Go and Preach: Finding God's Highest Through Evangelism

By Rev. Justin M. Steward

Jesus has called all His followers to participate in two great assignments: to preach the Gospel (evangelism) and to teach the nations (discipleship and maturity). In this book, the author points out that Christians often emphasize one or the other, but Christ wants us to be about the business of both. Practical instruction is given on how to be a better witness for Jesus, and an onward vision to maturity is humbly presented. A need for evangelism and the truths of eternal judgment are presented with great balance, clarity, and empathy. “If you have a love for God and a love for people, this book will help to equip you to serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this generation. You will be challenged, strengthened, and blessed as you read it.” (Rev. John Heyer from the Foreword).

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Zion Christian Publishers
• Release date: Jun 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781596657113

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Go and Preach

______________

The Journey to Zion

Justin Steward

Go and Preach © 2018 Justin M. Steward

Published by:

Faithful Steward Enterprises LLC.

1897 South Creek Rd.

Derby, NY 14047

Cover Design: © 2018  Rebecca Vanderburgh

First Printing 2018

Published as an ebook in the United States of America

E-book ISBN 1-59665-711-1

For more information please visit:

https://jms22782.wordpress.com/

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Faithful Steward Enterprises LLC.

1897 South Creek Rd.

Derby, NY 14047

917-983-0004

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews.

Dedication:

There have been many evangelists that have lived over the centuries and each one has their place in the annals of church history.  This year has seen the passing of Billy Graham and the torch has passed to the next generation to carry on the fires of revival.  He was an inspiration to me as have others like George Whitfield, John Wesley, Mark Cahill, and Ray Comfort; but the one that stands tallest in my heart will always be Reinhard Bonnke.  This German Evangelist has burned brightly and powerfully preached the Gospel to millions of people in his lifetime with signs and wonders following.  He has done this without scandal or reproach and has inspired thousands of other evangelists to carry the Gospel to the nations.  Though I have never met this man (but still hope to someday) - the fire that is in him was imparted to me from a video in a Bible school class.  This man changed my life through what Jesus put in him.  Though he is coming to the end of his life and has preached his final crusade this year (2018) I know that the fire in him will live on through the many that he has impacted for the Gospel. 

Mr. Bonnke, though we have never met I love you and dedicate this book to you!

Justin Steward

That All May Be Saved For The Glory of Christ!

Foreword

Jesus Christ has given His followers two Great Assignments:

1. Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every person. Mark 16:15.

2. Go and teach (make disciples of) all nations.  Matthew 28:19,20.

In this book Justin Steward accurately points out that at times, we as Christians tend to place more emphasis on one over the other. Some emphasize evangelism at the expense of teaching, while others emphasize teaching and neglect evangelizing.  This book gives us excellent points on the need for evangelizing and concludes with the corresponding need to bring believers onward to spiritual maturity in Christ.

I have known Justin for many years, and I greatly appreciate his heart for God and for people. He is a man who is on fire for God. God has given him the calling and anointing of an evangelist. His heart continuously and passionately beats for people who are lost in sin and need Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.

He shares with us his ongoing journey in proclaiming the Gospel to people. He openly and humorously tells of his mistakes, failures, and lessons learned the hard way, as well as things that work to reach people with the Gospel.  He has included many practical and helpful tips as to how each of us can be more effective in bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to those we live and work with.  You must read the parable of the fisherman (Chapter 6) which poignantly describes some of us when it comes to our lack of evangelism.

In the latter part of the book, Justin points out to us from the Scriptures, that God’s goal has always been that His people should grow into maturity in Christ.  In many parts of the Christian church, there is a lack of emphasis on growing up in Christ. Along with the assignment to evangelize is the equally important need to work and pray towards bringing every believer to maturity: Till we all come... to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; Ephesians 4:13. Jesus has given us the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher to accomplish this great purpose. We need to have the Biblical balance of evangelizing and instructing people to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18.

Justin has a burden to see people saved from their sins, and then to grow in their relationship with God.  If you have a love for God and a love for people, this book will help to equip you to serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this generation.

You will be challenged, strengthened, and blessed as you read it.

Rev. John Heyer

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Acknowledgements:

I wish to thank these amazing people:  Their countless hours and dedication to the project made this project come to life.  You all did a great job.  Thank you so much!

Cover Design: Rebecca Vanderburgh.  Thank you for putting up with my pickiness.  The cover turned out great. 

Editorial, Proofreading, and Formatting Team: Suzanne Ying and the Zion Office staff, Sandra Steward, Lauren Ingrao, Anthony Farley.  The editorial team did a tremendous job.  There are parts in this book that don’t even sound like my writing because you greatly improved on my style and form.  You did awesome.  Thank you!

A Special Thank You to Rev. John Heyer.

You are the reason that my family came into the deeper vision of Zion and were introduced to the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the early 90’s.  Your pastoral love and care showed my parents a new and better way.  Then as a Bible school student - your class in my first semester lit and stoked the fires of evangelism in my heart.  Your teaching was so clear and everything inside of me said yes and no at the same time.  No because of fear, but yes because the call of God was being illuminated through your teaching, and the introduction to the ministry of Reinhard Bonnke.  It wasn’t only the class that made a difference.  You saw in me the call of an evangelist, and more than anyone else in my life you went out of your way to encourage me in that gift.  You have consistently given me opportunities to come to your church and given freedom to flow as God would have.  This book would not even be possible if it weren’t for your class.  Thank you for allowing me to borrow from notes I took in your class to write portions of this book.  For these reasons I am eternally grateful for you!  God Bless You!

Introduction

Do we need another book on evangelism?  There have already been so many written, yet it is my belief that this book has something to offer the Body of Christ that others do not.  While there will be many things in this work that have already been said, perhaps it will be said in a different light, and I believe that there is a unique perspective that this book offers—the role of evangelism in our pursuit of the vision of Zion or in other words, God’s highest and best for our lives.

There can be a tendency, in some Christian circles, to major on certain aspects of the Christian life while neglecting other important truths.  In this work, I want to focus on two often opposing sides which are both based on important aspects of the Christian life. 

One side majors on the deeper life and the pursuit of holiness, but neglects evangelism.  Some in this camp can even come across as being critical of those who major on evangelism and begin to view them as though they are on a lower spiritual level (Outer Court).  The other side majors on evangelism while neglecting personal holiness and coming to maturity in Christ.  Those in this camp focus on evangelism, while neglecting the truths of growing up to maturity in Jesus Christ. They can be very critical of those who are pursuing the deeper life, even thinking of them as extreme or legalistic.  Such an approach produces many spiritual babies and very few spiritual fathers.

In our Christian life, it is very important to strike the perfect balance of two seemingly opposite poles.  The Lord is a God of balance; in fact, He hates a false balance (c.f. Proverbs 11:1).  When Paul wrote to Timothy about rightly dividing the Word of Truth, he was talking about this subject of balance (2 Tim. 2:15).  He was saying that as a student of the Word of God, we need to see what all the Word of God has to say about a subject and divide it right down the middle, so that the right side is the exact same size as the left side.   It is with this balance in mind that this work is being written.  I want to show that God is after both things—evangelism and the deeper life of holiness (maturity in Christ).  It has never been about just one or the other, but it has always been about both.  Therefore, the major purpose of this book is not only to discuss evangelism, but also to show the great need for the vision of holiness and maturity (the vision of Zion).  I also seek to reveal how important it is to set this deeper vision before all new believers.  Finally, the last section of the book is dedicated to showing how these two important truths are married together in perfect harmony; you need both, you cannot have one without the other! The main message I seek to convey is that you cannot attain spiritual perfection, holiness, and go on to Zion if you are neglecting your own active, personal involvement in evangelism!

Part I.

Evangelism

Section A –

Introduction to Evangelism

Chapter 1

Introduction to Evangelism

Evangelism is perhaps the most important subject to be discussed on planet earth, in heaven above, and even in hell below.  This subject began in heaven before the creation of the earth.  God knew that mankind would sin and would need redemption.  God had the plan of redemption in His heart before He even made men.  What an amazing God! 

Evangelism is spreading the good news that God has made a way for man to be rescued from his sins and to enjoy restored fellowship with his Creator. This way came at great cost to God the Father and Jesus Christ, the only begotten Divine Son of God (Jn. 3:16).  Evangelism is about winning souls for Christ by spreading the good news.  The Bible tells us that he that wins souls is wise (Prov. 11:30).  Therefore, this subject is going to help us become wise people and to be better soul winners - Amen!  Such an important subject indeed!

What is Evangelism?

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile defined evangelism in the following way:

According to the New Testament, evangelism is just preaching the gospel, the evangel. It is a work of communication in which Christians make themselves mouthpieces for God’s message of mercy to sinners. Anyone who faithfully delivers that message, under whatever circumstances, in a large meeting, in a small meeting, from a pulpit, or in a private conversation, is evangelizing. Since the divine message finds its climax in a plea from the Creator to a rebel world to turn and put faith in Christ, the delivering of it involves the summoning of one’s hearers to conversion. (Anyabwile)

The word Evangel is a word rooted in the Greek word euangellion (evangel) which means good message or good news.  In English we simply say the Gospel.  Evangelize is the verb form and is a transliteration from the Greek of the word euangelizo.  In the Greek New Testament, this word euangelizo appears about fifty-five times, and is usually translated preach the Gospel or preach the Good news.  The Oxford Dictionary of Current English defines evangelize as: to preach the gospel, to convert to Christianity (298).

The word evangelize is not found in the New Testament of the King James English Bible, but the word Evangelist is (Greek - Ευαγγελιστης) (Acts 21:8, 2 Tim. 4:5, Eph. 4:11).  An evangelist  is a messenger of good news, a preacher of the Gospel, or a good messenger.  Evangelize, therefore, means to announce good news, or bring good tidings, and the word preach is almost always associated with it. 

The word preach is found in Luke 4:18: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."  The word preach is also used by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:14-15:  "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.  So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also."  

A preacher is a herald or a public crier.  If you look back to the olden days before the invention of the printing press, whenever there was some news to be spread, the king would send out a preacher or a herald to announce the news to the subjects in his realm.  This is essentially what evangelism is, announcing the news from the King of Kings. In fact, where the word preach appears in the New Testament, the equivalent in Greek is the word euangelizo which is to announce good news (evangelize) especially the gospel: - declare, bring (declare, show) glad (good) tidings, preach (the gospel) (Strong’s G2097).

The Old Testament was not written in Greek, but we do find in our English Bibles the same word preach.  Isaiah the prophet spoke these words from the mouth of the coming Messiah Himself "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek…" (Isa. 61:1a).  The word for preach in the Old Testament may be translated bawser in Hebrew, which is "…full (rosy, figuratively cheerful); to announce (glad news): - messenger, preach, publish, shew forth, (bear, bring, carry, preach, good, tell good) tidings" (Strong’s H1319).

The news that the Messiah was going to bring was good news, and we also need to sound like we are announcing good news, by being refreshing and cheerful when we are speaking of the Gospel.  Whatever we say in our evangelistic endeavors, we need to portray it as good news.  The Old Testament also uses the word preach in Jonah 3:2 where the Lord told His prophet to go to Nineveh and preach.  His preaching was not unlike a modern day evangelistic crusade. There was quite a response!  The whole city turned to God.  There must have been a rich anointing on him.

Evangelism is clearly associated with preaching or announcing a good message to those who will hear it.  What is the good news that should be announced?  That Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, has come in the flesh to die so that mankind would have a way to have their sins forgiven and a restored relationship with God.  That is good news!  That is the best news in the world!  I don’t know about you, but when I hear some good news I want to tell someone about that good news.  I heard a man of God giving a prophecy some years back and the Lord was saying, "So many people want to be apostles and prophets, and these other ministries BUT I want to hear good news in the earth and I am not hearing it."   I am praying that by reading this book, you will be stirred up to go out fulfill the desire of our Lord Jesus Christ to announce this good news to the people in your sphere of influence and beyond to the nations of the earth.

Chapter 2

Why Evangelize?

Perhaps you read the last section and asked yourself why you should evangelize.  Though the question was answered in part in the previous chapter, we are going to discover that there are many good reasons why you should be involved in announcing the good news to a lost and dying world.  Over the next few pages of this chapter let us uncover seven main reasons why a Christian should evangelize.

Without Jesus Christ as One’s Lord and Savior, One Is Lost for All Eternity

There are many liberal Christians who would argue against this point, but to say otherwise would be to ignore the whole canon of Scripture.  The Bible is very clear on this issue, and we should also be clear on this issue – everyone, absolutely everyone, who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord will be lost eternally.  In John 3:17-18, the Apostle John writes, For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn. 3:17-18).  To be lost is to be in hell and to end up eventually in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:15).  It is not seeker-friendly for us to talk about hell, but the reality is that Jesus Christ taught about hell nearly twice as often as He did about heaven.

In Luke 16:19-31, the Lord gives us a vivid portrayal of hell.  There is a story of a rich man, and a beggar named Lazarus. They both died; one went to Paradise, and the other went to hell.  In verse 22, it is clear that even though they had died, they were very much alive in an eternal place for the rest of the story.  The rich man is said to be tormented and in flames.  He begged for an opportunity to go back and warn his brothers, so that they would not have to come to the same place.  He would have done anything that he could to STOP people that he loved from coming to that place.  I have met people who say things like I want to go to hell; all my friends are going to be there, or I want to go to hell, that is where all the cool people are, and it is going to be a great party.  Well I can make a sure prediction, based on the Word of God. If your friends are there now, they would do anything they could to try to stop you from going there.

The rich man retained all of his sensory faculties in hell (Lk. 16:23). He could see with his eyes, hear with his ears, and he could feel the torment of fire all over his body.  He had the sensation of thirst so much that he would have been content to have just a drop of water on his tongue (Lk.16:24).  Bill Wiese also had the experience of being taken to hell, which he penned in the book entitled Twenty Three Minutes in Hell. There, he confirmed what Scripture records—one of the most prominent torments was the fact that hell was completely void of water:

There is no water in Hell, at all, no water. There’s no humidity in the air and no water of any kind. It is so dry; you are desperate for a drop of water, just one. Just like the scripture says in Luke 16:23-24….  (Wiese).

He would have given almost anything for just one drop of water to drink. I had a small taste of what this aspect of hell would be like when I was suffering from Hepatitis A in Zambia with a high grade fever.  My mouth was so dry, and I could not rehydrate because I had been vomiting.  I remember my tongue feeling like a dried out piece of leather or a sock, and it was just so awful.  I remember longing for a drink and told the physician who was caring for me that all I want is a drink of water.  I could not imagine experiencing that suffering for an innumerable number of days with no end in sight, and this is just one of the torments experienced in hell.

In an eternal and immortal state, the soul of the damned will retain all of his senses and literally feel the flames, as if he were in his mortal body here on earth.  The flames are also mentioned later in scripture: And the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name (Rev. 14:11).This is the vision we need to have; we need to be filled with the reality of what happens to the lost when they die.  This can give us a healthy drive to see the lost won into the kingdom of God.

The Bible, in more than one place, talks about the "worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched" (Mk. 9:44, 46, 48; Isa. 66:24) (c.f. Isa. 14:11). I have heard testimonies of men and women who had vivid experiences in hell.  Among other things, this is what one said,

We went and stood in front of one of the flames, and it started to go down slowly. Soon I could see a person inside, When he spoke, I could tell it was a man. He was wearing a priest’s garments, which were totally filthy and shredded. Worms were slithering in and out all over his body. He looked charred and burnt by the fire. His eyes were gone and his flesh was melting and falling to the ground. But after his flesh had all fallen off, it grew back, and the whole process started again (Revelations 3rd Testimony)

A number of years ago, there was a group of youth from Columbia who were privileged to have some extraordinary spiritual experiences.  The Lord personally escorted them to heaven and also to hell.  They have a documented testimony, and one thing that stood out in a particular testimony was this:

"Among those millions and millions of people, the Lord allowed us to focus on a man whose body was half-way submerged in the lake of fire.  The Lord let us know and understand his thoughts.  His name was Mark. 

We were amazed by the things he said to himself in his thoughts.  We learned an eternal lesson when we heard him think the following thoughts: "I would give anything to be in your place right now!  I would give anything to go back to earth for just one minute.  I wouldn't care if I were the most miserable, sickest, most hated, or the poorest man in the world;