I don't think that it's necessary for me to read a lot of Scripture about why we should evangelize. But all people have favorite texts and favorite verses. One of mine, of course, is found in Luke's Gospel. It's a very short verse near the end of the book. This is our Lord speaking to his disciples just before he departed this earth for the time being. Verse forty-eight. In the N.A.S. it reads like this. You are witnesses of these things. In other words, We ought to share what we know. Another one was probably read two times yesterday. Matthew, twenty-eight. Nineteen and twenty. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And there's another verse over in the Old Testament in First Chronicles, chapter twelve, verse thirty-two. And the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times with knowledge of what Israel should do, that chiefs were two hundred and all their kinsmen were at their command. Now the second phrase of the verse is the one that we will be referring to a little later in a few minutes. who understood the times. One of my favorite pastimes is comparing Scripture with Scripture. I remember when the Lord saved me and I was of the impression that the Lord was calling me into his work. In those days, Dr. Charles Fuller was what you had if you turned on the radio, gospel-wise. And I was a little boy during the days when radio was really in prominence before TV. And I wrote Dr. Fuller a letter. I had no idea that later we'd become friends, and I'd get to know him much, much better. But I wrote and asked him, I said, which commentary should I use? He wrote me back a nice little letter, probably half a page. He said, Brother Few, the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. And I found that one of the best ways to get meaning out of a verse of Scripture or portion of Scripture is to compare it and read several good, reliable translations. It is amazing what a few years can do in a culture. And the day and the age in which we live is far different from what it was when some of us found the Lord. Now, the Lord found me and I found the Lord fifty years ago this June, June the sixteenth, in nineteen thirty-eight. And a lot of things have changed. Now, the message should never change. But methods that we are using to reach people, are changing. Now frankly, I don't understand why we never realized using the methods we're using now, some of us, fifty years ago. But we didn't. Fifty years ago we didn't have much contact compared to today with those who do not know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is one of the reasons that some of us have been so ineffective down through the years. in winning souls. It was probably fifteen, could have been twenty years ago, probably about fifteen years ago. I heard one of the greatest preachers of the gospel that I've ever heard, Lester Wilson, make this statement. It was at one of these conferences, by the way. I think perhaps it was in Greensboro. He said, the methods that I used twenty-five years ago are not near as effective today as they were then. Now, many of you people know how God used this, brother, to preach the gospel, to go into a place like Stanford, or Durham, or Greensboro, or Winston-Salem, and set up a tent and preach one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, I understand. And many of these Testimonies today were started by that method of using a tent and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. So the culture that you and I are living in today is far different from what it was, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, or a hundred years ago. There was no TV. There was not even any radio many years ago. And back in those days, there was a consensus of morality, and what was right and what was wrong that was far different from what we know today. And unfortunately, many who... know and love the Lord Jesus have a far different standard of what is right and what is wrong and what is moral and what is immoral than we did, well, just when I started preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So things are much, much different today than they were quite a number of years ago. I'd like to say this about soul winning. And I want to say it now because since I'm a senior citizen now, I might just neglect to say it if I don't say it later. And this is fresh on my mind because I just heard this two weeks ago when I went to a Bible study prayer meeting at seven o'clock in the morning. And this brother shared this with us and he's one of my very close friends. He happens to be the senior vice president of the South Carolina National Bank. which is the largest bank in the state of South Carolina. He says, brothers, I want to share something with you about your friends that do not know Jesus Christ. He says, when the Lord saved me eight years ago when I was living in Greenville, South Carolina, he said, I had a very, very close friend that I had gambled with. I had drunk liquor with. I had run around with. And then I got saved. And I moved away. And many times since then, I thought of getting in touch with this fellow and going to see him and giving him my testimony and telling him what God had done in my life and seek to win him to Jesus Christ. But I kept putting it off. And he says, about five weeks ago, I finally got around to writing him a letter. and tell him what God had done in my life. And about ten days later, I got the letter back in the mail inside of another letter from his brother, said, Paul, I'm sorry to tell you, but Mark died the day before your letter arrived. But one of the strategies of the devil is to get you and me to put off making a commitment and making up our minds and following through and going to see somebody that does not know the Lord. Now, the Billy Graham Association paid an organization to take a bowl. This is, yes, there's water, but I'm going to use it. They paid an organization. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you'll get today's work. All right. They paid this organization to make a study. Now get this. In evangelical churches, they didn't go to liberal churches. They went to churches that preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that believed the Bible. is the divine inspired word of God, that Jesus Christ was God's Son, and that our salvation depends upon what we do with what he has done for us. Now listen to this. And they found out, I hate to tell you this, but this is the truth. They found out that only five percent of the people that go to Bible preaching, teaching, evangelical churches ever win another soul to Jesus Christ while they are on this earth. Now, I will admit in all fairness that there are some who God has especially gifted to be souls. I mean, we all know that. But there's not a person in this room today if you've been born again of the Spirit of God, if you'll commit your heart and your life and your soul and your all to Jesus Christ, but what he can make you a talented, gifted, soul winner. There are people that shy, introverts can win to the Lord, but those of us who are choleric could never win to the Lord. Thank you. A cup of cold water in the Savior's name. You'll not lose your reward, brothers. I have a friend in Boca Raton, Florida. He married a young lady that was in Bethany Chapel when we were there in Columbia. And Bob Woodman is one of the finest, most gifted soul winners that I've ever known. He was in the banking industry, investment banking in Washington, D.C., most of his active life before he retired. And on one occasion, Bob Woodburn got on a plane, and Washington flew to Chicago, from Chicago to Denver, from Denver to Colorado Springs, attended some kind of an organizational meeting of one of the corporations that he was a part of or something. Could have been Young Life or probably the Navigators. Spent a day and a half or two days in Colorado Springs, got on a plane, went back to Denver, changed planes, went to Chicago, Chicago, or Washington, D.C. And when Bob Woodman got back and got off the plane in Washington, D.C., since the time he had left Washington about three days earlier, he had led seven people to Jesus Christ. He went to his office, called a secretary in, and dictated seven letters to all seven of those people. He had literature with him on the plane in his briefcase, in his pocket. And then he picked up a little book that he had that gave him the names and addresses of Christian businessmen in most of the major cities in America. And then he dictated a letter to somebody in each one of those cities and told them to follow up those people. Follow up is a part of evangelism. And you haven't done real evangelism until you have made up your mind and made a way for the person who has professed to receive Christ under your ministry to be adequately followed up. Before I went to bed last night, I called a friend of mine in this city who's a godly man and asked him to get in touch with a man that I had with me at a banquet in Columbia recently who professed to receive Jesus Christ. And so you're not doing your job if you just get them to make a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. Now, we heard a lot about evangelism explosion yesterday. Praise the Lord for it. Praise the Lord for how he's using it. But I'm going to show you a few transparencies now that will give you a little picture of the way we approach it. in lifestyle evangelism. Now I want to say this, I am not here asking you to help me to assemble it to come and hold a ten-hour lifestyle evangelism seminar. If in the province of God you were to say, well, I'm interested, that's all right. But what I'd like to do is to share with you enough so that God can make you more effective right where you are without any kind of seminar. So our brother is going to put these transparencies on We'll take a little time with them and they will come back and get going again. Now, the first one is something that I saw car attend boom do. And I like it very much. Now, this thing works if you hold it up. Is that right? Is this working? All right, I think you can hear me, can you? I've got a loud voice, unfortunately. All right. Now, in the Christian life, And as a Christian witness, the barriers in our lives, of course, is the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. For for God's light can shine through our lives, God's light must be in our lives. And before we can win somewhere else in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ must be a living force and power. in our lives. Apart from the greatness of God and the indwelling power and the presence of the Holy Spirit, none of us will ever be affected so good. So we need to be born again. Secondly, there you are at it. Now we've heard a lot about immorality in the body of Christ in the last twelve months. Friends, We cannot expect the Lord to use us effectively unless our lives are white with the Lord. It's for who's us to stand the word. It's for who's us to stand on our knees. It's for who's us to depend upon God to give us the wisdom and the grace and all the other things that we need to be an effective evangelist. So, we need to have a time of heart churches. we need to ask the Lord to reveal to us any of those things in our lives that are not there that should be there so we need to ask him to reveal to us anything that is there that should be omitted and taken out now there's another thing that is our hearts some of us are not as effective as we need to be as the bantles of the grace of God for the simple reason that we have our priorities all out of all. And one of the major prayer concerns of any servant of the Lord, whether you're an elder of a church or a full-time community worker, does that matter? One of the major concerns of any man of God, a woman of God, should be, Lord, I want to use every minute of every day for your glory, and I want you to help me to have the Thank you, God, the wisdom that I need has got how much time I can put here and how much time I can put here. I want to be frank with you. One of the things that I have to worry about with anything else in my life is, Lord, what should I do? What should I need from God? Because you all know that we never get finished, never finished in one day. You just have to go back tomorrow for the grace of God and pick up where you left off. There are a lot of people today that are being called upon to do a lot of counseling. And it's given a lot of time and a lot of energy. How a lot of the Lord's servants. And some of us are going to have to learn to say, I'm real sorry. I'm lowly. I don't have enough thought. But we should, of course, make provision for somebody else to be capable and prepared to take over and to do what we have not been able to do with most of the time bondage. head. Alright. The last one is the switch. And the switch is our will. Our determination is the fact that we're going to say, I will commit my heart and my life. I'll pray for this person. I'll visit this person. I'll begin to build a relationship with this person. I'll do whatever is necessary to be God's best one if you want to. Friendly people. under the sound of the gospel and to bring them to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, let's go to the next one. Now, brothers in Christ and sisters, one of the greatest spiritual experiences that you can have as a believer is the joy of having a spiritual body. or a system, having a spiritual system that you meet with, that you pray with, and that you share with the need that you have, the opportunity that you have, the people that you are becoming related to, that you're building relationships with, that you're praying with, you spending time with and by God's grace, ultimately you like to see them come to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual faith, pray, yes. If you haven't tried praying with another brother or another sister, we believe that means it works with men and women and women and so forth, we ought to try it next. Now, one of the things we could spend quite a bit of time in fact, we spent about an hour, hour and a half, talking about spending time building bridges. Because you see, because of the change of the culture, many of those people who used to be on our side, morally, are now on the other side. And in order to reach them emotionally and spiritually, We have to go by building a bridge over to where they are. And there are a bunch of things that are hindrances that will keep us from getting over there. The Christian. Here's personal barriers. If you've been taught to have nothing to do with unconverted people in your culture and your fellowship and the church you brought up here, it's going to be hard to get it into your cradies. That it's all right. to speak to a person that some say. All right? The non-Christians, oh well, he's not his church will marry us also. He had his cultural marriage. Now, in order to reach the unconverted church, we're going to have to get to where they are because they're not going to come to where we are. This, by the way, was not strong to resemble anyone who could be. All right. Now, a serious study. It took the Christian Benedict Smith Committee who developed lifestyle evangelism. It took them five years to develop the seminar. They had trial and error and trial and error about five years. How they came up. with what we're now using. Now, every time they go somewhere and hold a practice-trained seminar, they ask the people before they leave, what is the one thing that will most likely keep you from being effective in college, through what you've been taught? And there it is, right there. The timeline. It takes time if you're going to build a relationship with an unsaved man or an unsaved woman. It takes time. You can't just go there and say, yeah, we're all gone. They're converted. Now, don't get me wrong. Praise the Lord. On occasion, God will send you to someone, and he has prepared their hearts, and you'll have the wonderful joy of just like flucking an apple. I've had that joy on airplanes several times. I led a young man to Christ. It was the shortest time. I read me the shortest airplane trip I've ever made from Atlanta to Birmingham. It was not that eighteen minutes that long. But as a young man seated by me that was on his way to Vietnam and he was scared to death, and I had the joy of pointing him to Christ and I had the joy of putting him in touch with a Christian chaplain when he got to Vietnam. I believe the Lord wants us to be responsible not only to lead people to Christ, he wants us to be responsible to see that somebody follows them up. Pardon for preaching, but I can't help it. All right, next. Now, here is a real problem in the church's usage problem. We call that a holy hovel. A holy hovel. All right, on this one. How long has it been since you had an unsaved family to come to your house to eat a meal? So you invite them to come because they didn't know the Lord and you'd like to build a relationship with. How long have you been since you took a business, I mean took a business man that didn't know the Lord out in the lunch yet so you can get acquainted with it? Who are the people that we spend most of our time with? Okay, you got that? Next question. Alright, now there are a number of reasons why we ought to evangelize more than we do. There are a number of reasons why we don't attempt to get started in giving the gospel to people. That is one of the reasons right there. The fear of rejection. We're afraid they will turn us off and say, ah, now it is. And we'll get embarrassed. Hey, you know what that is? D-R-I-D-E. What does God hate? I get it. All right? We're afraid of failure. And there are a lot of people in the church of Jesus Christ who were motivated, who were encouraged, who were challenged, who were told how to go about it. And they went out and they tried once and nothing happened that they know of. And they never tried again. Afraid they'd be saved. None of us liked the faith. I'll tell you one thing. I'm sure I'm glad Charles Edison didn't give up. He was working on that light love. He failed again and again and again and again and again. He kept on. It's not a person in this room of what you can be an effective soul in us if you'll allow the Lord to do that. Next. Now, most of us have that faith. Okay, look, we'll have that faith. Okay, look, we'll have that faith. But it's not funny, but it is. We've been taught that we'll get contaminated. That's very certain to get contaminated. Some of that worldliness and godliness, it'll rub off on us. Well... You're just going out there to be one of them. That's all right. Yeah. But if you're going out there, the testimony of Jesus Christ to build a relationship, that's enough time. All right, next. Now, if we were having a seminar, we'd spend twenty-five, thirty-four minutes on this right here. The religious worldview, the secular worldview. I'm sorry that some of you people can't see that, but there's nothing to do about it. The first one is creation. How did I get here? Created by an infinite, personal, creator, God. That's, of course, our view. The second view would be, oh, evolution, matter of time, rough chance, plus man. The second one, who am I? Man, a created image bearer. what is my purpose in life? We glorify God. The unsaved secular man, ah, just an accident, the higher animal, no purpose other than to ensure mankind's lives and above, the lessons of a lifestyle. And this is ridden and affected by the materialistic, humanistic worldview of which we are experiencing in the world today. To reveal absolute to which man and God not allow tangible, to love my neighbor as myself. How should I live? No absolute sacrament says everything is right. Might make right, eat, drink, and be married, for tomorrow we die. Next. The three stages involved in bringing men and women to Jesus Christ, and in some of you might have already gathered. I am chief of committees and personal evangelists. The fact that my philosophy was something in me is Christ, and I was a religious and man of way at the president of the University of Georgia. I have something to do with it. A study was made also by the Billy Graham Association. They found out that about nine percent of all the people that have made professes of faith in the Crusade had been dealt with and witnessed to and perhaps brought to the Crusade by some believer who knew they loved him and had a concern for them. And the same is true when any evangelist in any church or any Ken or any Crusade priest, someone has prayed and someone has seen to it that they got to the Crusade. You'll notice now that cultivation is on the bottom. Cultivation is very, very, very important to talk a little bit more about that. After you cultivate, now growing up on a farm in Georgia, I know that you have to cultivate before you plant. You usually till under the land in the fall, and then in the spring you cultivate again, and then after you cultivate, plant to do. And there's no harvest if you don't start to automate things so. Then there's no harvest next. Now, we put that one up there because in the story of the woman at the well, and I wish we had time to deal with this, but we don't. But you have all three things in this experience. Phase one, phase two, phase three. Automate soy and hot nectar. Now, one of the things which we spent about an hour and a half on is common ground. Common ground. You see, a lot of the people out there in the world will not listen to us talk about our Lord until they have become sufficiently acquainted with us to consider us their personal friends. Therefore, that means I need to ask the Lord to lead me to the approach that I need to use with this particular individual. And the approach is going to be more than likely finding some common ground where I can do something that he likes to do, that the two of us can do together, and that I, as a committed Christian, can do and not hurt my testimony. So you use your head and your knees, and you ask God to give you wisdom, because he promised to do that. All right. Tenants. Well, that'd be good for me because I like tenants. But if he doesn't like tenants, that's out. All right. Sowing. Well, if I want to email and I like to sow, and let him know the person that you want to get acquainted with like and sow, that'd be all right. Caring. All right. If you like to count, that's good. If you have the equipment, don't lose unless you don't have the equipment, I'll tell you that. My oldest son took some friends with him backpacking up in the mountain out from Knoxville. And they forgot to take a bunch of things it's supposed to take. And it took them six months to get back to where they didn't even speak to him. All right? Music concerts. That's very to be good if you like music. And if this person likes music, see? Uh, hunting. The theater. All right. There's questions about that. If it was the Martin Luther Pound or Charity of Fire or something like that, there are things that you can afford as a believer to go with it. But ninety-five, ninety-eight percent of what's on the theater have enough to do with it. What's the time to begin with. Uh, swimming. Gammon. Well, I think Gammon's up. Picnic. Now, a picnic is really a good, if you've got a nice cake bar, something like that, you can take your family and his family, go out and have a good time together on a picnic. That's a very legitimate thing. PTA. Poverty Club. I have a friend in Columbia. Yes. And he's a godly soul man. And he joined the Rotary Club for one reason. To meet men that did not know Jesus Christ. And he's already had the joy of seeing two men come to Jesus Christ as a result of his contact in the Rotary Club. And they have to be going to a Bible where he went to the Rotary Club. Because he went to the Rotary. Just so he could be a... God's love. I have a friend. Plunkett's back. Her husband is one of my elders. She is a member of two God dwells. Because she wanted to meet some of those sucking out of us who didn't know the Lord. There are several ladies who have already had the joy of seeing one Christ because she was willing to spend the time that it takes to be two different ones. Sunday school. Well, an unconverted person, that might not be the best common ground at all. Jenner out. Well, I came right now. Jenner out, good. You could also make a Jenner in. Jenner and home. There are very few people who have turned down a good home to a field. I'll tell you that right now. Playing bridge, I don't see any need to do it. Swept my movers, cut it out. Going to sports events, that's good. Uh... All right. I like sports. All right. The next one, the shady business deal. Yeah. When's a nice friend evening, that would probably not be a good common ground unless you were having something very special that this fellow could be interested in. quap and dirty joke that's out. Entertain it at home. Bolt it. Very, very good if you remember to put enough gas in the bolt. Let me get back to the way it started. All right. What's next? Next slide. All right. Now, the fellow on top is the fellow that we'd like to become our friends. Now, I think if you went out from the front, the prophets never get there. So what you need to do is to build a friendship bridge that will get you where that man is. All right? I'll need more in this second. All right? Now this was a little talk of you. of the bridge that you're going to build to get to the man that's on the other side of his castle. Next. Alright, there you are. Now, you've gotten over there and you're able to talk to him. But I'm letting you know how to put your faith and your testimony and the gospel of Jesus Christ is a very, very simple, understandable word. He may make you a talking priest. When you get over to it, So before you get over to him, he sure you're prepared to do your act. If you're going to do, then you get over the way it is. All right? Next. All right? There he is. And he seems to be a little happy in there. He must have been successful. He must have received the Lord, and he's willing to go with you and do things with you and be with you. All right? The next... All right. Let's... Let's cut it off right there. And we'll be back in just a moment. Because we're going to spend some time talking about, and I believe that most of you today would know how to prepare and to memorize and to give you a testimony. Well, we're going to tell you how Paul did it. I'm sure most of you know how Paul did it. But I think that the follow Paul's example is very, very important. Common ground. Now, a few, there are about four or five people in the audience today that have attended one of the seminars, and if they attended one of the seminars, they heard the story that I'm about to tell because it's my all-time favorite. This is a true story. It happened in Knoxville, Tennessee. I heard this story probably twelve, fifteen years ago and it challenged my heart every time I even think about it. There was a brother there who was semi-retired by six, five, six years of age and he had a ministry in the city of Knoxville of teaching Bible classes. He taught about two in the daytime and he taught about three at night. from September until May for quite a number of years. If the nighttime Bible classes of couples came, the daytime classes, most of those who came were ladies. One day in one of the daytime classes, a very, very well-dressed, attractive young lady, about thirty, thirty-five, came up to him and said, Brother Prince, I wish you'd pray for my husband because he doesn't know the Lord. I do. I heard about your class through a friend that lives near me, and I've been coming for five or six weeks, and would you pray with me for my husband? Oh, I'd be glad you, sister. Tell me, what's your husband's name? He told him. Sister, tell me, what does your husband do? What type of work is he in? Well, Brother Prince, I really would rather not tell you, but I suppose if you'd be very, very confidential and don't brought this around, I appreciate it. I'll tell you, my husband is the head of the mafia in East Tennessee. Oh, Sister. That is not a great problem to my Lord. Well, sister, let me ask you another question. Tell me, what does your husband, does he have a hobby? What does he like to do? Oh, brother Christ, I almost hate to tell you that as much as I did what he did, but live it. But if you must know, I'll tell you. My husband's hobby is shooting rats out at the city dump. He goes out there so much that they've given him a key. He can get in anytime he wants to. I've known him to go out there and went in the moonlight and shoot him at night. Hmm. Well, that is an unusual hobby, sister. But I tell you, tell you, sister, You pray and I'll see what I can do about it. I get this. He went right straight to a hardware store and he bought a shotgun. He bought five boxes of shells. He then went to the city of Knoxville and he got a key to the city dump. And he went out there, and he learned the cute rats. And while he was there, he met a man. And the man, and he became a good friend. And he led the man to Jesus. And today he's a pastor of a Bible church in eastern Kentucky. Because a man was willing to do something different and to go out of his way. and to find common ground and to spend time with a man who did not know his Lord and let the man see Christ in him and he began to ask questions and he led him to Jesus Christ. Now that is common ground. My wife's people live in Batesburg, thirty-two miles towards Augusta from Columbia. They are not farmers, but they have a lot of friends that are farmers and they give them a lot of food. And my wife, when she used to go down to see her sister, she'd bring home so much food. I had to get rid of a little car and get her a station wagon because the car wasn't holding all they were giving her. And about two years ago, she came home and she brought the biggest watermelon I have ever seen in my life. It, I'm not, it was that long. And it was that big around. And high in the world, she got out of the station wagon onto the back porch. I don't ever know, but it was there. And I said, Dottie. And the only two of us are home now. I said, Dottie, what in the world are we going to do with a watermelon that big? She said, you'll think of something. Well, she was right. I said, oh, well, tomorrow night, Dottie, we're going to, oh, this was in early October. The weather was just right. The temperature was right. The grass on the front wall was green. I said, we're going to have a watermelon cut tomorrow night at seven thirty. Say everybody in the neighborhood. Well, then whenever we have functions and we have functions for the neighbors from time to time, it's trying to be a witness to them, I said, okay, you fix it up, make it pretty like you always do, and I'll invite the people. So I got on the phone and about an hour and a half, I had talked to every neighbor within a block and a half in every direction from our house. I said, bring your kids. Ain't a thing they can hurt, so forth and so on. And they started arriving about seven, fifteen, and some of them at ten o'clock were still there. One of them, an unsaved lawyer that lives two doors below us, he said, man, Shockley, this is great, man. He said, well, to get the police to block off the street and have a block party out here some night. But one of my neighbors, didn't have any hair on his head and it wasn't because he was bald. He had terminal cancer. And I got acquainted with him that night. And I invited him to go with me to a businessman's luncheon. And the president of Bell South from Birmingham was speaking. And he gave a simple but powerful testimony of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. and my neighbor trusted the Lord. And I had the joy of going to his house and discipling him in a course that we call Operation Tennessee. And his wife saw such a change in his life within two weeks. He said, look,