Local Church Sports OutreachSharing the Love of Jesus Learning from the Past

My summer reading has included the following books:
Lloyd-Jones by Iain Murray 
A reflection on the great Welsh Preacher’s convictions about evangelism and ministry 

Heroes by Iain Murray
Short vignettes on Christian evangelists 

The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission by John Dickson
The latest book on relational evangelism 

My prayer for you this summer is Christ will empower you and use you in mighty ways to lovingly reach out to those far from God. I hope the following excerpts and quotes from these books on outreach will enlighten, encourage and inspire… 

From or about Martin Lloyd Jones: 
1. “It is one thing to bring truth from the Bible and another thing to bring from God through the Bible” 
2. “A self confident preacher is a contradiction in terms” 
3. “Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire” 
4. “Don’t seek a power – seek a Person” 
5. “The home should be as sacred a space and the time spent there should be as sanctified as the pulpit” 
6. “Public prayer: are you talking with God or talking to people” 
7. “We are to avoid people who do not believe in the Bible as the Word of God, for they will do you harm; they will take from your energy and you will eventually become diseased…How often have we known young men, truly converted, full of passion for souls, and zeal and enthusiasm, who after they have been to a theological college come out quite useless!” Martin Lloyd Jones 
8. “Don’t use a sledge hammer to crack a nut” Mrs. Lloyd Jones to her husband. 
9. “Do not preach for decisions – preach for disciples” 
10. “Miracles are not meant to be understood – they are to be believed” 
11. “Are you preparing sermons or preparing men to be sermons” 
12. “Certainly more is involved here than a preacher simply seeking special aid when he is preaching. To pray for the Spirit without living & walking in the Spirit, is to treat being a preacher as more important than being a Christian…An anointing that exists only for times in the pulpit is most likely to be artificial.” Iain Murray 

From or about Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
13. “A man who can pray like that can out preach the world” Theodore Cuyler speaking about Spurgeon. 
14. Spurgeon on preaching and evangelism: 
       a. He did not believe evangelism to be a one man job but every Christian should be seeking to lead others to Christ. 
       b. The church should be a beehive, into which every bee should be bringing honey 
       c. Christians consciously gathered in the presence of God are a convincing authentication of the power of the gospel 
       d. Evangelists are men full of faith, moved of love, have a true personal fellowship and friendship with the Savior, dependent on the Holy Spirit and prayer 
       e. To entertain doubt that Scripture is all given by inspiration of God is instantly to lose the true authority required of an evangelist. No man will preach the gospel aright who does not wholly believe it 
        f. To save the most foul, the most ignorant, the most degraded is an object worthy of the effort of the whole church. 
15. Spurgeon gives three warnings: 
       a. The danger of coveting success and popularity 
       b. The danger of grieving the Holy Spirit by becoming impure through worldliness and all forms of sin 
       c. The danger of not giving all praise to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit 

From or about George Whitefield 
16. Whitefield was described: “he resembled a lion in the pulpit and a lamb out of it.” 
17. “Do not tell me you are a Baptist, an Independent, a Presbyterian, a Dissenter, tell me you are a Christian: this is the religion of heaven and must be ours on earth.” 
18. Do I know about Christ or do I walk with Him moment by moment 

From John Newton 
19. “Grace matures slowly… God works powerfully but for the most part gently and gradually… He does not teach all at once but by degrees…a Christian is not of hasty growth, like a mushroom, but rather like the oak, the progress is hardly perceptible, but in time becomes a great deep-rooted tree.” 

From William Hepburn Hewitson 
20. “We should be missionaries…not because we may be ministers but because we are Christians. I am a missionary is a thought which we should frequently – every day that passes – entertain in our minds.” 
21. “…if Scotland loses her Sabbaths, she will lose along with them her religion and her God.” 

From John Dickson 
22. There is a distinction between proclaiming the gospel and promoting the gospel. Promoting the gospel includes: praying for those far from God, Godly behavior and loving actions. Such activities are not separate from the work of the gospel but are supportive of it and vital to it.