Church. Wow. We love it. Thank you for being here. We got a couple of announcements to make. One is that we will not be showing the second service down here today due to the nature of the service. This is a special emphasis service based on the events that transpired here in Ranch of Bernardo this past week and the week before. So we want everybody to who needs to be in the service for the second service like me to go up to the service. It's going to be a very special service. So we want you guys to be up there to really experience the things that have to do with audio visual things. So please do that. We appreciate that very much. And thank you for being here in the rain. Like say encourage folks when you talk to them to come. We're always in the evangelistic mode for the cove. So find your friends and neighbors who aren't in a Bible study and bring them here. We had some nice gentlemen stop on our on our front door yesterday wanting to have a Bible study. And so there are people who want to have Bible studies and people who are out there looking for folks who want Bible studies. We should be out there also looking for it. Okay. Get your friends and neighbors. All right. Thank you very much. We're going to have Mark here in just a minute. Let's have a word of prayer please. Our gracious lord thank you for the day that you've given us the wonderful rain that you've given us to rejuvenate your earth lord. We thank you for that and we ask you to lift our spirits up and grow us this morning in our Bible study. Just as you are growing the plants and shrubs and the trees around us lord. Just help us to grow in our hearts and our minds and our dedication to you as we hear about the book of Luke this morning. We ask a blessing on mark as he is prepared a terrific lesson for us this morning lord. Just open his heart to you and then his mouth to us and a words that will speak from you. We now ask a blessing on each person as we are gathered together with one accord lord to learn about you and take it with us as we leave this place and use it in our lives. We pray for the events that have transpired in our community lord. We ask blessings on the family that has suffered such a great loss and we offer your guidance lord to the one who is responsible lord. Just deal with him in your way lord and have a healing influence lord on our community as we all struggle with this. We ask you now to bless us and to hold us close to you in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks Dennis. Yeah I hope you will keep praying that God will take the bed like we talked about last week and turn it into something positive something good God always can do that and we trust that he is able. Dennis mentioned a couple of men showed up at his door to ask about a Bible study. You ever had a couple of men show up at your door? I had a couple of men show up at my door. I was actually working in the yard while back and a couple of guys walked up with some literature in their hands. Anyone this ever happened to you before? There are two groups that tend to do that as you probably are aware one are the Mormons and in this case they happen to be that your host witnesses and they came and began to talk to me and I think our home is actually blacklisted on there because we had a visit just the other day and two men knocked on the door and I invited them in and and they began telling me what I did. I was I said we understand you're the professor of Bible is that right? So they they had somehow known and but they came anyway. I thought that was very interesting. I try not to argue with them and usually when I do have time to to talk with them I I want to be positive and so I want you know it's so easy to argue and I see I have a terrible tendency because I'm a debater and I have a terrible tendency to head straight for my Greek New Testament you know and I think I'm going to destroy these two in terms of the interpretation their interpretation their use of the Bible is nonsense and I will show it to them and I will crush them like bugs right you know that's sort of that's sort of my approach wrong approach that gets you I've learned from experience from bad experience that gets you nowhere usually and so I will try to develop a relationship I'll try to show God's love and it's it's been it's been positive and at one point with one of these incidents I said I said you know you share a lot with do you have any questions because they I shared what I did and then I you know I had pastored and then I taught Bible I said any questions about Christians and and he said on this one occasion he said yeah I want to know why you guys don't share your faith like we do that was my reaction as well and of course my answer was we do share our faith and I promptly invited him to a barbecue or church was having coming up and encouraged him to come but it was interesting that his impression a wrong impression a right impression in some cases was that Christians as he knew them did not share their faith because they did not like the Jehovah's Witnesses they did not go door to door and and share their faith with others and I think one of the reasons we don't usually go door to door though many many Christians actually do is evangelism or witnessing can be a fairly uncomfortable thing for Christians especially when there's this kind of this kind of guilt trip thing and when I was growing up I always felt like I guess I needed to share my faith and I really didn't know how and I was nervous around people I remember once being on a bus I don't remember what the trip was but it was some school trip or something and I was on the bus and it suddenly popped into my head I'm sure the Holy Spirit propped to me you need to share your faith with this person next to me next to you and I kept trying to you know get the conversation that direction and I was struggling I almost became physically sick in this in this struggle to try and share my faith and after that that incident I thought you know it should not make you physically sick to share your faith to witness to others it should be a joyful experience because this is our commission this is who we are just at Bethel this last weekend we had a man named Terry Muck who is a professor head of the missions department and as very seminary and he did some lectures and he's an expert in Buddhism and he was talking about these these interfaith dialogues that he's involved in between Christians and Buddhists and he's involved in the Society of Biblical Literature the American Academy of Religion actually the American Academy of Religion has a Buddhist Christian dialogue group and he's a part of that and he's actually the only evangelical Christian in this there's there's a hundred or so Christians and a hundred or so Buddhists they get to that and that have these dialogues but he's the only one who is actually an evangelical Christian because there's this sense that if you're going to have dialogue you can't possibly proselytize right you can't possibly try to convince others of the truth of what you believe it has to be you know I'm okay you're okay what you like is fine what I like is fine yours is right mine is right it's all becomes this dialogue all becomes relativism and he's saying how it's really absurd if you think about it because the the foundation of Christianity is the truth that we have good news and if to call yourself a Christian means that you want to share the good news with with others so evangelism is such an integral part of who we are but how do we do evangelism well in this passage that we come to in Luke chapter 10 that passage on the overhand is wrong that should that's for last week's message should be Luke chapter 10 there we come to a passage where Jesus sends out 70 or 72 we'll talk about that question in a minute to to share their faith to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God and we can learn some great principles on how to do that there's all kinds of books books with names like lifestyle evangelism how to do it naturally I saw one book called how how to witness without really trying very hard another one called evangelism made slightly less difficult well in Luke chapter 10 Jesus sends out disciples and I think what he gives us in some ways are principles of evangelism now remember Jesus had sent out 12 the 12 earlier his 12 central key disciples now he sends out a larger group of 70 or 72 only in this only in Luke's gospel do we actually get this mission of the 70 now I called this seven habits of highly effective witnesses you may have remembered in the 1980s Steve Covey Covey or Covey I'm not sure how it's pronounced had a book called seven habits of highly effective people so I'm just sort of copying that title right there and I had to come up with seven there might be eight there might be 10 we can look we can talk about other potential principles but but here are seven key things in this passage that can guide us in terms of how we share our faith and can make it in some ways a more natural experience and sharing our faith all right so let's look at this it's Luke chapter 10 we have the first verse Luke chapter 10 verse one it says after this and that was the Jesus is heading for Jerusalem he's been teaching about the cost of discipleship the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go now here's the question the first question we raise is 70 or 72 how many of your Bibles say 70 how many of your Bibles say 72 okay most of you have the NIV it looks like right some Bibles will say 70 some will say 72 what's going on here well this is actually what we call a textual issue there are many manuscripts we have well over 5,000 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament in fact the New Testament is the best attested document from the ancient world now in this class we we have the luxury of going deeper right you've kind of figured that out for it and in church we don't usually talk about textual criticism or the study of the manuscripts but in a in a class like this we we want to get into the more nuanced aspects of our faith and some of the details that will enable you to understand better what the Bible is how we got it and how we can discuss it with others so this issue what we call textual criticism is the study of the various manuscript differences if you ever copied something by hand and then gone back and notice you made some errors obviously whenever something is hand copied then errors are going to creep in and sure enough the Bible over the centuries has been hand copied now the vast majority of differences are tiny differences like this one right here the difference between 70 and 72 we'll talk a little about later about some of the possible reasons for those two two different numbers but they're very tiny and none of them none of them affect any key Christian doctrine I think that's crucial to understand let me say that again so you understand because we do talk there are thousands of variants in the various manuscripts of the Greek New Testament none of those variants so they might slightly different nuance different meanings in a particular passage none of those variants affect any essential Christian doctrine that and the fact that the New Testament the Bible is the best attested document from the ancient world should confirm for us that the Bible what we have is the true Bible is the authentic Bible do we have a perfect Bible well no we don't have a perfect Bible in the sense of absolute certainty that every word is precisely the right the right word but then even if we did suppose we had a perfect Greek or Hebrew Bible it fell out of heaven and hit us on the head even then we'd have to translate it right and every time we translate it certainly there's there's possible imperfections as we struggle with the interpretations and so forth I always tell my students this I say you can know truly without knowing perfectly is that true you can know truly without knowing perfecting in fact none of us know anything perfectly and yet that doesn't mean we can't live our lives in truth so you can know truly without knowing perfectly so we we don't have that this idea that we have this perfect Bible with every word precisely the right word as soon as we move to an English translation we're going to struggle with that because we know there's different interpretations but it's the same with the original manuscripts but what we do have is something so close to the original that we can we know that we have a reliable text that we know we have the message that God intended us to hear okay there's a little lecture on textual criticism for you right that's it that's a seminary level lecture right there yeah Raleigh do you want to well there you go one way you can tell is the way it it's transforming power to change lives and there's a lot of and fulfilled prophecy there's a lot of ways that's another lecture to talk about how we know this is indeed God's word all right so seven year 72 one or the other notice I put the parentheses there I'll talk about why a little later why that possible discrepancy crept in so who are these who are these 70 that Jesus sent out or who are these 72 that Jesus sent out remember he had sent out 12 earlier now a larger group well we know that Jesus had a larger group of followers don't we I mean we see at the end of the gospel in the early chapters of Acts there's over a hundred or so of his followers so even even this core group of followers was made up a probably several hundred individuals and so Jesus chooses 70 from among them and sends them out now here's a key question that scholars have debated why does he send two groups why does Jesus first send 12 then send 70 or 72 why does he do that well we we could say he's just trying to expand his ministry which is certainly the case but there might be something more to it there might be some some theological significance to what Jesus is doing yes okay represents that we're going to get there represents the number of nations and Genesis you guys are too astute you see you're getting ahead of me yeah no that's okay that's good yeah all right so so why do we have the the first sending of the 12 we know the number 12 we've seen that again and again and again what does the number 12 represent 12 tribes of Israel so when Jesus sends out the 12 in some sense that represents the mission to Israel you know what Paul says do you remember Paul says to the Jew first the Jewish people get the gospel first because they are the ones then who are who are to take that message and spread it to the ends of the earth now what's the central theme of Luke's gospel gospel for everyone right Luke more than any other gospel writers sees the gospel the global scope and expansion and significance of the gospel and so Luke alone includes this other mission of that Jesus sent out of 70 or 72 all right sending out the 70 no doubt representing the Gentiles and just as Jeff just said the the number 70 is actually taken almost certainly from what we call the table of nations in Genesis chapter 10 now I won't turn you back there I'll just tell you what that is Genesis chapter 10 is right after the flood right Noah is established after the flood is family is saved and Genesis 10 describes how Noah's three sons moved out from there and basically all the nations of the world naturally since they were all that was left all the nations of the world arose from that and there's and and the rabbis saw that and they would list the names and it became sort of rabbinic lore rabbinic tradition that the nations were made up of 70 or 72 nations now notice what I added that little comment in the in the Hebrew text of Genesis 10 there are 70 names mentioned in the Greek translation of the Hebrew text called the septuagent there's 72 names so you can see what the copyists are doing they're seeing the same connection they're seeing that this 70 almost certainly represents the nations and those using the Greek Bible are putting down 72 and those using the Hebrew Bible are now now which was first which did Jesus send where I'm not really sure I think 72 may be some of the earlier and better manuscripts but again it doesn't really matter that what it represents is the same it represents almost certainly the the nations of the world yes Mary okay okay the number 70 is so significant Moses appointed 70 did he not for leaders in the Sanhedrin was made up of 70 so 70 is a significant number now now we can sort of work backwards and say so which would a copyist likely change from 72 to 70 because it's such a prominent number or from 70 to 72 you see you see and and so you can it's it almost then becomes an argument for 72 since a copyist would go that must be wrong and would likely change it so you can see you can you can you can okay it's it's possible that that that it's that there's some component of 70 that it was both 70 and 72 he appointed 70 to join join the others I'm not sure I would worry about that kind of harmonization because there are other there are other reasons that that these two numbers would would easily arise and I don't want to lose track of the essential point okay there's there's no doubt it seems to me what the 70 represents and and again the precision of the numbers there's problems with numbers in the bible when you compare chronicles and kings and it's because as these things were copied it was difficult to maintain precisely it's not a computer generated document and again I would go back to the fact it is true even if it's not absolutely precise in in every in every case did you have a comment or that's okay right yes yes it allows a presence yes yes yeah and there's there's no doubt that having 70 or 72 is creates greater outreach and enables them to reach more communities and to stay more more long term so that there's there's no doubt there was there was certainly a pragmatic reason I'm going to hold up the questions until the end for now but but there's a pragmatic reason as well as a theological reason we raise the question huh do you think there's more to it than that pragmatic reason and that's what we're looking at here and it would certainly fit Luke's gospel wouldn't it it would fit the idea that in fact the gospel is going to go not just to the Jews Matthew stresses the Jews Luke wants to say no all nations and you've got this parallel with Genesis chapter 10 these are these are great questions and we will deal with them in more detail okay there's sent out two by two I can tell this this is going to be a great session because everyone's getting into it already sent out two by two now I'm almost afraid ask what's this significance of two by two well there's a pragmatic significance I think if you think about it two by two protection companionship it's very important you don't send out a missionary alone that's that's heading for a disaster you send out couples or do you send out teams there's a lot of focus on teams so so protection and compassion are a companionship are certainly key factors there's also in the Old Testament Deuteronomy 176 Deuteronomy 176 as well as Deuteronomy 195 there's something about two witnesses in a court situation two witnesses are crucial for the truth of a testimony and so again to have two witnesses to Jesus's life and ministry and miracles would be a powerful tool that's Deuteronomy 176 and Deuteronomy 195 now that raises another question that's a great theological question is we're going to look at some principles not just principles we're going to look at things that Jesus commanded his disciples to do as they as they went out that raises a question do we do it the same today how do these instructions apply to us today in verse four for example it says do not take a purse or a bag or sandals okay at least you can take shoes just don't take sandals I guess don't take don't take a money bag in other words that means no money no don't take a bag to carry your clothing or don't take sandals don't take anything on your feet what in the world you know now the question is here are I told you that these are principles we can learn from so how do we apply them to our lives well first of all we have to say that these this command was not given to us wasn't this command was not given who was it given to the 70 okay the seven it was given to this particular group it wasn't it wasn't given to us now when we step back and say most of the commands in the Bible we're not given to us we get into this in depth in our hermeneutics class some of you who are there know how how we most of the commands the Bible were not given to us if I say the commands in Paul's letter to the Romans who who was that given to the Romans the church at Rome right and you can go through almost every book every passage the Bible realize that it was given to other people our goal is to understand how gods words to them relate to us and we call that really the application of scripture or more in hermeneutics we call it contextualization of scripture how do we take a message given to a group or people long ago in a different time and place and determine what God wants us to understand and how God wants us to apply it today now this has huge implications for the for the church and you'll need to come and take our hermeneutics course at Bethel if you want to talk about that but things like why why women don't cover their head and worship in most of our cultural context even though even though it was commanded Paul commanded the church in Corinth for the women to cover their head and worship that's a command there's lots of commands commands Jesus commanded his disciples to wash each other's feet we don't usually most of us practice footwashing why do we obey some commands and not obey others this raises huge issues for contemporary issues things like the issue of homosexuality some will say the commands in scripture against homosexuality are just cultural they don't apply to us today they're just for that particular cultural context so how do we distinguish between head covering commands related head covering and commands related to homosexuality we need principles to do that now we're not going to look at those you have to come and take the courses on hermeneutics we will be talking about those principles as we go through how do we apply culturally bound commands to our situation today and that's what we're going to try to do is we're going to take some of the the commands Jesus Jesus asks Jesus gives here and we're going to look for the heart of God what's the principle that arises from this command behind the specific commands behind the promises of scripture you know promise all the promises and Bible aren't for you we see the next song every promise in the book is mine I hope not I hope every promise in the book is not is not mine because God will say I'm going to smite you and wipe out your children and your children's children I don't want that promise you know I I want I know the plans I have for you that's a nice one you know but I don't want God I'm going to judge you and wipe out you know wipe out your crops and there's lots of promises like that not every promise is in the in the Bible is ours what we need to learn from is what does this promise teach us about the heart of God what does this promise teach us about who he is and who we are and how we live in relationship to him so what is the heart of God behind the specific commands promises and stories of scripture okay that's our second lecture we had a textual criticism lecture that was our hermeneutics lecture we're never going to get into this passage I don't think with all these these many lectures okay let's go on then to the instructions to the seventy and you can see I just listed some principles as your takeaway the seven principles as your takeaway we could probably add many many more but we will start we will start with these and we'll call them seven habits of effective witnesses now you might say at this point I'm not an evangelist I don't really have the gift of evangelism we see that that's a spiritual gift listed by the Apostle Paul um some have that spiritual gifts I know people who are just just incredibly gifted at evangelism and and and you might say well I'm I'm not really one of them I have a brother's name's Mike I've mentioned him before he's a physicist and I don't think he necessarily has the spiritual gift of evangelism um he's an apologist he's a teacher um but when Mike was in well before college he got to know this guy and he led him to Christ the good friend to Christ that friend eventually became his roommate for four years at college but that friend had the incredible gift of evangelism and he went on to do street evangelism to all kinds of evangelists at crusades he's just incredibly gifted evangelist you ever thought who led Billy Graham to Christ you know you don't have to be an evangelist to fulfill the great commission all of us have been called to share our faith with others and you have no idea who's sitting next to you in that bus or in that airplane or in that restaurant or living next next door to you it could be the next Billy Graham sitting over there so even though maybe we we do not have this specific gift spiritual gift of evangelism all of us are called to share our faiths we're called to share our faith in a natural way in a way that is part of our lifestyle not something that we get physically sick trying to do but something that just comes naturally to us why because we love Jesus and we want to share that love with others all right here come the principles uh the first principle is pray what is Jesus say he sent them out two by two to every town and place where he was about to go he told them the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into the harvest field ask the Lord of the harvest in other words pray that God would send out workers now why why should we pray doesn't God already know who's going to be saved isn't God already working in their lives why why do we pray for that well I think there's a couple reasons first of all God answers prayer in a mysterious way when we pray God is going to respond to that one of my best friends in college had a father who was not a great father in a lot of ways he was heavy drinker he ran around with women had a multiple affairs eventually divorced my friend's mom and he was a hard case my my friend prayed for him for years and years and years and was shocked one day when his father called him and said you're not going to believe what happened to me I became a Christian you know my my friends first thought was right you know he knew his his dad was a great con great salesman and he thought okay what club did he need to get into in order to make this particular commitment or you know what it what what con what angle is he playing this time in order because he's made this decision but amazingly amazingly years went by and that commitment was real and it became just an amazingly mature Christian over the years that followed and he prayed and God answered that prayer God answers prayer and so we should pray simply because we know that God wants us to trust in him to respond there's another reason though and that is that prayer doesn't just change things as we say prayer changes us and so this question of well God is in sovereign charge he knows what he's going to do he's accomplishing his purpose why do we need to pray well one reason is because prayer changes things the second reason is because prayer does change us it dramatically reorient us because every time you pray think about this every time you pray you remember who's in charge and you remember who you're dependent upon I remember we were involved in a world prayer group at one point and we would come together weekly and we'd pray for the world and we worked through one of those books operation world I don't know if you've seen that book and we'd pray for a different people group every week I have to tell you I was never so intensely interested in what God is doing in the world then in that time as we focused individual on each little each people group and suddenly our awareness of God's purpose and plan of his great commission of what he was accomplishing all around the world became so intense prayer changed us it didn't just change the world it changed us as we saw what God was doing as we prayed for a nation of 20 million where there were a hundred Christians only known about in the whole nation then you're suddenly thinking about that nation and those few missionaries that are there and you're focusing your energy and your your financial support your prayer and your resources on getting the gospel out so prayer changes us so here our first principle God calls us to pray secondly go that's the very next word in the verse go and I'll stop there there's an exclamation point right in my Bible so we'll stop there Jesus does not hold a seminar on evangelism he doesn't say we're going to have a six week seminar on how the do evangelism he sends them out we don't just talk about sharing our faith we just tell people what Jesus has done for us one of my great heroes is William Kerry if you haven't heard of William Kerry you should that's why I'm sharing him with you early 18th century William Kerry was a shoemaker a cobbler and at that time in the church that he was involved in in the denomination in the church context he was involved in there was a real strong kind of deterministic perspective on God in the world and it was like God knows who's going to be saved so why should we go God knows God's determined who's going to be saved and so why should we we'll just let God's plan work itself out but Kerry's Bible like ours said go right and so he approached various Christian leaders and he said you know we need to fulfill this commission that God has given us and the response he won he got from several of them was if God wanted to save the pagans he could do it without you and Kerry said okay but the Bible says go so he began writing articles writing articles about the great commission that it's not about predestination it's about a command writing articles about it's our it's our amazing privilege to share Christ with others not only did he write those articles and he went to India and he started a church in India now if we look at William Kerry's ministry in India in terms of numbers we would probably say it was not very successful it was quite a failure he suffered great emotional great physical loss in India he had a very small group of believers at the end of his life today though William Kerry if you take a course on missions you will learn William Kerry is the father of the modern missionary movement because it was his writings it was his passion that really sparked what became an enormous movement that has continued today much of the 19th century the 20th century missionary movement the gospel spreading throughout the world is a result of William Kerry's passion to take the gospel because he read this and he said you know I think go the Greek word right means go just like the English word it means we really need to reach the world for Christ Isaiah 52 7 how beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news who proclaim peace who bring good good tidings and proclaim salvation who say design your God reigns think about it God could have put a big banner in the sky repent or die you know every every year it could this plane could go over or that or just written in clouds that'd be better more more dramatic written in clouds with lightning and thunder repent or he could have done that he could bring people to himself by saying that but he gave us the awesome privilege to join with him and to share this message of salvation to the ends of the earth not a chore it's a privilege that we have been called to work with God to accomplish his purpose his commission but there are dangers ahead Jesus says go I am sending you out like lambs among wolves now that's kind of scary and it follows go did you notice that it's like go if I said go into the go into the garage there's a snake out there you probably you probably think I probably didn't have your best interests in mind so what is Jesus doing he's saying go go there's wolves out there go you might get eaten but what if I said okay look we've got a snake in the garage and here's a fully protective suit on there here's a snake sticker whatever you have here's your nets here's that here's and I got anti venom right here we're going to get that snake let's go you'd go okay he's thinking about my best interests and this is a problem we we need to solve so Jesus doesn't tell them this to scare them he tells them this to prepare them because there is a spiritual battle being waged in this in this world today and they were successful look at verse 17 apostle Paul says we don't wrestle against flesh and gut blood but again spiritual forces of wickedness and verse 17 will come to this later but it says the 72 return with joy and said Lord even the demons submit to us in your name so they recognize the power God's power at work in them and they had that spiritual protection that they needed so he's preparing them he's he's preparing them for defense I have a good friend who worked for years with the San Diego PD and we got together once for lunch and he came over to Bethel where I worked for lunch and we went out and there's a burger king nearby and we went into the burger king and I went up right up to the counter to order and he suddenly he he stands there in the burger king and he he looks around and he's sort of scoping the place out and then he went in the order and he's and and he finds a table right where he wants to and I'm looking at him kind of watch it what's your problem let's get let's get lunch and he scopes his table out and then he knows right where he wants to go he wrote knows right where he wants to sit and sure enough we sat there and I said what's going on and he said oh you I always you have to check the place out you have to see where the exits are where the where a gunman what do you say you know he's where a gunman might come in I have to know you know he wants his back to the wall rather than a window so he can see and and I'm it's something I just I never had dawned on me at that burger king that I should really be thinking about safety I really should but that's his job right his he's a safety officer his goal is to keep the public safe and so what does Jesus do he's giving them hey there are wolves out there you go out there naively like I walk into that burger king naively and you could well get hurt so he's he's equipping them for the spiritual battle the spiritual battle ahead because our struggle is not against flesh and blood okay verse four here's our fourth principle do not take a purse or bag or sandals and do not greet anyone along the way on the road now that's a little strange first of all why not take a purse and sandals and a bag what's going on here why these stipulations anyone want to venture why these stipulations yeah okay looking forward to eternity basically not having those things okay okay okay okay so you want to be light yes okay that's right that's right if you got nothing they're not going to take anything yeah okay to live a life of dependence live a life of dependence on God and also live a life of dependence on others that's that's interesting isn't now why why this one as well why not greet people along the way do not greet anyone on the road that's a that's an odd statement does that mean you need to be rude and offensive I know some people who subscribed to that method of evangelism I don't know if you know people like that where basically they seem to want to offend as many people as possible with their testimony the more they offend the more you know their jewels in heaven or something so so is this to be stern and not what does it mean why not greet people yes okay there's the key so you don't get distracted and it's probably more a metaphor than in a reality he's not saying you know do not greet anyone in fact probably he's taking it from this passage here's second Kings 429 Elisha said to Gihazi tuck your cloak into your belt that that's by the way is gird up your loins you ever heard that phrase gird up your loins it means to tuck your because you got to run take my staff in your hand and run if you meet anyone do not greet him if anyone greets you do not answer there you go and then he's going to raise this boy from the dead so it's it's about getting there fast essentially it's about traveling light and not being distracted from what your your mission is supposed to be here's our fifth point be sensitive and compassionate nurture relationships first and this leads from there verse 5 when you enter a house first say peace to this house if the head of the house loves peace your peace will rest on that house if not it will return to you stay there eating and drinking whatever they give you for workers deserve their wages do not move about from house to house now the first thing they say is receive hospitality and I think that was crucial in the early church you've got to understand the situation travelers would arrive in a town and they they'd have no place to stay there there were not hotels there in our traditional sense there were some ins but ins were extremely cd places in that day and age and so people basically stayed with friends and family and so you would look for other Christians but if you're in a place where there weren't other Christians you were you were to try to make friends with people who then you could have a testimony a witness to that's what it means by greet them in peace and if there's peace if the person is a cordial person who is looking for the peace of God then they will welcome you in and they will allow you to stay there hospitality we don't really understand hospitality nearly in the way the Middle Eastern cultures did it was it was one of the the highest of values if you had any food in the house at all that the best of that food would come out when when a guest would come if I mentioned this before but when I spent some time in Romania it was a time when the country was racked by just incredible incredible poverty and the Christian family I stayed with I arrived and they brought out what what in their perspective was a sumptuous feast and I and said it before me and I ate and enjoyed the food and then I went out to my ministry and came back and I noticed every time I came back the same food came out and it hadn't been touched since I had they had they had stockpiled this special food and I'm sure cost them a great deal and they were they were bringing out just for me I'm encouraging please you know join me join me here but it was it was for me it was the sense of the sense of giving hospitality that you will give any well anything to a guest so so Jesus says you need to receive and there's benefits to those who receive the hospitality but there's also benefits to those who give hospitality now why not there's an interesting statement don't move from house to house that's interesting isn't it says stay in the house you're in until you move on to the next town now why would that be why does Jesus command his followers to stay in one house and not to move around anyone have a an idea yes in the back we don't hear from the back as much
okay excellent I think one reason is to nurture the relationship you don't want superficial relationships you want long term relationships with people and the only way to develop those is to stay with them to stay for time that's good I think there's a yes okay this might be the place where the house church was established this could be the key person the community so I think that's a crucial idea is developing nurturing relationships any other possibilities yes okay stability of your ministry you want to be scattered in your ministry yes okay they might be rejected in certain houses they'd be wasting wasting their time yes would it be considered abusing the hospitality it probably could what would be a natural tendency do you think okay now we know that the Christians who are vastly different economic statuses they're very poor Christians and and quite wealthy Christians you come into the house you come into the town and the first person that meets you is a very poor person and they welcome you into their home and you have a wonderful time you start to get to know them and then you start a little house church let's say and you find out you find out that members of that house church one of them has this great little villa on on the hill you know and he's got three or four guest rooms a swimming pool and and he says hey you need to come stay with me I'd probably you know recognize that I really should get around and meet more people share the wealth of the gospel and move up there for a time and you think there might be a tendency to move to the better digs right to to hire up to to move up in your in the in the status and I'm and what's he saying travel light you can't travel light when you're dining sumptuously with the rich people and and we'll talk about this in other occasions how socially stratified the first century world was and how basically the rich did not associate with the poor and did not share with the poor except in the giving of alms to the to the beggar so part of the reason I think all of these are true reasons relationships and so forth but part of the reasons is certainly not to create divisions in the church read first Corinthians and first Corinthians chapter 11 right that one down first Corinthians chapter 11 the church in Corinth is in serious trouble because the rich are arriving for their agape feast and their and their communion and they're getting drunk they're eating their their feast and they're getting drunk and the poor show up later with nothing and and Paul says it's not the Lord's supper you're eating it's your own supper you're eating in that context so this was a huge issue in the early church so Jesus trying to head it off cut it off at the beginning I think at least that's one of the reasons the other of course as I said is to develop relationships and that's crucial because I have learned let me start again we used to do cold turkey evangelism when I was working in our college ministry where we go out to Palomar college and we just sit down and talk to someone and try to get the conversation and share Christ with them good idea great practice for us to learn how to just be open and share our faith but we saw very few people come to Christ that way how we saw people come to Christ is by by nurturing and developing those long term relationships right I mean I know that's your experience as well because it's it's ultimately because people see Jesus they come to Christ they see Jesus worked out in your life and that can't happen usually in a very short and a brief conversation all right so be sensitive and compassionate nurture relationships first our six meet physical as well as spiritual needs verse nine look down at verse nine heal the sick who are there and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you which you'll notice there's two things here heal the sick and then proclaim the message and both are crucial we've talked about this a lot before that basically we sometimes think the purpose and goal of the gospel is to save our souls but the purpose and goal of the gospel is to restore our humanity basically to make us whole and holy people to bring us back to God creation is not going to be destroyed creation is going to be ultimately restored and so we see Jesus healing the sick and casting out demons and and healing the blind together with bringing people to faith to faith in God so it's both a spiritual and physical thing so our evangelism needs to be focused on both physical needs and spiritual needs and I think the church today has really the evangelical church has really improved in that regard there was a time when sort of social action that was for the liberals you know and this we were just there to save souls but I think there's much more of a focus today on meeting the needs of the community first and then having you know earning the right if you will to share to share the gospel with them okay now there's a question and I think I'm going to skip it because of our time constraints we will hit this question and does does God heal today because these individuals were commanded to heal the sick um and is that a command we talked about contextualizing the gospels that a command for us today let me just say oh I was not here I was gonna say I would say yes let me just give a short answer God absolutely does heal today but God heals in more than just physical ways sometimes there's this idea that that it's physical healing that is the key to the gospel but it's so it's so much more than that this this body is dying one way or the other right whether it's through disease now or through disease later what we are looking for is the ultimate restoration and we see people healed today in in larger ways than just just physically I think I told you the story of my friend who's in a wheelchair has suffered just extraordinarily physically her whole life and she was at a service that that turned into a healing service and she'd been to these before and a man came up to him began praying for and began praying stronger and stronger and stronger until he was not only rebuking the disease he was or the the damage to her body but rebuking her for her lack of faith and at one point she just stopped and she patted his hand arm and she said it's it's okay I'm healed already she said and you know spiritually she was healed and she was willing to go through this life in this condition a God could could heal her she had she had no idea if that would happen but she realized that ultimate ultimate healing is so much more significant than physical healing so God does heal and I think he does to demonstrate his power but God doesn't always heal physically okay here's our last one in verse 16 jump ahead to verse 16 remember who you are and who you represent back in verse one I should have said back in verse one he sent them ahead of him notice Jesus sent them ahead of him to do his mission ultimately they represent him whoever listens to you listens to me whoever rejects you rejects me but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me so ultimately we are Christ's representatives you are all of Jesus that some people will ever see take a moment right now we've got actually more to do because we're trying to cover loose gospel and there's a passage after this it's related that we're going to see but don't you take a moment I want you to think about someone in your life right now some in your life who needs to hear the gospel message who here's needs to hear the message of salvation you can write that name down on your sheet if you'd like or put that person in your mind right now commit yourself right now to to take some concrete step whether it means just inviting them to to an event you know that that won't won't be an uncomfortable event event that they would they would enjoy coming to that's put on at the church or in in a Christian context commit yourself to pray for that person look for opportunities and when you when you get a chance to share with them you don't have to it doesn't have to be a hardcore evangelistic message just share them what Jesus means to you I found the most effective way to share my faith with others is to tell them what God has done in my life how God has transformed me and how God has has grown me up in maturity given me a true meaning and fulfillment in life so would you do that think of someone right now we do heavy Bible study here but we want to see it transform our lives as well and God is definitely calling us to be more effective witnesses in this context all right dare we move ahead I'm going to move fairly quickly because I do want to have some question and answer time there's a few other passages that follow up on this passage and the first one is a warning against rejecting the gospel in verse 13 first of all it says in verse 12 I tell you it would be more bearable on that day for Sodom then for that town that is the town that rejects you so Sodom we know Sodom and Gomorrah were those two cities destroyed by God because of their wickedness but then Jesus makes it more more relevant to his situation verse 13 he says what do you Corazine what do you best say to for if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes but it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment then for you and you Capernaum will you be lifted up to the skies know you will go down to the depths if you're wondering what these towns are Corazine and Betheseda and Capernaum are the key villages around Galley Jesus has been ministering in his home base has been in Capernaum they've recently excavated Corazine actually you can see that in in Israel but so these are the ones that have gotten the book of Jesus ministry Jesus says it's going to be it's going to be better for side or if side and Tyre had heard the gospel they would have responded even more positively these were two Phoenician cities close enough to be well known but pagan cities sort of sort of the Las Vegas you know perspective of the ancient world and so Jesus referring to those and he says if they had gotten the same miracles you got they would have responded in a much more positive manner so the warning against rejection the 70 return in the passage that follows and we get a follow-up basically Jesus talks about the privilege of discipleship the 72 return with joy and said Lord even the demons submit to us in your name he replied I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions to overcome all the power of the enemy nothing will harm you however do not rejoice that the spirit submit to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven so they return and Jesus begins to debrief them first of all they've had extraordinary spiritual success you see what they say they say they even the demons have submitted to them and then Jesus makes an amazing statement he says I saw Satan fall from heaven that's a puzzling statement right there what is Jesus referring to well I think in context we have to realize first of all he's identity they say they say demons have submitted to us we've cast out demons the next thing Jesus says is I saw Satan fall from heaven there's obviously connection to the between those two things the reason for their spiritual success is because of the fall of Satan now that raises a theological question as to what is he referring to at the fall of Satan is this Satan's original fall the story of Satan's fall where Satan was created as one of the highest of gods created beings perhaps the highest of his created angels rejected god and fell from heaven or is this something else in the book of revelation revelation 12-9 it refers to battle in heaven or Michael the archangel goes again Satan and Satan falls he's cast out of heaven whoops and then there's two passages that two passages Isaiah 14 and Isaiah 28 are passages that are used to describe or to identify the fall of Satan from heaven those are old testament passages so which what is he referring to in this in this context did he see in a vision Satan fall I think probably it's not the original fall of Satan and and this is why he says the reason you've been so successful in casting out demons is because I see say I saw Satan fall when Satan fell originally did that give Christian's great power no not at all that has nothing to do with that that was Satan's original rejection of god so almost certainly Jesus has seen a vision of the future when Satan will be ultimately defeated and destroyed or else he's seen a symbolic fall of Satan in the defeat at the cross so we just we don't know the answer for sure what it does mean though here's the bottom line is that through the work of Christ Satan has been decisively defeated now I don't think I'm going to go there Isaiah 14 Isaiah Ezekiel 28 are interesting passages if you want to jot them down on the fall of Satan you can but be careful because those passages are not about Satan first and foremost if you read those passages Isaiah is about the fall of the king of tire and it's explicitly identified it's a human king Ezekiel 28 is about the fall of the king of Babylon I might have those reversed actually so they use his imagery that may well be related to Satan's original fall but it's not about Satan so I just want to caution you as you read those their primary reference is the human kings and their they they exalt themselves and then they are defeated and they fall all right that's the fall of Satan the greater blessing and this is the crucial thing however do not rejoice that the spirit submit to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven the greater blessing the greater blessing is the fact that we have a restored relationship with Jesus Christ relationship with God through Jesus Christ I think that's important because it's not about the power right it's not the about the authority it's about the restoration of creation I'm going to skip verses 21 to 22 we have to go back to that another time because it's so important and just move on to the end the ultimate blessings of the kingdom verse 23 then he turned to the disciples and said privately blessed are the eyes that see what you see for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it here's the incredible privilege of what the disciples had for hundreds and hundreds of years Israel had long for the day ever since ever since the fall of humanity a long for the day when God would step in and would restore creation would accomplish our our salvation Jesus says it's here the time of our salvation has arrived what an incredible privilege the disciples had what an incredible privilege we have right to be in the situation that we're in we have been witnessing is sharing our faith is not a chore it's a joy of being able to accompany God on the incredible task that he is doing the incredible mission that he is is accomplishing so Jesus takes the focus again off the power off the ego we've seen how the disciples are enamored with this power and focuses on look look at the blessings you have to be part of what God is doing in the world the greatest blessing we share in our faith is becoming part of the great worldwide mission that God is accomplishing throughout the world okay there's so there's a lot here I know and we covered a lot and we skipped a lot here but I will stop and we can zero in because I do want to take a few minutes if there I know we raised a lot of questions if there's other questions you want to deal with or issues within this passage yes wait wait for me yeah we're definitely loud today if you were to take an hour now and instruct us how to go out and do street witnessing what kind of things would you tell us to do okay there's a great question I would say what I said earlier is is to get to the gospel tell people your story people can relate to stories because they're living a story and to tell to tell people what God means to you you know some of us have really dramatic testimonies you know I was a drug dealer alcoholic and God our gang member those are the best you know but because then you can see the incredible power of God I wish I had one of those I was thinking about making one up you know but that would not be very not be very good but in fact we all have a story because God God has impacted our life and changed us and what people are looking for is wholeness in life they're looking for fulfillment fulfillment in their relationships fulfillment in their relationship to God and so I think telling people what God has done in your life and what he's doing is is the best is the best way and then when they say you know I really need that in mind like then you can share with them how how you receive Jesus Christ and how you accept his death on the cross and his resurrection as the power to bring salvation and transformation but I think we make it too hard when we think we have to know all the verses we know all the verses you're living the verses right you're living you're living out the life of salvation living out the life of Christ among others and so I think that's the best testimony you can give is just and just just sprinkling God in your conversation my mom who's sitting right there is so good at this is everything's about God I mean you know whether you're in the checkout line of a grocery store or whether you're you know in any it's about God because it is and we sometimes forget and so just your faith just is comes out naturally when God is such an integral part of your life yes okay yeah even yeah the comment was even if you say just God bless you you know the head turns and and it could open up especially a place you maybe go go regularly too and and and yeah Trader Joe's yeah thank God bless you Trader Joe's more comments or questions over here I remember I remember I was kind of like you got sick of my stomach I worked at a place in the girl every day would ask me so what about the babies that are killed what about first things what about you know every day would be that and I got to where I actually would hide in the women's bathroom and I kept pleading with God I don't know all the right verses I don't know what to say and he told me tell him what you do know so I started every time she'd asked me a question I'd say I don't know but I what I do know is God loves me and he I can't live my life without him you know I don't know how you do it yeah you know and she became a Christian but it wasn't from my knowledge head knowledge it was from my witness of who I knew Jesus to be in my life and the final straw was when she said well it's just a crutch for you and I was kind of offended you know anyway you're right I am a broken person and I need crutches and he is the perfect most reliable coach in the world and so I totally agree it's your witness that's fabulous that's that's wonderful Amen thank you yeah yeah because that's where the gospel begins with broken people right and and two out two often people think oh Christians think they've got all together no the reason we're here is because we're broken people yeah wonderful thank you you want to add to that or connect I want to go back to our text okay let me let's go with we had other questions first though let me we'll come back to I had a question on the part on the fall of Satan okay we know that Satan has access to the throne of God at least into the middle of the seven year tribulation and I grant you that Jesus could have been referring to the defeat on the cross but is it also possible that from time to time Satan kind of gets on God's nerves he could have been in relation to the 70 I mean I just wondered if it couldn't have been more proximate yeah it's it's certainly possible that in some sense it was related to events the cast out demons yeah again we just simply don't know but but that's that's certainly possible yeah yeah there's one right I like to talk about the evangelism which I so love and I think it's true what you said that we have to have a relationship with people and come along side of them and it's great to do street ministry but one of the things that I find that's difficult is we have a society where people don't really believe there's sinners anymore and repentance isn't mentioned how do you get them to the point where they really see and I know that only the Holy Spirit can bring that but so that we're preaching the true gospel of repentance first and not just this you know give your life to God and everything will be fine gospel that seems to be so out there nowadays yeah that's a great question and I think brokenness might be the answer I mean brokenness is always a result of sin either directly or indirectly and because the word sin people so misunderstand what that means I think it means an alienated relationship with God it means a broken relationship with God and many people will acknowledge that they don't have a relationship with God even if they say well I'm not such a bad person you know and I don't think we have to get people to admit your bad person admit your bad person I think people know they're broken I think people know their lives are not are not filled um Jeff I think you're next yeah did I say did I call you Jeff earlier I'm sorry I like that name I'm sorry Jay I think maybe she asked the same question I is it possible in the in when Jesus said I saw Satan fall from like lightning from heaven where the guys come back and they say you know we did this in your name and they're kind of excited and maybe Jesus is saying you know you you you gave Satan a little defeat and maybe given him some positive affirmation about what they did in his name you think that's possible there I'm not sure I'm following that okay yeah the guys come back from going out and casting out demons and healing the sick and they come back and they say Jesus even the demons respond to your name and then Jesus goes in and says I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven could that be possibly he him giving them affirmation of what they did was good yeah I mean I the fact that that what they did when they cast out demons was that it was part of the defeat of Satan is is crucial no I think there's there's an integral connection between the two there yeah yeah and there's one back here too I just wanted to make a comment on what Ruth said about how do you relate to a generation that doesn't believe in sin I had that specific experience once when I was trying to witness to somebody a stranger about God and and he gave me this I don't buy into sin thing and the one thing I was able to to talk to him about that did click with him was that he had certain standards for himself that he had not met in other words he had failed his own expectations and he could he could understand that and I could then say well if you have disappointed yourself and failed your own expectations over the course of your life isn't it possible that you would have failed yeah yeah yeah and he got that yeah he got it he understood that because yeah they were recognizing the self-filled yeah over here okay let's do one here and then we'll come over here she's had her hand up a long time and we'll come over no that's okay if people need to slip out we'll just keep going for a little while so on the thing where it said that Satan fell from heaven when isn't every Christian victory kind of like Satan it doesn't take Satan down a notch so wouldn't that just be like yeah yeah and in other words it could be a symbolic representation of what is happening when people are gaining victory over over Satan through ultimately the death of the cross so yeah I think it is Dennis can you come all the way over here I'll get you're going to get your exercise okay I don't know if she's going to want to do that the comment was will you give a few words on evangelism on that the mic the mic is coming to you okay I think what Mark was mentioned what he meant too was that I see God and pretty much every incident are happening in my life and that God is sovereign and in control but right now I've been living in a house for seven 20 years and still have not been able to talk to my neighbor and just recently she brought me a paper and she said here's an article about your husband and that has given me an in I said well do you want to see day of listening to him so after 20 years I finally have at least having in but I've been careful not to I don't want to push myself I don't want to draw them throw them away from the Lord it does and I think I think they know where you stand I think from the life that you live all of us of course know that that Mark's dad was a terrific pastor up in Escondito for many years I was able to hear him speak so thanks Danis okay we're 10 minutes over now let me close in prayer if you have more questions I'm happy to stick around and answer them but we will and and the plot continues next week right so bring your keep bringing your questions let me close this in prayer Lord thank you for saving us thank you for the gift of your son and Lord we have found such joy in him and we want to share that love with others and sometimes we find it hard because because we're shy or because we we don't want to hurt or offend others but Lord just help us to tell our story help us to share with others what you've done and what you are doing in our lives so that they can see you and see your love reflected Lord help us to love others the way you loved us and gave the gift of your son to us and Jesus name we pray amen