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€™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€“ 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€“ 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€˜winning souls.â€™ 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€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€™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€™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€œsucceeding.â€? 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€˜EVANGELISM