Advice to Young Evangelists from an Old Salt — E.A. Johnston

Paul's Charge to Timothy

The Apostle Paul wrote his swan song to his disciple Timothy while he was in prison and facing the executioner's axe. In 2 Timothy he writes in chapter 2,. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses.

The same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, no man that woreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboreth must first be partaker of the fruits, consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.

So we see here, friends, Paul pouring his life into his disciple Timothy, exhorting him, encouraging him, instructing him, telling him that the Christian life is one of hardship and self-denial, like that of a soldier who gives priority to the marching orders which his commanding officer gives him, that the Christian is to run his race according to the rules of the Bible, and a Christian must labor hard like a farmer with all diligence and patience.

So Paul is seen here sharing with his disciple Timothy the values that Paul had labored under during the course of his public ministry. He's saying to Timothy in essence, now dear brother, go and do likewise, go train up some men, get some faithful men, be a reproducer, stay in the war like a good soldier, keep your eyes on General Jesus, run your race, run it like an athlete would as he competes for that prize, work hard and sleep little like a farmer, and be patient, and you will receive your reward in due time.

And I would like to do likewise with you this evening, friends, and share with you some advice I have learned along the way. I have ten lessons to share with you which I hope will impact your ministries for eternity.

We've all heard the admonition to preachers, don't touch the money, don't touch the girls, and don't touch the glory. And there is truth in each one of those warnings. I've seen big ministries fall to pieces because preachers began to covet the gold, flirt with the girls, and rob God of His glory.

But I have more particular advice to you young evangelists if you don't mind getting it from an old salt. I've made my blunders along the way, but hopefully I have learned from my mistakes. I'd like to share with you this evening ten lessons in the work of the gospel which I hope will help you to be more effective preachers as you reach this generation of pleasure-seeking hell-bound sinners.

Authenticity in Preaching

You can jot these ideas down in the margins of your Bibles. It's not a long list, but I hope it's a valuable one. Are you ready? Number one, don't ever attempt to mimic another preacher by imitating his voice or copying his gestures.

It's a great mistake, and it will hinder your own effectiveness as a preacher. I've known some evangelists who have tried to copy the hand gestures and posture of some well-known preachers, and it makes them look affected and awkward.

I've known some other evangelists who've made the terrible mistake of trying to imitate the voice of another preacher. They want to sound like Billy Graham or somebody else. I even knew a famous pastor who in his later years started to make his voice intonations mimic that of Billy Graham.

It was odd to say the least. Don't copy anybody else. Listen, dear friend, be yourself. Always be yourself. God made you unique, and there's not another one of you on this planet, thank God. I cringe when I hear other preachers trying to emulate and imitate men more well-known than themselves.

I remember telling a dear friend of mine who did his level best to sound just like Stephen Alford, and he did a pretty good impression of him outside of the pulpit, but it was very strange when he started to sound just like him while he was in the pulpit.

It came off odd and peculiar. It took away from his message. I told him one time, I said, look, brother, I said, God gave you a wonderful preaching voice. Just use the voice God gave you. Don't try to copy another man.

Education Without Spiritual Deadness

So I say to you, young evangelist, just be yourself, friend, and let God build you the way he wants to. Number two, get all the education you can. I'm a big believer in higher education. Once you get your education, friend, nobody can take it away from you.

I not only graduated from two different seminaries, I graduated with a preaching fellowship under Dr. Stephen Alford, who personally taught me homiletics and pulpit preaching, which was more demanding than the seminaries.

So if you can, get all the education you can, but be careful that it doesn't go to your head, and be careful that it doesn't rob you of your spiritual dynamic. Many men enter seminary alive and full of zeal and come out of that cemetery spiritually deadened.

Don't let that happen to you, friend. I remember Vance Hafner saying the following regarding higher education. He said, I knew a Mr. Tweedle who got his doctorate degree, and now he's no longer Mr. Tweedle, but Tweedle D .D.

Becoming a Student of the Bible

Just be careful, friend. Get all the education you can, but don't let it go to your head. Number three, be a man of one book. By this I mean that you can read other books on Christian literature, but let your main book be your Bible.

Let the Bible be the main thing you study all the time, and make time for it, friend. Preachers of former times knew their Bibles better than all of us put together. Asahel Nettleton was known as a man of one book.

Those kind of preachers could quote it verbatim from both the Old and the New Testaments. They used its richness in their illustrations. Get to know your Bible, friends, and you will always have a sermon ready without notes.

Knowing God Through Prayer

All of the truly great evangelists in history were men of one book. They knew the Word of God. Number four, know the God of the Word. Make it a priority in your life to get to know your God. Your average pastor only spends 10 minutes a day in prayer, and that's why he is average.

Develop a regular quiet time each day, friends, with your Lord, and seek Him with all your heart, and then ask Him to search your heart. Oh, friends, I cannot stress this aspect of the life of an evangelist more than this.

If you want to be an important weapon in the hand of God against the devil and his kingdom, then get to know your God. Walk with Him. Talk with Him in the cool of the day. Have a daily trysting time with the lover of your soul.

You're only as tall in the pulpit as you are long on your knees in prayer. All the great men of God I've known whom God used as mighty preachers were men of prayer. They each had a deep and sacrificial prayer life with the Almighty.

Guard your time, friend, with your Master. Stephen Olford used to share with me that even at the age of 86, it was harder for him to have a regular quiet time with God than when he was a young man. It's a discipline you must develop, but it will be the best discipline of your ministry, friend.

Stephen Olford used to share this story with me, and I can still hear his marvelous voice as he related it. It was about his homiletical mentor, W. Graham Scroggie. And if you ever attended a Stephen Olford preaching institute in the past, then you would have heard Dr. Olford relate this favorite story of his.

He told it often. A young Stephen Olford sat under Scroggie in a Bible college in London, and Dr. Scroggie was teaching the class on the priority of prayer and maintaining a regular daily quiet time. I will read you, friends, the following extract from the book which I co-authored with Stephen Olford entitled, Olford on Scroggie.

Hear now are Dr. Olford's words as he is relating his experience with Professor Scroggie. He was bearing down on the subject of disciplined devotions. He made it clear that this tryst with God, day by day, was serious business.

Having delivered his soul on the matter, he asked for questions. After a pause, I raised my hand, and I said, but I don't always feel like it. There was no pause now. In a thundering voice and piercing eyes, he nailed me with these memorable words.

Stephen, pray when you feel like it. Pray when you don't feel like it. Pray until you do feel like it. That was it. A prayer has little to do with emotions to start with. It's rather a call to obedience and dependence on God.

Holiness and Consecration in Ministry

Well, I like that advice of Stephen Olford, friends, on having a daily quiet time, and the best advice I can give to you as fellow preachers is to get to know your God. Number five. If you want power with God and influence with men, then live a consecrated life unto God in a life of holiness unto the Lord.

The most important aspect of a preacher is not his head knowledge, or his Bible knowledge, or his personality in the pulpit. The most vital aspect of a preacher's life is his holy walk with God, and sadly, few there be which find it.

Few really pursue a life of holiness unto God, because if you want to do that, friend, then you must be willing to submit to the divine pruning knife in your life. God will prune you for sure. Alan Redpath used to say that before God can use a man, he must first smash him, and I believe that.

The biggest compliment you can receive as an evangelist is that is what the Shumanite woman said in her description of the prophet Elisha as she said to her husband, I perceive that this is a holy man of God who passes us by continually, and when I study Christian biography, friends, the main common denominator between men like D .L. Moody and George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards and others was holiness.

They each lived consecrated lives unto their God, and they were used of God like few men in history. I'll never forget Adrian Rogers sharing something with me one day. He said that every morning when he woke up, he would get out of bed and walk down the hall toward the bathroom with his hands up over his head in surrender to his Lord Jesus.

He'd walk down that hall in his pajamas with his hands up over his head like someone had a gun stuck in his back. It was his way of starting his day in surrender to his God before he even brushed his teeth.

You want to be an Adrian Rogers young friend? Then be a holy man of God like he was. Charles Fanny had such a life of holiness that one time he entered a mill factory in New York and a young girl at a sewing machine pointed at him and giggled to her friend because of his odd and peculiar appearance, but as he approached her, she became convicted of her sins because of the holy power of God all over Fanny.

That conviction spread to the rest of the mill workers, and the owner of the mill had to shut the mill down for a day so his workers could participate in the great revival that God had brought to that mill under the consecrated life of Charles Fanny.

Learning from Christian Biography

Make it a practice to read good Christian biography. This is a lost art today. When I go into a so-called Christian bookstore and I walk to the biography section, I shake my head in disbelief at all the junk there.

Biographies on football stars, baseball stars, Hollywood actors, politicians, and country music stars. Hogwash. It's all eye candy and there's no substance to it. When I say good Christian biography, I mean read the lives of men like Whitfield, Moody, Spurgeon, Brainerd, and Edwards.

Study how God used them in third generation. Study how God built each man to be unique as a sanctified vessel in his hand for his use. What you learn from good Christian biography, friend, will give you an endless resource of preaching illustrations.

It will help your spiritual life as well. When you get to heaven, how would you feel if you bumped into D .L. Moody and you didn't even know who he was? Wouldn't that be embarrassing? Tell me, who are you, sir?

Why, I am D .L. Moody. Never heard of you, but nice to meet you, I guess. Wouldn't it be better that when you're walking down the streets of glory and you see a figure approach you, you recognize him right off the bat because you read all about his life?

But seriously, you can learn much from the study of Christian biography. The richest books in my library are my biographies of men and women God has used. I've gotten more out of reading them than any other kind of Christian literature.

Leaving Assurance of Salvation to the Holy Spirit

Hopefully you can do the same. Number seven, never tell a person that they are now saved. That's the job of the Holy Spirit. I cringe when I see evangelists pat somebody on the back after they've recited the sinner's prayer and then they tell them, welcome to the family of God, friend.

You are now a Christian. One of the main reasons the saintly Andrew Bonar of Scotland agreed to become a co-worker of D .L. Moody was when he learned that in the inquiry room, Moody taught his counselors the following advice.

Moody warned them, never tell a man he is saved. That's not your job. That's the job only of the Holy Spirit. And it's true, brother evangelist, never ever tell someone they are now saved. How can you know that anyhow?

I'll never forget the story Adrian Rogers told me. He said he was at a Baptist seminary walking down the hall with the president of that seminary. And when they were approached by four seminary students who were greatly upset, they began to tell the seminary president all about another student's behavior and asked the seminary president how they should handle this student because it was more than likely he was an unsaved individual who was living in their dormitory.

Adrian Rogers said he stepped behind the president of the seminary to see how he would answer these young preacher boys. The president turned on them and said, how do I know if any of you are really saved?

Proclaiming the Full Gospel Without Compromise

That shut them up. So as a Christian worker, never tell someone they are saved. That's the job of the Holy Spirit, friend. Number eight, preach the unvarnished truth regardless of the consequences. Make sure you preach the full counsel of God, friend.

Don't just tell about a loving God of John 3 .16 without telling them about the wrathful God of John 3 .36. God has two sides to him, mercy and judgment. He hasn't changed to be more politically correct to this generation of hellbound sinners.

Preach the gospel in its purity, friends. Don't dilute it to make it more palatable to sinful man like so many do today. Preach the hard doctrines of sin and hell and a judgment to come for all mankind.

Preach to the conscience of your hearers and not just their heads. Preach the unvarnished truth regardless of the consequences and preach it, friends, even if the good deacons want to get rid of you for doing it.

Ruin, Law, Repentance, and Redemption

Number nine, preach the great doctrines of the gospel in their proper order. Start with ruin and preach on ruin and sin until your hearers feel their sin. Preach that man has a poison in his blood through Adam's fall, that all mankind enters this world with a ruined nature bent towards sin, that man drinks iniquity like it's water and he hates all things holy.

Then preach up the law in its severity and utter strictness, that God requires perfection to get into his heaven and no man is perfect. One day future, God will hold every man up against the strictness of his holy law and as man stands there in his own merits, he will fail that test because a man is a guilty rebel who's broken the strict law of God.

Thunder the law about the ears of your hearers until they see Sinai all together on a smoke. I know I'm a sinner and I need a sin substitute in the person of Jesus Christ and so do you, friend. So preach up the law, shut the sinner up to God and God alone for his salvation.

Then preach up man's duty of repentance. Preach hard on repentance, especially in our day where most evangelists have omitted the necessity of repentance in regard to salvation. Then preach up the doctrine of redemption and Christ's work on that bloody cross.

Preach up the cross and all its bloody red colors. Most preachers today get out their mop buckets and clean up all the blood and gore around Calvary to make it more presentable to sinful man. Listen to me, young evangelist, don't be afraid to preach the blood.

Preach the cross. Preach up the Christ of that bloody cross. Preach on why he hung there, which means you have to preach on sin. And if you preach on sin, then you must preach on the danger of dying in your sins and being cast into a place of punishment for sin, which is hell.

That means you have to preach on hell and its fires. Be sure to end your presentation of the gospel with man's utter necessity of having a work of grace performed upon his heart, which is the supernatural act of regeneration.

Jesus declared, you must be born again. Too many folks today enter our churches by just making an intellectual decision for Christ. They just believe the text. I call them textual decisionists. And then they join the church.

But the problem is they've never been changed. They're still in their sins. They've never been awakened to their lost condition. Never been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and never been regenerated by the Spirit of God, which is a work of grace upon their heart.

George Whitfield's main theme when he was here in America during the Great Awakening was, you must be born again. One day, a Boston minister approached Whitfield and said, Mr. Whitfield, since you've been among us, all you've preached is on the same subject on, you must be born again.

Fearing God Rather Than Man

When will you, sir, preach another subject? To which the great Whitfield replied, when ye are born again. So friends, preach the gospel in both its purity and proper order. Then finally, number 10, fear God and not man.

Too many pastors and evangelists fear the good deacons more than they fear God. Sam Jones had a great story regarding this point. He said, I once knew of a new pastor who, upon taking charge of his church, was met by a delegation of the deacons previous to delivering his inaugural sermon.

They said, now, brother, you mustn't preach about fashion because our fashionable members will be out to hear you. You mustn't preach about dram drinking or liquor selling because several of our members who are liquor sellers will be out to hear you.

You mustn't preach about covetousness because several of our millionaire members will be out to hear you. Well, what can I preach about, he asked in great perplexity. About the Mormons, replied the good deacons.

Give them blazes, there won't be a Mormon out to hear you. I like that story because it's true. Listen to me, young preacher, don't you ever fear man when it comes to representing your king. Don't preach to be accepted, preach to save souls.

The Fiery Gospel Ministry of Faithful Preachers

The only one you have to please is the Lord Jesus. I hope what I have shared with you this evening has been helpful to your friends. And in closing this message, I will quote something I wrote over a decade ago in my first book on revival, and it still rings true today on what kind of preachers we all should be.

I will close with this admonition to each of us tonight and our goal and desire as ambassadors for Christ Jesus should be to be like one of these kind of men. The Apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitfield, Knox, Edwards, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody, each shared a common denominator of fire in their belly.

They were each so eaten up with the gospel and thirsty for Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost. They could not stand idly by while others perished. They saw nothing but eternity, worshiped the Holy God, and served the risen Christ, living not for earth nor its gains, but living only for heaven and its rewards.

When they preached, they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation. They preached hell and its fire and Christ and him crucified. Not one of them feared king, queen, or pope, and not one of them sought the compliments of men.