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So first of all, what's our model for the Gospel? The Book of Acts. So in the Book of Acts, to look at several presentations of the Gospel, you get some commonalities which each one of our Gospel presentations has to include. The Apostle Peter Pentecost, one of the greatest sermons ever preached. He preached a person. He preached a Christ-centered message. He emphasized the death and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. He proclaimed a gift, the gift of forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of adoption to the family of God, and the gift of reconciliation with God. And he looked for a response. Apostle Peter at Pentecost preached the need for repentance, faith in Christ and baptism. Repent of your sins, be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith, absolutely essential. And the outward vision of this, the outward symbol is baptism into a local church. Now most gospel messages in the book of Acts you can see preach the incarnation. God has come right in time. It's Emmanuel, God with us. An historic, unique event. They focused on the forgiveness of sins, striking at the heart of our problems. We don't need therapy. We need forgiveness and repentance. We're not just helpless victims. We are guilty sinners. Our problem is sin. And just think of the word sin. In English, the middle letter of sin is I. The middle letter of pride is I. The middle letter of lie is I. The middle letter of Lucifer is also I. I is at the heart of our problem, selfishness. I am my own worst enemy. No one can give me more grief than I can give myself. And I think all of us must recognize I am my own worst enemy. I need salvation from sin. And at the heart of sin is selfishness. And they preach the cross. God has acted. The Lord Jesus Christ has been crucified. He is our atonement. He is our guilt-bearer. He is the expiation of our sins. And they always preach and emphasize the resurrection. Christ Jesus is alive. He is Lord. He is reigning on high. He is coming again. The evangelists preached Christ. They preached a person, not a system. They preached an experience of vital relationship with Christ. And when some people say, I'm not interested in religion, we can often say, neither am I. I'm not preaching religion. I'm speaking to you about a relationship, a real relationship with the Redeemer. And so if we can have that emphasis of Christ, I'm not asking you to join a denomination. I'm asking you to join the Church of Christ. and I'm asking you to come to Jesus. This is not saying, you know, I want you to be a Presbyterian or an Anglican or something. The goal is we want to be Christians. We want to have a relationship with the Lord. And as a missionary to persecute churches, I'm strongly interdenominational because I've ministered with and worshipped with the Orthodox Church and the Coptics. And these people are willing to die for Christ and suffer for Christ in Egypt. They are brothers and sisters in Christ. The Christians in Ethiopia, even though they're Coptic, nobody has suffered more for Christ than the Christians in Eastern Europe, like the Orthodox Christians of Russia. And anyone who's willing to suffer and die for Christ, greater love has no one in this than that he is willing to die for a friend. How can people question the salvation of those who've suffered for Christ and are willing to die for Christ? And so I'm less concerned about what denomination a person comes from. I want to see the fruit of the Spirit. If this person loves the Lord, hates their sin, if this person has been born again, it doesn't matter what denomination he is, he's part of the Church of Christ, the invisible, universal church. And so missionaries are not so concerned of which church are you from, because obviously we must all belong to a local church. you get good and bad in every denomination. Of course, some denominations, you probably don't get any good, but people get converted even, well, even in Catholic churches, you get people converted. I mean, I've had people saying, do you think Catholics can be saved? I said, yes, some of the finest Christians in history have been Catholics. Martin Luther, John Wycliffe, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and then they'd say, but they left the Catholic church. I said, yes, they did, didn't they? But it proves that Catholics can get saved. I mean, the whole Reformation was launched by Catholics, in many cases, Catholic priests, such as Martin Luther, who had gotten converted through the scriptures. And so, of course, we believe we can even have Christians from a Catholic church. Of course, they won't stay there. Because the Mass is not a Eucharist. Christ cannot be sacrificed again. The priest does not have the power to re-sacrifice Christ and give you the actual body and blood of Christ. That's a once-for-never-to-be-repeated event. Our Eucharist, our Lord's Supper is remembering with gratitude what the Lord has done. The minister's not re-sacrificing Christ. We're not eating the literal body and blood of Christ. He is the door. We're not talking about a wooden opening that swings on hinges. Jesus is the door. He's the only way to Christ. He is divine. And we are the branches. So there's metaphors in the scripture. And so when we talk about, you know, the Lord sheltering you under his wings, we're not suggesting that the Lord is a bird and so on. There's metaphors. And the Catholic Church is camped on this. This is my body. This is my blood. The priest has the power to re-sacrifice Christ. Well, we don't believe that. That's blasphemous. That's ridiculous. We don't accept it. But we're not going to turn away anyone of any denomination. Now, I have been in a field and had people in Mozambique and the Nuba Mountains saying, why are you bringing us Bibles? You know, we Catholics. And I said, well, if I can bring Bibles to Catholics without being burned at the stake, I count myself blessed. So once I was in the Nuuk mountains and an Irish missionary, Catholic missionary, came to me and said, I believe you've got a plane flying out back to Kenya next week. Could I get a lift? And I said, Out of the field, certainly, I said, they'll always be placed on a frontline aircraft to take Catholic missionaries out of the field. We wouldn't have space to bring you in, because we bring in Bibles, but I'll gladly take you out. And a man laughed. I mean, he understood Protestants and Catholics are not the same. But we've had the opportunity to preach in Catholic schools, show the Jesus film in Catholic churches all over the field. I will never close the door to any denomination, even if I think it's an abomination, because the main thing is, as missionaries, we accept invitations everywhere. I've preached the gospel in communist terrorist bases. I've preached the gospel in Muslim mosques, in Jehovah's Witness kingdom halls, in Christian science places. It's not a problem to me in Mormons. Yes, I've gone there and I've had Bible studies with Mormons, and I've preached the gospel in their churches, and why not? As a missionary, I won't turn down any invitation, even if I'm invited to a Muslim radio station, like Radio 786 down the road in Afrin. We go wherever we can. We won't compromise the message, but we'll never turn down an invitation, because the goal is to preach the Gospel to every creature. Now, you put it another way, the Gospel and Acts emphasize the person and the character of Jesus Christ as God incarnate, Emmanuel. They emphasize the teachings of Jesus on God, life, the kingdom, and human destiny. The emphasis is always on the death of Jesus Christ as the atonement for sin and the resurrection of Christ. He is our living Lord. I think this is something, even though I was brought up in religion, a secular home, and I went to a Catholic school, not that my family was Catholic, but they were impressed by the academics. And so I went through school with all of the different whatevers they gave at the Catholic school. I never picked up that Jesus is alive today. Now, I understood that there'd been a resurrection, but I had no idea that Jesus was still alive today. The fact that he'd been risen and seen again after his crucifixion and burial, I knew that, but I did not comprehend that Jesus is alive today and he's coming again and we can speak to him and we can hear him and he can hear us in our prayers. So proclaiming the resurrection of Christ and our living Lord is important. But now that's to God-fearers, to people who knew something about the Old Testament and God. But in Athens, the Apostle Paul preached to pagans who knew nothing about the Old Testament and the prophets and the law of Moses. So with them, he started with creation. Creation evangelism is the right way to go when you're dealing with a secular society. That's what Ken Ham and the Onsen Genesis ministry do. Creation evangelism, that's a wonderful way to begin for people who are not in any way churched. God created all the races of mankind. God now commands all men everywhere to repent. God will judge the whole world. And so that is a good thing when you're going to people who are not religious or in any way churched. And so you start with creation evangelism and the fact of creation, judgment, sinfulness of man. So with that, we now come to the Evangelism Explosion Program. Now, interaction helps. You know, you only remember about 10% of what you hear. you can remember 30 or 40% of what you see. You can remember more like 50% of what you see and hear at the same time. And when you take notes, and you repeat it, and you have actions along with it, and you repeat it, then it can be up to 80, 90% you'll remember. So the more you can participate, people, the better. So let me teach you the marching song, and we can do it together. Now, you know in the army, you've got marching songs and one person sounds out the line and then everyone else repeats it. So let's stand and let's do the marching song. So. and follow after me, nice and loud. For the weight of sin is death. For the weight of sin is death. Calming at you when you draw your last breath. Calming at you when you draw your last breath. You don't need to know this strife. You don't need to know this strife. For the gift of God is eternal life. For the gift of God is eternal life. Romans 6 verse 23. Romans 6 verse 23. Tell me now what it's going to be. Tell me now what it's going to be. Death, life, death, life, death, life, death, Where is the end on life? Okay, we'll get back to it just now. So, if you want to sit down, let me give you the gospel presentation. Now, again, this is summarizing the evangelical explosion. We will do it again. I'm going to give you, Evangelical Explosion is summarized. The core message, the idea of memorizing it is to have bones or skeleton on which you can hang the flesh. Obviously, we meant to expand more. But with a Sunday school or church or school assembly, you can give the whole presentation, which I'll lead you now. But let me just present it first. Where will you spend eternity? Of course, that's a good question. What do you think happens after you die? Good question to get people started. Do you ever think about heaven? If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven? Heaven is a free gift. It's not something you can work for or deserve. Man is a sinner, and we cannot save ourselves. You can imagine in quicksand or in the ocean, can you save yourself? You can't pull yourself up by your own hair. You're just going down. God is holy, loving, and just. On the one hand, God loves us and he doesn't want to punish us. But on the other hand, God is just and he must punish sin. Can you see the problem? God solved this problem by sending his son Jesus. Jesus is God. He came from heaven above, He lived a perfect life. He died on a cross to pay for our sins. He rose from the dead. He is in heaven now, offering us the free gift of eternal life. How do I get this gift? By faith. Now, faith is not just knowing something ahead. It's not just temporary. Saving faith is trusting in Jesus Christ alone with your whole heart. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Does this make sense to you? Even after you've given the gospel presentation, you've got to give the person a chance for questions, clarify what do you mean by faith, what do you mean by repentance, and so on, and that's fine, you explain. And then at a certain point, when you think the person understands well enough, you've got to bring them to a point of decision. At that point, you ask a straightforward question. Would you like to pray now and ask Jesus to forgive your sins and to give you the gift of eternal life? I mean, a person can say yes, no, or not now, or I'm not ready, or something, I've got lots of time, but this is a point to always remember to end your presentation with an opportunity, invitation, a challenge for the person to make a decision. You can pray this prayer if the person needs guidance. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on a cross for my sins. I'm sorry for my sins. Please forgive me. Come into my heart and help me to love and obey you as my Lord and Savior. Amen. He who believes has eternal life. Right, okay, let's get back to practicing. Marching song. For the wages of sin is death. Calming at you when you draw your last breath. You don't need to know this strife. For the gift of God is eternal life. Romans 6 verse 23. Tell me now what it's going to be. Death, life, death, life. Life. Okay, well, repetition brings revelation. So let's try again. I'm sure we can do it better. Repetition brings revelation. Do you ever think about heaven? Notice the signs. Let me just show you the signs again, so you can get the bare bones. So thinking, put finger pointing up towards your head. And then heaven, two hands directly pointing towards heaven, heaven. Man, two thumbs point towards yourself, man, because that includes me. When I say mankind has sinned, I'm including myself, all right? As Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners, so man. God, two hands held up like surrender, like the Old Testament priests used to pray like this because God is the ultimate authority, so like surrendering to God. God, and then faith, two hands over your heart. and then commitment, two hands together in front, and prayer. So in a gospel presentation, E.E. divides between heaven, first get people to think about the Trinity, heaven, two hands pointed directly up, higher, higher up, not like this, higher. Okay, heaven, man, two thumbs pointed towards the God, Christ, faith, Okay, that's the bare bones. That's what you're working through in a conversation or sermon dealing with evangelism. So let's do the bare bones again. Heaven? Man? God? Christ? Faith? Commitment? Okay, let's start. Do you ever think about heaven? If you were to die today, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven? No, repeat after me. Start again. Do you ever think about heaven? If you were to die today, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven? Heaven is a free gift. It's not something you can work for or deserve. Man is a sinner. And we cannot save ourselves. God is holy, loving and just. On the one hand, God loves us and he doesn't want to punish us. But on the other hand, God is just and he must punish sin. Can you see the problem? God solved this problem by sending his son Jesus. Jesus is God. He came from heaven above. He lived a perfect life. He died on the cross to pay for our sins. He rose from the dead. He is in heaven now, offering us the free gift of eternal life. How does one get this gift? By faith. Now faith is not just knowing something in your head. It's not just temporary. Saving faith is trusting in Jesus Christ alone with your whole heart. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Does this make sense to you? Would you like to pray now? and ask Jesus to forgive your sins and to give you the gift of eternal life. You can pray this prayer. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I am sorry for my sins. Please forgive me. Come into my heart. Help me to love and obey you as my Lord and Saviour. Amen. He who believes has eternal life. Marching song. For the wage of sin is death Calving at you, you draw your last breath You don't need to know this strife For the gift of God is eternal life Romans 6 verse 23 Tell me now what it's going to be Death, life, death, life, death, life Life. Amen. Thank you. Please be seated. So for sharing the gospel, it's very helpful to have a point of contact. You need a point of contact, and gospel literature provides that point of contact. The gospel is seed, and we know that God's word will never turn void. So if you've got some gospel booklets with you, check publications, different tracks, you'll find people will be grateful for something to read, and most people in Africa accept gospel literature. So strongly recommend, always carry gospel literature with you. And it's important to have the right tools for the trade. I always like shirts and jackets that have pockets. You want to have lots of space in your pockets for literature. And people's handbags. I mean, what's the point of a woman's handbag if it doesn't carry tracks? What's the point of a cubbyhole in a car if it doesn't have tracks or a man's briefcase? And I'm disappointed at the amount of people who wear T-shirts these days, because T-shirts don't have a track pocket. I wear T-shirts for PT, and that's it. And it's underwear. You've got to have a track pocket, or you've got to wear a moon bag or something to carry your tracks in. We need to have somewhere that you can carry gospel literature. Now, I've got a range of good materials. Now, sometimes you can use gospel posters, the broad way, narrow way. So this one, for example, we've got them in different languages. And when you get these put up in school classrooms, in churches, Sunday schools, It's a regular way of challenging people with the Gospel. There are two roads. We've got a very effective visitation tool, the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Romans, in English, French, Portuguese, different languages. If you're doing door-to-door, giving a Gospel at the home is outstanding. So, for example, we've had, when I was converted, The church through which I was converted, Pines Baptist Church, was putting a Gospel of Saint Mark in every home in Pines. So that's 4,500 different homes in Pines at that stage. There's now 5,000. And it was a tenable goal to put A Gospel of Mark in Every Home, and that's the first book of the Bible I read was the Gospel of Mark. It's the first book of the New Testament produced, the first gospel I should say that was produced, and Mark is very active, saying John is great for people who know something about the gospel already. John's gospel is more advanced. It takes you much further than the others. But still, I think Mark or John are two of the best gospels to dispute for gospel literature. We did dispute St. Luke at some stage because that's what the Jesus film is based on. And Romans is the best when it comes to the way of salvation. Now there's some good tracks here. Let me just show you some of the tracks that we have here. I've put a whole lot on the counter for people who want to help themselves. But for example, just some good tracks. The way the Marston produces great things, one that I like is the world's 10 most popular things, and it's a scratch card. So you use a penny and you can scratch out what doesn't see exactly what that says. So we've got Are You a Good Person? Very popular. I like this one. It's all cartoons. And so Are You a Good Person? You hand this out, and people can say. I mean, it looks very friendly to teenagers and children in particular, but anyone it'll work with. And if they stop and they stand there and start opening it and looking at it, you can start asking them, well, are you a good person? And they will say, well, I'm a very good person. So those are good resources. Then you get things designed for special occasions. So here's the one million pounds commemoration to the coronation of Prince Charles, who's now King Charles III. And so we had these printed by Way of the Master for the coronation outreach in Britain. Millions of people came to London. And you know, it's very easy to give out money. And so, all memento, and, you know, what is it? It's a gospel tract that's a commemoration of the coronation of King Charles III. And so, you can start conversations with people in shops. I've asked people, did you go to the coronation? No. Did you watch the coronation? Yes, everyone watched the coronation. Would you like a memento for that? And this has got the gospel presentation on the back of what looks like money. And we've got others like that, too. Which square is darker? This is great for teenagers. All kinds of clever visual effects, which just shows people how your mind can be deceived. And we've designed some tracks for special occasions, like the greatest man ever lived. I wrote this for Christmas. And we distribute these at Christmas, in particular, very effective in shopping centers. And do you know the reason for the season? Do you remember whose birthday we're celebrating? I'd give them this. So, around the Christmas season, particularly effective, the greatest person who ever lived. And then there was a film that came out a while ago called God's Not Dead. Well, that's a good series. So when the films are in the theater, we printed out our tracks on the evidence for the faith, and the faith on trial, and made it look like it's an advert for the cinema. And so we'd be in the shopping malls handing these out. Security didn't even bother us because they thought we were advertising a film at Stoke Unicole. but it's actually a good gospel tract. When Risen came out, we produced this tract with the evidence for the resurrection, Risen, and it looks like it's an advert for the film. There's a model on it. And just like in America, they were using the Titanic as an icebreaker. They said, you know, Titanic, it always goes down well. Titanic always goes down well. It's a good icebreaker. So he would use that to start conversations. So we used the Risen. at Easter, you know, using it as a conversation starter. Again, to remember that, do you know the real story behind Easter? It's not about Easter bunnies. And so we tell them about the empty tomb. The best tract for Muslims I've come across was produced by a board member, Gerhard Niels, who's the oldest combat veteran of the Second World War that I know that's still alive. Gerhard Niels dedicated his life to bringing people to Christ amongst the Muslims, and so he designed this What Do You Think of the Messiah? It's designed in such a way that a Muslim will find it acceptable. It's not outwardly offensive to Muslims. It's not coming attacking Muhammad or anything. It's promoting Jesus. that he is the Messiah and using both the Quran and the Bible to prove this. And this I love distributing to Muslims, very effective, written by someone who understands the Muslim world. My attempt to reach Muslims two men went up to the temple to pray. It's a message on the Pharisee, the religious leader. I thank you God I'm not like other men, I'm not like the tax collector over there. And the penitent tax collector beats his chest saying, God have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. And to plainly show how It's not the man who is religious and self-righteous who is righteous before God. The Lord says he prayed to himself and God didn't even listen to his prayer. But the one who was righteous before God was the repentant sinner. God have mercy on me, a sinner. And he went away justified. God listened to his prayer and God answered his. In Easter we also use this, who killed Jesus. We've got this available in Afrikaans as well. The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. I've distributed these in hospitals without any problem because it looks like it's a medical information thing. I've gone and handed these to patients waiting in a patient's waiting room and to people in beds and nurse's stations. So sometimes you've got a track that looks, this is just designed for Red Cross Hospital and so on. You've got also tracks like the million dollar Einstein track, which is, again, where the master. I've got these all out on account here. You're welcome to take examples. When my son went on a jamboree to Japan, I looked for a Japanese-themed tract, and I discovered the story of Mitsuya Fushida. He's the commander who led the Pearl Harbor attack. He was the head of the Japanese fleet air arm who actually flew in and bombed Pearl Harbor. And he became a Christian through evangelistic literature and the Bible. And his testimony's phenomenal, how God spared his life. There's so many times he should have died. He was even in... Hiroshima, the day before it was bombed, and he was called away at the last minute to go to Tokyo for some special meeting, and while he was away, his entire staff was wiped out in an atomic bomb, came back the next day not knowing about radiation, and all of his team who came to investigate died of radiation poisoning, but he alone survived, and he was wondering, what's all this for? Why is my life being spared? Then he comes across the gospel, and he's converted and he becomes a great evangelist. So it's a wonderful testimony. So that's a tract we designed. During our hysterical time of drought, and everyone was having to queue for water, we produced this Wonders of Water, what science teaches about water, what the Bible teaches about water, and the gospel presentation through water. You know, while you're standing up, queuing at Newlands Spring, people are just thinking about water, so. You can have theme tracks. There's also some other good tracks. We've got, like, 60 Second Gospel, a whole gospel in 60 seconds. Seven Things You Need to Know, good evangelistic tracks. And there's a whole range of others like that. So, we've also got here some great resources from Small Paul, the Chalk Talk evangelist, a whole lot of his Chalk Talk presentations on DVD. And he also put together a whole lot of a library of good things, which includes true life stories, testimonies, some various useful evangelistic materials. So these DVDs are available here, also free for you. We've also got anti-human trafficking leaflet, we're printing 5,000 for the upcoming Women's Day Outreachers. Very easy to distribute these. I have websites, contact details, a telephone number, helpline for human trafficking. Super easy to present this to people, advertising different forms, both Hollywood forms and others, like Sound of Freedom, The Whistleblower, Nefarious. And so these leaflets... On Women's Day, you can walk down the street, as we will, and Happy Women's Day, and make a stand against human trafficking, and it's got the gospel in it, too. It's thematic. So you'll see these on the counter here. Help yourself. There's other things that I would draw your attention to. We've got library books that we can loan to people who want evidence for the resurrection, evidence for the Bible, fulfillment of prophecy, evidence that demands a verdict. This is the book. The Case for the Creator, The Case for Christ. Lee Strobel was the journalist who investigated the evidence for the resurrection. So we've got books like this we can lend to people who are serving and studying. More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, who is a cynical, skeptical university professor. And then he is challenged by his students to investigate the resurrection of Christ. And he put together a whole lot of evidence on how Jesus is much more than a carpenter. People who are suffering with death or members of their family, Randy Alcorn's book on heaven, absolutely magnificent. And then there's a whole lot of other good tracts that we've produced, like the hard words of Jesus. How can I know Jesus is the Messiah? This is designed for, for example, especially Jewish people, show them the way of salvation, using even the Old Testament. There's some outstanding other tracts we've got here. One second after you die, this is, Mark Cahill's And Wanting You Can't Turn Heaven. We've done hard-hitting tracks like Eternal Judgment, which is the doctrine of hell. And then there's some other strange, interesting little cards that you can use, which will fascinate some of the youngsters when you start seeing all the different things you can, the different messages in it. So if you want an evangelistic tool, these are the kind of evangelist tools. It's got so many clever messages here. You've just got to be able to fold it right. outside and so on. So very clever and genius ways of presenting the gospel. There's tracts here, there's DVDs and books there. We've even got the Hell's Best Kept Secret book and a range of other tracts. So don't leave here without good evangelistic tracts.
Evangelism Explosion by Dr. Peter Hammond
Series Evangelism Workshop 2024
Sermon ID | 816241259468140 |
Duration | 51:06 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Language | English |
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