I'd like for us to take a look
tonight, I think this is certainly in keeping
with what we've been thinking about today, and
that's the spread of the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Timothy chapter 4, we'll be looking at
several passages.
As I left the chapel today, I remarked
to my wife that Melody Curden was feeding
her horse along the fence over here.
I see her there quite often, and actually
Melody established a contact with the lady across
the street, and she was able to witness
to this.
This lady lost her daughter not long ago.
Melody was searching for those words, like we
all do sometimes, what to tell them.
She remembered what Roger said this morning, tell
them about the gospel.
And she was able to share with this
lady the message of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and she was able to invite her
to come to our services tonight.
She's not here, I don't see any strange
faces, but I'm saying that because there are
opportunities that abound.
If we're looking for those opportunities, and if
we're ready when those opportunities present themselves, I
believe God divinely appoints, makes divine appointments for
each one of us, and we've heard testimony
of that today.
And what you and I as believers in
Jesus Christ need to do is be involved,
be one that God has singled out, one
that is alert and ready and willing to
respond to those divine appointments.
Reading from verse 1, the Apostle Paul says,
I charge thee, therefore, before God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead at his appearing and his
kingdom, preach the word, be instant, in season,
out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine.
For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but after their own
lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having
itching ears, and they shall turn away their
ears from the truth and shall be turned
unto fables.
Now just a couple of verses in 1
Peter 3, verse 14.
And if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy
are ye, and be not afraid of their
terror, neither be troubled.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,
and be ready always to give an answer
to every man that asketh you a reason
of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear.
Shall we have just another word of prayer?
Our Father in heaven, we praise thee and
thank thee for this day and for the
encouragement that you've provided for our hearts.
We thank thee for the divine presence of
your wonderful Son in our midst, for the
inner witness of the Spirit of God that
has made us aware today of your voice
speaking to our hearts.
And we pray thee that each one of
us shall be challenged afresh as never before
to indeed be good ambassadors for Jesus Christ
our Lord.
We thank thee tonight for this assembly and
for each one assembled here.
Encourage our hearts and souls from the word
of God and send us forth from this
place as proclaimers of the best news that
any man ever heard, that Jesus Christ your
Son and our Savior loved them and died
for them.
For this we ask in his precious name.
Amen.
I'd like to think of every Christian as
being just as responsive to the divine invitation
to go out and be a witness as
Paul was in encouraging his son in the
faith, Timothy.
You see, Paul wanted Timothy to be combat
ready.
He wanted Timothy to be ready for action,
alertness.
He wanted him to be a Christian that,
if we look for mottos, he had a
good motto.
He was always ready, and that certainly should
be descriptive of all Christians when it comes
to witnessing for Christ.
I think it was just a week or
so ago, on a Saturday morning, we previewed
a film here in this auditorium.
Several of us were present, some have seen
this film, but it gives an account of
a church down in Florida that was dying.
I say dying in the sense that numerically
the numbers were diminishing week after week, and
they were searching for some way in which
they could revitalize that fellowship.
To make a long story short, they came
up with what I believe was a divine
way, a divinely appointed way whereby any church
can grow and indeed be a blessing to
not only the community in which it is
located, but indeed there can be enrichment for
every member of that local church.
The pastor of that church and some of
those that were deeply concerned discovered that if
by some means they might enlist the help
of every Christian that fellowships in that church
in going out and being a witness for
Jesus Christ, now there's a difference between a
witness and a soul winner.
Every one of us can be a witness
for Jesus Christ.
I think soul winning is a unique gift,
and each one of us should pray that
God will entrust us with that wisdom to
be a true soul winner.
Recently we completed a course with a number
of people that are in this room that
wanted to know more about witnessing and winning
souls for the Lord Jesus Christ, and they
have gone out and they're witnessing and they're
endeavoring to win souls for the Savior.
But if you can just imagine what can
take place when you have a whole body
of Christians, God's people, they may be small
in number.
In this case, I think it was just
a few people, but they went out from
that place.
And by example, the spiritual leaders in that
church began to set the example, witness and
lead souls to Christ.
And that place has grown in such a
way that it's just astounding.
We shouldn't be astounded by this.
That's God's way.
It's always been God's way.
That every one of us would see ourselves
as ambassadors for Jesus Christ, a witness for
the Savior, and indeed a soul winner.
We hope to view that film here sometime
in September and perhaps have some meetings in
which each one of us in this assembly,
I feel like with reluctance that I even
say we wait until September because September may
be too late.
The Lord may come tomorrow.
I'm thinking about the souls, that they may
be there today waiting for someone to speak
the message of God's love as revealed in
the gospel of Jesus Christ to their needs.
And the Apostle Paul is a man that
senses that urgency, and he felt like he
had to tell all of those that he
sensed were interested in serving God in the
importance of this.
So tonight as we read these things and
as we think about it, I pray that
tonight that the Spirit of God will do
a work in each of our hearts so
that everyone that leaves this place tonight before
tomorrow has passed, if God lets us see
another day, every one of us will be
entrusted by God with a divine encounter, that
we'll be able to speak to some soul
in this world that is without the Savior.
And I don't think that we're talking about
things that are in the realm of fantasy.
We're talking about the reality of lonely people
in this world that do not know Jesus
Christ.
And wherever you work in your neighborhood, people
that you're in contact with, realize that God
has entrusted you as a believer with the
responsibility of letting your light shine.
You sharing that message that reached your soul
and revolutionized your life did something for you
that nothing else ever did.
I pray that before we come back to
this place next week and assemble in this
room, if God sees fit to spare us
and let us come back here, that we'll
have testimonies of people that witnessed to someone
else and won someone else for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
I'll tell you, the enemy is very active.
The enemy is becoming bolder and bolder every
day.
Just this week we were made aware that
in South Square Mall, starting on Wednesday of
this week through Saturday, there will be a
psychic fair.
There will be people there that will tell
you all about the things that are in
that realm of spiritual darkness, perhaps trying to
make prophylacts out of some of these, telling
you about palm reading, astrology, the occult, black
magic, all of these things.
And it's been carried on in a place
where most of us do business almost weekly.
I would enlist your help.
It's a very simple matter.
Or you have a telephone.
You can call South Square Mall, the administrative
office, ask to speak to the manager or
someone there, and just ask them, what is
the purpose for this psychic fair?
And give a word of Christian witness that
it is absolutely inconsistent with anything, everything that
you believe as a Christian.
And there are merchants there, and there's a
merchants' association in South Square Mall.
And I believe we can have some impact
if we call that merchants' association during this
week and tell them that we disapprove of
what they're doing.
I'll tell you, beloved brother and sister in
Christ, if these things, if they don't bother
you, we've heard it so often, be ye
angry and sin not.
It's time for God's people to speak up
and speak out.
And if we're not willing to do it,
the enemy is not shy.
And with all of the malice and with
all of the deceit that he possesses, he
dares come into this area that we call
the Bible Belt in this part of our
great country, and he dares to go into
a very commonplace, and he influences people somewhere,
somehow.
And next week, you'll have a psychic fair
over in South Square Mall.
Let's speak out against it, and let them
know that there at least are some people
in Durham, North Carolina, that patronize that place,
that do not approve of what they're planning.
I have no doubt in my mind that
the Apostle Paul, if he'd had a telephone,
he'd have been on that telephone, he'd have
been calling, and he'd have been letting them
know exactly where he stood.
As good believers in Jesus Christ, as those
that are strong, those that are aware that
the time is short and that we must
act in season, out of season, we stay
ready at every possible moment in which there
is an opportunity to spread the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's remarkable to me that a man like
Peter, who at the first seemed to be
so timid and so shy and so cowardly,
would become so bold in his witness for
the Savior, would sense that regardless of what
we may feel inwardly, that fear of man
that's very real, and the fear of man
bringeth a snare.
Psalm 27.1 says, If we know whose
side we're on, and we know God is
on our side, we need not fear.
And I think about the words of Hebrews
13.5. Our God said, I will never
leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Do we believe that?
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,
even in the time of adversity, even when
you exercise yourself, and you separate your heart
and soul unto me, and you purpose to
go forth and to be a witness for
me, even in the enemy's stronghold.
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
As a result of that, the writer of
Hebrews says, So that we may boldly say,
with boldness, courageously we say, The Lord is
my helper, and I will not fear what
man shall do unto me.
I don't believe the Apostle Paul was afraid
of any man.
And the only way you can be delivered
from the fear of man is to know
who's on your side.
You've made a decision in this life.
You've entrusted the eternal destiny of your soul
into the pierced hands of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
And you said, I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed unto him
against that day.
I know he's on my side.
He said he would never leave me, nor
forsake me.
With that thought in mind, the Spirit of
God gives us that holy boldness that we
need to really go out and to speak
out for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul says in his charge to Timothy, I
want you to ever be ready.
And Peter seems to, in a sense, just
fortify the one that would read these passages
and compliment what Paul has already said.
He says, I'll tell you what, if you
really want to be ready, sanctify your heart,
set your heart, your total being apart for
God's service.
Is God first in our lives?
Does Jesus Christ have the preeminent place in
my life as a Christian?
Well, that's what the Word of God tells
us, that Christ should be first.
He's first in each of our lives.
Peter says, sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts, and then be ready.
When that opportunity comes to share with someone
the gospel of Jesus Christ, be ready, because
the heart is right with God.
And that matter of fear of man has
been taken care of.
My God will not leave me, nor forsake
me.
My God is the one that has put
me into this service.
I am an ambassador for the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I'm not just some lackey that doesn't know
what he's doing.
I'm in God's service.
I'm a witness for the Lord Jesus.
And I'm living in a world that is
dying, it's perishing, and people are lonely and
they're despairing of even life itself.
You heard our brother's testimony of what it's
like to live without Christ.
You know something about that in your own
experience, that life without Christ, how lonely it
was, how unhappy you were, and all of
the satisfaction and joy that's come to your
life from knowing Jesus Christ.
It's incumbent upon us to take that message
and share it with the world, the world
that he loved, the world that he died
for.
Jesus says, be ready always, always.
You see, this is in accord with what
Paul has already said, in season, out of
season.
Every opportunity that comes my way, I'm ready,
I'm alert.
And we tell people about that wonderful hope
that's within our souls, that hope of eternal
life which the gospel of Jesus Christ brings
to us.
You see, we do not have to flounder
about and wonder what we're going to say.
We have the gospel.
That's what Paul had, that's what Peter had,
what Timothy had, that's what Paul was urging
Timothy to be aware of, that he had
a message, and he could share that message
with the world of that day.
And that's what Peter's telling us, and we
always do it under the control of the
Spirit of God.
I'm not left to myself.
I don't have to draw from just my
own resources, my own strength, which is puny
and insignificant in the face of the power
of the enemy that we face in this
world.
It's the power of God against the power
of evil, and we're indwelt and filled with
the Spirit of God for God's service.
If you're going to be effective for God
and you're witness for Christ, you'll have to
do it in the power of the Spirit
of God.
There's no room for the flesh in witnessing
for the Savior.
It's not just a matter of just going
out and speaking a lot of empty words.
I'd like for us to think about a
passage that's found in Acts chapter 8.
It deals with Philip, the evangelist.
And you can turn, if you like, because
I want us to think for just a
few moments about a pattern that we see
in witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because first and foremost, Philip was a man
that was full of faith and of the
Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit.
And this man, in his witness for the
Savior, did a very effective job.
There was a realization that here was a
divine encounter, a man involved in a very
fruitful ministry.
He was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ
to the Samaritans.
Souls were being saved, and God miraculously and
wonderfully picks him up and takes him and
puts him in a place where there's a
man that has a need, a man that
has a need that he is searching for
divine truth.
I think the description of Philip that we
find in Acts 6, which reminds us that
he was a man full of faith and
filled with the Holy Ghost.
Indeed, these are things that must be characteristic
of us.
Our faith can't be weak and wavering.
We have to be strong in our faith.
Do you remember that faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God?
We're fortified by the Word of God.
The Spirit of God uses God's Word, and
he increases our faith, and we act upon
what he has told us to do.
I think perhaps Peter's words could have well
had something to do with Philip and the
way he reacted to his opportunity.
But if Philip sees a man journeying along
his way, an Ethiopian eunuch that has been
up to Jerusalem to worship, he has in
his hand a Greek translation of the Old
Testament, and he's reading in Isaiah 53, and
he is pondering ever so carefully what does
all of this mean?
And God has divinely and wonderfully taken Philip
and he's brought him to right where this
man was.
This man needed some help.
God took the right man and he put
him in the right place so that he
could speak and address himself to the need
that this man had.
Philip starts out with a question, and we've
already learned in soul winning that you do
have to make some sort of contact when
you're seeking encounters with individuals that need the
Savior and you're looking for that divine encounter,
you have to learn to ask a question.
Sometimes we've learned that one approach that we
have may not work with another, but you
size up the situation and one that is
used most often, do you know what the
Scriptures have to say about this matter?
But I find that Philip's message, it started
with the Word of God.
It was centered in the Word of God.
It wound up with the Word of God.
Philip was not just a windjammer doing a
lot of talking.
He started with the Scriptures and he ended
with the Scriptures.
That's what we've learned in this business of
winning souls for Christ.
Use the Word of God.
Not your opinion.
Not little catchy stories.
Use the Word of God.
God honors His Word.
And so Philip's first question is, do you
know what you're reading?
That simple.
Do you know what you're reading?
Do you understand anything about what you're reading?
He has a sincere seeking soul.
He's unhappy, but he's filled with a desire
to know what he's reading about.
And behold, God's messenger, the first question he
asks is, do you know what you're reading?
And Philip, of course, had no doubt as
to whether the prophet that he was reading
about or the one of whom he spoke.
And this was the big question in this
man.
Is the prophet speaking of himself or another?
He needed enlightenment.
He needed help.
And, of course, Philip responds.
He declared unto him that it was the
Lord Jesus that the prophet was speaking of.
Judaistic teachers would have told him, perhaps, that
he's probably speaking about Jeremiah, the suffering prophet,
something along that line.
Not taking into any account that there was
a messianic hope for Israel.
And though they claimed that there was a
promise from God that they would have a
Messiah, they seemed to be able to so
easily circumvent any encounter in the Word of
God with this idea that Jesus Christ, Jesus
of Nazareth, had fulfilled that role and he
was Messiah.
But Philip reminds him right away that it
was Jesus, that Jesus of Nazareth, the one
that you've heard about.
He is the one that the prophet is
speaking of.
He is that Lamb of God, the one
that was so misjudged, mistreated, misunderstood.
He is the one that the prophet spoke
of.
He preached unto him the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think just as much went into that
message of preaching to that one man as
one would attempt to prepare for if he
spoke to thousands.
Because when you recognize that this is God's
divine appointment, you put everything you've got into
it.
You don't hold back anything.
You don't say it's just one soul.
Listen, brother.
People get saved as individuals.
You may look out over the masses and
you say, I want to reach them for
Christ.
And you can preach to them.
And praise God, the Spirit of God may
take a gospel and seal it home to
some heart.
But most often, seeking souls are looking for
help.
They need individual help.
That's why God enlists our help.
And haven't we been reminded just recently, just
think of us, the believer, the poor sinner,
saved by the grace of God.
And God dares to say, I want you
to be a co-laborer with me.
I want you to help me.
I want you to serve me in making
known this good news to the world.
I think we mentioned one night that perhaps
angels could do a lot better job in
proclaiming the glory of God.
And they worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
They look upon Him as indeed God's wonderful,
blessed Son.
There's one thing they do not know, though.
They do not know what it means to
be saved by the grace of God.
They do not know the power of the
gospel of Jesus Christ in saving a soul.
Because they've never been in that place.
So God takes those that have been redeemed
by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus,
and He says, go out and you tell
others about that wonderful person of my Son,
the Lord Jesus.
And that's what Philip did.
He told the eunuchs.
He told them about the Lord Jesus Christ.
He instructed Him well.
And I think he retraced for them as
he read Isaiah 53.
This is the one that was rejected and
despised.
He was disapproved of by his own people.
And he could press home upon his own
heart.
Listen.
He may have come unto his own and
they rejected him.
But as many as will receive him, they
receive the gift of eternal life.
And he could remind them of all of
the injustice that was heaped upon the Son
of God.
I believe he pressed it home upon his
heart.
And the Spirit of God was there in
deep conviction and reminded him that as a
poor sinner, he needed God's Lamb.
He needed the Lamb of God that could
take away his sin because he was reminded
the iniquity of us all was laid upon
him.
And there upon the cross of Calvary, each
one of us must picture my sin, the
burden of my sin, the load of my
sin.
I reminded you the other morning, two people
died upon that cross, the blessed Son of
God and me, the poor, filthy, vile sinner.
And the Lord Jesus Christ, identified with me
to the extent that he paid the penalty
for my sin.
And praise God, the eunuch responded and he
received Jesus Christ as his Savior.
He believed the message because when Peter, when
Philip instructs him in the matter of baptism,
which I believe he did, and this man
sees some water, he wants to know if
there's any reason why I can't be baptized.
And Philip would say, if you believe with
all your heart, then you may be baptized.
And he responds and said, I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
The one that I've just trusted is my
Savior.
I believe that's God's Son.
I think about Romans 10 and 9, a
great salvation verse, that thou shalt confess with
thy mouth Jesus is Lord.
Believe in thine heart that God has raised
him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
His need for that public confession, and he
made it to one person, doesn't mean walking
the aisle before a congregation.
Confession of Christ can be made to one
person.
And that's what he did.
And part of the reason he reminded him
of that was because we read in John
12 that if confession of Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior was made, that all of
the Pharisaical leaders of that day would do
all that they could to have that person
cast out of the synagogue, separated from the
place of fellowship.
But Philip pressed at home from his heart
the need of confession, and he did.
And I feel that a part of witnessing
for Jesus Christ it's very important that we
remind those people that we deal with you
need to confess the Lord Jesus.
We hear so often he died openly upon
a cross, and there were many people around
that cross.
It wasn't done in a quorum.
It was done out in an open place.
How can any one of us identify ourselves
with him and trust him as our Savior
and then be quiet, call ourselves silent disciples
of the Lord Jesus?
It's often referred to Joseph of Arimathea as
a silent disciple.
We refer to Nicodemus as the one that
came by night.
This sort of approach.
We're empowered to be witnesses for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And it means, brother and sister, that you
do it overtly.
You do it openly.
You do it solely.
And the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter
are stressing for us and for our learning
that we need to be ready.
We need to be alert.
We need to sense the urgency of what
we're doing.
We're doing business for God.
And I'm reminded that today is short.
I'm reminded that Jesus Christ may come at
any moment.
And just recently we were talking about the
coming of the Lord.
And I remember in that group, after we
had talked about it for a moment, and
we were reminded if we had the choice
at this moment to leave this life and
go be with Christ, what would be your
choice?
You'd be willing to leave right now for
heaven to be with Christ.
And you've already detected in your own soul
this unreluctance.
But he's coming.
And he's coming very soon.
And I'll remind you, when he comes and
the last member has been added to the
body of Jesus Christ and the church has
been raptured out of this world, the day
of opportunity for you and me to serve
him in witnessing and telling forth the gospel
to this world, it will be forever over.
Now, I believe in heaven we will serve
him in many ways.
But today he has entrusted us with a
message for this world in which we live.
And the big question is, are we going
to respond and are we in obedience going
to carry that message to the world?
His own mother says, whatsoever he asks you
to do, do it.
The word of God says, happy are you
if you do these things.
And the hacker Christian is the Christian that's
winning souls for the Lord Jesus Christ.
The hacker Christian is the one that is
boldly proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to
this world in which we live.
You may feel like, I can't do it.
I'm too shy.
No, you can't do it.
I can't do it.
But by the grace of God and with
the power that he provides, we can all
be fruitful witnesses for the Lord Jesus.
And I do pray that we're going to
see the power of Satan broken over our
lives.
And we've been so unfruitful so long, many
of us, so barren, unproductive.
We're barren to reproduce, said Dawson Trotman.
I believe that.
And I want us to go forth from
this place tonight, purposing in our hearts, we're
going to serve God faithfully and that we
proclaim the gospel.
We come back to this place if our
Lord be not come by next Sunday, we'll
bring some soul with us that we want
for the faith.
You say, you sound like you're shooting pretty
high.
The sky's the limit as far as I'm
concerned.
The sky's the limit.
We've been discouraged and defeated too long by
the words of the deceiver of men's souls.
You can't do that.
You don't have those opportunities.
You do have those opportunities.
And you listen to the inner witness of
the Spirit of God.
And you take that gospel, the wonderful glad
tidings of Jesus Christ, and you go tell
someone about it.
You may see a face light up.
You may hear someone say, tell me more.
You may have the joy, just as Roger
did just last evening.
A dear boy that was in, dead and
trespasses in sin, now he's alive.
He possesses eternal life and he's going to
heaven to be with the Lord Jesus.
That can be your experience if you've got
a purpose in your heart that you're going
to do God's bidding and do it for
the glory of God.
Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we solemnly bow before
thee tonight and we are aware that we
need to confess that we've been derelict in
our responsibility to be a witness for the
Savior.
So often, so many of the trivial things
of this life have occupied our time.
But we know, Lord, we know it just
as sure as we're here tonight, that this
life is so short that it rises up
like a vapor and then it disappears and
it's all gone.
That you've asked us today to be a
living witness for the Lord Jesus and to
carry the wonderful gospel of our Lord Jesus
to this world in which we live to
inspire every one of us.
And tonight we pray to you that the
Spirit of God will fill the souls of
everyone in this room that we'll go forth
empowered and encouraged to tell someone else about
the Savior that means so much to us.
Lord, we've been reminded today, if you love
me, keep my command.
Help us, we pray thee, as we say
those words, I love you, Lord Jesus, to
in the same breath say, Lord, I'll go
out and serve you and I'll tell someone
else about your love and about your death
upon Calvary's cross for their sins.
This we ask tonight in your son's wonderful
name.
Amen.