What is an evangelist? What does a Biblical evangelist do? What character in the Bible is a good example for the evangelist to follow? All these questions and more are answered in today’s podcast.
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Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
What is an evangelist? What does an evangelist do? What character in the Bible is a good example for the evangelist to follow all these questions and more are answered in today’s podcast.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:15):
Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be safe. Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:51):
Hello, this is Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead million of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? I don’t know if you know this, but I have an online school of mass evangelism and I’ve taken all of my teachings, my videos, a lot of my raw writings, even several books that I haven’t even published yet. And I’ve put all this material into an online school, designed to train people who are called to be mass evangelist. You know, there’s several different types of evangelism. You have personal one on, on one evangelism. And I really believe in that. I think every single evangelist should be good at sharing the gospel one-on-one with people, but then there’s some people who are called to preach to masses of people, thousands and thousands of people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:58):
And there’s not very much training material available for those who are called to mass evangelism. And so in today’s podcast episode, I want to take you behind the scenes into one of the sessions that I have recorded in my school of mass evangelism. By the way, if you wanna enroll in the school, you can find it at Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism, that’s Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism. You can also find links to the school at our ministry website, king ministries.com. And there’s lots of great material in there for anybody who’s called to be an, but on today’s podcast. I’m gonna take you behind the scenes to one of the sessions where I deal with the question, what is an evangelist? And I’m gonna look at the biblical meaning of the evangelist all the different times in the Bible that the evangelist has mentioned. And I’m also going to look at Philip, the evangelist, the only person in the whole Bible, who is specifically called an evangelist, and we’re gonna find out what we can learn from his story. So join me today and let’s find out what is an evangelist?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:23):
What is an evangelist? The word evangelist actually comes from the Greek word Angus, which comes from the root word Ang Elon, which is the word for gospel ends. So this word Ang Gallion comes from the Greek word onus. And so you might be familiar with the word S we have it in Spanish, and you may have heard of the city of Los Angeles. It comes from that word. Los Angeles means the angels. The word onus means angel or messenger. And so the rule root word of the evangelist is a messenger. Someone who brings a message and the picture in the Greek is of a person who is a runner, and he’s been in a big battle and their side has won a great victory against the in. And so the king calls this runner and says to him, I want you to run back to our home city.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:27):
And I want you to tell the people that are anxiously waiting, the outcome is about, I want you to tell them that we have won a great victory. And so this guy starts running just as fast as he can. He’s he’s running. He is the marathon runner and, and he gets back to their home city and he’s just breathing as hard as can be. And they’re like, what’s what happened? Did we win? Did we lose? You know, are we all gonna die? Are we gonna be taken into slavery? You know what happened? Everyone’s there around him, anxiously waiting. He’s trying to catch his breath. And then he shouts out the good news. He says, Hey, we won the victory.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:03):
And so that is the picture of the evangelist. The evangelist is someone who comes and says, Hey, guess what? The enemy has been defeated. Satan has no more power anymore. We have won the victory. And so that is the picture of the evangelist. And so the word evangelist is mentioned three times in the Bible. I wanna look at these three times that the evangelist has mentioned the first passage, which I know you’re familiar with is Ephesians chapter four, verse 11. And this is the, the verse that talks about the fivefold ministry gifts. It says it was Jesus who gave some to be apostles, some, to be prophets, some, to be evangelists, praise the Lord, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:08):
And so you’ll notice here in this passage, you’ve got five ministry gifts. You got the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teacher. And, and so the, the evangelistic gift is, is one of the, the fivefold ministry gifts. And of course there are other ministry gifts besides these five, in other parts of Paul’s writings, he talks about the gifts of administration gifts of encouragement, just different gifts that are available. But the evangelist, I think is one of those key gifts that are definitely needed in the body of Christ. And unfortunately, the evangelistic gift right now is weak in the body of Christ. And I don’t know quite why that is, but you know, like back in the forties and fifth, these here in America, we had some really great evangelist that was during the voice of healing movement.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:03):
You had people like, Oral Roberts, like RW Schambach like AA Allen, like William Branham that were traveling around bridge. And they really flowed really strong in the evangelist gift, but it seems like we’ve entered a new period where now probably the strongest gift is the, the role of the pastor, the, the, the pastor of a church. And I think that it’s good that the pastor is strong, but I think that the evangelistic gift also needs to be strong in the body of Christ. The second place where the evangelist is has mentioned is second Timothy chapter four, verse five.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:46):
This is Paul giving advice to a spiritual son, Timothy. He says, but you keep your head in all situations and do her hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. And so here, Paul is giving Timothy advice. He says, do the work of evangelist. Now at this time, Paul was actually a pastor. He was the pastor of the church in Ephesus was, was probably would be considered a megachurch back in those days. Mary mother of Jesus had moved to ESUs. Many of the apostles made their home there. There are probably 20,000 believers in Ephesus and, and Tim was serving as their pastor. And so even though he’s a pastor, Paul specifically tells him do the work of an evangelist. And so this tells me that every single one of the ministry gifts should do the work of an evangelist.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:42):
We found that there is a, the gift or the office of the evangelist, but there’s also something that every single believer is called to do. And we find that command in the great commission, mark 16, 15 says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That command is not just given to a select few it’s given to every disciple of Jesus. How many of your disciples of Jesus? That means that you’re called to do the work of an evangelist. Now, one thing you’re going to discover when we’re down in the nation of Haiti, is that doing the work of an evangelist involves lots of work. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, it’s gonna be hot. You’re gonna be sweaty. You’re gonna get tired. We’re, we’re gonna work you as hard as we can, cuz we’re only there for one week and we want to make it hard for people to go to hell from Haiti that week that we’re there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:32):
Amen. We don’t want a single person in Haiti to go to. And so we’re gonna work you as hard as we possibly can. You’re gonna wake up early, pray hard, work, hard minister, hard, go to bed late, and we’re gonna have a little bit of fun while we’re doing it. And so it’s gonna be great but just just know that it it’s hard work. And so sometimes when people look at the Evangel and think, oh, you know, it’s it, they’re the ones that it up in front of a big crowd. And they preach the people, you know, he preaches for 45 minutes. How hard could that be? But really doing that is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s probably only about 10% of the work. There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes of what it means to be an evangelist.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:13):
And, and so all the, that gets the people there, that’s hard work doing all the, the team coordination and all that stuff. That’s hard work. And then probably one of the, the biggest works that the Evangel has to do is to raise money in, in order to do it really honestly, anybody can preach is not hard to preach. What’s hard is paying for the platform that you’re preaching on. And, and so I think that that’s an area that we all need to grow on, grow in is, is raising money and, and getting peop other people involved and having the money in to be able to do the ministry that God has called us to do. And so we’ll be talking about that some more later on today. So Paul tells Timothy to do the work of the evangelist and then in acts chapter 21, verse eight, the last time that an evangelist is mentioned is specifically calling Philip an evangelist X 21 verse eight says leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip, the evangelist, one of seven, he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:31):
And so of all the people in the Bible only Philip is specifically called and to evangelist. He worked in this ministry as an evangelist. Now the fact that the word for evangelist is only mentioned three times is not meant to demean the office of the evangelist. The title of Bishop is only used three times. Deacon is found twice and amazingly given the current prominence of the position in the body of Christ, the word pastor only occurs one time in the entire Bible. Do you know where it’s found? We just read it a minute ago in Ephesians, the, the that’s the only play is the word pastor has found now that the concept of being a shepherd to people is found in more places, but the word pastors only found once. And so the root word for evangelist is Ang Gallion, which is the Greek word for gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:26):
And this word is actually used 74 times in the new Testament. And then the, the verb form is used in additional 52 times. And so Jesus is actually the first evangelist in the new Testament. Since it says that he went about preaching the good news, the Ang Gallion of the gospel. And so he preached the good news. Therefore he functioned in this office as an evangelist and even the angels went, they proclaimed that Jesus had been born. They proclaimed good news. That was great joy to all the people. And so if that word, good news again is the word Ang Gallion. And even the early church was full of evangelists. And in acts eight four, it says that they preached the word wherever they went. So they went about preaching. God’s word, evangelists are in rare supply, but we need more evangelists. I, I think sometimes the evangelistic gift has been misunderstood in the body of Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:22):
Some people think that the evangelist is just an itinerant preacher, either. You’re a pastor and you got a place where you preach every week, or if you not a pastor, then they call you an evangelist and you to, as you’re, you’re a traveler. And so it is true that the evangelist is called to travel, but not every traveling minister functions in the office, some people they travel and they preach, and their primary focus is on helping people to have healthy marriages. Well, that’s a good message. That’s a good thing to preach. Having a healthy marriage is something the body of Christ needs, but someone who primarily preaches on marriages, isn’t an evangelist. Some people travel and teach on finances and, and teach about seed faith and, and giving and that type of thing. And so a lot of them call themselves evangelists, but they’re not true evangelists.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:13):
The office of the evangelists, the primary focus of the, the office of the evangelist is to get lost people saved. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, that is the focus of the evangelist. And that should be your focus if, if you’re called to be in evangelist evangelists are not just preachers looking for a meeting sometimes at a pastor’s conference, you know at Ram they’ve got the, the, the great winter Bible seminar. And, and so sometimes, you know, all the pastors come and, and they try to stay away from the evangelists cuz they think the evangelists are just coming and trying to look for, for a meeting. But the true evangelist is not just looking for a meeting. The true evangelist is looking for a lost soul. And then some people have gotten confused about the evangelist because they, they think that any TV, preacher is an evangelist.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:05):
In fact, they call them televangelist. And when you hear the word televangelist, you get this picture of someone with a lick back hair and I got this gold suit on and they said, send me your money, send me your money now. You know? And, and, and so a lot of people go on TV and say, we’re reaching the world, but they’re not really reaching the world. They’re just asking people for money. And unfortunately that’s given a bad name to the evangelist, but I think that it’s time for the evangelist gift to rise back up in the body of Christ. We need more evangelists and, and, and so the evangelist is one who preaches the good news. What is an evangelist? The evangelist leads the loss to Christ. The evangelist, equips equips, the saints for evangelism. The evangelist reaches out to both individuals and multitudes evangelists preach the simple gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:59):
They don’t preach the latest, greatest brand new flavor of the week. Sometimes people are always looking for the brand new message, something that no one’s ever heard before, but really the evangelist focuses on the simple gospel. What gospel it’s that we’re all sinners. Jesus died for our sin, Jesus rose from the dead and everyone who calls on Jesus can be saved from their sin. And that’s very basic. And, and, and there’s a lot of different ways of saying that, but the more simple it is, the easier it is for lost people to understand and to come to Christ. Another sign of the evangelist is signs and wonders. Healing. Miracles. Evangelists are a shining light in the midst of a dark world. They’re like spiritual obstetricians who give birth to new believers. They are the advertising agency of God’s kingdom. The evangelists are like the elite Navy seals who are the first to head into enemy territory.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:56):
They’re like shock troops on the front lines of the battle for lost souls. They are farmers who are focused on plowing ground sewing seeds and reaping a harvest. And so if you can imagine the, the battles that the United States has fought like for example we invaded Iraq in the, the first Gulf war. The Navy seals went in under cover of night. They were the first ones to land and they had specific missions to fulfill. They, they had to go in, blow up certain things, attack certain areas get, take over some of the radar sites. I mean they, and they snuck in and, and they were the first, they were the elite they’d been trained. And so that is the job of the evangelist. The evangelist doesn’t sit around where it’s comfortable. The evangelist is often the first one to go into an area before the apostle, before the pastor, before there’s any churches there, the evangelist is the one who goes in and, and makes an impact before anybody else can come.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:01):
And, and he’s like the, he opens the door for the gospel to start breaking forth in an area. I all right. Let’s look at the office of the evangelist in the new Testament. And so the only person in the new Testament who specifically called an evangelist is Philip. And so let’s look at the life of Philip. The first time he’s mentioned is in acts chapter six versus is one through seven. It says in those days when the number of disciples was increasing the Greason Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the 12 gathered all the disciples together and said it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables, brothers choose seven men from amongst you who are known to be full of the spirit and wisdom.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:55):
We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word, this proposal, please, the whole group. They chose Steven, a man full of faith and of the holy spirit, also Philip, and then six other people or five other people. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the apostles, the, the 11 apostles plus the replacement for Judas, the 12 apostles, they were so busy preaching the word that they’re also trying to feed all the widows, feed all the people, the hungry. And so apparently one group of widows wasn’t getting the food they should have been getting. And the apostles they decided, you know, we need to be focused on studying God’s word, preaching, God’s word. And they said, we need some people that would be willing to serve.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:48):
And so they looked around and found people that were full of holy spirit that were willing, that were full of wisdom. And so Philip met all of these requirements. Philip was full of the holy spirit. He was full of wisdom and he was willing to be used by God and noticed that his ministry started with him being a servant. He, he just found a plea place to serve, just bringing food to the widows. And I think this is where a lot of ministries get started. In fact, every healthy ministry, this is where they get started. And I think it’s very important to continually keep that heart of a servant throughout ministry and, and be willing to do whatever it takes to get the, a job done. A lot of people wanna be, you know, the, the big man on stage, but really God is looking for people who are willing to reach out to the cripple who are willing to help serve the food, willing to clean the toilets.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:49):
And God’s looking for that type of person. Apparently Philip was that type of person. So that’s where his ministry got started. And then the next time we see Philip at work is in acts chapter eight. Verse one on that day, a great persecution broke out against the church at Jeru and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. So acts one eight, Jesus gave the promise, but you shall receive power after the holy spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses onto me and Jerusalem Juda Samaria into the uttermost ends of the earth. So Jesus gave them the specific command and acts one eight, and it takes all, all the way until acts eight, chapter one chapter eight, verse one for that command to start to be fulfilled up until acts chapter eight. All of the disciples are in Jerusalem.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:39):
Everybody that’s getting saved is in Jerusalem. They stand in Jerusalem, but suddenly this great persecution breaks out and people begin to scatter all, all over. So they go to Judea, they go to Samaria and then eventually we’ll see that they end up at the uttermost ends of the earth. And so godly men buried Stephen and mourn deeply for him. You remember that he was, he was stoned, but Saul began to destroy the church going from house to house. He dragged off men and women and put them in prison. Then verse four, those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs, he did, they all paid close attention to what he said with shrieks evil spirits came outta many in many paralytics and cripples were healed.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:29):
So there was great joy in that city. So it says that Philip went down to Samaria. Samaria was full of Samaritans, who didn’t really get along with Jews now in John chapter four, Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman and the whole village there got saved and, and, and were excited about Jesus. And so apparently there were some that heard about Jesus, but Jesus had given the command go to Samaria. Well, no one had gone until Philip went there. And so Philip goes down. He starts preaching among the Samaritans and look at what he did. He proclaimed crime there. And so the work of the evangelist is to proclaim Christ, to preach Jesus. That is the primary message of the evangelist. There’s many different things that people can preach on. You can preach on faith. You can preach on marriage. You can preach on finances.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:26):
You can preach on seven reasons why Jesus is coming soon, you know, but really the, the, the focus of the evangelist is preaching Christ. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all man onto me. And so it says that when the crowns heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs, he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. And so here we have two different characteristics of the evangelistic ministry. First of all, is multitudes. And second is miracles. And so I believe anytime someone is operating in an Evangel, you’re gonna see multitudes and you’re gonna see miracles. And so I’m believing that we’re gonna see both when we’re in the nation of Haiti, we’re gonna see multitudes of people coming, and we’re gonna see great miracles. And it’s because there’s a specific anointing on the evangelist to do that to see miracles happen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:25):
I think that God uses miracles in order to draw people to, to hear the good news. Marilyn Hickey told me that miracles are the dinner bell that draw people to the banqueting table of heaven. And then notice, it says with shrieks, evil spirits came outta many, many paralytics and cripples were healed. And, and so the evangelistic gift is also given to confront demonic powers. And so he counts demons, outta many people. And then it says there was great joy in that city. And, and so this is another characteristic of the evangelistic. Many industry is it brings great joy. We were in the nation of India doing a big evangelistic event. And we were out in this rural area where there are lots of farmers and many of the farmers were extremely poor. They didn’t have anything. And I read that many of these farmers, they would go into debt in order to buy sea eat and they plant their seed.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:28):
And then if there was any problem with the harvest, if it rained too early, or it didn’t rain at all, or if rats came and ate their harvest they wouldn’t have money to pay back the debt. And, and so the, they would be hounded by these, these debt collectors who would come and, and, and say, Hey, you gotta pay back their debt. And so a bunch of these farmers were committing suicide because they couldn’t pay back their debt. In fact, in, in that area, like over 2000 people had committed suicide over the last 10 year period. And, and so when we came the first night we started preaching and the people just sat there and stared at us like a, a cow looking at a new gate. I mean, he’s just looking at, I mean, they didn’t break a smile. They didn’t clap with us during the songs.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:16):
They didn’t sing. Like there were no miracles the first night nothing happened. And so second night, same thing, third night, same thing. Like, I would pray for the, and say, please come and tell me what Jesus has done for you. And, and no one would come and, and I’d preach again and pray again, and nothing was happening. And, and so finally by the third night, one guy came up, he says I was sitting way in the back and I was blind. And on the first night I, I saw a light and, and then I was able to see, and he says, and, and so I didn’t want to come up on the first. I wanna see whether it was really real. So he says, I waited two nights to see whether my miracle was real, but I, I wanna tell everyone now that I can see Jesus says, heal me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:02):
I’m like, why don’t you come up the first night would, it really helped, helped me out. I was feeling lonely up there. And, and so this guy comes up and, and gives his testimony. And then another person comes up and gives her, and then another person and another person. And so by the, the final night, the fifth night of the crusade we had great joy that filled that place through a mirror, uncles taking place all over the place like popcorn, just God was touching people and, and the people got up and they started to celebrate. They started to dance. We were singing songs. Everyone was clapping. They were laughing. And it was the joy of the Lord that filled that place. And so it was just like in the book of acts, it says, great joy filled the city and are gonna see that in the nation of Haiti, we’re gonna see the city filled with great joy, hallelujah, verse nine.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:52):
It says now for some time a man named Simon had practiced Sourcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samara. He boasted that he was someone great. And all the people both high and low gave him their attention explained this man is the power. No one as the great power, they followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip, as he preached the good news, the kingdom of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women, Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. And so there is real miracles and there’s counterfeit miracles. And, and in the nation of Haiti voodoo is one of the primary religions. Some of the people are Christians. Some of the people practice a form of voodoo.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:40):
Some people combine Christianity and voodoo and, and counter practice both. But last time that we were there, we set up a big barrel and we invited all the people to bring all their voodoo idols and fetishes and different things that they used to worship. And they threw ’em into the barrels. And then we lit them on fire and, and, and burned all of those things up. And so you kind of see this happening with this sun, him in the sourcer, same thing where he’s amazed at the mayor and says, Hey, I want this. And so he goes, he believes he’s baptized. And when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them. And they, that they might receive the holy spirit because the holy spirit had not yet come upon.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:23):
Any of them, they’d simply been baptized in the name of the Lord, Jesus, then Peter and John placed their hands on them. And they received the holy spirit. And so I think this is a real important point. After Philip went, there, began to preach. He was the evangelist. He was breaking the ground up. Then when God began to move, the apostles came from Jerusalem. And so Peter and John come and, and began praying for people to be filled with a holy spirit. And so one of the number one questions that evangelist get I’ve, I’ve heard it a million times is what do you do about follow up? And it’s always very question, well, what do you do about follow? You, get all these people saved and then you leave. And what do you do about follow? Well, I think that the biblical model is right here, that the, the evangelist goes, he preaches the gospel, multitudes miracles, people get saved, but he works in teamwork with other giftings in the body of Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:22):
And so along behind the evangelist comes the prophet, the pastor, the teacher, the apostle, these other evangelist gifts to help in discipling the people. And so I always do everything I possibly can to do about, to do follow up. I mean, we don’t want any spiritual abortions, people to that get saved and then follow away. We wanna follow up on them. But it’s not something that the evangelist is called to do alone. It is for every ministry gift to, to be involved in, in the follow up of the new believers. And so that’s why in Haiti, we’re gonna work very closely with the local believers. We’re gonna be doing training for the local pastors be because we wanted ha something in them that helps with following up on the people that that get say. And, and so we’re not in this by ourselves, we’re working with other churches, other pastors, as many people as we can in Haiti, we’ve invited all the pastors of Porter princes to come together for our pastors training seminar.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:23):
And so I believe that they are the ones that are primarily responsible for the, the follow up of the new believers verse 18. When Simon saw that the spirit was given at the length on of the apostles hands, he offered them money and said, give me also this abilities that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the holy spirit. Peter answered may your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no partner share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God repent of this willingness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. If I see that you’re full of bitterness and captive to sin, then Simon answered pray to the Lord for me. So that nothing you have said may happen to me when testified in proclaim the word of the Lord, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:10):
And so we see that because of what Philip went, did that now the gospel can spread to that entire region and all the Samaritan villages hear the good news. And so it’s very interesting that this source or Simon tries to buy the gift of God with money and with the focus of some ministers on money. I think that today there would be some ministers that would take it, say, yeah, give me a, gimme a thousand dollars and I’ll lay hands on. You I’ll pray for you. But Peter and John, they shut it down immediately. They say, you know, and they’re, they’re disgusted with him and say, you have no part or share in this ministry because your heart’s not right before God. And so the evangelist is not motivated by money. He’s motivated by souls. He’s motivated going after people and in rescuing people from hell, then verse 26.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:02):
Now an angel, the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he started out and on his way, he met an Ethiopian Munich, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem, the worship, and on his way, home was sitting in his chariot, reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet, the spirit told Philip go to that chariot and stay near it. And so in the thinking of this time, Ethiopia was on the ends of the earth. It was the very edge here in this chapter. We, we see the fulfillment of the act chapter one, verse eight. First, the gospel goes from Jerusalem into Judea, then onto Samaria. And now it’s going to an Ethiopian Munich, the uttermost ends of the earth.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:57):
And so the writer of the book of acts, which is Luke, he puts it here specifically to show the fulfillment of this prophecy that Jesus gave in acts one eight. And so this Ethiopian unit, he goes to the temple or to Jerusalem to worship. And so history tells us that the queen of Sheba, you remember the story came to meet Solomon. And she went back. And when she went back, she took some Jews with her back to Ethiopia. And, and so apparently there were still people there still Jews that worshiped yawe the, the God of Israel. And so he came to worship, but when he came to the temple, there was a problem because in Leviticus, it tells us, first of all, that no foreigner is, is allowed to worship in the temple. And second in Leviticus, it tells us that no one who is MAED is allowed to worship in the temple.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:52):
And so this man is a UNIC and he is MAED, he’s got this serious injury. And so because of this, he has to stand outside the temple area. He came all the way Jerusalem, but you can tell he’s very curious. And, and he, he, he buys the book of Isaiah, which back then would’ve been the equivalent of two or three years wages. I mean, so, you know, you can imagine spending a huge amount, be like buying a book for 50, 60, $70,000. He’s spending on, on this book of Isaiah and he’s in his cherry driving back home. And he’s curious. And so he’s reading, he wants to know everything he can about God. And so God specifically gives Philip the evangelist, an instruction, go down to the desert road. Now here, Philip is he’s ministering in Samaria and there’s multitudes of people getting saved. And suddenly God speaks to him and says, go down to the desert road.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:46):
Now, this is a very surprising instruction to give to someone who’s ministering to the multitudes, because you know, Philip’s thinking, God, the desert, there’s not many people that go on the desert road. It’s hot out there. There’s why, why am I going down to the desert road? You know, I’m here. I have a ministry right here. I mean, surely it would be better for me to stay here in this area, ministering to these multitudes and go, but the evangelist is called to the multitudes, but then also the evangelist is called to individuals. And so you’ll see someone who operates in the evangelistic gift operating in both of these arenas. Sometimes they will minister to multitudes of people, but then they should equally be willing to minister one on one to people when God gives them the instruction to do that. And so I would say that if you’re not willing to minister to the one, then God will never put you on the platform ministering to thousands.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:44):
And if you’re on the platform ministering to thousands, but you’re not willing to minister to the one, you, you really shouldn’t be up there. And so the important thing is to be obedient to God. Amen. So verse 30 Philip ran up to the cherry and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. Do you understand what you’re reading? Philip asked? How can I, he said, unless someone explains it to me. So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. The UN was reading the passage of scripture. He was like a sheep to the slaughter and his land before the sheer silent. So he did not open his mouth and his humiliation. He was deprived of justice who can speak of his descendants for his life was taken from the earth. The unit ask Philip, tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about himself or someone else.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:23):
Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him that good news about Jesus. And so here, once again, we see the evangelist sharing the message of Jesus Christ. And so he starts writing that passage of scripture. And so I, it doesn’t matter where an evangelist starts, his message. He’s gonna end up talking about Jesus, even if an evangelist gets up and is preaching about marriage or, or something like that, the true evangelist will bring it all back to Jesus and talk about Jesus. And so that’s the primary message of the evangelist. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the UN said, look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized? And so suddenly this Munich has this revelation. He’s hearing about Jesus and see in the old covenant, he was a foreigner and he was MAED. He wasn’t allowed to worship, but under the new covenant, none of that matters anymore.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:22):
And so he sees the water and he says, why shouldn’t I be baptized? Is anything stopping me from being baptized? And Phillip says, no. And so immediately he gives orders to stop the chair. The both Phillip and the unit went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away and the unit did not see him again, but went on his way, rejoicing. And so earlier we see the city of Samaria, rejoicing, great joy, Philip, the city. And now when the individual get saved, we see the individual rejoicing, Philip, however, appeared at AOSIS and traveled about preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea in Caesarea is where we see him later in acts chapter 21 and he’s ministering there. And so the evangelist he comes in he obeys God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:17):
He ministers to the Ethiopian unit and then Philip disappears. The spirit catches him away. We call this Philip flying, he fly and I keep asking God and say, God, I spend so much money on airlines. Why don’t you just take me to where I’m supposed to preach <laugh> but he appears it in, in another town. He immediately starts preaching in the hospital there. And he appears in a town that’s about 40 miles from the desert road where he was, he was ministering here to the Ethiopian unit. And, and so a lot of people have criticized the evangelists. They say, the evangelist just blows him, blows up. It blows out. But that’s essentially what Philip does here. That model is biblical. The evangelist here, he, he comes, he ministers and then immediately the spirit catches him away and he goes to another place. And, and, and so I think the evangelist is, is, is a special ambassador for the kingdom of Ghana.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (40:10):
He goes into a place ministers and then the next week he’s somewhere else ministering. And so God sends the evangelist different places to, to right where he’s needed. And the amazing thing is, is that the Ethiopian unit, he goes back to Ethiopia and he was a significant official, he was the treasurer of all the treasury. And so he had a lot of influence there. He began telling people about Jesus and now Ethiopia historically is a Christian nation. And there are millions of people who are Christians today in Ethiopia because of this Ethiopian unit. And so if you can reach this one person, Phil, the Evangel reach this one person, and because of him, the entire nation of Ethiopia got saved. And so there you have a, of the evangelistic ministry. And one more thing I’d like to point out in acts 21. It says that he had four daughters, they were all virgins and they all prophesy.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:08):
And so the evangelist he takes good care of his family. He doesn’t abandon them. He takes good care of his family. They’re virgins, which means they’re not running around sleeping with every guy that comes come, you know, they’re the virgins. And they prophesy. They, they work with their father in the ministry. And so I’m a big believer that God does not just call individuals. He calls families and the, the anointing that is on one member of the family comes upon every member of that family. And so I think this is very important in, in your marriage that you don’t do it alone, but that your spouse is right there with you. My, my wife and I we minister together and we love ministering together. And now we have two kids. We got three year old boy, Caleb, and a one year old girl, Katie grace, and, and you know, I want them to be amazing ministers and, and just like the four daughters of Philip to that prophesy. All right, let’s pray dearly father. I thank you for the, the gift of the evangelist for the body of Christ. Lord, I pray that each person here who’s called to be an evangelist would begin walking in the fullness of that gift. And, and father, I pray that even those that aren’t called to be an evangelist would begin to do the work of an evangelist and that they would see many people get saved through them in Jesus name. I pray amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (42:34):
Thank you for listening to the evangelism podcast today. Our ministry is supported by people like you, who help us go to the nations to preach the gospel. Our goal is every soul. It only costs us an average of about $1 for every person. We’re able to tell about Jesus. And so could you do favor, go to my website, king ministries.com and become a partner with us for as little as $1 a month, you can start to partner with king ministries and help us lead at least one person to Jesus every single month. Imagine for $1, you can start a party in heaven and every single month. So right now go to king ministries.com and partner with us and help us to preach the gospel to those who need to hear the gospel. The most, the least reach people in the world. Also, I’d like to ask you to go to apple podcast and give the evangelism podcast a five star review. Your positive review will help other people find this podcast who are excited about evangelism. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (43:54):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
