The Revived New Testament Christian

I want to share with you the problems facing us in preaching the gospel. Then I want to share with you tonight the great possibilities for modern evangelism. There are tremendous possibilities of seeing a movement of the Spirit, if we're ready. Tomorrow night I'm adding to the subject of revival because I believe the Lord has laid this on my heart. I want to speak to you tomorrow night on the counterfeit revival. I believe we've been seeing that for thirty years. Then I want to show you from the Bible the characteristics of true revival that really lasts. We're going to read from Acts chapter 8. We'll start reading from verse 1. The reason why I'm taking this chapter is because it's the great classic on preaching. It's the only chapter in the book of Acts where the word preach is mentioned seven times. So, I understand by those who are well read in the Greek, the three words for preach are used in this particular narrative. In verse 4 there's conversational preaching, verse 5 that is congregational preaching, and verse 25, controversial preaching, the idea of a forum, question and answer. And that seems the way in which the gospel was communicated in the first century. Let's turn then to verse 1 of chapter 8. And Saul was consenting unto his death, the death of Stephen. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the region of Judea and Samaria except the apostle. And devout men, godly men, carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. The idea of that word preach means not to stand on a platform and preach but to converse it. Some have translated it to gossip, but I don't like that word because the word gossip is not a very good thing. But it's the idea they were so filled with the wonder of the gospel they couldn't keep quiet and they had to talk about it. Then look at verse 5, then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. Now he didn't gossip. He didn't converse. The idea of the word is very beautiful. He puts the silver trumpet to his lips and blows one clear concise note full of heavenly music and that was Christ. And my dear friends, we need those preachers that can lift up their voice like a trumpet and preach Christ in all his glory. Come with me now, please, down to 26. And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting in his chariot read Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I except some man should guide me? And he desired, Philip, that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as the sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Forgive me saying it, amen. Isn't that wonderful? And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more. May I say this in passing? This is the only verse in the Bible where you get a partial rapture. But he came down again. You will notice. Let me read it. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing, and Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. And God will bless the reading of his word. Last night we looked at New Testament evangelism, and we noticed, first of all, we must comprehend the Gospels. And if you're going to preach the Gospel well, and I would say this to my young men and young women, you must really get a grasp of the Roman Epistle. For there the Gospel of God is fully propounded. And we notice the Gospel speaks of the plight of man, and what a plight. To think that as I stand here, there are millions of people in hell. That's the plight. Then the Roman Gospel shows to us the marvelous provision of God. God sent the Son. The Son died upon the cross. God raised him from the dead. And then we cheered our own hearts. It's not a fairy story. We can bring the resurrection of Christ into any law court, and such is the amazing evidence. We can argue historically. We can argue critically. We can argue legally, and we can argue experimentally that Christ is risen. In fact, he's coming back very soon, isn't that wonderful? And then we notice the principle behind salvation. First of all, there's repentance, and then there is faith. And I was emphasizing, you will remember, that we do need to preach repentance. Don't water down the Gospel. Preach it as it states in the Bible. And then it finishes with a wonderful promise. He's going to come again, and we believe very, very soon, and we've only got a few seconds left before we shall hear the shout, experience the change, and we'll meet the Lord in the air. So we've got to do something about it. Secondly, we notice from the Scripture that we must now have compassion. In other words, if we're going to preach the Gospel, we must preach it by life. When Paul came to the Thessalonians, he said, I came not with word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. As you know what manner of men we were among you for Christ's sake. You see, he was preaching the Gospel by the life that he lived. But then we notice when we go through the Scripture, when the Lord Jesus saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion. Wonderful. We notice that when he was dying on the cross, he was exposing the heart of love to the whole world. Hearing his love, not that we love God, but that God loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. And then we notice with the Apostle Paul, the motive behind him was first of all, the terror of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, he believed in eternity. He believed in hell. And it was the terror of the Lord that drove him on. But more, he was filled with the love of the Lord. He could say, the love of Christ constraineth me. And that means, it's got hold of me like a malarial fever. Because we thus judge, if one died for all, then we're all dead. And we need that motive of compassion. We stopped. We ask ourselves the question, when did I last weep for a lost precious soul? When were you in the last prayer meeting, where saints prayed for the lost and they wept? All that is gone, but it must come back. You see, we cannot evangelize until our hearts are filled with compassion for the lost. Then we notice there must be communication. And we state it quite emphatically when we read the messages in the book of the Acts. As we stand back, we can see that they were using language and they were using the scripture that everyone before them would understand. And we had to look at our own country that has now turned pagan. And as I want to share with you, only 7% of the people in Britain, that includes England, and it includes Scotland, and it includes Wales, go to a place of worship. And therefore now we are preaching to a pagan community. Now it is ridiculous to take the first century gospel and to preach it to a 21st century community in a 19th century way. We must get down with this holy book, the Bible, and we must learn the holy art through the power of the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel in a language that the normal person who doesn't know the gospel will understand. And that is absolutely vital. And then we notice with the gospel we need conviction. And I look back over my 61 years in preaching the gospel and for the first 30 years we saw conviction and enlightenment, but in the last 30 years we have seen that conviction and enlightenment declining. And oh, we need it back. It's wonderful to be preaching the gospel, the holiness of God, the exceeding sinfulness of man, the exquisite beauty of the Lord Jesus, the great wonder of the cross, the glory and the power of the resurrection, and as you look out upon the congregation you see conviction. And then you see divine revelation, people being saved in the sea. But that's declining. And we ask the question. We notice from the words of the Lord Jesus that the Holy Spirit was never given to the world. Never. The Holy Spirit was given to the church. The church is the habitation of His Spirit. And every local church that's functioning correctly is the house of God. Now, if in the house of God the Spirit is quenched, now note the word I'm using, not grieved, quenched, the Spirit will not operate in the area. I know there are cases of the sovereignty of God, but we mustn't trade on the sovereignty of God. But if the local churches that claim to be the house of God are cleansed so that there is nothing quenching the Spirit, you will see the Spirit of God moving in that area and people will become God conscious and there will be divine enlightenment and we desperately need that. Now, tonight we're going deeper. First of all, we must face the problems of preaching the Gospel today in Britain. Secondly, we must look at the great possibilities preaching the Gospel today in Britain if we are prepared to follow the Scriptures. Now, if we are going to preach the Gospel we must understand two books. We must get a grasp of the Scriptures. When the Apostle preached the Gospel in Acts 2, 52% of it was a quotation of Scripture and 48% was exposition. Therefore, when we preach the Gospel we must know the book and especially the Roman Epistle. Secondly, we must know the book of human nature. We must understand the background of our people. Now, at the moment, the moral background of Britain is appalling. Now, I'm not going to give you the facts and figures because if I did, you would go home depressed. This is far the worst moral decline that we've ever had since the Reformation. Britain now is the most immoral country in the whole of Western Europe. What a state we're in. And just three weeks ago the Prime Minister came on the TV so I'm informed and he told us that there are so many problems with difficult children that we must deal with them at birth and would you believe it, he went further. He said sometimes we must deal with them before birth. That's the problem. Therefore, when we look at our country we can see that it's right down on its moral uppers. We are literally morally unemployed and quite frankly it is disgusting. I want to say without the fear of contradiction Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester, London, Bristol are literally immoral jungles. And that's the mess we're in. So we can't play about with gospel preaching, can we? You see there is no light in Parliament. God's light and sort company is in the church and it shows to us that our local churches are not becoming great lights for God. In fact, many of them are having their lampstands removed and that should cause us to be broken before God. Secondly, there is a revival in our country of forced religions. Now this will surprise you. The JWs last year baptised more people than all the evangelical churches put together and how did they do it? Do you know what the devil is doing? He is copying scriptural methods of propagation in order to communicate his error. An old man came to my door that could hardly walk with him a young man. I admired their zeal but I had to tell them lovingly they were apostate. You see my dear friends they have the zeal but more than that. There is in Britain the revival of Islam and it's dangerous. Islam is not only a religion, it's a political power and I can say this without the fear of contradiction many of them who are fundamentalists really have the vision of taking over Britain and that is exceedingly dangerous. And so can you see that's our background forced religion and a new religion coming and look at the zeal of these Muslims. Some of them pray five times a day and every time they leave the factory they lose money and this touches my heart. So we are told from the East they are queuing up to be suicidal bombers. Now can you see in the light of that we mustn't play at gospel preaching. It's absolutely vital that we get back to New Testament means of preaching the gospel. Then there are now governmental restrictions. Now I want to say this to you very carefully but some of the things I've said here concerning marriage will probably put me in prison shortly. We have been told that fundamentalists must not claim to be unique. How can we preach the gospel without the uniqueness of Christ? Then we have been told that we must not bring fear and terror into the hearts of the people. What about death and hell? Then we have been told very, very carefully that we must not be dogmatic. Now can you see we are being squeezed into a mould and probably it's the mould of persecution and all of us are going to be tested. And then lastly the problem of superficial evangelical Christianity. You see the church is not making an impact upon society. There have been praise sessions, there have been concerts, there have been all kinds of boomsa-daisies in the church and it all looks so exciting but it doesn't touch the nation. And what we need now is groups of people who become aggressive with the gospel and we attack the strongholds of Satan and we take the gospel to the people. Now this is vital. Now what I want to do just for a few moments nicely and kindly to share this with you, I want to look at the average evangelical church and observe its activity. There are many evangelical communities where they have a Sunday school and praise God for a Sunday school. If you are a Sunday school teacher, young or old, you are doing a sterling work. If you only have five or six children in your class then you are evangelising. Where we used to have hundreds of boys and girls, at least in England, we don't see those large numbers. The Sunday schools have been squeezed down to a small number. But if you are a Sunday school teacher, I want you to say to yourself, that's the calling of God for me. Then we have Bible classes and youth groups and thank God if your home is open to receive young people and in that home you are teaching them the scriptures, you are doing a sterling work. If you have a boys class or a youth class and you are teaching them the gospel and you are bringing perhaps the Christians into the truth of the word of God, again, that's an amazing work for God. Go on with it. If you are a lady and you have a lady fellowship and you have a ladies fellowship of about 60 ladies, and you are preaching the gospel, go on. That's a tremendous work. If you are arranging coffee mornings and you are inviting people in, like the one in Kilburnie where they get about 60 people in, men and women, and then they share the gospel with them for 20 minutes, they are doing a wonderful work and many are being saved through this. If you are an open air preacher and you are standing in the open air preaching, the Lord bless you. You know, if we could again see 300 people standing in an open air, it would make people think. It really would. I remember as a boy all the assemblies in Walthamstow once a month joined in and there would be nearly 900 of us singing the praises of God and preaching for about 2 hours. And hundreds of people joined us. You see, we were aggressive moving out to the people. But you know, generally speaking, our main thrust is 11 o'clock Sunday morning after the breaking of bread, the family service, or 6.30, the gospel meeting. Now, I cannot analyse all the family services and I cannot analyse all the gospel meetings, but I want to do it as I would do if I were in my own country in England. Now, if you are being packed out at your family service, go on with it. If you are seeing souls saved, go on with it. If you are seeing your 6.30 gospel meeting packed out with many unsaved people, don't stop it. Go on with it. We mustn't stop productive meeting. But now this is what we are finding in the old country. On an average, Sunday night, 20 or 30 people will be in a gospel hall. And on an average, there will be probably one unsaved person present. And this has been going on for about 20 years. And then someone gets up and he gives out the first hymn, Rescue the Perishing. And they all sing it, sometimes with nice harmony. Then someone says a prayer. And he prays as though everyone in the room was unsaved. And then he gives out another hymn, Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life. And in some places, there's a nice harmony. But it's all to one. Then someone gets up and gives the notices. And then the scriptures are read. And then another hymn is given out. We have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves. And then the brother gets up and preaches his heart out. And then right at the end, you'll say to the brother if he's preached well, that was a faithful message. And it's taken 20 to 30 people one hour to preach to one soul. Is that New Testament evangelism? No, is it? No wonder we're dying. No wonder the lampstands are being removed. It's revival or removal. Beloved, forgive my emotion, but we can't play at gospel meetings. It's too serious. Millions are in hell. Christ died upon the cross and has been raised again. He's waiting to give them a new birth, the masterpiece of God. How can we play at that? So what's the answer? Have a mission. Get a preacher along. And in England, we have five star men, four star men, three star men. And we write for them. And then we fix on a date and everybody gets really enthused. There's great printing, three lots of leaflets. We're going from door to door asking the people to come. But that's not evangelising. That's canvassing. And then we bring the people in. And these people are as dark as night. And the evangelist is expected to sow the seed at seven o'clock, see it grow at quarter past seven, bring out the sunshine and the rain at half past, and then ask for the lightning of heaven to come to ripen it all within three quarters of an hour. And sometimes he will take the congregation by the scruff of the coat and say, this is your last chance. Wise as a man, the first time I've heard it, and it's the last chance. Now is that New Testament? Now come on, is it? There may be a few saved, and then after the three weeks of intense evangelism, we all go back to our comfort zone. Is that New Testament? Well, I want to tell you this. We did that for about thirty years and we got together and we discovered that we were not doing that which is scriptural. Now I want to say this. Some of my brethren, they have a mission and they go on for six or seven weeks and I would commend that. That's not just canvassing. That's getting among people. But generally speaking, dear friends, that's the kind of thing we've seen for years. Now what are we going to do about it? First of all, we must have the honesty to get before the Lord and tell him that we've utterly failed. That kind of evangelism is totally unscriptural. And we must tell him that we failed. And then we must tell the Lord that we want to get back to the New Testament, back to the Scriptures, and back to real New Testament aggressive evangelism. And do you know what that means? An assembly of twenty or thirty all mobilized. You cannot rely on specialists. Everyone has got to evangelize. Now I know that comes as a shock but that's the teaching of Scripture. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 From you sounded out the word of the Lord. Not only in Macedonia and Achaia but every way your faith is spread abroad so that we need not say anything. All within nine months. You see, the moment they got saved in the first century, they were gossiping the Gospel. Not just one. The whole lot of them. Now we've got to get back to that. So I'm going to put before you now a three years plan. It's only a plan. It's only a suggestion. This is not a golden rule. This is just a vision that the Lord has given me. He gave them a vision to start at Jerusalem, then move to Judea, then move to Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth. Well, we must have a goal. We must have a vision. Where there's no vision, the people perish. And we've got to think not in view of three weeks. We've got to think of three years. Here's the assembly of 20 or 30 people and all around you are the people probably about 2,000 in the village or maybe more and your job is to be aligned. We mustn't have monastic evangelism all shut in in a Gospel hall. We've got to get out for that's the call. To go, not come. Go. Now you know that of course. Now I imagine an assembly has been broken before the Lord because of their unscriptural way of evangelising and they confess it to God and they're telling God they want to go His way. See, back to the book. And I can imagine the elders coming together and saying let's put out a big map. A map, yeah. And put right over it our mission field and that map is the village or the small town. Then there's only 20 or 30 members so what do we do? We give each member one road of 20 houses and therefore you have the streets lined. You have a little flag with all these people with a road. That's your parish and you're going to live there for three years and ask the Lord to give you two souls in that road. Then of course we need a series of booklets. It's no good giving a person a book like Becoming a Christian by John Stott. If it cannot be read in five minutes it's put there. Therefore we've got to split the gospel up. So we'll start with leaflet one, Can I rely on the Bible? Leaflet two, that can be read in five minutes, Who is God? Leaflet three, What is wrong with the world? Sin. Leaflet four, Who is Jesus Christ? Leaflet five, What was the purpose of his death? Leaflet six, Did he really rise again from the dead? Leaflet seven, Can he really be known? Leaflet eight, Repentance. Leaflet nine, Faith. Leaflet ten, Assurance. And if you want one extra, Jesus is coming soon. There's eleven leaflets. Well when you put this to the local assembly there'll be lots of people like that. Some sisters who did it and I admire them had to take three aspros to get them going. But they did it. I thought that was wonderful. Now don't take the three aspros. Ask the Lord for strength. Now what are we going to do now? Well, the elders should get together and say, Right, we need to send two letters to all the people where they're going to have these houses for evangelism. And so you send a nice letter to all these people, stamped and the letter handwritten so it doesn't go in the junk mail. And you tell the neighbours you're very concerned what's happening and you're very concerned about the people and you are a local church that cares about the people and you want to do all you can to help and we're going to put in a visitor. And then you add to it the second time. And that introduces the way for the visitor. And I can imagine one sister and she might be of the age of 74 or 75 and I'm thinking of one in particular who had never visited a house in her life. And when the news came to her, she had such a shock, she said to her sister, What a disgusting thing that people like us should be asked to stand on the doorstep. Her father was a titled man. So her sister said to her, I'm going to use another name of course, Emily. Do you believe in hell? Do you believe in the cross? We must do something. Well, here she is. She knocks on the door and the dog barks. It's an Alsatian. Whatever you do, don't put your fingers through the letterbox. The door opens, the dog is held back and there's a man and you quietly say, I'm from the Gospel Hall. Here's a little leaflet. If we can help you, we would love to do it. Would you read it? And any night you're free, we would love to see you on Sunday. Good night, or good afternoon, or good morning. And then for the first time in her life, she does the 20 houses. She comes home to her sister in the beautiful house in which they lived and they're radiant. Do you know I've got a joy that I've never had? And they had been saved for 60 years. Then the next month came. They're still nervous. But this time they didn't take any aspros or aspirins. They went. Were you able to read that booklet? Or no? Don't worry. Here's the booklet again. Just read it. Any time we can help you, you know, if you want a car, if anybody's sick, we'd love to help. We want to be a local company of people that want to help people. That's why I want you to read that booklet. Good afternoon or good night, whenever it might be. And then you might come to a house that says, Oh, I've read it. What did you think? Very good. Well, here's another one. What's wrong? Who is God? You must read that. But take a note. Then the third visit comes. And you knock on the door and they're getting to know you. You see, you're standing there. You're not canvassing. You're evangelising. Oh, I read that leaflet. I found it helpful. But I'm awfully sorry I can't spend much time with you. My little boy has got the flu. Oh. Send that little boy a get well card. Or if it's an old person that's ill, send them a few flowers. That does more than anything. It shows that you care and you want to help. You're moving out of monastic evangelism and you're moving to the people. It will take you 18 months to get all those booklets in. And after 18 months, almost 10% of the people will tell you not to come again. But you can work on the other. Then after 18 months, as the whole church is going out, then have a mid-mission. And you can invite a few people that are interested into your home. Give them a cup of coffee and let the preacher open the scripture. Many people are being saved in the home. Then after two years, you will find a trickling of people coming into the hall that you've never seen before. What's happened? You've gone out to the people. You've got a love for the people. You're facing some problems. You're getting to know the people. They're beginning to invite you in. And something's happening. The booklet's doing its work. I must close now because my time has gone. But one of those sisters at the age of 78 had the joy of leading a soul to Christ. Never forget this. She said, Mr. Brandon, it's revolutionized my Christian life. And it all started when she started knocking on the door. Beloved, if we started to do that, then there could be blessing, but more. Because there are a number of contacts and a number of people interested, the elders in the local church says, we're going to pray for A-Zone. And all those with prayer requests, would you hand them in? And the prayer request comes in and a brother stands up and he reads four prayer requests and the whole church prays for them. It revolutionizes a prayer meeting. You see, you're not praying now for the Eskimo in the ignorant fig leaf. We need to pray for him. You're praying for someone right on your doorstep. And then when some of these people begin to come into the gospel hall, the joy of it. Now what's happening? You're going out to the people, you're meeting the people, you're preaching the word, and therefore you're fulfilling the commission. And it's not just one or two, it's the whole church going out. Now I must close, because I've gone ten minutes over my time, but I do want this to get home tonight. In one particular local church, they have been doing this doorstep evangelism for fifteen years. And it's the only local church that I know that has two gospel meetings on Sunday. One in the morning after the breaking of bread and one in the evening at seven o'clock. And it's just three quarters of an hour, one hymn, prayer, and the man preaches. And the Lord is saving souls constantly. Why? They're going out, they're meeting the people. And that dear lady, I shall never forget it, seventy-eight years of age, came from an aristocratic family, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, when I knelt with that dear lady and led her to Christ. It's revolutionized my life. May God give us that wonderful joy. Let's pray. Father, we pray that thou wilt begin to give us all a real compassion for souls. Touch our hearts, we pray. Remove the inward calluses from us, and thou knowest how hard we can be, Lord. And help us to look at the masses and to be moved with compassion like our precious Lord is. And Father, we pray that thou wilt send out men and women, young people, so that into the homes the gospel will come and that we might see a revival in personal evangelism. Grant this, we pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Now, before you go, would you allow me to say this. I've been really shaken by these meetings. I never thought in ministry you could fill this place. And I was wrong. But there is an inarticulate groan among the Lord's people for revival. I know it. Sometimes when I give this talk in my own country, they reject it. They've actually said we don't want that. One man actually said to me, who was a leader, if I put that into practice, it would disturb the even tenor of my life. See how wrong that is. The even tenor of your life. But I feel tonight that there are hearts who want to do this. And I think I can say to you, if you start personal evangelism in your area, not just one, not just three, the whole church, you can see blessing. The permissive society is not working and there are thousands of people who are worried. And we have the gospel. But tomorrow night, I want to share with you the characteristics of a counterfeit revival. And we've had this for years. Now do come, bring your friends, and now the last thing. Over there, there are scores of leaflets. Scores of bookmarks. Would you all take a number and use them for tomorrow night and then on Friday so that we might see more people coming under the sound of this ministry. Let's have another prayer together, shall we? Lord, we believe that there is a sound of a movement of the Spirit of God taking place among us. We believe, Lord, in thy love and grace thou art making us willing in the day of thy power. Lord, as we go home, we pray that in the quietness of our home that thou will give us a compassion for those who are lost. And we pray that we might begin to see in this beloved city of Belfast a real work of the Spirit. And not only in Belfast, but in Ulster itself. May again the fires of revival burn, granted in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.