The audiovisual gospel (Part 1)

Announcer: Welcome to Sword of the Spirit, written and presented by Colin Dye, senior minister of Kensington Temple and leader of London City Church. Sword of the Spirit is a dynamic teaching series equipping the believers of today to build the disciples of tomorrow. We pray that you find these programs inspiring, and a catalyst in deepening your knowledge of God, your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and your intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

Colin Dye: Hello, and welcome to The Sword of the Spirit, a school of ministry in the Word and the Spirit. Our topic is Reaching the Lost. That is, evangelizing the nations of the world with the wonderful good news of Jesus. We have seen that this is a central part of the work of the church of Jesus Christ on this earth. And when we evangelize, we are following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. He proclaimed the message of God’s favor. He proclaimed that there was to be healing for the broken hearted. He proclaimed that there was to be release to those who were in prison. He proclaimed that there was to be recovery of sight to the blind. He proclaimed that there would be a message that would set free the captives from the prison of sin, and that He also proclaimed that this message was to go into all the earth. All these wonderful elements are the fruit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we proclaim Christ, people’s lives are changed. Their broken hearts are healed, their spiritual blindness is removed, and they begin to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That’s why this mission is urgent. It’s urgent today as it always has been urgent throughout every generation because there are people all over the world who have never once yet heard that Jesus is the Savior and that He can change their life and bring them into a right relationship with God through simple faith and trust, because of God’s grace poured out in their life. This message is the life changing message—the message that is full of life and joy and freedom and pardon. That’s why I’m excited, as I teach in this series on Reaching the Lost. God bless you as you watch and listen today.

Hello, and welcome to this session on Reaching the Lost. We’ve been looking at the meaning of evangelism, because that’s what we’re talking about—reaching the lost. We’ve seen that it’s not just preaching to them; it’s loving them with the love of Christ. Just as Jesus didn’t speak to us loudly from heaven—He came down to the earth, lived amongst us, and incarnated Himself and demonstrated the Father’s love in practical ways. He also showed us that the kingdom of God is a kingdom of power. And He demonstrated that power by setting people free from the bondage of sin and the bondage of Satan—delivering people from demonic spirits, raising the dead, healing sicknesses, opening blind eyes, and opening deaf ears. So what we have is an audiovisual gospel. It’s not just a gospel that is to be heard; it’s a gospel that is to be seen. And in the last session, we looked at all the biblical material from the definition of the word evangelism and its use in the New Testament, to all the examples that there are of evangelism. And so all this convinces us that it’s not enough for us just to speak. We must also live the gospel. We must also demonstrate it. Because if we’re proclaiming the gospel, then we must show that our proclamation is not empty words, merely, but we are proclaiming a kingdom that we have received and that can be seen and demonstrated amongst us and through us. and so I call this the audiovisual gospel. The audiovisual gospel. Now we’re going to look at the noun of the word evangelism. In the Greek, it’s euangelion. It means ‘the gospel.’ And it describes the content. I’ve been stressing, haven’t I, that it’s important to see that preaching the gospel and evangelism is more than just words. More than just words. It’s demonstrating it. But the gospel is a word from God. The apostle Paul, when he came to Thessalonica and wrote to them about it, he said, “My gospel came to you, not in word only, but also in power and demonstration and full conviction and assurance.” But it did come in word. To say it didn’t come in word only means it came in the word and in power. Not only the word, but the word and power. But it did come in the word. And the gospel must be preached, the gospel must be proclaimed, the gospel has content, because this is what this word means—euangelion—it’s talking about the message, or content of the gospel. And also, it means the purpose of the gospel. The purpose of the gospel. And always, it’s linked together with something else. So it doesn’t just talk about the gospel; it’s the gospel of something, which points to its content. It points to its purpose. Okay? So for example, we have the gospel of the kingdom. And there verses and scriptures here for it. The gospel of God, the gospel of God concerning His Son, the gospel of His Son, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the gospel of our Lord Jesus, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of the glory of Christ, the gospel of the grace of God. Can you see how all of these things point to the content? What is the gospel going to tell us about? It’s going to tell us about the grace of God. The gospel of the glory of the blessed God, the gospel of your salvation. What’s the gospel going to say? What’s the euangelion going to tell you? It’s going to tell you about your salvation. The gospel of peace, the eternal gospel. Paul says, “It’s my gospel; our gospel.” So from these, we can learn, I would say, about four basic facts about the content of the gospel, and these are central; these are important. Four basic facts. Four basic truths about the gospel.

The first one is, it is the gospel of the kingdom—the gospel of the kingdom. Because the kingdom has come, and it’s the announcement of the kingdom that brings the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.” And of course, that also shows us how the gospel must come, not just in word, because it’s no good saying, “The kingdom is here.” People are going to say, “Well, where is it, then? Let’s see it.” Now we saw, when we looked at the series The Rule of God, that the kingdom is both now and not yet. There are aspects of the kingdom that are not going to be seen now because it relates to the future manifestation. But the revelation that Jesus brought is that the kingdom has already come. There is a now form of the kingdom. The kingdom is both now and not yet. There’s something that is yet to come, but there’s something that is here now. And it’s the rule of God which has come. The rule of God, which has come personally in Christ and through Christ. And it’s not the rule of God that comes through the law; those are the rules of God. So in The Rule of God, I contrast that. In that manual, I contrasted the rules of and the rule. The rules and the rule. We’ve come to submit to the rule. It’s not about simply following the rules. Okay? Now the personal rule of God has come. Therefore, the kingdom has come because the King is here. That’s the content of the gospel. And we need to proclaim this in exactly the same way that Jesus proclaimed it. We need to go to people and say, “The kingdom of God has come to you.” Because as we go as ambassadors of the King, we go as His representatives, bringing the kingdom, announcing the kingdom, and bringing it. So it’s interesting to notice that the first reference to the gospel of the kingdom is set in the context of spoken proclamation and healing the sick and casting out demons. What did Jesus do? He says, “The kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. Repent and believe the good news.” And then what did He do? Straightaway, He healed the sick. Straightaway, He cast out demons. And so we see that the reference to the gospel of the kingdom is in the context of proclamation and healing. We see this again in Matthew chapter 4 verses 23 to 24. This is, perhaps, the second time that the gospel’s mentioned—the gospel of the kingdom. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then His fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought to Him all sick people with—and those [stutters] who were afflicted with various diseases and torments and those who were demon possessed, epileptics and paralytics, and He healed them because He had compassion on them.” So we have the context of the gospel of the kingdom—healing and signs and wonders—all because of the compassion of Jesus. And so the good news of the kingdom is that God’s rule has now come. It is present in the person of Jesus Christ—that He rules over people, that He rules over sicknesses, over evil, over evil spirits and over everything. And so Jesus announced in words what He demonstrated in deeds and what He manifested through His compassion. If the gospel we bear is not all of these three things, it is not really the full gospel. Now I know that that’s controversial, because you see, what we’re talking about is, is that the full gospel message. Well, if you’re thinking about the verbal message, then okay, perhaps you can dispense with the signs and the wonders. You can dispense with the living the life. You can be—you can live the life of a demon and preach the message of an angel. Whether anybody will believe you is another matter. Or you can say, “God loves you and He heals the sick,” or the message of the gospel, you know, and all the rest of it, but unless you actually demonstrate it, then they begin to wonder whether you really are a representative of this gospel. And everywhere I have gone in the world, where there’s been signs and wonders alongside the preaching of the gospel, we’ve felt that we have left and implanted something which is more than word only. People see and know that God is for real. There was a famous evangelist who was preaching in a certain place in the world. And this evangelist is very well known as being an evangelist in word only. He preaches the gospel, he does not pray for the sick, he does not believe in signs and wonders as being part of his ministry. And he came to a certain place in one of the nations in the developing world. I am keeping all names and places out of this in order to protect the guilty. And he came to that place, and they said, “Well, you’ve been here for several days. When are you going to pray for the sick?” He said, “Well, I don’t do that. God sent me to preach the gospel, not pray to the sick.” And they said, “Well, where we come from and here, every evangelist comes here also prays for the sick and we see great miracles and the two go together. It’s how we understand.” He said, “It’s not how I understand it.” They pressed and pressed him, till finally on the last night, he conceded to do it this way—he said, “Everybody that’s got prayer requests write them down and put them in a box.” And he stood on the other side of the platform and he said, “Okay, Lord, now I will pray You bless these people that have breathed their prayer requests and bless them and minister to them.” And the story goes how that there were astonishing healings that took place as a result of that man’s unbelieving prayer. God is a God of mercy; God is a God of grace. You see, the whole point about this is this—is that when the kingdom comes, whether you like it or not, God wants to heal the sick. When the kingdom comes, like it or not, God wants to set people free. He wants to set people free from demonic powers. Jesus said, “If I, by the finger of God, if I, by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom has come upon you.” He said, “If you don’t believe what I say, believe me for the sake of what I do. Believe me for the works’ sake.” So what we see here is that the gospel of the kingdom is the content of this good news. The kingdom has come. That is good news. Satan’s tyranny is over. God’s rule of love and power and healing and blessing and forgiveness and deliverance has come. But we must also remember that when we preach the good news of the gospel—the gospel of the kingdom—that we tell them that the time is coming when God’s kingdom will be fully manifested. You cannot preach this message as if it’s a one stage coming. There is a first coming of Messiah and a second coming. And we preach the good news of the kingdom in an eschatological sense and we say Jesus is coming back. I don’t think gospel preaching is complete without the second coming, or the message of the second coming. Doesn’t mean to say every gospel message must mention the second coming, but the [stutters] gospel of the kingdom must be preached in the light of the second coming of Jesus—the coming of the kingdom of God. So the euangelion is the gospel of the kingdom. The message is the message of the kingdom.

Secondly, we see that it is the gospel of God. It’s the gospel of God. God is the content of the gospel. The Good News is good news about God—that God loves you, that He’s not finished with you yet. That’s good news. That God, though He is the righteous, just judge of the earth, has provided a way of escape. In the series Knowing the Father, we emphasized the Father-facing nature of Bible believing faith—that it is God who loved the world, that it is God who sent Jesus. The gospel is about God. Repentance, primarily, is towards God. Faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance towards God. In other words, we change our mind concerning God, that we now see Him for who He really is—this loving, holy, all knowing, all wise, merciful God, who nevertheless, is the judge of the world, but in His mercy, He has provided a way of escape. The amazing, divine revelation is that human redemption has been initiated by the Father, accomplished by the Son, and is applied by the Holy Spirit. This is the gospel of God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It’s the life giving story of the eternally submitting Son, who came to this earth in obedience to the Father and was obedient unto death, even death on the cross. His Abba prayer of submission to the Father was, “Let Your will be done. Not as I will, but let Your will be done.” The gospel of God is about the gospel of the Holy Spirit, who is the empowering Spirit of God, the enabling Spirit of God, the enabling, self-effacing Spirit, who says, “I’ve not come to speak about myself. I’ve come to show you Jesus.” As we’ve seen in Knowing the Spirit, so—Knowing the Father, Knowing the Son, and Knowing the Spirit—those three series on the Sword of the Spirit ministry to you, is the content of the gospel. The gospel is not just good news about Jesus; it’s also good news about the Father and good news about the Spirit. That’s why the response to the gospel must be responding to the Father’s love in the name of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. And when it’s not enough just to say, “Well, you must repent and you must believe,” we must also lead people into the full commitment of water baptism, submerging them fully into the confession of their faith and the demonstration of their commitment to Christ. And they must also open their hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. So we don’t hear very often in the New Testament about accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. We hear about believing the message and receiving the Spirit because it’s the Spirit who brings you Jesus. It’s the Spirit who causes you to be born again. It’s the Spirit who enables you to live for Christ. And the good news is that He hasn’t just forgiven your sin, but He’s given you a new nature birthed by the Holy Spirit, formed by God within you. It’s the gospel of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. But the gospel of God is also good news from God. It’s His initiative. It’s His revelation. God has spoken in the gospel, truths about Himself. He has revealed Himself. In our—in Living Faith and Listening to God, we see that every word from God is a self revelation of God. So the gospel of God is the good news about Himself—the full, triune self. So this means that we must take very great care never to twist or to alter the gospel. That we must take great care, also, to study the gospel and comprehend it with our understanding. This is the content of the message of the gospel. God. There’s some sermon material there, isn’t there? You know, one of the ways that we can twist the gospel is by wrongly emphasizing it. If we preach the gospel as if it’s only about Jesus, we’ve missed it and we’ve twisted the gospel. If we preach the gospel, it’s only about forgiveness, we’ve missed it. We’ve twisted the gospel. Now I know that a lot of Bible teachers are very critical of evangelists because they expect the evangelist to behave like a Bible teacher. And so the Bible teachers say, “The trouble with you evangelists, you have no content to your message.” I remember I was in a discussion with a group of ministers. I was on the menu again. It was a lunch meeting. And I was associated with a certain American evangelist at that time as we were working together. And I wasn’t like his partner, but we had many churches working together. And one of the men said, “I came to one of those meetings and the gospel was not preached. This man does not preach the gospel.” So I said, “You came to one meeting and you know his ministry now? Wow. You’ve got great discernment. It’s marvelous.” Anyway, he pressed on until the point was made that, you know, he didn’t believe that there was an adequate, full presentation of the gospel. And so I said, “Well, what is an adequate, full presentation of the gospel?” And as far as he was concerned, it was a course in systematic theology—the doctrine of God, the doctrine of revelation, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of the person and work of Christ, the doctrine of the church, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit—there wasn’t much of Him there, mind you—and so forth. Now what he’s simply doing is confusing two offices in the church—the evangelist and the Bible teacher. I remember one evangelist frustrated with such a conversation once, turned round and he said, “You know, well, look. I’ll tell you what. I’ll get them saved. You teach them anything you want to teach them.” We’ve got to get these two ministries together a little bit more. So anyway, as I went on listening to this man, he was going on and on about all that the evangelist was supposed to say. So I said, “Hold it right there. Tell me, how many texts does it take to get somebody saved? One text? Two? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?” The Holy Spirit can use God’s Word as He chooses to use God’s Word. And He gets through people. This is a process. It’s not as if before, you know, here we are, we’re  unregenerate, and then suddenly we hear a systematic exposition of the gospel and we comprehend that and we then decide to get saved because we decide to believe it. That is not how it works. Please don’t ask me how it works. I don’t know. Jesus warned us not to ask. He said, “Don’t ask. Nobody knows where the wind is coming from, where it’s going to. All you know is that it is blowing.” So we don’t know how the Holy Spirit works. It’s a process. He brings people to a place of conviction and it’s the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the heart and the understanding grows and develops. You must have some understanding, otherwise you don’t know who you’re believing in. so in order to become a Christian, you must have some content to this gospel presented to you because the gospel has content. There must be some basics there, but the Bible never really elaborates on exactly what that is. If you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’re saved. Lordship of Christ, resurrection, Jesus is alive, Jesus died for you—these are some of the basic things. But we must be very careful that we preach the gospel in the context in which they will not be surprised when you lead them on into the other truths that you didn’t have time to preach that night. So they’re not going to suddenly say, “Oh, well that’s not what I heard when I was evangelized.” And so sometimes we can preach the gospel and pervert it and twist it by what we leave out of our message. One of the ways this is happening today is that people are forgetting about repentance and judgment. Instead of, “Yes, Jesus loves me,” perhaps it could be, “Repent; Jesus is going to judge you.” Isn’t that right? How did John the Baptist do it? He said, “Who has told you to flee from the wroth to come?” Jesus said, “Repent and believe the good news.” The message of repentance is being left out of the gospel. The gospel is not good news without repentance because without repentance there’s no salvation. Without repentance, what you left with? You’re left with a God whom you don’t know and [stutters] whose opinion and your opinion of Him is an idolatrous one, because you’re believing in some other kind of God, not the God that’s revealed Himself. And if you see the God who’s revealed Himself, you repent, because you see Him for who He is. Paul is very clear on this. 2 Corinthians 11 verse 8—verse 4. He says, “For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.” [correct reference is 2 Corinthians 11:4] In other words, he said, it’s happening People are coming to preach a different gospel. Now do you notice that? With a different gospel there’s a different spirit and a different Jesus. So we must give ourselves time. Now in many ways, in many ways, I would like to just to take you out on the streets and to take these cameras with us and we just go and evangelize. Let’s go and do it. That’s the best classroom. Okay? But having said that, there is value in what we’re doing today and in these sessions, because I’m making you think. I’m making you analyze. I’m making you use your mind by the power of the Holy Spirit so that your understanding will grow, that your understanding will develop, and you will never become a superficial gospel preacher. That you will be a bringer of good news in a word that is full and you will declare the whole counsel of God and you will also live it and demonstrate it in your life. It’s the gospel of God.

And that brings to an end today’s teaching on Reaching the Lost. I pray that you’ve been inspired to reach out to people who don’t yet know Jesus Christ with the wonderful message of the gospel. We’ll be back next time with more teaching on Reaching the Lost. Till then, God bless you.

Recommended reading

• Dye, Colin. Reaching the lost, Kensington Temple, 2007
• Bonnke, Reinhard. Evangelism by fire: Igniting your passion for the lost,Full Flame Gmbh, 2002

Additional reading

• Osborne, T. L. Soulwinning out where the sinners are, Harrison House, 1980
• Bonnke, Reinhard. Time is running out: Save the world before it’s too late, Regal Books, 1999