Did you feel like you just had lunch somehow?
My task today is really quite simple. I have a book at home by Tom Skinner that I would like to apply to us today. The title of that book is Jesus Is the Answer, So What Are the Questions?
I’ve actually just been given a few questions here, which it would not take too long to share the answer with. But I would like to go in a little different direction today, and then in the latter part of the meeting we will answer the questions that have been given.
Does anybody else have a written question to hand up to me at the present time? Anybody else? Okay, there is one. He is working on it. Okay. I see he is looking in the book of Philemon. I am in trouble.
I think we ought to have a word of prayer, and then we will begin our meeting together.
Again, we look to You, Lord, as the Lord of the harvest, as the Lord who loved the world so much that You gave Your Son. And now You have placed us here in this world, yet not of this world, and You desire us to be aware of the world around us as a place where You have the desire to reach people, to minister, to share the light, and to bring forth the judgment of the gospel.
And Lord, we want to be responsible, and personally, we want to learn how to be responsible toward the world. To that end, we open our hearts for the session today, praying for Your wisdom and Your help through the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
I mentioned yesterday that as soon as the word witness is spoken, it conjures up all kinds of immediate impressions in your mind. It would be interesting if psychologists doing their word-suggestion tests would bring that up for Christians while they are sitting on the couch—although no Christians ever need psychiatric help, of course. But just to see the response Christians would give to the word witness would be interesting.
What is witnessing? What is a witness? There are many different answers and thoughts.
Well, I have a picture in my mind of what a witness is, shaped, I believe, by the Scriptures over the years, but also shaped through personal experience. In the matter of personal experience, I must say that I am a debtor—a debtor to people who have gone on before me and have been witnesses. As a matter of fact, it was through the witness of faithful people that I came to the Lord myself at twenty years old, while I was a student in college.
I felt impressed last night, as I thought about what would go on today, that I ought to ask someone to come and share how they began to be a witness—an actual witness—and what witnessing means to them. This impression was confirmed in two ways for me today, and so I want to be obedient to the Lord.
I would like to take the first part of our meeting together and allow a brother to share what witnessing means to him. This brother also happens to be my father-in-law. I truly do love my father-in-law. He is a Christian man and a businessman most of his life. I have asked him if he would come and share what it means to be a witness to him.
I hope through that you will get a little picture of at least one idea of what it means to witness. This is Donald Adcock. He is from Hendersonville, North Carolina.
As you have heard, the Lord arranged it for me to provide for myself and my family in business. I think it would be appropriate for a businessman, in this particular setting, to leave the books of the Bible to the likes of Dana, Stephen, and Lance. I will take my text from the heading for the four Gospels.
The heading for each one of the Gospels is, “The Gospel According to…” I wonder what the gospel is according to you. I will share a little bit of the gospel according to me.
Now, that is not hard to do. You just open your mouth and tell what Jesus means to you, and that is the gospel according to you.
I want to share one or two witnessing experiences so that you have an example of what I am talking about when I use the word witness.
About two weeks ago, I got a taxicab on Fifty-Seventh Street in New York to go down to Fifth Avenue and Thirtieth Street. I told the driver where I wanted to go. He said, “What part of the South are you from?”
I told him, and I said, “Where are you from?”
He said, “I am from Mississippi.”
I said, “Do you know Jerry Clower?” How many of you know him? You ever heard of Jerry Clower? Well, you have not properly applied yourselves to intellectual pursuits yet if you do not know him. He is a comedian, a country comedian, I guess. I think he is in the Grand Ole Opry Hall of Fame.
My wife and I got acquainted with Jerry Clower. This was a good opening for me to ask this young man, “Do you know Jerry Clower?”
He said, “I have heard of him.”
I told him about the time Mr. Clower, my wife, and I witnessed to a college professor. That was a riot. He happened to be a professor of psychology in an eastern university. Mr. Clower, my wife, and I had the opportunity of telling him about Jesus.
Well, this taxi driver wanted to know what I meant by witnessing. Isn’t that a wonderful opportunity? That is just throwing the door wider.
So I went on to tell him what I meant by witnessing: what Jesus means to me. He did not make a decision then. The Lord did not give the opportunity to bring it to that point. But I believe He will bring that man to salvation, because you know when your witness has hit the mark.
I mean, if you have target practice and you shoot and hit the target dead center, nobody has to tell you it happened. You know it. And I know that witness just hit center.
My wife and I were on a plane going to England a few years ago. Along about midnight, we were over the Atlantic, and we saw a little girl about three years of age come around one of the partitions. She would look at us until we looked back, and then she would run. You know how it is. Then she would come back. She was Chinese.
After a little while, her mother came around the partition to inquire if we were being bothered by her child. We told her no, and got into a conversation with her. She and her family were on the way to India.
They asked where we were going and why. We told them we were going to England because people had asked us to come and share our Christian witness there.
She said, “That’s interesting. For about six weeks, I’ve been wanting to become a Christian. I first heard the gospel about six weeks ago. Can you tell me how?”
So my wife told her what Jesus means to her and how she became a Christian. Then I shared with her. There on the plane, this woman—we learned later that she was a dentist in Canada, and her husband was a professor at McGill University—gave her heart to Jesus.
Her husband was asleep, and she said, “I’m going to tell him.”
Sure enough, the week before Easter the next year, we got a card from Dr. Wade saying that she and her husband were going to be baptized the next week. Every year at Christmastime, we get a picture greeting from Dr. Wade and her family.
You know, experiences like that are reason enough to witness, aren’t they? But that is not the reason I witness.
I will tell you why I witness, and then I will tell you how I got started.
I happen to believe that Jesus Christ is God. I believe He is a King. I believe kings deserve obedience.
And the King said that I am a witness because He told me to be one, just as He has told every believer to witness. I have found that obedience produces joy—joy without measure—as you share what He means to you: the gospel according to you.
I got saved in 1930. It was a very real experience. I came into the fullness of the Holy Spirit in 1970. I have often wondered if there is any significance in that coincidence of forty years intervening. I do not know.
But after thirty years of being a Christian, the Lord made it clear to me one day—as Dana told you yesterday, I think—that I had no choice in this matter of being a witness.
You do not choose to be a witness if you are a Christian. If you are a Christian, you are some kind of witness. You may be a sorry one, but if you have been born again, you are a witness. No choice—none at all.
The only choice you have is the kind of witness you will be.
When I realized this, and thought about what the King did for me, I could not see any choice other than to want to be a good witness, for His sake. But I did not know how to do it. I had never done it, and I did not know how. But I wanted to.
I think that was the beginning point for me: I really wanted to.
It was at this point that I moved from inviting people to church and inviting people to my Sunday school class. I had done a lot of that. I could even go out and tell people that I felt they should move their church letter, you know, and invite them to our Sunday school socials. Well, that was an easy one—to invite them to a picnic or something like that.
But I had never gone to a person and said, “May I tell you what Jesus means to me?” In all those years I had been a Christian, I had never done that.
Now, I had it in my mind that I would someday. I just had not gotten to it. I believed in it all along. I was pleased when the pastor of the church did it. I thought it was just great. I fully intended to start someday myself. I just had not gotten to it.
But when the Lord made it clear to me that I was a witness and had a choice about the kind I would be, I determined that I would go and tell somebody about Jesus.
I suppose it was really out of fear that I asked a friend to go with me. I figured it would be a little stronger with two of us going, and if one faltered, the other could pick up and carry on.
But before we could go and make our visit, I had a conversation with the devil. Have you ever had any talks with him? Well, if you have ever tried to do anything for the Lord, you have.
You can occupy your place in the pew or in a fellowship, be just as faithful in attendance as can be, and not have much involvement with the devil. But when you get serious about the fact that outside of your gathering there are lost people who, if the Bible is true, are going to hell without Jesus—people who could be turned in another direction by hearing you share the gospel according to you—you get serious about that.
When you realize that you have not only a privilege but an obligation, and you make a commitment to do something about it, you will find the devil coming around.
He may have sent his imps before to aggravate you and irritate you, to the point that if you are an example of what a Christian is, nobody else wants to be one. But if you get serious about telling somebody about Jesus, you will find him calling off the imps and coming around himself. It is serious, and he knows it.
So I had a conversation with him. I did not hear any words as you hear mine, but it was just as real as it could be.
The first thing he said was, “Now, Donald, it appears to me…” Isn’t that interesting? The devil always deals in appearances. Always. He never deals in facts—just appearances.
He said, “Now, it appears to me there is too much sin in your life for you to even think about going and telling another person about Jesus.”
I thought about this, and I was in agreement with him, because I know me better than anybody else. I know what need there is for cleansing and forgiveness and all this.
But I am so glad the Lord knew the intent of my heart. I had a conversation with the Holy Spirit. I am so glad He came.
And He said, “Now, Donald, the fact is…” Isn’t that wonderful? He always deals with facts—facts that issue out of truth, facts that do not change.
He said, “Now, the fact is, you can search through the Scripture, and nowhere will you find any instruction that you are to go out and talk to people about your sinless perfection.”
What a relief.
He said, “You are to go and tell them about Jesus. Now, He is altogether lovely, isn’t He? You can talk about His perfection. We might as well have found some fault with Him yet.”
The Holy Spirit said, “This is what you are to communicate: how you came to know Him, what He means to you.”
But the devil did not give up there. He came right back. He said, “Now, not only does it appear to me that there is too much sin in your life; you just do not know enough about the Bible to go out and talk to people about salvation.”
Well, I had to agree with that. I knew John 3:16. That was about the extent of it.
He moved in a little closer and said, “Now, what are you going to do if you go out and people ask you some questions about that? What are you going to do if they ask you about Ezekiel and that wheel within a wheel? What are you going to do if they ask you about those white horses over there in Revelation?”
I thought about it a little bit, and I have to admit, I did not know what I thought. To tell you the truth, I still do not.
I thought we had to give this thing up before it ever got started.
But praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit. He came on the scene. He knew the intent of my heart, that I wanted to be a good witness for my Lord.
He said, “Now, Donald, the fact is, you can go through the Bible, and nowhere will you find any instruction that you are to go out and give a theological dissertation or lecture on church doctrine. You just go and tell them what it means to be born again—what it is like to be a Christian.
“Now, of course, you cannot do that if it has not happened to you. But if you have been saved, if you know what it is to pass from death to life, you can talk about it. That is real. If it has not happened to you, you can no more talk about it than you can come back from where you have been. But if this has happened to you, that is something alive in you that you can talk about.”
So not because it appeared to be the thing to do, but because the Holy Spirit said it was a fact, here I was being a witness.
I got with my friend, and we got a name. We did not know anybody, so we had to go and ask for the name of a lost person. We went out to this little place of business.
We went in, and there were at least four people in the place of business with him. Our first impulse was to say, “Well, there are too many people here. It is not a convenient time. We will go and come back.”
But it was really in our hearts to go on in. We said to the fellow, “We are visiting from the church, and we would like to talk to you.”
We were really surprised when he said, “Well, let’s go to the back of the store where we can talk.”
So we went to the back of the store, and we told him what we had come for. We told him how we got saved and what it meant to us at that time to be Christians.
It is amazing to me how the Holy Spirit prepares these things. That man came back and said, “For about three weeks, I have been wanting to be a Christian.”
Isn’t that wonderful? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
We wanted to go tell him, but we really had not considered that he might want to make a decision. Here he was ready, and we did not know what to do with it. But the Lord did. He was serious, and we were serious.
We said, “You really want Jesus in your heart?”
He said, “Yes.”
We did not know what else to do, so we said, “Next Sunday, will you come to church?”
He said, “I sure will.”
We said, “When they give the invitation, will you come down?”
He said, “Yes.”
Well, I do not know about you, but there have been times when I had not especially looked forward to Sunday and going to church. I had done it sometimes because it was expected of me, and I saw the beauty of it, and I knew I should.
Not that Sunday. I could hardly wait to get to church that Sunday to see if that man would be there. I got to church, and sure enough, there he was.
I was excited about church that morning—about the meeting. I know that is not the church, but I was excited about the meeting.
You know what? I was not a spectator that morning. I did not sit there and try to pick apart what the pastor was saying. I prayed he would preach the best sermon he had ever preached. I was right in that thing with him.
When the time came for the invitation, you talk about wanting the Holy Spirit to fall. I really prayed and asked the Lord, “Let the Holy Spirit fall especially on this man.”
You know, it just amazes me how many people will come to a meeting and go away saying, “I just did not get a thing out of it,” and they have not put anything in it.
These are the same people who would not think of going down to the bank where they have not made a deposit and saying, “I have come for my interest.” They know they would be laughed out of the place. But they will come to church without ever having made an investment and wonder why they do not get anything out of it.
I was getting something out of that day. I had made an investment the week before. I had gone and shared something of myself and my Lord.
Sure enough, this fellow came down the aisle, made his confession of faith, and he got saved. You know, that is something to get excited about. Even just hearing about it, I do not know why you do not get excited. I really do not.
They get excited in heaven. The Bible tells us that every time one gets saved, they have a celebration. I think they may have cheerleaders. Somebody could say it is when all these angels come out and start leaping.
Well, you can do it at football games. They make a touchdown and get the ball over that little line, and here come the cheerleaders. The whole stand goes wild just because they got a ball over a line.
We are talking about getting from death into life—everlasting life. It might be good if we had some cheerleaders in our fellowships. Every time somebody gets saved, have a celebration. Put a little life in it.
Anyway, he got saved. And he is still going for real.
But you know what I think about when I think about what happened in that experience? Oh, it is enough that he got saved. But I think about what happened to me.
It was through that experience that my wife and I started living by fact instead of appearance.
I tell you, if you are still living by appearance, you have my sympathy. You know how it is: appearances change, do they not? What you thought was so solid yesterday can be like a vapor today.
Appearances are like shadows. There is no substance in appearances. But facts are solid. You stand on facts.
During and through this experience, my wife and I began to live by fact.
Some years after this, Julia, our daughter, had finished high school and had done some traveling during the summer before going to university for the first year. She came home for the summer, did some more traveling, and almost the last day before she was to go back to university, she said she wanted to talk to her mother and me.
So we went into the den—family room—and sat down. I can see now it was a good thing we were seated, because the first thing she told us was, “I got married this summer.”
Well, our first question was, “Who did you marry?” We did not even know who it was.
Now, you know, I can laugh about it now. I sure did not then. Neither did my wife.
Because the devil came. You know what he said? That is right. He said, “Donald and Jerry, it appears to me you have got a mess on your hands.” And, interestingly, that is just the way it looked.
You know, I really believe down in my heart that people here in our country, even apart from but also including the religious side of things, are compassionate people. I think there is something ingrained in America that is good. I think it is in danger, but I think there is something ingrained that is good.
One of my continual prayers is that we will begin the process of building up a higher inheritance rather than taking away from it without ever adding anything to it. I think we have already used up the interest and started dipping into the principal. I think it is time to start adding to the principal for those who are going to come after us, if the Lord does not come too soon.
I think there is something good in this country. I believe in it. I pray for it. I love it. I thank God for it. I think there is compassion in the hearts of American people.
You can see a photograph of something that happens in India, or hear about a family from Haiti, and your heart would bleed for those situations. I can see a picture in the paper of starving, bloated children. My heart goes out, and yours does too.
But you know where you do your real living? It is not out there somewhere. You do your real living where I do: within a little circle that includes just a handful of people—your children, your parents, half a dozen or so people that you think you would die for. I say think because it has not been called on yet, but I think I would.
It is right within that little circle, and I find it is where you do your living. When this thing came to us, I tell you, it touched home, just as it would you.
But I am so glad that a lot of years before that, my wife and I started living by fact and not by appearance. So we moved from what appeared to be, and we moved over to say to the Lord, “Now Lord, what are the facts?”
It is wonderful the way the Holy Spirit responds. He said, “Now, Donald and Jerry, the fact is, Romans 8:28 has not changed one bit.”
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.
“Lord, You mean this is for good?”
“Sure do.”
“It does not look like that.”
“The fact is.”
So we moved from the appearance to the fact. We said, “All right, we will wait for You to work it out.”
Of course, you know that Dana was the young man she married. I do not know if you know that he was not a Christian at the time. They moved out of town and continued their education at a nearby college.
We witnessed to them, and some of our friends—who Dana then called “little black Bible-quoting Christians”—came to see him. They could not get anywhere with him. He had an answer for everything they put to him. But they always left saying, “Dana, we love you. If we can help you, come back.”
It did not take the Lord too long to turn this thing around. What looked like an enemy was a friend in there all the time. It took about six months or so.
One night Dana was at home by himself. He just could not get away any longer. He faced up to the Lord and got saved.
You see, it pays to live by fact, not appearances. That is just the beginning of the story. Maybe they will share the rest of it sometime. It is marvelous how the Lord used one thing after another after that.
I would like to mention one other thing, and I think that will finish it.
I really do not believe it is a coincidence that Israel has always been so much in the thoughts and heart of God. I do not believe it is an accident or coincidence that in Israel you have the Sea of Galilee and you have the Dead Sea.
I believe there is real purpose in this. I believe part of the purpose is that we could have an example right in front of us that tells us, in part, why we need to give out to others what Jesus means to us.
We need to give out individually. We need to give out.
Because in this, we have a choice. We can be vital, alive, glorious, and fresh like the Sea of Galilee, or we can be without life like the Dead Sea.
As an individual, or as a fellowship, if you are like the Dead Sea, all you can do is sit and contemplate. You are dead.
Of course, you could go and get some complex machinery, set it up, and begin to distill the water. But it would take all your resources, all your energy, and you would be very active. When it was over, so little would be accomplished.
Or, on the other hand, you could make an exit for the Dead Sea.
God has set in process a principle that if that sea which receives and does not give out begins to give out, life would appear—freshness and vitality. Multitudes would draw from it.
How many discussions would become useless and no longer needed? How many arguments would become meaningless? You are alive; you are just full and satisfied.
How many problems in your fellowship would sort of evaporate if that fellowship was just full of life, being renewed constantly because it is receiving and giving out?
Those are God’s principles, and you violate them at your peril.
One other experience: many years ago, I was down in Florida with some people and was given the name of Joseph Harrell. I found out he was a man in his forties then. I went to his house and knocked on his door.
I heard a woman, whom I assumed to be his wife, call from the rear of the house, “Red, there is somebody at the front door.”
In a little bit, I saw this rather slight man come around the house. I said, “Mr. Harrell?”
He said, “Yes.”
I introduced myself, and I said, “I have come to share with you what Jesus means to me and tell you how I got saved.”
He was as polite as he could be, but he said, “I am not the least bit interested.”
This surprised me, because I thought everybody wanted to hear about Jesus. Of course, in truth they do. They may not have the least bit of interest in your elders, your pastor, or your church. That comes after they get to know Jesus. But they are interested in Jesus.
I did not know what to do, but the Lord is faithful. A rain came up, a little shower. Mr. Harrell had a little Chihuahua dog running around at his heels, and they tell me those things can catch a cold just like a person.
So he got concerned about his little dog and was trying to get it in the house out of the rain so it would not catch cold. He got the dog up on the porch and just about in the house, and then he realized he had left the man standing out in the yard.
I think he felt badly about this, so he said, “Well, you can come in until the rain is over.”
So I followed the dog in.
We got in the house and sat down to wait out the rain. I told Mr. Harrell where I was from in North Carolina, that I was in business, and some of the things the Lord had done in our lives.
The rain stopped, but we continued to talk for about an hour and a half. I said, “I must go.”
As I got up to leave, he said, “I would give anything if I could have happen in my life what you have been talking about.”
I said, “You really mean that?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Let’s pray and ask God to make it happen. Do I have your permission to pray?”
He said, “Yes.”
So we prayed, and I left. We were having a meeting that night, but he did not come.
The next morning, there were about fifty of us getting ready to pair up in twos and go out and knock on doors, telling people about Jesus and what He means in our lives. I looked up, and here came Mr. Harrell.
He came up, and he told me later that he had not been in church in seventeen years. He said, “I am a plasterer by trade. I went out this morning. I have just been restless ever since you left yesterday. I never work on Saturday, but today I decided I would go out and do some plastering.”
He said he got his helper, and they went to the house where they had started to plaster. His helper got a toothache and had to go to the dentist, so he had to leave.
He said, “I have driven around the church three times. Finally, I said, ‘Why don’t you go on in? That’s what you want to do.’ So here I am. What do I do?”
I shared the Scripture with him, and in a little while, he got saved—soul and body for the Lord.
About three months after that, Mr. Harrell was asked to come to the town where he grew up and share his testimony in a meeting. He went, gave his testimony, and gave an invitation. The first person to come and get saved was Mr. Harrell’s seventy-three-year-old father.
Isn’t that amazing?
He told me later that he felt the Lord had called him to ministry. He felt he should preach the Word.
I had not heard from him in at least twelve or fifteen years. A few months ago, I was away on a trip somewhere, and on Sunday morning my wife got a phone call. The person calling was Mr. Harrell.
He said, “I just got to thinking about it, and I thought Donald would like to know that I am pastor of a little group of people down in Florida, and the Lord is blessing. I just wanted to call Don and tell him that I love him and I want to encourage him.”
Isn’t that great? Things like that happen. That is reason enough for witnessing, isn’t it? But that is not the reason.
The reason is, the King said, “Do it.” Amen.
I think one of the messages behind the message that I would like to underline regarding witness is that most of us need to repent of being too complicated.
I have always been challenged by my father-in-law and by the simplicity of sharing with people just what John says he shared in his letter: that which he had seen, heard, and tasted of the Word of life, he shared with other people, and that produced life.
My father-in-law, as a businessman, does not speak in large theological terminology. I know that by the grace of God thousands of people have been saved by his simple witness to people.
I know, for one thing, that he was very instrumental in my own life. But he is a wise man.
I remember right after I was saved, the very night he told me to call home in New York. I called my dad, and this is the truth. I said, “Dad, guess what? Tonight I got saved.”
He said, “Good. What bank?”
He did not even know what the word meant. That is how secular our family was.
But I was saved on April Fool’s Day, and by September my whole family was saved. My mother came down to North Carolina, and people just shared Jesus with her. She was an opera singer and a Christian Science practitioner. But when you see the church—vibrant, loving people giving themselves away—it turns your life around.
My sister came down to North Carolina to visit me, and we shared some with her. She was saved there in North Carolina on that visit.
My father is a psychiatrist, a Harvard man. But the pastor of our church was just a simple man. When my father came down to visit me, he said, “Doctor, what does Jesus mean to you?”
That one sentence—within the next week he was saved at Calvary Baptist Church. He went up in New York City to shake Pastor Stephen Olford’s hand, and Stephen Olford said, “Doctor, do you know the Lord Jesus?”
My father said, “No, but I want Him.”
He got down on his knees in front of that church and was saved there at forty-nine years old. Just like that.
I left my brother at home in New York, feeling a bit persecuted. You know what my father-in-law did? It was nothing to him. He got on a plane with a friend of his, flew up to New York, and went and visited my brother. My brother was sick.
That loving gesture of spending $150 for a round-trip ticket said more than all the preaching my brother had ever heard. Somebody flew up there, drove a car out to Long Island, visited my brother, prayed with him, got back in the car, got back to the airport, and flew home.
Now, that is love. Simple language.
My brother is a genius. He really is, I think. My father is a very intelligent person. Our problem is that we think somehow we have to be all highfalutin, intelligent, theological, and seminary-trained.
All we need to do is share what Jesus means to us, and it melts the heart of the sinner who wants to know God.
I would like to say amen to what I have heard Stephen sharing in these days about repentance. I think one of the things we need to do is get very simple, in the right sort of way.
I thank God for the things I have understood in the Word of God, but I know that most sinners, like myself, could not understand the ABCs of what we understand by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. But if they can see tangibly that some people care for them, and that they care because Jesus died for them and they are debtors to Jesus, it transforms lives.
Everybody here, our biggest problem is that we are Dead Sea people. We have received and received from the Jordan River, and we have no outlet, so we stagnate. As soon as we get an outlet, suddenly life comes pulsating into fellowship.
What do you think it means at the end of Acts 2 when it says:
And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple,
and breaking bread at home,
they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart,
praising God, and having favor with all the people.
And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.
Certainly, God was bringing people to the Lord through the apostolic witness out by the temple, where they not only performed miracles but shared the gospel of Jesus. But do you not believe the Lord added day by day simply by these people overflowing with the simple gospel?
These folks did not understand a lot of theology, but they knew a transformed life, and they shared it.
There is something about that spontaneous life that Donald was trying to share about. Sometimes in fellowship, we almost try to drum up life because no one has given out during the week. Honestly speaking, no one has given themselves away. We come and almost have to drum up life.
The Lord wants our worship, but is not part of our worship doing those good works that He has told us to do? I have never seen it fail when some of God’s people decide to give themselves away in simple witness and then the Lord begins to bear fruit.
That fellowship takes on a spontaneity, life, blessing, and overflow in worship, on top of everything else God is doing for them—which we always worship God for. But as you bring back your sheaves with rejoicing, it adds so much more to the blessing and worship of our God.
It is spontaneous. It is not something we have to drag in.
Outreach really affects our church life. It definitely affects our church life. When we do not have these outlets, we become stagnant because God fills us up to capacity and we have not let it out in any way. It becomes hard for us to grow in these simple ways.
My father-in-law has gotten me into more trouble than you would ever know. I was not a Christian two weeks before he had me out witnessing. I did not know I was not supposed to be a witness, you know. I just went out because he told me.
I saw some people come to the Lord Jesus and be saved before I had been a Christian a month—by sharing what Jesus meant to me, sharing about five or six Scriptures, praying with them, and seeing them go on with the Lord. I mean, they stuck.
I knew it was not my doing, because I did not know what I was doing. But I was sharing the life of Jesus that I had found, and that was all that needed to happen. It was so wonderful.
You can see that my burden in this matter of being responsible toward the world is really geared in this direction: that we saints would take more seriously our responsibility to be simple witnesses.
Now, there is a great work of evangelism, and there are workers God is raising up who are evangelists. I do not take away from that at all. But do you not believe that in a day of recovery, one thing God wants to recover at the grassroots level is people who are willing to be witnesses in daily life?
It is not just big flash-in-the-pan ministries, but people who are overflowing. Maybe some of the fellowships that we are in have the blessing of a brother or sister who is always giving out, and we receive the blessings.
Sometimes you look in a fellowship and see that there have been fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five baptisms. If you look around closely enough, you will see that there have been about two channels through which most of those people came into fellowship life—this person and that person. It is because those people are giving out, and the Lord is adding to the number.
That is much of the burden I really have to share.
There is one question here about our responsibility to pray for government and what we do about government specifically when government is unrighteous or righteous.
Obviously, we are supposed to pray for the government. We are supposed to pray in the light of the fact that we might have peace to spread out the gospel throughout the land, and that the situation might be conducive for that spread and for our life to be lived in peace.
Here is a question: How does outreach get started? By individuals, or does the church corporately need to first feel led to do something?
I think God must be allowed to work sovereignly in any way He chooses. We are talking about a few different situations.
Number one, we have a personal responsibility to be faithful as witnesses in our daily circumstances. I do not think the Lord is going to let go of that responsibility in our lives until we are faithful on a personal basis.
But this question has an agenda behind it. In other words, how does the whole church get involved in the work of evangelism?
That is something where I think there are as many means as the Holy Spirit has creativity. Basically, it will come through some people who are examples and who really have that burden.
I do not think the whole church are all evangelists. There are so many gifts in the church, but there are some people who have this burden. If those people will get serious about what God wants them to do by way of prayer especially, and by way of example, I think this can be a way of bringing in the burden for all the people.
If there are some people being faithful and we are seeing the fruit, the burden begins to be sensed by all the people. But eventually, as in all matters, the church as a corporate body needs to take up these things and say, “Now, God, what do You want us to do?”
Is there a work of evangelism that we are meant to do corporately? Is there a way that we are supposed to express this? Are we supposed to have a gospel meeting?
At that point, it needs to be taken up in prayer with everybody. When decisions are made, we need to stick to it, be faithful, follow through, find the Lord’s mind, and discover how to reach out in various ways in the community. We need to find those doors that I shared about yesterday.
I believe the Lord wants to take this up as an issue in every fellowship. When that comes up, the Lord has His own priorities about the issues He takes up. You have seen in your own fellowship life that many times the Lord does not take up the matter of gospel meetings first of all.
Sometimes He takes up the matter of government, discipline, or commitment. There are a number of things. But eventually, the Holy Spirit will hopefully gnaw away at God’s people until we realize that there is this issue we have to face: What is our corporate responsibility in regard to evangelism? Do we just leave it with a few people, or do we get behind it?
I like the way Lance and the folks at Halford more or less got started. They finally had a kind of coffeehouse outreach for the young people in the community of Richmond, England. Half the people prayed, and half the people invited people in and had the meeting with them.
There was a whole church functioning—half of it hidden, half of it out front. God might lead us that way. Certainly, prayer is a real part of the work of evangelism. If we do not pray our way out into the community, we will just be hitting and missing.
We have a door in Jesus. If we beseech the Lord of the harvest, we will find the doors that are effectual as we pray our way out.
Eventually, the corporate body needs to take it up in prayer and find the way out that God has for us. Sometimes it is just a little door, seemingly, but from that something else happens, and then something else.
Sometimes it is amazing to me in a fellowship when you see one person get saved, and that person becomes the springboard for the whole family, and then for the relatives of the whole family. Have you ever seen one of those trees suddenly grow out of one person who comes to the Lord? It moves out into all sorts of branches.
The Lord knows exactly the channel He wants to use. Again, I feel we need to go to the Lord of the harvest and ask Him for the way out, corporately, as far as how the local fellowship will function.
The second part of the same question is, how is this outreach maintained? Should we corporately be burdened to see it through?
I think if the Lord says to us, “I want you to start a work, a gospel meeting, every Sunday night or every other Sunday night,” or whatever it may be, then if the Lord places that on our hearts, the saints should all be committed to it together.
Do not leave it in the hands of two poor people who set up the chairs, put out the songbooks, do everything, and then wait for a few other people to come in. I think it has to be a corporate pattern. If it is going to be an expression of the church, it needs to be a corporate matter where everybody is really involved.
How is it maintained? I personally believe from my own experience that there are seasons in this thing. There may be a season where the Lord moves out in the community and a number of people come to the Lord. Then it seems to me that the Lord may shut down gospel meetings for a while and build up the saints who are there.
The trouble is that sometimes we shut that door down and never open it again. There may be an initial influx of people getting saved, and then we just never do it again.
I feel that if we hold gospel meetings for a period of four months or so, and if God directs us that way, then perhaps we shut that down, begin to build up the saints, and then there will be a time again when the Spirit moves us out.
Would to God we could be that sensitive, really sensing how God is moving.
My only problem with a continual gospel meeting every week is that unless the saints are really behind it, it soon peters out. You end up with another church meeting called the gospel meeting where only the saints come. To me, it is not a gospel meeting.
I do not know if you have been in this frustration, but I have been asked to speak a gospel message in meetings where all there were were Christians. It is because they have it every Sunday night or whatever, and people do not take it seriously.
The saints do not really go out and bring in people. They all come and wait for somebody else to bring in somebody, or they pray, “Lord, just send them in.”
Well, the Lord says, “Go out there. There are the hedges and the highways. Go out.”
But we all wait for somebody else to bring them in. So my feeling is that if God is leading a corporate body to engage in a gospel meeting, there needs to be real commitment behind it—preparation, prayer, and everybody feeling that conviction of the Spirit to bring somebody.
I was in Raleigh once, and we had a gospel meeting there. I said to the people, “You should not come unless you bring an unbeliever.”
Then I backed off and said, “Well, okay, if you really tried to bring an unbeliever and they could not come, then you can come.”
Anyway, we had a very good meeting that time.
We had a gospel meeting in Raleigh where Marilyn DeVree lives. We had a dinner at the country club, and they invited their friends. We all came and had a wonderful sit-down dinner at the country club. It was for Valentine’s Day.
Then I played a Valentine’s game with all the adults—adults only—which placed me firmly as a fool.
A sister then shared that she had recently talked to her oldest daughter, whose husband is now a pastor and seminary graduate. She remembered that meeting. Because of that meeting, somebody had asked her, “Are you afraid to die?”
She said, “No.”
They asked, “Why?”
She said, “Jesus.”
She said that was what changed her life and made her comfortable. So there was fruit from that even in her own family.
Well, we had my father-in-law come and share some testimony, and I shared the gospel message. We gave an invitation. I think there were a few people who responded there at the country club.
But somebody went home that night, became very agitated, and ended up responding. That was Marilyn DeVree’s husband. He came to the Lord, with the Holy Spirit having worked on him for a long time and making that his time of decision.
It was well planned, and the saints were behind it. You had never seen such excitement. They brought those unbelievers. They had sat down together. They were so gracious and so nice. Oh, how the saints loved each other that night. It was truly wonderful.
Yesterday you said that the Lord will take us out of the world, but He will also send us back to be a witness, a lamp on the hill, and so forth. How does this relate to public issues which diametrically oppose God’s laws? Is our lot to be only burdened in prayer, or do we ignore the lawless state our nation is in because we are no longer citizens of this world but sojourners? Others say that even if we pray about our laws, we may be praying against God’s will because it may be God’s timing to judge America. In all, what should be our Christian witness concerning the world? Do we only pray for those in authority? Would you say God desires to raise up godly men into public office?
Well, there are nine questions there.
I will just offer this to you. This is my thought about this sort of thing, and I do not know.
I believe that in every fellowship, the Lord raises up people to do the work of evangelism, just as surely as He raises up teachers. There are some who are meant to be evangelists.
I also believe in fellowship life that the Lord raises up some who sovereignly have a deep burden and concern for moral and social issues. These people are provided in the body, first of all, to make us aware of what is going on, to provoke us to pray about such things, and sometimes even to take public action.
One of the fellowships on Long Island had an abortion clinic begin near where they were. Some of the saints actually went over there and protested the place.
Again, I am not sure all the saints ought to get behind something like that as if we move everybody into that position. But we need to support those who do. In the prayer times in that fellowship, they have raised this issue of abortion and the local clinic before the Lord on a number of occasions.
There are a couple of people there who seem to have the grace and burden to do something outwardly about it. I would say that God has given them as a gift in the body of Christ. An important part of that gift is to make us aware, for the sake of prayer, regarding these matters.
I remember again in the same fellowship, just a few years ago, the local movie house began to show adult movies. They began to allow teenagers to go into these adult movies—the X-rated, bad pornographic movies.
This so stirred up a couple of the saints in that fellowship that it would not let them go. They began praying fervently about the matter.
To make a long story short, that movie house had to shut down those pornographic movies and go back to showing PG films. It caused such a furor in town. But it started in the prayer burden of a couple of people who brought it up to the saints.
The next thing you know, one night we were praying, and we felt the freedom to say, “Lord, raise Your scepter of righteousness up over that movie house.”
That was the beginning of the end. Boom.
I believe those people are gifts in the body of Christ.
In Halford House, they have had over the years a real prayer ministry. But I will tell you what one of the secrets is: they have some people who have their ear to the ground concerning what is going on in their town, in their country, and in the world.
I think the same way applies concerning public issues. We need to be aware of them. I get the newsletter from Intercessors for America, and frankly, I find that helpful at times to see what is going on—the reports from state to state, some of the issues and things taking place, and the burdens they feel.
It can help us to be informed about these matters of public issues.
I do not see in this question that the church as a whole is supposed to go out on something like this and demonstrate in some way, although it may get down to that if people personally feel that way. I think all these other parts of this question are a bit hypothetical. God will do what He is going to do.
There are things that are going to happen in the United States, and nobody here knows what is finally going to happen. Is this nation going to totally turn away from God and be judged and go down the drain, or is it going to repent and turn around? Nobody here knows.
What do you do in the midst of seeing the decline of a country like this? We need to pray for repentance. We need to repent ourselves, pray for repentance, and pray that God’s light would come upon us in His mercy, so people could see the way.
There is nothing wrong with praying that way and asking God to stop different evils that are going through the land. I do not believe that is praying against the will of God. God will still do what He will do, and it depends, of course, upon what He will do and also upon the response of the people.
If we hear about evil going through the land, we should pray about it—especially as it relates to our personal community, our local community. Definitely pray that God would do something in that light.
Here is another question: What part should the leaders of the church play in helping equip the saints for their role in missions, either for support for missions or to go out on the mission field?
This is an issue about missions that I have not really found my way through yet. I will explain why.
Having been on some foreign fields, I see the problem of American money simply going into the mission field. It corrupts a lot of things over there.
Of course, we should pray for situations that we know about, mission fields that are going through difficult times. But what is mission? In the Bible, we have workers and apostles, or missionaries if you want to say.
I think that whatever we do regarding missions, the highest way is to have a personal, living relationship with the workers we know of and are involved with. I feel that is the safest way.
If we know of workers in a certain place, then we write and keep in contact. There may be a need for finances, some equipment, or simply prayer over a certain crisis. I think that is the best way to be involved in this: on a personal, related basis with specific workers.
I remember one time when I was in India and fellowshipping with a man who had an orphanage. He was totally isolated down in Tamil Nadu, a province in southern India. Yet this man had been reading books by Watchman Nee, the ones he had in translation there, and he was seeing church life in such a real way.
I was thrilled to meet this man. I said, “Well now, how can we help you? Can we support you?”
He said, “You know what I want? I want living fellowship with the saints in other countries.”
He said that a church from Germany had been giving him money for the orphans for several years. Then one of the leaders in that church came right through their town and did not stop to see him.
He said, “I wrote them a letter and told them to stop sending me money. If they would not give me personal fellowship and personal relationships, then the money is not real.”
I thought, “Brother, what he said is true to my heart.” We need personal relationship.
The problem is, how do we find workers and missions with whom we can be personally related? That is the problem.
I have to admit that in my own life, there are only a few people I know whom I see in that category, people to whom I could personally relate. How do we get over this? I suppose by information from workers and brothers who have been in various places and situations. Even then, I suppose it is mainly a matter of prayer and involvement in that way.
I do not know what to say beyond that.
I think we have a real frustration here because I believe a lot of the saints have a real desire to be stewards—financial stewards—in situations that we believe are needy. But sometimes that causes more trouble than it helps.
Maybe you have heard some of Stephen’s comments about Chinese Bibles and mainland China. It is not always a blessing. Sometimes it is quite wasteful when Bibles are sent in the wrong way. It causes a lot of stir and sometimes wrong results.
Yet there is a right way to do it. But the right way is to have personal channels through into mainland China.
So there we are. What do you do? I do not know. I think it is a very difficult question.
I wish personally that I knew more workers in places—workers whose vision I knew, workers I knew personally, and whose faithfulness I knew. There is a lot of work going on, but it is sometimes hard to know the quality of the work being done.
I tell you what, I think probably we should end. There are a couple more questions here, but I think we have spent most of our time.
Tomorrow, we are going to be dealing with our responsibility in the work. Brother Stephen is going to be sharing tomorrow and the next day—our responsibility in the work. Maybe he will answer some of these questions about missions and different things.
There was also a question regarding the matter of sponsoring children.
Okay. Let us have a word of prayer.
I believe, Lord, that Your Spirit has focused today on having an outlet for the life that Jesus has placed in us.
Father, we want to find that living way to express our love for You in terms of responsibility toward the world. We pray that You would take the thoughts, the things that have been shared, and the testimony that has been given. We want to give it all to You.
You are the God of glory. You are the God who has given us life. We want to return life back to You and be a channel for You to use us out toward the world.
Help us, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.