Five Essentials of Evangelism

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2016 · 3 April 2016

We have seen the foundation of the church being laid. We remember how the gospels end with a commission to evangelize the world. There will be the coming of the Holy Spirit our Lord tells His followers and when the Spirit comes, the Spirit will enable His people to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth. This proclamation will go on for all of human history until our Lord Jesus returns to establish His glorious kingdom.

The church exists on earth for the purpose of its own development. The church is the means by which the Lord builds the kingdom. God uses believers to bring about the salvation of other believers. This is what the apostle Paul reminds us of when he says in Romans 10:14-15, “And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” It is the church’s responsibility then to send out its people for the proclamation of the gospel to gather the rest of God’s people.

The church has begun to grow through the means of the proclamation of the gospel. Acts 2:41 says that on the day the church was born 3,000 souls came to true faith in Christ. Acts 2:47 then tells us that the Lord added daily to the church, the number of people who were being saved. And when we come to Acts 4:4 it says, “There were many who heard the message of the apostles, and they believe and the number of men came to be about 5,000.” And with women and children there were approximately 20,000 members.

Acts 6:7 says, “The Word of God kept on spreading. And now it has swept through a great many of the priests who are becoming obedient to the faith.” In Acts 8:6, it’s still happening, “And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.” And in Acts 9:31 the church has now stretched from Jerusalem into Judea into Galilee and into Samaria, as our Lord said it would.

Evangelism is at the heart of what we do. It is the goal and the reason we are here in the world. It is why the Lord left us here, but it also is the byproduct of our spiritual development. Evangelism is our mission, but it doesn’t occur effectively. It only occurs spiritually and supernaturally by the working of the Holy Spirit in Christ-like believers. They are the ones that reproduce.

In Acts 5:17-42 we see really one story and what you have here are five essentials of evangelism. The church was growing and they were going everywhere proclaiming the truth. Look at Acts 4:29-31, “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness. 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken.”

In the beginning of Acts 5, we saw the devastating sin of Ananias and his wife Sapphira. Sin is like a cancer in the fellowship and it threatened their power and eliminate their impact on the world; and so it was immediately judged by God forcefully. Both of them dropped dead, right in the service worship of the church on the Lord’s Day. God Himself did the disciplining. And after the church was purified, the church began again its ministry of evangelism.

So the first essential is purity. That is vital to a church’s integrity. Jesus Christ has come to remove our sin, remove our guilt, to grant us righteousness, to make us a holy people who are zealous for good works. If that is our gospel, then it better be visible in the church. That is why a corrupt pastor, or corrupt leadership and corrupt people who identify themselves as a church is such a devastating thing in evangelism.

The world wants any excuse that it can find to reject the gospel. They say, “Well, I know a lot of people who go to church, and they are all hypocrites.” This destroys our claim. We are claiming transforming power through Jesus Christ. The Lord can take a sinner and turn him into a saint. A holy life presents the evidence of the gospel transformation, so the church has to be holy if it is to be effective in its evangelism.

Number two is power. Go back to Acts 5:12, “Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles.” There is an explosion of apostolic signs and wonders, not only in the neighborhood, but in the city of Jerusalem and beyond. People were being brought in, and everyone is being healed, and everyone is being delivered from unclean spirits. Now all of this is happening after the apostles had been forbidden by the authorities to do so.

Please note that “many signs and wonders were regularly done by the hands of the apostles.” Listen, this is not a miracle-working church. This is a church with miracle-working apostles. There is a big difference. Scripture makes that distinction. There were specific signs that identified an apostle. Signs, wonders and mighty deeds, Paul told the Corinthians, were the signs of an apostle.

Now you say, “How does that apply to us now?” It applies to us because we have the record of all that power in Holy Scripture. We don’t have apostles doing miracles. We have a lot of false apostles who are doing false miracles, but we also have the complete divinely-inspired record of all the apostolic miracles of the New Testament.

And we possess the power of the Holy Spirit who is doing the marvelous work of conversion. “Well, what if people don’t believe the Scripture?” Oh, I don’t expect them to. I don’t expect anybody to believe the Scripture. Because 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” They won’t believe unless God does a divine miracle and opens their eyes.

The third essential for evangelism is persecution. Persecution is inevitable. You cannot be effective in evangelism unless you anticipate the persecution. The world cannot stand a pure church and persecution will surely happen right now more than ever before. This will threaten cowardly people, but it will not threaten the people of God, the true church and those who are bold in Christ, right?

Let us look for an example in Acts 5:17-18, “But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy 18 they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.” Jesus said in John 7:7, “They hate me because I tell them their deeds are evil.” The early church was convicted to ignore the persecution and proclaim boldly the gospel, and that is what they did.

So here comes another wave of persecution. This time it comes from the high priest along with the Sadducees. Who are they? The Sadducees are the leaders of the temple operation. They are fundamentalists who only accept the first five books of the Old Testament, the books of Moses. They are very agitated at Jesus because His teaching exposes them as heretics. And they are filled with jealousy because of Christianity.

Verse 19-21, “But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, 20 “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” 21 And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.” The Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection and these apostles were preaching a risen Christ. They didn’t believe in angles, so God sends one of those very beings they deny to take His apostles out of prison.

Angels are repeatedly used as messengers in the book of Acts. Now, the angel opened the gates of the prison and took them out. They are delivered and what are they told to do? The angel said, “Go stand and speak to the people in the temple,” the domain of the Sadducees. God wants boldness in the face of persecution.

God expects obedience at any cost and preaching the gospel at any cost. Christianity is abundant life and life eternal, life in His Son. So they arrive in the morning, and they began preaching the gospel again. God puts them right back in the very place that is going to be the greatest threat to the people who put them in prison to start with.

In the middle of verse 21, “Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.” The council is all the Senate of the people of Israel, the Sanhedrin. These are the elders of Israel. They’re influential. They are the supreme court of Israel. So they sent orders to the prison to bring these Christians out. They want to indict them.

Verse 22-23, “But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported, 23 “We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside.” How did that happen? A mysterious, miraculous event, just another indication of the supernatural realities that happened in the early church to demonstrate its divine character, because only God can do these things.

Verse 24-25, “Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to. 25 And someone came and told them, “Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” They probably thought that they are somewhere hiding. No. There they were back preaching with more confirmation than ever because now they were there by a miracle that no one could deny.

Verse 26, “Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.” You say why would the people stone them? They are filling the city with sick and demon-possessed people, and they know that these people can all be healed and delivered. If these guys treat the apostles badly, it will surely incite a riot. Their lives could be in jeopardy.

Verse 27-28, “And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.” They won’t even use the name of Jesus. The second indictment is that you are making us responsible for the death of this man. Remember Matthew 27:25, “And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

The fourth essential in evangelism is persistence. Did this arrest and all this harassment and threats scare them? No. And starting in verse 29, we see the persistence of Peter and the apostles as they answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” That’s the simple reality. We have been commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all people. We have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost part of the earth.

Verse 30-31, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” This is boldness. Peter says, “We didn’t invent this.” Verse 32, “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

The last essential is providence. Providence is God’s control of all circumstances. Ultimately, the impact of our evangelism is in the hands of God. Look what happens when the leaders in this supreme court of Israel are meeting officially. Verse 33, “When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.” Why didn’t they kill all these Christians right there?

A strange thing happened. Verse 34, “But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.” The Sadducees were dominant in the Sanhedrin, but there were also Pharisees. And they were the teachers of the people and had influence with them. The Sadducees want them all executed immediately, but here is a man who represents the people. And he’s a master teacher of the law, respected by all the people.

Verse 35-37, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.”

Act cautiously, if you execute these men, and you may have a full blown revolution. These things have a way of resolving itself. Verse 38-39, “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God! So they took his advice.”

Verse 40, “And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.” Here God uses this man to keep the opportunity to preach the gospel alive. Verse 41-42, “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.”

This is providence. God has His purposes in every age, in every country, in every time and place and that still happens here. Everything is in God’s hands. Let’s pray.