We have three children. Our oldest is Tara. When Tara was years of age, as our firstborn, we wanted to let her learn everything on her own. One day I was getting ready to go to a meeting and taking care of her. I said, "Tara, let me help you tie your shoes." This was Velcro. We know how hard tying shoes is, and I have to get to the meeting. I say, "Honey, can I help you?" She looks up at me and says, "No." Okay. She's working on it. And working on it. There just was no way this year old could tie a shoe. Finally in resignation she looks up at her daddy and says, "Daddy, I can't do it." I said, "Honey, I know, but I can." I quickly tied her little shoe.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we seek to bring men and women and boys and girls to Christ, and as we seek to inspire others around us to do the same, let's begin at the end. We can't do it. Evangelism is a God thing from the beginning. It is something only the Father can do. What I'd like to open up for us is a little of God as evangelist.

God is already active in evangelism.

God goes ahead of us. God is already there. Before you even thought about bringing a friend to Christ, before you thought of praying for your neighbor or relative, God is already witnessing to that person. You know how he does that? Through the glorious things he has made. Turn to Romans 1. Hold your Bible close because this will be biblical theology, so we're going to move through the pages of the Holy Book. Let's see the role God has in the process.

Romans 1:18 and following: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth."

I have circled "suppress the truth." There's a truth emanating from the Father heart of God to the whole world, and the only thing people can do is try to suppress it. Here it is:

For what can be known about God is plain to people because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that he has made. So people are without excuse.

God the evangelist is already there, displaying himself to the world. He does it in several ways. First of all, he does it through creation, through beauty.

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? Remember the first time you looked over the South Rim? Did you see the great movie of the early ''90s, Grand Canyon? It illustrates the brokenness of humanity, the falling apart of systems, the inability of government and even families to hold life together. Danny Glover, a garage mechanic, sits on a street corner next to Kevin Kline, whose BMW has broken down in an urban city where it shouldn't have broken down. [Glover's character] sits there, and as they lament over life and society, his eyes glisten and he says, "Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?"

Get yourself to the Grand Canyon because God's speech, God's love, God's power, God's majesty is already out on a world desperately in need of hope. Beauty, come from God. He's already there.

You know another place we see this God who's already there? In people. We have a lot of bad sides. The darkness is all around, but every once in a while something really fun pops out, especially in children. Psalm 8:2 says that out of the mouths of infants and babes God has built a bulwark to silence the enemies.

Now, the natural question that follows is why? Why does God give all this beauty and display himself to the world? The why is point two.

God is the primary seeker of the lost. (Ezekiel 34:11)

God is the first seeker. God is the prime seeker. Before any of us ever sought God, God was seeking us. Turn with me to Ezekiel 34:11 and following.

For thus says the Lord God, "I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among the scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep.

The mission statement of Jesus Christ, in my opinion, the text that wraps up the whole meaning of the Scriptures, is Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." The reason God displays himself to the world, the reason God goes ahead is because God is a seeking God, constantly seeking the lost.

Have you ever lost somebody you really cared about? How many of you have ever lost a kid? This is the "Lon and Marie Allison WWLKid" story. 'It occurred five years ago. Our little boy Erik was about three. It was a warm April or May morning. I was shaving, getting ready for a trip. My wife says, "Honey, have you seen Erik?" I said, "No. Isn't he with you?"

"No."

"Did you check the bedroom?"

"Yes."

"Did you check the basement?"

"Yes," intensity rising. 'Suddenly I realized our little boy was gone.

Out the front door we went. Marie went to the right; I went to the left yelling, seeking, "Erik. Erik. Erik." Our neighbor Dave, out raking his yard, said, "Lon, what's the matter?" I said, "Erik is gone." He said, "I will help." He went east; I went west; Marie went south, Mom's can do it for my son.

We met back in three or four minutes. It seemed like three or four hours, of course. Hadn't found him. Breathing hard I said, "Honey, go call 911." She ran in to call the police. I jumped in the car. You hear all that stuff about the longer they are gone the greater danger you are in not to find them, so I thought, if I go in the car I can cover more ground; I can start circling blocks. As I headed down the street, I could see every leaf on any tree moving one centimeter. I saw ants walking on the sidewalk. I heard grass growing, because my boy was gone, and in me rose the "fight or flight" syndrome. One block, no Erik. Two blocks, no Erik.

As I came back to our house, I saw a police car in front of it. The police car is pulling away. Marie and neighbor Dave are standing on the corner, shoulders no longer hunched, no "fight or flight" syndrome, smiles on their faces. My wife said, "He's found!" And I said, "Where?" My wife had dressed our little boy in his OGosh overalls, dark blue denim, with a matching shirt. A little boy in dark blue denims and dark blue shirt had curled up in the corner of a dark blue couch in our family room, wound himself into the corner of it, sleeping soundly as mother and , yea, with shaving cream still attached.

He was only gone a few minutes. Some of you have had far worse experiences, I know. But in my brief minutes I began to grasp what God is doing 24 hours a day. A 24/7 God seeking lost people, seeing every ant that crawls and hearing the grass grow. God is a seeking God.

The lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost Luke 15 is all about this nature of God to drop everything and seek the one, not the masses. I'm glad for that. I'm glad I once got to see 5,000 come to Christ, but as one of my friends, Steve Wingfield, said, "All mass evangelism is evangelism in a crowd." The angels in heaven rejoice every time God finds one, because he's the evangelist.

As much as you believe you were seeking God, it turns out he was seeking you before you ever sought him. The nature of God is as initiator in all things. C. S. Lewis writes, "I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way around. He was the hunter; I was the deer. He stalked me, took unerring aim, and fired."

Some of you that come from certain persuasions of the church are beginning to rise up and say, "You mean we have no choice in the matter?"

Sovereigntyfree will." You know what God does with those two? He says, "You can't figure it out." Lewis goes on to say, "One might think I had no choice in the matter. But as I reflect back on it, I wonder if it was not the freest thing I've ever done or that he did." God is a seeking God.

Point one in God the evangelist—God goes ahead. He's already there. Point two. Why? Because he is a seeking God. A lot of us are saying, "H! Goodie, goodie. I don't have to evangelize. God does it all." I wouldn't have been invited here if I thought that, and I wouldn't work where I work if I thought that. So shall we move right ahead to point three?

God includes us in his work.

God includes us in the work of the gospel. He does it two ways. First and foremost, as we remember that evangelism is a supernatural activity that takes place between God and a soul, we have to remember also that in the supernatural realm all matter of evil seeks to thwart what God is about. I don't begin to understand it, but I agree with Lewis when he says, "Every square inch in the universe is being fought for—taken by Satan, counter taken by God."

1. We are included through the work of prayer. Friends, I appeal to you to understand that our first role in evangelism is the task of prayer. Evangelism is the activity we are engaged in, but what occurs is mystery. The Bible says it all over the place. It uses the Greek word musteria, musterion: the mystery of the gospel. No one can get to the bottom of it. It occurs in the supernatural realm. It is the invisible act of regeneration that we see in the outward activity of evangelism. And from what we know of the Scriptures, there's a war going on in a world we don't see, and it's a war waged for your best friend and your mom or sister. Second Corinthians 4:4 says, "The god of this world blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel, which is the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4). Blinded, spiritual blinding, unable to see.

Billy Graham can't convince someone that is spiritually blind. Joni Eareckson Tada couldn't convict someone spiritually blinded. The apostle Paul says our first activity in the work of the gospel is the work of prayer. In 1 Timothy 2 Paul says to Timothy, "I urge you first of all'' you do anything "pray for everyone." Why? Because "God desires everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth." Pray for everyone. Why? Because God desires all to be saved. Somehow in the musterion of the gospel the prayers of the saints participate in the divine work of God.

Pray. Paul says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is that they will be saved." Prayer. Prayer. Personal prayer. Are you praying for your neighborhood yet, by household and by name? Prayer evangelism. It isn't something we do on our own. It's got to be done in our congregation. One of the exciting things today, since Jim Cymbala's book came out, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, I hear a lot of people saying, "You know how we bring people to Christ? We pray for them."

"Wow. How do you do that?"

"We set a night aside and encourage everybody to come and pray. They call it a prayer meeting." And I say, "Wow." We're just resurrecting what God's been doing for a long time. I think the local church prayer meeting is the burning bush of the local church.

We're climbing on the backs of Jonathan Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley and the Scots who began the first great concert of prayer movement. Through Edwards' counsel, the Scots had a dream that every week in every church there would be one prayer meeting with half of it devoted to praying for lost people. Every month the church would come for a prayer meeting devoted to reaching lost people, and every quarter all the churches in a town would come together to pray for God to reach lost people. He includes us in prayer.

As far as we can tell it began with Count Von Zinzendorf and the great Moravian prayer movement as believers gathered from all over Europe. They started a prayer meeting that went 24 hours a day for over 100 years, because God was telling them to do it. That birthed the Great Awakening.

2. We are included through divine appointments . I want to share with you six big little words. This blew me away. First Corinthians 3:5 and following. Paul deals with a situation where believers are saying Paul brought them to Christ or Apollos brought them to Christ, and he's trying to get away from that because he knows God is the evangelist. In verse 5 he says, "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants" here come the words—"through whom you came to believe as the Lord assigned to each" As the Lord assigned to each.

Whoa, you mean I didn't lead somebody to Christ? No. Big D, little m—Divine, me. Big D, little m, assignments, appointments. God has set them up for us. They were set up for Paul; they were set up for Apollos; they are set up for me. They are set up for you. God has our Daytimer. It is no mistake you work where you work. It is no mistake you live where you live. It is no mistake you run into the people you run into. Divine appointment. The goal of every mature believer is to get to the place where we hear God ring the bell. I'm in a place with the Lord now where I ask him, "Lord, let me every week share you with somebody." I have to work hard. I'm in a Christian culture all the time. Yick. Christian people everywhere. "Are you sure you're saved? Billy, are you sure you're saved?" I got to get my appointment in this week. No, it isn't like that. I think the Holy Spirit has led me to pray, because I've been doing it for two months and only one of eight weeks have I not run into somebody with whom God has allowed me to have a significant spiritual conversation.

It happened in a hotel on Saturday. I rushed down from my room. I needed to get to my car because I left some notes there. I was preparing this message. The man who helped me get my car, the valet, wanted to talk about God. I said, "I can't. I'm writing an evangelism message." No, no, no. God opened the door. This is one of the ways we know it's an appointment. He will open the door. This guy, his name was Melvin. I said, "Melvin, how are you doing?"

He says, "Oh, I'm hoping I get off early today."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "I really want to go hear Billy Graham tonight."

"You do?" Man, we had the best talk. He'd been raised in a Christian home, but he had fallen away from it. He said, "I think the world's going to end pretty soon, don't you?"

I said, "Yes, I think it probably will pretty soon. Melvin, I want to pray for you that you'll be able to get off tonight, because God wants you back." It was simple. It was little. It was an appointment.

Three weeks ago I stood outside a restaurant in Walnut Creek, California, where God had done an amazing thing. It was a Denny's. One night two buddies and I were trying to lead a guy to Jesus. He had been coming to our group, and we'd been telling him the Christ story. I remember sitting in that Denny's booth that night. I remember saying to Ron, "Are you ready to give your life to Christ?" I'll never forget the disappointment when he said no.

We said, "Well, keep coming, okay? Keep listening. Keep hanging with us." We got up to leave. As we started to walk out, a man sitting alone in the next booth stood up and stopped us and said, "I couldn't help overhearing the things you were talking about. I was wondering if you could help me come to know God?" Right restaurant, wrong booth.

God joins us in evangelism.

Now you're getting scared if you're like me. Listen, I'm a gifted evangelist. I get paid to do this. I'm a professor of evangelism at Wheaton College, and it still scares the living daylights out of me. I think that's part of satanic warfare to tempt us with fear. If you're afraid now on point three, let me bring you to point four: God joins us in the appointments.

What are the last words Jesus gave us? "I will be with you to the end of time." You say, "Yes, Lon, but he didn't use that in the Acts passage. In the Acts passage it is just 'You will be my witnesses.' It's a command. We're just to go out there and do it. To Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the uttermost parts of the world. There's nothing about him being involved." Oh, yeah? Then why did they receive the word, "Wait here until the Spirit shows up"?

Do you think God would leave evangelism to us? Would you? Those of us who are parents and those of us that are men who have gone through labor and if right in the midst of delivery the obstetrician says, "I got to take a break; you take over"? Of course not. This is not work God would leave to us alone. It's enough that Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing." In evangelism that's big time true.

So true is God's presence in evangelism that Jesus says to his disciples, "I'm sending you out like wolves in sheep's clothing." And you say, "I knew it." But he says, "When you're there, I don't even want you to think about what you're going to say." God is so present that the very words we need will be given to us. Luke 12:12 says, "At that hour." You say, "You mean I can't prepare it?" It's new every words, the presence of God.

Have you ever had the experience of sharing Christ with somebody and then going home or going back to the church and say, "I just talked to this guy about Christ, and I don't have any idea what I said"? You say it disparagingly because you are sure you failed. It wasn't you.

Point one. God's the evangelist who's already there.

Point two. He does that because he is the first seeker.

Point three. He includes us.

Point four. He says, I think I'll come.

God is responsible for the results of evangelism.

Finally, brothers and sisters, God is responsible for the results. Our role is the role of witness. We can't save anybody. I'm probably pushing that a little bit and saying even in the role of witness God is incredibly involved. But when it comes to the saving of a soul, when it comes to the musterion of the gospel, that's God territory. The best we ever do is watch God birth someone.

It says in John 6:44, Jesus speaking, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws that person in." The word ~draw~ is used later in John and translated in the English as ~drag~. It's the same word as when it says "They dragged the nets into the boat." Jesus says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me"~Star Wars~ tractor beam. Oh, you say, "No, no, no, no, no." I say, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." The Scripture says, "There is no one who is righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, not even one. And there is no one who seeks God, not even one." So the seeking God and the mystery of the gospel and the free grace of Christ draw people in.

C. S. Lewis says, "He took unerring aim and fired." In another account he says, "God closed in on me." Another he says, "I was dragged through the doorway." He renders the account of when he gave his life to Jesus. He had two conversions. The first was theism, and the second was to Christ. In the second account he says, "I know very well when but not how the final step was taken." That's interesting. I know when. I don't know how.

"My brother and I set out for the zoo. When we set out, I did not believe Jesus was the Son of God. When we arrived, I did."

It's a God thing. God's already there because he's the first seeker and he includes us in prayer and appointments. And when we go, he joins us. And then he says, "Watch."

Statistician David Barrett suggests that 75,000 to a 100,000 people a day come into the kingdom of God. Big D—Divine; little h—human encounter. That's evangelism. Big D, little h. Big D, little h. Big D, little h.

Lon Allison is director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College and professor of evangelism and spiritual formation at Wheaton Graduate School.

(c) Lon Allison

Preaching Today Tape #210

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