ISEMA Newsletters
Obeying the Great Commission
Dear Christian friends,
Before our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven, He left us with one Great Commission, to go into all the world, preaching the Gospel, making disciples of all nations. Two thousand years later, this task is largely unfinished. Every year, the percentage of people worldwide who have heard the gospel is decreasing. According to one study, 90% of all Christians in the United States never witness to anyone. Every year, we see more and more people in our country turn away from God. Yet how can we expect the unbelievers to take the Gospel seriously when we don’t show them that we take it seriously?
The dedication of the cults puts us to shame. Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW’s) have all the responsibilities of job and family that we have. Yet they witness an average of 4 hours a week. (At that rate it takes them 16 years to baptize one convert!) One day, I looked out my window and saw two JW mothers going door to door with their children in baby carriages. Why can’t Christians do that? One of the strongest arguments the JW’s use is that they are the ones who are out witnessing for Jehovah, not the Christians.
Every Mormon takes two years out of his life for full time missionary service around the world before settling down to raise a family. Why can’t we do this? If we did, we’d fulfill the Great Commission in no time. Instead, we come up with excuses for not evangelizing–it’s not my calling, I’m a silent witness, I’m too busy. We find fault with every method of witnessing and every evangelism ministry.
One of the main reasons we have a hard time witnessing is fear– fear of rejection by others. Nobody likes being rejected and when we preach the Gospel some people will be offended and reject us. Rather than admit this, we come up with other excuses for not witnessing. We need to overcome this fear, but we never will unless we are first convinced that we must witness for the Lord in order to be obedient to Him. We all love to claim the promises of God, but how many of us claim 2 Timothy 3:12, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution”?
We all know that God has a plan for our lives, but many of us don’t realize that Satan also has a plan for our lives. The first part of his plan is to keep us from getting saved. Having failed in this, Satan’s second purpose is to keep us from witnessing to others. He does this through two means: 1. He makes us feel unworthy to witness because of our own sins. 2. He gives us a variety of excuses for not witnessing.
We must stop listening to the enemy’s lies and commit ourselves to obey the Great Commission of our Lord. I believe each of us should be witnessing for Christ in our everyday lives. But I believe each of us should also be involved in some kind of organized evangelistic activity on a regular basis–door-to-door, on the streets, at nursing homes, prisons, juvenile halls, etc. I pray when the Holy Spirit leads me, but I also discipline myself to set a regular time aside for prayer. I fellowship with other Christians when God brings me in contact with them, but I also set aside regular times for Christian fellowship. I witness whenever I am led by the Holy Spirit, but I also set aside regular times for witnessing.
I would challenge each of you to commit at least a few hours a month to some kind of organized evangelism outreach, in addition to whatever witnessing you do in your everyday life. Instead of looking for reasons for being excused from such outreaches, we should instead be dedicating ourselves anew to reaching this lost world by every possible means. I also encourage you to share this teaching with your pastor. I believe that at the responsibility of each Christian to witness needs to be taught from every pulpit.
Letters to the Editor
One of the easiest ways to bring the gospel to your city is by writing a “Letter to the Editor” of your newspaper. As you read the paper, you will sometimes find articles that speak about Christian issues, usually from a biased viewpoint. This gives you an opportunity to give a Biblical view of the subject, use scriptures, and present some part of the gospel message at the same time. It only takes an hour or two to write and edit the letter. For the price of a postage stamp you can potentially reach thousands of people–many of whom cannot be reached by other means.
When writing your letter, remember that your goal is to present as much of the gospel as possible, not to express your political views. Look for an article that gives you the best opportunity to do this. Keep your letter short and spend some time editing it so it is clear.
I have only written a few “Letters to the Editor,” but most of them have been printed — in the SF Chronicle, Examiner, and most recently in the Oakland Tribune. On Easter Sunday I read two articles with a strong anti-Christian bias on the front page. So I wrote a letter that got printed in the Tribune and four other local papers run by the same publisher. In this letter, I was able to use two scriptures that convey Jesus’ teachings on Hell.
Anti-Christian message in story
I was outraged by the anti-Christian comment that concluded your front-page article in the April 3 paper headlined, “Pupils Ponder Easter Mystery.” What I am referring to is the statement that “A murderer and a rapist is a white-winged angel compared to a parent who would teach hell and damnation to a child.”
Bible-believing Christians have always taught about hell and damnation to their children. Your paper insulted millions of Christians on their most holy day by printing that statement unchallenged.
Then you followed it with an article that called religion a “mental illness…a form of psychosis.” Apparently Justice Holmes (or whoever really made that comment) thought that Christians ought to be imprisoned or executed like murderers and rapists for teaching the Bible to their children.
In Luke chapter 12, Jesus said, “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell.” In Luke chapter 16, He told a story about an evil rich man and a righteous beggar named Lazarus. The rich man died, went to hell, and begged Lazarus to cool his tongue from the fiery torment. He also asked Lazarus to warn his five brothers, lest they come to this place of torment.
Nobody is forcing you to believe in hell. But if you choose not to, one day you may find yourself in the position of that rich man. If more parents would warn their children about hell, there would be a lot fewer souls in hell, and a lot fewer murderers and rapists on our streets.
Larry Rosenbaum
Oakland
Coming Events
July 8-10 Harvest Crusade with Greg Laurie, Anaheim, CA stadium. Call (909) 687-6595.
July 9-16 Jesus Loves You – New York Contact Abounding Grace Ministries (718) 836-2957.
Saturday July 9, 23. Church on the Street Outreach, Dolores Park (19th St. and Dolores), San Francisco. 1-5 PM. Contact SOS Ministries, Box 27358, Oakland, CA 94602, (510) 531-5325.
Sunday July 17 Healdsburg, CA outreach with Ray Comfort. Contact Paul Trulett, Christian Bible Church (707) 433-3742.
July 22-24 San Diego Crusade with Greg Laurie. Call (909) 687- 6595.
August 1-6 Miami Outreach. Contact Rescue Atlanta, Box 965039, Marietta, GA 30066, (404) 924-0201.
August 4-7 Milwaukee Outreach. Contact Heart-Fire Ministries, Box 14031, Milwaukee, WI 53214, (414) 445-9490.
August 8-12 Reach Atlanta. Contact Rescue Atlanta (address above).
August 19-27 SOS-Salem, Oregon. Contact Mark Johnson, Forerunner Ministries, (612) 722-0751.
September 22-24 National Street Ministries Conference, Dallas, TX. Contact Scott Hinkle Outreach Ministries, Box 380306, Duncanville, TX 75138, (214) 283-3900.
A Final Word
1994 is half over, so we are offering 1994 ISEMA memberships at half price until the end of the year–$10 for individuals and $17.50 for churches and ministries. For $5 extra you can have a Street Ministry Directory.
One of the purposes of this newsletter is to be a forum for discussion of matters of interest to those involved in evangelism. We welcome your comments concerning the teaching in this issue on street preaching or anything else. Also, let us know of other issues you would like discussed in this newsletter.
Our Tape of the Month is “Bar Ministry and Street Preaching” by Ken and Bill Henderson of Soldiers for Jesus. This tape was from an ISEMA evangelism conference in Northern California.
This month we also want to offer a special book, “Reach Out and Touch Someone” by Jeannie Griffin. This is a 31-day devotional- type book. Each day the reader is challenged to take a simple, specific step related to evangelism. Jeannie is Director of The Missionary Outreach and travels around the world equipping Christians in evangelism and participating in evangelism outreaches.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
