Attitudes of Effective Evangelism B

You go, you trust, wherever God sends you, you go, you preach the gospel, you leave the gospel, you go, you trust, wherever God sends you, you leave the gospel, you leave the effective evangelism. And now with a lesson, here's John. Now that is a very practical, straightforward text, but it is loaded with some wonderful words, at the time He was here and since, there have always been people attracted to Jesus. There have always been people curious about Jesus. There have always been people who wanted to show respect and honor to Jesus. There have been people who believed that Jesus was the Savior.

But there have always been people unwilling to follow Him on His terms. But on the other hand, there were some true disciples. In fact, in chapter 10 verse 1, we meet seventy of them. So the numbers here, at least, favor the genuine disciples.

We meet seventy who were sent by the Lord to prepare the way for His coming. These are those who were willing to deny themselves. These are those who were willing to take up a cross daily and follow Jesus. These are those who were the genuine and the true disciples who said, we are refusing to deal with the person we are any longer.

We abandon everything in our own lives. We submit to Your Lordship, whatever it is You want us to do, we gladly do whatever the price we gladly pay, even if it means death, we will follow You. Genuine followers, no excuses with the seventy. Like the apostles, these are ordinary people.

They don't seem to have any manifest human qualifications. And if we remember 1 Corinthians 1, there are not many noble, not many mighty anyway within the kingdom and within the purpose of God. He chooses the weak and the nobodies and the nothings and the base to do His work so that no man can boast and the explanation for the advance of the kingdom will never be human because the kind of people that He chooses to do it don't have the human resources, the human power to pull it off and therefore the credit goes to the Lord. So here He moves from that highest rank of spiritual service, the apostles, down to the next level and here we find what everybody else was commissioned to do and that was to proclaim the same message of Jesus Christ, they are set apart to be the first kingdom missionaries. And as we look at this commissioning, He starts with the essential attitude necessary for being a kingdom missionary. If we're going to do evangelism, we have to start with the motives and let's go to the heart of the deal right now. The first necessary motive, the first transferable element of the Lord's preparation for these people is compassion...compassion. And I said this before, I'll say it again, the basis of all effective evangelism is compassion.

It isn't training, it is compassion. It is a deep, profound sense of sympathy because of the desperate condition of the unconverted. We have to understand the eternal plight. Instead of evangelicalism owning up to that and proclaiming that in its seeker-friendly new environment, it wants to eliminate the doctrine of hell and invent a new doctrine that says, well, just about everybody on the planet's going to heaven.

Just the opposite of what responsibility we should have. The Lord was wrenching in His stomach, feeling physical agony over the hell that the mass of humanity were headed toward. That leads to a second essential motive and that is prayer.

You stand there and say, well, how are we going to do anything about it? And the Lord says in verse 2, therefore in consequence, beseech, beg, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. You don't just pray for the salvation of people, you do that. First Timothy 2 makes it clear, pray for all men, for kings and those in authority and everybody else to be saved.

You don't just do that though, you pray that the Lord will raise up more missionaries, that the Lord will save more and send more. By the way, the Lord of the harvest, isn't that an interesting phrase? Who is the Lord of the harvest?

The judge. John 5, 22 to 29 says, the Father has committed all judgment to Christ. So Christ is going to be the judge. Christ is the executioner. This is amazing. The Lord Himself, the Lord of the harvest says, pray to me and ask me to send laborers to go out to deliver people from me.

It's amazing. It is the Lord Himself in 2 Thessalonians 1, the Lord Jesus who is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God, to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. It is Jesus who is the Lord of the harvest. It is Jesus who is the one who comes back with the sword in His mouth. It is Jesus who brings the sickle along with the angels who attend His return. It is Jesus who is the judge.

It is Jesus who is the executioner. And it is also Jesus who is the one who hears your prayer and sends the people to deliver those who are perishing from His execution. You could put it this way, pray to Jesus to send somebody to deliver people from Jesus. Pray to the Son of God and ask Him to send more messengers to reach this great harvest to deliver them from the Son of God. Saved from what?

Saved from hell, yes, but saved primarily from the God who sends you there. And the God who sends you there has delegated that authority to His Son. So the Son says, pray to me and ask me to send messengers to preach a gospel so sinners can be delivered from me.

Amazing...amazing depth and profundity. Our compassionate Lord seeks to rescue people from His own wrath through the prayers of believers who beseech Him for more messengers to work in rescuing souls from Him. The executioner becomes the source of messengers to deliver people from His execution.

I'll even go beyond that, the executioner is himself executed to save people from his execution. This is the wonder of the gospel, pray for laborers. How often do you do that? How often are you on your knees saying, God, send more, send more? You say, why doesn't He just say, you know, you go and you pray for the unsaved?

Because you skip that point and you get to this point and the backup effect on this is profound. You can't get on your knees and be beseeching the Lord to raise up more messengers without having a strongly influencing conscience if you're not doing that, right? And then the prayer becomes exponential.

It pulls you into it and it also responds to the command of the Lord which assumes that He will hear an answer. If the Lord tells you to pray for something, pray for it, right? You say, well, how do I know if it's His will? If He says it's His will, it's His will.

You don't have to worry about it. Just pray the Lord will raise up more messengers because He said He wanted you to pray that. More believers who will be faithful to go and to go and to go and to go to save those doomed to execution from their executioner and it is their executioner who seeks that they be delivered from Him.

The executioner dies for the ones he was to execute. Take them that message. And they can't do...they can't hear it without a preacher. Romans 10, very clear. So compassion and prayer are essential. Third attitude, urgency. Third attitude is urgency. Verse 3, beginning of the verse, urgency.

I like this. Go your ways. He says...He says, look, pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out labor in His harvest.

Okay, on your way, hupogate, present imperative, go and keep going. Urgency. No time for delay, no time to go gather anything, no time for training. They say, well, wait a minute, how trained were they? If they knew enough to be converted themselves, they knew enough to tell somebody else how, right?

I've said that through the years. You say, well, why do you have all evangelistic training? Well, because it's helpful to know certain cults and world religions and how certain people think and the philosophies of our time to find entry points at the gospel. But eventually it all comes down to the fact that if you knew how to be saved, you know how to tell somebody else how. So don't shirk the duty because you don't feel you have specific training.

No training takes place here. The Lord just collects 70 who have denied themselves, taken up their cross, followed Him. They are genuine and true believers. They have entered into His kingdom. That's enough.

Go your way and tell them I'm coming. The mission is immediate. It is urgent. The time is short. The cross is only months away. There are many, many, many villages and towns all across Judea and Perea, across the Jordan that need to be ready for His coming.

And they need a full explanation of who He is so that when He gets there, they'll be ready to receive what He has to say. Evangelism is immediate. And I say this, if you are a Christian, I don't care if you were saved five years ago or you were saved yesterday, start today with your ministry of evangelism. It's urgent. Today is the day of salvation, 2 Corinthians 6. This is the time.

Don't wait. Attitudes, compassion, prayer, urgency. Number four, vigilance...vigilance. Be on the alert. Verse 3, Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. You're going to be like a lamb in a wolf pack. I just want to let you know that. That is really not a very good recruiting speech.

I mean, you know, if you want to figure out a way to get people to sign up, that probably wouldn't be it. I love the honesty of Jesus. He never lowered the standard, did He? He said, well deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Me, be a lamb in the midst of a wolf pack.

Told it exactly the way it was. And as we all know, the Apostles, the Twelve Apostles, they all had a fate related to persecution, didn't they? They were martyred. John was exiled in the Isle of Patmos and it's very likely that these seventy...well, it's likely that all of them because Jesus predicted it would be persecuted, but I'm sure there were a number of them that suffered martyrdom. Maybe most of them suffered martyrdom because in the eighth chapter of Acts, Saul who witnessed the execution of Stephen was breathing out all kinds of havoc against the church. Slaughter was going on in the church in Jerusalem, so it very well would have involved those who were the most loyal and dutiful preachers.

So He says, look, you've got to realize it's not going to be a bed of roses here, not going to be easy. It is going to be a cross and you're going to have to take that cross up. But that shouldn't have surprised them because that is exactly what Jesus told the Twelve. If you go back to Matthew 10, He said the same thing to them, just exactly the same thing. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Matthew 10, 16, be as shrewd as serpents, as innocent as doves. Beware of men. They're going to deliver you up to the courts. They're going to scourge you in the synagogues.

So you've got to watch out for the civil government. The justice systems are going to get you. The religious systems are going to get you. You're going to be brought before governors and kings. The civil system is going to get you. And not only that, if they don't get you, your brother will deliver up brother to death. Brother will deliver up his child. Children will rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death.

And you'll be hated by all on account of My name. Just expect it. He says to them, it can happen. It doesn't happen to everybody. It doesn't happen all the time.

But it happens and it's still happening even today. We're lambs in the midst of wolves. Where in countries where there has been historic pervasive influence by Christianity, persecution is to some degree mitigated in countries that are non-Christian and blatantly so.

Christians are suffering and dying at a rate higher than ever in the history of the church today, tens of thousands a year. I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. You have no strength in yourself, so keep your eyes open. Be aware. Be vigilant.

Be careful. There's nothing wrong with being careful, nothing wrong with being thoughtful, nothing wrong with making wise choices, nothing wrong with avoiding unnecessary persecution, hostility. But you will continue to be hated by all. Matthew 10 22, continue to be hated by all.

The Lord looks all the way down to the end of time and says, it's going to continue to be this way. All kinds of people in all kinds of situations are going to express their hatred toward the gospel. You will be roughly treated, to borrow the language of 1 Corinthians 4, you will be considered scum and dregs, the lowest of the low, and they will hate you because of their hatred of Christ and their love of sin. You will be brought before courts, you will be brought before religious leaders, you will be brought before governments, and you will even be hated by your own family members.

On some occasions they will go so far as to take your life. So this kind of call demands the greatest level of commitment possible. Take up your cross.

Evangelism that is effective being a kingdom missionary, compassion, prayer, urgency, danger, or vigilance. One more, number five, trust...trust. I want you to learn to trust Me, because if you're going to go out like a lamb in a wolf pack, if you're going to go out with this massive issue facing a huge harvest and few laborers, if you're going to realize the urgency of this, you're going to sense that you don't have the resources, and that's okay.

You're going to have to trust Me for everything. And this is sort of boot camp as it was for the Twelve when He sent them out. Look at verse 4, carry no purse, no bag, no shoes, and greet no one on the way.

Talk about being Spartan in the approach. This is real simplicity, a very hard battle in our complicated world. It's exactly, exactly what we learned back in chapter 9, verse 3.

The Lord said it when He sent the Twelve out. Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not even have two tunics apiece. Don't take an extra coat.

Why? Is this necessary? Are we supposed to be like the homeless, going and bouncing from hand out to hand out?

No, but for this time, this was boot camp. This was where you learned that you can trust God. And if you never are placed in a position to have to learn that, you might question that.

So you can learn it real fast on this mission, and we'll get the lesson over with. You go and you take nothing. Carry no purse, balantion is the Greek word it means, a bag to carry money in. You carry no bag for money, you carry no money. And you carry no bag, secondly, that's a travel bag, you know, with your extra stuff and whatever junk you want to carry alone. Don't carry that.

No shoes, you wear the shoes, you don't carry any extras. You just go out with nothing. Well what about eating? I'll take care. Well what about where am I going to sleep? Don't worry about that. I'll take care of all that. What I'm asking out of you is that you go empty-handed in absolute trust.

And you know, it transcends just the physical elements of it. You're going to go out and trust the Lord for the reaction, the response, the way people treat you and how they receive the message. This is how you learn trust. I kind of think this is a little bit like coming to seminary here.

You pack up your family, you come to California, you live in a tiny little apartment in maybe an undesirable place, you squeak out your education trying to feed your wife and your kids, you do some jobs when you can, some people help you here and there, and finally you make it through. And at the end of the time you say, you know what, we came here with nothing and we finished the program and God proved that He can be trusted when we're in His will. And that's a great lesson. Now you go to a church, maybe they give you a house to live in, they give you a salary, but if ever again in the life ahead there's a time when you don't have anything, you've already learned the boot camp lesson that God can be trusted when every resource is gone. And that's foundational to your life because that day may come and you can trust God in it because you've learned to trust Him. And so this is boot camp.

It's not always going to be that way. Turn to the 22nd chapter of Luke and here he makes that clear to them. This is something we looked at when we were considering this same idea in Luke 9, 3, but I'll refresh your memory. Peter, verse 33, says to Him, Lord, with You I'm ready to go to prison and death. And He understood what it meant to be self-denying, take up Your cross. He knew that that was Jesus' standard requirement. And then He said to him, Well, yeah, it's a nice gesture, Peter, but you're going to cave in. Peter, the cock's not going to crow today, you've denied Me three times. And that led to Peter's profound remorse. But then in verse 35, He said to the disciples, When I sent you out without purse and bag and sandals, you didn't lack anything, did you?

Did you? They said, No, nothing. You see, He proved Himself when they had nothing.

He came through, provided all they needed, all the food they needed, the housing they needed, whatever they needed. And He said to them, verse 36, Now let him who has a purse take it along, likewise a bag. Let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one.

If you have an extra robe, get a sword so you can use it for self-defense and protection. And what He was saying was, boot camp's over, now take a bag, take some money. But you now know that if you ever run out, if you're ever plundered by a robber, or if people don't support you, or if you run out of resources, you're going to know that I'm going to be there to sustain you because you've already learned that lesson. And by the way, He says, Greet no one on the way. What does that mean?

He's saying, I don't want you to even stop. Greet is not just, Hi, how are you? Greet is sit down, make a meal, stay with somebody, build a friendship, thinking you're going to thereby get support. Don't be distracted.

You know, greeting in the ancient Near East was a big event kind of thing. You stayed and you got involved. Don't depend on friendships to sustain you. Don't depend on making relationships with people so that they provide for you.

Don't go the human route. Just go, don't stop to make relationships and know this, I will provide, even if you have no human relationships to depend on. That's the great lesson to trust.

You're going to have to be cared for by strangers you don't even know, people you haven't even cultivated a relationship with. This is just trust. You go, you trust, wherever God sends you, you go, you preach the gospel, you leave the results to the Lord. If you have nothing, you go, He provides.

If you have everything, you go, you use what you have and if you ever come to a point where you have need, you know He's going to step in and make provision. Don't worry about the friendship side of it. Keep the message clear. But it is interesting that this was not friendship evangelism, which may be, you know, some people may overrate. I think friendship evangelism is good. You should evangelize your friends. But I don't think that you should wait to evangelize someone until after you've made a friendship.

I don't think that's necessary. People are saved by the power of the gospel, not by the power of a friendship. And here they were going to have to reject the message or accept the message regardless of any relationship with the messenger. That's not the critical thing in the proclamation of the gospel.

It is the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation, isn't it? You evangelize your friends. But I've heard through the years, well, you shouldn't evangelize somebody until you've made a friend.

That doesn't make any sense to me. I can't make friends with everybody. I've been yelling at crowds for years.

I would like to be able to go one by one, but I'm not sure I'd be as effective. You want to be a Kingdom missionary, you want to join the Seventy. It starts with your attitude, compassion, prayer, urgency, vigilance, trust. Let's pray. Father, thank You for this reminder of our need to have a heart of compassion, the heart that Christ had toward the lost headed for the harvest, that we need to pray, plead with You to send out messengers, that we need to have a sense of urgency that dispatches us immediately to evangelize, that we need to be vigilant knowing that we are like lambs in a wolf pack and be wise and not say things that exacerbate our enemies. And we...we certainly need to trust You to meet all our needs and to give us favor and blessing as we go. I pray that You'll make a great force of laborers into the harvest. Give us all the joy of serving You in this most important way. What a privilege. We thank You in our Savior's name.

Amen. That's John MacArthur encouraging you to make prayer a priority in your evangelism. John not only teaches on the radio, he's also a pastor, author, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in Southern California, and today's lesson on grace to you is titled Attitudes of Effective Evangelism. John, the issue of prayer that you talked about today, I think most believers would say at least two things about prayer. They would acknowledge that it is a vital spiritual discipline, and they would say they need to do better at it, maybe even a lot better. Did God intend prayer to be something hard for Christians to do faithfully? No, I think God intended it to be the easiest and most natural thing for a believer to do.

I used to call it spiritual breathing. It's just living in the presence of God. Now, you know, having a list of things you want to pray for, carving out time in the day to get before the Lord, maybe get on your knees in the quiet place and take the time and effort to pour over these requests and offer them up to the Lord in intercessory prayer, that's work. And none of us, I'm sure, feels like we do that often enough, particularly when you understand that God hears and answers prayer and that the heavens open up and pour out profound blessing in response to believing prayer.

So we all intend to do more of that. There is that intense part of prayer, that discipline of prayer, that all of us fall short on. But prayer itself is an open line of communion with the Lord. It's the recognition that He is present at all times.

It's not like you have to call Him up and then there's a possibility He might not answer or you might have to hang up because He gets another call. You are in the presence of the Lord at all times so that communion with Him should be the most natural, the most constant, the most normal thing that you do as a believer. And since, you know, we live in a world where we spend hours alone.

Maybe it's in a cubicle or maybe it's in a car or whatever it is. And to have that ongoing conversation with the Lord is the richness of prayer. And I think that's part of what it means to pray without ceasing. So let me tell you about a book that will encourage you along this line called Lord Teach Me to Pray.

God longs to communicate with us, telling Him all the issues of our hearts, casting our cares on Him. So Lord Teach Me to Pray is a short primer on prayer or how to have an open line of communion with the Lord. And I conclude the book by giving you my own sort of personal list of ten incentives that motivate me to pray. Again, the book is titled Lord Teach Me to Pray. It can rekindle your passion for prayer. That's my prayer for you. Easy to read, packed with biblical truth. You can order a copy today.

Yes, do, friend. This book, Lord Teach Me to Pray, will help you ground your prayers in Scripture and develop a powerful and effective prayer life. Order Lord Teach Me to Pray when you get in touch today. You can reach our customer service team at 855-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org, to purchase Lord Teach Me to Pray. The book makes a great gift for a young believer, and it would be a great addition to your church's library.

Lord Teach Me to Pray costs $14 and shipping is free. Again, to place your order, call 855-GRACE or shop online at gty.org. And thanks for remembering that Grace to You is supported by listeners like you, people who are learning from these daily Bible teaching programs and who want others to benefit as well. To support us financially, particularly important as we near the end of 2023, call 800-55-GRACE. You can also express your support when you visit gty.org, or you can send your tax-deductible gift to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DIRECTV Channel 378. Then be here Monday as John shows you just how much you have to be thankful for as a Christian. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.