Church Camp Theme Message 2 - The Holy Spirit in Evangelism and Salvation

13 June 2017, Tuesday, 9:30 am
Eastin Hotel Makkasan, Bangkok

Acts 1:8

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

This commandment continues until today - that we are all witnesses for God, and we continue to share with others of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

What is the purpose of evangelism? It is not our work to convict and convert someone to Christ, it is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is regardless of what we do. Our job is to share the Gospel as plainly as it is to others. What we should not do during evangelism:

• Prove the bible or Christianity: for we are putting God under the test/logic of man. Using science is prove God has never been proven to convict and convert on its own. Let God be true and every man a liar. Using signs and miracles is also another popular ways of evangelism, but God never promised miracles as part of salvation, even if these miracles are all real. It is not the point of salvation. The fundamental purpose of the Holy Spirit in evangelism is to manifest God and the Gospel in man's hearts, not to perform miracles to prove the Gospel. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It is not to be seen, but heard and felt.
• Try to answer all the questions: even if we can answer all of them correctly, there will still be more questions.

We need to evangelize with the correct method, else there will not be any result, and we get depressed, thinking it is our fault.

How to go about evangelizing correctly?

1. Pray - pray for the person that God will move the heart. We go with the presence of God and He will be with us. The Holy Spirit must be in our midst to convict and converts the hearts for us to see results.
2. Know the Gospel - 1 Corinthians 15:3-4   "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
3. Share the message in pure and simple way. Jesus died for our sins, shed his blood to redeem us of our sins, buried and raise from the dead on the 3rd day to bear witness and rose to heaven. Leave the rest of the work to the Holy Spirit. 
4. Other messages - man needs to recognize how sinful we are and how hopeless it is for us to try to get ourselves out of our sins.

We need to go into evangelism with the right understanding of where we are as man. Romans 3:10-18 says we have broken every single law of God, we fall short of the glory of God in all ways. There is none righteous, no, not one. Thus we cannot exalt man and belittle God by trying to prove God exists. Man already knows it, it is a deep recess of our soul as our conscious self. 

1 Corinthians 1:17. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. All glory to God in all things we do.