I want to invite your attention
to Romans chapter 1. And I ask you to pray for me
that I might be able to speak that which is true to the Word
of God, that which will be profitable to your souls. And pray for yourselves. that God might give you indeed
a hearing ear. Especially you young folks, I
want you to listen to this. We older ones, pretty soon I'm
going to lay aside this tabernacle and others with me along here,
and you'll be the older ones. Listen to these words carefully.
I want to talk to you about evangelism. I went to Arkansas a few weeks
ago and preached down there on Saturday and Sunday. And a young
man here in town, a religious fellow, he knew about it. And
he asked me the other day when he saw me, he said, did you all
have a good revival down there? I said, what is a good revival?
I said, I've never seen one in my life. I said, I know your
church every year they advertise spring revival and fall revival,
but what do you mean by that? Is it something you're assured
of? Something that people are going to do for themselves? How
do you know God's going to give it? If it comes from God, how
do you know God's going to give it? And we had a lengthy talk. And
like most fellas in his group, he agreed with everything I said,
but he still goes back and listens to that free will stuff, all
the means and gimmicks and gospel tricks to get folks into the
church. It's so sad. I want to talk to you about evangelism.
You hear that word a lot. Some evangelist is in town. Or
you hear somebody, some church is having an evangelistic meeting. That's what I want to consider
this morning. Evangelism. True evangelism. Biblical evangelism. What in the world is it? What
in the world is it? Romans chapter one. Paul, a servant
of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. Separated unto the
gospel of God. Separated unto the gospel of
God. Drop down to verse 3. That remainder,
what's in between is in parenthesis. Drop down to verse 3. Separated
unto the gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. That's what it is. It's the good
news. It's the gospel concerning His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, our Lord. made
of the seed of David according to the flesh, declared to be
the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection from the dead. Now listen, by whom we have received
grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations
for his name. And all of this in verse 2 is
according to his promises made by the prophets in the Old Testament
Scriptures. Now look at verse 14. I am a debtor both to the Greeks
and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am
ready to preach that gospel to you that are at Rome also. For
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it, the gospel,
is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,
Jew first, also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. That righteousness which He has
provided for us in His Son, whereby we may be justified, reconciled,
accepted of God. Righteous, righteous, righteous. It's the gospel of righteousness
which He has prepared in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what is evangelism? We're continually hearing about
it, as I said, some meeting, evangelistic meeting or some
Evangelists have come to town, and I've even sent out advertisements
when some preacher was coming, Evangelist, Brother Mahan, or
someone else, Jack Shanks, or whatever. What is evangelism? What I mean by that, evangelism,
evangelist, well, evangel, evangel, or evangel, simply means, it
simply means good news. And to us, it's the Gospel. According
to the Scriptures, it's the Gospel. That's the good news. We just
read about it. It's the Gospel of God concerning
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in 1 John chapter 5,
this is the record that God has given us in life. And this life is in His Son.
It's the Gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The good news
that's wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. Evangelism. Evangel is the gospel, and evangelism
is the preaching of that gospel. Those who preach that gospel
are evangelists. They preach it, they proclaim
it, they teach it, they declare it, they tell it forth. They're
evangelists. They preach out the gospel, tell
out the gospel, the gospel concerning the Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, I want you to listen to
me carefully, carefully now, real carefully. It is with very
sad heart that I want to show you that the great majority of
those modern so-called evangelists, it's a misnomer. They've falsely
named themselves, falsely called themselves. They don't preach
the gospel. They don't even know the gospel. They don't know God. They're not sent from God. They
don't have a message from God. They've created their own message
in our day. That's the general principle,
the way it is generally speaking throughout America today. Modern
evangelists do not even know the gospel of God. They call
themselves gospel preachers and don't even know what the gospel
is. I'm telling you the truth. Check it out. Find it out for
the sake of your own souls. and for the glory of God. The gospel is the gospel of God's
grace, sovereign free grace, in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you deny the gospel of
sovereign free grace, you've denied the only gospel there
is. That's the only one there is. They're not sent from God. They
do not love the message of God, the gospel of God, and they are
not the ambassadors of Jesus Christ because they don't have
his message. Their whole system, now listen
to me, their whole system is one of human wisdom and human
invention. It's not according to the Scriptures.
Not by precept, nor by example. It's not according to the Scriptures.
Their whole system is one of human wisdom and invention. It's
man's religious methods and means, man's gospel tricks and gimmicks,
and all is in the power of man, all created by man. It's all
of the world. It's all of Satan. That's what
it is. I'm sorry about that. I have
family in those churches, but that's what it is nonetheless. You sure can't help anybody by
pretending there's no difference, or the difference doesn't make
any difference. This system, modern so-called
evangelistic system, has turned preachers into competitive soul
winners, has turned churches into counting houses where they
count numbers, hang it on the wall in front of the church, and deceives the souls of tens
of millions of people, tens of thousands of people every year
in this country alone. That's awful. It's better to never have gone
to church in your life than to have gone to church and been
deceived. We need to take heed what we
hear. We need to take heed what we
support, what we sanction, what we approve of. Having made those sad, sad statements,
which are very true, listen to me just a few minutes, and I
may preach another message on this same subject tonight. But
give me just a few minutes. The preacher of God, who comes
from God, who is sent from God, is called and sent upon a glorious
mission. He is not in competition with
anybody. But Paul describes it like this. We have a treasure
in this old earthen vessel. We have a treasure to speak of,
to broadcast, to proclaim. The gospel. We have a treasure
in an earthen vessel. A story of life from the dead. A story of Christ, who He is,
where He came from, what He became, what He accomplished, where He
is now, what He has done, what He is doing for sinners. The
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man has a precious treasure,
Paul said. We have this treasure in an earthen
vessel. The treasure of the gospel. The
most precious treasure in all the world. Never been a story
like it. Never a story like it bellowed
human ear. What a treasure it is. How rare,
how precious. It's the only gospel there is.
This treasure in earthen vessels. And Paul said that preacher who
is sent from God, he has the gospel committed to his trust. He has been entrusted with the
gospel, to preach the gospel, faithfully proclaim the gospel,
earnestly contend for the faith, the gospel. He is a steward, a steward of
the gospel. And the preacher that's sent
from God, called of God, ordained of God, he embraces that gospel
that he preaches. He loves that gospel that he
preaches. And he lives on that gospel that
he preaches. That's what I live on. Clarice,
I live on the gospel. That's my life. That's my water,
my bread, my sustenance, the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm complete in Him. And
I'm complete in Him. He not only embraces it and loves
it and lives upon it, But he publishes it. The Gospel of the
Glorious Redemption of Jesus Christ. Substitutionary Redemption
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did it for us. He did it for
us. Substitution. He bore our sins
in His own body on the tree. Atonement, full atonement by
substitution. Him for us. He died for us. He lived for us. A righteousness
we preach that comes to us from Christ through faith in His name.
The gospel declares righteousness. How can a man be just with God? Through the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the only way. Through faith in his name. The
gospel has to do with Christ. Everything's in Christ. Everything's
about Christ. And it's all free grace. Sovereign
free grace. You can't earn it. You can't
buy it. You can't persuade God to give it to you. It's by the
sovereign free will of God, of his own will. Beget he us with
the word of truth. He came into this world, and
the world he made, and the world didn't even know him. Received
him not. Came to his own, the Jewish people,
of whom he was prophesied to come. And they received him not. They turned thumbs down on him.
They crucified him. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God. He gave them
the right, the privilege, to become the sons of God, even
to them that believed on his name, which were born, not of the will of the flesh,
not of the will of man, but born of God. About all we hear of in our day,
in the contemporary churches, talk about the will of man, the
will of man, the will of man. I was born in 1939, June the
27th, in the flesh, after the flesh. And I never had a thing
to do with it. I was born again in 1959. I never had a thing to do with
it. God came by. God visited my house. God dealt with my heart. God
brought me to repentance. Nobody ever calls himself to
repent. It's painful. It's hurtful. I remember going to church and
you'd be under some sort of conviction and you'd try to get rid of it
as quick as you could. Shake it off as you go out to tour.
And God kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back. Sinner, sinner, sinner. Adam,
where art thou? That's what he said to me. And one day I was reading the
scriptures and this is what I read. He bore our sins in His own body
on that tree. And I said, that's it. That's
it. Thank God, that's it! I could
have peace in that. The first time in years I had
a little peace with God. The Gospel is a work of God. All through faith in His name,
And even that faith is God's gift to us. We weren't born with
it. We can't work it out. God has
to create it in us through the preaching of his precious word,
that precious message, that precious gospel, that treasure we have
in these earthen vessels to speak out and tell for. Exalting Christ. to the glory of God is the calling
of a preacher and his mission and his life, exalting Christ,
talking about Christ. I asked a young man recently,
he's in the family, dear fellow, I said, does your preacher, what
does he preach most about? What God's done for us or what
we need to do for God? He said, well, what we need to
do for God. Isn't that sad? That's sad. The Bible talks about those things, but it's all written in His blood. It comes out of the fact of what
He's done for us, who He is. And Paul said to bring it down
to the bottom line, he said, the love of Christ constraineth
us. Tell me what He's done for me.
Titus chapter 3. Paul talked to those saints,
talked to young Titus. And He said, you remind those
people who they are, where they came from, what they were. And
you tell them what God's done for them. Not by works of righteousness
which we've done, but according to His own mercy, He saved us
and washed us. And those who really believe,
they'll be careful to maintain good works. That's the way you preach good
works in the very context of the person in the work of Christ. The work of Christ. You want to teach people to love
each other? Christ said, as I've loved you, love each other. You want to teach people to wash
each other's feet? He said, as I've done to you. Christ crucified is the preacher's
message, and that's evangelism. Christ crucified, Christ proclaimed. That's both the message and the
means of salvation. Now today, we have a message
and it's created. It's not the message of God.
And then they have a means of making that message effectual.
And it's all of man, from first to last. Dishonoring to God. Saying God can't save people,
we've got to help Him. God does save people. He doesn't
need our help. We preach the Gospel. We preach
the Gospel. Christ crucified and proclaimed
is both the message and the means of salvation. We don't use Gospel
tricks. We don't have a three-plan of
salvation, five-step plan of salvation, or the Roman road
plan of salvation. Repeat the sinner's prayer. We
don't have those things because they're not in the book. Not
in the book. We have a gospel about a person
that we proclaim. And that's the message. That's
the gospel. And that's God's means of saving. The gospel,
Romans 1, 16, is the dunamis of God. That's the word from
which we get our word dynamite, the gospel. And nothing else
but the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Power of God unto salvation. The message declared is the means
employed. That's what God uses to save.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe the gospel. If a man knows the message, he
knows the method, the means of salvation, what God used to save
sinners. That is the message. Sinners
are saved as they hear people talking about Christ. That's
how it is. Not when they have soft music
and someone saying, now everybody bow their head and close your
eyes soft music playing, and if you feel like you need to
be prayed for, you have a spiritual problem, you need to be saved,
silently slip up your hand. Now, nobody's watching, nobody
will see you. And then when that's done, and
he says, all right, you can open your eyes. I know who you are
that raised up your hands, and you know you raised up your hands,
and we know you need help. Come on down now. They start
playing Just As I Am. And they might play it for a
half hour, and they might play it for an hour. That's not of
God. Listen to me, young folks. That
is not of God. And if it's not of God, it must
have come from His enemy as a counterfeit. And indeed, it did. It's of man. It's of Satan. It's Antichrist,
contrary to the glory of God, which says, I can plant, and
the polish can water, Only God can give the increase. God gives
the increase. That's the only way it can come.
Please God by the foolishness of preaching. Turn to 1 Corinthians
2 just a moment. The same thing as in chapter
1, but I'll just skip some of these verses I have written down
and go to chapter 2 and verse 1. And now Brevin, he's writing
to these Corinthians. They know he's telling the truth.
When I came to you, I didn't come in excellency of speech
or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. It's not
our words or our descriptions of God's words that save folks. It's God's Word, God's Gospel,
God's truth. The truth shall make you free.
That's what I say about it. For I determine. You determine something, you
think about it. You reach the determination,
and this is what I determine, not to know anything among you
except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's all I preach to you, Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and
fear and much trembling. Not much of that in our day either. My speech and my preaching was
not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and the power, that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." What do we
need in our day? The power of God. The power of
God. We can't conjure up a revival.
God must rain it down upon us. Paul was fearful about this matter
of preaching the gospel. It wasn't a game to him. It wasn't
a competitive thing to him. Serious business of proclaiming
that great gospel of the glory of the blessed God. He was fearful of saying anything
amiss, and so am I. He was fearful of anyone looking
to him for help. He was fearfully or wrongfully
encouraging some or discouraging others. Just leave them before
the Lord. He was fearful for their souls. And he was jealous for the truth
and the glory of his great God. Do you know what he said? I can't
quote it exactly, but he said something like this. He was on
the way back to Jerusalem. And he called the Ephesian elders
to him. And they knew that they'd see
his face no more. And he knew that they'd see his
face no more. All he knew that lay ahead of
him was beatings and imprisonments and chains and all these things. But he said, these things don't
move me. the threats of men do not move
me, neither can I my life dear unto myself, that I might finish
my course with joy, and testify of the gospel of the grace of
God." That is what he cared about, preaching the gospel of the grace
of God, finishing his course with joy, faithfully. And at the end of his life he
did. He said, I've finished my course. I've kept the faith.
Fought a good fight. Those who know the message of
salvation, the real message of salvation, they know the means
of salvation. It's not in these invitations.
There's nothing like that in the scriptures. You know what
their excuse is? There are so many distractions
in the world today, we've got to use anything in our power
to get them in and keep them in. That's what I've been told
by people who represent other churches here in town. I pray
that I may just be faithful to preach the gospel, to proclaim
the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus our Lord, and let God do
the work. I'm not going to hire people.
I'm not going to bribe people. I'm not going to trick people.
I'm not going to play games to get people to come listen to
the message of the Son of God. How belittling that is to the
Son. Suppose I had a daughter, and I do, and I was paying boys
to come see her. If you come take her out to eat
tonight, I'll give you $20. Boy, that sure pays her honor,
doesn't it? That's the way they get men to
Christ. And it's not right. It's an abomination to God. Abomination to God. When a man does not have the
message, does not know the message, then he invents his own way. Trims down the message, trying
to make it more pleasing to natural man. And invents ways to get
natural men in and keep them in. Paul was a true evangelist. He
proclaimed the gospel. And that preacher who is called
in sin of God, He knows that the salvation of sinners left
up to Him. And when I say left up to Him,
I mean all these gospel tricks and gimmicks and means and skits
and clowns and imitations. The preacher who is called of
God, sent of God, knows that the salvation of sinners left
under Him, left up to Him, Left up to the church, left up to
anybody but God, is impossible. You remember when the disciple
said one time, I think you offended those folks, Lord. He said, just leave them alone. They said, Lord, After a statement he made to
them, he said, Lord, who then can be saved? He said, with men,
nobody. Left up to men, it's impossible. But with God, all things are
possible. All things are possible. You
know, I want to turn here and read this to you just a moment,
because this is really, truly, actually the way it is. Turn to Ezekiel chapter 37, if
you will. Ezekiel chapter 37. I'm going to read through this
rather quickly to conserve time, but please let these words soak
in. The hand of the Lord was upon
me, Ezekiel 37.1. It carried me out in the Spirit
of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley which
is full of bones. You got the picture? A valley full of bones. And it called me to pass by them
round about. And behold, there were very many
in the open valley, and lo, they were very dry. They had been
dead a long time. Dead! And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, Lord, you know
that. I don't know. That's up to you. Entirely up to you. Again he said unto me, prophesy
unto these bones, saying to them, O ye dry bones, dead dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, you
shall live. I will lay sinews upon you, bring
up flesh upon you, cover you with skin, put breath in you,
and you shall live. You shall know that I am the
Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I prophesied, there
was a noise, and behold, a shaking, and the bones came together,
bone to hit bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews
and flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above,
but no breath yet, no life yet. That tells me, if I interpret
this right, that preaching the Word, can cause a lot of religious
movement, a big religious stir. But unless God breathes upon
these bones, it's all in vain. There's still nothing there but
death. Death. Religion and death. Then said He unto me, prophesying
to the wind, the Holy Spirit prophesied. Son of man, say to
the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds,
O breath, breathe upon these slain that they may live. These slain, these dead, breathe
upon them that they may live. And so I prophesied as he commanded
me. Breath came into them, and they
lived and stood upon their feet. An exceeding great army, the
church militant here on the face of the earth, have been breathed
upon by the Lord. Salvation is God Almighty in
His sovereign free grace, putting His almighty saving hand on a
sinner. And when He does that, He won't
take it off until He's made exactly like His Son in eternal glory. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
not of men. Now, you go out to these Valley
of Dry Bones, and there they are, very many and very dry,
dead. Dead! and play soft music and play
the organ just as I am and do whatever tricks you have up your
sleeve and it won't help those bones a bit. It might cause a
lot of movement. It won't help those bones a bit.
They're still dead. Still dead. The preacher who is sent from
God knows that he's preaching to spiritual corpses And he, by God's Word and experience,
knows that the dryness of these dead bones, the dryness of these
dead bones, he will not alter that message of salvation. He
will not employ man's means and methods of salvation, because
it's not salvation, it's deception. That message of this book, Jesus
Christ and Him Crucified, the message of God concerning His
Son, is the only means of salvation. Only power of God unto salvation. Not my tricks. Not any man's tricks. This preacher who sent from God,
he'll try to faithfully preach the Word of God and pray that
God make it fruitful, because He can. He can plant and He can water,
but only God can give the increase. Only God. He can water and water
and wait, but only God can give the increase. in His own time,
for His own glory. Only God can give what men need,
and that's life. Only God can give life, and that's
what we need. Can these dead bones live? Maybe. I tell you, if God wants them
to, they can. God says, preach to them, pray for them. Wait. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the
Lord. Pray for the sovereign wind to
blow. Somebody might be here this morning.
I hope you are. You say, what can I do personally?
That's a good question. Salvation of the Lord. You can't
save yourself. I can't save you. Your mama can't
save you. Only God can save you. What could
you do? What can I do? I want to be saved. What can I do? First thing is to acknowledge
that you don't have salvation. You don't have life. You're dead.
You don't have life. And the second thing to acknowledge
and confess up to, even to yourself, you can't give yourself life.
The preacher can't do it. You need life, and only God can
give it. That's good. Third thing you
can do is be where the wind blows. You know where the wind blows?
Where the Gospel is preached. That's where the Spirit of God
moves. He takes that Gospel. He takes the things of Christ.
And this word is used three times, and I love it. It can be translated
other ways, but I like the way it's translated. Take the things
of Christ. This is the office of the Holy
Spirit. Take the things of Christ. Show them unto you. Be where
the wind blow. Be where the word is preached.
Be where the gospel is preached. When life comes, recognize it. Thank God for it. Seek baptism. And when life comes, you'll love
Christ. When life comes, you'll trust
Him. You cast yourself upon Him. You say with the Apostle Paul,
I know whom I believe. And I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. That's
my hope. That's my confidence. That's
it. That's it. He that believeth the Son hath
life. Do you have life? You want life? Christ told Nicodemus, Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth on him should
not perish, but live, have life. Back there in the wilderness,
thousands of people sitting around, bitten by snakes, some bitten
and dying, some already dead. God told Moses to make a brazen
serpent. Make a serpent in the likeness
of that one that's bit the people. Make it out of brass to indicate
judgment upon that serpent. Go out there in the middle of
those people and hold up that serpent. And I can hear him now. Look and live. And those who looked in the obedience
of faith, they've been bitten by the serpent, but they never
died. They never died. Isn't that wonderful? That's
the way we look to Christ. I'm a dying sinner. I deserve
nothing but death. And yet, I'm looking to Christ. Looking unto Christ. Trusting
Him. All my hope. All my salvation. May God enable you to do the
same. And each of us to do it more and more. OK, David.