Evangelism is an area where there is much to say. Every believer does indeed have a responsibility to preach the gospel and tell other people about the Law of God that they have broken and the Savior, Who alone can redeem them. Hopefully, we can all agree on this, for it is not my intention to delve into that issue here.
(If you would like more information about our personal responsibility to evangelize, please check out the “Evangelism: Getting Your Head Right” presentation that was recorded at MEN OF GOD 2012. Though the focus of that presentation was responsibility, we will be examining method here.)
First off, I must commend those who seek to labor in the Lord’s field of harvest, and those who actually are laboring in the field as well. In my commendation I must also exhort greater effectiveness, which comes through more diligent obedience and greater reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.
There are certainly too many who do not step out in faith into the Lord’s harvest for me to ever attempt to chase an actual laborer out of the field, so know full well that such is neither my goal nor desire. I am only asking for an honest evaluation of our methods when compared to Scripture. Perceived results must not be the sole focus, for the ends do not justify the means. Very large church buildings have been filled to the doors through many means, but church attendance is not synonymous with kingdom entrance.
I believe that God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9b) and that every believer has a role to play in the lives of the lost around them.
I also believe that God knows all and that His plan and His ways will prove most fruitful and effective, if we are faithful and obedient enough to obey.
God’s plan for believers to reach the lost is simple, as His ways often are. To follow His ways and obey is a demonstration of our faith and trust in Him, and “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20b).
To claim that God’s way is best, while still doing things one’s own way, or according to the traditions of men, is hypocritical, since one’s actions testify against one’s words, demonstrating the lack of both faith and obedience. The command of Jesus Christ to His followers was, always has been, and still is, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15b).
Since He has proven Himself faithful, we must trust Him. To reach a dying world we must go into a dying world. However, our modern traditions prefer the opposite. It appears that we would rather invite the dying world to come to us. Though I am not sure why we would prefer them to do all the “leg-work”, by and large, this is often the case.
We challenge the Lord’s command for us to “Go” with our own invitation of “Come”. Though He has sent us, we invite them, and, unfortunately, in doing so, we are telling God that we have a better way than that which He prescribed.
We have become like the Jews who still reject Christ and practice Judaism. They have no Messiah, nor Temple, and therefore no sacrifice for their sins. However much they may beat their chests and cry for forgiveness, it will not come, for they are rejecting God’s way in order to continue in their own, and perish in doing so. I dare not say that our disobedience in this area will cause us to perish. To be sure, lost souls are still being saved, but our full potential will never be reached apart from following God’s plan, and doing His work His way.
How is it, and why is it, that so many of our “outreaches” are actually intakes? Why is it that since so many people feel “threatened” by going to church, we try to remedy this by having “non-threatening” events at church to entice them to come, so we can then “threaten” them with the gospel? Considering the potential hypocrisy in this, I once raised such a question during a church study. After some time of no one answering or commenting, the group nonchalantly moved on to the next discussion as if I had never asked such a question.
What insights can we gain from Scripture on the subject of evangelism? From the moment Jesus first met Peter and Andrew, He let them know what He was calling them to do.
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19b)
Though they most likely did not completely understand this at the time, just as their occupation sent them out casting their physical net into the sea to catch fish, so Jesus would send them out into the world to “catch” men with a spiritual net. In physical fishing, it is much more successful to cast nets into the sea to catch fish, rather than to invite the fish into the boat first, and then attempt to grab them. We would do well to remember that “the church” is a gathering of believers, and not a building. Simply put, a gathering of believers is not a place for a non-believer.
If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? (1 Corinthians 14:23)
Scripture even testifies that unbelievers may indeed happen to walk into church meetings, but the church meeting is not for them. We should not invite people to church hoping that the preacher will preach the gospel to them. We should have already shared the gospel with them ourselves long before that. If they believe, then we should welcome them in as family. If they do not yet believe but still ask to come to a gathering, then we should not forbid it.
The focus of believers in a gathering of the saints should be on feeding the flock, not seeking the lost. The preaching of the gospel is to be done outside of the believer’s gathering and aimed at the unbelievers in the world, coupled with the Law, so that the gospel makes sense.
These are two different types of activities, for two different purposes, with two different “audiences”.
Why does a fisherman cast his net into the sea? That is where the fish are, in the sea. They are not in the boat. Why should we “fish for men” in the world? That is where the lost sinner is, in the world. The lost sinner is not in the church, or, technically, he shouldn’t be. Even if some lost sinners are in the church building, billions more are still in the world. If we only sow where very few lost souls are, then we will only reap sparingly.
Immediately prior to giving His twelve disciples power and sending them out for the first time, Jesus commanded them to pray,
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. (Matthew 9:37-38)
If the disciples immediately obeyed and prayed, then they would have been the first answers to this prayer, but only because they actually went when they were told to “go.”
The Lord of the harvest sends His laborers into the harvest.
No farmer opens the doors of his barn and invites the grain in. He first must go into the field to harvest it. Only after it is harvested is it gathered into the barn.
Though our doors, both at home and at church, should always be “open” to the lost, the fact remains that when the lost are invited to church, most do not come. When they are invited to a Christian event, most will never show. Christian events and church meetings are spiritual, and the natural man cannot understand. He fears what he does not understand, and exercises his free will to avoid these spiritual gatherings, usually right up to his death and destruction. Unless he is born of the Spirit, he will usually not be drawn to spiritual events, and unless the Spirit reveals it to him, he will not receive it even if he does show up.
If you look around at most church “outreaches,” who do you see? Most often, it is your brothers and sisters, (even if you do not know them yet). Inviting fish into the boat is never as effective as casting a net into the sea, and attempting to attract the harvest into the barn is never as effective as going into the field and reaping the harvest.
Certain means can only be so effective. God’s ways are indeed not our ways, but still His “foolishness” is wiser than all our wisdom. If we think that we have developed a better plan than that which He ordained, we are in error.
If we claim that our plan is not better or more God-pleasing, but just a different means to the same end, we would still do better to try accomplishing His work using His methods. Though they are absolutely not completely in line with Scripture, I do not denounce all these “intake outreaches.” Some do get saved. Still, they must not be our only attempts at effective evangelism. Since most will never come, then most will never be reached, and God cares about all. Christ died for all. We must strive to reach all. Therefore, we must go where all are, into the world.
After telling His disciples to pray for laborers to be sent forth and giving them power, Jesus then sends them forth. Watch for the action that Jesus expects from His disciples in the following verses,
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 10:5-7)
Even as Jesus is commanding His disciples where not to go and where not to enter, He is still giving them instruction in how to properly go and enter. Not to take away from Scripture but instead to emphasize, “Jesus sent” His disciples and “commanded them, saying, Go… enter… go… go, preach.” Indeed, these men were sent, so go they did.
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. (Matthew 10:16)
Just as He once sent them, so He now sends us. Just as they once went, so we now must go.
In the so-called “Parable of the Soils,” we also have the example of a sower to consider. From Jesus’ opening sentence we see a (now) familiar action.
Behold, a sower went forth to sow. (Matthew 13:3)
The sower went prior to sowing. Well, where did he go? Apparently, he was sowing everywhere.
And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side… Some fell on stony places… some fell among thorns… But other fell into good ground. (excerpts from Matthew 13:4-8)
Of course the soil is representative of individuals, and all these types could come into the same church building or “outreach” event simultaneously, however, this is a parable, and in this parable the preacher of the gospel is likened to a grain sower, and thus the illustration stands. The sower went, sowing on his way.
It is Christ Himself who says “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28a).
We are not to beg the lost to come unto us prior to pleading with them to come unto Him. Christ did the work of salvation for them, and we are to do the work of reaching out to them. Out-reach. To gather in the harvest, we must first reach out to harvest it.
The popularly-titled “Great Commission” in Matthew is recorded as follows:
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18b-20)
Here the followers of Christ are commanded to spread the faith and make disciples. In order to “baptize” those from all nations who they were commanded to teach, this teaching obviously would have primarily began with the Law and the Gospel. Only those who love the Lord are expected to obey him (John 14:15), and only those convinced that they needed a Savior by the application of the Law (“I had not known sin, but by the law” (Romans 7:7)) will love God for what He has done for them (“We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19); “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)).
This simple part of God’s plan is all too often overlooked or left out.
Men need to see themselves in the light of the Ten Commandments to understand their “illness” of sin. Without this revelation, the Great Physician makes no sense. As Jesus said, “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick” (Luke 5:31b).
In order to preach the Gospel and make disciples, the disciples were first commanded to go. Just imagine how many converts there would now be if Jesus’ followers had invited others to come, instead of going to them. (Even their eventual “going” had to be spurred on by persecution. It wasn’t until Saul “made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3) that “they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word” (Acts 8:4).)
How many new disciples would they have made if, rather than going into all nations, the Christians instead invited all nations to Jerusalem in order to share the gospel with them? The Queen of Sheba may indeed have come to Solomon, but she was a wealthy woman of means. How many poor, outcast, hungry, widowed, and orphaned souls would have ever heard the gospel if they had to travel to Jerusalem first? Perhaps they would have reached those people who lived in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, but that may have been about it.
Likewise Jesus commanded His followers to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Again Jesus commands, “Go.” Where are we to go? “Unto all the world.” Interestingly enough, “all the world” includes grocery stores, gas stations, schools, parks, and beaches.
And what shall we do when we are going into all the world?
“Preach the gospel to every creature.”
“Every creature” includes friends, family members, neighbors, strangers, and anyone else you might encounter. Again, the command is simple, though often difficult to obey.
As believers, when we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit, in all His presence and power.
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13)
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Philippians 4:13)
We can therefore see how the following verse applies to our lives as well.
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Once more, we can see the role of Christians in the earth. One could never get from Jerusalem to the uttermost part of the earth without going. The message of the cross is to be taken out into the world. The gospel is not something to leave within the church building until we need it again, or until we find some lost sinner sincerely seeking, whom we can quickly invite to the next meeting or outreach.
Am I against “outreaches” that occur within church buildings? Not at all. Nevertheless, we must admit that Scripture proves this is not God’s prescribed method of evangelism, and often the statistics testify that such “outreaches” are not the most effective. Many of the “decisions for Christ” and “converts” these events make are just that, “decisions” and “converts” that the event made. The Lord certainly did not convert them, or we would see a new birth in their lives.
The original goal was making disciples, not “decisions.”
Interestingly, much of the evangelism recorded in the New Testament did take place inside the spiritual worship centers of the temple and synagogues, but, I am sure that you can realize, with the transition from the old to the new covenant, why these areas were targeted and harvested from. This is where the spiritually minded “lost sheep” of Israel congregated.
Any outreach or event can and will be used by the Lord, and, differing from one-on-one evangelism, preaching to groups allows many to be exposed to the gospel at once. I care not why or how the lost sinners gather, or who does the gathering. If the world gathers a crowd of them for a parade, or the 4th of July, or a festival, so be it. There they are, so let us share the truth with them now, before they perish. If we can gather them into our church buildings for an event or at a local park for a concert, then let them come, and let us pray hard and be diligent to expose them to the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What I desire is to encourage more thought, prayer, obedience, and efficiency in attempting to reach the lost. I have seen large Gospel events that looked very shiny, cost very much, made a lot of noise, but were not very effective. We have played our music, brought in famous speakers, and provided a free dinner buffet; yet, in the end we wonder: why have the lost not come? I would hate to see the blessed brothers and sisters planning these events become discouraged and either give up or grow complacent. I would much rather have them re-evaluate and reattempt, choosing to follow God’s simple plan rather than the schemes of man.
As a people, Christians need to quit looking to others to get the job done for them. It is not your “pastor’s” job to evangelize your lost friends or family. Hopefully on the big “church days” every year, Christmas and Resurrection Sunday, the gospel will be preached from every pulpit. Those are still days that church buildings seem to become filled with lost souls.
I would also strongly recommend that you talk to your church’s leadership and recommend that someone share their personal testimony every Resurrection Sunday and Christmas. Testimonies speak to the lost, and that is why God has given them to us: to share.
Maybe you should offer to share yours.
On days that the church buildings do not fill up with lost sinners, you still have a responsibility. Preaching the gospel to the lost is intimidating, and it is okay if you are uncomfortable and intimidated. Ray Comfort has pointed to 1 Corinthians 2:3 & 4 as qualifications for a gospel preacher:
And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: (1 Corinthians 2:3-4)
If you are weak, afraid, trembling, and not eloquent, then God will have to work through you, and that is far preferable anyway. If you step out in faith, not only should your brethren encourage you, but the Holy Spirit will lead, guide, and empower you.
Another way that we have gotten it “backwards” when it comes to evangelism is regarding professions of faith. What was the appropriate response to the gospel in Scripture by a new believer?
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16)
The proper outward demonstration of the inward choice to believe was baptism. Baptism was not what saved them, but it was an appropriate step of obedience after having obtained saving faith. Those who believed on “the day of Pentecost” asked Peter and the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).
The response was, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41a). The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 and the Philippian jailer and his household in Acts 16 responded the same way. The eunuch even asked “what doth hinder me to be baptized?” (Acts 8:36) Philip responded, “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest” (Acts 8:37). The jailer and is family were “baptized, he and all his, straightway” (Acts 16:33) after he began “believing in God with all his house” (Acts 16:34).
I believe many would agree it is unfortunate that some will baptize anyone, even infants, without them first believing. However, why has it become so common to settle for so-called “belief” and drop the baptism? Such is not the example in Scripture. Baptism is a bold declaration to the entire world, both seen and unseen.
Instead, it has become all too common to ask everyone to close their eyes and bow their heads, and once they are sure no one is looking, to raise a hand if they now believe. We have indeed lost our bold witness and stand for Christ, and it apparently happens right from the beginning!
No one had to question the newfound declaration of faith made by one of the 3,000 on “the day of Pentecost”.
No one needed to question if they had raised their hand or not; they were soaking wet from head to toe!
Rather than going, preaching the gospel, teaching the nations, and baptizing them, we now ask them to come, close their eyes, and raise a hand in secret.
Recently a number of brothers have shared with me a prompting to open air preach and to concentrate more on street evangelism. I, too, am now being led to do so, and I hope that you will consider the things that I have shared.
He that winneth souls is wise. (Proverbs 11:30b)
Let the Christians not only rise up, but also wise up! If we want them to come into the kingdom of God, let’s go make sure that they get the chance.
We cannot get around God’s simple plan for winning souls: “Go”. How I long for the day when all believers can echo Paul’s mindset in the following two verses:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)
For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16)
