Christ's example of evangelism is presented as paramount, rooted in his clear convictions of his divine mission as the sent Christ and Savior, delivering the Father's eternal words to all the world. His genuine concern for souls manifested through deep compassion for individuals and multitudes, and a friendly approach to sinners, alongside his grief over sin and suffering. Jesus employed a diversified approach, directly engaging with people, rebuking the impenitent, and tactfully interacting with various individuals, all while consistently using Scripture to convict, repel temptation, and present himself. His evangelistic method, marked by a loving attitude and reliance on God's Word, serves as the ultimate model for believers.
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Christ's example of evangelism. And all of our studies on evangelism, I'm sure nothing is more important than this one. Christ's example of evangelism. Section one. His clear convictions of his mission. One. Sent by the Father. You'll recall that in John five, thirty-six to thirty-eight, he said, My works bear witness of me that the Father has sent. Well, A, he was sent as the Christ. In Luke four, the woman at the well said she knew that Messiah was coming.
The Lord explained to her that he was the one. She believed it. She went to the men and said, Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? And B, as the Savior. Luke nineteen and ten he said the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost he didn't come to be an example he came to be a savior he is our example but his mission was to save then he came number two he came with a message from the Father John seventeen eight fourteen he said in praying to the Father that he had delivered to us the words whom the Father had given him.
A. He is the word. John one. Verse one, and again in verse fourteen, where the word is made flesh. He is the expression of God's very thoughts to us. And B. He is that prophet. Now that prophet in the Old Testament, as Moses said, this was to be the prophet that would come like unto myself. He said, him shall he hear. He said what he was. That's all. And see, this word, our eternal truth. Mark thirteen and forty-one, he said, My word shall never pass away.
And in John twelve, he said, My word that I have spoken to you shall judge you in the last day. And three, he was reaching out to all the world. And I have appended John three sixteen here because I couldn't think of a better one to say that your salvation is for the whole world. And I believe that he himself said those words, the sixteen verse of John three, in his preaching to Nicodemus. Hey, Mark one thirty eight said he must go into the next towns. This was the Lord's way, the next towns, always the next towns.
There was always someone beyond who needed the gospel. And B, he said, look on the fields in John four in verse thirty-six. They're white already in the harvest. You say there's yet three months. Pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth labors into his harvest. And again he said that the field is the world. Now there's no such thing as foreign missions and home missions in the Bible. It may be a convenient way of stating what you're talking about, but it is not scriptural. No such thing as foreign missions. Every mission is foreign to somebody because they don't happen to live in that place. You should be concerned about every person in the world.
Some people say, well, it's enough of me if I can just preach the gospel right here. I'm not interested in foreign missions. Others say, why don't you get on the ball and go to the foreign mission field? If you're working here, you're not doing anything. Now, this is ridiculous. The field is the word. Let's be concerned about everyone as the Lord Jesus himself was. And see, he said he was straightened, that means limited, until his death. Our Savior never got any farther than the land of Palestine, a very small spot on the globe. He was limited in his activity because that's what he came for, to die at Jerusalem. Now, section number two, his genuine concern for souls.
One, his great compassion. Perhaps you know that compassion comes from the Latin word, to suffer with. To suffer with. A, for the multitudes and the individuals who are lost. In Matthew chapter nine, he saw the multitudes as sheep having no shepherd. He looked out upon them with great compassion. Indeed, he had compassion for an unclean leper, Mark one, forty to forty-two.
I think this is one of the nicest stories in all of the Scripture. The leper said, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he reached out and touched him and said, I will. He didn't have to touch anybody to heal him. He healed a man twenty miles away in the face of John. But to show his compassion for this poor man who nobody would touch, not even his own family, he reached out and touched him. And see for a widow, in Luke seven, the widow from the city of Maine was on her way to the cemetery with her only son. And D for the blind in Matthew twenty.
And then second, his friendship for sinners. Now we need to be careful here. We don't have to be friends in the sense that James condemns the friendship of this world is his enmity with Christ. But friendship in the sense of a concern for them and being friendly toward them. A, at Matthew's feast. Matthew nine, verse eleven, describes how he made a feast for the Lord Jesus and invited the riffraff, the down and outers, the despise of the city.
The Lord Jesus didn't consider himself above that. And B, his friendliness with Zacchaeus, Luke nineteen. How much that must have meant to that man whom no one likes, to say, Today I must abide in thy house. Of course, he was winning to himself. And see, in Simon's house, Luke seven, thirty-six to fifty, how very kind he was to this poor woman who came in, and how kind he was even to self-righteous Simon. Indeed, he said, There is joy in heaven.
In book fifteen, twice he mentions joy in heaven over one sinner that repented. He wanted the sinners to know that there was room in heaven for them and that all heaven was glad when they repented. Now number three, his grief over sin and suffering. Most people talk about conditions in the world, but there's no real concern. A. Jerusalem. Luke nineteen. He wept over that city. And B.
At the death of Lazarus. In John eleven. Verse thirty-five. The shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus wept. The next shortest verse in the Bible is rejoice evermore. Jesus wept so you could rejoice evermore. He was called the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And see, his soul was troubled over the sins of the world. In John twelve he said, What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But he says, For this hour came I unto this hour. For this cause came I unto this hour.
He was troubled over the sins of the world. He was willing to be the corn of wheat that fell into the ground and died so that we might have life. I don't think you're going to win very many souls if there isn't any compassion, if there isn't any genuine concern for them. This hard kind of thing that tell people whether you can take it or leave it, is either this or hell. This kind of attitude always makes me question whether a person really cares. about the souls. We have to say this. We have to say the truth. We have to say severe things. But our blessed Lord really was concerned. Now section three is diversified approach to sinners.
I abominate systems and methods for the simple reason that the Lord Jesus never dealt with any two people in exactly the same way. And I don't believe you can either. There was a lady who was made the mother of the year. She was a widow, and her five children had been very successful and fine people. And so when she was interviewed on TV, they said to her, what method did you use for rearing your children? She said, I used five methods. Of course, I've got five children. I remember this when you're dealing with souls. These aren't just numbers.
You can't just ask them three questions, nodding your head as you ask them, get them to nod their heads, and then they're saved. This kind of thing is abominable. What must I do to be saved? Nod your head three times at the right place. Isn't that ridiculous? And that's exactly what methods attempt to do with people. Let's look at these methods. Number one, he encouraged sinners to come to him. A. The Samaritan woman in John four. And Zacchaeus, in Luke, I can just see Zacchaeus up in that tree. The Sycamore tree has large leaves. He probably thought he was safe and hidden up in there.
Who would want to see them in there? And the Lord stopped right under the tree. He said, Zacchaeus come. Of course, it was coming down, but then it was coming. Everybody has to come down off of their religious tree or off of their moral tree to come to the Lord Jesus. But... The main thing is he encouraged sinners to come, and he's still doing so. And second, he rebuked the impenitents. That is, those who are hardened in their sins. He rebuked. A, the religionists. I told you when he studied in the last lesson about the facts of the gospel, that there's a great deal beside the gospel in the four books that we call the gospels.
And Matthew twenty-three was one of the chapters that I gave you as an example. This chapter is just filled with woes. Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. Now these people did not want the gospel, they had rejected the gospel, they were trying to keep other people from hearing the gospel. And therefore they were not to be dealt with in exactly the same way as the Samaritan or Zacchaeus. And be the indifferent city. In Matthew eleven, he pronounced woes upon the cities that had heard the gospel the most, because they were still indifferent to his claims. And then number three, he used a direct approach.
Now some people say you should never use a direct approach. You never say to anybody, you've got to do so and so. You always... working around like Dale Carnegie until he got them in the mood and jolly them up. This was nonsense. Look what he did with Nicodemus, John three. Nicodemus said to him, Master, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. What would you say? Well, thanks very much. And what do you say? He said, don't be surprised if I tell you that you lads will be born again. You will never see the kingdom of God. That's what he said. That's the only thing you can say to a self-satisfied religionist who merely wants to learn a little more.
That's all Nicodemus wanted. He just wanted a little more teaching. The Lord said, I'm going to just cut the whole basis out from under you and let you down. I'm going to say you've got to start with a new birth. Now, this is right with some people. And be at the feast. At a feast of the Jews. In Luke whose blood pilate mingled with the sacrifices or worse than anybody else? I tell you that except you repent, you'll all likewise perish. Is it right to say that to people? Yeah, to some people. You'll have to find out by the leading of the Holy Spirit when it's right.
Now, number four, he was tactful. I just got through saying that he didn't seem to use any tact in some cases, but there were other cases where he did use tact. A? Simon in Luke seven. Simon would have drawn a pretty sharp word for me, I'm afraid. His Pharisee called mistreatment of the Lord Jesus. He gave the Lord Jesus the lowest place at that table. You know how I know it? Because always in the Jewish peace rooms, the lowest place was back next to the door. And the highest place was up next to the head of the table, the man who had invited him to the feet.
Where was the Lord Jesus sitting? A woman flipped in the door, a woman of the streets, and kneeled at his feet. Where was he? You think she'd come around that long table all the way up to the head of the table where this Pharisee was sitting? I'm sure not. And I'm sure that I'm right, because I do know that this man, this Pharisee, did not give the Lord Jesus any water to wash his feet. did not give him any oil going on his head. He treated him like a tramp. And yet the Lord Jesus said to him, Simon, I'd like to say something to you. You see, he was in Simon's home. When you're in somebody's home and you're a guest, you have to be polite. You have to be kind. You have to be factual.
And he was. And then B, there was Nathaniel. Now, Nathaniel was a very devout Jew. The Lord called him an Israelite and knew there was no God. That's a pretty high recommendation. So the Lord said to him, I see a man, an Israelite and knew there was no God. He said, you should never say that to a person. You should tell him he needs to be born again. You're talking about Nicodemus. I'm talking about Nathanael. You don't deal with Nathanael the way you do at Nicodemus, not if you follow the Lord Jesus. So he said this to Nathanael, and Nathanael said, how do you know me? He said, I saw you under the fig tree.
When I was in California, I was a guest in the home where they had the fig tree that was brought from Palestine. The man said, come on, I want to show you something. We went out of this fig tree, the branches went down. They come out and go down to the ground. And the leaves were touching the ground all the way around. And he came up and just parted the branches and stepped in there. And I stepped inside and I was in a room, twenty feet across and six feet high. These branches came out as high as my head, dropped right down to the ground. Now he said, how do you suppose the Lord Jesus saw Nathaniel under the fig tree? Well, that's why Nathaniel said, you're the Son of God.
He realized nobody had seen. That's why he got in under the fig tree, because he could pray devoutly, as a Jew ought to pray, without exposing himself to the mother Jews. Now, the Pharisees didn't do this. They got out on the street court and prayed. But this man was under there, and the Lord saw him there. And so the Lord began with complimenting him on the fact that he was alone with God in prayer. And this way he won him to Christ. Now number five, he exposed unbelief. A. The chief priests. In Luke twenty, he spoke two parables against the chief priests. The parable of the vineyard. and the parable of the pounds given by the master who went on the journey.
And he did this to expose their unbelief, and it so infuriated them that they wanted to put him to death. And they couldn't figure any way to do it, so they sent spies to catch him in his speech. Why did he do it? Because this is what needs to be done. It needs to be exposed. Don't just give people the gospel without, first of all, flying up the soil. And then B, there was the father of the demoniac. When the Lord came down off the Mount of Transfiguration in Mark nine, he found that his disciples who had stayed below, he only took three with him. The others who had stayed there were not able to cast a demon out of a boy. And so the father came to him and said, Sir, if thou can't do anything, help us.
Now that's rank unbelief to say that to the Lord. It wouldn't be to say it to me. But he didn't recognize the Lord for who he was. You see, his disciples had failed. And so he said, if you can do anything, help me. And the Lord said, if you can believe, well, that was a review. How do I know it was? The man burst into tears and said, Lord, help me. Help my unbelief. I do believe. Help my unbelief. And then the Lord could help him. You see, he had to expose the unbelief before he could lead him into faith. And then six, he showed a loving attitude, A, to children.
I don't know if this is fair or not, but I usually judge character by the way people treat children. I've been children's work all my life. The Lord Jesus took them up in his arms and put his hands upon them and blessed them. Wasn't that loving? The children wanted to go to him, and their mothers wanted them to go to him. Anybody to whom a child will come is usually a kind person, because children see through your hypocrisy more than anybody else. And then, B, there was the young ruler. Now that young ruler was very proud of himself. It says in Mark ten that the Lord Jesus looked upon him and loved him.
The loving concern for a person was characteristic of the Lord Jesus. Now, section four, his consistent use of Scripture. In this lesson, I just was counting up a lot ago, I have given you between fifty and sixty quotations from Scripture, for which I make absolutely no apology. That's exactly what the Lord Jesus did. He constantly used Scripture. One, his evaluation of Scripture. A, he said, it cannot be broken. I've given you two references, study them carefully.
And be ye, he said, that certain things must yet be accomplished in me. In Luke twenty-two and thirty-seven. Why did he say it must be? Because he said the Scriptures said that it must be. He had high regard for the Word of God. And see, the rejection of Moses' writings is rejection of Christ. John five, forty-five to forty-seven. He said, if you don't believe Moses, how would you believe me? There are a lot of people today who are standing in pulpit who don't believe Moses. There are a lot of people today who totally reject the story of creation in Genesis one.
There are a lot of people who totally reject the history of the children of Israel and the tentative. But our Savior didn't. I don't need any more proof that the Old Testament is the word of God than the fact that our Savior used it. And then he himself deleted. And two, his use of Scripture for conviction. Conviction has to come before conversion. Repentance has to come before the new birth. And the Lord used Scripture for conviction. A. The law to condemn. In Luke ten, a man came to him and said, What shall I do? Now when you ask the Lord what to do, he's already answered that.
So he said, what does the law say? If you want to be saved on the grounds of doing, you'll have to be saved by the law. And you can't be. So the Lord said, all right, here's the law. Well, why does the Lord give him the law if he couldn't be saved by the law? Because James tells us the law is given as a mirror to show us our dirt, to show us that we're lost. Third Romans says the law was given that every mouth might be stopped. and all the world became guilty before God. So the man said, I want to do. The Lord said, here's the law. The law is not a lager of ten rungs to get to heaven. And this man soon found that out. He was convicted of himself.
And then B, the misuse of the temple in Mark The Lord Jesus said, It's written, My house shall be called, a house of prayer, and you've made it a day of thieves. Well, that brought conviction to some of those people, and see to repel Satan's temptation. In Matthew chapter four, four times, the Lord Jesus said, It is written. Someone has noted that these are all within a scope, within a certain part of Scripture that could be read in five minutes. If you had five minutes of going over the word, maybe you're prepared to meet the onslaught of Satan.
If you didn't, I know you're not ready. The only thing you can use to meet Satan is Scripture. Now, the Lord could have used other things. The Lord could have drawn fire down out of heaven because he was God. But he didn't because he took the place of man. And he met this onslaught with Scripture. And then three, his presentation of himself. Now this will bear a great deal of study, A, his credentials as Christ. In Luke four, he read from the Old Testament scriptures from the book of Isaiah, and then he said to the people in the synagogue there at Nazareth, he said, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
And in the twentieth of Luke, when John was in jail, And he sent his disciples to the Lord Jesus and said, are you the one we're looking for, or shall we wait for another? The Lord didn't answer that categorically. He just said to the disciples, you go back and tell John the things that you've seen happen today. That the sick have been healed, and the blind have received their sight, and the dead have been raised, and so on. And then tell him, blessed is he who will not be stumbled in me. In other words, he said, these are my credentials. I want to say that this is what I have against Pentecostalism. I believe that this is a very wicked thing because it is demanding the re-presenting of the credentials of the Christ.
That's what Pentecostalism demands. It demands that you do the things that were done in the first place, and they were done explicitly as being signs for the Jews. First Corinthians chapter one tells you so. That's the reason they were given, because the Old Testament scripture said this is what to expect when the Messiah comes. Now he's presented his credentials, and to demand they be presented again is an insult. If anybody would do that in the State Department to a representative, an ambassador from another country, that country would call their ambassador home because he's been insulted. And I think it's an insult to demand the charismatic gifts in our days.
and be the hatred of religious leaders. Now he said in Luke eighteen this is what to expect. It hadn't been shown yet. The Lord never mentioned this until after Peter had given his confession of faith in the Lord. And right away then he began to talk about what would happen. He said this is what you can expect. You can expect that the that the Jews are going, it's got to be accomplished, what is written of me. They're going to deliver me to the Gentiles, he said. And in John fifteen he said, it's just as the scripture said, they've hated me without a cause. And then see the betrayal of Judas Iscariot in Matthew twenty six, twenty four.
He quotes from the Old Testament and says, this is exactly what the prophet says is going to have. And D is suffering and death. I've given you a number of scriptures here that you can look up. He said, haven't you read what the scriptures say concerning the sufferings of the Lord Jesus? In meeting his people in the twenty-fourth of Luke, he untangled their understanding at the actual meaning of the Greek word there. He untangled their understanding. And he explained to them that these scriptures were all written so that you would know who I am. And in John three, fourteen, and fifteen, he spoke about Moses and the serpent. And then E, his resurrection.
And this was definitely spoken of in the Old Testament. And then finally, number four, his warnings to rejectors. A, the cornerstone will become the smiting stone. That's a quotation from the Old Testament. And B, the ignorance of Scripture is fatal. And make a change here in your... reference this is mark twelve and twenty four instead of thirteen and twenty four as it reads on your paper mark twelve and twenty four and in john five and thirty nine he said search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and finally see he told them that they would miss the blessing and the joy if they did not believe his word