What passes for “evangelism” in our day is little more than the sales gimmicks of unscrupulous business men applied to religious practices. The notion that guides such activity is that “the end justifies the means.” This is not only dishonoring to God but also dishonest! The old “bait and switch” tactic is employed and people are lured to religious services by sensational advertising, promises of various flesh-gratifying freebies, celebrity guests and even celebrity preachers. The first goal in true evangelism is not the salvation of men but the glory of God! When we leave that as our first principle and goal, we leave true evangelism. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:5 to “do the work of an evangelist…” To evangelize is to “eulogize” God. That is, to speak the good news of the great things that God has done by His grace for sinners in Christ! This gospel of God’s grace, God’s Son, and God’s glory does not need an “attraction.” It does not need a “draw.” We are not to try and sneak up on unsuspecting people with it. No, it has a drawing, luring power of its own, the Spirit of God! What little confidence we have in Christ, His gospel or the power of the Holy Spirit when we stoop to Christ-dishonoring means, even if our desire for the salvation of men is sincere. God will save all His people and do so by the means He has ordained. He will be glorified in these means as well as the end. The “arm of the flesh” will never be used to advance His kingdom. You see, the methods of our ministry reveal what we truly believe and what our first goal is. Christ alone is the Sovereign who opens the door of every gospel opportunity, door of witness, and ministry and no man can shut it. When He shuts it, no man, by any method or means, can open it! His purpose is not to save all men but to save those He purposed to save. They shall all hear His voice as it is clearly and faithfully proclaimed in the gospel that exalts Him alone. God always causes us to triumph because the preaching of Christ crucified is a sweet fragrance TO GOD in those that are being saved and in those that perish. We are to first preach the truth of Christ for God. If we do, He will surely use it to call out His people. It may not be as many as we want but it will always be as many as He wants! The gospel, without frills, without man-made schemes, flesh-attracting events and gimmicks, is the need of the hour! “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11) As this was true of the Word Himself, so will it be true of His preached word!

Gary Shepard

THE PERFECT SACRIFICE

Christ our Surety, in the covenant of grace, became legally accountable for the sin-debt of all those given to Him by the Father, and on the cross the sinless One "gave Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor" (Ephesians 5:2). "For such an High Priest became us, Who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for His own sins, and then for the people’s: for this He did once, when He offered up Himself" (Hebrews 7:26-27). The reason that all of the animals offered on Jewish altars were required to be "without blemish" (Leviticus 1:3) was because they prefigured the perfect Sacrifice. It was Christ’s divine purity that made His death satisfying to infinite justice. Though the Father "laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6), yet the Savior remained, in His Person, untainted with our wickedness. He was, therefore, the acceptable sacrifice to God. Christ bore our load of guilt away, casting it into the sea of forgetfulness (Micah 7:19), so that the Father says, "their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Hebrews 10:17). The perfect Sacrifice satisfied divine justice when He died and "brought in everlasting righteousness" for all His people.

Jim Byrd

IN CHRIST HIMSELF

THE HOLY SPIRIT does not reach after something novel, new, or spectacular in order to glorify Christ or to preach Christ to men. He does not need tongues, fleshly emotion, bodily healings, and creature fame and importance in order to bring glory to Christ and call out His sheep. He finds Christ's glory IN CHRIST HIMSELF! If we want to honor Christ, glorify Christ, and preach Christ, we must not look for something outside of Christ; but we must honor Him by preaching that which is His already-His deity, His person, His man-hood, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His intercession, His return!

Henry Mahan

Hark! How the Gospel trumpet sounds!

Christ and free grace therein abounds;

Free grace to such as sinners be,

And if free grace why not for me?

The Saviour died and by His blood

Brought rebel sinners near to God;

He died to set the captives free,

And why, my soul, why not for thee?

Thus Jesus came the poor to bless,

To clothe them with His righteousness;

That robe is spotless, full and free,

And why, my soul, why not for thee?

Eternal life by Christ is giv'n,

And sinful men are raised to heav'n;

Then sing of grace so rich and free,

And say, my soul, why not for thee?

copied

Tune: Doxology

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. ~Proverbs 31.28

No doubt, this applies literally to those women whose heart is devoted to Christ and home. But we must not settle for the mere surface of Scriptural statements but follow the pattern of the Lord and His disciples: this Scripture is about the wife of the Lamb, the church of the Lord Jesus. Read the whole chapter and see what glorious things are spoken of God’s church.

But, let us note this one particular aspect: as the children of a noble woman rise up to call her blessed, so do the members of God’s church consider His church to be a blessed thing. To have a low regard for God’s church – to count its gatherings to be insignificant, or to belittle its members – is to cast in doubt one’s membership in it. The one who does not count the church a blessed thing is the offspring neither of the church nor her Husband. The Lord Jesus praises His church, and you can be certain that His sons do likewise.