Evangelism

The Angels In Heaven Rejoice Over A Soul Saved

"Do they think evangelizing is just something for professional Christians like you and me?

 For those who have the gift of evangelism?

 Or do they understand evangelism to be something for all Christians."

 http://christianpost.com/Ministries/Events/2009/02/pastors-learn-biblical-evangelism-shed-guilt-driven-burden-05/index.html

I came home from the gym and sat down with my laptop and the topic of evangelism hit me in the face right away.

Recently Greg Laurie had another "Harvest" crusade.

And as usual the reformed types were kind of chatty about it.

By their comments on the net I could tell they felt that Greg was off base in his approach to evangelism.

 I was introduced to evangelism when I was 17 years old by Calvary Chapel. 

 Back in those days we would hit the beaches witnessing and invite everyone to come with us to Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa on Monday nights.

Chuck Smith would share from the Word of God and at the end of the service he would give an 'alter call.'

 He would say something about salvation while all of us young Christians were quietly praying for those present who needed to be saved among us.

 Then "While every eye closed and every head bowed" he would give an invitation to accept Christ by lifting their hands up until he acknowledged them.

 After this he would say, "you can lift your heads now. And then he would give the scripture about:

Matthew 10:32

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Then he would invite anyone who had raised their hand to come forward and confess Christ before man.

For those of us who were there it was such a great time to actually be able to have the freedom to participate in the reproductive process of the Body of Christ!

 We were encouraged to get out there and share our faith in witnessing and bring in the sheep.

It was a major priority for Calvary Chapel to reach the lost.

 And it is a major priority for Jesus Christ to reach the lost:

Matthew 18:11
"The Son of Man has come to save that which was lost."

It was a major priority for all of us kids at that time also!

Reaching out to the lost is one thing that we can't do in heaven that we can do here on earth.

You can worship God in heaven.

 You can sing songs to God in heaven.

You can learn God's Word in heaven.

 But one thing you can not do in heaven is share your faith with a nonbeliever.

Why?

 Because everyone in heaven is a believer.

Once you take your last breath of air you will never again be able to talk to a lost person.

 Since this is true, shouldn't it be a priority of your life to reach out to all the lost people on earth while you can?

Then one day, without any kind of warning or explanation, Calvary Chapel shifted gears midstream and stumbled a lot of us...

 They became a Bible teaching church, almost exclusively, without telling me or any of my other Christian friends.

 We got alienated.

 Chuck's Monday night fish~net was put away to dry behind "The Block Wall."

 The emphasis on salvation took a back seat to Chuck's Bible teaching.

In one of Pastor Chuck Smith's addresses to the Calvary Chapel's Minister's conference he mentions his shift from Evangelism to teaching. I didn't get to read the transcript of this address until just last year (2009).

A light went on in my head. "So that is what had happened to us so many years ago!"

 One day he decided that he wasn't very good at evangelism so he gave it up and concentrated on teaching the bible instead of his former evangelistic efforts. 

He said:

 *Quote*

"As I started reading and studying the Word of God, I could not find the Scripture that
said the primary purpose of the church is the evangelization of the world; I still can't find that Scripture.

 But I did find in Ephesians 4 that God has placed gifted men, apostles,
evangelists, prophets, pastor-teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, the building up of the body of Christ.

 This brought into my life a tremendous philosophical change as far as my concept of the purpose of the church was concerned.

Rather than seeing the primary purpose as being the evangelization of the world, I saw
that the purpose of the church was for the perfecting of the saints, making the believers strong, bringing them into maturity, feeding them, loving them, strengthening them so that they would be able to engage in the work of the ministry, for I realized that God has called all of us and placed us into His body and He has a plan and purpose for each of us.

*Unquote*

 He truly stumbled myself and a lot of my generation of the Jesus People by his sudden shift with no explanation what-so-ever to any of us.

 We were left to drift by his midstream change of course.

 He just took hold of the helm as captain of the ship and changed course while we were not paying attention.

 Gone was those incredible moments at church that Chuck would evangelize with the express purpose of catching the fish while all of us prayed.

Slowly the trickle down effect hit us.

 The handing out of tracts and the sharing our faith on the streets was demphasized and evangelism was no longer a priority.

 The evangelical zeal of the church waxed cold.

God burdens our hearts to reach the lost, but we must get out there and start practicing those conversations.

2 Timothy 4:2-8
Preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season...

 This means that we should be ready to preach the Word at all times, any other time would be wrong. We are to go for it, do it! Share your faith, the Mormons are doing it, the Jehovah's Witnesses are doing it...what about us who know the Truth?

How did you come to Christ? Did anyone share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with you? Didn't someone lead you to Jesus?

"I would sooner bring one sinner to Jesus Christ then unravel all the mysteries of the divine Word, for salvation is the one thing we are to live for."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"O my friends, we are loaded down with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing the world and winning the lost, is almost entirely neglected!"
Oswald J. Chambers

We should want to see people in heaven so much that we would be willing to do anything for them to know Jesus.

"When preaching and private talk are not available, you need to have a tract ready...Get good striking tracts, or none at all. but a touching gospel tract may be the seed of eternal life. Therefore, do not go out without your tracts."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Proverbs 11:30

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.

"To be a soul winner is the happiest thing in the world. And with every soul you bring to Jesus Christ, you seem to get a new heaven here upon earth."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Those evangelical meetings on Monday nights with Chuck Smith were so glorious!

 The atmosphere was charged with the manifested presence of the Holy Spirit.

 As if to say to us in confirmation, "Well done my good and faithful servants."


Chuck's new program of only teaching the Word did not have the same manifested presence of the Holy Spirit like his evangelism did.


The Holy Spirit convicts of sin that people might be saved through the gospel message.

A hundred and fifty years from now, will it matter if you made a million dollars, drove an expensive vehicle, graduated from college?

No.

 The only thing that will be important then is whether you know the Almighty God who created you, because you will be in one of two destinations forever...and ever and ever.

 It is very important to get people to realize that it is the eternal, not the temporary, things that matter.

They must be told about salvation through Jesus Christ before they enter eternity.

To enter eternity with out Christ is eternal damnation. Do you care about this? Do you care about why Christ died upon the cross, about His main emphasis in going to the cross?

If you want to see your friends in heaven, invite them.

 If you don't want to see your friends in heaven don't invite them...

It doesn't matter whether people like us or not.

 Jesus was perfect, loved everyone perfectly, and still got nailed to a cross. People spit on His face!

Jesus did His part over two thousand years ago, and now it is time for you to do yours.

When leadership does wrong, it does not give us the right to ignore the ministry left to us by Christ!

Use the breath that Christ has given you to preach the gospel message to every living creature.

Acts 13:47

For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

"If sinners be damed, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they 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 unwarned or unprayed for."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon


John 6:47

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life."

How will they know if you remain silent?

Romans 10:9
"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

Not that you might be saved, but you will be saved.

1 John5:12-13
"He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God."

If you died tonight, are you 100% sure that you would go to heaven?

Christian, you have assurance of salvation and others do not. Step out in faith, tell someone about Jesus, the only way to heaven, and you just might be someone's answer to prayer.

Hell is a very real place, according to the Bible. we need to convince people of its reality and warn them not to go there. We need to plunder hell to populate heaven.

 Share the good news of Jesus Christ with others.

BEHOLD, NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME; BEHOLD, NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION
2 Corinthians 6:2

A tragedy is knowing someone will be dying and going to hell for eternity, and not caring enough to do anything about it.

"The Word of the Lord was made to me a reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, "I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name." But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.
Jeremiah 20:8,9

We are given the honor and the privilege that angels do not have! We get to invite others to heaven through Jesus Christ. We get to deliver the invitation that Angels can not deliver.

We are inviting you to decide what you want to do with the invitation. Do you have the confident assurance that if you were to die that you would go to heaven? While you can if you accept Jesus Christ and His death upon the cross on your behalf to redeem you from your sins.

Christian reader, when was the last time you talked with a lost person?

"You cannot stop their dying, but oh, that God might help you to stop their being damned! You cannot stop the breath from going out of their bodies, but oh, if the gospel could but stop their souls from going down to destruction!"
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

No major battle has ever been won without a plan, without a strategy, the battle we are talking about (winning a soul to the kingdom) far surpasses any other of the battles in life that we might encounter. 

When you realize your Position in the vine, aware of your unconditional eternal security being you will begin to work toward others coming in to the kingdom. 

You will in fact get the message out instead of being "Keepers of the aquarium rather than fishers of men."

 Jesus told his disciples to "GO and make disciples of people of all nations...teaching them.." 

 It is clear that they went from town to town and house to house in proclaiming the good news or gospel about Christ and His kingdom. Jesus' words: "A workman is worthy of his wages." Luke 10:7

Paul at Acts 20:20 "I did not hold back from...teaching you publicly and from house to house." Paul's NEXT words show that he was ministering to nonbelievers.

 He says:
But I thoroughly bore witness both to Jews and to Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus."Explain how the Jews and Greeks that Paul was bearing witness to about repentance, (by going from house to house among other things), was simply an encouraging visit amongst fellow believers.

 Paul taught "both in public assemblies [de'mo'si'a] and from house to house [ka'ta'] Paul had spent three years in Ephesus. 

He visited EVERY HOUSE or preached to all of the people. Here is SCRIPTURAL WARRANT for house to house evangelism as well as that carried on in public meetings.

 A similar use of ka'ta' appears at Luke 8:1, which speaks of Jesus preaching "from city to city and from village to village."

Remember that at Acts 5:42- in addition to going "from house to house," (In the same sentence and verse), they were also preaching and teaching at the Jewish temple.

Were they just having "fellowship with believers" at the Jewish temple too?

They were preaching to unbelievers in both cases.

 Just two of the many ways they followed Christ's example of a bold preacher of the gospel.

You'd have to ask as well if these disciples were just visiting with fellow Christian why Jesus would say:"When you are entering into the house, greet the household...if (He) is not deserving, let the peace from you return upon you.

 Wherever anyone does not take you in or LISTEN TO YOUR WORDS, on going out of that house or that city shake the dust off your feet." matt 10:7, 11-13

Those were some unfriendly "fellow believers". Paul said "I did not flinch from...teaching you publicly and from house to house."- ACTS 20:20, Byington.

Then in the next verse, (21), he says that he was "Testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God." It seems clear that those "Houses" didn't contain fellow believers, at least not initially.

"House to house dissemination of the gospel characterized the first-century Christians from the beginning (Acts 2:46, 5:42). ... [Paul] had thoroughly discharged his responsibility both to Jews and Gentiles at Ephesus, and they were left without excuse if they perished in their sins."  - The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume 4, pages 642-3.

"He (Paul) was not content with teaching and discoursing in the synagogue and the market. He was ever diligently teaching from house to house. 

It was a house-to-house, hand-to-hand, face-to-face contest with evil, and to win men to Christ, that he waged in Ephesus."

  Biblical scholar, Edwin W. Rice.

One thing I recall about the early days at this pastors church was the sense of all of us young people participating in the birth of new Christians.

 We would bring others to church with us and pray for them as the "altar call" was being given, 'every eye closed and every head bowed', we would be in deep prayer that the Holy Spirit would move upon those present who did not know the Lord yet.

 Then the invitation would be extended for everyone that had raised their hand to come forward and bear witness to their acceptance of Christ before everyone. 

O, I can't tell you of the joy and the excitement of seeing others receive Christ.

All of us young people were so turned on to going out and sharing our faith with others at the beach and everywhere else we would go. 

We would see so many other Christians out on the streets sharing their faith. Then we would bring some of those we shared Christ with to church with us to hear the gospel message where they would then get an opportunity to respond to the call of God through our pastor while we prayed fervently for their salvation.

Then you can imagine our frustration when suddenly the altar calls were no longer and the excitement of everyone participating in evangelism as a Christian family sort of fizzled out. 

Evangelism was relegated to once in a while crusades while the main emphasis became bible study. 

It was if a spiritual 'birth control' pill had been taken by the Church!

Today you hardly ever see Christians street witnessing. In fact, when was the last time you even saw anyone out in public with a bible, except at church? 

Is it any wonder that the Church is losing the battle for souls in America?

 Is it any wonder that church attendance is waning across the land.

That Church reproductive model that I first witnessed as a 17 year old worked! 

The church grew and grew.

 There was such an alive environment every night at that church.

 Today, if I go there, to that same church, there is a "worship team" that everyone kind of just sits there and listens to.

 Everyone claps after each song as if they are watching entertainment instead of worshiping together like we used to do. 

People go in and go out. No after~ glow like there used to be.

 Sure some people linger and stick around talking but it is nothing like it used to be.

The angels of heaven rejoice greatly when anyone passes from judgment into salvation (Luke 15:10). 

 Shouldn't we as Christians rejoice too? 

Shouldn't we weep over the lost?

 Shouldn't we ask the Lord of the field to send laborers into His harvest (Luke 10:2)? 

Certainly!