Chapter 6 Defining Evangelism Chapter 7 Jesus Methodology of Baptism

Chapter 6 Defining Evangelism

Chapter 7 Jesus Methodology of Baptism

Matthew 9-10

CHAPTER 8 THE EVANGELIST'S START

CONVERSION

In 1958, a motorcycle policeman in Atlanta, Georgia caught three eight-year-old boys. One had thrown a rock over a tractor trailer and hit a 1959 Ford windshield. The windshield cracked and the driver rounded up a police officer. He came back down Interstate 75 southbound in the right lane. The motorcycle policeman was in the left lane hiding behind the 1959 Ford until he spotted the boys. The three were quickly apprehended. The police called their parents. Each boy blamed the other two. When one of the boys got home, his father normally would have taken off his belt and whipped the boy. Instead of whipping him, he told the boy he was too disappointed in him to whip him. The young man was so crushed by his guilt that he began to try to be a good boy. He began to make A's in school. He batted .600 in little league. At night during the summer he would often get in the back of a pick up truck and pray that someone would tell him how to be saved. No one came; no Sunday School teacher or preacher came to explain the simple plan of salvation. His family moved during the following year. The boy began to go to Sunday School, Christian Training and R.A's with the next-door neighbors. Every Sunday morning the Sunday School teacher told his class just before the closing prayer, "Boys, Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. If you would ask Him, He will forgive your sins." The boy heard, but he did not understand. A few months later, the boys' class got out of Christian Training before the adults. The boys began to hit each other on the arm to see who could hit the hardest. One of the older boys, Tommy Neal, came over to this young man and said, "Keith, Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins." The boy answered, "I know it." (He had really heard that before in Sunday School.) Tommy said, "If you'd ask Jesus to save you, He would save you right now!" The boy answered, "I would like to, but I don't know what to say to Jesus." Tommy said, "Let's get on our knees and I will help you with the words. Just say, Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and forgive my sins.” The boy did just that, and Jesus Christ came into his heart and forgave every sin. At the evening Revival service, Evangelist Ed Vallowe Preached and gave the invitation. He said a prayer and the congregation began to sing, (Have Thine Own Way.” Before the congregation got the H sound out on Have, the first word of the first verse, The boy ran down the aisle and told the pastor, Dr. Paul Gilliam, that Christ had saved him and that he was ready to do whatever God said next. That boy could hardly wait to go home to tell his parents. He went to school the next day and told his teacher and all of his friends. He felt that if people just knew that Christ died for them, then they could have the joy, which he knew in Christ. In fact that young man now has a lifelong desire to do nothing, but tell men how to be saved. That boy became an evangelist and is now authoring this book.

Every evangelist must have a dramatic conversion to Christ or a tremendous clear sense of what salvation means. That does not necessarily mean that one has been an alcoholic, drug addict or womanizer before salvation, but it does mean that one has had a clear-cut conversion to Christ. That conversion must include a deep conviction of sin by God's Holy Spirit. It should include a God given drive for telling everyone about Christ. It is true that some evangelists lived in great immorality before coming to Christ, but any sin will take a man to hell. A testimony of salvation that allows a young man to not even sip a beer is a powerful testimony in these times. He is no less effective in presenting Christ.

Call

That summer I went to Camp Joy just out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I knew that if any camper needed to rededicate his life it was I. I went forward on Thursday night and told Dr. Buffington I was saved and just needed to get right with God. He had prayer with me and told me to talk with my counselor back in the cabin. My turn to talk came just after midnight. As we shared I began to realize that not only did I need to recommit my life to Christ but also that God was calling me for full-time service. I wrote on a blank page in the back of my Bible that God had called me to fulltime service on that date in 1963.

When I got home the eighth grade started, football started, and the banquets started. I told the Lord I would go to church Sunday morning, Sunday Night, Wednesday night, and go out on visitation on Thursdays. But I would not be fulltime. I tore the page out of the back of my Bible on which I had written my commitment to ministry. I wadded it up and threw it in the trashcan. I was as active in church as anyone you have ever seen and yet a million miles out of the will of God.

My ninth grade year I had mononucleosis. I missed most of the football season and had a relapse when I went out for track. My tenth grade year my thighbone was broken. I was in the South Fulton Hospital in a body cast Saturday night after surgery. Deacons had to go out of the room so the coach could come in. He said, “I knew you were a Christian, I just did not realize how active you were in church.” The deacons chimed in saying that I was the kind of boy you ought to be. But my pastor did not say a word. He caught me alone on Sunday afternoon and told me the reason I was in a body cast and not a short cast only from the top of the leg down to the foot was because I was running from God. He said, “God will keep you flat of your back till you get right. I knew he was right.” I thought he was the only one who knew that God was calling me to fulltime service.

I fought that call until the first Saturday in December 1967. On that morning I told my mom and dad God was calling me. On Sunday morning at the age of seventeen, I went forward and took Dr. F.J. Hendrix by the hand. I told him that God was calling me for fulltime service. He said that God had called me to preach and he knew it the first time he saw me. I replied that I did not know it was to preach. But I was willing to dig ditches, crawl through the sewers in Atlanta or be a missionary in Africa or to do whatever God wanted me to do. He said, “God has called you to preach and we are going to license you today.” The church backed me in God’s calling and I was licensed that day.

I preached my first sermon in January 1968. It was pathetic. I did such a poor job I told the Lord I would never preach again. God intervened and I was called to preach a youth night at First Baptist Mountain View, Georgia. I told the Lord I would preach if He gave me a sermon. He did and heaven came down. I preached my first revival at my home church that summer and now over 1400 revivals and harvest days later I am still going.

One thing is certain; a man will not stay in evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention if he does not know that God has called him. The financial difficulties of the first two years move 98% of men out of evangelism and into the pastorate or some other work. The certainty that God has called a man to be an evangelist will force him to stay on his knees until God shows him the way.