Jacob Smith Richard Baxter famously wrote: “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”[1] God has given the great privilege and work of evangelism to the church, which it has carried out since its inception. The first six chapters of Acts illustrate this quite strikingly. Not only does Luke explicitly report four gospel presentations to unbelievers in the first six chapters (Acts 2:14–41; 3:11–26; 4:8–12; 5:29–32), but we read formulas that point to ongoing evangelism like:
And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:40–41).
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved (Acts 2:47).
But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand (Acts 4:4).
And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).
Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles (Acts 5:12) (The Holy Spirit bears witness to the gospel through signs and wonders. Therefore, Signs and wonders in Acts go hand-in-hand with gospel proclamation. Cf. Acts 2:22; 5:32; 14:3).
And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women (Acts 5:14).
And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus (Acts 5:42).
And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7).
Evangelism is and has always been the work of the church. But, is there a way to go about this great work of evangelism in a wrongly? Is there a way in which we preach the gospel not as dying men and women to dying men and women for God’s glory?
The Right and Wrong Way to Evangelize from Paul and Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Paul says in Philippians 1:18, “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” Does this mean that the ends justify the means when it comes to evangelism? Not really. When Paul rejoices that Christ is preached even when the motive of that preaching is envy and rivalry (Philippians 1:15), this is a testament to his utter dearth of selfish ambition when it comes to gospel proclamation, not an approval of motive or how to go about it. Rather, Paul himself here offers us an the right example to follow when it comes to evangelism. For Paul, evangelism is not about himself or his influence. It is about loving and glorifying God in Christ and loving the lost at the expense of oneself.
It must’ve been in this same spirit that the great Welsh pastor (and in many ways evangelist) of Wales and England Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981) (ML-J) offered these five principles for evangelism at a conference in England in 1942:
- The supreme object of this work is to glorify God…The first object of preaching the Gospel is not to save souls…Nothing else however good in itself, or however noble, must be allowed to usurp that first place.
- The only power that can really do this work is that of the Holy Spirit…
- The one and only medium through which the Holy Spirit works is the Word of God…The medium which is used by the Holy Spirit is the truth.
- The true urge to evanglization must come from apprehending these principles and, therefore, of a zeal for the honour and glory of God, and a love for the souls of men.
- There is a constant danger of error, and of heresy, even amongst the most sincere, and also the danger of a false zeal and the employment of unscriptural methods.[2]
ML-J’s fifth principle here makes clear the assumption of the biblical foundation of the first four. Therefore, this affords us a helpful exercise. If the first four principles define biblical evangelism, then the opposite of each should help us define unbiblical evangelism. So let’s rewrite the first four principles as the photo-negative version of themselves:
- The supreme object of this work is to glorify man…The first object of preaching the Gospel is to save souls…
- The only power that can really do this work is that of man and his innovation…
- The only mediums through which the Holy Spirit works is man’s personality, celebrity, clever words, and persuasive rhetoric.
- The true urge to evangelization must come from apprehending these principles and, therefore, of a zeal for the honor and glory of man and a love for self.
These principles define an evangelism that will err—stumble headlong into heresy, produce a false, manufactured and manipulated zeal, and employ unscriptural methods. Such evangelism is not the work of dying men seeking to rescue dying men and bring them to God for his glory and influence. This is the work of dying men seeking to rescue dying men and collect them for their own glory and influence. This type of evangelism is evangelism of self-love. But true evangelism is not about self. It is about loving God and loving the souls of lost men even at the expense of oneself.
Jesus: The Supreme Evangelist
Jesus is the supreme model for evangelism. In Jesus we see every principle that ML-J articulated. Jesus came evangelizing: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:14–15). And what Jesus called lost men to, he fulfilled in love for men and for God’s glory: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12–13); “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus suffered and died to bring lost souls, whom he loves, to God for God’s glory. Jesus, the living Word, the man of the Spirit, gave his life for the glory of God and in love for the lost. Jesus was the epitome of a dying man bringing the gospel to dying men in love for the glory of God.
A Call to Evangelize
Let us be like the founder of our faith. Let us continue his great evangelistic work that he passed on to the church, who has continued to pass on this great work down through the centuries ultimately to you and me. Let us “do the work of an evangelist” and so “fulfill (our) ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). Let us not evangelize for man’s glory and for love of self, but for God’s glory and for love of the lost. Let us “preach as a dying man to dying men.”
[1] Baxter’s Poetical Fragments (1st ed.; 1681), p.40, lines 7-8.
[2] Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939–1981 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2016), 2:90.