The Energizer of Evangelism

Author: Michael Gott

The “Energizer of Evangelism”—that’s exactly what we could call the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the author of all true evangelism.  The Holy Spirit always leads the way when authentic evangelism occurs.

Today the leadership of the church sitting in evangelism committees says, “Our baptisms are down.  We need to emphasize evangelism before the church year closes.”  But it was not so in the early church.  Luke especially makes that clear to us.  Evangelism was initiated by the Holy Spirit and was going on constantly all around the region and beyond.  “Day after day . . . they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:42, NIV).

Because that is true, it came surging from within them.  It was totally heartfelt.  It was something they could not keep to themselves.  Because the direct agent for evangelism was the Holy Spirit, they were thrust out into the world with a great sense of mission and mandate.  Because the Holy Spirit was so much in control, the church could not sit quietly cooped up in an upper room.  “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given . . .” (Acts 5:32, NIV)

The point must be emphatically made:  The initiative for evangelism in the early church was directly from the Holy Spirit.  For that reason the early Christians could not be controlled or confined.  He, the Spirit, was the originator, the initiator, the energizer, and the leader of the whole evangelism program in the world at large.  “So the word of God spread . . . rapidly” (Acts 6:7, NIV)
 
And look what happened.  The church was not confined to Jewish traditions of respectability.  They went to the Samaritans.  A half-breed Gentile was as important as a Jewish pure-blood.  That’s what the Spirit caused!  There was no bias or racial preference.  “Go, stand . . . and tell the people the full message of the new life” (Acts 5:20, NIV).

It’s really astonishing to see these people driven with a passion to the task at hand, always with the Holy Spirit as the prime mover.

Mark you, there is more—there was also nothing tidy about it!  The church was innovative, unpredictable, spontaneous, and, therefore, unstoppable.  There was a mysterious creativity about the leadership in that ragged band of early evangelists.  No one could predict their next move, for it was Spirit orchestrated.  The Spirit worked in various ways, using a variety of people, using different methods.  “. . . you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8, NIV).

It was impossible to detect the Holy Spirit’s mode of operation and to fit His men and movements into a tidy pattern.  The early church certainly had no printed plan book; rather, the Holy Spirit led the way!  “The wind blows wherever it pleases,” said Jesus.

They went in every direction; south to Gaza reaching a eunuch from Ethiopia, along the Phoenician seacoast and right into Antioch, the holy restlessness was not abated.  They went into modern-day Turkey and Greece and Spain and even beyond!  From the marketplace to the synagogue to the marble halls of Caesar’s palace!  It was now clearly “to every nation under heaven” as the crowd at Pentecost was described (Acts 2:16).
 
Now a point must be made.  When Billy Graham started the process of calling together the authentic evangelists of the latter part of the 20th century, he discovered that they were not radically different from what was found in the early church.  Dr. Harnack wrote almost a hundred years ago a book called The Mission and Expansion of Christianity.  It is now considered a classic.  If there is one masterpiece phrase in that book, it is this one:  “The great mission of Christianity was in reality accomplished by the means of informal missionaries.”  Billy Graham’s people found it is still true.  Look for yourself and see if it is not so.

Acts is full of stories of a deacon evangelist, a man called Stephen the evangelist going anywhere he was led by the Spirit, four daughters of that evangelist using their testimony and the gift of prophecy.  (I have often wondered if they sang together or what it was like to be in an evangelistic service with them present.  Can you see them laying hands on their father before he went somewhere to preach?)  What a special family!  Servants—people aflame!  Intoxicated with Christ!

Acts is supercharged with it, people being raised up to fill an evangelistic vacuum.  Michael Green said what they did was to witness, and by that he meant not formal preaching but rather “Let me declare what Jesus did in my life.”  It was as sincere as it was simple as they effectively told of Jesus; his life and death, his resurrection, and his gift of grace became their perpetual theme.

The shoe cobbler, the seller of purple, the former slave and slave master, the one who sold meat at the market and the one who once sold her body at the pagan temple—all with stories of grace to tell.  People who had formerly “indulge[d] in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Ephesians 4:19, NIV).
 
Do you recall Paul’s phrase used to describe them?  “. . . such were some of you . . .” (I Corinthians 6:11)  Now these same people were gloriously changed.  They “belong to Christ” and they “live by the Spirit” and they “keep in step with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:24-25, NIV).  They were informal evangelists, and it appears the elite were horrified, and the people of the street, the common people, absolutely loved it!

Who were these evangelists bearing witness?  Everyday people set on fire by the Holy Spirit to bear an irresistible testimony of a life changed.  Because they were full of the Holy Spirit, people could not help sitting up and taking notice.  They were radiant with love and full of life.  It was a new life and new lifestyle!  They chattered or gossiped the good news; they did not preach sermons; they told of Him.  They showed changed lives; they did not rebuke the wretched.  They convinced with compassion, and they won hearts with the same truth that won their hearts.

These evangelists were enlivened by the Spirit.  Without being professionally trained but with the Spirit’s help they took unerring aim at the human heart.  People went home moved, unable to sleep, and distraught with a sense of conviction, their hearts pierced with holy love.  It was not their songs or their testimony— not really.  It was the work of the Spirit through them that turned the tide.  Christ was revealed to them because simple nobodies were under the Spirit’s mighty control, speaking with amazing authority and authentic anointing.

We ask, what was their secret?  I think it is this; the Holy Spirit saturated their minds and hearts, their words and expressions, and he then took it probingly home to the hearts of those that heard.
 
We have hopefully framed a clear answer to the reason for their success.  So, powerfully, hard hearts were softened, skeptics were drawn to Christ in faith, strong men were brought to a tender, broken heart, and people of every tribe and tongue were being gloriously saved by grace, all because of the Holy Spirit’s freedom to use ordinary people in extraordinary ways.

Notice again, it was not the “name brand” apostles, but common people who were on the cutting edge of evangelism in the early church.  Please think with me the full significance of these simple words:  “. . . all except the apostles . . .”  That is plainly what the Bible says, “. . . and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria . . . Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” (Acts 8:1,4, NIV)  So, those were the evangelists in the early church, and from that fabric we have been cut!

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