Go On to the Next Person?

by Frank Turk

Happy Weekend – I hope it is raining where you like it is raining where I am.  I have a follow-up to the week of blog posts generated by my talk at the Tulsa conference last weekend which I think is an utterly-worthy and necessary endeavor.

Faithful reader Shane Dodson commented the following:

[Frank Said]"I think the people attracted to Paul and his ministry are not as much like he is in this respect. They only see the passionate plea to be reconciled to God and to see sin through the lens of the Law -- they don;t see any of the hard work of discipleship that comes after that."
Based upon what do you think this?
I am very interested how you arrived at that conclusion...but allow me a follow-up statement.
FYI, I was sitting out in the room when you gave this message. It left a few street preachers scratching their heads. I defended the totality of the message, and I think--overall--it's an important one.
However, if you could answer the above question and then explain exactly what role street preaching/street evangelism plays in the paradigm you laid out...I would appreciate it.
Thank you!

And this, I think, is the utterly-fair question: what is wrong with the way I am doing evangelism right now – especially if I am a follower of WOTM or the method most perceive as the Paul Washer method of preaching to lost people?  Am I not Gospel-faithful?

For the record, I have already said this:

I am not about to say that there is no value in personal evangelism or open-air preaching. I am not saying you ought not to declare the Gospel, and also never to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. Evangelism is necessary and important. But Evangelism that saves people to a solitary life of independent Bible reading and no connection to other believers, no way to mature in the faith, no accountability to Elders and to other people who love them and Christ is a recipe for failure – and a model found nowhere in the New Testament. 

And that ought to clear it up.  That paragraph, in fact, deserves deep reflection by anyone who cares about the other topic of last week’s conference – discernment of false Gospels and false Discipleship.

Think about this with me for a minute: let’s say that you personally are a lost person on the streets of Little Rock, and I have taken my convictions to the street to evangelize the lost – to do something like ministry – rather than merely blogging to the choir.  And let’s say that our paths cross on a Friday, and I preach to you under the authority of Jesus Christ the good news concerning His death and resurrection.  And let’s say that, by the grace of God, you receive that message in right-minded Berean fashion and both repent and rejoice – you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

Then I hand you a Bible, hug you in joy, and go on to the next person.  You have a feeling that something else ought to happen, but you also have things to do today so you fold the Bible to your side and carry on.

Tomorrow, you wake up and remember that yesterday you knew for certain that Jesus was both Lord and Christ.  And you have this book now which, it seems, was supposed to have something to do with that.  Now what?  What do I do with this book?  The wiseguy back there is about to publish the comment, “READ IT!” which, fair enough: so you start reading it.  You actually start in the beginning, and you read 3-4 chapters, and there’s no Jesus in there.  There’s this talking snake, and then there is this brother who kills his brother because somehow the murdered brother was accepted by God, and the angry brother wasn’t.  It seems both strange and compelling at the same time, but you can’t tell why.  So you put the Bible down, and you pray a completely-novice prayer: “Jesus?  God? Yesterday I was sure you’re my only hope, and today I am confused by this Bible.  Help me to understand it better because I believe what I learned yesterday, but today I need to know you are still there.  Help me please.  Amen.”

Evening and Morning, as they say, and another day passes.

Sunday comes around, and you think maybe you should go to a church – but which one?  You pick the nearest one, which turns out to be a Catholic church (for example), and it’s really strange enough that you realize that what they were talking about and what that Street Preacher was talking about aren’t the same – so you slip out before the lines in the aisles dissipate so no one notices you leaving, and you go home.

And now you’re a little confused – you’re not sure what you got yourself into.  So you turn on the TV, and you find this fellow in a suit with a Bible open in from of him, and he says the name “Jesus” a lot, and he seems excited about it, and he uses the word “deliverance” a lot, and he talks about how much good God wants for your life, and he seems like a nice young man.  He has a great smile, and a convicting way of speaking without being judgey.  His name is Joel Osteen, and it turns out a lot of people listen to him – he has the most popular podcast on iTunes under “religion,” and he has a huge church, and he’s sold a lot of books which you can find in the local (non-Christian) bookstore.  If a lot of people are following him, it has to be right to do it yourself …

Now, listen: the lone-ranger street preacher is now going to object, "Hey: this scenario is implausible.  I gave these people the real Gospel, and as far as I can tell they accepted Jesus, not Mammon, into their life as Lord and Christ.  It is implausible that they will go from my message to Osteen in the span of 3 days to be made into disciples of heresy.  Not just implausible, mind you: it’s an insult to me and my good service to God."

My rejoinder to that objection is this: then please tell me where all these people come from.  Osteen has sold more than 20 million books, and something like 7 million people watch his TV show every week.  Those people are coming from somewhere, and I suggest to you that it is not from healthy churches or from under the sound teaching of godly elders.  Are they all coming from street evangelism?  Not hardly – I’ll bet most of them are coming from unhealthy churches and careless journeymen religious pep-talkers.  But here’s the rub: there is no way to know what happens to these people after you have preached to them if they are not turned over to a healthy local church.

In my talk, I said that Peter’s hedge against people having a false faith was to put them inside the local church through baptism and fellowship.  What about Paul – the hero to every street preacher who ever waved a Bible on the street corner?  What did Paul do?  Did Paul just get an act of contrition from people?  Or did Paul go out and establish churches which were lead by elders and pastors so that these people who now had a new faith were put in a safe place to mature so that they didn’t simply get choked out by the cares of the world?

And most importantly for the sake of Shane’s question: What does Paul Washer do?  I asked Paul this question over dinner the night before the conference, and while I do not have his permission to share that conversation with you, here’s what it says at HeartCry Ministry’s web site:

The HeartCry Missionary Society functions as a partner with and facilitator between the autonomous churches and individual donors in the West and the indigenous church in some of the most un-evangelized areas of the world, to the end that the Gospel might be preached to every creature, the elect might be gathered from every tribe, tongue, people and nation, and strong local churches might be established among them. Our specific calling is to partner with indigenous churches of like faith and practice in the training and sending of missionaries for the establishment of mature autonomous local churches. 

Let me tell you something: this final objective if frankly absent from most open-air ministries in my experience.   If you do not share this objective, you do not understand the preaching or the ministry of Paul Washer.  You are not like him.  You may not be a heretic, but you are not a person who is concerned about the discipleship and orthodoxy of others.

And to this end, I reiterate the words I quoted from John MacArthur in my message:

The best way to evangelize is to produce one reproducing disciple. You got that? Paul knew that this running around creating spiritual infancy all over everywhere and leaving a whole lot of spiritual babes lying on their backs screaming was not the way to go at it because they weren't mature enough to reproduce but better to spend yourselves on some individuals that they might become mature and that they might carry the Gospel. You know Jesus didn't speak to large crowds very often and even when he did he spoke in parables and they didn't understand it. He spent most of his time with 12 individuals, didn't he? That's really the heart of evangelism. He was committed to the priority of maturing the believers. He himself knew that was his calling. 

If that was Christ’s calling, what sort of disciple are you if that is not your calling?  If you are truly concerned about the Gospel, you must be concerned about all its necessary consequences, and being a family member under the Fatherhood of God is absolutely one of them.

Comments are open.  Mind your manners.

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Biblical Evangelism (3 of 3)

by Frank Turk

... Continued from Part 2 ...

The most interesting phrase in Acts 2, it seems to me, is this: “there were added that day.” There were added that day. The Greek word there means “added to a group,” or “joined together.” And we might take it for granted that Luke here meant that these people confessed their sins are were added to the invisible church – to total number of people who are saved for all time. Amen?

The problem is that the text won’t let us get away with such a general reading of what happened at Pentecost. It goes on from there:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Think about this: the point of Peter’s evangelism was not simply to hand out Jesus tickets for people to now sit and wait for his return. The point of Peter’s evangelism was to get people convicted of sin and also of Jesus’ authority over them not merely to judge them, but to also forgive them and then teach them. That’s the great commission, after all, right? That’s how we can make sense of this passage – by what Jesus commanded. But look: Peter was not looking for a mere confession of sin: he was looking to cause people to be joined to the body of the church.

You know: one of the themes you will read about on the internet when it comes to evangelism is the fear of false conversions. There’s a worry that there’s a type of evangelism that will give people a false sense of security regarding their state before Christ. Let me admit that, in one sense, that talk offends me. It seems to me that the right confidence of the believer is that whatever sin there is in me, however great my sin is, Jesus Christ is greater still. Jesus Christ is greater than my greed. Jesus Christ is greater than my lies. Jesus Christ is greater than my sexual sins. Jesus Christ is greater than my anger and hatred. Jesus is overcoming all those things for me in the ultimate sense, and Jesus is overcoming them in the immediate sense – even when I am weak. This is Romans 7 and 8: Wretched man that I am, I am delivered from death by Jesus Christ – there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen? In one sense, because Jesus is Lord and Christ, we cannot be overconfident in his ability to overcome our sin. 

But here’s the thing: Jesus himself says there are those who will cry out, “Lord! Lord!” in the final day, but he will tell them, “I never knew you.” And Peter’s hedge against that here at Pentecost is not to merely get these people to feel guilty, or to ask for forgiveness, or to write a date down in the front of their Bibles. His purpose, as commanded by Christ, was to make disciples of these people – and actually add them to the church.

In 1973, John MacArthur delivered a sermon on Acts 15 & 16, and in it, he said this:

[QUOTE]Now when we think in our minds today of a pastor we think of a guy who stays around a long time and lives in a house in the neighborhood and teaches the Bible. When we think of an evangelist we think of a guy with a briefcase and a handful of sermons. You hear him in several different cities and he gives the same message. You think of a kind of traveling guy, see? That's really not the Biblical picture of an evangelist. We think of an evangelist as a guy who runs around and gets people saved and then leaves them around for Christians to follow up.

But you know what Paul was in terms of an evangelist? He was a Biblical evangelist in so far as he saw his responsibility not only as winning people but as maturing them, … Do you know what his priority was in evangelism? Discipleship.

I think one of the things that very often is missing in our evangelism … is a failure to really love the individual that we've led to Christ to the point where we feel this tremendous responsibility.

If you don't learn anything about evangelism, learn this. The best way to evangelize is to produce one reproducing disciple. You got that? Paul knew that this running around creating spiritual infancy all over everywhere and leaving a whole lot of spiritual babes lying on their backs screaming was not the way to go at it because they weren't mature enough to reproduce but better to spend yourselves on some individuals that they might become mature and that they might carry the Gospel. You know Jesus didn't speak to large crowds very often and even when he did he spoke in parables and they didn't understand it. He spent most of his time with 12 individuals, didn't he? That's really the heart of evangelism. He was committed to the priority of maturing the believers. He himself knew that was his calling. [UNQUOTE]

Let me say this as plainly as possible: as human beings, we have a great eye for the faults of other people’s way of doing things, and not much of an eye for what we ourselves are doing poorly. The challenge in the balance of our key passage from the book of Acts is to see that all kinds of evangelism falls so far short of the first act of evangelism that we ought to be embarrassed by all of them rather than justifying our way over another method which, obviously, gets so much wrong.

True evangelism is going to get people convicted of sin and get them grateful to God – and draw them into a community of believers. Let’s think about this soberly: we’re at a conference about evangelism and discernment today. Somehow our friends at Grace Family Bible church thought these two great and good ideas belong together like some kind of theological Reese’s Cup or an Oreo Cookie. I utterly agree with them. The problem we as believers face is that we don’t act like these things go together. And this contributes to the problems that exist in the church today.

Here is what I am not about to say: I am not about to say that there is no value in personal evangelism or open-air preaching. I am not saying you ought not to declare the Gospel, and also never to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that is in you. Evangelism is necessary and important. But Evangelism that saves people to a solitary life of independent Bible reading and no connection to other believers, no way to mature in the faith, no accountability to Elders and to other people who love them and Christ is a recipe for failure – and a model found no where in the New Testament.

When Peter evangelized the Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost, he did not save them to some kind of smug and solitary lifestyle. Peter preached to them so that the following things must happen:

• Those evangelized must repent and be baptized be baptized into the family of God o Look: there is nothing magical or metaphysical about baptism. It is utterly right to say that the thief on the cross was saved and entered into the kingdom of God without even a mere sprinkle, let alone a proper full-body submersion in water. But unless you are evangelizing on death row just before someone is executed, your message ought to be Peter’s message: repent and be baptized. Get added to the assembly of God’s people – not in theory, or in your head, but into a real body of local believers. If Christ’s commands are commands and not requests, you yourself ought to belong to a local church, and the goal of your actions ought to be to add people to a local church. Getting a confession of sin from people without turning them over to local elders and pastors for the care of their soul is spiritual malpractice.

• Those evangelized must be devoted to the apostles' teaching.  I guess I don’t understand how any activity is called “evangelism” or can pose as “obedience” when what it does is cause people to be accountable to no one and set up for failure rather than success. Think about this: if you hire somebody at work, you don’t tell them, “well, thanks for you application: we accept you! Now you set your own schedule, you define your own work, you tell me when you’re successful and when you’re slacking off.” The very least you do for someone new to a job is to train them in the basics and give them a schedule so they know when and where they need to show up. We can’t expect someone who knows nothing about Jesus or the Bible to do self-service discipleship.

Ad Lib: My Personal Testimony (see audio)

• Those evangelized must be devoted to corporate worship.  Acts tells us those Peter evangelized did this: “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.” That is: they spent time together making God the most important thing.  It also says they were “together and [had] all things in common -- They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

Look: that’s a commitment to other people bigger than an intellectual commitment to the idea that God has an invisible church of truly-saved people which (you hope) you are adding people to. It means that in some way Christ dying for you doesn’t simply give you a right to call God “Father”: it gives you a role in a family, a place in a close community where we ought to be willing to suffer for and suffer with each other through the challenges in Life. It paints a picture of worship which is greater than the temple, a kind of worship which is both in Spirit and in Truth.

Listen: Luke ends the second chapter of Acts by saying, “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” That is: Someone preached, some were convicted, some repented and were baptized, and those baptized lived as if the preaching was true – their lives changed, and their priorities changed, and the “centrality of the Cross” or the “centrality of the Gospel” as some would say it was not simply some kind of bumper-sticker slogan or t-shirt that they wore: the Cross and its power were made to be the central matter of their lives, and everything they did was structured around that.

Let’s wrap this up briefly: The Christian life is an uneven field full of ups and downs. Even Paul said, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.” He knew what it meant to be brought low because he had been brought low; he knew how to prosper because he had in fact prospered. But let’s be certain not to miss this: Paul knew these things in spite of being an apostle, chosen by Christ, and specially gifted to serve God’s people. The apostle abounded, and the apostle knew hunger and need. If that’s true of the man who God used to write 30% of the New Testament, how much more is this true of us who, frankly, have a long way to go in our running the race to keep the faith?

Yet it is unmistakable that Christ is the cause and foundation and resource for us to have what it takes to do all things and face these ups and downs. Yet when Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ,” he says, “yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.”

One of Christ’s provisions to strengthen us to do all things is the one most obvious, yet hiding in plain sight: being together as a local church. It is kind of you to share in each others’ trouble, and much more so that you can take hold of and revive a concern for the lost not just to convict them of sin, or hope that Christ will comfort them after the have prayed a prayer, but that you will also devote your lives with them to the teaching of the Apostles, the breaking of bread and prayers, and the sharing of all things in common so that many will be added to the church daily.

My friends, be faithful to that calling. Thank you for your time today, and may God’s grace and peace be with you as you go now and do these things in the name of Jesus.

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Biblical Evangelism (2 of 3)

by Frank Turk

Continued from Part 1

You know: Jesus could have said, “Go and make subjects of all nations,” or “go and conquer all the nations,” or “go and drive out all the nations,” or “go and make a footstool of my enemies,” and sound very Old Testament and New Testament at the same time. “Go claim the promise to Abraham,” he could have said, I guess. All of those could be misinterpreted to mean, “go and make war on all things,” or worse “go and set people aside until I can come back and finish up here.”

But Jesus says, “Go and make Disciples.” The blessed King James translation says, “go and teach all nations.” That word doesn’t mean you cause people to wear a t-shirt, or get a plastic fish on their cars, or hand them a card to fill out, or to write a date down in the front cover of their Bible. It means you cause them to sit under the teaching. In the days of Christ, it meant that you gave up something in order to follow your teacher around – or at least to be available when he is in town to teach.

When you go and make disciples, what are you doing? That is: what ought you to do? Listen: without question, you are telling them the definition of the authority of Christ: Christ died for our sins, in accordance to the Scriptures. He was buried, and he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the Scripture. Christ has the authority over all life and even over death. In that, because of Christ’s authority, they must repent: they must go – depart from the life of this world into the life of Christ’s kingdom. But to say that and gain the first act of obedience is a one-time event. Evangelism is not merely a call to a one-time event.

This would be like saying buying a house is a one-time event: I signed the papers, but I don’t have to move in. I am the owner of the property, but you can’t expect me to live there, can you? Cut the grass? Know my neighbors? Pay the utilities and keep up the building? That sounds like you’re asking a lot of me – I just want to buy the house so I could claim the fancy address.

But that is exactly the paradigm we have to avoid in evangelism: merely getting people to volunteer or somehow agree. We have to get them to move into the household of God – because that’s where the Kingdom is. That’s where the Holy Spirit is. That’s where Salvation is. We are not looking for them to agree that we have won an argument with them: we are ambassadors for Christ, with God making his appeal through us. And we implore them on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake God made Jesus to be sin even though he knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And in that, we are not asking them simply to say they need help: we are making them disciples. We are teaching them what Christ has taught us. In fact, Christ says that explicitly, doesn’t he? “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

If we see evangelism as something more than this, or less than this, we have utterly missed the point. On the one hand, we cannot see evangelism as the highest moment in the life of the evangelist or the person being evangelized. While we can rightly say that it is in some way the goal of the church, it is not a sacrament. It is not the only requirement of the life of the believer, and it is not something that stands by itself. On the other hand, Christ has in no way asked us to sort of dabble in Jesus trivia. He hasn’t asked us to put his name on bumper stickers, or on hats and t-shirts, or on giant foam fingers that say “Jesus is #1!” That’s not evangelism – it’s far too little to be a plea from God to be reconciled. It is also far too little to say to someone that they are a car wreck of sins and faults. Most people are well aware of their own shortcomings and they strive mightily to be better than what they are naturally prone to do. It is too little to simply name and expose sin. Equally, it is far too little to simply say, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” – a statement which is, at it root, true enough but utterly lacking in anything that requires Jesus Christ to die on a cross.

This is what Peter was thinking about when he tumbles out into the street, full of the Holy Spirit, to make the first post-resurrection attempt at street preaching. The great commission wasn’t lost on him: it was clear to him now. Peter was declaring something rooted in the authority of God.

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

He means: God knew what he was doing. God has the power to do what he is doing. Peter is speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem explicitly about what God has planned for them in the person and work of Christ. Jesus was given to them with the power of God through sign and wonders and mighty works – but more importantly, Jesus was delivered to his death also by the power of God, and the authority of God, and the foreknowledge and willingness of God, to be put to death.

See: the question of God’s authority in the story of Jesus, as far as Peter was concerned, was critical – it was the basis for saying anything else. Because consider what had happened: the Romans and the leaders of Jerusalem put Jesus to death just like they put so many other troublemakers to death. There is nothing remarkable about crucifixion to these people – except that it was a vile death. But it wasn’t a unique or somehow novel way to put someone to death. In many ways, it made Jesus look rather mundane to the world.

But as Peter tells it, there is nothing mundane about Christ. He came in God’s authority – and this, he says, was well known to everyone. The way Jesus lived, and the signs he performed, were a testimony to everyone that he was sent by God. But it was not only that God sent Jesus to live: God sent Jesus to die. Jesus was not merely an example of how to obey the law of Moses: Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses – concluding with his death on a cross.

“This Jesus God raised up,” Peter continues, “and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

You see: Peter gets it about Jesus. It is not just Jesus’ death that comes under God’s authority: it is Jesus resurrection that presents us with the crucial truth about God’s authority. Peter cites the Psalmist here to point this out: Jesus lives because God is making a footstool out of his enemies. The authority of God over death is demonstrated in the new life of Christ, and it shows us something about Christ, which, it seems to me, the Jews in Jerusalem understood immediately.

Peter tells them: “Know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Now look: we’re about half-way finished now, and for most of you there are no surprises so far. This is where most of us are satisfied to know what we think we ought to know about evangelism. As long as we declare the right list of truths, we are doing what we read the Bible to tell us to do, and the rest is up to God. The problem is that this is only half-right, and not at all serious enough about what happens next in the text.

Now when they [The people in Jerusalem] heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

That’s pretty good, right? God moves, people are convicted by the preaching of the Gospel, and they ask for the solution to their problem. So what we might expect Peter to do next is something like this:

And Peter said to them: “Since you know you are a sinner, confess with your tongue and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved.” or maybe this: “Repent and sin no more.” All perfectly-sound, specifically-biblical words and phrases.

But look: if the point of Peter’s evangelism was to simply get the people listening only to admit they need a savior from sin, he could have said anything next – except what he actually said. But his response to the question “what shall we do?” tells us about what he knows the Holy Spirit was intent on doing.

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”

Consider it: when Peter carried out the great commission for the first time, he doesn’t get people to simply say, “I’m a sinner, and I need help.” He tells them: God has made a promise today, in Christ, and is calling people to himself. He tells them that repentance looks like something other than a private, internal admission. And most importantly, something happens to people when they hear this message.

Luke tells us what then happened:

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

What is most interesting about this sentence is not the act of baptism – which, it seems to me, is pretty interesting. I mean: that act is the thing Jesus told these guys to do in the Great commission, right? Teach all nations and baptize them.

The most interesting phrase here is this: “there were added that day.” There were added that day. The greek word there means “added to a group,” or “joined together.” And we might take it for granted that Luke here meant that these people confessed their sins are were added to the invisible church – to total number of people who are saved for all time. Amen?

The problem is that the text won’t let us get away with such a general reading of what happened at Pentecost.

... to be Concluded ...


[full audio can be downloaded here]

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Biblical Evangelism (1 of 3)

by Frank Turk

Just west of Tulsa, a house church of about 8 adults with their 16 children (who don't run any child care on Sunday morning -- they meet in a house on a road called "Coyote Trail") got the idea that they wanted to do a conference of discernment and evangelism. They invited Justin Peters, HeartCry Ministries, Voddie Baucham Ministries, and (for some inexplicable reason) Me. Justin and his wife accepted; VBH sent the able and manly Steve Bratton; HeartCry accepted intending to send one of the other men on their roster, but they eventually sent Paul Washer; I accepted hoping they weren't intending to invite Frank Turek instead of me.

They started expecting to have maybe 25 people on top of their house church sign up for the conference. When registration closed on Friday, 6 July 2012, they had 950 people signed up and a waiting list for stand-by registration in case some people who signed up (for free) didn't show up.

Today I am posting the first 8 pages of my talk; the other 16 pages will follow over the next 2 days.  When the audio becomes available, I'll link to it [here]-- though I admit that my presentation was a little shouty as I couldn't hear myself over the sound system and I may have come across as fulminating when I just wanted to make sure people could hear me.

Enjoy.

Good Evening. My thanks to our hosts at Grace Family Bible Church for the invitation to speak here today, and their generosity in making this conference available for free. Thanks to my fellow speakers for their preparation and excellent words of wisdom today, to all of you who have come for a word of encouragement, and to my wife who is faithful to remind me that you have come to hear God’s wisdom and not mine.

Let’s begin with a word from Scripture, from the book of Acts:

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it …

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Now when they [The people in Jerusalem] heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

And so let us pray:

Jesus, tonight we are here to consider what it means to evangelize. What is it that you have set us to do, Lord, until you come again? As we think about this, let us first give up our pride regarding any work we have done for your sake in the past. Let us remember, Lord, that we are your ambassadors and slaves and not your peers. Let us have hearts open to the truth of your word, and ears ready to listen to what you teach us about how you intend to save the lost. Finally, Holy Spirit, guard my mouth as I teach today that I will not dishonor you or mistakenly mislead your people. Please use these words for the purpose of glorifying our good and great savior. And we ask these things in his precious and mighty name. Amen.

When Sean and Michael originally invited me to this event, they asked me: “we were wondering if you could come and present a message on Biblical evangelism with a compare/contrast to some of the popular modern ‘methods’.” It’s great topic, and I have a very simple answer for all of you: Don’t do more or less than the Bible says to do, and you’ll be just fine.

Thank you, Good Night, and may God richly bless you.

Listen: given that we are at the end of a long day of very intense preaching and teaching, I am not going to catalogue every absurd abuse of the idea of “evangelism” running around today. There’s a cottage industry on the internet of people who can enumerate every fault of the people who get it wrong, and the great fault in that approach 97% of the time is that it never gets to what is actually good – and the Apostle Paul tells us plainly “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” So that’s what we’re going to do today: we’re going to think about what is right – and what is actually described and prescribed in the Bible – relating to Evangelism. And we will do it quickly while it is still Saturday Night and not Sunday Morning.

The place we are going to end up is our passage in Acts 2, but let’s consider why Peter did what he did at Pentecost. The book of Matthew reports the following in chapter 28, from weeks before, just after the resurrection of Jesus:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Of course, you are all familiar with the Great Commission from the last chapter of Matthew. That statement from Jesus is foundational in our understanding of what exactly believers are supposed to do while we wait for Jesus to return.

Consider it: according to Matthew, Jesus was crucified, and then 3 days later the tomb was found empty, and the angel gave the disciples instructions on where to find Jesus. And when they showed up there, Jesus was there. But while they worshipped him, some of them doubted. The context of the Great Commission, in Matthew’s account, is Jesus addressing his followers who, after the greatest miracle of all time, doubted.

These people were looking at the resurrected Christ who just defeated death, and they doubted. And that’s actually our problem, right? The death of death in the resurrection of Christ somehow is not enough. The idea that the problem is diagnosed by God, and then the solution is decreed by God, and then worked out by God – and then all we have to do is repent of our diagnoses and our solutions and turn to Him and worship Him – that seems somehow anticlimactic.

But Christ’s solution to that doubt is plain: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The first thing this means for us is that what we are supposed to do is not by our own authority. You know: in Revelation, John says this by having all manner of created beings cry out, “worth is the Lamb!” This is the Jesus for whom the scroll in the hand of the Father – the deed to all creation – has been given, and he’s the only one who is worthy to take it. So when Jesus begins to address doubt about this plan, he starts by saying that confidence in this plan is not a matter of tactics, or of our star power: it is a matter of authority. He is saying something that is important for those of us who feel impressed with the work of evangelism to remember: we do not go to this task because we think it’s just a good idea.

You don’t become an evangelist, or declare the Gospel, because you’re convinced it’s true.

You don’t do this simply because you like Jesus, or you like other people.

You do this because this message is God’s message, and it only makes sense if it comes from God. You see: Jesus is not saying, “in order to renew all things, and to renovate culture, and to give people their best life now, here is my suggestion.” He is instead saying, “Look: a few days ago, you thought I was defeated by human priests and human empires, and left for dead in the grave. You thought that human authorities could overcome me and my purpose in this world because I was dead. But now? I’m alive. Because I am alive, you should see that there are no authorities greater than me. All authority in Heaven belongs to me – so you have a source of hope. But look: all authority on Earth belongs to me. You have nothing to fear.”

He says: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” This is an interesting place to start because it doesn’t imply is that Jesus hopes we are up for the task. He isn’t worried about whether we’re smart enough, or pretty enough, or morally good enough, or whether we will work hard enough, or how we feel about it. He’s saying that the place to start is with his authority, which we can see and trust because he was raised from the dead.

So then he says, “Therefore, GO …” That’s in case you didn’t understand Jesus’ point. Because Jesus has all authority in Heaven and on Earth, there are consequences – necessary consequences.

You know: Jesus could have said, “Go and make subjects of all nations,” or “go and conquer all the nations,” or “go and drive out all the nations,” or “go and make a footstool of my enemies,” and sound very Old Testament and New Testament at the same time. “Go claim the promise to Abraham,” he could have said, I guess. All of those could be misinterpreted to mean, “go and make war on all things,” or worse “go and set people aside until I can come back and finish up here.”

But Jesus says, “Go and make Disciples.” The blessed King James translation says, “go and teach all nations.” That word doesn’t mean you cause people to wear a t-shirt, or get a plastic fish on their cars, or hand them a card to fill out, or to write a date down in the front cover of their Bible. It means you cause them to sit under the teaching. In the days of Christ, it meant that you gave up something in order to follow your teacher around – or at least to be available when he is in town to teach.

... To Be Continued ...

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