Evangelism and the Layman #1 — Ernest C. Reisinger

I've already seen a lot of faces that I've met in various churches, and one thing that's sad about conferences, for a short time, you don't get a chance to see everybody and spend as much time with them as you'd like to.

I saw Herb Hathaway the other night at a meeting, and I wanted to spend a few minutes with him, but by the time the meeting was over, he was gone. So I see lots of faces here that I've seen at various times.

I hope I at least get a chance to say hello to you. I don't know what St. Paul meant exactly. I don't know all that's involved in that statement where he said, and my spirit was stirred within me. But when I see men, such as tonight, and hear the singing, to know that though Jesus is gone 2 ,000 years ago, to see the great work of His Spirit working in the hearts of men, that it would interest them enough to come away from a lot of other things that other men will be doing this weekend, I rejoice.

And I don't know, as I say, exactly how St. Paul felt when he said, my spirit was moved within me. But there is a measure, I hope, that I share that tonight, as even we think about such a theme as we have this week.

The Church’s Laymen and the Call to Evangelize

Because if the manpower in Christ's Church, you know about 99 are laymen, and if the manpower, the 99 who keep silent for Jesus pretty much most of the time, they manage, they seem to be very successful at keeping silent.

You know, they come home at night and say, well Lord, I was successful again today in not talking to anyone about you. But if that could be harnessed, we'd see a great change in our churches and a great change in our nation.

And I pray that these days together, when we've come together to pray, to meet with one another, to try to help one another, I pray that these days may be used to that end, to make us willing to be evangelists, to be witnesses, willing to not only live for Christ but to speak for Him now and again and for His Church.

I only want to correct one part of that introduction, and he says I'm not church-related. I am church-related. I believe that the great evangelistic origin is the Church. The longer I live, the less I'm interested in these things that are supposed to be right and left arms to the Church.

I'm afraid that some of them prove not to be such a great right arm or the left arm as they make the claims, and I am very familiar with many of those things. I do believe that Jesus Christ founded a Church.

I believe that there is what's sometimes referred to as the organism, that we don't know who's in the real Church, but He also, as R .B. Kuyper points out in that great book called The Glorious Body of Christ, there is an organization as well as an organism.

And I believe in the elders and the deacons and those men who stand by their Church even when sometimes the ministers are gone. Well, I'm happy about that, and I do pray that God, by His Spirit and by His Word, would meet us in that most deepest place where we need to be met.

Because if the only voice you hear this week is my voice, you have missed it. Unless the Spirit of God, in that way that I don't understand, takes the Word of God and does something down here to you, you have come in vain.

You have come in vain. And it is my prayer that that's what would happen. Well, I want to read him. First I should say a bit about the theme. You know, I didn't ask him about time. I'm going to put this watch back on tonight.

And you know, some of the fellows at the University, Ofer and Carlisle, used to go out with me to speak sometimes, and when they came back I heard it was rumored around that Ernie doesn't go by the clock, he goes by the calendar.

But I'll try to watch the clock. I do see a clock back there, that's why I don't need the watch. So I am not going to forget the time. I hope you do, though. I might say a word why this particular theme was very attractive to me, very attractive to me, when I saw it was evangelism and the layman.

Because on the human side, I'm here tonight because a layman took Jesus Christ serious when he said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. And his world was not Africa, or China, or South America, or India.

His world was a construction job. And that's where I heard the gospel. I don't have that wonderful privilege that some of you have of experiencing a Christian home, only since I've been a Christian. I say that not to be disrespectful to my parents.

They were good parents. My mother loved us. The fact is she loved us so much she scrubbed floors to put clothes on our back because we were so poor that the poor people called us poor. But with all that mother love to her son, she couldn't tell me what she didn't know.

And she couldn't tell me what she hadn't experienced. So when I think of lay evangelism, I think of that construction job where I met a man that told me about Jesus, told me about Jesus. Oh, I get thrilled sometimes when I think of, you know, I get tired of these people acting like sometimes they act like the Christian church has had it and we ought to fold up.

And why there are thousands and thousands, tonight men and women on the mission field and in behind pulpits will be there Sunday in places like this. We look so few when we're out in the world, but there are thousands who are seeking in some small way to obey Jesus.

Not so long ago I picked up that book, A Thousand Tongues to Go or something like that, and think about how that man started. He was one man, the Wycliffe translators, one man. And now they have 2300 missionaries.

And it thrills me tonight to know one of the evidences that God is alive and the Holy Ghost is in the world is the fact that people still are seeking to obey Jesus. And you know, that's why I'm here. Because somebody in some small way was trying to obey Christ as best he could on a construction job.

And you know, I suppose tonight I'd be safe in saying that there isn't a Christian man in this place, there isn't a Christian man here tonight who's here who would be here if somebody, a godly mother, godly father, a godly pastor, a good church, if somebody hadn't been obeying Christ to tell you about the gospel and about your sins and about the wonderful Savior, you wouldn't be here.

The fact is, if we would take a chain tonight from my very lips to the man who told me, to the man who told him, I could chain my testimony and your testimony to the lips of Jesus Christ when he said, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

And that overthrew you with all our weakness and all our stumblings and all our fallings and all the crooked steps we make. There's still men trying to obey Christ in that. Well, I want to read a couple verses of Scripture tonight, Acts chapter 8, because I'm going to be informal.

And I've been in some of your churches, and some of the things I'm going to say tonight I'll probably sit there. But I feel constrained to be as most informal and as simple as I can be and stay with the general idea of our theme, which will be in lay evangelism.

Acts 8 and the Evangelistic Responsibility of Ordinary Believers

In Acts chapter 8, I suppose the biggest and awfulest trick the devil has ever pulled on the Christian church is somehow to get lay people the idea that witnessing and propagating the gospel is only for foreign missionaries and ministers.

I suppose that's the greatest trick the devil has ever pulled on the Christian church. I suppose if Russia tonight would concoct the idea that they wanted to, and they might be doing a pretty good job in our colleges on this anyhow, but I suppose they wanted to concoct the idea to weaken us, and they propagated the idea that war is kind of a dangerous thing and people get shot and killed and only people fit to do this job are generals and admirals, and all the rest of you go home.

I think they'd be successful in a great way if they could convince everybody that the only people that ought to participate in the defense of their country or anything are admirals and generals. But it seems to me that that's what the devil has done to a great degree in the Christian church.

He's kind of convinced the laymen, at least they act this way, that the only people that's meant to witness and propagate the gospel is the theological admirals and generals and the rest of you. You just kind of go along and sit there and warm the pew.

Now that's not true in the New Testament. That's not true. My dear brethren, tonight that's not true. And it appalls me, and it has appalled me as I've come into the Christian church and I've been in your congregations and other congregations over this land and it's not unusual to find people vigorously singing, I love to tell the story and the truth of it is most of them have never told it once.

Not once. We wouldn't do that mockery in anything else but religion. Suppose you were my neighbor and I kept telling you how I love football. And every time I see you I tell you how I love football. Boy, it's a great game.

And it captivates my mind and captivates my attention. Oh, how I love football. And someday you take me to a football game and I say, now, what are those fellas trying to fight about that ball for? And what are those funny little men down there with those checkered stripes on?

What are they doing? What are those fellas doing trying to take that pole from each other? And why do they run up and down here with that pole? And I keep asking you stupid questions like that. You kind of wonder about what kind of a fellow this is who tells me I love football.

I love football. Well, that's the way we are with evangelism. We love to tell the story. But if this is a typical group, and I say this not to scold you, but to face you with some cold-blooded facts, if this is a typical group, I'm looking into the face of men, that the next time you talk to an individual about his relationship to Jesus will be the first time.

And yet you've been singing those hymns, I love to tell the story. Now, there's something wrong with that kind of a thing. In any other area, it would be ridiculous. Tonight, these days, I want to try to point out that it's not left to the theological admirals and generals to do the great work.

You know, there's a book called Reformed Evangelism. It was published by the Christian Reformed Church. It's called Principles and Methods of Evangelism in 1962. Some years ago, I got a hold of it. It's an excellent book.

I love it. And there was a Reverend Dick Walters, who, a Christian Reformed minister, later became the president of the Bible School in Grand Rapids. What's the Bible? Reformed Bible School. Reverend Walters.

And he said this in one of the articles. It's a series of articles in this book, this manual. And it was done by the Reformed Evangelism Committee, compiled at the Board of Evangelism for the Christian Reformed Church.

And one of the things this minister said was this. And it's a quote. He says, Put together the words daily, everyone, everywhere, and you have a New Testament picture of evangelism. I like that. Daily, everyone, everywhere.

Three words that could summarize New Testament evangelism. Now, in Acts 8, this ought to dispel that awful idea about it's only for ministers, and it's only for the admirals and the generals. In Acts 8, after that tremendous sermon of Stephen where Paul witnessed his death, we see that Saul was consenting unto the death of Stephen.

And at that time, there was great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Now, I want you to remember that because this is very important to the point I want to make.

They were all scattered abroad except the apostles. Verse 2, And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, hauling men and women, and committing them to prison.

Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. And a good Greek scholar tells me that that preaching the word could be just as accurately translated evangelizing. Now, the point I want you to see is this.

Where were the apostles? Well, probably they were having a prophecy conference or something on an ivory theological tower, but it does say in verse 4, everybody was scattered abroad except the apostles.

They stayed in Jerusalem. And in verse 4 it says, they which were scattered abroad, that's everybody but the apostles were everywhere evangelizing. So I hope we ought to dispel that awful idea from your mind that this is not a layman's job to evangelize.

It is a layman's job, and tonight I want to try to talk about what is a true witness. And I'm going to do this in the form of a testimony because I believe that God in His mercy and God in His providence sent a man across my path that was what I would call a true witness.

And I believe on the human side. I said on the human side. I believe with Jonah that salvation is of the Lord. He had to go to the belly of the whale to learn that, but I learned it without going in any whales.

I learned it from the Bible that salvation is of the Lord. But I believe that the same Bible that tells me who does the saving, how he does it. The two extremes that I find is the extreme that's not reformed, their evangelism needs to have the note sounded who does the saving.

Because some of them don't seem to know who does the saving. They think it's psychology or a thousand other things, but it seems that they don't understand the clear teaching of the Bible on who does the saving.

But when I get amongst some reformed groups, they seem to not read those parts in the Bible that tells us how God does the saving, how he does it. It's not either or, it's both. I say I'm talking about the human side.

A True Witness Begins With a Holy Life

What is a true witness? Proverbs chapter 14 verse 25, it says this, a true witness delivers souls. All sweet witness speaketh lies. Years after I was converted to Christ, in a period when I would say it was kind of wintertime in my soul.

You know anything about that? This is a good place to come if it's wintertime in your soul. This is better than playing golf tomorrow, John. This is a good place to come. But this was a period in my life when I would say it was wintertime in my soul.

That's a bad time to look for fruit. You can't even find any leaves sometimes. But I remember this day, that year I had tried to take a day a month off of my business to go and pray and read. Sometimes I read in a rotel room just to be alone, not to prepare messages or study my Sunday school lessons, but to get away from the world, my family, my business, just me and my Bible.

Well, it was one of those days, and I wasn't in a motel room this time because we had a radio shack on top of a mountain where we have a house of radio equipment for our two-way radios. And I was headed for that shack because I had a little desk in there and it was up on top of a mountain looking out over a valley.

Many days I've gone there. And I was going there this day with my Bible. I had a legal pad and I had a little pamphlet by a Presbyterian called Words to Winners of Souls by Horatius Bonoff. And I was going to the mountain because of the coldness of my own heart.

And I can remember, and I think this is almost verbatim, my prayer. It wasn't a long prayer. But I was going to that mountain and this was about the essence of my prayer, if not verbatim. I was praying, Lord, show me what Elmer had on the human side that caused me to want to know you.

Now Elmer was the carpenter that pointed me to Christ. That's the man that told me the gospel. That's the man that rendered to me the greatest service that anyone this side of the grave ever has or ever will render one human to another.

The greatest service that's ever been rendered to me in this world. I say this thoughtfully and I say it seriously. It's the man that told me of that redeeming message of Jesus Christ that changed my life, my home, my marriage.

Bless God my destination. The greatest service that's ever been rendered to me from any human being is the man that told me the gospel. And this day my prayer was, Lord, show me what he has caused me.

But I never thought of sharing this with a soul. I have many times since I shared some of the things that I want to share with you tonight. But my purpose then was not to share. And what I did was I took, I would just scratch down things on this legal pad as they would come to my mind.

Trying to think of what did I think when I went on this job and met this fellow. What did he do? What did he say? And all the things that went on in our conversation for the next year. And it was evening when the sun was beginning to go down.

And it was so wonderful as I thought about the mercy of God. All the awful thoughts I had about him at first. The warnings and so on. That he was a good carpenter and a good fellow to work with. But he had a bug on religion.

I thought of all this. But at the end of the day it was so wonderful that I summed it up. Because I believe in that summary I had the basis of what is a true witness. And don't think I'm going to have you ten easy ways to win souls or something like that.

Or some little pack thing that you run up to everybody with and have a little, like you're selling fuller brushes or something. When you're dealing with men and women you're not selling fuller brushes.

Now there's nothing wrong with fuller brushes. But when you're dealing with eternity bound men you're not huckstering off fuller brushes. What did he have? Well I'm going to tell you what the first thing I put on my paper that day.

My summary sheet. Because I'm not going to tell you all I had written down there. I couldn't begin to do that. But I will try. Tonight, if I don't get finished tonight maybe I'll finish tomorrow. I want to tell you what I believe a true witness is because I believe he was a true witness.

And it's principles, not rules, what it is. It delivers souls. Well the first thing I put down on that was this. The power of a holy life. Of a holy life. You see I watched it. And I'm amazed as I read the New Testament and I've been doing it this week particularly in preparation for something I was doing at Westminster the other day to see the number of times and the number of texts where the great apostle associates his life with his labor.

Where he could appeal to his conduct. Where he could appeal to this matter of living. For instance in texts like Take heed to thyself. He told Timothy among other things do the work of an evangelist. That's what we're talking about this week.

Do the work of an evangelist. But in the course of that same instruction he says take heed to thyself and to thy teaching. You see and he put together the life of the witnesser. The life of the servant with his work.

With his labor. With his ministry. This week when I said Baxter said the life of the minister is the life of his ministry. That's true of a witness. The life of the witness is the life of his witnessing.

And true witness is even nothing more than an overflow of that devotion to Christ. The power of a holy life. That's what I put down first. I remember the men on that job used to joke with my friend Elmer.

The fact is they told me they said he's a good carpenter. He works hard. He'll always carry his end of the load. But they said don't get too close to him. Too long. Because if you do he'll talk to you about religion.

I'm glad I got close to him a few times. And you know they were all wrong a couple places because he didn't talk to me about religion or about his church. He used to talk to me about somebody he called his Savior.

And he talked in such an intimate way that when he'd go away from me I'd kind of feel that he knew that person he was talking about. And you know they laughed at him. They used to make remarks when he would bow his head over his lunch to thank God for his food.

They used to ask him all those crazy questions that people aren't interested in anyhow. They'd say, Elmer, where did Cain get his wife? He'd say, Oh, I'm a Christian. I don't bother about other men's wives.

And he'd go on about it. But you know there's one thing they couldn't gainsay. They could not gainsay his life. They could not gainsay his life. And my dear friends, tonight I have a little suspicion after being associated with many of my Reformed brothers that some of them are a bit afraid of holiness.

They kind of equate it with a special little group over there that call themselves holiness people or something like that. Ah, that's not true of the real ones. They're so afraid of false piety, some of them, that they even miss real piety.

Let me read you a great Reformed man. When I say his name, there isn't a man here that won't know him. There isn't a man here that if he does know him, won't love him. Great Presbyterian that died before he was 30.

But he lives on today in every preacher's library. He lives on today in our hearts and our minds. Robert Mary McShane. Let me tell you what he said about holiness. This isn't some little special group.

If he wasn't Reformed, I don't want to be. He said, it's a holy making gospel. He said, without holy fruit, all evidences are vain. All your words and theology and everything else. All evidences are vain.

Dear friends, you have awakenings and lightnings and experiences and many do signs. But if you lack holiness, you shall never see the Lord. Said McShane. Jesus is a holy Savior. He first covers the soul with His white raiment.

Then makes the soul glorious within. He restores the lost image of God and fills the soul with pure heavenly holiness. Now get this last sentence. Then he said this, Unregenerate men among you cannot bear this testimony.

Holiness, Witness, and the Necessity of Christian Speech

I'm telling some of my friends coming up in the car today about a dear friend of mine who I was with him in the Navy. We were together in the South Pacific. After the war, we were separated for a period maybe of ten years.

He made a Christian profession. At least he did in the South Pacific. And some other times too. But we were separated for about ten years. And one day I got this long distance call from five states away.

It's the longest phone conversation I ever had. Two hours and fifteen minutes. He was paying the bill. But he was begging me to come to his house. To come with him. To fly there. Because he was having a serious domestic problem.

And he wanted me to talk to his wife. In the midst of little business problems in the construction business we mostly are. You may know that. Mostly we're in the midst of real problems. And I couldn't see how I could go.

And I tried to beg off. But he prevailed upon me to such an extent that I finally agreed to go. So it took me a day or a day and a half. Maybe two days to get organized. Get my suitcase packed. Get a plane ticket.

But I flew there in hopes that God would maybe use me to save that home. Or say a word. Or at least try to do everything I could. But by the time I got there he met me at the airport. His wife had already left the house and gone back with her mother.

So all the way back from the airport he's telling me how he's been witnessing to his wife. He said, I've been witnessing to her. I got back to the house and he had gospel tracts on the windowsill. He had them on the ironing board on the kitchen sink.

He even had gospel tracts on the back of the commode. And he said, I've been witnessing to her. I said, you sure have. You sure have. So we talked a while that evening and I said, do you think that Alice would talk to me?

And he said, yes. He said, I told her about our days in the Navy together. I believe she would. So I called to her mother's home. She was very gracious and agreed to meet me the next day at about two o 'clock.

I drove there to the place where I was to meet her. I listened to her for two hours. When she was finished, I said, Alice, I said, I'm very, very sorry about your domestic problem. But I said, there's something I'm more sorry about.

I said, you've never seen a Christian. You've never seen a Christian. I went back to the house and I told my friend to get his Bible. I said, I want you to read me a verse of scripture. I said, I want you to turn to 1 John 1, verse 3.

I said, I want you to read it to me. And he started to read. He said, that which we have seen. And I said, stop. He started to read again. He thought he made a mistake. He said, that which we have seen.

And I said, stop. He started again. And he said, that which we have seen. And I said, stop. And then we read the verse together. It says this, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that he also may have fellowship with us.

Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And I said, George, they not only heard a preacher, but they saw a light. I know that there's some people who hide behind living a right life and never open their mouth.

There's other people we'd be doing God a great service if we could get them to shut their mouth about religion. If we could just get them to keep their mouth closed about religion, we'd be doing God a great service.

But anybody that takes a cursory glance at the New Testament will see that it's not either or. They'll see that the New Testament principle is that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Why, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. It's by life and by lip, both. The power, oh, I could repeat the instances. I could spend the rest of the night just telling you about people that I know that have been led to Jesus and the first thing that stopped their mouth was God put them beside somebody that was holy.

They didn't understand. An old minister, when he was in college, I remember he had a roommate and he could hardly live with his fellow because he would stay out at night and my pastor used to get up at 5 o 'clock and spend an hour in his Greek Testament before he did his other studies and so he went to bed early and the other fellow would come in and wake him up every night and say he's missing the world, he's missing the grave.

You don't know what you're missing. Wake up, you're sleeping your life away. But he wanted to win Him to Christ and he stayed in that room and there were times when he almost left. I remember he talked to me once about this.

He says, I don't know what I'm going to do. I might have to move out. He said, but I love this thought. He said, I want to see him come to Christ. He told me what he would do. He'd come in at night and he said, I'd get up in the morning.

I said, what time does he get up? Well, he said most of the time he misses his first class and he said he doesn't get up very early. I said, well, let me make one suggestion before you move out. I said, when you come in, when you get awake in the morning, wake him up and tell him the birds are singing and the sun is shining and he's sleeping his life away.

And I said, do that for about three or four more weeks at work. I don't want to tell you all the stories. But that other, that fellow that was so bothered and the things that he was doing, Jesus Christ, but he's told me with his own lips.

He said, I either had to get rid of Walt or come to grips with the gospel. Come to grips with Christ. And that fellow's a Christian. Oh, the times I could multiply. The power of a... My wife and I were in Florida several years ago and there was a young lawyer.

It was a very informal little situation where we were gathered with some Christians. And this young lawyer was sharing his Christian experience. Never forget it, because it only underlines, it only underscores this principle, the power of a holy life.

And he was sharing his Christian experience. He told about how he, his father was a lawyer. Upright family. His family was highly moral, but just had nothing to do with the Christian church. They had no domestic problems.

They had no extreme moral problems. But they just were not a church family. And one day at a Sunday noon meal, the mother said, she said we ought to go to church somewhere as a family. And the discussion jumped, where would we go?

And immediately the mother told about some little woman down the street. She said, she's a holy woman. Let's see where she goes and follow her. And this young lawyer went on to say how he saw his mother come to Christ and change.

And he said he rationalized it the way she was getting old and needed a little religion. He said, I saw my father make a Christian profession, come into the Christian church. And he said, well I rationalized that because he loved mother and they always did everything together so he was doing it to please mother.

He said, I saw my 30 year old sister make a public profession of Christ, come into the Christian church. He said, I rationalized that away. He said, because she is 30 years old and hadn't found a husband.

And he said Jesus would probably do her some good. She was lonely. He said, I rationalized that away. He said, then I saw my 16 year old sister in high school. And I saw their lives change. He said, my brother and I got together one night and he said we plucked some blood from our veins and we signed a blood covenant that we would not let this religion touch us.

Well I'll make it sure. His brother was converted. And then he went on to say how he watched their lives. Oh he said they weren't perfect. But he said they had a purpose. And they lived a holy life. A true witness?

Well I'll tell you one thing that's involved in a true witness. It's somebody that knows something about a holy life. You can learn the ten rules and these canned little things that you run around worrying people with all you want.

If you don't know anything about a holy life you better can that too. Second thing I put on my summary sheet that day was this. Elmer cared for me. He had a passion for my soul. I wasn't converted. It's an icebox.

Compassion for Souls and the Power of Prayer

That's why some of you don't see any conversions in your church. It's an icebox. Elmer cared for me. He loved me. I never forget the second time I ever went to a Sunday school. The first time I went was with no intention to go for myself.

But my boy was five years old about and he had never been inside of a Christian church. Never had an ounce of Christian instruction or any kind of religious instruction. And the first time I went I went mainly to get him acquainted and so some of the people would take care of him and I'd be relieved of my parental responsibility.

But the second time was a different reason because I'd been under conviction for a while. Bothered about my sins and my soul. And I remember the second time I ever went to Elmer's Sunday school. Second time I ever went there he met me at the door.

As I entered the Sunday school that morning the first man I saw was Elmer. And as I put out my hand that morning to shake hands with him and put it in that hard rough carpenter's hand I looked in his face and tears were rolling down his cheeks.

And I thought to myself there's nothing emotional about shaking hands. No preachers telling any deathbed stories. Gentlemen, I never understood those tears until I started to read this book. And I read of another who wept over Jerusalem.

I read in Mark 1 how he was moved with compassion. I read it in Mark 5, 19. I read it in Mark 6, 2. I read it in Mark 8. All passages referring to the compassion of Jesus Christ. And though I did not understand those tears that Sunday morning I can tell you about them tonight.

Because I believe that my friend walked in such a relationship to Jesus Christ that he had a small measure of the compassion of Christ for sinners. I've told many a church crowd and I'll tell you. If I'd have lived on your street most of you, at least many of you would have said no hopes for that man.