, and the cares of this world - eight opponents. These opponents of the gospel are no trouble to automate! How do we know this? Mark 2:28 does not say “All by itself the earth might yield crops...” It says “All by itself, the earth yields crops.” In other words because of automate, the crop is “a promise” not a “maybe.” For a crop to realise from the planting of seed, opponents must have

55 Dr David L. McKenna. The Communicator’s Commentary. Mark. Word Books, 1984, p.102 56 Dr David L. McKenna. The Communicator’s Commentary. Mark. Word Books, 1984, p.102

been vanquished. What’s the point? God can overrule in any situation no matter how hard because of the promise of automate in Mark 4:28. Because of this revelation of automate, the Parable of the Growing Seed is therefore the central teaching of Jesus on the subject of evangelism in the New Testament. It “trumps” all the other parables which allude to evangelism because no other parable reveals this amazing key to unprecedented harvest. lan for a football stadium of souls in heaven, not a tea party… Just the thought of planting the seed of the gospel into the minds of non-Christians, perhaps never seeing them again,57 and then meeting them in heaven is an inspiring thought which causes my spirit to overflow with excitement! I don’t want to be greeted in heaven by a tiny, back-garden tea party. I’d prefer multiple football stadiums, jam-packed.58 The only factor determining which one will be yours, is what action you take - and continue to take – for the rest of your life, and how many others you train to do the same. If you sow the gospel, either by spreading it through tracts or proclaiming it, God will work through you to save people. If you don’t, he won’t. At a base level, it’s as simple as that. I want you to meditate on the thought of living with Jesus for eternity, surrounded by millions of souls,59 knowing that God used

57 This is not saying we don’t want to meet them again! But if we want to reach the world, there will be many people we reach who we will not see again in this world because either they are moving around or we are. 58 Please don’t interpret this as promoting the idea that we do evangelism for self gratification or personal glory. God forbid. In Chapter Twenty Three, I discuss what ought to motivate us for evangelism. 59 Yes, I mean millions. The people God uses you to save, God will in turn use to save others. God will use you to start a “domino effect of salvations” which could last, literally, into all eternity, especially if you teach others how to proclaim and spread the gospel. This thought, I pray, rather than pollute your motives for evangelism, will spur you on to greater fruitfulness. When Jesus exhorts us to store up riches in heaven (Matthew 6:19), the most valuable of all heavenly riches is ‘souls’ (Mark 8:36).

you in a small way, through the gospel, to get them there.60 Then, when you arrive in heaven, not only will you be eternally thankful to Jesus, giving all the glory to Him, but you will be thrilled that you took what Jesus taught about automate in Mark 4:26-29 seriously. No wonder the enemy is wildly committed to shutting down evangelism. He knows full well the Parable of the Growing Seed and wants to rob you of this eternal possibility. etting a Kingdom mentality about evangelism… As I draw this exegesis of Mark 4:26-29 to a close, I want you to notice that Jesus began the Parable by saying, “This is what the Kingdom of God is like.” Why is this significant? God is looking for leaders with a Kingdom world view of evangelisation. Let me explain. Proclaiming the gospel will not specifically guarantee an influx of new converts into your church. We need a new maturity and understanding about this. To succeed with evangelism in the world, we must be committed to growing the Kingdom, not just our kingdom. Will you, as a pastor, sow resources into a harvest field that might not show an immediate result for your church? What happens if the resources you sow into the people of your neighbourhood result in a harvest for the church down the road? Jesus calls you to rejoice at the thought. One great thing God has done for me in evangelism is change my heart. Once I had a “my church” mentality. God has changed that. I now love all the churches and I want to help fill them all

60 I f you faithfully spread and/or proclaim the gospel, and not one person is saved through your efforts, you will have at least four things to rejoice about in heaven. (1) You will have glorified God on earth, for we know that spreading and proclaiming the gospel is one of the most potent ways of glorifying Jesus. (2) The blood of non-Christians will be off your hands (Ezekiel 33:7-9) (3) You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the priority of the will of Jesus. You will hear Him say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). (4) You will have loved God (John 14:21), fulfilling the greatest commandment.

for His glory.61 ree at last… When I go into churches to preach, I always proclaim the gospel and then give an altar call. Sometimes people come to the front, after the service has finished, and tell me sheepishly that they have discovered for the first time that they were not Christians; and they apologise for not coming to the front at the altar call. When they ask how they can be saved, I direct them to the follow-up booklet which we have produced and ask them to work through it. I ask them to think carefully about their impending decision and encourage them to work with their pastor for clarification and support and to have questions answered. Below is a letter, originally written by hand, that was on my desk when I returned home from a ministry trip. When I first picked it up I noticed the return address was a women’s prison.The writer has given me permission to share what she wrote.

C Wing Mt Eden Women’s Prison Private Bag Auckland New Zealand. Dear Julian, You may not remember me, but you came to [my church]62 last year. I talked to you afterwards and told you that I realised I was going to hell. You told me, “You know what you have to do then.” 61 This does not mean I don’t have a great commitment to my own church. Clearly I do, and I want you to have the same commitment to your local church. It’s not either/or. It’s both. 62 The church name was provided, but has been intentionally omitted.

Yes, Julian, I did know. It took me a month or so to do it, but I did. As you can see, I am now in prison on remand because the only way I could make sure I got to heaven was to go to the police and confess to them after I had told my pastor. Well, I am now facing a murder charge and am looking at life imprisonment. But you know what Julian – I am finally free. I am finally able to go to God and be clean. I am more free than I have ever been. I have two of your follow up booklets63 in here but wouldn’t mind a few more. Thank you so much for your words. I guess no one knew exactly what it would result in, except God. Thank you. Best wishes Andrea There it is, a modern-day illustration of the Pearl of Great Price. No one would ever have found out this woman’s crime. She had, literally, gotten away with murder. When she heard the gospel, the holy wound was inflicted through the Law, and then the holy balm of grace was applied through the Cross. She confessed, and later accepted imprisonment in order to be right with God. Now she is clean. This woman is a heroine because of her courage; and the gospel once again proves its power to save, heal and restore. I proclaimed the gospel in a church service where Andrea sat, and it clarified the real issues. The Holy Spirit brought conviction, she responded, and God received all the glory. ime has not eroded the effectiveness of the gospel… Here is our challenge. Andrea’s story could be repeated all over the globe if only we would realise the gospel really is the power of God for salvation.

63 The follow up booklet is called “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die” which we give to people after they have heard the gospel. They are available from www.esisite.com

In our battle for the souls of men and women, to relentlessly proclaim the gospel to all non-Christians everywhere is to tap into the most potent of all strategies from heaven. After considering everything I have written in this Chapter, can you see why Paul in Galatians 1:6-9 gives such a strong rebuke to the Church in Galatia for preaching another gospel? Paul knew full well what Jesus had taught in Mark 4:26-29. He knew that if we change “the seed” (by stripping out vital content such as justification by faith alone, sin, the law, justice, hell, final judgement etc) the seed would not grow, just as a chopped-up seed in the natural realm will not grow. Can you also see why churches which turn to commercialism, hype, and marketing at the expense of evangelism to win the lost are doing something which is utterly insulting to Jesus? Something completely at odds with His plan and pattern for the redemption of this lost world? Can you see why if we simply and endlessly worship Jesus through singing songs, attend Bible studies, listen to great sermons, do good works, pray, and attend conferences and camps but don’t go to the lost with the gospel 365 days of the year, we are utterly failing with the priority of Jesus? Let me say it again - our number one priority before God is to mobilise the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. The results are up to God. But will we do it? What action are you going to take? What action is your church going to take? I leave the final word to eminent theologian and author Dr Millard Erickson: “The Church can display the same confidence in the gospel that Paul had, for it is still the same gospel; time has not eroded its effectiveness.”64 “..if the Church is to be faithful to its Lord, it must be engaged in bringing the gospel to all people.... if it does not, it will be spiritually ill, for it will be attempting to function in a way its Lord never intended.”65 64 Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Books, 1988, p.1065 65 Ibid, 1054

ummary

• God has chosen to appoint people as His co-workers in both the physical and spiritual realms. In the physical realm, the farmer sows the seed and then waits for growth to occur. • Likewise, in the spiritual realm, Christians have been commanded by their Lord to sow the seed of the gospel (Romans 10: 14-15; Mark 16:15) and demonstrate the Word (Luke 8:11) to those around us. We too must wait for God to “grow” the seed of the gospel (1 Cor. 3:6-7). • In both the physical realm (i.e. agriculture) and the spiritual realm (i.e Christian evangelism), the power of life and growth is in the seed. • With right strategies and tools, evangelism is easier than most think. • With the right strategies and tools, absolutely everyone can succeed with evangelism. • It is a mistake to think we must personally “plough” the hearts of non-Christians with a good work, or build a relationship with them, before we present the gospel to them. • The Holy Spirit is constantly “ploughing” the hearts of nonChristians through conscience and creation to prepare them to receive the seed of the gospel. • Furthermore, being made in the image of God, and having eternity in their hearts, the vast majority of non-Christians are right now open to hear the Gospel message. • This does not mean we are to not engage in social action and build relationships with the lost etc. Social action and building relationships simply add to the “ploughing” that God is already doing through conscience and creation, having eternity in our hearts etc. • On the basis of the bullets above, we have no excuse to not 54

•

• •

• • •

• •

reach total strangers with the gospel. Under no circumstances are we to substitute ploughing for sowing, which is what the vast majority of churches have done. In a nutshell, this is the tragic problem this book is addressing. Another reason we don’t give the gospel to strangers is we don’t understand the beauty, majesty, and wonder of how evangelism works and what Jesus taught about it. The beauty, majesty, and wonder of how evangelism works and what Jesus taught about is most clearly seen in Mark 4:26-29. This parable is the central teaching of Jesus in the New Testament on the subject of evangelism In this parable, Jesus teaches that our job in evangelism is tiny - we plant the seed. His job is huge - He brings belief and conviction. In this parable, Jesus teaches that if we sow the seed of the gospel, He, by His almighty power, will grow it. The pivotal word in this parable is automate. Another reason the Church has generally failed to give the gospel to strangers is that it has lacked good tools and strategies. How God grows the seed of the gospel is a mystery. The more seed we sow, the greater the harvest will be. This is the Law of sowing and reaping. Most Christians have never been discipled when it comes to knowledge and understanding of the theology and practice of evangelism. This is a tragedy beyond words given the evangelisation of the world is the priority of the Christian Church. It’s also a tragedy because it highlights a gaping hole in the discipleship programs of most churches. 55

• Galatians 1:6-9 (i.e. “woe to you if you preach another gospel”) and Mark 4:26-29 (i.e. “sow the seed of the gospel and reap a harvest” ) are intimately connected. If we play around with the seed (i.e. compromise on the content of the message) automate is nullified, and the whole redemptive plan of God is threatened. • If in our church mission statements we say we promote and value evangelism and the Great Commission yet in reality we fail to mobilise our church members to spread and proclaim the gospel (i.e. we play lip service to evangelism and the Great Commission) we unwittingly send our people the message that evangelism and the Great Commission are just theories which don’t need to be out-worked in reality. • CTION POINT: Start spreading awareness of the truths raised in this Chapter to other Christians, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy of this Chapter, you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@esisite.com. • CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Explain that it’s the Biblical priority to attempt to mobilise 100% of the people in your church to be active in evangelism. Ask them to contact me so I can show them how to do it (julian@esisite.com). Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Support them.

A A

In the next Chapter, I examine how Christian leaders, authors, evangelists and parents are singled out by the enemy for special attention. Some of the devices he uses to target them are more dangerous and toxic than any we have discussed so far. If you have any kind of leadership role in the Church, the insights in the next 56

Chapters are intended to help you maximise your influence and effectiveness. If you are not a leader, the insights you are about to receive will enable you to pray more strategically for those who shepherd you in your church. Come with me. We are going right into the epicentre of the battle! This is one battle we must win if we want to see a Great Commission resurgence, a world-wide harvest of souls, and the glory of Jesus flooding the earth!

Real Life Story A High Court Judge Hears The Gospel England

Today I travelled by train from Southend-onSea to Exeter. When I arrived at the station and bought my ticket, I discovered the journey involved changing trains several times and some walking in between. Great, I thought, this will be an adventure! Everything went smoothly. At each station I asked the attendants for directions to the next train and there was no problem. The last leg of the journey was from Paddington to Exeter, which would take two and a half hours. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe how many people were waiting to take this train and how long it was. When the gates were opened, a tsunami of people flooded into the train. The door to the carriage nearest the gate was open and so I went through it, put my bags on the racks, pulled out my lap top and promptly sat down. The first thing I noticed was how lovely the seats were. Opposite me was a man who looked like a lawyer, the table in front of him being strewn with 58

legal documents. Next I noticed the air-conditioning, the soft music and the leg room. My opinion of British Rail was going up rapidly. This was going to be a lovely ride to Exeter. It also registered – rather vaguely – that the carriage I was in wasn’t very full. I figured that was because the train was so big and that everyone else was spread out along it, enjoying the same unexpected comforts. As the train pulled out I tapped away on my laptop, looking up occasionally to enjoy the ever-changing view. About halfway through the journey I became conscious of the sound of clinking glasses. I looked around, and sure enough, to my delight, a waiter was working his way up the aisle, giving out drinks and food. I partook. Then, about two-thirds of the way to Exeter, another man appeared, asking for everyone’s tickets. When he came to me I gave him my ticket and thanked him for the excellent service. A little amused, he leaned close to my ear and explained, rather furtively, that I was sitting in first class, that I wasn’t supposed to be sitting here, and that if 59

I wanted to pay another £40 I could stay there for the remainder of the journey. He told me there were some spare seats at the opposite end of the train. I felt a little embarrassed and somewhat deflated. The ticket man left and the lawyer spoke up. Lawyer: “They are very pedantic aren’t they? I couldn’t help overhearing what he said to you. You know, I had trouble with one of these guys one day when he…” And he proceeded to tell me about the time he had lost his season ticket and British Rail would not let him travel.  The rules! We talked for some time, and then I asked him what he did for a job. He told me he was a High Court Judge in London.  His name was Alan. Never wanting to miss an opportunity, I said “Can I ask you a question. What’s the best selling book in the world?” He said “The Bible” and I explained that we’d made a video which summarises the whole book in 11 minutes. I invited him to watch it on my iphone, which he accepted. Thankfully, no other passengers were within earshot, and so our encounter was private. When I reflected over the incident later, it reminded me of Nicodemus and Jesus and their episode in the middle of the night. Alan was transfixed all the way through. When we reached the end of the presentation he confessed, albeit meekly, that if he died that night he would go to hell. I saw his eyes water, and felt overwhelming compassion for him. He told me, as if he were sharing a secret, that at 60-something 60

years old, he had never heard this message before. We talked a little more, still huddled over the iphone as the train rattled along. He was going to a city beyond Exeter he told me. At the end, I gave him a little follow-up booklet called “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die.”1 He took it eagerly. We both sat back in our seats and then I said to him that I had better heed the rules and head down the train into the other section. He asked if he could look after my bags for me in first class so that I didn’t have to take them all the way to the other end of the train. It was a lovely gesture. Walking through the carriages to the other end of the train seemed to take forever. I would have sat down close to first class if there had been a seat, but there wasn’t. When I did get to the other end of the train, there were no seats and so I stood in an area outside the toilet.  Standing didn’t bother me – I had been sitting in luxury for more than two hours! As I stood there resetting my iphone for the next presentation of the gospel, a lady came out of the toilet and was looking out the window. I asked her if she would help me. She agreed and I proceeded to show her the video of the gospel. Near the end, she told me calmly and matterof-factly that she didn’t agree with any of it. She said she was from Bulgaria and “religion” had never been part of her life and she was an 1You can purchase these from www.esisite.com 61

atheist. Me: “Oh, how interesting! I don’t meet many atheists nowadays. You are becoming quite rare!” We laughed and then I asked her the final question. Me: “If you died tonight where would you go?” She said again that she didn’t believe in Jesus or God or heaven or hell. Me: “If this were true, where would you go?” Her: “Hell.” I offered to give her a follow-up booklet but she declined. We talked a little more about other things and then she moved back to her seat. “Well, Holy Spirit,” I said quietly, feeling rather sad for her, “she has heard the full gospel clearly and lovingly, and so now it is up to you to bring conviction.” I could rest in that thought. I was released. Ezekiel 33: 7-9 said that her blood was now off my hands. My responsibility was to sow the gospel with love and grace and without compromise and God’s responsibility is to grow it. She was so different from Alan! When the train pulled into Exeter I got off quickly and headed for the rear carriage where Alan would be waiting. However, the train was so long that by the time I was about half way, the station master’s whistle blew and the train was about to move on to the next station – with my bags still on board. Breaking into a sprint, I noticed Alan in the far distance, on the platform, with my bags in hand. He was talking to a station attendant. 62

As I got closer, I could see the attendant was in radio contact with the driver, asking him to wait. When I finally reached Alan, the attendant had gone and I had one of those precious God-moments in evangelism. He told me kindly that I was doing a wonderful job and wished me well “on my mission!” Puffing from the run, I said to him: Me: “Alan, if I never see you again on this earth, then I will look for you in heaven! You had better be there!” He got back on the train, the whistle blew, and the train pulled out. The last image I have of him was waving through the glass in first class. See you in heaven, Alan. And that is how the encounter ended. Thousands end like that. Nothing very dramatic. No triumphant story of instant salvation. Just the deep satisfaction of knowing that God has just used me to reach another human being with the incorruptible seed of the gospel and glory has gone to His name. I know Alan felt God touch him. It feels, truly, like life in all its fulness.

Julian’s comments.

Both Alan and the atheist heard the full gospel, delivered with love and grace. They are now safely in the hands of the Trinity. For an evangelist with right theology, this is a good days work. The main consideration for me as I reflected on this day was that Jesus had been glorified, and really, that’s the main thing about which we ought to be concerned.

Chapter Fourteen

What Leaders Must Do To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

ow a leader can change everything...

Just after the First World War, an Anglican diocese was established in Lagos in Nigeria. Ninety-one years later, it has become the largest active Protestant church body in the world. Much of the growth of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, however, occurred during the last two decades. From 24 dioceses in 1988, the church has grown to 156 dioceses. Every Sunday, the Church of Nigeria gathers 20 million people in worship of Jesus Christ. The 22-year period of the dramatic growth of the Church of Nigeria coincides with the terms of the last two primates, or heads of the church. The “Christian Post” magazine spoke with the previous primate of the Church of Nigeria over the phone to find out what brought about the change. According to the Rt Rev Peter Jasper Akinola, it all started when bishops stopped thinking of themselves as bishops in the conventional sense. Previously, the bishop was addressed as “His Lordship”. He mainly occupied the position of the office, had everything done 2

for him, attended meetings, decided mission strategies, and graced ceremonies. “Today, every bishop (in the Church of Nigeria) is first and foremost an evangelist1,” said Akinola. “And from that, other things follow.” This is a crucially important point. What he is saying is that the primary function of the senior leader in a church is to lead by example in evangelism. Wow! If there is a truth in this entire book which comes directly from heaven, this is it! Friends in Christ, if there was one truth I wanted you to ‘get’ and take on board as a result of reading my entire book, this would have to be the one truth. I have found, after 30 years of experience mobilising churches, that unless the leader of the church leads by example in evangelism, and leads the charge, it will be impossible to mobilise the rest of the their church for evangelism. Period. Akinola acknowledged that growth has been due not just to good leadership of the church, but good leadership in evangelism. The truth is, one can’t be the former, without being the latter. Jesus, Paul, and all the disciples would applaud this point. “But it is one thing to lead, it is another thing for what you do to be led by God,” said the retired primate. “So for me again it is certainly God’s mighty blessings upon our leadership that is responsible for our achievements.” Explaining the missionary focus of the church, Akinola stated, “We believe very strongly that when a church ceases to evangelise it will not have the right to exist.” The leadership of the Church of Nigeria takes the Great Commandment and Great Commission seriously, the bishop noted. It is the mission to the lost that forms the “bedrock” of the activities and programmes of the church, he said. After He was resurrected, Jesus gave His disciples the Great 1 By this he does not means, necessarily, someone with ‘the gift’. He simply means someone who does evangelism, whether they have the gift or not

Commission to dedicate their lives to it. Despite its largeness, Akinola sees the Church of Nigeria growing to half the population of the country. Nigeria has over 150 million people. “My successor is a firebrand in the area of evangelism and orthodoxy,” he said.2 Wow! That’s straight shooting. This account makes it clear : leaders leading by example in evangelism is everything. eople do what people see… Lee Iacocca, the famous Chairman and CEO of Chrysler Corporation, said, “When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.”3 Don’t you both love and hate that kind of quote? We love it because we love to lead. We love to shepherd and guide and teach and exhort. Being a leader is what God designed us to do! But the weight every leader carries is the sheer responsibility. For pretty much everything about a church – or any organisation – comes down to its leaders. Where you go, your people will go. Being reminded of that fact can be scary. Many of you will have read the writings of John Maxwell, one of the world’s foremost teachers on leadership principles. He says the number one motivational principle is this: people do what people see. “The speed of the leader determines the speed of the followers. And followers will never go any further than their leader. The good things a leader does in excess, followers will emulate in moderation. But the bad things a leader does in moderation, followers will emulate in excess. It’s the price of leadership and there’s no sense whining about it.

2 http://www.christiantoday.com/article/akinola.puts.phenomenal.growth.of.nigerian.church.down. to.evangelism/26099.htm 3

Cited in John Maxwell. The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership. Nelson Books, 2001, p.187

It’s simply the price of your position.”4 Jesus knew this. He is our ultimate example, the ultimate leader. Throughout the accounts of His life on earth, we see that in order to prepare His disciples for the future, He taught by example as well as by what He spelled out in His sermons and parables. f you do it, they will. If you don’t, they won’t… And so it is with evangelism. As leaders, we have the potential to mobilise or immobilise everyone in our churches for regular personal evangelism. Make no mistake, our attitudes to evangelism and our participation or non-participation – what we teach about it and how we model / don’t model it in our lives – will directly affect the success or failure of evangelism in the church we lead. Check out this scripture: “When leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless the Lord!” (Judges 5:2 NKJV). Leaders who activate for evangelism pour blessing on all those they lead by being a positive example. ost leaders have an academic passion for evangelism… Undoubtedly the vast majority of Christian leaders believe in evangelism theologically and know they should do it. Yet sadly, most fare little better than the general Christian population when it comes to actually doing it. What we do in evangelism carries infinitely more potential to motivate those we lead than what we preach and believe about evangelism. In fact, if we tell the people in our church that we are passionate about evangelism, and evangelising the world, and we write and preach about it, even have it in our mission statements, yet don’t do it ourselves, we only serve to inoculate them against it. Why? Because our people will pick up the idea that it’s quite okay to believe in something, and be passionate about it, and write about its importance, yet do nothing practically about it. Worse still, there is

John Maxwell. Developing The Leader Within You. Word Books, 1993, pp.166-167

every possibility we will be teaching them how to be hypocritical about evangelism – which ought to be any true leader’s worst nightmare. The people under us watching us and listening to us will reason “It must be ok to relegate evangelism into the realm of theory. This is what my pastor has done, so I’ll do it too.” For this reason pastors are the problem, and pastors are the solution. Missiologist Ron Blue thinks the leader provides the spark for everything that happens in any field of endeavour - and evangelism simply will not happen without encouragement, guidance, and modelling from the top. “Church leaders need to set the pace and point the way. The one who is called to feed and lead the flock is rightly named ‘senior pastor.’ But seniority does not focus on the age of the [leader]. Instead, seniority refers to his position. As the shepherd of his flock, he must lead the way in evangelism, [demonstrating] by personal example a lifestyle of evangelistic outreach.” Blue says congregations are hugely encouraged when pastors talk from the pulpit about their own experiences of evangelism – the good and the not so good – and that a leader’s teaching should be filled with fresh examples of evangelism experiences. “These illustrations, taken from his on-going experience, are some of the most effective means for motivating and training others for evangelism.”5 eading from the front… The Greeks used to tell how Xenophon first met Socrates in a narrow lane. Barring his path with a stick, Socrates asked the young man if he knew where he could buy this and that, and if he knew where these things were made. Xenophon gave the required information. “Do you know where men are made good and virtuous?”

5 Ron Blue. Evangelism And Missions. Devices For Outreach In The 21st Century. Word Publishing, 2001, p.7

Socrates then asked him. “No,” said Xenophon. “Then,” said Socrates, “follow me and learn!”6. Church leaders ought to be able to say to their people “Do you want to know how to reach strangers with the gospel in personal evangelism? Then come follow me!” hat does it take? In 2001, Thom S. Rainer and a team of associates interviewed more than 100 pastors of effective evangelistic churches as part of a large research project. They asked the pastors, “What factors create an effective evangelistic church?” Their responses revealed five key strategies to help us win the battle for souls: Theology They believed Jesus Christ was the only way of salvation and that anyone outside of Christ was eternally lost. Excellence Leaders of effective evangelistic churches engendered excellence in everything they did in church. This attitude created an atmosphere of excitement, which in turn encouraged church members to invite their friends. A passion for reaching the lost and seeing them saved They believed pastors must have a passion and enthusiasm for the unsaved, and that the senior pastor was the inspirer, exhorter and encourager of personal evangelism, leading the staff by example. Rainer said later, “In the churches that are reaching the un-churched, you will find a leader who has a passion for reaching the lost. You will find someone whose heart breaks at the thought of anyone going to hell.”7 odelling it is powerful… New Testament scholar T.B. Kilpatrick went so far as

1 2 3

M 6

Cited by: Dr William Barclay. The Gospel Of Matthew. Edinburgh Press, 1965, p.72

7 Dr Thom S. Rainer, Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions. Evangelism And Church Growth. Zondervan, 2001, p.158

to say the primary duty of ministers was evangelism “within the sphere in which they have been placed as ministers of the Word.” He said any ministers who genuinely sought the highest good of their congregations would themselves do the work of an evangelist “as faithfully and efficiently as though no other evangelism agency were ever to be employed.”8 Mark Conner is a modern-day, mega-church pastor who has grasped the importance of modelling personal evangelism before his flock. As senior pastor of the 5000-strong Waverley Christian Fellowship in Melbourne, Australia, he is passionate about urging other pastors to make a priority of modelling evangelism: “As a leader, I had to embrace heaven’s priority in my own life first. Only after modelling this personally could I then help our congregation change its values by becoming an evangelistic community…If I wanted our church to grow in our love for lost people then the growth needed to start with me.”9 Leaders being accountable in personal evangelism. “If there was a single characteristic that separated the pastors of effective churches from other pastors,” wrote Thom Rainer after concluding his research, “it was the issue of accountability in personal evangelism.”10 He went on to give the example of Leslie M, the pastor of a fast-growing, non-denominational church in Pennsylvania. Leslie emphasised how important it was to him to be accountable in evangelism: “We have staff meetings every Monday morning. Before we even have prayer, all ministers share about their witnessing the previous week. We do this before praying, because if

T.B. Kilpatrick. New Testament Evangelism. Hodder and Stoughton, 1911, pp.161-162

9 Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy (Editors). A Passion For Evangelism. Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, p.157 10 Dr Thom S. Rainer, Evangelism and Church Growth. Zondervan, 2001, p.162

a minister has not shared his or her faith during the week, he or she has the opportunity to repent in prayer in front of the rest of us.”11 Wow! Some might cry ‘legalism!’ but I say no it’s not. It’s simply being serious and practical and accountable about the priority of Jesus and not playing games. It is imperative to attempt to mobilise everyone. Nearly 80 percent of the church leaders interviewed in the study said it was imperative congregation members be mobilised to share the gospel. This was because statistics showed that 75 percent of the formerly un-churched had someone share Christ with them prior to making a commitment. A non-denominational leader from Michigan commented to researchers, “I used to beat up the people pretty badly from the pulpit. Then God convicted me we would never reach the un-churched unless I myself was obedient to the Great Commission. It seems like we reach people for Christ when I’m obedient, and the church is dead when I’m disobedient.”12 Fellow leaders, did you get that? When the leader led by example in evangelism, all the people followed suit. When he/she didn’t, they didn’t. It’s so black and white and clear cut. The conclusion to Rainer’s research was a list of seven suggestions for pastors and leaders. Take special note – these too are some of the higher level battle strategies. Your success in the war for souls will be proportionate to the number of these strategies you implement in your situation. 1. Lead by example in personal evangelism. 2. Be clear in your theology of the lost: only Jesus can save, hell is a real place, and all those outside of Christ are eternally damned. 3. Be passionate and enthusiastic about evangelism. 4. Be accountable in personal evangelism. 5. Make your staff accountable in personal evangelism. 6. Arrange for the people in your church to be trained how to

11 Ibid, p.163 12 Ibid, p.167

proclaim and spread the gospel. 7. Arrange for the people in your church to be accountable in personal evangelism. e accountable or fail… Pastor Mark Conner writes on the power of combining accountability, leadership modelling, and ongoing training in evangelism: “Completing a training course doesn’t guarantee life change, as it is easy for people to absorb information without it affecting how they live. In a church context, however, where the principles of the training are being modelled and taught consistently and where there is accountability and follow up within a small group environment, the chances of training translating into behavioural change are enhanced considerably.”13 Accountability, leadership modelling, and on-going training are three strategies Mark Conner uses to create an evangelistic church. As a ministry we have developed a further 25 strategies in addition to these three detailed by Mark. If you connect with us, we’ll share those with you and help you implement them in your church.

ummary

• If you are the leader of your church, and you want to mobilise 100% of the people in your church for evangelism, and maintain the momentum14, you have to lead by example. I am sorry, but there is no way around this. • Be clear in your theology of the lost: only Jesus can save, hell is

13 Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy (Editors), A Passion for Evangelism. Turning Vision into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, p.159 13 Before you venture further with this book, take a break from what I am saying, go to appendix three, and read a stunning commentary on leaders and the influence they have on evangelism by Dr Roger Greenway entitled “The Pastor Evangelist”. 14 It’s relatively easy to mobilise a whole church. The hard bit is keeping everyone going! By God’s grace, He has given us as a ministry 28 strategies which a church can employ / implement to help it maintain evangelism momentum..

a real place of conscious torment, and all those outside of Christ are eternally damned. • Be passionate and enthusiastic about evangelism. • Be accountable in personal evangelism and make your staff accountable in personal evangelism. • Arrange for the people in your church to be accountable in personal evangelism. • Arrange for the people in your church to be trained how to proclaim and spread the gospel. • Find a reputable evangelist in your city/town. Ask them to personally coach you on a regular basis re: how to do evangelism until you start to feel like it has become part of the very fabric of your life as a pastor. Then start to coach other leaders. The best way to learn something is to teach it to others. They in turn can start coaching and teaching others how to evangelise, and so on. • Put in place in your church strategies and structures which will build, and then maintain, evangelism momentum. When you do this, it will be possible to mobilise your whole church and keep them mobilised. We can help you with this. Email julian@ esisite.com • It all starts - or stops - at the top. • CTION POINT: Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Only leaders can ensure the points listed in the summary above happen in a local church, which is why they are near the top of the enemy’s hit list. Satan knows their potential to cause a surge in the evangelisation of the world. If he can stop Christian leaders from engaging in personal evangelism, he will have torpedoed the possibility of the mobilisation of everyone in that leader’s church or institution.13 His top priority, as we will examine in the next Chapter, is to focus on “leaders of leaders” - the Board members and staff of theological

training institutions and missionary organisations; well-known Christian writers and teachers; and church leaders, particularly those who head mega-churches. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all very well to detail the crisis in world evangelism. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite another to come up with a plan to fix it. The next four Chapters outline a plan, the execution of which is

certain to cause a resurgence in world evangelism. Come with me and I will show you the plan

Real Life Story I Just Wanted To Thank You And Hate You An email from an Australian pastor

This email was sent to me by someone in a leadership role in his church who shared honestly about his struggles with evangelism, his understanding of responsibility and his critical role of influence. Hi Julian, My name is Warren and I met you last year at a conference. I was originally very taken by what you presented. I went home with a huge gap in my Christian life being filled. However, when I told people in my home church, few people shared the same sentiment as me. Over the past year or so, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had to work through the issues of evangelism and the gospel. God has also thrown a few curve balls my way in other spiritual departments. This leads me to the past few weeks. After I first heard you speak about evangelism, I was so keen that I splashed out and bought an iphone especially to share the gospel with. I used it a few times with the churched and a few other friends and it worked well. However, I shut down for two reasons. First, I had a tremendous fear of presenting to strangers. 13

Secondly, I had a lack of support from anyone else. Two weeks ago I thought I’d lost the iphone but have since found it again. On Tuesday I was working at church and stumbled across your DVD series on which was recorded some of your teaching on evangelism. I snapped up the pack, and took it home to watch them again. I was eager to see if I had responded to the material because it was the truth, or because you presented it so well, or even because I liked your strong charismatic personality. I found last night and today watching it that I responded to what you were saying a year ago because it was the hard truth. I was wondering if I could have a chat with you at some stage before you go back to New Zealand. I know you’re probably going to be hectic, but it’s always worth asking. Regardless of whether we chat, I have decided already that as a leader in my church, it is my responsibility to present what I know about evangelism and why it is failing in the Western world. As hard as it’s going to be, I am now convicted and will simply have to do it. So right now, I don’t like you. I read another book recently put out by a significant world leader on 14

personal evangelism. However, after seeing all your material I realised they were mistakenly not promoting evangelism at all. Even though the book is sound in a lot of ways, you & the Holy Spirit reminded me that his ideas were really about “watering” and “ploughing.” The author’s ideas also reminded me of the conversation we had about good works projects being great “watering” and “ploughing” activities, and excellent PR for the churches. But, these projects were inadvertently being labelled as evangelism, even though the gospel was not being preached. I just wanted to thank you & hate you at the same time. If I don’t get to speak to you, enjoy the rest of your time in our country. Blessings Warren.

Julian’s comments.

Warren is so honest. He expresses the heart cry of so many fine Christians, which is that they really want to reach the lost with the gospel but they fear talking to strangers, and they don’t want to be doing evangelism all by themselves. Fear is overcome by becoming more skilled. And to acquire skill requires training and practise. I was terrified when I first started learning how to evangelise. But as I said, confidence came with practise and training. The single greatest factor effecting non-participation in evangelism by non-leaders in churches is lack of leadership modelling. At the very beginning of learning how to evangelise, you’ll need character qualities like determination, long suffering, courage, and perseverance. If you persevere, realising that evangelism is a learnt skill, you will get your breakthrough. Nothing can be more sure. If Warren, as the 15

leader of his church had broken through, the people in his church would have eventually followed. When Jesus and Paul and any of the other Apostles stepped into the call of God on their lives, they would all have been on a learning curve. Sadly Warren also alludes to books and literature circulating in the Christian community which actually propagate all the devices I am writing about in this book. The authors of these books and articles donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know so we have to help them to know what they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know! i.e. we have to get the revelations in this book to them so that they will become part of the solution, not the problem.

Chapter Fifteen

A Plan Of Action To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism!

A Plan Of Action To Cause A Resurgence

In World Evangelism!

A resurgence in world evangelism - what specific strategies are needed? The next four Chapters answer this question. Oh my goodness, I have such a clear plan of what to do, and I can’t wait to tell you! First, evangelists with the gift must spend their time walking in the job description given to them by God in Ephesians 4:1115 which is to ‘equip the saints for the work of ministry’ i.e. training all those in the Church who don’t have the gift showing them how to do personal evangelism. At this moment in history, most evangelists are not doing this. Rather, they are simply doing evangelism themselves. They are not attempting to mobilise 100% of people in every church for personal evangelism. Evangelists with the gift...... There are two broad categories of evangelists. The first category are crusade evangelists who, as you’d expect, spend a lot of their time executing large crusades. There is a definite place for this. After all, Peter’s mass crusade in Acts 2 was a resounding success 2

3000 were saved in one go. So, let’s keep the mass crusades going. Then there are the ‘non-crusade’ evangelists. They outwork their gift in various situations: in prisons, on the street, going door to door, at after school children’s programmes, on the university campus, in high schools, and so on. Herein lies a problem. Both types of evangelists (i.e. crusade and non-crusade) are most often not equipping the people in their own church to do personal evangelism. And if you ask them why this is so, this is what they will tell you: “It’s because my pastor shows little or no interest in evangelism and he/she exhibits no desire to mobilise all the people in our church for the same. In turn, the people show little interest.” i.e the leader’s attitude to evangelism becomes the attitude of everyone in their church. And what is causing the leader’s lack of interest? Answer? The devices of the enemy which I have detailed in this Mini Series.1 Let me explain. Because the minds of most leaders are marinating in these devices and they don’t know it, they show little or no interest in doing evangelism. In turn, they show little or no interest in training the people in their church for evangelism which in turn causes the gifted evangelist sitting in their church to go elsewhere or to‘do their own thing’ to exercise his/her gift. In short, the evangelist feels like a spare wheel. Hence there exists this tragic disconnect between evangelists with the gift and their pastor, all because of the devices. This was never meant to be. It has always been God’s will for pastors and evangelists in the same local church to work closely together to mobilise everyone in their church for evangelism. And here is what is really troubling. Most church leaders are not aware of just how far their hearts, minds, and churches have 1

In the first 12 Chapters in this series, I detail what these devices are, and how they operate.

drifted from the mission of Jesus (i.e. Jesus’ priority) to evangelise the world. They don’t know what they don’t know. The key questions then are these: “How do we develop in pastors a new and fresh vision to evangelise the world, and have all their people do the same? How do we get pastors and the people in their church with the gift of evangelism working closely together? i.e pastor and evangelist in the same church with a fresh, vigorous passion to complete the Great Commission, and maintain the momentum.” If we can answer these questions, we solve the problem of this tragic disconnect between leaders and evangelists in the same local church. So what is the answer? We must think strategically. It was said of William Carey (1761-1834), the father of modern missions, that his success was due largely to the fact that he thought strategically: “Human responsibility [to evangelise the world] must be active not passive.”2 If one reads the fine print, what he meant was simple: “We need to have a well thought through and prayed over action plan, and then work the plan until 100% of believers are mobilised to reach 100% of the world with the message of the gospel.”3 So what’s our plan? The plan involves having all the people in your church pass through three distinct phases. PHASE ONE: Prepare the church for 100% mobilisation. PHASE TWO: Equip the people for 100% evangelism. PHASE THREE: Maintain 100% mobilisation. 2

Cited in: Rose Dowsett. The Great Commission. Monarch Books. 2001. p.205.

3 In a nutshell, this is the Great Commission defined. You’ll probably have noticed that sometimes I interchange “The Great Commission” with “the evangelisation of the world”. There are four parts to the Great Commission: go, proclaim or spread the gospel (i.e. evangelise), baptise those who are saved, disciple those who are baptised. I have already argued in Chapter Seven why evangelism is primary. So in effect, when I refer to the Great Commission, I am referring to the command of Jesus to evangelise the world.

THE THREE PHASES

PHASE ONE

Prepare your church for evangelism

PHASE ONE PART TWO Purging the church of the devil's devices

PHASE ONE PART ONE Teaching back to basics sermons

PHASE TWO

Prepare your church for evangelism

Showing your people how to do evangelism.

Providing them with the resources to do it

PHASE THREE

Maintain the momentum. Motivating and equipping the 100% to continue in evangelism

Implementing 28 very speciďŹ c strategies

Motivating and inspiring them to do it

PHASE ONE

PHASE ONE, PART ONE: This is preparing your people to do evangelism. To achieve this end, you need to teach a series of sermons on crucially important topics. I would call this sermon series ‘Back to the Basics.’ The first and most important sermon in the series would be on the The Authority And Infallability of the Bible. The people in your church must know, understand, and believe that the Bible is the final authority for the life and conduct of a Christian. This is base one. In short, you want them to fall in love afresh with their Bibles. When this happens, they will be more motivated to do what it says. And when they start to obey what it says, they will discover the Person and presence of Jesus in a whole new way (John 14:21). What’s most important of all is that they must know that the words of the Bible are literally God’s words. I have prepared a Power Point show with over 100 slides on The Authority And Infallability of the Bible. It asks and answers questions like: • What is truth? • How do we know the Bible is true? • How were the words of Jesus written down? • How were they stored? • How do we even know Jesus existed? • How do we know He is God? • How do we know Jesus’ words were recorded accurately? • Who wrote them down? • Like Chinese whispers, how do we know the Words of the Bible have not changed over time? What proof is there? • When were the books of the New Testament written? • Are there writers outside of Biblical writers who wrote about Jesus? • Who are they, and what did they write about Him? • Do these writers corroborate what the gospel writers say about 6

Jesus? • And so on. Phase one, part one is just so important because the people in your church are not going to obey what Jesus commanded to evangelise the world if they are not sure He is God and that He actually commanded it! The foundation of radical obedience must be radical commitment to the clear teaching of Scripture. This is not possible without asking and answering the questions above, and other similar questions. Don’t take it for granted that everyone in your church believes the Bible is literally the Word of God, and the final authority for their life and conduct. The more confidence people have in the Bible that it is the Word of God, the more they will likely obey what it says. The opposite is also true. My ‘Back to the Basics’ sermon series would also include individual messages which ask and answer the following questions: • What is a Christian? • What does it mean to make Jesus Lord? • What happens at conversion? • What is sin and where did it originate? What were the consequences for all humanity? • Heaven and Hell - what are they like, and who is going to each place? • What is the goal of the Christian life? • Do those who don’t become Christians before their death go to hell or not? What about those who have never heard the gospel? • Etc By the end of phase one, part one the people in your church will have a fresh commitment and zeal to protect and preserve the Truth in the Bible, and they will be quick to want to reject any teaching or idea or theology which threatens to undermine 7

its authority and infallability. This is necessary preparation for phase one, part two. PHASE ONE, PART TWO: The whole Church must be purged of the enemy’s 84 devices. These devices are essentially thoughts and ideas of the devil which he plants in the minds of Christians to cause them to depart from Truth - the Truth of Jesus, as found in the Bible, about evangelism, and a host of topics related to evangelism. We run one day conferences to teach people about these devices. To make leaders aware of these devices presents an enormous challenge. Why? The devices of the enemy have been designed by the devil in such a way that they stop leaders being even interested in being aware of them i.e. with respect to the enemy’s devices, pastors don’t know what they don’t know and the enemy doesn’t want them to know what they don’t know. The fact you are reading this Book is a miracle. Phase one, part two is like running anti-virus software through a computer. With respect to evangelism and churches, this crucial first phase is to create a new wine skin (Mark 2:22). Jesus clearly taught the need for this. Generally speaking, people won’t start evangelising (and keep going with it) until and unless they become aware of what has been stopping them in the first place. Awareness is the first step in the change process. Phase one is preparation for phase two.

PHASE TWO

This involves teaching your people how to actually do evangelism. This is where your Ephesians 4:11-14 gifted evangelists kick in. They will source a wide variety of resources and tools to help your people do the job of evangelising the world. The people in your church are all different. Just as we don’t all like the same car, so we won’t all like the same tools and resources to deliver the 8

gospel. Just make sure the tools and resources you put before your people really communicate the whole gospel. The evangelist in your church will coach and mentor your people. Phase two will be on-going in your church. After phase two, comes phase three.

PHASE THREE

Phases 1 and 2 will give your church evangelism momentum but you need phase 3 to maintain it. As a ministry, God in His grace has given us 28 strategies which we have found help a church maintain momentum. These include: 1. Formulating an Evangelism Plan (EP) for your church. If churches implement phase one, parts 1 and 2 above but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t write on paper exactly what their plan is going forwards, absolutely nothing will change. They need a definite, specific, measurable, realistic, action plan which maps out how they are going to mobilise 100% of their people. As the saying goes, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.â&#x20AC;? To formulate an EP is simply to obey what Jesus said to do in Acts 1:8. Acts 1:8 is a divine plan. Fortunately, we have a tried and tested EP already formulated which can be applied to almost any church.4 The work has been done for you. 2. Having people in your church be accountable to one another for their evangelism activity. 3. Having one or two people give an evangelism testimony on Sunday mornings. 4. Setting up an evangelism resource centre / table in your church 5. Having the leadership in your church lead by example, speaking of their evangelism experiences from the pulpit each Sunday. 6. Having monthly coaching sessions where the people in your church meet together to receive deeper teaching on a topic related to evangelism e.g. Genesis 3, and original sin. 4

Please email me for more details: julian@esisite.com

7. Setting up a prayer wall. When a person in your church starts relating to a lost people in their circle, the first name of the lost person is posted on the prayer wall, so they can be prayed for by name. This is much like how the wailing wall in Jerusalem works. 8. Having a “QUESTION BOX” at the back of your church so that the people in your church can anonymously ask questions about evangelism. Each week, one of these questions is read out on Sunday morning and answered. 9. Appointing an Evangelism Team Leader (ETL) in your church. An ETL is the person who works most closely with the pastor to make sure phases 1-3 are operating smoothly and going forwards. 10. Providing each of the people in your church with a “Six Steps Bookmark”. Remember in Chapter Eleven I detailed ‘The Six Steps To Drawing A Non Church Person To Christ’? 11. Etc. These are just 10 of 28 strategies. If you connect with us, we will provide you with all 28. Phases 1-3 show a leader exactly how to mobilise 100% of their people into evangelism, and sustain the momentum. Now here is a crucially important point. It would be wonderful if every pastor of every church were to take their people through the three phases and live in the reality of them. This would definitely cause a staggering resurgence of evangelism. But as I have studied, prayed about, and mulled over this topic, and the challenge of what we can do to cause a resurgence, two questions has gnawed away in my spirit. The questions are these - who in the Church is Satan using more than anyone else to propagate all his devices? Who in the Church could single handedly make the biggest impact for good if they came on board with all that I have written in this Mini Series? If we can answer these two questions, we’d not only fix the 10

problem of 98% of the Church not doing evangelism, but we’d fix it for good. There would be no foothold left anywhere in the Church for Satan to have an influence over evangelism! ANSWERS TO THE TWO QUESTIONS The best way to answer these questions is to draw an analogy between the Church in the world and the game of chess. You probably know that on the chess board there are 6 types of pieces, each one moving and capturing according to different rules. The value of a piece is determined by its ability to capture other pieces and by its importance for winning the game. A piece’s ability to capture other pieces is determined by its mobility, or range of action. In other words, by the number of squares on which the piece can move. From this point of view the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board because it has the biggest range of actions. But although the Queen is the strongest piece it is not the most important. The most important piece on the chess board is the King. The goal of the game is to put the opponent’s King into a check mate position. So who is the King on the chess board of the Christian Church? Who is most strategically placed to cause a resurgence in world evangelism? i.e. The Great Commission. Who are the centre pieces of our recovery plan? The answer? The chairperson of the Boards of Seminaries and Bible Colleges. These are the men and women Satan is using more than anyone else to cause the collapse of the Great Commission. Why are these leaders so strategic? They select Bible College principals. They in turn select Bible College staff. Bible College and Seminary staff train church leaders. Most of these leaders will eventually lead churches or Christian organisations, even denominations. In turn they will influence all the people in their congregations for or against evangelism. 11

So what can the chairperson of the Board of a Seminaries or Bible College do to ignite a resurgence of evangelism? First, they themselves need to be walking in the truths of this Book. Then they will start doing evangelism. And when they start doing evangelism, they will get a new found love for evangelism5, for the lost world, for the priority of evangelism, and especially a new and fresh love for Jesus. Then when the time comes to choose a Bible College or Seminary principal, they will have their eyes wide open to look for someone who is walking in the truths of this book. They wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accept anything less. The new principal, because his/her eyes too have been opened to the truths in this book, will make evangelism a core subject, compulsory for all students. These students, who will be taught by the lecturers to walk in the truths of this book, will in turn have their eyes opened, and will start to walk in the truths too. These students will graduate from their seminary or Bible college, and they will become pastors of churches or leaders of Christian organisations. Because their eyes have been opened to these truths, and walking in them, they in turn will cause the people in their churches and organisations to do likewise. Thus, evangelism will experience a global resurgence. It all started with the chairperson of the Bible College Board. Please study the diagram on page 18. But these are not the only considerations for Bible Colleges and Seminaries. The evangelism lecturer in the College/Seminary would have to be a passionate practitioner. He or she would be the coach not just of the students but of the staff as well, so take great care appointing this person. He or she would need to be 5 Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strange fact that the way to get a love for evangelism is to do evangelism, and the way to develop a life style of not doing evangelism is to not do evangelism.

A SIMPLE ROAD MAP FOR CAUSING A RESURGENCE IN WORLD EVANGELISM

The chairman / chairperson of Seminaries, Bible Colleges, and Denominations They must be walking in the truths of this Mini Series Chairman of Bible Colleges and Seminaries

Chairman Denominations

They will then choose a principal who is walking in the truths of this Mini Series

They will then choose a denominational head who is walking in the truths of this Mini Series

The principal will then choose staff who are walking in the truths of this Mini Series

The denominational head will then choose staff and church leaders who are walking in the truths of this Mini Series

The staff will then teach their students how to walk in the truths of this Mini Series

The students then become leaders of churches who will in turn teach the people in their church how to walk in the truths of this Mini Series

The church leaders will then teach the people in their churches how to walk in the truths of this Mini Series

The world will be evangelised

THE GREAT COMMISSION WILL BE COMPLETED

able to take people into the field to show them how to do it. As I have already pointed out, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). It would therefore be a grave mistake to appoint a theorist to this position. Theorists breed theorists, and practioners breed practioners. God forbid, we don’t need more theorists. After making evangelism a core and compulsory subject, and engaging a passionate practitioner to do the lecturing, what else is critical for Bible College staff? It is critical that they actually model evangelism before their students. This is going to be the greatest challenge of all. Why? If the subject is core and compulsory, yet the principal, Board, and staff don’t do it, this sends a signal to students that it’s quite acceptable to extol the value of the most crucial of all Christian behaviours, yet not do it. This in turn spawns the idea in the minds of those watching that it’s acceptable to view evangelism as a theory i.e. it’s OK to be hypocritical about it. Matthew rebuked the Pharisees about this in Matthew 23:3 “...for they do not practice what they preach”. Could this be the very reason so many Board chairpersons, college principals, lecturers, pastors, and leaders of Christian organisations have banished evangelism? i.e. they are hesitant to make all I have suggested a reality because if they did and didn’t end up doing evangelism personally, they would look (and be) hyprocritical in front of their students/staff/parishioners. So they reason, “If I put evangelism centre stage in our organisations and then I don’t end up doing it personally, I will be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, so I had better not put evangelism on centre stage. Better still, keep it out completely. ” When a leader at any level thinks like this, the plan to cause a resurgence of evangelism in the world implodes. You’d think that all that is described in the diagram on the previous pages would already be happening in Bible Colleges and 14

Seminaries, but it’s not. Research shows only 13% of seminaries have any course on evangelism and of those that do, the course is optional and most often it’s only a half course.6 This is a tragedy beyond words. It must grieve Jesus to His very core that His last instruction to His Church before He left the earth (Acts 1:8) has become our point of greatest disobedience. When Christian leaders at every level start walking in the truths of this book, there are at least 6 positive outcomes. First, they will demolish the devices of the enemy which are operative in the minds of the people following them. Second, most Christians who are not leaders understand that good Christian leaders are among the busiest people around. If leaders take time out each day to do evangelism, and make it a priority, this will send a signal to all those watching that they too should take some time out each day to do evangelism, and make a priority of doing it. Those watching you will say, “Phew! If our Board member, principal, lecturer, pastor, denominational head, mission organisation leader takes time out of his/her super busy life to do evangelism each day, it must be critically important. I’d better take time out to do it as well!” Third, as a Christian leader, your level of evangelism activity will determine the level of evangelism activity of all the people who are following you. For example, if you leave your office once a day to intentionally seek out someone to whom you will give the gospel, those under you in your church/college/organisation will likely do the same once every two days. If you reach someone once a week, they will intentionally reach someone once a fortnight, and so on. But if you only do personal evangelism in a random way 6

Martha Grace Reece. Unbinding The Gospel: Real Life Evangelism. Chalis Press, 2006.

(as opposed to being intentional each day), only taking the opportunities which come across your path, for example, when you are sitting next to a person on a plane, or when you are talking to a non-Christian at a social function, or a hotel staff member, those watching you will only evangelise people who happen to come across their path too. What I am saying to leaders here is that when you commit to doing evangelism, you will cause a domino effect which will result in millions of souls being reached with the gospel, which in turn may result in millions of souls entering God’s Kingdom. How so? If all the theory about the power of modelling which I detailed in the previous Chapter is true (and it is), then when you start doing evangelism, a lot of people under you will eventually start doing evangelism too. It’s a given that a certain percentage of the gospel seed they sow will result in people coming to Christ. In turn, these new Christians will begin to evangelise, and a certain percentage of the gospel seed they sow will result in people coming to Christ as well, and so on. In other words, leaders, your decision to regularly do evangelism will result in souls being swept into the Kingdom in not only your generation, but generations to come. So when I ask you to imagine millions, I mean millions. Fourth, when you start walking in the truths of this Book, you’ll demolish a plethora of other excuses those following you will have for not engaging in evangelism. You as a leader might be tempted to say some of the following: • “This is not my gifting.” • “This wasn’t part of my job description.” • “This is not what Bible College Chairpersons or Principals do.” • “This is not what my predecessor did.” 16

• “I might look silly in front of my staff.” • “The students might think I am a nut case.” • “I am an academic. Leaving my office each day to reach a non-Christian with the gospel doesn’t fit with my image as a Baord Chairperson/principal/lecturer/pastor/ denominational head.” • And so on. When you say these things in your mind, yet go and evangelise anyway, you’ll help demolish these excuses in the minds of those following you too. Then when those observing your life become leaders of churches, their “excuse free” attitude to evangelism, which they caught from you, will in turn be imitated by the people in the Christian organisation they lead. Such is the power of leaders who model an evangelistic lifestyle. Whatever excuse you demolish, those following you will have to demolish also. Whatever excuse you retain, they will retain. Whatever attitude you develop, either negative or positive, will be taken on board by those following you. This is how strategically placed you are. Because those in your organisation look up to you as their leader, if you ‘breakthrough’ in establishing the habit of doing evangelism in your life, you’ll cause their breakthrough too. This will be especially so if your journey to breakthrough was excruciatingly hard. They will say in their minds “Wow! I can’t believe all the obstacles and challenges our leader had to overcome to breakthrough in evangelism. He/she has inspired me to breakthrough as well.” Fifth, when you as leader start walking in the truths of this Book, you’ll have the peace and joy that goes with being right in the middle of God’s will for you - and you’ll lead a whole lot of other people into this glorious joy and peace as well. 17

Sixth, when you as leader start start walking in the truths of this Series you become a vital link in a long chain which started with Jesus. Jesus trained His disciples to evangelise, and the disciples trained others. These “others” trained others, and so on. This chain of leaders training leaders for evangelism winds its way from Jesus all the way down to church leaders today. If you don’t do evangelism, you become a broken link in the chain. If you do evangelism you become a vital unbroken link in the chain. Those following you in your organisation are your disciples, so please, train them in evangelism, just like Jesus trained His disciples. Don’t be a broken link in the chain. Canon Gordon Bridger, retired Principal of London’s Oak Hill Theological College and reader in theology at Cambridge, is one who saw clearly the importance of modelling personal evangelism before his staff and students: “I don’t actually regard myself as a gifted evangelist, but I believe I am called ‘to do the work of an evangelist.’ So it’s been important to me to have an evangelism dimension in the training. If students are not committed to evangelism in their theological college, they probably will not be later. In my experience, when a church gives priority to evangelism, other things fall into place.”7 Acts is full of reports of leaders in the Early Church leading by example. Here is just one: “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they [i.e. the Apostles] never stopped teaching and proclaiming the gospel.” (Acts 5:42). The Apostles were the very top of the organisational tree of the Early Church. An Apostle, by definition, was someone who had walked and talked with Jesus face to face. One can’t get any higher than that, yet they were out evangelising daily. They were leading by example. 7 http://www.e-n.org.uk/1996-09/242-A-tribute-to-God’s-sovereignty.htm

Dr Danny Akin, President of South Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, is one high-level leader who has grasped the importance of training all theological students for personal evangelism. During the Southern Baptists’ Mission of Today’s Church8 conference, he told delegates, “The six Southern Baptist seminaries should train students to be personal evangelists and teach models of church evangelism that are easily transferable into the local church context. God has brought a mission field to our land. If we ignore or neglect it, He will certainly and rightly judge us and do so most severely.”9 Oh, that every college and seminary president around the world would share Dr Akin’s passion! Dr Billy Graham said: “Biblical evangelism needs to be given much greater priority in theological education as well. In fact, it should permeate every aspect of a seminary’s curriculum instead of being a minor appendage, as is too often the case.”10 Missiologist and author Dr Donald McGavran is another significant leader who is adamant that all Bible College graduates be able to do evangelism and train others to do it. “As they [i.e. the staff of Bible Colleges] see the enormous numbers of the unreached in today’s world, they will educate their students in effective evangelism.11 Every school that prepares pastors and ministers should teach all students how to train laywomen and laymen to be effective evangelists.12 This will not be done by

8 From the small initial meeting in 1845 attended by only 293 people, the Southern Baptist Convention has grown to include 40 state conventions, more than 1,000 associations, 43,000-plus churches, a membership of 16.3 million and an array of efforts over the course of 160 years to make the gospel known. 9 http://www.baptistbanner.org/Subarchive_1/405%20To%20guard%20the%20future.htm 10 Billy Graham. Christianity Today Magazine. December 8, 1997. 11 Dr Donald A. McGavran. Effective Evangelism. A Theological Mandate. Presbyterian Reform Publishing, 1988, p.136 12 I think McGavran means ‘evangelisers’, someone with or without the gift who proclaims the gospel. Sadly, he’s also equating evangelism with the winning of souls! Oh dear. But at least he’s making a good point.

professors and pastors who have never won anyone to Christ.â&#x20AC;?13

What about mega-church leaders?

When I considered the organisational structure of the Christian Church globally, and who is most strategically placed to cause a resurgence in world evangelism, I struggled to choose between the Board Chairperson of Bible Colleges and Seminaries and megachurch leaders. Mega-church leaders, because of their potential to influence, could easily be our Kings on the chess board of the Christian Church. They, like the Board Chairperson of Bible Colleges and Seminaries, hold enormous potential to promote the cause of world evangelism. Let me explain. The following are just some of the hallmarks of many mega-churches: 1. They are professional in everything they do. 2. They emphasise motivational preaching and teaching. 3. The leader is often a strong, Godly person who knows how to develop a team spirit. 4. The leader is focussed and dedicated. 5. The leader emphasises training other leaders under him or her. This leads to loyalty, unity and strength in leadership. 6. They emphasise quality worship. The Sunday services and conferences held in these churches are professional, highlyorganised events. 7. They operate in modern, trendy buildings and offices. 8. They emphasise grace, faith, excellence, and generosity. 9. They emphasise impacting the community at every level. We ought to applaud the dedication and commitment of the leaders of these churches. However.....

Mega-churches could be 10 times more effective with the mission of Jesus.

Many mega-church leaders rightly encourage their members

13 ibid, p.50

to bring non-Christians to church where the speaker at the front proclaims the gospel i.e. does the evangelism. This is one of many strategies for evangelising the lost which is currently in vogue. The trouble is, as I have already pointed out, it is not God’s “A” plan for the evangelisation of the world. We’ve seen in Chapter Eight that God’s mandate is for all Christians to proclaim or spread the gospel, not just the speaker at the front. Only when 100% of the people in our churches are mobilised for evangelism will world evangelism begin to surge again. So, what’s it to be? Plan A or Plan B? God’s Plan B: We could take the approach of some mega-churches where only the speaker at the front proclaims the gospel. Say the church has five services on Sunday which attract a combined total of 2,000 people. Let’s say ten percent (or 200 people) of those in attendance are non-Christians. This means the church would reach 200 unsaved people per week in its Sunday services with the gospel.14 God’s Plan A: We could train 100% of our members to proclaim or spread the gospel. Let’s say in this same church each of the 1,800 church members communicates the gospel to one non-Christian each week.15 This means the church would be reaching 2,000 unsaved people per week with the gospel - 200 inside the church on Sunday and 1800 outside the church during the week. Plan A is 10 times more effective with respect to the priority of Jesus than plan B.16 14 Let’s also presume that with choice one, none of the church members are sharing the gospel during the week and that the gospel is proclaimed clearly on Sunday in Church. 15 This is realistic. How so? Historians tell us the whole Early Church was mobilised for evangelism. 16 With this approach there is also the personal and spiritual growth benefits which result when Christians proclaim and spread the gospel. The picture gets even rosier with choice three when we begin to consider the increased contact with non-Christians by our church members. This would result in more non-Christians in church on Sunday where they would hear the gospel a second time. Just imagine the flood at the altar call!

With these statitstics in mind, you’d think mega-church leaders would fully embrace Plan A, but they don’t. Why is this so? Because many leaders today have a confused understanding of our mission, some not knowing what it is. Plan A is not even on their radar. This is why it’s so crucial that mega church leaders start walking in the truths of this Book. For example, I have more than once heard a leader say, “Well, who cares how they are saved as long as they are saved. We are seeing hundreds of people saved every week by just bringing them to church.” In saying this, this leader is revealing that he is confused about the mission of the Church. He thinks the mission is ‘saving souls’ rather than evangelising the world. This is such a tragic misunderstanding. We must ‘get’ this - anything less than the whole church going to the whole world to spread or proclaim the whole gospel is always going to be something other than God’s Plan A. Conclusion? In light of Jesus’ mission, which is to evangelise the world using all believers to do it, Plan A is ten times more effective than Plan B.17 Christian statesman Dr Carl Henry affirms this truth. He said: “A one-on-one approach initiated by every believer still holds the best promise of evangelising the world.”18 Just because hundreds of people are being saved every week through the strategy of bringing non-Christians to church and having a speaker preach the gospel from the front (i.e. Plan B) 17

Furthermore, Plan A results in greater glory going to Jesus than Plan B. You see, even if no one was saved as a result of 2000 gospel seeds being sown, the exercise would be a great victory in God’s eyes. Why? Because in and of itself, irrespective of the whether souls are saved or not, proclaiming the gospel is the greatest way to glorify Jesus. I expand on this thought in Chapter Twenty Three.

18 Cited in: Will Metzger, The The Truth. The Whole Gospel To The Whole Person By The Whole People. IVP, 1988. p.17.

doesn’t prove it’s the best strategy. In fact, I’ve just proved it isn’t. Plan A is completely in sync with the mission of Jesus, whereas Plan B is not. Let’s call it what it for what it really is. It’s actually rank disobedience. Jesus said ‘Go’. The mega churches are saying ‘stay’. That’s tragic. But it get’s worse. According to world renown missiologist, Dr George Peters, “No where in the Old Testament was Israel ‘sent’ to the nations. The Old Testament upholds the centripetal method of missions. This may be thought of as sacred magnetism that draws to itself. Israel, by living a life in the presence and fear of the Lord, was to experience the fullness of the blessings of God. In this way they were to startle the nations to attention, arouse their inquiry, and draw them like a magnet to Jerusalem and the Lord. It was not commissioned to go to the nations to proclaim the revelational truth committed to God’s people. For God’s people (Israel) in the Old Testament it was ‘come and see’. In the New Testament, Jesus tipped the Old testament centripetal missions strategy upside down. Missions is now centrifugal! For God’s People In the New Testament it’s ‘go and tell’!”19 The best example of centripetal missions is the Queen of Sheba coming to Jerusalem. “When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions.” 2 Chronicles 9:1 Conclusion? Mega church leaders, or any church which relies on ‘come and see’ to grow is still living in the Old Testament pattern of missions! As such, Jesus would command the leaders of these churches to repent. Not only are they walking in disobedience, but because they run conferences showing other leaders how to grow big churches, they are teaching others how to be disobedient too. They are propagating disobedience. Really, this situation is a disaster. 19 Dr George W Peters. A Biblical Theology Of Missions. Moody Press, 1986. p.21

Imagine how much more effective in evangelism these megachurches would be if they focussed on God’s A Plan whilst retaining their ten brilliant hallmarks mentioned previously? Mega-churches could single handedly turbo charge the Great Commission on a global scale. When all is said and done, at the final judgment Jesus’ priority question for us as leaders will be: “To what extent did you use your resources, time and talents to achieve My priority, which is the evangelisation of the world for My glory?” Some leaders of evangelism organisations will say, “Well, as an organisation we go into schools and prisons and the like regularly to give the gospel, so aren’t we leading by example?” Yes and no. Yes, you are leading by example as you go into schools and prisons etc, and this is to be commended. But no, this is not the most important evangelism behaviour to be modelling in your organisation. Most important is personal evangelism. Why? Most people in the Church will not be able to go into schools and prisons to give the gospel. They want to know how to evangelise their friends, neighbours, work associates, fellow students, or the person who pumps their gas, the mother at the play centre or the guy who sits next to them on the plane – the people who cross their path in everyday life. Evangelists have been called and commanded to equip20 100% of the Church to evangelise 100% of the world. This is where personal evangelism comes in. For this reason, para-church organisations who are training the Church in evangelism ought to make personal evangelism their first priority, over and above evangelism to groups. As I bring this Chapter to a close, I want to finish by talking 20 Ephesians 4:11-12

about Christian authors and Christian parents. They too can have an enormous influence on causing either the shut down of evangelism, or its resurgence.

Christian authors

The words “The pen is mightier than the sword” were first written by novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. What Edward is saying is that writers can have a very big influence. We all know the maxim: “Leaders are readers and readers are leaders.” Leaders at all levels read books. Reading influences the mind; and when the mind is changed, a change of behaviour will likely follow. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, NKJV). Authors who are walking in the truths of this Book and then write about their experiences are a nightmare for the enemy because of their potential to effect huge change in their readership. However, when they don’t write about their evangelism experiences, those reading their books and articles presume they are not doing it. They reason, “Well if such and such is a great leader and so close to God, and they never write about their experiences in personal evangelism, I guess they are just not doing it and if they are not doing it, it can’t be all that important and so I shan’t bother either.” The last thing the enemy wants is for authors to start walking in the truths of this Book and then weaving their powerful experiences into their books. Christian parents are another group that can have enormous influence.

Christian parents…

I have often witnessed first hand the powerful influence Christian parents can have on their children. I was recently out evangelising with a group which included a father and son combination. 25

The six year old son Daniel was an enthusiastic evangeliser, although at this stage he was limited to giving out tracts. “My dad is teaching me how to talk to people about Jesus,” he exclaimed with a beaming smile. I asked him how he acquired this burden for souls. With blue, sparkling eyes he replied, “Oh, that’s easy. My dad was always going out to reach people with the gospel and so I just copied him. I first started going when I was four.” This little boy was fearless and disarming. People enjoyed bending over, looking into that bright, innocent face to receive a tract from the tiny outstretched hand of little Daniel. Parents, if you want your children to be like Jesus the evangelist, start walking in the truths of this Book. If you do, you will help spawn a generation of young people obedient in evangelism, who would in turn model it for their children. According to Exodus 20:5-6 at least, you would attract the favour of God on your children. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Notice the bit in these verses about what happens to the person who loves God and keeps His commands. When you as a parent do evangelism, the priority of Jesus’ commands, and teach your children to do the same, you are leading them right into the lovingkindness of God. In closing, I want to say this. If we closely observe today’s generation of leaders, most publicly value evangelism, write it into their church mission statements, exhort others to do it, pray and read about it, and extol the priority of it, even organise others to do it, but they don’t actually do it themselves on a regular basis. They are not out there spreading or proclaiming the gospel to 26

strangers. It’s this hypocricy at a leadership level, and hypocrisy is a sin, that has caused the collapse of the Great Commission. Jesus said in Matthew 15:8 “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” If this describes you with respect to evangelism, refuse to let this great gulf between theory and practice exist in your life one day more. As with any sin21, Jesus would exhort us to repent. This is the right Biblical response. Repent for your own sake, the glory of Jesus, the destiny of the lost, and those you are leading.

ummary

• • Christian leaders have caused the decline in world evangelism because they have unwittingly succumbed to the devices of the enemy. • The good news is that Christian leaders can cause a resurgence in world evangelism. • To reverse the decline we must think strategically and act deliberately, just like a chess player. • Christian leaders in the world can be likened to the pieces in a game of chess. Just as each chess piece has a different ability to capture other pieces, so each leader in the Church has a different ability to cause a resurgence in world evangelism. • The Chairperson/woman of Bible Colleges/Seminary Boards and mega-church leaders have the greatest ability • To cause a resurgence in world evangelism, leaders must walk in the truths of this Book. • If churches don’t have an evangelism strategy to mobilise 100% of their people for evangelism, very little evangelism will take place. 21 Yes, not doing evangelism is a sin. James 4:17 says “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” Every genuine Christian knows they ought to be doing evangelism, therefore they are sinning if they are not doing it.

• ACTION POINT: You might ask “Why can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Start disseminating awareness of the truths raised in this Chapter to other Christians, particularly leaders. Send is to everyone in your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this Chapter in a PDF format by emailing Julian: Julian@esisite.com. If leaders start to walk in the truth of this Series, they will cause a resurgence in world evangelism. Nothing could be more certain. If they don’t, little will change. The enemy knows this. For this reason, leaders are his special targets. Just how he targets them is detailed in the next Chapter....

Real Life Story

Porn Queen reaches (potentially) 26,000 hard to reach people in under 5 seconds with the gospel! Los Angeles

Recently, I went on a ministry trip to the USA. On the way home to NZ, we flew through LA. When we were getting luggage off the carousel after the flight from Charleston, there were two ladies standing beside us. I said “Excuse me” and proceeded to ask them if they knew what the best selling book in the world was. They replied “the Bible” and I went on to explain that we’d made a video which summarised the whole book in 11 minutes. To this, one of the pair retorted “Oh, I’ll never get to heaven, I am a porn queen”. I tried to stay composed and to look un-phased. I said she was no worse than me, and I no worse than her, and that none of us would make it to heaven if it hadn’t been for Jesus. 29

With that, they both proceeded to to watch the video, taking one ear phone each. By this time the bags of these two ladies (sisters) were the only ones going around and around on the carousel! At the end Eleanor and I prayed with them, and the sister who was the porn queen said the following: “This is such a great video! It answers all the question I had about God and Christianity! I am going to send it out to all my fans!” With rolling eyes, her sister chipped in and said “You guys don’t realise how many fans she has - 26,000” She gave me her twitter address and sure enough, the next day,

we saw what she’d done! She had taken a photo of the www.biblein11.com business card, and posted it on Twitter. (the photo on the previous page is the actual photo she posted ). Imagine how difficult it would be to reach THAT audience with the gospel. She did it in a few seconds through Twitter. So, one never knows what the Holy Spirit will do with what one sows! Please pray for this lady. She is so completely lost, but not beyond the loving hands and drawing power of Jesus. The gospel has been planted, now let’s water it in prayer - and not only this seed, but also the potential of the 26,000 other seeds.

Julian’s comments.

Amber is a curious case. I would have expected her to run from the gospel, because it is light, and she is living in darkness. Not so. She lapped it up, and received it, at least conceptually. The fact that she Tweeted it to her 26,000 fans supports this argument. If she loved it so much, and it answered all her questions, why didn’t she receive it at once with joy? I invited her to do this via email and we kept in contact, but to this day, as far as I am aware, she has not turned and surrendered to Jesus. Is she not predestined? (e.g. Ephesians 4:1-5) This can’t be so, because God wants all saved (2 Peter 3:9). Is the devil blinding her eyes so she cannot see the glory of the gospel? (2 Corinthians 4:4). Or is it that she is just enjoying the pleasures of sin for this season? (e.g. Hebrews 11:25). Or has she sinned so much and for so long, God has let her go? ( e.g. Romans 1:24-25). Or did she choose to disbelieve (e.g. Acts 28:24). We cannot know the mind of God, except that we know that the divine Seed of the gospel has been well planted, and the Trinty is right at this moment working on her salvation! (Mark 4:26-29).

Chapter Sixteen

Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 1)

evice 35. To persuade leaders that being accountable for their evangelism activity is legalism.

A favourite ploy of the devil is to insinuate that being accountable in evangelism is legalism. But what is accountability? One writer put it like this: “We don’t wake up every morning longing to be accountable—we wake up yearning to be autonomous. Being autonomous is the default mode, being intentionally accountable comes only with wisdom shaped by grace. It’s risky to be accountable. Performance reviews at work don’t always turn out well, and failing to merit a promotion can be disappointing. Having friends remind me that I have failed to keep a promise is disheartening—I don’t like failing my friends or myself. Realising as I have that long-standing patterns of dysfunction cause me to seek to control events and the people I love is not just humiliating but devastating. Yet the patterns remain deeply entrenched, and so repentance becomes tiresome and shameful since the same things arise, time and time again. I don’t even like 2

knowing these things about myself, so being accountable to you increases my discomfort. Yet, I have lived long enough to be convinced that I need to be accountable. I am not trustworthy enough to be autonomous. I need to find a safe community within which friends love me enough to ask thoughtful, probing questions that encourage me to keep moving forward towards flourishing for Jesus.”1 The devil, on the other hand, will remind us we are saved by grace and not by works, and that accountability is not necessary. It is true, of course, that we were saved by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:8-10). But it is also true that we were saved for good works, the highest of which is proclaiming the gospel.2 You see, if the devil can prevent you from being accountable in evangelism, no one will ever know you are not doing it. And not knowing, our non-evangelistic lifestyle will not be an issue to anyone. This is a perfect result for the devil. He wants to keep our non-activity in evangelism off everyone’s agenda, and out of sight. Another advantage of being accountable is that it helps prepare us for final judgement. ccountability and final judgement... If wanting to glorify God and obey Jesus for all His goodness to us doesn’t motivate us for evangelism and to be accountable, then maybe the reality of final judgement might just be what’s needed. Romans 14:12 says, “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.” This verse is speaking about final judgement. Jesus issued one of the sternest warnings in the New Testament about this event. Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven but only he who does the will of my

Denis Haack. www.ransomfellowship.org.

I detailed why evangelism is the priority of the Church in Chapter Seven.

Father in Heaven.” The Bible is clear about the criterion at final judgement - it will be the extent to which we did His will. Now we know, as I have just said, that we are saved by grace. This is God’s will. There is nothing that we can do to earn our salvation, or pay God back. We don’t have to prove we are saved. We can just rest and trust in the finished work of the Cross. When Jesus said “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed” (John 8:36). There is no fine print here. I have had a revelation of Grace. I was going though a crisis in my life, and about 4 in the morning, I went to a prayer room. Crying, I flicked open my Bible and the verses I noticed were Romans 3:21-24. What happened next I can only describe as being transported into the throne room of heaven. The curtain was pulled back, and the full extent of being saved by grace was revealed to me. In summary form, I believe God said to me “Julian, if you lay down on your bed for the rest of your life and watched TV and ate jelly beans, never read your Bible, never went to church, never tithed, never prayed, yet you clung to the finished work of the Cross for your salvation, you’d be saved.” I argued with God and said “I can’t believe that. It sounds heretical. It can’t be that good, surely?” He said, “Julian, it is that good. And what’s more if you try and prove you are saved, or try and pay me back, or in any way work for your salvation, you grieve me. The more you cling only to my finished work on the Cross, and nothing else, the more you’ll please me.” The veil, as it were, closed, and I was flooded with a supernatural peace and joy. I ran out of the prayer room telling everyone we were saved by grace! They all agreed, but none was excited by the fact! For two years after that I preached “grace” everywhere. It was truly a honey moon period in my Christian life. Now here is the thing. A true understanding of being saved by grace didn’t cause me to lie down, watch TV, eat jelly beans, etc. On 4

the contrary, it turned me into a fire ball. I thought “If the gospel is this good, I want to tell everyone!” From that day on, by God’s grace, I have been telling everyone! What’s my point? Someone who is truly saved by grace will show this has truly happened by demonstrating a life of obedience. If we know what the priority of the will of God is (i.e. the evangelisation of the earth), and that the mark of genuine faith is obedience to His commands (John 14:21), wouldn’t it be the highest mark of wisdom to establish the habit of evangelism in our lives, and ask someone else to hold us accountable? Even if you haven’t had a revelation of the grace of God like I have had, believe it by faith. Just because you have not had this revelation does not mean this Truth is not True for you as well. It’s as True for you as it was for me, only you just didn’t get all the divine feelings which I felt that day in the prayer room. Yet it’s true whether you feel it or not. We are going to be accountable after death, so why not prepare for that great day now? It was Martin Luther who said: “There are two days in my calendar: This day and That Day.” And here’s the thing - the Christian life is about spurring each other on to a deeper and closer relationship with Jesus. This is what being accountable is all about. Hebrews 10:24 says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says to, “…encourage one another and build each other up…” In Chapter Fourteen, I cited the research of Thom S. Rainer. You’ll recall he interviewed the pastors of 100 evangelistic churches. He wanted to know what factors create an effective evangelistic church, and top of the list was “the issue of accountability in personal evangelism.”3 How should we conclude? To ask a loving friend to hold us 3

Dr Thom.S. Rainer, Evangelism And Church Growth. Zondervan, 2001.p.162

accountable for our activity in evangelism is not legalism. On the contrary, it’s a mark of true wisdom. It’s saying to our accountability partner “Help me get ready for That Day”. It’s also saying to Jesus “I want to be the best I can be for you while I run this race on earth.” How good is that!4

evice 36 To persuade leaders that if they find evangelism difficult it must not be their calling, and that personal evangelism should be left to those with the gift.

This suggestion contains both truth and error. The error is to believe that evangelism is the sole responsibility of those with the Ephesians 4:11-12 gift. We showed how this was not true in Chapter Eight. The truth is, some people who don’t have the gift of evangelism think that those who do, find it dead easy. Not so. I certainly don’t. However, some people do find evangelising easier than others – probably because of differences in personality, gifting and disposition.5 The general truth is that evangelism can be difficult – even laborious. esus warned us that evangelism would be hard work… Look at the account of Jesus leading the Samaritan woman to faith in John 4. If we interpret verses 34-38 as Jesus’ commentary on what just happened with the Samaritan woman, He points out that this opportunity to bring her into the Kingdom may have been helped by the laborious efforts of others who had sown the gospel in her life beforehand. “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for,” Jesus said. “Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour” (John 4:38). The ‘hard work’ referred to is a translation of the Greek word

We have some excellent resources to help you with accountability. Please email me: julian@esisite.com

5 But don’t get the impression that introverts and quiet people cannot do evangelism. As I have mentioned before, we made a DVD of the testimonies of three introverts who have become very skilful and effective evangelisers. It is called ‘The Confessions Of Three Introverts,’ available from www.esisite.com.

kopos which means “intense labour united with trouble and toil; grief, sorrow, weariness.”6 Yes, evangelism, a labour of love, will cost us personally. Sadly, in today’s Church, most pastors shy away from teaching or saying anything too challenging to their people, for fear of losing them and their tithe. Yet Jesus said ‘Don’t hold back!” Remember Matthew 10:27? “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.” Jesus said if we want to experience the truly ‘good stuff’ (i.e. warm fuzzies) we must go through the ‘hard stuff’ (sacrifice, pain, trouble, hardship, labour etc). We can’t escape this if we are the real deal.. He said so in many places. Here are just two: “…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” John 12:24 (NASB). “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it (Mark 8:34-35). What Jesus is teaching is that going through the hard stuff leads to experiencing the good stuff7. Without the hard stuff, there is no good stuff. That’s been my experience too. reak out of default mode… Such is the nature of the battle. The devil, of course, delights to highlight as much as possible the difficulty of doing evangelism. Don’t give in to this stream of negative thinking. It is a great challenge to learn to control our thoughts and not let them rule our behaviour. Don’t default to the easy and the comfortable. Whether you are gifted or not, or whether your personality is suited or not, enter into this labour of love. “He who rules his spirit [is better] than he who takes a city”

Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon.

This is a generalisation. Some people die as a result of doing the hard stuff e.g. the Martyrs.

(Proverbs 16:32 NKJV). Learning to control your emotions is a strategy from heaven in the battle for souls. Leaders, let’s count the cost and set an example in our churches of being a man or a woman who can rule their emotions. Let’s be the first in our churches to be seen in the non-Christian world labouring and sowing the gospel. Let’s show people how to control their emotions for the sake of His glory and Name. evice 37 To convince leaders that evangelism need

only be a passive activity.

The devil loves it when leaders think the gospel needs to be proclaimed only on Sunday morning, or when someone wanders into the church for help, or at a funeral. But we err if all we do is wait for non-Christians to come to us to hear the gospel. At the World Congress on Evangelism, Berlin, 1966, George Duncan said: “So often the gospel is preached within the walls of our churches, to congregations where there are few if any unconverted people, and little effort is made by the majority of Christians inside to reach out and bring in those on the outside. Instead, the attitude today seems to be to sit within the [church’s] four walls and complain that the outsider won’t come. But nowhere in the Word of God do I find any suggestion that the outsider will come: indeed the emphasis seems to lie in another direction altogether. The command of Jesus Christ to the early church was ‘Go ye into all the world.’ While the church complains ‘they won’t come,’ God can justifiably complain concerning the church, ‘they won’t go.’ ”8 how your people how you go and search for lost pennies and sheep… The parables of the lost penny and the lost sheep teach that it is we who should go and search for the lost (Luke 15). That is active

8 George B. Duncan. One Race. One Gospel. One Task. World Congress On Evangelism. World Wide Publications, 1967, p.58

intentional evangelism and, as leaders, it’s crucial we model the ‘going’ If our evangelism is passive, the evangelism of our people will be passive too. Paul reminds us to “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2). The devil has twisted this scripture so that some people believe being prepared is all God requires. So they think, “don’t go to the unchurched. All you have to do is be prepared. Wait for them to come to us.” ecoming active and urgent… Gordon Fee, a New Testament scholar, says of this verse: “[It means we should] stay at the task… whether it is convenient for us or not. And we should preach the gospel whether or not the preaching comes at a convenient time for the hearers.”9 Fee is saying our evangelism, biblically, must include the active and urgent.10 Sadly, many of us have become so sensitive and politically correct, not wanting to offend or upset anyone, that direct personal evangelism has almost become passé! ake the most of opportunities… Sometimes, however, evangelism can be a passive activity. Non-Christians come to us where we work or even to our homes – like the story of the tradesman who came to my house, back in Chapter Ten. When this happens we can steer the conversation to spiritual things and graciously invite them to hear the gospel or give away a www.Biblein11.com card.

Gordon Fee. 1&2 Timothy. Hendrickson, 1984, p.88

10 As a ministry we detest the idea of harassing anyone with the gospel. In fact we have always stressed the importance of being gracious, kind and thoughtful, picking the right time and place to carefully present the message. Yet 2 Timothy 4:2 jolts us into comparing the passion, zeal and urgency of the early Christians with our own commitment. The early Christians had a natural and overflowing excitement to share the good news with people, and they were urgent about getting it to everyone, everywhere – even when it was inconvenient for the person delivering it.

Over the years that I’ve been an evangelist, the times when someone has come and asked me to explain the gospel to them have been few - less than half a percent. The truth is, unless we are pro-active the proclamation of the gospel will usually not happen. That’s why Jesus and Paul place such an emphasis on the word “Go!” (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Romans 10:14-16, etc). Norman Nix, Director of National Ministries for the Baptist churches in Australia, said: “We are well aware that people who generally do not go to church do not want to come to us. They don’t spend much time thinking about God, Jesus or the church. This means that if they are to be reached, we must take the initiative – in fact, many initiatives.”11 Really, when one thinks about it, it’s oxymoronic in the extreme (and terribly sad) that I should be writing to other Christians having to justify why they should go with the gospel. For a genuine Christian, going and telling the gospel to the lost ought to be as natural as breathing. Yet, it isn’t. Such is the state of health of the Church. evice 38. To dupe leaders into assuming that

everyone under their care and authority knows the biblical definitions of ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel.’

If we want to co-operate with the enemy, let us start by presuming that the people in our churches already know the meanings of these key concepts. Actually, when I go into a church and mention the words ‘evangelism’ and ‘gospel,’ I now know these words evoke a wide range of responses and images in the minds of the congregation. Don’t ever presume, when you say these words, that everyone will understand them the way you do. 11 Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy (Editors). A Passion For Evangelism. Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, pp.115-116

ne right meaning, many misunderstandings… For example, when you mention the word ‘evangelism,’ one person will see a man on a soapbox shouting, with no one listening, and people giving him a wide berth. Someone else will see a picture of a starving child in Africa being fed by an aid worker, a person praying for the lost, or a Christian playing golf with a non-Christian. Yet another person would see Billy Graham preaching at a large crusade, or someone handing out food parcels. Only one of these examples (Billy Graham) fits clearly the biblical definition of evangelism. But the people in church will not tell you what they are thinking. So your first task, when mobilising the church for evangelism, is to define your terms. Don’t skip this. It’s extremely important. One pastor, when we were discussing the idea of mobilising his church, said “Whatever you do Julian, don’t define evangelism or the gospel. It will create controversy.” For Jesus and Paul it would be unthinkable to hear a church leader say such a thing. 3 John 1:4 says “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” If we invert this verse, it says “I have no greater sorrow than to hear that my children are not walking in the truth.” John 18:31-32 says “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” By saying what he said, this pastor is showing that He is really not Jesus’ disciple and he is going to lead all his people down the same slippery slope. As workers who “correctly handle the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), we need to define our terms carefully and biblically. If we don’t, people will make up their own definitions. Then, when we preach a powerful message about how people in our church need to reach the lost with the gospel in our city, those who are listening will say in their minds (but rarely aloud), “Praise God, I am already doing it!” 11

It’s not hard to imagine how the devil rejoices when we think we are motivating people for evangelism, when we are only strengthening misconceptions.

evice 39. To persuade leaders that when the gospel is proclaimed and there is no immediate result, the exercise was a waste of time and resources.

The devil invests heavily in this device. He wants to hide certain truths from us: • that the highest motive for evangelism is the glory of God, not the saving of souls. So when you spread the gospel or proclaim it, and no one is saved, don’t beat yourself up. It’s OK. God has been glorified, and that is what matters. • that the gospel is a “seed.” Just as seeds in the natural realm take varying amounts of time to sprout and grow, so it is with the gospel. To evangelise is to engage in the highest form of worship. You’ll read about why this is so in Chapter Twenty Five. If we truly understood these truths, we would never interpret “no immediate salvation” as failure. A farmer in the natural world would not think he’d failed if he didn’t see the seed he planted instantly strike and grow the moment it was planted. So on the basis of the above, how true is it that evangelism is a waste of time and resources if we do not see an immediate result? We must conclude it is not true at all. Think about this - true evangelism, when executed with love and grace, is one of the most powerful and potent ways of “…filling the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord…” For when we evangelise, Jesus is lifted up, exalted, presented as a hero, honoured, and magnified. Quite simply, evangelism is an act of worship which glorifies Jesus Christ. Check out Habakkuk 2:14: “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (KJV). According to the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), glorifying Jesus is the main purpose of the Christian life. I am motivated to 12

evangelise when I think that my giving the gospel covers the person listening with the glory of Jesus. If all Christians were to take up personal evangelism, we would, spiritually speaking, “…fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord” irrespective of whether the person listening is saved or not. What higher thought could there possibly be than this?

evice 40. To persuade leaders that all roads lead to God.

Surprising though it may sound, some church leaders don’t teach that a non-Christian can only be saved through Jesus Christ. Yet the Bible says clearly: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6) ll roads do not lead to God… In the research carried out by the Billy Graham School of Missions cited in Chapter Fourteen, a common factor in effective evangelistic churches was the belief held by the leader that lost people are damned without Christ, that only Christ can save, and that hell is a literal place. Some church leaders are now reluctant to preach these truths lest they lose people from their churches. The belief that only Jesus saves is customarily known as the exclusivist position, because it excludes the availability of salvation through other means. Exclusivists tend to be branded as “intolerant bigots,” and their message, it is said, produces strife and discord. In a day when tolerance is perceived as the highest value, especially in religion, ‘exclusivism’ is worse than the plague. on’t cut the nerve of missionary motivation… Read carefully the following statement from Dr John Piper: “Are some people quickened by the Holy Spirit and saved by grace through faith in a merciful Creator even though they never hear of

Jesus in this life? Are there devout people in religions other than Christianity who humbly rely on the grace of God whom they know only through nature or non-Christian religious experience? The answer of the New Testament is a clear and earnest ‘no.’ I affirm again that the contemporary abandonment of the universal necessity of hearing the gospel for salvation does indeed cut a nerve in missionary motivation… therefore the church is bound to engage with the Lord of glory in His cause. Charles Hodge is right in saying that ‘the solemn question, implied in the language of the apostle, how can they believe without a preacher? should sound day and night in the ears of the churches.’”12 Sadly, the belief that there are others ways to be saved other than through Jesus is remarkably common. If Christians don’t believe Jesus is the only Saviour, why should they evangelise anyway? Those who think there are many roads to salvation quickly lose their motivation to proclaim the gospel. One of the reasons evangelism in the West is in crisis is that many leaders have stopped proclaiming that we can be saved only through Jesus Christ. The idea that all roads lead to God, and that hell is not a literal place of eternal punishment, has already seeped into many of our churches. If you as the leader of a church hold to the ‘exclusivist’ position, your attempts to mobilise 100% of your people are on track, and you are headed for success.

evice 41. To target leaders with extreme Calvinism and an unbiblical understanding of the theology of grace. The evil one squeals with delight when a believer holds an extreme position on some Christian doctrine.13 Since John Calvin believed God’s grace was irresistible, some extreme Calvinists 12 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, p.154 13 Except “love”

reason like this: “If God’s grace is irresistible, and He has predestined only the elect to be saved… (i.e. God is going to save His predestined ones, no matter what we do or don’t do)… then what is the point of doing evangelism? We are better off spending our time and money on other things.” xtreme Calvinism is wretched and deformed… Some church leaders run their churches with this theology at the core. Dr Leighton Ford writes: “The doctrine of the sovereignty of God is a shining biblical truth, which at its best compels us to evangelise to the glory of our divine King. But any doctrine can be wretched and deformed… We must beware lest the biblical basis for God’s sovereignty be divorced from the biblical teaching of man’s responsibility, so that Calvinism is distorted into a kind of fatalism. When Spurgeon was asked to reconcile these two truths, he replied, ‘I wouldn’t try. I never reconcile friends.’ ”14 In my observation, the more Christians lean towards extreme Calvinism, the less active and effective they are in evangelism. Their theme song is: “Sit down, oh man of God, The Kingdom He will bring Just how and when and where He will; You cannot do a thing.”15 It is a tragedy Calvin would never have wanted to happen. illiam Carey saw through the folly of extreme Calvinism… William Carey, the great missionary to India, was confronted with this kind of theology. One author tells of how Carey proposed to a ministers’ meeting that they consider “whether the command given to the apostles to evangelise all nations is not binding on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise is of equal extent.”

14 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Rowe, 1976, pp.18-19 15 Cited in: Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Rowe, 1976, p.19

J.C. Ryland, one of the ministers, expressed the common attitude of the church when he interrupted Carey impatiently. “Sit down, young man, sit down and be still!” he exclaimed. “When God wants to convert the heathen, He will do it without consulting either you or me.” Carey sat down, but a vision of far-away lands and of multitudes in darkness haunted his soul, and he could not be still. In season and out of season, in conversation and in sermon, he dealt with one allabsorbing theme, namely, the responsibility of the Church to launch out on its long-neglected, world-wide mission.16 ow to build resilience to keep going in evangelism… According to J. I. Packer, former Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Vancouver’s Regent College, anyone who is ‘big’ on the sovereignty of God ought to be ‘big’ on evangelism: “There is abroad today a widespread suspicion that a robust faith in the absolute sovereignty of God is bound to undermine any adequate sense of human responsibility. Such a faith is thought to be dangerous to spiritual health because it breeds a habit of complacent inertia. In particular, it is thought to paralyse evangelism by robbing one both of the motive to evangelise and of the message to evangelise with. The supposition seems to be that you cannot evangelise effectively unless you are prepared to pretend, while you are doing it, that the doctrine of divine sovereignty is not true… This is nonsense… Far from inhibiting evangelism, faith in the sovereignty of God’s government and grace is the only thing that can sustain it, for it is the only thing that can give us the resilience that we need if we are to evangelise boldly and persistently, and not be daunted by temporary setbacks.”17

16 Eugene Myers Harrison. Giants Of The Missionary Trail. Scripture Press, Book Division, 1954. Reprinted with permission by Fairfax Baptist Temple, Burke VA, 1993, p.28 17 http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/James-I.-Packer/1/index.html

wrong theology of grace can torpedo evangelism… A similar device the devil uses is to sow into leaders’ minds a misunderstanding of the theology of grace. They reason like this: We are saved by grace alone. 1. The thought of doing evangelism makes me feel uncomfortable. 2. A loving God would not make me feel uncomfortable. 3. Not doing evangelism will not affect my salvation. 4. God loves me just the way I am. 5. Therefore, I am not going to do evangelism. Points one, four18, and five are true, and number two is often the case. In the Christian life we don’t have to do anything except live and rest in the grace and love of God in order to be saved. However, I believe those who are genuinely saved will want to obey Him – and will obey Him - so much so that they will walk into discomfort for His sake. Jesus marks this as a trait of true discipleship (Luke 9:23; John 14:21) To use grace as an excuse not to labour in evangelism is to misunderstand Scripture. For example, Paul writes to Titus: “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people. It teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:11-12). This verse teaches that grace ought to naturally result in a godly life. And what is a godly life? It’s a life marked by obedience to the commands of Jesus. And what’s the priority of His commands? By now you ought to know the answer.

evice 42. To persuade leaders to view evangelism like a business venture. If we don’t see souls saved and won into our church immediately, we close down the 18 Having said that, Jesus did seem to make a connection between a willingness to evangelise and genuine faith: Luke 9:26: “If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

business.

I have seen this device first hand. As a ministry, we once trained a group of people in a church how to proclaim the gospel. A small group of men became prolific evangelisers. The men have found John 10:10 to be true when they did evangelism. After a few weeks, the pastor asked how many people had been saved into his church as a result of the activity of this small group. The answer was none. The pastor said he was concerned the men were spending their money (money outside their tithe) on resources to do this evangelism, when it could be better spent on other things. The result? He stopped the men from doing evangelism. ow to bless the leaders of other churches… The devil wants us to view evangelism like a business. He wants us to reason like this: “If a certain evangelism initiative costs ‘x’ dollars, and I don’t see a corresponding number of new converts immediately in my church, who will pay for the initiative with their tithe, then I should stop investing in that initiative.” But viewing evangelism like a business venture overlooks the fact that the seed of the gospel takes time to germinate and grow. As I mentioned earlier, research shows that those who heard the gospel in John Wesley’s meetings, and who didn’t convert at the time, took an average of two years to convert to Christianity afterwards.19 It stands to reason that if a church sows the gospel into a thousand souls in its own neighbourhood, many of those souls will be converted but will end up in a church other than the one that did the sowing.20 Furthermore - and as I have said - irrespective of the result, the main motive to evangelise is to glorify Jesus. Yet, imagine the blessing which would come from knowing that

19 Dr David L. McKenna. The Communicator’s Commentary. Word Books, 1984, p.102 20 John 4:1-42

the evangelism activity of our members is going to bless a whole lot of other churches and their leaders and extend the Kingdom! Few thoughts are more exciting for me. et the right attitude… As leaders, most of us ask our people to sow money, time and effort into the local church – and yet there is often no dramatic or visible change, week after week. The church grows little by little over a long period. In other words, we ask church members to sow into the local church whether they see an immediate result or not. Why don’t we live by the same principle when it comes to evangelism? Similarly with prayer. Do we give up praying when we don’t see an immediate result? No, we pray because we have been commanded to pray. Don’t get me wrong. If I was a pastor, I’d want my church to grow as fast as possible with more and more new Christians filling the seats each week. I believe that if we focused on evangelism as an exercise in glorifying / worshipping Jesus and building The Kingdom (capital K), and placed less emphasis on the immediate results for ‘our’ congregation, and our egos, and our kingdom (small k), God would dramatically honour our church with radical growth.21 Thus the saying is true “He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:30. In order to evangelise for the sake of building the Kindom (capital K) we have to become less and Jesus has to become greater. “Doing what you do solely for the glory of God,” said pastor Alun Davies, State President of the Assemblies of God Victoria, Australia, “will reap the best eternal rewards.”22 I couldn’t agree more.

21 Really, even if our church never grew, we ought to keep evangelising anyway simply because it is the right thing to do. 22 Leadership Now! Magazine. Official Publication of the Assembly of God Ministers, Australia. Spring 2005. 11

evice 43. To persuade leaders that people who have never heard the gospel will eventually be saved anyway.

For many, this thought has severed the nerve of missionary zeal. So what is the truth? Do people who have never heard about Jesus go to hell when they die? The great missionary statesman Dr Oswald J. Smith, after a careful study of Scripture had this to say: “The answer is yes. But you say it is unjust. You find fault with God. You think a God of love would not and could not permit it. Does God owe us salvation? If so, then it is not of grace at all. He is simply paying a debt. But we deserve nothing. It is all of grace. My friend, you can rest on one great statement and it is this: ‘Shall not the judge of the earth do right?’ ”23 As leaders, we ought to plan our mission trips and teach from our pulpits on the understanding that those without Christ are doomed. I have never yet met a person active in evangelism who believes people can be saved without Christ. otivated by a tract written by an atheist… The famous English missionary C.T. Studd once read a tract written by an atheist. God used this tract to send him to the mission field. It read as follows: “If I did firmly believe,” said the atheist, “as millions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, religion to me would be everything. I would cast aside earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as vanity …Earth, with its joys and griefs, would occupy no moment of my thoughts. I would strive to look upon eternity alone, and on the immortal souls around me so soon to be everlastingly miserable or everlastingly happy. I would go forth into the world and preach to it in season and out of season, and my text would always be: ‘What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his

23 Dr Oswald J. Smith. The Passion For Souls. Marshall, Morgan and Scott Ltd. London, 1958, p.79

soul?’ ”24 e careful what you feed your mind… The devil knows where our evangelism nerves are. I once talked to a church leader who was doing a study of whether those without Christ were really lost. Before doing the study, he was a keen and regular evangeliser. After reading liberal scholars on the issue the leader became confused, and unsure that those without Christ were really lost. I met him some time later and he had dropped out of not just the ministry but out of Christianity! The way we think can dramatically influence our behaviour. If you as a leader are not sure whether those without Christ are lost, the people in your church will also be unsure. And if they are unsure, their desire to do evangelism will drain completely. “In recent years there has been a resurgence of universalism,” writes Dr Leighton Ford, “which also threatens evangelistic motivation by assuming men are already saved. Thus one theologian can exclaim, ‘This is a saved world!’ And another world leader in evangelism can warn, on a speaking tour of American seminaries, ‘It is a heresy to ask a man to accept Christ.’ ”25 A student once asked Charles Spurgeon if the non-Christians who had never heard the gospel would be saved. Spurgeon answered, “It is more a question with me whether we who hear the gospel and fail to give it to others can be saved!”26 If we want to help mobilise our people to evangelise, we ought to preach passionately and often about the utter lostness of people outside of Christ. Dr. Norman Geisler is the author or co-author of some 70 books

24 ibid. p.78 25 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Rowe, 1976, p.15 26 Told in J.O. Sanders. What Of The Unevangelised? OMF, 1980, p.34

and hundreds of articles. He has taught theology, philosophy, and apologetics on the college or graduate level for 50 years. He has spoken or debated in some 26 countries on six continents. He has a B.A, M.A., Th.B., and Ph.D (in philosophy). Please read what he has to say on this topic. He’s sharp!

A Vindication of God’s Justice. Is it fair for God to send people to hell who have never heard the only Gospel by which they can be saved? This question is really several questions in one. They will be broken down and analyzed one by one.

Is there salvation apart from Christ? The biblical answer to this question is clear: All human beings are born in sin (Psalm. 51:5 KJV) and are “by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3 KJV). For “… just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned [in Adam]” (Romans 5:12). Addressing explicitly those who have only general revelation, the apostle Paul declared, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

The lost are lost apart from knowing Christ Likewise, he adds, “All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law” (Romans 2:12). Then, summing up his conclusion from the whole section, Paul pronounces, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23). Yes, those who have never heard remain lost apart from knowing about Christ. 22

Is there salvation apart from Christ? All orthodox Christians agree that there is no salvation apart from Christ’s redemptive work. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The apostle Paul added, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Further, the writer of Hebrews agreed, affirming that “Christ… has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). And “this priest [Christ] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God… because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:12, 14). Literally, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Is It Fair to Condemn Those Who Have Not Heard? Yes, it is just to condemn those who have never received God’s special revelation. First, through general revelation they know about his “eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1:20). They are aware that he “made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them” (Acts 14:15). They are aware that God “has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons” (Acts 14:17). Although they do not have the Law of Moses, “All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law.... Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law [of Moses], since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts” (Romans 2:12-15).

Conscience and Creation Even though God has revealed himself to the lost in creation and 23

in conscience, fallen humanity has universally rejected that light. Hence, God is not obligated to give them any more light, since they have turned from the light they have. In fact, although they have the truth, “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18).

Move towards the light Someone lost in the darkness of a dense jungle who sees one speck of light should go toward it. If that person turns away from the little light and becomes forever lost in darkness, there is only one person to blame. The Scriptures say, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). If any unbeliever truly sought God through the general revelation, God would provide the special revelation sufficient for salvation.

After God led Peter to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter declared: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:35). The writer of Hebrews tells us that those who seek, find. “He rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Many ways to get the gospel God has many ways at his disposal through which he can get the truth of the Gospel to lost souls. The normative way is through preachers of the Gospel (Romans 10:14-15), whether in person or on radio, TV, or some recording. On one occasion God will use an angel to preach the Gospel “to every nation, tribe, language and people” (Revelation 14:6). Many people have been given a Bible, read it, and been saved. 24

Others have been saved through Gospel literature. We have no way of knowing whether God has conveyed special revelation through visions, dreams, and in other miraculous ways. The truth is that God is more willing that all be saved than we are. For “the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God’s justice demands that he condemns all sinners, but his love compels him to provide salvation for all who by his grace will believe. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

Is There a Second Chance? A few Christian apologists and many cults believe that God will give a second chance after death to those who never heard the Gospel. Orthodox Christians reject this. The Bible declares that “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). The urgency with which Scripture speaks of making one’s decision now in this life (Prov. 29:1; John 8:24; Hebrews 3:713; 2 Peter 3:9) is strong evidence that there is no second chance. The fact that people immediately go to either heaven or hell (Luke 16:19-31; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Revelation 19:20) indicates that a decision must be made in this life. Since God has so many ways to reveal himself to unbelievers before death, it is unnecessary that he do so after they die. Belief in a second chance undermines the missionary mandate. Why have the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), if people can be saved apart from receiving Christ in this life?

‘Second chance’ Scriptures dubious Interpretations of Scripture used to support second-chance salvation are, to say the least, highly disputed (for example, 1 Peter 25

3:18-19). Clear texts are unambiguous in teaching that hell awaits the unrepentant. There is no real evidence that God will give anyone a second chance to be saved after death.27

evice 44. To substitute evangelism with sustained prayer, intercession and fasting.

The devil has made great gains with this device, because there is a ring of truth to it. Any seasoned Christian will know that prayer, intercession and fasting are vital aspects in the process of drawing non-Christians to Christ. God forbid that we should ever forget this. Too often there is too little prayer, intercession and fasting undergirding our evangelism. But these activities are not evangelism. A.W. Tozer in his day was troubled by Christians who prayed and fasted for the lost but who never took the gospel to them. He said: “Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late – and how little revival has resulted? I believe we have been trying to substitute prayer for obeying [i.e. going to the lost with the gospel], and it simply will not work. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.”28 “We Christians too often substitute prayer for playing the game,” said C.T. Studd. “Prayer is good; but when used to substitute for obedience, it is nothing but a blatant hypocrisy…”29 As Dr John Piper said, it is almost impossible to overemphasise the awesome place of prayer in the purposes of God in the world, but he urges caution: “I am not comfortable, for example, with calling prayer ‘the work of missions.’ We will not jeopardise its awesome indispensability if we deny this claim. I do not deny it because of any desire to minimise the place of prayer but out of a 27 Dr. Norman Geisler; ©1999, from Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Book House 28 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically… The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Press, 2003, p.4 29 http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/msctserm.html

zeal for the place of the Word of God in world missions. So let me say loud and clear that I believe the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed is the work of missions.”30 The devil needs to take anti-anxiety medication when he hears of Christians who pray, intercede and fast and who go into the world and proclaim the gospel alongside their good works.

evice 45. To make leaders afraid of being less than competent and afraid of opposition from nonChristians.

When leaders first engage in personal evangelism, they, like anyone else, will not be outstandingly skilled at it. And, just like anyone else, there will be times when they are rejected and when their evangelism did not go well. As I have said all along, evangelism is a learned skill. And like any such skill, there will be a learning curve littered with bumps, bruises, failures, and disappointments. But instead of seeing suffering for the gospel as a noble thing, and recognising that evangelising is a skill which takes time to acquire, and a necessary aspect of being a leader, many leaders are too easily discouraged and drop out. William Barclay tells of a famous martyr, Polycarp, the aged Bishop of Smyrna, who was dragged by a mob to the tribunal of the Roman magistrate. There he was given the inevitable choice – sacrifice to the godhead of Caesar or die. “Eighty and six years,” came the immortal reply, “have I served Christ, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme My King who saved me?” As Polycarp was brought to the stake, he prayed one last time: “O Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy well-beloved and everblessed Son, by whom we have received the knowledge of thee. I 30 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, p.63

thank thee that thou hast graciously thought me worthy of this day and of this hour.” Here, notes Barclay, was the supreme opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty to Jesus Christ. “There are many of us who have never made anything like a real sacrifice for Jesus. The moment when Christianity seems likely to cost us something is the moment when it is open to us to demonstrate our loyalty to Jesus Christ in a way that all the world can see. When [a person] is called on to suffer something for their Christianity, that is always a crucial moment; it is the great occasion; it is the clash between the world and Christ; it is the moment in the drama of eternity. To have to share in such a moment is not a sacrifice but a glory. ‘Rejoice at such a moment,’ says Jesus (Matthew 5:10-12), ‘and be exceedingly glad.’ The words ‘exceedingly glad’ are from the verb agalliasthai which has been derived from two Greek words which mean ‘to leap exceedingly…’ It is the joy of the climber who has reached the summit, and who leaps for joy that the mountain path is conquered.”31 As our skill in evangelism increases, that joy can indeed be exceeding. My friends in leadership, if you are not already active in personal evangelism – you will have to go through a sharp learning curve when you start out in evangelism, just like everyone else. But if you persevere, you will break through. Nothing is more certain, and nothing will bring you more joy! (Mark 8:35). You will have plenty of agalliasthai moments! ow to move up a level - capture the attitude of the early Christians… In Dave Williams’ book, Supernatural Soul Winning, he discusses how history reveals that within the first 200 years of Christianity, the entire known world heard the gospel. Paul tells

31 William Barclay.The Gospel of Matthew, Vol.1-chapters 1-X. Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh. 1965, pp. 110-114.

us that this actually happened in less than thirty years. 32 It is we leaders who must first set the example in suffering for the gospel. The devil will use persecution and discouragement to try to dissuade us from continuing in evangelism. He has tried to persuade countless leaders that persecution for the sake of the gospel is not an honour but an embarrassment and a “sign” to discontinue. ow to get strength when times are tough… The devil also specialises in fear. For most of us, going up to total strangers to talk about Jesus is totally out of our comfort zone. Sensing your fear, the people in your church will also be afraid of evangelism. On the other hand, if you become a leader who demonstrates courage in the face of fear, it will breed bravery in those who follow you. I am asking and praying that, with respect to evangelism, you become a brave inspirational leader. Lead your people to victory in the most important aspect of Christian life!

ummary

• Being accountable to someone else for our evangelism activity is not to be equated with legalism. On the contrary, it’s a mark of true wisdom. • Sometimes participating in evangelism will lead to our suffering. Jesus calls us to willingly enter into suffering for His glory and the greater good of those round us. It’s the price we are called to pay to love God and love our neighbour (Matthew 10:22). • The emphasis in the New Testament is on going to the lost with the gospel, rather than waiting for them to come to us. We must 32 Cited in: Ken Gaub. What’s Your Passion. Proven Tips For Witnessing To Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. New Leaf Press, 2004, p.41

•

• • • • •

•

reclaim this emphasis (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15). If we proclaim the gospel and don’t see an immediate result, the exercise is not a failure. Rather, it’s a resounding success because Jesus has been glorified i.e. “His name has been proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:16; Psalm 96:2). All roads do not lead to God (Acts 4:12). All those outside of Christ at death will be eternally damned. Extreme Calvinism cuts the nerve of the muscle of evangelism. A wrong understanding of grace excuses us from doing evangelism. On the other hand, a right understanding of grace will propel us into evangelism (Titus 2:11). It is not true that those who have never heard the gospel will all eventually be saved. They are currently lost, and if they die outside of Christ, will be eternally lost (John 3:18). Evangelising the world must never be equated to a business venture, where the number of souls won is the measure of the success of the business. Rather, true success is to be equated with the extent to which the gospel is spread or proclaimed. If we pray and fast for the lost but do not go to them with the gospel we are being hypocritical (James 1:22). We can be the answer to our prayers if we go. Feeling fear is natural. Showing courage in the face of fear is a mark of the work of the Spirit. Courage is infectious, and so too is fear. If we demonstrate courage with respect to evangelism, our people will too. CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post on social media.

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CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. Unfortunately, the diabolical devices I have revealed here are the first of many arrayed against leaders. More devices which target leaders follow in the next Chapter â&#x20AC;&#x201C; along with more strategies from heaven to counter them....

Real Life Story

Powerful, but spiritually bankrupt England

It was a crisp, fresh Sunday morning and I was on my way to preach in Welwyn Garden City, north of London. I arrived at the station at around 6:30am and boarded the train which was virtually empty. I sat down, took out my laptop, and started to review my sermon notes. A few minutes before we left the station, a well-dressed man in his late forties entered the carriage. He was immaculately dressed in an expensive-looking suit. Of all the places to sit in the train, he sat across the aisle from me. Our eyes met and I said “Good morning.” He replied with the same. I let him get seated and settled and then started up a conversation. Let’s call him Brian. Me:“So, where are you off to today?” He replied he was going to such and such a town. Brian: “Are you Australian?” Me: “No, I’m a Kiwi.” Brian:“Oh really, what are you doing in England then? Business or pleasure?” Me: “Both, actually. I love what I do for a job.” 32

Brian:(sounding genuinely interested) “What do you do?” Me: “I motivate people in mainstream churches.” Brian:(Looking puzzled)“Really? What does that involve?” Me: “Well, I help people in church to explain what Christianity is all about to people who don’t go to church. We have just developed a video which summarises the whole Bible in 11 minutes. Let me show you.” I pulled my iphone and head phones and got him started. At the end of the presentation, I asked the final question. Me:“Brian, if you died tonight, where would you go?” Brian: (visibly shaken) “…mmm… (sheepishly) I guess I would go straight to hell.” I prayed with him and gave him a follow-up booklet which explains how to become a Christian. He appeared to be so convicted when he found out he was going to hell that he fumbled with the follow-up booklet when it was passed to him, dropping it on the ground before picking it up again with shaking hands. The conviction on him was as 33

strong and powerful as any I have seen. I should have led him to the Lord there and then but I didn’t. That was, I think, a mistake. I realised this some time later, as I thought and prayed about what happened on that train. After a period of silence I asked Brian what he did for a job. His reply? He was a medical doctor, and the managing director of one of the world’s largest health insurance companies with 45,000 employees. He was returning home after a series of high-powered meetings in London. No more than five minutes after we had finished watching the video, Brian prepared to get off at his stop. As he was picking up his briefcase we shared a few final words. Me: (with genuine love and tenderness) “Hey Brian, if I never see you again, I will see you in heaven.” Brian: (smiling and with sincerity) “You will. Thank you so much. All the best with the rest of your trip.”

Julian’s comments.

1. Always be ready to share the gospel. Have your gospel presentation tools ready and your follow-up material on hand. God is more likely to use you if you are ready. 2. Why did the man come and sit right opposite me in a carriage which could seat 50 people? I believe God orchestrated this encounter. This shows me how much He loved Brian. 3. I had to initiate the conversation and then lead the conversation towards the gospel presentation. Read again how I did this. It is really very simple and effective. There is no cringe factor and no awkwardness in the approach. It all happens very naturally. Some might say “Yeah, but nobody else can copy that example because they can’t talk about their jobs like you did!” I would reply that 34

all of us can give a reply to the question “What do you do?” with something like “Hey, I am an office worker. But my passion in life is Christianity. Are you a church person?” Or “Hey, I am an office worker, but my main interest is voluntary work in my church. Have you had any church background?” 4. The good thing about the 11 minute video is that it really engages people. The Holy Spirit works powerfully through His word in this way. 5. When I first started this ministry, I was against “easy believism” and just getting people to “say the prayer.” But with hindsight I think I was probably too extreme in the other direction. I missed opportunities to lead people to Jesus on the spot. This was one of those occasions, and I have learned from the mistake. Does this mean Brian is lost forever? Certainly not. On the contrary, if Mark 4:26-29 is anything to go by, the Holy Spirit promises to follow up Brian and to grow the seed of the gospel planted in him. 6. It is important to have follow-up material which matches and further explains the gospel material you have presented with the gospel. The more the follow-up material and your gospel presentation are in sync, the more effective the encounter will be. 7. Brian is a powerful, influential person but spiritually bankrupt. It would be hard to get to him with the gospel unless one of his peers, who was moving in his circle, was able to do it. If Christians moving in the circles of influence mobilised to proclaim the gospel, people like Brian wouldn’t have to wait half their lives to hear it from someone like me in a train. I believe there are many 35

Christians who do have contact with powerful people but they fail to take these opportunities, thinking the influential person will not be receptive or interested. Maybe they fear losing their reputation, or missing out on promotion, or negatively influencing a big financial deal which is on the table. This is why Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). If you are a person in a position of power and influence, your workplace is your Jerusalem (Acts 1:8). Your colleagues should be one of your first priorities. You are God’s ambassador in your workplace, His representative. If Jesus would give the gospel in the workplace, and we can be sure He would, then why wouldn’t you, when the time and place is right? 8. Not proclaiming is a great mistake. All people are lost, whether rich or poor, powerful or not. People might have different bank balances and varying degrees of power and influence, but all have exactly the same spiritual need. I have given the gospel to politicians, international rock stars, university lecturers, a governor general, television personalities and world heavyweight boxing contenders. All have been designed to hear the gospel. God has commissioned and commanded all of us to reach everyone.

Chapter Seventeen

Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 2)

evice 46. To persuade leaders to delay equipping their people for evangelism until they are ready i.e. “on fire!”

“Delay” is a favourite word of the enemy and he loves to hear leaders use it. Remember, he’s an angel of light who specialises in sounding biblical. The following is an example of what the enemy will whisper into the ear of a leader to postpone doing evangelism. He sounds so plausible… “Look, I understand why you want to put delay mobilising all for your people for evangelism. You want your people to be so filled with the Spirit that they will naturally and spontaneously spill out of church and set the community on fire, right? If you want genuine Holy Spirit-initiated and empowered evangelism, you’d better not train them yet. If you do, some might be put off evangelism and never return to it. Don’t listen to those who want to equip your people with tools to proclaim the gospel. It needs to emerge from the overflow of the heart. So just keep praying for the 2

Holy Spirit to ripen your church.” As usual with the devil, there is truth and error here. So what’s the truth? First, we know that mobilising a church for evangelism has the potential to divide people. Any true Ephesians 4:11-12 evangelist will want to move sensitively in order to keep a local church united. When it comes to evangelism, the timid in a church need special coaching. Secondly, when we go and proclaim the gospel, we want to be reliant on the Holy Spirit. Without His empowering, our efforts will be fruitless. As I said, however, there’s deadly error mixed in Satan’s whisperings as well. He doesn’t want leaders to realise that when we evangelise, the Holy Spirit comes upon us. The last thing he wants you to know is that a highly effective way to have your church sense the empowering of the Spirit is to have them start evangelising. ow to get a passion for evangelism… The Chairman of Billy Graham’s “All Scotland” Crusade, Tom Allan, said: “Generally we are told there is no point in doing the work of evangelism until we are better prepared within our own churches. While this appears to be a self-evident truth, in fact it involves a peculiar paradox. The only way to prepare a church for evangelism is by the work of evangelism.”1 Did you get that?! Tom Allan just made a HUGE point and one I pray you’d never forget. As Dr Leighton Ford says, it is as we obey Christ’s command that urgency and compassion come.2 He says that after not doing evangelism for a long time and then trying to start again, once the barrier of hesitation is crossed and the work of witness begun, the old thrill surges back.

1 Quoted in Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.63 2 ibid, p.63

“It is like the athlete who gets out of condition. He dreads to resume training. It takes tremendous willpower to begin again that first day, but once he begins to feel the pull of his muscles and the flow of his energy, you can’t stop him!”3 Pastor Darryl of Cornerstone Church in Minnesota explains well how we receive the fire to start doing evangelism. “The Church in Ephesus was reprimanded by Jesus for having lost their first love. Nothing can restore joy to a dull Christian life faster than doing evangelism on a daily basis.” etermining to do it creates a resolve to do it… Determining to do evangelism will result in a resolve to do it. I have often heard people praying for God to give them a desire to do evangelism. What they mean is they want to feel like doing it. It rarely happens. Please listen carefully. I do not wake up every day feeling eager to reach non-Christians with the gospel. But what I do wake up with is a resolve to do it. The dictionary defines ‘resolve’ like this: “to come to a determination; make up one’s mind; determine.” Resolve is much deeper than a nice feeling. Resolve is just as the dictionary defines it. In fact, I would go one step further than the dictionary definition. Resolve involves, at the deepest level, a will to overcome feelings of not wanting to evangelise. When Jesus said in Luke 9:23 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me,” He was exhorting the disciples to make a resolve to do His will. Check out this verse: “For the Lord GOD helps Me, therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have set My face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:7). Isaiah’s prophecy

3 ibid, p.38

gives a rare glimpse of Jesus’ attitude. He deliberately set His “face like flint” to trust God during the ordeal, which ultimately was to save us. Flint is extremely hard. He hardened his mental resolve like a rock to let nothing defeat Him. I believe the Holy Spirit gave me, and continues to give me, this resolve, which He will do for you too (Psalm 37:4). We just have to use sheer will power to evangelise to start with. Then over time He will take our mustard seed of will power and grow it into a mountain of resolve. This is how God works. The enemy, on the other hand, wants us to wait until we feel ready to proclaim. He likes to whisper in the ear of a leader, “When your people feel keen to evangelise, when they are on fire, this will be a sign they are ready!” ou have power, despite what the enemy tries to say... The enemy will also try to persuade us that people under our care are not ready to evangelise because they lack power. But the truth is the opposite. Before Pentecost, the Church wasn’t ready to evangelise because it lacked power. Pentecost has come, and all genuine believers are now indwelt by the Holy Spirit. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us” (Romans 5:5). This Pentecostal power is manifested as we evangelise. Try it and see.4 ow to sense the Holy Spirit… When we decide to go and proclaim the gospel, the Holy Spirit who is there, whether we sense this powerfully or not. But if you feel nothing, go anyway. You won’t “feel” the empowering of the Spirit until the moment you actually engage with the non-Christian you have chosen to share the gospel with. Anyone who evangelises regularly will tell you that as you are

4 But ensure you have good training first, and if at first you don’t succeed after training, keep trying until you do. If you persevere, you will breakthrough.

doing it, and immediately after you have done it, there is, most often, a wonderful sense of the Holy Spirit’s blessing and presence. The next day, or even a few hours later, this wonderful feeling is gone. So the next day, what do you do? We resolve to do it again. hy some people have no desire to do evangelism… Have you ever noticed how people who are completely dead to the idea of proclaiming the gospel have not done it for a long time, if ever? Recall the words of Jesus: “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Luke 19:26). In the area of evangelism, this can be taken to mean that the longer a person delays mobilising for evangelism, the less resolve they will have to do it. But if we resolve to do it, He will give us an even greater resolve to do it. This is how God works. ow to break through in evangelism… Anyone who has the attitude “Oh, I think I will just give it a try and see how I go” will almost certainly never break through in evangelism. This is not resolving. This is playing around. Jesus did not say to His Father “I will go to earth and see how it goes.” How do you think people like Carey, Wesley, Spurgeon, Billy Graham, Luis Palau, Reinhard Bonnke and Ray Comfort developed their love for the lost and for evangelism? They resolved to do evangelism long before they became ‘known,’ and they would have started with sheer will-power – green, unskilled and frightened. They would have realised evangelism was an acquired skill. Their eventual fruitfulness was the culmination of resolve, faithfulness, consistency, and perseverance. Faithfulness means resolving to do God’s will over a long period of time when no other Christian is watching. Furthermore, Jesus said to the disciples, “I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). He didn’t say “I will pray for you and

you will instantly be competent fishers of men.” The word ‘make’ implies a process – and time. He took three years to show the disciples how to do it. If we really want to succeed with evangelism, our attitude should be: “I resolve to learn for the rest of my life. I expect a steep learning curve at the start, but no matter what it takes, I am in for the long haul. I want and am going to receive my personal breakthrough in evangelism.” With this attitude, there is no reason why anyone cannot experience a life time of joy and success with evangelism. ow to ignite the fire - and how to keep it… I have seen many start with good intentions, but who don’t continue. They have not resolved in their heart to evangelise. Luke 14:28: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it - lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish”’ (NKJV). Those who make a good start, and then stop for whatever reason, will likely find their passion for evangelism eventually fizzles, and then dies. To re-ignite the fire, you have to resolve afresh. To keep it burning brightly, we have to take on the attitude of a professional athlete. They know they must practise hard every day, persevere, and commit to continual improvement. I have found it easier to maintain resolve if I reach one person a day with the gospel. Before I resolved to reach one person a day, I noticed that the longer the time lapse between evangelism experiences, the more my resolve dwindled. Perhaps this is why Jesus said “Take up your cross daily.” (Luke 9:23). hy devoting a season of your life to evangelism can change it forever…

Dr Leighton Ford once commented on the pamphlet called Why God used D.L.Moody and said he hoped one day someone would write one entitled “Why God used Billy Graham.” “Among the first reasons,” he said, “will be an unswerving dedication to the primary call of declaring Christ. Billy Graham has sometimes been accused of narrowness. But much of his secret has been to focus all his powers upon one task.”5 Because Billy Graham resolved to do evangelism, God gave him an even greater resolve to do evangelism, and so the number of people who were impacted through him grew exponentially. There is no reason God can’t do the same for you too. Why don’t you dedicate a season of your life to focusing on one thing – resolving to learn how to evangelise? And once you breakthrough, resolve to keep going for the rest of your life. When you meet Jesus face to face you might have a few regrets, as we all might, but you will never regret reaching lots of people with the gospel. The thought of God working through me now to help a lot of people live eternally with Jesus is a powerful motivating factor for me.6 These are my riches in heaven. (Matthew 6:19). No one else can store up these riches for us. This verse says we are to store them up “...ourselves.”

evice 47. To persuade leaders that personal evangelism is too confrontational.

Leaders who worry that personal evangelism is too confrontational have usually formed their opinion after seeing a bad example. But we shouldn’t write off personal evangelism after seeing a bad example, anymore than we would stop driving our car 5 Quoted in Dr Leighton Ford, The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, pp.78-79 6 This is not suggesting that our motive for doing evangelism should be selfish or that we can take any merit for anyone who is saved. As we know, salvation is, from first to last, the work of Jesus, and all the glory both now and eternally goes to Him. Nevertheless, He did exhort us to store up riches in heaven.

after seeing an accident. So what is personal evangelism supposed to be like? The ideal gospel messenger is humble, gracious, friendly, sensitive to the Spirit, and a good listener. There is never any excuse for a messenger to be insensitive or tactless. When we go into the world to present the gospel, we go “as the fragrance of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14) and “full of grace” (Colossians 4:4-6). esus and Paul were confrontational… The truth is, however, that the gospel message will always confront. It is a mistake to think we can proclaim the true gospel without confronting. God has designed the gospel to be confrontational. The dictionary defines “confront” as “to stand facing; to bring face to face with; to face defiantly or with hostility…”7 I certainly do not want the personal evangelism I do to be described as “hostile.” But, when I think about whether Jesus and Paul were ever confrontational, I have to acknowledge that sometimes they were. At one end of the “confrontation” continuum there was Jesus in His highly relational and gentle encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4). She claimed not to have a husband, to which Jesus replied, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” Here Jesus brought the woman face to face with her sin. Yes, He confronted her. esus used a whip… At the other end of the confrontation continuum, Jesus cleared the temple with a whip (John 2). Here His actions met every aspect of the dictionary definition of confrontation. The apostles were also

7 The Concise English Dictionary. Omega Books, 2001, p.237

confrontational. When they were told to stop evangelising, they just kept going anyway. They were even defiant. Acts 4:18. The apostles were commanded not to speak or teach but they did so anyway. Acts 4:21. The apostles were threatened but continued to proclaim the gospel. Acts 5:33. The religious authorities were furious with the apostles but this did not stop them doing what they were doing hy the gospel is confrontational… Some say Acts is full of confrontation only because of the religious authorities of the time. Surely, they assert, we don’t have such opposition today and therefore don’t have to be confrontational. But what about the other powers we still face today such as the gods of atheism, materialism, mammon, New Age, spiritism and animism? What about selfishness, greed, jealousy, lust, pride, and power-seeking? The hearts of people today are like they were in Acts – corrupt. When Christians today proclaim the gospel they inevitably encounter the dark side of people, a side which the gospel of light is going to confront. When we turn on a light in a dark room, we could say that the light confronts the darkness. This is what the gospel does when a non-Christian hears it. The gospel message we preach today ought to be the same as that which caused the early Christians to be persecuted. So why should we expect a different reaction today? The enemy has slyly tried to suggest that anything a Christian does which is confrontational is “not of God” and “not loving.” But is this true? No, it’s not. Consider the lost people to whom Jesus has commanded us to proclaim the gospel: • They are futile in their thinking and their hearts are darkened (Romans 1:21). • They claim to be wise, but they are fools (Romans 1:22). • They don’t glorify God or give thanks to Him (Romans 1:21).

• They suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). • They worship idols (Romans 1:23). • Many live as enemies of God (Philippians 3:18). • They are living as condemned people (John 3:18). • Their deeds are evil (John 3:19). • They are crooked and depraved (Philippians 2:15). Can we avoid confrontation when we approach these people with the blazing light of the truth? Absolutely not! This is clash of deep darkness (fallen human nature) and blazing light (the light of the gospel). hen light confronts darkness, a clash may be inevitable… “The gospel of Jesus Christ is the best news ever, following the worst news possible,” says Dr J.I. Packer. “The bad news is that the entire human race, from the moment of each person’s conception in the womb, is offensive to God.8 Why? Because we have a proud, unbelieving, thoughtless, careless, greedy, self-serving spirit. We live to please ourselves, and in our hearts we keep God at bay. Our egocentric attitude seeks to play God, use God, fool God and fight God, all at the same time. Our unconcern for love, truth, respect, honesty, integrity, and justice constantly disfigures our actual doings.”9 esus told the disciples what to expect. Why should it be different for us? It seems clear we cannot avoid confrontation in evangelism. If there is no confrontation, then it’s not evangelism that is taking place. When we proclaim the true gospel, we come face-to-face with both spiritual forces (Ephesians 6:12) and fallen human nature. In Matthew 10, Jesus didn’t assure His disciples of a warm

8 Packer is not saying people are offensive to God. On the contrary, we know He loves people. It’s the sin nature which is offensive to Him. 9 Cited in Dr Ravi Zacharias. This We Believe: The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan, 2000, pp.44-46

welcome when they went out to preach the gospel. On the contrary, He told them to expect confrontation. They would feel like lambs among wolves; they would be handed over for flogging; they would likely be arrested and find themselves in court; they would be betrayed and even handed over to death by blood relatives. They would be hated, persecuted, and vilified. By preaching the gospel they would even end up separating people – including those in their own family. These ‘outcomes’ can only have been the result of preaching confrontational gosepl. What other explanation is there? reach the gospel, live dangerously… After Paul went out and preached the gospel, this was his field report: “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). This level of hardship does not come as a result of bending over backwards to be friends with the world so as to avoid confrontation. In fact the New Testament says we can expect trouble and persecution when our message confronts society and its thinking, as every true evangelist will attest.

lad, sad, or mad, the gospel will do it all… Increasingly today, any evangelistic method or message which confronts is viewed as politically incorrect. Some even claim it is not of God. Such attitudes are not Biblical. Check out the attitude of the early apostles. “[They] left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:41-42). They viewed suffering for the gospel as an honour. Those who regularly evangelise know the gospel will make people mad, sad, or glad. If, you as a leader, convey the idea to your people that any confrontation in evangelism is wrong, you are way out of touch with reality, and with the truth of the Bible. hy tolerance is a tragedy… “Why Tolerance Is A Tragedy” was the title of an article I read. The author, Lloyd John Ogilvie, argues that confronting non-Christians with the gospel is actually a loving thing to do. He tells the following story to illustrate his point. “A brilliant man who recently became a Christian expressed the point dramatically. ‘I am thankful that you kept after me. You listened to all my philosophic ramblings with patience, but not tolerance. You cared enough to meet me point for point, idea for idea. You took my struggle seriously. I would never have become a Christian if I had not felt that you were absolutely convinced that Christ was the only answer for your life… and that I was lost without Him. If I could have driven a wedge in that conviction, or if you had let me off the hook with some kind of equivocation, I would not have kept searching.”10 This man is saying “Hey, if you

10 Lloyd John Ogilvie. When God First Thought of You. Word Books. 1978. pg 191.

had merely tolerated me, and all my arguments which I put up, I would not have been saved. Thank you for confronting me with the gospel.” What shall we conclude? The true gospel will confront people. But the confrontation has only the highest good of the person we are evangelising in mind – we want them to meet Jesus, glorify Him, and enjoy Him forever.

evice 48. To persuade some leaders that the only valid form of evangelism is one in which signs and wonders follow.

Let me start at a crucially important place. As I have already said earlier in this Book, “the gospel” has three aspects - words, works, and effects. For example, if I pray for someone, my prayer is a work of the gospel. If they are healed, that is an effect of the gospel. But have they heard the words of the gospel? No, they have not. The words, say the academics, must convey content. What content? They must convey to an unsaved person: 1. Why they must be saved. 2. How Jesus can save them. 3. What they must do to be saved. 4. The cost of becoming a disciple. If this content has not been communicated, the words of the gospel have not been preached, and no evangelism has taken place. I knew a minister who stopped using the tools we developed to proclaim the gospel because, he said, “…we aren’t seeing signs and wonders when we preach the gospel using your tools. This is a sign to us that we are preaching an incomplete gospel. Jesus said signs and wonders would follow the preaching of the gospel.” The leader then decreed that everyone in his church should stop using the tools. I asked him to write to me when he had found a replacement tool which delivered signs and wonders each time the gospel was proclaimed. That was over 15 years ago, and I still 14

have not received a letter. Just recently I received an email from someone who had watched a couple of the home group style DVD studies we have produced on the enemy’s devices: “I think you’re a great guy and your teaching is spot on, but I also believe it is only half of the coin – like having a one-barrelled shotgun instead of a two-barrelled shotgun. Sure, I have not seen all the DVDs yet but it seems to me that your teaching concentrates on giving non-Christians the Word. When Jesus did it, He gave them both barrels: the Word and the power (miracles, signs and wonders). Aren’t we supposed to be doing at least what He did? Actually, aren’t we supposed to be doing even greater things? To have ‘signs following,’ I think, might mean that we have to be moving in the power of the Holy Spirit - not just moving in the Word. Have you ever seen an aeroplane in the sky or a ship at sea? There is that trail of ‘white stuff’ (their sign) when they are moving. If they are parked up (perhaps even with their engines running) there is no white stuff. I think that when we proclaim the gospel it will be a lot more effective if we have some ‘white stuff’ (signs) to show for it. As you can see, I have been thinking about this these past few days. Having said that, I don’t know how we are going to get to the point where we are doing the ‘white stuff’, the signs and wonders. I suppose to hunger and thirst for it wouldn’t be a bad starting point?” What are we to make of this? What is the truth about “signs and wonders” and their relationship to the proclamation of the Words of the gospel? igns and wonders every time? What does the Bible say…? It is true that signs and wonders sometimes follow the proclamation of the gospel. But it is an error to expect them every time. Sometimes, for example, when Paul preached the gospel, instead of seeing signs and wonders he was thrown out of town (e.g. Acts 13:50).

In John 10:41-42 we learn that the mighty ministry of John the Baptist was not accompanied by any miraculous sign. And in Acts 16:14, we read about Paul’s encounter with Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from Thyatira, who worshipped God and was open to Paul’s message. No miracles are mentioned in this instance, although shortly before, at Iconium, they had been in evidence. “So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders” (Acts 14:3). Notice that it was the Lord who enabled them. While we cannot conjure up signs and wonders, we ought to earnestly ask God for them as we preach the gospel. But they can never be guaranteed. o, what’s it to be? One barrel or two? Sometimes the enemy will suggest the message of the gospel needs signs and wonders following in order to be effective, as a car needs petrol. We have already seen from Mark 4:26-29 in Chapter Thirteen that we can quickly dismiss this idea as heresy. In Mark 4:26-29 Jesus clearly teaches that when a non Christian is saved, the salvation they experience is a full blown New Testament miracle! What shall we conclude then? Will one barrel do the job, or are two necessary? The Words of the gospel alone are a sufficient work of grace for salvation, but signs and wonders are a highly desirable, added dimension of it. hat revivalist Jonathan Edwards thought about this issue… Jonathan Edwards, the great revivalist, preacher and academic, commented on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. For Edwards, God’s Word was more powerful for effecting salvation than signs and wonders. Of verse 31, he said: “The warnings of God’s Word are more fitted to obtain the ends of awakening sinners, and bringing them to repentance, than the rising

of one from the dead to warn them.”11 eep proclaiming whether you see them or not… David Larsen, Professor and Chairman of Practical Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, said: “Signs and wonders are given or withheld according to the sovereignty of God. In special times there have indeed been breakthroughs of supernatural happenings to accredit Christian testimony but nothing in Scripture or church history would lead us to believe that such are normative in evangelism.” “The power of evangelism is the power of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the [words of the] gospel” (Romans 1:16).12 Please don’t misunderstand me. When God shows His power through a sign or a wonder, the sight can draw the unconverted like a magnet. Oh that we would see signs and wonders every time the gospel is preached! But we need to remember several things. First, many people who saw Jesus perform miracles did not convert. Secondly, Mark 16:19-20 does not promise they will always follow. I wonder how far Billy Graham would have got if he had decided to quit unless he saw a signs and wonders every time he preached? Imagine ceasing to pray if our prayers were not instantly answered? Thirdly, what exactly is ‘a sign and a wonder’? i.e. when people who are “dead in their trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) and blinded by the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) convert to Christianity, isn’t it a sign and a wonder when their eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit through the gospel? Yes, it is.

11 Cited in Jonathan Edwards. The Works Of President Edwards. 4 Vols. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1864, 4:330 12 David L. Larsen. The Evangelism Mandate: Recovering The Centrality Of Gospel Preaching. Crossway Books, 1992, p.51

wo introverts see signs and wonders following… Consider this guy called Craig. He was an introverted person, scared of evangelising. I took him out and apprenticed him, and we went around his church neighbourhood from door to door. Several weeks later he emailed me this story. One day when he had been out giving the gospel, the Holy Spirit came upon him and he burst into tongues. He said that he had prayed for the gift for a long time but it had never come. Now it did, spontaneously and unannounced. He was so excited. Some time later he cast a demon out of a woman who started to talk to him with a man’s voice. Signs and wonders were beginning to follow the proclamation of the gospel for Craig. He is now hooked on evangelism, and we made a video of his remarkable story. In Chapter Eleven I mentioned a nurse called Adelle, a self-confessed introvert who ended up sharing the gospel with more than 1000 people in six months. Using the tools we’ve developed for proclaiming the gospel, she has also seen signs and wonders. One day, while she was out giving the gospel door to door, God gave her words of knowledge about the names of everyone in four houses in a row. The bottom line on signs and wonders in relation to evangelism? The Lausanne Covenant on Evangelism sums up nicely what I believe is the right biblical position when it states: “We must reject both the scepticism which denies miracles and the presumption which demands them.”13 The truth of the matter is this - it is extremely difficult to motivate and train the average Christian to proclaim or spread the gospel, let alone requiring of them that they demonstrate a sign or a wonder alongside proclamation. Sure, let’s pray for people after they have heard the gospel, and believe for a miracle of some kind, according to the need. But if God chooses not to do one, rejoice anyway 13 Dr John Stott. Editor, Making Christ Known. Historic Mission Documents From The Lausanne Movement 1974 – 1989. Paternoster Press, 1996, p.11

that evangelism as taken place. i.e. that the seed of the gospel has been planted, and that, through the power of the work of the Holy Spirit14, and the Father15, God will supernaturally and miraculously ‘grow’ that seed16, and in His perfect time, draw the lost person who heard the gospel to Himself, and salvation. If we teach anything other than this balance, we set Christians up for massive failure. What do I mean? I mean this. The command of Jesus was for all the Church to go into all the world to proclaim the gospel. Now if all the Church started doing this, and they didn’t see a sign or wonder everytime they communicated the gospel to a lost person, what is going to happen to them? They are quickly going to give up going out with the gospel because obviously (so they think) God is not with them because signs and wonders are not manifesting everytime they preach the gospel. Tragically, and in error and unwittingly, many pastors openly teach that signs and wonders are the Christian gospel (i.e. that Mark 16:15 is talking about the Effects of the gospel), and that if signs and wonders don’t manifest when communicating the words of the gospel to a lost person, then it’s not the Christian gospel which has been preached. These pastors have taught millions of Christians this, and so millions of Christians have stopped going into all the world to preach the Words of the gospel (Mark 16:15). As such, these pastors have unwittingly helped shut down the Great Commission. In this way, pastors / leaders who are influencial but not theologically well educated can do immeasurable damage. I find myself praying for them “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

14 e.go John 16:8 15 John 6:65 16 e.g Mark 4:26-29

evice 49. To persuade leaders that worship in church is evangelism.

Many people have encountered God in a powerful way during a church worship service. What a wonderful thing this is! The heart’s desire of every true leader is to see this happen every time his or her people gather for worship. Yet in some churches worshipping has replaced “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.” This is a problem for world evangelism because those who have made the replacement say, “Hey, why do I need to go into the world and proclaim the gospel. We are doing that right here in church through the worship.” One writer who supports the concept of “worship evangelism” defined it in the following way: “Worship evangelism happens when we allow worship to be what it was meant to be – ‘a resource for incomplete and broken mankind to find completion and wholeness in God’s presence.’ It happens when we become like David and testify to God’s greatness, love, and faithfulness. It happens when we let God out of the box. It is time to put the words worshipping and evangelism together without apology. In the words of a contemporary praise chorus: Let’s become the generation who will passionately praise Him, boasting of the greatness of God.”17 What are we to make of this? e want to sense the presence of God in worship… Of course a special sense of the power and presence of Jesus can come in a worship service and we ought to seek this earnestly. Too often worship can be mundane, predictable and repetitive. And it is undeniable that non-Christians can feel the presence of God during powerful, anointed worship. But worship is not evangelism, for reasons already discussed.

17 Reference deliberately withheld.

hy worship evangelism is not biblical evangelism… In Chapter Three I showed that the enemy wants us to believe any activity which draws a non-Christian closer to the point of conversion is evangelism. But it isn’t. Certainly God can work powerfully through worship to draw a person closer to conversion, ploughing their hearts making them ready to receive the seed of the gospel.18 However, the truth remains that unless the essential content of the gospel19 has been meaningfully communicated in the worship service we cannot say biblically that evangelism has taken place. Earlier in this book we outlined the six steps to drawing a non-Christian to Christ – ploughing, sowing, watering, growing, harvesting and discipling. I would place church praise and worship in the “ploughing” and “watering” categories. They are activities which make non-Christians more receptive to Jesus. he ideal? Keep evangelism and worship together… Sure, let’s retain powerful, anointed worship in church on Sundays. Then, as Christians leave their church on Sunday, they ought to go into the world and continue to worship Jesus by

evangelising the other six days of the week.

evice 50. To persuade leaders the most effective way to evangelise the world is through big events and tent-type crusades.

Certainly big events have been part of God’s plan to evangelise the earth and we should continue to do all we can to support and participate in them. Such events have several benefits. 18

If someone does respond for salvation in a worship service where the gospel has not been proclaimed, to what truths are they responding? Whatever truths they were, they cannot be those of the essential gospel, since they were not proclaimed. And if someone has not heard these essential truths, how can they be saved? Romans 10:14-15. I have often seen altar calls after anointed worship, and people respond. What they are responding to is a sense of the presence of God.This is very different from responding to a full understanding of the gospel message. Let’s not confuse the two. When people respond, why not present the gospel to them using www.biblein11.com?

19 To say the gospel has been proclaimed, we must cover certain content: why we must be saved, how Jesus can save us, what we must do to be saved, and the cost of being a disciple.

They can unite churches and denominations for a common cause, cause a surge in prayer, fasting, and service, inject enthusiasm into a local church, and cause a rise in faith as people see results. They can also attract favourable media attention. Moreover, it’s encouraging to see men and women with special God-given gifts (like Billy Graham) using these gifts to glorify the Lord on such a large scale. hy I favour personal evangelism… But big events and crusades are not the most effective way to evangelise the world. Jesus’ mission is to evangelise the world. If we fail with this, we fail no matter how many and wonderful our big crusades. Christian statesman Dr Carl Henry affirms that “a one-on-one approach initiated by every believer still holds the best promise of evangelising the earth.”20 For example, if there are 20 million people in Australia, and 1 million Christians, and every Christian were to reach one person a week with the gospel, Australia could be evangelised in a mere 19 weeks. In contrast, the Church has existed for hundreds of years in Australia, with many crusades having taken place, and the vast majority of Australians have not once heard and understood the gospel. ow to get the most from a big event or crusade… I have often wondered why, when a big event or crusade is planned for a city or a town, we don’t have a five-year plan. The four years leading up to the actual crusade could be spent motivating and equipping Christians in our towns and cities to evangelise. Imagine accompanying this seeding initiative with prevailing prayer, good works, fasting, and other disciplines. Then, when the crusade evangelists arrive, they would come to a field fully-sown, grown, and ready to harvest.

20 Cited in Will Metzger, Tell The Truth. The Whole Gospel To The Whole Person By The Whole People. IVP, 1988, p.17

To “plough, sow and water” the spiritual ground in this way, before the arrival of the crusade evangelists, would make the best use of their gifting and time – and the resources of the churches who invited them. Then, after this five-year programme is complete, the focus should be on discipling those who are saved, teaching them first and foremost how to evangelise. Such an approach makes the enemy shudder because proper discipleship will always activate Christians for evangelism. Summary: Large crusades are great. Long my they continue. However, make a priority of mobilising the whole Church for personal evangelism.

evice 51. To persuade leaders that when we die our souls are simply snuffed out and that hell is not a place of conscious torment.

The enemy likes to divide Christians – and this is one of his favourite controversial topics: Do hell and torment last forever or not? For a start, many scriptures suggest the eternal nature of the soul,21 and many prominent scholars support the idea. “Perhaps the most frightening aspect of hell is its eternality,” writes Dr R.C. Sproul, theologian and respected evangelical scholar. “People can endure the greatest agony if they know it will ultimately stop. In hell, there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. The same word is used for eternal death and eternal life. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain… Hell, then, is an eternal torment from which there is no relief. We must understand this to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach the gospel.”22 21 e.g. Matthew 25:46; Romans 6:23; John 3:15-16; Revelation 20:10; Luke 16:23-24; Mark 9:47-48; Revelation 14:11 22 Dr R.C. Sproul. Essential Truths Of The Christian Faith. Tyndale House of Publishing. 1998, p.286

Some Christians argue this is too great a punishment for only one lifetime of sinning, and that a loving God would not subject anyone to this. In reply Dr John Piper writes: “When Clark Pinnock and John Stott repeat the centuries-old objection that an eternal punishment is disproportionate to a finite life of sinning, they disregard the essential thing that Jonathan Edwards saw so clearly: degrees of blameworthiness come not from how long you offend dignity but from how high is the dignity you offend.”23 Jonathan Edwards points out that annihilation is not the form of punishment that unbelievers receive, but rather the relief they desire but don’t receive. “Wicked men will hereafter earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be that they may escape the wrath of God.”24 Here are a few more experts: “Conditional immortality25 and annihilation are not new ideas,” writes pastor and Bible teacher, Dr John MacArthur. “History shows, however, that most people and movements who adopt annihilationist views do not remain orthodox. Denying the eternality of hell is tantamount to a running start on the down grade. Spurgeon attacked conditional immortality as one of the great errors of the nineteenth century.”26 Theologian J. I. Packer: “The New Testament depicts hell as a state of conscious pain, comparable to that of burning, in which condemned persons realise how repulsive and guilty in their Maker’s eyes was their way of life on earth; how right was God’s penal exclusion of them from His presence and joy; how completely they have now lost all gladness and pleasure; how unchangeable is their condition. 23 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad. The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, pp.121-122 24 ibid, p.209 25 This is the teaching that human souls are not inherently immortal. Thus those damned at the judgment pass into oblivion, their souls destroyed, while the souls of the righteous will live on eternally in heaven. 26 John MacArthur. Ashamed Of The Gospel. When The Church Becomes Like The World. Crossway Books, 1993, p.64

Yet God’s banishment of these persons to hell is just, first because it is less than they deserve, and second because hell – existence apart from God…is what, at the deepest level, they actually embraced in this life. So God’s sentence is a ratifying of their own choice: no less, no more … All great evangelists of history including Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, C.H. Spurgeon, D.L. Moody and Billy Graham [believed this]”.27 Dr Bruce Milne, a scholar at Spurgeon’s College in London, believes Scripture comes down against the idea of conditional immortality.28 On the other hand I am aware some scholars have come to another view. I respect these scholars, knowing they are genuine in their quest for truth. I actually wrote to Dr John Stott, who was purported to be an annihilationist. He wrote back and assured me he was not. Then I travelled to London and had tea and discussion with Dr Stott. Was hell a place of eternal conscious torment or not? He believed it was impossible to be certain either way. He wrote: “I wrote in Essentials29: ‘I do not dogmatise about the position to which I have come. I hold it tentatively.’ There is no ‘knockdown’ argument on either side which effectively settles the issue; both sides are faced with difficult texts. I am disturbed by the excessive dogmatism of those who claim that only one view is biblical. I plead for a greater humility of judgment. We evangelical people need to give one another liberty in areas in which Scripture is not absolutely plain. F.F. Bruce wrote to me in 1989 that ‘annihilation is certainly an acceptable interpretation of the relevant New Testament passages.’ He added, ‘For myself, I remain agnostic.’ My position is similar.” Dr Stott assured me his views hadn’t cut the nerve of evangelism for him, because he understood the one true motive for evangelism 27 Dr J.I. Packer. Cited in Ajith Fernando. Crucial Questions About Hell. Crossway Books, 1991, p.x-xi 28 Dr Bruce Milne. Know The Truth. Intervarsity Press, 1984, p.276 29 David Edwards & John Stott. Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue. Hodder & Stoughton Limited, 1988.

– the glory of God. I believe, on this issue, Dr Stott was wrong. In holding the views he held on this issue, he was at variance with the vast majority of mainstream scholars. Dr Don Carson is just one of those scholars. He has written a brilliant defence of the position that the soul is destined to eternal conscious heaven or eternal conscious hell.30 Dr John Piper has also written an excellent rebuttal of the annihilationist view.31 Having read the arguments on both sides, I am convinced that hell, as scripture teaches it, is a place of conscious, eternal torment and that the souls that go there are not annihilated. I have good reasons to believe this. First, there are a lot of top scholars who support the idea, some of whom I have quoted here. Second, I am not aware of an evangelist anywhere who holds to the annihilationist view. This does not mean ‘annihilationist evangelists’ are not out there, regularly active in evangelism. However, the fact that they are hard to find, and evangelists who hold the opposite view are plentiful, suggests that the annihilationist perspective undermines the urgency of evangelism. How could the doctrine of annhilationism be ‘the right’ Biblical view, if it undermimes God’s mission to evangelise the world? What I am saying is that any theology which undermines the urgency of evangelism, as the doctrine of annhilation does, cannot possibly be correct Christian theology. An evangelist without urgency is an oxymoron. Paul was urgent. Check out 2 Corinthians 5:11: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men”(KJV). Wherever the annihilationist view is taught, it cripples evangelism. As such it is hindering Christians from proclaiming the gospel. 30 You can download this from the ‘resources ‘page at www.churchdnachange.com under the section “Important reading to do with evangelism.” or simply email me julian@esisite.com 31 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad. The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, p.116ff.

Third, I have reached literally tens of thousands of non-Christians with the gospel and had conversations with many. Sometimes we have got onto this topic of hell, and I have discussed this topic with them. And what did I find? Older people particularly brighten up when they hear what annihilationists believe. They don’t want to meet God. They believe it will be a reward to be snuffed out completely so as to avoid punishment for a lifetime of sinning and rejecting God. So the annihilationist view of hell is actually a reward for the un-churched, knowing there will be no final judgement for them. As such, the annihilationist point of view demotivates the lost to repent and believe. Surely, any philisophy or idea which does this can’t possibily be from God, for Jesus commanded the whole world to repent and believe! (e.g. Mark 1:14-15). That is to say, the annihilationist idea of hell motives the lost to not do what Jesus commanded. Fourth, as I said, I have reached literally tens of thousands of non-Christians with the gospel. What’s extemely interesting it me is that almost without exception, non-Christians believe in hell and don’t want to go there. That is to say, they seem to know inherently, or intuitively, that hell is a place of conscious punishment. What’s even more interesting is that these same people have never gone to a church, or read a Bible. It therefore would appear that they have been hard wired by God when they were created to know about eternal conscious torment. Fifth, there are other philosophical/theologicial problems with the annihilationist view of hell. Let me explain. God is a God of justice, right? He always acts justly. That is to say, He has to punish sinners who sin. If punishement is truly punishment, it must be painful or at the very least unpleasant. If it’s not these things, then justice has not be served. For non-Christians, to be annilated at death is neither painful nor unpleasant. As I have said, some non-Christians even view it as a reward. As such, annihilationism as an idea makes God 27

out to be unjust (because non-Christians are rewarded for a life time of sinning and rejecting God by being annihilated), which is something He can never be. Furthermore, and this is a crucial point, many non-Christians know of fellow non-Christians who have gotten away with some horrific criminal act (e.g. Hitler) in this life, and they are expecting and believing for God to right the wrong the other side of death. If Hitler was annihilated by God for all his crimes, those who Hitler killed would see this as no punishment at all. As such, they’d lose faith in God and cry “Your God is not a God of Justice! Away with you and Him! ” So, is the doctrine of annihilation really helping our efforts to evangelise the world? No, it’s definitely not. Sure, there are some non-Christians and even some Christians who cry “How could a loving God send someone to a place of eternal conscious torment!” but really, they say this for two reasons: 1. Their view of the horrors of sin and the holiness of God are way too small. 2. Their view of their right to challenge God’s justice and judgement is way too big.

Device 52. To persuade leaders to equate evangelism with discipleship.

The enemy will use any issue to stop evangelism. One of these is the debate over evangelism versus discipleship. Satan has persuaded some leaders to reason like this: “We don’t need any more proclamation of the gospel. The Church has been doing this for years and nothing has changed. Instead we need to disciple non-Christians – get alongside them, befriend them, walk with them in life and teach them about Jesus as we go. After all, Jesus said, ‘Go and make disciples.’ This is what he told us to do in Matthew 28:19.” As usual, there are several truths here mixed up with error. First, we have not been doing evangelism for years! With only 2% of 28

Christians doing evangelism, the true gospel has hardly been put to the test! Second, it is true we need to to befriend people, walk along side them, etc. These are ‘ploughing’ activities. However, to say we should cease proclaiming the gospel is outright heresy because this is the very thing Jesus commanded us to do. Remember, it’s His mission. And here’s the thing - discipleship is for people who are already saved, and so it is incorrect to call ‘walking alongside and befriending non-Christians’ discipleship. Jesus stated clearly a person cannot be called ‘a disciple’ unless they have taken up their cross (Luke14:25-33). Non-Christians have not taken up their cross so they are not disciples of Jesus. And what about the statement of the man I met when he said: “The Church has been doing this [i.e. giving the gospel to the lost] for years and nothing has changed.” According to what Jesus taught in Mark 4:26-29, which is what Chapter Thirteen is all about, it is impossible for “nothing to change” when the true gospel is proclaimed. So what shall we conclude? The gospel preached in the generation of the man who made this statement can’t have been the real thing. In contrast, the gospel proclaimed by the Early Church was the real thing and look what happened. Could the generation of the man I have quoted above been preaching false gospels? And this is why he saw no fruit? Could they also have been a generation which put little effort into ploughing and watering, which is also why they saw little fruit? Let’s not make the same mistake in our generation. Let’s do a serious study of what the real gospel is and isn’t, about what evangelism is and isn’t, and what discipleship is an isn’t, and then start motivating and equipping the people in our churches to evangelise the world based on the results of our studies.

ummary

• Whenever a church or an individual delays mobilising for evangelism, this is a sure sign the enemy is at work. • The best way to break through in evangelism is to not wait for a feeling, or for some special visitation of the Holy Spirit, but to resolve to do it. The moment you engage a non-Christian, the presence of the Holy Spirit will kick in. • God will honour your resolve by giving you more resolve. This is how it is. • There is no such thing as “non-confrontational evangelism” any more than there can be a game of golf without golf balls. • When it comes to signs and wonders and their relationship to evangelism we must reject both the scepticism which denies miracles and the presumption which demands them. • Worship in a church on Sunday morning (i.e. music and singing) cannot be equated with evangelism unless the essential content of the gospel message is clearly communicated. • Crusade evangelism has its place, but the fastest and most effective way to evangelise the world is through personal evangelism. This is God’s “A” plan. • The doctrine of annihilationism is not helping the Church evangelise the world. In fact, there is strong evidence it is inhibiting it. • Discipleship is a term which applies to those who are already saved, not to those who are not. If we want to use a word to describe the work we do with non-Christians before they hear the gospel, “ploughing” is the word. When they hear the gospel, their hearts have been “sown”. Then we “water” the seed of the gospel etc. See Chapter Eleven for more on “the six steps to drawing a non-Christian to Christ.” • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can

obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. Leaders, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fall for any of these devices in this Chapter. Resolve to eliminate them. More devices and more strategies from heaven for leaders follow in the next Chapter. You will need to know about this next cluster of devices if you are going to experience a Great Commission resurgence in your own life and the life of your church. Get ready. In the war for souls, and the mobilisation of 100% of your church back into evangelism, there is fierce fighting ahead...

Real Life Story

90 Year Old Confesses! “I Went To Church For Many Years But Had No Idea What Is Was All About!” I am a Presbyterian Minister in New Zealand. Every Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, between 1.30 pm - 3.30 pm, I go out evangelising, sometimes door-to-door in the area around our church. I used a 3 minute survey to break the ice. This has proved very successful. Since I’ve just started as one of the new ministers in my church, I found this to be a great conversational starter, as well as talking a little bit about the major rebuild our church is undertaking and the new opportunity shop that will be going up. These conversations often relaxes the person which can lead to an invitation inside where I go through my survey questions. One of the questions I ask is if they have had any connection with the church? I am surprised as to how many have been to Sunday school during the early 50s and 60s, but have never continued church later on in life. Let me share to you about one conversation I had with a 90 year old lady that I met last week. She shared how her parents took her to church as a little girl, and 32

remembers how she had to memorise the Lords Prayers, Psalm 23 and many of the creeds. She then went on to quote these to me – I was impressed, and silently thinking that here was a devoted Christian, until what she said next brought me back to reality. She said, “I decided to quit going after a while, because of the repetition.It felt like a ritual we went through every Sunday, and if that was what church is about I could better use my time involved in something else.” I said to her; “Many churches have the best intentions, but are not great in telling to us what the gospel is all about. I happen to have the whole bible summarised on the smart phone, and it will only take 11 minutes to watch. Would you be interested?” She nodded. After watching through the biblein11 video clip, and with tears welling up in her eyes, she said to me… “I had no idea that that is what the church is all about”. I explained to her again that we are all sinners before a holy God, and in need of forgiveness. I asked if she was willing to make Jesus as her Lord and Saviour from sin. She agreed, and I led her through the sinners prayer. The presence of God was amazing. I felt to say to her that she needn’t fear death, for when it happens, she will leave this world and be received with love into the arms of Jesus. 33

I then left her with a little booklet, “How to be sure you are going to heaven when you die”, and told her I will send a pastoral carer around sometime next week. She gave me the biggest smile, and I left knowing that what else I did that day, that encouragement would surpass them all. God is so good. Blessings Iain Dickson Minister St Andrews Presbyterian Church, Tauranga, New Zealand E: iainstas@maxnet.co.nz.

Julian’s comments.

WHAT ARE THE LESSONS HERE?

1) If Iain didn’t go, let’s face it, she wouldn’t have been reached. 2) Iain was trained. He had the tools i.e. a survey, a phone with the gospel video on it, and follow up booklets. 3) He was intentional. He made a date to reach the lost, and kept to it. 4) He worked out what to say to introduce himself which would sound natural and cause people to relax. 5) He was gentle and gracious. 6) He was operating in his Jerusalem (Acts 1:8). Jesus told us to focus on reaching the people immediately around our church first with the gospel. 34

7) This is the standout lesson for me. I would think there is a HUGE percentage of church goers around who have never heard the gospel and have no idea what church is about. I am talking about all churches, not just some denominations. This is why we produced the little booklet “HOW TO BE SURE OF GOING TO HEAVEN WHEN WE DIE”. It explains Christianity conceptually. By this I mean it explains what Christianity is all about, like a jig saw puzzle – one piece at a time. It starts at Creation and the Fall and goes from there, all the way up to Jesus.1 Please, get some of these booklets, and start handing them out, as the Spirit leads. If you are a pastor, get one for each person in your church. It will do at least two things for them. First, when people understand something complex they get excited. When I was at school and I “got” something that was hard, I got excited and wanted to know more. And the more I “got” in that subject the more I loved the subject and the teacher. You get the idea…. Second, it may change the eternal destiny of people in your church. Yep, for some, they think they are saved but they are not. The only way to find out who is who and which is which is spread or proclaim the gospel in your church. Now there’s a good thought.

1 To purchase these, please visit www.esisite.com 35

Chapter Eighteen

Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 3)

evice 53. To persuade leaders that personal testimony and evangelism are the same thing.

Personal testimony has a vital place. It can be powerful, especially if it comes from someone on the wavelength of those listening – for example, when a politician talks to politicians, a mother talks to mothers, a famous athlete talks to sports’ people, a business person talks to corporation leaders. Revelation 12:11 tells us, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” Missionary statesman and author, J.O. Sanders writes: “Grounded in the Word of God, our testimony becomes a sword in the Spirit’s hand.”1 ut giving a testimony is not necessarily evangelism… Personal testimony ought to be a part of every Christian’s walk in the world, but let’s remember that giving a testimony

B 1

J.O. Sanders. Satan Is No Myth. Moody Press, p.123

and evangelism are not always the same thing. A testimony might weave the gospel into it and this would produce a powerful combination. But peppering a testimony with isolated phrases such as “Jesus loves you” or “God is awesome” doesn’t explain the four essential elements of the gospel.2 If these elements are not covered in a testimony, evangelism has not taken place. The enemy wants us to believe that every time we testify, we are evangelising.

evice 54. To persuade leaders that the gospel is not as powerful as the Bible makes out.

Given that only 2% of the Church now “do” evangelism, and research shows the vast majority of leaders show little or no interest in mobilising their people to do it, you’d have to say this device has gone viral. After reading Chapter Thirteen, our confidence in the promise of God to work powerfully through the gospel ought to have been restored. For if we truly understood His teaching on the gospel and how He works through it, I am certain leaders would be lining up to motivate and equip their people to proclaim or spread it. How do I know this is so? Leaders who have discovered the truths of Mark 4:26-29 become wildly excited about it. Who are these leaders? Here are just three. hree great evangelists testify… Billy Graham, perhaps the greatest evangelist of the twentieth century, makes a bold declaration about the gospel and its power to convert. He testifies without hesitation: “While methods may change, the message never changes. It is relevant and transforming in every generation. This is the gospel I have declared on every continent and before every conceivable group. I have found there is a supernatural power in this message

2 i.e. Why we must be saved, how Jesus can save us, what we must do to be saved, and the cost of discipleship.

that cannot be rationally explained3 …The gospel has its own communicative power. When we preach Christ crucified, there is power – dynamite – in it…4 It may appear ridiculous and foolish to the intellectuals of our day, but it is ‘the power of God unto salvation.’”5 International Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke testifies to this: “God’s power lines draw current from Calvary, from the resurrection and the throne.” He writes: “The world in [Paul’s] day could not have been worse: cruel, corrupt, cynical. Yet the gospel changed it. The gospel can do it again.”6 Jonathan Edwards said of the gospel, “He who made the faculties of our souls knows what will have the greatest tendency to move them and to work upon them.”7 When we present the gospel to non-Christians, the Holy Spirit brings them to a true understanding of themselves and their real need. How can we, then, conclude the gospel is not as powerful as the Bible makes out? ou hold the key, God has the power… The sheer power of the gospel is exciting news for those engaged in evangelism. Think of the atheists, hardened sinners, family members or work associates you know. If you can proclaim the gospel to them with love and grace, and they understand it, you will have started something unstoppable. The gospel you proclaim will begin, through the power of the Trinity, not only to plough the stony ground of their hearts, but also to water and grow the supernatural seed you planted – bringing them lovingly, tenderly and closer to the point of salvation.

3 Billy Graham. One Race, One Gospel, One Task. World Congress On Evangelism. World Wide Publications, 1967, p.29 4 Billy Graham. The Work Of An Evangelist. International Conference For Itinerant Evangelists. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, World Wide Publications, 1984, p.95 5 ibid, p.29 6 Reinhard Bonnke. Evangelism By Fire. Igniting Your Passion For The Lost. Kingsway Publication, 1996, p.89 7 Cited in Jonathan Edwards. The Works Of President Edwards, 4 Vols. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1864, 4:330

Jonathan Edwards, Billy Graham and Reinhard Bonnke are saying the same thing: the hearts of all human beings are made like a lock which can be unlocked with only one key: the gospel. And only the Trinity can turn the key. But only Christians can put the key into the lock. That’s you and I.

evice 55. To whisper in the ear of a leader “the reason the gospel works for Billy Graham, Bonnke and Edwards was that they were special people with the gift. You don’t have the gift so there is no point in you proclaiming it.”

Like all the enemy’s devices, truth and error are mixed. It is true that these men possessed the Ephesians 4:11-15 gift of evangelism and God did use them in a special way. However it is certainly not true that God will not use someone in evangelism who does not possess this gift. How do we know this? First we know it logically. We discovered in Chapter Seven that the mission of the Church is to evangelise the world. Then in Chapter Eight that this task was the responsibility of all Christians. Why would God command and commission all Christians to a great task when only those with the gift would be successful at it? You know the answer. Second, we know it theologically. When a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit is poured out in their heart (Romans 5:5). The Spirit is given to empower evangelism (Acts 1:8). Conclusion? All Christians, regardless of their gifting, are empowered for success in evangelism. Third, we know it experiencially. Many of the 2% of Christians in the Western Church who are doing evangelism can testify how they don’t have the gift of evangelism yet God has used them to lead people to Christ through their evangelising.

evice 56. To whisper in the ear of leaders “…the simple gospel message cannot effectively penetrate the post-modern mind…”

The enemy has worked hard to establish this belief and he’s worked through Christians who are not doing evangelism to spread it. For if they were doing evangelism, they’d quickly see this was a device of the enemy. There are three reasons why I know the simple historical gospel does penetrate the post-modern mind: First, personal experience confirms it. We are reaching postmodern people one-on-one every day with the tools we’ve developed – more than 450,0008 so far – and most have received the message with genuine gratitude. Many who hear the gospel instantly show signs of strong conviction. The cutting-edge tools we use are stripped of religious jargon, and make a strong appeal to the mind to penetrate the conscience and heart. Using Spurgeon’s words, we have found the “the old, old gospel” to still work like new. Second, God’s Word and plan do not alter. Psalm 119:89 says “Your word, LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” This is saying that what God says about the gospel will never change. And what does He say about the gospel? It’s “The power of God for salvation”. Therefore, it is relevant and powerful for all people groups in all generations, including this one. Post moderns are no exception. Third, first-rank leaders affirm this truth. For example, George Barna: “I do not buy some of the current arguments that the real problem [with evangelism] is how sophisticated people are or how different our culture is from that in which Jesus ministered …the basic tenets of evangelism are every bit as dynamic and pertinent to us as they were to Peter, John, Matthew, James and the 8

As at May 2012.

rest of the ragtag army who followed Jesus and then turned their world upside down by retelling His story.”9 Dr John Nyquist: Professor of Mission at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois: “In our present cultural context …the Christian evangelist [i.e. anyone who is doing evangelism] must be committed to proclaim the gospel.”10 Nyquist is saying “Don’t just have ‘God conversations with people, or only tell them your testimony. Proclaim the gospel! It’s the most powerful weapon you have to save this generation of post moderns!” Dr John Stott: “The emergence of a so-called ‘new man,’ scientifically speaking, does not alter the gospel. Underneath is still the old man. Just as there was no distinction between Jew and Greek, since all were sinners who fell short of God’s glory, so today there is no distinction between Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist and pagan, technological man and primitive man. The gospel is addressed to men as men, sinful men, suffering the disastrous ill effects of the same fall, inheriting the same warped nature (however much their temperaments may vary), condemned under the same judgment and imprisoned in the same bondage.”11 Charles Spurgeon: “The best attraction [for the salvation of non-Christians] is the gospel in all its purity – the weapon with which the Lord conquers people with the truth as it is in Jesus. Preach it, and preach nothing else. Rely implicitly on the old, old gospel.”12 Don’t believe the enemy that the simple gospel cannot effectively penetrate the post-modern mind. It is simply not true. Think about it. 9

George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, pp.25-27

10 Cited in Don Carson. Telling The Truth. Zondervan, 2000, p.173 11 Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. IVP, 1997, pp.46-47 12 Charles Spurgeon. The Soul Winner: Advice On Effective Evangelism. Christian Focus Publications, 2003, p.13

Through this device the enemy is trying to stimulate Christians into thinking: • The gospel is not as powerful as it really is. • Non-Christians are more sophisticated than they really are. • God is less powerful than He really is. Each of these thoughts on its own will muddy the water and undermine our efforts to evangelise the world. In combination they are deadly. So next time you hear“Post moderns can’t be reached with the simple gospel” quickly recognise that this thought is not of God.

evice 57. To persuade Christians they do not need to check that the non-Christian has understood the gospel message – that it is enough merely to proclaim it.

In The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23),13 Jesus speaks about the importance of making sure those who hear the gospel understand it. “But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (verse 23). This is significant: hearing the message is not enough. We must do everything we can to make sure the message is understood by our listener.14 hilip helped the eunuch understand… Now check out Acts 8:26-40. Here an angel told Philip to head south on the desert road towards Gaza. On the way, he met an Ethiopian eunuch who was minister of finance for Queen Candace of Ethiopia. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and was reading the

13 This parable appears in three of the four gospels. See also Mark 4:1 and Luke 8:1 14 We must also avoid the growth inhibitors alluded to in this parable including worry, persecution, the deceitfulness of riches. When the gospel is preached with understanding, the enemy’s work of ‘snatching away the seed’ is neutralised.

book of Isaiah as he rode home in his chariot. The Spirit instructed Philip to go after him and, when he had caught up he asked the man, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” Philip began by explaining the passage, told him the gospel, and then led him to the Lord. What are the lessons for us in this example? First, non-Christians want to understand the gospel and we should help them. Secondly, the angel told Philip to “Go!” which is the instruction Jesus has given us. So let’s go, and help them understand. ow to ensure understanding… How do we ensure non-Christians understand our gospel message? In personal evangelism this is quite easy. First, we must carefully craft what we are going to say, taking care to define all our terms, presuming non-Christians know nothing about our subject. This is where good tools are so helpful. The message they contain will have been thought through in advance and “road tested” for the particular culture being reached.15 Then when we present the gospel, we can ask non-Christians along the way if they understand what we are saying. With the tools we have developed to present the gospel, we have inserted small, subtle comprehension checks in the form of questions e.g. “What part of you lives on after you die?” With mass evangelism, of course, such checks are not possible during the preaching of the gospel. However, those who respond to the altar call can be gently and sensitively interviewed. We ought to ensure they know what they are doing, and provide

15 The same applies to gospel tracts.

opportunity for them to ask questions about what they have heard. We shouldn’t feel reluctant to slow things down a bit. Those who did not respond to the altar call can be given a clear, written summary of the gospel message which was preached from the platform, as they leave the meeting. All these strategies will help non-Christians understand the message. Anything that achieves this end is truly a strategy from heaven.

evice 58. To persuade leaders it is not biblical to talk about hell in an effort to move non-Christians towards the point of conversion.

In my experience as an evangelist I have noticed how widespread this device is. Increasingly leaders are not talking about hell, nor do they encourage people to use evangelistic tools which do so. Bible teacher and academic R.C. Sproul said “There’s probably no concept in theology more repugnant to modern America than the idea of divine wrath.”16 Yet I have seen over and over how the Holy Spirit uses the fear of hell to draw people to Christ, the deliverer. And when they are drawn to Christ, they discover He is the Saviour. When they discover the treasure that He is, they want to follow Him. All this happens through the Holy Spirit. Just as the Holy Spirit works through the Law, which is likened to a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), He likewise uses a fear of hell. How will the Holy Spirit convict non-Christians of judgment (John 16:8) and of the fear of the Lord if we don’t warn them about hell in our gospel messages? Dr John Piper summarises the argument nicely: “You can scare people towards heaven, but you can’t scare them into it.”17 16 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, And Biblically - The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Press, 2003, pp.77-78 17 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, p.211

To put it another way, fear of hell starts the ball rolling, but it doesn’t score the goal. esus and hell… It is impossible to truly evangelise without talking about hell. If Jesus spoke about hell 33 times, how can we ignore it? We can’t talk about Christ bearing our sins without talking about the justice of God, and we can’t talk about the justice of God without mentioning hell any more than a judge can avoid talking about the consequences of crime with a guilty criminal. Justice, pardon, mercy, and punishment are intimately related concepts which rely on each other to make sense of each other e.g. a guilty thief will only understand justice if he is punished for his crime. Equally, it will only be when he is found guilty and then pardoned that he will fully appreciate the concepts of grace and mercy. So, it would be fair to say that if we don’t mention hell in our gospel presentations, we have not proclaimed the whole gospel. he gospel, hell and research findings… Research supports the inclusion of hell in our gospel messages.18 For example, L.E. Maxwell, Bible teacher and former principal of Canada’s Prairie Bible Institute, researched how students came to the knowledge of salvation. Some were moved by fear and others by love. Of the 2507 students surveyed, nearly 65 percent were moved by fear and only 6 percent were moved by love. The remaining 29 percent came with another motive or couldn’t remember why they had come.19 The late F.B. Meyer, famous theologian and prolific author, was another who studied what motivated people to come to Christ. He questioned 400 Christian workers, and found “an overwhelming

18 Go to Youtube and do a search for “Research findings: the love of God or the fear of God? What God uses most to draw the lost.” I have made a video on this topic. 19 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, And Biblically - The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Press, 2003, p.76

number” said that it was because of some message about the terror of the Lord via the theology of hell. Meyer then said, “This is interesting and astonishing, especially in these days when we are rebuked often for not preaching more on the love of God!” on’t repeat Bill Bright’s mistake of leaving out the subject of hell from the gospel message… More than a billion copies of the tract The Four Spiritual Laws have been distributed in all the major languages of the world. It was written by Dr Bill Bright, of Campus Crusade for Christ; and became the model gospel presentation in Dr Bright’s generation. Before Bright died, he researched a book entitled Heaven and Hell, in which he notes that in 42 months of public ministry, there were 33 recorded instances of Jesus speaking about hell. “No doubt He warned of hell thousands of times. The Bible refers to hell a total of 167 times. I wonder with what frequency this eternal subject is found in today’s pulpits. I confess I have failed in my ministry to declare the reality of hell as often as I have the love of God and the benefits of a personal relationship with Christ. But Jesus spent more of His time warning His listeners of the impending judgment of hell than speaking of the joys of heaven… I have never felt the need to focus on telling people about hell. However, as a result of a steady decline in moral and spiritual vitality in today’s culture, and a growing indifference to the afterlife, I have come to realise the need for a greater discussion of hell… I have thus come to see that silence, or even benign neglect of these subjects, is disobedience on my part. To be silent on the eternal destination of souls is like a sentry failing to warn his fellow soldiers of an impending attack.”20

20 ibid, p.78.

evice 59. To persuade leaders that the most important thing to tell non-Christians is “Jesus loves you”

Again, truth and error are mixed. Would that everyone on the earth might truly grasp that God loves them! My prayer is that everyone would hear and understand this great truth. The error? The enemy enjoys lulling us into thinking that speaking phrases like “Jesus loves you” and “God is love” is the same as sharing the gospel. As a young Christian I attended a particular church where the minister was convinced that the congregation needed to hear only about the love of God. Virtually every Sunday, regardless of the subject being preached, he always made God’s love his emphasis. The full gospel was never preached. Topics such as hell, God’s justice, justification, the cross and repentance were never addressed. What followed? Church members, in their contact with nonChristians, said little more than “Jesus loves you.” What a delight for the enemy that non-Christians were not hearing the gospel. od spoke to me at a homosexual mardi gras… Let me tell you another story which helps explain where I derived my cautious attitude towards the phrase “Jesus loves you.” For six years I made a stand against the Hero Parade, a homosexual festival which was held in New Zealand’s largest city. When the first parade took place, I went and preached in Auckland’s main street, Queen Street, just before the parade was about to begin. The crowd consisted mainly of supporters of the event. If you were there, you would have heard me graciously and compassionately saying something like the following: “I am the last person to get up here and point the finger at anyone. I have issues in my own life that I know I have not yet conquered –

lust, anger, greed, jealousy, pride, and so on. I am just a fallen human being like you are. The thing I object to with this parade is that you are calling something that is wrong, right.” I had also painted a banner which read, “God hates homosexuality, but loves homosexuals.” ut to the core by a lesbian… When I finished speaking, the crowd set my banner on fire. It was a lively night. After I put out the fire, the words on the banner were still legible. The parade started and I stood on a raised garden outside a movie theatre. I’ll never forget what happened next. A lesbian float in the parade passed by and one of the women on it saw my banner. “But God still loves me!” she shouted loudly. What she said cut me to the core. I lowered my banner and wondered, how many people will be slipping into the sulphury pit of hell after their lives have ended, shouting, “You Christians, why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Do you see what has happened? You see, what happens if the only thing many New Zealanders have heard from the Church is “Jesus loves you”? They’ll go to their death never knowing why they must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved and the cost of being disciples. In other words, they will not have heard the gospel. or God’s sake, think it through… If I went up to a good friend and said, “I love you,” it would indicate to him or her that there were no major issues between us. If I go up to non-Christians and say only, “Jesus loves you,” I am signalling there are no major issues between Jesus and them. But is this really the case? While it is true that Jesus loves them and longs to be their Saviour and friend, my words have given a false impression of their standing with God. I have, in fact, deceived them. The following are just four of the serious issues between every

fallen human being and God: • Rejecting Jesus incurs God’s wrath. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). • All non-Chrisitans are already condemned by Jesus . “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18). • All non-Christians are lost. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). • All non-Christians are headed for eternal punishment. “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

ssessing the damage…

In fact the issues are so serious that God had to humble Himself, become a human being, walk the earth and suffer persecution ending in crucifixion, just to deal with them. Consider the book of Acts, whose principles we are all supposed to follow in regard to Church growth, expansion, and life in the Spirit. Have you noticed that nowhere in the book of Acts do any of the apostles (or anyone else) say to anyone, “Jesus loves you”? Yes, this is a modern day phrase that was never used by the Early Church in their efforts to evangelise the world. In my view this one saying, indiscriminately used, has torpedoed our evangelism efforts. For example: • A large proportion of our population now thinks they have right standing with God when in fact they do not. • When people who have heard only “Jesus loves you” are approached with the full gospel, they wonder why they need anything else. They’ve been inoculated against true Christianity. • Christians who repeat “Jesus loves you” as a substitute for proclaiming the gospel are teaching other Christians their bad habits. So a false gospel is being propagated. • This device of the enemy is spread by Christians one to another, 15

and then by non-Christians, one to another. ow to know when it is right to say “Jesus loves you”… Of course there are times when it is appropriate to say to someone, “God loves you.” These words have been used by God to comfort and heal many. But these days I rarely tell anyone that Jesus loves them until they have heard and clearly understood the gospel, which explains what “Jesus loves you” really means. The gospel puts it in its right context and doesn’t sell Jesus short. Saying “God loves you” after the gospel has been explained maximises the glory going to Jesus. The gospel unpacks “the love of God.” That is to say, it explains how and why the love of God is different from all other kinds of love with which non-Christians are familiar. Communicating the gospel will also eliminate all the possible confusion about ‘the love of God’ which I have alluded to in this device. Our job as Christians is to eliminate confusion for non-Christians, not be the creators of it!

Device 60. To cause local church leaders to resent evangelists, and cause evangelists to resent Christians who don’t evangelise.

The enemy likes to try and pit Christians against each other. If leaders don’t understand that evangelism is for everyone, and that evangelists are given by God to train the church to evangelise, it is easy to see how evangelists can be disliked. They can be viewed as pushy, arrogant people who try to force others to do something they don’t want to do. They can make the people in a church who aren’t doing evangelism feel like guilty failures. This upsets pastors who want to protect the flock. Resentment towards the evangelist soon builds. People without the gift begin grumbling, and a bad attitude towards evangelists and evangelism spreads. Evangelists interpret this bad attitude as rank disobedience, a 16

lack of love for Jesus and His evangelism purposes, and a loveless unconcern for the souls of perishing non-Christians. Listening to the many excuses given by those without the gift, as to why they don’t evangelise, further nauseates the evangelist. And having to listen to the evangelist harping on about the need to evangelise the world further aggravates those without the gift. Both camps harden in their attitude towards the other, God’s plan for evangelising the earth stalls and the enemy claps. The root of the problem21 is a wrong understanding of Ephesians 4:11-12. Let’s start by reading this passage. “It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.” This passage teaches clearly that evangelists were given to the Church to train those without the gift how to evangelise. This being so, then leaders ought to work closely with evangelists, viewing them as precious gifts from God. Given that the priority of the Church is to evangelise the world, how can the church fulfil its purpose without positioning evangelists at the forefront? oes this passage teach that evangelists are to train everyone? Explaining Ephesians 4:11-12, Dr Leslie Mitton, who helped produce the New English Bible translation, says: “The first function of all those with special gifts is to equip God’s people (saints) for service – not to do their duties for them (as if they were incapable) but to enable them to become themselves God’s

21 It’s not always the fault of leaders of churches that the antagonism between evangelists and church leaders sometimes exists. We evangelists have to learn about serving in a local church, meshing in with other ministries, working under authority, and working well in a team environment.

ministers within and through the life of the church.” 22 t’s only logical to bring the need and the gift together… We can further strengthen the case that evangelists are to train everyone to evangelise by applying logic. For example, Ephesians 4:11-12 teaches, without doubt, that God has given evangelists as a gift to “prepare God’s people for works of service.” We have already discovered that the evangelising of the earth is God’s priority, and all believers are commanded to do it. Wouldn’t it be logical, then, for the person with special abilities in evangelism, the one gifted by God, to motivate and equip the saints, those without ‘the gift,’ to do evangelism? The saints don’t know how to do it, and the gifted one does, so surely it makes sense to bring the two together? To use a dating term, it’s a match made in heaven! If the evangelist is not going to train others how to evangelise, then who will?” t is God’s plan for pastors, leaders and evangelists to work closely together … In summary, those with the gift of evangelism ought to work sensitively and carefully with pastors and leaders to equip 100% of the people in every church to evangelise the world. The evangelist’s focus ought to be on gently coaxing and inspiring everyone without the gift to practise evangelism regularly for the glory of God and for “the building up of the body.” As well, they ought to be providing strategies, tools, and coaching for pastors and their people. As I have already said, it’s crucial that the leader of a church leads by example in evangelism and connects with the evangelists in their church. When the pastor and the evangelist meet, the next step is to plan how to mobilise 100% of their people.

22 Dr C.Leslie Mitton. Ephesians. Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1976, p.151

Those without the gift of evangelism, rather than resenting those with the gift, should receive them with gratitude and open arms as special gifts sent from God Himself to facilitate the completion of the Great Commission, for this is what they truly are.

ummary

• Testimonies can be very powerful. However, no testimony can be deemed “evangelistic” if it does not cover the essential content of the gospel message. • People like Billy Graham are Ephesians 4:11-15 gifted evangelists and God uses them in a special way. However, it is NOT true that God will only work through the gifted. He will work through any believer who evangelises. This is essentially what Jesus teaches in Mark 4:26-29. • If Church leaders knew what Jesus taught in Mark 4:26-29 they’d be wildly excited about mobilising all their people for evangelism. • It is not true that the simple gospel cannot penetrate the post modern mind. The gospel is as powerful now as it ever was because God’s promise to work through it is as certain now as it ever was. • At their deepest level post modern people are as corrupt, lost, and fallen as any group of people in the history of humanity. • To deny these truths is to deny: • Who post modern people really are. • The power of the God who backs His gospel. • The Word of God which teaches that God is no respector of persons. • The doctrine of hell is an important element of the gospel message. Research shows the Holy Spirit works through it powerfully to draw people to himself. Sadly, it is missing from most so called ‘gospel messages’ being proclaimed today. 19

• Christians who have used the phrase “Jesus love you” unwisely and indescriminately have unwittingly done immeasurable damage to the cause of world evangelism. • It is God’s “A” plan to have evangelists and pastors in the same local church working closely together to build their church, and therefore the Kingdom (Ephesians 4:11-15). • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. Sadly, there are more devices of the enemy in the next Chapter. Get ready for these. I even discuss how the enemy uses Scripture to keep leaders from evangelising – and how negative peer pressure from those closest to leaders can knock them out of Jesus’ mission to evangelise the world....

Real Life Story Should christians pick up hitch hikers? Anonymous

The other day I was travelling between two small towns in New Zealand and on the open road was a hitchhiker. He was a Maori, mid 30′s, unshaven, rough looking, pony tailed, with a small bag. As soon as I saw him I started the classic “would I, won’t I” dialogue in my head. I looked over at my passenger’s seat and it was covered with bits and pieces. As I drove passed him I decided it was “No.” But driving away from him, the account of the good Samaritan came to mind. In that parable, all the characters who passed the man on the road had an excuse not to get involved. With that, I braked, did a U turn, drove back a km or two, and picked him up. He was ecstatic – and smelly. I drove the rest of the way with one of the windows down a bit, and we just chatted about everything and anything. Let’s call him Jim. 21

Naturally, I guided the conversation onto spiritual things and showed him the gospel on my iphone which is what you can see on the web site www.biblein11. com. Because we had so much time, we were able to talk about various aspects of the gospel message in detail, answer questions etc. It was bliss! There was no pressure for time. Now, this is where it got really interesting. It turns out his wife is a Christian and so are ALL the rest of his immediate family. They have been so for many years. He told me quite a bit about them, and how Jesus had changed their lives and he could see the change. I wondered if people observing my life would give the good report Jim gave about his family? I was reminded again of the importance of â&#x20AC;&#x153;ploughingâ&#x20AC;? the soil in the hearts of non-Christians around us through our lives, attitudes and behaviours. After hearing Jim speak so positively about his Christian family members, I felt convicted to raise the bar in this area of my own life. Yet, even though his Christian family were a good example to Jim, none had shared the gospel with him. How interesting. The family members probably thought that my being kind and 22

loving and Christlike around their brother Jim would bring him to faith. Yet, as Jim and I discussed the gospel message he’d just seen, it was obvious he had not a clue about what Christianity was REALLY all about. Prior to hearing the gospel,and our discussion, literally everything about Christianity was a mystery for Jim. The only thing Jim was clear about was that one became a Christian to become a better person. He had reasoned, prior to hearing the gospel in my car, that if you tried to become a better person in your own strength and succeeded, you had become a Christian! He had a false idea of what a Christian was and wasn’t. This was one of the reasons Jim had not converted up to this point – he felt he had too much baggage to complete the clean up job his family had succeeded with. He had reasoned that they had done it, but that he couldn’t. This whole encounter with Jim re-inforced to me again why we must preach the gospel AND walk the talk. Both are commanded by Jesus. Both are critical elements of our walk. The gospel message alludes to so much that could never be figured out just by observing the good lives of Jim’s family. For example, that God made the world, that he is a God of Justice, and one day all of us will be judged by him, that his death on the cross was sacrifice for sin (opened the way for justification), that through Adam and Eve the whole world stands guilty before God, except 23

those who are acquitted through repentance and faith, that Jesus is Lord of all the created order, that real change comes through the power of the Holy Spirit, not through self effort alone, etc etc. When we got to Auckland, I asked him where exactly he wanted to go. It turned out that it was quite a long way from where I was going. Here was another challenge. Was I just to drop him off near my home wave good bye (smiling and saying ‘bless you’), leaving him to hitch hike through Auckland as night time neared? Or was I to go out of my way. I started to feel anxious. I had things to do before nightfall, petrol is expensive, I was hungry, etc etc I’d already spent two hours with Jim – is this not enough? At this point some clear thoughts came into my mind: my time is not my own. Life itself was given by God. I was born by virtue of his sovereign grace and goodness. My life is sustained by the same. My car is not my own. I am just a steward of it. My petrol is not my own. It was provided by God through faithful supporters. Not even my body is my own – I have been bought with a price, and now belong to the Lord. I am a slave of Christ, left here on earth to do his work. These thoughts calmed me down and helped me pull myself together. Then I thought about the seminars I run. I teach a lot about “watering” the seed of the gospel planted i.e. providing conditions favourable for the seed of the gospel to grow. Here was an opportunity with Jim. By going out of my way with Jim, taking him where he wanted to go, I was “watering” the seed of the gospel he had just heard on my iphone. Was I going to just talk about “watering” and teach about it, or was I going to live it? 24

You know the answer. Well, as I drove through Auckland taking Jim to where he wanted to go, he wanted to talk more about the gospel. Just before I dropped him off, he asked me to lead him through the sinner’s prayer. I gave him a follow up booklet. So, what do you think is the answer to the question “Should Christians Pick Up Hitchhikers?” Ask each of Jim’s family members now, especially his wife. What are the lessons here? There are at least seven.

Julian’s comments.

(1) Each time God “spoke” to the person telling this story, he referred to scripture. Some scripture or thought from scripture came to his mind. What’s the lesson here? God speaks through scripture. But we need to read the Bible in order for the Holy Spirit to guide us. Those who don’t read their Bibles limit their usefulness to God. (2) God really does care about non-Christians. He loved Jim so much he arrested the driver of the car to help him. He overruled the driver’s selfishness in order to set Jim free. (3) We need to walk the talk. Thank God for Jim’s family. Unwittingly, they have been ploughing Jim’s heart. What they didn’t realise was this is only half the job. The other half is proclaiming the gospel. We won’t get a harvest from a field which is only ploughed. (4) Selfishness is a cruel master. The driver’s natural instinct was to not pick Jim up. He would have justified it, sure. But if he hadn’t picked him up, his trip to Auckland would have been pretty boring. I can only speculate, but I image that picking Jim up was the best thing that happened to the driver all year! How many other blessings are we missing every day by living selfishly? (5) The gospel really is “the power of God for salvation” 25

(Romans 1:16). What Jim’s family couldn’t achieve through many years of good works, the Holy Spirit wrought in a matter of hours through the gospel. (6) God answers prayer. Imagine how Jim’s family would have been praying for this lost sheep in the family! We can all be the answer to someone’s prayer. God works through people to answer prayer. Spurgeon said “action without prayer is presumption, but prayer with action is hypocrisy.” (7) Always give people the follow up booklet HOW TO BE SURE OF GOING TO HEAVEN WHEN WE DIE so that they can read and understand fully what they have done.

Chapter Nineteen

Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 4)

evice 61. Have leaders who are evangelising mix regularly with non-evangelising leaders.

Satan knows that if he can surround an evangelising leader with enough non-evangelising friends and ministry associates, it is likely he or she will be ‘dulled down’ in their enthusiasm for evangelism or they will eventually stop. This might seem an odd thing to say. Let me explain. This is a very subtle device. It is a general rule that people who are not doing evangelism already feel some degree of guilt and condemnation because they are not doing it. This is especially true of committed Christians. The presence of a person active and enthusiastic about evangelism can heighten these feelings. So when evangelising and nonevangelising leaders get together, the non-evangelising leaders won’t want to talk about personal evangelism since they’re not

doing it.1 The evangelising leader, sensing this, won’t want to make the others feel awkward. Over time, our leader begins to feel that talking about evangelism is taboo – which subtly puts him or her off doing it. This explanation might make leaders look petty and immature, which they are not. No Christian leader deliberately intends to put anyone off evangelism or marginalise an evangelist. No leader ever wants to be marginalised, or to make those not doing evangelism feel condemned or guilty. It’s commonly called negative peer group pressure. The phenomenon of those non-active in evangelism subtly discouraging those active in evangelism all happens in a subliminal way. No one is quite sure how it happens, but it happens. As Pascal, the famous mathematician once said, “…there is a reason of the heart that the head does not know.” 1 In Chapter Fifteen, I said we could categorise evangelists as “crusade”or “non-crusade”. Below is another way of categorising them. 1. EVANGELISTS WHO “DO” THE EVANGELISM FOR THE CHURCH: These evangelists do evangelism “live” on stage or proclaim it via DVD (like Alpha) or they serve the Church by proclaiming the gospel at children’s programmes, in prisons, at camps, or at youth events etc. They are living in obedience to Mark 16:15. They willingly train anyone who is interested in evangelism how to do what they do i.e. how to copy them. All this is biblical and to be desired. Thank God for crusade evangelists like Billy Graham and Greg Laurie. Evangelists who serve the Church in this way enjoy enormous popularity for several reasons. First, they make few demands on fellow Christians to do evangelism. Secondly, they tend to appease the collective conscience of the Christian community by doing the evangelism for them. Third, God works mightily through these evangelists to save people and few things bring joy to the Christian community like seeing people saved. 2. EVANGELISTS WHO WANT TO MOBILISE WHOLE CHURCHES TO “DO” EVANGELISM: These evangelists seek to follow exactly the job description given to them in Ephesians 4:11-14 which is to equip Christians to do evangelism. Their desire is to motivate and equip the 98% of the Church who show no apparent interest in evangelism. i.e. the culture of most churches today is not evangelistic. In fact, sadly, it’s even hostile to the idea. This is how low “evangelism” has sunk in the Western Church. The solution? Leaders, our great challenge is to change the very culture of our churches to make them evangelistic. Here are some things you can do. Connect with us as a ministry. We have plans and strategies which will change the culture of your church. Evangelists, how can you help? Soak in the truths of this Chapter Series and then connect with us as a ministry and we’ll show you how to help churches in your area mobilise all their people into evangelism. Write to me: julian@esisite.com

One of the enemy’s goals is to create a whole culture of nonevangelising leaders. If enough leaders are not active in personal evangelism, negative peer pressure kicks in, and not doing evangelism becomes the ‘in’ thing. So, how can we combat this device? Let’s make sure, if you are a non-leader, that you regularly honour, affirm, and encourage your pastor about the evangelism they are doing. If they are not going to be encouaged about evangelism from other leaders, they’ll need all the encouragement they can get from other people like you! The greatest thing you can do is pray for your leader that they won’t be affected by the negative influence on non-evangelising leaders.

evice 62. To target the leader with positive distractions.

If the enemy cannot discourage an evangelising leader through non-evangelising peers, he’ll employ other little schemes which on the surface seem harmless. For example, he’ll throw in a few appealing distractions: • A plan to build a bigger and better church. • A plan to redecorate the church. • A business opportunity. • A plan to focus on some other good aspect of Christian life, like a “season” of prayer and fasting. • A “season” of seeking the presence of God or signs and wonders. • A fund-raising drive. These are all good things. But, sometimes, when a special event is happening in a church, it is tempting to discard evangelism in order to focus on the current project. The enemy knows that if he can knock us off evangelism temporarily, we might get out of the habit and not return to it – another perfect result for him. This doesn’t mean such projects/seasons/opportunities are 4

initiated by the enemy. But whatever project or season comes along, we should never drop regular personal evangelism, any more than we would drop prayer, worship, tithing or the sermon.

ow to stay focussed…

The apostles demonstrated this attitude of keeping the focus no matter what: “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, ‘It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word’” (Acts 6:1-4). By “the ministry of the Word” they mean evangelism. Commenting on this passage, J. Oswald Sanders wrote: “The apostles faced the problem of perverted priorities very early in the programme. With the multiplication of converts, the legitimate social responsibilities of the infant Church began to crowd out the more important spiritual ministries. The apostles had the insight to perceive that incipient satanic deflection and announced their determination to put first things first.” Sanders points out that Christian workers will always be tempted to allow their horizontal relationship with fellow human beings to take precedence over their vertical relationship with God – indeed to oust it altogether. They will also be tempted to look after the physical needs of the lost, instead of making a priority of securing their soul.2 This has happened on a worldwide scale within the ecumenical movement. “Not that social action is not authorised in scripture,” Sanders 2 It is interesting to note that in the account of Jesus healing the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12, He forgave his sins first, and then healed his body.

said, “but many church leaders have accorded it a priority not given to it in scripture. Meanwhile, billions of souls languish ‘without God and without hope in the world.’”3

evice 63. To hit the leaders with a tidal wave of other work to stop them evangelising.

The enemy delights to see a leader overwhelmed with work. He knows that an overloaded pastor or leader will never get around to doing evangelism. I have found that if I build my day around evangelism, rather than build evangelism into my day, I will always do evangelism, no matter how busy I think I am. In other words, I treat the few minutes it takes to present a non-Christian with the gospel as the main event of each day. A few minutes is not a lot to devote to the priority of the Church.

hat’s the bottom line?

Many years ago I made a commitment to reach one person a day with the gospel. I leave my office and go and find someone to whom I could present the gospel. I would spend about 10 minutes looking, 15 minutes delivering the gospel, and 10 minutes getting home. Initially I found reaching at least one nonChristian a day with the gospel an enormous challenge. I always had dozens of other things to do which seemed much more urgent, but I did it any way. 1 Corinthians 9:27 says “I discipline my body and make it my slave.” This is what we must do too. We must be ‘broken in’, like a horse, in order to establish the priority of Jesus in our lives. What’s interesting is that when I returned from doing evangelism, I’d feel like all the pressures of the things I had to do had vapourised! Somehow, miraculously, doing evangelism causes the burdens of life to temporarily lighten! Try it. You’ll see what I mean. 3

J. Oswald Sanders. Satan Is No Myth. Moody Press, 1975, pp.88-89

Before I established the habit of evangelising regularly, I didn’t want to tear myself away from what I was doing to go and evangelise, especially if I was in a cosy office, with a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and it was cold and wet outside. But I found that if I made the excuse “I’m too busy” on a particular day, the next day the same excuse came more readily. It was so easy to form the habit of making this excuse. It seemed to come as easily and as often as blowflies on a decaying carcass. As I mentioned before when we discussed leadership theory and practice, if you as the leader pull out the “I’m too busy” card, you’ll give permission for all those under you to do the same. Believe me, they will whip their “I’m too busy” card out as quick as a flash if they get even a whiff of an idea that you as the leader have been using it. But if you pull out the “I’m extremely busy but this is the priority and I’m going to go anyway” card, you’ll inspire everyone around you to follow your example. It’s really that simple. You will help cut a path to victory for an army of others. Eventually, after a gruelling fight with my inner man, the flesh, God, and my priorities, I put a match to my “I’m too busy” card, and watched it burn. I want you to do the same. As long as this particular card sits around in the filing cabinet of your mind, available when you need it, the temptation to use it will be too much for most. For me, now, the “I’m too busy” card just doesn’t exist any more. Thankfully I let God win me over to His way of thinking, and I have broken through. I have not stopped doing all the other things that need doing – the difference now is that I just don’t go to bed at night without having reached a lost soul with the gospel. What’s the result? My spiritual life is better, healthier, richer and more satisfying for it. The bottom line is that to do evangelism or not is, ultimately, 7

just a choice, based on perceived priorities. Only you can make that choice. Only you can adjust your priorities. I urge you to get your priorities in sync with those of Jesus. You will never regret it. Today, I still reach one person a day with the gospel, but most often now I don’t proclaim it (i.e. deliver the full gospel myself) I often spread it (i.e. point people in the direction of the gospel via the web site www.biblein11.com). We have a great tool for doing this called THE TWO RIGHT ANSWERS. This means that rather than make a special trip to find a lost person with the gospel, I ‘do’ evangelism naturally as I go about my day. It takes only a few minutes to do this to the shop keeper, the man at the petrol station, the checkout operator, etc. It’s a very natural way to ‘do’ evangelism.

evice 64. To persuade leaders that it is better to hang out with Christians.

Christians love the company of other Christians, which is understandable. The enemy has tried to twist this desire, however, to stop us from evangelising. He reminds us subtly that it is more comfortable and pleasant to deal with people we know, people who love and respect us, than with strangers. Subconsciously we say to ourselves, “I just want to be with the people I know and like. I adore the safe and comfortable.” Before we know it, these thoughts have banished the idea of going out with the gospel, and we’ve decided to stay put in our offices at church. Our time is consumed with little else but Christians and Christian activities.

ow to stay fresh and relevant in your ministry…

I sometimes take leaders with me when I go out evangelising, and many freely confess afterwards that they felt uncomfortable talking to non-Christian strangers, admitting they have lost the 8

common touch. Jesus was utterly different in this respect. Many leaders genuinely struggle to hold an evangelistic conversation with a stranger without sprinkling it with religious jargon, sounding like someone from a completely different culture, or as if they were preaching to the converted on Sunday morning. Most are shocked to find they have developed “church-bound-itis.” They have lost their saltiness (Mark 9:50). Regularly doing evangelism helps to keep a leader fresh, salty, and in touch with the people in the world. It will also positively affect almost every other area of their life including their preaching, Bible reading, prayer, worship, and marriage. How can doing evangelism have this effect? Since evangelism is a strong theme in the Bible, a leader who is doing it will feel the Scriptures come alive with new relevance and interest. How will doing evangelism help your preaching? Non-Christians you meet will ask questions that few in your church will ask, and finding answers will cause you to run to the Bible and prayer for wisdom and answers. Since prayer and Bible reading are rich sources of fuel for our spiritual lives, when we feed on them everything around us is positively affected. The people in your church will quickly sense new enthusiasm and freshness in you – and your preaching. Most importantly, they will follow your lead to go to the lost with the gospel. Non-Christians you have reached personally in evangelism will fuel your prayers more than praying for the lost in a general, abstract way. Now when you pray you will have names, faces, situations and people you have evangelised to pray for. Finally, leaders who learn to evangelise find a new source of joy, which in turn spills over into relationships, including marriage.4 The enemy, of 4 R ecently (28/07/06), a couple emailed me with the following message. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that since we’ve been involved with your ministry it has improved our marriage so much as we are really one in

course, doesn’t want you to know any of this.

ow the enemy uses scripture to keep you churchbound…

The enemy will even bring to mind certain comforting scriptures such as John 21:17, in which Jesus says “Feed my sheep.” “You are the pastor,” he will remind you. “If you don’t feed the sheep no one else will. So you had better stay in your office, prepare that sermon, write that report, read those letters, or make the comforting phone call to that parishioner who is ill. It would be unwise to go and look for the lost. After all, they are not the ones paying you. You must put the flock first.” Paradoxically, for the reasons I have outlined above, when we make a priority of reaching the lost, we become a better pastor to the flock. The enemy knows this and so he is delighted when he sees an office bound pastor. Watching a church-bound leader is a relaxing exercise for him. When he sees one, the enemy often takes time out, puts his feet up, smiles and exhales with a freshly-brewed cup of coffee in hand. “The more I see this lovely sight,” he says, “the more I feel secure about my future.” Pastors, don’t listen to the advice of the enemy intended to keep you church bound. God’s plan is to have you at your very best for the people in your church by getting you out. The plan of the enemy is to keep you in, and to make you spiritually stale and stodgy.

evice 65. To persuade leaders that the words of the gospel are already “in the church programme” and that there is no need to proclaim a concise say-it-all-at-

this. Our other Christian activities used to prise us apart. This has united us and brought life! Thanks so much for that. Our marriage has had its ups and downs like most! We can’t thank you enough for the changes that you have made to our life through taking up evangelism.” To write to this couple please email George Jeffery gjeffery@eol.co.nz.

one-time gospel message.

I call this the “thousand piece jigsaw” device of the enemy. Imagine that the programme in the church, with all that is said and done, is like a thousand-piece jigsaw. The words of the gospel message are 25 pieces of this jigsaw,5 but they are scattered throughout the 1000 pieces. Yes, it is technically true that the gospel is being proclaimed in the programme. But the non-Christians in the programme are not necessarily grasping it. When we say “the gospel is in the programme,” we are expecting the non-Christians to identify the 25 pieces and make sense of them among the other 975. Instead, we should put together the 25 pieces that represent the words of the gospel and present them in one sitting, so the message can be clearly understood. Why make it hard for them when it is within our power to make it easy? As a ministry we have produced a clear, eleven minute, multimedia presentation of the gospel which can be played through a data projector and a laptop. The gospel ought to be proclaimed as a distinct message regularly in church programmes. If we mix it up with 975 pieces of church life, non-Christians just won’t see it. And nor will the Christians. The enemy enjoys the “thousand- piece jigsaw” approach, because if non-Christians hear the words of the gospel scattered randomly through the 1000 pieces, they might as well not have heard them at all.

evice 66. To blind us to the difference between simple exposure to the gospel and hearing and understanding it.

One of the enemy’s favourite devices is to dupe the church

I am not saying the gospel has literally 25 component parts, nor the programme 1000.

into believing the citizens of their country have already heard and understood the gospel. “There are churches in every neighbourhood in New Zealand,” some argue, “and we have Christian TV and radio. Surely everyone in the nation has heard the gospel?” George Barna makes a comment on the situation in the USA which applies to other countries too: “We may confidently say that most, if not all, adults have been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he writes. “We may also suggest everyone has access to the gospel. But we may not conclude that everyone has actually heard and understood the gospel. Until we present the message in ways that penetrate the consciousness of the people we seek to influence for Christ, we have not truly communicated. We have only made noise.”6 I would contend with Barna at this point. It would be more accurate to say “Most non-Christians have been exposed to Christianity as a religion” rather than “most adults have been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.” If by “the gospel of Jesus Christ” he means the gospel message, our research shows only 1% have heard it.7 Remember the vision of the waterfall which the Holy Spirit gave me which I wrote about in Chapter One? Would other Western countries fare any better than our 1%? What would Jesus say if He audited our efforts to fulfil His priority command in Mark 16:15? Should we be content that 99 percent of people in our country go to a Christless eternity, never once having heard and understood the gospel? A church in every neighbourhood with a billboard outside 6

George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, p.41

We know this because we now evangelised tens of thousands of non-Christians. We often ask them after we have presented the gospel “have you ever heard this message or anything like this message before?” Over 95 percent say “No.”

gives a Christian presence but those who read what’s on it, no matter how clever the wording, could not be said to have been evangelised. Having Christian radio and TV in no way guarantees nonChristians are hearing and understanding the gospel. First, most don’t listen or watch. Secondly, usually only bits of the gospel are scattered through the various programmes, and it’s virtually impossible for nonChristians to put them all together to make sense of the whole gospel message. If we love them, we’ll want to put the gospel message together for them. This essentially is what it means to “love our neighbour” (Matthew 12:31). Paul’s aim was to make the gospel plain (Ephesians 3:8-9).

evice 67. To lull leaders into thinking that successful evangelism initiatives mean we are successful with evangelism.

Successful evangelism initiatives can give a false impression. They can lull us into thinking the world is being successfully evangelised. Alpha is an example. As brilliant as Alpha is, its emphasis is not mobilising and equipping Christians to proclaim the gospel.8 8 I would encourage every church to do Alpha, a programmee God is using wonderfully around the world. The challenge is finding sufficient non-Christians to attend the course. Non-Christians are invited in two ways: 1). Christians invite their non-Christian friends and associates. 2). Non-Christians that attend the course invite other non-Christians. Both groups usually have no trouble inviting their friends, family and workmates. But after they have exhausted the pool of people they know, what then? Personal evangelism is a good adjunct to programmees like Alpha because it provides a means for Christians to access the pool of total strangers. In our experience, non-believers in this pool fall into one of three categories. The first group represents those whom we approach and who politely indicate they don’t want to know anything about Christianity. This group would represent about 5 percent of the population. We will not be held accountable for group one because at least we tried to reach them with the gospel. The second group is open to hearing the gospel. At the end of a presentation, they indicate they understand it and appreciate the Christian taking the time to come to them, but they want to think about it some more before making a decision. They would not be interested immediately in attending a course like Alpha. This group represents about 75 percent of the population. The third group is interested in going further immediately, and would attend an Alpha course or similar if

Do we really comprehend how limited our present evangelism efforts are? I fear not. Let’s take New Zealand as an example. There are roughly 250,000 born-again believers in a population of about five million (5 percent). Say each believer has five people in their sphere of influence and that each of these 250,000 believers brings his or her five non-Christian friends to an Alpha course. As such, we are going to reach 1.25 million people with the gospel. Who will reach the other 3.75 million? New converts from Alpha may be enthusiastic evangelisers at first, but the reality is that most people who have been Christians for a while come to fear mentioning their faith in public, so they hesitate to invite others to a brilliant programme like Alpha. Anyone who has organised an Alpha course will tell you it’s a major challenge to get Christians to bring non-Christians along. The solution? Let’s remain passionate about Alpha, but let’s prioritise mobilising all believers for personal evangelism. I believe this would put programmes like Alpha on turbo. I have found too that most pastors love programs like Alpha because it creates new converts for their church, but these same pastors have little enthusiasm for the idea of evangelising the world generally because the new converts might end up in someone else’s church! i.e. they are more interested in building their kingdom, rather than THE Kingdom.

evice 68. To persuade leaders that using tools to proclaim the gospel reduces evangelism to a formula, and that “formulas are not of God.”

We have already ascertained that the gospel message has a fixed content. In the ministry I direct, we have taken this content and developed tools which help Christians stay on track as they invited. This group makes up the remaining 20 percent of the population and its members are hearing the gospel twice – first when a Christian presents it to them on the street, and secondly at Alpha. With the third group, the 75% of the population group, the church has found a way of identifying fresh non-believers to attend its courses.

deliver it. We need to adjust the delivery slightly with each person, contextualising it, but the content of the gospel message is essentially the same for every person. And yes, a fixed body of content, delivered over and over again, is a formula. There are some Christians who believe formulas and tools are suspect, however, and won’t use them. Is there a biblical foundation to their reasoning? No, there is not. Think about this.

illy Graham repeated some of his messages over and over…

Billy Graham and other great evangelists often recycle many of their messages, and each time God blesses these mightily. With Billy Graham, there have been thousands in each audience, each person with a different need, culture, life experience and background, and yet the same message has touched a huge proportion of people. We have to conclude that God does not withdraw His blessing when a message has been used before – even many times before.

octrinal formulations are ok, says John Stott…

Dr John Stott writes: “I have heard it said that we should ‘seek to impart the minimum of truth’ and point to Christ as the way without doctrinal formulation. With this viewpoint the apostles would certainly have disagreed. Their presentation of the gospel was remarkably rich in intellectual content. They reasoned with people out of the Scriptures and sought to persuade them of the truth of their message.”9

hy I became frustrated with “witnessing”…

For years I went out to witness on the streets on Friday or Saturday night. I was taught as a new Christian that sharing your faith was about having ‘God’ conversations with people and trying to turn the conversation gently around to spiritual things, e.g. “Have you had any church background?” or, “What do you think 9

Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. IVP, 1997, pp.54-55

about spiritual things?” I call this “free-wheeling evangelism.” After a decade of doing this I came to some conclusions. Most of the conversations I had with people about God were just that: conversations about God. General conversation, which I initiated, generally led quickly to the non-Christian asking a question such as, “What about all the suffering in the world?” Before I knew it I was on the back foot, answering hard questions. Discussions or debates about certain topics became the norm: the problem of pain, the suffering in the world, wherever there is religion there is war, immorality in the priesthood, church leaders who just want your money, where did God come from, evolution, the big bang, and so on. Often it was hard, if not impossible, to prevent the discussion from drifting towards points of difference, which I tried to avoid at all costs. I found the old adage to be true: “If you win the argument, you lose the person.” Occasionally I’d also end up counselling people hurt by other Christians. But whether it was essentially counselling or simply talking about points of difference, after we had said goodbye I increasingly found myself wondering, “did that person really hear and understand the gospel?” The answer, I had to concede, was no. I had often done good works for non-Christians, too. I had carried their shopping, mowed their lawns, cleaned their gutters, planted their trees and babysat their children. I had good conversations about God with those I was helping, but when I returned home I asked the same question. “Had these people heard the full gospel?” Again, I had to be honest and say “no.”

hy formulas help when evangelising...

Since receiving training in evangelism and using good tools which present the essential gospel, my success in evangelism (i.e. actually proclaiming the gospel or spreading it) has increased 16

remarkably. This is because: 1. I have confidence that what I am about to say will be understood by the non-Christian and that it is faithful to the Scriptures. The tool I use has been well thought out and carefully crafted, well in advance of the delivery. 2. The presentation I give via the tool is based on experience in communicating with non-Christians, plus an extensive study of Scripture. 3. The sequence of truths presented through the tool has already been tested with tens of thousands of people and its effectiveness proven. 4. With the tool, there is no room for me to get side-tracked by my listener. I can stay in control of the event. This does not mean I’m not prepared to listen sensitively to the non-Christian I am talking with, or to answer their questions. God forbid! What it means is that I stay on track. 5. Conversely, with good tools, the listeners don’t feel their time is being wasted with pointless debate or disorganised waffle. 6. By using tools, non-Christians appreciate that you have honoured and valued them by taking time beforehand to prepare your message. 7. By using tools, you are conforming to the instruction of Jesus in Matthew 13:23, which exhorts Christians to ensure listeners understand the gospel. 8. Listeners will more likely “connect” with the message because they have understood it. It is my view that the extent to which they understand determines the extent to which Jesus is glorified. 9. With good tools, the presentation asks and then answers many questions non-Christians have. So it is relevant and interesting. 10. With good tools, the message is faithful to the Bible. Nothing important is left out, and nothing unimportant is included. 11. I can be confident that any hard questions asked by my listener can be handled easily. At the back of the follow-up booklet10 which I give away each time the gospel is presented, there is a website address with answers. 10 How to be Sure of Going to Heaven When We Die. You can view the content of this booklet by going to our homepage at www.esisite.com.

At the end of the presentation, non-Christians occasionally say something like, “Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. That was so clear” or “Wow! That was so powerful.” They then often reveal deep issues in their lives. Such things rarely happened in many, many years of free-wheeling evangelism. Good tools, then, which formulate the gospel message, can really help Christians succeed with evangelism.11 Anything that does that has to be “of God.”

evice 69. To persuade Christian leaders and churches to invest heavily in oversea’s missions and missionaries as a substitute for evangelising their own back yard.

There are some leaders and churches who unwittingly drift into thinking that they are doing evangelism if they support someone else who is doing it. I call this ‘evangelism by proxy’, where we fund someone else to do what we ourselves should be doing. No thinking Christian would object to the idea of supporting overseas’ missions and missionaries, but neither would a true Christian pass on their personal responsibility for evangelism to someone else. Let me say it again - if you are a pastor/leader in a Western Church, your responsibility before God is to do evangelism yourself, and to mobilise 100% of the people in your church to do the same. If some end up overseas as missionaries, well and good. Dr Leighton Ford said, “North American churches are mission-centred rather than witness-centred. Absorbed in supporting missionaries overseas, they become irrelevant in their witness at home. Is it possible that a church’s missionary 11 Yes, there are some who don’t need a tool in order to effectively communicate the gospel. These people are usually Ephesians 4:11-12 evangelists, the minority group in the Church. The challenge for this group is to train the majority how to evangelise. This is where good tools are so vital.

programme could become an idol to the detriment of evangelistic zeal [at home]?”12 In my own country there are some churches which have unwittingly drifted into adopting this device of the enemy. Jesus said we should never neglect personally evangelising our own community, no matter how passionate we are to support oversea’s missions and missionaries. Indeed, He said we should make it a priority (Acts 1:8). It’s not “evangelise overseas” or “evangelise the local area.” The Biblical ideal is to be passionate about both, and getting 100% of the people in your church passionate about both.

evice 70. To spread the idea that “if Jesus didn’t spell out what the gospel was, then surely it can’t be a specific message we all need to proclaim?”

I have sometimes heard a Christian say something like this: “Jesus told His followers to go and preach the gospel, and He said He had come to preach the gospel, yet we don’t ever see Jesus explaining exactly what it is.  Why is this? We can piece the gospel together when we look at the whole New Testament, but if it was so important, why didn’t Jesus spell it out clearly and simply for us as He did with the Lord’s prayer?”

t was so obvious, it did not need to be spelled out…

Certainly, in the first four books of the New Testament, the biographies of Jesus, He does not clearly define the content of the gospel in one brief definition. The reason? Jesus was the gospel. Therefore, to find out what “the gospel” is we have to study Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. When we do this, we find there are three different aspects to the gospel: works, effects, and words. I explained the difference 12 Dr Leighton Ford. The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Rowe, 1976, p.21

between these three in Chapters Eleven and Five. In these Chapter Series, I noted that “evangelism” has to do with the words of the gospel. As we read the rest of the New Testament, we see that the gospel message proclaimed by Jesus in the four gospels is fleshed out in the Epistles. When Jesus commanded the disciples to proclaim the gospel, it must have been so obvious to them what He meant, that the gospel writers did not need to write it out in one tidy, succinct passage. Let me illustrate. I have been living at the same home address for a number of years. If someone at my home phones me while I am out, and asks me to come home, they don’t say “Julian, come home to 123 John Street, Smithsville, Auckland, New Zealand. Postcode 45678. Your house is the third on the left, next to the house with a green roof.” It is so obvious to me and the caller what the instruction means, that the detail is unnecessary. In summary, just because Jesus didn’t clearly define the gospel in one succinct passage does not mean there is not a definite gospel to proclaim or spread. In Chapter Six we saw how scholars concluded the gospel could be defined. So don’t worry that Jesus didn’t spell it out. There are other foundational doctrines of the Christian Church which Jesus did not spell out clearly as well, yet we accept them as vital and formulate our teaching around them e.g. the doctrine of the Trinity.

evice 71. To persuade Christian leaders that accountability in evangelism is not necessary.

To set up accountability structures in your church to monitor who is doing evangelism and who isn’t is one of the most powerful strategies from heaven in the war for souls. If there is one thing God wants you to do, it’s this. 20

One of the reasons the enemy has been so successful in hindering evangelism in the West is that we have failed to be accountable for our evangelism and so we have had no way of measuring our evangelistic effectiveness. As a result, the enemy has been free to work his many devices unhindered. No one has noticed that so few are proclaiming. Can you imagine a business which never cashed up each night to see whether the money in the till matched the sales? Or owners who never did a stocktake, or kept records of debtors and creditors? Employees could steal unhindered and unnoticed, and financial disaster would be inevitable. In our churches there are some things we do measure. For example, we count: • how many new people are coming to the service • how many new people are coming to the various ministries • how many people are coming back • how many people are finding Christ • how many people are being baptised • how many people are involved in ministry • how many people attend training • how much money is given each week But where is accountability with respect to evangelism, the most critical measure of all? The measure which most interests Jesus? Many leaders have absolutely no idea whether their people are proclaiming or spreading the gospel, and the people in the pews have no idea whether we leaders are doing it either! I have met leaders who are living in denial about the percentage of the people in their church who are active in evangelism. “I would say about 10%” one leader told me one day. “How do you know?” “Just my knowledge of my church” he said. The truth? He didn’t have a clue about who was doing evangelism and who wasn’t. How do I know this? One thing about those doing evangelism is that they love to hang out with each other. They gravitate towards each other. There is tremendous camaraderie between those doing evangelism. Everyone 21

doing evangelism knows this. Now, I knew the evangelist in this pastor’s church. He was a great guy and a very good evangelist, yet no one in that church ever came to this dear man to share their stories and encounters in evangelism. Rather, the people in the church steered clear of him! This was the clearest sign ever that no one in this pastor’s church was doing evangelism. Furthermore, this pastor hadn’t ever defined evangelism or ‘the gospel’ for his people, so how could he possibly accurately gauge who in his church was doing evangelism and who wasn’t? The conclusion of the matter is this - this pastor was living in la la land with respect to his “10% of my people are doing evangelism” statement. He was trying to hide his shame. His 10% figure was a fig leaf. I have already reported in Chapter Fourteen what the research says about the need for accountability if we want to succeed with evangelism, but I will state it again as an important reminder: “If there was a single characteristic that separated the pastors of effective churches from other pastors,” wrote Thom Rainer after concluding his research, “it was the issue of accountability in personal evangelism.”13

ow to be accountable in evangelism…

What can we do to become accountable in evangelism? One idea is to use “Great Commission Surveys” on Sunday mornings. Let me explain. When people enter the auditorium, they are given a piece of paper along with their bulletin / Sunday morning notices. On this paper are two headings: Proclaiming the Gospel and Spreading the Gospel. Church attenders write a number under each heading, indicating how many non-Christians to whom they have proclaimed the gospel, and how many to whom they have spread the gospel. The survey is anonymous. Once the numbers are written on the paper, they are collected with the offering and counted at the back of the church. At the end of the service, the leader announces the result, how it compared with the previous 13 Thom S. Rainer. Evangelism And Church Growth. Zondervan. 2001, p.162

week, and how the church is progressing towards its evangelism goal which is mobilising 100% of the people in a local church into evangelism. There are a number of advantages to a survey like this. It keeps evangelism at the top of a Church’s agenda and it helps members to become externally focused. It tells the truth, revealing how evangelism is really going in a local church as opposed to how we think it is going. 3 John 1:4 says “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” If you are a leader, and if you want to put a smile on the face of Jesus, come out of la la land and walk in the truth about evangelism in your church. It is also motivating and encouraging for church members to see steady progress towards the goal. This is just one strategy of 28 in THE ESI ONE YEAR PLAN.14 We have other strategies to help people in your church be accountable. For example, have people in your church pair up and text each other when they have done some evangelism.

evice 72. To persuade leaders to keep quiet about their evangelism experiences.

The enemy writhes in pain when he sees Church leaders passionately and consistently practising personal evangelism. But he does not give up easily when they are active. If a church leader does mobilise, one of Satan’s “second phase” devices is to get them to stop talking about their experiences. For example, he might sow into the leader’s mind the concern that talking about evangelism will be misinterpreted by his peers and congregation as being “prideful.” The enemy does everything he can to keep evangelism off the discussion list. By contrast, Jesus was regularly proclaiming the 14 This is a whole year of planning which integrates with a church’s existing year plan. In the ESI ONE YEAR PLAN are specific, do-able, proven strategies which when implemented will change the Culture of a church. To know more about this, please email me: julian@esisite.com

gospel in front of His disciples and setting an example for them. For example, “He was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel…” (Luke 20:1). After instruction from Jesus, after seeing Him model how to do it, the disciples went out from village to village, “preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere” (Luke 9:6).

ilence is not golden…

Paul never downplayed his evangelism or hid it from anyone. In fact he often talked about it. He even warns himself never to stop doing it. “Yet when I preach the gospel I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach,” he explains. “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Not only did Paul NOT keep quiet about evangelism, but he wrote it down to advertise the fact! Neither should we hush up our evangelism experiences. On the contrary, we should follow the example of Paul and Jesus and encourage one another, as the writer to the Hebrews instructed: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24).

e intentional, model it…

Ideally, we want our evangelism efforts to be obvious to everyone in our church. Dr Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, addressing the Southern Baptist Convention in 2005, stated directly: “Pastors who are not committed to evangelism should not be in ministry.”15 Dr Bill Mackey, Executive Director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, writes: “It is the pastor’s role to create the atmosphere and strategic plans for evangelism in a local church. Through preaching, personal example and witness training, the pastor

15 http://www.baptistbanner.org/Subarchive_1/405%20To%20guard%20the%20future.htm

creates a strong example by his leadership.”16

ow to beat the enemy and his devices…

The wonderful thing is that there are pastors out there who have already adopted many of the strategies from heaven which I have unveiled so far in this Chapter Series. These pastors and leaders have been successful in beating the enemy and his many devices. Calvin Ratz, for example, pastors the Abbotsford Pentecostal Assembly in British Columbia, Canada. He and his team have been successful in mobilising their church for evangelism. “People want to be led, to be inspired, to be challenged,” he said. “Church leaders who lead their churches into evangelism do it primarily by example, by modelling, by making evangelism a priority.”17 Ratz points out five things a pastor can do to intentionally model evangelism:18 It must be a personal priority. “If I don’t live it, I won’t be able to preach about it with conviction. I deliberately place myself in situations in which I can talk to people about Christ.” It must be a passionate priority. “Passion has to exist – somewhere – for evangelism to work. I shouldn’t pastor a church if I can’t demonstrate passionate care for the lost, because if evangelism doesn’t bubble to the surface in my life, how will others catch the vision?” Get out of the office. “I prefer to manage church affairs, study, and prepare sermons – activities that keep me in an office with the door closed. But I am not modelling evangelism if I spend an inordinate amount of time away from people.” The method must have integrity. “Our evangelistic methods 16 http://www.kybaptist.org/kbc/welcome.nsf/pages/mackey20030226 17 Calvin Ratz et al. Mastering Outreach And Evangelism. Multnomah Books, 1990, p.26 18 All his suggestions below are cited in: Calvin Ratz et al. Mastering Outreach And Evangelism. Multnomah Books, 1990, p.26

should lead people to repentance and faith and a decision to follow Jesus, not just to attend church programmes. The church must be built on a biblical principle, and so must the evangelism I model.” Pray much. “I pray that evangelism will happen through the people in my church.” Mark Conner, Pastor of the healthy Waverley Christian Fellowship in Melbourne, Australia, has also been effective in mobilising a church to evangelise. He lists his own keys for success: Aim to equip the whole church. “The only way to turn the tide is for churches to make a priority shift from inward focus to an outward focus and for everyone to become actively involved. The church’s mission will only be accomplished as the entire church is motivated, equipped and deployed in the work of evangelism.”19 Share your struggles honestly. “I felt I needed to be honest with people about the difficulty I found in sharing my own faith… you could actually feel the sense of identification and connection as I was willing to be open and vulnerable as a church leader.” Lead from the front in your church. “As a leader, I had to embrace heaven’s priority in my own life first. Only after modelling this personally could I then help our congregation change its values to become an evangelistic community.” Ensure accountability with respect to evangelism. “Where there is accountability and follow-up, the chance of training being translated into behavioural change is enhanced considerably.” Make evangelism the priority in your church and determine to keep it that way. “Our top priorities can easily be replaced by other seemingly urgent or pressing matters. As we become busy with so many things in church life, we can begin to drift from our mission. That’s why the work of an evangelist also involves 19 All these points are detailed in Dr Bronwyn Hughes and Dr John Bellamy (editors). A Passion For Evangelism. Turning Vision Into Action. Open Book Publishers, 2004, pp.155-161

keeping the evangelistic passion of a church community alive and white hot.” Create evangelistic opportunities. “Each local church should create as many entry points and bridges as possible so that people can be encouraged to experience the life of Christ within the church community.” Keep passion alive. “Have new believers share their testimony. There is nothing more impacting for congregations than hearing stories of changed lives.” Help your church discover a warm heart for lost people. “This is perhaps the hardest part for any leader wanting to encourage evangelism. Developing evangelism programmes is easy by comparison. …Continually remind [church members] about the source of their own value. Remind them that their significance and identity come from “who they are” rather than “what they do” … As a leader in your church, you must learn to live this value in your relationship with others. I have personally had to slow down and take an interest in people.”

ow to find out if your church has a culture of evangelism…

These are wonderful insights. One of the most valuable things you can do, as a pastor or leader, is to find out – really and truly – whether or not your church has a culture of evangelism. Ask yourself the following questions: 1. What percentage of the annual budget is set aside for the mobilisation of your people for personal evangelism? 2. I have a friend who had been a Christian for only three years. He attended his local church’s annual general meeting. It was announced that the church had $700,000 in the bank. Item by item, they worked through the budget and found $5000 had been allocated for evangelism the previous year. “How much should we spend this year?” the pastor asked members, explaining that the $5000 allocated last year had not been touched. Asked why this 27

was so, the pastor said, “Well, no one asked for it.” This was not the church’s fault. He and the leadership had not made evangelism a priority in their church and so none of the people had either. 3. What strategies and plans does the church have in place for mobilising 100% of your people to proclaim and spread the gospel? 4. How often does the leadership team in your church engage in personal evangelism? 5. How often are stories about personal evangelism encounters talked about spontaneously among the staff or from the pulpit? 6. Is there any accountability within the leadership of your church for personal evangelism? What about the rest of the people? 7. How often do the leaders in your church teach and preach evangelistically? 8. How often is a clear gospel presentation given? 9. If a stranger visited your church and asked 10 random people what was central in your church, would they all answer “evangelism”? 10. Does your church have a specific strategy to reach everyone in the community surrounding your church with the gospel? i.e. its Jerusalem (Acts 1:8) If you could not say “yes” to most of these questions, it is highly likely your church does not have a Culture of evangelism. This is the bad news. The good news is God has given us the plans and strategies to help you create one. Just email me - julian@esisite.com and let’s get started.

evice 73. To persuade leaders to go away on a retreat or enter a season of prayer and fasting to seek God about direction for their church or to formulate their vision statement.

We established in Chapter Seven that the priority of the Church is to evangelise the world. This is the mission of the Church. In Chapter Eight we concluded that it was the responsibility of all believers to help 28

complete this mission. In Acts 1:8 Jesus rolled out a specific strategy for the mission - He said evangelise Jerusalem first, then Judea, then Samaria, and then the uttermost parts of the earth. So why are we going away on retreats etc to seek Him about ‘direction’ for our churches? In so doing, aren’t we questioning/doubting the clear directives He gave in His five Great Commission announcements i.e. Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, John 20:21-23, Luke 24:44-49, Matthew 28:18-20? It would be quite understandable for us to retreat, pray and fast to have the Holy Spirit give us strategies and inititiatives about how to best carry out His mission, but this is very different from asking Him what our mission is. He has already told us clearly. Some will argue “Wait a minute. There is a lot more to the mission of the Church than evangelising the world, surely? This is what we are seeking God about.” How should we anwer? All the other critically important things we do in our church - prayer, fasting, social action, worship, Bible study, great sermons etc - these behaviours relate to/ strengthen/ give credibility to the mission, but they are not THE mission. Just how they relate to the mission is detailed in Chapter Eleven. You’ll remember the “SIX STEPS TO DRAWING A NON-CHRISTIAN TO CHRIST” model? If you don’t, please revisit Chapter Thirteen Others argue that “making disciples” is the mission of the Church. How should we answer? The imperative to make disciples is crucial. But why are we making disciples? The answer? So that we can have more people engaging in THE mission, so as to complete it. Making disciples and evangelising the world must be kept in perfect balance. Take note of what world-renowned missiologist Dr George Peters has to say here. “The emphasis therefore [in the New Testament] is to make disciples and evangelise the nations. These two imperatives must be held in constant tension and in proper balance until the total world has had the opportunity to hear the good news of the salvation of God in Christ Jesus.”20 The key question to ask at leader’s retreats is this: “how can we make 20 George W. Peters. A Biblical Theology of Missions. Moody Press, 1984, p. 198

more disciples to complete the mission?” This leads to another crucial question - just what is “a disciple?” A disciple is an apprentice or a learner, according to the Greek lexicon. Christians are Jesus’ apprentices. So what are we supposed to be learning? Please think about what I am about to say now, as it’s important. If Jesus’ priority was the evangelisation of the world, then Jesus would have made a priority of teaching His disciples how to do it, surely? His discipleship programme would have been in perfect sync with His mission. Yet, in most discipleship programmes which exist today, very little ink is dedicated to evangelism. In fact, tragically, it’s non-existent. The epicentre of any truly Biblical discipleship plan must be the making of disciples who will make a priority of evangelising the world (our mission). These are the kinds of issues leaders need to be seeking God about when they retreat and pray and fast for direction for their churches and the formulation of their vision statements.

evice 74. To make a leader feel threatened and insecure at the thought of making evangelism centre stage in their church.

I touched on this in Chapter Fifteen and I am going to elaborate on it here. If a leader brings evangelism centre stage in their church, yet he doesn’t do it, this sends a signal to the staff and members of the church that it’s quite acceptable to extol the value of a crucial Christian behaviour, yet not do it. This then spawns the idea in the minds of those watching the life of the leader that it’s OK to be hypocritical. They will say to themselves “Huh....he says evangelism is the mission of the Church and its priority, yet he doesn’t do evangelism himself. What’s that all about?” Everyone knows the warning of James against disconnecting theory from practice: “Be doers of the Word and not merely hearers only” (James 1:12). Leaders reason, “If I put evangelism centre stage in our church and then I don’t end up doing it personally, I will be hyprocritical. 30

I don’t want to be a hypocrite, so I had better not put evangelism on centre stage.” Thus, evangelism falters at a local church leadership level, and a whole church is immobilised for Jesus’ mission. Tragic. For many leaders, admitting to others that they feel deeply insecure, threatened, and even terrified of evangelism is humiliating. The enemy plays on this. He causes these leaders to keep their true feelings about evangelism to themselves. Next he manipulates them to “cover up” their true feelings with excuses such as: • The time is not right for us to do evangelism. • We are seeking God about the direction of our church. • We are reaching the lost in other ways. • We are busy with a building project. • We don’t feel God is leading us in this dirction. • We already have our year planned out, thanks. • We are busy with other programs. Please call another time. • And so on. Leaders, please don’t fall into this device. It’s a trap. Please, face your fears and push through. When you do, something incredible happens. Your feelings of insecurity and vulnerability with respect to evangelism will become your biggest asset. How so? When you feel insecure, vulnerable and terrified of evangelising and voice these feelings publically from the front of your church, yet commit to learning how to evangelise anyway, you will liberate everyone in your church to have a go. The people in your church don’t want a hero who can’t relate to their humanity and frailty. They want someone who can relate to them and their fears and insecurities with respect to evangelism. The people in your church will reason “Wow! Our leader feels vulnerable and insecure and fragile, but he is having a go anyway. By voicing his weakness, he 31

has liberated us to have a go. He has given us a freedom to fail and fall over and to get up again and keep going. Leader, we think you are wonderful!” Leaders, put what I have said here to the test and you’ll see an amazing thing happen in your church.

evice 75. To cause leaders to see “the gospel” and “the gospel of the Kingdom” as two different gospel messages.

This is a particularly nasty device. A pastor who had fallen for this one wrote the following to one of his church members: “I used to believe that the sole purpose of the Church was to seek and save the lost, disciple people into seeking and saving the lost and then we die and go to heaven and spend our eternity in heaven for ever. I used to believe that this was the ultimate purpose for the Church. I no longer believe this is the ultimate purpose for the Church. [conversion] ... this is the start of the journey and not the end. Jesus preached the gospel and the gospel of the Kingdom. They are 2 messages. Now I believe that the ultimate purpose for the Church is to become the bride of Christ, spotless and without blemish, and to govern in the 1000 year reign with Christ on this earth. This is the journey. We proclaim the message and become the message. Make sense?” What are we to make of this? This pastor is very confused. First, the mission of the Church is not to seek and save the lost. This has never been it’s mission. Rather, the mission of the Church is to evangelise the world. There is a huge difference between the two. Second, this pastor is really asking a series of questions: what is the difference between “the gospel” as Jesus used this phrase in Mark 16:15 (“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.”) and “the gospel of the Kingdom” as Jesus used it in say Mark 1:14 ? (“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God”). Are they different? How do they relate to each other? How does “the Kingdom of God” relate to these two? To answer these questions, let’s first examine the phrase “the Kingdom of God” as it’s used in Scripture. “The Kingdom of God” is anywhere where God’s will rules and reigns. Dr William 32

Barclay describes it like this:“The Kingdom of God is a society [or realm] upon earth where God’s will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven.”21 Notice he describes “the Kingdom” as a realm or a society and in terms of God’s will being done i.e. an action. I am going to talk about each of these in turn. Here are some examples of where the Kingdom has come and God’s will is being done in contemporary day to day life: the businessman pays all his taxes; the child honours her / his parents; the employee is scrupulously honest in the shop; the person who is hurt forgives the one who did the hurting, the prisoner is visited in prison, the person with two coats gives one to another person who has none, the husband is faithful to his wife, and so on. In each of these situations, God’s will is being done, and the Kingdom has come. Furthermore, if it’s true that“wherever God’s will is done, there the Kingdom has come” then when someone engages in evangelism they are not just doing the will of God, but the priority of his will. That is to say, to engage in evangelism is to engage in an action which brings the Kingdom of God to earth. To try and divorce evangelism (i.e the proclamation of the gospel and the Gospel of the Kingdom) from the Kingdom is neither Biblical or logical. In fact, it’s sheer folly. It’s as silly as saying “the front door of my house is neither part of my house nor leads to the inside of my house.” Now here is another thought. If we were to analyse our thoughts, attitudes, and actions over a period of a week, it would be fair to say that all of us “do” the will of God spasmodically i.e. sometimes we fail, other times we execute His will perfectly. Whenever we do His will, at that moment in time, in His name, for His glory, there His Kingdom has come. When Jesus prays in the Lord’s prayer “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...” it’s a petition to His Father for the coming of a day in the future when all people on earth will be members of the Kingdom (i.e inside the house) doing His will 24/7 for His glory. When this happens, the Kingdom will have come in all 21 William Barclay. The Daily Bible Study. The Gospel Of Luke. The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh. 1975. p.54

its fullness, as it has already come in heaven (i.e. in heaven, His will is being done perfectly 24/7 by all who live there). But the Kingdom is not just where God’s will is being done. As Barclay said, it is also a realm. Everyone in this world is either in the Kingdom, and a member of it, or outside of it, and a non-member. There is no third option. For example, in Mark 10:15, Jesus says “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter into it.” The Kingdom then is a realm with a point of entry. I like to think of the the Kingdom as being like a house with only one entrance door which is locked. Inside the house are infinite spiritual treasures (e.g. relationship with Jesus, peace, joy, purpose, miracles, blessing etc). When someone hears the gospel message (i.e. is evangelised) they are given the key to enter the house. If they decide to enter (i.e. repent, confess their sins, and turn to Jesus) they go through the one and only door. Someone outside the Kingdom can experience some of the treasures which are inside. For example, when Jesus healed the unsaved sick, the recipients of His miracles experienced the Kingdom, even though they lived outside the realm of the Kingdom. That is to say, they were not yet the sons and daughters of the King who rules the Kingdom yet they received some of the benefits of the Kingdom. Now, back to the pastor. The pastor is also very confused about the relationship between “the gospel” and “the gospel of the Kingdom” and “the Kingdom” He does not understand that the former two are the same thing. Both are a message which explain to someone outside the Kingdom of God how to enter it. The Kingdom of God is what one finds when one passes through the door of the house. Now here is the crux of the matter. How can someone enter the Kingdom (i.e. go through the door into the house), unless they know how how to? How will they know unless someone tells them where the key is? (Romans 10:13-15). This is why evangelism is so crucial. Without it, those outside the Kingdom will not know how to enter it (i.e. the house). What are we to make of those who suggest that the mission of the Church is to bring the Kingdom of God to earth? What they are really saying is that they want to have all the people on earth doing the 34

will of God perfectly all the time i.e. 24/7. Not even the most devout Christians are able to obey the will of God perfectly 24/7, so how can we expect such a thing to happen? What I am saying is that only God can bring the Kingdom of God in all it’s fullness to this earth. Sure, the more people who are saved, and filled with the Holy Spirit, and doing the will of God, the more the Kingdom will be established. But it will never be completely and perfectly established on earth until Jesus renews the heavens and the earth. It’s therefore nonsense to think we can bring the Kingdom of God in all its fullness to earth. As such, it’s yet another device to distract us from the task of evangelising the earth. To put our efforts into bringing ‘the Kingdom’ in its fullness to earth is simply chasing a rainbow. As I have said, the extent to which the Church obeys the expressed will of Jesus will determine the extent to which the Kingdom will be manifest on the earth. Wouldn’t focussing on doing the priority of His will be a good starting place? It is worth noting here also that the phrase the “The gospel” is referred to in many different ways in Scripture. Here are just some: • The gospel of God (Romans 1:16). • My gospel (Romans 2:16) • The gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24) • The gospel of your salvation (Ephesians 1:13) • The gospel of peace (Romans 10:15) • The gospel of the Kingdom (Mark 1:14) • The gospel (Mark 16:15) Again, these are not references to different gospel messages, but to different aspects of the same gospel. There is only one gospel. And what are we to make of the pastor’s idea we are to become the bride of Christ? Ephesians 5:25-27 is clear that we are already the bride, positionally spotless and without blemish because of the finished work of Jesus on the Cross. It is sheer nonsense for the pastor to suggest that the Church, the bride of Christ, can become actually (i.e. horizontally) spotless and without blemish. The Church will always be full of redeemed sinners who still sin. This side of death, no Christian will ever be living a sinless life. We can therefore quickly dismiss as heresy the idea that the ultimate purpose of the Church in the world is to actually (horizontally) become spotless 35

and without blemish. One day another pastor came to me and said “In our evangelism, we should not be selling Jesus as a ticket to heaven. Rather, our evangelism should be all about letting people know that they can have a relationship with Jesus here and now!” What are we to make of this? The answer is that it’s not one or the other. It’s both. And what’s really interesting is that getting to heaven is of utmost importance to most non-Christians. It’s also hugely important to Jesus. One of the most incisive insights into the mind of Jesus regarding the importance of securing eternal life for the lost is seen in Luke 10. In this Chapter Jesus sends out the 70 to preach the gospel, perform miracles, call people to repentance, and harvest souls into the Kingdom. The disciples go and when they return they are all excited and full of joy saying “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name” (Luke 10:17). The disciples loved the fireworks! But what most excited the disciples was NOT what MOST excited Jesus, for in verse 20 He clarifies for them what REALLY matters. Please read carefully His words “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” It’s as if Jesus is saying “Hey guys, I know you love the thrill and excitement of casting out demons, healing the sick and raising the dead and this is all good. But let me remind you - what’s of supreme importance to me is that you secure eternal life for the lost. In the midst of doing good and demonstrating my supernatural power, don’t ever forget this.” After reaching tens of thousands of people with the gospel, I can only think of one or two people who didn’t want to go to heaven after death. So what is my advice here? In our evangelism, we should boldly and unashamedly explain to non-Christians how they can get to heaven. We should present getting to heaven as of great importance. Non Christians want to know how to get there. It’s in their heart. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). So what on earth are we doing poo pooing the idea of selling Jesus as a ticket to heaven? Try the following as an exercise. Interview 36

100 random non-Christians and ask them if they are more interested in “starting a relationship with God” or more interested in “getting to heaven.” I can guarantee the latter will triumph hands down. So build your presentations of the gospel around “getting to heaven”. It’s “a carrot” which will lead non-Christians in the direction of the establishment of a right relationship with Jesus. Jesus did this over and over in the gospels. In most cases, He calls heaven “eternal life.” For example, what’s perhaps the most famous Bible verse in Christendom? It’s John 3:16, right? Please read it again carefully: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The whole purpose of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection was that people should not perish but have eternal life - if we are to go by what Jesus said in John 3:16. The Westminster Confession of Faith affirms the monumental truth that securing eternal life for lost souls is critically important to Jesus: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Clearly, if the 121 Puritan clergymen who met at Westminister in 1647 considered “eternal life” to be of supreme importance, why are we deemphasising this in our gospel messages? General William Booth, the founder of the great Salvation Army lived in the reality this truth: “Take a man out of the slums, heal his body, give him decent clothes, provide him a home in the country, then let him die and go to hell? Really, it’s not worthwhile.”22 If securing eternal life for lost souls was of supreme importance for Jesus, who are we to argue? It is worth noting here that theologically “eternal life” starts at the point of conversion, not after death. Many criticise evangelists for their apparent sole emphasis on “getting people to heaven” as though this is all that matters. But this is not all that matters to evangelists, for they know that eternal life starts at the point of conversion. They know 22 Cited in: Norm Lewis. Priority One. OM Literature. 1988. p99

that at the point of conversion, a person enters the Kindom of God. And once in the Kingdom, they start living eternal life. That is to say, believers don’t have to wait until death to experience heaven. Heaven can be experienced here on earth during the earthly life of a believer, not in it’s fullness, but as scripture puts it, “...dimly, through frosted glass.” (1 Corinthians 13:12). So, if you are a person who criticises evangelists for “selling tickets to heaven”, please, back off. We know the theology of eternal life and we know that ‘getting to heaven’ is a carrot Jesus used, so we’ll use it too. And what are we to make of the pastor’s statement: “[conversion] ... this is the start of the journey and not the end.” He is absolutely right. Between the point of conversion and death, God works in us to conform us more and more to His likeness and the more we become like Him, the more we will do His will. This process is called sanctification and is life long. So when the pastor says “we become the message” he is quite rightly making a reference to the result of our sanctification. But in his statement “we become the message” there is also a hidden device. Can you spot it? In case you can’t, let me explain. Jesus displayed exemplary works, behaviours and attitudes during his life on earth. Yet he said, these alone are not enough. He said we must also proclaim the words of the gospel. Non-Christians are not going to hear the essential content of our gospel message (i.e. why they must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved, and the cost of becoming a disciple) which I discussed in Chapter Five just through our works, behaviours, and attitudes. As I have already said, to say ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel and if necessary use words’ is as silly as saying ‘Go into the world and feed the hungry, and if necessary use food.’ Becoming the message is vital because it’s through our works, attitudes, and behaviour that the Holy Spirit “ploughs” the soil in the hearts of non-Christians, making them ready to receive the seed of the gospel i.e. the Words of the gospel (propositional truth). How should we conclude? This pastor has become fuzzy and muddled in his thinking which is what the enemy loves. This pastor has made the cardinal mistake of allowing personal opinion to define, in his words, “the ultimate purpose of the Church.” 38

It’s quite OK to have personal opinions of course, but before we broadcast them, we ought to test them against the views of a range of reputable scholars and leaders in the global Church i.e. those outside of the leaders in our immediate circle. Without such testing, cults start and whole churches can easily be led astray. What can we say to clear the fog? How can we bring clarity? How should we summarise our answer to this pastor? What ought to be the thrust of all Churches? • Their chief motive ought to be to glorify God. • Their chief outcome ought to be to win souls. • Their mission (i.e. their priority) ought to be to mobilise 100% of their people to evangelise the world. • Their purpose is to make disciples so that there would be more people to complete the mission and bring glory to God. • Their goal ought to be to ensure that all six steps in the “six steps to drawing a non-church person to Christ”23 model are flourishing. When this becomes a reality, the Word will be being proclaimed and demonstrated and the Kingdom made increasingly manifest. • Their teaching should re-iterate that there is only one gospel message and that the Church is already the spotless Bride of Christ, and Jesus the Bridegroom. Jesus wants to receive His Bride, but won’t until, among other things, the world has been evangelised (e.g. Matthew 24:14). Our disobedience with the Great Commission therefore just delays the final joyous union of The Bride and The Groom. This is yet another reason why scholars rank the evangelisation of the world as the priority of the global Church.

ummary

• If you are a leader, mix with other leaders who are doing personal evangelism. If you can’t find one, be one. • Don’t allow evangelism to be shoulder-charged out of it’s 23 To know what these six steps are and how they work, please refer to Chapter Eleven.

• •

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position as the priority in your church. The threat will be constant. Resist it. Jesus spent a lot of His time with the un-churched, giving them the gospel. Imitate Him. Evangelising strangers will keep you fresh and salty. If you don’t, you’ll develop ‘church-bound-itis’ which will make you and your ministry stale and stodgy. Church programmes are like a 1000 piece jig-saw puzzle, and the essential content of the gospel like 25 pieces scattered throughout the puzzle. Don’t make it hard for the people in your church - pull out the 25 and regularly show your people a complete ‘single sitting’ presentation of the gospel. Don’t leave it to them to have to work it out. It’s one thing to have non-Christians hear the gospel. It’s quite another to know they have understood it. If they don’t understand it, they might as well not have heard it (Matthew 13:23). The goal of any church ought to be to mobilise 100% of its people to engage in personal evangelism. Any evangelism program or initiative which does not seek to achieve this goal falls short of God’s ideal. There is nothing wrong with using tools to proclaim or spread the gospel. In fact, good tools are a gift from God. Sending missionaries overseas and supporting overseas missionaries is good and right. But, this must never become a substitute for not personally engaging in evangelism in our own back yard. Jesus didn’t spell out the content of the gospel message like He spelled out the Lord’s prayer. To find out what ‘the gospel’ is, we must study His life, as found in the four gospels, and fleshed out in the Epistles. When we do this we discover ‘the gospel’ is a carefully defined message with 40

•

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specific content. Research shows that local churches which hold their people accountable for their evangelism activity will succeed with mobilising all their people for evangelism. For a leader to keep quiet about their personal evangelism is an oxymoron. Jesus and Paul were very public about their experiences and we ought to be too. People around a leader who does evangelism will be inspired to do likewise. If leaders are quiet about their evangelism experiences, people will presume they are not having any. The mission of the Church is to evangelise the world. Our purpose is to make disciples. Let’s not get our purpose and our mission confused. These two should be kept in perfect balance. The reason Jesus commanded we make disciples is so that we would have more people to help complete the mission. If you are a leader who feels insecure and vulnerable when it comes to evangelism, God will use these feelings for His glory and to your advantage if you let Him. Don’t stop evangelism happening in your church because you feel this way. Face the fear and do evangelism anyway. Proclamation of the gospel is to be kept in perfect balance with abounding in good works. This is the ideal. There is only one gospel message. CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media.

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CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. In the next Chapter , there are more devices which the enemy uses to stop leaders from actually doing evangelism. If you think the devices I have discussed so far are dirty, wait until you see the new ones I unveil in this next Chapter.

Real Life Story

Going To Church For Sixteen Years... But Not Saved Tauranga, New Zealand.

Unsaved church-goers are more common than you might think. In fact researcher George Barna says up to 50 percent of people in evangelical churches may not be saved. Ian Ross had been a churchgoer for sixteen years before he realised he was not a genuine Christian. His decision to go forward at an altar call took great courage â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and a move of the Holy Spirit. Here he tells his own story. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My name is Ian, and I am 74 years young. For 16 years I went to a church in Hamilton, New Zealand. Recently, however, my wife and I moved to another city, Tauranga, and began to attend a small Baptist church there. One Sunday, Julian Batchelor took the morning service and gave a presentation of the gospel, using a data-projector and a big screen. 43

At one point, on the subject of turning from our sins, a figure on the screen was walking one way and then turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction to follow Jesus. All of a sudden I realised that even though I had been a “good bloke,” and had even been baptised in water, I had never truly turned from my sin. At the end Julian asked people to raise their hands if they wanted to commit themselves to turning and surrendering to Christ. I put my hand half-way up, and then, feeling scared, pulled it down again. But I knew God was speaking to me, so my hand shot up again, this time fully, and I got up out of my seat and went forward at the altar call. I have not been the same since. I’m a different man.” This story illustrates how important it is to be proclaiming the gospel from the pulpit on a regular basis. We should never presume all those sitting in the pews from Sunday to Sunday are genuine Christians. Present the gospel, have altar calls, and give people the chance to turn and surrender.

Chapter Twenty

Church leaders!

This Is Your Time

To Step Up And Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 5)

Church leaders!

This Is Your Time

To Step Up And Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 5)

evice 76. To persuade a leader that he/she must feel that they must “love God more than anything or anyone else” before obeying Him in evangelism so that when they do start, their motivation is right. A church leader wrote the following: “If I were asked to prioritise three main things I felt God wanted of me it would probably be: 1. Love God above all else Mat 22:37 2. Love others as I love myself Mat 22:38 3. Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel Mk 16:15 Most of the common commentaries of Revelation 21:7 seem to support the position that our first love for God/Jesus is a requirement before any works. New Ungers, Mathew Henry, etc all put the emphasis on our first love with references to 1 Timothy 5:12, Ephesians 1:15 as well as 1 Corinthians 13:2. Everything else seems to stem or flow out of this - our first love. We want our motivation for serving God to come out of our love for 2

Him. If we don’t love him first, our love will be somewhat indifferent. Therefore, before we launch out in evangelism in our church, I first want to focus on having my people love God. Then they will want to evangelise.” How should we respond to this? This pastor wants himself and his church to spend time building up a love for God before engaging in evangelism. This sounds nice, Biblical, and noble but it’s actually just another device. Let me explain. Christian love, as defined in 1 Corinthians 13, is not feelings based. It’s action based. The words used in this chapter to describe ‘love’ are all verbs. In other words, if an action we are about to take will express the love of God in some way (e.g. taking a meal to a hungry person), but we don’t feel like doing it, we are called to carry out the action anyway. In the Bible, God interprets “loving Him” as obeying Him. He says so: “If you love me, you’ll keep my commands” (John 14:21). This pastor is waiting for a feeling. God, however, is looking for people who will take action, irrespective of how they feel. Not only are we to obey Him whether we feel like it or not, but we are to do so when we feel great pain at the thought of obeying Him. Listen to what Jesus said in Luke 9:23: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Picking up a cross was a hard, horrible, painful experience. It was a heavy and burdensome object. In Luke 9:23 Jesus is saying, “You are not going to feel like doing my will each day. Your feelings and my will are going to constantly clash. When they clash you are going to feel like you are picking up a cross and walking to your own crucifixion.” This is not to say that we will never feel like obeying God. There have been many times when I have wanted to obey God, and felt like obeying God. It’s wonderful when this happens. But what happens when He commands us to do something and we don’t feel like it doing it? What then? This is what Jesus in Luke 9:23 is talking about. Let me tease this out a little. In the 1990’s, John Chapman wrote a book about ‘love languages.’ In this book he proposes that men and woman interpret ‘love’ in different 3

ways. The key to loving a spouse, asserts Chapman, is to discover their love language and then focus on loving them accordingly. There are five love languages: 1. Words of affirmation 2. Quality Time 3. Receiving gifts 4. Acts of service 5. Physical touch So for example, if my wife’s love language is (1) above, then as her husband I need to focus on speaking affirming words to her. When I do this, she will interpret my behaviour as “he loves me.” For my wife, the evidence that I love her are the affirming words I speak to her. How does this relate to what the church leader (above) wrote? Jesus has a love language. He says so in John 14:21 and John 15:14 “If you love me, you will obey me.” The evidence of our love for Him is our obedience to His commands. Period. The more time, money, and resources we pour into doing the priority of His will, the more Jesus interprets our behaviour as “they really love me.” You see, if the husband focuses on loving his wife with the other four languages which are not her primary love language, she will not feel so loved by him. He’ll be missing the mark with his love for his wife. In the same way, if we are busy with other aspects of His will, but not about the priority of His will, we too will be missing the mark with Jesus. In fact, we can actually invoke God’s wrath. Look at Matthew 7:21-23 for example. Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly,‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Prophesying, driving out demons, performing miracles are three 4

behaviours that would be classed as “the will of God.” Yet the group of people He is addressing in Matthew 7 incur His wrath. Why? I suggest it was because they were merely picking and choosing what to obey and what not to obey. They were not under authority. Jesus was not “their Lord”. They were their own Lords. As such they never “knew” Him. To truly “know” the Lord is obey His commands. There is one more issue with what this leader wrote that I want to address here. When this leader says “Therefore, before we launch out in evangelism in our church, I first want to focus on having my people love God. Then they will want to evangelise” he is saying “obedience is a natural outcome of feelings.” The truth, as I have already pointed out, is actually the opposite. Obedience, in my experience, results in feelings of love for God. When I obey God in some area with an act of the will (i.e. when I don’t feel like obeying), the warm fuzzy feelings usually follow. After I have obeyed God in something, he anoints me with a feeling of feeling close to Him. I feel happy, joyful, blessed, even like dancing. Sometimes the joy is indescribable. These feelings which follow obedience will lead to a desire for greater obedience, which in turn will lead to greater feelings of being in love with God, which in turn will lead to greater obedience, and so on. Our faith is not ethereal, New Age, or airy-fairy. If the pastor wants to make a priority of loving God, he simply needs to make a priority of doing the priority of God’s will. It’s not complicated. Obedience whether we feel like it or not is central to genuine faith. If Jesus had waited until He felt like walking to His crucifixion, He would never had died on the Cross. The truth is, he sweated drops of blood. Such was the clash between His will and the will of His Father. In the end, He chose His Father’s will over His own: “Not my will Father, but your’s be done” (Luke 22:42). As world renown missiologist Dr George W. Peters quite rightly says: “Obedience is held up as a cardinal Christian virtue and a proof of belonging to God, keeping and doing the commandments of God (1 John 5

2:3-4, 2:29, 3:7, 5:2-4). To the Apostles, obedience is not optional; it’s occupational. It occupies all of their life and commits them in obedience and loyalty to their Lord and Master.” The church leader I quoted would say obedience in the absence of warm fuzzy feelings is legalism. I would say “Not so.” Rather, obedience in the absence of feelings is showing God we love Him, just as the husband who affirms his wife when he doesn’t feel like it demonstrates true Christian love. Some have argued against what I have written here by pointing out that the Early Church waited for power from on high before they launched out in evangelism (Acts 2). True, this happened, but today we already now have the Holy Spirit. He was poured out in our hearts at conversion (Romans 5:5). My experience is that the Holy Spirit empowers us the moment we actually engage a non-Christian to give them the gospel, and not a moment sooner. Those who are waiting for some special outpouring of the Spirit before they get going in evangelism are chasing a rainbow. In short, they are deceived. In summary, the line of reasoning put forward by the church leader I quoted at the beginning of this device is another one of those classic “1% off the truth” arguments. This is how the devil works. He is an angel of light. He uses very Christian sounding arguments and logic, including Scripture, to infiltrate the minds of Christians, including many leaders.

evice 77. To cause leaders to become out of balance in the expression of their faith.

Who are the truly Spiritual people in the Church? How can we tell? The truly spiritual people in the Church are those who are balanced in their obedience to the whole council of God, as revealed in the Bible. No thinking person would argue with this line of reasoning. Yet, believe it or not, there is an increasing number of Christians who would contest this measure of genuine spirituality. As a consequence of their thinking, world evangelism has taken a nose dive. Let me explain. 6

There are groups of Christians who conclude, for example, that seeking after signs, wonders, words of knowledge, visions, dreams, insights, and other miraculous “knowledge” is the priority of the Church. All the while they ignore the priority of Jesus to evangelise the world. Recently I heard a message about how God speaks to us. The person delivering the message went into great detail about how to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit i.e. how to know the unrevealed will of God. For example: • who we should marry or what car we should buy • whether we should enter into a certain contract or not • the Holy Spirit might give us a word of knowledge about someone’s need for healing, for encouragement, or for “a word” from the Lord • the Holy Spirit might give us an insight into some aspect of someone’s life • Etc What a great subject for a message! We all need to learn how to hear the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us about things which pertain to us personally. However, what the speaker did not do was explain that many of God’s commands are plain and simple, and are found in the Bible, and that we have no excuse not to be walking in obedience to these commands i.e.We don’t need to hear the voice of the Spirit before we do these things because the Spirit wrote the Bible. The speaker gave the strong impression that the most spiritual people in the Church were those who were seeking signs, wonders, and miracles. Please don’t misunderstand me. This is not to say that signs and wonders and the like are not of God. They are. Jesus commanded the discples to heal the sick e.g. Luke 9:1. The Holy Spirit can and does direct us to do and say things 7

which can be enourmously powerful. Moving in the gifts of the Spirit is an essential part of “the mix.” For example, one day I was praying for people at an altar call, and the Holy Spirit gave me a word of knowledge about the person I was praying for. The Holy Spirit gave me a strong impression that the lady I was praying for would be going to Russia. I said “I feel the Holy Spirit is speaking to me about Russia. Does this mean anything to you?” With that, the lady broke down in tears, and fell to the floor. It turned out she felt she was being called to Russia as a missionary and had come to this meeting seeking confirmation of this call. Seeking after signs, wonders, and the supernatural is to be desired, and biblical, but not at the expense of world evangelisation. The same could be said for worship, good works, counselling, or any other Christian activity into which we pour our lives. Balance is the key. It’s not “give my life to whatever I am passionate about” or “evangelism”. It’s both. The devil wants us to become extreme in one area of our Christian walk. He wants us out of balance. For example, there are some Christians who want to take us into the realm of Christian mysticism, where the will of God is mystical and secret, only accessible to those with “keys” or “special revelations.” These Christians believe that if they could hear the private revelations of the Holy Spirit all the time, they would be catapulted into a new and higher realm way above the realm of “ordinary” Christians. The devil knows that while we are off searching and listening, we’ll be distracted from the priority of evangelising the world. As was the experience of Eve, he is constantly throwing us apples to distract us away from the Great Commission. Don’t eat the apples! 8

In summary, one reason why the Great Commission has collapsed in the West is that the enemy has moved some of us into some extreme, or some area of Christian service, where we neglect the crucial command to evangelise. What’s the right balance? Make a priority of evangelising the earth, but as we go, be open and ready to be used by the Holy Spirit for anything, including any the works of the supernatural described in the Bible. Second, if you are called to a particular area of Christian service (e.g. a worship leader, a person running a house of orphans, a group building houses for the poor, a pastor whose love in life is helping people etc), and you are passionate about it, this is wonderful. Just don’t forget to engage regularly in evangelism as you go about your day - strive to keep Jesus’ priority and your calling in perfect balance. The people who keep the balance are the truly Spiritual people in the Church.

evice 78. To persuade leaders that “bringing the Kingdom to earth” is the new priority of the Church.

I touched on this in Device 75, Mini Book Nineteen, and I want to expand on it here. There is a lot of talk at the moment in Church circles about “bringing the Kingdom to earth” or “thy Kingdom come.” The idea being conveyed is that this is the new priority of the Church. Eternal life is down-played, even dismissed completely. Evangelism, according to the “bring the Kingdom to earth” group, is not really necessary because evangelism is a lot about trying to secure heaven for lost souls (which, they say, just breeds a ‘ticket to heaven mentality’) and securing heaven for the lost is ‘old school.’ For those who are promoting ‘thy Kingdom come’, all that matters is life here and now. What are we to make of this? Well, when I talk to people who espouse the idea of bringing 9

the Kingdom to earth, no one seems to know exactly what this would entail in reality. I often asked those who are pushing this new priority to explain what would be different from what we have now in the Church? Would there be more miracles? Good works? If so, what kind of miracles and good works? Who would ‘do’ them? When would we do them? Why haven’t we been doing them up until now? What’s suddenly changed? There is also a lot of talk about ‘transforming our community through bringing the Kingdom’. But how? What would that look like? Where’s the detail? The answers which come back are generally fuzzy and etherial, even New Age sounding. Make no mistake. This idea of “bringing the Kingdom to earth” as the new priority of the Church is another device of the enemy. How so? First, the evangelisation of the earth has always been, and will always be, the priority of the Church. By evangelisation I mean that everyone on the earth is given the opportunity to hear and understand the gospel message at least once. Second, I contend that evangelism is a crucial component of any concept of “the Kingdom.” How is this so? William Barclay defined “the Kingdom” in this way: “Wherever God’s will is done, and whenever or wherever Jesus is glorified, there the Kingdom has come.” I like that. Why? It’s nice and simple and easy to understand. The Kingdom, then, is about two things in combination: (1) doing the will of Jesus and (2) glorifying Jesus. When we engage in evangelism, we are, according to Barclay, bringing the Kingdom because the will of Jesus is being done. After all, in the Lord’s prayer Jesus said “Thy will be done, thy 10

Kingdom come.” In this prayer Jesus equates ‘doing His will’ with the coming of the Kingdom. How does evangelism bring glory to Jesus? Well, the gospel message is pregnant with the attributes, excellencies, works, and merits of Jesus. When these are spoken out in the lost world, Jesus is being exalted and honoured. Yes, He is being glorified. And wherever He is being glorified, the Kingdom has come. Conclusion? If we want to see “Thy Kingdom come”, let’s be busy with the evangelisation of the world. If a church says “We are about bringing the Kingdom to Earth” yet it is not attempting to mobilise all it’s people to evangelise the world, then it’s missing the greatest way possible to bring the Kingdom to earth. In fact, it’s being outright unfaithful to Jesus’ understanding of “the Kingdom.” How can we honestly say and mean “thy Kingdom come” if we are not prepared to do the priority of the will of the King of the Kingdom? How can we honestly say and mean “thy Kingdom come” when we are not prepared to explain to those outside the Kingdom how they might enter it? i.e. how to become subjects of the King. How will God’s Kingdom expand and grow unless we go to the lost with the the message of the King about how to enter His Kingdom? (Romans 10:14) You know the answer. But there are other issues here. LACK OF SCHOLARLY SUPPORT: For example, those who tout “The priority is to bring the Kingdom to earth” cannot produce the names of reputable widely accepted scholars who would endorse their view. That is to say, I have struggled to find one reputable widely accepted scholar 11

anywhere who believes bringing the Kingdom to earth is the priority of the Church. DOWNPLAYING THE TRUTH OF ETERNAL LIFE IS UNBIBLICAL. Those who espouse that “The priority is to bring the Kingdom to earth” often downplay the importance of selling the concept of eternal life to the lost. They say that the Christian life is more about the here and now, and not about the next life. What are we to make of this? Does eternal life really matter to Jesus? Is it just as important to Him as seeing miraculous healings, deliverance and signs and wonders here on earth? As important as the creation of a better world here and now? Jesus’ answer is an emphatic “Yes! absolutely. In fact, it’s more important.“ How do we know this? I’ve already pointed out Jesus’ teaching in Luke 10:17-24, particularly verse 20 in my discussion of Device 75, but here it is again. The disciples had just been out on a mission and had witnessed the full range of miracles, signs and wonders. Yes, through God’s power they had been vessels to create a better world for many people. Through them, the Kingdom had been manifest. For the recipients of the signs and wonders, the Kingdom had come. The discples came back to Jesus pumped and excited, but Jesus brings them back down to earth in verse 20 by telling them what really matters is eternal life. If, after reading this passage from Luke 10, you are still not convinced that “eternal life” is supremely important to Jesus, and ought to take a place of prominence in our gospel message, meditate on John 3:16. Why did Jesus love the world? Why did He give His only Son? Answer? So that they might have eternal life! The Early Church Christians and the spiritual giants in the past gave their lives away in service to Jesus in this life because 12

they saw the next life as the one in which to invest. Even though “eternal life” begins when a person is born again, the early Christians saw themselves as sojourners passing through this world en-route to the next one. Heaven was their real home. This view of this world gave them the power and motivation to do radical things for God while they lived here including living dangerously and sacrificially (like giving away all their possessions or being willing to be eaten by lions or burnt at the stake so as to not deny Christ). They’d seen Jesus raised from the dead, and believed emphatically that He would do the same for them if they “gave their lives away for Him” in this life (e.g. John 12:25). WE BECOME LIKE THE WORLD AROUND US Once we start saying “this life is all that matters” we lower ourselves to thinking just as the government or any other secular agency thinks. They are only interested in improving the lot of people while they are here on earth. Isn’t ‘improving my lot’ all the non-Christians are interested in? Better car, better job, better house, better holiday, better clothes, better family relationships, better schooling, better quality of life etc? The Bible on the other hand gives exactly the opposite counsel in 2 Corinthians 4:18 “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” And what about Matthew 6:19-20? “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven , where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Whenever we ‘do’ the will of God, seeking to glorify Him, we store up riches in heaven. In summary, let’s be clear about this. When Jesus said in the Lord’s prayer “..thy Kingdom come, thy will be done” He was equating bringing the Kingdom to earth with doing the will of 13

God. Which brings us right back to William Barclay’s definition of The Kingdom. We’ve already concluded in Mini Book Seven that the priority of the will of God is to evangelise this world. Let’s not be duped into thinking otherwise.

evice 79. To cause leaders to think that promoting the need to do evangelism is to be equated with doing good works in order to get closer to God.

What are we to make of this device? Let’s be clear that access to the throne, the Holy of Holies, and the Father, is through the blood of Jesus, and His finished work on the cross, and not through our good works, or anything we do. Access to the Father, and the Holy of Holies is a work of grace and nothing but grace. Positionally, we can’t earn this access and we don’t have to do works to earn His favour. We already have His favour. Positionally, we are already as close to Jesus as we can get because of His work on the cross. These truths are some of the greatest and most wonderful of all Truths. However, as always with the devil, he doesn’t tell us the whole truth. The whole truth is that Jesus calls for a response from His followers to the great truths I have detailed so far in this section. Let me explain. When we become Christians, we become His disciples. We enter into a servant / Master relationship based on mutual love. As such, a disciple aims to deepen the intimacy of His relationship with His Master. And His Master happens to have outlined the secret to the deepening of intimacy. We find this secret in John 14:21. “He who has these commands of mine, and obeys them, He is the one who loves Me, And He who loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I also will love him, and show Myself to Him.” The secret to deepening the intimacy between Master and servant is obedience to His commands. 14

To the extent that we obey His commands, that is to say, to the extent that we identify with His mission and purposes and join in, will determine the extent to which we will experience intimacy with Him and His Father, and the extent to which we will tangibly experience His favour, blessing and presence. It’s one thing to know in our heads that positionally we are saved by grace and have free and unmerited access to the Holy of Holies. It is quite another to experience the sense of the presence of Jesus and His Father tangibly in our emotions. John 14:21 teaches we will experience this when we obey His commands. The ultimate test, therefore, of our love for Jesus, is our obedience to His commands. To obey Him is not legalism. Rather, it’s how a servant expresses, or outworks, his love for His master.

evice 80. Our culture is different from what it was 50 years ago and this affects our approaches to evangelism. People are now sceptical to the truth, rejecting moral absolutes and have a resulting indifference towards religion. No matter which century into which a person is born, or what era, they are all still sinners in need of salvation. That is to say: • They have a sin nature. • They are sinner in their actions • The are headed for hell • The are separated from their maker • They are lost and without hope. • Etc God knew all this about people when He said in Romans 1:16 that “..the gospel is the power of God for salvation.” In this verse He is saying that the simple gospel, when it’s announced with 15

love and grace, and presented clearly and logically, so that the person listening understands it conceptually (Matthew 13:23), is sufficient to convert the soul. No matter whether someone is postmodern, pre-modern, under-modern, over-modern, doesn’t believe in moral absolutes, is sceptical, or indifferent to religion - these things are no obstacle to the gospel. The gospel, when anointed by the Spirit, can instantly, dramatically, and completely break down these strongholds in the mind of an any unbeliever. It’s powerful! When we do our simple bit, He sends the Holy Spirit to breakthrough and bring belief (John 16:8). Our role: present the gospel with love and grace and clarity to ensure conceptual understanding God’s role: bring conviction and belief. Ultimately, salvation belongs to the Lord and it’s all His work. If we place an emphasis on post-modern, pre-modern, undermodern, over-modern, doesn’t believe in moral absolutes, is sceptical, indifferent to religious matters etc we fall into a man centred approach to evangelism, instead of a God centred approach. Put another way, we get bogged down in analysing this and that and the other thing to such an extent that evangelism becomes all too complex and overwhelming for even the most clever and articulate amoung us. As such, evangelism becomes all about us and not God. We become the big players when in reality God is the big player in evangelism. Paul states this clearly in 2 Cor. 2: 3-5 “And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.” Do we really want evangelism to be perceived as enormously complex and difficult? Is this really how evangelism actually is? Is the Holy Spirit really with us when we evangelise, or not? Is He 16

powerful enough to break into any person’s mind? You know the answers to these questions! In the first century, the society in which Christians lived was pregnant with many gods and philosophies, yet Jesus just simply told them to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel. Many of those early Christians were simple and uneducated. How would they have been able to obey God in evangelism if they first had to know all the intricacies and subtle nuances of the different philosophies and gods in their culture? The answer is they didn’t have to know. The gospel message, empowered by the Spirit of God, was more than enough. As a hot knife cuts through butter, so the gospel cuts through all the wrong thinking of the people we are talking to. The Early Church Christians proved this to be so. The church grew like wild fire, as was recorded in Acts.

evice 81. To convince us that Christianity is about being, not doing.

I recently entered into a conversation with a seasoned Christian man called Bob. He said the following: “Julian, Christianity isn’t all about doing. It’s about being. It’s about knowing who Christ is, and His character, and Work, and resting in Him, day by day, and listening to His voice. All your talk about ‘doing’ evangelism is taking us back into legalism and the law.” This is a particularly dirty device because, like all his devices, truth and error are mixed. Let’s deal with the truth of this device first. It is true that positionally before Christ, we are complete in Him, and nothing we can do on this earth will earn for us our salvation, or make God love us any more than He already does. As such, we can enter into God’s rest “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:10-11). When we enter into this rest we relax and find tremendous peace. 17

It is true also that His sheep hear His voice and follow, moment by moment each day. “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27). This is what it means to “be” a Christian. If these are just two of the truths in this device, what’s the error? It’s glaring. Just as being an apple tree naturally leads to bearing apples, so Christian “being” will lead to Christian doing. Christ gave specific commands, which He commanded His disciples to obey. For example, love you neighbour, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, turn the other cheek, evangelise the world etc. These are just some of the many commands Jesus issued. These are things He has commanded us to do. i.e Christian doings. The greatest command was to love God. By now you should know all about John 14:21! Jesus Himself unpacks for us what “loving God” actually means. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” If we want to love God, we do it by obeying His commands, chief of which, as we discovered in Mini Book Seven, is to evangelise this world. To obey God is not legalism. Rather, to obey God is to love Him! “Obeying God” becomes legalism only when the person obeying believes that by their obedience they are earning their salvation. Furthermore, if Bob is listening to God’s voice, moment by moment each day, and doing what He says to do, but never doing evangelism, how can this be? God has revealed in His Word that the evangelisation of the world is His priority. So whose voice is Bob really listening to? It can only be the voice of His own imagination, or the devil. Conclusion? Bob has been deceived by the enemy. He has made up a false God in his own mind. His false God invites rest, but not to obey Jesus’ commands. As such, Bob has broken one of the ten commandments “You shall 18

have no other God’s before me” (Exodus 20:3).

evice 82. Teaching that if we have to obey the commands of Jesus (e.g. the command to evangelise the world) this is taking us back into legalism and the law!

Let’s be clear here. We are not saved by keeping the commandments, but saved people will keep them.1 Today some people will tell you that keeping the commandments was fulfilled by Christ, and that because we are living in the period of grace, obeying God’s commands is therefore no longer required. The truth of the matter is quite the opposite: “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). In these verses Jesus is saying that those who obey God’s commandments are great in the Kingdom of heaven! Matthew 5:19 is enough to defeat device 82 single handedly, but there are other equally powerful and relevant verses. The Apostle John said: “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:3-6). It doesn’t get any clearer, does it? Even the apostle Paul, who is most often cited by those attempting to do away with God’s commands, himself refuted device 82 by saying, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Jesus was THE great evangelist. He spent a lot of time telling the lost who He was and why He came. So Paul 1 Not all of them, all of the time. We all still sin, and no Christian on earth, aside from Jesus, has ever led a sinless life. But the heart’s desire of a saved person is to keep the commands, and walk in obedience to them.

and the Apostles imitated Jesus the evangelist, also telling the lost who Jesus was and why He came. These men didn’t abolish the commands to evangelise! Rather, they walked in obedience to it, and so should we. So, how should we respond to those who say that having to obey the commmand to evangelise the world is just legalism? We respond by doing what Jesus did when he was tempted by the devil in the desert. We respond with scripture. Jesus said in John 14:21 “He who has these commands of mine and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” It’s pretty clear isn’t it?. Jesus equated obeying His commands, not with legalism, but with loving Him.

ummary

• • If we want to make a priority of loving God, we simply need to make a priority of doing the priority of God’s will. It’s not complicated. • Proclamation of the gospel is to be kept in perfect balance with abounding in good works. This is the ideal. • Wherever God’s will is done, and He is glorified, there the Kingdom has come. • Calling out the Church to obey God in evangelism is not a call to legalism. It represents the practical outworking of our love for Jesus. CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Mini Book to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Mini Book, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. elp other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Mini Book , particularly leaders. Email this to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send

A H

them a PDF file. If you are reading a hard copy of this Mini Book , you can obtain a PDF copy by sending an email to julian@ esisite.com. CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. In the next Mini Book , I discuss how God works through the evangelisation of the world to bless society, make a better world, and glorify Himself. This is a part of the battlefield we have not critiqued yet. If we care about the world we live in, and the people who make up that world (and I know you do or you wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be a leader and you certainly would not be reading this book), the next Mini Book will stoke to new heights your passion and zeal to activate for His mission. Come with me and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll show you what I mean...

Real Life Story A Piece Of Human Driftwood New Zealand.

Anonymous Evangelists have sometimes been accused of caring so much for the gospel that they forget the needs of the whole person. We included this story for three reasons. First, to dispel this misunderstanding about evangelists. Secondly, to show that sometimes it is impossible to give the gospel to some people, despite our best intentions. Thirdly, to show that sometimes our best attempts to help people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have nice, tidy endings. This is okay, because in Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes every attempt at giving the gospel and trying to meet the needs of the whole person is a success.

I live near the beach in Auckland. Each day I walk 200 metres or so down to the waterfront to look for someone with whom I can share the gospel. This evening was special. It was November 5, Guy Fawkes 22

night – the night New Zealand skies explode with fireworks. The waterfront was bustling with people and there was laughter everywhere. The sound of explosions far and near filled the air. The night sky lit up with colour. Cars were tooting, glasses clinking. As I walked along the footpath, the sea on my right, the road on my left, I passed a bus shelter. There was a person lying stretched out on the seat inside. One leg and one arm were dangling over the edge of the seat and I could see the man had soiled his track suit pants. A pool of urine was below him on the footpath and the smell was pungent. His woollen hat was pulled low, covering one eye, and so I could only partially see his face. There was no movement. Beer cans were strewn around, close to the dangling hand. I stood taking it all in as people walked past me, seeming not to notice. It was as though the man in the shelter was invisible. I talked to myself. Me: “It’s too hard for me right now. I don’t have time to get involved in this one. It’s getting late, and I need to get the gospel to someone.” I walked on, had a great evangelism encounter with someone, and completely forgot what I had seen in the bus shelter. The next morning, after waking up, I decided to take a stroll along the beach. It was a glorious, crisp spring day with no wind. When I came to the footpath which led to the bus shelter, I thought about what I 23

had seen the previous night. Suddenly I was alert and tense, wondering if he was still there. There were lots of other people out and about, some arm-in-arm, some jogging, many walking their dogs on the beach. But my eyes were fixed on the bus shelter. I neared it. He was gone. Phew! Out of sight, out of mind. There was still a smell in there, and the beer cans remained littered all over the ground. Suddenly, I saw him. There he was, lying on the beach. Slowly, I sat down on a council seat and just watched. He was lying on his side, stretched out again, almost in the recovery position. I noticed his hand twitching, and for a moment I wondered if he was seriously ill. I also spotted a plastic bag near him, and realised it probably contained all he owned in the world. Quite suddenly I felt angry – angry at myself for not getting involved the night before and angry that people were just walking by, some within one or two metres, as if he were merely a log or a piece of driftwood. A dog chasing a stick stopped momentarily to sniff him before running off, responding to his owner’s frenzied calls. “Here boy!” In an instant, filled with compassion, I jumped up off the seat and ran down the steps on to the beach. I knelt down beside the desolate figure, only to find it was a woman in her early thirties. I touched her arm gently, then grasped it and shook it. She sat bolt upright, ripped off her woolly hat and shouted at me, smiling at the same time. Sally: “#*&%! How are ya?” Me: (startled) “Err... great… hey, can I help you? Would you like some breakfast?” 24

Sally: (excited and reaching for her plastic bag) “#*&% yeah!” As she staggered awkwardly to her feet, she reached for a beer can with her spare hand, scooped it up, and took a swig. Me: “I’m Ian. What’s your name?” Sally: “Sally… nice to meet you (thrusting out her hand).” We shook; and I scolded myself for worrying about the state of her hand. Me: “Sally, I am going to take you over to that café over the road. They do a really good breakfast. You won’t need that beer anymore… want to throw it in the bin over there?” She agreed instantly. We walked towards the bin, dropped the beer can in, and started up the steps off the beach toward the café, just across from the pedestrian crossing. We waited for a few cars to pass. It seemed to take a while for anyone to stop. I looked at the café seriously for the first time, and noticed it was quite full. I suddenly felt embarrassed to have Sally beside me. The people who lived around there were all well-to-do. They dressed well. Taking Sally in there was going to create quite a stir. We crossed the road and walked along the footpath towards the entrance to the café. Sally was clutching her plastic bag, looking enthusiastic. Her woolly hat was off and her hair was sticking up in the air, knotted and chaotic. Her pants were still soiled. Her fingernails were noticeably long, her right hand heavily yellowed from nicotine. She was wearing a thick woollen jersey which was filthy and holed. I felt anxious. People were already taking notice and it seemed there was a distinct drop in conversation levels. Maybe it was just my imagination. 25

When we came to the entrance I noticed, with relief, an empty table near the door, almost on the balcony. Phew for the second time! We didn’t have to go inside. I was pretty sure I wanted to sit somewhere where there was plenty of fresh air circulating. The waitress saw us and smiled. Me: (smiling weakly) “Sally, how about you sit here?” A number of people were now watching us, some of them from behind dark glasses. I felt like making an announcement: “OK, everyone, this is someone I found on the beach this morning and she needs some breakfast. Just carry on with yours and stop staring at us. Thank you!” I resisted, and pulled out a seat for Sally. Thankfully, the nearest table, complete with a happy couple, was two metres away. By then, people were quite openly watching us and no one was looking very happy. Sally, though, was oblivious. She adjusted her chair, and smiling from ear to ear, plonked her bag in the middle of the table and began inspecting the cutlery. Me: (walking over to the waitress)“Hi, Akari.1 Hey, I just found Sally here on the beach. She’s not in a good way, poor thing. She needs some good food. Um, bacon, eggs, spinach... stuff like that... can you fix something?” We walked over to Sally. Akari had pen and paper in hand, ready to write. Me: “Sally, this is Akari. She works here. She’s going to get us some breakfast. What would you like? 1 This is her real name. Used with permission.

...bacon? eggs?...coffee?” Sally: (gleefully) “Yes, please!” Me: (to Akari and under my breath). “Ok, can you get her the works, please. I’ll just have a coffee.” Akari took the order and headed towards the kitchen. I sat with Sally and asked her lots of questions. She had no family, she said, apart from a sister who lived five hours’ drive away and whom she had not seen in more than five years. Me: “Do you get on with her okay?” Sally: “I guess so….it’s been a long time.” An idea started forming in my head. Me: “Would you like to see her if I could get you there?” Sally: (lighting up) “Oh, yes…” Me: “Okay. How about I get you some bus tickets today. You could be with your sister this evening.” Sally agreed, somewhat dazed. Then the breakfast arrived. Her eyes widened and she almost glared at the food. Quick as a flash, she picked up a long rasher of bacon, threw her head back and opened her mouth wide. I watched this in amazement, not daring to look around to see who was watching. She did with bacon what sword swallowers do with knives. Very impressive – and quite amusing. Unfortunately the others in the cafe did not see the funny side. Oh well. Me: (feeling like her father telling her off, but doing so under my breath) “Hey, Sally, here’s a knife and fork.” 27

She thanked me, and as I sat there the crazy idea in the back of my mind began to expand. Me: “Sally, how about I go home and see what time the buses are running today to New Plymouth.2 I’ll come back and get you in about 15 minutes.” I told Akari what I was doing and asked her to look after Sally. She agreed, and I ran back to my house. One of my friends at the time was Rosalind, a woman in her fifties. I told her quickly what had happened and asked her if she could give some of her clothes to Sally, adding that Sally would be arriving soon! Rosalind agreed without hesitation and started sorting out some clothes while I telephoned the bus company. There was a bus leaving at noon for New Plymouth. I rushed back down to the café to find Sally had eaten only a third of what was on her plate. She was full, dear thing, as her stomach had shrunk. We then hopped in my car (after I’d put a towel on the seat) and headed for my house. Rosalind came out and greeted Sally with a big hug and ushered her towards the bathroom. The new set of clothes were all laid out and ready. They were a similar size – praise God! Sally hopped in the shower—and promptly threw up her breakfast, which must have been too rich for her stomach. After what seemed like forever, the door handle rattled and out she came, looking a million dollars (well, compared to 15 minutes ago anyway). Her hair, still dripping, remained terribly knotted and sticking up, but she was smiling and happy. Roz hugged her and I took a photo. We headed outside on to the deck for a coffee, where Sally lit a smoke and 2 New Plymouth is a city in New Zealand where her sister lives.

thanked us. I wanted to share the gospel with her, but sensed she was too hyped up and would have had difficulty concentrating. It was late morning by this stage, and so we packed up and headed for the bus station, a 20-minute drive away. On the way, we asked Sally if we could put all her old clothes in the rubbish bin. She agreed. We also asked lots of questions about what might happen at the other end of her journey, making sure she knew how to contact her sister and how to get to her house. Sally was certain she knew where her sister lived and that she could find her way. She couldn’t remember her sister’s address though, nor her married name, and so I phoned a friend of mine in New Plymouth, Mark. While Sally listened eagerly, I told Mark about her and asked him to pick her up. Mark runs a halfway house in New Plymouth and so I knew he would be comfortable with Sally and she with him. By the time we arrived at the bus station and got in line to buy tickets, Sally was buoyant. Just as we got to the front of the queue, she shouted in a loud voice to the man doing the ticketing. Sally: (oblivious to everyone else and with a big smile on her face) “#*&%! Hey, mate, you look just like Elvis!” Everyone laughed. Sally laughed, too, and then turned to me and asked if she could buy some cigarettes. I gave her some money and she ran next door to a nearby shop. While she was gone, I explained the whole story to the bus driver, who was leaning up against a wall nearby, watching and listening. I gave him some money so he could buy her some food on the way. 29

He said he was happy to keep an eye on her. I was amazed at how much people seemed to want to help her. It was as if we were all working as a team, Christian and non-Christian, as if everyone knew what was happening. God at work? Anyway, tickets and cigarettes in hand, we walked over to where the bus was waiting. I prayed with Sally on the footpath and then she hopped on and the bus pulled out of the station. She waved meekly from the window, and I felt a mixture of sadness and relief. That evening I phoned Mark. The good news was that he had picked her up. The bad news was that she had caused havoc on the bus, moving around a lot, pulling on the cord to stop the bus, and trying to steal from other passengers. It had been a very long five hours for everyone on that bus, and the driver was frazzled. Mark was now on edge. He was going to sleep with one eye open. The next morning, when he awoke, Sally was gone. Nothing was missing. But he never heard from her again. Nor did I. And that was Sally. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dear Lord Jesus, help Sally and look out for her. She is your child, made in your image. Please restore her and heal her. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let her die without having a family and being loved deeply.â&#x20AC;?

Chapter Twenty One

Climb on board! 4 Reasons why Doing Evangelism Will Help Create A Better World!

e’ve discovered in this Chapter Series that evangelism has all but collasped in the West. Now we will look at the fall-out. Disobedience, you see, always has fall-out. Between 1000 and 700BC, for example, Israel and Judah neglected virtually all of the commands of God, and the negative consequences of their disobedience eventually crashed in on them like a tidal wave. Both nations ended up being exiled and taken into captivity. The consequences of not proclaiming the gospel are now showing in the non-Christian world. We looked at some of the consequences in Chapter One. In this Chapter we shall look at others.

ne competition you do not want to win…

Let’s take my home country, New Zealand, for starters. If we were to hold an Olympic games right now for negative social indicators, New Zealand would win the gold medal in almost every event. We have record-high rates in teen suicide, abortion, teenage alcohol problems, violence in the home and truancy. We are filling new prisons as fast as we build them. Same sex marriage is now accepted as normal.

vangelism is a major instrument of social change…

Is there a link between the social decline we are seeing and 2

the Church’s failure to evangelise? Dr John Stott is a man well qualified to answer such a question. He says “yes.” The gospel changes people, he says, and people change society: “We have seen that society needs salt [preservation] and light [reformation], but only the gospel can create them. This is one way which we may declare without embarrassment that evangelism takes primacy over social action. Logically speaking, Christian social responsibility presupposes socially-responsible Christians, and it is the gospel which produces them.” REASON 1: EVANGEISM PRODUCES AN ANTISEPTIC EFFECT IN SOCIETY. He goes on to say that when the gospel is faithfully and widely preached, it brings not only renewal to individuals, but produces in society what has been termed an ‘antiseptic atmosphere’ – “in which blasphemy, selfishness, greed, dishonesty, immorality, cruelty, and injustice find it harder to flourish. A country which has been permeated by the gospel is not the soil in which these poisonous weeds can take root, let alone luxuriate.”1 But this is not all. John 16:8 says “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” Even when the person hearing the gospel is not saved, John 16:8 would teach that they will be convicted of sin, of the need for God’s righteousness, and of the coming day of Judgement. Surely, under this conviction, the temptation to sin would be restrained? So evangelism has the effect of restraining sin in a socieity. And a society which experiences less sin is better, happier, healthier in every way. But unless sin, righteousness, and judgement is preached via the gospel, society will not experience this cleansing effect.

ow oysters can speak…

In probing the causes of a disintegrating society, Charles

Dr John Stott, Issues facing Christians Today. Marshall Pickering, 1984, pp.69-70

Colson, former White House aide and Founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, gives the analogy of an oyster. “Oysters make their own shells, so if the shell is badly formed, the problem is not with the shell but with the oyster. Likewise, when a culture deforms and decays, don’t ask what went wrong with the culture; ask what went wrong with the cult – the religious core.”2 What’s wrong with our “religious core” is that we have stopped proclaiming the gospel, with the result that fewer people are being genuinely saved. According to church consultant Lyle Schaller, as much as 85 percent of ‘church growth’ is actually transfer growth.3 If there are fewer saved people, the salt in a society reduces to ineffectual levels and the Christian light becomes dim. Once the salt is gone the rot sets in, and when the light goes out, darkness abounds. If we want to change a nation we must change the men and women in that nation, and to do that we must change their hearts. But changed hearts come only as a result of hearing, understanding and responding to the gospel. This is one reason why churches who are determined to win the world through social action alone will, ultimately and biblically, fail miserably. In the grand scheme of God’s design, social action and the other ‘ploughing’ behaviours I mentioned in Chapter Eleven are meant to soften the soil of the human heart getting it ready for the seed of the gospel. ‘Ploughing’ behaviours were never meant to (and should never) replace evangelism. REASON 2: EVANGELISM DEEPENS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND CHRIST 2

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? Tyndale Publishers, 1999, p.37

3 Smith, F., Sr. (1998). The Pastor’s Soul Volume 5: Leading With Integrity (96). Pub Place: Bethany House Books.

Furthermore, evangelism doesn’t just create salt and light in society. It also increases both in the lives of existing Christians. How does this work? Doing evangelism has at least six positive spin offs for the Christians who participate. • Bible study: Christians who evangelise have to dig into their bibles for answers to all the questions non-Christians are asking. This forces bible study and apologetics research. • Prayer: Christians who evangelise receive an infusion of divine compassion for the lost person when they give the gospel. This stimulates prayer for those they are reaching. • Experiencing God personally: Christians who evangelise experience the power and presence of God tangibly as they step out in faith, taking risks to open their mouths and share the gospel. The connection between evangelism and finding life in Christ is clear (John 14:21; Mark 8:35). • Walk the talk: Christians who evangelise have to “up their game” when it comes to their lifestyle and conduct. Now that they have put themselves “out there” with their faith through proclamation, they have to be very careful to make sure their walk matches their talk. • Unity and blessing: Christians who evangelise have a strong sense of being united for a cause, similar to the unifying effect of being in an army or a sports team. Psychologists affirm that it’s only when an army is actually in the battle, the sports team is actually playing the game, that true camaraderie is forged. When we do evangelism, the blessed sense of unity between those who are doing it comes (Psalm 133). • Deepened relationship with other Christians: Christians who evangelise will deepen relational ties with each other because when they evangelise, the Holy Spirit is released in them. When this happens, they are more likely to be real, honest, and transparent with each other - all essential components for inner 5

healing, growing, and the development of healthy churches. Please think this through. If doing evangelism creates more fruitful Christians, then these people in turn will more likely positively impact society for its good. For this reason alone, evangelism has always meant to take centre stage in the life of every believer. And here’s the thing - 98% of believers in the West have never done evangelism so they have no first hand experience of how engaging in this behaviour can create salt and light in their lives. They don’t know what they don’t know. REASON 3: IT LEADS TO A DEEP EXPERIENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. On the issue of evangelism blessing Christians who do it, and those who hear the gospel, world-renowned missiologist Dr George W.Peters writes: “A church that does not recognize the primacy of its mission [i.e. the evangelisation of the world] deprives herself of the most intimate relationship with her Lord, fails to identify herself with the primary purpose of God, robs her membership of the deepest experiences of the Holy Spirit, and denies the world the greatest blessings the Lord in Grace has provided. She ceases to be a truly Christian Church.”4 Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) the great missionary to China, would agree with Peters. Taylor was emphatic - the Church would be truly blessed without measure if it began to evangelise. And such a Church would in turn be a wonderful blessing to society. “If as an act of obedience we were to determine that every district, every town, every village, every hamlet in this land should hear the gospel, and that speedily, and were to set about doing it, I believe the Spirit would come down in such mighty power that we would find supplies springing up we know not how. We should find 4

George W. Peters. A Biblical Theology of Missions. Moody Press, 1984, p.350

the fire spreading from missionary to flock, and our native fellow workers and the whole Church of God would be blessed. God gives his Holy Spirit to them that obey.”5

Once again, please think this through. A Church moving powerfully in the power of the Holy Spirit will certainly bless society to a much greater degree than one which is not! For as long as I have been a Christian (36 years), the Church through prayer, holiness, miracles, fasting, worship, and social action has been crying out for revival and an outpouring of the Spirit. Yet, God has not honoured our efforts with revival. Why? He is waiting for our obedience in the Great Commission i.e. evangelism.

o evangelism and help create loving people…

REASON 4: EVANGELISM PROVIDES PEOPLE WITH THE POWER TO LOVE EACH OTHER. Are Stott and Colson a minority when they talk about how goodness in society is preserved and salt and light created through evangelism? Far from it. Billy Graham believes wholeheartedly that evangelism is a major instrument of social change. He said, “I am convinced that if the Church went back to its main task of preaching the gospel and getting people converted to Christ, it would have a far greater impact on the social, moral and psychological needs of people than any other thing could possibly do. Some of the greatest social movements of history have come about as the result of people being converted to Christ. For example, the conversion of Wilberforce led to the freeing of the slaves, the conversion of William Booth led to the founding of the Salvation Army, and the conversion of Keir Hardie led to the founding of the British Labour Party. Scores 5

Cited in: Rose Dowsett. The Great Commission. Monarch books, 2001, p.120

of current and up-to-date illustrations could be used. We have made the mistake of putting the cart before the horse. We are exhorting men to love each other before they have the capacity to love each other. This capacity can only come through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”6 Then there is Dr Donald McGavran, founding Dean of Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary: “When the population of the world has become more Christian, it will hear Almighty God’s command to treat other men fairly and to obey that command more faithfully. It is useless to expect that non-Christians will be as interested as Christians in treating all men as God’s children. If we want mercy, justice, and righteousness to spread throughout the earth, we can take no more effective action than to multiply congregations of the redeemed in every segment of society. No one will act more justly towards his or her fellows than those who live in Christ, and whose lives are guided by the Holy Spirit.”7 It is clear: moral and spiritual decline follows when the Church stops evangelising. To see a nation deteriorate, just arrange for the Church to be silent about the gospel. Build a stay-at-home-introspective-onlylook-after-Christians-social-action-only-orientated Church. Be committed to praying for the un-churched, singing about them, doing studies about them, having conferences about them and analysing them, feeding them and clothing them, but never ever actually engaging them with the words of the gospel. As Dr Stott comments: “It remains questionable whether a stay-at-home church – disobedient to the Great Commission, and indifferent to the needs 6 Dr Billy Graham. One Race, One Gospel, One Task. World Congress on Evangelism. World Wide Publications, 1967, p.28 7 Dr Donald A McGavran. Effective Evangelism: A Theological Mandate. Presbyterian Reform Publishing, 1988, p.103

of the nations – is in any position to claim or inherit the fulness of Christ’s promised blessings.”8 At this point, please take a break from reading this Chapter, and read Appendix One in Chapter Twenty Five. It’s a remarkable account from Dr K.P. Yohannan, a missionary among the poorest of the poor in Asia. From many years of first hand experience, he explains how proclaiming the gospel blesses the poor.

o evangelism and uncover a potential William Booth…

I was on a plane going from one city to another, sitting next to a 59-year-old businessman. I took him through the full gospel, and at the end of the presentation asked the critical question: “If you died tonight, where would you go?” He thought about it for a few seconds and then replied: “Heaven.” When asked “Why?” he said, “Because when I was a boy, I can remember being taught by my Bible teacher that Jesus wants all people in heaven. And being God, I am sure He will get what He wants.” He told me that in the years between boyhood and the present he had never gone to church on Sundays, never read a Bible, never given Jesus so much as a thought. Yet because of what the Bible teacher had told him as a child, he was convinced he was a Christian. His Bible teacher had not explained the whole gospel. What’s the point of this story? Having heard and understood the gospel, the Holy Spirit will go to work to bring him to faith.9 And when he is saved, he will become part of an army of salt and light in society, an instrument in the hands of God to fight its decay and degradation. And God used the gospel to do it. 8 John Stott, One Race. One Gospel. One Task. World Congress on Evangelism, World Wide Publications, 1967, p.44 9

See Chapter Thirteen for details of how God does this.

On another flight, about ten days later, I was again sitting next to a businessman. He was older, but as sharp as a tack. I got to the end of the presentation of the gospel and asked him, “If you died tonight, where would you go?” “Heaven,” he replied. When asked “Why?” he said, “Because I was taught as a youngster that God died for the sins of the whole world. We are all Christians, aren’t we?” These two stories illustrate how dangerous it is to proclaim only bits of the gospel in our churches and never give regular, powerful, complete, ‘all-at-one-time’ presentations of it.10 All these two men had to go on was a fragment of the truth about Jesus – heard in childhood. A little knowledge can be dangerous and deceiving. How tragic it would have been if they had gone to their death not hearing the truth. And what if they were another William Booth or Wilberforce in waiting and they miss their opportunity to be a great force for good in this life because we didn’t go to them with the gospel? Think about this. Every great Christian in history who has made a huge contribution to the betterment of society in their lifetime came to Christ through someone, somewhere giving them the gospel.

Tsunami of salt and light going to waste…

The two accounts of the men on planes are not isolated cases. Millions of people are living like them in spiritual-delusion. Together these millions represent a potential Tsunami of salt and light which could flood the world with God’s preservation and reformation power, but only if they are redeemed and thus changed on the inside.

o evangelism and create an army of salt and light…

The enemy seems to have prevented Christians from

10 Please visit www.esisite.com.

examining important statistics about spiritual deception. If they don’t see these statistics, they will not perceive the extent of the fall-out from neglecting the proclamation of the gospel. What are these statistics? Well, in the 1996 New Zealand census, 59 percent of the population of four million (i.e. 2.3 million people) said they were Christians or affiliated with a Christian church. Yet in the same census, only one Kiwi in ten (i.e. 390,000 people) indicated they attended church at least once a month. Let’s assume all these churchgoers are genuine believers.11 The question we have to ask, then is, “Where are the other 49 percent (i.e. nearly 2 million people) on Sunday?”12 There are a number of possible explanations: 1 Some could be sick or elderly or live in remote geographical locations. 2 Others could have had a bad church experience and are having a temporary break from attending services on Sunday. 3 Others could be genuinely Christian but their community of faith meets regularly in a home rather than a church building. 4 Some could have ticked “Christian” on the census form but have since left New Zealand. Another possibility – and the more likely scenario – is that most of the people who say they are Christians but do not attend any form of church regularly are not Christians at all. If this is the case, we now have a large percentage of the population who are totally deceived. These people are a potential army of salt and light going to waste.

lassrooms full of salt and light...

I was speaking recently to a group of British high school students – young people from about thirteen to seventeen. 11 We know that not everyone who goes to church is saved. At least, in America they’re not. According to research, half of all people who attend protestant churches in America are not Christians. See George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, p.38 12 We are presuming here, of course, that attending a local church regularly is a strong indicator of saving faith.

When the students entered the classroom for the lesson we had prepared, the first thing they saw was this sentence on the screen “Some Good People Don’t Go To Heaven.” Many looked confused, and some of them began to discuss it spontaneously. We then introduced ourselves and the lesson began. We asked the students, “What do you think?” “Some Good People Don’t Go To Heaven.” “Is there anything you don’t agree with about that?” I asked them. “I don’t agree with it,” someone said quickly. “I think if you are good you should go to heaven.” This was the start we wanted – and which we anticipated. I show this presentation in high schools a lot – and the same thing happens almost invariably. “Okay, so you think that if you are a good person, you should go to heaven?”13 I asked them. Smiling, the class agreed unanimously. “So no axe murderers?” I asked. “Serial killers, Hitler and people like that?” “No, definitely not!” someone said affirmingly, and everyone quickly agreed. “So there are some people who are not good?” I continued. “Is that what you are saying?” “Yes!” shouted the class. “Well, how good do you have to be to get into heaven?” I asked. “And how bad do you have to be to be shut out?” I invited them to play God for the next 20 minutes, and to decide the criteria for entry to heaven and the criteria for exclusion. I went to the white board and divided it into two. 13 What I found interesting was that young people almost without exception accepted without question that heaven and hell existed.

On one side I wrote, “Things that qualify us for heaven.” On the other side I wrote, “Things that disqualify us from heaven.” “Okay, let’s start with the things that qualify someone for heaven,” I said. “Who’d like to start? What do you have to do to get into heaven?” “You have to be good!” shouted one person. “Okay,” I replied. “How good?” Many hands shot up enthusiastically. “You have to do good things for other people!” said one. “What do you mean by ‘good things’?” I probed. Several answers came at me all at once. “Going to church, helping your parents, saving an animal, saying prayers…” “Hmmm,” I said. “And how often do you have to do these good things…once a day? once a week? once a month?” “Once a day!” someone shouted. “No!” someone else disagreed. “We must do good things in every situation!” Spontaneous discussion followed. “But are some things better than others?” I asked them. “Surely something like saving someone’s life is worth more than passing your little brother the butter at breakfast…?” More animated discussion. “Let’s say we live for 75 years and there are 365 days in the year.” I said. “That’s 27,375 days, right?” The class agreed. “Okay,” I went on. “Let’s agree that we have to do one good thing a day to get into heaven. Can we all agree on this? Let’s forget about weighing the good things for a minute because that is going to get too complicated…” 13

he class looked very relieved that they didn’t have to weigh all T the good things people did and decide which ones were worth more than others. “Yes!” they chorused. “Being God isn’t so easy, is it?” I commented. “Okay, here’s another question. Do we start counting the good things a person does from the moment he or she is born?” The class looked confused. “No, not until someone is five” suggested someone. “All right,” I said. “Let’s say we start counting from age five. Now we are looking at a new sum – 70 times 365 = 25,550 days. What happens if you miss a day? What then?” The class looked even more confused. “Ah… forgive them,” said one person. “How many times would you have to forgive before you reach the cut-off point?” I asked. There were baffled looks and a long silence as they thought furiously. “I can see we’re not doing too well as God here,” I said. “Let’s move on. So far on the ‘Things that qualify us for heaven’ side of the board we only have ‘Do good things for other people.’ What else could we put up on this side of the board?” “Prayers,” suggested someone. “How many? How often? Do they need to be sincere? What is a sincere prayer?” “It needs to come from the heart?” said one girl. “But what happens if it doesn’t come from the heart? Does it still count? What happens if it’s a selfish prayer? Is that a bad thing, and if so should we put it on the other side of the board with the things that disqualify us from heaven?” The class looked perplexed, and a heated debate followed. “Let’s move on,” I said again. 14

“What other things qualify us to get into heaven?” “Going to church!” was suggested next. “How often?” I asked. “What happens if you miss a Sunday? Would you need a note? A doctor’s certificate? Could you make it up by going twice on another Sunday?” More debate followed as we proceeded to list five or six key behaviours on one side of the board. The class was not finding it easy to play God at all! “Let’s go quickly to the other side of the white board,” I said. “Is there anything a person could do that would definitely disqualify them from heaven? I mean, something that if they did it they would absolutely never make it!” “Murder!” (This was always the first suggestion in every class) “Rape!” shouted another person. “Serial killing!” shouted another. I wrote all these responses on the board. Then I went through three of the ten commandments with them and to their horror, they discovered they were all theiving, lying, murderers. “Do you want to know how to be forgiven? “Yes!” they said enthusiastically. We proceeded to watch the gospel on video which you can see at www.biblein11.com. At the end, virtually the whole class wanted to come to Christ. We couldn’t formalise this because of school protocol but were able to give everyone the booklet “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die” which showed them they could do this in their own time outside of school. Repeat this discussion in virtually any classroom with a similar age group, and you’d see the same result. What really excites me is the thought of these students converting to Christ, entering university, and then going on to take up signficant 15

positions in society, being salt and light in their jobs and homes and neighbourhoods, and creating the same wherever they go through doing evangelism.

o evangelism and prevent a spiritual holocaust….

In World War II the Nazis rounded up many Jews and herded them into cattle wagons and trains. They were headed for camps where they were told they would be stripped, showered and given camp clothes. This they did, but when the showers were turned on it was not water that came out of the nozzle but poisonous gas. The people had been deceived. Commentators use an ancient Hebrew word to describe the enormity of the devastation that occurred in those camps: Holocaust. The Oxford English dictionary defines holocaust as “the destruction of a large number of persons; a great slaughter or massacre.”14 The Nazi holocaust has always disturbed me greatly. I would wince every time I heard about it. Then one day it dawned on me that a spiritual holocaust was happening right before my eyes. It was designed by the enemy and happening today, across the Western world. Millions of non-Christians sincerely believe that when they die they are going to heaven, simply because they consider themselves to be good people.

e Christians and our churches, music, billboards, literature, TV, and radio are everywhere, but nonChristians are just not getting it…

In the time it has taken you to read this Chapter, many people in your country will have died. Some in car accidents, some from disease, some through crime, others from old age. Many of them – 14 The Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. X, H-K, p.344 Definition C.

like the 49 percent of New Zealanders in the census – thought they were going to heaven. Right now they are suffering in hell. First, they died never having heard about the amazing grace of Jesus through the gospel. Not even once. How do we know this? We know it from the research quoted at the beginning of this book. Second, they also missed the chance to be God’s salt and light as they passed through this world. Many of them could have made a huge contribution to a better society by advancing God’s cause. They could then have been numbered among the people in history through whom God has worked to bless society. Below are just twenty. I have categorised their contribution: HOSE WHO BLESSED SOCIETY BY CHAMPIONING THE IDEA THAT HUMAN BEINGS WERE OF SUPREME VALUE. 1. Justinian (483-565) Byzantine emperor who had his jurists prepare the Justinian Code, which clearly condemned abortion and infanticide as illegal. 2. George Mueller (1805-98) Born in Prussia. Mueller was an evangelist who established orphanages in Bristol, England after a cholera epidemic. For the next 60 years, he cared for more than 10,000 orphaned and abandoned children. 3. Eric Liddell (1902-1945) Scottish athlete and Christian popularized by the movie “Chariots of Fire”. Born in China to missionary parents, Liddell returned to China after winning an Olympic gold medal in 1924. He taught in an Anglo-Chinese school and died in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. 4. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) Baptist minister who spoke in support of fair and equal treatment for African Americans in the United States during the 1960’s. He was

awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. HOSE WHO BLESSED SOCIETY BY CONTRIBUTING TO FREEDOM, SOCIAL REFORM AND EDUCATION. William Wilberforce (1759-1833) Christian abolitionist who also served as a member of England’s House of Commons. Wilberforce campaigned tirelessly for the abolition of slavery beginning in 1789. Forty-four years later, just before his death, he learned that Parliament passed the Abolition Act, by which 700,000 slaves were set free. Wilberforce’s efforts were chronicled in the film, “Amazing Grace.” William Penn (1644-1718) a Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania, “treated the Indians with Christian charity and justice”. Penn called Pennsylvania “the Holy Experiment” living at peace with the Native Americans in the area. Boethius (480-525) As a Roman nobleman, Boethius was one of the best educated men of his time. His mathematics were used in early universities and his life goal was to translate all of the Greek philosophy and classic literature into Latin. He wrote thousands of documents, including his Consolations of Philosophy, which would become the most read book of the Middle Ages. Robert Raikes (1736-1811) Remembered as the founder of the Sunday School movement, Raikes, of Gloucester, England, sought to provide Christian education for poor children and children who would not otherwise receive a biblical education. HOSE WHO BLESSED SOCIETY BY CONTRIBUTING TO SCIENCE AND MEDICINE. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) Polish astronomer who proposed the heliocentric model (planets revolving around the sun). Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) German astronomer and accomplished scientist who coined the phrase, “Thinking God’s thoughts after him”. Kepler’s Astonomia Nova (The New

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Astronomy, 1609) presents two key laws of astronomy – the elliptical orbit of planets and the law that planets do not move at a uniform speed. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist and mathematician whose many accomplishments include the discovery of the law of gravity and the invention of calculus. George Washington Carver (1864-1943) An African-American chemist (his parents were slaves) was awarded the Roosevelt Medal in 1939 for his research on peanuts and sweet potatoes. The medal read, in part, “To a scientist humbly seeking the guidance of God…” HOSE WHO BLESSED SOCIETY BY CONTRIBUTING TO THE ARTS. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) A dedicated Christian who contributed much to the world of music. Bach, a prolific composer, wrote sacred music, dedicating his efforts to the glory of God. His mastery of musical counterpoint remains admired and imitated today. Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian Renaissance artist is remembered for his many biblically inspired works of art, including the sculpture of David, his painting of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and “The Last Judgment”. Michelangelo “believed that spiritual value could be found in all natural beauty.” George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) German born composer, wrote the admired oratorio “Messiah” in a matter of weeks. Handel offered genuine innovations to musical form with his unique uses of the chorus. The “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah is perhaps his best known work. Rembrandt (1606-1669) Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was one of the world’s greatest painters and is known for his many biblical works including “Return of the Prodigal Son”.

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HOSE WHO BLESSED SOCIETY BY CONTRIBUTING TO LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 1. John Milton (1608-1674) was a Puritan who penned “Paradise Lost” which recounts the Fall of Man and is considered a masterpiece of epic English literature. 2. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Stowe’s vivid portrayal of slavery in her classic book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” later caused Abraham Lincoln to remark, “So this is the little lady who caused the great war.” 3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) Russian author and historian as well as recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in literature. He wrote about the Soviet labor camps (the Gulag) and was later exiled from Russia. 4. J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, two 20th century English writers who penned some of the most popular works of fantasy in print; Tolkien “The Lord of the Rings” and Lewis “The Chronicles of Narnia.” These are just twenty people through whom God worked to bless society. There are thousands more. The point I am making is this think of all the non-Christians in our generation who are going through life. If they heard the gospel and were saved, some of them could make an equal or even greater contribution to society than the twenty people I have just cited in this Chapter. But if they go to their death beds unsaved, we’ll never know what might have been! Can you see what I am saying? How could they possibly have missed walking through this life with God, making a contribution to a better world, and bringing Him great glory in the process? It happened because great darkness has tempted us to stop evangelising and we’ve fallen for it.

ummary

• God works through the Christian Church in the world to inhibit moral and spiritual deterioration (salt) and to advance His goodness and glory (light). • Salt and light are created when people hear the gospel and are saved. • God has appointed the gospel message as his tool of choice to effect the salvation of the lost (Romans 1:16; Mark 4:26-29). • God works through saved people to bless society and advance His Kingdom. • Saved people preserve their saltiness and shine brighter when they engage in evangelism. • These are yet more reasons why Jesus’ mission to evangelise the world ought to be central to the life of the Church and the life of every believer. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. • CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. In the next Chapter, I detail how the creation of pseudoconversions has contributed to the decline of evangelism in the West and how the enemy has orchestrated this. The issues I raise in the next Chapter effect every Christian and

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every church. If we can deal with these, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll become part of the solution, helping to cause a Great Commission resurgence around the world. Are you ready?

Real Life Story should Christians pick up hitch hikers (part two) Anonymous

I went to visit my aged Mum (88) for Christmas. This is a two hour drive from where I live. On the way there, I rounded a bend and there in front of me was a man coming out from the deep bush which lined the road. As soon as his feet hit the road, his thumb went out. It was 7 am. After a positive experience picking up a hitch hiker a few days ago, I immediately pulled over for this man too. Let’s call him Mike. Wow! What an interesting story he had to tell! He was 32 and European. He had spent the night sleeping in the bush, warming himself around an open fire. Making a bed for himself out of fern leaves, his pillow had been his tiny bag. His only clothing was what he had on him, which amounted to jeans, tee shirt, sweat top, shoes and socks. No sleeping bag or blanket for him. I asked him if he’d been cold overnight, and he said ‘a little’. 23

Overall, he said, it was a beautiful experience: shooting stars, only the sound of the crackling fire, and the unique smell of virgin bush. He was headed to a holiday resort in the far north of New Zealand for the new year, en route from his home town which is two hours drive from where I picked him up. Mike had a seven year old son called Andrew. For the first five years of his life, Andrew had lived with his mother. Year five was a bad one. Mum got into drugs, particularly P, which led to depression. During year five, she turned up at Mike’s door, with Andrew, saying she couldn’t cope looking after Andrew any more. So, now Andrew was living with Mike. To look after him properly, Mike left his job, and started receiving a benefit from the government. He’s lived like this for the past two years. He and Andrew, he told me, had become very close. Over the new year period, Andrew’s Mum had agreed to look after him, allowing Mike some ‘time out’. Now this is where it get’s interesting. About an hour after pick up, I turned the conversation around the spiritual things, and showed Mike the gospel presentation on my iphone that you can see at www.biblein11.com. I was able to plug the iphone into the car’s stereo system, so the sound was like a movie theatre! As he watched it, I did the usual thing, which was to stop it after the section on the Law. I asked him three questions, and he admitted he was a thieving, lying, murderer, as I was. I then explained how 24

he could be forgiven. After the explanation, Mike watched the second half of the gospel presentation on my iphone. In effect he was now watching on video what I had just explained verbally. At the end I asked him where he would go if he died tonight. He said hell, and this disturbed him - so he said. He then asked me how to turn and surrender, which are the conditions for forgiveness. I explained these to him so that he understood what it meant to be a Christian. At the end of my explanation, I asked him if he wanted to turn and surrender right now. He said yes, so I led him through a prayer of forgiveness. I prayed, and he imitated what I prayed. At the end of the prayer, he gave me a beaming smile, and we shook hands. I gave him the follow up booklet How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die’ pointing out the web address www. biblein11.com at the back, the genuineness test on page 26, and ‘what he must do now’. To read this booklet, please visit www. esisite.com. Then Mike said some more interesting things. When he left his home yesterday, he told his Mum and sisters he was going “up north” to do some soul searching. Seriously, this is what he’d told them! He then told me another side to what he’d been thinking in the bush overnight. He told me he’d asked himself “What the #@$% am I doing! I have no money, I am sleeping in the bush around a camp fire, 25

I am cold and hungry, I am separated from my partner, I have a seven year old son, and I have no car or money, and I am living on a benefit. What the #@$% am I doing! I am going no where in life.” He then expanded on his money situation. “Payday” from the government was Thursday. This encounter was happening on Monday. I asked Mike what he planned to do for meals and accommodation between now and Thursday. His answer? “I have no idea”. His last meal was lunch time on Sunday. He was now very hungry. He also told me that during his 32 years on earth he’d ofter asked the question “what is life all about?’”and various variations of this question such as “what’s the point of being born?” Until today, he’d never thought about heaven or hell, or what happened after death. The gospel ignited these realities into life. What’s really interesting is that he went to St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton for five years, an Anglican school. Here he’d sung hymns and listened to the bible being read regularly in chapel times, but it meant absolutely nothing to him because he couldn’t understand it. My experience of talking with teenagers who have been to denominational schools is that “the religious program” in these schools has often unwittingly inoculated them against Christianity. Far too many leave school thinking Christianity is incomprehensible and therefore irrelevant. This is a tragedy without parallel. 26

For Mike, 5 years in a religious school did not light his spiritual candle. The bible in 11 minutes video did. This is a crucial point for all of us who are in the business of communicating Biblical truth (e.g. denominational schools, Christian schools, pastors with their sermons on Sundays, youth group leaders etc etc), not just those engaging in evangelism. In Matthew 13, in the Parable of the Seed and the Soil, the abundant fruit came from the person who heard the word and understood it! I can’t emphasise the importance of this strongly enough. It’s crucial we communicate the gospel (indeed all biblical truth) succinctly, logically, accurately, and meaningfully. This is why I am such a big proponent of the gospel presentation at www.biblein11.com. A big reason why nonChristians don’t respond to many of our gospel messages is that they don’t understand them! It took literally years to write the script for www.biblein11.com. The research and study which was required to decide the content was enormous. The testing on non-Christians was endless. There was no point in producing a presentation which was biblically accurate if it didn’t capture and hold the attention of nonChristians. Likewise, there was no point in producing a presentation which captured and held the attention of non-Christians if it wasn’t biblically accurate. Both considerations are crucial. 27

It’s not enough to spout bible verses at people. It is crucial to package our message in terms and ways non-Christians can understand. When we arrived at the town where my Mum lived, we stopped at a cafe and enjoyed a “big kiwi breakfast together.” Among Christian friends, I would have said that in buying a meal for him, I was “watering” the gospel just planted. I got such joy from doing this. I had “ploughed” the spiritual soil in Mike’s heart by learning about his life in the first hour of our journey, just listening and taking an interest. Then I planted the seed of the gospel and harvested. So, there’s the whole process: ploughing, sowing, watering, harvesting and discipling. The discipleship started with the follow up booklet. He said there were churches in Raglan and he would connect with one. When I finally did drop him off on the side of the road, I also gave him $20, with the proviso he didn’t use it to buy cigarettes. It was an incredibly life giving and rich morning for me and for Mike, making the festivities and pomp of Christmas pale into insignificance. The cost to me personally? $15 for his breakfast, and $20= $35. This is absolutely nothing compared to what Christ did for me. And you know what? It was by far and away the best experience of the day. 28

Julian’s comments.

So, should Christians pick up hitchhikers? You know the answer. What are the lessons here? (1) Without taking risks (e.g. picking up hitch hikers) for the sake of evangelism, the Christian life will soon become meaningless. (2) God is sovereignly at work in the lives on non-Christians. Mike was ‘soul searching’ and God used me to pick him up. If I’d been thirty seconds earlier on a two hour trip, I’d have missed him. All we need to do it join in, and find out what He’s up to! And in doing so, we’ll discover joy unspeakable. (3) Our money, cars, time, resources, belong to the Lord. They are not our own. We are stewards of them for His glory. There is little point in having them if we don’t use them to get involved with non-Christians to further the Great Commission. (4) Meaningfulness is absolutely crucial as we try to communicate Biblical truth with non-Christians.

Chapter Twenty Two

Devastation! How Psuedo Conversions Hinder Evangelism And What You Can Do To Stop The Rot!

piritual giant A.W. Tozer believed that millions of people have had some kind of spiritual experience, even accepting Jesus, but have not actually been saved.1 Similarly, George Barna claims that half of all adults who attend Protestant churches on a typical Sunday morning are not Christians.2 Pseudo converts – people who attend church regularly but who are not truly saved – are contributing to the decline of evangelism in the West. In this Chapter I explain why this is so.

hy some people come to church…

People may join a church to improve or change their lifestyle, or for a new set of friends. They may want to cure loneliness or find a new family. They may want to be accepted, healed from hurts or addictions, and so on. It’s quite legitimate to

1 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically… The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2003, p.66 2 George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal Books, 1995, p.38

join a church (small “c”) for these reasons,3 because often people “connect” before they convert. One of our aims ought to be to bring non-Christians to church to meet other Christians, so that they can observe and sense what God is doing as He works powerfully through His people.

evice 82. To lull leaders into thinking the majority of people in church are already genuine Christians.

The trouble is, according to Barna and Tozer at least, many are connecting to the small “c” church, but not enough are converting to the capital “C” Church which is the body of Christ. These pseudo converts who connect but don’t convert have three standout characteristics: they come not to serve but to be served; they take but don’t give; “self” still rules, not Jesus. Their hearts have never been changed. Jesus is still on the periphery, rather than at the centre of their lives. Since they have not been born again, they are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Thus their minds are not set on Jesus, His kingdom or His purposes. Given that genuine spiritual fruitfulness is inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, how can we expect pseudo converts to enter into God’s ultimate cause – the evangelisation of the earth? Such work is hard, gruelling and humbling (John 4:38).4 It requires selfless giving for His glory.

ow do pseudo converts hinder evangelism…?

First, they discourage the evangelists. One aspect of the mandate of the Ephesians 4:11-12 evangelist is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry,” but pseudo converts show no interest

3 After all, Jesus did say. “Come to Me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). 4 The Greek word here in John 4:38 for “labour” is kenokopeo which means “to grow weary, tired, exhausted with toil or burdens or grief.” This speaks of what it is going to cost every true disciple who desires to evangelise the world.

in being trained for evangelism.5 Secondly, they have a negative influence on genuine Christians. Here’s how: • New converts, who are genuinely saved, join a church. • They have a passion for evangelism. • They don’t realise that not everyone in the church they join is genuinely Christian. • They soon observe that many people in the church they join don’t share their passion for evangelism. • The enthusiasm of the new converts for evangelism continues for a while because their fresh experience of salvation is just so fantastic that they can’t keep quiet about it! • But over time, observing the sea of non-evangelising church goers all around them, even they are worn down. • It’s not long before they start doubting the universal command of Jesus to evangelise the earth. • Next, they stop evangelising altogether.

etting the priceless buzz…

The overall effect of the pseudo converts on evangelism is that they have a significant ‘dulling down’ influence on the entire evangelistic zeal of a local church. Their negative influence is more insidious than you might think. They are evangelism fire exstinguishers! In contrast, the following describes a local church where evangelism is thriving. Imagine arriving at church on Sunday when all the people have been busy evangelising all week. Many have brought non-Christians along, and they are truly alive because they have seen and felt God at work through them as they have evangelised. They are exchanging stories of evangelism encounters, and those 5 T his is not saying that anyone who shows no interest in being trained for evangelism is not genuinely saved. Genuine Christians who show no interest in being equipped for evangelism can do so for a variety of reasons – all the reasons uncovered in this book. For example, they might have genuinely thought they were already doing it; or they might sincerely have thought that it was someone else’s responsibility i.e. the person with ‘the gift.’ But here’s the thing - and this is a crucial distinction - genuine believers will want to learn how to evangelise when they understand the truths of this book whereas the pseudo will not.

who have experienced disappointment are being encouraged. All the prayer people in the church are excited because they are seeing results. The pastor is on fire because the people arrive excited and expectant. No ‘warm up’ period (i.e. singing songs) is necessary– they come red hot. The worship rises to a new level because the people are overflowing with praise and worship from their hearts. The overall ‘buzz’ is priceless. The offerings are generous because nothing causes people to buy into a vision of a local church more than an evangelism strategy that involves them directly and is bearing fruit. These offerings go to fund further evangelism training and resources and vital ‘ploughing’ initiatives. How long do you think pseudo converts would survive in a local church like this? But there is a third way pseudo converts hinder evangelism. Occasionally they slip into church leadership, where they have great influence. Here they do the most damage. Unwittingly they begin to teach their non-evangelising lifestyle to the flock.6 What a perfect result for the enemy. There are several positive steps we can take to decrease the number of psuedo converts in the Church.

liminate superficial altar calls…

We can reduce the number of psuedo converts if we eliminate what I call ‘superficial altar calls.’ Let me explain. When I run seminars on evangelism, I ask those attending to draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On one side, as a heading, 6 This is not saying that everyone who feels fearful about evangelism or perceives it as threatening and demanding is a pseudo convert. Genuine Christians can have these perceptions and feel these fears. The difference is that true Christians feel deeply the need to proclaim the gospel and they want others to feel the same way. If they knew how to overcome their fears and inadequacies towards evangelism, they would. Pseudo converts, however, not having the mind of Christ, nor being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, don’t have a genuine heart for any of this.

I ask them to write Jesus As Saviour. Under this I ask them to list all the benefits of becoming a Christian. Their lists include things such as love, joy, eternal life, the gift of the Holy Spirit, hope, forgiveness, healing, miracles, blessing, and so on. Then I ask them to imagine a ‘saviour-only’ altar call at an evangelistic meeting. The evangelist is at the front and there is a sense of God’s presence. The people are expectant, as the preacher calls for every head to be bowed and every eye closed. He exhorts the Christians to pray. “I know there are people here that once knew the Lord,” he says, “but you have drifted away. God is calling you back. And there are people that have never made a decision for Jesus. God is calling you. If you are a person who has known the Lord and you want to come back or you want to make a decision for the first time, slip up your hand right now. If you want eternal life, forgiveness, hope and joy [or some of the other benefits listed above], then slip your hand up right now. Praise God, I see that hand! And that one! And that one! God is really moving here tonight! Come on saints, keep praying.” After several minutes, the altar call comes to a close. Then: “I want everyone to stand please. Praise God. We’ve had about 20 people put up their hands tonight. Let’s give the Lord a clap offering to thank Him for what He has done! Now, just as the musicians continue to play, I don’t want to embarrass anyone but I want those 20 people to come out to the front. Okay, I want you to say this prayer after me. And let’s all say it together, church. “Dear Jesus, I am sorry for what I have done. I want You to forgive me. Please come into my heart right now and bring your peace and joy. I want to be a Christian. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.” Everybody claps enthusiastically. “Hasn’t this been wonderful?” continues the evangelist. “Now I want all those new Christians to slip out the back and we’ll give you a little follow-up pack. Praise the Lord!” 6

What’s missing in this altar call? There is no mention of the cost of being a disciple or of the need to make Jesus Lord.

ow to tell who is genuinely saved on an altar call…

Please don’t misinterpret what I am saying here. I don’t mean to mock or criticise but this is important. As an evangelist I have given many altar calls like the one I have just described. I don’t do altar calls like that anymore, because now I know better. If you are an evangelist or pastor, and you have been giving altar calls like the one I described above, my earnest desire with the discussion in this Chapter is to increase the effectiveness and fruitfulness of your ministry. Let me ask you a question. Those 20 people all said the same prayer, but which ones were converted? Actually, we don’t know. A little prayer does not save someone. It could, but it depends on what is going on in the heart and we can’t see in there. There are only two ways of knowing whether someone is converted. The first is to look at the pattern of their life post-conversion. A transformed life is evidence that the prayer prayed at that altar call was genuine. For example, Acts 26:20 says “....I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.” The second way is to show people a video of the gospel message which you can see at www.biblein11.com and then ask questions about it. Good questions asked with grace, gentleness and love help us know whether those on the altar call know what they are doing or not. If after watching the video some of the altar call respondents then said they were not ready to become Christians, I would affirm their honesty and then commit to journey with them to bring them to that 7

point. Bringing them to the point of conversion might take days, weeks, months or even years.

hat is genuine faith...?

Some Christians might object to the idea of questioning people at an altar call, or the ‘inquiry room,’ as Spurgeon called it. “This is far too clinical,” they might say. “Becoming a Christian is not mentally assenting to a whole lot of facts. It’s a matter of faith in the heart about Jesus!” What are we to make of this? Is becoming a Christian a head and heart issue, or a heart issue only? The This We Believe signatories7 made the following affirmation: “We affirm that faith includes mental assent to the content of the gospel, acknowledgement of our own sin and need, and personal trust and reliance upon Christ and His work. We deny that saving faith includes only mental acceptance of the gospel, and that justification is secured by a mere outward profession of faith. We further deny that any element of saving faith is a meritorious work or earns salvation for us.”8 Summary: becoming a Christian ought to be a heart and a head issue.

ow to improve the retention rate of those who respond at altar calls…

I have found that since I have been following the procedure I have outlined here with those who respond to the altar call, not telling them they are Christians just because they were ready to say a quick prayer at the altar, the fall-off rate following altar calls has dramatically decreased. At one altar call I did recently, 20 people responded initially, but, after watching the video and discussion, only six were ready to follow through. 7 A landmark conference was held in 2000, and attended by 229 top Christian leaders, authors, and theologians. They produced a series of affirmations and denials regarding the gospel and evangelism. A full list of signatories is detailed in appendix five. 8 R avi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.120

The other fourteen were quite happy to journey with the pastor and church leaders so that one day they too could come to the place where they were ready to commit sincerely to Christ. But here’s the thing: had I told those fourteen people they were Christians, before they were ready, it is likely I would simply have inoculated them against genuine faith. I would have effectively created more pseudo converts. On the subject of ascribing salvation to anyone who puts their hand up at an altar call and announcing they are a Christian, Spurgeon wrote: “I am weary of this public bragging, this counting of unhatched chickens, this exhibition of doubtful spoils. Lay aside such numbering of the people, such idle pretence of certifying in half a minute that which will need the testing of a lifetime.”9

ow to give new Christians the best possible start…

Those who ‘convert’ to Christianity knowing the benefits but not the cost of discipleship, have never heard the full gospel. As such, they are prime candidates for the ranks of the pseudo converts. Too many people have ‘come to Christ’ (falsely) through this kind of altar call. Please don’t misunderstand me. As I have said, I’m not against altar calls. I continue to use them when preaching and encourage others to use them. We have all witnessed how powerfully God has used the altar call. I use the follow-up booklet called ‘How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die’ 10 which has been designed for this very situation. Christianity Explained and Alpha are also excellent courses for prospective Christians. Even if we think they are ready to become Christians at the altar, and some undoubtedly will be, we 9 Charles H. Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1948, P.140 10 To purchase, see our web site www.esisite.com or emailing julianbatchelor@xtra.co.nz

ought to err on the side of caution, giving them time to process the implications of their decision and count the cost. Some may protest, “What happens if they die between the altar call and the time they finally make a decision?” It doesn’t matter.11 God sees the heart. If they really were converted at that altar call, God knew it and they would certainly go to heaven. The thief on the cross didn’t ‘pray a prayer’ but Jesus saved him (Luke 23:3243).

t is okay to “connect” before “converting”…

Sometimes leaders will preach a powerful sermon and give an altar call for salvation at the end, but the gospel has not been communicated. What are we to make of this? First, it’s OK to have an altar call but don’t call it an altar call for salvation. Why? Because the gospel has not been preached. So what are people putting their hand up for? They are feeling something inside. Their emotions have been aroused. It might well be the saving work of the Holy Spirit, but it might not. Don’t forget, feelings like this can be aroused at the opera, at a great sporting event, at a music concert, a play, a movie, or whatever. So what do we do with these ‘feelings’ which people are experiencing in a church service? We put the feeling to the test (1 Thessalonians 5:21). It would be better to say something like, “If God has spoken to you through this message, and you want someone to pray with you, please slip up your hand and someone will come to you.” Those who do the praying need to ask the people why they raised their hand and pray accordingly. Some may have come to commit their lives to Jesus, and some may not. Now here is the point - whatever they come up for, and before anyone tells anyone they are a Christian, ask them if you could 11 I don’t mean it doesn’t matter that they died! I mean that it doesn’t matter that they didn’t ‘say the prayer’ at the altar. The thief on the cross was another who was saved without saying ‘the prayer’.

show them the video presentation12 which explains the gospel. If they agree, show them the video. When they hear and understand the gospel, this is CONCEPTION. If they want to become a Christian after watching it, affirm their desire, but ask them to first take home the follow up booklet (FUB) “How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die.”13 Give them a day or so to read and process it, or however long they want so they understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. During this time, be there for them to answer any questions they have, and be praying for them. This is GESTATION. Later in this Chapter we’ll learn that biblically, repentance is an issue of the head, not just of the heart. This is why gestation is so critical. Modern evangelism must return to engaging the mind, not just the emotions. When they are ready, and you discern in your spirit they are ready, lead them to Christ. This is the NEW BIRTH. Immediately after the new birth comes DISCIPLESHIP. On the next page, this four step process is explained in a flow diagram. Notice that the person who hears the gospel in the church service hears it again via the gospel message video which they will view in a side room after the service with others who responded to the altar call. Hearing the gospel presented a different way the second time will help them understand the first hearing. As I have said many times before, understanding is critical. If they can’t for some reason watch the video after the initial prayer at the altar, befriend them, keep in contact, give them a FUB and involve them in other aspects of church life. Why not pay them a visit at home to answer any questions they might have, and further develop the relationship? We ought to resist rushing people into a decision. It is better to slow the process down a little, journey with them, and allow the 12 Which you can see at www.biblein11.com 13 To read this document, please visit www.esisite.com

FROM ALTAR CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP How to eliminate the creation of pseudo Christians at altar calls. The ďŹ rst time someone hears and understands the gospel clearly, the "seed" of the gospel is planted. This is conception. Then the Holy Spirit "grows" the seed. This is gestation. Eventually, the Holy Spirit brings the person to the point of conversion. When they respond, this is the new birth. Then they learn how to obey Jesus in all things. This is discipleship. All four steps are critical.

A person attends a Christian meeting e.g. a Sunday church service

They hear a good message but "the gospel" as described in Chapter 3 of this book is not clearly proclaimed Stay in contact, build relationship. Give them the follow up booklet (FUB) "How To Be Sure Of Going To Heaven When We Die." At the back of this booklet is the web address for the gospel message video (GMV) www.biblein11.com. Encourage them to watch the GMV and read the FUB in their own time. Does not accept the invitation e.g they have to rush away somewhere after church.

GESTATION

3 NEW BIRTH

DISCIPLESHIP

Julian Batchelor

They respond to the altar call e.g put their hand up or come to the front A mature Christian counsellor (MCC) enters into discussion with them to discover the reason they responded i.e. how did the Holy Spirit speak to this person in the service ? Why did they respond? No matter what is discovered, they are invited to view the gospel message video (GMV) after the service in a side room with others who responded

They accept the invitation i.e. they watch and understand the GMV

CONCEPTION

They hear the gospel clearly proclaimed

After the video, discuss and answer questions. Don't lead them to Christ, even if they are keen. Give them the Follow up booklet "How to be sure of going to heaven when we die." Allow them a few days or however long they want to read and process what they read. Ready? Yes. Lead them to Christ when MCC discerns they are ready, and they feel they are ready.

Ready? No. Journey with them to give them what they need to keep moving forwards.

If they have seen the GMV and read the FUB before, and are ready, and MCC discerns they are ready, lead them to Christ

Immediately assimilate new Christians into small groups and begin discipleship. The ďŹ rst step in discipleship is to teach them how to evangelise.

Holy Spirit to work deeply in them to bring them to the point of genuine conversion. We want to see them develop a lasting faith. All churches ought to regularly proclaim the gospel on Sundays, so that those in a church who have ‘connected but not converted’ have multiple opportunities to cross the line. This approach to ‘slowing things down a bit’ would help reduce the number of pseudo converts in our congregations.

ow one pastor is making a big difference…

In Sydney, Australia, I spoke at the Petersham Assembly of God church which is pastored by Barry Saar. The eleven-minute Gospel Message! presentation seemed to be the answer to a concern he had held for quite a while. He too had been troubled by the high rate of pseudo conversions in our Western churches, and the low retention rate from altar calls. As Barry sees it, the Great Commission, as recorded in Matthew 28:18-20, speaks of our going into all the world and making ‘waterbaptised’ disciples. Not being satisfied with merely getting spontaneous decisions, Barry determined to adjust the way his church was doing things. The first thing he realised was that the Petersham AOG needed to present the whole gospel, which included the truth about sin, hell and eternal punishment, and not just the good bits we like to hear. This brought an immediate change to their Sunday service. He and his other leaders decided that if they had not presented a clear, full presentation of the gospel in their service, then they would not have a salvation altar call. He reasoned that we cannot make a ‘complete’ convert when we only present a ‘portion’ of the gospel. This is where the www.biblein11.com video presented a possible solution. Pastor Barry now concludes each service with an invitation 13

for any person wishing to know more about becoming a Christian to watch this video in another room after the service. This is a dream come true for Barry, and he would encourage you to do the same. Exactly how does it work? After every service, the senior pastor, along with other leaders, invite visitors and anyone new to the church to meet with them for a coffee and finger food. The meeting room is immediately off the main auditorium. The staff who attend these meetings have been trained for this event: interpersonal skills, how to make people feel welcome, learning to ask the right questions, etc. The room where they meet is especially equipped: stylish, warm, modern, clean and very inviting. A data projector and laptop are there, ready to present the whole gospel. After welcoming people, and chatting with them, the pastor says something like “Well, thank you for coming to church today, we have really appreciated that you took time out of your day to visit us. Before you go, we would like to show you a very engaging 11 minute video which explains what we believe here at Petersham AOG. This presentation is a summary of this amazing book (holding up a Bible), so I hope you enjoy this.” At the end of the presentation, the pastor invites questions, and a small pack of follow up material is given, including details of all the ministries of the church. Yes, we would expect some people to respond for salvation on the spot. All the new people who attend this meeting would be followed up during the coming week with a phone call, and where possible, a home visit.” As Barry has already explained, he has had a rough version of this dream operating at his church for some time, and it’s working. Why don’t you follow Barry’s excellent example? What are the effects of the way Barry is dealing with visitors to his church? Two are most noticeable: 14

n increase in the retention rate

The retention rate of people making a decision for salvation has risen. This is because he and his team have encouraged people to think the issues through carefully before committing. At Barry’s church, people who make the decision stand the test of time.

n increase in the percentage of people being baptised

When I was last speaking to Barry I asked him how things were progressing. He had great joy in telling me that the number of people being baptised was now almost the same as the numbers making a decision. Barry said that in 2004, before making the changes, the church baptised in water 51 percent of the people who had made a decision for salvation. About the middle of 2005, when they made the changes, the percentage rose to 82 percent. Now, in 2006, 98 percent of people who made a decision for salvation were also water baptised. He also told me that as a result his church numbers had been increasing these past years after a long plateau. What can we conclude? First, if you want people to ‘stick’ when they respond for salvation, make sure they do so in response to hearing the whole gospel. Secondly, don’t rush the process on the road to the point of a decision. Journey with prospective Christians and walk through their issues and questions. Thirdly, as Barry has done so successfully, make an opportunity at the end of each service for people to hear the whole gospel in a side room. Knowing this is going to happen will encourage the people in your church to bring non-Christians along. They will reason, “I really want my friends to hear the gospel. Who better to explain it to them than my awesome pastor? I am going to try and get them to church.” 15

ow chemotherapy and the gospel are alike…

Pastor Barry gives the following analogy to describe what he is trying to do at Petersham Assembly of God. “I want to compare proclaiming the whole gospel with a dose of chemotherapy. A doctor needs to be honest about the seriousness of the disease that is bringing death to his patient, but when the patient realises there is the chance of a cure through chemotherapy, they usually agree to the treatment. Chemotherapy is good news when you realise you are dying. When the negative side effects begin – hair falling out, loss of appetite, pain, vomiting etc – they endure because they have been told the whole truth about what to expect and what will happen if they refuse the treatment. The gospel is similar. It is Good News about how to know Jesus in this life, and how to escape eternal punishment in the next. The gospel also has difficult side effects, such as the persecution, trials and suffering promised for followers of Jesus. However, and here is the main point, Jesus Christ, through the whole gospel, will save you. This is good news. Many churches have presented only the positives of the gospel message and many ‘pseudo converts’ abandon their ‘faith’ when the promised negative side-effects begin to emerge. If the first ‘consultation’ was honest and presented the whole picture, then we would retain more of our conversions because the whole gospel is good news.”14

hat it means to proclaim the whole gospel…

If we are to be true to the full gospel, prospective Christians must hear and understand that Jesus is Lord, and not just Saviour. What does it mean to make Jesus “Lord” at the point of conversion? Consider the following diagram: 14 Barry invites other pastors and leaders to email him to discuss what is happening at Petersham: barry.saar@petershamaog.org.au

Jesus as Saviour

Jesus as Lord

he benefits of being T a Christian Love

The responsibilities of being a Christian Serving

Joy

Giving

Peace

Loving

The gift of the Holy Spirit

Suffering

Eternal life

Forgiving

Forgiveness

Evangelising

Destiny

Sacrificing

Hope etc

Caring etc

I ask people in my seminars on evangelism to write the words Jesus as Lord on the other side of the page. Under this they put a sub-heading, Responsibilities. Under this, I ask them to make a list of some of the responsibilities of being a Christian. They start their list with, “We are commanded to…”

hat God has joined, let no man separate…

In calling people to Jesus, we must not separate the responsibilities from the benefits. At an altar call we do not have the liberty to hide the cost of following Jesus. Jesus is not just Saviour – He is also Lord. By ‘Lord’ I don’t mean giving mental assent to the idea that he is the sovereign ruler of the universe. Rather, I mean that we personally submit outselves to him as our Lord and Master. We are His slaves. Unless someone is willing to enter into the responsibilities of being a Christian, they will not experience the benefits. Pseudo converts don’t make Jesus ‘Lord’ and therefore they have never truly repented. Repentance has to do with turning away from sin and turning towards God. It has to do with adopting a whole new set of attitudes towards life, sin, God, ourselves, the Bible and Church, to name just a few. If we thoroughly understood this word and taught it as a vital part of the full gospel, we would go a long way to reducing the number of pseudo converts. 17

As Dr Derek Prince wrote, “The whole record of the New Testament is absolutely unanimous on this point … without true repentance there can never be true faith.”15

ow to bless new Christians…

When someone asks to become a Christian, they have a heart attitude which says, “I surrender the control of my life to Jesus. I willingly give Him control of my marriage, money, housing, food, clothing, comfort, career, and friends, etc. No matter what comes my way from now on, I will serve and obey Him with all my heart.” We are doing prospective Christians a disservice if we don’t point out the cost of discipleship. It is a spiritual law that there must be death before there can be a resurrection. Therefore, if we want new Christians to enter a life of fruitfulness and blessing, the entry point into Christianity is important. Jesus was clear on this: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). “Those who do not take up their cross [a symbol of death] and follow Me, are not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38). Paul reiterates his master’s teaching by saying, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

isten to the experts…

Andrew Murray, the renowned Scottish missionary to South Africa, said, “Let us beware that no wrong-sided or onesided view of what salvation by faith means, lead us astray. There are some who think that salvation by faith is all that’s necessary, and obedience is not so essential. This is a terrible mistake. In our justification there is indeed no thought of obedience in the past. God justifies the ungodly. But repentance is a return to obedience. 15 Dr Derek Prince. Repent And Believe. Derek Prince Publications, Florida, p.13

And He has no salvation but for them that obey Him.”16 “It is altogether doubtful,” said A.W. Tozer, “whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help but with no intention to obey Him … the notion that we are permitted to disobey is a modern day heresy.”17 Elsewhere he stated, “In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he remains on the throne.”18 In fact Tozer had concerns with the whole “accept Christ” approach. “It shows Christ applying to us rather than us to Him,” he says. “It makes Him stand hat-in-hand awaiting our verdict on Him instead of our kneeling with troubled hearts awaiting His verdict on us. It may even permit us to accept Christ by impulse of mind or emotions, painlessly, at no loss to our ego and no inconvenience to our usual way of life.”19 We are reminded in 2 Corinthians 5:15 that “He died for all, that those who live should not live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.” Commenting on this verse, missionary statesman and author J.O. Sanders wrote, “Life is now viewed in two dimensions – ‘hitherto,’ and ‘henceforth.’ ‘Hitherto,’ self has been the central point of reference. ‘Henceforth’, time, talents, friends, possessions, recreations are all under His control. Contrary to expectation, such an embracing of the cross of Christ, such a complete surrender to Him as Lord, brings liberty that can be experienced in no other way.”20 16 Andrew Murray. The Holiest Of All. Lowe and Brydone Print. London, 1962, p.193 17 A.W. Tozer. The Root Of The Righteous. OM Publishing, Carlisle, 1995, p.83 18 ibid, p.64 19 ibid, p.101 20 J.O Sanders. Paul The Leader. A Vision Of Leadership Today. Kingsway Publications, 1984, p.78

Watchman Nee said no one could be a true servant of God without knowing the principle of death and the principle of resurrection.21 Steve Hill, Evangelist and Pastor at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, asks, “What kind of ‘plan of salvation’ do we present if all we do is apologetically suggest to our hearers that they would be doing Jesus a favour by accepting Him into their hearts? What kind of gospel do we preach when all we tell our listeners is: ‘Just confess Jesus as Saviour and heaven is your home.’ ‘Just pray the prayer and it’s a done deal.’ ‘Just come to the altar. It will only take a few minutes?’”22 Dr John Stott put it soberingly: “If the cross is not central in our thinking, it is safe to say that our faith, whatever it be, is not the Christian faith, and our creed is not the Apostles’ Creed.”23 If we keep proclaiming a gospel stripped of repentance, and Lordship, we will only create more pseudo converts, which in turn will tighten the handbrake on evangelism in the West.

hat is true repentance anyway…?

Biblical repentance has three aspects: a target, a direction and an effect. Let me explain. THE TARGET of repentance is behaviour and attitudes. At the point of conversion, the non-Christian is agreeing to change his or her attitude. This will in turn lead to a change of behaviour. The Old Testament word for “repent,” when concerned with behaviour, is the word shuv. This word stresses the importance of a conscious moral separation from sin and the need to forsake sin and enter into fellowship with God (e.g. 2 Chronicles 7:14). In the New Testament the term for repentance, metanoeo, 21 Watchman Nee. The Normal Christian Life. Christian Literature Crusade. Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, 1970, p.165 22 Steve Hill. Personal Revival. God’s Way Of Setting Our Hearts On Fire. Dayspring Publishing, 1999, p.122 23 Cited in David Watson. I Believe In Evangelism. Hodder and Stoughton, 1976, p.71

focuses on attitudes. It literally means “to think differently about something” or “to have a change of mind.”24 THE DIRECTION of repentance is away from evil and self, towards God. THE EFFECT of repentance is a stirring of the emotions. In the Old Testament, another word used for repent is nacham.25 This meant to “pant, sigh or groan” and came to mean “lament” or “grieve.” The New Testament also uses a term for repentance which focuses on the emotions. It is the word metamelomai which means “to have a feeling of care, concern, or regret.”26 Theologian Millard Erickson summarises the teaching of both Testaments on the effect of true repentance. “Repentance is godly sorrow for one’s sin, together with a resolution to turn from it. There are other forms of regret over one’s wrongdoings which are based upon different motivations. One motivation may be little more than selfishness. If we have sinned and the consequences are unpleasant, we may well regret what we have done. But that is not true repentance. That is mere penitence. Real repentance is sorrow for one’s sin because of the wrong done to God and the hurt inflicted upon Him. This sorrow is accompanied by a genuine desire to abandon that sin. In the case of true repentance, there is regret over the sin even if the sinner has not suffered any unfortunate personal effects because of it.”27

ow to help new Christians receive the benefits…

Making Jesus Lord, therefore, is both a decision and a

24 Millard J. Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Book House, 1985, pp.937-938 25 For example Genesis 6:6; Exodus 32:14 26 For example Matthew 21:29; Matthew 27:3 27 Millard J. Erickson. Christian Theology. Baker Book House, 1985, pp.937-938

process.28 So when people respond to an altar call and cry out, “I want to be a Christian,” we ought to guide them into a decisive repentance experience, or they will not receive the benefits of becoming a Christian. If we don’t ensure this happens at the point of salvation, we disregard the clear teaching of Scripture. Then, after they have made their decision to become a Christian, the challenge for them (and for us that have been Christians for a while) is to make Jesus Lord moment by moment throughout life (continual repentance).

restling with genuine repentance is not always easy…

To be sure, everyone who is genuinely saved is the recipient of a miracle. It’s the miracle of regeneration. However, the conversion experience of some is visibly noticeable and dramatic. Because of a powerful work of the Holy Spirit, some people can be instantly and thoroughly set free from problems and habits. For example, one man went into the waters of baptism with tattoos, and came up from the waters without them. Another was a chain smoker, and after the prayer of salvation, never smoked again. One lady told me she was a rabid swearer before she was saved. After the prayer of salvation, she stopped swearing instantly and permanently. With others, though they are genuinely saved, the outward visible change may not be quite so dramatic, measurable, or decisive. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether they have repented i.e. there are no tears of remorse, and no emotional outpouring. 28 Acts 26:18, 19; 1 Corinthians 15:1-5. The Greek word for repent is metanoeo. In Acts 2:38, Revelation 2:5, 2:16, 3:3 and 3:19 the word is used in the aorist tense and refers to repentance as a specific act. In Acts 2:38 this is at the point of conversion. This is the ‘decision’ of repentance. But the word “repent” is also used in the present tense and means “to keep on repenting”, e.g. Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:15. In these verses, repentance is both a decision and a process. In other words, repentance starts at conversion and continues throughout the life of the believer.

Some may also ask, “To what extent must the person exhibit visible change? What about the alcoholic? Or what about the person with habitual sins and addictions who wants to become a Christian? Can they not become a Christian until they have successfully turned from those habits?” Clearly they can. Others ask, “What about the person with habits and addictions who still struggles with them after conversion?” How should we answer? A decision to repent demands a change of behaviour only where the change is within the capacity of the individual to change. That which is beyond willpower is the sovereign work of God alone. But the potential new Christian, if genuine, will say, “I sincerely want to change now and keep on changing for the rest of my life.” The sincerity of the declaration is critical, and this is what we ought to look for. Complete victory over some habits and addictions often takes time, as God leads, heals, restores and empowers the new life. Which behaviours are habitual or addictive, and which are not? This needs to be discerned, case by case. Let me illustrate the importance of repentance at the point of conversion. I was preaching the gospel at a two-day rock concert attended by 13,000 people. At one point in the weekend, when no bands were playing onstage, I gathered a group and began to proclaim the gospel “open air” to about twenty people. I gave an invitation at the end, and Sue, a young woman in her mid-twenties, responded. She wanted to become a Christian. I took her through some excellent studies called Christianity Explained, in which the fifth lesson deals with repentance. Sue’s conscience soon alerted her to the fact that she was having sex with her boyfriend in a tent where the rock concert was happening. She asked me what she needed to do about this. She really loved him. 23

hat would you have done?

I had three options: 1. Allow her to continue in known sin and adopt a “God will work it all out” approach. I could tell Sue she could become a Christian immediately if she really wanted to, even though she was going to keep sleeping with her boyfriend. I could tell her that as she walked with Jesus, post-conversion, He would resolve the twin issues of her non-Christian boyfriend and sex before marriage. i.e. she could keep her boyfriend, continue to have sex outside of marriage, and be a Christian. I could reason, “Better to have Sue connecting with Christians, coming to church and living in sin than not have her in the church at all.” You’ll notice this approach skips decisive repentance. 2. Allow her to continue in sin, but encourage a soft heart and a “Let Jesus show you” approach. I could say, “as you walk with Jesus and commit to reading His Word, going regularly to church and learning about Him, you will find your conscience is going to challenge you about this. If you stay soft-hearted and willing to learn, you will become more and more aware of what God’s view of right and wrong – and you will be faced with a choice. That won’t happen just with sex, but in all sorts of other areas too. God can help you make the right choices – but you have to be willing to change and to start the process of lining up your life with what the Bible teaches.” 3. The “delay the decision to become a Christian” approach. I could take time to talk through the two sticking points (the non-Christian boyfriend and pre-marital sex). I could advise Sue to wait for God to work in her heart (that is, wait for her to be willing to break her ties with the non-Christian boyfriend and come to the place where she would resolve not to have sex outside of marriage) before making a decision to become a Christian. I could try to involve her in church and encourage her to build relationships with Christians with the hope that these influences would give her strength and support through prayer and relationship to make the right decisions. In other words, I could insist on decisive repentance before telling Sue she was a Christian. What would you have done? 24

alance is always best….

To help you decide, I need to emphasise the need for balance. Accordingly, I want to quote an excellent word of caution from the Lausanne Covenant: “If we underemphasise repentance, we offer sinners what Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace,’ but if we overemphasise it we may be preaching the law rather than the gospel, a code rather than Christ, and salvation by works rather than by grace through faith. Secondly, if we do nothing to identify what is meant by ‘sin,’ we are asking for repentance in a vacuum, which is an impossibility; whereas if we become too specific in naming sins, either we may try to do the Holy Spirit’s convicting work for Him or we may forget the complex cultural factors (for example the case of polygamy) which should make us tentative in our teaching rather than dogmatic. Thirdly, it is possible to imply that conversion involves no radical change, while it is equally possible to expect too much of enquirers and new converts. Perfection is indeed the goal to be set before them, but we must not require maturity of understanding or behaviour from a newborn babe in Christ.”29

hat Ezekiel would say to the Western Church today…

In closing, let me quote again one of the most sobering passages in the Old Testament. “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘Oh wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin but you will have saved 29 Historic mission documents from the Lausanne Movement 1974 – 1989. p.67

your own life” (Ezekiel 33:7-9). If Ezekiel were to turn up now and analyse our problem of pseudo converts in the Western Church, I imagine he would say something like this: “You have misunderstood what God meant when He commanded you to evangelise. Your problem is you have stopped warning people. You’ve focussed on attracting them, gaining their respect, changing them, offering them a lifestyle improvement and a life coach called Jesus, and befriending them. None of these things is wrong. In fact, these things are a big part of my plan. Keep these things up. But if that’s all you do, you’ll end up with a lot of pseudo converts in your churches. Stop your obsession with “numbers” and competing with one another to see who can grow the biggest church. This obsession is a stench in God’s nostrils. Instead, preach the narrow way with great love, and go for quality not quantity30, as Jesus demonstrated with His 12 disciples.” By “warning” I mean two things: explaining to non-Christians the consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ and explaining to prospective Christians the cost of discipleship. Converting non-Christians is, ultimately, God’s job. Warning them, by presenting the whole gospel, is ours. Remember, Ezekiel was not charged with turning the wicked around. He was only called to warn them. Our first priority is to “warn the wicked.” Yes, we want to win them and we proclaim the gospel with that intention for the glory of God but, as we have discovered in this Chapter Series, ultimately “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Revelation 7:10). In a sermon at Exeter Hall in 1860, Charles Spurgeon declared, “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our 30 There is nothing wrong with big churches, as long as they are not filled with Psuedo Christians.

bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there un-warned and un-prayed for.”31 Jesus was constantly warning His audiences.32 Paul was the same. Christian leaders, we ought to join with Paul, Ezekiel, and Charles Spurgeon, to beg God’s mercy and go to work. Do everything you can to move people in your church on from “connection” to “conversion.” Teach about the difference. Help them to be fruitful by helping them to enter through the narrow way. Proclaim the gospel regularly to non-Christians outside your church, and to the pseudo converts within it. Then, and only then, will the evangelisation of the world begin to flourish again. Pastors and leaders - resist the pressure to rush someone through the gate of repentance. For example, because you are human, you might be tempted to do this: 1. Because you need the tithe of the new convert. 2. To increase the number of people in your church so you can look good and encourage yourself. 3. To encourage existing Christians in your church. Christians are greatly encouraged when they witness non-Christians coming to Christ. Leaders want to encourage the flock so they can be tempted to manipulate the crowd at the altar call in order to get a response, all so that they can say “Look how many peope were saved in our church today! Isn’t our church awesome!” 4. So you can report back to your denomination about how many people are being saved in your church. 31 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, Biblically … The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Books, 2003, p.177 32 (e.g. Matthew 7:24-27; Matthew 13:36 – 42; Matthew 13:47-50; Matthew 23; Matthew 25:31-46; Luke 16:19-31). Paul was the same (e.g. Romans 2:6-8; Galatians 5:19-21).

But really, if psuedo converts are being created, the cause of world evangelism suffers greatly, for all the reasons I have detailed in this Chapter.

ummary

• Psuedo converts have a significant “dulling down” influence on the entire evangelistic zeal of a local church, hindering its ability to mobilise everyone for evangelism. • They discourage evangelists because they show no interest in evangelising. • As such they have a tendency to teach existing Christians their non-evangelistic life styles. • Pseudo converts do most damage when they move into positions of leadership because then they can influence more people to not evangelise. • The greatest single contributor to the creation of psuedo converts are poorly managed altar calls. • People who respond to altar calls who really don’t know what they are doing are prime candidates for becoming psuedo converts. • No one should be told they are a Christian until they have heard the whole gospel, had discussion about it with a mature seasoned Christian, and had time to process their impending “decision.” • Conversion is more than a feeling (i.e. feeling a desire to become a Christian). It is also a head issue (i.e. knowing conceptually and theologically what we are doing). • We must resist rushing people into “a decision.” • Without genuine repentance, there can be no genuine faith. • Repentance is godly sorrow for one’s sin, together with a resolution to turn from it. 28

• If we underemphasise repentance, we offer cheap grace. • If we overemphasise it we may be preaching the law rather than the gospel, a code rather than Christ, and salvation by works rather than by grace through faith. • If we do nothing to identify what is meant by “sin” we are asking for repentance in a vacuum, which is an impossibility. • If we become too specific in naming sins, we may try to do the Holy Spirit’s convicting work for Him. • It is possible to imply that conversion involves no radical change, while it is equally possible to expect too much of enquirers and new converts. • Perfection is indeed the goal to be set before them, but we must not require maturity of understanding or behaviour from a newborn babe in Christ. • CTION POINTS: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. We are near the end of our critique of the battle for souls. On the battlefield there are two areas left to inspect. No book on the topic of how the enemy hinders evangelism can skip what I am about to share in the next two Chapters. Come with me. I have left the best until last…

Real Life Story major secular radio station excited about www.biblein11.com web site During the first week of April, I was driving through Auckland listening to the radio station called News Talk ZB. The host at the time was Danny Watson. This station has over 400,000 people listening in any given 24 hour period, mostly nonChristians. A man in his forties phoned in and said he had cancer and was dying and had only a few weeks to live. He was asked by Danny how he was coping with this situation. The dying man said he had started to read the Bible to find out about “final realities”. Danny then asked him about his Bible reading, and what he had discovered. He said that he started reading it but soon gave up because he couldn’t understand it. I was reminded of the account of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:30-31. “Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah 30

the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. He replied “I couldn’t understand it, so I stopped reading it”. “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” I don’t remember what else was said but the Holy Spirit spoke to me powerfully to phone in and tell the station about THE GOSPEL presentation we have developed. Miraculously, I got through to Danny. I told him I had heard the call from the man dying of cancer, and his comments about the Bible. I then explained to Danny “that I was a Christian minister and we 31

had developed a piece of software which summarised the whole Bible in eleven minutes.” “You’re kidding!”, he exclaimed. “No” I said “anyone can see it now if they want to. It’s able to be viewed on a web site”. Danny asked me for the web address, and then asked again to make sure he had it right - www.biblein11.com. He made me repeat it slowly so all the listeners could hear. Then he asked me what motivated me to develop this particular piece of software. I said “because we believed that there were many people like the man dying of cancer out there in society who were interested in the Bible. So we did it to help people get a handle on the world’s number one best selling book of all time.” We rounded off the conversation. I was only five minutes from home and when I got to my office, I checked the web site. It had crashed! I phoned the web developer and he confirmed what I had thought. We had so many hits in a short space of time that the listeners on Newstalk ZB crashed the server! Next, my cell phone went off. It was a staff member at NewsTalk ZB. He said they were being inundated with calls from people who couldn’t get onto the web site I had just given. He was checking to see if the web address was right. I then explained to him about the server crashing due to public interest. 32

He then told me to write into the station and tell Danny Watson this. “We are interested in anything that the public is interested in. Danny might give it a plug.” All through the Bible there are windows of opportunity which God opens up. E.g. David and Goliath; Esther before the King etc. As I drove to visit a group of ministers that week, I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me about “a window of opportunity” which has opened for us through this piece of software. Let’s use it for His glory.

Chapter Twenty Three

FRIENDSHIP EVANGELISM. WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GOOD ABOUT IT, AND WHAT IS HERETICAL?

Friendship Evangelism.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Good About It, And What Is Heretical?

aking friends with non-Christians is a strategy from heaven.

The practice of intentionally making friends with nonChristians is a great thing. When we make friends, we might invite some of them to dinner, take them fishing, spend time talking to them about their lives or introduce them to other Christian friends by bringing them to church. Many people have been saved through a Christian bringing their non-Christian friend to church where they have heard the gospel and responded. The strategy of deliberately making friends with non-Christians includes putting on interesting events at church (e.g. a mid-winter Christmas dinner) to which visitors can come. Making friends with non-Christians has many positive spin-offs: 1. we set up an environment of trust. 2. we gain opportunities for ongoing contact. 3. there is a basis for mutual sharing. 4. common interests can be developed. 5. our Christian message can be authenticated through our lives. For these five reasons, without a shadow of a doubt I firmly believe all Christians ought to intentionally make friends with non-Christians. Unfortunately though, there is a problem with so called â&#x20AC;&#x153;friendship 2

evangelism.” The problem lies not with making friends (obviously), but with the term “friendship evangelism” itself. It is hindering world evangelism for seven reasons. NE: The term has caused many Christians to believe that if they are making friends with a non-Christian, they are evangelising… As we’ve already seen, to evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel. In friendship evangelism, if a Christian was actively pursuing a friendship with a non-Christian with the purpose of bringing him or her to faith, the exercise was still called “evangelism,” whether or not the gospel was actually presented to the friend or not. This led Christians to believe they were evangelising when they were not, and removed, in their minds, the need to actually present the gospel to their friends. As we saw in Chapter Thirteen, this misconception is the kind the enemy is keen to propagate. He loves to see us classifying being someone’s friend as “sowing” when in fact it is a “ploughing” and “watering” behaviour. WO: A vital aspect of friendship evangelism is the idea that nonChristians will not accept the gospel until we have established a relationship with them… We debated different aspects of this idea in Chapter Ten, and concluded that friendship is not a necessary prerequisite for the blessing of God on the gospel. This issue is so important and relevant to the subject of friendship evangelism, that I want to briefly expand on what I said in Chapter Ten. If you believe non-Christians will come to faith only through an established relationship with a Christian, it can put you off proclaiming the gospel. It makes you think, “I don’t have time to establish friendships with many non-Christians and so there’s no way I can do evangelism.”

Or “I only have one non-Christian friend and so he’d be the only one I could evangelise.” Just think of all the people we meet in the course of an ordinary day, including at gas stations, shops, schools and around the neighbourhood. We would not class all these people as friends, but would we choose not to share a gospel tract or booklet or www. biblein11.com card with them because of this? Jesus did not say, “I came to seek and save My friends.” Rather He said, “I came to seek and save the lost.” If the mandate of the Church is “to evangelise everyone, everywhere,”1 friendship evangelism would make it impossible to do this. For one thing, the Christian population in most Western countries, as a percentage of the general population, is tiny. There are just not enough of us to be friends to all the non-Christians out there. For another, many Christians, especially as they age, have few, if any, non-Christian friends.

edical doctor testifies: “I gave the gospel to a complete stranger and she came to Christ.”

I received an email from a guy called Scott which supports my argument. Scott is a medical doctor. He gave me an account of when he shared the gospel with a non-Christian woman named Karen outside a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand. Prior to this meeting, he did not know her. Two years after he shared with Karen he received an email from her. She had been able to contact him because of the email address he had written in the follow-up booklet he had given to her after presenting the gospel. Here’s what she wrote: “Hi! Is this Scott Cameron? My name is Karen. You won’t know me but I want to thank you. I think it was about two years ago you 1 Ravi Zacharias et al. This We Believe. The Good News Of Jesus Christ For The World. Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, p.248

were witnessing outside Pak ‘n’ Save on Lincoln Road. I wasn’t really interested when you presented the gospel to me two years ago but I listened to what you said and I am so grateful. Now I’m living my life for Jesus. I’m so grateful for people like you who broke the ground and sowed the seeds. [Since you shared the gospel with me] I met another girl who led me through the prayer of salvation. I grew increasingly hungry for God. [My heart] was broken through hearing the Word. So be encouraged that you may not lead the person to Christ but you are planting things in them so that in God’s time it will happen. I was cleaning my room and found the book you gave me, with your email address in it. So I wanted to let you know that what you do by witnessing to people is so great. Thank you, Karen.” Karen knew nothing about Scott. No prior friendship had been established. She didn’t know he was a doctor; she had no idea whether he was a good, kind person. He had not built up any credibility with her. He would not have called her his friend. But God saved Karen – through the power of the gospel which he spoke to her.

s this an isolated example? What does the research say?

Research shows that no matter how the question is asked, about 25-50 per cent of Christians first came to church without any established relationships.2 There were many factors which contributed to this. For example, after reading about Christianity, hearing a radio show, watching Christian TV, observing creation or reading the Bible by themselves, they decided to go to a church. HREE: If we only give the gospel to our friends, and not also to strangers, we make it impossible to succeed with our priority, the evangelisation of the earth…

2 Thom S. Rainer. Surprising Insights From The Un-Churched And Proven Ways To Reach Them. Zondervan. 2000. p.79

The following is a recent email from a medical doctor called Rebekah who is a keen evangeliser. She writes: “Julian, I was wondering what you would say to leaders who supposedly have statistics that show that the Western world could be reached in “x” number of days if every Christian would just simply share the gospel with their friends? The reason I am asking is that although it is great people are being encouraged to evangelise, it is actually being given as proof that we shouldn’t talk to strangers but only to friends. Of course, I was able to say that 98 percent of the church in the West isn’t sharing, and so that is why there is a need to be talking to strangers as well as friends. But I am also sceptical that every non-Christian has a Christian friend. From first-hand experience throughout my teenage years as a non-Christian, I had no Christian friends. What do you think?” We all know Rebekah is absolutely right. To answer her fully, I asked her to imagine the following. Say you chose two people to pour your energies into. You played golf with them, went to the gym with them, invited them for meals, looked out for their needs, prayed for them, took them to church, and so on. You valued their friendship and felt that you genuinely loved them. At the end of the first year, both of them became Christians.3

oing the maths…

Say you put an average of five hours a week into these two friends in order to get them to the point where they became Christians. That equates to around 250 hours a year, or 15,000 minutes. With the tools we have developed in our ministry, it takes only a few seconds to spread the gospel to somone, and about 5 3 Actually, the talk on the street about the concept of friendship evangelism is mixed. Many people have seen great success with this strategy. Friends and relatives have been befriended and saved into the Church. Other Christians are feeling very frustrated and disillusioned. They have been ‘working the friendship with someone’ for years, and there has been little or no movement towards conversion.

minutes to proclaim it.4 How many non-Christians could you have shared the gospel with in 15,000 minutes?5 Three thousand. If I were a farmer with two fields, and into one I planted only two seeds, and the other 3,000, which one do you think would yield the best result? In light of the Mission of the Church, which is to proclaim or spread the gospel in all the earth for the glory of God, so that every person on earth hears and understands the message, which approach is more effective? You know the answer. Some might reply, “Well, if all the Christians in the West focussed on three non-Christian friends and gave the gospel to them, we could evangelise the world in no time!” What are we to make of this? In most Western countries apart from the US, the Christian population hovers at five to ten percent of the general population. Take the ten percent figure. With three friends each, we could reach 30 percent of the non-Christian population. Who is going to reach the other 60 percent? There are other factors to consider. First, most Christians progressively lose all their non-Christian friends as they age. Secondly, many Christians who do have non-Christian friends don’t want to share the gospel with them for fear of losing their friendship. All things considered, to think that we can evangelise the whole world by focussing only on people we know is sheer fantasy. I had people reply to this argument by saying, “Well, if the 30 percent we befriend are all saved, the Christian population would climb to 40 percent. If this 40 percent befriended two nonChristians each, the job is done!” How should we reply? If we cannot mobilise current Christians for evangelism, the thought of 4 There are of course many other ministries that have developed great tools to help Christians proclaim the gospel. 5 Please do not misunderstand me here. I am not advocating number crunching. God forbid. But the fact remains, Jesus has made it clear to us what our priority ought to be - to evangelise the earth. Some things are going to hinder us achieving this goal, and some things are going to help.

mobilising a hypothetical army of new Christians is as likely as my budgie launching a successful space shuttle program. Why do some Christians default to fantasy when it comes to explaining away why they are not evangelising? What is the best strategy? Make lots of non-Christian friends, always share the gospel with them when the time is right, and make the sacrifice to give the gospel on a regular basis to strangers also.

iving the gospel to friends as well as people we don’t know is the ideal...

If we focus on getting the gospel to the people we don’t know as well as the people we do, and promoting the idea of making friends and bringing them to church, then evangelising the world is entirely feasible. Take New Zealand as an example. As I outlined in Chapter Eleven, there are said to be around 250,000 genuine Christians in New Zealand, which has a population of about five million. If these 250,000 communicated the gospel clearly to a non-Christian once a week, we could evangelise the whole nation in less than 20 weeks. Evangelising in this way would be like pouring spiritual petrol over the whole nation. Once everyone has clearly heard and understood the gospel, and the message is delivered with love and grace, we have an intelligent reason – a truly biblical/spiritual reason – to pray, fast, and intercede earnestly for a spark of the Holy Spirit to ignite each of the seeds planted, and maybe we could have an unprecedented harvest of souls such as we have never seen before in our country. I say “maybe” because we cannot say what God will do. He is the Lord of the harvest. But one thing is certain. As with an insurance policy, if we do not fulfil the conditions for a claim, we also have to accept that the company will not honour the claim.

on’t make evangelising the world impossible to complete…

Given that the population of the world increases every day by 8

260,0006; that most of those are not born into Christian families; that 98 percent of Christians in the West are not evangelising; that Christians are already a minority in the West, and that many Christians don’t have a non-Christian friend they are actively evangelising; then evangelising the world by means of friendship evangelism is well-nigh impossible. I know God can do the impossible. But we shouldn’t presume on what He might do. Unless all Christians are mobilised for evangelism, to reach all people including those with whom we do not have a friendship, we will never complete the Great Commission. OUR: Some advocates of “friendship evangelism” discourage Christians from giving the gospel to non-Christians, telling them to ‘Just love non-Christians as they are…’ The idea here is that sharing the gospel is not loving - it’s ramming religion down people’s throats or invading their privacy. What are we to make of this? This has a ring of truth about it, but it’s actually another device of the enemy. Yes, we are to proclaim or spread the gospel in ways which are loving and gracious, never ramming down people’s throats. Yes, we are to time things rightly so that we can never be accused of invading someone’s privacy. Yes, we are to love and accept nonChristians “just as they are,” but we are not to leave them like that. How can a genuine Christian have a friendship with a nonChristian person and not want to see them saved? Furthermore, “love” and sharing the gospel with our friends ought to go hand in hand. In fact, if we have no desire to see our friends saved, via sharing the gospel with them, we do not really love them at all, for true love would want their highest good, which is their salvation. To want them saved is to “love our neighbour as ourselves” (Matthew 22:39).

Dr Ron Blue. Evangelism And Missions. Strategies For Outreach. Word Publishing, 2001, p.210

Charles Spurgeon contended that loving God, loving people, and evangelism were inseparable. “The love of God is first, but this by no means lessens the obligation of love to man. In fact, the first command includes the second. We are to seek our neighbours’ conversions because we love them, and we are to speak to them, in loving terms, God’s loving gospel, because our heart desires their eternal good.”7 If just loving people “as they are” was the best way to win people, why did Paul call the gospel “...the power of God for salvation?” He should have said “Loving people just the way they are is the power of God for salvation.” And what about Jesus? If loving people just the way they are was the best way to win the lost, He would have said “Go into the world and love people just as they are” rather than “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.” IVE: “Research” about friendship evangelism may be misleading… So called ‘Research’ is often produced by those promoting friendship evangelism which concludes that most people come to faith through a friend or a family member. Despite my best efforts, I have never been able to source the original research document which came to this conclusion. Even if the research document does exist, the conclusions are very misleading. Let me explain. First, if most Christians talk only with friends and family members about Christianity, as opposed to total strangers, which is what research reveals, it is no wonder the research finds most people come to Christ that way. If there is only one horse in the race,8 we shouldn’t be surprised

Charles H. Spurgeon. The Soul Winner. Focus Publication, 1992, p.14

8 I am not suggesting that other strategies for evangelism do not exist. People who walk into church, television evangelism, crusade evangelism etc are other points where non-Christians can be evangelised.

when it wins. Please think this through before basing the evangelism strategy of your church on “research shows making friends is the best way to win the world.” If you were a non-Christian (e.g. Peter) and you became vitally interested in Christianity through a TV programme, book, or radio message, what would you most likely do? You’d seek out a friend, a workmate or a neighbour or someone you knew who was a Christian (e.g. Andrew) and talk to them, right? In turn, they would most likely take you to church where you would be led to Christ or they would lead you to Christ themselves. The research might suggest your friend was the critical factor in your conversion. But, in reality, God was working in Peter’s life long before he went to his Christian friend Andrew. Someone, or several people, may have shared the gospel with Peter long before he was saved. He might have had a long lost grandmother praying for him, and so on. Other research suggests most people need five to seven positive experiences of Christianity before making a decision.9 This being so, how can we so quickly attribute a conversion to a friend or a family member? The “Christian friend” may simply have been the last link in a long chain of events. There is a second reason why we need to be cautious about this friendship evangelism ‘research’. Other reputable research appears to challenge its findings. For example, Thom Rainer and his team found 20 to 50 percent of non-Christians who came to church did so without any previous relationship with a Christian.10 Other factors drew them there. 9

Laurence Singlehurst. People-Sensitive Evangelism. Crosssway Books, 1995, p.26

10 Thom S. Rainer. Surprising Insights From The Un-Churched And Proven Ways To Reach Them. Zondervan. 2000. p.79

Furthermore, I imagine that when this 20 to 50 percent wandered into a church, they would most probably have made a Christian friend who eventually led them to Christ. Yet the research about friendship evangelism would attribute the conversion to the work of the Christian friend. So what can we conclude? Many factors influence a person’s coming to faith in Christ and we ought to be cautious not to attribute their salvation to the work of the last person in the line. Many pastors have built their entire evangelism strategy solely on the foundation of this ‘research’ and the New Testament mandate to mobilise everyone in their church to proclaim or spread the gospel to strangers has been sidelined. Yes, the research has fuelled their resolve to befriend non-Christians, which is a great thing, but hindered their efforts to evangelise the world, which is a disasterous thing. ix: Churches can grow rapidly through “friendship evangelism” with very little evangelism having taken place… A church leader and I were discussing church growth one day. He said, “Most of the churches which are large and flourishing say they have achieved their growth by promoting the idea of making friends with non-Christians and bringing them to church. So that’s where we want to put our energies too.” What are we to make of this? There is no doubt some churches are growing phenomenally – but the reasons, in my opinion, are generally not as clear-cut as this leader made out. There are at least four explanations why some churches are expanding fast. First, some of the growth might be because the members of the fast-growing churches are making friends with people in more traditional, static churches and bringing them to the fast-growing ones.11 There are two types of people in static churches: those who are already saved, and those who are not. For those not saved, when the

11 I see nothing wrong with moving from a dead church to a living one where I am going to flourish and grow. One would presume God made it clear that it was time to move i.e the person had a peace about the situation.

gospel is preached at the fast-growing church12 they respond. This is genuine church growth. But what about those who are already saved? Their entry into the mega church is transfer growth. A third category of people joining the fast-growing church are the previously unchurched. When they are genuinely saved and thus assimilated into the fast-growing church, they also represent genuine church growth. Finally, there is biological growth – existing church members having children. Only two out of the four ways a church grows have to do with evangelism. So, are there other problems with attributing all church growth to “friendship evangelism?” The answer is “yes.” Many leaders from large, fast-growing churches have been lulled into thinking that there is no need to mobilise their people to proclaim or spread the gospel. They say their church is growing phenomenally just through people making friends with non-Christians and bringing them along. They say “Why change a winning formula?” How should we answer? First, the priority of the Church is not to grow the Church (believe it or not), but to evangelise the world for the glory of God. We should rely utterly and completely on God to build His Church (e.g. Matthew16:18 “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it”) , and focus instead on the priority of what He has clearly commanded us to do, which is to evangelise the world. Second, a church can grow rapidly without any evangelism going on, just like a non-christian club can grow rapidly when existing members invite their non-member friends along to the club. What am I saying here? I am saying that people can join a church because 12 My experience is that the gospel is hardly ever preached in the mega churches. I attended a mega church for a number of years and have attended conferences at many others. My observation is that most people who respond to the altar calls in these churches are responding to anything but the gospel. Rather, they are responding to a feeling. They are asked to respond to a message about something which is completely unrelated to the gospel, as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15. They are invited to “put their hand up if they feel something in their heart.” They are then told “this is God speaking to you.” I argue that this reasoning is specious in the extreme. I go to movies and feel someting in my heart, but that’s because my emotions are being stirred, not because God is speaking to me!

their friends go there but this does not make them genuine Christians. That is to say, there is a massive difference between joining a church (small “c”) and joining the Church (capital “C”). The former does not require a true conversion experience, but the latter does. Now here is the point - even if a church is growing rapidly through genuine conversions, and that same church is not mobilising all its people to evangelise the world, that church will still be a disappointment to Jesus. How does this truth relate to mega churches? I showed in Chapter Fifteen how mega-churches could be 10 times more effective (literally) with God’s mission of the Church if they mobilised their people for personal evangelism. If I was in business and someone showed me a way to be 10 times more profitable, I’d be a complete fool not to take on board what they were saying. So why don’t mega-churches mobilise their people into evangelism? They do not do so for all the reasons unveiled in this Chapter Series, the main reason being that mega church leaders have lost sight of the mission of the church - or maybe they have never known it. In the final analysis, Jesus is interested in obedience to His commands (1 Samuel 15:22 “Obedience[doing His will as revealed in His Word] is better than sacrifice [growing a big church for all to see]”). A big church means little to him if that church is not helping to complete His mission. Rather, it’s a stench in His nostrils. But there is something even more troubling here. Because “friendship evangelism,” mega-churches often hold seminars on how to grow churches, other church leaders who also want to grow their church copy their example. In this way, unwittingly, world evangelisation is hindered. The blind end up leading the blind, just as Jesus said. Just imagine how much more fruitful these large, fast-growing churches would be if they retained their excellent strategy of making friends, but made a priority of mobilising their people to personally and regularly proclaim or spread the gospel as they went about the 14

course of their ordinary day, 7 days a week? The results would be spectacular. Most importantly, such a change would delight Jesus because these pastors would then be leading their people and a whole lot of people in a whole lot of other churches who come to their seminars and conferences into fulfilling His priority, and not turning them away from it. Wow! Think how amazing that would be. Amen. even: Friendship evangelism infringes upon the integrity of relationships if our motive for the friendship is not exposed early. Let me expalin. When we are making a friend for the purpose of seeing them saved, we ought to share our motives very early on. If we don’t, things can get ugly. Our integrity will be infringed and Jesus’ name sullied. How so? What will be their reaction when they find out some time later that the only reason you were cultivating the friendship was to convert them to Christ? They will say to themselves “Hey, the principle reason you were being so friendly, nice, and kind is that you were trying to convert me.” How would that go down with your nonChristian friend? Think about it. If you’re honest, this is what you are doing. The better way, God’s way, is to be up front and honest at the beginning of the friendship. How do we do this? Choosing our moment well, we’d say something like “Mary, I am a Christian. Can I share with you what I believe? What motivates me?” Then share the gospel with great love and grace. If this is done early in the friendship, then the problem of ugly hidden motives is not there. After you have shared the gospel with Mary, it will be obvious to her that you want her to find forgiveness and become a Christian as well. If Mary rejects you at this point, so be it. Really, she is not rejecting you, but Jesus. If she accepts

you, then you know you can relax and move forwards with integrity in the friendship, because you have been up front, transparent, and honest about your motives from the start. In this way, you are putting God first, not the friendship (Matthew 6:33). By sharing the gospel early in a friendship, it puts the ball in His court as to who your friends will be, and you will have preserved your integrity and the name of Jesus in your relationships. I want to wrap this chapter up with a quote from a book on church planting by Steve Smith with Ying Kai. It is entitled “T4T A Discipleship Re Revolution” and is the story behind the world’s fastest growing Church Planting Movement. T4T stands for training for trainers and obviously is all about multiplication. The quote is from pp 205-206. It’s a conversation between a church planter, and Steve Smith, the author of T4T. “Steve, for seven years, we bought the lie that we had to build relationships first and slowly reveal our Christian identity. It took us years. We saw ourselves as picking up rocks to prepare the field to hear the gospel. We would drop little nuggets of truth, but not really the gospel. As we developed these relationships and got very close to these lost friends, we got nervous about sharing the gospel. We thought, ’What if they reject us?’ We began to forget the reason we were there. “Finally, after seven years of no fruit, we got desperate. We shared the gospel with these friends, and they almost all rejected us. That’s when we realized that our approach of ‘relationship evangelism’ was getting us nowhere. We resolved as a team to share the gospel first, and build relationships afterwards. “We started sharing everywhere. We bridged into gospel conversations with as many people as we could. A lot of people didn’t respond. But we finally began to find some that said ‘yes’ and it is through these new believers that God is starting to build His kingdom.”

ummary

• L et’s continue to vigorously promote making friends with non-Christians. • Let’s call making friends with non-Christians “ploughing” and “watering” rather than evangelism. • Let’s not use the term “friendship evangelism.” It is confusing many Christians, and as such is hindering evangelism. • Let’s keep bringing non-Christians to church. • Let’s not rely solely on the speaker at the front of the church to do all the evangelism. Let’s help the speaker at the front by mobilising all believers for personal evangelism. • Building relationships, and bringing non-Christians to church do not constitute “evangelism” unless the gospel has been proclaimed to them or given to them via a tract. • It is not necessary to build a relationship with a non-Christian person in order for the gospel to be effective. • Rarely does God use one factor alone to save people.13 • “Loving people as they are” is a great general principle for relationship building. However, Christian love does not leave people where they are, but seeks to bring them into vital relationship with Jesus Christ through sharing the gospel. • The ideal evangelism strategy is to present the gospel to people we know and people we don’t. It is not either/or – it is both. Jesus has given us the authority to vigorously evangelise everyone (Matthew 28:18). • Friendship evangelism can compromise the integrity of a friendship if the gospel is not shared very early on. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can

13 Dr Thom S. Rainer. Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions Evangelism and Church Growth. Surprising Insights From The Un-Churched And Proven Ways To Reach Them. Zondervan, 2001, p.78

obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. Help others come to an awareness of the serious issues raised in this Chapter . â&#x20AC;˘ CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. In the next Chapter, I explore how evangelists with the Ephesians 4:11-14 gift are critical if we want to see a resurgence of evangelism in the Western Church. Believe it or not, much of the blame for the birth of the Dark Age of Evangelism (this is what we are living in now) can be attributed fairly and squarely to evangelists who have drifted from their Godgiven job description. Come with me to the next Chapter, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll explain what I mean.

Real Life Story

MINISTER’S WIFE GETS ANGRY Anonymous

This is what happened in an Auckland cafe one day. Recently I was out and about evangelising and I noticed an elderly lady sitting alone in a cafe, with no one else near her. I approached her in the same way as I have thousands of other people. Getting eye contact first, I said (smiling and light and breezy) “Hi, can I ask you a question?” “Sure” she said, smiling. “What’s the best selling book of all time?” “Mmm...you’ve got me thinking. OK, what is it?” “It’s the Bible” I said, smiling. Before I got any further she said “Are you evangelising me?” “Yes” I said. “Stop right there” she said. “I don’t agree with what you are doing. I think it’s entirely inappropriate to be going up to people, attempting to give them the gospel. I am a minister’s wife, retired now. I think the best way to win this world is to be the gospel with your life, going about doing good. What you are doing is intrusive.” 19

“No problem” I said (feeling very embarrassed). “Have a nice day.” I didn’t feel it would have been right to have had a debate with her on the spot as to the rights and wrongs of her theology, especially in a cafe. I went back to my seat and sat down and resumed conversation with the person I was with. Some time later (about 30 minutes later), when the person I was with went to move her car to avoid getting a ticket, the minister’s wife came over to me. She let fly! I got a finger wagging lecture about how going into the world and giving the gospel was inappropriate today, and how times had changed, and how people were not open anymore, and how I needed to follow her advice. She must have talked for a full 5 minutes without interruption. She was a Baptist. When she finally finished I challenged her as gently as I could. “Thank you for your advice. But you know what? Jesus is God. He commanded us to go into the world and proclaim the gospel. With all due respect, you are not God. So whose advice should I take?” With that, her lips 20

pursed, and she scuttled off. Later that day, I approached another person somewhere else in EXACTLY the same way as I had approached the minister’s wife, and I received A COMPLETELY different response. The person was open, responsive, hungry, and soft hearted. This person was a complete non-Christian. What’s the lesson?

Julian’s comments.

When the 12 spies went up in Canaan to spy out the land in Numbers 13-14, 10 came back with a negative report, and the other two (Joshua and Caleb) were positive. These two encouraged the Israelites to go up and take the land and the other 10 discouraged them to do this. God affirmed Joshua and Caleb. Listen to this amazing verse: “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.” (Numbers 14:24) Wow! “The land” today is the non-church world. To “possess it” is to go into it with the gospel with the intention of winning as many as we can. Our job is to go with the gospel. God’s job is to grow the seed we plant. When we do this, and with respect to the Great Commission, we are showing God we are “following Him fully”. He would say “we have a different spirit” compared to those who don’t go. And what of the minister’s wife? Who is she in the account of the 12 spies? You know the answer. All I can say is I am thankful she is retired. She now has minimal influence. God wanted minimal influence for the 10 negative spies in Numbers 21

13-14 as well. This is why they are never heard of again after their mention in Numbers, but Joshua has a whole book dedicated to His life and what God did through Him! He showed such strength and courage! His influence will live on forever, but the influence of the 10 negative spies ended abruptly. And it was God who ended it. The biggest threat to world evangelism is not the devil or the world - it’s Christians inside the Christian Church discouraging their own from doing what God commanded. Nothing has changed since the days of Joshua and Caleb. The 10 negative spies are in every church and often they are not as blatant in their negativity as the lady in the cafe. They operate subtly. For example, sometimes they dress their negativity in RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE, saying things like “Let your light shine - this is the best way to win the world” or “Your life speaks louder than your words” and so on. Or they dress their negativity in SUPPOSED WISDOM, saying things like “the time is not right for our church to evangelise” or 22

“we have found better ways of reaching the world than with the simple gospel” and so on and so on. Or they dress their negativity in THEOLOGICAL GARB, arguing about what the gospel is and isn’t, or what evangelism is and isn’t. They muddy the waters, making everything unclear and Christians uncertain. Ultimately, driving all negativity are principalities and powers. What pleases God is simple, child-like obedience (Matthew 18:3). Jesus did not seem to tolerate excuses. “Let the dead bury the dead” He said (Luke 9:60). The irony is that whatever garment the 10 spies in every church pull from the wardrobe of negativity, 99.9% don’t actually, physically, personally, regularly go to the lost with the gospel themselves. And while we in the church are arguing this point and that, and debating one thing and another, the lost are pouring into hell, never having heard the gospel. Friends, recognise the clothing of negativity and those who proffer it for what they are - what they say is not from God, just like the negative report from the 10 spies was not from God. Dismiss these reports, just like God did in Numbers. The good news is that there are positive spies in every church! The challenge for all of us is to find these people, stick close them, pray for them, learn from them, fund them, and go up with them to possess the land and walk into all God’s promises and blessings! Now there’s a great thought.....! 23

(p.s being negative about a negative report is not being negative. On the contrary, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being positive :))

Chapter Twenty Four

UNHOLY GRIEF! 6 WAYS EVANGELISTS WITH THE GIFT CAN GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT!

Unholy Grief! 6 Ways Evangelists With The Gift Can Grieve The Holy Spirit! An evangelist is a person who is a gift from God to the Church (Ephesians 4:11-14). They possess a special ability to spread or proclaim the gospel. Someone without the gift of evangelism who spreads and proclaims the gospel is an evangeliser, not an evangelist. There are basically four types of evangelists in the Church. FOUR TYPES OF EVANGELISTS (1) Full blown “equipping” evangelists: These evangelists are working at the ground level doing the hard yards, attempting to motivate and equip everyone in the Church, showing them how to spread or proclaim the gospel. Usually, they work for a pittance, live in shacks, drive old worn out cars, and are generally viewed by the general Church as being of little value. There are many reasons why this is so, the main one being that they are calling and challenging everyone in the Church to actually do evangelism regularly1. Most people in churches don’t want to be challenged in this way. In fact, they resent it because in being 1 This is not to say that everyone in the Church is like this. There are some who really want to learn how to evangelise, but they are small in number.

challenged, they feel like they are being asked to do something which they perceive as frightening, scary, humiliating and embarrassing. Let’s face it, most people in most churches want to be comfortable, relaxed, and at peace. Equipping evangelists call them out of their comfort zone, which is where they don’t want to be. No one likes to feel frightened, scared, humiliated, embarrassed, and out of their comfort zone, so the equipping evangelist who is issuing the challenge is most often politely shunned, fobbed off, or completely ignored by Church leaders. How does Ephesians 4:11-14 teach that 100% mobilisation is God’s ideal? Answer? If the commission to preach the gospel was given to all believers (and it was), then evangelists must attempt to mobilise all, without exception. Whether people in churches respond or not is in God’s hands. (2) “Limited” equipping evangelists. These evangelists do exactly what equipping evangelists do, except they don’t try and mobilise everyone in the Church, only those who show some interest in doing evangelism, which is usually the 2%. That is to say, they have given up on the 98% of the Church who show no interest, often writing off this group as ‘unsaved’, ‘backslidden’ or ‘hard hearted’. . They put the 98% in the “too hard” basket, claiming that trying to mobilise them is a complete waste of time, effort, and resources. Working with them is demoralising, say the limited equipping evangelists. (3) “Stage” evangelists: Billy Graham and Reinhard Bonnke are examples of this type of evangelist. Stage evangelists fare much better than the ‘equipping’ evangelists and are typically well supported and sought after. This is mainly because they do the evangelism for the Church, and place no demands on the Church to do the evangelism. They soothe the conscience of the Church, letting them off the hook, as it were, from the call and command to do evangelism personally. Stage evangelists also make Christians feel good because people in 3

churches love to see people being saved at big crusades. It’s highly encouraging and inspiring and everyone loves to feel encouraged and inspired in this way. So much so that the Church will pay stage evangelists handsomely for their efforts. It is virtually unheard of for a stage evangelist to struggle financially. (4) The “do it myself” evangelists: This fourth type of evangelist are those who just ‘do’ personal evangelism. Their focus is not on mobilising others or doing stage evangelism. They just faithfully chip away day after day reaching people with the gospel. They go about their work, hardly noticed by anyone in the Church. This type of evangelist has become like this because they have found mobilising the Church to do evangelism so discouraging that they feel there is no other option but to “go it alone”. These evangelists also tend to focus also on doing evangelism in after school clubs, Christian camps, prisons, ships, and other what I call “boutique” evangelism opportunities. What are we to make of these four types of evangelist? According to Ephesians 4:11-14, if an evangelist is not attempting to mobilising everyone in the Church to proclaim or spread the gospel, they are failing with their God-given job description. In the secular world, if an employee was consistenly not following the job description of their employer, what would be the consequenes? You know the answer. THE DIVINE JOB DESCRIPTION. The dictionary defines ‘job description’ like this:

‘a formal account of an employee’s responsibilities.’ Ephesians 4:11-14 is a formal account of an evangelist’s (i.e. the employee) responsibilities before Almighty God (i.e. the employer). Almighty God’s job description for evangelists in Ephesians 4:1114 is clear, unmistakable, and complete. There is nothing fuzzy, 4

or hazy, or mysterious about it. Evangelists are charged by God to equip everyone in the Church to do evangelism, by motivating, coaching, and resourcing them. God has always intended that doing evangelism be established in the life of every believer as a life-long spiritual discipline. Look around your church - how many of the people have made evangelising a life long spiritual discipline? How many of your leaders? Evangelists who are not fulfilling the formal account of their responsibilities given to them by their employer (Almighty God) are grieving the Holy Spirit. How so? 1. They are not helping the Church to come to maturity. This grieves the Spirit. The Church is missing a vital piece of the jig saw. Ephesians 4:11-14 makes it clear that Christians in a local church will never reach maturity without receiving from the on-going ministry of an equipping evangelist. 2. Jesus is missing out on the glory due His name. There is no greater way to glorify Jesus than to proclaim or spread the gospel in a dark world. Proclaiming the gospel is the most potent way to glorify Jesus. So if 98% of the people in most churches are not doing it, Jesus is missing out on a lot of glory. This grieves the Spirit. 3. Evangelists are not experiencing the fullness of God’s blessing. The fullness of God’s blessing is reserved for those who are walking in the fullness of His will (e.g. John 14:21, 2 Chronicles 16:9 ). God wants all evangelists to be walking in the fullness His blessing, therefore if they are not walking in the fullness will (i.e. their job description), they are grieving the Holy Spirit. 4. They are causing Chrisitans without ‘the gift of evangelism’ in the Church to miss out on life and life in all its fullness. This grieves the Spirit. Jesus taught that there is a vital 5

connection between doing’evangelism and finding real life in Christ (e.g. Mark 8:35). Believers without the gift of evangelism who break through in evangelism find life and life in all it’s fullness. 5. They indirectly deny non-Christians the chance of being saved. The chance of non-Christians hearing the gospel is dramatically reduced when all but the gifted evangelists are doing evangelism. Evangelists are only a tiny percentage of the Church. The truth is, when only evangelists are left to do the evangelism, the evangelisation of the world becomes an impossible task to complete and a large percentage of the lost in the world will die never having heard the gospel i.e. we fail with the Great Commission. This grieves the Spirit. 6. They are letting Jesus down. Jesus died for the lost. It’s their forgiveness that he secured on the cross. When the whole Church is not mobilised to tell the lost about the works and wonders of Jesus, the whole plan of redemption breaks down. This grieves the Spirit. For these six reasons alone, I am, therefore, charging all evangelists to return to their God-given job description. That is to say, to be ‘full blown equipping evangelists.’ This doesn’t mean that the other types of evangelist will stop doing what they are doing. It just means that if they are not already attempting to motivate and equip 100% of the people in every church to proclaim or spread the gospel as a major part of their ministry, they ought to start. Furthermore, all four types of evangelist ought to be doing personal evangelism regularly, otherwise how they will have authority or experience to teach others? The few ‘full blown equipping evangelists’ who are already walking in their job description must be funded and backed with prayer. DOING THE MATHS: 6

Calling evangelists back to their Ephesians job description is crucial if we want to see a resurgence of the Great Commission. As I have said over and over in this Mini Book series, we must focus on mobilising the whole Church to evangelise the whole world. It is the quickest and most efficient way of completing the The Great Commission. It’s God’s “A” plan for getting the job done. Just to re-iterate, by evangelising the world I mean that every person on the earth gets to hear and understand the gospel message, delivered with love and grace, at least once, irrespective of whether those who hear the message believe and receive it i.e. are saved.. God wants the mission completed. Matthew 24:14 says “This gospel must first be preached in all the nations, and then the end shall come.” ‘The end’ is a reference to the Second Coming. Jesus wants to receive His bride (i.e The Church), but He won’t until and unless His world has been evangelised.2 How feasible / realistic is it to evangelise the world? I have given this illustration in a previous mini book, and I want to give it again here. Well, let’s says NZ has a population of 5 million, and 5% are genuine believers i.e. 250,000. If each believer were to share the gospel only once a week, we could evangelise New Zealand in a blistering 20 weeks.3 You might be tempted to say “What difference to NZ would that make?” The answer to this question is found in Mini Book Thirteen. Jesus’ teaching on the difference it would make if New Zealand (or any other nation) was evangelised is literally stunning. Today, sadly, if a pastor opened his doors to an evangelist, he could no longer be sure the evangelist would equip his people to spread or proclaim the gospel. 2

There are other conditions which must be satisfied before He will return, but this one is a major.

3 What’s the situation today in NZ? Upward of 95% of the people living in NZ today have not heard the gospel. This is because evangelists have not be living in the fullness of their God-given job descriptions.

Today’s evangelists are under enormous pressure to compromise their God-given job description and the vast majority have succumbed. Instead of equipping people to proclaim or spread the gospel they have instead turned to teaching people how to build friendships with the un-churched, how to ‘be a person of influence’, how to give a testimony, how to invite people to church, how to attract people to church, how to have a gentle conversation with the lost etc. The list of the things being taught by evangelists other than how to proclaim or spread the gospel is now endless! Not that any of these skills / behaviours in and of themselves is wrong. Clearly they are not. They are all to be encouraged. So what’s the problem with evangelists deviating from their God given job description in this way? (1) Biblically, these “other” skills / behaviours were never meant to be the core business of an Ephesians 4:11-14 evangelist. The core business of an evangelist, as I have said, is to equip the saints for the work of ministry. That is to say, to equip everyone in the Church who doesn’t have the gift of evangelism, showing them how to evangelise i.e how to proclaim or spread the gospel. (2) Nowhere in the Bible are these other skills / behaviours portrayed as the core business of a Christian, let alone an Ephesians 4:11-14 evangelist. If and when these ‘other skills’ are mentioned in the Bible, they are not the priority. We evangelists have erred greatly when these behaviours take the place of equipping people to do evangelism. When we do this, we are guilty of majoring on the minors. What is the major for all believers? As we discovered in Mini Book Seven the major for all believers is the evangelisation of the world. 8

To evangelise the world is to complete the Great Commission. The Great Commission has four parts: go, proclaim the gospel, baptise those who are saved, disciple those who are baptised. Of these four parts, proclaiming the gospel is the priority, since the New Testament presents this behaviour as the core activity of a genuine disciple.4 When this is not the priority, then ‘going’ ‘baptising’ and ‘discipling’ all break down. That is to say, if the mission (i.e. the main thing) of the Church is to evangelise the world, what, logically, ought to be the priority of every discipleship program? That’s right - teaching disciples how to evangelise. This is where evangelists with the gift kick in. If the mission is ever going to be completed, the disciples need to know, as their first priority, how to complete it and be motivated to complete it. It’s a no brainer. So, where to from here? WHY CHURCH LEADERS ARE SO IMPORTANT From the discussion so far, it’s not hard to see that a big part of this vision to call evangelists back to their Biblical job description depends on pastors and leaders at all levels of the Church. The fact is, evangelists can’t mobilise whole churches for evangelism unless pastors open their doors. Herein lies one of the major challenges facing the modern Church. Most church leaders have zero desire to invite an evangelist into their church whose desire it is to equip all their people to do evangelism. It’s not even on their radar. This is because most pastors and leaders today do not have it in their heart to engage in personal evangelism themselves. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, 4 Some would argue that “discipleship” is the priority. I would agree but only if the discipleship program makes a priority of teaching disciples how to evangelise. As it stands, I can’t find a single discipleship program anywhere which features evangelism. There is no point in defending “discipleship” as the main feature of the Great Commission if the kind of disciples we are producing are not taking an active part in the evangelisation of the world.

the passionate desire to leave their office and go into the world and proclaim the gospel to a stranger is just not in their hearts. In fact, many leaders have so succumbed to making these “other skills and behaviours” the priority, that the thought of inviting an evangelist in to mobilise all their people for evangelism makes them feel nauseous. Some, believe it or not, as I mentioned in Mini Book Twelve, even openly argue against teaching their people how to evangelise. These are not the only challenges evangelists now face. For example, of the few pastors who do want to teach all the people in their churches how to evangelise, most will only want their people to communicate a sugar coated, watered down, “God is Love” “soft” gospel message - a message with all the hard sayings of Jesus stripped out (e.g hell, judgement, punishment, justice, the cost of being a disciple etc). In other words, a gospel message which is really not the gospel at all. For Paul the Apostle, this is a tragedy beyond words (Galatians 1:6-9 “Woe to you if you preach another gospel”) How have evangelists reacted to these various challenges? Most have buckled under pressure and done what pastors have wanted them to do i.e. to teach everything except how to proclaim or spread the historic gospel. That is to say, evangelists have within them a God-given desire to get into churches, but pastors will either not let them in, or they will let them in only on the condition that they do something other than equip their people how to evangelise! As such, many pastors and leaders are unwittingly working against evangelists who want to be true to their Biblical job description. They are unwittingly working against the completion of the Great Commission. Tragically, we have become, to quote Jesus, a house divided against itself (Matthew 12:25) i.e. Jesus and full blown equipping evangelists want one thing, and most pastors want another. 10

How have so many of today’s pastors and leaders become like this? The answer? They are the fruit of many of today’s seminaries and Bible Colleges. Let me explain. Reliable research shows that only 10% of seminaries around the world now have a course on evangelism. And of the 10% that do, it is likely that the course will be run by a liberal theologian who doesn’t actually do evangelism i.e a theorist. As well, it is likely that “the gospel” being promoted in such courses will be an insipid, limp, watered down, liberal, powerless gospel. Often the course content will focus on little more than the history of evangelism - a history lesson. This is hardly the fuel needed for completing the Great Commission and changing the world. In all my years as a researcher / writer, I have not been able to identify one seminary or Bible College in the world which: • has a compulsory, major course for all its students on evangelism. • equips its students to actually do evangelism • requires its lecturers to be active in evangelism so as to model the behaviour they want their students to acquire • has any form of accountability for its students and staff in evangelism • honours and lifts up evangelism in the general life of the institution. These are the kinds of features of a seminary evangelism curriculum which are needed if we are going to restore the Great Commission to its rightful place as top priority in the life of the Church. Because this curriculum is missing from most of today’s Bible Colleges and seminaries, they are producing graduates who possess no powerful, all consuming vision to evangelise the world i.e. to complete the Great Commission. 11

Thus, a domino effect kicks in. This “non desire/vision/passion” for evangelism which graduates of Bible Colleges and seminaries carry with them when they graduate is passed onto everyone in the churches they lead, including any budding evangelists sitting in their congregation. Evangelists sitting under such pastors often become so discouraged that they toss in their God-given calling, and move into real estate sales, insurance, or some other endeavour; or they compromise their calling in the way I have described. Yes, the majority of today’s crop of pastors and leaders are unwittingly putting out the fire of the evangelists in their midst by demanding that they only teach the people in their churches these “other skills and behaviours” or a compromised gospel message. Worst of all, some pastors politely ignore full blown equipping evangelists. So, we have this situation where the vast majority of today’s pastors and leaders: • don’t carry a personal, deep, passionate vision for the evangelisation of the world • don’t regularly participate in personal evangelism themselves • have not led anyone to Christ for a very long time. • don’t want to teach the people in their churches how to evangelise. How tragic is this, given that the evangelisation of the world is THE mission of the Church, and the first concern of Jesus. Truly, we are now living in the Dark Age of evangelism. With such a dire situation, what hope is there? There is one hope - evangelists with the gift who refuse to compromise on their Biblical job description. Evangelists must find fresh legs to do personal evangelism themselves, and boldly and unashamedly preach and teach 12

everywhere about the utmost priority of completing the Great Commission until the tide turns. Do we have precedents to encourage us? To illustrate the truths about which I am writing here? Yes, we do! Let me explain. What I am about to say is exciting and will give us great hope. When Billy Graham was at the height of his usefulness to God, evangelism as a subject soared to a place of prominence in many Bible Colleges and seminaries. Personal evangelism became “the in thing” in churches. Pastors received a fresh vision for evangelism and the completion of the Great Commission. Finance for the evangelisation of the world flooded in. Many churches were actually competing to see if they could out give each other for the cause of the Great Commission. World wide, evangelism at every level surged. You may ask “Is Billy Graham the only example?” No, he is not. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit used Peter the Apostle in a dramatic way to put evangelism at the top of the Early Church agenda by preaching an evangelistic sermon where 3000 were saved. This event, which followed hard on the heels of the resurrection and Pentecost, and the Great Commission announcements of Jesus, kicked off, in a dramatic way, the mission of the Early Church to evangelise the world. The Apostles (i.e the church leaders) were leading the charge. Just look at Acts 5:41-42 “...the Apostles never stopped going door to door, giving the gospel.” Friends, if it’s happened before, it can happen again. God has uniquely gifted evangelists to re-envision the Christian Church at every level to complete the Great Commission i.e. to infuse Bible Colleges, seminaries, and church leaders with a desire to make the evangelisation of the world their top priority. But first the vast majority of evangelists must themselves be re-envisioned and re-fired. 13

Evangelists - because for many of us our fires to mobilise the whole Church to evangelise the world have gone out, the fires of the rest of the Church have gone out as well, and these “other skills and behaviours” have, by default, assumed the top spot. Evangelists, we must find new strength from God, through the Holy Spirit, to overcome the negative attitude to evangelism in the modern Church which has come upon us like a Tsunami from hell. Truly, this tragic situation is from the devil himself. Why such strong language? As long as this situation persists, literally 100’s of millions of souls around the world are being lost without hope, dying and going to hell without ever hearing the Christian gospel once. God’s whole redemptive plan is breaking down. Not only this, but Christians are missing out on the personal growth and blessing which comes through participating in evangelism (Mark 8:35 “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it”). Where will we find help? - Psalm 121:1-2 says “I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Evangelists out there - we must: • carry a God given burden to mobilise the whole Church for evangelism, and not settle to work with the one or two people in every church who show some interest. That is to say, we must become WHOLE OF CHURCH evangelists. • be schooled up on the subject of evangelism, so that, among other things, we can rightly define key terms such as ‘evangelism’, ‘the gospel’, and ‘the Great Commission’ and key theologies such as ‘the mission’ and ‘the purpose’ of the Church (2 Timothy 2:15). That is to say, we must become EDUCATED evangelists. • start doing personal evangelism regularly ourselves. It is a strange paradox that the desire to do evangelism comes from doing 14

evangelism. When we “do” personal evangelism, we receive from the Holy Spirit the fire, the power, and the authority to inspire others. We can’t ask others to go where we have not gone first ourselves. Sad to say, many many people who preach and teach about the importance of evangelism don’t actually do evangelism. That is to say, we must become “LEAD BY EXAMPLE” evangelists. • be people of prayer. We won’t turn this tide on the situation I have described in this book without God’s help. That is to say, we must become PRAYING evangelists. • be people of the Bible. We must study this book, book by book, Old Testament and New, until we get a handle on it in its entirety. Only by doing this will we most clearly see and feel the heart of God to redeem the world. That is to say, we must become LOVERS OF THE BIBLE evangelists. • boldly and unashamedly write about, speak about, blog about, gossip about, preach about the absolute priority of completing the Great Commission. For too long, evangelists have, under the guise of not wanting to be viewed as bucking authority, or being divisive, or rocking the boat, kept silent about the issues I have raised in this Mini Book series. We’ve been afraid to speak up for fear that pastors will close their doors to us. We’ve lost our courage. We’ve compromised, and compromise never pays a good return. So, we must become BRAVE AND COURAGEOUS, PUBLICISING evangelists. • absolutely refuse to deviate from our God-given job description. We must become UNCOMPROMISING evangelists. • be morally and ethically pure. We must become HOLY evangelists. God works best through clean vessels. • arrive at churches we are invited to with proven strategies and tools which will help pastors not only mobilise all their people for evangelism, but sustain them in it. As such, we must become 15

RESOURCEFUL AND SERVANT HEARTED evangelists who are solution orientated. As such, we’ll be able to truly help pastors. These are the bullet points of our job description from God. Take any one of these bullet points out, and our usefulness to God as evangelists will be weakened. Evangelists, hear me in this - because we have compromised on some or all of these bullet points, Church leaders have compromised on their commitment to the absolute priority of the Great Commission, and the Dark Age of evangelism has come upon us. It will only be when we evangelists return to this job description with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength that our FIRE and PASSION will return, and today’s pastors and seminary / Bible College leader’s will catch the fire. When this happens, the Great Commission will experience a resurgence and churches will experience GENUINE explosive growth again (not simply transfer growth), just like the Early Church. My plea and prayer is that pastors would see full blown equipping evangelists for what they are - a gift from God (Ephesians 4:11-14). Finally, a word about Alpha, seeing so many churches are using this great initiative. Programs like Alpha have a vital part to play in the overall mix, and we want to retain them. However, with Alpha, participants watch Nicky Gumbel do the evangelism, while they look on. The biblical mandate is to mobilise everyone in a local Church to personally and regularly participate in evangelism, not watch someone else do it. So, let’s retain Alpha, but alongside it keep the priority of motivating and mobilising the Church to start doing personal evangelism.

ummary

• There are 4 evangelist: stage evangelists, full blown equipping evangelists, limited equipping evangelists, and “do it yourself” evangelists. • The Biblical mandate of every evangelist, regardless of what type they are, is to equip everyone in the Church, showing them how to evangelise. • If we drift from this core mandate, we are erring. We are compromising, and thus grieving the Holy Spirit. • Evangelists with the gift are the key to causing a resurgence of obedience to the Great Commission. • But evangelists must first be re-envisioned to adhere to their biblical job description. • Alpha must be retained, and promoted, but along side it, the emphasis ought to be on motivating and equipping every member of the church to do evangelism personally. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Mini Book to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Mini Book, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite. com. Post it on social media. • CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. In the next Mini Book I explore motivations for evangelism. To enlist troops for battle and to keep them there and passionate for the Cause, wise commanders know they must articulate clearly and

convincingly why it is worth going to war and staying in the battle. What ought to be our number one motivation to evangelise the world? Is it obedience to God? Or is it love for our neighbour? To see people saved and headed for heaven? Or is the main reason so that we can stop people going to hell? Or do we go to battle because evangelism gives us a vision and a sense of purpose? Or is it because we think that in doing evangelism we are storing up riches in heaven for ourselves? Or is it a mixture of all of the above? Believe it or not, none of these ought to be our number one motive for doing evangelism. In the next mini book, I will show you why.

Case Study The following is an email I received recently from someone with the Ephesians 4:11-14 gift of evangelism. As part of our desire to network with other evangelists, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been phoning churches and asking the pastors of those churches if they had any evangelists in their congregations. When they gave me names and email addresses, I contacted those evangelists. Below is an email I received from one evangelist. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like you to read this, and critique it in light of what I have written in the Mini Book. I give my own critique at the end of the email. ----------------------------------------------------------------------Shalom, Julian Thank you for contacting me. Please forgive the delay in replying. I asked some of my friends, Pastors and other Christians about you and I am sure you know all reports came back good. : ) 18

It was prophesied by a pastor I had not met before that I had a fire in my belly to preach. He was correct, but I had never told anyone. Been a few years and now I am doing Prison Ministry, working at the Healing Door Ministry, mentoring new young converts, have preached at a few churches, but what has been exciting to me is the Great I Am has been letting me be His servant by bringing lost souls to Yeshua and healing some of them in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Doing this on the streets of my city. I asked Him to increase my Faith and He has done so. Yet I am still amazed as much as the person who has been healed. : ) Just started the Street Ministry, and have been out only three times, but four people have been healed and three come to accept Yeshua as their Saviour. It is very exciting to go out on Faith and be directed by the Holy Spirit. I feel so blessed that Father is willing to use me. I have no formal training, but been a bible student most of my life. I am excited to attend your training at Oke Bay and in such a beautiful place. Money is tight for now, but as your training is planed to be on going, my wife and I hope to attend in the future. . May YHWH bless what you are doing, I will pray that you have a great turn out. I feel in my spirit that our time is short, the workers are few, but the harvest is great and ready to be taken. The next time you are in my city, please let me know as I would like to meet and talk to you. Ben, Wellington -----------------------------------------------------------------------------19

THE POSITIVES 1. Ben is active. By this I mean he is busy doing God’s will - preaching in churches, going into prisons, mentoring new converts, working with Healing Door Ministry, moving in signs and wonders, and seeing people saved. Clearly, this is all Biblical, very desirable, and to be commended. 2. He has a handle on the shortness of time. 3. He has zeal and fire. 4. He is a praying man, asking God for more faith. 5. He is relationional. He wants to connect. 6. He wants to be directed by the Holy Spirit. 7. He has a grateful heart. THE NEGATIVES. I can’t be sure, but it seems like: 1. He seems to be equating evangelism with the winning of souls. If so, he is carrying a device. 2. He doesn’t seem to understand what evangelism is and isn’t i.e. that to evangelise is to spread or proclaim the gospel. 3. He doesn’t seem to understand that the mission of the Church is to evangelise the world. 4. He makes no mention of his plans or goals to mobilise others in his church for evangelism. That is to say, the job description of an Ephesians 4:11-14 evangelist is to ‘equip the saints for the work of ministry.’ i.e. make a priority of mobilising and equipping everyone in his church to spread or proclaim the gospel. 5. He seems to have a shot gun approach to ministry frantically busy with a little bit of everything. To be moving as an evangelist true to his Biblical job description, he ought to have a sniper’s approach to ministry. That is to say, he ought to be focussing on making a priority mobilising and 20

equipping everyone in his church to spread or proclaim the gospel, staying at this task, and focussing on this task, until the job is done. If the mission of the Church is to evangelise the world (and it is), then the most effective way to do this, the best way to do this, the quickest way (mathematically speaking) to get the job done, is not to do all the evangelism ourselves but to mobilise others to evangelise. It was D L Moody who said â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to do the work of 100 men, I want to get a 100 men working.â&#x20AC;? This is why the Ephesians 4:11-14 job description is as it is.

Real Life Story Sylvia gibbs, Tauranga New Zealand

Sylvia is in her 70’s, is retired, and lives with her husband Steve. This is her story. One Saturday morning I was exiting a shop when the man in front of me started to talk crossly into the air about what he could see and hear. He was referring to a street preacher across the road. Every Saturday morning on the corner of the street a man preached the word of God. The man in front of me was uptight and didn’t approve. I found myself saying to him “excuse me sir.” He stopped, turned round and looked at me. I asked him, “Have you ever understood what Jesus has done for you personally?” Silence, then he said “Well no I don’t think I have.” I continued with a question, “Would you like to know what Jesus has done for you?” “Well yes, what has He done for me?” Right there on the pavement I explained the Gospel of Jesus to him. He listened intently. At the end he said, “Well I have a decision to make.” Then he proceeded to tell me more about his life, the loss of his wife etc. We parted on good terms and he thanked me for letting him know what Jesus had done for him. 22

Another time, I was away on holiday and in a hot pool when a man in his 80s asked me if I’d had an accident. I said, “Yes”. He said “I had an accident.” Sensing he wanted to talk I moved closer to hear what John was saying about a horrific vehicle accident. The hospital didn’t expect him to survive 24 hours. He told me about his facial reconstruction etc. Then as he was recounting the actual vehicle accident, I learned his vehicle had gone over a cliff and landed upside down. He knew he was seriously injured. He talked about seeing a bright light, in his dying state. I asked him, “John what do you think that bright light was?” He said, “Oh, they say the devil looks after his own.” I was shocked, “John, The Bible says that Jesus is the light of the world. What do you think?” John told me he used to go to an Anglican church but stopped years ago. Recently he’d been looking at the main religions of the World. At this point I sent an SOS prayer to the Lord “HELP”. I asked John what he thought about what he been reading, then he spoke of Islam and Muslim beliefs. I listened to him, we chatted on, building a mini relationship. There was a lot of personal stuff which revealed he was an adulterer. I asked him if he knew what 23

God called his sin, and he named it adultery. He told me all about his wife. He also told me about the lady friend who was now dead and how he talked to her each night and had her picture to look at. I said to him “Oh John you’d do better to talk to Jesus.” He smiled. We talked some more and I asked if he’d ever asked God to forgive him for all the wrong things he’d done in his life. He said “No.” So then I spoke of Jesus on the cross taking the punishment for the wrong we have done, and shared the full gospel of Jesus with him and what he needed to do. He said he was going to pray that prayer at home that night. I was a stranger to the area so didn’t know a church I could recommend to him. “Alpha” popped into my mind so I said, “John when you’ve prayed that prayer it would be good to go and find a church with an Alpha sign outside because they will help you to understand more.” By this time several little children had crept up along the edge of the water and I said “look, John we’ve got a party now.” He laughed. Then a young mum joined us and I said “come and join our pool party.” Nicole introduced herself and I introduced John and myself. Next, Nicole introduced her husband Don. Don struck up a conversation with John. Nicole told me God had told them to intercede for me as they heard me sharing the Gospel of Jesus with the old man. This was a great encouragement to me to know God was on our case. Also Don was at Faith Bible College studying Pastoral things, so he was someone I could hand John over to. God had provided and answered my SOS. Sometime later I said my good-byes and made 24

my way to the changing room. Nicole joined me and said she wanted to encourage me about the way I shared with this man. She said I did it well and that she hadn’t heard anyone share the Gospel of Jesus with anyone for a long time. This couple regularly go to the pools to intentionally share the Gospel with those who will listen. They find it an excellent place because people have time. God bless these two for their obedience, prayers and encouragement and praise God for His faithfulness to provide. We pray we’ll see this gentleman John in Heaven and have a party.

Julian’s comments.

1. Sylvia was intentional about her evangelism. Unless she made a decision to evangelise, no evangelism would have taken place. 2. She was quick to see natural openings 3. She is very skilful at asking questions. 4. She was gentle and loving as she gave the gospel. 5. God was at work, bringing along Nicole to pray as Sylvia witnessed to the man in the pool. When we evangelise, we are never alone. 6. At no point did Sylvia condemn anyone, yet she didn’t compromise on the gospel message. 7. Sylvia is also skilful at what she calls ‘building a mini relationship.’ What she means is that she is truly interested in the other person and wanted to know about their lives. She showed genuine interest in the other person. To do this is to ‘plough’ the heart of the person we are talking to, which makes them more open to hear the gospel.

Chapter Twenty Five

The Highest Motive For Doing Evangelism? Prepare To Be Surprised!

The Highest Motive For Doing Evangelism? Prepare To Be Surprised! “I place no value in what I have or possess, except in relation to the Kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of the Kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giving or keeping it, I shall promote the glory of him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity. David Livingstone, Missionary to Africa (1813-1873)

hen I run seminars, I often ask people what they think should be our main motivation for doing evangelism. Typically they say one of the following: • “We want to obey God’s command to go into the world and proclaim the gospel. We are under the authority of Jesus.” • “We want to love people. When we present the gospel to nonChristians, we plant an incorruptible seed in their hearts which God promises to grow. Many later decide for Jesus and then their whole destiny is changed. So there is nothing more loving we can do than co-operate with God to introduce non-Christians to Jesus and eternal life.” • “We want to show our love for God. Did He not say, ‘If you love Me, you will obey My commands?’” 2

• “We want to win souls. Jesus said ‘I came to seek and save the lost.’ If this was Jesus’ motive, it ought to be ours too.” These are all valid and Biblical motives for evangelising, but none of these is the main one. Let me say it plainly: our main motive for evangelising the world is to glorify God.

cholars agree – do it for the glory of God…

The following are just three of many eminent leaders who have expressed this great truth in their writing. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, for example, says: “The supreme object of the work of evangelism is to glorify God, not to save souls.”1 “Not to save souls.” Did you notice that? Not to save souls. Dr John MacArthur writes: “One of the greatest ways we can give glory to God is to declare the gospel. [Its message] radiates the glory of God like nothing else in the universe. When we declare the gospel we are declaring the clearest and most powerful aspect of God’s glory. Thus, [declaration of the gospel] is one of the highest and purest forms of worship because it most clearly affirms the glory of God.”2 Dr John Piper says the same thing: “The universal lostness of man is not the only focus for missionary motivation. Arching over it is the great goal of bringing glory to Christ.”3 Please grasp firmly the truth of what these leaders are saying. They received their insights after a thorough study of Scripture. For example, in John 7:18 Jesus says “Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory4, but he who seeks the glory of the 1

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The Presentation Of The Gospel. London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1949, pp.6-7

Dr John MacArthur. The Legacy Of Jesus. Moody Press, 1986, p.36

Cited in: George Verwer. Out Of The Comfort Zone. Grace! Vision! Action! OM Books, 2000, p.50

4 We can evangelise for all kinds of wrong motives or hidden agendas. For example, we can evangelise in order to grow a big church so we can look good and show off. We say “Look what I have done!” or “Look how clever I am!” We might want to grow a big church to prove something to someone. Or we can evangelise to boast about how God is using us. We say “Look how God has used me!” or “Look how many souls I won!” Or we can evangelise in order to increase the tithe etc. Jesus is saying in this verse that underlying all wrong motives is self glorification, not God glorification. He demands that we have nothing to do with the former, but rather focus completely on the latter.

one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.” Jesus is saying here “I am looking for the person who will evangelise for my glory, and my glory alone. When you spot such a person, you can be sure they are truly Mine. They are the real deal. They are genuinely doing my work for my glory, not their own.” The people you lead in your church must know this and when they evangelise they are to do so with this motivation at the very forefront of their thinking. If any lesser motivation becomes primary, like tender seedlings exposed to the blazing heat of the sun, your troops will soon wither and die when the battle for the evangelisation of the world heats up. Why? Because if you evangelise, and you don’t see souls won everytime you spread or proclaim the gospel, you might give in to discouragement and a sense of failure, and give up. But if you know that the main reason you are evangelising is to glorify God, and not to win souls, you’ll always know you are succeeding with evangelism, whether souls are coming to Christ or not. So how exactly does “evangelising” glorify Jesus?

ow evangelism glorifies Jesus…

According to the dictionary, “to glorify” means “to make glorious by bestowing honour, praise, or admiration; to elevate; to light up brilliantly.” When we go to non-Christians and explain the gospel we are honouring, praising, elevating and lighting up Jesus brilliantly. We are glorifying Him. Please think about this. The words of the true Biblical gospel reveal richly the greatness, deeds, and excellencies of Jesus. For example, Jesus’ sinless life points to His holiness, moral purity and transcendence; His humility is shown by His descent from heaven; His incarnation shows His eminence, grace and benevolence; His death on the Cross shows His mercy, compassion, love, courage, faithfulness and humanity; His judgment of sin shows 4

His justice, wisdom, divinity, and righteousness; His three year ministry demonstrates His persistence and longsuffering, for He remained resolute in the face of great persecution; His resurrection demonstrates His infinity, majesty, omnipotence, and veracity. All this, and more, are in one amazing message - the gospel! As such, when we proclaim the gospel in a dark world, we are causing Jesus to be lit up brilliantly. We are glorifying Him. And since no other single message from the Bible contains more of the attributes, merits and excellencies of Jesus than the gospel message, evangelism is the greatest way to give Him glory. You might ask “How does this work in reality?” Good question. It’s like this - when you lovingly and graciously proclaim the gospel to someone, you are answering the following four questions. 1. Why must we be saved? 2. How can Jesus save us? 3. What must we do to be saved? 4. What is the cost of being a disciple? That is to say, when you proclaim the gospel, you are explaining to the person listening why they must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved, and the cost of being a disciple. As you do this, all the attributes, merits and excellencies of Jesus shine forth. These four questions and their answers are crucial because they zero in upon, and draw attention to, the high points of Jesus’ redemptive work. For example, His death on the Cross, His shed Blood, His role as the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, His resurrection from the dead, and the salvation significance of these (and other) monumental events, truths and theologies. Let’s be brutally honest here - if non-Christians were observing us every minute of every day would they know why they must be 5

saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved, and the cost of being a disciple? No matter how polite, kind, happy, generous, morally upright and nice in every way we are to everyone we meet, will our lives cause the people around us to ask and answer these four questions? The truthful, bald honest answer is that they won’t. Not a chance. Sure, they might become curious about us and our faith if our behaviour shines, but at some point we will have to share the gospel which is where we will ask and answer the four questions. This is why social action alone, or living good lives alone, or being used by God to work a miracle, or even a combination of these three, will never cut it.5 Paul the Apostle was saying as much when he wrote: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the gospel!” Romans 10:14-15. You see, the moment we stop in our day and start sharing the gospel with someone (or we give someone a booklet about the gospel and they start reading it), the focus comes off us completely, and goes onto Jesus. In the gospel message these four questions are asked and answered. Suddenly, in the time it takes to share the gospel, or read the gospel, the focus, via these four questions and their answers, is all on Jesus. When this happens, Jesus is being glorified.

es, you can bring Jesus much glory…

Jesus will never be glorified among non-Christians unless

5 Yet, sadly, many churches have gone down the route of trying to win the world through social action, all the while ignoring evangelism or paying lip service to it. This is a tragedy beyond words. They have lost sight of the mission of the Church, which is the evangelisation of the world.

someone or something causes this to happen. That “someone” is you and me. Deciding whether to evanglise or not is a choice we make moment by moment each day with every person who comes across our path. At the final Judgment Jesus will not ask us, “How many souls did you save?” Or “How many people were healed through you” or “How many people did you help in a practical way?” Rather, He will ask us, “Did you glorify Me by proclaiming or spreading the gospel? Did you make plain My merits to non-Christians? Did you use your mouth (i.e. proclaiming the gospel) or your hands and feet (i.e. spreading the gospel by distributing booklets which explain the gospel) to light Me up brilliantly, to elevate Me? Did you use your money, resources, and time to do this?”

ood works and the glory…

As I have spoken on this subject of glorifying Jesus in various places around the world, some Christians have protested,6 “Proclaiming or spreading the gospel is not the only way of glorifying Jesus! Doesn’t the Bible say that we can also glorify God by our good works? Through miracles and signs and wonders?” We know the answer is an emphatic “yes” (e.g. Matthew 5:16). We know too that a good work done secretly and privately is pleasing to Jesus (e.g. Matthew 6:6; 6:18). However, sometimes our good works, good moral behaviour, seeing someone healed through us, and a joyful outlook can actually glorify us, and not Jesus. Let me explain.

rs Smith the Christian– a good person, but not a channel of glory for Jesus…

Mrs Smith, for example, is a generous servant. She bakes

6 I was taking a seminar once and a hand shot up in protest. “We can glorify God if we are alone on a desert island, surely?!” The answer, of course, is “Yes.” How so? Well, God sees the heart. If in the heart of the person on the desert Island there was a desire and a willingness to ask and answer the four crucial questions I have cited in this chapter, then this heart desire is what glorifies Jesus. That is to say, if there were people around to ask, this person would most definitely ask them!

cakes for people in the neighbourhood, visits them when they are sick, remembers their birthdays and runs errands for people. What she says to people is always encouraging and life-giving. No one has ever heard her gossip, criticise, or stab people in the back. Everyone loves Mrs Smith and thinks she is amazing. However, although Mrs Smith is a Christian, she never shares the gospel. So who is getting the glory? Mrs Smith. Even if Mrs Smith lets everyone know she is a Christian, it will still be Mrs Smith who is receiving the glory. People will say of her “Oh my, isn’t she a lovely Christian woman!” As I have said before, and say it again now, the critical question for you and me is this - would non-Christians watching Mrs Smith know why they must be saved? Know how Jesus can save them? Know what they must do to be saved? Know the cost of being a disciple? No, they will not. I know from speaking with literally thousands of non-Christians that they perceive us as ‘do-gooders’ and ‘nice religious folk’ and that’s about it. They will not hear (or read) the four crucial questions unless someone asks them, and they won’t know the answers unless someone gives them. These four crucial questions and answers are those which Jesus came into this world to announce, and He has commanded us to carry on announcing them. These are the questions and answers which the gospel asks and answers. Announcing these questions and their answers is, essentially, what the Great Commission, evangelism, and glorifying Jesus through evangelism is all about. It is supremely important that Jesus receive the glory for what we do and say in the world. Scripture clearly teaches this: •“ I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8). • “And I will not give My glory to another” (Isaiah 48:11). •“ Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your name be the glory, 8

because of Your love and faithfulness” (Psalm 115:1). If we don’t give the gospel as we do our good works, and as will live our morally upright and pure lives, we might easily be misunderstood by those watching, as was the case of Mrs Smith. Worse still, those watching might see us as good Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus. When this happens, in the minds of those watching us, the glory for our good works and wonderful morally upright lives will go to the gods of these false religions, not to Jesus.7 Or what about atheists? Atheists can be moral, upright, happy, gracious, kind people too. So how, for those watching our lives, will we be perceived as any different from them? How will anyone watching us and them know we are different? If we don’t share the gospel, they may never know.

ow to “up” the glory going to Jesus…

To make sure Jesus gets the glory for our good works, miracles etc we need to master the art of what I call “MTG”. MTG stands for Maximsing The Glory. Let me give you an example: I like to pick up hitchhikers. As a young Christian, before I understood anything of what I’ve written in this Book, when I dropped off the hitchhiker I would always say, “God bless you!” or something similar because I wanted them to know I was a Christian. Or, if I did a good work for a non-Christian I would say, “Have a good day. God bless you.” These phrases minimise the glory going to Jesus.

aximising the glory going to Jesus...

Many of us do similar things because we want to point people to Jesus. There are other things we do to do this. We might, for example, wear fish-shaped badges on our clothing, attach a Christian bumper sticker to our cars, carry a Bible, let our 7

Remember, good works are not unique to Christianity. Buddhists, atheists, Hindus and many other groups in society do them, but not a shred of glory for these goes to Jesus.

neighbours know we go to church on Sunday, and refrain from smoking or swearing. Although these behaviours might hint that we are Christians, they do not “make plain the merits of Jesus” (Ephesians 3:9, NIV) or light Jesus up brilliantly. None of these behaviours asks and answers the four crucial questions. In other words, if all we do is the things I have mentioned above, we are guaranteeing Jesus will remain vague and mysterious in the minds of non-Christians. This being so, not much glory (if any at all) is going to Jesus. As Dr Leighton Ford puts it: “We are to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works, but then we must reveal the source so that they may glorify our Father who is in heaven.”8 Rather than dropping the hitchhiker off and saying “God bless you,” I now know it would be better to take him or her through the gospel or at the very least give away a booklet with the gospel message inside. In this way, the glory for picking the man up and giving him a ride is maximised and goes to Jesus. Here is another example. Let’s say I am the world’s greatest violinist. My talent and time are given to me by God. I could use this talent and time to attract praise for myself, or I could glorify God by publicly acknowledging that my talent came from Him and was given by Him. I could say to the audience after a recital, “I want to thank Jesus for the talent He has given me. Good night and thank you for coming.” This would minimise the glory going to Jesus. If I was really bold and wanted to MTG going to Jesus I would say graciously, “I want to thank Jesus for the talent He has given me. To those of you tonight who have applauded this talent and enjoyed it, I would like an opportunity to explain why I am a Christian. If you’d be so gracious as to afford me this opportunity, 8

Dr Leighton Ford, The Christian Persuader. A New Look At Evangelism Today. Harper and Row, 1976, p.78

I’d be grateful. If you would like to go at this point, please feel free to do so.  Let’s have a two-minute break so that those who need to leave now can do so. To those who are leaving, good night, and thank you so much for coming. To those who are coming back to hear my story, thank you. I really appreciate your interest.” When people returned after the break, I would give my testimony and proclaim the gospel. To act in this way would be to maximise the glory going to Jesus.

hy giving the gospel maximises the glory going to Jesus...

As I have already said, the gospel is replete with “the greatness, deeds, and excellencies of Jesus” and through it Jesus is revealed as the greatest of all heroes. Through it Jesus is lit up brilliantly. It also explains not just why Christians do what we do, but also Who is motivating and empowering us. It causes our listeners to focus on Jesus and His story, and not on our own story or good behaviour. As such, it directs all the glory to Jesus. As we speak out the gospel, He increases and we decrease. If we don’t connect our good works with the words of the gospel, the danger is we might increase and He decrease. Look how the writer of Chronicles connects the proclamation of the gospel with the glorification of God: “Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvellous deeds among all peoples…. ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name” (1 Chronicles 16: 23-29).

hy words are so important…

This Scipture implies that when we speak to people about salvation through the gospel, day after day, we are glorifying the Lord. Notice the words sing, proclaim, declare. What do these 11

all have in common? Words. Jesus could have come to earth, engaged in radical social action, worked a million miracles, and said nothing. But He didn’t do this. He used words. You see, Words are extremely important to God. He works through Words to do the miraculous. He created the world, defeated the devil, and stilled the storm with them. In the gospels, all Jesus’ miracles were performed using Words - His Words. It was with “a Word” that the servant of the centurion was healed (Matthew 8:8). Lazarus was raised with Words. In Romans 1:16, Paul calls the Words of the gospel, “the power of God for salvation.” The words of the gospel are God’s Words, and He promises to save people through them. As such, they are extremely powerful. My friends in Christ, let me say this plainly - it is not enough to simply let our light shine, to perform random acts of kindness, to be used by God to work miracles, or to flood the world with good works. To maximise the glory going to Jesus, we must labour, as Jesus did, to connect our good deeds, miracles, signs and wonders, and other good behaviour with the Words of the gospel message.

ow to become a star…

Psalm 19 is yet another illustration of how God delights to use words to glorify Himself. Just look at how many times in these first four verses reference is made to words, or speaking. They are literally everywhere! “The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display His marvellous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known. They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies; yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world” (Psalm 19:1-4, NLT). “The heavens and the skies” says the psalmist, “speak” to 12

humanity about the merits of God.9 How do they speak? Surely, stars can’t speak? Yes, they can. When we look at the sky on a clear night, certain thoughts about God come to us. These thoughts are words. What we are watching stimulates us to think (for example) of His omnipotence, majesty, greatness, creative genius, beauty or omnipresence. We might use other words to describe the thoughts which come to us as we gaze into the night sky (e.g. “amazing!” “Oh wow!” “awesome!” etc), but whatever ones we use, we use words. In this way, creation “speaks” to us about the greatness of Jesus and in this way it glorifies Him. When we proclaim the gospel, we join with the rest of creation in using words to declare His greatness to the world. Are you “getting” this?

essons from the stars…

There are other lessons to learn from the stars and the sky about how we can glorify Jesus through the proclamation of the gospel. One day I was looking at a brilliantly blue clear sky. Only a few hours earlier the same space above me was littered with bright stars. So where had all the stars gone when the sky turned from black to blue? The answer is that they were still there. It’s just that I couldn’t see them because they were outshone by the brilliance of the sun when it arose in the morning. Why do stars shine most brightly at night? Because the sun has gone down and they are set against the background of the black sky. There is a lesson for us here as to how we can bring the greatest glory to God in this world. Let me explain:

here to shine most brightly…

Many places in Scripture associate Christians with light. For example, Jesus calls His disciples “the light of the 9

Not literally of course. We don’t hear God audibly as we look at the night sky. But the grandeur of the night sky elicits thoughts in our mind. We may say these thoughts are “God speaking to us.”

world” (Matthew 5:14); and He says of Himself, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). By contrast, a spiritually dark place is where the kingdom of darkness reigns and rules. This is anywhere outside of the Kingdom of God, where Jesus does not reign and where behaviour, attitudes and thoughts not pleasing to God are operative. Look at Ephesians 5:8-10: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth), and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.” Similarly, when Jesus was arrested He told His captors that “darkness reigns” (Luke 22:53). Paul describes Christians as having been rescued from “…the dominion of darkness” (Colossians 1:13). When we go out into the non-Christian world with the gospel, we are going into spiritual darkness. Now, where are Christians going to shine most brightly and bring most glory to Jesus? In a Sunday morning church service where all the people of light gather? There we will be like the stars shining in the full light of day against the background of a blue sky lit by the blazing sun. Or will we shine brightest in a dark place, where all the people of darkness gather, as the stars shine against the night sky? You know the answer. This is why Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15). The “go” in this scripture is His command for the stars (i.e the people in Church) to get out of the place of light (i.e. their church services, meetings, and conferences), and to go into the darkness (i.e. the world) declaring “the light of the gospel”(2 Corinthians 4:4). Please meditate on this - it is when the people of light declare 14

the gospel of light in the dark places of this world that Jesus will shine brightest. That is to say, when Jesus will be most glorified. In Philippians 2:14-15, Paul actually shows how Christians who proclaim the gospel shine like stars: “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the Word of life (i.e. the gospel) – in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour for nothing.” The apostle reminds us here that it is our words which make us shine – a direct reference to the gospel. Commenting on Philippians 2:14-15, Dr John Stott writes: “If his readers do not shine like stars in the sky, if they do not hold forth the Word of life [the glorious light of the gospel], like waiters serving out some dainty dish, then he would regard all his Christian race and labour as having been in vain.”10 Let me say it again. Christians shine brightest when they move out of the Church and combine good works with the spread or proclamation of the glorious light of the gospel. So far in this discussion, I trust I have made it clear that: • The highest motive for evangelising the world is to glorify Jesus. • The greatest way to glorify Him is to proclaim the gospel. With respect to evangelising the world and motives, these are not the only things we need to know. We also need to know that when we are evangelising we are worshipping Jesus. Why is it so important to mention this? Well, I have encountered some Christians who maintain that our priority is not to evangelise the world but to worship Jesus. Thus their focus is worshipping God through singing songs and hymns at 10 Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. Hodder and Stoughton. 1965, pp.62-63

the expense of evangelising the world. What are we to make of this? What these brothers and sisters don’t realise is that there need not be any competition for the top spot here. Evangelism and worship are best friends. Why? Because to evangelise is to enter into the highest form of worship!

vangelism is worship…

Who equates evangelising with worship? Dr Stott says when we go into the world and proclaim the gospel we are worshipping Jesus. Stott says worship is “worthship, an acknowledgement of the worth of Almighty God.”11 I have already talked about how when we give the gospel to non-Christians, we are declaring in the most colourful and complete way possible the excellencies, merits, and greatness of Jesus’ person, works, and attributes. When we declare him in this way, we are worshipping Him. How could it not be so? Think also about this. While you are evangelising, you and the person listening to the gospel are focussed on Jesus. You might reply “Isn’t this what we do when we worship Him through song on Sunday mornings? Don’t we focus on Him and sing about his excellencies, greatness, works, and attributes?” The difference between worshipping through a song on Sunday morning and worshipping through evangelism is this - the gospel message is pregnant with more of the excellencies and merits of Jesus than any single hymn or song. If you analyse most songs and hymns, you’ll find only a few attributes of Jesus are being announced whereas in a true gospel message the excellencies and merits of Jesus will be overflowing in their richness and variety. That is to say, there are more attributes of Jesus in the gospel message than any song or hymn. And, as I have said, on Sunday morning, we are worshipping 11 Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. Inter Varsity Press. 1997. p.27

Jesus in the place of light (i.e. inside the Church) whereas when we take the gospel outside the church walls, and proclaim it, we are going into darkness with the brightest of all lights. It’s in the darkness that He shines brightest i.e. is most glorified.

vangelism, scripture, and worship...

Take a look at how the scriptures connect evangelism and worship: “Then I saw another angel flying in mid-air, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth — to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water’’’(Revelation 14:6-7). In this verse, when the excellencies and greatness of God are proclaimed through the gospel, the natural response of those listening is to worship Jesus. Or what about this verse? “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise His name; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvellous deeds among all peoples” (Psalm 96:1-3). Here the Psalmist is saying that the salvation Jesus secured for us on the cross through His death and resurrection are glorious, marvellous deeds worth singing about. Interestingly, these events are the epicentre of the gospel message.

ow to avoid being a hypocrite…

How is it, then, we can freely and exuberantly exalt and glorify Jesus on Sundays in our church services through praise and worship (or in private worship) then go cold on the idea of continuing to worship and glorify Him through evangelism the other six days? Something doesn’t stack up here. The truth is, (dare I say it) it’s hyprocritical. Herein are two great challenges for us. The first is to continue to worship Jesus on Sunday, expressing and acknowledging from the core of our being His greatness, worth, merits and attributes. 17

This shouldn’t be too much of a challenge because we have established the habit. The second is to continue to worship Jesus with every aspect of our lives for the other six days, focussing on personal evangelism, the highest form of worship. This is truly going to be formidable because the stats show 98% of us in the West have never done this before! It’s so new it’s going to be a monumental challenge! Dr Stott makes the point that “worship which does not beget mission is hypocrisy. We cannot acclaim the worth of God [on Sunday and in private worship] if we have no desire to proclaim it [the other six days]. Worship expresses itself in witness [evangelism];12 witness fulfils itself in worship. The unifying theme is the glory of God and of His Christ, and there is a great need for this to be the supreme incentive of our modern evangelism.”13 Stott suggests witness and worship are inseparably linked. “Each is maimed without the other. Each, if true to itself, leads to the other, thus producing an unending cycle.”14

hat the famous missionary Hudson Taylor couldn’t bear…

The sight of Christians vigorously worshipping God on Sunday and then silent in evangelism during the rest of the week was what burdened the missionary Hudson Taylor. “In Brighton in June 1865, Hudson Taylor was so burdened for China that he found the self-satisfied, hymn-singing congregation intolerable. He looked around him. Pew upon pew of prosperous merchants, shopkeepers, visitors, demure wives with bonnets and crinolines, scrubbed children trained to hide their impatience, the atmosphere of smug piety sickened him. He seized his hat and left. Unable to bear the 12 I discuss in Chapter Four how “witnessing” and “evangelising” are the same thing. 13 Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. Hodder and Stoughton. 1965, pp.31-32 14 ibid, pp.30-31

sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security while millions perished for lack of knowledge, [Taylor] wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony. And there on the beach he prayed for twenty-four willing, skilful labourers.”15 Taylor’s thoughts are a challenge to my life as well. If I worship on Sunday with my arms in the air and my heart and mind engaged, and tears running down my cheeks, saying how much I love Jesus, yet do little in the next six days to worship Jesus by helping to evangelise the world, putting legs on the words I am singing, then I think Taylor would react to me in the same way he reacted to the Brighton congregation in 1865. I often jest with worship leaders and those who sing and play musical instruments on stage. “Worship is the greatest way to glorify God isn’t it?” “Yep, sure is” they reply smugly. “Would you like to move on from worshipping on stage to the highest form of worship?” Looking confused and deflated they say “Huh? What do you mean?” “The highest form of worship - would you like to know what it is?” “Yep” they reply. “And what would that be?” “Evangelising. Going into the world and proclaiming or spreading the gospel.” After vigorous discussion, they get it. At one church I was taking a small group study on evangelism and made the point that the evangelisation of the world was the priority of the Church. At this point a young lady robustly challenged me. “No! Worship is the prioirty” she insisted. I wanted to communicate to her all the points I have made in 15 Cited in: Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. Hodder and Stoughton. 1965, p.28

this Chapter and Chapter Seven, but she didn’t give me a chance. She just up and left the group. What’s the point? She didn’t know what she didn’t know and she didn’t want to know what she didn’t know! This is how the enemy tries to pit one Christian against another over points of theology in order to shut down the evangelisation of the world. When you start communicating the truths of this Chapter to others, expect to insite some vigorous healthy discussion. But hold fast. I trust I have backed the arguments put forward in this Chapter Series with sufficient scripture and scholarly review to give you confidence that what you have read here is Truth and therefore worth fighting for. Please listen to the words of world-renowned missiologist, Dr George W. Peters: “Not the welfare and glory of man, not the growth and expansion of the Church, but the glory of God forms the highest goal of missions because the being and character of God are the deepest ground for missions ‘for of him, and through him, are all things: to whom be glory forever.”’16 This is a powerful quote, and one which summarises the gist of this entire chapter. Please take a moment or two to read it again and meditate upon it. I close this Chapter with this thought. It’s a great thought. It’s a God thought. If you were to lovingly and graciously reach someone with the gospel every day for the rest of your life, either through proclaiming or spreading it, and not one soul was saved as a result of all your efforts, in the sight of Jesus, you will have done the greatest thing with your life. Why? Because you will have used your time, talent and resources to ensure that maximum 16 George W. Peters. A Biblical Theology of Missions. Moody Press, 1984, p.57

glory went to Him - that the sum total of your life glorified Him, and not you. You will have lived your life in the MTG (Maximize The Glory) zone! Ultimately, this is what the Christian life is all about.17

ummary

• To evangelise is to enter into the highest form of worship because evangelism involved announcing to the world, in the most potent way, the excellencies and merits of Jesus. • All of us should carry a few gospel booklets with us all the time so we can give them away as we go about our day. • Ideally, all of us ought to be looking for opportunities to explain the gospel to a lost person as we go about our day. • The highest motive for evangelism is the glory God. • This motive, properly understood, ought to liberate us and release us from the pressure to win souls. • It is of the highest importance that Jesus receives the glory for anything “good” that we do in our lives, especially if we are being observed by others. • This will only happen if we proclaim or spread the gospel as we go about doing good deeds. • God won’t share His glory with anyone. • The best way to glorify Jesus is to proclaim or spread the gospel message. • Worship which does not beget evangelism is hypocrisy. • Any contest between “the evangelisation of the world” and “worship” for top spot can be well and truly laid to rest. When we are about the former, we are engaging in the highest form of the latter. • Christians shine brightest, and give God most glory, when 17 The Westminster Confession of Faith 1647 declared “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

they go into a spirtually dark world and proclaim the gospel. • CTION POINT: You might ask “What can I do to help get the truth in this Chapter to others?” Help other Christians become aware of the issues raised in this Chapter, particularly leaders. Email it to everyone on your address book and encourage them to do the same. Send them a PDF file. You can obtain this by writing to julian@esisite.com. Post it on social media. • CTION POINT: Go to the leaders of your church. Ask them to make changes to their mission statement so that evangelism becomes central. Ask them to bring evangelism back to centre stage in the life of your church. Pray for them. Encourage them. Work with them. Dialogue. Every time a non-Christian hears the true gospel, delivered with love, tenderness, humility and grace, Jesus is glorified. That, ultimately, is what matters in evangelism. Quite simply, when we go out and evangelise and this motive is primary, Jesus sees us as His stars. The writer of Daniel expressed this truth well when he penned these beautiful words: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). He’s talking about us! That is to say, when we leave our churches on Sundays, and share the gospel with a lost person during the week, either spreading it or proclaiming it, (irrespective of whether the person listening is saved or not), we are showing them where they can find the Righteousness of God, and be saved. When we do this, God sees us as wise people, and our activity is recorded in heaven for all eternity. Who knows, maybe each time we share the gospel with a lost person, God records it by creating a new star in the night sky which becomes a permanent and everlasting record of what we did. In this way, the new star joins the existing

chorus of stars which are already giving glory to Jesus, adding to it! Next time you look up into a cloudless night sky, think about that! Let this thought catapult you into the daily habit of doing evangelism to glorify Jesus. Commit to doing it between now and the end of your life. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never regret it, especially when you meet Him face to face the other side of death. What a great Jesus glorifying thought.

Real Life Story

Atheist Converts After God Speaks To Him In a Dream Anonymous, New Zealand.

Yesterday I had an interesting encounter. I gave the gospel to a young lady (23) in Burger King in West Auckland, New Zealand. She seemed very attentive to the gospel video (www. Biblein11.com) which I was showing her on my ipad. At the end, I asked her the usual questions. She was quick to confess that if she died tonight, she would go straight to hell. Then she said the best thing ever. “I know that surrendering means giving up my life for Jesus and His purposes. This is going to be really hard.” This could only have some from the Spirit. She was earnest and sincere. How amazing! This is why giving people the little follow up booklet “How to be sure of going to heaven when we die” after they have heard the gospel is so important. This booklet explains what a Christian is, how to tell if we are genuine, and the cost of becoming a disciple. 24

Conversion must be more than just a heart feeling. It’s got to be a head decision as well. Christianity is worth thinking about. We ought to do everything we can to help people process their “decision” before they make it. Anyway, that aside, she then went on to tell me how she came from a family of atheists. Her cousin was taken to church and the preacher said “God will speak to you and tell you what to do.” Two nights later the cousin had a dramatic dream where Jesus told him to give up his studies at University and to study to become a pastor. In the morning he committed his life to Christ in his bedroom, and is now studying to become a pastor. The 23 year old lady I had just given the gospel to was very interested in what I had to say because of how God had met her cousin. She said he was a totally different person! She could see by observing the change in him that Christianity was much better than atheism, and deep down, she wanted to know how to escape the grip atheism had on her family. So when I came along, so she said, 25

I was the answer to her private prayer! What’s really interesting is that her cousin hadn’t been around his family explaining how they could come to Christ i.e. he hadn’t given his family members the gospel. I must admit, one’s own family are the hardest group to reach. My own theory is that we are most effective with the family of others I’ll reach yours, and you reach mine. Even Jesus struggled to reach people in His own home town (Luke 4:24). What a comfort this is for those who struggle with their family members, as I do. Now here’s the thing - this theory about how we are to reach each other’s family all depends on whether I go and you go. The whole theory breaks down if we don’t go, but succeeds if we do go. (Romans 10:14). So let’s go!

Julian’s comments.

1. God is at work in the world all the time, softening the soil in the hearts of non-Christians, getting them ready to receive the seed of the gospel. If only we would do our ‘bit’ and plant the seed! 2. What’s most interesting is that the cousin had not given the gospel to his family. I wonder why. Is our ‘non-evangelistic’ lifestyle and Christianity so entrenched that even new converts don’t give the gospel? It’s a possibility.

Chapter Twenty Six

CONCLUSIONS AND APPENDICES

Conclusions and Appendices

Thank you for taking the time to read this Chapter series. I have four prayers for you. 1. That the Holy Spirit will have confirmed in your heart that what you have read is Truth - God’s Truth. 2. That He will have given you a revelation of the fact that we are living in “a Dark Age of evangelism” and without intentional action we won’t come out of it. The fact of the matter is this - with respect to the Great Commission, the spiritual compass of most churches in the West is spinning. 3. That He will plant at least the following Truths deeply and indelibly in your heart: • Most Christians are not aware they are living in a Dark Age of evangelism. • Our priority is to evangelise the world. • We are primarily making disciples so that there would be more people to evangelise the world. • To evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel. • There are three aspects to the gospel: works, effects, and words. • The gospel message has specific content which every lost person in the world must hear and understand. Why we must be saved. How Jesus can save us. 2

What we must do to be saved. The cost of being a disciple. • It is the solemn privilege and responsibility of every believer to engage in evangelism. • Before God, it is the solemn responsibility and duty of leaders to mobilise their people for evangelism i.e to help complete Jesus’ mission. • With respect to the current evangelism crisis in the West, leaders are the problem, and leaders are the solution. • If leaders don’t lead with respect to evangelism, a Great Commission resurgence is impossible and the Dark Age is guaranteed to worsen. • Christians who engage in evangelism bless society, themselves, the Church they belong to, and God. • The supreme motive for evangelising the world is to glorify God, not to win souls. • If we in the Church fail to evangelise, we fail. Period. If we are convinced of these Truths, and we are a genuine Christian believing that Scripture is our final authority, how should we respond? Really, there can be only one appropriate response. This is where my fourth prayer for you kicks in. 4. I pray that you would respond by taking immediate action. And what is this action? Set a goal to mobilise 100% of the people in your church to proclaim or spread the gospel at least once a week. The good news is that as a ministry God has graciously given us tools and strategies which will help you achieve this goal. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel. If you don’t know where to start or what to do, please connect with us. We’ll work with you, and enjoy developing deep friendships on the journey, for the glory of God. 3

A P P E N D I X

ONE This appendix is included for two reasons. First, its Indian author, Dr K.P. Yohannan, has worked extensively in Asia as a missionary with the poorest of the poor. Secondly, he is highly experienced and respected, having written over 200 books. The organisation he founded, and now directs, Gospel for Asia, supports more than 13,500 national missionaries and operates 133 Bible Schools with more than 6,900 students. These qualifications place him in a unique position to comment on the interplay between proclaiming the gospel and social action in missions. This commentary makes compelling reading. My prayer is that we take to heart, and to the Lord, what Dr Yohannan is saying, and re-evaluate how we do “mission.” This chapter from Dr K.P Yohannan’s book, Revolution in World Missions,1 is reprinted with permission.

IF WE IN THE CHURCH FAIL TO EVANGELISE, WE FAIL. PERIOD. Dr K.P. Yohannan. o keep Christian missions off balance, Satan has woven a masterful web of deceit and lies. He has invented a whole

1 I recommend reading his brilliant book, Revolution in World Missions, which is available free from www.gfa.org

system of appealing half-truths to confuse the Church and ensure that millions will go to hell without ever receiving the gospel. Here are a two of his more common inventions written as questions: ow can we preach the Gospel to a man with an empty stomach? A man’s stomach has nothing to do with his heart’s condition of being a rebel against a holy God. A rich American on Fifth Avenue in New York City or a poor beggar on the streets of Bombay are both rebels against God Almighty, according to the Bible. The result of this lie is the fact that, during the past 100 years, most mission money has been invested in social work. I am not saying we should not care for the poor and needy. The issue I am taking to task is losing our primary focus of preaching the gospel. sn’t “mission work” meeting the physical needs of people ? Isn’t it equal to preaching? Luke 16:19-25 tells us the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Of what benefit were the possessions of the rich man? He could not pay his way out of hell, nor could his riches comfort him. The rich man had lost everything, including his soul. What about Lazarus? He didn’t have any possessions to lose, but he had made preparations for his soul. What was more important during their time on earth? Was it the care for the “body temple” or the immortal soul? “For what good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?” (Luke 9:25). It is a crime against lost humanity to go in the name of Christ on missions to do social work but to neglect calling people to repent – to give up their idols and rebellion – and follow Christ with all their hearts. sn’t it true that our gospel message will be ineffective unless we offer them something else first. I have sat on the streets of Bombay with beggars – poor men who soon would die. In sharing the gospel with many of them, I told them I had no material goods to give them, but I came to offer

eternal life. I began to share the love of Jesus who died for their souls. I told them about the many mansions in my Father’s house (John 14:2) and the fact that they could go there to hunger and thirst no more. “The Lord Jesus will wipe away every tear from your eyes,” I said. They would no longer be in any debt. There would no longer be any mourning, crying or pain (Revelation 7:16, 21:4). What a joy it was to see some of them opening their hearts after hearing about the forgiveness of sin they could find in Jesus! That is exactly what the Bible teaches in Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Substituting the Holy Spirit and the gospel for a bowl of rice will never save a soul and will rarely change the attitude of a person’s heart. We will not even begin to make a dent in the kingdom of darkness until we lift up Christ with all the authority, power and revelation that is given to us in the Bible. In few countries is the failure of Christian humanism more apparent than in Thailand. There, after 150 years of missionaries showing marvellous social compassion, Christians still make up only two percent of the entire population.2 ood works alone won’t do the job... Self-sacrificing missionaries have probably done more to modernise the country than any other single force. Thailand owes to missionaries its widespread literacy, first printing press, first university, first hospital, first doctor and almost every other benefit of education and science. In every area, including trade and diplomacy, Christian missionaries put the needs of the host nation first and helped usher in the 20th century. Meanwhile, millions have slipped into eternity without the Lord. They died more educated, better governed and healthier, but they died without Christ and are bound for hell.

2 D avid Barrett and Todd Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200, Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2001, p.429

What went wrong? Were these missionaries not dedicated enough? Were their doctrines unscriptural? Perhaps they did not believe in eternal hell or eternal heaven. Did they lack Bible training, or did they just not go out to preach to the lost? Did they shift their priorities from being interested in saving souls to relieving human suffering? I know now it was probably a little of all of these things. ow to multiply churches... While I was seeking answers to these questions, I met poor, often minimally-educated native brothers involved in gospel [i.e. evangelising] work in pioneer areas. They had nothing material to offer the people to whom they preached â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no agricultural training and no medical relief or school programme. But hundreds of souls were saved, and in a few years a number of churches were established. ust doing what Jesus said to do works... What were these brothers doing right to achieve such results, while the others with many more advantages had failed? The answer lies in our basic understanding of what mission work is all about. There is nothing wrong with charitable acts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but they are not to be confused with preaching the gospel. Feeding programmes can save people dying from hunger. Medical aid can prolong life and fight disease. Housing projects can make this temporary life more comfortable, but only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can save a soul from a life of sin and an eternity in hell! To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted life of a drug addict is to see the evidence of Satanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hold on this world. He is the ultimate enemy of mankind, and he will do everything within his considerable power to kill and destroy people. But to try to fight this terrible enemy with only physical weapons is like fighting tanks with stones.

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hrough evangelism, God gets to the root... When commerce had been established with the Fiji Islanders, a merchant who was an atheist landed on the island to do business. He was talking to the Fijian chief and noticed a Bible and some other paraphernalia of religion around the house. “What a shame,” he said, “that you have listened to this foolish nonsense of the missionaries.” The chief replied, “Do you see the large white stone over there? That is a stone where just a few years ago we used to smash the heads of our victims to get at their brains. Do you see that large oven over there? That is the oven where just a few years ago we used to bake the bodies of our victims before we feasted upon them. Had we not listened to what you call the nonsense of those missionaries, I assure you that your head would already be smashed on that rock and your body would be baking in that oven.” There is no record of the merchant’s response to that explanation of the importance of the gospel of Christ. When God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the gospel. It has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry and the needy than all the social programmes ever imagined by secular humanists. These words of Jesus should haunt our souls: “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15). A.W. Tozer said it well in his book Of God and Man: “To spread an effete, degenerate brand of Christianity to pagan lands is not to fulfill the commandment of Christ or discharge our obligation to the heathen.”3 hy communism in China succeeded and the Church lost an opportunity...

3 A.W. Tozer, Of God and Man. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, Inc., 1960, p.35

Just before China was taken over by the communists, one communist officer made a revealing statement to a missionary, John Meadows: “You missionaries have been in China for over a hundred years, but you have not won China to your cause. You lament the fact that there are uncounted millions who have never heard the name of your God. Nor do they know anything of your Christianity. But we communists have been in China less than ten years, and there is not a Chinese who does not know... has not heard the name of Stalin... or something of communism...We have filled China with our doctrine. Now let me tell you why you have failed and we have succeeded,” the officer continued. “You have tried to win the attention of the masses by building churches, missions, mission hospitals, schools and what not. But we communists have printed our message and spread our literature all over China. Someday we will drive you missionaries out of our country, and we will do it by means of the printed page.” Today, of course, John Meadows is out of China. The communists were true to their word. They won China and drove out the missionaries. Indeed, what missionaries failed to do in 100 years, the Communists did in ten. One Christian leader said that if the Church had spent as much time on preaching the gospel as it did on hospitals, orphanages, schools and rest homes – needful though they were – the Bamboo Curtain would not exist today. The tragedy of China is being repeated today in other countries. When we allow a mission activity to focus only on the physical needs of people without the correct spiritual balance (i.e. proclaiming the gospel), we are participating in a programme that will ultimately fail. However, this does not mean we must not be involved in compassion-type ministries that reach out to the poor, needy and hurting people all around us. 9

ummary

• Satan has woven a masterful web of deceit and lies. He has invented a whole system of appealing half-truths to confuse the Church and ensure that millions will go to hell without ever receiving the gospel. • It is a crime against lost humanity to go in the name of Christ on missions to do social work but to neglect calling people to repent – to give up their idols and rebellion – and follow Christ with all their hearts.There is nothing wrong with charitable acts – but they are not to be confused with preaching the gospel. • Feeding programmes can save people dying from hunger. Medical aid can prolong life and fight disease. Housing projects can make this temporary life more comfortable, but only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can save a soul from a life of sin and an eternity in hell.

A P P E N D I X

TWO

The author of this paper is a world authority on missions and evangelism. He gives several powerful and potent reasons why churches donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t grow and offers solutions. This article makes compelling reading. Dr Roger Greenway (now retired) was a Professor of World Missiology at Calvin Theological Seminary. Dr Greenway served as a missionary in Sri Lanka and Mexico. He was a tenured Professor of Missions and Gospel Communication at Westminster Theological Seminary, and has written several works on urban missions.

Pastor Evangelists Dr Roger S. Greenway Lecturing Professor

Adapted and printed with permission.

t the meetings of the Consultation on World Evangelisation held in Thailand in 1980, George Peters, who for many years taught Missions at Dallas Theological Seminary, made several pointed comments about pastors and evangelism. He talked about the churches of Europe, where in his retirement he made annual visits addressing pastors and furloughing missionaries. Peters told us he had recently addressed a gathering of 350 European pastors, all of them conservative in their theology. He asked them how many had ever studied evangelism. Only five said they had ever taken a course in the subject. Twenty had attended at least a one-day workshop in evangelism. The vast majority had never received any formal instruction on how to do or organise evangelism. Was there any connection, Peters asked, between this lack of training and the major complaint throughout Europe that the churches werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t growing? 11

He believed the “European churches and their leaders have never seen the connection between evangelism and pastoral ministry.” y own observations in other parts of the world bear out what George Peters said. When churches fail to represent the claims of Christ evangelistically to the unsaved world, various things happen. The gospel of God’s saving grace no longer glows in pulpit and pew as it formerly did, and members slip away. Among the remnant, religious energies are directed toward other things, usually social issues and human development. Theologians add to the process by providing a conceptual framework of soteriological universalism that does not require personal conversion and thereby excludes Biblical evangelism. Evangelism, in fact, is redefined as social action. he decline in evangelism starts at the top... As far as the churches are concerned, it is a downward spiral as unevangelistic leaders produce unevangelistic institutions, which in turn produce a body of people whose religious impulses go in many directions. Some of them even travel to distant parts of the world where they do many commendable things but lack evangelistic motivation and power. Such workers cannot produce growing churches. Though pastors are not the whole problem, they certainly are a key part of it. And, I would add, they can also be the catalyst for reversing the spiral. he disgusting state of the mission fields... George Peters made a second statement about the strategy missions’ agencies follow around the world: “I’ve just come back from a round-the-world tour of mission fields on behalf of several major boards, and I’m disgusted. I’ve seen a thousand small stagnant churches that weren’t going anywhere. I told the mission executives they had better stop emphasising church planting until they’ve

learned to make churches grow. The pastors don’t know how to evangelise and the churches just hang on with a handful of members.” he evangelistic sterility of mainline churches... One of the dismal realities we don’t talk about in mission literature, particularly literature of a promotional kind, is our planting of many churches that are as evangelistically sterile as many of our older churches in the West. Non-growing churches in places where receptivity to the gospel is generally high is an unresolved dilemma, and I believe God has raised up the Pentecostal churches partly as an indictment of the older denominations. The evangelistic sterility of mainline churches, including some that remain orthodox in their doctrine, is a terrible witness to Christianity and in my opinion stands at the top of the list of the problems we face in world evangelisation. eadership is everything... I believe that the solution begins with the pastors who lead the congregations and the training they receive for ministry. Many years ago the great missionary statesman John R. Mott expressed this truth succinctly: “The secret of enabling the church to press forward in the non-Christian world is one of leadership. The people do not exceed their leaders in knowledge and zeal, nor surpass them in consecration and sacrifice. The Christian pastor… holds the divinely appointed office for inspiring and guiding the thoughts and activities of the church. By virtue of his position he can be a mighty force in the world’s evangelisation.” In the first chapter of my book4 I said the pastor’s responsibility in regard to evangelism was threefold. He must teach and preach evangelism from the Word of God, building a solid basis of understanding and commitment

4 Dr Roger Greenway. The Pastor Evangelist. Preacher, Model and Mobiliser for Church Growth. P and R Publishing Company. 1987.

within the congregations. He must model evangelism in his own life and ministry, teaching by example and guiding others in the process. Finally, the pastor must mobilise the membership in ways that put feet to doctrine and theory. His role is that of organiser, equipper and catalyst. Under his leadership the members explore new possibilities for reaching their community and incorporate evangelism into every department of church life. Much of my book has dealt with ways this can be done, and my purpose in the final chapter is to highlight certain issues and review the general framework of pastoral evangelism. I include a number of illustrations of pastoral evangelism in action, building around the three pivotal areas of modelling, teaching and organising. n defence of pastors... In response to the possible accusation that I have been unduly hard on pastors, I begin with some thoughts in their defense, things that need to be said though they imply a degree of admonition. First, something needs to be said about para-church organisations that specialise in evangelism and whose record in gaining converts frequently exceeds that of the established church. At the Consultation in Thailand, I heard pastors from various parts of the world complain they felt they were being victimised in the eyes of their people. Pastors, they complained, always got the blame when the church compared poorly with the highly charged efforts of para-church mission agencies. Often the members themselves, or the situation where the church was located and working, inhibited the kind of growth people demanded. The pastors gathered in Thailand pointed out also that para-church organisations were generally structured differently from the church.

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astors overloaded with other things become too busy to evangelise... Their main intent was missionary service and outreach, whereas pastors and churches had a host of additional responsibilities besides evangelism. Workers in para-church mission agencies generally didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to counsel troubled families, conduct funerals, run womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s groups or comfort the sick and elderly. They could focus on the purpose for which they were organised and maintained, evangelism. If their success in that department seemed to exceed that of the average pastor and the institutional church, the reasons were obvious. The pastorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; complaint is legitimate, and critics of the church need to be reminded that the ministries of the church go far beyond the specialized concerns of para-church organisations. They must remember, too, that the task of discipleship is not complete when people become believers. Discipleship is a long, ongoing process, involving years of instruction, guidance and discipline. Without churches to do this, what would become of the fruits of the para-church institutions? ocal churches with pastors committed to evangelism will do better than all other organisations when it comes to drawing sinners! I am convinced that when the local church enjoys the leadership of pastors committed to evangelism, it takes a back seat to no other organisation in drawing sinners to Christ and nurturing them over the long haul to faithful and responsible discipleship. Secondly, I defend those pastors who serve in difficult locations. There are rural communities where many residents have departed and few young people stay around. Pastors in declining communities see many of the talented people leaving, and they can easily become discouraged because all the exciting places of ministry seem to be somewhere else.

Then there are inner city neighbourhoods where people’s lives, in varying degrees, are shattered and torn apart by sin and its consequences. Numerical growth is slow, and pastors spend much of their time healing wounds and holding members together against a barrage of negative forces. Some churches are located in places where they are cut off from the mainstream because of language or cultural differences, and yet the remnant is there and requires pastoral care. trategic church planting yeilds big results... Highly favourable locations can also be deceptive. There are communities so favourable that almost any church will grow, even without evangelism. In North America and Europe these usually are suburban locations where a large number of middle-class families are moving in and can be counted on to join an evangelical church. Church planters rely on demographic studies to determine where these high potential locations are likely to develop, and they shape their strategy accordingly. From a practical standpoint this makes sense, and many of the highly acclaimed churches in America are built in this way. But the strategy, especially if it is followed to the exclusion of all others, has some serious drawbacks. It may represent the planned neglect of urban neighbourhoods where large numbers of people need to be evangelized and pastored. It tends to focus entirely on “our kind” of people, to the neglect of social and ethnic minorities. It may say in effect that the only churches worth planting and pastoring are those which promise, in businessmen’s terms, a high return on the investment. Therefore, in defense of some “low yield” pastorates I raise this word of caution.

Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people are found in many different locations and circumstances and all of them need mission-hearted pastors. Heaven will reward many who receive no laurels on earth. Let us not look down on those less-fertile fields, but honour the labourers for their perseverance. eminaries must take responsibility... Thirdly, in defense of pastors who feel frustrated over evangelism, something needs to be said about Christian colleges and seminaries which fail to provide adequate training in this area. What George Peters observed in the case of European-educated pastors is also true of schools on the other side of the Atlantic and in many Third World institutions. Most courses on missions and evangelism are heavy on theory but light on practice, and the majority of graduates have never studied evangelism at all. Courses in the department of practical theology are traditionally oriented towards the internal needs of congregations and not towards the evangelisation of the unsaved outside. It is no wonder, therefore, that pastors feel frustrated when churches decline and evangelism-minded lay people look elsewhere for direction. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Evangelism tends to have the same importance in the churches that it has in the seminaries, and for that reason our concern for evangelism through local churches carries us to the schools where church leadership is formed.â&#x20AC;? Few people have known more about seminaries around the world and how well they succeed in producing pastor-evangelists than James F. Hopewell, associated as he was with the Theological Education Fund from its beginning in 1958, long before it had formal connection with the World Council of Churches and its viewpoint. heological education faulty... Hopewell visited hundreds of theological institutions around

the world with the specific purpose of cutting through the outer, superficial appearances and getting at the core of their mission and ministry. Defining “mission” as the witness Christians make outside the normal frontiers of the church, and “candidate” as the person being prepared by some theological institution for a career in Christian service, Hopewell said the following: “The problem is that surprisingly few candidates are prepared to engage in that mission with any consistency or accuracy. And while this fault may be attributed to almost any aspect of modern church structure, it seems particularly encouraged by the pattern of theological education now practised in most seminaries around the world. Now I would like to contend that most of these factors that comprise our understanding of typical theological education have been unconsciously designed to avoid, and therefore to hinder, the basic Christian intention of mission. And I do not mean to beat the anti-intellectual drum against higher learning. What rather concerns an increasing number of critics is that the very tool of higher learning has been misappropriated to perform a third-rate job for a second-rate church structure. In a time when our understanding of the ministry more and more implies its dynamic, missionary function, we continue to rely upon a system of preparation which at its roots is essentially static and isolationist.”5 hange or face decline... In view of the increased pressure building up today for leadership that knows how to evangelise, I predict Christian colleges and seminaries will have to revamp their programmes or

5 James F. Hopewell, “Preparing the Candidate for Mission,” International Review of Missions 56:158-63.

face decline. The realities of a world in which the percentage of unchurched and unsaved people rises every year demand that church leadership be trained in new ways to meet the challenge. Evangelism must be returned to its rightful place in the classroom and the church, or the trend toward para-churchism will become a stampede. Certain readers may want to challenge this, and so I invite them to reflect on the following. A well-known evangelical seminary that has always stood for scholarship and doctrinal conservatism recently sent a questionnaire to its alumni asking them to rank the courses they felt had been the most helpful in preparing them for pastoral ministry. As reported by the pastors, the top five were church history, Greek, history, systematics, and Biblical theology. At or near the bottom were preaching, evangelism and church growth. ay leaders think differently from pastors... Another questionnaire was sent to the elders and lay leaders of the churches being served by the seminaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s graduates. They were asked to indicate the chief weakness they observed in pastors. Surprise! The top three weaknesses were in communication, preaching and evangelism, areas that lie at the exact opposite of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;most helpfulâ&#x20AC;? courses identified by the pastors. That seminary, and many similar institutions, really has something to think about. The discrepancy in responses may reflect the quality of the teaching in the respective departments. eminaries out of sync with what lay leaders are wanting... In addition, it reflects a profound difference of perception between scholars and church members as to what people in the pew are looking for in their leaders.

Certainly the members had detected certain deficiencies in the training received by their pastors and they were outspoken in their desire to see the gaps filled. That particular seminary is taking serious steps to shore up its weaknesses and I hope all pastor-training institutions will take warning. astors must take responsibility... Responsibility for equipping members for Kingdom service and evangelism lies with the pastors, the spiritual leaders of God’s people. The Biblical pattern is teaching, modelling and organising. In teaching I include Sunday preaching, which in most churches is the chief didactic instrument. Unless the pastor’s teaching-preaching proclaims the gospel and creates the atmosphere of evangelism in the church, it is unlikely that the church will become mobilised for effective outreach. Members must be able to expect that in every worship service the good news of hope and salvation through Christ will be heard in such a manner that children, youth and the casual visitor will be able to grasp something of its meaning. Unfortunately, this is not the case in every church. Some time ago I was talking with an elder from a large Reformed congregation. I know the pastor of that church well, and he is a gifted speaker and deeply committed to the orthodox expression of faith. The elder, a man of long-standing leadership in the church, related to me how he and his wife had witnessed by word and deed for many years to his unchurched neighbours. Repeatedly they had invited the couple to attend church, but they had always refused. roclaim the gospel inside churches regularly and clearly... Finally, they agreed to go just once. “My wife and I took them to the Pentecostal church,” said the elder. Surprised, I asked him why they had not taken them to their own church. “Well, you

know how it is in our church,” he replied. “Our preacher is great, but he is usually very deep, and we were afraid they wouldn’t hear the gospel.” That was an awful indictment on the elder’s church and its pulpit ministry. It sheds light also on the fact that particular church has sent scores of members into para-church ministries, all of them legitimate in themselves but not contributing in any direct way to the growth of the congregation. Various attempts over the years were made by the church to develop an effective outreach programme, but nothing seemed to work. The church kept nourishing the faith of its members, many of whom went off to engage in evangelistic ministries through outside organisations, while the church hardly drew a new member except through its own children, occasional transfers and a few marriages. The preaching of sound doctrine without a burning heart for evangelism is as unBiblical as it is dangerous. Likewise are pastoral prayers without tears for lost souls. The evangelistic tone of the congregation is set on Sunday where the passion of the pastor’s heart becomes evident and is transmitted to the members. purgeon on having Christ in your spirit... In a sermon entitled “Without Christ – Nothing” Charles H. Spurgeon said the following: “You may have sound doctrine, and yet do nothing unless you have Christ in your spirit. I have known all doctrines of grace to be unmistakably preached, and yet there have been no conversions; for this reason, that they were not expected and scarcely desired. In former years many orthodox preachers thought it to be their sole duty to comfort and confirm the godly few. These brethren spoke of sinners as of people whom God might possibly gather in if he thought fit to do so; but they did not care much whether he did so or not.

As to weeping over sinners as Christ wept over Jerusalem; as to venturing to invite them to Christ as the Lord did when he stretched out his hands all day long; as to lamenting with Jeremiah over a perishing people, they had no sympathy with such emotions and feared they savoured of Arminianism. Both preacher and congregation were cased in a hard shell, and lived as if their own salvation was the sole design of their existence. If anybody did grow zealous and seek conversions, straightaway they said he was indiscreet or conceited. When a church falls into this condition it is, as to its spirit, ‘without Christ.’ What comes of it? Some of you know by your own observation what does come of it. The comfortable corporation exists and grows for a little while, but it comes to nothing in the long run; and so it must: there can be no fruit bearing where there is not the Spirit of Christ as well as the doctrine of Christ. Except the Spirit of the Lord rest upon you, causing you to agonise for the salvation of men even as Jesus did, ye can do nothing.”6 aving the heart of Jesus for the lost... Spurgeon spoke directly to the point, and the only corrective for the “comfortable corporation” is to be led by pastors who have the heart of the Great Pastor, Jesus. His heart must increasingly become ours so that His ministry may shine through us. Preachers and churches without Christ’s Spirit of compassion for the lost have always been around. They display certain strengths for a while, even a long while, but eventually they divide, dwindle and close down unless they repent and return to the spirit of the Lord.

6 Charles H Spurgeon, Sermons on Revival (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958), pp 187-88

In our day we see how thousands of renewed Christians spend their energies on ministries apart from organised churches mainly because of this condition. Worship and preaching stand at the core of congregational life. Whenever churches have growth problems, you can be certain something is wrong with their worship life. On the other hand, preaching that is Biblical, intelligible, winsome and delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit sets churches on fire and sends members into the streets charged with enthusiasm to draw others in. Lyle E. Schaller, whose writings about the church and the ministry every pastor should devour, has given what he calls the “Seven Earmarks of Growing Churches.” In an article that appeared in Second Monday, May 1981, Schaller says that churches that grow successfully through evangelism are characterised by the following elements, which I have slightly recast: Biblical Preaching. To the surprise of many church members, says Schaller, more people on the outside are looking for good Biblical preaching than we generally assume. They will come to a church where the preacher delivers an authentic word from the Lord and applies Scripture to the real needs of today. I will say more about this point later. Emphasis on Evangelism. In growing churches, evangelism is not left to the pastor or a few “mission enthusiasts.” Such churches have a cadre7 of unpaid lay evangelists who are motivated by what they hear from the pulpit to go out and win others to Christ. Strong Emphasis on Fellowship. Whereas in most traditional churches the membership circle is larger

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7 The nucleus of trained servicemen forming the basis of a military unit.

than the fellowship circle because a percentage of members do not get involved and never become active, the growing churches have a fellowship circle that is larger than the membership circle. Outsiders are continually being drawn toward Christ and His church by the services and activities of the congregation. Opportunities to Express Commitment. Schaller says that growing churches recognize that different people have different gifts and different needs, and these churches intentionally present a wide variety of opportunities for members to affirm their faith, even in its early stages, and express their commitment through the church. When churches have only narrow programs and stifle creative expression, the gifts and talents of many members remain unused or people go elsewhere to express their commitment. Openness to New Leadership. Growing churches take advantage of new leaders that come into the fellowship from outside the original “church family.” Nongrowing churches, however, keep the key leadership positions for people belonging to the “mainline families” that have run the church for a generation or more. A high percentage of churches fall into this category. Specialties in Ministry. Churches that continue to draw newcomers into their fellowship are churches that, in addition to the basic ministries found in all congregations, focus on special ministries for which they become well known. These ministries are person-centred, are designed to meet particular needs, intentionally include an evangelistic dimension, and offer church members fresh opportunities to express their gifts and interests. A Pastor Who Likes People. Surprisingly enough, not all pastors like people, and it shows. Some pastors prefer books

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and the solitude of their private studies to the topsy-turvy world of interpersonal relationships and bleeding people. They may be highly trained and skilled in professional ways, but they lack the essential ingredient of love for people. oving people... I was called in once by the pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Mexico City to help him assess what was wrong in the Sunday School. The Sunday School director was highly educated, a professor in the denominational seminary, and he seemed to have everything organised very well. In fact he took his position in the Sunday School seriously and chose the best curriculum. After a long talk with him, however, I discovered what the problem was. He realized it himself, and admitted, “I love organising and directing the Sunday school, but I hate kids.” The pupils felt it, the teachers chafed under his leadership, and the whole program suffered. I wonder how many stagnant churches suffer from the same problem. Returning to point one of Schaller’s list of growth characteristics, we note that quality Biblical preaching is absolutely essential. reaching and worship on Sundays are the key... Preaching and Sunday worship set the tone for the whole life of the congregation. What happens on Sunday is the key. Here the character of the church is formed, directions are set, visions are shared, and the Spirit through the Word moves the church in one direction or another. Romans 10:17, a text that years ago I chose as the theme text of my pastoral and missionary ministry, is the clue to it all: “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Good Biblical preaching builds Christians and makes churches grow, and this is the pastor’s foremost task. Edgar Whitaker Work expressed it this way: “Courage in the ministry is a contagious spirit felt by others. When men preach in

this spirit their preaching has a power of appeal that grips souls. You catch it in the way they use the Bible. You feel the strong word of truth coming to you as you listen to sermons of this kind. Circumlocutions8 give way. Direct, positive ways of speech take their place. Plain, simple, straightforward utterance in the Gospel wins attention. Men feel the ribs and structure of the gospel. Again and again the preacher who is bold and outspoken in these ways makes irresistible use of his text. He thrusts it, as it were, beyond the mind, into the heart. He gives it imperative force with his hearers. They must hear, he will not let them close their ears.9â&#x20AC;? odelling â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Test of the Preacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grit and Integrity... Good preaching, however, does not stand alone. It must be in combination with the whole ministry of the pastor and the life of the church. This principle has been reiterated in various ways throughout this book. he ultimate test for any pastor... Vincent Taylor once said that the test of any theologian is, can he write a tract? Taylor was not interested in any kind of theology that did not help to evangelise. I would add another question: Can the great orator in the pulpit lead one soul, in private, to Christ? Can he go onto the street and feel comfortable giving the gospel to a stranger? It is one thing to deliver a fine sermon, and still another to take the message to the street, the sick room, and the house of mourning. These occasions occur over and over again in the normal routine of pastoring, and it is in these day-by-day situations that the pastor becomes the model for the congregation. The members can be depended on to take notice. Pastoral visitation, particularly in homes and hospital, is a key to success in ministry and evangelism.

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8 An indirect way of expressing something. 9 Edgar Whitaker Work, Every Minister His Own Evangelist (Fleming, 1927) p.125

When churches become stagnant and membership drops off, it is usually the case that the pastors and the elders have not been calling on the people. When it comes to visitation, there is little difference between the work of the local pastor and the work of the home or foreign missionary. Both require the aggressive pursuit of people. A Presbyterian pastor in Canada told me recently what had happened in one of the large churches in Toronto. “The pastors didn’t think visiting was part of their job,” he said. “They didn’t even visit the families of the Kirk session and as a result the elders didn’t visit either. The minister had the idea that if members needed help, they’d come on their own, and the minister didn’t have to go out looking for them.” The church he was describing was once one of Toronto’s finest, but today it stands almost empty. isitation evangelism powerful... Visitation evangelism is one the great needs of the hour. Some sixty million people in the country are classified as “unchurched.” That is, they are not members of a church, nor have they attended religious services for a six month period except for religious holidays. Many of them are not hostile to the Christian religion, and they show interest in religious subjects. They may buy religious books, including the Bible. What keeps them from joining the community of active believers? One reason is that they have not been personally invited to do so. Many pastors and congregations are neglecting the fundamental step of going out after people and inviting them to attend the place of worship. Coupled with this is the need for evidence of pastoral concern and availability. Unchurched people generally have notions about organised religion and about clergy in particular, which can only be

dismissed through pastoral visitation. Pastors need to seek out every possible opportunity to talk to unchurched people about spiritual matters and dispel by personal word and example the false notions outsiders have about churches. In actuality, pastors by virtue of their office and the respect in which they are held in the community, have tremendous advantages when making calls. Pastors are the last professionals to make home visits, and seldom do they have a door slammed in their faces. And if they do, so what? They are then in good company, for Jesus was “despised and rejected of men” for their salvation. I used to tell my students in the Juan Calvino Seminary in Mexico City that there were two pieces of leather they must expect to wear out if they wanted to plant churches and see them grow – the leather around their Bibles and the leather on the soles of their shoes. One student took this advice seriously, and when he told me that the church to which he had been assigned over the summer break had doubled in size, he added, “And maestro, I wore out three pairs of shoes!” He hardly needed to tell me, because churches seldom grow without a great deal of visitation. The concern the pastor shows in the time he spends calling becomes the model for the members of the congregation in their concern for one another and for outsiders. There is simply no substitute for the pastor’s visits, in the home, the hospital, and wherever people are found. astors must model evangelising strangers... Furthermore, it is excellent therapy for pastors to engage regularly in direct evangelism on strange and unfriendly turf. They need to face the same world ordinary church members confront day after day. Away from the security of the pulpit and church building, pastors should expose themselves to hostile ridicule, barbed

questions and instant rejection. Jesus exposed Himself in that way, and we should not avoid it. In the rough and tumble of the world the evangelising pastor gains fresh insights into the non-Christian mind. When hecklers in a prison block, a campus gathering, or the open street challenge his religious assertions, he learns new things about human depravity and the harsh realities of evangelism. He finds out what it takes to prepare and preach evangelistic messages without the use of familiar clichés and the religious background we tend to take for granted in the church. In my own ministry, some of the hardest messages I ever preached were in the open air before a mixed audience of Buddhists and Hindus, where anything, including violence, might be expected. And I never felt closer to the ministry of Jesus, who was seldom on safe turf and was a street preacher who made Himself vulnerable to hostile listeners. More important than formal study is prayer. It takes a lot for a teacher of homiletics to say that, but I do. When the pastor has a passion for souls, it shines through in everything he does and says, especially his prayers in private and before the congregation. he people will catch the spirit and habits of their pastor.. Parishioners who breathe an atmosphere charged by evangelistic passion conveyed through the pastor’s sermons and prayers, and attested by his ministry among them and their neighbours, eventually partake of the same spirit. rayer all important... It grows on them, and they touch others. Their prayers echo his, and his ministry carries over into theirs. As Edgar Whitaker Work put it, “The minister’s own practice of prayer will have much to do with the evangelistic force of his sermons. If his sermon is based on prayer in the making of it, if he rises from his knees to go

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to the pulpit, a power goes with the sermon that opens the way to the hearts of men. Prayer as a background to preaching is a condition we can little understand, and certainly cannot measure. Men of power in prayer cannot preach a sermon, no matter what the subject, without making it evangelistic.”10 Prayer makes the preacher, and prayer makes the pastor. Men of great prayer for the lost and straying turn churches into powerhouses of evangelism. rganising the Church for Evangelism... Some pastors have special gifts in evangelism. Many do not. But all pastors have the responsibility to facilitate evangelism in and through their congregations. Pastoral leadership in evangelism extends from the pulpit and classroom to the people in the pew who are moved to action by the Word and the Spirit and encouraged by the pastor’s interest and example. There is one step more, and it extends to the structures and programmes of the church, including new ones created intentionally with outreach in mind. In this area it is especially important to define clearly the target people. In one church I pastored we spelled out repeatedly to the congregation that in the geographical area around the church we were aiming our evangelism programme toward the “unsaved, unchurched, and un-cared-for.” There were plenty of people in all three categories. Some had a flimsy church connection but knew nothing of personal salvation through Christ. We worked through the Sunday school, youth organisations, and a chain of midweek evangelistic home Bible studies to reach them. Some of our neighbours had never connected to any church. We found that a midweek women’s programme held at the church,

10 Edgar Whitaker Work, Every Minister His Own Evangelist (Fleming, 1927)., p. 41-43

which focused on fellowship and Bible study, proved to be one of the fruitful things we did to reach the unchurched. The physically and spiritually uncared-for were all around us, and the deacons were mobilised to respond to appeals for help, especially food, and to tie in their ministry with the overall evangelistic thrust of the church. ocial services must never take a higher priority than evangelism... Physical and emotional needs are seldom found in isolation from spiritual needs, and evangelistic deacons are a church’s vital link to a neighbourhood where there are poor, troubled, and unsaved people. Pastors should have no fear of social ministries so long as they are not given a higher priority than the spiritual. In the past, mainline denominations went wrong at the point when social service was given a higher priority than evangelism. Churches stopped their former activities in evangelism and spiritual outreach and shifted to social service as their main concern. That shift precipitated the downward spiral of those churches and denominations.

(This chapter is kindly reprinted with permission from the ‘after word’ in Donald McGavran’s book entitled Effective Evangelism. A Theological Mandate. The ‘after word’ of this book is a chapter from Professor Roger Greenway called The Pastor-Evangelist: Preacher, Model, and Mobilizer for church growth (1987). I thoroughly recommend this book to you for further reading).

ummary

• The reason most churches in Europe are not growing is that their leaders have never seen the connection between evangelism and pastoral ministry. • Leaders have defined evangelism as social action with disasterous results. 31

• Unevangelistic leaders produce unevangelistic institutions which in turn produce unevangelistic pastors, which in turn produce unevangelistic congregations. • 350 European pastors were asked how many had ever studied evangelism. Only five said they had ever taken a course in the subject. • Most courses on missions and evangelism at seminary are heavy on theory but light on practice, and some graduates have never studied evangelism at all. • Christian colleges and seminaries will have to revamp their programmes or face decline. • The programmes taught by most colleges turn out pastors who are static and isolationist. • Research shows most seminaries are not producing the kinds of pastors lay leaders are wanting in their churches. • Church leaders must acquire what Spurgeon called “the spirit of Christ for the lost” within them. • Visitation evangelism is very effective. • Pastors must model evangelism before their people. • The ultimate test of a pastor is can they write a tract. • The sermon and the worship on Sundays, along with prayer are the power house of every church. From these three elements, evangelistic zeal in the congregation will spring. • Pastors should have no fear of social ministries so long as they are not given a higher priority than the spiritual. • The secret of enabling the church to press forward in the nonChristian world is one of leadership. By virtue of his position he can be a mighty force in the world’s evangelisation. • In defence of some pastors, heaven will reward many who receive no laurels on earth. Let us not look down on those less-fertile fields, but honour the labourers for their perseverance. 32

A P P E N D I X

THREE

evyn Harris is the National Director of Voice of Friendship NZ, and has a background in business and ministry. He has been a pastor and senior pastor, as well as a business trainer and skills assessor. Kevyn is a graduate of Emmanuel Bible College, New Zealand Baptist Theological College, Melbourne College of Divinity, and Massey University. He has practised as an employment advocate and mediator as well as being a consultant to companies and organisations in the area of conflict management and dispute resolution.

True Gospel Must Be Heard1 K e v y n

H a r r i s

director@vof.org.nz

bviously the answer would be directed by the response to other questions: Which gospel? What is the content of the good news? How is it received and therefore communicated? No one questions the need in our world. It is tragically apparent, 1 T his article first appeared in Challenge Weekly, a New Zealand Christian newspaper, Vol 63, Issue No 6. February 21, 2005

and even more so if you live in or regularly visit developing countries. Along with poverty, there are graft and structural injustices which are endemic in some Southeast Asian and African countries. Westerners, either from the guilt which comes from having too much when others have so little, or from altruistic motives, contribute generously to disaster relief such as we recently saw following the Asian tsunami. e respond with social action but no evangelismâ&#x20AC;Ś Along with other citizens and groups, evangelical churches responded with prayers and monetary help. All this is laudable, but unmatched by their support of the propagation of the good news of God concerning His Son. When it comes to guilt and altruism, Christians have competition. It takes no faith or special revelation of God to respond to these needs. But when it comes to the business of evangelical mission we have only the faithful. The problem appears to be that the faithful believe a humanitarian response is the Gospel. he gospel is redefined as social actionâ&#x20AC;Ś We have become subverted by need instead of by what is needful. The maxim of General Booth, that I feed a man so he is able to hear the gospel, has become: feed the man and he has heard the gospel. Social concern is dangerously close to becoming a contradiction of the truth that the Word is heard, not eaten. It is a subtle shift but, like all subtle suggestions, a potentially dangerous one which should not go unquestioned. The evangelical church is falling over itself to be a good citizen and show that, yes, it too cares. But then so does Jesus, and yet the poor will always be with us. If all we offer is what the world can offer how does our response configure to the axiom that man does not live by bread alone?

vangelism ministries struggle while social action agencies boom… For some years the missions that have the preaching of the gospel and the encouragement of the saints as their first priority have been losing out to those agencies that have the meeting of material need as their first objective. We might be defined as being in the same business, and we do certainly work to complement each other. However, the Government does not believe we are in the same business, even if evangelicals might be confused in this area. If you are a Christian organisation and confront poverty and structural injustice your donors are likely to be afforded a tax refund. If you are a Christian organisation and your first priority is to declare the Lordship of Christ and make disciples, your donors are not afforded a tax exemption. If the evangelical church has drifted into believing the two activities are synonymous, the world has not. Someone’s thinking has shifted and it is not the world’s. vangelistic enterprises must be supported… If evangelicals do not support evangelistic enterprises, who will? Certainly not the Government and not the average generous New Zealander either. Charitable appeals have a huge pool from which to draw; the work of the gospel has, by comparison, a limited constituency. The question is not, should we care for our fellow man? The question is, what do I believe about humanity in the light of the cross and resurrection? There appears to be a theological dearth, with our theology looking more like anthropology. Moreover, it is an anthropology which owes more to Marx and Jung than to Moses and Jesus. Marx famously defined religion (and he meant the Christian religion) as the opiate of the masses. The promise of a better world when we died lessened our determination to improve this one.

id Jesus die for the forgiveness of sin or not?… However, what do we believe about the human condition and its remedy? What do we profess concerning the nature of God and of man and the status of their fellowship? What do we hold to any more, concerning eternity? If Christ came and died so that the debt of developing nations would be forgiven, then let us throw all our efforts to that end. If God gave Himself in the person of Jesus so that the hungry could eat, then let’s go into the food production business. The tsunami left us with a question. For those who perished, did the food they ate or the aid they received make an eternal difference? Or was it by hearing and believing the good news that they were accepted by God in Jesus Christ? If the Church does not hold to the priority and presentation of this message, who will? None of the arguments preclude material assistance for those in need, in conjunction with the proclamation of Christ’s Lordship and the call to faith. No doubt there are many testimonies of how the recipient has gone on and inquired as to the reason for the kindness. Neither should we deny assistance even to those who hate us and persecute the Christians among them. However, neither must we forget the primary communication which is the command and invitation of the gospel to repent and believe. This must be the primary thrust of the evangelical effort.

ummary

• It takes no faith or special revelation of God to respond to the many needs of the poor by doing such things as giving food, money, shelter, clothing etc. Non-Christians do these things as well. • Many Christians believe in error that helping the poor in these ways is to be equated with proclaiming the gospel. 36

• Thus, genuine Biblical evangelism, the priority of Jesus, doesn’t exist, let alone feature in the “help” packages offered by churches to struggling nations. • This indicates that the Church has lost her way. Her compass is spinning. She has become confused about her mission and purpose. • Accordingly, evangelism ministries around the world struggle for funding and support whereas social action ministries boom. • If Christ came and died so that the debt of developing nations would be forgiven, then let us throw all our efforts to that end. • If God gave Himself in the person of Jesus so that the hungry could eat, then let’s go into the food production business. • The Asian tsunami in 2004 left us with two questions. For those who perished, did the food they ate or the aid they received make an eternal difference? Or was it by hearing and believing the good news that they were accepted by God in Jesus Christ? If the Church does not hold to the priority and presentation of the gospel message, who will?

A P P E N D I X

FOUR

Signatories to “The Gospel Of Jesus Christ: an Evangelical Celebration” The Drafting Committee

John N. Akers John Ankerberg John H. Armstrong D.A. Carson Keith Davy Maxie Dunnam Timothy George Scott Hafemann Erwin Lutzer Harold Myra David Neff Thomas C. Oden J.I. Packer R.C. Sproul John D Woodbridge Danny Akin Eric Alexander C. Fitzsimmons Allison Gregg Allison Bill Anderson Darrell Anderson J. Kerby Anderson

Don Argue Hudson T. Armerding Kay Arthur Myron S. Augsburger Theodore Baehr B. Clayton Bell Sr. Joel Belz Bryan Beyer Henri Blocher Donald G. Bolesch Kenneth Boa Scott Bolinder John Bolt William Bouknight Todd Brady Gerald Bray Gerry E. Breshears Bill Bright Harold O. J. Brown Stephen Brown George Brushaber David Cerullo 38

Peter Cha Daniel R. Chamberlain Bryan Chapell Ian M. Chapman David K. Clark Brian Clarke Sam Clarke Arthur M. Climenhaga Edmund Clowney Robert Coleman Chuck Colson Clyde Cook David Cook W. Robert Cook Mike Cordle John R. Corts Michael Cromartie Roger Cross Jimmy Davis Alan Day Lane T. Dennis David S. Dockery David Dryer Michael Duduit Paul Engle Ted Engstrom Stuart Epperson James Erickson Tony Evans Jerry Falwell Sinclair Ferguson R. Scott Foresman

Michael Friend John Galbraith Kenneth L. Gentry Dwight Gibson James A. Gibson Billy Graham Brad Green Wayne Grudem Stan N. Gundry David Gushee Brandt Gustavson George Guthrie Corkie Haan Ronald Habermas Mimi Haddad Ben Haden Kevin G. Harney B. Sam Hart Bob Hawkins Jr. Wendell Hawley Jack W. Hayford Stephen A. Hayner Jim Henry Hutz H. Hertzberg Roberta Hestenes Paul Hiebert Ed Hindson Oswald C. J. Hoffman Woo Jun Hong James M. Houston Jeanette Hsieh R. Kent Hughes 39

Bill Hybels Paul Jackson Frank James Kay Coles James David Jeremiah Ronald Johnson Arthur P. Johnston Howard Jones Walter C. Kaiser Jr. Kenneth Kantzer D. James Kennedy Jay Kesler Craig Klamer In Ho Koh Woodrow Kroll Beverly LaHaye Tim LaHaye Timothy Lam Lewis C. Lampley Richard D. Land Richard G. Lee James Leggett Don Lester Arthur Lewis David H. Linden Duane Litfin Crawford Loritts Max Lucado John MacArthur Stephen A. Macchia Marlin Maddoux C.J. Mahaney

Ronald F. Marshall Ray M. Mathsen Victor Matthews Richard McBride Bill McCartney Jerry McComber David Melvin Ron Merryman Mike Messerli Jesse Miranda Beth Moore Peter C. Moore T.M. Moore Richard J. Mouw Kenneth Mulholland Toby Nelson Thomas J. Nettles Roger Nicole William Nix Phil Olsen John Orne Luis Palau Earl F. Palmer Hee Min Park James Patterson Cary M. Perdue Zoltan J. Phillips Hal Poe Phillip Porter Paul Pressler Ray Pritchard Richard W. Reiter 40

Kurt Anders Richardson III Robert Ricker Pat Robertson John Rodgers Adrian Rogers Tom Rosebrough Doug Ross Hugh Ross Joseph F. Rayan Ken Sande H. David Schuringa John Scott Paul Scroggins Frank Severn Warren Shelton David Short Ronald J. Sider Stephen Smallman John T. Sneed Russell Spittler James J. Stamoolis Charles F. Stanley Brad Stetson C. Bruce Stewart Brian Stiller John Stott Joseph Stowell Stephen Strang Lee Strobel Douglas Sweeney Charles Swindoll Joni Eareckson Tada

Paul Tambrino Peter W. Teague Greg Thornbury Kimberly Thornbury Thomas E. Trask Augustin B. Vencer Jr. Marion Von Rentzell Billy Walker Paul L. Walker John F. Walvoord Raleigh Washington Greg Waybright Jim Weaver Timothy Weber Collins D. Weeber David F. Wells Luder Whitlock Bruce H. Wilkinson David K. Winter Charles J. Wisdom Mike Womack Richard F. Woodcock Ravi Zacharias Anne Zaka

a p p e n d i x

DEVICE 84 HAVE US REACT NEGATIVELY TO THE THOUGHT THAT WE ARE BEING TOLD TO DO EVANGELISM I have left this device until last, and given it its own special place as an appendix, because I have realised that it is for many the prince of all the devices Recently, a pastor and his elders met do discuss how evangelism was going in their church. Over the past two years, they have been gradually implementing the 28 strategies which we as a ministry have developed. These strategies help churches achieve, and maintain, evangelism momentum. They are crucial if a church wants to develop a culture of evangelism - if they want to have 100% of their people active in evangelism at least once a week on a regular basis. As has already been discussed in this book, evangelism is defined as “the spread or proclamation of the gospel”. That is to say, in the six days between two Sundays if someone in the church gave a non Christian a booklet with the gospel message inside, they would be classed as ‘active.’ (i.e. spreading the gospel). If another person actually verbalized the gospel to a non-Christian, they too would be active. (i.e. proclaiming the gospel). After a two year journey, what is the assessment of the pastor and 42

elders of these 28 strategies? 1. They want to continue to make evangelism the priority of the Church. This is because they now believe that Biblically, the evangelisation of the world is the priority of the Church. That is to say, that it is the responsibility of the Church, and that means of all Christians, to ensure that every non-Christian on the earth hears and understands the gospel at least once. 2. They want to strive to achieve 100% mobilization. 3. They commend the resources they are using (especially the 28 strategies) and will continue to use/implement them. However, there is one problem, and it was voiced by some of the elders and some of the people in the church. And what was that problem? The pastor told us that some of the people in his church “didn’t like being told to do evangelism.” We asked the pastor how he knew this? He said “it was feedback from a few people.” The pastor was told that when the Evangelism Team Leader (ETL - this is the person in a church who works with the pastor to achieve 100% mobilisation) spoke about evangelism, certain people and some of the elders got the feeling they were being told to do evangelism. In protest, the protestors folded their arms, furrowed their brows, puckered up their lips, dug in, and smoke billowed from their ears. They simply refused to do evangelism when they felt like they were being told to do it.1 They wanted - so they said - for the desire to do evangelism to be internally motivated (i.e. the work of the Holy Spirit), rather than external (i.e. a person telling them what to do). Or better still, 1 The irony is this - when the people who were complaining about being told to do evangelism were not being told to do evangelism, they still weren’t doing any evangelism! In other words, whether they were being told to do evangelism or not. they still didn’t do any evangelism.. It made no difference either way. That is to say, their objection was not sincere. It was nothing more than a cop out. What other conclusion is there?

they wanted to be able to decide for themselves when and if they wanted to do evangelism. When I heard all this, I became extremely interested and gave the issue considerable thought and prayer. I already had a feeling that this particular objection was running at epidemic levels in churches which were trying to mobilise their people for evangelism (but is rarely voiced) and I concluded that it could be yet another significant device of the enemy. As I reflected on this issue, some questions came to mind. Is this objection fair and reasonable? What would the Bible say about it? What would Jesus think of it? I think there are ten reasons why Jesus would dismiss it immediately, and we ought to do the same.

Jesus is Lord. When we became Christians, we accepted Jesus as Lord, not just as our Saviour. It is impossible to become a Christian and not submit to Jesus as our Lord (Romans 10:9-10). When we declared publically that “Jesus is Lord” at our point of conversion, we were saying “Jesus, your desires and goals and aims now become mine. From now on, I will unreservedly follow you whether I feel like it or not.” As you know, one of the commands Jesus issued to the disciples was “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15) and since we are His disciples, He is commanding us today as well. If the disciples had said to Jesus, after He had given this command (or any other command) “We are not going because we don’t feel internally motivated to do so” He would interpret this as a sign that they were not His disciples and He was not their Lord. Remember in Matthew 7:22, Jesus said there will be people who will come to 44

Him at judgment saying “Lord, Lord etc” and He will say to them “…away from me, I never knew you.” In other words, it’s only the people who have made Him their Lord who are truly His. It is my observation that very very few of us make Jesus Lord on a daily / hourly / moment by moment basis. This is why Jesus said “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14). Making Jesus Lord moment by moment can be hard and painful, but it is entirely possible. We have the Holy Spirit to encourage, inspire, and empower us. This is particularly so in the case of evangelism. The Holy Spirit was given specifically to us to enable us to do evangelism (Acts 1:8). As such, in the heart of a genuine believer, the Holy Spirit will be continually goading, coaxing, urging, reminding, prompting us to do evangelism. This goading can be, of course, overruled by human free will, but not permanently overruled in the heart of someone who has made Jesus Lord. To keep saying “no” to evangelism is to keep on sinning. Where do we get the truth that to not engage in evangelism is a sin? James says “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”(James 4:17). Every genuine believer knows deep down they ought to be doing evangelism on a regular basis. Evangelism was a major part of the life of Jesus, Paul, the Apostles, a fact impossible to miss as one reads the New Testament. So if we say we are Christians, and live in on-going disobedience to His command to evangelise the world, there can only be one reason why. We are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and have not made Jesus Lord, and therefore we are not saved. What other conclusion is there? Jesus is God and our creator. Jesus is God and our Creator, and we are created beings. Who is greater? The Creator or the created ones? If our creator commands something, who are we to hesitate to obey, claiming “we don’t feel internally

motivated?” Wouldn’t that be interpreted as the created one telling the Creator what to do? I think so. Isaiah would agree. He says “What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’ (Isaiah 45:9) Those who object to being told to do evangelism have assumed the position of the creator, and have relegated Jesus to being the created one. What other conclusion is there? Church leaders have a responsibility to pass on to their flock what Jesus taught. Jesus said “what I whisper in your ear, shout it from the roof tops” (Matthew 10:27). When Jesus spoke these words, He was telling the disciples to boldly and unashamedly declare all His commands to everyone, especially fellow believers, and to not hold back or water them down. A true leader, therefore, exhorts, encourages, pleads and even tells (lovingly) the flock to obey the commands of Jesus. If a command of Jesus continually goes out and the flock via a Church leader and the people continually respond by saying “we don’t like being told to do such and such command of Jesus” then are they truly submitted to their Creator and living under His authority? I think not. What other conclusion is there? The disciples didn’t object to Jesus telling them to evangelise: When Jesus sent out the 12 (Matthew 10) and the 72 (Luke 10) to preach the gospel, there is no record of any of them objecting to being told to go and do evangelism. The Lord commanded, and they went. They obeyed immediately and completely because they knew Who it was who was giving the instruction. Some today might be tempted to say “I would do evangelism if it was Jesus speaking to me. But my pastor and the Evangelism Team Leader in our church are not Jesus!” How should we respond to this objection? To those who are born

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again, the instructions in the Bible are the very words of God. As such, we could say that the Words in the Bible are literally Jesus speaking to us. This is why we call the Bible “The Word Of God.” So if a person says they are a Christian, and lives in continual disobedience to Jesus’ command to evangelise, they can’t be truly one of His disciples. Please think this through. Imagine if after Jesus gave His command to the discples to evangelise the world, some had responded “No thanks. We object to being told what to do!” It is unthinkable that the disciples would have responded in this way. Such a response would have proved that they were not His disciples. Yet today, 98% of people in the Western Church are living in on-going disobedience to His command to evangelise the world. Are the 98% not His disciples? What other conclusion is there? Jesus calls us to overcome our feelings in order to obey Him: Jesus said “Unless a man picks up His Cross daily and follows after me, He cannot be my disciple” (Luke 9:23). In light of our discussion here, what is Jesus saying in this verse? He is saying that no one likes being told what to do. Everyone has things to do that they don’t feel like doing. But when we do the things we don’t feel like doing, that we don’t want to do, that is, the “hard” commands of Jesus, we are picking up our Cross. Taking up a cross is painful. It is a symbol of death to self will. As Jesus said to His Father “Not my will, but yours will be done.” (Luke 22:42). When it comes to evangelism we too need to say “Not my will, but yours be done Jesus.” If someone says they are a Christian but they never overcome their feelings in order to obey Jesus’ command to evangelise, they can’t have picked up their cross. And if they have not picked up their cross in the area of evangelism, according to Luke 9:23 at least, they can’t be saved. What other conclusion is there?

Every true Christian ought to already be internally motivated to do evangelism as a result of regularly reading their Bible: I have been involved in evangelism for 30 years. It is my observation that deep down every Christian knows that they have been commanded by Jesus to do evangelism. Where did we get this knowledge? We have received it via the Holy Spirit by simply reading our Bibles. No one who reads his or her Bible faithfully and regularly will fail to get this idea. That is to say, God will speak to us over and over as we read becuase the New Testament is overflowing with examples of people doing evangelism. So when you or I or someone else comes along and exhorts the Church to do evangelism, why do they object? Genuine believers would say to themselves “The Holy Spirit has been speaking to me about this through my Bible reading. It’s time to obey. Thank you Lord.” Genuine believers feed on the Word of God. It’s indispensable food for them, as indispensable as natural food is to the natural man. Jesus said “Man shall not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4: Deuteronomy 8:3). Not only do genuine believers feed on the word of God, but they hear what He says to them through their reading, and do what He says “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27). You’d have to conclude that those who object to being told to do evangelism either can’t be reading their Bibles regularly, and therefore are not hearing his voice. Or, they are reading their Bible, hearing Him, but willingly disobeying. As such, they can’t be one of His sheep. What other conclusion is there? The Holy Spirit is constantly motivating all genuine believers to do evangelism:As I have already said, all genuine believers are in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). It is impossible to be a Christian and not be in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1:8, the Holy Spirit was given chiefly to

motivate and empower believers to do evangelism. The Holy Spirit does not sleep, or go off duty. He is constantly motivating those in whom He lives to do evangelism. So how is it that those who say “I object to someone telling me that I must evangelise” have not already been internally empowered and motivated to do evangelism by the Holy Spirit who is living in them? Where is the blockage? Are they resisting the promptings and empowering of the Spirit within them? What can we conclude? Either they have hardened their hearts to the prompting of the Holy Spirit (which, according to Hebrews 3:8 we are not to do) or they are not in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, and are therefore not saved. What other conclusion is there? Paul tells Timothy to do evangelism: Some have asked “Where in the Bible do we see Christians (i.e. someone other than God) telling other Christians to do evangelism?” 2 Timothy 4:5 is one place. Paul, a man, told Timothy, another man, to do evangelism, and there is no record of Timothy objecting. Timothy did not tell Paul he didn’t want to do evangelism because he didn’t feel internally motivated. Timothy simply recognised that Paul was only faithfully passing onto Him a command of Jesus, and both men had made Jesus Lord at their conversion. Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus: I have heard some say “Julian, Christianity is not about obeying rules and commands. It’s about a relationship with Jesus!” What are we to make of this? As always with the devil and his devices, there is truth mixed with error here. It is true that Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus. But what kind of relationship are we to have? It’s a servant / master relationship. Yes, we are adopted sons and daughters, but we are still sons and daughters who are servants of Christ. In our relationship with Jesus, the greatest thing we can do is love Him. In John 14:21, Jesus defines “loving Him” as obeying His commands. What Jesus is saying in John 14:21 is that those who are related to Him

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savingly are those who obey His commands. Furthermore, I have noticed that many Christians say that they have a close intimate relatioship with Jesus yet they don’t do evangelism. What are we to make of this? Close friends (i.e. those who have genuine relationshp) tell each other their deepest hearts desires, don’t they? If the scholars are adament that the priority of Jesus’ commands is to evangelise the world, then wouldn’t Jesus share this heart desire with his closest friends? Wouldn’t the closest friends of Jesus (i.e. those who claim to have an intimate relationship with him) listen carefully to Jesus? Wouldn’t they want to help Jesus see His heart’s desire completed, or brought to fruition? You know the answer. We’d have to conclude then that those who claim to have a close intimate relatioship with Jesus but who don’t participate in evangelism don’t have much of a relationship with Him at all! They certainly don’t love Him, for if they truly loved Him, they’d obey His commands (John 14:21). o if someone says “Julian, Christianity is not about obeying rules and commands. It’s about a relationship with Jesus!” and they are not engaging in evangelism, we’d have to question whether their relationship with Jesus was genuine. What other conclusion is there? We are saved by Grace, not by works: Some have quite rightly pointed out that we are saved by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:6-8). But then they go onto to elaborate on what this actually means for them. They claim that any call or command to “do” something contradicts being saved by grace. What are we to make of this? Titus 2:11-12 says “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” It’s clear in these verses that “grace” is not an excuse or a licence

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to disobey God. In fact, it’s because we are saved by grace that we want to obey Him. For example, what is “ungodliness” in these verses? It is living a life not pleasing to God. As I have already pointed out, a life which pleases Jesus is an obedient life. In fact, nothing pleases Jesus more than obedience to His commands (John 14:21). So those who pull out the “I am saved by grace so don’t have to do anything” card are contradicting Titus 2:11-12. These verses also teach that “being saved by grace” leads to self control. What does “self control” mean in this verse? It means living a life controlled by the Spirit, which is solid, stable, and resolute, not a life controlled by the flesh and natural feelings, which are fickle and change like the wind. And a life controlled by the Spirit is a life which loves the things Jesus loves, chief of which is the evangelisation of the world. Furthermore, James said “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Faith without works is dead faith because the lack of works reveals an unchanged life or a spiritually dead heart. An unchanged heart is an unsaved heart. Doing evangelism doesn’t make us righteous, but it does prove that we have experienced the imputed righteousness of Christ. How can someone genuinely experience the wonderful matchless saving grace of Jesus not want to tell others about it? How can a cow be a cow and not want to eat grass? How can a fish be born with gills, tail, and fins and not want to swim? How can someone win the lottery and not be excited and not want to tell anyone about it? You know the answers to these questions. So what are we to make of those who claim to be saved by grace but who don’t do evangelism? We’d have to question whether they were saved by grace at all. What other conclusion is there? ummary: For the 10 reasons I have given, it would be very very difficult to justify, theologically and Biblically, being a Christian and not particpating in evangelism.

At this point you may ask, “when is it NOT Ok for one Christian to tell another Christian to do evangelism?” This is a good question. Lest you think that those who object to being told to do evangelism have it all wrong, let me make three final points in their favour. irst, if we as leaders give tub thumping, rousing sermons which exhort, encourage, and even tell Christians to evangelise but fail to give them cutting edge, road tested, contemporary tools/ resources, and training (and not just one off “weekend” training but on-going training ) and strategies to maintain evangelistic momentum, we are making a fatal mistake. All we are doing is discouraging the church from doing evangelism. How so? It creates an unbearable frustration in the minds and hearts of the people in the pew who are listening to our sermons exhorting them to evangelise if we don’t at the same time give them the training and resources to do the job. The vast majority want to obey God and their pastor to do evangelism. But in their hearts they cry “How can I obey if you don’t show me how! Give me the tools! Give me the training! Give me the strategies to keep me going in evangelism! Help me!” If we don’t provide the tools and resources when we preach about evangelism, those listening will despair, and so begin to develop a hard heart towards it. econd, if we as leaders are exhorting, encouraging, and even telling our fellow Christians to do evangelism, we must do so gently, humbly, winsomely, and graciously, out of a heart of great love. If the flock feels whipped, rather than lovingly wooed, they have every right to object to being told to do evangelism. hird, if we as church leaders are telling our people to do evangelism, but we are not doing it ourselves on a regular basis, we become a stumbling block for those listening. Those listening will quite rightly say “Why is he or she telling me

to do something he or she is not doing? Isn’t that hypocritical?” I can’t stress enought the importance of leaders leading by example in evangelism. If there was one single factor which determined whether a church could be mobilised for evangelism or not, it would be this one. It’s just wonderful when new, fresh, testimonies of evangelism encounters are regularly weaved into the weekly sermons of the pastor (and I don’t mean recalling some event two years ago when we did some evangelism). These three objections are therefore quite fair. So what shall we conclude? It’s entirely Biblical for one Christian to tell another Christian to do evangelism. On one hand, and as a general rule, it would be fair to say that those who object to being told to do evangelism are either Christians who have hardened their hearts or they are not Christians. However, there are some exceptions to this general rule. Even genuine believers have a right to object to being told to do evangelism if those doing the telling: 1. are not doing so in a loving, gracious, humble, winsome way. 2. do not provide tools, resources, on-going training, and strategies to maintain momentum. 3. Are not doing evangelism themselves. Jesus met all three conditions: out of a heart of love He commanded the disciples to do evangelism; he showed them how to do it; and, most important of all, he as the leader was doing evangelism himself. If these three conditions are not met in a church situation, even genuine believers have a right to object to being told to do evangelism by their leaders. f you are a pastor or a leader reading this, and you want to mobilise all your people into evangelism, this is what I advise you to do. First, please watch this video: https://youtu.

be/_A2ySX1xZw0 Before you proclaim /teach in you church about Jesus’ command to do evangelism, you must prepare your people to receive the command. That is to say, you as leader must prepare the ground. What does this mean, practically? It means at least seven things: 1. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church what it means to make Jesus Lord. 2. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church about the Bible: why we trust it, why it’s the Word of God, why it is free from errors, why its infallible, how we know it has not been changed over the centuries, how we know what was first written down was accurate, and why we must live under its authority? How were the words of Jesus recorded? How were they stored? How do we know? 3. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church on what it means to “take up one’s Cross” 4. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church about heaven and hell. What they are like and who is going there? 5. Take a series on Sunday mornings about the plight of the lost. Who is lost and headed for hell, and who is not. Define the boundaries clearly. Sadly, most Christians today really believe all people in all religions are destined for heaven, as long as they are sincere in their beliefs about God. Others believe that God will save all those who have never heard of Jesus. These and other heresies must be highlighted, discussed, and rebutted. 6. Have the leaders in your church learn to do evangelism regularly before the general church is trained, so that when the church is trained, they are one step ahead. In this way, the church won’t be able to say of their leaders “why are they asking us to do something they are not doing themselves?” 7. Teach everyone in your church how to have a powerful 54

devotional life i.e. Spiritual disciplines. hese seven points, when executed with love and grace, will do three things: they will soften the hearts of those who have become hard hearted towards evangelism; they will flush out the unsaved in your church; and they will mightily encourage the soft hearted genuine believers to hunger for training in evangelism and to do it regularly. Pastors and leaders - if you don’t do this preparatory work (i.e points 1-7 above), your “one off” weekend evangelism seminar will create some excitement, but the fizz won’t last. You’ll only waste everyone’s precious time and resources. Worse still, you’ll inoculate people against doing evangelism. They will reason “We did some evangelism training and nothing lasted. Let’s not try that again.” If you want to mobilise your whole church for evangelism, and sustain them in it, you must do three things. 1. prepare your church for evangelism 2. teach your church how to do evangelism 3. provide on-going strategies to maintain evangelism momentum. All three phases are critically important. Leave any one of these three phases out, and you’ll have as much chance of mobilising 100% of the people in your church for evangelism as the Pope has of becoming a Protestant. Finally, if you have read this appendix and you are not doing evangelism, try and establish the reason. There are only three possibilities: 1. You are a soft hearted genuine believer who desperately wants to evangelise, but you have never been given the tools and training to get going, or the strategies to maintain momentum. You’d like to be able to evangelise, but you just don’t know how. If this is you, we can help you. 55

2. You are a genuine believer who has become hard hearted towards evangelism. Perhaps your pastor has told you in an unloving, dictatorial, ungracious way to do evangelism? Perhaps your pastor has told you do to evangelism but you know he is not doing it himself? i.e. he’s being hypocritical and thus a stumbling block for you? Perhaps you’ve never been provided with the tools, training, and strategies to “do” evangelism. Perhaps all three apply to you! If this is you, we can help you. 3. Or are you a church goer who is not saved? If this is you, go and tell your minister / pastor and they will show you the next steps. Whichever of these three you are, do something. But don’t do nothing. Determine to become part of the solution. Be an active participant in the Great Commission and the evangelisation of the world, for the glory of God.

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The Great Commission Is Under Attack. The following is a blog which I wrote which received an unprecedented response. The response was not because of what I said, but because of what John Piper said. Hi everyone, As you know, I have been fighting for the gospel and the evangelisation of the world for over 36 years now. Today, like never before in history, the Great Commission is under attack. Over the last 2000 years, the giants of Church history (e.g. people like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley etc) have defined the Great Commission as having four parts. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Go Preach the gospel Baptise those who are saved Disciple those who are baptised

Part 2 of the Great Commission, ‘preach the gospel’ is under attack. Let me explain. “The gospel” has three aspects: word, works, and effects. For example, if I pray for a sick person, my prayer is a work of the gospel. If the person prayed for is healed, the healing is an effect of the gospel. But have they heard the words of the gospel? No, they have not. “Preach the gospel” has only and exclusively ever to do with the Words of the gospel. 57

So what is the content of ‘the words of the gospel’? According to scholars, in order for someone to say “I have faithfully communicated the words of the gospel” certain content must have been communicated / covered, namely a clear explanation about: (1) why we must be saved (2) how Jesus can save us (3) what we must do to be saved (4) the cost of being a disciple. “Evangelism” is only and exclusively about communicating this content to the lost. Part 2 of the Great Commission, ‘preach the gospel’, as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15, is only and exclusively about communicating 1-4 above to the lost. The point I want you to notice is that part 2 of the Great Commission, preaching the gospel, strictly speaking, by definition, must be kept, and was always meant to be kept, separate from the works and effects of the gospel. Sure, when Jesus preached the gospel, often signs and wonders followed. But the signs and wonders were not the words He spoke when He preached the gospel. They were the effects of the words He spoke. They were the result of what He spoke. What He spoke was different from what happened as a result of what He spoke. What He spoke were words (part 2 of the Great Commission). What happened was effects (signs and wonders). The works and effects are the highly desirable and Biblical fruit of preaching the gospel, but they are not to be equated with preaching the words. When the words are proclaimed, sometimes people are saved (an effect). But the effects don’t stop there. These saved people go on to do the works of the gospel (e.g. feed the hungry, clothe and naked, visit those in prison etc). Biblically, the works and effects of the gospel, by definition, are not to be mixed up with preaching the words of the gospel. In history, they have never been mixed up, and were never meant to have been mixed up. 58

Yet today, this mix up is happening right before our very eyes. Instead of preaching to the lost about hell, the wrath of God, the holiness and justice of God, the Cross, forgiveness, righteousness, repentance, faith, heaven, etc, which is what historically part 2 of the Great Commission used to be only and exclusively about, “preaching the gospel” is being subtly redefined as ‘going into all the world and doing good works, or social action or social justice.’ The historical boundaries separating words, works, and effects are not just being blurred, they are being trampled over. The Biblical meaning of ‘preach the gospel’ is being decimated. When this happens, false gospels spawn and multiply. This is a total disaster because it leads to the shut down of evangelism and therefore the collapse of the Great Commission. Please take a moment to read the blog below. What the author of the blog is saying is ‘right on the money’. Particularly notice what John Piper has to say. Wow! What an awesome astute man of God he is. Pray for this man. The Church in the world so needs him (and others like him) right now. It also needs you and me to be sharp and discerning so when we see this stuff happening in the Church we can confront it and fight against it in order to preserve the faith in all its purity. To sit on the fence and do nothing is to join in with the decay. As one seasoned Christian of old once said “A church that never passes things on to another generation—reliably, faithfully, with training, with instruction, with understanding, with an eagerness to evangelize— that church is doomed to obsolescence, shrinking ranks, and finally, irrelevance.” THE BLOG I WOULD LIKE YOU TO READ PLEASE In October 2010, 4,200 evangelical leaders from 198 countries gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. Hundreds of thousands more participated in 59

meetings around the world and online. It was a big deal—the congress has gathered only three times since its inception in 1974. Gospel purity and practice were the foremost matters of discussion for ten days in Cape Town. It was hardly surprising that the prosperity gospel, a real juggernaut on the continent of Africa, came under heavy rebuke in the confession they drafted. The widespread preaching and teaching of “prosperity gospel” around the world raises significant concerns. We define prosperity gospel as the teaching that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the “sowing of seeds” through financial or material gifts. Prosperity teaching is a phenomenon that cuts across many denominations in all continents. . . . We believe that the teachings of many who vigorously promote the prosperity gospel seriously distort the Bible; that their practices and lifestyle are often unethical and un-Christlike; that they commonly replace genuine evangelism with miracle-seeking, and replace the call to repentance with the call to give money to the preacher’s organization. We grieve that the impact of this teaching on many Churches is pastorally damaging and spiritually unhealthy. The prosperity gospel offers no lasting solution to poverty, and can deflect people from the true message and means of eternal salvation. For these reasons it can be soberly described as a false gospel. We therefore reject the excesses of prosperity teaching as incompatible with balanced Biblical Christianity. That part of The Cape Town Commitment is a clear and necessary formal rejection of the prosperity gospel. They rightly point out that it is indeed a “false gospel”—a perversion where health, wealth, and happiness have usurped the glorious gospel truths of forgiveness, righteousness, and eternal life. In light of such a strong repudiation, it was hardly surprising that the 60

theological pendulum swung forcefully in the other direction. Large numbers of delegates at the Third Lausanne Congress pushed hard for matters of social justice to be enshrined in their doctrinal statement. And that involved drafting an expanded definition of Christian mission that included a strong social dimension. We commit ourselves to the integral and dynamic exercise of all dimensions of mission to which God calls his Church: God commands us to make known to all nations the truth of God’s revelation and the gospel of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ, calling all people to repentance, faith, baptism and obedient discipleship. God commands us to reflect his own character through compassionate care for the needy, and to demonstrate the values and the power of the kingdom of God in striving for justice and peace and in caring for God’s creation. The second half of that definition sounds perfectly reasonable. As Christians, we should always conduct ourselves in a caring and compassionate way. But one enters dangerous theological territory when those good works become part of the words of the gospel rather than being rightly classified as the works of the gospel. And it certainly sounds that way when The Cape Town Commitment includes the alleviation of material poverty as a Great Commission responsibility. We embrace the witness of the whole Bible, as it shows us God’s desire both for systemic economic justice and for personal compassion, respect and generosity towards the poor and needy. We rejoice that this extensive Biblical teaching has become more integrated into our mission strategy and practice, as it was for the early Church and the Apostle Paul. So what’s the problem with broadening the scope of the Great Commission? Isn’t honoring God through personal sacrifice a repudiation of those who honor themselves for personal gain? Shouldn’t evangelism go beyond eternal matters to the rectification of 61

problems in the here and now—especially when the added focus is on good works that are commended by Scripture? John Piper, who was present at the Lausanne Congress, was hesitant to affirm those ideals. He was clearly troubled by the social gospel trajectory and expressed his concerns as to where it might lead: I want to point out one [Biblical] phrase which is indispensable in this congress if we’re to get the gospel right and evangelism right. . . . “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind” [Ephesians 2:3, ESV]. That’s terrifying. All human beings are children of wrath. . . . It’s their nature, my nature, your nature, is sinful and corrupt and rebellious. Christ did not have to die merely because I’m a sinner. He had to die because God, in His infinite holiness and justice is angry at the world. We are children of anger. We are justly deserving of the wrath and the anger of God. This is the greatest problem for mankind in the universe. There isn’t anything that surpasses lostness and being bound for an everlasting suffering under the wrath of God. . . . When the gospel takes root in our souls it awakens us to the horrible reality of eternal suffering in hell under the wrath of a just and omnipotent God. And it impels us out to rescue the perishing. We cry, “Flee the wrath to come, flee the wrath to come.” That’s our message because Christ has died. He has absorbed the wrath of God. He has cancelled sin. Everyone who is united to Him by faith alone is forgiven of their sins and counted righteous in Christ and has eternal life. . . . It is the most important news in the universe. . . . What I want us to be able to say—could Lausanne say, could the global church say?—“For Christ’s sake we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.” The reaction by many at the conference to Piper’s last sentence revealed 62

that his corrective was called for and his concerns were real. Robertson McQuilkin, a world-renowned missionary and former president of Columbia International University, wrote about the push back he felt to Piper’s statement on the preeminent importance of eternal suffering: “Such a simple statement—how could anyone object? Yet many at Lausanne III objected. In fact, from the dozens of sermons at the conference, this one sentence in John Piper’s presentation proved a lightning rod. Many quoted it to me with delight; but from Italy to England, to Bangladesh to America, I received feedback from representatives who went home incensed by the statement. I wasn’t surprised that the battle raged. Why? I had read a position paper prepared for the conference by high-level evangelical leaders. They rejected the church’s historic position of giving priority to the evangelistic purpose of missions, so cogently expressed in Piper’s simple statement. So I was apprehensive about the outcome of Lausanne III. Imagine my delight to find, in the consensus documents emerging from the Congress, a reaffirmation of the historic position of the Church that gives priority to the evangelistic mandate. But a very large minority of attendees waged war against this position in favor of giving equal emphasis or even priority to the social or cultural responsibilities of the church”. [4] There are two major lessons in the Third Lausanne Congress when it comes to getting the gospel right. First, the right diagnosis of a problem doesn’t guarantee the right corrective treatment of that problem. Second, any attempt to expand the gospel’s range of meaning ultimately diminishes its true meaning. Unity over what the gospel is, also demands unity over what the gospel isn’t. The delegates in Cape Town recognized that fact by formalizing their opposition to the prosperity gospel. But many of them over corrected, embracing the social gospel as an antidote. Moreover, they failed to recognize that the two seemingly antithetical views actually reflect the same theological deviation. 63

The prosperity gospel and the social gospel may look very different to the casual observer, but they both fall into the same deadly error of gospel expansion at the expense of the gospel. One adds temporal riches to eternal riches. The other adds the alleviation of temporal suffering to the alleviation of eternal suffering. Good works should be commended, as they are in Scripture. But they are an extension of the gospel rather than a fundamental aspect of it (Ephesians 2:10). The gospel is the good news concerning the forgiveness of sins through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1–5). It is not subject to alteration (Galatians 1:8–9). To expand the gospel’s meaning beyond its eternal ramifications is to dilute, and possibly jettison, those eternal ramifications. Being together for the gospel, by implication, demands that we stand together against all attempts to expand its meaning beyond its Biblical boundaries.

The Evangelism Fitness Test

The Evangelism Fitness Test (EFT) Please take this test before and after you have read this Book . My prayer is that as a result of your reading, your scores before and after will be remarkably different. I want the Book to make you supremely fit to enter the battle for souls for the glory of God! You will remember in the Mini Book One, an analogy was drawn between evangelism and the smooth functioning of a car. I pointed out that to start an average car, and keep it going smoothly, hundreds of car parts must synchronise and work together perfectly. If just one critical part malfunctions (e.g. the fuel pump), the car stops. From this analogy it’s easy to see that not all parts are critical (e.g. the windscreen wiper on the passenger’s side). But, when all parts are working perfectly, the car feels and drives like new. By using this analogy, I want you to see the parallels with evangelism. Every person in your church is like a car, and every device of the devil will cause any of the cars in your church to malfunction. If you can eliminate all the malfunctions in all the cars, they will all purr. If we eliminate all the devil’s devices, the Christians in our church will begin to fly in evangelism, and you will have helped turn the tide in the battle for souls. The more devilish devices you identify and eliminate, the better your chance of mobilising all the 2

people in your church for evangelism. And the more people in your church who purr in evangelism, the better the chance of creating a truly explosive evangelistic church! The ideal is to have everyone in our church score 100 percent. Please be aware that people in your church who score poorly can negatively affect the evangelism performance of others in the church. The intention of the EFT test is to diagnose your thinking about evangelism. If I can help you think biblically about evangelism, there is a greater chance that you will activate for it personally. When you take this test for the first time, many of the terms and phrases used will be unfamiliar to you. Please try to answer the questions anyway. When you get to the end of the Book and re-sit the same test, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how your reading has prepared you to activate for personal evangelism in the war for souls. Critical questions: Some questions are like the critical parts of a car. If you get these wrong your car just wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t start i.e. youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have little chance of mobilising yourself for personal evangelism. If you are a leader, the consequences of getting a critical question wrong are more severe. Each of the critical questions is worth 5 points, so take special care when you see these. Not so critical questions: Other questions are, like the windscreen wiper on the passengerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s side, not so critical. If you get one or two of these questions wrong, they will still affect the performance of your car but they will not stop it completely. However, if you get a number wrong (say more than five), your evangelism car will grind to a complete stop in no time. Each of these questions varies in weighting from 1 to 5. The higher the score, the more serious is the potential problem for evangelism.

Proviso: Having said this, I think all the questions ought to have a five point rating! As you read through the questions, I am sure you will agree. So please don’t get hung up on a particular weighting. You are allowed to disagree with the rating I have given each question. Instructions: Answer each question in sequence, by giving your first gut response. Place a tick in one of the boxes provided for each question. For example: 2.

If we don’t feel particularly victorious in our Christian lives, we cannot proclaim the gospel effectively.

Agree

Disagree

At the end, mark your test using the answer sheet provided. You will notice when you are marking that we have pointed out (made bold) the critical questions (i.e. the questions that are like the fuel pump on your car). If you fail any questions, please refer to the appropriate Mini Book for clarification. The appropriate sections are noted beside each question in the answer section. The answers to some questions might not be clear cut. With these questions, place a tick in the box which you believe is either mostly right or mostly wrong, or with which you generally agree or generally disagree. No. QUESTIONS / STATEMENTS

Response

To evangelise is simply to spread or proclaim the gospel.

Agree

Disagree

If we don’t feel victorious in our Christian lives, we cannot proclaim the gospel effectively.

Agree

Disagree

It is impossible to share the gospel effectively with total strangers.

Agree

Disagree

True evangelism will always confront the person listening about something, otherwise it cannot be the whole gospel which is being proclaimed.

Agree

Disagree

If a church leader models personal evangelism, this will almost guarantee that most of the people under him or her will follow suit.

Yes

Using tools to proclaim the gospel reduces evangelism to a formula, and using formulas in evangelism reduces effectiveness.

Agree

Disagree

Non-Christians can be saved by someone or something other than Jesus Christ.

Agree

Disagree

If I don’t observe a sign or a wonder when I preach the gospel, this is an indication that the gospel being preached is incomplete.

Agree

Disagree

Leading a good life can rightly be equated with evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

TOTAL FOR PAGE ONE 10.

It is the task of the Christian giving the gospel to convict the non-Christian listening of the truth of the message.

Agree

Disagree

11.

The content of the gospel message we are to speak to non-Christians cannot be defined.

Agree

Disagree

12.

When we die our souls do not live on consciously in either heaven or hell. They are annihilated.

Agree

Disagree

13.

Jesus taught the disciples in Mark 4:26-29 to expect a time delay between someone hearing the gospel and their conversion.

Agree

Disagree

14.

The skill to become effective in personal evangelism can be learned by virtually anyone who is willing.

Agree

Disagree

15.

Central to God’s plan “A” for the evangelising of the world is the strategy of mobilising all Christians for personal evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

16.

All of the six steps in the process of drawing a nonChristian to Christ (i.e. Ploughing, Sowing, Watering, Growing, Harvesting, and Discipling) are evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

17.

Would you say, as a result of reading this Book , that you now have a good grasp of the difference between “other gospels” and “the gospel”?

Yes

Not sure

18.

Christian scholars and leaders can help us understand the Bible better.

Agree

Disagree

19.

The simple gospel message cannot effectively penetrate the post-modern mind.

Agree

Disagree

20.

It would be irresponsible to give the gospel to a nonChristian and not personally follow that person up with a phone call, a home visit, or some literature.

Agree

Disagree

21.

To present the gospel to non-Christians is an act of Christian love.

Agree

Disagree

22.

If you are a leader, it is wise to wait until your people say they are ready for evangelism before you attempt to activate them.

Agree

Disagree

23.

In order to say the whole gospel has been proclaimed, the gospel message must cover four areas of content: a. Why we must be saved. b. How Jesus can save us. c. What we must do to be saved. d. The cost of discipleship.

Agree

Disagree

24.

Positive distractions can subtly hinder Christians from evangelising.

Agree

Disagree

TOTAL FOR PAGE TWO 25.

When non-Christians discover they are going to hell, God will often use this knowledge to move them powerfully towards the point of conversion.

Agree

Disagree

26.

“Sharing one’s faith” and “evangelism” are not always the same thing.

Agree

Disagree

27.

The whole Bible, called the wide and general gospel, could rightly be called “the gospel.” However, the gospel we are to proclaim to non-Christians (e.g. Mark 16:15) is a carefully crafted salvation message from within the wide and general gospel. This gospel is called the sharply defined New Testament gospel.

Agree

Disagree

28.

Mixing with Christians who are active in personal evangelism will positively and powerfully affect my efforts to mobilise for evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

29.

God is going to save only those people He has predestined for salvation. Conclusion: We don’t need to evangelise. God will save them anyway.

Agree with

Disagree with

conclusion conclusion

30.

The Greek word automate means ‘all by itself.’

Agree

Disagree

31.

Sharing the gospel will not be effective unless I first do a good deed for the person I am to share with.

Agree

Disagree

32.

When I evangelise, I am worshipping Jesus.

Agree

Disagree

33.

Wanting to “keep the peace” and not offend anyone can cause us to water down the gospel.

Agree

Disagree

34.

I believe our faith is a private matter and that we should not talk about it in public.

Agree

Disagree

35.

Social action can quite rightly be called evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

36.

Evangelists (those with the Ephesians 4:11-14 gift of evangelism) wake up every day feeling eager to reach people with the gospel.

True

False

37.

Proclaiming the gospel is one of the most potent ways of bringing glory to Jesus Christ.

Agree

Disagree

38.

To reach unreached people groups with the gospel and establish an indigenous church in each group is the first priority of the mission of the Christian Church.

Agree

Disagree

39.

The evangelism priority of the Christian Church is to present the gospel clearly and lovingly to every person in every people group, doing our best to ensure they understand it.

Agree

Disagree

40.

Are you able to explain the difference between the wide and general gospel and the sharply-defined New Testament gospel?

Yes

TOTAL FOR PAGE THREE 41.

Are you able to explain the difference between the words, works, and effects of the gospel?

Yes

42.

The main task of a Christian who has the gift of evangelism is to equip everyone else in the Church, who does not have the gift, to evangelise.

Agree

Disagree

43.

If I feel less than competent in evangelism and afraid of opposition from non-Christians, this is an indication God is saying, “I don’t have to do evangelism.”

Agree

Disagree

44.

Walking alongside non-Christians and befriending them can rightly be called discipleship.

Agree

Disagree

45.

Everyone who gives a personal testimony is evangelising.

Agree

Disagree

46.

Christians can lose the ability to relate to non-Christians.

Agree

Disagree

47.

There is a vast difference between simple exposure to the gospel and hearing and understanding it.

Agree

Disagree

48.

Personal evangelism is not the responsibility and privilege of all believers.

Agree

Disagree

49.

Defining evangelism as the winning of souls severely hinders evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

50.

Could you explain the difference between normal and non-normal evangelism?

Yes

51.

Would you say that the culture of your church is evangelistic? In other words, if a visitor to your church was to ask random people in your church the question, ‘what is the most important passion of your pastor and the leadership, would ‘Evangelism’ consistently feature in the answers?

Yes

52.

Mobilising mega-church leaders and Bible college Board Chairpersons for evangelism is a key for mobilising the rest of the Christian Church.

Agree

Disagree

53.

It is quite possible to reap a great harvest from a field not sown with seed.

Agree

Disagree

54.

Christians who say they are too busy to evangelise are too busy.

Agree

Disagree

55.

With the six step process of drawing nonChristians to Christ, could you explain the difference between ploughing, sowing, watering, growing, harvesting and discipling?

Yes

Agree

Disagree

TOTAL FOR PAGE FOUR 56.

Evangelism is a process.

57.

It is my responsibility to get training for personal evangelism, not the responsibility of my pastor to get it for me.

Agree

Disagree

58.

Experiencing personal discomfort in the Christian life Agree is a normal part of being a committed follower of Jesus.

Disagree

59.

It is okay to have a private revelation from God (e.g. “God has told me not to do evangelism.”) which contradicts the clear teaching of the Bible (i.e. “Go into the world and proclaim the gospel”).

Agree

Disagree

60.

Leaders at every level can make or break the possibility of evangelising the world.

Agree

Disagree

61.

“When I feel fearful of doing evangelism, this is God speaking to me, telling me I am not to do it.”

Agree

Disagree

62.

The strategy of deliberately making friends with non-Christian in order to bring them to church is highly desirable and ought to be encouraged. However, making a friendship with a nonChristian, in and of itself, is not evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

63.

Any discipleship program which does not include on-going training for personal evangelism is a deficient discipleship program.

Agree

Disagree

64.

Evangelism is an event within a process.

Agree

Disagree

65.

A decline in the number of Christians in the West, and the decline in belief in God among non-Christians, is closely related to a decline in Christians doing personal evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

66.

Is it wrong to define evangelism as “every activity which brings a non-Christian person closer to the point of salvation” ?.

Yes

67.

God does not promise to follow up every seed of the gospel which has been well planted.

Agree

Disagree

68.

Could you show someone else how to proclaim the gospel to a non-Christian?

Yes

69.

Using the Law is essential in evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

70.

St Francis of Assisi did not say “Go into the world and preach the gospel, and if all else fails, use words.”

Agree

Disagree

TOTAL FOR PAGE FIVE 71.

Making a point of doing personal evangelism regularly is legalism.

Agree

Disagree

72.

We can safely presume everyone in a typical church knows the biblical definitions of “evangelism” and “the gospel”.

Agree

Disagree

73.

When we evangelise, we appeal to the mind and the conscience of the non-Christian in order to access their heart, which must be regenerated.

Yes

74.

It is important that non-Christians understand our gospel messages.

Agree

Disagree

75.

Churches can increase their effectiveness in evangelism Agree by regularly showing a concise say-it-all-at-one-time gospel message as part of the church program.

Disagree

76.

The greatest evangelists eventually completely lose all their fear of doing personal evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

77.

God is looking for leaders who have a Kingdom view of evangelism. That is, they will happily sow time and resources into the harvest field of the world, even if the fruit of their efforts ends in the growth of the church of another.

Agree

Disagree

78.

It is critically important to personally ‘plough’ the ground of the hearts of non-Christians and to ‘water’ the seed of the gospel after it has been planted by you.

Agree

Disagree

79.

Witnessing and evangelism are the same thing

Agree

Disagree

80.

Is the leadership of your church accountable to anyone else in your church for their personal evangelism? (If you are not a leader, answer for yourself)

Yes

81.

The highest motive for evangelising is to obey God.

True

False

82.

Appealing to the mind by being clear and logical in our presentation of the gospel is extremely important.

Agree

Disagree

83.

If my motives are not right when I evangelise, the gospel will not be effective.

Agree

Disagree

84.

The highest motive for doing evangelism is to love people.

Agree

Disagree

85.

The main thrust of the teaching of Jesus is active evangelism, where we go to the lost and present the gospel to them in their world.

Agree

Disagree

TOTAL FOR PAGE SIX 86.

We have no hope of evangelising the world unless we start going to complete strangers to present the gospel to them.

Yes

87.

When the gospel is proclaimed and there is no immediate result (i.e. an immediate conversion), the exercise was a waste of time and resources.

Agree

Disagree

88.

Mixing only with non-evangelising Christians can Agree negatively affect my efforts to mobilise for evangelism.

Disagree

89.

Prayer, intercession, fasting and other spiritual disciplines are legitimate substitutes for evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

90.

“It is hypocritical to pray for the lost, yet not go to them personally with the gospel, the means which God has appointed for their salvation.” (Spurgeon and C.T Studd)

Agree

Disagree

91.

The topic of hell is an important part of the gospel.

Agree

Disagree

92.

Is serious on-going training in personal evangelism happening in your church?

Yes

93.

If all non-Christians hear from Christians is “Jesus loves you,” we are deceiving them about their standing before God.

Agree

Disagree

94.

With free wheeling evangelism (as opposed to using good tools) it’s more difficult to get around to presenting the whole gospel.

Agree

Disagree

95.

The priority of the Christian Church is to evangelise the world for the glory of God.

Agree

Disagree

96.

Not all “Christian mission” is evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

97.

It is vitally important to invest heavily in overseas missions and missionaries but not as a substitute for evangelising our own Jerusalem. In fact, according to Jesus, evangelising our Jerusalem ought to take priority. It is not either/or. It’s both.

Agree

Disagree

98.

The term “friendship evangelism” often leads to confusion about what evangelism actually is.”

Yes

99.

Drawing non-Christians to God is a team event where only some in a typical church need to activate for evangelism.

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

100. Pseudo converts hinder evangelism. TOTAL FOR PAGE SEVEN

Scoring BEFORE reading this Book

Scoring AFTER reading this Book

1st Page Total

2nd Page Total

3rd Page Total

4th Page Total

5th Page Total

6th Page Total

7th Page Total

Total Score

320

Total score

320

Scoring No.

Response Points Response

Points

Book Reference

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

17, device 41

Yes

14,15,16,17,18,19

Agree

Disagree

19, device 61

Agree

Disagree

16, device 37

Agree

Disagree

17, device 42

Agree

Disagree

10, device 20

10.

Agree

Disagree

Appendix 1

11.

Agree

Disagree

5,6

12.

Agree

Disagree

17, device 45

13.

Agree

Disagree

14.

Agree

Disagree

15.

Agree

Disagree

16.

Agree

Disagree

17.

Yes

Not sure

5,6

18.

Agree

Disagree

4,5,6

19.

Agree

Disagree

18, device 49

20.

Agree

Disagree

21.

Agree

Disagree

10, device 25

22.

Agree

Disagree

17, device 40

23.

Agree

Disagree

5,6

24.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 55

25.

Agree

Disagree

18, device 51

26.

Agree

Disagree

4, device 8

27.

Agree

Disagree

5,6

28.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 54

29.

Agree

Disagree

16, device 35

30.

Agree

Disagree

31.

Agree

Disagree

10,13

32.

Agree

Disagree

33.

Agree

Disagree

34.

Agree

Disagree

10, device 22

35.

Agree

Disagree

36.

True

False

37.

Agree

Disagree

38.

Agree

Disagree

5, device 9

39.

Agree

Disagree

5, device 9

40.

Yes

5, device 13

41.

Yes

5, device 12

42.

Agree

Disagree

43.

Agree

Disagree

44.

Agree

Disagree

17, device 46

45.

Agree

Disagree

18, device 47

46.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 57

47.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 59

48.

Agree

Disagree

49.

Agree

Disagree

4, device 3

50.

Yes

4, device 6

51.

Yes

52.

Agree

Disagree

53.

Agree

Disagree

54.

Agree

Disagree

55.

Yes

56.

Agree

Disagree

3,11

57.

Agree

Disagree

58.

Agree

Disagree

10, device 23

59.

Agree

Disagree

10, device 24

60.

Agree

Disagree

14,15,16,17,18,19

61.

Agree

Disagree

62.

Agree

Disagree

3,22

63.

Agree

Disagree

64.

Agree

Disagree

65.

Agree

Disagree

66.

Yes

3, device 4

67.

Agree

Disagree

68.

Yes

69.

Agree

Disagree

Mini Book 27, Appendix 1

70.

Agree

Disagree

10, device 19

71.

Agree

Disagree

16, device 29

72.

Agree

Disagree

3,5

73.

Yes

74.

Agree

Disagree

75.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 58

76.

Agree

Disagree

77.

Agree

Disagree

78.

Agree

Disagree

79.

Agree

Disagree

4, device 10

80.

Yes

19, device 64

81.

True

False

82.

Agree

Disagree

83.

Agree

Disagree

84.

Agree

Disagree

85.

Agree

Disagree

16, device 31

86.

Yes

6,13,16,19,20

87.

Agree

Disagree

16, device 31

88.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 54 &57

89.

Agree

Disagree

16, device 38

90.

Agree

Disagree

11,16, device 38

91.

Agree

Disagree

17, device 45

92.

Yes

7,17,19

93.

Agree

Disagree

18, device 52

94.

Agree

Disagree

18, device 61

95.

Agree

Disagree

96.

Agree

Disagree

97.

Agree

Disagree

19, device 62

98.

Agree

Disagree

99.

Agree

Disagree

4, device 7

100. Agree

Disagree

What to do if you did not achieve a perfect score: Please go back to the appropriate parts of the Book for clarification and try to work towards a perfect score. If you are a leader of a church or Christian organisation, aim to bring all your people to the place where they receive a perfect score. We have produced home group studies on DVD, with workbooks, to help you bring your whole church to the place where they are thinking biblically about evangelism. The studies conclude with practical training in how to evangelise. If you would like to purchase a copy of these, please go to www.esisite.com or email to julianbatchelor@xtra.co.nz. Tracts, tools, and teaching DVDs are also available to help you deliver the gospel lovingly, graciously, and uncompromisingly.

List of devices

L i s t

o f

D e v i c e s

1 2

To mess up our definition of the word evangelism

3 4

To have us believe that evangelism equals the winning of souls

5 6

To have us believe that we are evangelising when we do good works.

Manipulate Christians into viewing evangelism as a team event where only one or two members in the team actually do evangelism

To blur the distinction between ‘sharing your faith’ and ‘proclaiming the gospel’

9 10

Have us misinterpret Matthew 24:14

To blur the distinction in the minds of Christians between normal and nonnormal evangelism

Mess up our definition of the word ‘witnessing’ Chapter 6

11 12

Have us proclaim ‘other gospels’ instead of THE gospel

Blur the distinction between the general use of the term ‘gospel’ and its sharply-defined New Testament use.

14 15

Persuade us that the words of the gospel cannot be defined

Cause Christians to confuse the words of the gospel with its works and effects

To persuade us to water down the words of the gospel in order to preserve unity.

To scramble the priorities of the Christian Church Chapter 10

18 19 20

Persuade Christians they are inadequate

To convince us that by leading a good life and being a positive example for others is to be equated with evangelism

To persuade Christians that they are incompetent in evangelism so they will say nothing

23 24

To persuade us our faith is a private matter and should not be shared

To persuade us that God sometimes says things to us personally that

To persuade us that ‘love is the ultimate thing’ and that the most powerful way to express our love for non-Christians is not to preach the gospel but to meet their practical needs

To persuade us we should not share the gospel unless our life backs up the message

28 29

To persuade us we should not share the gospel unless our motives are right

To misquote great Christians from history To persuade Christians they must earn the right to speak into someone’s life before sharing the gospel with them

To persuade us that God is there primarily to bless us and prosper us. Doing His will and serving His purposes are secondary contradict what is written in the Bible

To persuade us that evangelism is a process Chapter 12

Have us think we are proclaiming “the” gospel when really it’s been another gospel we have been communicating

Have us pay little attention to delivery issues so we give “the” gospel a bad name and stop using it

Have us over-react to the charge we are all talk and no walk

Convince leaders to create a new image of Christianity where the hard sayings of Jesus and the evangelisation of the world are taboo Chapter 16

To persuade leaders that making a point of doing personal evangelism regularly is legalism

To persuade leaders that if they find evangelism difficult it must not be their calling, and that personal evangelism should be left to those with the gift

37 38

To convince leaders that evangelism need only be a passive activity

To persuade leaders that when the gospel is proclaimed and there is no immediate result, the exercise was a waste of time and resources

40 41

To persuade leaders that all roads lead to God

To persuade leaders to view evangelism like a business venture. If we don’t see souls saved and won into our church immediately, we close down the business

To persuade leaders that people who have never heard the gospel will eventually be saved anyway

44 45

To substitute evangelism for sustained prayer, intercession, and fasting

To dupe leaders into assuming that everyone under their care and authority knows the biblical definitions of ‘evangelism’ and ‘the gospel’

To target leaders with extreme Calvinism and an unbiblical understanding of the theology of grace

To make leaders afraid of being less than competent and afraid of opposition from non-Christians Chapter 17

To persuade leaders to delay equipping their people for evangelism until they are ready i.e. “on fire”

47 48

To persuade leaders that personal evangelism is too confrontational

49 50

To persuade leaders that worship in a church is evangelism

To persuade leaders that when we die our souls are simply snuffed out and that hell is not a place of eternal conscious torment

To persuade leaders to equate evangelism with discipleship

To persuade some leaders that the only valid form of evangelism is one in which signs and wonders follow To persuade leaders the most effective way to evangelise the world is through big events and tent-type meetings

Chapter 18

To persuade leaders that personal testimony and evangelism are the same thing

54 55

To persuade leaders that the gospel is not as powerful as the Bible makes out To whisper in the ear of a leader “the reason the gospel works for Billy Graham, Bonnke and Edwards was that they were special people with the gift. You don’t have the gift so there is no point in you proclaiming it.”

To whisper in the ear of leaders “the simple gospel message cannot effectively penetrate the post modern mind”

To persuade Christians they do not need to check that the non-Christian has understood the gospel message – that it is enough merely to proclaim it

To persuade leaders it is not biblical to talk about hell in an effort to move non-Christians towards the point of conversion

To persuade Christian leaders the most important thing to tell non-Christians is “Jesus loves you”

To cause local church leaders to resent evangelists and cause evangelists to resent Christians who don’t evangelise Chapter 19

Have leaders who are evangelising mix regularly with non-evangelising leaders

62 63 64 73

To target the leader with positive distractions

To make a leader feel threatened and insecure at the thought of making evangelism centre stage in their church

To cause leaders to see “the gospel” and “the gospel of the Kingdom” as two different gospel messages

Chapter 20

To persuade a leader that he/she must feel that they must “love God more than anything or anyone else” before obeying Him in evangelism so that when they do start, their motivation is right

77 78

To cause leaders to become out of balance in the expression of their faith.

To cause leaders to think that promoting the need to do evangelism is to be equated with doing good works in order to get closer to God

81 82

To convince us that Christianity is about being, not doing.

To persuade leaders that “bringing the Kingdom to earth” is the new priority of the Church

Teaching that we have to obey the commands of Jesus (e.g. the command to evangelise the world) is taking us back into legalism and the law! Chapter 22

To lull leaders into thinking the majority of people in church are already genuine Christians

Chapter 26, APPENDIX 5

Have us react negatively to the thought that we are being told to do evangelism