Biblical Evangelism has one author (God), one message (the gospel of Jesus Christ), and one goal (the making disciples of the nations). Because there is one author, then we should not deviate from the evangelistic method which He proscribes. Because there is one message, we should not change or distort the message no matter the consequences. And because there is one goal, then we should seek that goal wholeheartedly.  

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Jeff Pollard with the following message entitled Modern Evangelism or Biblical Evangelism. Good morning. Or biblical evangelism. Good morning. Please open your Bibles with me to 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1, and would you please stand with me as we read the Word of God together? We're going to read verses eight, nine and ten. Second Timothy chapter one, verses eight, nine and ten. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 8, 9, and 10.

Let us hear the word of God. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God, who hath saved us and called us within holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Amen. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's unite our hearts in prayer.

Father in heaven, we praise and thank thee for the mercies thou hast shown us this very day in Christ already. And Father, I pray that as we are gathered in His name, we might exalt Him, glorify Him in all that we do here this morning. Help me to speak to Thy people. Oh, I pray with all of my heart that it will be Thy Spirit that speaketh. Speak to the souls of the lost and save them.

Speak to the souls of Thy beloved blood-bought children and sanctify them. Edify thy church, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen. Please be seated. Biblical evangelism began in eternity.

We may not think of it that way, but it becomes clear if we read Paul carefully. In the infallible text that we have just read, Paul speaks of a glorious salvation by grace in Christ from the beginning of time. In fact, before the beginning of time, before God ever said, let there be light. His people had salvation in Christ Jesus. The apostle says that God does not give this great salvation to sinners because of their good works, not forcing works and not works in history when Christ was here.

The apostle declares in verse 9 that the source of sinners salvation. The alone source of sinners salvation is God's purpose. And God's grace, a grace. Which God gave to them in Christ Jesus before the world began. This is what he tells Timothy to encourage his heart, to help him alleviate his obvious fears and concerns in his service to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He encourages his young representative by telling him that our salvation is rooted in eternity. Now this truth raises a very important question for us. God's purpose and grace in Christ were part of God's plan before creation. But sinners live in time, space, and history after creation. How then do they learn about God's eternal gracious purpose in Christ Jesus?

Paul makes the answer abundantly clear in verse 10. The salvation given to God's people in Christ Jesus before time is now in history made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Now in other words, God's eternal purpose of salvation in Christ burst into history through the person and work of Christ. God the Father and His Son then are the first great evangelistic team. The Father sent His Son to sinners. He was willing to go and he brought a message to sinners that they might be saved.

Evangelism is rooted in eternity. It is made manifest in time. Now God's authoritative message delivered by a faithful messenger is the essence of biblical evangelism. Let me repeat that. God, thank you.

God's authoritative message delivered by a faithful messenger is the essence of biblical evangelism. Yet something has happened to biblical evangelism. A great deal of today's evangelism and its man-centered theology has dramatically changed the methods and tragically sometimes even the message of biblical evangelism. Now to understand the difference between biblical and modern evangelism and to grasp why the difference is crucial, we must consider the following things. Number one, God designed and authorized biblical evangelism.

In other words, the evangelism that we find set forth in the inspired testimony of God's word. Number two, God has authorized only one message for the salvation of sinners, one message only. And number three, God has given biblical principles for our methods of evangelism. That being the case, I pray that God and His mercy by the power of the Spirit will help us cover a lot of ground quickly and clearly. So God designed and authorized biblical evangelism.

The first thing we have to answer is what is evangelism? It is amazing that people that call themselves evangelicals would even have to take the time to think this through or even define it. But the day in which we live is so confused and has become so unbiblical both in method and message that it's vital that we take just a few minutes and consider the very basics. The word evangelism does not appear in the Bible. Nevertheless, defining evangelism by the New Testament is quite simple.

In Matthew and Mark, preaching the gospel comes from two Greek words, which mean to proclaim or herald, to trumpet. The other Greek word means good news. Now Paul and Luke usually favor one Greek word, which means to bring or announce good news. So the idea of biblical evangelism is quite simple. It means Preaching the gospel.

Preaching the gospel. Put another way, evangelism is presenting Christ. It is presenting Jesus Christ. Paul wrote to the Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth. That's biblical evangelism.

Christ evidently set forth. Now, biblical evangelism has a goal. Christ told Paul, I send thee. I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. So proclaiming the message of Christ with a view to converting sinners is biblical evangelism.

Now God through Christ authorized evangelism. This is not something that arose from the minds of men. It came from the eternal mind and the glorious purpose of the living God. We often do not realize that each of the four gospels concludes with an authoritative commission for evangelizing the world. We usually only think of one.

But Mark's gospel concludes with Christ's command, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He did not say, go into all the world and get decisions. He said, go into the world and announce, proclaim, trumpet me. Now John's gospel records Christ's declaration in chapter 20, as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. Matthew's gospel concludes with what we call the Great Commission, as we heard so well set before us last night.

Christ said, all power, all power, all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations." And of course that's literally disciple the nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen." Now there's something, again, that's very important here.

He doesn't say go and get decisions. Something that we now think of as an immediate thing. We tell someone the gospel they go sure they believe write it down the front of their Bible they're saved forever end of story. That is utterly distorted of what is set forth before us in this passage and the rest of the New Testament. Yes, people can be saved in a moment, they are saved in a moment when the Holy Spirit opens their hearts.

But discipleship is a time consuming thing. You can't teach everything that Jesus taught on the street corner. We are being told to make disciples and The way we do that is to preach the gospel. Now that being said, Christ who had received all authority commanded his disciples to go, to make disciples, to teach them everything He taught and to baptize them. In these three commissions, God, through Christ, authorized evangelism.

It is God's institution. And therefore, to bring Him glory and to bring the results that should come from His purpose, we should not deviate from what He's authorized. So God has authorized one message, one message. Only Luke's gospel gives us the Christ commanded, Christ centered and Christ revealing content of his message. His commission includes the message.

We don't hear the message in the other three. We have the instructions on what to do, but here's the content. Let's listen carefully to the lips to the Blessed Lord of glory. Then opened heed their understanding, This is a supernatural thing, that they might understand the Scriptures. Everything that He's teaching them is rooted ultimately in the Scriptures.

And said unto them, thus it is written and thus it behold Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. There it is. There is Christ's authorized message. Now for our purposes in this message, we're going to confine our view to evangelism or of evangelism to the book of Acts. The book of Acts.

This is natural and it is a logical approach because God has inspired for us how the apostles obeyed those four commissions, right? When we read the book of Acts, we can see what the apostles understood, what they were empowered to preach, and how they did it. Now I realize doing it that way has some limitations and I realize that I could become just as erroneous on one hand as others on another. But What I want us to do is to focus after the four gospels and the commission at each one to a very brief survey of what the apostles and disciples taught and it was recorded in the book of Acts. Now the first thing that we hear is a message about the God of the Bible.

Biblical evangelism begins with God. One of the greatest tragedies of today's evangelism is its man-centeredness. The gospel isn't about making us feel better about ourselves. The gospel is not ultimately about man. The gospel of God is the gospel authorized.

Gospel presentations in our day often begin with man, but in the book of Acts, gospel we don't read and study the Bible. If we would listen to what Christ said and taught and then watch how his disciples understood it and did it. We would learn an incredible amount. Let me issue a warning. I mean this with all of my heart.

I'm going to say it with a smile so I don't look as mean as I might. But beware slogan Christianity. Beware of slogan Christianity. Beware of slogan Christianity Because what happens most of the time is those slogans which are generally vague or unclear replace the Scriptures in our thinking. And then we can begin to read into those slogans the way we understand them.

We must know what Christ said, what Christ commanded. So the gospel message begins with God. When Christ poured out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter preached the gospel. His hearers were Jewish and knew something about God. They knew something about the God of Scripture.

Nevertheless, Peter repeatedly declares what God has done. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God. Him being delivered by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God. This Jesus hath God raised up. With titles and pronouns, Peter refers to God in this one message in one chapter, 29 times.

That's amazing. You can hear gospel presentations today that never start with God. Barely even point to them, and even when they do, it's very unclear as to who or what that God is. To the Jews in Antioch, Pisidia, Paul preached, the God of this people of Israel chose our fathers. That was the context in which he began.

He went on to mention God 28 times, chapter 13 of Acts. To the Gentiles on Mars Hill, Paul began his message by first telling them who God is. God that made the world in all things therein, seeing that He is the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Now that was not calculated to be a soft word to them. He saw their idolatry all through the city and their temples were everywhere around them.

He's telling them that the real God isn't their God. All of you that march up to the buildings, you're not worshiping the true God. And he gives an extraordinary exposition of who God is. He alluded to God 20 times in this short discourse, plainly teaching who God is so that the hearers had a context out of which to hear the message of sin, salvation, and judgment. He brings to the table judgment.

Modern presentations of the gospel often entirely ignore any notion of judgment. Not one of the instances of biblical evangelism recorded in Acts is a mechanical, formulaic, man-centered message with music included, followed by calling for decisions with an altar call. It doesn't exist in the pages of Scripture. In fact, the preachers often modified the way they preached the Gospel, but they never changed the authorized message. They never changed the authorized message.

Number two, The biblical gospel, the authorized gospel, is a message about the sinfulness of man and his need of God's forgiveness. The God who made the heavens and the earth is holy, unspeakably holy. Human beings made in his image have broken His law, and they desperately need forgiveness of their sins. On the day of Pentecost, and the reason I say that is it may not be the case for all of you or even some of you, but I can tell you the way I was brought up is Jesus is your friend. Jesus is like your buddy.

Jesus is the great psychologist. Are you alone? Come to Jesus alone. It's a hurting world. Come to Jesus.

That is not the gospel. Whether any of those things said are true or not. Of course Jesus is the friend of sinners and we go through all of those things. But it's not the gospel. It is not the authorized message of the most high God.

It is about God Himself and man's sinfulness against Him. Listen to Peter. He didn't avoid confronting the Jews of Jerusalem with their sin. Him, meaning Christ, Ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Could there be any greater sin than killing the one who shares the throne with God? Again in verse 36, God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Cut to the heart with conviction. The Jews cried out to know what to do. Peter commanded them to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. The gospel is about men's sins. Men's sins.

When we get to Peter preaching to Cornelius and the Gentiles that whosoever believed on Christ's name shall receive the remission of sins. Paul declared that Christ sent him to turn Gentiles from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive the forgiveness of sins. And I urge you, I charge you, I at least challenge you, all of you after this conference, sit down and read the book of Acts straight through, read it through again, or break it up in a few days and read it through and start marking where Christ is proclaimed and see what you hear. Number three, biblical evangelism declares the God of the Bible and the sinner's need of forgiveness as the context in which to proclaim, to present the person and the work of Jesus Christ the Lord. In other words, biblical evangelism must present who Christ is and what He's done to save sinners.

I want you to think with me here just for a few minutes. Christ said to Luke, excuse me, Christ said as recorded in Luke, thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. Who is this suffering Christ? That would ultimately have to be explained. Who is this suffering Christ?

Well filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter declared, this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. Quoting Joel 2.32, Peter says, whosoever Shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. The Lord in Joel's prophecy is Yahweh, the God of Israel. When Peter reached the end of his sermon, he declared, God hath made that same Jesus whom he hath crucified, both Lord and Christ." He is pointing to the deity of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the God-man.

That's who we preach. It is not The Mormon Jesus who is one God among many gods. It is not the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is not the who is the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God. It is not the Jesus that is often preached.

Nice guy. Did some things, did some wonderful things as an example for us. The gospel message is about the person of Christ and his glorious work and that person is the God-man and that establishes his lordship and it goes all the way through the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament. Jesus is Lord. Now this was said in the day when Caesar was Lord.

That's what people heard all of the time. Caesar is Lord. The gospel says no, there's a higher king. Jesus is Lord. Now the apostles and the disciples applied Lord to Yahweh and to Jesus throughout the book of Acts.

It's interchangeable. This points us, my dear friend, to not a mere man, But the eternal Son of God made flesh. Jesus is the Lord to whom his disciples pray, the Lord who knows the hearts of all people, the Lord to whom they cry as they are dying, the Lord whose word they believe, teach and preach for the salvation of sinners. We find that all the way through the book of Acts. Jesus is the God-man.

We must preach this crucified and resurrected Lord as the Son of Man, Messiah, Savior, as Peter, Philip, Paul and the others did. It is especially crucial that we preach Jesus as the living Savior and the ruling sovereign Lord. Christ's Lordship is crucial to Christ's rule over the nations, over His people. Paul exhorted the Philippian jailer who said, what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Saying that to a Roman official, it's a serious matter. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Christ authorized message teaches that the God-man suffered, bled and died on Calvary's cross and rose again the third day. And we hear this essentially throughout the gospel, excuse me, throughout the Acts. Acts chapter 2 verse 23, He hath taken and by wicked hands have crucified and have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up.

This Jesus hath God raised up, 2, 31, 32. Peter told the Jews that they killed the Prince of Life whom God had raised from the dead. It's interesting, there are not many details about the crucifixion in the preaching that is set forth. But what is always clear is that God raised him from the dead. The resurrection is central in gospel preaching.

It isn't only the cross. I'm not denigrating the cross. We love and praise and thank our God that he hung his precious son upon the cross of Calvary. But very often a lot of gospel so-called preaching stops there. A friend asked me to check out on a website, a particular church that he or she hoped to visit.

And they said, here's the page for their doctrinal statement. They had a fairly sound modern evangelical statement. They said, we believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of, I don't know if he said his people or for sinners. Nevertheless, it went right on and in their entire confection there was not one word about the resurrection and it is central in the preaching of Acts. We not only preach a Christ who died for our sins, but one who rose in glory and ascended up into heaven and is seated at the Father's right hand.

We preach him. We preach him. I understand there would be those that would say, ah, yes, but Scripture says, Paul says, I preach Christ crucified. Of course, but then later in the very same book, he tells us I preach Christ crucified, I preach Christ risen again. Oh, brethren, we need to wash our minds with the word of God.

Now Paul preached in Antioch, though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they pilot that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, They took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulchre, but God raised him from the dead. And on Mars Hill when Paul spoke of Christ as the judge on the day of judgment, Paul told his Gentile hearers that God had given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him, God hath raised Christ from the dead. He doesn't mention the cross as such. Now a footnote to all that we're saying.

Throughout the history of the church, God's people have read the book of Acts and many have come to the conclusion that the gospel messages that are recorded there are basically summarized or very shortened because the book of Acts might be huge if we got Paul preaching until midnight. All these kinds of things may be so, but what I want us to focus on is whatever we view of those Messages recorded, this is what they say. This is what the Holy Spirit directed Luke to record. Now other important doctrines attend the preaching of these elements. God, His holiness, His claims on men, man, sinful, in need of forgiveness, Jesus Christ, the God-man crucified and raised again.

But it's not some little cliché, it's not some neat little package. It's always brought wisely from context to context. The context change, delivery may change, The message doesn't change. We have partial moments in the book of Acts where just a few things are said and we understand that not everything can be included there. But these are essential.

But we need to remember that a number of other things accompany this. It is very important for us to see that things like the kingdom of God is also preached. When was the last time you heard preaching about Christ brought forth in any kind of an evangelistic way that even alluded to the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God appears seven times in the book of Acts in the context generally of the teaching about Christ. Numerous other things that we could speak of.

But these things are central. Well now, after these three things, Is there anything else? Yes. Biblical evangelism calls people, it calls sinful people to repent and believe. To repent and believe.

Christ said repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. Now this is what Christ commanded. We don't have any right to change it. People think Repentance is an old-fashioned word. People think repentance is like, oh, this is like all this Turner, Burn, Hellfire stuff.

Yes, it is because people are sinners. They will be judged of Almighty God and they need to turn from their sins and believe on Christ or they will not be saved ever. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, and that is why we find repentance sometimes mentioned apart from faith. Christ's commission here doesn't mention faith. Of course, he intended it for it to be preached.

But what was focused? Repentance. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. They always go together. In some of the passages that we see, repentance is mentioned without faith.

Sometimes faith is mentioned without repentance, and sometimes both appear together. Faith is not mentioned on the day of Pentecost. Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the redemption of sins. What happened? Three thousand say Peter preached verbatim what his master told him to preach, and he saved 3, 000 souls.

Yet Peter, the same Peter preached to Cornelius' household that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. We hear believe, we don't hear repent. No mention of repentance. The Holy Spirit fell in the house, saved everybody in there. Paul declared, through this man, Christ, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him all the believer justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Preaching justification gloriously, justification by faith. He did not mention repentance. Yet Paul, the same Paul, later described his preaching as repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he summed up his mission, repentance and faith. In other words, the apostles got it.

They understood that they were to be messengers who wisely brought a message, but they were not to fool with the message. Other important doctrines, as I've mentioned, attend the preaching of these four elements. But we can only mention a few and in biblical evangelism as I said sometimes we hear of the kingdom of God, justification by faith, the fact that all of this is rooted in Old Testament scriptures time and again. They say, as the scriptures say, as the scriptures say, as it is written in the scriptures. And the God appointed witnesses Numerous times, the witnesses are mentioned.

Why? Because this was an eyewitness historical event of a crucified and resurrected savior. Now with these things in mind, we want to press on as quickly as possible to consider biblical principles. I've taken this particular method because if you've heard me, if you've heard the Word, If you'll go and read the book of Acts and ask hard questions, a number of things begin to arise. If we take the Word of God as the basis by which we evaluate the things that men do, all of a sudden much of what we hear of gospel preaching today falls to the dust.

There's a lot of stuff that's called gospel music that doesn't have a dime's worth of gospel in it. This is the gospel. This is the gospel. Oh, God's eternal purpose of grace then, my brethren, in Christ is the source of evangelism. We have defined biblical evangelism.

We've seen that God authorized it. We've seen that God authorized only one message, and we have confined our survey of biblical evangelism to the book of Acts because it is the Spirit-inspired revelation of first century biblical evangelism. Now if we get this, if we understand this, and I realize there's a lot coming out right now, but if we get this, We can begin to make some comparisons. First of all, the biblical gospel. It's the message about God, about His holiness, man's sinfulness, the person and work of Christ, and it is an authoritative call to repent and believe.

It is the only authorized message by which sinners receive the gracious salvation that God gave them in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now that is why Paul could say, if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. The modern gospel, Let me say as a preface, I don't want to say any of these things to insult or offend anyone. I say them for you to be Berean and to come to the scriptures and bring your experiences and bring your thinking to the submission of God's word. That's all.

I want to be careful here because I know this will touch many of us, it touches my own background. But much that we see in modern evangelism or modern evangelicalism begins with a message of God's love. The scriptures are clear. We know this. God is love.

However, love is usually the very focal point of the modern gospel. The astonishing fact is that not one gospel message in the book of Acts mentions the love of God the sinners. Not one. Not one. The word love doesn't even appear in the book of Acts.

Furthermore, while love appears over 90 times in the four gospels, it only appears a couple of times in what we might call evangelistic contexts. And it never appears as it is used today. God loves you and Jesus died for you. Believe that and you'll go to heaven. Anybody hear the problem?

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. We could go on. Now don't mistake me. I'm not saying that we never mention the love of Christ, the love of God. But I'm pointing you to what the Bible focuses on for the evangelizing of lost souls.

I'm not forbidding anybody to mention the love of God. But I am saying it's not recorded there in Acts when they went out into raw paganism and preached a crucified and resurrected savior. I understand that John's gospel is kind of an extended gospel tract and of course he mentions the love of God. These things were written. He said that you might believe and have life.

I understand that. I've told people many times to read the Gospel of John if they want to know who Christ is and what he did to save sinners. It's full of the love of God. But when we go to the book of Acts and we see what the Holy Spirit pinpoints as they stand and preach to men. They never start off with, you know, God loves all you guys.

And that's amazing, considering the fact that judgment is mentioned. The modern gospel often speaks about Jesus as Son of God or Savior, which is blessedly true, yet it often ignores his lordship. The word Savior appears twice in Acts, and Lord applies to Christ over 70 times. What are they preaching about Christ? He is the Lord.

To remove his lordship, To preach him as Savior without preaching him as the Lord is to damage the gospel, to destroy the principle truth of discipleship, and to undermine the idea of Christ as ruler of the nations. Number three, modern gospel often speaks of Christ's cross, yet often ignores the resurrection as we've already covered. Number four, the modern gospel often talks about just believing, but they leave out repentance. Now whether or when the gospel is preached well, when it is preached the way it should be and surrounded with the right attending doctrines. There may be a place for just simply saying, believe of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But repentance is crucial because it isn't simply the notion of just kind of nodding to what we're being told but turning from our sins to embrace the Lord who can forgive me and now rule me. That's a change of life. You don't make Jesus Lord. God already did. He is the Lord and you bow to Him or you don't.

God has made that same Christ Lord, Lord and Christ. Now let's move on quickly to biblical methods. Whoever faithfully delivers the, or yes, biblical methods as opposed to the modern ones, whoever delivers the authorized message with a view to the conversion of sinners is involved in biblical evangelism. We may change the way that we bring the truth, but We must not add to, subtract from, or modify God's gospel of grace in Christ. Now one of the reasons again for some of these partial type messages is they weren't always expecting to just see people embrace them.

What do we see on Mars Hill? Some of them laughed at Paul. Some of them said, well, hear a little bit more later. And some clave to him. They wanted to hear more right then.

And he explained to them. The idea is to make disciples the idea that the word behind the idea behind the word disciples is learner. You're learning and you're learning about Christ. And it's when you begin to teach these things, drawing them in with a gospel message and then begin to teach them, unfolding what these gospel things mean. You often see people come to true solid conversions.

Easy believe-ism, just getting people to make a decision and walk an aisle usually fills the church with goats. And then the pastor spends his life trying to get them to act like Christians. Ask the pastors here. The Lord has given us much latitude in this brethren and if we're in harmony with biblical principles we can be creative in the way that we bring the message. We can preach it in public or in private, in the church, outside the church.

We can speak to large groups or to individuals. We can write the message in a letter. We can put the message in a film. We can record it on a DVD. We can record it on a video and put it on the internet.

We can write it in tracks, in books, in booklets. We can sing it in songs. We can take the message by ourselves, two by two, or in a team. But we've got to bring the message. Modern methods, if we have understood just a little of this, it may come as a surprise to some of us to discover that not until the mid 1800s did we find any of these things that are common in much of evangelism today.

We don't have time to survey modern evangelicalism nor men such as Charles Finney, who in essence gave us the altar call. I mean, when did Paul ever do anything like that in the book of Acts? It's not there. You can get the music going and get people weeping and get them to come and admit that you've said some things that have touched them and they agree with what you're saying. I want to be careful here.

If it's been a true gospel message, they may have believed the truth in spite of the music and the lower lights and the pleading. But there has to be the gospel message for people to believe, to be saved. This is sometimes... This is... I'm editing here because I'm looking at the time.

This is, well hang that, we're just going to finish. Once people actually leave their seats and their locations and make their way to the front, counselors usually meet them with something like a sinner's prayer. Now, if someone truly prays and says having heard a gospel message, oh God, oh son of God, oh Jesus the Lord, and I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that you can lead them in some kind of prayer and that would be just fine. But people often think there's almost something magical in that prayer itself.

If I just do that, now I'm saved and born again. This is not the teaching of Scripture. If you want to know about being born again, read John 3. And what you'll find, much to your shock perhaps, is that Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again. That's true, but he makes clear that it's a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit.

The wind blows where it will and so it is with everybody that's born of God's Spirit. It's God's work, not a switch that we flip. Now, one last thing. Once again, we say this very carefully. Sometimes people come down, they pray a prayer, they shake the preacher's hand, they sign a card, and then they're told to write down in the front of their Bibles.

This is what happened on this day or whatever. And then they're often counseled as I've seen numerous times. If you begin to doubt your salvation, go back and read that. Anybody see a problem of pointing someone to what they've written in the Bible as opposed to going into what the inspired Word of God says about assurance. Oh, let me go back and see what I did.

Yes, I did that. Okay, I'm okay. That isn't biblical. Go and read 1 John over and over and over. This is the inspired way you find out assurance, find out what a Christian is.

Read 1 John again and again and again because God wants us to know that we know him he wants us to be assured that we know him but when you go and read 1st John it isn't my date we could go on but we must stop So let me close this and say to you, biblical evangelism began in eternity. It came to its fullest redemptive manifestation in the person and work of Christ. It spreads to the ends of the earth through faithful messengers to present Christ with a view to conversion and ultimately to the establishment of churches. We didn't have time to go into that. But it isn't just save them and leave them on the street corner.

It's ultimately to form those who repent of their sins to come into a congregation of those that have repented of their sins and believed on Christ. Sinners who have received this message, repenting, believing, by the power of the Holy Spirit are saved. God's authoritative gospel alone is the power of God and to salvation to everyone that believe it. But that's why it's absolutely essential, my brother, that we preach this message, this message. Round it out, fill it out, bring in things from the epistles, that's fine.

Point out things, tell me that they've broken the law of God, tell them that hell is real. These are all fine things. But we have to make sure that we preach to them who God is, how sinful we are, who Christ is and what He has done, and we must call them to repent and believe the gospel. And if you have never repented and believed on Jesus Christ, I call you to now in the name of Almighty God who sent his son into this world to save sinners, to save them, to forgive them of their sins. I urge you to come, change your mind about your sins, and believe on the resurrected God-man.

He saves believing sinners. And for those of us that have repented and believed, may we, May we love this message and faithfully present this message. Biblical evangelism is better than modern evangelism. Let's be faithful to Christ that we might see sinners truly converted. Amen.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches. For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org. Thank you.