In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of preaching Christ as the central message. He contrasts this with the tendency of some evangelists to focus on themselves, their organizations, or other topics instead of Jesus. The speaker highlights the simplicity and power of the message of Christ, which is able to save and transform the lost. He also references the book of Romans as a comprehensive explanation of the gospel and emphasizes that the gospel should always be at the core of every ministry.

Ephesians chapter 4, and we come to the last of the five ministries that we've been dealing with from Ephesians chapter 4, and that is the ministry of the Evangelist. Ephesians chapter 4, and obviously I haven't been dealing with them in order. I'm not even sure why I dealt with them in the order I did, but verse 7, but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore he says when he ascended on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this he ascended, what does it mean that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. And you'll find that he speaks about evangelists, and it's interesting that this word evangelists appears only three times in the New Testament. This is one of the occasions, and in Acts chapter 21 verse 8 it speaks about Philip the evangelist, and then in the book of Timothy, in the first second letter to Timothy chapter 4 verse 5, Paul writes to Timothy and he says, do the work of an evangelist. And those are the only three times we find that word in the New Testament. But the verb, the doing word of the same word is found 55 times in the New Testament. 23 times it is used, it is translated in my translation as preach the gospel, and 22 times it is translated as preach. But it's the same word from which you get the word evangelist or evangelize. Now that's a very important point, and I'm going to explain what that means when we when we get to the end of the to the end of the message. We have a few examples of men who did the work of an evangelist, and obviously Jesus is again the first and the most important example of an evangelist. Jesus is an apostle, he's a prophet, he's evangelist, he's a pastor, he's a teacher, and a number of other things also. He's the savior, and he's the lord, and he's many many things. But he does, and he was the first to fulfill each one of these ministries. And in some cases it's hard to look at Jesus to understand how that ministry functioned, because it is so tied up with the other ministries that he did. And so when was he pastoring, and when was he teaching? But when it comes to his evangelist ministry, the ministry of an evangelist, we can see that very clearly in the operation and the ministry of the Lord Jesus. And in Luke chapter 4, he gives his manifesto, and he says that he has anointed me from the from the book of Isaiah to preach the gospel to the poor. Luke chapter 4 verse 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel. And so that is what Jesus came, he says, I have come to seek and to save that which is lost. That was his purpose, was to bring the good news, that there is salvation through himself, through the work that he had done on the cross of Calvary. And so we can look at how Jesus went about that ministry, and we can see how that he preaches to the multitudes and to the crowds, and he preaches to them the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of salvation through the work that he had come to do. But you also see that Jesus not only preached to the multitudes, but he would preach to individuals. This is a very, very important point, and we'll see that when we look at Philip also, that Philip not only preached to the crowds, but he preached to the individual, to the Ethiopian eunuch. Now this is very, very important, because today evangelists only will preach if there is a certain crowd. Some of these evangelists want guarantees that there will be so many thousand or so many million people in the crowd before they'll even consider preaching in that particular place. And that's one of the surest signs that they are not an evangelist. Jesus wasn't concerned whether there was five thousand, and there were thousands in some of the times when he preached the gospel, and then at other times he just sat at the well and spoke to that woman of Samaria, and you remember that he goes to Zacchaeus and he says, I want to come and eat in your house today, because he had a message for Zacchaeus. And so Jesus speaks to the individuals. He's not just concerned about the crowds, and this is one of the surest signs, as I've said, of a non-evangelist, or of a false evangelist, is when they're not willing to speak to individuals. And in fact, we know that the evangelists of today, all of them are surrounded by bodyguards, so people can't get to them, people can't speak to them. This is not Jesus. Jesus was open, willing to be approached by people. And you remember, as he would go down the streets, they would cry out, Son of David, have mercy on me. And so Jesus was interested, and he came to seek and to save that which is lost. That is the heart of the evangelist, to seek and to save that which is lost, not to preach, or to have big campaigns, or to be able to show big videos of how many thousand people were in the campaign, and all of this that I did, and that that I did. The heart of an evangelist is not about those things. The heart of the true evangelist is to seek and to save that which is lost. And whether that is a crowd of people, or whether it's just one individual, whether it's just that prostitute woman, Mary, who came, whether it's the least of the least, or whether it was great men like even Pontius Pilate, as he stood before him and spoke to him and said, I am the truth. Jesus was interested in saving, and seeking, and looking out for those who are lost. That's the heart of the evangelist. And then, of course, there was the 12. And you remember that Jesus gives them this commission. Now, they were not evangelists in that sense of the word, but they were the apostles. And they were sent out with the ministry of the mission to preach the gospel. Go into all the world and preach the gospel in Mark chapter 16. And this, of course, they did right until their death. Paul was an evangelist in this sense. Now, he doesn't listen. Remember, last week, we saw that he lists the things, and he says, I am a teacher, and a preacher, and an apostle. But he doesn't list himself as being an evangelist. And yet, you can see that this is very much what Paul does. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 17, he says, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. He says, Christ has sent me and commissioned me to preach the gospel. And in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16, he says, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. And that was the message of Paul. Now, it's interesting that in all of the New Testament, as I've said, that word evangelist is only found three times. And there's only one man who is named an evangelist. And he was Philip. And we're going to have a look at Philip in a moment. And so, there were not many evangelists at that time. We can see that there were many apostles. There were many prophets. There were many teachers. There were many pastors. We can find many examples of these men in operation. But there's only one man who's named an evangelist. Which tells me that there were not many of them at that time. And there will not be many evangelists today. And this is the reason. Because the function and the responsibility of preaching the gospel is not just that of the evangelist. It is that of every believer. Every one of us has the responsibility to preach the gospel. Now, the evangelist is specialized in that ministry. That is what he has been specifically called and gifted and equipped to do in a particular way. But the mission and the ministry of the church and of every believer in the church and of every ministry. Whether he's an apostle, a prophet, a pastor, or a teacher. Every ministry has the responsibility of preaching the gospel. That is what we see in the New Testament. It's not something which we can leave to one individual and say, well, we don't have an evangelist in this church. And so, we cannot do evangelism. No, evangelism is something that we do because we are a church. And remember, we spoke about the number of those words. Three times you find the name evangelist used. And yet, 55 times it speaks about the doing of evangelism. So, what they were doing was evangelism. Everybody was doing evangelism. Even though there were only very few who were specialist evangelists. Now, not every one of us can be a teacher. And we said we all have responsibility in one way or the other to teach our children, to teach one another, and so on. Every one of us has a responsibility to pastor and to shepherd and to care for one another. And yet, we have this prime responsibility of preaching the gospel. And we will speak about this at a later stage and maybe in one of the follow-up messages on how we do that evangelism. That's a very, very important thing that we need to speak about. How we do that. But it is something we need to do. It's something the church did. It's something that every one of the 12 did. It's something Jesus did. It's something that Paul did. And Paul particularly had a responsibility as far as the gospel is concerned because he defined the gospel in theological terms. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he says, this is the gospel by which you are saved and which you stand, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again according to the scriptures. That's the definition of the gospel that Paul gives. Well, that's the short definition. He also gives us a long definition, a long explanation of the gospel. And we find that where? Romans. The book of Romans. That's what the book of Romans is all about. It's a definition, an explanation, and a thesis on what the gospel is all about. How the gospel works begins with proving the fact that we have all sinned and then deals with the whole issue of sanctity, of justification, and of the work of redemption, and of our relationship with the law, and how that we are set free from the law that we might be married to Christ and so on. And so Paul deals with the gospel in great detail. And so that was at the heart of what he did. And every one of us, no matter what our ministry is, the gospel should always be at the core of what we do. That should always be our desire to seek and to save that which is lost. Now, let's go to the book of Acts chapter 21, and let's have a look at Philip. And I'm going to begin at the end and go forward and then go back to the end. When we speak about evangelists, of course, today, there are all sorts of different, there are all sorts of wrong ideas about an evangelist. I was surprised when I came to America to discover that any preacher who travels around is an evangelist. You know, I just don't understand why and how that comes about, but certainly that is not what an evangelist is. And so whether he's a prophet or he's a pastor or he's a teacher, but the fact that he travels around and preaches, he becomes an evangelist. That's not an evangelist. An evangelist is one who specifically preaches the gospel, who has an ability and a gift to be able to speak to the unbelievers, who's able to relate to them in some way. Now, Billy Graham, we can speak and say much about him, but certainly there is one thing that we can say about him, and that is that he is a true and was called of God as a true evangelist. And the fact that he got involved in doctrine later on, that was the problem. Evangelists really are not particularly good when it comes to doctrine, because they really have one message. And as long as they stick to that message, and that message is that Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again according to the scriptures. That's the message. The message of the evangelist is not difficult, it's not complicated. It's a simple message, and yet it's a powerful message, which is able to save and to transform the lost. And I believe that as long as evangelists stick to the message that they've been given, they are powerful and God is able to use them in a powerful way, as I believe he did use Billy Graham. But when they step out of that and they begin to become authorities on all sorts of matters of doctrine and theology, they find themselves in deep water, because that is not what they are gifted to do. The same way as any one of us finds ourselves, God gifts us in a particular area, and when we begin to do what God has not equipped us to do, we find ourselves in all sorts of trouble. And so, but I think that we can look at and say, you know, that when he was preaching, and you still see the tapes and the videos on television today, you'll see the simplicity of the message. That's just, that's not, it's got nothing to do with deep theology, it's got nothing to do with anything other than you are lost and you need to be saved, and that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no man, no way, no man comes to the Father but by me. That is the message, that is an evangelist in operation. Now, let's go to Acts chapter 21 and verse 18, and I'm going to come back here. Sorry, verse 8, Acts 21 verse 8. On the next day, we who were Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea and entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. That's the only place you find a man called the evangelist. Remember the other two examples? Paul speaks to Timothy and he says, do the work of an evangelist, and then in Ephesians 4.11. Now, who were the seven? See that he says that he was one of the seven, the first deacons. Well, the scripture doesn't call them deacons, but I believe that they were deacons in Acts chapter 6, I think it is. You remember that seven men were appointed over the issue of feeding the widows, and Philip was one of those seven, and so he is referred here to as one of the seven, but he is called an evangelist. Now, we see his ministry in operation in Acts chapter 8, and it's interesting that in fact a whole chapter is devoted, almost a whole ministry. So it's an important ministry. It's not one that we can do without. We do need the ministry of an evangelist, but as I said, there are not many. Acts chapter 8 and verse 4. Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. This is the Christians from Jerusalem who were scattered because of the persecution that came by the hand of the religious leaders, of which Saul was one of the leaders. Then verse 5 says, Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And so here is Philip, and he goes to Samaria, and what is his message? Burbank Community Church, the Lord's Table, the Trinity, water baptism, the Clippers. No, he preaches Christ to them. That's the message. That's the message, and that's the message that an evangelist should be preaching. And again, when one looks at those who are called evangelists today, you say, well, what's the message? Well, the message is me and I and my organization. The message is, and we take Visa and American Express, but it's not Christ. And this was the message that he went. And I think it's important that when we look at evangelists and when we evaluate evangelists, we say, what is the message? Is it Christ? And you can watch them on television or listen to them on the DVD or wherever it is. The question is, when you've finished, how can I sum up what I listened to? And sometimes it's dollars and pennies. That's really what it was about. Or it was me and my ego and my fancy white suit. Or was it Christ? Was that the message that came through? And folks, the reality is, and it's sad. It's terrible to say that you can watch a half an hour of one of these guys in operation and come away and say, well, he never even mentioned Jesus. He may have used him as an incantation, as a powerful name to be able to do something or this or that, but that wasn't his message. His message wasn't Jesus, wasn't Christ. But Philip's message was Christ. He went to the city of Samaria and he preached Christ to them. And it's interesting that he went to the despised city, to the city that was least popular. He doesn't go to Bethlehem or to one of the other great cities. He doesn't begin in Jerusalem even. He goes to the most unlikely place, Samaria, and there he preached Jesus. True evangelists will go wherever the need is. It doesn't matter about who the people are, whether they're black or white or colored or whatever race group they are, whether they're Hindu or Muslim or Christian, that's not the issue. The issue is they need Jesus. And so he goes to the least popular place and he preaches the most important message. He preaches Christ to them. Verse six, and the multitudes with one accord, he did the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. And so again, some important things. First of all, there were multitudes, many, many people in this particular occasion. And they all heard the message. They all responded to the message. And it says they heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles. Now, I don't think that we could say that we should say that miracles should always be part of the evangelist ministry, but it is an important part of the evangelist ministry. The evangelist works amongst unbelievers, and particularly evangelists who go into heathen countries, into countries that are pagan and Gentile, and where there is no message of the gospel. It is often very important for them to be used in miracles in order to show that, in fact, this is the true God, that this God is greater than the gods of stone and of wood and of iron and the gods of the forest and that sort of thing. And so it's an important part of the evangelist ministry. But I don't believe that we can say it is the only part or that it is without miracles an evangelist is not an evangelist. And I don't think Billy Graham ever performed any great miracles. It wasn't part of his operation. And yet he was an evangelist, and he did preach the gospel, and thousands were saved, as much as many thousands were not saved, or made decisions and were not saved. And we'll touch on that in a moment. But there were the miracles, and they heard the message. Verse seven, unclean spirits crying with a loud voice came out from many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. Now, I don't want to get tied up in the whole thing about miracles. But when God works, there are true miracles. There are true miracles, and there are pseudo miracles. There are false miracles that are not the real thing. But when God works, it's the real thing. And let's just say that I believe that when God heals, He heals not just for one day or two days. But when God heals the lame, the lame will walk until the Lord takes that person to be with Him. And then verse eight, and there was great joy in that city. And so the message of the gospel brought joy as people responded to the message. And then verse nine, there was a certain man called Simon who previously practiced sorcery in the city, astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great to whom they all gave heed and so on. And this man now wanted to buy this power that Philip had. Clearly, Philip had some real power. And the problem is that when you have the real thing, there are those who are going to want to cash in on the real thing and want to make money out of it. And that's exactly what happens here. Now, verse 14, it says that, sorry, verse 12, but when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. And then Simon himself also believed and he was baptized. He continued with Philip and was amazed seeing the miracles and signs which were done. Verse 14, now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the holy spirit for as yet he had not fallen on any of them. Now, this is an important part that I believe we need to understand of the operation of evangelists. Evangelists are not lone rangers who go out there and preach the gospel and get many people saved and leave them to their own devices. This is one of the downfalls of modern evangelists is they'll preach the gospel. They get people to sign the decision card and they'll say, well, go and find yourself a Bible believing church. Now, what does a new Christian who's just come out of whatever know how to find a Bible believing church? And it's just the same as you take this little baby Olivia and you put it down in the middle of Magnolia Avenue Boulevard and you say, well, you know, there's a, there's a dairy down there and there's a bakery down that side, you know, you, you, you're going to find some good food. I mean, the poor kid doesn't have a chance. It's going to get hit by the first motor car that comes down, let alone before it even gets to the, to, to, to, to get something to eat. Now that's, we said, that's ridiculous. And that's, that's cruel. We would never do that. And yet we do that with new believers. We say, well, you, you save you born again, you know, God bless you, brother. Go and find a, go and find a church and the devil's sure to hit them over the head before they even get somewhere. And then we wonder why very few of those people ever really made a stand and never very, ever lost it. And yet here you find something different. You find that preacher, Peter, Philip preached. And when the apostles heard that something was happening, they went down there not to check it up or to, to, or to, to ride on Phillips coattails or to, you know, to, to, to bask in his glory, but to consolidate the work that had begun. And so they say, well, you know, these guys need to be baptized. They need to be baptized in the Holy spirit. They need to be taught. And so they, they confirmed the believers and they, they, they, they established them in the faith. And so evangelists need to work together with other ministries because they have limitations. They don't have the patience, nevermind the gifts or the ability to teach people. They want to just get people saved. That's all they, that's the ministry. That's good. That's fine. But if they don't work with others who are able to take the, the new converts now and follow them up and teach them and bring them into good churches and do the other stuff that is necessary, baptizing them and so on. Um, then the work is all for nothing. And so I am skeptical about any evangelist. And in fact, here we, we probably at least once every two weeks, I get a letter from somebody who claims to be an evangelist and he wants to come and preach here. Um, but you know, most of these guys are mavericks. Most of them work with nobody. They just do their own thing and they preach here and preach there and they get people saved or they claim to get people saved, but there is no way of following those people up. There's no way of consolidating those people in the faith. And, and I quite frankly, I believe it's a waste of time. I don't believe that's the way Jesus operated. That's not the way Paul worked and it's not the way that Philip worked. And so these men work together with other ministries. They worked in a team and when people work were brought to salvation, they were, they, uh, something was done in order for them to be, uh, to be, to be taught. Now this does not always happen. Sometimes the people like the next man we come to in verse 26, the Ethiopian, he's out there in Africa. Um, and obviously he doesn't have the benefit, um, of what these other, these other believers have. So let's go down to verse 26. Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, arise and go towards the South along the road, which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. And so he arose and went and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians who had charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship. He was returning and sitting on his chariot. He was reading Isaiah the prophet. And so you can, you can see the picture here as a powerful man, um, a man who is a eunuch. I'm sure we all understand what that meant. Um, and he was given authority. He was the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia, Ethiopia and many parts of Africa was very, very wealthy in times gone past. Um, but he was also a believer. Um, well, he was a Jewish believer or hang on. I'm not putting this well. He was a proselyte. He was a, an African, but he had adopted the Jewish faith. He believed in Yahweh in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Um, and so he had come to Jerusalem for the time of the feast and he was going back to Ethiopia. There are still many, many Jewish believers in Ethiopia today. Um, they strange because they are black. They are not the way that we think Jews look. Um, and many of them have returned to Israel. Um, but some of the purest forms of Judaism are still found in, in Ethiopia. Um, and they're descendants of these people where it comes from. There's all sorts of stories and rumors that it goes right back to Solomon, uh, and his time. Um, that doesn't really matter. But in fact, there were these people, they were black people from Africa who believed in Jehovah and Yahweh. Um, and so here he was on his way back to his own country, having come to the feast. And this is a long, long way, um, to have gone without a 747 and uh, American airlines. Um, just riding on a chariot must have taken him weeks or maybe months even, um, to get from Ethiopia to, um, to, to, to Jerusalem. And so the spirit sends Philip to go and speak to this man. Verse 29, the spirit said to Philip, go near and overtake the chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, do you understand what you're reading? And I'm not going to go through the rest of the story, but you know how that he's reading from Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 34. So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this of himself or of some other man? And Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture preached Jesus to him. Again, that's the message. Now it's interesting that he was not taken up with the crowds as we've emphasized before. He's not saying, you know, I've got this great revival going here in Samaria. I'm not going down there to preach to one man. And in fact, the man I have to go and preach to is a, is an African, a black man. You know, I've got something great going here, but in fact he is obedient and he goes as the spirit directs him and he goes and he speaks to again, the most unlikely of the, of, of people. I remember Jesus says of Jesus that he came to his own and his own received him not. And so the gospel now goes to the other nations. And it's interesting that, that Peter had a lot of struggles to be able to preach to the Gentiles. Paul also wasn't all that happy at the beginning to preach to the Gentiles, but Philip, he's, he's not interested. He says, if there's, if there's a soul, he needs to be saved. I'm seeking to save that which is lost. That was his message. He wasn't interested in the politics. He wasn't interested in the cultures. He wasn't interested in the colors. He wasn't interested in, in, in, in Jewish nationalism. He was just interested in getting soul saved. That's the heart of a true evangelist. And so whether it's a, whether it's a great revival in Samaria or whether there's this one black man, he goes and he preaches the gospel. And you'll notice that his message again is the same message that he preached to Samaria. He preaches Jesus to him. And as they went down through the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? And Philip says, if you believe in your heart, you may. And he answered him. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still. He baptized him verse 39. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord called Philip away. So the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his day way rejoicing. Interesting that in, in, in Samaria, the result of Philip's preaching was that the city rejoiced. And this man, and having heard the message and having been obedient in baptism, he is rejoicing. The message of the gospel is indeed good news and it brings rejoicing. And then verse 40, but Philip was found in Azostos and passing through, he preached in all the cities until he came to Caesarea. So wherever he goes, he preaches, he's not on a tour. He's not on a holiday or a vacation, but he is preaching the gospel wherever he gets. Um, and then finally, let's go to chapter 21, where we, um, where we started off. Now, remember that he, he preached to this man and the spirit took him away to Azostos. And then it said from Azostos, he preached in all the cities until he came to Caesarea. Now this is a long time, uh, down the road here in verse 20, chapter 21. Um, and it says on the next day, we were Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea. This is the place where chapter eight says that Paul, that, that, uh, Philip ended up. Um, and we entered the house of Philip, the evangelist who was one of the seven and stayed with him. Now this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Then down in verse 16, also some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us and brought with them a certain menace and of Cyprus, an early disciple with whom we were to lodge. And when we come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And so you can see that he had now traveled up to Caesarea and he had now settled himself there and he had preached the gospel and a number of people are saved because it makes reference to the fact that, uh, some of the disciples from Caesarea. So there were a number of disciples in Caesarea. Now I can't be dogmatic about this. This is just my own opinion, but it seems that he had settled down at this stage. He had now raised a family and he had these four daughters who did prophesy. And it seems to me that this was the end of his ministry. Um, because he had, he had left the road. The, unfortunately the mission and the, the way that an evangelist functions is to, he has to be on the road. He has to be out there preaching the gospel. Um, as he did in his early days, he went to Samaria from Samaria, he went to Gaza. From there he went to Azostos. Then he traveled from there to Caesarea and he preached the gospel wherever he went. But now it looks like finally he had settled down and there's no more reference to any miracles. There's no more reference to many people, people getting saved. Um, there were some believers in that area who got saved and clearly they were meeting in his house. They had a house church going in his house, but that seemed to be the end of, of Philip's ministry. Now I can't be dogmatic because the scripture doesn't tell us exactly, but to me that's the way it looked. Um, and to me that's a warning that for that evangelist need to be on the move all the time. They need to be keep preaching the gospel. How many times can you preach the gospel to the same people? Um, not many times because the message is just so simple and either you accept the message or you reject the message and then the preacher has to move on. All right. So, so that's the, um, that's the ministry of Philip, the evangelist, and you can see no big difference between him and Jesus. What Jesus did and how Jesus operated and how Philip worked and operated was exactly the same, but how evangelists work today is very different to the way Jesus and Philip did it. Now I need to also just stop very briefly at 2 Timothy chapter four because you will come across some people who will say that Timothy was an evangelist. Um, 2 Timothy chapter four. It's also interesting that John MacArthur believes that what we would call it, what I would call an apostle or a missionary, he calls an evangelist. I don't know how people get these things all mixed up, but anyway, 2 Timothy chapter four and verse five, but you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Now, based on that verse, people say, well, Philip, um, Timothy was an evangelist, but Paul does not call him an evangelist. He simply says, do the work of an evangelist. Now, as we saw earlier, Jesus did the work of an evangelist. Paul did the work of the evangelist. The 12 did the work of an evangelist. Every believer in the new Testament did the work of an evangelist. And this is an injunction to every preacher today, whether whatever your ministry may be or whatever a preacher's ministry is, he still needs to do the work of an evangelist. That does not make him an evangelist. We all have to be able to preach the gospel. And so it's, I think it's just crazy to try and suggest that Timothy was an evangelist on the basis of the fact that Paul says, do the work of an evangelist, because if he was an evangelist, he would not have to be told to do that. That is what he would, what his heart would be to do. But those of us who are teachers, sometimes we're not good at doing the work of an evangelist. And we have to be encouraged and exhorted to do the work of an evangelist. Pastors are not particularly good at evangelism because their responsibility, their concern is for the people, for the Christians, for the flock. They don't have particularly have a vision for the unbelievers. And so pastors need to be reminded that they need to do the work of an evangelist. Prophets and teachers who are all inward focused need to be reminded that all of us need to do the work of an evangelist. Every Christian needs to be reminded about that. And then let me go to Ephesians chapter four, and I'm going to conclude on this one, this thought here. Ephesians chapter four, and this is where we began. And I just want to touch on one more aspect of the work of an evangelist. You know, the verse by off by heart, I'm sure by now he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. So he gave evangelists verse 12 for the equipping of the saints that they may do the work of the ministry. Now that's interesting because what we've been saying up to now is the evangelist ministry is out there to preach the gospel to the lost. And yet here Paul is saying he gave evangelists for the equipping of the saints. You see that now I'm sure we can understand that that that apostles are there to equip the saints. The teachers are there to equip the saints. The pastors are there to equip the saints, but the evangelists got nothing to do with the saints. Their job is to preach the gospel. But in fact, this scripture says that they are also given to the church to equip the church or to equip the saints. In what way? Training them to do the work of evangelism. They, the evangelist knows how to speak to the unbelievers. They know the things that the unbelievers, the kind of language the unbelievers speak. They know how to present the message. And I believe that this is what he is saying. So evangelists do not only have a ministry to the unbelievers. They also have a ministry to the church to give people a vision for souls because we need to get so focused on our own little world and our own little church and our own little communion that we forget that there is a world that is lost out there that needs Jesus. And we often need an evangelist amongst us to remind us that there are unsaved people out there who need the message of the gospel. And they need to help us and to equip us and to train us how to do the work of evangelism. And so evangelists do not only have a responsibility for the world, they also have a responsibility towards the church. Because at the end of the day, the evangelism, the bulk of the evangelism, the bulk of people who got saved in the New Testament did not get saved as a result of the evangelist's ministry. They got saved as a result of the whole church. And so we can sit back and say, well, as a church here, we don't have an evangelist because I don't think that there is an evangelist amongst us. And so we just can't do anything about getting souls saved. No, we have a responsibility to get souls saved, whether we have an evangelist or do not have an evangelist. It's not a job. We can shove off and say, well, that's that specialist, that's his job. And if we don't have him, we can't do that work. You remember that the disciples in the book of Acts, we read about the dispersion that came as a result of the persecution. And it says they went all over the world and they preached the gospel. And that is our job and that is our responsibility. Remember, we spoke last year about the five things that define a true church. And one of those things that defines a true church, I believe, is that it is evangelistically minded, that it preaches the gospel, because that is our purpose. That is why we are still here. Everything else we do, communion, teaching, worship, prayer, all of those things, we can do better in heaven than we can do here on earth. The only reason we are still here is because souls still need to be saved. The very reason the Lord has not come yet is that he is not slack on sending his promises, as some count slackness, but he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so why is the church still here? Not because God needs to do something in us, because he can do that and he will do that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye when he transforms us at the day of the rapture or the day of the resurrection. He can do everything he wants to do in a moment, but he has us here for a job and that is because we are to be salt and we are to be light in a world that is dying and that is desperately needs a savior. Amen. Thanks.