Wednesday, Feb 27, 2008

Emotional Evangelism

Download this episode (21 min)  
This is a neat encounter with a young man named Aaron. He was hanging out in Pismo, sitting on a bench near a larger group of young people. As Aaron and I talked the group of young people kept interrupting us. It was quite distracting and I must admit I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Through most of our conversation one young lady in particular kept interrupting Aaron and I - making references to “getting high” and “smoking pot.” When I asked Aaron if he was involved, he made it clear that he wasn’t (praise God).

Aaron and his mother go to Calvary Chapel, Arroyo Grande. He professed Jesus as his Lord and Savior. It was nice to hear a young person like Aaron be able to articulate what God did to save him. Someone had help this young man “connect the dots”: a Just, Righteous, Holy God, sinful man, the Perfect Bleeding Savior Jesus, and man’s response, ”Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31

I thank God for Pastor Steve, Bill, and George at Calvary Chapel AG. These guys, week in and week out are faithful to teach the full council of God. These are the only pastors I personally know (I’m sure there are others) that are leading their flock in Biblical evangelism. These guys don’t just pay “lip service” to evangelism. Many church leaders say, “we must reach lost souls for Christ” while never demonstrating HOW the flock is to go about doing it. These guys are showing the flock HOW to take the Gospel message TO the lost souls of the Central Coast. http://proskuneo.net/home.php

I challenged Aaron a bit about reading his Bible everyday – then our conversation ended. I began to walk away when the vociferous young lady who had been interrupting Aaron and I still had something to say.

Often I’m slow to catch up with what God is doing. But with His help, I realized that Aaron’s and my conversation was, at least in part, so that I could have a conversation with Cassandra – the vociferous young lady. All of her earlier “distracting” talk, seemed to me now, to be a young lady calling out (waving both hands in the air, so to speak) “PLEASE LISTEN TO ME I’M HURTING.” Wow – Cassandra opened up. She wanted to talk and talk we did.

After listening to her tell me about all her life pains, God enabled the conversation to turn towards magnifying His Son Jesus and His great sacrifice on that Bloody Tree. Cassandra’s emotions were definitely stirred – so were mine.

Have you ever shared, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” with a lost person, with tears in your eyes. When was the last time you preached, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” to a person bound up in sins and under the wrath of God?

The sinner must hear of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And when we share these truths, it can indeed be a crushing blow. In love Christian, we must deliver this blow. But Christian – look forward to delivering the Good News to the crushed soul!

It should come natural that you to preach the Cross with great passion and even emotion. Verses like John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 should break the your heart ANEW – preaching these verses sometimes overwhelm me with a knowledge of my living God’s kindness and love toward me in sending Jesus to the Cross.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7

I believe that when we share Christ Jesus with sinners, with an emotional brokeness in our own hearts over the “incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus”, the Cassandra’s of this world will feel the emotion, mixed with your compassion for them.

It isn’t our emotion or passion that saves anyone. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit who compels them to come in. Salvation is completely of the Lord. However, we do get to participate in pleading with them and Oh Christian, what a blessed commission our God has given us – “GO!”

Christian, we must preach the Cross of Christ Jesus with a pleading in our voice and a passion that they can SEE. It must be tangible! God does the saving but we must implore them and passionately lift up Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Please pray for Cassandra and Aaron.

Posted by Ambassador at 11:33 AM |  MAKE A COMMENT  

Thursday, Feb 21, 2008

Fear

Download this episode (23 min)  
I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him. Ecclesiastes 8:12

What do you think about fear? Is it good or bad? Is there a such thing as “good” fear? What about “bad” fear? Sometimes during a witnessing encounter you’ll begin to see terror in the eyes of the person you’re witnessing to.

In this case it’s a thirteen-year-old chap named Jackson. Andy and I met him in Pismo last Saturday. He and his two friends were leaning against the wall hanging out when we approached. I regret that I didn’t get both Jackson’s friends names but one of them that you’ll hear asking most of the questions, is Jacob. It started out that Jackson and I was talking but Jacob and then the other guy jumped in the conversation.

Jackson was very attentive and focused. The other two guys were initially very distracted and hard to get them focused. Listen to how playful they are at the beginning of our discussion – I mean they are little kids.

Little kids or not, they need to know the hard truths of Scripture along with the Good News. As our conversation progressed, Andy and I saw their countenance change. These little guys were being seriously convicted and were obviously fearful of God’s wrath. As we continued to talk about Hell and God’s justice I kept thinking of Proverbs 9:10.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

It’s was hard to keep going – we want to give them some relief from their fear. Their little faces were clearly showing signs of alarm. They didn’t seem so concerned anymore about looking cool. Jacob asked, more than once, “then how do we go to heaven?”.

In this podcast, I’ve inserted several portions of a C.H. Spurgeon sermon entitled, “Five Fears.” I tried inserting SHORT applicable sections of this sermon into the witnessing ecounter so that we can learn that it is OK for a lost person to FEAR GOD – even His wrath. As Christians, we must believe God’s Word when it says, “I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him.”

Let me know if you agree.

Posted by Ambassador at 12:26 AM |  MAKE A COMMENT  

Sunday, Feb 17, 2008

Is There a Wrong Time and/or Place to Share Christ?

Download this episode (3 min)  
Where the gospel is fully and powerfully preached, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, our churches do not only hold their own, but win converts; but when that which constitutes their strength is gone—we mean when the gospel is concealed, and the life of prayer is slighted—the whole thing becomes a mere form and fiction. For this thing our heart is sore grieved. – C.H. SPURGEON

THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE! Please listen to this message a dear brother in Christ left on my voice mail just this morning. In the message you’ll hear Brother Robert lament about certain folks at a church he attends who hassled him because he was witnessing to a man in the church office.

Shouldn’t there be a greater concern for the souls of men rather than whether or not the church office runs smoothly? If a brother or sister is sharing the good news with a lost person, shouldn’t we as children of God give glory to our Father for their faithfulness to the Commission? Church leadership, if the sheep are hindered from preaching the Gospel on church grounds, isn’t it no wonder only 2% of them share there faith at all?

After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to Him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” For even His brothers did not believe in Him. Jn 7:1-5

“For even His brothers did not believe in Him.” Can you imagine growing up with a Brother who never did anything wrong, who never called you a name, never teased you, or never made fun of you? Jesus was the nicest brother who ever lived. Yet His brothers didn’t believe in Him. We know, however, that later on, Jesus’ half —brother, Jude, came to such a saving knowledge of Jesus that a Book in the Bible bears his name. And His half brother, James, so strong in the faith that he was the leader of the early church, penned the Book of James. But neither James nor Jude became believers until Jesus was crucified on a Cross and resurrected from the dead.

A lot of times we think, If I’m a nice person, my neighbor is going to get saved. I’ll mow his lawn; I’ll bake him cookies; I’ll smile when he drives by. I’ll be a lovely person—and that will convert him. Gang, there was no lovelier person than Jesus Christ. Yet His brothers did not believe in Him until after the Resurrection. Therefore, I think some of us need a greater aggressiveness in preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You can wave to your neighbor for twenty years and wave him right into hell. Or you can take the time at some point to say, “You know what? Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose again from the dead—and you must believe on Him.” May we be wisely, but aggressively and radically, bold in sharing the full story of the gospel. – Jon Courson

“When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” 1 Cor. 2:1-2.

Posted by Ambassador at 2:44 AM |  2 comments  

Tuesday, Feb 12, 2008

Spiritual Warfare in Pismo

Download this episode (31 min)  
“If they will not let me preach Christ crucified, and offer salvation to poor sinners in a church, I will preach Him in the lanes, streets, highways and hedges; and nothing pleases me better, than to think I am now in one of the devil’s strongest holds.” – George Whitefield

George Whitefield speaks of preaching Christ crucified OUTSIDE of the church walls. In so doing, he knew that he was in “one of the devil’s strongest holds.” I’ve had these thoughts before too. I don’t know how many times this has happened to you, but no matter where or when I’ve tried witnessing, more times than not, the conversation at some point is interrupted. This is especially true when you start talking about the Cross of Christ. It is NO coincidence!

Satan isn’t omnipresent but he does have his demons that disrupt and distract – I believe it because we see it in the Scriptures (Acts 16:16-21) and I’ve experienced it first hand. Have you? Do you believe this kind of spiritual activity is going on around us?

Just this past Saturday, it occurred several times while Robert and I was in Pismo. At the time, I didn’t really notice it. But when I got home and began to share the day’s details with my wife, I realized only then, that there was an abnormal amount of distractions that day. Looking back on it, these distractions were trying to hinder us from sharing the Gospel 1-2-1 and preaching. It was so bad that I was able to record several examples of these distractions - a MIXED BAG of audio clips. More than once, the audience was even hindered from hearing the Gospel – you’ll hear that too.

Like I said, I was able to record several examples for your consideration. I wanted to share them with you but if I just put them back to back in a podcast, without context, it wouldn’t make sense.

You’ll note that this podcast is 31 minutes long. In order to share these audio clips with you, I’ve added my commentary to give each clip context. I hope it helps.

Here is another Whitefield quote, “There is not one single saint in paradise, amongst the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the glorious company of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, and the spirits of just men made perfect, who, when on earth, was not assaulted by the fiery darts of that wicked one, the devil.”

Please share your thoughts.

Posted by Ambassador at 11:58 PM |  3 comments