The Church Evangelizing, Part 2

Introduction: The Complexity of Evangelistic Motivation

0:02 All right, brethren, having tried to lay before you the biblical mandate for the task of evangelism and seeking to do it in a way that would give you materials that hopefully someday you will use prayerfully with your people, now we come to large letter B, the biblical motives which ought to impel and accompany the fulfillment of the task. Perhaps few matters are of greater difficulty at the level of articulation and implementation than the matter of motivation in conjunction with the

0:43 task of evangelism. The reason for this is, first of all, that the motivation is not simple but complex. There is no one motivation. There is no motive that ought to press in upon your heart and the hearts of your people with regard to this task. The motivation is not simple but complex, and furthermore, the motivation is not uniform but

1:17 varied. At any given point, one motive may dominate, and rightly so, whereas a week later, another motive will dominate. And I want to demonstrate that from the scriptures. However, I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. That is, love to God and

1:50 love to man as conditioned by the objective realities and subjective realities of the law. And I want to demonstrate that from the scriptures. However, I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. That is, love to God and love to man as conditioned by the objective realities and subjective realities of the law. And I would like to suggest that the motivation

2:33 which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. That is, love to God and love to man as conditioned by the objective realities and subjective realities of the law. And I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. And I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law.

2:36 And I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. And I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. And I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law. And I would like to suggest that the motivation which is biblical is basically the motivation of evangelical obedience to the law.

Love to God: Grieved by Sinner's Indifference

2:38 of the gospel. Now, of course, the law being summarized as love to God and man is clearly established by Matthew chapter 22 and the parallel passages in which we find in verse 36, one of the doctors of the law asks our Lord Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law, and he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,

3:16 and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment, and a second like unto it is, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets. So what I would like to do, brethren, is to collate the biblical motives which ought to impel to and accompany the fulfillment of this task under those two headings. First of all, love to God, and you will notice I have three

3:54 subheadings. First of all, the love that is grieved by the sinner's indifference to God's law, God's glory, and fellowship with the God who made man, for himself. And one of the pivotal texts is Psalm 119 and verse 136. Here we have a very clear example of a man motivated by love to God in his concern for the ungodly.

4:32 Psalm 119, 136. Streams of water run down mine eyes because they observe not thy law. Here a man has such a high regard to the rightness, to the justness, to the reasonableness of the law of God. He knows that communion and fellowship can only be maintained with God in the realm of covenant love and covenant obedience. And he says his heart is

5:11 broken because the God whom he loves is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own. He is not his own.

5:15 Love is regarded with such indifference by sinners. This is a love that is grieved by the sinner's indifference to God's glorious law and to fellowship with him in the context of obedience to that law. Ezekiel 9 and verse 4. This strange incident in the life of the prophet Ezekiel, in which the Lord said, Ezekiel 9 and verse 4.

5:49 Ezekiel 9 and verse 4. The Lord gives a direction to the man clothed in linen who had the writer's inkhorn by his side. Verse 4. And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof. As the man with the inkhorn goes,

6:19 through, he is to find those whose love to God and his glory and his law is such that when they behold abounding indifference to God and to his law, they sigh and they cry out of the pain of their love to God not being shared by those about them. You see this as well in the apostle's treatment of the state of men in the first place. The apostle's treatment of the state of men in the first chapter of Romans, his soul is vexed as he thinks of men worshipping and serving the creature

6:59 more than the creator. One of the reasons he is anxious to go to Rome is that he knows that he will find there men who are robbing the glorious God of the glory that is due to him. And this used to trouble me, this sort of eulogy to God that breaks out in the midst of this indictment of sinners. Verse 24, Wherefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves, for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped

7:40 and served the creature rather than the creator. But he cannot stop there. He says, Who is blessed forever? Amen. His contemplation of the truth of God is the truth of God. He says, Who is blessed

7:51 forever? Amen. His contemplation of the glory of God, worthy of being worshipped by the creature, his soul is vexed when this infinitely glorious God is robbed of his rightful due. And you find the similar motivation in Acts 17 and verse 16, when the apostle there at Athens, it says, his soul was stirred within him when he beheld the whole city given over to idolatry.

8:21 Here men were bowing down before the creation of their own hands. And as Paul knew something of the ineffable glory of the one true and living God, his soul is stirred. Why? Because his love to God is provoked in the presence of idolatry. Now, believing that the gospel is the only means

8:46 by which men will come to the knowledge of God and write attitudes to God, then, love to God must of necessity give us some degree of compassion for evangelism. Because we cannot stand to see God pickpocketed and robbed before our very eyes, and not be stirred with desire to do something about it. So love to God, then, will operate in this first way, grieved by the sinner's indifference. Secondly, it will be the love that constructs the love of God that constructs

Love to God: Constrained to Obedience and Speaking from a Full Heart

9:22 us to obedience to a clearly articulated duty. If we love God, there will be a motivation to evangelism, because love delights to walk in the path of revealed duty. John 14 and verse 21. John 14 and verse 21. He that has my commandments and keeps them,

9:55 he it is that loves me, and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Verse 24. He that loves me not keeps not my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father which sent me. And chapter 15 and verse 14.

10:19 You are my friends if you do the things which I command. Command you. And so our love to God revealed in Christ will constrain us to a life of obedience to a clearly articulated duty. And having seen the mandate and warrant for the task of evangelism, as love to Christ burns in our hearts, so will the motivation to evangelism.

10:50 And then thirdly, this love to God will be manifested in terms, of the love that speaks out of a full heart concerning its object. Love delights to speak out of a full heart concerning its object. Matthew 12, 34 and 35. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And then in two other texts,

11:19 this is clearly indicated in many others, but two that I've listed in the notes. Psalm 96, verses 1 through 4. Psalm 96, verses 1 through 4.

11:39 Isaiahキرился على واقع." Psalm 96, verses 1 through 4. Psalm 96, verses 1 through 4. Psalm 96, verses 1 through 4.

11:43 From day to day declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples, for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared of of all gods. Here the psalmist's heart is full of the sense of the glory and the goodness of God and his salvation. And out of that matrix of a full heart comes the mandate, verse 3, declare his glory among the nations.

12:19 And then, of course, the apostle's statement in 2 Corinthians 4, 5, and 6, We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus is Lord, and ourselves your servants. For Jesus' sake, why? For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And out of a heart full of the sense of wonder, that creative light, saving light, was spoken into his own heart, he says, I make myself.

Pastoral Application: Cultivating Love for God in Preaching

12:53 I make myself servant to all men for Christ's sake. Now, brethren, do you see, then, if this motive of love to God lies at the heart of the motivation to the task of evangelism, how vital it is that your regular pulpit ministry, your week-by-week prayers, be feeding the springs of this, if your preaching is not preaching that exalts the glory and the majesty of God and the privilege of knowing God, how will your people feel pain

13:36 when they move amongst people who don't appreciate his glory, who don't appreciate his majesty, if they themselves do not have a heart throbbing with the sense of his glory and his majesty? How can anyone sit beneath this series on the attributes, on the attributes of God that Pastor Sarver is bringing us, and not want others to know this glorious God? I've literally had to forcefully contain myself from jumping up two or three times and saying, Mark, stop! Let us sing a hymn of praise.

14:16 You see, it's that kind of preaching that motivates your people to evangelism, not banging them on the head all the time, get out and witness, get out and witness, get out and witness, get their hearts burning with the power of God, get their hearts burning with passion for the glory of God. And love to God will then be grieved when they see those who keep not his law. And then the motivation to evangelism will be stirred within them. Likewise, why our preaching must continually be drawing our people back to the glory of Christ as Savior and Redeemer of people, of his people.

14:52 Why he must again and again be central in our ministry, that beholding him they may love him more and loving him more may want to obey him in the task of evangelism. And why our preaching and our praying must be aimed at having our people's hearts continually brought into delightful, real, experimental communion with God. For only then, out of the abundance of such hearts, will their mouths speak. Well, then we take up the second motivation.

Love to Men: Longing for Gospel Privileges

15:27 The second motivation. Well, then we take up the second motivation. Love to men. And here I have listed for you two aspects of love to men.

15:35 Number one, a love that longs that they shall enjoy all the wonderful and distinctive privileges of the gospel.

15:47 A love that longs that they shall enjoy all the wonderful and distinctive privileges of the gospel. David's in a cave with the outcast of Israel. And yet he exclaims in the well-known text, Psalm 34, 8, O taste and see that the Lord is good. He knows if men will but once taste, their spiritual palates will be forever spoiled.

16:17 They'll no longer want to feed upon the husks and try to satisfy themselves by the gravel of this world. If they will but taste, they will see that the Lord is good. and become part of the blessed who trust in Him. Likewise, the perspective of our Lord in Matthew 9.36,

16:39 He saw men distressed as sheep without a shepherd. And He says, pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers. Why? He longs that these people shall know the benefits of being under the gracious rule of the true shepherd of men's souls.

17:01 Likewise, in those great gospel invitations of Revelation 22.17, the Spirit and the Bride say, come. And let him that is athirst, come. In Isaiah 55, that, what shall we call it, that gracious yearning, argumentation with people, why do you spend your money for that?

17:23 Which is not bread, and for that which does not satisfy. Give up the folly of your sin. Come, buy wine and milk without money, without price. What's that but the frustration of love that wants people to enjoy?

17:38 What is theirs if they will but have it? And that's the kind of love to men that must be operative in the motivational complex of the task of evangelism. And then, of course, that text that I wish, there's some text that I really wish I could have heard when our Lord spoke them on that great day of the feast, John 7.37, Jesus stood and it says he cried.

18:11 He stood and he cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And then I've concluded with that text from 2 Kings 7.9. You remember, after God, marvelously discomfited the enemies of God and the lepers come upon all the spoils, they said, we do not well to hold our peace.

Pastoral Application: Emphasizing Gospel Privileges

18:34 We have many countrymen who are starving, and if we have any true love for them, we do not well to hold our peace. We must, impelled by love for them, tell them of the spoils that here await and are theirs for the taking. Now, again, you see the importance of constantly setting before the people of God what their privileges are in Christ and seeking to bring them to present enjoyment of those privileges for only those who are living in the conscious present enjoyment of their privileges are going to be grieved and yearn

Love to Men: Desiring Escape from Frightening Consequences of Sin

19:17 that others are not living on those privileges and have a passion to impart them to them. And then it will also be, secondly, a love which desires that they shall escape from the frightening consequences of their sin. A love that desires men to escape from the frightening consequences of their sin. And here I turn you to the texts, and I want to look at them rather than simply quote them in a little more detail.

19:54 Matthew chapter 3,

19:57 you remember in the setting of John's ministry redefining, re-identifying the covenant community. No longer is it enough to have Abraham's blood in your veins and circumcision.

20:11 When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism, he said unto them, You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

20:27 Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance, and do not think to say within yourself. He gets inside their heads. He wrestles with the arguments they're already bringing forth to exempt themselves from his call to flee the wrath to come, to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. He cuts off their argument in the womb of their own minds.

20:55 It's a form of men's, a mental abortion. He sees them forming an argument and he slays it before it comes to full birth upon their lips. Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

21:17 And now the axe lies at the root of the trees. Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Verse 12, Whose fan is in his hand, he will thoroughly cleanse the threshing floor, gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire. I know it's not popular in our day to talk about being motivated in our witness and evangelism because of the dread of hell, but I tell you it's scriptural.

21:52 John the Baptist came and he said, Who warned you to flee from the coming? Wrath. The axe is lying at the root of the trees. If there is no good fruit, it's the fire.

22:04 The great winnower has the winnowing fan in his hand. And if you are chaff driven away, you'll be driven away to be consumed with unquenchable fire. And then in Jude 23, this motive is brought forward explicitly in conjunction with this matter of seeking to rescue people, from their sins.

22:31 And on some have mercy who are in doubt, and some save, snatching them out of the fire. And on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.

22:48 And some save, snatching them out of the fire. And then those words from the great apostle, probably the clearest expression in the Pauline, Pauline literature, 2 Corinthians 5, verses 10 and 11. And it's an unusual progression of thought. Verse 9 focuses upon his single-eyed ambition.

23:14 Wherefore, we make it our aim. We are ambitious, whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto him. We have one single-eyed aim, and that is to please our Master. Why?

23:31 Why, Paul? Because I'm going to be made fully manifested in the presence of my Master in the day of judgment. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done in the body according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad. And realizing that for multitudes it will be the manifestation of a lifestyle of wickedness leading to judgment in hell, he says, knowing therefore, the fear of the Lord we persuade men.

24:06 The persuasion of men derives directly from a present consciousness of the fear of the Lord, not evangelical fear rooted in the cross, but legal fear in the light of the day of judgment.

24:28 Not fears that he will come under condemnation, but the fear for the multitudes that will hear the words, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and for his angels.

Pastoral Application: Preaching on Hell and Judgment

24:47 Well, you see again, brethren, why our preaching must give due emphasis to hell and judgment and outer darkness and the lake of fire. It's not popular. One after another of the biggies in the evangelical world are falling into the camp of the so-called larger hope. They're falling into conditional immortality.

25:10 They're falling into annihilationism. I could name their names. They're going in print one after another.

25:17 God have mercy on us. In this wild, reckless, hell-bent generation doesn't even have the thunder in its ears that there's wrath coming. I can think of few things that are going to send this generation to hell at an even faster speed than the erosion, of real belief in a real hell of outer darkness and of the poured-out wrath of God upon the souls and bodies of the impenitent.

25:52 And if your people, as well as you as a preacher, are to be motivated out of love to men, it will not only be a love that from a positive standpoint longs that they enjoy the wonderful, distinctive privileges of redemption in Christ, but that they, they avoid and escape the frightening consequences due to their sins, even outer darkness, the wrath of God, and the horrible blackness of darkness forever.

The Weeping Spirit: Bridges' Commentary and Hymn

26:27 Bridges' comments on Psalm 139 and verse 136 are very appropriate at this point, and with this I will close today. Psalm 119, verse 136. Streams of water run down mine eyes because they observe not thy law. Listen to the language of Bridges in his commentary on Psalm 119.

27:07 The same yearning sympathy forms the life, the pulse, the strength of missionary exertion and has ever distinguished those honored servants of God, who have devoted their health, their talent, their all to the blessed work of saving souls from death and covering a multitude of sins. James 5.20 Can we conceive a missionary living in the spirit of his work, surrounded with thousands of mad idolaters, hearing their shouts and witnessing their abominations without a weeping spirit, indignant grief for the dishonored, undone to God,

27:50 amazement at the affecting spectacle of human blindness, detestation of human impiety, compassionate yearnings over human wretchedness and ruin, all combine, you see the multiplicity of motivational complex, all combine to force tears of the deepest sorrow from a heart enlightened and constrained by the influence of the Savior's love. This, as we have seen, was our Master's spirit. Let none presume themselves to be Christians if they are utterly destitute of this mind

28:34 that was in Christ Jesus. Oh, for that deep realizing sense of the preciousness of immortal souls that would make us look at every sinner we meet as a soul to be pulled out of the world. Out of the fire and to be drawn to Christ, which would render us willing to endure suffering, reproach, and the loss of all so that we might win one soul to God and raise one monument to His everlasting praise. And then he quotes, I do not know who the hymn writer was.

29:12 My God, I feel the mournful scene. My bowels yearn or dying men and feign my pity would reclaim and snatch the firebrands from the flame. My God, I feel the mournful scene. Someone meditating long enough upon the biblical doctrine of hell to feel the mournful scene.

29:42 My bowels yearn or dying men and feign my pity would reclaim. And snatch the firebrands from the flame. But feeble my compassion proves and can but weep where most it loves thine own all-saving arm employ and turn these drops of grief to joy.

The Cost of Ministry and the Call to Yearning

30:13 Brethren, let God give us just a little felt yearning for sinners whom we really believe are on their way to hell. And we will never have any problem about preaching with passion. Let our people believe that their neighbors and their children are going to hell. And there won't be any problem with them making some awkward efforts to try to get the gospel to them.

30:47 May God grant that these motives will ever burn in our hearts as we shall see God willing next week for there is a contagion, a holy contagion of, the motivation of evangelism. But that must wait till next week's lecture. This is what makes the ministry costly, brethren. The real cost of preaching is not what goes on relatively speaking in the study.

31:20 Oh yes, it's costly. And at times you feel utterly frustrated in terms of organization and the problems of syntax and sometimes even advertising. Ascertaining what the proper text is. I think I know a little about that after all these years.

31:37 But compared to the cost of opening your own spirit to a felt yearning for lost sinners in preaching and then being willing to be wrung out over those people in earnest, passionate pleading for their souls. That's a form of spiritual self-immolation from which the flesh comes out. And that's a form of spiritual self-immolation that constantly shrinks.

32:05 But God have mercy on us if we preach any other way.

32:11 To speak of hell in a manner that says there really is no such place is perhaps the most deadening kind of preaching.

32:23 May God grant that our own hearts that my heart will know something of that yearning as we seek to be motivated ourselves and motivate our people to the work of evangelism. Well, God willing, next week we'll take up the means that God has put at our disposal and hopefully these things will give us things that will be of help to us as we seek in the will and purpose of God to shepherd our people in days to come. Well, we've got...

Closing Prayer and Benediction

32:59 Oh, no, we don't. It's one o'clock. Here we go again. It's going to leave some time for discussion.

33:04 But I'll blame David again in his notes that make it so much easier for us to be able to do this. It's so much easier for us to be able to do this. It's so much easier for us to, I believe, have a sense of being under the ministry of the Word rather than having lecture.

33:19 Let's pray that God will write His truth upon our hearts. Let's pray.

33:29 Our Father,

33:31 we stand convicted before Your Word when we think of how negligent we have been in the great privilege and task of bringing the gospel to lost men. Lord, You know and You read the smartings of my own conscience as I have sought to minister to my younger brethren today. Forgive my sins of indifference, my sins of silence, my sins of being ashamed of my Savior, my sins of being indifferent to the fact that men don't love You and don't love Your law.

34:15 Forgive me, Lord, that I can see idolaters and the sins of men not be grieved. Forgive us that we grow accustomed to seeing men living in willful ignorance of Your glory. Lord, though we know it's costly, will You not break our hearts? Will You not give us such a passion for Your glory that we will be like those who sighed and cried for the abominations done in Jerusalem?

34:49 And then, our Father, while we know we cannot think too long upon the horrors of the damned or it would drive us out of our minds, we pray for grace to think more often and more intently upon that awesome, frightening reality of outer darkness, of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. O God, help us to hear the cry of the rich man, I am tormented in these flames. And, O, may we have compassion to make efforts to rescue men,

35:34 to pluck them as brands from the burning. Lord, baptize our hearts afresh with genuine love for Yourself and love for the souls of men and help us that in our ministries we will be used to motivate our people to this great task and privilege of evangelism. We pray that You would cleanse us, renew us, quicken us, keep us, Lord, from the accuser who would bring us under false guilt. But may Your Holy Spirit wound us where You know we need to be wounded.

36:15 And then may we be brought afresh to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness and then be given opportunities opportunities to speak for our Savior. We plead, O God, that You'd take the concerns of Your Word that we have examined today and according to the promise of the new covenant write Your law upon our hearts. Hear then our prayer and receive our thanks for Your presence with us. We ask in Jesus' name.

36:49 Amen.