 Evangelism
As we enter this new year I’m sure that we all have people that we want to see come to know the Lord. We also anticipate that God will save numbers of people that we do not now know and bring them into His covenant people, the church. We know that only God can save people but He has given us the crucial task of taking the gospel to them. As the Apostle Paul rhetorically reminds us, how will people believe if they haven’t heard the message (Romans 10:14-15). So we must be spreading the good news by actually opening our mouths and telling people about Christ! But what then? How will we know if people have truly believed and been born again? Of course, we don’t want to discourage anyone professing faith, but just because a person says they believe does not make them a genuine believer. Rather, real repentant faith will result in the production of such fruit that the validity of the person’s trust in God will be seen in the change in their lives. In The Sword and The Trowel publication of 1865, Charles Spurgeon records what the elders of his church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, looked for in candidates for baptism and church membership. In this post I would like to consider each of those things. 1) Tenderness of Conscience When people are coming to know the Lord, they all are under conviction. Without conviction of sin a person cannot repent and believe the gospel. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction that is necessary for the lost to be savingly converted (John 16:7-14). I have watched so many people respond to appeals to be saved by raising a hand or going forward or praying a spoon fed prayer. But the reality is that conversion is not just a transaction where you can simply get the formalities out of the way. Rather conversion happens when God brings the sinner, by the labor pains of spiritual conviction, to the point of new birth (Titus 3:5). This event calls for a time of recovery and rejoicing. In genuine converts this should be evident in the tenderness of the individual's conscience in areas of both sin and righteousness. 2) Attachment to the Means of Grace Not everyone means the same thing when they talk about the means of grace. I want to admit that I could be misunderstanding or not rightly conveying what these elders in 1865 were observing. But I think of the “means of grace” as referring to those practical means by which God gives His children, who are saved by grace, tools to practice living in the grace they already have in Christ. Todd Friel refers to these as means of growth. The point is that the elders noticed if the prospective convert had a new found desire for prayer, or an increased appetite for God’s word, or an eagerness to gather with the Lord’s church. While the means of grace do certainly include the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper these must not be considered in this context because what is being evaluated is whether or not these candidates are ready for baptism and then the supper. 3) Desire to Come out of the World Those who have been truly saved by the Holy God have a desire to be holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). Holiness is separateness. If you believe that you can come to Christ and remain as you were in the world, you have misunderstood the nature of union with Christ. If you are now in Christ then you are necessarily separated and holy because Christ is holy (Ephesians 1:1-14). 4) Deep Interest in the Unconverted Those who have so freshly experienced the rescue of God from the path of destruction are moved immediately to concern for those still traveling this broad and easy road (Matthew 7:13-14). Consider the fact that the most recent convert usually has the most ties to those still lost in the world. The new Christian also has the new experience of joy that is unexplainable and glorious. If a new Christian or any Christian does not desire for others to be saved then to quote C. H. Spurgeon “Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself, be sure of that!”
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