You believed that souls needed to hear and believe the Gospel for their salvation. You gave your time and effort to this work.  Then you quit.  Why? Where did you go?  What superior belief did you adopt that led you away from Gospel work?

The goal of this post is to encourage you to obtain a firm Scriptural understanding of why you want to get in the game and what is the reality of being in the game.

The first question for anyone wanting to get in the game is why?  Did you have an emotional response to a message?  A church service? A friend’s story?  Or did you come to a deep, well like, unwavering, belief in the Gospel and its purpose.

Did you understand the implication of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and his profound life change that led him to declare that righteousness does not come by law keeping but by faith.

Did you perceive that evangelism was simple task with little or limited resistance from the world? Or did you enter the evangelistic world fully anticipating resistance from the ‘Prince of the power of the air’ (Eph. 2:2) and  ‘rulers, powers, the world forces of this darkness and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places’. (Eph 6:12).

The reality of the need of man to hear the Gospel to be saved and the forces against the evangelist never change.  It’s the world you live within; you must embrace this reality to persevere in the work of an evangelist or you’ll probably quit.

No. If they are dead in sin the answer is no.  They don’t know what you are saying, the can’t believe your message and never will unless they have the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 2:10-13, “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.”

However, this is why you preach the Gospel and seek to preach it fruitfully: because they can’t understand your message. You don’t go and preach to them because they just need more or better information you preach to them because the Words you preach are life and bring life to the soul.

I Corinthians 2:14, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” 

Sinners have an unexpected ability to appear to comprehend your message and use words that you know but they don’t have the same definition to them as the words do to you.

This is why the ultimate question to someone is do you believe Jesus Christ died for your sins and did you receive the Holy Spirit. The evangelist is preaching to compel his hearers to respond in faith to Jesus Christ.  As Paul says in Acts 20:21, “solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In conclusion, you preach the Word because your audience can’t believe it not because they can. The power of their salvation is the Gospel and believing it comes by hearing it.

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:1-5, “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

The point of this message is to encourage you to look your audience in the eye when you are preaching to them.  Imagine when the Lord was teaching He would have looked directly and continually at His audience.  His righteousness would have been seen through His eyes and His message would have penetrated into His audience’s eyes, ears and souls to the point of edifying them and/or convicting them of their sin.

Your preparation for your preaching should bring you to a state of righteousness that ‘your whole body will be full of light’ (Matthew 6:22) and when you look at your audience they will see your purity as you deliver your message.

Your purity will lead to you being able to look at your audience as you preach your message and they will know and see you are talking to them and you believe what you are saying to them.

The point of this teaching is that if you find yourself looking away from your audience, preaching over their heads, yelling at them, turning up your amp to the point where all they hear is the volume or your don’t believe your interaction with your audience impacts them then reconsider your method(s).

One way to understand the point of this teaching is to consider if the Lord preached to His audience as you do.  Would He do it your way?

[This is a series of messages on Open Air Preaching. This is #2.]

The goal of preaching is for your audience to take action.

Thus to determine what you want to say to your audience you must first determine what you want them to do once they hear your message.

For example as evangelists the typical goal for your audience is for them to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Thus your message would lead you to calling your hearers to repent and believe.

But perhaps you are more concerned about the lack of sanctification of the Christians in your audience.  Or that their faith rests not upon Christ alone but in something they have done. Or maybe they have errant theological views or are listening to false teachers, etc.

Whatever your goal may be for your audience examine yourself for what the goal is prior to preaching to them.  As simple as this may seem if you do not know what you want your audience to do then your message will likely be unclear and you will probably not be motivated to routinely go and endure the challenges of open air preaching so your audience can hear your message.

But if you are aflame with a goal for your audience then you will take the necessary steps in your life for them to hear your message so they can respond.

Once you determine what you want your audience to do then you can develop your message. Developing your message is not exactly a call to sermon preparation but it is a call to determining how you will develop your message.

For instance what texts or theological themes emphasize your message. Which books of the Bible are a foundation for your message. Are there any contemporary preachers who appear to be expert in preaching the message you want to preach.  Do your homework to develop a solid foundation from which you can draw for your messages.

In conclusion, you as a preacher want your audience to do something.  Your first job, before you consider open air preaching techniques, is to determine what you want your audience to do and then develop a means of crafting messages to lead them to that response.

[This is a series of messages on Open Air Preaching. This is #1.]