EVANGELISTIC ANOINTING....

Signs of Evangelistic Calling
                 

The Evangelist Brings Good News

What is an evangelist? According to the Greek word taken from 'euaggelion' which is the gospel, the evangelist is a gospel preacher, or a bringer of good news. Unfortunately in many circles the evangelist has come to be a bringer of bad news instead of good news and we have missed the original import of what is meant by the gospel, and by what the good news really is.
You know we have those jokes that go around that say, "I have good news for you and I have bad news for you," and depending on the joke most of the time people say, "Well, give me the bad news first, and then give me the good news afterwards." I am afraid the same habit pattern has come into the church and has crept into the evangelistic ministry.

These days however the evangelist has changed the story and he is saying, "I've got bad news for you, and I have bad news for you!" The good news seems to have disappeared in many circles, and the preaching of the gospel has become the bad news. I want to tell you something. People already know the bad news. You do not need to tell them the bad news. They hear it all the time. It is time we started to preach the good news, the true gospel.

What is the true gospel? That is what the evangelist is meant to be preaching. What is the good news? I want to consider a bit of that here, but it is not the main structure of my message, because I am going to try and show you what an evangelist is.

Good News to the Poor

The evangelist is meant to preach the good news to the poor. What is the good news that the poor need to hear?
"God wants you to be poor and suffer. You shouldn't want!"
That sounds like bad news to me. That is what is being preached as gospel. The good news to the poor is, "You don't need to be poor anymore." Jesus was not only referring to those who are poor in the temporal things of this world. A poor person is a person who lacks the basic necessities of life. Those necessities can be temporal, they can be psychological, mental, physical or spiritual.
The good news to the poor, those that are lacking the good things that God intends us to have is, "You don't have to be poor anymore." That is what we should be preaching as the gospel.

Evangelist Preaches to Brokenhearted

Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord has anointed Me ... to heal the brokenhearted." Who are the brokenhearted? These are the people who have lost their goals. These are the people who once had plenty of spirit and fire in them, and it all went wrong and was broken. Their goals and their dreams were broken and taken away. Their lives have become destroyed. They have nothing to live for anymore. These people need the gospel. They need the good news.
The good news is, "Jesus has made the way for you to break free. Jesus has come to give you a new goal and a new reason for living." That sounds like good news to me.

Evangelist Sets Captives Free

Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me ... to preach deliverance to the captives ... " This is those who are bound and those who are prisoners. They are in bondage. What are they in bondage to? They are in bondage to sin. They are in bondage to sickness. They are in bondage to bad habits, to drugs, alcohol and tobacco. They are in bondage to demons. They are in bondage to anything that controls them and prevents them from being free to do what they want to do and what God wants them to do.
The good news is you do not have to be in bondage. The good news is Jesus came to set the captives free. The good news is you can be free now! That is good news.

Evangelist Preaches to the Blind

Jesus came to preach the gospel to the blind. Who are the blind? They are not only the people that cannot physically see. They are those who have become blinded by false religion, by the psychology and teachings of this world. They are blinded by the archetypes and the psychological propaganda and programming that has been built into people by the World System to prevent them from seeing the truth of what they have in Christ and what is available in Christ.
The good news is the truth has arrived. The good news is God wants to reveal Himself to you and He wants to show you the truth.

Preach to the Bruised

Jesus said, "I have come to the preach the gospel to the bruised." You know something about a bruise. It is a kind of an internal bleeding isn't it? It is one thing to have a cut, the blood comes out and it is open and you can heal the wound, but a bruise is a wound, a sore that is inside that is festering and is painful. It cannot be touched.

People's lives have been bruised. They have been battered. They have been pushed down. They have had difficulties and problems and bad experiences in life and have entered into spiritual prisons. They are insecure, bound and suffering. They are hurting.

The good news is you can be set free. The good news is you can break out of that. The good news is you do not have to go to a ...shrink' for years and hope that he might be able to solve the problem for you. The good news is Jesus can set you free now.

That is the gospel. Is that the kind of gospel you have heard evangelists preach? Come one, be honest. If that is the case then they were not operating under the anointing that Jesus declared was given for the preaching of the gospel. The anointing that was given to preach the gospel was this kind of good news that I have mentioned here. If you are called to be an evangelist, God has called you and has anointed you to preach the good news, the good news that I just spoke about.

You say, "What about heaven and hell? What about sin and righteousness and judgement? Aren't we meant to be preaching those things?"
Yes, but you do not need an anointing to preach those things, not according to this. The world is preaching judgement all the time and condemning one another. You do not have to look very far to find people condemning one another. You do not have to look very far for people to find out the faults in one another and point out each other's sins. You do not need an anointing to do that. You do not need an anointing to preach on sin. It is all around you. Anybody can preach on sin.
But the anointing that God has placed upon His good news preacher, the evangelist, is to set the captives free, to give the poor good news, to heal the brokenhearted, to open the eyes of the blind, to heal those who are bruised. That is the good news of the gospel.

Functions of the Evangelist

Well, what is the evangelist called to do? Let's go over it in more detail.

Open Blind Eyes

He is called to open blind eyes. Why do blind eyes need to be opened? And how is this going to occur? In the Soteriology or Way of Salvation part of this course we have looked at the condition of a sinner outside of Christ. We said that he is like a man that is lying in bed sick and he has a disease. That disease is caused by sin. Next to him, within his reach stands a bottle of medicine, which is the cure to his sickness. All he needs to do is to reach out and to take that medicine and partake of it, and he will instantly be set free and healed of his sickness.

That is the simple way that the Gospel is often presented. But we forget to realize that this man has additional complications. Firstly, he is blind so that he does not see the medicine. Secondly, he is paralyzed so that he cannot reach out and take it. And thirdly, he has no confidence in the doctor who prescribed it. I am not going to major on that here, because I have taught that elsewhere.
So what we have to do? We have to open his eyes first for him to realize that the medicine is there, so that he can reach out and take it freely. We have to release him from the paralysis that is preventing him from reaching out and freely taking that salvation that is offered him in Christ.

The evangelist is called to open people's eyes to see what is offered to them in Christ. The evangelist is called to set people's wills free so that they can be liberated to freely come out and to reach out and take the salvation that is being offered to them in Christ.
How is the evangelist going to do that? He is going to do that by preaching Christ, not hellfire and brimstone. You do not scare people into the Kingdom of God. Fear is Satan's weapon, not God's weapon. Preachers sometimes think that the gospel means standing up and hammering people into the ground. It means making them feel guilty of their sin and making them full of fear that they are going to go to hell because of their sin, and somehow it would scare them into a commitment to Christ to try and escape the hellfire and damnation.

The Evangelist Preaches Christ

It does not take an anointing to do that. Hollywood can produce better fear than you can. Do not try and compete with them. They can do better horror movies than you can preach, believe me, and they have no anointing. You must open the blind eyes and you must preach Christ. We are going to look at that further as we continue.

What must the Evangelist preach? You must preach Christ and the finished work of Calvary. You must preach that when Jesus hung on the cross He said, "It is finished. It is done. It is complete. The work is over." You must preach Christ, who is the anointed one. What is He anointed to do? He is anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to the brokenhearted, to set the captives free, to open the eyes of the blind and heal the bruised. That is what you are meant to be preaching. That is what you are meant to be accomplishing as an evangelist.

How does the evangelistic anointing work? It takes the anointing of God to open a person's eyes to see their true condition before God and to see the fact that Jesus has purchased their salvation. It takes having a person's eyes opened before you can get them to understand the colors of the rainbow. You cannot explain the color blue to somebody who was born blind. Their eyes have to be opened first. They have to have a revelation and see the light. Have you heard that expression, "I've seen the light?" They must see the light.

Evangelistic Function: Conviction of Sin

The anointing that the evangelist operates under brings a conviction of sin. You say, "Yeah, I remember how I was in a meeting and the preacher was really preaching. He was exposing sin, and he was exposing hellfire and damnation. He was preaching hard. I saw my friend and I knew he was under conviction, because he got up and walked out of the meeting. He couldn't take it anymore."
No, he was not under conviction. He was feeling guilty. There is a big difference between the two. You see it is one thing to take a person to court and to charge him with a crime. It is another thing to convict him of that crime and prove without a shadow of doubt that he is guilty. Can you see the difference?

Conviction of sin is not just to tell a person that they have sinned, but to convince them. And when a person is convinced that they are a sinner what do they do? They fall on their knees and they cry out to God and say, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner." It takes conviction. How are you going to do that? The Bible says that the Spirit of God will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement. It is the Holy Ghost that will convict men and women of sin, not you and not your fancy preaching. Without the evangelistic anointing you cannot bring conviction of sin. You have to have that anointing to do it.

Evangelist Brings Effectual Call

Then, the evangelist anointing brings the effectual call. What is the effectual call? The effectual call is that tug in the person's heart that draws them to Christ. It is a pull that can be very strong. You have heard testimonies of a person who has said, "I was sitting in this meeting. And when the preacher was finished preaching and he gave the gospel appeal and asked if anybody wanted to come forward and receive Christ as their Savior, I felt as though something picked me up and dragged me to the front. I just couldn't stop myself."
What was that? That was the effectual call. That was the pull and the tug of the Holy Spirit. That takes an anointing, not psychology. It does not take pure words to accomplish this. It takes the anointing of the Spirit of God. And that is the kind of anointing that is on the evangelist.

Evangelist Brings Salvation

The anointing that is on the evangelist brings salvation ... a complete salvation. What is salvation? We use this term in evangelical circles and we say, "Are you saved?" Usually what we mean by that is, "Are you born again? Are you on your way to heaven? Have you accepted Jesus as your Savior and know that you are not going to hell anymore?"
Salvation involves a lot more than that, as we have already seen, and as you will see elsewhere taught in this course. But the anointing of the evangelist has the ability to bring to bear on every single person, the full salvation that Jesus purchased for us on Calvary. We are going to see some more of it as we go on.
As an evangelist you need the full message of the Gospel to be effective in your Evangelistic calling. In the Doorway to Life, you will gain all the knowledge you need to impart to those you lead to the Lord. Desire more of the anointing? You need the Way of Revival and Healing and you will soon be experiencing the Evangelistic anointing for yourself!                                           JOYALMINISTRIES.BLOGSPOT.COM