Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Evangelism (11/01/07)
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TITLE: Where are the Evangelists? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jim Hall
11/05/07 -
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They were the Evangelists.
They didn’t coddle, they admonished. Never pampered-they extorted. Though keen on human weakness-they never gave it place.
They were the Evangelists.
Their words of condemnation were never for those desperately seeking God, but only for those arrogantly satisfied in their sin. They feared no man, no devil, no adversary. Their hearts were faint only under the immeasurable weight of unrighteousness.
They were the Evangelists.
When they went to prayer; hell shook. When they mounted the pulpit; worlds changed. They knew revival came; not by a popular sermon of selfish gain, but by proclaiming genuine repentance from sin and a deep desire for personal holiness.
They were the Evangelists.
They preached a deep longing for a real place called heaven while passionately warning against a place-just as real-called hell. They never acclimated to their temporary residence but rather their eyes continually swept the sky, diligently in search of their real home. They would only truly rest when in the presence of Jesus Christ the king.
They were the Evangelists.
They offended. They angered. They terrified. But, they never waived. Their message was of Spilled Blood and an Old Rugged Cross. That never changed, regardless of who did or didn’t approve. They abhorred ‘political correctness’ while grasping inconsolably toward ‘God correctness’.
They were the Evangelists.
Their focus was never on crowds, money, or numbers but on the souls of men and the approving nod of the risen King. When accosted by powerful men, they never blinked. When convicted by the Holy Spirit, they would travail for long days and nights of earnest prayer. Their meals were for the sustenance of their physical bodies only, but their nourishment came at the hands of God’s Word.
They were the Evangelists!
Pulpits across America bemoan the lack of teachers, children’s workers, choir members, and, of course, piano players. Week after week, weary pastors beg their congregations for bodies to fill positions. Why? To make the church work of course! The sad fact is that even as they plead with dispassionate members to help ease the load, the real need is too often overlooked.
Bodies can easily fill positional voids but it takes a ‘minister’ to make an eternal difference.
What earns a man the title of Evangelist? It doesn’t come from Seminary, Bible College or even at the feet of a great pastor or preacher. It is manifested only by a passion, inserted into the spirit of a man by the One and Only Holy God. It can’t be had by a good upbringing or an uncanny ability to speak before crowds. It can only be gained by a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit and an infusion by the risen King of Kings. Books can’t reveal it. Professors can’t provide it. Programs don’t prepare one for it. Neither the call, nor the gift is imparted by a ‘great church service’. It comes solely through a special unction that originates from on high and results in an extraordinary desire to kill the flesh and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
With it comes a burden. With a burden comes a passion. With a passion comes travail. With travail come tears. With tears come sleepless nights in laborious prayer and fasting. With laborious prayer and fasting comes death to self and a redirection of the will. With all of this comes a man, so in tune to the Spirit of God and so incongruent with the world that, outside of sin, he scarcely realizes its existence.
Such a burden creates men such as the venerable Scottish revivalist, Andrew Bonar, who, while the people filled the taverns and streets on Saturday nights, would lie on his bed crying from a tortured soul; “Oh, they perish, they perish!” Speaking of this great minister of the Gospel, the late Leonard Ravenhill stated; “Many of us know only a slick, tearless, passionless, soulless round of preaching, which passes for a minister’s office these days.”
I wish that space would permit me to expound on the lives of men who, through true evangelistic preaching, changed the course of history, beat back the ruthless advances of the enemy and swelled the coffers of heaven. Without a doubt, no true and lasting revival has ever been sparked by the impotent, Cross-less, Bloodless, repentance-less, sanctification-less, Christ-less preaching that is so prevalent, and extolled today in the name of revival preaching.
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