The newspapers are telling us that Namibia is currently experiencing
the worst drought in 30 years.
Agricultural advisers are saying
that farmers need to be wise
and sell much of their livestock.
The prophet Amos spoke
of another kind of drought - a spiritual drought: “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I will send
a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of
hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from
north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but
they shall not find it. (Amos
8:11-12).
Amos, like his prophetic
colleagues Isaiah and Jeremiah was prophesying in times when the Word of the Lord was not well received in the land.
People seemed not only to be to be deaf, but also resentful to the voice of God. Thankfully
physical droughts do not
last forever. Thankfully spiritual droughts are also broken. The books of Nehemiah and Ezra are a record of times
when people were eagerly gathered around
the Word of God, ready to obey everything that they heard (Neh. 8; Ezra 10).
The apostle Paul on
his missionary journeys encountered
those who were willing to listen and those who
were unwilling to listen to the
Word of God. Paul’s visit to the
city of Corinth (Acts 18) was one of those
times when there was a lot
of resistance to
the gospel, although his visit there was not without fruit. One of the
outstanding conversions was that of the synagogue ruler Crispus (18:8). But, by and large this city was not very responsive. It also happened to be the
congregation in this city to which he had written at least 2
letters. This congregation as we know, had many problems. The people there seemed to be very self -centered
and unwilling to submit to the Word of the Lord and to one another. There are times when a spiritual
hardness overtakes a society, and
even the church in that society.
These are some of the
signs of spiritual hardness:
(i) Either the Word of the Lord is resented
(even by so called professing
Christians) and the preacher will be
labeled as boring when he preaches the
Word without gimmicks.[1]
(ii) Or the Word of the Lord is simply not proclaimed, or side lined for
social action or substituted, as is common in our day, by pop psychology.
A society is spiritually hard when it wants to have the gospel of Jesus changed and to be turned into a soothing syrup.
A society is spiritually hard when it wants to have the gospel of Jesus changed and to be turned into a soothing syrup.
A society is hard when the Word of
the Lord does not produce regular
conversions, and when people are not healed from their spiritual sicknesses ,
such as anger, bitterness, resentment
and other ugly emotions which are not fitting for God’s holy people.
A society is hard when, by and by a former living church
empties out until only a handful of old folk remain who remember the previous
days of glory, when every week people came, hungry for the Word, and when every week people were
being saved, baptized and added to the
church.
Why does this happen? Why are
there such times when it seems as if evangelism becomes
an exercise in futility?
How do we evangelize in difficult times?
Corinth – a case study
Corinth was an affluent city, strategically located on an important trade route. A strong sex
cult was located on the Acrocorinth, a mountain overshadowing the city. Every evening a thousand prostitutes would descend upon
the city, contributing to the prevalence
of much sexual immorality. As we
read Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians we see that this spirit
was also affecting the church[2]. Another
matter that affected the spiritual temperature of the church was the
man centredness (the excessive focus on man) and the resultant division that was found within the church.[3]
When such things happen, the Spirit of God is grieved [4]
and He withdraws [5].
We learn this from the history of
Israel. Whenever they grieved the Holy Spirit [6],
God withdrew until they repented. At
such times it is necessary to have
seasons of self- examination[7] and confession and repentance in the church
until God returns in His saving
power to heal broken relationships and to save rebellious
sinners. At times when the church descends into a merely religious spirit (keeping up
appearances), when believers find worship on Sundays a drag and not a
delight, it is time to seek the Lord, for if
we don’t, we will find and substitute
other loves!
I believe that we are
living in such times and we need to understand these times! We need to
know what to do in such times.[8]
Our society has become every bit as aggressive and resentful of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Corinthians were
in the text that we have read. So, how do we evangelize in such challenging times? What can we learn from the text before us?
1. We must continue to evangelize: Paul and the apostles never changed their method. They always did
the same thing: “And he reasoned in the
synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.” (v.4) …
“testifying to the Jews that the Christ
was Jesus…” (v.5)
2. We must continue to evangelize until
it becomes impossible to evangelize: God has commanded the church
to preach the gospel,
notwithstanding the difficulties we may
encounter. We must do so until it
becomes physically impossible to do so. We
see two examples of this in
our text:
- Vv. 1-2: “After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.” Priscilla and Aquila, a Christian husband and wife team were committed to the spreading of the gospel, whilst making tents to support themselves. At one time they were forced to leave Rome because the emperor Claudius (Roman emperor from AD 41-54) had ordered all Jews (including Christians, who were regarded a sect of the Jews) to leave Rome. Thus it became impossible for them to preach the gospel in Rome.
- The next example is found in in v. 6 “And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” Paul reasoned (dialego) and sought to persuade (epeitheo) Jews and Greeks in Corinth(v.4). He was earnestly testifying (diamartureo) (v.5) - and when they opposed him, he had to do what Jesus said [9]– and he shook out His garments and left there. Let this be clear. We are under no obligation to continue to plead with people if they oppose the gospel, or if they threaten us in any way.
There are two formidable obstacles in the way of
successful evangelism:
(i) man’s natural inclination to oppose God.
(ii) Satan’s
powerful work in blinding people in
the ways of unbelief and disobedience.
What does this mean for
evangelism? Quite simply this: No matter how clearly you present the gospel,
you will not persuade anyone to believe
in the Lord Jesus. You cannot give life to the spiritually dead. You cannot oppose Satan in your own strength. Our approach to
evangelism is not realistic until we
have faced this shattering fact.
Unfortunately modern evangelism has thought
otherwise.[10].We
have been taught for many years that good organization and the right techniques ( e.g. a powerful speaker,
good music) would ensure that our evangelism would be successful. It was
believed that a dead church or a dead town could be automatically revived by an
intensive evangelistic campaign.
The late
1800’s and much of the 1900’s
were well known for big evangelistic crusades (D.L. Moody; R.A. Torrey,
Billy Graham etc.), but if the truth be
told it wasn’t their great
preaching that brought men and women to Christ. The truth is
that God was working in those days in a
way in which He is evidently not working now. Countries and continents
that once saw immense
spiritual blessing (e.g. the UK
and the USA) are now rapidly drifting
from their Christian moorings, and it is not that they have lesser gifted or less
anointed preachers now.
The biblical ‘secret’ to evangelism is
this (and we laid the foundation for this series on Evangelism at Pentecost) : The power of the Holy Spirit, and the
unmerited grace and mercy of God is that
which gives life to people. We must certainly pray for Him to return. He is certainly the God who
loves and forgives the repentant sinner and the and the lukewarm church when
they call unto Him, but whether or not He will visit our country in revival
power we cannot determine by doing the right things.
What we do know is
that God always honours His own Word. If our people
faithfully share the Lord Jesus
Christ with unbelievers there will be a harvest. So, in times of
coldness and hardness we must continue
to evangelize until we are forbidden or
driven away.
3. We must evangelize where we are received: (Vv.
7-8) “And he left there and
went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house
was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed
in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians
hearing Paul believed and were baptized. Notice that Paul did not leave Corinth. He left a certain kind of people that were unreceptive for a people
that were receptive in another part of the city.
4. We must believe that the Lord has a harvest field: (Vv. 9-11)
And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do
not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and
no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my
people.” And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among
them.
What effect should this have upon our attitude when evangelizing?
(i)
It should make us bold and confident: The Lord has His chosen people
everywhere and at all times. They are part of His harvest field. They will hear
the voice of their Good Shepherd, and they will come. So just because they
don’t respond in Ludwigsdorf or in Rocky Crest does not mean that they will not respond in
Katutura or Olympia. God has His
people here in Windhoek. Therefore find them!
(ii)
This confidence should make us
patient: We live in an age of hurry and pragmatism. We want
quick results. We resent spending time
doing things thoroughly. The truth is that
the work of evangelism often
demands patience and
perseverance. Explaining the gospel
takes time, and often you build on another
man’s labours (Jn 4:37). We need
to make sure that he/she is convinced of
the truth, and that repentance and forgiveness
is sought from God before we encourage them into an active
response.
(iii) This confidence should make us
prayerful: prayer
is a confessing of our helplessness and
our need, an acknowledgement of our dependence, and an asking for the
mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Evangelism belongs to this category. Paul’s
plea wherever he goes to preach is this
“Pray for me” (Col
4:2-4).
So what
should we do in times when the work
of evangelism has become difficult?
The answer is – carry on, but don’t waste your time with those that will
not hear. Go to those that are willing to receive the gospel, and yet, be
ever hopeful and prayerful that in time
the hard soil of those that you long to
reach may soften. Above all remember
that effective Evangelism only happens
when the Holt Spirit is at work. To that end pray expectantly!
[1] See Paul’s comment on this in 2
Corinthians 4:1-6
[2] 1 Corinthians 5
[3] 1 Cor 1:10-17;
Ch 3[4] Eph. 4:30
[5] Rev 2:4,5
[6] Isa 63:10ff
[7] 2 Cor 13:5
[8] 1 Chronicles 12:32
[9] Matthew 10:14
[10] Jim Packer : Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God is a very helpful book on this subject (particularly Ch. 4)
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