Evangelism Quotes and Illustrations

gb93433 · Jun 12, 2004

A friend of mine sent me the following e-mail.

Evangelism Quotes and Illustrations

1. Paul Harvey said, "Too many Christians are no longer fishers of men but keepers of the aquarium."

2. Paul Little in his book "How to Give Away Your Faith" defines witnessing: "Witnessing is that deep-seated conviction that the greatest favor I can do for others is to introduce them to Jesus Christ."

3. Elton Trueblood, the Quaker scholar, once compared evangelism to fire. Evangelism occurs, he said, when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out. A church without evangelism is a contradiction in terms, just as fire that does not burn is a contradiction.

4. Evangelism is not what we tell people, unless what we tell is totally consistent with who we are. It is who we are that is going to make the difference. If we do not truly enjoy our faith, nobody is going to catch the fire of enjoyment from us. If our lives are not totally centered on Christ, we will not be Christ-bearers for others, no matter how pious our words. [Show and Tell, Citation: Madeleine L'Engle, quoted in Christian Reader (May/June 1998, p. 50)]

5. Recently, I saw a letter written by a relatively new Christian to the person whose life had influenced hers so greatly. She actually lists about a dozen qualities she found contagious in the life of this older Christian. Listen to some of what she wrote: You know when we met; I began to discover a new vulnerability, a warmth, and a lack of pretence that impressed me. I saw in you a thriving spirit - no signs of internal stagnation anywhere. I could tell you were a growing person and I liked that. I saw you had strong self-esteem, not based on the fluff of self-help books, but on something a whole lot deeper. I saw that you lived by convictions and priorities and not just by convenience, selfish pleasure, and financial gain. And I had never met anyone like that before. I felt a depth of love and concern as you listened to me and didn't judge me. You tried to understand me, you sympathized and you celebrated with me, you demonstrated kindness and generosity - and not just to me, but to other people, as well. And you stood for something. You were willing to go against the grain of society and follow what you believed to be true, no matter what people said, and no matter how much it cost you. And for those reasons and a whole host of others, I found myself really wanting what you had. Now that I've become a Christian, I wanted to write to tell you I'm grateful beyond words for how you lived out your Christian life in front of me.

Basically, she was saying, "Thanks for being a Contagious Christian." Reading a letter like that motivates me to live as a contagious Christian too. How about you? I'll bet you want your life to count for a whole lot more than trinkets and toys and zeros on a pay check, too. From: Becoming A Contagious Christian

6. Recently I heard Dieter Zander, the pastor of the first GenX church in America speak at a conference about reaching people in the age of relativism. He cited a Barna study that asked people to use single words to describe Jesus. They responded, "wise, accepting, compassionate, gracious, humble." Then he asked them to use single words to describe Christians, they said, "critical, exclusive, self righteous, narrow and repressive."

"There is a difference between knowing the good news and being the good news," Zander said. "We are the evidence! How we live our lives are the evidence. Everything counts--all the time."

"With previous generations, a strong preacher could give a good message, even if the church was hypocritical and critical and people would still get saved," Zander continued, "but not any more. I'm seeing a change in what seekers are looking for. Not something they can relate to. They are looking for a transcendent God. They don't want to be entertained they want to be transformed."

7. There is something wrong when people are leaving the church to find God

8. "It is our privilege to have world evangelism as a passion, not our responsibility to have as a burden." Mary Nordstrom

9. Jim Wallis writes in The Call to Conversion (HarperCollins, 1992, p.
108) his testimony: "When I was a university student, I was unsuccessfully evangelized by almost every Christian group on campus. My basic response to their preaching was, "How can I believe when I look at the way the church lives?" They answered, "Don't look at the church, look at Jesus." I now believe that statement is one of the saddest in the history of the church. ...People should be able to look at the way we live and begin to understand what the gospel is about."

10. "Our English word witness comes from an Old English word we do no use very much anymore but we used it in Elizabethan times and afterwards. It is the word wit. 'To wit' means 'to know' A 'wit' is 'a knowledgeable person.' So a 'witness' of some who knows something and testifies to it."

11. A free flowing river purifies itself and is alive with life. So also is the Christian who becomes involved with others in sharing the Gospel. That Christian will discover the reason for his or her existence. Being involved in the ministry of a witness is essential to finding the fulfillment we desire as humans.

12. Richard Baxter, the Puritan preacher of the 17th century conveys the urgency, the zeal of Christian witness when he said, "I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men!"

13. Jesus issues the same call to all, but to different tasks. Someone put it rather quaintly: "to some, Christ calls 'leave boat and bay, and white-haired Zebedee.'" To some, the call is harder - "stay and mend the nets for me."

14. CT STUDD: "wealthy, nationally famous athlete put it all aside to disappear into the mission field: China, India, and then Africa. Lost from sight for 13 yrs without contact. WHY? 'Some people love to dwell near church with choir and steeple bell. But I want to run a rescue station a yard from the gates of hell.'"

15. Alexander Whyte said, " It would change your whole heart and life this very (day) if you would take Peter and Cornelius home with you and lay them both to heart. If you would take a four cornered napkin when you get home, and a.. Pen and ink and write the names of the nations, and the churches, and the denominations, and the congregations, and the ministers, and the public figures (men), and the private citizens, and the neighbors, and the fellow-worshippers - all the people you dislike, and despise and do not, cannot, and will not, love. Heap all their names into your unclean napkin, and then look up and say, 'Not so, Lord, I neither can speak well, nor think well, of these people. I cannot do it and I will not try. If your acted out and spake out all the evil things that are in your heart in some such way as that, you would thus get such a sight of yourselves that you would never forget it." [As quoted in (R. Kent Hughes. Acts: The Church Afire. Wheaton, ILL: Crossway Books, 1996) pp. 147-148]

16. Dr. Ellin Greene, of the University of Chicago, has said, "We get so quickly sidetracked from the simple story nature of our faith. We begin to think that theology saves us, that truth is somehow embodied in our theology of the Atonement, or our mastery of eschatological charts. But when Jesus wanted to communicate the truth of God's kingdom, he left out the polysyllables and told a story about a woman who lost a coin or a man who dug for treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like this . he said. Dare we ask for more scholarly explanation from the Son of God?"

17. David Brainerd, the famous missionary to the American Indians, proclaimed this truth throughout his ministry. He said, "I never got away from Jesus and Him crucified in my preaching. I found that once these people were gripped by the great evangelical meaning of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, I did not have to give them many instructions about changing their behavior."

18. Howard Hendricks said, "In the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering."

19. "Jesus . . . wants us to see that the neighbor next door or the people sitting next to us on a plane or in a classroom are not interruptions to our schedule. They are there by divine appointment. Jesus wants us to see their needs, their loneliness, their longings, and he wants to give us the courage to reach out to them" (REBECCA MANLEY PIPPERT, Draper's).

20. "When it comes to community ministry, we finally put our program where our mouth is. Instead of expecting the community to come to church, we decided to take the church to the community." Mark Krenz

21. Michael S. Hamilton, Assistant Professor of History at Seattle Pacific University wrote, "In the 1930's, most missionary agencies emphasized evangelism, church-planting, and discipleship. In 1998, however, four of the five largest overseas ministries specialized in relief, development, and education work. For many of these agencies, evangelism is a secondary concern."

Assembled by Paul Fritz

Dallasdid · Jun 12, 2004

Ray Comfort "You must make the person aware of their sins before you tell them about Christ. Lets say I come to you and you do not even know me and I say "mam or sir today you got a speeding fine but great news someone you don't even know paid the $50,000 fine." Would that truly be good news? NO! it makes no since! You don't think you broke the law you know nothing about it and its even offensive and confusing. But if I say it like this it makes more since. "Mam or Sir today the law clocked you at going 70 mph in a zone set aside for a blind kid's convention. You ignored 10 clear warning signs that stated 10 mph as the legal limit and what you did was very dangerous and because of it you had a $50,000 fine and just when the law was going to take its course someone you don't even know stepped in and paid your fine" You see how by first telling you what you did wrong first makes since. The modern Gospel produces false converts 1 more example is this: lets say we have 2 passengers on the plane. 1 passenger is told to put on this parachute because if he does he will have love joy peace and happiness or in other words it will improve his flight. Well, the 1st passenger he puts it on I mean he has tried drugs and alcohol and he figures why not he will try it and see if it works. As soon as he puts it on he notices right away the weight on his shoulders and the uncomforted it causes between his back and the seat. But he is going to give it a try. Well, with in just 4 minutes every one is laughing at him because he has a parachute on in the middle of the plane. Does he have love, joy, peace, and happiness? No, he has the promised persecution, trials, tribulations. He throws off the parachute because he was promised love, joy, peace, and happiness and did not get it. He has bitterness toward the person who told him about the parachute. Now lets say we have this second passenger. He is told to put on the parachute because at any moment he will have to take a 500,000 foot drop and this parachute will be the only thing to save his life. He puts it on does not notice the weight on his shoulders or the uncomforted on his back. All he knows is this parachute will save his life. Well, all of a sudden a piece of luggage falls and hits him in the head. Does he throw it off and say "this stupid parachute" no! He did not put it on for an enhanced flight or a flight with love joy peace. He put it on to save him from the jump to come. There is a new stewardess and she wants to make an impression and she does. She is carrying a pot of hot coffee and trips over some ones foot and spills it on our 2nd passenger. What is his reaction? "Ouch!!!" of course. But again does he rip of the parachute and throw it down and say "this stupid parachute"? NO! because again he did not put it on to enhance his flight but to save him from the jump to come. The modern Gospel preaches life enhancement and it produces false converts when tribulation, persecution, and trials come the leave the church have bitterness toward God and the person who told them about Christ. They come in an experimental fashion with out repentance and with out repentance there is no salvation. "

Dallasdid · Jun 12, 2004

To hear teachings from Ray Comfort go to www.wayofthemaster.com
www.livingwaters.com go to free audio under tools on way of the master. And on livingwaters there is a free audio link.

TheThinker · Jun 15, 2004

Wow this thread has really encrouraged me to take witnessing oppurtunities more seriously here are some good quotes as well.

"I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages - villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world."
           - Robert Moffat

"The command has been to "go," but we have stayed - in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth…But 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland."
           - Robert Savage

"While vast continents are shrouded in darkness…the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field."
           - Ion Keith-Falconer

"I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China…I don't know who it was…It must have been a man…a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing…and God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said - "Well, she's willing."
           - Gladys Aylward

"Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees."
           - J. Hudson Taylor

"The man…looking at him with a smile that only half concealed his contempt, inquired, "Now Mr. Morrison do you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?" "No sir," said Morrison, "but I expect that God will."
           - Robert Morrison

"Here am I. Send me."
           - Isaiah

"And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted."
           - Nate Saint

"Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in hell and neither do most Christians"
           - Leonard Ravenhill

"Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary."
           - C.T. Studd

"Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine."
           - said to a young William Carey

"Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals."
           - Robert Moffat

"We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God."
           - John Stott

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
           - Jim Elliot

"A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story."
           - K.P. Yohannan

"I have but one passion - it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ."
           - Count Zinzindorf

"God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies."
           - J. Hudson Taylor

"He must increase, but I must decrease."
           - John the Baptist

"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him."
           - C.T. Studd

"The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner."
           - William Cameron Townsend

"Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes."
           - Robert E. Speer

"The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions is younger. The church here is a "field full of wheat and tares."
           - Amy Carmichael

"I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth."
           - James O. Fraser

"It is just as proper, maybe even more so, to say Christ's global cause has a Church as to say Christ's Church has a global cause."
           - David Bryant

"If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray."
           - Frederick Franson

"What are we here for, to have a good time with Christians or to save sinners?"
           - Malla Moe

"I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver."
           - Robert Murray M'Cheyne

"It's amazing what can be accomplished if you don't worry about who gets the credit."
           - Clarence W. Jones

"Two distinguishing marks of the early church were: 1) Poverty 2) Power."
           - T.J. Bach

"Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give."
           - David Livingstone

"From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross."
           - Sadhu Sundar Singh

"I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been."
           - Lottie Moon

"All my friends are but one, but He is all sufficient."
           - William Carey

"How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves."
           - C.T. Studd

"I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to."
           - Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

"The more obstacles you have, the more opportunities there are for God to do something."
           - Clarence W. Jones

"Expect great things from God. Attempt great thing for God."
           - William Carey

"God's part is to put forth power; our part is to put forth faith."
           - Andrew A. Bonar

"All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!"
           - Jonathan Goforth

TheThinker · Jun 15, 2004

and some more gooders

The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same - that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West."
           - E. Stanley Jones

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
           - Jesus

"All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ."
           - Keith Green

"Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them"
           - A.W. Tozer

"I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is one who cares."
           - Alexander Duff

"Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions"
           - Leonard Ravenhill

"It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home."
           - J. Hudson Taylor

"We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first."
           - Oswald J. Smith

"God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know."
           - David Bryant

"And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named so that I would not build on another man's foundation."
           - Paul

"Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts?"
           - K.P. Yohannan

"If every Christian is already considered a missionary, then all can stay put where they are, and nobody needs to get up and go anywhere to preach the gospel. But if our only concern is to witness where we are, how will people in unevangelized areas ever hear the gospel? The present uneven distribution of Christians and opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ will continue on unchanged."
           - C. Gordon Olson

"I spent twenty years of my life trying to recruit people out of local churches and into missions structures so that they could be involved in fulfilling God's global mission. Now I have another idea. Let's take God's global mission and put it right in the middle of the local church!"
           - George Miley

"Oh dear, I couldn't say that my church is alive and I wouldn't want to call it dead. I guess it's just walking in its sleep!"
           - Church member

"When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen."
           - said of John Geddie

"At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself."
           - John G. Paton

"Save others, snatching them out of the fire."
           - Jude

"The evangelization of the world in this generation."
           - Student Volunteer Movement Motto

"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring"
           - Jesus

"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't."
           - John Piper

"His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice."
           - John Stott

"Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them."
           - David Bryant

"Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ."
           - Francis Xavier

"Christ for the students of the world, and the students of the world for Christ."
           - Luther Wishard

"We who have Christ's eternal life need to throw away our own lives."
           - George Verwer

"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell."
           - C.T. Studd

"When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone"
           - J. Hudson Taylor

"God has huge plans for the world today! He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation. Even now He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth."
           - David Smithers

"The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity."
           - Mike Stachura

"Answering a student's question, 'Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?' thus, 'It is more a question with me whether we who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.'"
           - C.H. Spurgeon.

littlewhitedove · Jun 17, 2004

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the quotes so much.

saran · Jul 4, 2004

Re: TheThinker quotes of June 15:

All are excellent, but sometimes knowing something about the person quoted adds significant meaning:

NATE SAINT and JIM ELLIOTT were missionaries to the Auco Indians and were killed by the Aucas. Their wives continued their love for missions for several years and stayed with and won to Christ the ones who killed their husbands.

WILLIAM CAMERON TOWNSEND was challenged by John Wycliffe to help get the Bible translated into the native tongue of millions who have no Bible in their own language; thus spending the rest of his life on projects with Wycliffe Translators, putting God's Word in original languages.

LOTTIE MOON went to China as a young lady where she literally gave her life. When famine arose, she WOULD NOT eat what little she had, when she knew her beloved Chinese COULD NOT eat; and when forced by her denomination to leave because she was too weak to stay, she died of malnutrition at sea on her way home.

These and many others are testaments of a devout conviction that they were in God's will, and had no fear. A recent testimony is further evidence of dedication to God's will, regardless of the cost: NIKI McDONNALL, the only survivor of a group of 5 missionaries doing relief work in Iraq a few months ago, when their vehicle was ambushed, has this testimony: She says they did not go to Iraq because someone asked them to go, but because God asked them to go. "If we are truly doing what Christ says, the idea of it being dangerous is nothing. [Christ] suffered to the point of death on a cross. So for me to say, 'No, I'm not going to go because it's dangerous,' that's a slap in Christ's face."

dave brauer · Jul 5, 2004

A phrase from a favorite hymn: "My house is full, but my fields are empty, who will go and work for Me today?"

"It seems my children all want to sit around my table, but no one wants to work in my fields."

Matthew 9:37 & 38 "Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."

Raven · Jul 12, 2004

To me this is so appropriate and appreciated!
Tomorrow I am to attend a bible study at a local care facility.
This is not in my "comfort zone" but,
Well it's like this, I'm a 47 year old male asked to attend by 5 senior ladies,
I am a relitive new believer (18 months)asked by a well read teacher,
and it is in a building of 105 units.
All I can say is I am so excited!
I have been praying for this as my Pastor has been mentoring me for the last 6 months in preparation.
In His time, His way. Just say yes!

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