Evangelism God's Way, Part 1

Introduction: The Need for Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism

0:03 Now, what I propose to do in the ministry of the Word today, and probably most likely again this evening and then through next Lord's Day morning, is to bring to you a brief series of studies entitled Some Biblical Perspectives Concerning God-Honoring Spirit-Empowered Evangelistic Endeavors. Some Biblical Perspectives Concerning God-Honoring Spirit-Empowered Evangelistic Endeavors. Those of you who have been a part of this church for any length of time know that it's been our pattern through the years. Whenever we have moved into an area of specific ministry, I have sought, or one of the other elders, to, as it were, pave the way into that ministry where we can move into the ministry of God-Honoring Spirit-Empowered Evangelistic Endeavors. With clear instruction from the Word of God. And so what I'm attempting to do is not something new, it is simply following that pattern, and surely, surely, if you're thinking at all in the light of the Scriptures, you would not want to be involved in any kind of an endeavor, let alone an evangelistic endeavor, that is, an endeavor to communicate the Gospel that in any way took away from the honor of God.

1:29 Above all things, God is to be glorified and honored in all that we do. And so I want to set before you some Biblical perspectives concerning God-honoring evangelistic endeavors, and certainly we would not want to launch into these endeavors without the aid of the promised Holy Spirit. You shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be blessed. And so I want to set before you some Biblical perspectives concerning God-honoring evangelistic endeavors, and certainly we would not want to launch into these endeavors without the aid of the promised Holy Spirit.

2:11 That same emphasis is found in the last chapter of the Gospel of Luke, in which our Lord commissions His people and then tells them that they are to wait in Jerusalem until the promised Holy Spirit is sent forth upon them. And so I have enticed you to wait in Jerusalem until the promised Holy Spirit is sent forth upon them. And so I have enticed you to wait in Jerusalem until the promised Holy Spirit is sent forth upon them. And so I have entitled our study in the Word of God Some Biblical Perspectives Concerning God-Honoring Spirit-Empowered Evangelistic Endeavors.

2:43 And the organizing imagery that I'm going to use for these few messages is that of a tree firmly rooted in healthy, nourishing soil. If I had a blackboard, I'd draw it for you. If you have a blackboard, you have my desk. In preparation, I drew it to help me in trying to organize my thoughts.

The Soil of Evangelism: The Word of God

3:05 So I want you to picture a cross-section of soil. There's the ground, and beneath it, there is the soil, and then there's the tree with its taproots, its trunk, its major branches, and then its leafage. And I want to spend just a few moments, first of all, heading number one, and consider with you the soil of God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavors, and state very simply and bluntly that that soil must be the Word of God. The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament must regulate our thinking and our action.

3:49 Much in the way of evangelistic activity in our day, many of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament and the programs that are floated and promoted, many of the schemes that are foisted upon evangelicalism are not rooted in the healthy soil of Scripture, but rather in the poisoned, noxious soil of Madison Avenue, pop psychology, and secular marketing and sales techniques in which the consumer is king. And there are books written, that tell you how to evangelize an un-evangelized community, and how to plant a church in that community. You begin by taking a survey of the people in that community, asking them, what kind of a church would you like to have? And then you frame your, quote, church-planting endeavor by the desire of the consumer. The consumer is king. And there are many results from these, these kinds of activities.

4:56 However, much of that which is called success in those activities comes under the description of 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 12, wood, hay, and stubble that will go up in smoke in the day of the Lord's trial of what sort that success is. However, if we would engage in efforts to bring the gospel to the unsaved around us in a way that glorifies God, and in a way in which we can pray for and expect the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, our efforts must be framed and carried out in keeping with the precepts, the principles, and the precedents of Holy Scripture. Should we be enterprising and willing to think, outside the box of what we've done before? Yes. Should we be innovative?

6:01 Yes. Should we be energetic? Yes. But should we ever leap the bounds of Scripture?

6:08 No. You remember what Paul said to Timothy. A man is not crowned in the games unless he keeps the rules. He cannot establish the rules of the contest and expect to win the crown.

6:23 You and I, I must keep the rules. We must, by the grace of God, seek to cull out of the Scriptures those precepts, those principles, and those precedents that will give us confidence that what we are doing in planting the tree of our conscious, church-wide evangelistic endeavor is the rich, fertile soil of the Word of the living God. You'll remember what Paul said to Timothy, a text that you have considered in detail in the adult class in the last couple of weeks. Paul, writing to Timothy in his second letter, chapter 3, says in verse 16, All Scripture is God-breathed and is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness. Now notice the particular emphasis and focus, for which Scripture is all of these things. That's the man of God. And that's a peculiar term for Timothy.

7:34 It's a term with its roots in the Old Testament, referring to some of the prophets, the man of God. And he's saying to Timothy, Scripture is all of these things in itself. God-breathed, revelatory data, profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction, in the realm of righteousness, that you, Timothy, as man of God, may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work. Timothy, would you engage in the good work which I will command you in just a few sentences in chapter 4, when he says in chapter 4 in verse 5, Do the work of an evangelist. Do the work of one who communicates the gospel to those who are ignorant of it, pleading with them to close with its benefits and its offers. Timothy, Scripture is sufficient to furnish you to this good work. And would we as a church do the good work in a new and concentrated way of seeking to fulfill our Lord's directive with respect to being witnesses unto Him or witnesses of Him in our Jerusalem?

8:58 Then it is to Scripture that we look in order to be furnished for this good work. We do not look to those who have primarily absorbed their thinking and their schemes from Madison Avenue, from pop psychology, and from sales techniques. We look to Holy Scripture. And this is the passionate desire of your pastors and pastors.

9:24 And I trust it is the passionate desire of each one of you. And that's why I have chosen to lead us into this new endeavor by bringing this brief series of messages on some biblical perspectives concerning God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavors. And I'm calling upon you as God's people to pray that as we labor together, convinced that all that we need is found in this book, that God will give us fresh life out of the book as we wrestle in this endeavor. And as we face issues that we've not faced before, and we wrestle with questions that we've not raised before, that God will help us together to wrestle and to labor with the conviction that this book is the sufficient rule of our faith and of our faith. And of our practice even in this corporate endeavor. So much then for the soil endeavor. Now we come secondly to take up the tap roots of God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavors.

Taproot 1: Seeing People as Uniquely Created in the Image of God

10:42 You know what the tap roots are. They're the main roots from which all secondary roots spring and supply nourishment to the tree. Well, believing that we have good soil in our bodies, what are the tap roots? What are those main roots from which the tree of this endeavor will draw nourishment with the blessing of God in the days to come?

11:10 Well, this morning and this evening we're going to examine tap root number one. Tap root number one, and it is this. It is a biblical understanding and personal conviction and personal conviction concerning, concerning who and what people really are. If we would be engaged in any kind of concentrated evangelistic endeavor that glorifies God and upon which we can expect the blessing of the Spirit of God, we must have a biblical understanding and personal conviction concerning who and what people really are. So that when we look at people, i.e., those neighbors that we hope to invite to our local Bible study, those whom we may meet when we sit down in John Jones' living room and we are introduced to them, how will we look upon them?

12:24 I'm asserting that if we would engage in God-honoring, spirit-empowering, and spiritual power and evangelistic endeavors, we must have a biblical understanding and personal conviction and persuasion of who and what these people really are. Not what they may think themselves to be, not what society may judge them to be, not what we would naturally think them to be, but what the Bible says that they are. And that's what we need to do. And that's what we need to do.

13:00 And that's what we need to do. They really are. This is so crucial. I want to show you just one example of this from the ministry of our Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 9.

13:11 Very familiar passage. Very familiar passage.

13:18 Verse 35.

13:21 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. But when he saw the moment of death, here are the milling masses all around him in privileged Israel, most of them adherents to temple worship and to all of the blessings and privileges of God's covenant people. He was moved with compassion for them because, now notice, because they were,

14:01 they were, not they appeared to be, or they, they assessed themselves to be, but he was moved with compassion because he saw them for what they really were. Because they were distressed and scattered as sheep, not having a shepherd. Well, I didn't think they were scattered. I thought they were all gathered around him, following him as he taught and as he healed.

14:36 But though they were gathered around them, he saw them for who and what they really were in their true spiritual state. And they were distressed and scattered,

14:52 not having a shepherd. This had peculiar significance in terms of the decadent religious leaders of the day. Our Lord saw beneath the surface of things and viewed them in spiritual reality. And that's the point that I'm making, that you and I, like our Lord, must view people, we must see them for who and what they really are.

15:24 If we are to be passionate about seeing the gospel brought to men, we must understand and truly believe what the Bible teaches us concerning who and what they are as men. And I'm using the word men as the generic terminology and I don't want to say every time I use it men, women, boys and girls. All right? I know it's not politically correct and I know that the whole editing world has gone crazy with the other, but just give me a little slack this morning so I can save a few words.

15:59 All right? Well, what I want to set before you today is that there are four things that men really, they truly are, four things that we must understand and passionately believe about them if we are to be engaged in God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavors. Number one, we must see people as uniquely created in the image of God. We must see people as uniquely created in the image of God.

16:37 Regardless of where we are, regardless of where we are, regardless of where we are, regardless of where we are, regardless of where they are on the spectrum of observable moral behavior, regardless of where they are on the spectrum of religious understanding or ignorance, regardless of where they are in their racial, social, economic standing, we must see them fundamentally for who and what they are as uniquely created in the image of God. And here, of course, I'm going all the way back to Genesis chapter 1. In the creation account,

17:15 we read in verse 26, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Verse 27, and God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he himself, male and female, created he them.

17:47 And though we will touch on the subsequent tragedy of the fall and what that has done to man's essential being, James 3 and verse 9 tells us that we are still in our present state image bearers of God. For when James is dealing with this matter of the use of the tongue, this is what he says in James 3, and verse 9. James 3 and verse 9.

18:18 Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men who are made after the likeness of God. When cursing men curse other men, they are cursing God's image,

18:34 made in the image of God.

18:38 Dr. Packer, in his very helpful little book, Concise Theology, commenting on this concept, of man created in the image of God, writes, the statement at the start of the Bible, that God made man in his own image so that humans are like God as no other earthly creatures are, tells us that the special dignity of being human is that as humans we may reflect and reproduce at our own creaturely level. The holy ways of God and thus act as his direct representatives on earth. This is what humans are made to do. And in one sense, we are human only to the extent that we're doing it. What does it mean to be made in God's image? Humans are like God as no other earthly creatures are.

19:42 And it tells us that the special dignity of being human is that as humans we may reflect and reproduce at our own creaturely level the holy ways of God and thus act as his direct representatives on earth. And growing out of that heightened dignity of what it is to be a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, is the fact that only man made in the image of God has a capacity to know and consciously commune and fellowship with God. No cow, no whale that plies the seas, no beautifully spotted leopard, whatever it reflects of God's wisdom and power and aesthetic sensitivities, that creature has no capacity to know its creator. To worship the one that made it so powerful, so massive, or so beautiful. Only man was made with this capacity consciously to know and to commune with God. He was made to delight in his God, to consciously obey his God.

21:04 He was made with the moral awareness of what it meant to obey him and what it meant to carry the threat of God's judgment if he disobeyed. And above all, he was made with a God-shaped hole that only God could fill.

21:23 That's man. And if God is pleased to bless your efforts to see that neighbor brought to the Bible study, how do you look upon that man out of whose mouth every other word is an expletive, who seems to have absolutely no sense of even social decency to hold back his foul language in decent company, he is image of God. He has a capacity to know God. He was made to have communion with God.

21:59 He was made to consciously seek to represent God accurately in this life, in this world, within his human limitations. And above all, he's got a God-shaped hole that cannot be filled with anything other than the God who made him in his own image. And we need to understand that. And we need to passionately believe that if we are to engage in God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavors.

22:35 We need, on the one hand, to view such creatures if they do not know God and do not delight in God and do not find their joy in obeying God and cannot say that the God-shaped hole is indeed God. Indeed, being filled with God himself as revealed in Christ, we need to view them on the one hand as moral thieves,

23:02 robbing God of the very purpose of their creation, made to glorify Him, made to delight in Him, made to commune with God, made to find their highest joys in God. They are robbing God of His due from them. And we need to pity them for they rob themselves of the very essence of what it is to be human, made in the image of God and become, in a very real sense, as the psalmist says in several instances, they become like beasts. Beasts that simply are satisfied simply with the filling of their bellies and the fulfilling of their animal instincts.

Taproot 2: Seeing People as Fallen and Ruined in Adam

23:54 Men who do not come to grips with who and what they are as image of God are like the beasts that perish, the psalmist says. You and I must learn to cultivate in our minds this biblical perspective and consciously attempt to look upon people for who and what they really are as uniquely created in the image of God. But then secondly, we must see people as really fallen and ruined in connection with Adam. We must cultivate in our minds, in our hearts, not merely an understanding but a present conviction that they are indeed not only uniquely created in the image of God but really fallen and ruined in connection with Adam.

25:05 We must see people and we must learn to look on every man, woman, boy or girl convinced that we know the name of his or her most distant relative and it is their relationship to that most distant relative that is the most significant thing about who and what they are in their present state.

25:30 In other words, I may be taken back into some remote place and I meet someone far removed from the civilized life. I can look him in the eye and say through an interpreter, Sir, I know the name of your most distant relative and I know that your relationship to him is the most significant thing about you.

25:57 And that most distant relative is Adam. And what you and I are in Adam is the most significant thing about us in our present condition. We read about it just a couple of weeks ago in Romans chapter 5. A truth that is often ignored, overlooked, hated in our day that Almighty God sovereignly chose to make our first father, Adam, the representative of the entire human race.

26:33 So that if Adam were to stand in his integrity of obedience, the entire race would have stood in him and with him if he chose to rebel against Adam's God and to sin the entire human race rebels and sins in him and with him. Language could not be more clear. Romans 5.12 Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin and so death passed unto all men for that all sinned.

27:13 When did all sin? When did all sin? When did all sin? When did all sin?

27:15 When did all sin? When did all sin? When did all sin? When did all sin?

27:15 When did all sin? When did all sin? All sinned in the one man sin Adam. All sinned in him.

27:23 And so the remainder of this chapter brings before us again and again the words sin, condemnation, and death. Death, condemnation, and sin. So that the apostle can summarize, as it were, this entire paragraph in his own words in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, 4 as in Adam all die. Again, words could not be more clear.

27:56 In Adam all die. Because God sovereignly chose to appoint him the head and representative of the entire human race. And we must train ourselves to think in those biblical terms. Whatever else, I know or do not know about my neighbor, this I know.

28:20 His or her most distant relative is Adam and it is that relationship that is the most significant thing about that man, that woman, that boy, that girl. In Adam, sin, condemnation, and death. So that according to the scriptures, if that neighbor is not united to Christ and is not united to God, and is not united to Christ, and is not in the second man, is not in the Lord Jesus, is not in Christ, but still in Adam, that neighbor is in a state of total depravity, of complete inability, and total responsibility. And we need to grasp that biblical reality and constantly bring ourselves to think in those biblical categories. Men are not what they may appear to be, they are what God says they are. And in Adam, every fallen man, woman, boy or girl is indeed that state that the theologians call total depravity, total inability, and total accountability.

Understanding Total Depravity, Inability, and Accountability

29:44 Now let me open those up, briefly. What do the theologians mean when they use the term total depravity? They do not mean that any one of the fallen sons of Adam is as wicked as he or she could possibly be.

30:00 By the term total depravity, they are simply attempting to express the biblical truth taught from Genesis to Revelation, that the effects of sin extend to every single category of what makes us human. Mind, affections, desires, will, physical faculties. It speaks of extent of sin, that it extends to every single faculty and every single, if we may use the word, department of what makes us who and what we are. Romans 3, 10 and following is a classic example of that. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not, one. There's none that understands. There's the faculty of the mind, twisted.

30:58 There's none that understands. None that seeks athod, perverted affections. They have all together gone out of the way, moral rebellion.

31:12 Their mouth is like an open grave.

31:18 Their tongues use deceit. No fear of God before their eyes. A description of how sin has insinuated itself into the totality of the human experience. Total depravity.

31:33 Paul can speak of Ephesians 2, of being dead in trespasses and sins and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. He can speak in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, in whom the God of this world, has blinded the minds.

31:57 Total depravity. No faculty that is not affected by sin. And let me say, and you need to understand this, because you'll be dealing with people who are subjected to influences that completely erode this biblical teaching. Sin has insinuated itself into the gene pool.

32:16 And there is no question that certain individuals are born with proclivities and strong predispositions to this or that sin. But in no way does that neutralize as we shall see total accountability. Furthermore, it is total inability.

32:40 And what do I mean by that? Simply this. Listen to these three texts. 1 Corinthians 2, 14.

32:47 The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, for they are spiritually deserved. The word can is the word of ability. And the apostle says that the things of the Spirit of God that are revealed in the words of apostolic revelatory data, the natural man does not receive them.

33:17 Why? Because they are foolishness to him. They make no sense. Neither can he know them.

33:25 Inability to rightly perceive saving truth. Furthermore, Romans 8, 7 says, The carnal mind is enmity against God. That is, the prevailing disposition of the mindset of the Spirit of every person who is not in Christ, who is yet in Adam, is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God.

33:53 Neither indeed can it be. Here's our word can again. Neither indeed can it be. The prevailing disposition, the disposition with which we are born, cannot be subject to the law of God.

34:09 It must be radically renewed.

34:14 Then you have the words of our Lord Jesus in John 6, 44. No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. You mean man is so utterly devastated by sin that he can't even get to the one remedy that he needs without divine enablement? That's exactly what Jesus taught.

34:43 No man, universal, can come to me except the Father which has sent draw him.

35:01 That's your dear neighbor. That's my dear doctor friend.

35:08 That's my two unconverted children. The people that will be sitting in that Bible study,

35:18 totally, totally depraved,

35:23 unable to lift themselves out of that state and totally accountable. Totally accountable. And here again I set before you three texts of Scripture. Romans 3 and verse 21.

35:43 What things soever the law says. 320, I'm sorry. It says to those, verse 19, that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God. When we rightly understand the demands of God's holy law and what we are in the light of it, it brings us into a mouth stopping experience.

36:12 No extenuating circumstances, no shifting of blame, no transferring blame to my genes, to my environment, to my opportunities, to my upbringing, to conditioning factors. No, God's law meets me in the depths of my being and says you are the man and it shuts my mouth. It shuts it now. It will shut it in the day of judgment.

36:43 Matthew 16 and verse 27. We have from the words of our Lord Jesus this very clear statement of total accountability. Matthew 16 and verse 27. For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels and then shall He render unto every man according to His deeds.

37:13 He shall render to every man according to His deeds. Total accountability. And then that graphic picture in Revelation chapter 20 where John sees the setting of a great white man. A great white throne.

37:30 One who sits upon it from whose face earth and heaven flees away. And books are opened and we read in verse 12. And the dead were judged out of the things that were written in the books according to their works. Verse 13.

37:50 And the sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them and they were judged every man according to their works. Total accountability.

38:07 And if God is pleased to give us inroads with real, raw, nice or not so nice contemporary pagans, this is the point that we will need desperately to press because they've been so conditioned by their educational framework and by popular views that are constantly being promulgated that people are not able to understand that people are the victims of their genetic predispositions. Their environment and domestic influences. No.

38:44 You shoot a man, you will be held accountable for squeezing the trigger. Even if that man provoked you day in and day out for a decade, you still pulled the trigger.

38:59 And it's irrelevant to me if in time people discover that there are certain genes or genetic predispositions to this or that or some other kind of sin or aberrant behavior.

39:14 Jesus says they will be judged according to their deeds. Their deeds. There may be a predisposition to this or that but it is the consent of your will and the will of that one who is an impenitent, unbelieving sinner that he will confront in the day of judgment. I say, dear brothers and sisters, if we are to engage in God-honored, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavor, we must understand and passionately believe that people are who and what God says they are.

39:59 Who and what they are as uniquely created in the image of God. Who and what they are as really fallen fallen, ruined in Adam. So that they are in a condition according to God's analysis of them of total depravity, total inability, yet total accountability.

The Hope in God's Intervention for the Fallen

40:28 Now if we really believe that,

40:31 you see why we won't trust to any kind of psychological gimmicks to get people, quote, saved? What hope is there for people in that condition? But the intervention, of gracious omnipotence.

40:50 The Lord had to teach the disciples that. After he laid out some terms for a rich man and then said, how hardly shall they that are rich enter the kingdom of the disciples? Who daren't to be saved? He said, with men this is impossible.

41:06 But with God all things are possible. And in that beautiful passage in Ephesians 2 where Paul starts out on the base notes of what we are in Adam. Dead. Lackies of the devil and of our mental and physical passions and lust.

41:24 He transitions in verse 4 and says, But God, but God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead, hath quickened us together with Christ. And there will be an inward sense of our utter dependence upon God. The God who can quicken the dead, who can give sight to the blind, who can liberate the captives, who can change the carnal mind, who can subdue the rebel will, who can enable sinners to choose Christ on his flesh withering terms of all or nothing.

42:10 See, this is one of the great weaknesses of all evangelistic endeavors based upon psychological manipulation and sales techniques. They have to lower the standard of what it is to embrace Christ because no one will embrace an unseen Christ on his terms but one whose eyes have been opened by the Holy Spirit to see the loveliness of Jesus and the worth of Jesus and the reasonableness of his gracious commands and invitations to discipleship.

Taproot 3: Seeing People as Savable and Possibly Elect in Christ

42:52 And we need to plead with God that we will look upon people for who and what they really are. But then thirdly, and this will be my final one for this morning, we'll take up the fourth God willing tonight, we must not only see them as uniquely created in the image of God, really fallen and ruined in Adam so that they are in a state of total depravity, total inability, and total accountability, but we must see people as savable. I originally used the word salvable and it's a good word and it's in the dictionary but it wouldn't register with most of you and a lot of you would say is Pastor making up that word so I'll use savable though salvable I like better. So to accommodate myself I'll use savable. We must see them as savable and possibly elect in Christ.

43:51 We must train ourselves to look upon our own converted neighbors and work associates, our children, wherever we encounter them, not only in terms of what they are uniquely created in the image of God, truly ruined in Adam, but as savable and possibly elect in Christ. Now our Bibles clearly teach the doctrine of election. That is, that God has made a sovereign choice in love, of a vast multitude of sinners out of every kindred tribe and tongue and nation and purposed that they should know His saving grace in Christ. He gave that chosen people to His Son who voluntarily took upon Himself all of the responsibilities necessary to discharge in procuring salvation for them. And God, as promised, that in the life history of each one of those elect sinners, in due course, God will call them to Himself, as Paul said, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace, when it pleased God to call me. Paul, when did you get saved?

45:17 He said, right on God's timetable. Not a minute before, not a minute later. Paul clearly teaches these things. An attempt, an attempt to scrub that doctrine out of the Bible is a futile attempt.

45:31 But, God alone knows who His elect are before their election is revealed in their conversion and in their preservation and perseverance in the way of truth and holiness.

45:49 I cannot know who God's elect are. I cannot know my own election except in my conversion and in my preservation and perseverance in the way of truth. in the way of truth. in the way of truth.

45:59 in the way of truth. in the way of truth. in the way of truth. in the way of truth.

45:59 in the way of truth. in the way of truth. in the way of truth. in the way of truth.

45:59 in the way of truth. in the way of truth. the way of truth and holiness. But, and here's the wonderful thing, we have a right, we have a duty to look upon every living human being as savable, as one whom God can save by His grace, one whom God is able to transform by His power, no matter how unsavable He may look at any given moment. We have no right to mark off anyone as unsavable. I'm sure if a vote had been taken in the early church, when Paul was breathing out threatenings and slaughters and ripping mothers from their children and husbands from their wives, and you were to have had some kind of a survey, who do you think is the least likely man to become a Christian in the next five years? Paul would have won the vote hands down. Saul of Tharsis.

47:02 But he was not unsavable. When it was God's time, he said, I'll get my man. And one day Jesus came forth riding on His charger of gospel conquest, and He got His man. He got His man! And we have a right to look upon every human being as savable. With men, impossible.

Biblical Examples of Laboring for the Elect

47:26 But with God, all things possible. And as possibly elect in Christ. As surely as I can identify God's elect, I cannot and I have no right to identify His non-elect. There's no big E on their forehead. There's no big N on their forehead. And I want to show you from the Scriptures how this becomes a very integral part of the Apostle Paul and of our Lord Himself in this whole matter of gathering sinners to Jesus. I want you to turn with me to John 10. Verse 16. John 10 and verse 16. In this wonderful chapter in which the Lord Jesus identifies

48:18 Himself as the Good Shepherd. He's both the door of the sheep and He's the shepherd of the sheep. And He's the one who's going to lay down His life for the sheep. And now He says in verse 16, Other sheep I have. I already have them. They are God's, the Father's deposit to me. In my redemptive design and purpose and mission, I have them. I have them by divine deposit. Other sheep I have. They are not of this fold. They're not yet gathered in. Well, will they be gathered in, Lord? He said, Ah, yes, them also I must bring. And they shall hear my voice and they shall become one flock. One shepherd. You see, the Lord Jesus speaks with absolute confidence that all those who've

49:23 been given to Him by the Father, that He will gather them in. You see hints of this in His high priestly prayer in John 17. Even as you gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given Him, He should give eternal life. And He says, I'm going to bring them.

49:46 I must bring them, and they shall hear my voice. For our Lord facing the cross, and that's the context of this verse, verse 17, Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. It was the certainty of the salvation of all who had been given to him, his sheep that nerved our Lord to go forth and face the horrible ordeal of Gethsemane, and Gabbatha, and Golgotha, of the sheep I have. There live this foal, them also I must bring.

50:25 They shall hear my voice, and they shall become one flock, one shepherd. See how this disposition, nerving our Lord to face his greatest ordeal, was the very thing that nerved the great apostle as he faced opposition wherever he went, from the Jews, from unbelieving men, constantly running up against opposition that broke out even into stoning him and being whipped five times in the synagogue. And yet he says in 2 Timothy chapter 2, and I want you to turn there for a moment with me, 2 Timothy chapter 2. Verse 8.

51:10 Writing to his son in the faith, Timothy, knowing that shortly he himself, that is Paul, is going to be martyred. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead of the seed of David, according to my gospel, wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds as a malefactor. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore, I endure all things.

51:40 For the elect's sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Paul, why in the world do you endure the things you endure? He said, I do this for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain salvation. Well, did Paul know who the elect were? No.

52:06 But he knew that God had his elect, and he could look upon any man as one who might possibly be one of God's elect, and therefore endure things at the hands of all kinds of gospel opposers, and continue to pour out his life in gospel endeavors. For he did not know who among them had God's mark upon them. One of the sheep that Christ said he must bring, who would hear his voice, not from heaven, but through the preaching of the apostle himself, and hearing the voice of Christ, that voice coming through his servant would draw them unto the Lord Jesus. And it was Paul's confidence that God would call his elect, and that any man to whom he ministered might be one of God's elect, that nerved him to endure. For all things, for the elect's sake. And it was this lesson that God reminded him of in Acts chapter 18.

53:19 He's there at Corinth, Acts chapter 18, verse 5. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was constrained by the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook out his raiment, and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads. I'm clean.

53:44 From henceforth I'll go to the Gentiles. And he departed thence, and went to the house of a certain man named Titus Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized.

54:05 And apparently the apostle, knowing what the patterns were of these, recalcitrant Jews that followed him from town to town, apparently he was anticipating some further opposition. So what does the Lord do? The Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not your peace, for I am with you, no man shall set on you to harm you, for I have much people in this city. I have them.

54:41 They are mine. They are mine by sovereign electing choice and grace. And Paul, through your labors, they will be brought into conscious relationship to me. So what does Paul do?

54:55 He dwelt there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. What nerved the apostle? It was the recognition among those to whom he has a people, and he will draw those people, and therefore he saw people as savable and possibly elect in Christ.

55:20 You and I must do the same. We must train ourselves to look upon our neighbors as we pray for our neighbors, as we plead that God will bless our various endeavors to see them brought in to these Bible studies. We must look upon them when we see them and say to ourselves, You don't have a clue about it, Mrs. So-and-so, but you are savable, and you may be one of God's elect.

55:47 You don't have a clue! I look at you through the eyes of Scripture, and you are savable. Oh yes, as I think of my neighbors and pray for them. When I pray for them, I say, You don't know, but you're savable.

56:04 God can break through all of that Romish nonsense and all of that superstition. God can break through and show you that in Jesus there is a fool, and a complete salvation. And if God's marked you to draw you, there aren't enough popes and priests and candles and nonsense in the world to keep you. God's going to get you.

56:31 That fills you with hope, doesn't it? Doesn't it fill you with hope? And if you have children that have nursed under the sound of the gospel, way from the town to their own shame and grief that the devil is a hard master, look at them and say, you're still savable, you're still alive.

56:57 God's mark may be upon you and he may yet draw you in. It keeps you going.

57:05 Keeps you from bitterness.

57:08 Keeps you from being weary and well-doing. Just as Paul said, the Lord said to Paul, you're not afraid. Hold not your peace. They're out there.

57:18 I have my people. I'm not telling you who they are, Paul. It'll be revealed when preaching the word.

57:25 Their eyes are opened. Their wills are renewed. And they are attached to Jesus in faith and love and obedience. Paul, keep looking at them as savable and possibly elect and press on in your labors.

Conclusion: The Foundation for God-Honoring Evangelism

57:43 So, I say, my brothers and sisters, as we would seek to engage in God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, concentrated endeavors to bring the gospel to our Jerusalem, we must, with God's help, understand and passionately believe that the people for whom we are laboring are what God says they are. Uniquely created in His image. Tragically fallen in Adam. But savable and possibly elect in Jesus Christ.

Preview of Part 2 and Call to Unbelievers

58:27 Tonight, we'll take up the fourth facet of how we're to look upon them. Should I tell you what's going to be? Or say, you've got to come to find out?

58:37 Well, we're going to focus. I'm not satisfied with the way I've worded the heading. But it's going to be focusing on the fact that everyone we look upon is a mandated object, a divinely mandated object of the free offers of the gospel. That is, we need to learn to look upon every man, every woman as one to whom God has given a mandate that they should hear of His Son.

59:03 And know that He freely, sincerely offers them life and salvation and commands them to repent and to believe.

59:14 Some of you wonder, Pastor Martin, when are you going to slow down, ease up on us, you unsaved men and women, boys and girls? This is why I still plead with you with tears. Because I believe you are what God says you are.

59:32 You may not, but I do.

59:36 And it's only God that can change you. But He can! And I urge you, if perhaps in this analysis of men out there, God's shown you yourself,

59:51 to take seriously who you are and not be content to remain what you are. To go to Christ, that He may make you a forgiven, cleansed, pardoned, liberated man, woman, boy or girl, by the power of His grace. Let's pray.

Prayer

60:16 Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that it is, a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. We pray that You would seal to our hearts those things we've considered this morning and continue to prepare us as a people as You would lead us forth into this new, concentrated endeavor to be useful in reaching our Jerusalem as witnesses of Christ. Hear our prayer and be pleased to answer us for Your glory.

60:49 Amen.