During the days of World War I, the United States was having trouble with German submarines. We did not know how to deal with them. Will Rogers offered a solution. He said, "What we need to do is to boil the ocean. This will create such a pressure that it will force the submarines to the top. Then it will be as easy to destroy them as shooting ducks on a pond."
A reporter replied, "That’s a good idea, Will, but how are we going to boil the ocean?"
Will Rogers answered, "I’m just telling you what to do. It’s up to you to work out the details."
This approach is often used in talking about evangelism. We talk about it in such vague generalities that when we get through everybody knows what to do but nobody knows how to do it.
Jesus told us that He came to seek and to save those who are lost (Luke 19:10). Later, He said, "As My father hath sent Me, even so send I you" (John 20:21). Christ’s call to commitment is a call to be a witness. It is a call to reach out after the lost and attempt to bring them to the Saviour. To fulfill our mission we must know how to do this well. Jesus, the Master evangelist, not only told us that we should evangelize the world, but He also showed us by His own ministry how to do it.
The Gospels tell us about a few of the active days in the life of Jesus. He kept busy traveling about the cities and the villages teaching, preaching, and healing. As He went about this work, the sight of the multitudes moved Him to compassion. The word compassion means to "suffer with, to feel the same thing as." As Jesus moved among the people, He was moved by the people. He felt what they felt. He suffered as they suffered. He entered into and shared their deep hurts and distresses.
These experiences led Jesus to point out to His disciples that the harvest was abundant but that the workers were few. Then He told them to pray that God would send more workers into the fields. Jesus had hardly finished telling His disciples to pray for more workers when He called His 12 apostles, instructed them, and sent them out to meet the very needs He had just pointed out.
In this encounter the Lord shows us the essentials of evangelism. In it we see the practical things that we need to do to carry out our basic mission. Three things are necessary to win our world to Christ: Insight! Enlistment! Infiltration!
SEE THE NEED
The first essential to evangelism is insight. We must see the world as Jesus saw it. Scripture says, "When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd" (Matt. 9:36).
The evangelistic efforts of Jesus began when He saw the deep spiritual needs of the people. What He saw moved Him to action.
What did Jesus see when He looked at people? The words "fainted" and "scattered" tell us. These two words indicate that Jesus looked beyond the external and outward appearances of people and saw the deep agony of their souls. The word translated faint means "to grow feeble." It suggests the idea of falling out as a result of weakness. When Jesus saw the multitudes, He saw them beaten down, defeated, and whipped by life. Does this remind you of anybody you know?
The word translated scatter means to "break one’s unity or completeness." A shepherd holds his flock together. Jesus saw the multitudes in His day as having no shepherd. They had lost the integrating center of their lives. They had lost that which holds life together, so their lives were fragmented and falling to pieces. Does this sound familiar? Every day a good counselor sees people like that.
What was the reaction of Jesus to all of this? He was moved with compassion. He literally felt what they felt. He entered into their experiences with them. What He saw moved Him to action. There is no greater motivating force in the world than compassion. To see human needs through eyes of love is to be moved to action.
Many others saw the same multitudes that Jesus saw, but they did not see the same thing. The Pharisee’s saw the crowds only as chaff to be burned in the furnace of God’s judgment. The disciples saw them too but they saw them only as a nuisance to Jesus. But when Jesus looked at them, He saw beyond their outward appearance. He saw their spiritual needs and longings. He saw their lostness.
Many years ago a shoe salesman was sent to Africa to sell shoes. He had been there only a few weeks when he wired his home office: "Send me a ticket for home. Nobody over here wears shoes." The home office brought him back.
Then they sent another man. He had been there only a few weeks when he wired back: "Send me more shoes. Everybody over here needs shoes."
The two salesmen saw the same bare feet, but they viewed them differently. One saw obstacles and impossibilities; the other saw opportunities and needs.
There is a lot to be said for the way you look at things and people. Look around you. What do you see when you see the multitudes? Don’t be fooled by those Hollywood suits, Ralph Lauren dresses, and plastic smiles. In and behind many of them are people who are hurt, heartbroken, lonely, and lost. Like the multitudes of Jesus’ day, a sizable percentage are beaten down and defeated by life and their lives are falling to pieces. Unless you see these deep spiritual needs, you will never do anything about meeting them. You will never be moved to compassion. You will never do a great work of evangelism, for evangelism begins with this kind of spiritual insight.
"What can I do," you ask, "to improve my spiritual sight or insight?" For one thing you can walk in close fellowship with God. You can get so close to the Lord through prayer and Bible study that you begin to see the world through His eyes. Secondly, you can move among the multitudes as Jesus did. To see people who are lost or who have heartaches and illness will move you to want to do something about it. And you will do something, unless your heart has become cold and callused. But if you just sit in the comfort of your home and church and do not move among people, you will not be moved by the people.
ENLIST THE PEOPLE
The second essential to evangelism is enlistment. We must recruit people to meet the needs. Once we see the needs of unconverted people, we realize that the job is too big for any of us to do alone. We must have help. Jesus saw the multitudes and was moved to compassion for them. But He realized that the crowds were too vast and the needs were too great to be met by one person. So He urged His disciples to pray that God would send forth more people to help meet these needs (Matt. 9:38). The first inclination of our hearts ought always to be to pray. Prayer ought not to be a last resort. It ought to be our first response.
Jesus had hardly finished urging His disciples to pray when He called them and trained them and sent them out to meet these needs.
Look at the 12 men Jesus chose. There was not a seminary-trained man in the group. None of them was a religious professional. Four of them were fishermen. Who can do anything with a fisherman? One was a tax collector. Israel was occupied territory at this time. It had been conquered by Rome, and now Roman legions were garrisoned in every major city. They were there to enforce Roman law and to protect Roman property. Wherever Rome ruled, it taxed the people heavily. Taxation was usually carried out through local officials. Local citizens were hired by Rome to collect taxes on a percentage basis. These tax collectors were considered traitors by their own people. They had turned against their own nation and had gone to work for the enemy. Many of them were unscrupulous, greedy, dishonest men. Matthew was one of these despised and hated tax collectors.
Then there was Simon the Zealot. The word zealot describes his political affiliation. He was a member of a nationalist party which had sworn to throw off the Roman yoke. These political fanatics were one-man guerrilla bands that opposed Rome.
These were three of the kinds of men Jesus called to be His disciples. These were men Jesus trained to be evangelists. They were not extraordinary men. They were men from different walks of life. They were from different economic positions and different political persuasions.
It was as if Jesus were saying, "Give me 12 ordinary men who will obey Me and follow Me, and I will turn the world upside down." If Jesus did not try to meet the needs of the world by Himself, neither should we. If He needed to involve other people, so do we.
Elton Trueblood said that we have projected the idea today that the church is a group of people streaming to a shrine to make up an audience for a speaker. Nothing could be farther from what the church is supposed to be. It should never be just an audience. The church should be a laboring crew charged with the responsibility of gathering in harvests of lost souls.
Somebody else has said that we have raised up an army in which nobody fights but the generals. If he’s right, what a tragedy! We must awaken to the fact that the fields are ripe unto harvest. We must realize that they are so vast and the needs are so great that no one person and no few people can meet those needs alone. The "average" Christian must be enlisted in the task of gathering in the harvest of lost souls for God. The pastor must be looked on as a foreman who helps train, equip, and prepare people for the work of evangelism. Unless we enlist many more Christians in meeting the needs of the lost world, those needs will never be met.
INFILTRATE THE WORLD
The third essential to evangelism is infiltration. We must get out of our church and go where the people are. The Scriptures say, "These 12 Jesus sent forth" (Matt. 10:5). Sent forth where? Out into the cities and villages where the people were.
When Jesus spoke these words, there were so many priests working at the temple in Jerusalem that they had to take turns serving. When the angel appeared to announce the birth of John the Baptist, Zacharias was working the 3 to 11 P.M. shift at the temple. But while these priests were keeping the fires poked up, the brass polished, and the sacrifices burning on the altar at the temple, the world was perishing without God. The multitudes were no longer coming to the temple to worship. It had become a den of thieves instead of a place of prayer. Does this sound familiar? Not many lost are coming to our churches today either. So we too must go after them. If we just sit in our comfortable sanctuaries and wait for people to come to us, we will never do the work of evangelism. The lost simply are not going to come.
Many churches today remind me of a laboring crew trying to gather in a harvest while they sit in the toolshed. They go to the toolshed every Sunday and they study bigger and better methods of agriculture, sharpen their hoes, grease their tractors, and then get up and go home. Then they come back that night, study bigger and better methods of agriculture, sharpen their hoes, grease their tractors, and go home again. They come back Wednesday night and again study bigger and better methods of agriculture, sharpen their hoes, grease their tractors, and get up and go home. They do this week in and week out, year in and year out, and nobody ever goes out into the fields to gather in the harvest.
You can’t gather in the harvest while sitting in the toolshed. Somebody has to go out into the fields and work if the harvest is to be saved.
Some churches also remind me of the man who owned an oil well that pumped continuously. But his neighbor noticed that he never sold any oil. One day he got up enough nerve to ask the man why. He said, "I see your well pumping day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out. But I never see you selling any oil. How do you explain this?"
The man replied, "It’s simple. It takes all the oil that we produce just to keep the machine going."
Many of our churches are like that. They dissipate all of their energy and their effort on internal affairs. They spend so much time keeping all of the committees functioning and the bylaws up-to-date and the air conditioning running, and the services in proper order that they have no time or energy to get out in the fields to do the work of evangelism.
The greatest purpose of most organizations is to survive. It ought to be to produce. If they cannot produce, then they ought to be allowed to die natural deaths. We ought not to keep them alive by artificial means. To let some organizations die would be mercy killing in the best sense of the word.
I’m not suggesting that we ought to abandon all organizations. That would solve nothing. Activism is better than most any other heresy. And in every technique there is some waste. What we need is a new dedication and a new list of priorities. We need many people with insight enlisted in the kingdom of God, and infiltrating the world for Jesus Christ. This is the only way we will ever do the work of evangelism.
There can be no evangelism without infiltration. We must get out of the church and into the world where the people are. Then we must share with them face to face the Good News of Jesus Christ.
After I have said all of this, the real question is, "What are you going to do about it?" If you do nothing, then this will be just another session in the toolshed. It will be just another time when we have studied bigger and better methods of agriculture and then have done nothing about it.
Edward Everett Hale once said, "I am only one. But I am one. I cannot do everything. But I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." We must make that same resolve. Do what you can where you are today to win someone to Jesus Christ. This is a big part of what it means to answer Christ’s call to commitment.
