Learn more about World Methodist Evangelism: https://worldmethodist.org/

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Paulo Lopez. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (00:09):
It’s a pleasure to be here, Daniel. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
Now you are with World Methodist Evangelism. Tell me a little bit about what you do.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (00:20):
Well, World Methodist evangelism started in the 1970s as the Methodist movement around the world realized that we had lost steam in evangelism and mission. And so this ministry was sort of commissioned out of the World Methodist Council. Today, 50 years later, we’re an autonomous organization. We serve the whole Wesleyan Methodist movement around the world. And so there are over 80 denominations and just over 85 million people around the world that would claim a Methodist or Wesleyan heritage. And so our work is to come alongside leaders to help them build faith sharing movements in their context, whatever that might be.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
Yeah, I think it’s so wonderful that you’re doing that because the Methodist Wesleyan tradition has such a rich history of evangelism. I mean, going all the way back to John Wesley, he had a great heart for evangelism. And then in America we had Francis Asbury, who was a circuit writer, who traveled all over the United States, the Eastern United States at that time, planting churches and really evangelizing

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (01:44):
Countless others. I live in Virginia. My wife and I are from Brazil. We’ve lived in the US now for 17 years, but I get to live in Virginia. And Virginia was one of the first states to have circuit riders in them. And they were so prolific in fact that if you go to Virginia today, you’ll find many towns where all these churches are very close to one another for modern day. It doesn’t make that much sense to have so many churches close by. But when you imagine people horseback riding to church, having a church five miles, it’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:22):
A little bit

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (02:22):
Farther. That’s right. Having a, when you’re on a horseback, five miles, 10 miles down the road, made sense in a way that it doesn’t make sense anymore. But these folks, they would often only return to a congregation after two months, six to eight weeks by the time they got to come back. And so they relied heavily on lay leaders and preachers and evangelists and the pastors or the circuit writers were sort of apostolic ministers. So they were going out and starting new works. Really incredible.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:00):
I was reading John Wesley’s journal and he actually was introduced to the idea of preaching outdoors with George Whitfield. That’s right. And so George Whitfield, he kind of got kicked out of the Anglican church. Some of the leaders didn’t like him, so he went out and was preaching outdoors and seeing great results. And he told John Wesley, you got to try it. John Wesley said, I didn’t even think God could work outside the doors of the church, but he tried it and lots of people were touched by God. And then over the next year he says, I preached over 300 times and only once or twice was inside a church. And so now we’re actually here in Zambia together doing a mass outdoor gospel event, really kind of in the tradition of what John Wesley kicked off all those years ago. And

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (03:57):
In many ways, Daniel, we’ve kind of lost that in many parts of the world. The guy on the corner of the street with the bullhorn is what comes to mind. And in the West, it’s not how you do ministry anymore. We’ve kind of lost touch with meaningful ways of doing ministry. At one point in one of his journals, John Wesley says, in response to seeing how people are responding to Whitfield, he goes, I submit to be more vile to him, it was like this crazy thing that Whitfield was doing going out preach

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:39):
To preach outdoors.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (04:40):
But then I got to go to Bristol in the UK a couple of years ago and visited at the new room, which was kind of John Wesley’s home base for ministry where he was training preachers. And there’s a little museum there, and there’s this story of him going down to the port where all these mine workers and port workers would come, some of the hardest men that you could think of. And he would preach to these folks and their stories of their faces being all darkened by dust and

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:20):
From working in the minds, from

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (05:21):
Working in the minds. And then after preaching, you would see streaks of white in their faces because these hardened men had been having an encounter with Jesus through preaching outdoors like that. So yeah, there’s a lot of similarities between what we’re

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:38):
Doing here. We got to go out on the street today here in Zambia and preach, and we had a bike rider who was doing some tricks. That’s right. And gathered a crowd and it was pretty amazing. I mean 50 a hundred at one place, I think we had almost 150 children and adults who gathered around to watch the bike tricks. And then we preached to them, and I saw a picture of you. You were doing the

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (06:00):
Same. What’d you see God do today out the streets? We were in the back of the truck. I tend to find this to be real here in Zambia and other places around the world. I think there’s a caricature of being out in missions somewhere remote and seeing the kinds of things that we see all these people gathering and the hunger. I think people are hungry everywhere in the world. It’s being able to discern the hunger and then respond to it. And I think the way that the Paal Association g and e, and the way we’re doing this outrage here is just appropriate for this place and the moment. But I’ll tell you what the thing that I really like about what we’re doing, if what we were doing was simply coming out and doing rallies and doing a festival, it would be a bit of a turnoff for me because I’m a Wesleyan.

(06:59):
The innovation that John Wesley had that Whitfield later said, I regret not doing that, is that John Wesley, he would preach, but then he would stay in that place until people that were receiving Christ would be put into small groups called class meetings back in the day. And so what I’ve been impressed with what we’re doing here is the fact that there has been some groundwork prior to the festival for months as church leaders have come together. So the church in Ndola has kind of unified around the purpose of evangelism, and there are strategies for how to receive people that are now making decisions for Christ in those local churches. So what are the next steps? How do they connect with a local church? All of that has been figured out. So it’s not kind of a one and done and you come in and there’s impact and then people are left like lost sheep waiting for a pastor to care for them.

(08:04):
No, they’re being connected to local churches in the area. And I think that’s the way to do it. There’s a bad rap in evangelism, and I think we often disconnect the notion of sharing our faith with others from discipleship. When I stop to think of it, particularly when I see the pattern of Jesus and the 12 disciples is that Jesus calls them to follow him. But we don’t know. I always ask the question, when was Peter’s conversion? Was it when Jesus called him and he started following him? Jesus says, who do you say I am? Or was it later on after the resurrection when Jesus says, do you love me, Peter? I don’t know for certain when my guess is, do you love me, Peter? That’s the conversion moment. But by then Peter had followed, Jesus had been a disciple for three years, and so we

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:02):
And been rebuked by Jesus.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (09:04):
And so he had walked with Jesus, had seen stuff with Jesus. And so we can’t control conversion, but we can invite people to walk alongside us. We can’t control how many people are going to raise their hands and receive Christ, but we can encourage them to find a local church and to follow in Christian community. And I think when those two things are married, then what we see is great fruit that lasts generations. I think unfortunately a lot of what we’ve done for many years is just write down the number of people that have said yes, and then we leave and we celebrate it. Right. And the donors are really happy because their numbers are good, but we haven’t really done anything about it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:49):
So let’s talk. We talked about the historical impact of John Wesley and Francis Asbury. How do we bring their passion for evangelism and for reaching people into this modern time? What are you doing to inspire Methodist evangelists and just inspire the entire Wesleyan tradition to keep evangelism as part of their passion and focus? Sure.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (10:19):
Our mission is to help leaders build faith sharing movements. And what we are realizing is that there are two separate realities right now might be an oversimplification, but generally speaking, there are two separate realities in the world. There’s the part of the world that is wide open and very hungry for the gospel. Generally speaking, the global south kind of fits into that

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:51):
Category,

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (10:51):
Which you’re from the global south, you’re from Brazil, I’m from Brazil.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:54):
So you’re kind of a missionary to the United States.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (10:57):
I feel that way. Yeah. Actually, technically I am a missionary from the Brazilian Methodist Church to world Methodist evangelism. So that’s my Well, thank you. We need

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:10):
Some of the fire from the south to come north again.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (11:14):
That’s right. But see though it’s true that people are on fire in the south. What I often find is that people in the global south struggle to be mobilized outside. It’s almost like in salvation, in finding Christian community that becomes kind of a bubble. And so they go from Sunday to Sunday from discipleship meeting to discipleship, meeting from conference or revival to revival. And it’s something that stays, it’s almost like a subculture in the global south. The church becomes like a subculture that’s almost removed from everything else. And the biggest challenge for me in the global south is helping leaders figure out ways to mobilize their people to look outside of the church and into the field. And so we don’t see a lot of that. We don’t see as large as the church movement is in the global south, we don’t see nearly as much in the way of mission workers coming out of the global south. And there should be way more.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:28):
Yeah. Several years ago, God spoke to me. He said, Daniel, the mission field shall become a mission force. And I think that we’re on the cusp of seeing that in the global south where we will see more and more passion for mission because really in many churches in the global south, they have become very mature. They’re mature theologically. They have a lot of passion. And so now I think that if they will catch the vision of the Great Commission, we will evangelize many parts of the world that used to be Christian and now need a new witness of

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (13:08):
Christ. Yeah, I think you’re completely on track, and I think it makes sense in the greater context of what we’re seeing all over the place. I think that’s the big challenge for the global south. It’s getting people to get out. I think part of that challenge is maybe because the global South has been accustomed to receiving in the way of investment and funding and all that sort of thing. So having a leadership mindset that says, in order for the great commission to continue, we need to take the lead and do this. That’s a big deal. But we were with a bunch of young adult leaders in Cape Town in March, and many of them raised money to get there by telling people that they would be investing in missions. And so my word to them was, coming to this training in this conference is not the mission if you don’t leave here and get involved in the mission and this wouldn’t have been worth a thing.

(14:25):
So we conflate often being a part of conversations about mission with the mission itself. And that happens a lot in the global south, in the west and in the north it’s a different picture. You have a cooling down, if you will, of the church movement. You have a loss of steam in evangelism and mission. Churches are generally decreasing in size. Denominations in particular losing many people. You can point to Europe, but in the US this is true as well. And so the kind of work that we do than in the West has more to do with awakening people to their faith and their calling.

(15:14):
We want the same results wherever we are in the world, but we realize the challenge in the west and the north is different than the challenge in the South. And so we try to respond accordingly to that. So one of our guys that we bring with us, and a lot of what we do does these talks on the Holy Spirit, DNA in the Wesleyan movement. And so you have people that have been Methodists or Wesleyans for their whole lives and never understood how rich a theology of the Holy Spirit we have. And so then you get to minister the Holy Spirit over pastors that have been pastoring for years and never been baptized in the Holy Spirit. And so you go from that to, okay, now this is what evangelism could look like. And there’s sort of an awakening the mission versus mobilizing the mission in the south.

(16:11):
And we do that primarily with pastors, younger pastors, usually under 35 through a ministry called Ordered of the Flame. So we gather pastors in this community, invest in them in the area of mission and evangelism, and then invite them into cohorts afterwards where there can be some accountability around what they’re doing. And then we do have a ministry called Metanoia, and that’s with young adult leaders. We’re getting ready to launch a separate ministry out of metanoia that’s with marketplace leaders. What does it look like to be involved in mission and ministry and in faith sharing ministry in the marketplace, in your business, your career in the public square? What does that look like for people who aren’t professional ministry people? So that’s something that we’re involved in as well. And so we do these wherever we are invited churches, people in these different parts of the world will invite us to come and we partner with them in ways that make sense for continuity of the ministry afterwards. And then we offer a way for them to connect online through an online community platform that we’ve developed called We four 19. And people can join in over there, find resources, webinars, and all kinds of things. So that’s how we spend a lot of our time.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:44):
Amen. Is there hope for the Methodist church in America? In my hometown in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there’s just a couple miles from my house. There’s Asbury Methodist Church, which is extremely evangelistic. They have done amazing work in our city, identifying different areas that need help in going and offering the love of Christ and leading people to Jesus. And they’re really significant. And then down the street the other way, there’s a much more liberal Methodist church. And it seems like sometimes there’s issues that are very far from what you would see in the Bible. What do you think the solution is? Is that a fair question?

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (18:33):
Totally

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:35):
Tough to deal with on a podcast.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (18:38):
I have a bit of an outsider view of it, which I think is an advantage not being from the us but having enough time living in the US to kind of understand what’s going on and the way I feel about, and I would say not just the Methodist church in the US but the more established, established historical denominations in general, mainline denominations and so on. I think what we’re going through right now is not a whole lot different than the scene that John Wesley found himself in England in the 17 hundreds, which was a church with all the trappings and the lookings of church, but without the spirit and a lukewarm faith, a socially acceptable faith. I think it’s Alan Hirsch that once said that Methodists lost their steam when they decided to become respectable. And I

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:48):
Think there’s something about being an evangelist that you have to leave your respectability at the door. You have to leave it because to go out and you have William Booth, he would send people out in uniforms, they’d make music on the street corners. That’s not really respectable, but it’s what you have to do to get an audience to preach to them about

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (20:07):
Jesus. So to me, that’s exactly right. And so to me, John Wesley, one, he realized mentally and with reason that there’s something wrong. Stuff I’m reading here doesn’t match what I see in practice of the church. And so he, he’s seeking and trying, but there’s a humility about him in that he’s traveling back from Georgia where he was a failed missionary traveling back from Georgia, and he’s on a boat and there’s this big storm and

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:49):
Meets the Moravians.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (20:50):
He meets the Moravians and instead of a pride of I know how to do things, he couldn’t help but be curious about why is it that these folks are not afraid to die right now and I’m afraid to die? And we’re both Christians. There’s something about them that I want. And so he has an awakening experience at Aldersgate, which is the heart strangely warmed experience. But what few people know is he actually went and visited with the Moravians Count Zinzendorf and learned from them. So in the Methodist discipleship system, bands were like the smaller group of people three to five that would ask each other tough questions about their sin and about how they’re dealing with their family and how their soul and how they’re serving and how they’re giving and all that sort of thing. And their prayer life. And he learned to do bands with the Moravians shamelessly, copies it and starts using it in the Methodist

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:55):
Movement very effectively in the method very

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (21:56):
Effectively. And so there was a humility there where he’s not afraid to pick up stuff that seemed to be working with other people. And I think in the world today, I think Methodists could learn a great deal from the charismatic movement and the Pentecostals around the world who have no trouble with evangelism, and they’re very bold and rediscover the power of the Holy Spirit.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:30):
I mean, that really was why the Holy Spirit was given. I mean, acts one, eight, you’ll receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be my witnesses. That’s right. And so the whole encounter with the Holy Spirit is what gives the believer the power, the ability to go out and be bold and witness. And we see that on the day of Pentecost where Peter we talked about earlier, he denied Christ went out and preached, and 3000 people were saved that day because he had been filled with the

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (22:58):
Power of Holy Spirit. It wasn’t because he was a skilled preacher, right? It was entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. So to me, that’s it. If there’s hope for the church, it lies in leaders willing to humble themselves to realize, one, we have a problem, two, we don’t. While in our heritage, there are solutions within our heritage. Right now we’re not living within solutions. And so who is it around us that seems to be alive and what can we learn from them? And then you apply your theology and your way of thinking and you innovate and you do all kinds of things. But I think where Methodists and Anglicans and Presbyterians have been learning from others and not afraid to innovate, I’ve seen a lot of promise. Many churches, just like the Asbury Methodist Church in Tulsa, I could point to a number of churches just doing really great ministry. I would say their exception, not the rule right now, but I don’t think it’s a Methodist thing. I think it’s a church in general thing. But in particular, mainline denominations have struggled to recover their identity.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:21):
I’ve made an observation as I’ve traveled around the world. You have different types of countries around the world. So you have the countries that were colonies of Great Britain, so places like the United States, like Australia, like Canada, even. You had an influence of Great Britain here in Africa where in Zambia at one time,

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (24:48):
They still drive on the left side, they still drive, which is

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:50):
So weird, Kenya. Okay, so that’s one type of country. Then you have another type of country that was really strongly influenced by Roman Catholicism. So Brazil would be an example of that. Like Dominican Republic, a lot of central and South America had a strong Roman Catholic presence. And then you have the Francophone countries that were colonized by the French. And I was just in Congo a couple weeks ago, and it was colonized by Belgium and really mistreated in many ways. And so you have these three different types of countries, the Francophone, you have the Roman Catholic, and then you have the Anglican, the people that were colonized by Great Britain. And you see the difference in how the countries are like the Francophone countries often are very poor. And I think it goes back to the French Revolution where they went into the churches and they turned them into cathedrals of human reason instead of worshiping God.

(26:10):
And that spread as France spread its colonies around the world, and where you see it really vividly is like Dominican Republic in Haiti. Haiti was settled by the French, Dominican Republic was more Roman Catholic, and when you look at it on a map, the Haitian side is brown because they’ve burned all the trees. The Dominican side is lush and green. And so there was a blessing I think that came from God during the Methodist. What John Wesley did changed the course of history, and as it spread, you really saw the blessing of God come on many nations because of what impact Wesley had on spreading the gospel. And you see in Roman Catholic countries, you see they’re not as bad off as some of the francophone countries, but I think you can really trace in some ways what God has done through the ministry of John Wesley. What do you think about that theory? It is kind of interesting looking at how different countries are.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (27:38):
Yes, and I would say you can easily point that to the, it’s been studied, the Protestant work ethic and what that did in terms of economic development countries that took on the Protestant work ethic. I don’t know how much to do with John Wesley. That part had, right. England was a Protestant country before John Wesley. I say the revival I think is by the mid 18 hundreds, I believe one out of every three Americans was a Methodist, which is absolutely bonkers. Right?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:25):
When Francis Asbury came to America, I think there was something like 200 Methodists in the whole country, and by the time he died, it was like half a million

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (28:33):
And there were a hundred thousand in England. When

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:38):
John Wesley, I mean, when you have the stories of Francis Asbury going out on the frontier, the frontier men in America were extremely rough. I mean, they were drinking, they were out there just on the edge of, and the circuit writers would come in and start preaching to them and really turn sinners into saints. And that had to have an impact on the spread of America. Yeah,

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (29:07):
Absolutely. So I think you can say, well, definitely religious movements had a lot to do with that. The type of colonization had a lot to do with that. Africa and a lot of South America were what you would call exploitation colonies. And so even today, there are signs of that, like the railroad system in Brazil, most railroads go west to east. Very few of them go north to south. Why? Because they were moving goods to the ocean, to the port, to ship to Portugal, and then Portugal was using that as currency to purchase industrial goods from England and from other places. The same with Spanish colonization. Colonization in North America was different. It wasn’t colonization out of exploitation. It was people looking for a different kind of life. And so your attitude towards development and building things is just different when it comes to that.

(30:23):
But the effect of mission, sort of the missional evangelistic mindset, the Methodist movement, and a few others, I would say have definitely marked what society looks like in the US and certainly in Great Britain. Man, you said the change of in history and in Great Britain, there was a huge issue with drunkenness. A lot of mine working was one of the main things, and there were no labor laws back then. You can trace many of the early labor laws to Methodists, vowing for or fighting for better, for human dignity, for human dignity. John Wesley wrote a book, an entire book on health, a book of medicine, and a lot of the things that he wrote are still things that we utilize today because it was a gospel for the whole person. It wasn’t we’re going to just save your soul. You’re going to save your soul, but your life is going to be different.

(31:48):
You’re going to become healthier. You’re going to stop drinking, and therefore you won’t beat your wife anymore and therefore your kids will grow up to be healthy people. It is just all these things, which to me is the definition of revival. Revival is something that gets stirred up in the hearts of Christians. It has an impact on the entire society, and it starts in the church, but then it affects society in general. And when you see societies changing, then you go, yeah, that’s revival right there. So I mean, that was in the west. In the West, I would say probably the last great revival. You have the great awakenings in the us, but nothing that was like society shifting in the way that the Wesleyan movement is now. You see signs of that in other places in the world underground church in China, what that’s doing in that culture in society. You see the church growth in India and what’s happening there. There’s many places in the world that are just experiencing social change because of revival in the church. And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:06):
So yeah, last summer I got to preach at a little tiny town up in the Nebraska area, and I was invited by a female Methodist pastor from India.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (33:23):
Oh, that’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:23):
Cool. And so she had come

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (33:26):
How unusual, right

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:27):
From India, I think one of the Methodist schools had given her a scholarship. She’s come over and studied, and then they put her in this little tiny town and made her the pastor of the church. And there were like 10 people in the church, which is a little tiny church. And the first thing she did when she got there is she went to all the other pastors in the city. There were seven different denominations. And so she went to the Baptist pastor, the Lutheran pastor, and she says, in India, we get together and pray. And so she said, we need to start praying for our city. And so she gathered these pastors and she was a fireball, and she gathered them together and they started to pray every week together. Then after several months of praying, she says, you know what we did back in India is we would have a revival where all the churches would work together. We need to have a revival in our city. So she challenged the churches, let’s have a revival. And they called me in as their revival evangelist, and some of the churches were like, I’m not sure who this guy is, and we’re a little hesitant, but we saw revival in that city and it was because this Indian Methodist pastor female was just on fire and brought a fire to the entire city.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (34:58):
Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s really cool. Yeah. What’s great about that is that as a female minister, I mean just saying that an Indian female minister is already a big deal because it’s culturally not something that would be typical. So what an incredible story.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:22):
And so I’m just really excited. I think in talking about the different movements, I think it just shows the need for a new move of God in our time.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (35:33):
Yeah, you see signs of it though. I feel, man,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:39):
God is

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (35:39):
Moving. Yeah. I’ve been talking about this with some friends, especially since I had been thinking some of this, but it didn’t become a theme of conversations with others until the outpouring at Asbury University in 23, so last year, early last year, and

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:08):
Did you get to go to that?

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (36:09):
No. See, I was heading out to uba. I didn’t get

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:12):
A chance to go, but I mean, it was so neat to see so many young people there. It

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (36:16):
Was just

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:16):
Worshiping the Lord.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (36:17):
Well, what doesn’t make the headlines is the fact that that sort of thing is happening in all kinds of places around the world right now. There’s just a fresh something going on. Daniel, wherever we’ve been in the last three years or so, we have seen signs of awakening, particularly with young leaders, pastors, and lay folks, just humility about them, a hunger about them, and a lot of repentance and realization their sins. So what I realized is in the places where we go, where we’ve had these events, we are not the ones causing anything. Neither is it a move of the spirit that is primarily through us, but we’re kind of riding a wave of something that God’s already doing there, and we can’t quite put a finger on it, but it just feels different, I would say over the last three years. It just feels different, and I keep hearing that from people that are not a part of our movement at all, who are saying, I was in this place and I was like, man, it just feels different. There’s just something going on. So I guess we’ll have to shoot another one of these in 10 years to talk about it and say, did something actually happen or not? But I don’t know. I have a feeling that there’s something fresh going on, and it’s transnational. It is not in one country and

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:10):
It doesn’t seem to have any identifiable leader.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (38:13):
No, no.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:14):
There’s no one who’s leading it. It’s a divine move of the Holy Spirit.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (38:19):
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:22):
It’s something that’s kind of happening under,

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (38:25):
And what a beautiful thing that is. We’re in an age of celebrity where anybody with a phone and a camera can become a celebrity of sorts, an influencer or something. How cool is it that God would choose to move in a season like this in the world in a way that’s sort of faceless, go to places, and it’s just neat to see God doing stuff and nobody claims it. Everybody’s just happy to be a part of it. Amen. And that’s cool. That’s better than all the division we’re used to, isn’t it? Amen. Yeah. Well,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:05):
Let’s finish up today by just praying together.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (39:07):
Yeah, that’d be awesome.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:08):
Would you just pray that God would raise up more great evangelists around the world? Yes,

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (39:16):
Absolutely.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:16):
That we would see God pour out his spirit upon all the different movements around the world.

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (39:21):
Yeah. Let’s pray and I invite those that are watching, even though it’s not live to pray this prayer with us. I think as we humble ourselves, whether it’s on listening to the podcast or watching it on YouTube, we can invite people to join us in prayer as well. Yeah. Let’s pray. God, we are humbled that a God like you would invite people, even us to be a part of your mission in this world. And God, we’re just in awe of who you are and what you’re all about. God, we thank you for your reconciling work around the world where person by person, heart by heart, community by community, nation by nation, you are in the mission of bringing people back to you and reconciling them to yourself through your son Jesus, through so God. We know that right now there’s a rising hunger for something more in this world, and God, you say this in your word, that the fields are just full of fruit and there’s nobody to pick it up.

(40:43):
The laborers are few. And so God, we pray right now that you would raise a new generation of laborers, of workers, of passionate followers of Jesus that would go out into the world boldly, humbly in ways that reach to the heart of each community that they go to God. We pray right now that you would call people who you are preparing that they would awaken to your mission in this world. God, we pray that you would lift up leaders not just here in Africa and not just in North America, but all over the world, God, that your mission would be accomplished from people from all over the world going to all over the world, and God, that the world may know who we are because of our unity God, because of the common spirit that we share with one another and God because of the humility that we come into this mission.

(41:47):
God, it is your mission. It’s your church. It’s your spirit. We just get to be a part of it. God, so would you do that? Awaken us, God, revive our hearts even as you do this with those that are still yet to be called, and God allow us to be a part of this beautiful movement that you’re beginning in the world right now. We want to be a part of this fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit, so do it in our hearts. Do it in the hearts of those that are watching or listening to this and in their communities and in their families. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (42:26):
Paulo, Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I just have one more question. Someone’s listening and they’re from one of the Wesleyan traditions. They have a heart for evangelism, and they want to get to know you to connect with some of the resources that you guys have. What’s your website? What’s the best way for them to get

Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism (42:43):
Connected? You can find us online@worldmethodist.org or you can follow our handle on Instagram at World Methodist, which is our handle for most of our social media, and if you really want to get into it, I invite you to go to your app store and look for we W four nine, we four 19, and that is our online community platform. We hold live events, webinars. I need to get you to do a webinar for us on evangelism. That would be amazing. I’d love to. We’ll have to set that up. We do monthly webinars, book clubs. We’re putting out videos, podcasts and all sorts of things, and then leaders get to connect with one another on the app as well. People from all over the world. I think we’re up to 26 countries right now on the app, and we launched just a few months ago, so we’re excited about that. But yeah, those were the ways to connect with us. If you want to reach out to me, you can email me at paulo@worldmethodist.org and I’d love to connect. Daniel. Thank you so much for having me, man. Been a joy.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (43:53):
Well, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

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The post Paulo Lopes | World Methodist Evangelism appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:03):
I am so excited to be here because I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. How many of you love telling people about Jesus? You are in the right place. So my name is Daniel King. I’m a missionary evangelist. I go all over the world telling people about Jesus. When I was 15 years old, I was reading a success book that said, if you want to be successful, you need to write down your goals. And one of the goals they say would be good for young people is to try to become a millionaire by the age of 30. How many of you would like to be millionaires by the age of 30? What about by the age of 60 for some of you? Well, I realize that because of my upbringing as a missionary in Mexico, that money was not what was important to me. What was important was souls.

(00:43):
And so at the age of 15, I wrote down, I Daniel King, want to lead 1 million people to Jesus Before I turned 30 years of age, instead of trying to become a millionaire, I wanted to lead a million heirs into the kingdom of God to become a soul millionaire. And so God started opening up doors in different nations around the world. And I’m excited to tell you that before I was 30 years of age, we led over 1 million people to Jesus. Isn’t that exciting? Praise God. And so since then we’ve led another million. And, and I was praying, said, God, what comes next? I felt like God said, go for a million souls every single year. And so in the natural, that’s impossible. But with God, all things are possible. And so I believe that God is raising up many of you to become so millionaires.

(01:31):
How many of you would like to be so millionaires to lead over a million people to Jesus in your lifetime? I believe that God will bring it to pass in your life. If God can do it in my life, he can do it in your life. And I see in this room many people that are called by God to be great of evangelists. All right, so let’s talk this morning or this afternoon about the call of the evangelist. What is an evangelist? How many of you feel you’re called to be an evangelist? Raise your hand. All right, wonderful. Well, you’re in the right place now. The word evangelist is mentioned three times in scripture. Paul mentions the call of the evangelist in Ephesians, chapter four, when he mentions the, the fivefold ministry gifts, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers, and each of these gifts are given in order to equip the saints for ministry.

(02:30):
And then of course, Paul writes to Timothy, who was actually serving as a pastor in Ephesus at the time, and he tells him in second Timothy four verse five, to do the work of an evangelist. Everyone will look at the prison next to you and say, do the work of an evangelist, Evangel. And some people think that being an evangelist is just standing up on a stage and, and preaching. But that’s only one small piece of it. It’s actually a lot of hard work being an evangelist. And so all of us are called to do the work of an evangelist. And then in Acts 21 it says, leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. So Acts 21 verses eight and nine, and it specifically calls Philip in evangelist.

(03:34):
He’s the only one in the entire New Testament who is specifically called an evangelist. And so I believe that God has given us a picture of what an evangelist is called to do in the life of Philip the evangelist. Now, in the beginning of his life, he was not an evangelist. In Acts 21, he is called an evangelist. But his story actually begins over in Acts chapter six. And so this is going to be an interactive session. So if you have your Bible open up your Bible. I need, I need y’all to get out your Bibles. We’re gonna be talking about the word of God. Look at Acts chapter six,

(04:29):
Verse one. It says, in those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews, among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the 12 gathered all the disciples together and said, it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word, this proposal, please the whole group. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit and also Philip. So in the beginning of his ministry, Philip was not a great evangelist. He was simply a person who had a heart to serve.

(05:27):
And I believe that every great ministry begins with having a heart to serve. They needed someone to wait on the tables. And Philip raised his hand. He was full of the Holy Spirit. He was full of power. He raised his hand. He said, pick me. Pick me. He says, I’m willing to serve. And so if you want to do great things for God, the first step is to find a place to serve. And so if you feel called to be an evangelist, find something to do in your local church. Do something, help clean toilets, serve tables. Go to your pastor and say, what can we do to reach out to the community, find a place to serve. And as you begin to serve the Lord, God will open up the doors for you to reach thousands of people for his kingdom. Amen. Can you say amen?

(06:21):
Amen. And so that’s what God has done in my ministry. I’ve been preaching to big crowds of people all over the world. But my ministry started when I was 10 years old. My parents became missionaries to the country of Mexico. And one day my dad said, we’re gonna do a drama about the life of Jesus. He says, Daniel, I want you to play the part of Jesus. And I thought that was a good idea because Jesus was perfect, and I was almost perfect. And so my sister Esther, she dragged her leg like this, and she pretended to be crippled, and Jesus would touch her on the forehead, and, and suddenly she could dance. And then my other sister, melody, she’d come up and she’d pretend to be blind, and Jesus would spit on the ground, make some mud, but before he could touch her, she was already healed.

(07:06):
And then my father said, now we’re going to crucify Jesus. And suddenly, I didn’t want to be Jesus any longer, but my younger brother, Steven, he loved this drama because as the older brother, I’d always beat up on Steven. But in this drama, he was the Roman soldier, and he got to beat up on Jesus. And so he’d bring this big, long leather whip and he’d begin to whip me with it. And I gotta be honest with you, I think he over acted a little bit. And one day he went to my dad, he says, this drama is not realistic enough. We need some blood. And my dad thought that was a good idea. So Steven brought a big bottle of ketchup, and he put the ketchup all over the whip. And when he whipped me with it, it looked just like the movie, the passion of the Christ.

(07:50):
There was blood all over my back. And then he crucified me to the cross. And I remember hanging on the cross with all the ketchup on my back. And every fly in Mexico was attracted to the ketchup on my back. And I’d always tell my dad, dad, it’s very difficult to hang on the cross. Could you please preach quickly? But my father did not know how to preach quickly. And so he’d start in the first book of the Bible, genesis, and he’d preach all the way to the last book of the Bible appendix. He’d preach the entire thing, and I’d be hanging there on the cross, we’d catch up on my back, flies crawling up and down my back, and I’d begin to pray. I’d say, God, forgive my father for he knows not what he does. And then I would die. And one time there was a little kid, he wanted to see if Jesus was really dead or not.

(08:38):
So he came up and started tickling the bottom of my feet. I’m telling you, I suffered for the sake of the cross, but Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. And so the amazing thing is, is that the same messages we used to preach to 30 children in Mexico, now, God is allowing us to preach to 30, 40, 50,000 people at a time. Why? Because of this principle. If you’re faithful with the small things, God says, I will place you in charge of many things. And so what’s the secret to start starting? Oh, great ministry. You gotta buy a bottle of ketchup. That’s the secret. All right, so Philip starts out with a heart to serve God. And then the great chapter about the life of Philip the evangelist is Acts chapter eight. And so look at Acts chapter eight with me, verse four.

(09:33):
It says, those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went, Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came outta many and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in the city. All right, so this, this workshop is going to be interactive. I want you to look at those verses there, and these verses inform us on some of what an evangelist might do. And so just begin to talk to me, what do you see in those verses? What what do you think an evangelist should do? What what characteristics do we see for evangelism in these verses? Brother Bimba, he must go first. He must go. Everyone say the evangelists must go. Yeah. Yeah. It says Philip went to a city in Samaria. Now, Samaria was not Jerusalem. Jerusalem was his own people, but he goes to another people. So he goes, yeah, what else do you see there?

(10:49):
Preaching preached Christ. He preached. So the evangelist must preach. What was his message? Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. It says he preached Christ. Now, this is how you distinguish a true evangelist. The evangelist will always preach about Jesus Christ. Now, in America, I don’t know if it’s true here in Europe, but in in America, you know, there’s, there’s people that call themselves evangelists, and they, they travel from church to church, but I don’t think many of them are. So, some of them are not really true evangelists because, you know, they go and they talk about marriage. They do a seminar and how to be a success in business. But if you want to identify a true evangelist, amen. His message will be about Jesus Christ. He can star anywhere in scripture, but he’ll get to Jesus just as quickly as he can. And so that’s how you identify a true evangelist.

(11:40):
Are they preaching about Christ? All right, what else do you see here? They cast out demons. They cast out demons. So yeah, we’ve seen that in many of our crusades, that there’s demon manifestations. And so with the authority in the name of Jesus, we cast out the demons. What else? What else? What else do you see? Signs, signs, signs, wonders, miracles. And so this is according to Acts eight, this is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Philip the evangelist. He did miracles. Yeah. What else do you see? Great joy. There’s great joy in the city. And we see that great joy comes when the evangelist preaches the good news, because peoples get saved. Their lives are completely cha changed. What else do you see captured the attention? They captured the attention of the people. The people listened. Yeah. What else do you see? He went where others didn’t wanna go. He went where others didn’t want to go. Amen. Yeah. What else? How, how many people does he minister to here in Samaria? Is it just a few multitude? It says a multitude. And so these are two of the distinguishing characteristics of the evangelists. He, he ministers to multitudes, and we see miracles cast out demons. There’s great joy in the city. He proclaims the Christ.

(13:11):
Yeah, we can learn a lot from this passage, and that’s what we want to see God do in our day-today. We want to cast out demons. We want to see God do miracles. We want to hear that Christ is being preached. We want to see multitudes. Can you say amen? Amen. All right. So let’s continue on. It says now for some time, there was a man named Simon who had practiced sorcery, and he was amazed at what was happening. He went from being amazing to being amazed. And then look at verse 13. It says, Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. And then the next verse, it says, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. And when they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon them.

(14:13):
They had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. So we see here that a great revival is happening in Samaria. People are being baptized, miracles are happening. But then he sends word to the church in Jerusalem, and Peter and John, the apostles come and they come to work with Philip in this great revival that’s happening. And so the number one question that I receive as an evangelist, if any of you are evangelists, you probably have heard this question before. It’s what do you do for follow up? Have any of you ever heard that question? Anyone ever ask you that? What do you do for follow up? And they say, maybe they never, ever led a single person to Jesus in their whole life, but they stand with their arms. Folds are, well, what do you do about follow up? I always like to, I want to say like DL Moody said, well, what do you do about salvation? What do you do about leading people to Jesus?

(15:24):
Yeah. What do you do about follow up? Well, here, I think we have a biblical model for follow up. The evangelist does not minister alone. He ministers with other ministry gifts. And so the evangelist is especially anointed by God to break into new territory, to be a pioneer, to go where the gospel has not been preached to be, to preach before, to be entrepreneurial, to look for opportunities. And so that’s a unique gifting of the evangelist. But the evangelist is not called to minister alone. Along with the evangelist comes all the other ministry gifts. And so we need the apostles, we need the prophets, we need the pastors, we need the teachers, we need administration, we need helps ministry all these different gifts. We bring them along with us. And I think that’s the secret to follow up, is the evangelist is not called to do it alone.

(16:16):
You always work closely with the local church. We love the local church. We work with the local church. We want to partner with the local church. And, and so along with the evangelists, we bring all the other ministry gifts. And I think that’s the answer to follow up. The evangelist is cannot do all the follow up on, on his own. If someone says, what do you do about follow up? I say, come, brother, you come and help teach, come and help us follow up and disciple the new believers. Amen. Amen. All right. So they’re having a very successful ministry there in Samaria. And then this guy Simon, he comes, he asks if he can buy the gift of the Holy Spirit. And, and unfortunately in the body of Christ, there’s been a problem with people selling gifts of the holy experience.

(17:06):
But in fact, in English, we have a word called simony. It means to, to buy the gift of of God. And it actually is named after this man, Simon. But it, and and unfortunately there’s some people in the body of Christ that if you asked to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit, they might offer to sell it to you for a thousand Euro. You know? But you see, Peter, he rebukes the spirit. And so the, the evangelist is never called to be driven by money. We’re driven by souls. Amen. And so we’re not after money. We’re not after a service. We’re not after our ego or just having big crowds. We’re gifted by God to care about people and to go after souls. And so that’s what we’re called to do. Amen. Amen. And then in the midst of this extremely successful, amazing revival happening in Samaria, God has another assignment for Philip the evangelist.

(18:09):
Look at verse 26. It says, now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. And so you can imagine Philip getting a little bit upset with God. Say, God, here I am in Samaria. We have a very successful revival happening. He says, why do you want me to go down to the desert road? There’s no one on the desert road. The desert road is hot. Why should I go down to the desert road? Here I am in Samaria. We’re getting very beautiful pictures here in Samaria for my newsletter. Why do you want me to go down to the desert road? But he’s an obedient evangelist. So he goes, and look at what happens. It says, so he started out in, on his way, he met in Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.

(19:10):
This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship. And on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet. The spirit told Philip, go to that chariot and stay near it. Then Philip ran up to the chariot, heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet, do you understand what you’re reading? Philip asked, how can I, he said, unless someone explains it to me. So he invited Philip to come up and to sit with him. So this Ethiopian eunuch had come to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh, the God of Israel. The Ethiopians had a knowledge of Yahweh going all the way back to the Queen of Shiba who had visited King Solomon. And so King Solomon met the queen of Shiba. She took the knowledge of Yahweh back. So this Ethiopian unit, he went to Jerusalem. He wanted to worship God. But when he arrived at the temple, there was a big problem. And it was found in the law of Moses. Over in Deuteronomy chapter 23, verse one, let me read this scripture to you. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 23,

(20:29):
Verse one. This is the law of Moses. It says, no one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord. And no one born of a foreign marriage, nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the 10th generation. And so in Deuteronomy, it said, if you’re emasculated or if you’re a foreigner, you’re not allowed to enter the temple of God. And so this Ethiopian unit, you know what a eunuch is? A eunuch is a man who’s been cut off. Do I need to explain? He’s been cut off. And so he’s maimed. He’s imperfect, and he comes to the temple to worship. And he’s not allowed to come into the temple because he is a foreigner, because he’s imperfect. But yet he has a hunger to know God. And so he buys a scroll, which back then would’ve cost a a year’s wages.

(21:42):
And so that’s, how much would a year’s wages for a man be today? You know, imagine spending 60, 70,000 Euro to buy a copy of Isaiah, and he’s hungry, but he, he’s reading it. He doesn’t understand it. So God sends the evangelist to explain it to him. And so he’s looking at it and says, how can I understand unless someone explains it to me? And Philip, the evangelist is there because God sent him, said, let me explain it to you. And so look at this, it says verse 35, Philip beginning with that very passage of scripture, told him the good news about Jesus. What is the evangelist message? Good news about Jesus, good news about Jesus to Samaria, he preached Christ to the Ethiopian. He shares good news about Jesus. That’s the message of the evangelist. And so the passage he reads from Isaiah is Isaiah chapter 53, the beautiful passage that talks about what Jesus accomplished on the cross about how our sins were placed on Jesus.

(22:51):
And because of him, we can be set free from sin. And so it says He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before the shear is silent. So he did not open his mouth in his humiliation. He was deprived of justice, who can speak of his descendants, for his life was taken from him. So Philip begins in Isaiah 53, but I don’t think he ends there. I think he spent some time with his Ethiopian, and he continued with him until he came to Isaiah chapter 56. So when the writer of the book of Acts wrote this, you know, they would have large portions of scripture memorized. So, so people reading this would’ve, they would’ve instantly, they didn’t have chapter divisions. They put the first couple of verses to remind people of the passage. But it’s, you know, it’s a longer passage that the writer of Acts wants to bring to mind. And so in Isaiah 56, there’s a beautiful passage that talks about what will happen after the Messiah comes, and how there will be a change in the kingdom of God. And so look at Isaiah chapter 56. This, this is, this is amazing. This is so exciting. Every time I read this, I get excited.

(24:22):
Listen to this, this, this is a prophecy. So you remember, Deuteronomy has the law. It says, no one who’s emasculated, no one who’s a foreigner may enter into the kingdom of God or enter into the temple. But here in Isaiah 56, listen to this prophecy about what will happen after the Messiah comes verse three. It says, let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say the Lord shall surely exclude me from his people. And so he’s talking to a foreigner, he’s talking to this Ethiopian. And then it says, and let not any eunuch complain, I am only a dry tree. So he is talking to a foreigner, and he is talking to a eunuch. For this is what the Lord says to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant, to them, I will give within my temple in its walls a memorial, in a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, and they will not be cut off

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Glory. Amen. Glory

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:40):
And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him and who keep the Sabbath, who will fasten my covenant. These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. And so imagine the Ethiopian looking at this passage in Isaiah 56, and he had just gone to Jerusalem. They kept him out of the temple. Archeo, archeologists actually have the stone that was at the gate of the temple that said, any foreigner that goes past this point will be killed. They found that in Jerusalem, that stone. So he came there and he is not allowed to enter into worship Yahweh, but Philip is telling him, because of Jesus, everything has changed. Jesus changes everything. And where there used to be lines of separation, they say, now we have a circle of inclusion. And you are included. There is a place for you. Even if you are imperfect, even if you have made mistakes in your life, even if you are a foreigner, even if there’s something different about you, there is a place for you in the house of God. The house of God has room for every person, every nation, every people. There is a room for you because Jesus changes everything. Amen. Amen.

(27:28):
Hallelujah. Amen. Isn’t that good? Powerful. Jesus changes everything. And so look at this, as they traveled around along the road, they came to some water. And then eunuch said, look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized? Or is there anything stopping me from being baptized? And Phillips says, no, there’s nothing that prevents you from having a relationship with God. Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. He broke the wall of separation. And now there is a place for every single one of us to come and to have a relationship with God. And so the Ethiopian says, stop the chariot. And they get down out of the chariot, and they go into the water.

(28:30):
The Ethiopian is baptized. And then it says, when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away. And the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Now, someone today would say to Philip, well, what did you do to follow up on the Ethiopian? Well, the Holy Spirit followed up on the oath, Ethiopian. And it’s a miracle what God did in the life of this Ethiopian. And it says, Philip, however, appeared at as ptosis and traveled about preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. And it’s in Caesarea that we find him. And he’s there in Acts 21 with his four virgin daughters who all prophesy. And so Caesarea was a city built by Herod the Great and given as a gift to Caesar, the emperor of Rome. And so he built it.

(29:38):
And it was very controversial cuz they included temples to foreign gods, even though he was a Jewish king, they allowed temples to be built. And so it was where all the ships came from, the Roman Empire. And when sailors come off the boats, what did they do? They, they behaved like drunken sailors. But in the midst of this sinful, wicked city that has foreign temples and, and sin on every corner, I don’t know, maybe is a little bit like Amsterdam, I don’t know. But in this place, God sent Philip the evangelist, and he’s there and he’s ministering, he’s evangelizing, telling people about Jesus. And then he has four virgin daughters who all prophesy in the body of Christ. Recently there’s been a controversy about whether women can speak in church. Well, it’s hard for them to speak if it’s hard for them to prophesy if they keep their mouth closed, because I believe God’s raising up women evangelists.

(30:43):
In fact, I think some of the greatest harvest will see will come from women evangelists. Can you say amen? Amen. Amen. Yeah. And so these four virgin father, they ministered right alongside their father. And in the midst of this sinful city, they kept themselves pure and holy. And it would be so tragic to, to lead thousands of people to Jesus, but for your own son or daughter to go to hell. And so this is part of the calling of an evangelist. You go, you travel, you minister in different places, but I believe also we’re called to be ministered together as a family. Today I have my son Caleb here, everyone say hi to Caleb. He’s helping me run the, the program here. I also have my daughter Katie Grace back here. Everyone say hi to Katie Grace. Now this is my beautiful wife, Jessica. Jessica has been a missionary for, for many years. We actually met in Goma Congo, right on the border of Rwanda and Congo. And at that time she was a crusade director. She was helping to set up crusades in, in Africa. And so I was a crusade evangelist. She was a crusade director. When I saw her, I said, wow, this is a match made in heaven, <laugh>.

(31:56):
And when she saw me, she was checking me out. And after 10 seconds, she says, no, I’m not interested. <Laugh>, she didn’t like my haircut. But a year later I went to preach her church in Canada and I had a new haircut. And then we started to date, date <laugh>. And, and I was anointed that day. And so <laugh> now we’ve been married for 15 years, but you know, God doesn’t just call individuals. He calls families. Amen. And so to be part of the family was to be in my life growing up, was to be part of the ministry. And so we’re called to reach the masses, but we’re also called to, to raise up godly children. Amen. Amen. And so let’s finish with some prayer. Could you all stand up to your feet, lift up your hands to heaven, and let’s begin to pray. I believe that in this room we have many who are called to be evangelists. And I believe that today God is going to strengthen that call in your life.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:11):
And I believe that God is going to give new creative ideas for evangelism, new ways to reach people. And today, my prayer is, is that the same anointing that’s on my life for evangelism will come upon your life. Lord, I pray for an impartation right now upon every person here be filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, Lord, I pray that all the, the signs of an evangelist would be present. Amen. For every evangelist who is here, I pray that they would preach Christ, give them a passion for preaching about Jesus. Lord, I pray for miracles to happen in their ministries. Come on, lift up your hands to heaven. Lord, I pray that their hands would be healing hands, that every person they touch would feel the touch of Jesus. Lord, I pray that they would be able to cast out demons that through the authority of the name of Jesus, amen, that they would be able to take authority over every demonic power. Lord, I pray that wherever they go, that great joy would follow them. Lord, I pray that none of these evangelists here would ever be driven by love of money, but they would be driven by a love for souls and for going after people, for bringing people to Jesus.

(34:49):
Oh, hallelujah. Father God, pour out your spirit upon this place. Oh, hallelujah. Lord. We call for mighty evangelists to be raised up out of this room.

(35:12):
To go to the nations with boldness, even closed nations where it’s hard to preach the gospel. Lord, I pray that you give us the right strategies to go to the hard places, to be pioneer. Evangelists, just like Philip went to Samaria, cross-cultural ministry, cross language groups. Lord, I pray that you would enable us to reach even the one that we would be able to preach to the masses, but that we would also be able to preach to the individual who needs Jesus. I pray that we never take our eyes off of each individual. Lord, we pray for the the every one vision. That’s the theme of this conference that you’ve given to Dr. Billy Wilson to reach every person on earth with the gospel of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in the next 10 years before 2033, the 2000 year anniversary of the day of Pentecost in the natural. It’s impossible. But God, we know that through you all things are possible. And Lord, I pray that we would be able to reach everyone, everyone throughout the earth, that every person would have a chance to hear the gospel.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Hallelujah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:54):
Hallelujah.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Hallelujah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:57):
Oh, hallelujah.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Hallelujah. Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:01):
Come on. Give a great big round of applause to Jesus. Can you feel the presence of God here?

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Jesus,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:13):
You are God’s best.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:17):
God chose could have chosen anyone but he chose you. Yes, you are God’s best. Amen. And God has amazing things in store for you. I encourage you to go after souls. Go after people. I pray that your heart would beat with God’s heartbeat. For souls. For souls. For souls. For souls. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Evangelism Podcast Host (37:47):
Daniel King is on a mission to save 1 million souls a year, but he can’t do it alone. Would you consider sowing a financial seed today to give? Please visit www.kingministries.com.

The post The Call of the Evangelist appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Comfort was born in New Zealand in 1949 and became a Christian at the age of 18. He has written numerous books on the Christian faith, including “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists,” “Hell’s Best Kept Secret,” and “Evolution: The Fairy Tale for Grownups.”

Comfort is known for his controversial and confrontational approach to evangelism and he is a significant figure in the world of Christian evangelism and apologetics. He often uses the Ten Commandments to share the Gospel. His YouTube channel has over 200,000,000 views.

On today’s Evangelism Podcast I Ray Comfort him some difficult questions about his theology, let’s hear how he answers them…

Learn more about Ray Comfort and the Living Waters Ministry: https://livingwaters.com/

Questions for Ray Comfort:

You have written over 100 books. What is unique about “So Many Lions, So Few Daniels”?

Let’s talk through a couple of scenarios of how you present the Gospel to people:

1. You meet a guy on the street who loves to party. He is drinking and cussing. What do you say to him?
2. You are affectionately known by atheists as “Banana Man” because of an illustration you once gave using a banana.  You meet a girl who says she is an atheist. What do you say to her about her belief in evolution?

Why do you focus so much on the Ten Commandments in your witnessing?

I have two big questions about how you witness. The first big question is in how you begin your conversation and the second big question is in how you end your conversations.

1. When you start witnessing, you usually emphasize the sinfulness of humanity instead of talking about the love of God. Bill Bright, who founded Campus Crusade for Christ, taught people to witness using the Four Spiritual Laws which starts with the idea that “God Loves You and He has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life.” Romans 2:4 says “The goodness of God leads you to repentance.” So why do you emphasize the law of God instead of the goodness of God?
2.  After you present the Gospel, I never see you ask people to pray a prayer of salvation. Why don’t you close the deal?  Why don’t you pray a prayer of salvation with people or give altar calls? What is a false conversion?

The name of your TV program is “The Way of the Master.” When Jesus walked the earth, He healed lots of sick people so if you really want to follow the way of the Master, what role should miracles play in the ministry of the evangelist? When Philip the Evangelist preached in Samaria, many people were healed. Do you believe that God can use physical healing in order to draw people to Jesus?

Your first book is “Hell’s Best Kept Secret.” You are quite critical of large evangelistic meetings led by evangelists like Billy Graham and Luis Palau. You emphasize that with modern evangelistic methods, 80% of the people who are reported to be saved end up backsliding. What do you think is the solution to this problem?

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
His YouTube channel has over 200 million views. Ray Comfort is a Christian evangelist and author who is known for his efforts to evangelize and defend the Christian faith. He’s the founder and c e o of Living Waters, a ministry that focuses on evangelism and apologetics. And he’s the co-host of the television program, the Way of the Master, which teaches believers how to share the gospel with others. He was originally born in New Zealand. He became a Christian at the age of 18, and he’s written over a hundred books, including God Doesn’t Believe In Atheist, hell’s Best Kept Secret and Evolution, the Fairytale for Growing Up. Today we talk about his new book called So Many Lions, so Few Daniels Comfort is known for his controversial and confrontational approach to evangelism. He often uses the 10 Commandments to share the gospel. On today’s evangelism podcast, I ask Ray Comfort some difficult questions about his theology. Let’s hear how he answers my questions.

Evangelism Podcast Host (01:22):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:47):
Welcome to The Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Ray Comfort. He is a phenomenal YouTube evangelist, over 200 million views on his YouTube channel. He goes out on the streets and tells people about Jesus. Brother, comfort, thank you so much for being with me today.

Ray Comfort (02:13):
It’s an honor to be with you, Daniel. Thanks to having me on.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:16):
Man, I have learned so much from your ministry over the years. I’ve watched many of your YouTube videos. I’ve been watching you go out on the street and talking to, to people, uh, about the, the 10 Commandments. And, uh, you have just, uh, published a new book. It’s called So Many Lions, so Few Daniels. Now, you’ve published over a hundred books. What is unique about this one?

Ray Comfort (02:47):
Well, it’s, I think it’s a book for our time. We are living in very, very dark times. Let me tell you what inspired me to write the book besides God, A Hope. Um, it was a poster or a t-shirt put out by atheists. It was, uh, too many Christians, not enough lions. And I thought, how sick is that? That’s like saying too many blacks, not enough lynching ropes, too many Jews, not enough Nazis, uh, too many Christians, not enough lions. And that made me really mad. So an atheist inspired the book So Many Lions, so few Daniels, which is what we’ve got. We’re living in a dark time, a time of tremendous godliness, or godlessness, should I say, tremendous darkness. I was just reading this morning, we’ve had something like 37 mass shootings in the us, just this sheriffs, not even the end of the first month of the share.

(03:40):
Um, over 1300 people died through being shot in mass shootings. And it traces it back to traces itself, back to lawlessness. Uh, Jesus said, inequity shall unbound, which means lawlessness. There’s a forsaking of the 10 Commandments. And when you do that, forsake the fear of God. And if you don’t fear God, you can cover what you want, lie to whom you want, steal from whom you want. You can commit adultery, you can blaspheme God’s name, and you can kill people without qualms of conscience because your understanding of God is erroneous. So we need Daniels, uh, men and women of God who will step up to the plate, who will not who’ll be fearless and faithful. You think of what Daniel was. He was a man that didn’t care what the world thought. He wasn’t a man pleaser. Uh, they said, don’t praise flung as windows open, the Bible tells us and said, I don’t care what you think.

(04:30):
I only care what God thinks. And that’s the attitude that we must have as Christians. We don’t care what this world thinks in the sense we don’t want their praise. We want the smile of God. And if you look at what Daniel had, he had faith. That’s all he had. And I take great consolation on the fact that I am not tall. I can’t sing. I can’t dance. Um, there’s a lot of stuff that I was behind the door when the talent was given out, but I can have faith. Anyone can have faith. Doesn’t matter how tall or short you are at gifted, you are how you can jump, how much you can sing. You can have faith, and that’s what Daniel had. And that’s all it takes for God to use. You just trust him with all your heart. And that’s what we need Daniels to step up and be counted.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:11):
Well, since my first name is Daniel, I must say I give a hardy endorsement to this book. I think we do need more Daniels. And, uh, of course, growing up as a little boy, Daniel was always my hero, uh, being thrown into the lion’s den. And often when you go out and talk to people about Jesus, it feels like you are being thrown into a lion’s den because the people start to yell at you, cuss you out. They they have all these questions, and that’s something that you do on a regular basis. And so I was wondering if we could walk through a few scenarios of what you say to people when you’re out witnessing. And you have lots of these in the book, different interviews you have with people. But uh, let’s say you’re, you go out on the street in Huntington Beach and you meet a guy who, he’s got tattoos all over. He having a party, he wants to party, he’s got a, a beer in one hand, and he is cussing people out. What do you say to him about God?

Ray Comfort (06:16):
You know, I’m gonna share something with you. I’ve never shared with anyone because it just happened this morning. This morning. My daughter and a husband, Emils Wayne Ey, the president of our ministry were woken at 5:00 AM by a guy ringing the doorbell. He wearing a hoodie, was dark, then he came round to the window of their bedroom and just stood there. And my daughter was terrified. Her daughter was terrified, easy flung up in the window and says, what do you want? And you know what, it was a guy who had smelt smoke coming from their house. Their wiring had got something wrong with it, and he came and put that fire out. And so if, if someone wakes you at five o’clock in the morning, you’re gonna be kind of annoyed with them and till you smell the smoke, and suddenly that annoyance turns to absolute gratitude.

(07:04):
This guy became a hero. And so this morning, when I go around the local college, which I do twice a day, take my dog on a bike, I’m gonna say to someone, how would you feel if someone woke you up at five o’clock in the morning banging on your doorbell? You’d say, what, what? What does this guy want? He’s really annoying me. But when you smell the smoke, your annoyance will change to gratitude. So I’m gonna take you through the commandments and what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna be annoyed with me banging on your door. But as we go through, you’re gonna smell some smoke and it’s gonna change your attitude. And so when I meet someone with tattoos or somebody who’s a little scary, my agenda is to show him he’s in great danger. It’s not to convince him to give his heart to Jesus because he’s got something missing in his life. The fact is he is in danger of death seizing upon him and his sins dragging him to hell. And that horrifies me. And I want to alert him to his danger. And once he sees his danger, once that makes sense, that he’s in big trouble with the Lord, then the gospel will make sense. So that’s my agenda, and that’s why I’m not fearful because the lions have no teeth. They’re just gums,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:07):
<laugh>. And, and so you would often go straight to the 10 Commandments and, and take people through some of the 10 Commandments. Could could we, uh, role play and, and and, and talk through the, the way that you would

Ray Comfort (08:20):
Offer it? Sure. I’ve done this before with some other guy I used to do a television program with, so I can handle it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:26):
<laugh>. Okay. So, so come up and, and, and pretend like you’re talking to me and, and, uh, let’s, let’s go through what you often say about the 10 Commandments.

Ray Comfort (08:36):
Yeah, sure. Well, let’s do, uh, what I’ll do, what I’m, uh, what I do when I go to the, the local college, say, uh, Hey, would you like to go on YouTube?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:43):
Sure, let’s do it.

Ray Comfort (08:45):
Boy, that’s unusual. Most people say, what’s it about? What’s it about? So I say, it’s a channel over 200 million views. And, uh, I wanna ask you if you think there’s an afterlife, do you think there’s an afterlife?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:55):
Maybe? I don’t know. Who knows? I, I believe there’s an afterlife, but I I wanna play the part of the person that you’re witnessing.

Ray Comfort (09:02):
Yeah. You play the part of a nasty skeptic.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:04):
Yeah. So

Ray Comfort (09:05):
Do you think about it much? What, what, so let me ask you, what’s your name?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:08):
Uh, my name’s Daniel.

Ray Comfort (09:10):
Daniel. Do you think about death?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:12):
Well, I think everyone thinks about death.

Ray Comfort (09:15):
Are you afraid of dying?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:16):
Sure. I think everyone is.

Ray Comfort (09:19):
Yeah, that’s true. The bible actually says that, that every human being is haunted by the fear of death all their lifetime. And that, that, that’s a terrifying thing to think that death is gonna take you and take your loved ones, take a dog, take your grandma, and eventually take you. And it could even come today or tonight. Did you know the Bible tells us that God destroyed death? Did you know that?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:39):
Well, what, what if I don’t believe in the Bible?

Ray Comfort (09:43):
Well, that doesn’t matter. The Bible’s the worst world’s big, biggest selling book of all time. And it’s popular because it answers the great questions that humanity has. It tells us why we are alive, why we die, and what we can do about our biggest problem, death itself. Do you know what death is caused by? I don’t mean hit by a truck, but you dunno what the Bible says. Death actually is.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:04):
What? What is death?

Ray Comfort (10:05):
Death is wages. God is paying you in death for your sins. The Bible says the wages of sinners death. Like a judge looks at a criminal that’s murdered multiple people. He says, you’ve earned the death sentence. This is your wages. This is what’s due to you. And Daniel’s sin is so serious in the eyes of a holy God, it’s not in our eyes, but in God’s eyes, it’s so serious. He’s given you the death sentence. The wages of sinner’s death. And your death will be, the ev will be evidence to you that God is deadly serious about sin. I got a question for you. For you, Daniel, do you think God is justified in giving you a death sentence? Are you that evil or do you think you’re a good person? Well,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:40):
You know, I don’t really sin that much. I mean, I’m a pretty good person. I I do what’s good. I, I’d like to, you,

Ray Comfort (10:47):
You said sin that much. What are you talking about? What, what much? You’re talking about you’re lusting after woman looking at pornography. Is that what you mean?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:54):
Well, um, I don’t wanna answer that question.

Ray Comfort (10:57):
<laugh>. So you’re gonna play the fifth. What does that say?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:01):
<laugh> Uhhuh. <affirmative>.

Ray Comfort (11:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Jesus said if you look at a woman in lust for who you commit adultery with her in your hearts. So obviously you’ve got red blood and your veins, and you do what every guy does and look at woman inappropriately. Well, the Bible says you committed adultery when you do that. Yeah. And so we’re beginning to smell the smoke. You know, I’m knocking on your door, making you feel uncomfortable, but the smoke is appearing. Have you lied and stolen?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:23):
Well, I, I mean, maybe a little white lie from time to time.

Ray Comfort (11:27):
What color was it?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:28):
Uh, oh. You know, a white lie. Not, not a serious lie. Just, just a little lie.

Ray Comfort (11:33):
That’s a little lie. Have you ever stolen something, something a little and white?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:36):
Uh, sure. I mean, you know, uh, I stole a pen at, at school one time from, from one of my friends.

Ray Comfort (11:43):
Yeah. The value of that which is steal is irrelevant. If you open my wallet and take $1 out, you’re as much a thief as if you took $15 out. And so, Daniel, oh, have you ever used God’s name in vain?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:55):
Well, beepity beep beep beep. <laugh> <laugh>.

Ray Comfort (12:00):
Do you know, you just confirmed the truth of the Bible when it says you’re an enemy of God in your mind, through wicked works, there’s no greater contempt you can show of someone than to use their name as a cuss word. And that’s what you’ve done on the name of God, the one that gave you life in a family and eyesight and hearing and all the blessings of this life. So here’s a summation. Let’s ever again smell the smoke. Daniel, you have told me you’re relying thieving blas, adult at heart, and you have to face God on judgment day. Are you gonna be innocent or guilty when he judges you by the commandments?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:31):
Well, I guess anyone who is judged by the commandments would say that they’re guilty,

Ray Comfort (12:38):
Are you going to heaven or hell?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:41):
Well, if you’re guilty, I guess God would send you to hell.

Ray Comfort (12:44):
Yeah. So we can smell the smoke. So I’m not your adversary banging on your door. I’m someone that cares about you and wants to see you save. The Bible actually likens what I’m doing to saving someone from fire. It says in the book of Jo, uh, Jude, others save with fear, pulling them, pulling them from the fire. You are so close to death in hell. And I’m trying to pull you to safety now. And then I preach the cross that Christ died for our sins, took the punishment for us, rose again on the third day. And I say, Daniel, you need to repent. Trust Christ cuz you can die tonight. And so often people say, yeah man, this is making me think.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:22):
Yeah, it’s, it’s so powerful. And especially I love appreciate the cross. Uh, that’s the, the, the core of the gospel message. Let let’s do a, a another scenario. Um, what would you say to atheists if you meet a a a girl who, uh, says that she’s an atheist, she doesn’t believe in God. And, uh, atheists actually have a nickname for you. They affectionately call you the, the banana man because of a, I don’t know

Ray Comfort (13:48):
If it’s affectionately <laugh>, they mockingly

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:51):
Mockingly and uh, you know, from an illustration that you gave, uh, about a banana. And so they’ve, uh, made fun of you for that. But it’s opened the door for you to share the gospel with many atheists. And, and so what are some of the things that you say to atheists to make them think about heaven and hell and about whether there really is a God?

Ray Comfort (14:13):
Well, there’s a very, very simple way to make atheist s backslide. You just have to ask this one question, and you have to be very clear what you mean by it. I say, so Frieda, you’re an atheist. She says, yeah. So tell me this, Frieda, do you really believe the, the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything, because that’s what an atheist defaults to it. Either God created everything or nothing, created everything. I’m not saying you believe there was nothing in the beginning. I’m saying you believe that nothing was the force that created flowers and birds and trees and puppies and kittens and seasons and fruits and all these things that we see around us were all created nothing, which is scientifically ludicrous. Is that what you believe? And she’ll say, well, well, I I really, I I don’t believe that nothing created things. So I’ll say, you’re not an atheist.

(15:02):
You’re an agnostic. You think something created everything just wasn’t the God of the Bible. She says, yeah, that’s what I believe. Something did create everything, but it just wasn’t the God of the Bible. So I said, let’s see if we can find out why you don’t want it to be the God of the Bible. And you find out that she’s living in fornication and lying and stealing and blaspheming. And it’s not an intellectual issue, it’s the moral issue. But it’s so important Daniel not to be condescending and, uh, to have a tone where, where your love is evident for this person. And your concern is evident because many years ago I was woken by a friend. The building that, that our ministry was in was, uh, on fire. And he called me at 6:00 AM woke me and said, Ray, the Regent Theater building’s on fire. And I believed because of his tone, because of the, the, the way he told me that it was on fire. And if we want sinners to believe us, we must have a caring tone. We mustn’t be cond or accusatory, but just say, Hey, I love you. I don’t want you to end up and help. Please think about what we’re talking about.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:05):
How do you show love to people as you’re, as you’re talking to them about God? Because sometimes there’s this perception of an evangelist being out there on the street corner with a megaphone just yelling at people and saying, you’re all going to hell. And it tends to turn people off. They, they stand, they mock it. And and I know if you’ve been mocked many times and confronted every different situation, but how do you turn that from, uh, machi to people understanding you’re really concerned for their eternal destiny?

Ray Comfort (16:41):
Yeah. Uh, I, i amate Jesus, uh, when he spoke to the Rich Un ruler, he used the moral law, the 10 Commandments. 10 commandments called the Moral Law. He used the 10 Commandments bring the knowledge of sin. When you do that, it makes hell reasonable. Remember, Paul preached to Felix and the Bible says he reasoned with him of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. And Felix trembled, he trembled. Why? Because judgment made sense. So if you just yell at people from a distance and just say, you’re gonna hell, it doesn’t make sense. It’s just horrible. But if you open up those commandments and show sin is exceedingly sinful in the eyes of God, suddenly hell becomes reasonable. But that makes them tremble. That’s when they see your motives as motive is one of deep concern. You’re knocking on the door because the house is on fire.

(17:32):
And then that’s when they see that you really do care about them. And that’s when the gospel makes sense. So often, I, well not often, every time I witnesses someone, I give them a couple of $5, uh, gift cards. That is, that gives me great joy. Um, today I’ll go around and probably I’ll find five or I’m gonna sneeze. Please forgive me. No, I’m not. Five or six people will turn me down. Um, when I ask if they’ll come on camera and say, I’ll give you a couple of, uh, $5 in and out cards, which is the, the neatest, uh, burger place in Southern California. And they say, no, I still wanna do it. So that’s when I say, here’s the cards anyway. And they go, what? I didn’t do the interview. I said, no problem. I just really care about you. And I give ’em a little card with the channel and people just yell out, I’m gonna check your channel. I really am. Thank you so much for the cards. It changes everything. And the scripture says, so is the will of God that by your well, well-doing, you put the silence, the ignorance of foolish men. So it’s really good to have gift cards or something you can give to someone just to show that you are not caring about them just with lip surface. You really do care about them from your heart.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:41):
And your ministry has a lot of resources that people are able to, to give away. Uh, yesterday my son was enamored with your $1 million bill. And, uh, I was going to hold it up, but he took it to school this morning to go show some other boys the million dollar bill. And so your ministry, uh, living Waters has some, some great resources for people to, to give away to people different, uh, uh, ways to catch their attention and illusions and, and, and different little ways to, to present the gospel. They all bring people, uh, to the 10 Commandments. Um, I I have a couple of of tough questions about how you witnessed w would it be okay if I ask these these questions to you?

Ray Comfort (19:24):
Please do

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:25):
So, I’m an evangelist. I felt ever since I was very young that I was called to be an an evangelist. And so I’ve, I’ve, uh, spent my life telling as many people about Jesus as I can and studying evangelism and trying to become a, a, a better evangelist. And, and I have some challenges with the way that you start and some challenges with the way that you finish your conversations, right? And so, like the way that you, you start, you really emphasize the sinfulness of humanity instead of talking about the love of God. Bill Bright, who founded Campus Crusade for Christ, he often taught people to witness using the four spiritual laws. And he would start out by saying, “God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life.” And Romans 2:4 says, “it’s the goodness of God that draws men to repentance.” And just talked about the power of, of giving something to someone. And, and so, uh, you know, I I think it it in my theology, I I think in some ways it’s better to start with the goodness of God, the love of God, God’s the love the world that He gave his only son in, instead of focusing on the convincing people that they are sinners. And, and so what I I what what’s your response to, to those challenges?

Ray Comfort (20:52):
Okay, don’t let me forget Roman’s chapter two. Are these your convictions or are they just what you’ve heard?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:58):
Usually when I talk to people about Jesus, I start with, “Jesus is so good. He came to give us life and life more abundantly. He’s got a wonderful plan for your life. I I think people inherently believe that they’re sinners.

Ray Comfort (21:18):
Okay, let’s stop there so I can pick up what you’re saying cuz it’s so good. Yeah. Firstly, the Bible says there is none that understands. There’s none that sticks after God. It’s very important to imitate Jesus and do what Jesus did. And so whenever you see Jesus witnessing to someone who’s proud, arrogant, self-righteous, he always used the moral law to bring the knowledge of sin. And if it was someone who was humble of heart, like Nicodemus, who was a Jew that knew the law, it would give them grace. It’s very similar to a man who’s got a disease that’s gonna kill him, but he thinks he’s healthy. I would be an unwise doctor to give him the cure first because he’s not gonna appreciate and appropriate the the cure. He’s gonna say, I’m healthy. I don’t need your stupid cure. A wise doctor will show him x-rays. He’ll say, look at these x-rays, this poisonous seeping through your body. He wants to make the patient sweat to be concerned that his life is in danger. And when he says, well, what should I do? That’s when he gives him the cure. If he gives him the cure first, he is not gonna appreciate it nor appropriate it. And let’s go to the wonderful plan.

(22:27):
If you really think being a Christian is a wonderful plan, lean down to Stephen as he’s being stoned to death and say, part of God’s wonderful plan, or James, as his head is cut off with a sword, or Paul as he was beaten in stoned for his faith or the 12 apostles, 11 of which were murdered for their faith. Or read Fox’s book of martyrs and see that the wonderful plan isn’t things go better with Jesus. Jesus doesn’t give happiness, he gives righteousness. That’s what sinners need. If you really think God is a wonderful plan, I’m gonna give you a scenario. You’re on the thousandth, sorry, the hundredth story of the World Trade Center, September the 10th, 2001, the night before the World Trade Center. And as you look at the vasia faces before you, you know that every one of them is gonna die horrific and horrific deaths.

(23:24):
Some are gonna be burned alive with jet fuel. Others are gonna jump a hundred stories onto the unforgiving sidewalks of New York. Others will follow the building and their bodies will be so crushed they won’t find evidence of them. What are you gonna say to these people? Folks, God has a wonderful plan for your wife. You can’t say that to people who are about to die. No. Instead you’d say, please listen to me. The Bible says this appointed man wants to die. And after this, the judgment. And if you die in your sins, God’s gonna judge you by the perfect law. The Bible says that in Romans two, verse 12 and James two verse 12. That means if you’ve lusted after a woman, you’ve committed adultery in your heart. If you’ve lied all lies of their part in the lake of fire, no thief, no bless fe no adult woman here at God’s kingdom, you’re in terrible trouble.

(24:18):
You’ll end up in Helen at agrees my heart. But God provided a savior rose again on the third day, repent and trust in him. And the Bible promises you’ll pass from death to life. So that’s what I would say to someone if I, that’s what I’d say to a group at the World Trade Center and all around us are people who could die today, 150,000 people die every 24 hours. They die in their sins. They’re going to hell. They could die in just a horrific circumstances of the World Trade Center burned alive in a car when they’re driving home or crushed under a truck or diet of a terrible terminal disease like cancer. And so I can’t talk to him of a wonderful wife, a wonderful plan that God has in fact, bill bright repented of that false gospel. And his manager wrote a forward to my book, called God is a Wonderful Plan for Your Life.

(25:08):
Which, so Stephen, being stoned to death. Yeah, that’s, I’ve got a copy of it right here. Okay. And, uh, so Romans chapter two, the goodness of God leads us to repentance. If Paul was saying in Romans two, the goodness of God leads to repentance of just talk about God’s goodness, he wasn’t practicing what he preached. Because if you read that in context, that verse is wrapped in terrible wraths. If you read in context where he says, God, if you, you know, if you continue and with an impenitent heart, God will give you tribulation and anguish upon every soul you are storing. Um, you know, you are storing up wrath that is gonna be revealed on the day of wrath. And so it’s very important that we don’t have our own way of witnessing, but we go and see what did Jesus do? Rich unruly came to him and says, what can I do to inherit eternal wife?

(26:01):
Jesus didn’t talk about a wonderful plan. He instead says, why do you call me good? And he reproved his understanding of the word good. And then he said, you know, the commandments. And then he went through the commandments with him. Why? To bring the knowledge of sin. He talked before about people know they’re sinners. The apostle Paul didn’t know he was a sinner. This is what he said, I had not known sin, but by the law. It’s not within man’s heart to understand how sinful is, how sinful sin is until the law brings the knowledge of sin. And so for 10 years, I preached God as a wonderful plan for your wife. And I filled the church with false converts. 90% under that erroneous message fall away from the faith 90%. If you were selling a parachute and you said, this parachute works only 10% of the time you need to get outta the parachute business.

(26:58):
You don’t want 90% of those jumped who jump, uh, die wearing your parachute. So it’s very important we say, what does scripture say? Let’s not have modern evangelism’s traditions. But let’s see what the Bible says about how to bring people to the cross. We’re not out to get decisions. We’re out to see men have a knowledge of sin and understand the gospel because that’s what a good soil under good soil here understands the true convert and the parable of the, so someone who’s hears and understands. And what the law does is the school master helps sinner understand the gospel. Is that making any sense or am I just raving on?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:33):
Well, in 2 Corinthians 3:7, Paul calls the 10 Commandments a ministry of death and condemnation. And I s right, actually, I, I wrote a book about, uh, the grace of God and, and I, I like looking at God, uh, through the eyes of grace. I think the, the Bible reveals a, a God that that is full of grace. And, and it, I usually emphasize, um, pointing people to Jesus. You know, uh, John 12:32, Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men onto me.” And so I think the more

Ray Comfort (28:07):
People, what’s the next verse about Jesus? What’s the next verse?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:10):
Tell me

Ray Comfort (28:12):
This. He said, speaking of what death he should die. So when he says, if I be lifted up, he wasn’t giving us an evangelist principle. He was saying what death? He was gonna die. He was gonna die by the cross. That’s the context. The other thing, the administration of the law is under death. That’s its function. That’s why Jesus used it. That’s why Paul used it. It shows us we have no hope in our attempt to attain righteousness. That only hope we have is the gospel. And then it says, we’re sin bound much more to grace abound. If you want make a light shine, put it in darkness. If you want calvary to shine, put it against Sinai. Show what sinner is and say, look what God did for us. Christ died for us, but while we yet sin us. So again, no one’s gonna appreciate a cure unless he understands he’s got the disease.

(29:01):
And if you circumnavigate talking about the disease, you’ll create false converts that’ll join the church and fall away at which 90% do. So it’s very important, Daniel, you go back to scripture and say, what does scripture say? The law brings death. That’s what Paul said. The law, which I thought was unto life, brought know the commandment, which I thought was the Dana unto life brought death to me. That’s his function. It shuts us up with no hope. But to look up to the cross, it’s like those biting serpents that have spoken off in the book of numbers that Jesus referred to in John chapter three. He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent on the wilderness, so must the son a man be lifted up. Go back. What happened? There were biting serpents that caused them to look up to that, that cross or that poll was being held up. And as the biting ser serpents of the law that bring death to us, that cause us to look to Jesus on the cross, cause us to have hope in him. So please think about this. Have you ever heard teaching called Hell’s Best Kept Secret?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:02):
Uh, yes, I’ve I’ve heard you teach on it. Um, live actually. And then I’ve got your, was this your first book that you wrote?

Ray Comfort (30:10):
No. No, it wasn’t. No, but it was one of the most important books. The first book was published in the us.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:16):
I mean, I think it’s one of your, your most significant messages that you’re well known for.

Ray Comfort (30:20):
Yeah. And have you read God as a wonderful plan for your life as yet?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:24):
Yes, sir. I’ve, I’ve read it.

Ray Comfort (30:26):
Okay. Really good. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:27):
And, and, and, uh, you know, I I I think that it’s easier to draw people to God by talking about the goodness of God. Instead of talking, it’s unbiblical about the, the sinfulness of, of humanity. It’s not

Ray Comfort (30:39):
Biblical. It’s not biblical.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:41):
What, what, what do you,

Ray Comfort (30:41):
That’s what you need to look at. Is it biblical

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:43):
John 10:10 where Jesus said, I’ve come to give life and life more abundantly.

Ray Comfort (30:48):
Okay, let me address that, Paul, when he said, I’ve come to give life and life more abundantly, that word just means full. It doesn’t mean happy, it means full if possible. Paul had an abundant life. It was filled with beatings, stoning, shipwreck, imprisonment, and martyrdom. So that’s what he was saying. You read the book of Acts, they had a full abundant life. They were thrown in prison, they were tortured and 11 them died. So to say to people, God has a wonderful, happy life for you, it’s just gonna be a bed of roses without the thorns, is to create a wrong motive for people coming to Christ. And it, it’s filling the church with false converts. It’s not looking at what the scriptures say and what Jesus did and what Paul did. In Romans chapter two, Paul says, you who say you shall not steal, do you steal?

(31:36):
You say, you shall not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? When Nathan stood before David, who had committed adultery and murder, he had violated the commandments. He didn’t talk about a wonderful plan. He said, why have you despised the commandment of the Lord? And so we need to, as I say, imitate scripture. Say, what did Jesus do? Cuz we don’t wanna be false witnesses. Say something that’s not true and fill the church with false converts because we are doing the work of the enemy rather than the work of God. And this is what I’ve been saying for 40 years, and people who have put into practice what Jesus did in, uh, mark 10 verse 17, and used the law to bring the knowledge of sin and forsaken the traditional way of evangelism, have found it to be biblical and and to be true, to open up sinner’s minds as to what we should do when it comes to challenging people to come to Christ.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:25):
I also wanted to talk to you a little bit about bringing people to a, a decision. Like when you were running through your scenario a little bit earlier, you, you said, why don’t you think about that? And you, you often finish by saying, why don’t you think about that? Instead of asking people to, to pray, uh, a a prayer of, of salvation, um, why don’t you ever close the deal? I mean, if, if I give you a scenario where, uh, somebody comes into a car lot and Ray the car salesman and is there and says, oh, you have such an ugly car, your windows won’t roll down, your air conditioner doesn’t work. And look, you’ve got a big scrape on the side of your car. If the salesman doesn’t ever actually help them get into a new car, the salesman wouldn’t be a a very good salesman.

(33:16):
He would just leave them going around feeling very bad that they have an ugly car. But a good salesman will put them into a brand new car, upgraded all the features and options and everything. And so it, it seems to me that in some ways that, uh, you don’t close the deal. Why don’t you bring people to a point of decision? And, and I think it is very biblical to bring people to a point of decision in, in Deuteronomy, you know, uh, Moses says, I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life. He’s encouraging them to choose to follow God, to choose a way of life. And so in your, in your witness, then why don’t you bring people to a point of, of choosing whether they’ll, they’ll follow Jesus.

Ray Comfort (34:06):
That’s what I do. But I don’t choose for them. I know you see, your, your methodology will be dictated by your theology. If you have a wrong theology about God and salvation, you’ll think that you bring people to salvation. When the Bible says salvation of the Lord, there’s nothing in the Bible that condones the modern sinner’s prayer where I say to someone, pray after me. Uh, dear God, I’m a sinner. That’s like saying to someone who’s committed, adultry, honor’s wife. Let’s go back to your wife. Knock on the door, door opens and say, okay, I want you to apologize to your wife. Repeat an apology after me. Dear wife, I’m really sorry. Dear wife, I’m really sorry I committed adultery. Please forgive me. That’s crazy. The sorrow should come from his heart and it should not be his words, it should come from his heart.

(34:54):
I see no evidence anywhere in scripture of anyone praying a sinner’s prayer, a prayer like that. And so I don’t imitate it. I say, Lord, you save sinners. I don’t save sinners. I share the gospel with them and I’ll leave it between them and God. And I’m not gonna manipulate them through any psychological manipulation or clever wording. I’m not a car salesman. I’m not selling cars. I wanna be a true and faithful witness and see people soundly saved and not produced false converts like I used to do when I ran around praying the sinner’s prayer of my surfing buddies. Does that make sense?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:30):
Absolutely. I I I very much appreciate your time. Um, if you’re listening, I really encourage you to get a of the new book, so Many Lions, so Few Daniels, it’s a great book, um, brother Comfort. If someone wants to know more about your ministry, uh, how can they find out more about you? What’s your website?

Ray Comfort (35:50):
Living waters.com. And they can go to YouTube and watch, um, uh, YouTube videos. And, uh, it’s, uh, um, a lot of stuff on Living waters.com free. We’re giving away 5 million of this gospel track, free of charge and, uh, no shipping charge. We’re, we’re paying for the shipping and giving away the tracks free. And they can see about that on our Living waters.com.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:13):
Well, thank you so much. You know, despite some of maybe our theological differences, I have tremendous respect for your ministry. I

Ray Comfort (36:23):
Don’t know why, because you think I’m doing it wrong. You shouldn’t have respect for me. You shouldn’t promote my books or the website because I’m doing it unbiblically.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:32):
I’m, I am for anybody that goes out there and talks to people about Jesus. And, and so I very much honor you and the many people that, that you have, uh, got to think about the the things of God. Um, I I do have one more question.  The name of your TV show is The Way of the Master. When Jesus walked on the Earth, his way was to heal lots of sick people. And so I come from a, a spirit empowered background. Often in our services, we’ll pray for sick people to be healed. And, and often people’s, many people say that they, they receive healing. If you really want to follow the way of the master do you think that God will heal people as a way to bring people to Jesus?

Ray Comfort (37:24):
Of course, I pray for people that are sick, <laugh>, obviously. Um, but the way of the master is called the way of the master because it’s what Jesus did with the rich young ruler. He used the commandments to bring the knowledge of sin. He didn’t pray for his sickness or bring up sickness. He brought a knowledge of sin using those 10 commandments so that he would understand his sinfulness, that he had violated God’s law. So that’s what I do. Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Paul says in Romans 1:16, the gospel is the power of God to salvation. And so you can pray for sick people, that’s great, but they must hear the gospel because without the knowledge of sin, there’s no understanding of the cross, there’s no understanding of the cross, there’s no salvation. So make sure that you don’t just pray for someone so saw wrist or whatever, or a headache or whatever, that you give them the gospel and the biblical gospel, not the erroneous gospel of God as a wonderful plan for your life, cuz that has done great damage to the cause of the gospel and filled the church with false converts.

(38:29):
So anyway, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a gospel to preach. It’s close to 11, and I’m gonna go around to the school and a local college and witness to people who are going to hell. And that grieves my heart.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:41):
That’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism podcast. I really appreciate it.

Evangelism Podcast Host (38:47):
Is there evidence for God’s existence? How do we really know Jesus was raised from the dead? Can we trust the Bible? Do miracles happen? Does God care about me as an individual? In Dr. Daniel King’s book, proof God is real. You’ll find the answers to these three vital questions and more Is God there? Does God care? And do I dare to follow him? In his powerful, easy to read book, Daniel provides seven convincing proofs of God’s existence. You’ll learn about the evidence of cause. Design, logic, morality, scripture, miracles, and religious experience with proof God is real. You’ll read about topics like, was Jesus the son of God or just a crazy preacher? If God does exist, is he interested in your life? If God is there, why do bad things happen to good people? Proof God is real. Daniel King shows you God is there and he cares for you. Plus how to take a leap of faith and start a relationship with a God who deeply loves you. Order proof God is real today by calling 1-877-431-FOUR 2 7 6 or find the book on Amazon.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:50):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much and God bless you.

Evangelism Podcast Host (41:10):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.

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The post Ray Comfort | So Many Lions, So Few Daniels appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

The Great Commandment Network: https://www.greatcommandment.net/

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I am excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I have a very special guest with me, Louis Alexander from the Great Commandment Network. Thank you for being on the podcast with me. Yeah,

Lewis Alexander (00:14):
Absolutely. Daniel, thank you for inviting me.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:16):
Now, you are a discipleship expert. Expert. let’s start, if you could just tell me what does the Great Commandment Network do?

Lewis Alexander (00:27):
Oh, well, we partner with churches and ministries, denominations around the, the great commandment, loving God and loving others, and then fulfilling the Great Commission, which we think the Great Commandments in the Great Commission where Jesus said, you know, make disciple makers and teach them to observe all that I’ve commanded you. And we think the great commandment is something that was the starting point, you know to love God. And perhaps even the starting point for evangelism is to love God, the heart soul minus strength, and then love our neighbors, or so

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:01):
Now sometimes great commission and great commandment have kind of been separated, but I think we really need to include both in, in what we’re thinking about. And, and then sometimes people separate evangelism and discipleship. Like you say you’re an evangelist and they say, well, what are you doing to really disciple people? But you know, every discipleship begins with evangelism. Absolutely. And so we really need both. We need good evangelism, but then we also need to take the people that respond to the gospel message and begin to raise them up Yes. In the things of the Lord. And you have actually done some really deep thinking on the discipleship process. You’re part of the, the e Empowered 21 Discipleship Commission. Yes. And over the last 12 years, you guys have been working to define spirit empowered discipleship and what that looks like. And kind of talk to me about the process and, and how you’ve been developing this.

Lewis Alexander (02:03):
Yeah, yeah. Daniel, thank you for those questions. You know, we started with the Ephesians for 11 and 12 that God gave some as apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the works of service, works of their ministry. And so we kind of started with the premise, Daniel, that saints serve. And so we we took that word serve and we looked at the Greek and Hebrew words throughout the scriptures. And there were a couple of Hebrew words that we drilled down on and the scripture verse in the Old Testament associated with them. And then several New Testament words. And we did a cluster analysis and they clustered around four dimensions that a disciple, cuz we wanted to explore, you know, what would a disciple look like if one showed up?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:54):
And so you’re trying to define Yeah. What good discipleship looks like. Yes. And, and, and how to help people grow. And so by clearly defining this, then you can measure different areas where maybe a church or ministry is being successful in discipling people and then other areas where they need to work on.

Lewis Alexander (03:14):
Yes. Because we were, we were thinking, our former perspectives on discipleship wasn’t really working. We weren’t making disciple makers, you know, who make disciples. And so, you know, a lot of the models, discipleship models were more of a rational behavioral methodology. And we found that not being effective, it wasn’t spirit empowered. So we ended up starting with a premise that these need to be relational. You know, the great commandment is very relational. Love God, love your neighbor. That’s, that’s very relational, that they could only be fulfilled. Part couldn’t only, could only be fulfilled through spirit empowerment. So there, there isn’t any of our outcomes in there of like a disciple memorize the scripture because you could be a lost person and memorize scripture <laugh>. Now we’re gonna imply that it’s memorizing scripture is, is necessary. But these outcomes, we wanted to make sure they were spirit empowered.

(04:17):
And and certainly as we, you know, as we do evangelism, you know, we want to be led by the spirit and empowered by the spirit cuz it’s, it’s a work of the spirit in which people come to Christ. So that was important to us. And so they clustered around these four areas of loving the Lord when we did this cluster analysis of the word for serve loving the Lord or serving the Lord, serving his word, ministering the word men, loving, serving and loving people, ministering to people and serving his mission.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:50):
Okay. So you have these four different areas, Uhhuh, <affirmative>, that you are evaluating. So you’ve got loving the Lord, living his Word, loving people, and living his mission. Yes. And under each one of these different categories, you have 10 outcomes Yes. Of what it would look like to be successful for someone to, to grow in those areas. Yeah. All right. So let’s start with the first one, loving the Lord. Yeah. What are some of the outcomes Yeah. That you’re looking for under loving the Lord?

Lewis Alexander (05:23):
So, for example, we, I’ll get, I’ll talk about L two, which we call loving the Lord and the kin, number two of learning to listen to and hear God. And certainly, you know, in evangelism, I want to be listening to the Lord. I mean, you know, just give you a couple of biblical antidotes, you know, of Jesus when he tells his disciples, we must needs go to Samaria. And Jesus didn’t, Jews didn’t do that. And that word must needs die in, in the Greek delta epsilon iot is means in, in, in the king, in the King James has translated must needs. We, we gotta go. I’m, I’m listening to him. I’m hearing my father and he’s saying, go, go through Samaria. And Jews didn’t do that. But so right off the bat, Jesus is challenging some of the assumptions of his disciples, and they’re going to Samaria and he’s hanging out by a well, as you would know Daniel.

(06:18):
And, and this woman comes. And so he’s waiting on a woman and listening, listening to the Lord waiting on a woman. And she comes and he has this conversation with her. And, you know, the John four passage. And I’m sure it was a shock to disciples because apparent, you know, rabbis don’t really talk to women, but apparently this one does. But listening to and hearing God, you know, and, and the Lord will will guide us. I mean, Jesus was walking through Jericho and, you know, he stops at a tree and looks up and it’s, it’s that kiss. And he welcomes him down. You know, the welcome Matt’s out and arms open. And but I think that came from any said again that use that same Greek word, we must needs go to your house. And so we think that Jesus is listening to and hearing God, and that that’s probably an important outcome that we would. All right. So

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:10):
All that is under L two listening to and hearing God for direction in discernment. And so yes, you would want people to grow in that as they go through the disciple Yeah. And ship process. So some of the different categories that you would have are outcomes that you’re looking for under loving the Lord would be practicing Thanksgiving and all things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> experiencing God as he really is through deepened intimacy with him. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> rejoicing regularly in my identity as his beloved. And so you’ve got 10 outcomes there. Yes. And then the second area is living the word.

Lewis Alexander (07:43):
Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:44):
What are some of the outcomes that you’re looking for under living the word?

Lewis Alexander (07:47):
Yeah. Let’s, so we, we kind of sometimes talk about I’ll put my glasses on here so I can read <laugh> you know, do the book. So I’ll just talk about w two for a minute there. Which is outcome number two under, under the word living the word, being in a living epistle, you know, so that we’re you know, people are reading our lives, Daniel. So hopefully they’re gonna be filling the vibe from me of this guy is a safe guy. You know, we’re if I’m sitting by you on a plane and, you know we’re having a conversation, you feel safe and you feel like you can trust me and we can have this conversation. And I’ve, I’ve led people to Christ on airplanes just by trying to, to have this vibe of being a living epistle, of wanting to know and care about them, you know, in, in my life.

(08:45):
And I remember can I share a little amdo story with you? So I was, I was on a plane from Charles de Gall Paris flying to Istanbul, and it’s about a four and a half hour flight. And I had done it, you know, several times. And so I know what I’m in for. You gotta sit there and you don’t know who’s gonna sit by you. And so having some of these human interest questions like, you know, tell me one of your your most celebratory days. And so I’m sitting by this guy named Moot Lou, and he’s he’s a Turkish businessman. He’d been selling forklifts in Paris. And you know, I know I’m, I’m sitting by him for four and a half hours, so I wanna show interest in his life, you know, try to bridge to the gospel somehow.

(09:31):
And so I’m just asking him, I said, Hey, you know what, tell me about your, you know, one of your most celebratory moments in your life. And so here again, this is a Muslim guy, he’s from Turkey, and I’m an American Christian, so we’re worlds apart, you know, <laugh> and in terms of worldview. But I ask him, tell me about a time of rejoicing. And he tells me about when he got engaged with his wife, and he, you know, where he met her. He met her in a supermarket. Wow. I mean, all of a sudden this kind of me too moment of man, you know, guys in, in, in the states tried to pick up chicks in the supermarket too, you know, <laugh>. And he got her phone number in the line, and and you know, they went out and they dated for a couple years, you know, he brought her back to that same checkout line and proposed marriage to her.

(10:22):
And so he spends 45 minutes telling me this story, and, you know and I’m, I’m showing interest. I’m giving them my contact, I’m listening, you know, I’m, I have a smile on my face. I’m, I’m rejoicing with him. You know, I’m doing the Bible verse of, you know, Romans 1215, I’m trying to make a human connection. And so I’m trying to be a living epistle of Romans 1215. And and after 45 minutes, he said, well, what do you do? I said, well, I teach people how to love each other. And he was <laugh>. He couldn’t believe he was, he was like, what? And so I was able to just kind of tell him about why I do that and the love that Christ has for me, and I’m the beloved of God. And he had, he, I, you know, he was coming from a, obviously a Muslim background and the Quran, and I told him Jesus stories. I spent, you know, probably a, an hour or so just telling him Jesus stories. And he was so intrigued. He had never heard about Jesus, even Washington, his disciples, feet, things like that. And I seated the gospel, he didn’t pray to receive Christ that day, but he got a heavy dose of, of gospel. And that came from trying to be a living epistle on the plane.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:37):
Wow. That’s a great story. I really like how you’ve broken these 40 discipleship goals down into different outcomes that you’re looking for. So how do you measure Yeah. If someone is growing in these areas? Yeah.

Lewis Alexander (11:54):
Yeah. Thanks for asking. Right now we have a self-assessment of a lacker scale of one to five, you know, where going from, you know, I strongly disagree to, I strongly agree. And you just sort of self-identify where you would score yourself. And

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:14):
And sometimes just asking the question makes people realize like, Hey, I, I could grow. I need to grow in this area. Yeah.

Lewis Alexander (12:21):
Yeah. And then, you know, once you can identify that you know, you, you’re growing your self-awareness of identifying, oh yeah, you know, I, I need to work at learning to and listen learning to listen to and hear God. And maybe I don’t, maybe I need to ask God more. You know, God lead me who, who, who today can I share my faith with? And lead me to opportunities and see, see if the Lord is prompting you. But the more we start, you know, bringing that top mind and I can start moving the needle, you know, from a maybe a, a two mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that I disagree, that I’m listening to and hearing God to, maybe I move it to a four that, you know, I’m, I’m agreeing, I’m, I’m, I’m more consciously aware of that in my life and I’m trying to do that more.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:10):
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Absolutely. if someone is interested in finding out more about what you do or more about the Great Commandment Network, what is your website?

Lewis Alexander (13:23):
Yeah, it’s great commandment, great commandment.net, and you’ll find a bunch of resources on there.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:29):
And, and tell me a little bit more about what the Great Commandment Network does. Okay.

Lewis Alexander (13:34):
Yeah. We are a resource training ministry, and we partner with denominations and movements around the Great com, great commandment, great commission. Yeah. and so we provide resources to address freedom adequacy motivation in fulfilling the Great commandment, great commission. You know, sometimes I may want to do that, but I may have freedom issues, I may have my own fears, I may have unresolved pain or sometimes it’s adequacy. And so we create these resources. We have a lot of online resources.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:13):
You have complete courses, courses that people can go through, Uhhuh, <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and, and learn about all this. And also how they can implement discipleship in their life and in their ministries. Yeah. Well, brother Lewis, thank you so much Yes. For being on the the Evangelism Podcast. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you

Lewis Alexander (14:29):
For asking

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:30):
Me. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Daniel.

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Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
How did the Pentecostal movement start? What did the early Pentecostals learn about the Holy Spirit as they studied the Book of Acts? Who were Charles Parham and William Seymour? What is the Holy Spirit doing in the world today? We talk about all this and more with Dr. Larry Martin. Today on the Evangelism Podcast.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:35):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now, here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:59):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Dr. Larry Martin, thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast. Thank

Dr. Larry Martin (01:13):
You, Daniel. It’s great to be here.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:15):
Dr. Larry Martin is one of the premier Pentecostal historians that are alive today. He has published extensively on the roots of Pentecostalism, looking at some of the great figures throughout Pentecostal history. And he’s a great revivalist and a crusader as well. And so not only is he a historian, but he puts the power of the Holy Spirit to work in his life and ministry. And so, brother Larry, let’s talk a little bit about the roots of the Pentecostal movement, and let’s continue all the way through history to where we are today with what the Holy Spirit is doing today. So let’s begin with Charles Parham. You’ve just published a brand new book, and this is the most beautiful book of all the books that you’ve done. I, I love this book. It’s the Unlikely Father of modern Pentecostalism by about Charles Fox Parham, and it’s published by Whitaker House. And so you have done extensive research into his life. Let’s begin at the beginning. Who is Parham and what happened through his ministry?

Dr. Larry Martin (02:37):
Well, I, I believe that Charles Parham is unquestionably the founder of the modern Pentecostal charismatic movement. Some people like to spiritualize, as if, you know, it just came out of thin air. The Holy Spirit showed up, but God uses people and he used this man, Charles Parham, to be the father of the Pentecostal. He was at first he was a Methodist preacher and didn’t fit well in the Episcopal scheme of hierarchy. And so he left the Methodist Church, became more or less a holiness of evangelist, and was seeking hungry for God, looking for more, traveled all across the United States, went to Chicago where Moody School was, and Zion, where John Alexander Dowley was, went to New York, where, where Simpson was, went up to Maines Durham, Maine, and just traveled everywhere, looking for more of God. Came back to Topeka, Kansas and started a little Bible school and an old mansion there. And they were praying 24 hours a day and seeking the face of God, studying the Bible. And that’s where God showed up. And the Pentecostal movement began on January 1st, 1901.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:50):
Talk to me about that date in history and what led up to it, and then what happened on that date.

Dr. Larry Martin (04:01):
Yes, sir. The schools I said they had 24 hour prayer going. They, they studied, only studied the scripture. They didn’t have any textbooks. They didn’t study theology per se, or, or eschatology, or certainly didn’t study science in math. They studied the Bible. So it was a, it was a great environment for God to do something special. And, and Charles Parham had been interested in the idea of speaking in tongues. He had, he had encountered that up in Maine and had actually published something about him, one of his earlier newspapers. And so he had a hunger in him for more of the Lord. And he asked the students, he was going off to Kansas City to preach a, a meeting. He asked the students to study the Book of Acts, and he asked them not to congregate together, but to study separately each go of their own individual private devotional time and study the Book of Acts and find if there was any physical evidence that accompanied the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

(05:01):
And the students studied, as he said, he came back, he called them together in their main meeting room, and he began to question them what was their conclusion? And, and each of the students studying independently had pretty well come to the same conclusion that in the Book of Acts, when people were baptized in the Holy Spirit, it was evidenced by speaking in other tongues. And so they began to pray that God would give them the baptism Holy Spirit as he was given in the Book of Acts, that they would receive the Holy Spirit as the early apostles did with the evidence of speaking of other tongues. A and this sounds pretty common today among Pentecostal charismatic people, but at that time, that was an, an unordinary a very out of the ordinary thing because people had spoken in tongues throughout church history, but they only saw speaking in tongues as being a, a manifestation spirit like falling in the floor or laughing or something, like didn’t sit at anything beyond. And there were even people that called themselves Pentecostal, that, that didn’t have the baptism Holy Spirit. But as far as anyone tying the experience of the baptism Holy Spirit, with the experience of evidentiary tongues, no one had done that to this point. And so this was pretty revolutionary. It was caused a paradigm shift when it happened. And it was on January the first. But

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:19):
Before we get there, okay, let, let’s talk a little bit about the Book of Acts. All right, because let’s just go through and, and look at how the Holy Spirit was poured out in the Book of Acts, cuz this is what they were doing on that day. They were just reading. They, they didn’t have textbooks, they’re just reading the Bible. They’re looking at acts correct and looking at how the Holy Spirit was poured out during the early church and believing that God could do the same thing today. So Acts chapter two, you have the day of Pentecost. The 120 disciples are in the upper room, and they’re all waiting for the Holy Spirit. Jesus told them, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you should be buying witnesses. And he told ’em to go to Jerusalem and wait. So they’re there waiting Day of Pentecost, suddenly there’s a mighty rushing wind, there’s tongues of fire, and they all begin to speak in other tongues.

(07:09):
They’re, they’re all filled with the Holy Spirit, then they speak with tongues. Then Peter goes and preaches, and 3000 people are saved that day. Alright? Then you have Acts chapter four, which I like to call the, the Jerusalem refill. So Acts 4 31, it says, when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. Okay? So some of the same people that had been filled on the day of Pentecost, right, were probably there in Acts four getting filled again. Then you have Acts chapter eight when it says that when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard what was happening in Samaria, and that they had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. So when they, Peter and John had come down to Samaria, they prayed for them that they may receive the Holy Spirit because they had been baptized, the, the evangelist Philip had gone, he had baptized them, but they hadn’t been filled with the Holy Spirit yet. And so Peter and John laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. And there must have been some type of physical manifestation because when Simon, the sorcerer saw what was happening, he was amazed, and he actually wanted to pay money in order to receive it. So there must have been something physical that was happening there in Acts eight to catch the attention of Simon, the sorcerer.

Dr. Larry Martin (08:34):
That’s exactly right, Daniel.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:35):
Then you come to Acts chapter nine, when Saul meets Jesus in the Holy Spirit. So he’s on the road to Damascus and Saul is, is hit with a blinding light. He sees a vision, he’s knocked off his horse, he’s blinded. He, he is Jesus appears to him and tells him to go to Anais. And so Acts nine 17, it says, Ananias went with hi went his way and entered the house and laying his hands on him, he said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you can came, he sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And we know that Paul spoke in tongues because later on he says, I pray in tongues more than all of you. That’s correct. And so he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he’s spoke in tongues.

(09:28):
Then you have Acts chapter 10 at the House of Cornelius, the Gentile. And so Acts 10 44 and 48 says, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then Peter answered, can anyone forbid water that there should not be baptized who had received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay for a few days. And so what’s really interesting, Peter is in the middle of preaching, and as he’s preach, he hasn’t even finished his sermon yet. The Holy Spirit is poured out upon them, and they all begin to speak in tongues.

(10:22):
And these are Gentiles. And it was just like on the day of Pentecost, they began to speak in tongues just like on the day of Pentecost. And it really amazed all of the, the Jews, those who were circumcised, because they thought it was, this was a gift only for the Jews. Now, what’s really interesting is that in Acts eight with the Samaritans, they were baptized in water. Then when they, the Peter and John came in, laid hands with them, then they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, in Acts 10 with Cornelius, they’re baptized in the Holy Spirit first. And then he says, why shouldn’t they be baptized in water? And and so that tells me that God is not concerned with the order so much as he is concerned with getting his spirit into every person, right? And so some people you know, they want to be very analytical and, and, and analyze everything that God does. And so you have like the, the order of salvation. First this happens, and then that happens, and then that, that happens. But it seems like to God the order doesn’t matter so much as just I want everyone to receive everything that I have to give.

Dr. Larry Martin (11:35):
Another important lesson there in, in those verses Daniel, is some people would teach that water baptism is essential to salvation, that there’s some salvation, saving grace in water baptism. But it’s clear here, they receive the Holy Spirit before they receive water baptism. Jesus said that the world receive him. So obviously these people were saved and they were saved apart from water baptism. Although it’s important to obedience the most important thing is that we receive Christ and be baptized in his spirit.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:05):
And then another time the Spirit is poured out is Acts chapter 19 verse one through seven. And then it says, when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And then Paul laid his hands on them. The Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. And there were about 12 men there in Ephesus who received. Now, just recently, you and I were together in Turkey, right? And we got to go to the, the Agia, Sophia, the the church building there built by the Orthodox Church that for a thousand years was the largest building on Earth. Well, while we were there, I flew down to Ephesus and I got to walk the, the streets of Ephesus. And it was so cool being there in that place. And I was thinking about these 12 men that had received the Holy Spirit. And what’s really interesting here in Acts 19 is that they receive the Holy Spirit, they speak in tongues, and then they prophesy. And so along with the, the speaking in tongues, which is a physical manifestation of receiving the gift, you have the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. So you’ve got prophecy gifts of healing you know, words of wisdom, words of knowledge. All these things come when the Holy Spirit comes upon someone.

Dr. Larry Martin (13:25):
Exactly something else, Daniel, about Acts 19, I think it’s really important. And that’s in the, in the, the, the wording, the translation most modern translations to the Bible. I’m certainly not against translations, and I’m not kind of a King James, only guy. But most translations phrase that, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? That’s the N I V. Almost all the new translations say, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? But the actual Greek of that is having believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit? And it is clear in the original that there are two separate incidents. You become a believer, you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit. And a lot of people have taught over the years that when you’re saved, you receive the baptism Holy Spirit. Well, when you are saved, you do receive the Holy Spirit. He’s with you. He, he was active in your salvation. But the baptism, holy Spirit, is a second and distinct work of God’s grace. And that’s proven by the original writing there in Acts 19.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:27):
And so I think these instances of what God did in the Book of Acts is not just something that happened historically. I I think this is not just description, but this is prescription for today. The Holy Spirit is God. The Bible says Jesus Christ is the same. Yesterday, today, and forever in Malachi three, six, God says, I am Jehovah, I change not. And so the Holy Spirit doesn’t change. And so the same Holy Spirit that was poured out in the Book of Acts is available to people today. God does not change. The Holy Spirit doesn’t change. You can’t say that something happened in Acts but is not needed today because God has given us his word so that we can understand the Holy Spirit, so that we can understand who he is, how he operates, what He does. And and so I think that it’s very valuable what these early Pentecostal did.

(15:28):
They went to the Word of God, and they formed their theology based on what they saw in the Book of Acts. They, they were reading God’s word, and they were, were think, okay, if we want to be like the early church, what practice should we have? Right? And and I think sometimes in the modern church, we have our theology and, and then we go and try to impose our theology on God’s word. And that’s where some verses get thrown out. Or we say, that is not for today. But really, I think what we should do is we should let God’s word form our theology rather than trying to force our theology to shape how we read God’s word.

Dr. Larry Martin (16:13):
That’s right, Daniel. What, what I teachwhen I teach this, and I will be doing that in the morning. What I teach is they were not an experience looking for a doctrine. A lot of times today, as you said, we bring our theology and then try to make the word of God comply. But we also do that with our experience. People have some supernatural experience, and then they try to look for a scripture to prove that experience. And these people went to the scripture first, they found the experience in scripture, and then began to seek an experience according to God’s word. And I think that’s the, that’s the most important distinction there, that their, their hunger was to see God do what he had had done in the past. And not just, they weren’t just seeking speaking in tongues or this baptism whole spirit. They, they called themselves the apostolic faith because they wanted a restoration of everything that happened in the Book of Acts.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:10):
All right, so let’s get back to the, the historic fact. We, we went to acts. So we went all the way back to first century Holy Spirit. Now let’s go back to 1901 and, and tell us what was happening that morning in January 1st, 1901.

Dr. Larry Martin (17:27):
It, it actually started on December 31st. The, the group that met with Paul that had a church there where they met in the old mansion, the Stones Mansion, and they were having a watch night service. A lot of churches don’t do this today, but even when I was a kid growing up, we always had a watch night service on December the 31st. And we would sing and preach and pray, and tried to at midnight when the new year started, to have a prayer meeting and pray in the New Year, pray the old year out, and the new year in, that’s what Parham’s group was doing. They were having watch night and sometimes around midnight. And you know, I probably researched this as much as anybody possibly could. And I can’t tell you if it was before midnight or after midnight or, or at midnight, I just say around midnight, they were praying.

(18:15):
And a lady at the school named Agnes Osmond she was had done gospel work. She was, by the way, all the students there, they were not like Bible school students out here at ORU that were 18, 20 years old. These were mostly mature adults that had been in the ministry. Most of them had done various kinds of gospel work, pastoring and other things. And Agnes Osmond was a a recognized gospel worker. She had a sister that was a missionary and actually died on the mission field. And so she was a, she was a mature woman of God, and she asked Charles Parum if he would pray for her, that she might receive the baptism of Holy Spirit, as they did in the Book of Acts with the evidence of speaking and other tongues. At first, Charles Parum hesitated.

(19:04):
He himself had not had this experience, but he agreed and decided he would pray for her. And when he laid hands on her, Agnes Osmond began to speak in tongues. And that moment when she had that experience was the birth of the Pentecostal movement. She was so baptized in the Holy Spirit that she spoke in tongues for days. She couldn’t speak in English. They would give her paper, and she couldn’t write in English. She’d write, they called it Riding in Tongues. I’ve seen some copies of it looks some something like chicken scratch. But that’s what they said. She was writing in tongues. And over the next few days, revival broke out there in Topeka, a number of people, Charles Palm, a number of others, received the baptism. Holy Spirit. It was such a, a phenomenal thing that newspapers came from all across America from Chicago and from St. Louis and Kansas City Newspapers came, and this revival was front page news that God was pouring out his spirit in a powerful way. So that, that was how the movement started. That was the first day.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:07):
Okay, so then talk to us some about the history of Charles Parum. You’ve written a, a great book on it. Charles Fox Parum by Dr. Larry Martin. And you, you go into some of his history. He, he was flawed as a human being, as all of us are, but God used him. What happened after the Topeka outpouring?

Dr. Larry Martin (20:36):
Several things that are important to note. One is Charles Parham believed that when they received the baptism, holy Spirit speaking in tongues, that they could go anywhere in the world and preach without learning a language that didn’t happen as they expected. It would’ve

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:52):
Been useful as a missionary to have

Dr. Larry Martin (20:54):
That it be great, and it does happen on rare occasions, but it didn’t happen generally as they thought it would. And the other thing is, he thought that this revival was going to be immediate and massive, and it wasn’t. In fact he and his wife went to Kansas City and ended up then going to Lawrence, Kansas, trying to hold meetings, tried to start another school. And almost everything he did failed. He had a child that was sick, and he was a faith healer. They didn’t believe in going to doctors and his child died, and that was a extremely difficult season for them. The, they, they become unpopular. They, his wife says they almost starved to death for a season. It was, it was a very difficult time. The movement was real. The experience was real, but the timing wasn’t what he thought it was.

(21:40):
And they wandered around in that spiritual wilderness for a while, and they ended up in a little town called El Dorado Springs, Missouri. And El Dorado Springs is one of those places in America that has a natural spring that back 125 years ago, people thought these spring waters would bring healing to them if they had whatever, rheumatism or arthritis or whatever, they’d come to those springs. And so here at Parham is a faith, healing, faith leader, praying for the sick, what better place to go than the place where all the sick people are. So he, he sets up meetings in El Dorado Springs and has a, a apartment that he’s rented there, and he’s preaching the gospel at the Springs. There’s a lady there named Mary Arthur. She was from Galena, Kansas. And Mary Arthur was really sick. She had intestinal plumbing problems.

(22:32):
She was blind in one eye, going blind in the other eye, and she didn’t wanna be there that summer. She had been there twice before. It didn’t help her, but she was so sick. Her husband insisted that she go and try to be in the water one more time to be healed. And she heard Charles Palm preach, and faith rose in her heart. She went over to the place where he was living, staying, praying for people. Charles Parham prayed for her. Well, she was so blinded that she had pain in her eyes when she saw the sunshine. So she would cover her eyes up when she was outside, and she left Paul’s home, and she had a grandchild with her that was leading her back to her place. And the grandchild flitted off the way children are doing, she’s there on the street by herself and she can’t see.

(23:16):
And she’s crying out for the child. And in desperation, she takes this cover off of her eyes. And when she did, she was completely healed. Her eyes were like 2020. She could see perfectly. And not only that, but she soon realized that everything else that was wrong with her was, well, every maladies like God had done a complete overhaul in her, and she was so excited. She went home, invited Charles Parham to Galena, Kansas, and he came there, he preached it. Her church was the Methodist church. He preached in her house, then they put up a big tent, and he preached in the tent. And that wasn’t big enough. They rented at a storefront. It was two, two separate buildings separated by a wall, took this wall out, had this massive hall, and hundreds of people came to Christ. Hundreds of people received the baptismal Holy Spirit, miracles and healings.

(24:04):
What he had thought would happen in Topeka three, four years before now begins to evidence itself in Galena, Kansas. And real Pentecostal revival broke out. It spread from Kansas over to Joplin, Missouri. Hundreds were saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit of Joplin, Missouri. And all around that four state area there Kansas and Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, all in that area. God was moving. And, and during this season, he received an invitation to go to Texas, and he went to Texas as a long story. I won’t tell it all, but he went to Texas. He was sick when he went there. God touched his body. Revival broke out in a little town called Orchard, Texas, till almost every person in Orchard was saved. Almost every family in the town was saved. And that’s when Pentecost really began to move. I I say it was born in Topeka, and it crawled around in Kansas and Missouri and Oklahoma. It got to Houston, and it stood on its feet and started walking because from Orchard, they went over to Houston, Texas, had a great meeting in Houston and

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:09):
Uhor. And one of the people that was in that Houston meeting yes, was William Seymour. Yes. And so talked to us about how he was received in Houston, and then what happened when Will William Seymour went over to Azusa Street Sure. In California. Sure.

Dr. Larry Martin (25:32):
William Seymour was African American man. His parents had been slaves. He was raised in obscurity and poverty at one time. They did a affidavit. His, his mother was trying to get a pension, and they did an affidavit, and the entire family’s possessions was worth 65 cents. All of their furniture, all their clothes, everything they owned was valued at 65 cents. Poverty, like none of us can imagine. And also in a time of great racial discrimination. He was he was in a, in an area where a group called the Knights of the White Cele were like the KKK terrorized in African Americans. He escaped that. He went up north he got saved in Cincinnati, Ohio. No, in

(26:23):
Indianapolis, Indiana. He’d been in Chicago, went to Cincinnati, ended up then in Houston. And in Houston he met Charles Par. And the way Seymour met Parum is par had a lady that was taking care of her kids and cooking for him and his family. And her name was Lucy Ferrell. And she was the pastor of a Little Holiness church in Houston. She went to Kansas with Par and Seymour pastor at her church for a little while, at least preached in the church. And so he met Charles Parham. Charles Parum had a Bible school going there in Houston. He was, he had these 12 week schools where he had teach the fundamentals of the faith. And, and Seymour went to the school. I think I should mention, there’s a lot of, lot of discussion about whether or not Seymour was in the school or outside the school.

(27:09):
Some people say he only sat in the hallway outside and the door was open. And that might have happened maybe for a season. But there’s a number of eyewitnesses who were there that says, Seymour sat in the classroom. So I think there came a time that they accommodated him in the classes, but he and Charles Par would preach together. But because of the Jim Clo Crow laws at that time, par would preach to white people and Seymour preach to black people had racists separated. And a lady there heard Seymour preach and invited him to come to Los Angeles and preach in their church in Los Angeles. And that again, changed the world. Seymour made his trip to Los Angeles, and when he got there, he preached in this hole in his church and preached on the baptism Holy Spirit, which by the way, he had not received.

(27:54):
And the church rejected the teaching and locked him out of the church. He joined himself with a group of praying people at two 14 Bonnie Bra Street, where they were seeking God every night in cottage prayer meetings, Ruth and Richard Asbury. And on April the ninth, 1906, while they were praying there at Bonnie Bra Street, the Holy Spirit fell first on a man named Edward Lee at his home. And then they went over and it fell out. The Bon Bra Street and Glory of God came down. A revival was birthed on April the 9/19/06. Within a week, they couldn’t hold their services in the little house that was overflowing and people out in the street. So they looked for a building to rent, found a dilapidated o abandoned church that had been converted into a warehouse at 312 Azusa Street. Moved in there. When they moved in, God moved in there with them. It’s probably the most famous address in Pentecostalism. One of the most famous addresses in Christianity, three 12 Azusa Street, where God came down.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:55):
What happened at the Azusa Street Revival?

Dr. Larry Martin (28:59):
It’s, it’s almost beyond description, how God moved there. They, they had services three times a day, 10 o’clock in the morning, and at noon, at seven o’clock at night. But the 12 o’clock service, excuse me, the 10 o’clock service was still going at 12 and 12 o’clock. Service didn’t ever stop before seven. So they were literally in service from 10 o’clock in the morning till after midnight, seven days a week. People came from all over the world. People would come to the train station. They had ambassadors there that would meet ’em and bring them to the mission. People in Los Angeles would be doing their business, that’d hear the singing from Ausa Street. They’d stop and be captured by it. They’d, the Holy Spirit that had stayed there for hours, hundreds were saved, hundreds of people healed and, and baptized in the Holy Spirit. Missionaries began to go out immediately to all the four corners of the earth and all across the US spreading the Pentecostal message when, when it was born in Topeka. And it crawled around in Oklahoma, Texas, and stood up, I mean, Oklahoma and Missouri and Arkansas. It stood up in Texas, and it started running in California and literally ran around the world.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:11):
And so people from all over came to Ausa Street. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in other tongues. And then many of them launched out as missionaries, going to different parts of the world, spreading this message of the Holy Spirit. Let’s, let’s talk about what God has done since then. Because now if you look at global statistics, the fastest growing part of the church is the Pentecostal Church, the people who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. And Pentecostals originally were called Pentecostals because they believed in the power of Pentecost. And then for a while they were called charismatics, because it comes from the, the Greek ward charisma, which means gift. They believed in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And, and now places like or Roberts University are using a, a new language to describe the same experience.

(31:16):
They’re, they’re calling a spirit empowered believers, because over the years, the word Pentecostal, the word charismatic, has picked up some baggage. And, and so there’s a lot of people that they can agree with the power of the Holy Spirit. And so we are spirit empowered believers. We believe in the, the move of the, the Holy Spirit. So kind of as a historian, kind of walk me through decade by decade from this, the early 1910s until today, kind of what you feel that the Holy Spirit was doing in each decade as we’ve seen the growth of this Holy Spirit movement.

Dr. Larry Martin (31:56):
Well, as we say, the revival began there at Azusa Street in 1906. It wasn’t long after that, before the end of that decade, some of the Pentecostal denominations begin to form the church of God in Christ, the predominantly Black Pentecostal denomination formed. And the next decade, the Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal Church of God, as the movement really grew exponentially through all that period in the forties and fifties. It was marked by Great Healing Revival. Some of your, your great heroes were outta that time

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:33):
Period. Yeah. So you had the, the Voice of Healing Movement. Yes. Which really started with William. And then Gordon Lindsay, who started Christ for the Nations down in Dallas, Texas worked with with Branham. And Branham was an uneducated prophet, but Gordon Lindsay was a writer. And so he wrote some 200 books and, and really documented what God was doing. Then he started The Voice of Healing Magazine, and they featured articles from people like aa, Allen TL Osborn who, who else were part of the Voice of Healing. I think RW Schmbach was later on, later, later. And, and so, so they were featuring these stories of revivals that were F.F. Bosworth was part of it, and, and featuring the stories of these different people that were doing revivals in different parts of the United States. And that spread what God was doing during the Voice of Healing Revival. Alright, so that’s, that’s the forties and fifties then, then what started happening,

Dr. Larry Martin (33:48):
By the way, let me say that you mentioned Gordon. Lindsay there very important leader in that time period especially. But he was saved in a meeting that Charles Parham was preaching. So ties from the very beginning through Gordon Lindsay’s ministry, and then in the sixties and seventies, the Pentecostal denominations continued to grow. And of course, there’s always been independent fellowships, the associated with the Pentecostal charismatic movement, or the spirit empowered people, as you say. But sixties and seventies, the charismatic renewal began probably most people mark the beginning of it with pastor receiving the baptism Holy Spirit at Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, California. And he, he, he spread the message to denominational churches. And eventually Catholics began to receive the baptismal Holy Spirit. They had great Notre Dame conferences where, where it was celebrated this Pentecostal movement among Catholics. And,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:48):
And you had David DuPluse, who was a big part of that. I, I remember hearing one of his sermons, I think it was preached at one of the, the gatherings of people from all over the world, many different churches. And, and he quoted in Acts two, it, the, the same verse that, that Peter quoted from the book of Joel that says that the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon all flesh. And so he said The Holy Spirit being poured out, that’s the charismatic movement upon all flesh. That is the ecumenical movement. And so God does not want to be confined to just one denomination or one group of people. The Holy Spirit is available for people from every different faith tradition anyone who reaches out towards God the Holy Spirit is there to fill them and to give them power to be a witness.

Dr. Larry Martin (35:47):
Absolutely. And those the Charismatic renewal, though it was extremely strong in the sixties and seventies, it continues today. There’s still a lot of those early charismatics tried to stay within their denomination, but a lot of them were rejected by their denomination, and they ended up forming in this independent fellowships or murdering into established denominations that have continued to grow. I think one of the greatest growth today in America is among the Hispanics. And we see so many has immigrants from Latin American countries where they’ve experienced great Pentecostal revival. I know particularly in the Assemblies of God, all of the growth in the Assemblies of God is just about among the ethnic minorities. And you mentioned Africa great missionaries from Jesus and Street went to Africa and started the work there, and it’s continued and it’s just exploded with men like Reinhardt Bunky and others doing campaigns there till today. One estimate and, and different people give you a different number one estimate, 650 million spirit-filled people in the world today the largest block in Protestant Christianity. I think it’s the greatest revival in the history of the Christian Church, what God has done in the last 125 years through the

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:03):
Pentecostal. So I’m, I’m working on a book on the history of evangelism and what God has done through evangelists throughout the world. And there’s been a lot of research on people like, like Billy Graham and George Whitfield Jonathan Edwards, some of these early American evangelists, you know, Billy Sunday Great evangelists at the turn of the century. But there hasn’t been that much research done on the Hispanic world. And so I’m, in my book, I’m trying to document what God’s been doing in the Hispanic world, what God’s been doing in Africa, because there are great men of God in Africa that no one in America has heard of, but they’ve been responsible for millions of people coming into the kingdom of God. And so one of the early Hispanic healing evangelists, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this guy Francisco Zaba.

(38:01):
He was a Pentecostal healing evangelist, and he was one of the ones who went to the Azusa Street revival, filled with the Holy Spirit, and he began doing revivals among all of the Hispanics in America. And from his ministry, four different Hispanic Pentecostal denominations were, were formed in the early 19 hundreds. Wow. And, and so it is really neat. And, and, and then you have great Hispanic evangelists throughout history that have taken the power of the Holy Spirit. People like Cash, Luna Carlos Anak from ar, Argentina, cla Frak from Argentina, and just great pastors from all over the, the Hispanic world where God is really moving in a great way.

Dr. Larry Martin (38:47):
A absolutely. And you know, another interesting fact, Daniel, about the success of this movement, the largest church in the world is a Pentecostal charismatic church in so Korea. That being said, of course, the largest church in Asia, which would be that church is charismatic Pentecostal, the largest church in Europe is a spirit empowered church. The largest church in Africa is a spirit empowered church. The largest church in South America, spirit, largest church in the United States is a spirit empowered church. And no one dreamed in these early days of the outpouring that it, that I guess those involved might have dreamed it, but the world certainly did not dream the success of the movement. One, one man who was a denominational leader in one of the holiness denominations observed the Ausa Street Revival. And he said, if you threw a pebble into the ocean, it would make more waves than what this revival will bring to the world. And if any man should ever be recorded as the worst prophet in human history, that would be the man. Cuz

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:51):
There have been waves that continue to this day. All right, now let’s look into the future. What do you see the Holy Spirit doing over the next few years? Well, what can we look for and what should we be praying for?

Dr. Larry Martin (40:05):
Well, obviously we’re praying for revival places, as you mentioned, like Africa are on fire for God, and churches growing by leaps and bounds in many nations in Africa. So many, so many more millions of Pentecostal believers in Africa. And for Brazil, for example, there’s, there’s probably a quote from the Assemblies of God. There’s probably 20 times more similar to God people in Brazil than there are in the United States. And God’s gonna continue to move in Asia and Africa and Central America, south America. We need to pray that that same spirit of revival will sweep across the United States. And I’m just believing God for that. I was praying one time and after the great revival at Brownsville, and it seemed like that well, Dr. Cho prophesied and said the revival was spread from Brownsville to the whole United States, and we didn’t see it happen or hasn’t happened as of yet.

(40:57):
And I was praying one time, and I felt like the Lord spoke to me, that revival was like a hurricane. I lived down on the coast for a while in Pensacola when a hurricane stalls out off the coast. If a if a hurricane is, you know five miles out, 10 miles out, and it stalls, it’s not going away. It’s just gaining strength when it hovers over those warm waters. And I believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is maybe has stalled, but it’s not losing out, it’s gaining strength. And I’m praying that America gets hit by category five revival that’ll sweep millions into the kingdom.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:36):
Amen. Well, as you’re listening, if you want to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, just like on the day of Pentecost, encourage you to, to pray and ask for the Holy Spirit, God will give you and, and fill you with the Holy Spirit. And you will have power to, to be a witness and, and to share the gospel a around the world. Let’s just finish with a word of prayer and, and encourage the people who are listening that the same Holy Spirit that we saw in the day of Pentecost that we saw in the early years of the Pentecostal movement can impact them today.

Dr. Larry Martin (42:14):
Amen. I’ve probably said this a thousand times in meetings, but I wanna say it again today for you. The reason we talk about history is not to live in the past. We don’t wanna live in the past. We’re living today and we’re living for tomorrow. But we talk about history because if God ever did anything, he can do that thing again. And if God ever moved in one place, God can move in any place. And if God ever moved on one person, then God can move on any person that means you where you are. And at this time, God can do for you anything that He’s ever done through any of the great people we studied about in history. And God wants to do that for you. And we’re gonna pray right now that God will use you. Heavenly Father, we thank you today for this podcast, the opportunity to share a little bit of the history of your work.

(43:05):
Lord, it’s not the work of man because everything that man touches becomes just human, but it is divine. And we thank you Lord, that you’ve moved among men, that you’ve used faithful men like Parham and Seymour and Gordon, Lindsay, and all the others we’ve talked about today, that you’ve used these men to bring the message of Christ to a lost and dying world. Lord, I pray for everyone listening this podcast today. I, if there’s anyone that doesn’t know you, I pray that the Holy Spirit will bring them to you. But Lord, those that are believers and are listening today, I pray you give them a new power. I pray that you give them a fresh vision. Lord, show them today that as God used others, God can use them. I pray that the same mantle of the Holy Spirit that was in Topeka and the same mantle of the Holy Spirit that was at a Zeus street, that that mantle will fall across their shoulders right now, I pray for a fresh and a new anointing. Ask your Lord that you would use these listeners to take this gospel to the whole world and change this world for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (44:08):
Amen. Thank you, Dr. Larry Martin. Thank

Dr. Larry Martin (44:11):
You.

Evangelism Podcast Host (44:12):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King’s School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in 70 nations and has seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an alter call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (45:13):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.

Evangelism Podcast Host (46:34):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.

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The Evangelism Podcast with Evangelism Coach Daniel King is a leading podcast about the practice of evangelism in the body of Christ.

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:01):
Sean Smith believes in prophetic evangelism. He calls it the Jesus model of evangelism. What is prophetic evangelism? Will prophetic evangelism work for you? How can you use prophetic evangelism to lead people to Jesus? Find out on today’s podcast.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:32):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:57):
To the evangelism podcast. I’m here with Sean Smith, the author of the book called prophetic evangelism. Thank you for being with me on the evangelism podcast,

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (01:07):
Daniel, it’s great to be with you super excited to unpack this subject. I, I believe it’s very relevant and it is the now time.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
Let’s start by finding out a little bit about yourself, where you from. Tell me about your ministry. What do you do?

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (01:20):
I’m from Northern Cal, California. It’s Oakland, San Francisco bay area. And that’s where I was born. And I gave my life to crisis a little north there, but my wife and I we’ve got a ministry, Shawn and Christa Smith ministry. So we travel. We evangelize we’re in other nations, we equip the body of Christ in evangelism. We go after the lost preach, open air write books, we try to just in way we can serve the body of Christ, that’s kind of our hearts.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:45):
And so you wrote this book called prophetic evangelism. It’s the integration of the gift of prophecy and evangelism. Can you unpack that a little bit and tell me what is prophetic evangelism? You

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (01:58):
Know, the best way I could describe that Daniel is, is simply this way. When, when gets his friend Nathaniel and brings him to Jesus Nathaniel’s obviously skeptical. So on the Ingels law of recept, this dude is negative. You know, meaning that he is not predisposed, he’s a good Hebrew, but he does not believe that Jesus Messiah. So he says, can Ethan Good come out of Nazare? But upon meeting Jesus, Jesus says behold, a man whom there’s no guile. And then his immediate response is how do you know me? And he says, Hey, I saw you underneath the fi tree. At that point, he confesses him as the Messiah later on, this guy would be martyred for what he believed. But even Jesus says, you believe me because of what I’ve said to you, he says, truly, you’re gonna see angels, us sending and descending upon the son of man.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (02:43):
And he on to say so anyway, his way of moving him from this negative disposition to a positive of confessing Lord is to have a word of knowledge followed by a prophetic word. And in, in that whole process, it led him to encounter. So then here is Nathaniel. He goes from getting anything good. Come out of Nazareth to you are the Messiah. So Jesus modeled this. He modeled it at the well acts chapter nine. This guy Anais, not the Anai and safari that lied and died. But this other guy, he was led to the street called straight led to a specific person, soul of Tarsis and one of the greatest Christians of all time, apostle Paul. So prophetic evangelism. I like to say it’s receiving an audio visual download from heaven, that where you receive the heart of the father, that could be used to bring people into a counter with Christ. So hopefully you’re praying with someone and leading them to the Lord.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:36):
So let’s talk about prophetic evangelism in a, a practical sense. How can people use prophetic evangelism to reach somebody who’s lost?

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (03:47):
Well, a lot of people today, there’s a skepticism. So how do I distinguish Christianity from philosophical bins and ideas that sit on the cosmic shelf of what people are believing today? And one of the things that is, I believe that a word of knowledge causes a person to feel known, and everyone is reaching for information we’re reaching towards supernatural. And so I think it would be on our parts, a a, a grievous mistake to not tap into the supernatural. When I’m flowing in prophetic evangelism, the way I’ve seen it is that God first gives you a revelation. So he may give you a word of knowledge. Hey, this person’s back has a problem. Hey, this person grew up without a dad. Hey, this person’s name is I’ve had all of those things happen. And so when that happens, all of a sudden that introduction of supernatural brings the encounter.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (04:35):
So now they’re open, my mentor would say this comment and, and this phrase and principle, and, and I love it. He says, the miracles of God make the demands of God, not seem so unreasonable. So when you’ve encountered a supernatural God through supernatural means a revelation. So word of knowledge is what God revealing something about your past or present that a person would not have acquired that information naturally. So if the Lord told me your name was Daniel, I didn’t know your name was Daniel. That would like, wait, I don’t have a name tag on how would you know that? And so now that leads to an opportunity. There’s an opening. God, God’s got your attention for me to share the gospel. So usually on the front end, there’s a word of knowledge because that’s something that’s it’s proven by the person. And so God says, behold, a man in whom there’s no, God, that’s a current state, then Nathaniel’s in.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (05:23):
But he goes on to say, Hey, you’re gonna see angels ascending. So sometimes words of knowledge will lead towards a prophecy. But, and I don’t know if I’m going too deep on this, but my whole thing is words of knowledge on the front end cause you to become authority of what things will will come to pass later. So I usually try to start with a word of knowledge and then that opens the door and I share with him, Hey, the God that knows your name, the God that just let me know. You have a back condition. We prayed, you got healed. That same, Jesus loves you. He’s pursuing you. He sent me here for you. Now. Here’s what you must do to be saved. So the prophetic simply is kind of that open door to get them to the door who is Jesus, but you still have to repent.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (06:05):
Of course, they still need to know the gospel imperatives. They still need to make a commitment to Christ. So it is a synergistic blending of these two gifts because we live in a date of, of skeptics in the day of people that have been hurt and wounded people that have been hurt by Christianity or what have you. And so this is a way to all of a sudden, I like to say that Peter cut off Malcolm’s ear. That was the Roman came to apprehend Jesus. But the first thing Jesus had to do is pick up that ear and put it back on a lot of zealots in north America and nations, the world, we cut off the ear of people. We’ve cut off the ear of the people of our nation. Prophetic evangelism helps put their ear back on. So now they can hear the message we’re gonna share with them.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:46):
Now I’ve heard you use the term treasure hunt. Can you explain to me what is a treasure hunt and how could a church go on a treasure hunt?

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (06:54):
Treasure hunt is simply, I think the, the schematic for it, the blueprint for it is acts nine where God speaks to Anani and says, I want you to go to street called straight. There’s a guy there named Saul. He’s encountered me. He’s a chosen vessel of mine. You’re gonna lay hands on him. So he tells him the street tells him his name tells him where to go all while he’s not in proxy. So Anani is not in Roxy. So he has to go to this street. He has to finds this dude named Saul. He has to enter into a conversation. So God revealed to him in advance where he’s going to go. So that that’s a very specific if you will treasure map, but sometimes, you know, I know youth groups and different groups or, or, or adults have gotten together and they’ll pray beforehand because always feel like great evangelism begin on your face.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (07:39):
You gotta pray. So the Lord may reveal, Hey, you’re gonna meet a person in a blue shirt. Hey, you’re gonna, this happened to my son is he was a college student at UC. Berkeley got up in the morning and he said, the Lord spoke to him. You’re gonna see a guy in a blue shirt today. He’s going to be in sprout Plaza. That’s the student union at UC Berkeley. His mom is in the hot spit and it’s critical, but I’m a healer. And he’s gonna know that I’m real and he’s gonna give his life to Christ. So my son goes out and he, he jokes. He says, it must have been blue shirt. Every guy had a blue shirt and he says, Lord, which one? He said, the moment he said it, it was like the crowd parted. And there was one blue shirt guy by the fountain walks over to the guy.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (08:18):
And he says, Hey you know, I love the Lord. I believe God speaks to me. The Lord showed me that there would be this guy. See, I put it on my iPhone blue shirt and mom in the hospital and a guy gasp. And he says, my mom’s in the hospital, critical condition BR says, we’re gonna pray right now. God’s gonna heal her. And when he heals her, you need to let me know. So he prays three days later, he gets a email exchange emails. The guy’s mom is completely healed. The guy commences his life to Christ and starts coming out to my son Brandon’s Christian group on campus. So that was an example of a treasure hunt. But this is what I, I feel like it’s a good place. When you go out in groups for people that are a little bit more intimidated by walking up to the barista and saying, Hey, your, your, your cell phone number is whatever you live on this street. And when you were three years old, you were violated or whatever. It’s easier to say, okay, I’m looking for a person with a blue shirt, looking for a person as a baseball hat on or whatever. And when you start to see that you enter in a conversation with people, you, the gospel

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:15):
Share with me some more testimonies of lives that have been impacted through prophetic evangelism.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (09:22):
I was in Monterey, California. Anybody from Monterey knows that that’s a, a bit of a new age Mecca and a walk past a Ty card, or actually a new age bookstore, but a, a, a gal was doing T cards. She’s reading TYT cards. Now I likely look at it like this. I’m an evangelist. What are the odds? If I walk in and just say, Hey, Jesus loves you. It’s a wonderful plan for your life. For all of sin falls, short of the glory of God. Heaven is awesome. Hell is hot. You need to give your life to Christ. My sense is a woman that has gone that far into divination is gonna blow me off. Anyway, I walk in the store because the Lord tipped me off and says, just you have, you have an appointment there and you go, well, how did that come?

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (10:01):
All of a sudden I had this thought that I’m supposed to go in a store. And I’m, I’m, I’m on an assignment from the Lord. And I, I, I tell people often is it, it sounded like a thought and impression, but it, it had the presence of God on it. And years ago, Dave will Orson wrote a newsletter here, hearing the voice of God. He says, God does not speak apart from his presence, felt his presence going to store well, at this point, I don’t have a word of knowledge. I have nothing. I don’t even know who I’m supposed to witness to. So I’m in there and I see the Touro card lady and she says, you, do you want a reading? I said, no, no, no. I just like to have a word with you. She says, well, just wait here for a second.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (10:35):
And I’m gonna finish with this person. I can your word. So to speed this up while I’m waiting on her, the Lord speaks to me and says, I want you to say to her, I am your sign. Number two, when she was young, she had a bad experience with Christianity. She ended up moving in with the Eastern guru that she thought was gonna nurture her. But he said, he ended up abusing her number three, tell her she’s doing this and living her life by default. This wasn’t that the dream and this Z that she had. And I had for her when she was young, tell her if she gives, gets rid of the default, let’s go of the default. I’ll give her her dream back. Well, all this came in a flash like, and, and the word of the Lord often sounds like your thoughts, but we know signs of the mind knows that our thoughts come in by way of what’s called cognitive association.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (11:17):
I think of one thing makes me think of another thing. Makes me think of another thing. When God speaks, it interrupts our thoughts and it, and it’s like there there’s like out of no place as usually the turn people say, I, I say the voice of God is a sudden awareness associated with a unique conviction. When you want to hear the voice of God, you tune in to what came towards you out of no place. Well, that’s not the only checklist, obviously in his land, the word of God, he to end up with the character of Christ because the devil can speak to you and it could be a spontaneous thought. So I’ll go over to the lady. And I first ask her, how do these cards get you in touch with the spirit realm? Well, not that I wanted to find out how it did it, but I know if I saw listening to her, when it comes time for me to talk, hopefully she’ll start listening back.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (11:56):
And I said, well, Hey I believe there’s only two doors to power and one door might as well be marked other, because if you don’t go through a door of relationship with Jesus Christ, all of the doors will close on you. And there’s a bondage and there’s a ultimate, you know, price to pay for that. Well, she’s, she’s blowing me off. Like immediately. You could tell, she’s putting her hand up, like get outta here. I said, well, you know, Lord just gave me something for you. Would it be okay if I share with you? What is in the mind of God for you? And she leans and says yes. And interesting. When I was sharing with her, you know, your door that you’ve taken is wrong. She’s gonna blow me off. But when I tell her, now that God’s spoken to me about her, she leans in.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (12:31):
She says, well, what is it? And I I’m supposed to tell you, I am your sign. She turns her head from me down. You. She begins to weep. Well, what I didn’t know is the night before she cries out to the cosmos and her exact verbiage was show me a sign. Well, I didn’t know. I didn’t even know. Honestly, when I first heard I am your sign, I’m thinking like, Lord, I know is not astrology is I’m like, Sagitarian got going. Like, why would I be telling a strange woman? I am your sign. But all the more I knew it was God, because that’s not how I would think. I would never walk up to a, a woman. I don’t know and say, I am your sign. And so I had her attention because she cried out to a sign for a sign here. I’ll walk up.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (13:08):
That’s exact verbiage. I said, the Lord spoke to me and wanted me to tell you that he is here for you. But because when you were young, you had a bad experience with the church of Christianity. She was nodding her head. And I said, you moved in with the Eastern guru that you was gonna nurture, but ended up abusing her. She starts sobbing. She tells me sure enough, she had a bad experience. Christian Church. When she was young, moved in with the Eastern guru, he abused her sexually, physically, emotionally only thing she got out of the relationship was how to read to RO hard. That’s what she’s doing. And then finally I said, the Lord says, you’re living fault your life by default, not by design. If you surrender this repent of this, he’ll give you back your dreams. She says, oh my God, ever since a little, always wanted to paint, but I never paint as an art, never thought I could pay the bills.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (13:51):
Painting. Are you kidding me? And he loves me like that yet us. And so I said, Hey right now, do you want to give your life to this? Jesus showed up. And she says, yes, I lead her in a sin prayer. Now we’re in a new age, bookstore, Daniel with people lined up to get her, their fortune read by this woman. She put them all on hold. She renounces witchcraft. She repents her sin. She acknowledges Jesus gives her life to Christ. She says, do you know a good church? I can go to. I said, absolutely. I actually with a pastor and his wife. And that’s the reason why I was in there. I was preaching at this church. So she stands up. They’re contracting her out at this new age bookstore. She gets her last check and she says, I will never do this anymore.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (14:32):
She’s announcing to the people. And she walks out when I walk out. And so I’m go, what is the odds of me going into a new age bookstore and walking out with a convert? The only way that happens is Jesus. The only way that happens. And I think people would ask perhaps what is the key to prophetic evangelism? And I found a key that I’ve never heard of anyone else share, not like I’m trying to say, I’ve got this exclusive revelation, but I think it’s, it’s often overlooked. And Jesus said, behold, I send you out a sheep in the midst of wolves. And he says, don’t worry beforehand, what you will say. It’ll be your father in that moment. I will give you what to say. I will bring you in front of magistrates. I’ll bring in front of councils. It be as a testimony to them.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (15:12):
The key to prophetic evangelism is being willing to be a sheep in the, in the midst of wolves. And that’s the wrong end of the food chain for much of us as, as English speaking. And, and for that matter believers all over the nations of the world is that we don’t want to be because what are wolves in this context, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, wolves, metaphorically represent marketplace resistance. It represents a threat. It represents religious spirits that were not like what you would say, but it represents maybe what’s politically incorrect. It’s all kind of areas that you can feel like you’re on the lower end of the food chain. But God promises. If you’ll be sheep in the midst of wolves, you don’t have to worry beforehand what you’ll say. It’ll be your father in that moment who will give you what to say?

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (15:56):
So I say, and you’ve, we’ve all heard. It’s evangelists. If you’ll break the chicken line, if you’ll put yourself in position in the marketplace, if you open your mouth and begin to speak, if you’re able to go beyond your point of your comfort zone, there’s a Harvard zone. And is when you put yourself out there, the words of knowledge, for instance, back to my story, I didn’t get the word of knowledge. When I was walking past the new age bookstore, I didn’t get that specific until I got in the store and began to ask. I was just gonna ask her some questions. I didn’t know I was gonna, I was just gonna start asking her questions because I feel like in this, God will begin to speak. So entering a redemptive conversation, just love on people. But if you will focus on loving the person in front of you, the God who says follow the way of love yet eager desire, spiritual against, especially E may prophesy that the prophetic comes on the wings of love. If I can love people. And yet that’s how evangelism starts. It. It’s about receiving the love of the father for that person. So I feel like both anointings are catalyzed through compassion, through love. And so that would be a question. I think a lot of people ask me, how do I start it? And I go, step out. Risk is no such thing as risk free maturity. You gotta step out. And if you’ll step out, gotta meet you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:11):
That’s awesome. If someone wants to find out out more about your ministry or get a hold of your book on prophetic evangelism, what’s your website. How can they find out more

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (17:20):
About you? Our website is www.seanandkristasmith.com. I got several books, but prophetic evangelism. We even have a eCourse to go along with it on our site right now. And obviously Amazon, but the book is out there and it’s brand new. It’s like two, three months old. And we really in this book try to give you nuggets and equip. And my heart is to mobilize an army in the prophetic with the heart of Jesus, that reaps. I believe that we’re gonna see a third grade awakening. I believe it’s underway. I believe they’ll be incredible number of people because like council Zandor and the Morian revival, the lamb is war. They were the, of the rewards of his sufferings. The father is doing this to crown, the sufferings of Jesus. There is going to be a mass harvest. And then John wrote revelation looked up in heaven. He says there was a number multitude. No one could count. Not just him, no one. So between the number of believers now, maybe we’re south of 2 billion, maybe we’re stretching it. I, I I’ve heard lower figures. I believe that in order to get to a number that no one count, we are gonna, billions of people come to Christ billion, soul harvest. That’s who we’re bleeding for.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:32):
Amen. Well, I am all for the billion soul harvest. I know God is raising up an army of evangelists in an army of prophets, an army of young people who are excited about sharing their faith all over the world. And it’s so much a privilege to be a part of that brother. Sean, thank you. Being on the evangelism podcast.

Sean Smith – The Prophetic Evangelist (18:51):
Absolutely love it. Love it. Love it. And all of you that are listening just step out, God is gonna use you Mindy.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:56):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found that we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that’s gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you

Evangelism Podcast Host (19:56):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.

The post Sean Smith | Prophetic Evangelism appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Learn more about James Burkett and Apologetics on Fire: https://apologeticsonfire.com/

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Dr. Jim Burkett is an apologist on fire for Jesus on today’s program. We’re gonna be talking about the intersection between apologetics and evangelism. You’re going to learn why apologetics is so important. And you’re also going to learn some practical ways that you can defend your faith.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:25):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Danielle King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:00):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest, Dr. Jim Burkette. He is an expert in apologetics brother, Jim, thank you for being with me today.

Dr. Jim Burkett (01:18):
Well thank you for having me, and it’s very exciting to be with you and gosh, all the great things that God has and is doing through you and your family. And God’s using you to ignite a, a spiritual chain reaction through so many parts of the world. And I praise God for that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:34):
Now I’ve had the opportunity to go to several of your meetings here in the Tulsa area at different churches, where you were talking about apologetics, and you are really passionate about equipping the body of Christ to defend their faith through the use of apologetics. Why is apologetics so important to you?

Dr. Jim Burkett (01:58):
That’s a great question. You know, I receive the Lord Jesus watching Billy Gray am on TV back in the ninth grade, and didn’t grow up in a Christian family. And eventually the Lord called me into the ministry when I was a senior in high school, went to our denominational university. And my junior year, I just about lost my faith in a Christian university. And it got to the point where I’m, I’m preaching almost every weekend in a revival, but gosh, I thought if have all these doubts. So I prayed the agnostics prayer, which basically is, I don’t know if God, if you’re really there or, or if I’m am I speaking to air. So I really said, God, if you’re there, I need an intellectual stake, something that is immovable and meant that if I didn’t get any answers by the end of the semester, well, I’m changing universities.

Dr. Jim Burkett (02:49):
I’m changing my major. So two nights later to ask God to gimme an intellectual stake, two nights later, I’m at our university library. Why am I at the university library? Cuz I had a term paper due the next morning and I thought I should start on it. I had the gift of procrastination, some have said, but as I was going through the periodical section, I see this magazine called Christianity today. And as I stopped looked at it, I was stunned to see that the lead article was the historical evidence for the resurrection Jesus Christ ice. And I thought this is probably written by a pastor or a missionary or a theologian. I was stunned to find out that it was written by the, the Dean of the law college at the university of London, who was also the director for advanced legal studies and considered one of the world’s leading authorities on evidence.

Dr. Jim Burkett (03:36):
Then I found out it was not even an article. It was a trans of an address he gave to the Harvard Christian university fellowship. And I was stunned because Dr. Anderson basically says, I’m gonna act like an attorney and we’re just gonna follow the evidence where it goes. We’re gonna look at the betrayal, the trial the crucifixion and the purported resurrection, Jesus Christ. So all of a sudden he’s quoting this scholar and he’s quoting up that philosopher, he’s quoting this historian, then I’m going, why haven’t I heard about this in my own class, in my own courses, I’m a theology major, never heard of any of this. And the next last paragraph, he basically said this, the only conclusion we could come to on the basis of the evidence is that somehow some way Jesus of Nazareth came back from the dead in history.

Dr. Jim Burkett (04:22):
And that’s when I heard that sh that, that, that intellectual stake. So I tell people, I met the Lord when I was 14, but apologetic saved my faith when I was 21. So that’s why I have such a passion because I’m finding out the great majority of Christians Lisa ones, I come in contact with if you ask ’em, why are you a Christian? Many times they trace it back to their family, or they trace it back to you know, certain relationships, but most do not give a rational reason why they put their trust in Jesus Christ. And yet Jesus used the first 40 days of his post resurrection, pre Pentecostal ministry doing apologetics and giving rational reasons and, and demonstrating

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:12):
Giving convincing proofs that he really was alive.

Dr. Jim Burkett (05:15):
And that word convincing proofs don’t mean to interrupt you here in the Greek is tech Maria, which always means when it’s used, whether it’s in the Bible or other Greek sources, it means what’s being shared, being reported. What’s being demonstrated can be factually seen or factually seen to be absolute factual and true. So what Jesus do for 40 days, I say he did apologetics, which of course impact the disciples. I tell my classes, Hey, was it, was it the faith of the disciples that produced the resurrection of Jesus? Or was it the resurrection of Jesus that produced the faith in the disciples?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:54):
I am first in evangelist and then have a curiosity in apologetics. My, my calling is to, to bring people to Jesus and, and in a quest to do that, I recently wrote a book called proof. God is real. And this came out of a church. I was ministering at, in Missouri. A mother came up to me and she was crying. She says, could you please pray for my son? And I thought maybe her son was sick or something. And so I said, what does he need prayer for? And she said, he’s grew up in church. He served God his whole life, but he got a whole of some atheist books. And now he says, he’s an atheist. And he has rejected all the story of Jonah and David and Goliath that he learned in Sunday school as a kid, she said, could you please pray for him?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:43):
So I grabbed her by the hand, we prayed for him. And then I said, give me his phone number. And I called him the next day. And we talked for a while and he had lots of, of questions and objections to Christianity. And to be honest, I didn’t know how to answer all the questions. So I, I started to study the, the works of, of great apologi and look for the answers. And out of that study came this book prove God is real. And in this book, I give the reasons why I believe that God really is real, that we can prove that God is real, beyond a reasonable, bold out. He is alive. He lives today. And so, as I was setting this, I, I came across your lectures on, on several occasions and learned a lot from you. But I, I, I found that, I think that apologetics is really vital to the process of evangelism. What do you think is the, the connection between evangelism and apologetics? Why, why are both important?

Dr. Jim Burkett (07:49):
Kind of a prelude to that? I tell, I tell whether it’s in a workshop or whether it’s in a class or whether it’s apologetics revival, I tell them there are four question that every Christian needs to be able to answer in the affirmative because he knows it’s factually true. Number one, does truth exist as objective truth exists. This is such a serious issue in our culture as you well know, because the the word of the year for the Oxford university dictionary in 2016 was, was P host truth basically means coming to conclusions on the basis of emotional impressions. So I tell them that Hey, if you don’t believe in objective truth, you can’t do science. You can’t do engineering, you can’t do technology. And so forth. Number two does God exist. And I, as I just happen to notice, and then there’s so many works out.

Dr. Jim Burkett (08:37):
Now, the, the confirmation of God’s exists since is literally overwhelming. And so that’s why I appreciate pastoring 34 years in university communities and, and having grad students and professors and so forth. Matter of fact one of my friends when I pastored in Athens, Georgia, our church was across street from university of Georgia. He, his special was quantum chemistry, which I had no idea what that was. And but I found out he was a devoted Christian. I looked at him and said Dr. Shaffer, tell me, how is it you as one of the great intellects of the world? How did you, how did you come to God? And, and he started laughing, says, well, God has a sense of self has a sense of humor. I said I thought, gosh, did I hear the wrong thing?

Dr. Jim Burkett (09:21):
And he said well, when I was on the, on the faculty at Berkeley, California, that stunned me, Berkeley is not oral Roberts university or John Brown university, long story short. He said I kept bumping into some of my colleagues. They were some of the best in their discipline, but they were also committed Christian. So I would ask them how’s this. So how, how, how, how did you mess this together from that standpoint? And they all looked at me and they said their discipline showed them. First of all, that Darwinian evolution cannot be scientifically supported. It just doesn’t happen. But number two, they challenge to me go and disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Shaefer said, so I thought, well, that’ll be easy. I’m very analytical and so forth. Long story short Shaefer said he spent two years. He, he looked at every possible way. And finally he came to the realization. He said it was not just, I was not just convinced. I was compelled intellectually to lies somehow some way Jesus, as Evangel came back from the dead and then he started laughing and he said, you know, Jim, anytime a dead man comes back from the dead. He kind of puts him in a class by himself. So,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:28):
And you should probably listen to what he has to say.

Dr. Jim Burkett (10:30):
So the third question is do miracles happen? And of course oh my goodness industry is a living demonstration of this and, and other people. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:40):
We’ve seen God do many great miracles. Oh, all over the world.

Dr. Jim Burkett (10:44):
And then the fourth question I said is the Bible historically reliable? So I, I tell folks when you answer these four questions, one of the things that will happen, you’ll see the first result is that all of a sudden ignite something in you, excuse me, you begin to realize, oh my goodness this is true. Christianity is fact a factual faith. The second result of apologetics is it will build, it will provide you a bridge to non-Christian to answer the questions. Many of people, they, they have such misrepresentations in their mind about the de to Christ and the Bible, and so and so forth. And then third apologetics impacts culture. Now, how does that relate to evangelism? Oh my goodness. Wanna tell you a quick story. Professor Dr. Gentry, when I was working on the faculty with a a school in Bartlesville he came and he was speaking at to the to the professors.

Dr. Jim Burkett (11:46):
And he said, now I had a class in a small college in Kansas. And everyone in the class were ministry majors and they were going into the ministry. So I took a survey and the class was of evangelism and Christian apologetics. So I took a survey the first day, and I wanted to find out how many of you are actively sharing your faith. Second question is, if you’re not sharing your faith, why not? He was stunned to find out well over or 90%, 95% were not sharing their faith on a regular basis. Second question, why not? If you’re not. And he was stunned because the great majority of ’em said, I’m afraid somebody who asked me a question that I don’t have the answer. And, and number two, I’m not sure Christianity is true. So the next 16 weeks he focused on apologetics.

Dr. Jim Burkett (12:35):
He said, I, he said, I could see a very perceptible change in attitude in heart. And he said, by the end of the semester, I gave the same survey. Now, instead of 95% saying, I don’t share my faith, or I don’t know if Christianity’s true. He said, it was just like it reversed. Now they were sharing their faith on a reg their basis. Now they believe that Christianity was true based on the facts. And then six weeks later, he asked a follow up. He had a follow up survey. They were not just stagnant. They were continuing to grow in the Lord because when you know, that’s true, you really, it really hits you in your mind and your heart that lends right into evangelism you. And that’s why I tell folks if you are involved in a, an apologetics methodology that just tries to make you an intellectual egghead and it doesn’t flow into practical theology, evangelism, discipleship, and so forth. Then you look in the Bible and you just don’t see that kind of connection. Apologetics always brings you to the play where you’re ready to proclaim and minister. I hope that makes sense. What I said.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:39):
Yeah. Another really important use of apologetics is preparing young people to defend their faith. Oh, yes. I think sometimes young people, they, they, they grow up in the church and, and they believe the by Bible cuz their parents told them to believe the Bible, but then they go to college in the first philosophy professor that they run into or, or atheist that they run into manages to convince them that you’re an idiot if you believe the Bible. Yeah. And, and we need to prepare people, really inoculate them again. This attack of the devil that comes after people’s minds. Yes. And so by using apologetics and training apologetics during the teenage years, we can prepare young people to go out into the world and defend their faith and, and live for Christ.

Dr. Jim Burkett (14:34):
Amen. Matter of fact, you touched on two points. One is you’re absolutely right. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the surveys. I think I’ve looked at least 30, which basically they wanted to find out why were quote unquote Christian Church kids leaving the faith, the great majority of them. And so they were saying, and the average percentage was 75%, some as high as 80, 85%. Even one survey by the director for America’s research group. He, he was shocked because they wanted to find out why were they leaving the Christian faith? They got the normal answers, but they were shocked by when they were leaving in their heart and mind. He said 45% of church kids between the ages of 12 and 14. They start leaving the Christian faith by the time they reach the ninth grade and then the another 45% by the time they’re seniors.

Dr. Jim Burkett (15:29):
But on the other hand, as, as that stat is, I was sharing with a bunch of with a group of youth pastors. I was sharing these stats and you could just, you know, you could see ’em slouching down. What are we ever gonna do? Yeah. So I said, would you like to hear some good news and two or three of ’em said yes, please, please. And so I said, couple of surveys have come out. And it’s very interesting. The, this one survey in particular said if pastors and church leaders actually understand, and they are mentally grip with the realization, we’re not in a spiritual war because that’s what we’re supposed to say. They see it, they see it in our culture. They see what our kids are being bombarded by. They see it with the announcements, they see that it’s no longer a political issue. This is a spiritual warfare between, you know, evil and righteousness. And, and then those leaders take the steps to equip their young people. Keyword equip their young people logically through a biblical worldview based on the facts of apologetics 90% plus will go on with God. Oh my goodness. I’m thinking

Speaker 5 (16:45):
That is good

Dr. Jim Burkett (16:46):
News. It, it, it is. And this is what this is. I’ll be honest with you. This is what vexes me. I, I was, I was at a conference. It was a youth evangelism conference for training. I was asked to do three breakout sessions on apologetics. And, and so they put me in this auditorium that seated 7,000 people. We didn’t have 7,000 there, but it was the largest one they could have for the conference. And so did three sessions afterwards. I I’m on this platform and I have one of the, the leaders of the conference. And I know him and we’re good friends. And, and I said, you know, every summer this auditorium is filled up with 7,000 teenager. Every summer, they’ll be close to 50,000 teenagers from our you know, our, our denominational fellowship that will come here. And you at the stats from our own publishing and research indicate 75% plus of them will leave the Christian faith. What are we doing to change that now? Here’s and I’m, I’m not complaining. I’m just explaining what grieved me was. There was no answer. And this is why apologetics is such a necessity. This is why I can’t tell you how I, how excited I am that you’re not only prepared to give an answer, but you’re prepared to equip Christian leaders to do the same. I hope that made sense. What I shared.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:08):
Thank you. Let’s talk about the Bible. How can we know that the Bible really is true and that it’s the word of God.

Dr. Jim Burkett (18:18):
That’s a great answer. Matter of fact that’s one of the key issues I really try to, to hit on. The thing I try to, to deal with first, if I’m dealing with a non-Christian, I try to bring him or her to the place of realizing that the Bible is the most reliable historical document from, from antiquity. I start there because if I begin to try to talk to them about you know, it is the word of God is, well, they they’ve been old that anyone who believes the Bible’s the word of God, their faith is like wishful thinking. So what I do is I begin to share some of the key qualities, for example, I share with them that we can say now that we have 99.9% of what the original old new Testament actually said, and why, why can we do that?

Dr. Jim Burkett (19:13):
Because we have copies, manuscript, copies, both the old and new Testament, like just the new Testament alone. I know you’ve probably heard this, but if we were to bring them together, those copies we are looking at almost 30,000 copies show oh my goodness. Th this is what, this is what the original said. Dan Wallace, who is a professor at Dallas theological seminary said if we were to go to every library, every seminary, every museum, and we were able to get the new Testament copies of the originals. And he said, if we were to actually physically them on top of one another, he said that stack would be a mile high. Now I’m, I’m stunned by that,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:58):
But that’s a phenomenal number of manuscripts. And using those manuscripts, we can establish very clearly what the original manuscripts. Oh,

Dr. Jim Burkett (20:10):
Exactly. And, and then by, by the way, we haven’t even talked about the old Testament manuscripts. And you said, you get the old Testament manuscripts put on top of the new Testament manuscripts. Now that pile is not just a mile high. Now it’s two and a half miles high. And so the, the odds are so astronomical. That’s why I really appreciate the, the statement that Dr. AE Wilder Smith made three earned doctorates great scientists to spoke seven languages he’s in heaven now, but he said the thing that that I noticed is that when Christians, or even particularly non-Christians or agnostics or atheists say, well, you really can’t trust the Bible. He said, what I’ve noticed is that those scientists, those agnostics who actually search the scripture and look for the evidences, and then they come to the realization, this is not just a ordinary book.

Dr. Jim Burkett (21:03):
And so that’s why I, I tell a lot of, of a lot of skeptics. Well, listen, let’s sit down and show me, what’s the evidences that you have. And of course, we haven’t even talked about the prophetic, oh my goodness, 2000 plus prophecies. And the old Testament, the only ones not fulfilled are the second coming of Christ and the end of the age you you’ve got the prescience statements in the Bible. UHI McMillan. He wrote a book called none of these diseases. And he basically said, listen, the hygienic and medical principles that we see in the, in the fi first five books of Moses, he said, we know that it was God who told him there there’s nothing like in, in ancient history. And he said, it took modern science in the 20th century to verify those principles are medically sound and whoever follows them will have a healthy lifestyle. So you got statements like this over and over again.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:02):
Let’s talk about objective truth. How, how do we know that there really is objective truth. This is a big issue in our society right now. I think many people in our society are, are confused about,

Dr. Jim Burkett (22:16):
Oh

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:16):
Yeah, just very basic things like what is a man or a woman? I mean, that’s a, a very contentious issue right now. And, and, and it used to be that people would say objectively well that’s, and that’s a woman based on physical characteristics. And now they’re saying, no, you can’t say that anymore. And so even that objective scientific truth that’s in the DNA has in our society become a subjective truth, that you can be any gender or no gender at all that, that you want to be. And, and so God is a God of objective truth. How can we know what is objective truth?

Dr. Jim Burkett (22:57):
Well, that is you are right. That is a most significant question. I believe it’s a question that needs to be answered before we even asked as God exists, because you know, here, heres the evidences I have that God exists and somebody will try to deconstruct that. But the thing about truth, objective truth always relates to reality. It can always be, it can always be discovered and examined. And when people ask me particularly parents, what do I say to my young people? I tell them you have one of the strongest allies besides the holy spirit and that, and, and the ally are the allies happen to be called facts. And so that’s why when I start sharing I, I, I, I start, first of all we, we ask that question then when I get, does God exist? Oh my goodness Daniel, I’m telling you, it, it amazes me.

Dr. Jim Burkett (23:59):
I mean, a new book just came out called the return of the God hypothesis by Steven Meyer. This is one of our top scholars and he talks about three three discoveries in science. He said, even agnostics and atheists has to knowledge these discoveries. And he said all of a sudden, they can’t say well, the university of eternal science won’t lap them. And when you begin to extrapolate that in other areas historically like you know, liberal archeologists used to say, you can’t trust the, the history in both the old new Testament. And then what happens here, come these archeologists with their spate. Oh my goodness. Like sir, William Ramsey he was taught that the go gospel of Luke and the book of acts cannot be trusted. So he decided he was going to further that discovery. So he was very disappointed because he wasn’t finding what he was looking for long story short when he began to look at the archeological evidence for both the gospel of Luke, as well as the book of acts.

Dr. Jim Burkett (25:04):
He said every, every place every inscription concerning Luke or ax, he found out Luke and ax were always historically accurate to the point that he said there was never any mistake. And he it’s so convinced him well, if the Bible is historically accurate, it must be accurate spiritually. And he shocked his colleagues by putting his faith in Jesus Christ. When you match that with other discoveries. Oh my goodness. Used to be by 19 1958, we had over 25,000 archeological sites and discoveries. I honestly don’t know what it is now. It has to be well over 50,000. And, and that’s why we say to, to the agnostic and atheists. Okay. You know, it was not it was not the vice president came up this phrase, we’ve heard this for years, but you’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your facts. And that’s why several leading archeologists, some of ’em are not even Christians, they’re Jewish, but they basically said there has never, ever please let me please hear me. There has never, ever been an archeological discovery that has contradicted the Hyster of the old or the new Testament. That’s staggering. That’s absolutely staggering.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:26):
And if the Bible can be trusted in the places where we can test it archeologically, or historically, then that means it can also be trusted in areas that we maybe haven’t discovered the evidence yet. We can know that we trust those areas. So let’s talk about the word fact. You said we have lots of facts that back up the Christian worldview, and of course, facts are very important to atheists. They, they often say, show me the evidence where where’s the evidence. Do you have evidence for God? Can you, can you touch? ’em Take and feel him weigh him in a laboratory reproduce miracles in a laboratory setting. And so they’re looking for facts. They’re looking for evidence. What are some of the facts that could lead someone who has a scientific viewpoint to the idea that there really is a God

Dr. Jim Burkett (27:20):
That’s, that’s an excellent question. By fact I share, and this is part of our equipping phase. We say the very first thing you’ve got to understand when you talk to somebody, whether it’s a Christian that has doubts or an athe agnostic, you must define your terms. You must, you must let them know you’re defining terms. That match reality. So when we talk about facts, we’re talking about those propositions or those statements, which match the reality of what’s being shared. Like you mentioned gender, you know, I think most people know there’s a difference between a male and a female. I remember a Rick Warren was asked by a TV interviewer Larry King and kind of the same question he says, well, why can’t people basically just determine who they are and, and and how can they show the difference?

Dr. Jim Burkett (28:20):
And, and now this is Rick Warren. He wasn’t trying to be obscene or anything like this, but he said, well, I think we could show you a difference where there are some facts not determined by the people he said you put a naked man and naked woman next to each other, and you see there’s a difference and it’s not based on their feelings. It’s the same way in terms of laws, pH physical loss there’s gravity, there’s all the fine tuning issues that we look at. And, and we can’t say it’s something that’s guessing. It is a fact, matter of fact the fine tuning issue. Again, it’s one of those things that’s overwhelming Daniel. I I’m telling you what I believe it’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:00):
Explain what fine tuning is. Okay.

Dr. Jim Burkett (29:03):
For example when we see a fine tuning Hugh Ross has made the comment there’s 102 variables about that we see in the universe, like if gravity was to just even 1% stronger or 1% less, the universe would not have expanded, would not have kept together. If certain elements were not completely, he balanced the way they were the same thing would happen, but he said these 122 variables. They’re so finely tuned that if, if you, if you had a universe creating machine and you took one dial, just one of the 122 variables, and you just kind of turn it maybe a half a degree, right. Or half degree left, it would collapse the entire universe or life would not be able to exist as we know it. And,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:55):
And the odds of a universe existing where human can exist are so astronomically enormous to be impossible. It just small minute changes in any one of these fine tuning elements would make it impossible for us to exist. And, and the fact that we do exist is really strong evidence that someone tuned these different elements and set everything perfectly so that we could exist. Yeah. Matter fact, it’s not by chance if it was by chance, it, it couldn’t happen.

Dr. Jim Burkett (30:33):
That’s right. Matter of fact, there was one agnostic who I don’t know if he’s come to God or Christ yet, but he, he said, every time I look at the the variables, I, he said, it’s almost like some, some superior mind has monkeyed with the with the facts or with the

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:51):
Creation this superior mind we call God.

Dr. Jim Burkett (30:53):
Yes, yes. Now there’s a, there’s a great story. When we talk about facts, here’s what I hope Christians understand and insists. You not know all the answers, but if you can, if you can put in someone’s hand kind of a, a bridge to the facts, for example, I dunno if you heard of vio Osen and he was considered the youngest medical student to ever graduate. And so when he was working as a, you know, in his research years he and his wife they weren’t accosted, but her parents became radical Christians. And so when the parents came up to where he was doing his residency they said, we really want you to go to church. We want you to stay this out. And so to just get them to, to leave them alone, they say, okay, listen, when I, when I don’t have a Sunday, I’m not working, then we will go to church.

Dr. Jim Burkett (31:49):
And, and of course, when they got together he and his wife, they thought, well, we’ll just, we’ll just look at all the atheistic classics and study that. And they were, they were shocked because nothing everything was so shallow in his thinking. And then one Sunday morning that they were at this church, this young man he’s, I think he was like a, a, a junior in college. He comes up to them and he says, Hey, doc, I’ve got this book. I don’t have time to read it, but I think you’d enjoy it. And the book was titled something like the scientific enterprise and Christianity, and they were stunned because it was a book in which each chapter had a different scientist who had a PhD in a certain field that talked about how the evidence not only showed them the existence of God, but why Jesus Christ is the son of God. And it’s so impacted their lives that not only 12 months later, did they become Christians, but God led them to be medical missionaries for 35 years in Bangladesh. And matter of fact VI Osen even has a little booklet called the agnostic air to search. And so when people say, oh, listen no, I’m not gonna believe that. I just challenge ’em and say, well, listen, just disprove it. Just, just examine. Are, are you openminded enough to just look at what the evidence just might say,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:17):
According to the apostle Paul Christianity rises and falls based on the resurrection. In fact, he says that if Christ has not been resurrected, then your, your faith is in vain. And so that really is the core issue for Christianity. How can we know, know that Jesus really rose from the dead? How, how do we even know Jesus existed? Some atheists say there there’s, there was no Jesus. So how can we know that Jesus existed, that he really lived, that he was crucified and that he rose from the dead.

Dr. Jim Burkett (33:56):
Very good question again you know, it’s so comforting to have, have facts and God on your side because you know, when, when I hear somebody say, well, Jesus couldn’t have lived. I think it’s very interesting, even some of the most liberal quote unquote theologians that, that don’t claim be Christians have openly acknowledged the, that if there’s one thing, we can be certain of that Jesus Christ exists in history. Now what about the resurrection? Now? This is where it gets very interesting. I I’ll, I’ll take a different slant than I normally do, but Dr. Gary hemos, oh my goodness. He’s considered, as you know, the, world’s leading a thought on the history of the resurrection and when he was studying his PhD, matter of fact, he got his PhD studying the resurrection of Jesus from Michigan state university, which is not known as a seminary or a graduate school, long story short the chairman of his committee said, well, it can’t be a devotional study.

Dr. Jim Burkett (34:59):
It’s gotta be an analytical study and, and it’s gotta be 350 pages. So here’s what, here’s what Dr. Hyper miss did. He studied everything written on the resurrection in English, French and German, over a period of about 25 to 30 years. And here’s what he noticed. He noticed even atheist agnostics acknowledged that there were certain elements that even they had to agree with. One was the empty tomb and, and he was shocked. Even atheists now acknowledged the empty tomb. So he built off that and he, and he calls it the minimalist approach to the resurrection things like, okay, the empty tomb, you have eyewitness reports people can’t say, well, it’s mass hallucination because you can’t share somebody else’s hallucination with anybody else. The change in the disciples these men, they, they died for what they believe was truth.

Dr. Jim Burkett (35:56):
And plus there was no perks in declaring Jesus was the Lord of your life. Number two, the impact that it had on a radical opponent by the name of Saul of Tarsus, who became the great missionary, the apostle Paul, even the brother of Jesus James who also died for his faith and then the radical impact on culture. It’s very interesting that there’s a book in which the, the, the growth of the early church, Michael Green, British theologian made this comment. And he said, there’s three reasons why the early church exploded in growth. He said, the number one reason is persuasive apologetics and the ability to outthink her critics. That was the first thing about the church. Number two, the dramatic conversion of these pagans and how that filtered in compassion ministry. I mean, here, you had people, they didn’t care.

Dr. Jim Burkett (36:53):
I mean, if they had a baby that was born, they didn’t want it. Well, they would throw it away. They’d put on the Ashe, whatever, but they’d see these changes out of that compassion ministry. Some of the church fathers actually instituted the hospitals and so on and so forth. And then number three, the dramatic miracles, exorcisms, and prop prophecies, clearly from another realm, it was so impacting that historians have said even non-Christians most modern folks are not aware of the dramatic impact that Christianity had on any culture that allows the gospel to be released. And we see that not only in, in ancient history, but we see it, you know, down through church history. I dunno if that makes sense or not, but as you can tell, I have a low excitement level on these things. So anyway,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:49):
Yeah. Calm down a little bit. Yes. Right. Yeah. All these issues are covered in my book, proof. God is real. And if you want to help educate yourself or, or become more informed on how to defend your faith, I’d encourage you to get a copy of the book proof. God is real on Amazon. And Dr. Jim, you were kind enough to do a little blurb for the, for the front of it. And, and actually, I don’t know if you knew this, but, but I, I quote from the great scholar, Dr. Jim Burkett several times in this book I took notes and I, I was careful to give you credit for your ideas in there. Praise God,

Dr. Jim Burkett (38:33):
You are a wise man.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:35):
And, and so, so I really have a heart to, to reach atheists here in the United States. You know, we go over to different nations around the world and we’ll do large evangelistic crusades, big gatherings of people we’ll have 30 or 40, 50,000 people at a time. And they come and they, they see God do miracles and they give their lives to Jesus. I mean, we’ve had Muslims come to Jesus and Hindus and Buddhist, and, you know, but I, I have a heart for the, this atheist spirit that is attacking America right now. The atheists are, are very aggressive on YouTube and Twitter. Some of the other social media platforms a couple of years ago the, the American atheist came here to Oklahoma and had their, their conference, their yearly conference. What, what was really in, I, I went to the conference that the atheist had, and they had it in the same ballroom at a hotel in downtown Oklahoma city that I had been in once before the previous time I’d been, there was in a crusade planning meeting with Reinhard Bonnke.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:53):
Oh, wow. And the, the me with Reinhard Bonnke was full of pastors from all over Oklahoma. And he came and he said, Jesus saves people from their sins. All of a America shall be safe. That’s right. And there was just such an electricity and excitement in the room when Jesus was being talked about. And then I went to atheist conference in the same room and they all seemed depressed and bored and, and, and they were, were just angry. And I said, wow, Jesus really does make a difference in people’s lives. That’s right. And so I think as a church, we need to, to go after atheist, because really it’s a, it’s a spiritual condition. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood that’s right. We are in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of America. And, and in order to reach people, we have to be ready to engage with them on social media, at the university level in schools, you know, for teenagers and in every level. And, and you are really leading that fight particularly here in Oklahoma. Tell me about some of the, the different programs and, and things that you do to help educate people in the area of apologetics.

Dr. Jim Burkett (41:18):
Well, you’ve hit the right button. You know, the, the admission statement of apologetics on fire is

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:27):
And that’s the name of your, your ministry apologetics on fire, on fire. And if you hadn’t thought of it, I would’ve taken it. Cuz that was a, that’s a great,

Dr. Jim Burkett (41:37):
Well, you can title, you can thank your friend and my friend, Dr. David Sheley for that title. You know, I can’t believe I, I was chairman of his board for 20 years and so forth, but you know, the, the thing about it is I, I go to most not most, but a lot of apologetics conferences. And here’s what I believe hits most layman and it’s this and, and the, and the evidence is overwhelming. Lee trouble said, this is like the golden age of apologetics in terms of information, but most people hear this and if there’s not a practical to it, they, they walk away feeling like, oh, goodness, I have to have a master’s degree or PhD, whereas that’s not the case apologetics, if it does not lead into practical theology, evangelism, discipleship impacting the kingdom then it, it short changes everything.

Dr. Jim Burkett (42:32):
So my, my heart is well, you talked about naming different ministries. Of course we have apologetics on fire workshops and ministries. I also teach at colleges and universities oil Roberts graduate school theology the global school of supernatural ministry up in Harrisburg. I’ve been at Oklahoma west in true at McConnell university and so on and so forth. You have those those areas, but then in our workshop I have a dream now I don’t know how I may look to you age wise, but I’m really a 50 year old man trapped into 75 year old body. So with that in mind I, I really believe and I know others that are looking at this, we need to mobilize, I mean, acts 19 is a favorite chapter of mine. And so what did Paul do?

Dr. Jim Burkett (43:24):
I mean, for at least two years, he trained you know, the disciples every day, they said in the school of Italian reus. And then it said in the next two years, all of Asia mine had heard the word of God and the church historians tell us it became a center for the spread of the gospel. And E E even ESUs I mean, it was so impacted by what happened that my friend, John Vaughn said that by the end of the first century, there were well over 30,000 Christians just in ESUs alone because are so dramatic. So what would happen if like you have ratio Christi, RA Christi, which they basically, it’s a, an apologetics evangelism group and they basically try to have chapters in universities and beginning high school, I think last count they had 160 chapters whoever sponsors it they have to have a little bit of training and apologetics, and then the students come together and the idea is not just to come and sing kumbaya, but it’s the idea to learn how to grow in the Lord, how to share their faith.

Dr. Jim Burkett (44:29):
How do you answer the questions that maybe that science professor is an agnostic atheist you know puts out there? You’ve got so many great ministries, Jay Warner, Wallace. Oh my goodness. Here’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (44:43):
Cold case Christianity. Great. Yes. Book and great ministry.

Dr. Jim Burkett (44:46):
Definitely. I mean, former atheistic police investigator his his procedures on investigating cold case crimes was so significant that they say his procedures as they are shown on 48 hours and, and Fox news are continued the high marks. And when he came to Christ he was challenged, well, use your, for forensic skills to disprove Christianity. He couldn’t, and now he’s probably one of the most prominent, of course you have Lee Strobel. You’ve got to Josh, Maddo his son, Sean McDowell. There’s so many in the, in the science arena, of course. You’ve got John Lennox. Now this guy bless his heart. He only has three doctorates. And he’s a Welchman and, and, and what’s interesting is he is so gracious that I’ve read where atheists don’t like to debate him. And he’s not, he’s not mean he just, but he just puts the facts out there in such a, a, a winsome way. Of course you have a William Lane, Craig JP, Moreland’s one of my favorites. He’s just come out with a book called a simple guide to miracles. He, oh, he’s tremendous. There are just so many that are really coming up. And then we’ve got a, a younger group that are really beginning to come to the surface, but my prayer is,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (46:09):
Have you heard of Dr. Daniel King? He’s one of my favorites. Listen, he’s my wife’s favorite apologist.

Dr. Jim Burkett (46:16):
I, I heard that, I heard that was, you know, that was the word on the street. Matter of fact I’ve even, I’ve even prayed positively for him. So anyway, but well, you’re absolutely right. And here’s, here’s why I I’m appreciative that you you’ve focused in apologetics and that is you see it. I mean, really see it, believe it as being a, a crucial part of evangelism and connecting with our world, our nation and our world. I heard from a missionary, he said could we talk about your coming over an apologetics conference? And in our country, he said really? Why is that? He said, well, what’s happening on the American campuses are, is starting to hit here. And the old you know, the old ways where we just get up and preach the gospel. Now these college students, even here, I want to know how can I know that what you’re saying is true. So I’m so excited for the coming days of your ministry. God has, and is using you to ignite significant, significant spirit empowered motions and not motions, but movements of revival and an awakening. And I’m very excited for you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (47:33):
Well, thank you. If a church wanted to invite you to come and do a, a multi-day workshop, or if a school wanted to invite you to come teach or do a seminar, how can they find out more information about you and your ministry? What, what’s your website?

Dr. Jim Burkett (47:51):
If you’ll go to apologizes on fire.com and then you can find a couple of emails or you can text me at the number and I’d be glad to come. Like like there’s one church it just so happens. I have eight wins days open. And so I’ll be meeting with them for two hours and we develop a certificate course, and most of the church want to go through a certificate course, which means they can audit. They can just come, but in the certificate course they come, they have a couple of books, they need to read, they have some assignments. And and there’s, there’s some universities that might even use that certificate and use it for college credit if they decide to transfer it. But churches we’re talking about conferences with groups of, of churches the key thing, and I just, I just can’t say this strong enough right now, you must, and I hope this comes across the right way.

Dr. Jim Burkett (48:54):
You must fight for the heart. And so, and the minds of your young people, this is not something that’s on the sideline. They’re dealing with issues that you, you, you cannot imagine most high school students will have, at least I, I understand. And it’s like 70 to 80% heard one that was 85% of them ha have some kind of involvement with science or technology. And yet most youth pastors, maybe they might have five to 8% of familiarity with that. And so what do a lot of church kids, unless you have apologetics, they think, well, you know, it’s just a generational thing. He does this because of this or that, but not because he’s staying relevant to the world. And I hope that made sense, but apologetics on fire.com and love to come to your fellowship or your church, your conference, and, and I’m an equal opportunity blesser in a term that whether it’s a, a Baptist Baptist decos, Pentecostals, charismatics and or

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:55):
You like

Dr. Jim Burkett (49:56):
Everybody. Yes. in Jesus name. Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:59):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast, Dr. Jim Burkett.

Dr. Jim Burkett (50:03):
Thank you for having me. God bless you. Bless

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (50:05):
You. Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found that we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that’s gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you

Evangelism Podcast Host (51:06):
For more, for about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.

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Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic faiths and they both claim many followers around the globe. In some ways, these two religions are similar, but in several key areas they are very different. Today, we ask Kamran Karimi who was born in Iran, to tell us the differences between the followers of Mohammad and the followers of Christ. 

Website: http://www.thevof.org/

Book: In Allah They Trust: https://amzn.to/2RVwjBC 

Recently a prominent Muslim activist was quoted saying that it is their goal is to someday see the Islamic flag flown over the White House.  What role are Christians and the Church to play in stemming the tide of Islam in America?

Show Notes: 

One of the big differences between Islam and Christianity is the basis of their religion.

In the Koran, the holy book of the Muslim religion, there are stories about Jesus. 

Six Facts Muslims know about Jesus. 

1. Jesus was born of a virgin.
2. Jesus was a prophet.  
3. Jesus performed miracles. 
4. Jesus lived a sinless life. 
5. Jesus is coming again. 
6. Jesus will judge every person. 

According to the Koran: 

Jesus was virgin born (Surah 3:47). 

Jesus is the Messiah (Surah 3:45).  

Jesus is nearest to God (Surah 3:45). 

Jesus was strengthened by the Holy Spirit (Surah 2:253). 

Jesus heals the blind, lepers, raises the dead (Shrah 3:49). 

God did raise Jesus up to Himself (Surah 4:158). 

Jesus was God’s word (Surah 4:171). 

Jesus is identified with God’s Spirit and proceeds from God (Surah 4:171). 

Jesus confirmed the Torah (Surah 5:49). 

The Gospel contains guidance and light (Surah 5:49). 

Jesus prophesied his death and resurrection (Surah 19:15, 33). 

Jesus is called a “holy son” (Surah 19:19). 

Jesus called his disciples (apostles) (Surah 61:14). 

The Lord’s return is prophesied (Surah 43:61, 89:22). 

The idea of “ransom” for another’s sins is in the Quran (Surah 37:107). 

Mary’s son was a “sign” for all people (Surah 21:91).  

But, there are some truths Muslims do not acknowledge. 

Five Facts Muslims DO NOT Believe About Jesus

1. Jesus is the Son of God. 
2. Jesus died on the cross. 
3. Jesus rose from the dead. 
4. Jesus is the Savior of the World. 
5. Jesus is alive today and will forgive sins. 

Listen to Daniel King, the Evangelism Coach, on The Evangelism Podcast

Transcription 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (00:00):

Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic faiths, and they both claim many followers around the globe. In some ways, these two religions are similar, but in several key areas, they’re very different. Today. We ask Cameron Karimi who was born in Iran to explain to us the differences between the followers of Muhammad and the followers of Jesus Christ.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:25):

Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be welcome to the evangelism podcast with dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host missionary, innovative analyst, Daniel King. Alright, I’m here

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (01:06):

With Cameron, Kara, me, and he was born a Muslim, but now he is serving Jesus Christ. And so on this episode, we’re going to talk about the differences between Islam and Christianity. And so both Christianity and Islam are from Abraham, their Abrahamic faiths. They both claim many followers around the globe. And in some ways the two religions are very similar. People in both religions are very devout, but in several key areas, they’re very different. And so brother, what do you think are some of the differences between the followers of Jesus and the followers of Muhammad?

Kamran Karimi (01:48):

Well, it’s very easy. The followers of Jesus follow love and the followers of Mohammed, they follow hate. You know, now they’re not going to come and say that we follow hate, but their behavior and their their approach is fear and control really it’s by force. I like to say it this way. It’s law 2.0, if you will, you know, share your law, we’re talking about it is forcing down people’s throat. A God, instead of given a choice, because I really believe this. When I say in Christianity, the foundation of our faith is love. As far as that goes, assist, because love gives you a choice. I always like to say this way, the essence of love is choice. Okay? So in Christianity or in true relationship with God, the true living God has given humanity, the freedom of choice you can choose. I say this man, you can choose to send yourself to hell. If you want it, and God will back you now, he doesn’t want you to go there, but he’s not going to and override your choice. You’re your wheel. If you will. He’s given us freedom of will freedom of choice. So that’s the major difference where in Islam it’s forced. Whereas in Christianity, it is a choice that’s given to us to, are we willing to follow Jesus and his word? Or are we still going to follow our own way?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (03:22):

And so you’re able to say that because you were actually born a Muslim, your, your father was a devout Muslim. And so you were raised in that religion. So, so you have insight to how they think, and you actually wrote a book called in Allah. They trust in, in this book, you say that recently prominent Muslim activists was quoted saying that their goal is someday to see the Islamic flag fly over the white house here in the United States of America. And then you ask the question, what role are Christians in the church to play in stemming the tide, the tide of Islam here in America. Right? So, so tell me some about this book and, and well

Kamran Karimi (04:05):

Book is really about informing and empowering and equipping the body of Christ, the church, to know how to confront the force of Islam. And I’ll just say it this way. We have to most important that if you want to reach Muslims for Christ, if we’re going to see the church, do what we are called to do, you have to separate between the Muslims, the people and what are called the spirit of Islam. Okay? The principality Islam is a principality as the Bible talks about. We fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (04:43):

And so I love Muslims and Muslims love me. When I go to Muslim nations, I love preaching to Muslims. I find that they are very excited to hear about God, hear about Jesus. And then, and so I have great love for Muslims, me too. But I agree with you, the, the, the principality behind Islam has enslaved many people.

Kamran Karimi (05:07):

Yeah. And you know, most, most Muslims. I like to say this by majority would say 80%. That’s a safe number to say, 80% of Muslims are nominal Muslims. They are not fully practicing as long as it threatened in their book. As far as that goes, okay, the other 20% are more fundamentalists. And even some militant, as far as that goes. So the coat you made out of my book, that’s more referring to those. Now, when Muslims say we serve the same God Muslim. So yeah, we all serve the same guy. We don’t, that’s a very clear cut distinction. There’s a clear-cut distinction. Now. They mean, what they’re saying is there is one God, and that is true. There is one God, there is one God, there’s only one. God. And the God that they’re serving is not the God that we’re serving because God is not schizophrenia.

Kamran Karimi (05:59):

He’s not going to come in. Crushed in the Bible, represent himself as love as Jesus came in and fulfilled the law in the new Testament I’m talking about. And then, you know, 1600 years later, or so actually 600 years later started not 6,900, 600 years later show up and represent himself as his tyrannical. God, that is, you know, going to kill you. If you don’t follow it’s decrees and call you infidel, as far as that goes. So we’re talking about two different gods. Now, when the people say we serve the same, God, they believe that they are serving the same God and they want to serve our God. That’s why the responsibility comes to us of knowing how to actually bridge the gap and actually touched her heart with the power of the Holy spirit, with the love of God and give them enough. I should say, draw them enough into the, in a way that they want to receive Christ and see Jesus as who he really is because in Islam, they believe he’s a prophet. They don’t believe Jesus is the son of God. They don’t believe that he was raised from the dead. And those are all the basic foundations of our Christian

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (07:12):

Faith. So let’s, let’s talk about that a little bit. So I read through the Quran, the Holy book of Islam, and I found there were actually lots of stories of Jesus. Jesus has mentioned many times. And so there, there are several things that Muslims do know about Jesus. First. They know that Jesus was born of a Virgin. They know that he is a prophet. And so they respect him as a prophet. They know that Jesus performed miracles, that Jesus lived a sinless life, correct. That Jesus is coming again. And that Jesus will judge every person when he comes back in. So all those things are absolutely true. And it’s actually wonderful that Muslims know that I know some churches here in America that have gone so far liberal, that they don’t even believe in the Virgin birth anymore, or believe in miracles. And so foundation of our faith, that’s the foundation of our faith.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (08:06):

So it’s wonderful that they, they believe those things, but some of the things that Muslims do not believe about Jesus, they do not believe that Jesus is the son of God. And so actually the, you get very upset. If you say, Jesus is the son of Gus and they do not believe that Jesus died on the cross, correct? They do not believe that Jesus Rose from the dead. Yes, they do not believe that Jesus is the savior of the world. Correct. And they do not believe that he’s alive today and that he can forgive sins. Right? And so that is one of the big differences between Islam and Christianity is that we believe that Jesus is God, that he is the son of God that he came from heaven, correct down to earth, was born to the Virgin Mary. It was, it was not something that happened through sexual intercourse, but it was a divine miracle where the Holy spirit impregnated Mary. Correct. And Jesus came here as God to show us how to get,

Kamran Karimi (09:10):

Yeah. I always say this to Muslim specifically when we say Jesus is a son of God that he is Lord, we’re not saying, man became God. We’re saying God became man. There’s a huge difference into two. Okay. So when you get the right perspective on this situation, then you have,uyou know, you’re, you got to openness. If you will, there’s an, there’s a crack, therefore for the truth to actually enter your heart. I really emphasize that. And also one thing else I want to emphasize on some of these Mohammad himself in the Koran said concerning Jesus, that he is a savior. Okay. That he was sinless. Okay. And I need it. Well, Hamad says, I need a savior. That’s another sewer in there. Okay. So Muhammad knew that he was a sinner and he knew that he needed a savior. Okay. Now he doesn’t come and say in the Bible or in the Koran, it doesn’t say that Jesus was the savior of the world, but he said, I need a savior. So, you know, another thing I always like to say about the Koran and you know, where we have to have someone

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (10:20):

Because all of us need a savior. All of us have sinned. And it’s really interesting. Even the Koran says that Jesus, the prophet never sinned, but every single one of us, the rest of us, we’ve all sinned. And we need a savior.

Kamran Karimi (10:37):

We need someone to, to, to pay the price for us to remit us from that from the send that’s in our heart. And the only person that can do that in our life is someone that has never said, that’s why Jesus was the redemption of mankind. He was the price that got paid for our freedom from sin and healing and other things, as far as that goes. But you know, that’s the major thing. So the key is this, as far as as far as, you know, communicating this, I really believe that. Do you know date? The, I like to say this, when people ask me, how do you, how do you preach the gospel to the Muslims? I always say you better be able to manifest the miracles of Jesus because Muslims do believe in miracles of Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (11:25):

Yeah. And, and actually when we go to Muslim nations, we invite people to come and we pray in the name of Jesus and Jesus performs great miracles, even among the Muslims in the crowd. Correct. Sometimes we see more miracles among the Muslims than we do even among the Christian population, because they’re, they’re looking to Jesus and they put their faith in him and Jesus does these Muslims. And so Muslims will come up on the platform and, and say, Jesus healed me.

Kamran Karimi (11:56):

You know, what that is is because Muslims believe Jesus is a healer. He’s a miracle worker, not only a great prophet, but they do believe that Jesus was a miracle worker. He did miracles. Okay. They do believe that therefore, whatever you believe you’ll invite into your life, you know, you invite the miracles into your life when you are basically when you, you know, when you’re believing that Jesus is the heater, that’s why you see miracles and supernatural event and things take place in the meetings that and I see it in my, you know, in my meetings that I do when I go overseas and having past two years because of the COVID and all that stuff. But the bottom line to it is this, that,uas I had done all these meetings and everything like that, they are so open and receptive to the gospel, to the miracle working power. And I like to say this, like, can I take in used to say that miracles are the dinner, dinner belt for the centers. So once they see a miracle, now they’re open to hear the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ, not only they can do miracle in their life, but they can hear, can also forgive them of their sense.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (13:07):

That’s wonderful. So on your, your television program, which is called the voice of freedom, you are preaching every day to 60 to Farsi speaking Muslims all over the world, but especially in the nation of Iran. And you’ve been here.

Kamran Karimi (13:25):

I understand. And Tajikistan, those are the most populated. I mean, they, they

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (13:29):

Farsi speaking. Yeah. That’s wonderful. And so tell me about some of the testimonies that you’ve heard of Muslims encountering Jesus,

Kamran Karimi (13:38):

The, the most consistent statement you hear from Muslims specifically in Iran is they they’re asking each other. This is amazing. They’re asking each other, have you seen a man in a white robe in your dreams lately? They asked that Jesus is appearing to, to Muslims around the world, particularly in the middle East, I’m talking about and revealing himself as who he really is. You know, I recall one particular testimony that this is actually a really interesting that a M w I got this email, a letter from,uthe crew, an email to, to me that this man was in charge of confiscating Bibles or any material that had to do with Christianity and Judaism in Iran. This is actually a city of Meshack. Okay. Which is North, Northeast, Northwest who’s me. And,uso what happened was, and he walks into this storage place that they’re confiscating everything.

Kamran Karimi (14:39):

They gather everything, and then they ship everything to tear on the capital city. He’s he’s emailed told me, he says, I walked into this place with few of our people. And he says there was one particular book that just keep highlighting me with just jumping off. Almost like it was like, there was a light on this book he says, and I went and grabbed it and stuffed it in my pocket. Johnny, hide it from his friends around him. Okay. He says, and when I got home, it was a little pocket Bible, new Testament. This is when I opened it. And I read my, I fell on the scripture that peace came all over me. One sentence, one, one verse that he read the peace of God just flooded his life. He says, I knew something was happening inside of me. He says, then what happens is that same night I’m sitting there wondering what’s happened to me. I turned the TV on and your programs. That’s why he’s emailing me. He says, your program came on and you recording the exact same scripture. Talk about how

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (15:44):

Amazing God was orchestrating straightening.

Kamran Karimi (15:46):

And these orchestrations are called a supernatural illustrations of God are happening consistently. How do you do that? I mean, we pro we record our programs two months ahead, and then how God strategizes and puts that in there.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (15:59):

So he reads in the new Testament and then watches you quoting that same scripture

Kamran Karimi (16:04):

Gives his heart to the Lord that night. And then as a result of that begins, I mean, just change, receive such, I mean, such a radical change in his life to the point that he begins to tell his other two brothers that were also done. These guys are part of the Iranian intelligence in Iranian intelligence for gap. Like I said, they were, their job was to gather materials that had to do anything against Islam. That’s we’re not against as long, we’re just sharing gospel. Okay. So material books, anything okay. That they would confiscate it. So he says that the next thing you know, I began to share that and his brothers were in a higher rank in the intelligence and in the military of Iranian regime, as far as that goes, he began to share that with his brothers and the brothers turned on him and throw him in prison. Wow. Okay. He says, I was good at this. I was in the prison for 52 days in solitary confinement. This is an ease in his email. Okay. And he says, and Jesus would come into my solitary confinement and comfort me

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (17:11):

When you have Jesus. You’re not alone.

Kamran Karimi (17:14):

No, exactly. Jesus would come. And he says, the first storm, this bright light entered into his cell and began to talk to him. And he says, I am Jesus. And I’m, you know, and I will get you outta here on the 52nd, the day before he gets out, Jesus shows up. He says, you’re getting out. And the Lord got him out supernaturally. He shares that. And then he says, just keep your mouth shut. I’ll get you out of here. And then he’s obviously sending me email recently. I got another email from him. He says, I don’t know if you remember me, but I say recently in the past, he says, I don’t know if you remember me. I am such and such. I knew exactly the moment. He told me in Canada, his story, I knew exactly who he’s talking about. So God has done amazing things in his life. He says, I’m still in Iran. And I’m sharing my faith, Shane with Jesus that done. I’m still following Jesus. I’m still walking with Jesus. I am under surveillance, but I’m still sharing my faith with people that I come in contact with. It’s awesome. And God is doing something that’s one example. And I could tell you is encounter after encounter of these supernatural things that are happening in people’s lives.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (18:24):

How many people over the years have sent you emails or called you and said that they’ve been impacted by Jesus? Like I said, in the last episode that we did,

Kamran Karimi (18:36):

Did you know, I was getting an average, a thousand phone calls and emails all combined on average about when we first started broadcasting. Okay. When the government got wind of this, they began to monitor and just really began to increase persecution in Iran, which actually backfired on them. And now the church is growing persecution is the, you know, it’s the precursor to revival an increase as far as that goes in the Bible. So, so I would say, you know what I mean, on average, I mean, we’ve seen thousands upon thousands gives, give their life to the Lord. It’s really hard to monetize a monitor because you really, it’s not like in America where you can actually, when you broadcast, it can actually tell how many people are watching, but it’s in the thousands and thousands. You know, I really believe, you know, based on, you know, I give you an example when in 2016, two different networks will TBN, which,umy programs on that right now, it’s six days a week as well, a CBN, which has got a network there.

Kamran Karimi (19:35):

And I used to be on that as well. And I just felt like, you know, just bringing all the focus on one network, as far as that goes, but CBN had done some extensive research in the beginning stage of the launch. You know, both networks came on the scene within three months, I’ll be chart each other in 2006. And I was on them daily on both of them. Okay. What happened was CBN reported that in 18 months, 864,000 Iranians had given their hearts to Christ. Wow. In from, from September in 18 months, 2006 to 2008, 864. Now these are reported, you know, testimonies, you know, people that contact our ministry, that we would report to them and other ministries that are also we’re working on that network, these networks. So they were reporting the salvation, the miracles and the context that 867, 64,000 souls coming to Christ in 18 months time. I really believe because of what they, they, the, the oppression because of the government’s involvement is trying to crush the church as much as it’s tried. Lot of people are not necessarily coming public with their faith necessarily, but they are born again. They say there’s anywhere from one, one to one and a half million Iranians that have given their heart to the Lord since the beginning of the revolution. Wow. I really believe it is far more than that. I believe it’s between 10 to 12 million. Wow. I really believe that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (21:07):

Well, I believe that there will come a time where the walls of Islam will fall in. Iran will open up. And so when that happens, I want to go and do gospel festivals in Iran. Let’s go do it together because because the day will come and then many people will, will come to Jesus. I know you do crusades. And what have you, Islam, Islamic countries, we call them festivals because it’s the most, you say, maybe it has a little bit of a negative context, but, but festivals. Yeah.

Kamran Karimi (21:38):

Yeah. But I actually have seen this, you know, in the first couple years when I came to Christ, Daniel, I kept seeing having these dreams. And I just would say, my son, that’s crazy. How can I, how could that even happen? I could not even see envisioned the Lord was showing me things down the road, but I could not just see haka has that going to happen in Iran as far as that. But I began to see these crusades in major cities, in Iran.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (22:05):

Amen. That’s a vision that comes from God.

Kamran Karimi (22:08):

It is a vision from God. I’ve got a vision board that I carry around with me, my phone and everything like that. And there is a stadium in Iran, which is the largest stadium soccer stadium in Iran. It’s called the freedom station, freedom, freedom stadium, you know, and I’ve seen the stadium packed out with a hundred thousand plus people. Wow. Worshiping God worshiping Jesus. And we’re going to do that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (22:34):

Let’s do it together. I will. You know what together?

Kamran Karimi (22:37):

Yeah. It’s on my heart. I’ve seen it. And I’ve been, I’ve been keep confessing it. I’m saying the day’s coming. And I believe we are upon it. I really believe that within the next year or two, we could be right upon it. And we’re going to see when the regime falls in on all that. In fact, you know, I like to say this way, but 12 years ago, when that green movement was taking place in Iran, the green movement was when they, they rigged the election of Amadine Asia to put him back in

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (23:06):

And there were protests. And then the protest was put down.

Kamran Karimi (23:09):

I went to the Lord about that protest and asked the Lord, Lord, is this the time that this government will fall? And I was shocked as the, at the Lord’s response to me, I would never thought that kind of a response he said to me, no, because the church in Iran is not ready. And I thought, what does the church in Iran being ready? I’ve been to new with the government falling and all of that. So I kept pondering on that. And then a couple of weeks later, the Lord continue to speak to me about that. He says under 40th year, I’ll begin to deal with them as well. 40Th year was a year and a half. And what’s amazing is I began to prophetically speak in my programs about dare, that they’d been cut to the, their, their route has been cut. You know?

Kamran Karimi (23:55):

And I give this illustration that if you have a green tree and you go break off a branch of that tree, the branch is still green, but it’s dead. It has no life in it. And before long it’ll dry up and it’ll basically wither, okay. That’s exactly what’s happened since the 40th year. And they’re gasping for their last breath right now. This regime in Iran. And I believe there’s one I’m going to say within a year or two, we’re going to, I see myself in Iran, boots on the ground. We have boots on the ground by me going into Iran, preaching the gospel of grace.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (24:29):

There are protection and guardian angels surrounding. Exactly.

Kamran Karimi (24:33):

And I believe I can, I can believe it. Now, if you will, where it was really difficult for me to believe in those early days when I kept seeing those in the dream three nights in a row at the same dream, you know, back in the 1993, 92, 93 is three nights in a row at the same dream, seeing myself standing on a platform, any Iran preaching the gospel to masses

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (24:56):

Of Iranians, and

Kamran Karimi (24:58):

It will come to pass and I believe we were upon it. So we are going to go together.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King  (25:02):

Hey man, well, let’s finish with a prayer for the people of Iran that they wouldn’t meet. Jesus, go ahead, brother.

Kamran Karimi (25:09):

Father, in the name of Jesus, I lift up every Farsi speaking Muslim Lord, before you right now in the name of Jesus. And I thank you, Lord, that you are putting out your spirit of wisdom and revelation of who you really are, who Jesus really is. I thank you that they are seeing you and they are receiving you as their Lord and savior that they’re coming into contact with their divine purpose and destiny Lord through Jesus Christ. I thank you, father God, that our outpouring of your spirit for you said Lord, in the latter days, you pour out your spirit upon all flesh. And I thank you that you’re pouring out your spirit upon the Muslim world upon the far sweet speaking Muslims in Iran, in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and father. I thank you that you’re turning on the light. You’re switching on the light, inside their hearts, that they would see clearly who Jesus is truly, and that he is their Lord and that the he’s their savior.

Kamran Karimi (26:08):

And I thank you that you drawing them into the kingdom. As you have ordained at the Jesus name, Lord, I thank you right now for the salvation of this hundred and 10 million Farsi speaking miles jumps around the world. I thank you, father God for the honor and the privilege that you have given me and others that are preaching the gospel into the Farsi speaking world. And I pray father God, that not one word will return to you void, but it will prosper and accomplish and bring the harvest of salvation that your word produces in Jesus. And we give you praise. I plead the blood of Jesus over every soul that hears the message of the gospel. And I thank you, father God, that Satan’s grip and Islams grip is broken off their hearts and souls and minds in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for being on the podcast. My brother love you, man.

Evangelism Podcast Host (27:05):

For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit King ministries.com. Again, that’s King ministries.com.

The post Kamran Karimi | What are the Differences Between Islam and Christianity? appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Why are evangelists needed? Why doesn’t God just send angels down to earth to announce His existence? Today, Joshua Wagner, an evangelist and a theologian, discusses why God made evangelists essential to His plans for humanity. 

Show Notes: 

Joshua Wagner is the son of Kevin and Nicole Wagner. He began ministering at the age of 14 by leading his own Teen Conferences around the world. At the age of 18 he began conducting his own leadership conferences and evangelistic crusades around the world, ministering to crowds up to 50,000 people at a time. He graduated from Victory College and from Oral Roberts University with a Master of Divinity degree. 

Why is the evangelist needed? 

Why Doesn’t God Send Angels to Announce His Existence?

Website: http://www.wagnerministries.org 

Read Josh’s Book “Go”: https://amzn.to/2RslerE 

Key Quote: Evangelism is a job you can only do on earth. You cannot witness to lost people in heaven because there are no lost people in heaven. 

Listen to Daniel King, the Evangelism Coach, on The Evangelism Podcast

Transcription  

Daniel King (00:00):

Welcome back. Once again, we are with my friend, Joshua Wagner, and he has written an excellent book called go. His last words are first priority. Josh, can you explain to me what the title of your book is all about?

Josh Wagner (00:17):

It is taken from the great commission of Jesus Christ. Of course, the first word in Jesus, his great commission is go and preach the gospel. So it is a book on evangelism and outreach. It deals with both the practical and theological aspects of evangelism and the subtitle there is emphasizing that the last words of Jesus that he spoke to his disciples before he ascended to heaven to go and preach the gospel must become our first priority

Daniel King (00:44):

In today’s podcast. AWe’re going to look at one of the questions that you address in the book. And this is a really important question for me because I’m called by God to be an evangelist. And so the question is why is the evangelist needed? Why doesn’t God send angels to announce his existence or just show up in a vision to people. So people know that he’s real. Why has God called evangelists to preach the gospel

Josh Wagner (01:15):

Question? You know it should be noted that God in his sovereignty could have set up the system in any way that he chose. And yet he chose to do it this way. The way that God has chosen for the communication of the gospel to go forth is through the mouths of believers. It is to go and preach the gospel. Now, certainly he could have sent angels to just appear to everybody and tell them about Jesus. He could have made sure that everybody gets a dream or a vision of Jesus, but he didn’t do that. He instead made a decision that for the gospel to go forth, it would be communicated by believers like you and me and all of the others who are in our world, who know Jesus to go and tell others

Daniel King (02:02):

About Jesus. So it is our task as believers to share the gospel. Also our privilege, absolutely to obey the commission from our King.

Josh Wagner (02:13):

And, and there is for those of you who are listening, and if you’ve ever led somebody to Jesus, you also know there’s no greater satisfaction in the world than being able to do that. So yes, it is a great privilege. It is a reward to be able to do that, that we are privileged to do that at the same time, there is a great responsibility and sometimes people maybe they’ve thought through it and maybe they haven’t, but I think there’s in the back of their mind, this idea. Well, if I don’t tell them somebody else will, and, and maybe even if I don’t get there, then God will send an angel to tell them, or they’ll, he’ll show up in a dream or in a vision. And we hear these fantastic stories of people, particularly in the Muslim world who are having dreams and visions of Jesus. I don’t deny those things. But when we talk about truly people who have no relationship with God, no, nothing about Jesus. We cannot expect angels or visions or dreams to do the work that God has called us to do. And when we suggest that that’s possible, it really takes away from us, the urgency and the responsibility to do

Daniel King (03:13):

TLR Osborne. He always said that there’s two prayers that God will not answer. The first prayer is when we ask God to do something that he’s already done. And the second prayer is when we ask God to do something he told us to do. Wow. And so sometimes people pray, God, I pray for the world to be saved. I pray for, for China to be saved. And God’s actually done everything he needs to do in order for China’s to be saved. God gave his only son, his very best Jesus died on the cross. He shed his blood. He provided for the salvation of all mankind for every person in China. And then we’re, we’re praying for China to be saved. And yet God told us go. Yeah. And so when will China be saved? When we obey that word, that’s Jesus that we’re asking God to do something that he actually told us to do.

Josh Wagner (04:14):

Exactly. And you know, it doesn’t mean that God can’t use these supernatural things like angels and visions and dreams too

Daniel King (04:22):

Help the gospel gospel.

Josh Wagner (04:24):

But when it comes to the communication of the gospel, God has uniquely determined that we are the ones to do it. I’m going to give you an example of this in acts chapter 16, Paul, who is a missionary going into unreached places, the places that he is visiting. These are places that have never heard about Jesus. Why? Well, Jesus had just shown up and he wasn’t in these places that Paul was going to. And so how does Paul know where to go? Well, this is a fantastic story. Where in Martin acts 16, verse six, it says Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and glacier. Having been kept by the Holy spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. Now, when they came to the border of my Mesia, they tried to enter Bethania, but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So this is now twice. God has said, no, don’t go this way and don’t go this way. It’s it’s this GPS that’s occurring here with Paul.

Daniel King (05:15):

Do you know how I know you’re a good preacher, John? How’s that? Because you can actually pronounce the names of all these places. Well, that’s a good sign. That you’re a good preacher,

Josh Wagner (05:24):

The compliment. And then in verse eight, it says, so they pass by my CA and went down a trow as, and during the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So notice God uses a vision here, but he doesn’t send this vision to the people in Macedonia. Instead he sends the vision to Paul and says, Paul, there people in Macedonia who are probably crying out to the one, true God, Hey, whoever you are out there, we know you’re real, but we need someone to tell us the truth and what does God do? Send a vision to them. He doesn’t send an angel to them. He doesn’t give them a dream.

Josh Wagner (06:12):

Instead, he uses a vision to tell Paul, Paul, you go, you’re a real person who has the gospel message. And you are now called to go and preach this message to the Macedonians. And that’s what Paul and his companions do. They go there. They lead Lydia to the Lord. They lead. This starts as great church in Philippi that he would one day write the letter to the Philippians, to this great ministry that occurs. But it only happens because Paul was obedient to and preach the gospel. So again, God sent an angel to the Macedonians. He could have sent a vision or a dream, but he didn’t. He sent the vision to Paul so that Paul a human could go and preach the gospel. And that is the same method over and over again, that is used in the book of acts. Think about the Philippian or the European UNIC in acts chapter eight.

Josh Wagner (06:59):

Here’s a man that by all means he even had a Bible. He had this Bible, but he still needed a human to come and communicate the gospel to him to tell him what he was, reading, how it connected him to Jesus,

Daniel King (07:12):

Understand what he was reading, right?

New Speaker (07:14):

So it’s not enough for us to just give somebody a Bible in another country. We need to be there with them to tell them what the Bible means to tell them about the one, true God. Some people think, well, it’s just enough to, you know, dropped Bibles in the middle of the jungle. That’s not enough. It wasn’t enough for the Ethiopian eunuch. Why should it be enough for people in our day to day? Even the apostle Paul, where his conversion on the road to Damascus a vision of Jesus, Jesus knocked him off the horse. He saw the bright light and he went blind.

Josh Wagner (07:45):

And people oftentimes say that Paul was saved on the road to Damascus, but that’s not true. Paul had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. As you just referenced a vision, this huge noise. And this huge lightning knocked him off his horse and he became, but he was told to go into, to Damascus where he was be told next, what to do. It was at the same time that God showed up and a vision to a man, a Christian man named Anna. Nice. And when he showed up to Anna Niaz, he said, I need you to go down to straight street to Judas his house. And you’re going to minister to a man named Saul and, and last thought, God, you, you messed up. This saw he’s not good news for us, Christians. He wants to arrest us. He wants to kill us.

Josh Wagner (08:25):

But the vision that Anna nice received sent him to Saul’s house or to Judas to Salesforce. It was, and it was there when Anna Niask came and taught to saw that then saw was saying saved. You see, up until that moment, he was not saved. In fact, we know this because when Saul was retelling this, the story of his conversion, it’s actually recounted to other times in verse, in acts 22. And in acts 26, he says this in acts 26. When referencing that story, he says I’m. And, and I, I, he’s a saw, I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. And I am sending you to them to open their eyes, to turn them from their darkness to light. He’s telling them about how God had called Saul to be his ambassador. But look at what it says in Acts 22.

Josh Wagner (09:21):

When Paul recounts this, he says in Acts 22:12, a man named on an ISE came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, brother, Saul, receive your sight. And at that moment, I was able to see him. Then he said, the God of our ancestors has chosen to know his will. And to see the righteous one, to hear the words from his mouth, you will be as witness and all of all people of what you’ve seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away. Calling on his name, see Saul at this moment. When analyze came was still in a sense, he was still an unbeliever, but he needed Anna. Niaz a human to come and to share the gospel with him. And it was only then that he was able to receive the gospel and to have his sins washed

Daniel King (10:04):

Away. Wow. I love it. And then later on in Romans 10, Paul quotes this saying everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so he’s saying that out of his own conversion experience, where Anna Niaz here is saying, you must call on his name. And

Josh Wagner (10:26):

When Paul says that in Romans 10, he follows that statement with these rhetorical questions he says, but how can they call him the one in whom they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one in whom they have not heard? And how can they hear, unless someone preaches to them, someone preaches to them and how can they preach unless they’re sent. And that the point that Paul is making there is unless someone, a person, not some angel, not some dream, not some vision, but some, one preaches to the unbeliever. They cannot be saved. Why does Paul know that? Because it was true for his own life. Even a vision of Jesus was insufficient to save Saul. It was only when an ISA came and explained the gospel to him in a way that he can understand that that vision fully made sense. And he was able to receive the,

Daniel King (11:13):

And another example would be that of Cornelius. W what do you think about his story? His story is probably the most

Josh Wagner (11:21):

Obvious when it comes to teaching on this subject. Here’s a man Cornelius, that the Bible says was a really devout man. He was a religious man. In fact, in acts chapter 10, when we’re introduced to him, this description sounds like a Christian. It says he and his family were devout. And God fearing. He gave generously to those in need. And he prayed to God regularly. That sounds like a lot of Christians, or even maybe people who aren’t Christians, but they, they want to be Christians. You know, this is the type of description of what Christians should be, devout God fear and giving to in need, praying to God regularly, but he was not saved. And what does God do? God sends an angel to him. Now, does the angel preach the gospel to him? No. The angel gives him a direction, go call for Simon, Peter in Joppa.

Josh Wagner (12:07):

And so the angel does do a work in the gospel, but not the work of, in the gospel. He instead says, send for that human send for Peter. Peter comes, he shares the gospel with Cornelius and his family, and they become saved. Now, some people who read chapter 10, they think all while he was Cornelius, his family, they were already saved. Peter was just coming to tell them about the baptism of the Holy spirit or to encourage them in some way. Well, if all we had was chapter 10, perhaps you could make that deduction. But thankfully we don’t. We also have chapter 11 where Peter retells the story of Cornelius. And in retelling that story, look what he says here about that event. He says in verse 15 of acts, 11, as I began to speak the Holy, sorry, back in verse 13, he says, he told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, send a Joppa for Simon who was called Peter for, he will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.

Josh Wagner (13:02):

This shows us that when that angel appeared to Cornelius, him in his household were not saved. They needed a human to come. So yes, theoretically God could have set up the system. So that angels and visions and dreams brought the gospel to unlock, to lost people. But that’s not how he did it. He gave that gospel message to you, to me, to every Christian, the great commission to go and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, because angels cannot do that. Job dreams and visions can not do that job. It is only when one person tells another person about the good news of the gospel that salvation has made.

Daniel King (13:36):

Wow, I’m so delighted to hear you say that Josh, because it means that my job is secure until Jesus comes back. My calling as an evangelist will last that it won’t suddenly go away. We are needed, thank God that we’re needed. And

Josh Wagner (13:54):

That’s a job you can only do on earth. You know, we have all of eternity to praise Jesus, to worship Jesus, to read the Bible, to do all these things, but you know what you can’t do in heaven, you can’t evangelize, you can’t witness to lost people because there are no lost people in heaven. So we might as well make hay while there is still time here on earth. Like Jesus says in John three work while it is light for night is coming when no man can work.

Daniel King (14:17):

Wow. Such great wisdom. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

The post Joshua Wagner | Why is the Evangelist Needed? Why Doesn’t God Send Angels to Announce His Existence? appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Between the time of Jesus’ resurrection and His ascension, He had one thought on his mind. What was that thought and why did Jesus repeat Himself so often? 

Website: http://www.wagnerministries.org 

Read Josh’s Book “Go”: https://amzn.to/2RslerE 

Show Notes: 

The Great Commission is not a suggestion, it is a command. 

Read:

Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Mark 16:15-18 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Luke 24:47-48 repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. 

John 20:21  Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Listen to The Evangelism Coach, Daniel King, on the Evangelism Podcast! Please subscribe and leave a review today on iTunes.

Transcription: 

Daniel King (00:00):

All right. Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King and I am excited about leading people to Jesus. And today’s guest is Joshua Wagner. He is the son of Kevin and Nicole Wagner. He began ministering at the age of 14 by leading teen conferences around the world. And then at the age of 18, he began leading his own leadership conferences and evangelists crusades around the world ministering to up to 50,000 people at a time. Josh and I have had the privilege of preaching together in some nations, Josh, he graduated from victory college and from oral Roberts university with a master divinity degree. And so Josh, welcome to the podcast. Delighted to have you

Josh Wagner (00:47):

With us today. Thank you, Daniel. I’m happy to be here.

Daniel King (00:50):

And so today we’re going to talk about the great commission and I know you’re excited about the great commission. You’re very passionate about going and telling people about Jesus. And the specific question that we’re going to discuss is why did Jesus repeat himself five times? So Josh in the gospels between the time of Jesus’s resurrection and the time of his Ascension,

Josh Wagner (01:21):

He repeats great

Daniel King (01:23):

Commission instructions five different times. Why do you think Jesus repeated himself so much?

Josh Wagner (01:29):

Yeah. Well, that’s a great question. It’s a great point. And you know what, one of the things that’s interesting in scripture and it’s true, even outside of scripture in our only own daily lives, is that when you really want to emphasize a point, you, you repeat it. The Bible was written in both Hebrew and Greek and in Hebrew and Greek, they don’t have exclamation points. They don’t have all the punctuation marks that we have in English. And so one of the ways that the biblical authors and even those who are non-biblical, but we’re writing in those languages at that time would emphasize a point is that they would repeat it. So, for example, in Isaiah six, Isaiah sees this vision of Jesus in heaven, and he’s surrounded by the angels and they are crying out Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, God almighty. And why are they repeating the word? Holy not because they’re stuttering or because they forget the first time.

Daniel King (02:24):

[Inaudible]

Josh Wagner (02:25):

Exactly the reason that they’re repeating it is to emphasize the holiness of God, because they were unable to put an exclamation point upon after that. They would emphasize it by repetition.

Daniel King (02:36):

And so in the Hebrew language, at that time in the manuscripts, there’s no punctuation, there’s no explanation point. So they repeated it. Holy Holy Holy, to emphasize this is something really important. You need to,

Josh Wagner (02:49):

They wanted to hammer home the point that God is Holy. And so when we see the same thing happening in scripture, where there, where God is repeating himself, it’s not because he’s forgetful it’s because oftentimes we are forgetful and we oftentimes need him and others in every, in all areas of life to have the same message repeated over and over again, in order for us to get it through our thick skull and undoubtedly, that’s why the Bible records the great commission five times, you know, it’s, it’s not even just five times, it’s by four different authors in five different books, stated in five different ways. It’s, God’s way of really trying to hammer home. This is important.

Daniel King (03:30):

Absolutely. So let’s go ahead and, and read through them. And I’ll start in the book of Matthew chapter 28, verse 18. And then I’ll ask you to comment on it and tell me what you get out of this passage. So it says, then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

Josh Wagner (04:12):

Amen. What a wonderful word from God. And you know, this is, as you mentioned earlier, this is the last words of Jesus, of all of the things that he could have left the disciples with and us with prior to his Ascension to heaven, he gave us these words and they are so powerful. What stands out to me in Matthew’s great commission? You know, he has a very developed sort of process of what should take place. He says go. So this is aspect of going out into the world to find them believers and make disciples, not just decisions. It’s not just enough for us to lead someone in a prayer. We want them to become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. That’s what it means to be a disciple. And how does that happen through these two things? Primarily Jesus says to baptize them, this is sort of an initial physical demonstration of what God has done on the inside of a person, and then teaching them to obey everything I’ve commanded you. So while baptism is a onetime experience, teaching is something that’s going to happen continuously over the life of that individual. And it is this process that makes that person a disciple of Jesus Christ, what a powerful command from Jesus. And I love that

Daniel King (05:24):

Ending of it where Jesus promises to be with us in the midst of this great task that we are not in this buyer ourselves, that Jesus is with us. He says, I am with you always. And so sometimes when you have an opportunity to share your faith or to witness to someone, it can be a little bit intimidating. You don’t really know what to say. You’re worried someone might laugh at you. You’re worried about what people might think of you, but just to have that assurance that Jesus says I am with you always don’t about it. I’ve got you. I’ve got your back. And this is a great commission. Someone said, it’s not just a good suggestions. It is a command to every believer. This is not just a command for evangelists. You’re an evangelist, domino evangelists. We, we, we feel that call of God in our lives, but Jesus was not saying this specifically to evangelists.

Daniel King (06:22):

This is to every believer absolutely. To go. You’re not supposed to stay. You’re supposed to go. You’re supposed to make disciples. You’re supposed to baptize them. You’re supposed to teach them. Yes. So that’s such a wonderful passage to the next passage, right? At the end of the book of Mark Mark chapter 16, verse 15, Jesus said to them, go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name, they’ll drive out demons, they’ll speak in new tongues. They’ll pick up snakes with their hands. And when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all. They will place their hands on sick people and they will get well. Yeah, what a fan.

Josh Wagner (07:15):

I asked a great commission. This is the longest and most developed of the five great commissions, which is sort of interesting because it’s found in Mark, which is the shortest of the five books in which great commissions are found. But you can see the emphasis that Mark placed on this developed great commission here. And as you can see something that stands out here is of course, Jesus says that as you go and fulfill this great commission, all these other signs are going to be present in your ministry. And I would say that in our own ministry we have in some way or another seen all of these things take place. Yeah,

Daniel King (07:52):

I would say that the gospel is not just declaration. It’s also demonstration in terms that my, my son who’s in fifth grade this year could understand it, show and tell that’s right. That we preach the gospel, but we also have signs following the preaching of God’s word.

Josh Wagner (08:12):

Yeah. In fact, that is exactly what verse 20 of Mark 16 says the last verse it says, then the disciples went out and preached everywhere. And the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. So there is a confirmation that we should expect to have when we preach the gospel, God is going to confirm his word with signs and wonders and miracles that was present in the ministry of Jesus. It was present in the ministry of the disciples. And we should expect no less when we preach the gospel

Daniel King (08:42):

Well today. So I got a question for you. You’ve gone to a lot of different countries. How many countries have you gone to any country about 20 countries now, as you, you preach the gospel, have you ever had a chance to cast out? Yes. We’ve,

Josh Wagner (08:56):

We’ve cast out many demons over the years. Yes. Have you ever seen people speak with new tongues? Yes. We have done that.

Daniel King (09:03):

Now. This is the controversial one. Have you ever picked up a serpent? So, so I, I think that

Josh Wagner (09:09):

No, to answer your question shortly. No, but the principle here is that even if animals were to try to hurt you in some way, as we see, for example, in acts 28, when Paul is on the Island of Malta and a Viper bites him, he is not harmed. And, and I believe that that’s, what’s saying here, and certainly we’ve experienced that too. Being, you know, in, in instances, maybe I’m in a malaria filled area where there’s all these mosquitoes and we get bit by mosquitoes, but we don’t have malaria. God protects us from these sorts of things. I’ve run away from him

Daniel King (09:44):

Serpent before. Well, there you go. Exactly. The wisdom of Jesus. When Satan tempted him applies to this situation too, he says, says, when, when Satan asked him to jump off the temple, what did Jesus say? Do not put the Lord, your God to the test, do not put the Lord your God to the test. So you don’t need to prove your faith. That’s right. Picking up syrup on stats, right? But it says, if you drink any deadly

Josh Wagner (10:08):

Poison, it won’t hurt you. And I’m not deliberately right.

Daniel King (10:11):

Drink any deadly poison. But sometimes when you’re on the mission field, you get offered stuff. And you’re like, I’m not sure where that came from.

Josh Wagner (10:20):

Well, in, in our line of work, Daniel, oftentimes we are offered things. We don’t know what’s in there. And even if it could be safer, the locals, it may be, wouldn’t be safe for us. We always tell people do not drink the water, but sometimes these things are offered to you and you do it’s unavoidable. And and I, I, and doubtedly think that the Lord has in many cases, protected me from parasites or amoebae or any number of things that would hurt and harm me in foods and in drinks. And undoubtedly here we are still to this day, healthy and happy.

Daniel King (10:53):

And then the last part of the verse, it says they’ll place their hands on sick people and they will get, well, have you ever seen that happen?

Josh Wagner (11:00):

We’ve seen Jesus do so many miracles just as he did all throughout his earthly ministry. We see him doing it again through us today.

Daniel King (11:07):

And so Hebrews 13, eight says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Yeah.

Josh Wagner (11:12):

The same Jesus who healed people

Daniel King (11:15):

In the gospels is alive today. And he continues to heal people today. That’s right. All right. Let’s go to the end of the book of Luke, Luke chapter 24,

Josh Wagner (11:28):

[Inaudible] verse 47,

Daniel King (11:32):

Jesus says repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

Josh Wagner (11:45):

Yes. So this is a, a very more concise version, but it’s still got the same elements of the commission. Jesus is sending us as his ambassadors. He says, you are witnesses of these things. I want you to think about a witness in the terms of a trial in a courtroom. A witness is somebody who tells what they have seen, what they have observed. We would say that there is you know, in a, in a, if you’re in a courtroom scene, or if you’ve maybe watched a show that has a courtroom scene, they bring these witnesses to tell about their own experiences, eye, witness accounts, these sorts of things. That’s what Jesus is asking us to do in the great commission. He’s asking us to be his witnesses and what are we to witness about the repentance for the forgiveness of sins that we are to preach to all nations. We are to tell people about what we have seen Jesus do, what we’ve experienced in our own lives and in so doing, we are fulfilling that great commission.

Daniel King (12:45):

That’s awesome. Recently, I I recently heard Reinhardt Bunky preach. Yeah. Before he went to heaven. Yes, it was a little while ago. And he says a witness only tells what he has seen or experienced. He does not give speeches. He does not debate. The witness becomes a living piece of evidence. The living Jesus needs living witnesses. And he says, I want to be a living piece of evidence that Jesus is alive.

Josh Wagner (13:19):

Amen. And bunkies words of course continue to ring true. And

Daniel King (13:23):

It’s really interesting in this passage, it says repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And so right here at the end of Luke, Luke is already setting up the themes for what he’s going to talk about in the book of acts. Because of course, Luke wrote both Luke and the book of acts. And so he’s talking about witnesses, he’s talking about how you’re going to begin in Jerusalem. So he’s, it’s kind of like the end of the blockbuster movie where they give a hint of what’s going to come in the next, right. That’s a great way of saying it. All right, let’s turn over to John chapter 20 verse 21, where we have the Johanne nine great commission. It says, again, Jesus said, peace. Be with you. As the father has sent me, I am sending you. Yes. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy spirit. If you forgive anyone, his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

Josh Wagner (14:32):

Yes. So this is a fantastic, great commission. Jesus, you know, he says as the father has sent me, so I am sending you. So it speaks to the way in which we are to be fulfilling the great commission. Now, I want you to think about this. As the father sent me, sent Jesus, how did the father send? He sent Jesus as an, as his son to earth. He left the comforts of heaven to go to a different land, to, to be amongst a different people, to learn, you know, learn to what it is to be among them. Jesus is really God’s missionary to earth.

Daniel King (15:09):

Wow, that’s a great point.

Josh Wagner (15:11):

And so we are to be going in the same way that God sent Jesus. Now he wants to send us. So that’s why we can’t just be content to stay. You know, I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I can’t be content to just stay in Tulsa, just as Jesus was not content to stay in heaven. We have to go and a theme in a lot of these great commissions to go into all the world, to go into all the nations. We have to start in Jerusalem, start in your hometown. But eventually we have to reach the entire world just as Jesus did for us.

Daniel King (15:41):

That’s beautiful. I think it’s really cool here. It says again, Jesus said, so here we have confirmation that Jesus was saying this over and over and over again. It’s really interesting how each of the gospels records this a little bit differently. It’s like Jesus was preaching one sermon and one person wrote it down and then he preached another sermon and another person recalled it and then another person. And so John says, yeah, again, he said to us, as the father has sent me even so send I you. And so Jesus, during these 40 days between his resurrection, his in his Ascension really had this one thought on his mind and he repeated it over and over again. I know as a parent, sometimes I have to tell my kids to obey more than once. Does that happen to you, your parent? Yes, absolutely.

Josh Wagner (16:32):

In order for them to really get the point I’m trying to make, I often have to repeat it more than once and Jesus knows we need this.

Daniel King (16:40):

I think my mom told me one time, it takes a hundred repetitions before kids get it. And that may be true. It may be times I get frustrated. I was like, I already told you, why did it choose? Of course, of course, Jesus. He just patiently keep saying again and again to, and sending them out with this great commission. All right. The final place we find, this is at the beginning of acts chapter one, verse eight, it says, but you shall receive power when the Holy spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea in Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Yeah. What a fantasy

Josh Wagner (17:23):

Mastic scripture here. Jesus, you know, he, I love how he says that the power that the Holy spirit comes that gives us when he comes upon us. Notice the purpose for it is for evangelism. You know, this is one of the things that I share about is that we need to recognize the baptism and the power of the Holy spirit. It’s not just so we can speak in other tongues. It is primarily here, given Jesus says to empower believer, to have a boldness, to witness. And we see that happen all throughout the book of acts individuals like Peter and John and Paul and Barnabas and all throughout, they are having the supernatural boldness to share the gospel, to fulfill Christ great commission. It’s not something we could do on our own, in the natural, but by the power of the Holy spirit we can. And we do.

Daniel King (18:11):

I really liked the term that some of the professors at oral Roberts university have come up with to describe believers who are going in the power of the Holy spirit. So they, they call it empowered believers, spirit empowered believers. And that’s what we are. We are empowered by the Holy spirit man to share the gospel. Yes. He’s the one who gives us the ability to go into share our faith with others. That’s right. And it’s really interesting in this passage that it starts in Jerusalem, then it goes to Judea. Then it goes to some area and then the ends of the earth. What are your thoughts about that?

Josh Wagner (18:54):

Well, you know, Jerusalem was their hometown. He was where they were familiar. And that’s where you should begin. If you’re listening today and you may say, man, I, I don’t know how to get to Andy. I don’t know how to speak this language and you know, Africa or wherever. Well, that’s fine. You start where God has placed. You, you start in your Jerusalem and as you are faithful with little, then God will make you faithful with much. That’s the principle of scripture. So as they began to share in Jerusalem, then God said, okay, now to Judea, Judea was the greater area of Jerusalem Symeria, which was the next province sort of over if we were to use this in our vernacular here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s like starting Tulsa and then in Oklahoma and then in Texas, and then to the ends of the earth, there’s this progression as you become more and more comfortable doing this work God will take you to the ends of the earth, but wherever you are, start where you are. And that, that work, God will bless.

Daniel King (19:51):

It’s interesting that Jesus says you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, he doesn’t say first Jerusalem. Then he says, you’re supposed to do this. And you’re supposed to do that because some people have asked me, why would you go to people on the other side of the world when there’s people right here in Tulsa that are hungry or who have not been saved? And I would say, yes, we’d go to the people in Tulsa. We absolutely try to reach people here in our own city. And I did that on Saturday. I took an evangelism team out from one of the local churches here in Tulsa. And we went to a low income apartment housing area and we brought food. We knocked on doors and we probably knocked on about 40 doors. Prayed with people at every door, gave them food. And we had about 14 people pray us for salvation,

Josh Wagner (20:48):

Praise God. Yes, we, we start here in Tulsa, right?

Daniel King (20:54):

We don’t forget about ministering to the rest of the world too. In fact, one, one person said that the light that shines farthest shines brightest near at home.

Josh Wagner (21:04):

That’s a good way of saying it. Exactly. And I think the point you made is so important. You know, it’s not an either or it’s a, both, and we should be ministering in both Jerusalem, your hometown and to the ends of the earth. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Daniel King (21:18):

So what advice would you give to someone who wants to obey the words of Jesus and wants to help to fulfill the great commission?

Josh Wagner (21:28):

Yeah. I mean, to take this example here, start where you are. You are around unbelievers all the time in your workplace at your school, or maybe family members or different individuals that, you know, that need Jesus, those people, God has placed them uniquely in your life. I can’t reach them the way you can, Daniel. You can’t reach them the way that, that this individual can. And so start with those individuals. Talk to your pastor, talk to your church, ask them about opportunities that they have for getting involved in ministering to people, lost people and just do everything that you can to, to look for unsafe people. You don’t have to look hard. You just go to your local Walmart and you’ll find lots of people who need Jesus and begin to step out in faith in boldness and obey the words of Jesus Christ.

Daniel King (22:14):

Gosh, thank you so much for being on the podcast. It’s great to have you as a guest. Thank you.

The post Joshua Wagner | Why did Jesus Repeat Himself Five Times? appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.