-R.C. Sproul, Saved From What?, p.27

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:  preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,  and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. [2 Timothy 4:1-5, ESV]

What does it mean to “do the work of an evangelist”? Evangelist derives from the Greek verb ευαγγελίζω. Both ευαγγελίζω and its cognate noun ευαγγελίον derive from a compound of ευ- (good) and άγγελoς (messenger). It is often translated as “good news” and in the New Testament it is applied exclusively to the unique message of the life and works of Jesus.

The nature of the gospel, no matter what age or language we are speaking in, is the life and works of Jesus [1 Corinthians 15:1-11]. It is not about world views or comparative religion. It is not a catechism or bullet point list of things we must give our consent to. It is not even about the conversion of unbelievers. It is the presentation of Jesus Christ to those who need to meet him – period.

In Galatians, the Apostle Paul makes it plain that the true gospel is distinguished from other (έτερος or “different”) gospels because the true gospel is ουκ κατά άνθρωπον – not after/by man. The gospel is not defined by men but by He who Is the Gospel – Jesus Christ. So, in Biblical evangelism we must first recognize that the gospel is not some system devised by man – whether that system is Jewish legalism or the Golden Keys of Soul-winning or the Finney-esque altar call – but the person of Jesus Christ.

Thanks to Erik at re:Fundamentals

Here our interest is the expressions ‘being predestined…according to the good pleasure of His will’ (Eph 1:5), ‘the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him’ (vs 9), ‘having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will’ (vs 11). The central issue of the plan of salvation can be staked on these expressions. This latter expression is surely the will unto salvation revealed in the gospel with which the whole passage is concerned. As respects both – predestination and the mystery of His will – it is to trifle with the plain import of the terms, and with the repeated emphasis, to impose upon the terms any determining factor arising from the will of man. If he meant to say anything in these expressions in verses 5, 9 and 11, it is that God’s predestination, and His will to salvation, proceeds from the pure sovereignty and absolute determination of His counsel. It is the unconditioned and unconditional election of God’s grace.

And suppose God said, “I want you to go tell this guy the Gospel, because I have hardened his heart so that, not only will he not repent and believe, but he’ll become infuriated and want to kill you and torment the people you care most about. I’m going to use this situation to do all sorts of wonderful things.”

The whole prophetic revelation thing aside—what would I think?

“Okay now, wait—’because’? You want me to talk to this guy, knowing that he won’t believe? In fact, You’re going to make sure that He won’t believe? But for us who believe in Your sovereignty, the whole premise of evangelism is that we don’t know who is and isn’t elect, so it’s our place to sow in hope, and leave the results to You. But here You’re telling me, right off the bat, that it’s going to be a bust? And that’s why You want me to go in?”

It struck me that this is precisely Moses’ situation in dealing with Pharaoh, and specifically in Exodus 10—

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

Wouldn’t that be grim news? “Go in… for, because, I have hardened his heart.” Were I in Moses’ sandals, it might be hard to get motivated.

But might that not be because our whole motivation is out of whack? Why would it bother us so much?

Well, it would bother us because we don’t like to fail. Might as well be honest about it: we don’t. “Here, try something you have no chance of achieving” isn’t much of a sales pitch. We do things because we hope we might succeed in doing them. “Thirty Days to Miserable Failure” wouldn’t be a catchy title for a church program, I’m thinking.

And then of course, on a higher level, it would and should bother us because we care about the person we’re talking to. Unless there’s something very wrong with us, we don’t want to see anyone go to Hell. We want to be used by God for deliverance, not judgment. We don’t evangelize to seal folks’ doom. We evangelize in the hopes that the Word will bring hearing, and hearing will bring saving faith (Romans 10:17).

So what motivation does Yahweh offer Moses, apart from the mere and sufficient fact that it is He who calls him to talk to Pharaoh? I see a threefold motivation:

1. “that I may show these signs of mine among them”
2. “and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them”
3. “that you [plural] may know that I am the LORD”

The “signs” Yahweh is about to show are signs of judgment. Yahweh actually had announced His program right from the start. Pharaoh’s heart would be hard, he’d reject Yahweh’s word, and this would become the occasion for Yahweh glorifying Himself by mighty acts of judgment (Exodus 3:19-20; 4:21). He had even told Pharaoh flat-out that this was why Pharaoh still stood: to serve as an object-lesson, revelatory of Yahweh and His ways (9:16).

So in the final analysis, Moses’ entreaties and warnings to Pharaoh weren’t about Moses and his success-quotient, they weren’t about Pharaoh and his wellbeing, they weren’t even just about Israel. They were about Yahweh, about His glory. Indeed, they would be instructive to Moses (6:1), Pharaoh (8:10), the Egyptians (7:5), the Israelites (16:6), and their children (10:2). But the main star occupying center stage would be Yahweh Himself. This “evangelism” was, in the final analysis, about Yahweh.

So then I think this way. If Moses was to go in with boldness and passion, knowing in advance that Pharaoh would blow him off—how much more should we? Because in fact we don’t have direct revelation telling us whether or not this or that person is elect or not. We have no idea whatever whether this scroungy-looking, tattoo-covered boastful drunk may be gloriously converted, while that sweet, loving, lovable friend may despise the gospel of Christ. If we decide not to speak of Christ because of these impressions, we act from the folly of unbelief.

Because like Moses, we should not be primarily focused on succeeding in “winning souls.” Nor is the be-all and end-all our neighbor’s salvation. That is indeed a commandment to us, but it is the second. Not the first.

Our focus in evangelism (I preach to myself, nice of you to listen in) must be the glory of God. Lift up the Lord Jesus, lift up His gospel, lift up the Cross, and God will be glorified. He may be glorified by converting our hearer; or He may be glorified in judgment. But either way, He will be glorified.

God’s glory—not redemption, nor any other concomitant good—is the center of history, the center of the Bible, the center of everything.

It should be the center and focus of our evangelism.

Thanks to Dan Phillips

“It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they have not been saved.”
–A.W. Tozer

I would like to present thirteen ways that we have re-defined how a person becomes a true convert.  Have we done this intentionally?  Certainly not.  We have simply created lingo that has a grain of truth in Scripture, but it is so open to interpretation that the un-converted understand it in ways that lead to false conversions.

1. Make Jesus your Lord and Savior. We cannot make Jesus our Lord and Savior, He is our Lord and Savior. We are living in rebellion to Him and He commands us to repent and trust Him.
2. Ask Jesus into your heart. Does Jesus come into our hearts? Yes He does. The question is, “How does He get in there?” It is not by simply asking Him in; it is by repentance and faith.
3. Just believe in Jesus. The demons believe and they tremble. We must repent and trust.
4. You have a God-shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it. We have far more than a hole that needs to be filled so we can feel complete; we have a wretched, deceitful, sinful heart that needs cleansing. Repentance and faith applies the blood of the lamb for that cleansing.
5. Accept Jesus. Whoa. We need to accept Jesus? This is entirely backward. We need Jesus to accept us–and He will, if we repent and trust.
6. Make a decision for Jesus. Decisional regeneration puts man in the driver’s seat of salvation. When we repent and trust, Jesus decides to save us. That puts Him in the driver’s seat…where He demands.
7. It is easy to believe. While the formula of repentance and faith sounds simple, a complete surrendering of self in repentance is anything but easy. It’s hard.
8. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The only promises for the convert are trials, temptation and persecution. If that is how you define a wonderful life, fine. Otherwise we must command all men everywhere to repent and trust.
9. Come to Jesus just as you are. We should come to Jesus just as the sinners we are, but He also expects a broken heart and contrite spirit demonstrated in repentance and faith.
10. Come to Jesus and you will receive forgiveness of sins and ________________ (fill in the blank with money, health, a healed marriage). Jesus didn’t promise healed marriages; in fact He promised broken homes because we would divide when one member repents and trusts.
11. Come to Jesus and experience love, joy, peace. Do we get the fruit of the Spirit upon conversion? Yes. But if we come seeking the gifts and not the giver, we will receive neither. Instead, we must repent and trust.
12. Jesus is the missing piece. Um, no, the God of the universe is not the missing piece, He demands that He is the center of our lives when we repent and trust.
13. Jesus is better than fame and fortune. That is an understatement, and frankly, it is insulting. Saying Jesus is better than money is like saying that a steak dinner is better than eating a dung hill. He defies comparison and we trivialize the Son of God. Instead, we should be pleading with all men everywhere to repent and trust.

If I showed up at your door with a can of grapefruit juice and a roll of paper towels and offered to change your oil, you would say, “No thanks.” If we wouldn’t let someone mess with our car using the wrong method, why do we allow the Gospel to be presented so ambiguously?

Would you let a doctor operate on your child who was “sort of” accurate? The salvation of men is far more important than an appendix.

I beg you to consider how you share the Gospel. You and I know what we are talking about when we use these phrases, but do the unregenerate? Is it possible that we have so many backsliders today because they never slid forward in the first place? Is it because they were never told that they must repent and trust?

Thanks to Todd Friel