Evangelism is Pointless Without This

In Aaron Morrow’s Small Town Mission we are reminded of a significant teaching which is often overlooked. In Luke 10 Jesus is ready to send out his 72 evangelists but not before giving them a key. He said,

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Luke 10:2

Jesus pointed out the shortage of workers, not shortage of future converts. His command to them as a first step for their mission was prayer. Evangelism is pointless without prayer.

Three S’s of Evangelism Focused Praying

No matter your conviction about God’s work to save in whether or not God chooses man or man chooses God, there is one unifying truth that cannot be denied: every lost soul needs to Spirit of God to give them life.

In Luke 10 Jesus shows the connectivity between prayer and evangelism. I want to share three prayers I often plead to God on behalf of my unbelieving friends.

1) We pray for the Spirit to Sober men to the Unseen:

Last week I said that we must not merely tell others about Jesus but that we must actively tell of His greatness from a worshipful heart. Yet even with that we must plead for the lost. The lost are just that, lost. They are unaware of the unseen, namely their souls and eternity. We must pray in general and for particular persons that the Spirit would sober them to the unseen realities of their soul and eternity future.

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

People are in such need of having their eyes opened to the fact that they not only exist in the here and now, but that existence goes on after they take their last breath. To think that life is only made of what we see and feel is so truncated. But unless they come to appreciate that they are not only body but also soul, and a soul that will answer to God in eternity, they will have no urgency to hear the gospel message.

2) We Pray for the Spirit to make Men Sensitive to Sin:

A man begins to appreciate the fact that he will answer to God, his Creator and Judge, as he begins to apprehend the nature of sin. Sin is not simply bad activity or harmful habits, but it is heart and hand in rebellion against the Holy God. It is cosmic treason which is an outflow from a corrupt heart, a heart that has been with us from birth. A sinner can do no more to describe his own sinfulness than a fish can describe being wet. He goes on in his covetousness and hate without an inkling of awareness that he is daily, moment by moment in active rebellion against his God.

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Prayers must be raised to God pleading for his mercy to be manifest by the Spirit coming along side sinners to make them aware of their rebellion. It is the Spirit who begins to make the sinner sensitive to his sin. He begins to feel uneasy with what he use to do in total ease. He becomes unsettled by the gossip or anger that once settled his nerves. The Spirit begins to renovate his nature in preparation for hearing the gospel so that the sinner cries out with the Philippian Jailer:

…what must I do to be saved?

Acts 16:30 [2:37]

3) We Pray for the Spirit to lead Men to Seek the Savior of Scripture:

When the sinner is sobered to the reality that he possesses an eternal soul, and that he, soul and all, are sinful and damned, he is ready to seek the Savior.

However, he must seek only the Savior. He must go to scripture not for scripture itself but for the Savior revealed in the Scriptures. Jesus said to the Pharisees,

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me…

John 5:39

The Pharisees were great students of scripture and deeply connected to the synagogues yet no one received such scathing words from Jesus as did the Pharisees.

The sinner must also avoid seeking his answer in joining himself to a church. Both the scriptures and the church are ideal places for a seeker, yet it must not stop with a Bible in hand while seated in a pew. He must join himself to Christ who is the object of scripture and the door into the the church, his bride.

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Our praying must reflect this. We must pray that our fellow man not be content to read the Bible and be in church but that he seek the Savior. We ought to ask the Spirit to do his good work of testifying of the Son and pointing mankind to Him.

Conclusion:

Are you praying? When the unregenerate act like the unregenerate the should cue our prayers. This is the branch of evangelism that can be done in absolute solitude. This is the portion of evangelism that prepares the ground for the seed. By this we grow confident in testifying of the Savior knowing that we have approached the throne of mercy on behalf of the perishing. Are you praying? Who will you pray for? Name them. When will you pray? Mark it down. Pray to the Lord of the harvest.