Episode 105: The Best Sermon on Evangelism I've Ever Heard

To the Ruled Church Podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

Christ the King and the Church as a Monarchy

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible church.

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast.

I am your host, Alan Nelson. I am one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas, a great metropolis of, what, 15? It depends on what side of the city you're coming in. So if you come in, if you wanna call it a city, if you're coming in from the west, then the population says like 13-something.

If you're coming in from the east, from the Conway side, the population says like 14-something. So we have been a church since 1996, although we changed our name recently. We subscribe to the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, and just trying to do ministry here faithfully.

Why Evangelism Matters for the Church

We believe Christ is worthy of a healthy church. One of the things that we do as a church is we try to have a consistent commitment to evangelism. And part of the reason for that is because it's biblical, but part of the reason that that happened here, one of the things that God used in our life as a church, and in my life as a pastor, is the sermon that you are about to hear.

You're gonna hear a sermon in this episode from Pastor Randall Easter. He is the pastor at By the Word Baptist Church in Azel, Texas. I had him and my friend Michael Coghlan come for a conference on evangelism three years ago, and this was March of 2022.

And I wasn't ready for this message in the sense of knowing what God would do with it in my life. I understand when you hear a sermon, lots of things come to play. The sermon itself, the faithfulness of the sermon itself, the delivery of the sermon, but also what factors in is your mindset, what's going on in your life, and those sorts of things.

And so when I say that this is the best sermon on evangelism that I've ever heard, I understand that some of that might be a bit subjective, but I want you to listen to it. I want our listeners to listen to it.

I want you to give yourself time to listen and digest. You know, when it comes to preaching, there are probably two big things that you can hit if you wanna convict people. One is prayer, and talk about prayer.

No one's satisfied with their prayer life. The other is evangelism. Not a lot of, I'm talking about faithful Christians, Christians who are truly Christians and who care about the church and Christ and lost souls.

Most of us are not satisfied with our state of evangelism. We want to be better. And so in this message, you'll hear a challenge. We talk ourselves out of evangelistic opportunities all the time. But the premise of the message that you're gonna hear is this, sow nothing, reap nothing.

You don't leave the track. You don't have the conversation where you can be guaranteed of 100 failure. Now, if you have the conversation, if you preach the gospel, if you pass out of track, does that mean all of a sudden you're gonna see a lot of fruit necessarily?

No, but if you don't do anything, you won't see anything. So do something. And that is the premise of what you're gonna hear from Pastor Randall. I've had the blessing of actually hearing this message twice.

So I heard it in 2022. And then last summer in 2024, we were in Mexico and Pastor Randall preached this sermon there as well. And I can tell you that it wasn't just my experience in 2022 that I thought this was the best sermon on evangelism.

It's the same experience in 2024. Surprisingly, it's not from a New Testament text, but from an Old Testament text. And not just any Old Testament text, but from the book of Ecclesiastes. So you probably haven't heard very many sermons from the book of Ecclesiastes.

And then you probably haven't heard very many evangelistic sermons from the book of Ecclesiastes. And you probably didn't imagine that one of the best sermons that you could hear on evangelism would be from the book of Ecclesiastes.

Okay, you've heard enough from me. I'm gonna turn it over now to my brother and my friend, a faithful pastor, faithful expositor. Listen now to Randall Easter preach the best sermon on evangelism that I think I've ever heard.

And I hope that you're edified. I hope it changes your life when it comes to sharing the gospel. Here we go.

Randall Easter on the Great Commission in Ecclesiastes 11

Greetings from Texas. Good to be with you tonight. I know it's certainly not about me, but just where you have some parameters. My wife is with me. We've been married for 32 years. I have four children and then I have four grandchildren as well.

I have only pastored one church in my life and I'm still there by the Word Baptist Church, just west of Fort Worth, Texas. I've been there for 22 years. And it's a good church. We love it there and raised our kids there.

I love church. I love everything about church. I really do. I've been in church for 53 years, 53 years old. So I don't know that I've ever missed church or been out of church for anything in my life. And so I have no regrets about that.

Church is the best place in the world because it's the only institution that God is gonna send his son to gather unto himself. It's the only institution that matters. Church is worth living for. It's worth dying for.

It's worth everything because I mean, you look at the Scriptures. Christ purchased her with his own blood. There's that much value in her. We ought to value her that much as well. And I'm not speaking superficially.

I've been through enough church fights and all kinds of dilemmas and problems to know that even through all that, there's still nothing better than the church. And so I'm certainly not going to leave her.

All right, so let's get to the text tonight. You can find your place in Ecclesiastes 11, verses one through six. Cast your bread upon the waters. Cast your bread upon the waters. Ecclesiastes 11, verses one through six.

I'm gonna give you a heading and I'll give you four words. Try to make it simple as I can make it tonight. And so if you are a note taker, you can take it. If not, you should be able to remember because I'll try to say the words enough for them to stick with you.

But the heading tonight is the Great Commission. The heading tonight is the Great Commission. The four words that I have for you tonight, number one is faith. Number two is fear. Number three is finite.

And number four is future. So you have a heading, the Great Commission. Four words, faith, fear, finite, and future. And so hopefully we'll get some parameters on that tonight. The Great Commission, as you know, is found in Psalm 96.

Oh, sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, bless His name. Tell of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations. His marvelous works among all the peoples.

Why?

For great is the Lord. That's the motive. For great is the Lord. That's what drives us, if you will. His name is great and is greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Splendor and majesty are before Him. Tremble before Him, all of the earth. You can go through that Psalm 96. You can go through that on your own time. But 17 imperatives, 17 commands in that one chapter.

Commands have two responses. You can obey or disobey. But the God of heaven has commanded. Whether you believe it, whether you like it, whatever your position is, it doesn't matter. The command has been given by the sovereign.

The King of heaven has commanded. Tell of my salvation day after day. That's the command. Declare my glory among the nations. That's the command God has given to His church. It's not something that we can negotiate with.

We either bow in submission to the sovereign King and say, yes, Lord, or we rebel and say, I'm not going to do what you command me to do. It's not oversimplified. It's just the truth of the matter. God has made His gospel of such great importance.

He has commanded us to tell of it, to declare it among the nations. Now tonight, our text is Ecclesiastes 11 1 -6. And the text reads this way. Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

And I'm just going to give light commentary as I read. But notice in the text, not you might find it sometime in the future. You've got a 50 -50 shot that it may come back someday. The text does not read that way.

The text says you cast your bread and you will receive. Do you see the promise that is inserted in the text? There's a responsibility upon you. You must cast the bread. If you don't cast it, then it is not out there.

But if you do, the promise is returned. You will receive after many days. A lot of you are not receiving because you have not been doing any casting. Cast your bread upon the waters. You'll find it after many days.

Then notice verse two, give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. You give the gospel, you give the gospel. Well, I gave it five times. I gave it eight times.

I gave it 12 times. I gave it to this one person three times. Give it to them four times. Give it to them five times. You say, well, I've already told them. Well, just tell them again and tell them again and tell them again.

Just keep giving because you do not know what may happen. You don't know what disaster's coming. They may be dead in the morning. You don't know. You don't know. They may have terminal cancer right now.

You don't know if tonight they may be hit by a car. You don't know. Just give them the gospel because of the fact that you don't know. You have no idea what's gonna happen for the rest of this day. It's just like so many times you got the gospel opportunity and you clam up and you're like, tomorrow, tomorrow may never come for them.

Verse three, if the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth. And if a tree falls to the south or to the north in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. Just a side note, that's the verse that led to R .C. Sproul's conversion.

Verse number four, he who observes the wind will not sow and he who regards the clouds will not reap. Now a word change in verse five in my text, but as you do not know the way the wind, instead of spirit, the way the wind comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, note this, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

I'll gladly claim ignorance upon this issue. I don't know how God works all the time, but I know He works and that's enough. Verse six, in the morning, sow your seed and at evening, withhold not your hand, pretty much taking up the compass of the day.

For you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. I simply don't know, but I do know this, if I don't do anything, I will never reap anything. I know that. Now tonight, as we look at this, I just have one question to set the stage and we'll just go through this text and hopefully we'll be encouraged and gain some things along the way.

My question is this, and it comes from my text, are you looking at the clouds or are you wondering who's going to move the tree? Are you looking at the clouds or are you wondering who's going to move the tree?

Stepping Out in Faith to Cast the Bread of the Gospel

Number one is our word, faith. Stepping out in faith. Cast your bread upon the waters. Several possible interpretations, two of them I think kind of work together a bit. Some think that he's perhaps talking about giving to the poor.

In reference to Luke 6 .38, Nehemiah 8 .10 has this idea of giving to the poor and it would be given back unto you. It's a possibility, I don't think it's a strong one, but it is one that might be rendered.

Another one is agriculturally on this bread on the waters. This view is based on the thought that after a flooding rain, seed is sown when the ground is fertile and ready. And when you sow at that time, then a good harvest would come.

Not totally opposed to that interpretation, but I think there might be a little bit more here. And so my third thought is this, probably thinking about the shipping industry. The shipping industry. So in Old Testament times and the understanding of shipping and receiving, it would work like this.

This is 1 Kings 10, verse 22. For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years, I think we're in this modern technological age where everything happens instantly.

Once every three years, a fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. You say, what on earth does that have to do with anything about evangelism? It has at least this to do.

The ship will never return with anything unless it's sent. If you don't send an empty ship, there's no chance that a full ship is going to return. And the thought is this, that the ship is sent and after just a moments of hours, it goes out of sight.

For three years, you don't get a text message. For three years, you get nothing on social media. For three years, you don't get a phone call or an email. For three years, what do you do? You just pray, hope, and believe that the ship will return with some merchandise that would be prosperous.

There's the heart of evangelism. There's not this instantaneous conversion that happens on a regular basis. It doesn't happen every day. We share, we verbalize, we give out tracts. We talk with a family member, we talk with a spouse, we talk with a kid, we talk with a grandkid, and we don't see immediate repentance.

We don't see an immediate baptism. We cast the bread of the gospel unto them, but when we do, we believe and we pray. And then maybe in one year, maybe in two years, maybe in three years, here they come and their heart's been changed.

And all of a sudden, they have a love for Christ. But see, that happens because somebody cast the bread upon the water of their heart, if you will. Now, also, I wanna share that the idea of bread is connected with the word of God.

In Deuteronomy 8 and verse three, bread is a word in Scripture that points to goods or to livelihood. It says in Deuteronomy, and he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Think, man obtains life from the word of God. In parcel to what we do in evangelism is we take the living word of God, which is manna from heaven, which is a living word, and we communicate that word to another person, trusting that the power that is in the word would bring them from death to life, quicken them, and show them the beauty of Christ.

That's sowing the word. Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That's why we memorize text. We memorize gospel text. We memorize passages where when a situation comes up, I have something to say.

I'm in a tight spot, and I say, I implore you by the mercies of God, I implore you by Christ to be reconciled to God, because the verses in the heart can use it, and we trust God's word to be planted down in the heart and make an impact there and come forth and to bear fruit in one year, two years, three years, or get this, it may bear fruit and you never know it.

This is the joy. Look, we share the gospel because we love Christ and we care about the souls of men. I don't have to see the result. I like to see them, but whether I see them or not, have the joy of making the gospel known to someone else.

Even here, just the other day, I arrived here in Arkansas. I love to ride bicycles, and so I arrived at the top of this mountain. Again, on the top of this mountain, here's this weirdo in spandex riding a bicycle down a gravel road to the top of this mountain, and there's a lookout point, and there's four people standing there.

And so you go up, oh, it's pretty, it's pretty. Get out your phone, you take pictures, and the four people say, hey, will you take our picture? On one condition. Oh, and they said, any condition. What's the condition?

I said, I get to declare something to you. Now get this, all four people are from India. Four people from India on top of a mountain in Arkansas with a goofy guy in spandex on the side of the mountain, and the gospel is declared to them, and they're called to repentance and faith.

What's gonna happen? I have no idea, but I know that God's word is powerful. I know it was sown in their heart, and if I didn't cast my bread, I can tell you this, nothing would happen. If you just take the picture and say, thank you, and I'm a nice guy, it doesn't help.

But if you declare the gospel, then there's hope that four people from India may be converted, and I may see them in heaven someday. Promise, you send out the ships, and a good return will come in due time.

You will find it after many days. You sow corn, you get corn. You sow wheat, you get wheat. You sow nothing, and you get nothing. That's just the way it works. If you never evangelize, you never communicate the gospel, you never give a tract, you never tell anyone about Jesus, you will receive no evangelistic harvest ever in your life.

You'll never have the joys, the pleasures that come along with evangelizing and preaching. You'll never experience those. Do not let fear silence you. Allow yourself to step out in faith, cast your bread upon the waters, and just trust God.

It's His gospel, it's His plan. It's not on your performance, it's not on your intellect, it's not on your looks, it's not on your abilities, it's not on your family bloodline. You just take the gospel and point people to Christ and trust that He will bring a harvest.

But I do know, if you sow nothing, you'll receive nothing. Live a life of faith. Be kingdom-minded. I think about the talents of 10 and five and two, and maybe 90 of the church, I'm just making up a percentage, 90 of the church has the gospel and they buried it in the ground because they knew His judge is gonna come back and they don't wanna lose this one thing.

Stop hiding the gospel. Don't bury it inside of this church here. Don't bury it in your heart. Take this thing and put it out and have it increased. Have it multiplied. Have it 10, have it 20, have it multiplied.

Take this gospel and distribute it amongst the world. That's what we're supposed to do. Churches are dying and closing every day.

Why?

Predominantly because there is no evangelism in the church. Pastors don't evangelize, deacons don't even know what the word evangelize means. There's not any evangelism going on in the church. All we're doing is passing out waters and having picnic lunches for people to show up and eat barbecue sandwiches.

No, there's more to the church. We must engage the culture with the gospel. You do not have to be a street preacher. You do not have to be an orator. It's not the message, but look, you can pass out gospel tracts.

You can go on missions. You can support missions. I'll give you this. I've been gone since March the 3rd. I've been all over Mexico. I'd be glad when I finally get home, but here's the thing. One of my church, two of my church members go to Mexico with me.

Standing on the street corner preaching the gospel or heralding out,.

You know what they did?

They took care of their pastor in order that the gospel could be preached. They took care of my meals. They carried stuff. They made sure I was taken care of. They made sure I got rest in order that the gospel went forward.

That's the way they assisted in the gospel proclamation. So what you ought to do for your pastor, if there's an opportunity for him to preach, make sure that he can get the gospel out. You can help plant a church, minister at abortion clinics.

You can go out on Friday nights and evangelize. You can take the gospel to your neighbor next door that you've lived beside for 20 something years. Do you even know their name? Have you ever talked to them in your entire life about the gospel?

Have you went over and introduced yourself? Take a plate of cookies, bake a pie, do something in order to make an acquaintance there and tell them about Christ. Take just a minute ago, we just stopped at a trailer just a minute ago.

I left two steaks already cooked on somebody's step with a gospel track.

You can do anything.

They're gonna come home from their little bicycle ride with their kids. They're gonna find steak on their steps with a gospel track. They're never gonna see me again in my life. I bet they eat the steak and I bet they never forget that a gospel track was left on that step the rest of their life.

These types of things we do. We do all of these and so much more. All this goofy media junk. You can text the gospel to all your family. You can write it on social media and you call people to repent and believe and you just put it out there.

Look, people say whatever they wanna say on these computers. Why in the church speaking? Everybody should be sending out the gospel on a regular basis.

It's your computer.

Use it for the glory of God. Use that thing to promote the gospel. You say, well, they'll unfriend me. That may be true. Let them unfriend you, but make the gospel known. By the way, don't be offended about being unfriended.

I have no friends on social media or pretty much anywhere else. Not looking for any either. Give the gospel to seven, give it to eight. You have no idea what might happen tomorrow. You have no certainty beyond today.

Refusing Fear and Excuses in Evangelism

Secondly, fear. This is where most of the church is today. Fear. Look, come with no excuses. Verses three and four. We see, preacher, the clouds, you see they're full of rain. And if they empty themselves on the earth, I'm gonna get wet.

If a tree falls to the south or the north and the place where it falls, well, it's just gonna be laying there and I can't plow with a tree in the way. I mean, how am I gonna plow a row with that tree laying there?

Now, if I can just get somebody to move that tree, we might get to work. But I mean, until the trees move, I mean, what are you expecting me to do? And here's the church. Here's us sitting in the congregation, going to church for 20 years, 40 years and 60 years.

And here we are in the church. Well, it might rain. Boy, those clouds are looking like something. You know, it comes out in different words. You say, we've got this mission calls. We've got this church plant.

I'd give this money, but I might need it for something. I might need something, something might go wrong. And if I just go and give it off to missions, then what if something happens to me? It might be dangerous.

I heard in Mexico that the cartels down there and it might be dangerous down there. Every single time I go to Mexico and my mama's calling, people at church are calling. Hey, don't you know it's dangerous in Mexico?

Let me give you a newsflash. Anybody in here ever watch Wheel of Fortune?

Anybody?

Okay. You ever see that? I'm waiting for the day. They always have the prize puzzle. They say, you've won a trip to Cancun. And the person goes, oh, I ain't going there. It's dangerous. Have you ever seen that reaction?

Oh, I can't go there. I don't have passport. Oh, no, they're jumping up and down. They're getting their passport.

We're going.

How is it that it's exciting when you win a trip, but yet you got an opportunity to go on missions and all of a sudden it's dangerous and you can't go? Just excuses. Well, I would teach, pastor, but people wouldn't like my teaching.

I'd pass out a track, but I'm afraid that they wouldn't take it if I tried to give it to them. I'd support these ministries or these ministers, but all these ministers are corrupt and you can't trust them with money.

Some have given them no money. I would go to the outreach, but in Texas, it's hot. It might be too hot at the outreach and I'd sweat and all of that, so I can't do that. It might be a lot of things. It might be a tree in the way.

You see, I can't do evangelism and missions and things like that until I get this debt removed out of my life. When all the bad people are removed, then I'll go on mission. It's never gonna happen. When there are no argumentative people, then I'll start engaging.

Good luck with that. Buena suerte. When people get more receptive, I'll pass out tracts. It's like, go to Mexico. Everybody takes a tract in Mexico. I mean, it's like you just pass them things out like dollar bills.

Don't go with Mike, that turned into a disaster, but you just pass them out. You go to Maine and pass out gospel tracts, it's like you gotta pay them $100 to take one because they won't take one. It's like, look, you just pass them out.

It helps a whole lot. You say, well, they wouldn't take my tract. You attach it to a coconut cream pie and they might take it. You attach it to a plate of cookies, they might take it. You attach it to two steaks and leave it on their step, they'll take it.

Be creative. Get the gospel in their hands.

Why?

Not when you can pat yourself on the back, but because you care about their soul. You want them to know the gospel. When summer is over, I'll go on an outreach. Whenever these obstacles are moved, whenever there's no obstacles, when everything is smooth and easy, then I will do it.

And people use those excuses from day one until the day they die. Think about it. It may be you in here. I don't know anybody here, maybe a little bit. I know Alan a little bit, but you may go to your grave and have never given the gospel to anybody.

Nobody.

Imagine dying and standing before the Lord and trying to explain to him why you never even told your spouse the gospel, your kids the gospel, why on earth you didn't tell your grandkids the gospel, why you didn't tell your neighbor that you drank coffee with for 15 years the gospel.

Try to explain how his gospel wasn't beautiful enough to share with those people. I mean, can we not love people enough to do something? Hemmed in by possibilities, things that are possible or even probable have negated numerous ministries.

Just in a very small picture, think about possibilities for just a moment. We can't do church. People might get COVID. People may get upset if we do this. People, you see, they don't understand public preaching or evangelizing.

It's not culturally relevant and acceptable to give a gospel tract to the person at the gas station because they'll just think I'm weird. You are weird. Just get over it. Just go ahead and give it to them.

All these possibilities of what might happen restrict us from experiencing what God may do if we would actually do something. By the way, on a very, very positive note, in many situations where all those fears come, when you step out on obedience, you find out that you meet a person that blesses you more than you bless them.

Sometimes we rob ourselves of blessings because we won't engage in the... We miss out because we convince ourself that these things will not work. Number three. Number three. Finite. Consider God. This is verse five.

I love verse five because it reminds me of how stupid I am. And it's good to be reminded of how stupid you are. Sometimes we think we're smarter than we actually are, right? Well, verse five corrects that.

We are finite. So let us consider God. Look in verse five. As you do not know the way the wind comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

Let me give you a NASB translation. It's better here. Just as you do not know the path of the wind, how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.

Solomon says, you do not know the activity of God who makes all things. Think about it. You don't know what happens when you confront someone with the gospel. You just take the gospel and just, you say, all these excuses, throw them all away and say, look, I don't know what God's doing, but I'm gonna give the gospel and God can do whatever he jolly well pleases because he's sovereign and I'll just trust him to correct whatever I mess up in the endeavor.

Can you try that? To engage someone with the gospel and just say, you know, I don't know how this is gonna work, but I know God's gospel will not fail. Solomon is reminding us of our lack of knowledge.

You remember this same story is found with a man by the name of Nicodemus. The wind blows where it wishes. You hear it sound. You don't know where it comes from. You don't know where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

You think about the bones, all this science we have today, scientific equipment, all these machines to look inside of a woman and all these things that we've come to an understanding. A lot can be explained, but a lot still remains a mystery.

David reminded us in Psalm 139. He says, I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. It's a great position. I don't understand science. I'm not a scientist.

I just know that God's works are wonderful. So a lot of things I don't understand and I don't have to understand them, but I know that God knows what He's doing and He can be trusted. Let me give you Job's theology because it might help us tonight.

Here's what Job says of God. Job 5, 8 and 9. As for me, I would seek God and to God would I commit my cause who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number. Job 9, 10. Who does great things beyond searching out, marvelous things beyond number.

Job 11, 7. Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? What can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and it's broader than the sea.

Job 37, 5. God thunders wondrously with His voice. He does great things and we cannot comprehend. Churchly Christian, you have a great God. He does wonderful things. They are beyond your finite mind. God is so awesome.

There's no way your mind can comprehend all that He can do. And He has commanded us to take His gospel and trust Him that He will do whatever He wants to do with that gospel.

Cool.

Can I give you one more bicycle story real fast? Okay, I got one. Yes, that's enough. So the next day I'm riding down the road, this goofy guy in spandex, right? And I'm coming down this road and I got the road construction guy out there and he's holding a sign that says stop.

One bicycle coming two miles an hour. He spins the sign to slow. That means I can go, you know? There's nobody else. There's no cars, there's nobody. So I just stop. The guy's standing there and he's like, well, you can go ahead and go.