Welcome to the 100th episode of the Evangelist Podcast. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Yes, no, no, I I don't mind a bit of uh polite applause.
SPEAKER_03Again, 100, we mean 100!
SPEAKER_05As they say in the darts.
SPEAKER_03So this is this is like a special birthday celebration. I guess it is in a way. It's 100, but also it's uh your birthday. It is indeed my birthday. You don't know this, but I brought along some uh some helpers. Some friends. Okay. Singing up.
SPEAKER_00Oh Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday.
SPEAKER_06Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you.
SPEAKER_05Okay. That's the only fitting ending to that. Or a shotgun sound or something. Happy birthday, Claire. Why, thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Pleasure for you to have me around, isn't it? Don't even know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_03Well done to everyone who've uh listened so far.
SPEAKER_05There's there's some good stuff coming up. No, there's uh yeah, because there's there's people who aren't us who are on this episode. So it's worth you know persevering.
SPEAKER_03So 100 epit episodes at uh we've been able to sort of get s a few clips from the the most favoured parts of the uh podcasts.
SPEAKER_05Yep. What have you what have been your highlights over I think I think it was um what was it, 25th of March 2013. I was looking back at the records. So that is I did the math before. So 104 weeks plus thirteen weeks is what, a hundred and seventeen, right? Yes. Okay. So in the last hundred and seventeen weeks we've recorded a hundred uh podcasts. So we've missed seventeen weeks. We've missed seventeen weeks, and for that we apologise. Um I didn't know. But um what yeah, what have been your highlights?
SPEAKER_03Um the hot topics was good.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, answering people's big big objections.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and sort of when people put you on the spot. Yes. You've got to come out with something intelligible.
SPEAKER_05Um one of those made it into the top five. Oh did it? It did, it did, but I won't reveal what until until later.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I like the interviews um Barry and Nate. Yes. That was quite an amusing.
SPEAKER_05Yes, we've done a couple with them, and uh yes, their silly voices will linger on in the memory. That was very that was very good. Um I I really I liked doing ones with provocative titles, like, you know, uh and now I've forgotten all of them. Uh things like uh Stop Gaining Converts, The Good News Are Being Condemned Already, things like that. I like I like getting up people's noses and making them think. But um Yeah, I mean we've we've got a couple of our favourite interviews coming up. Actually, you know a really favourite one of mine is um Graham Miller, head of London City Mission. He spoke to us in some brilliant ways about kind of the stuff that we've been thinking about in the last few episodes, about evangelism and social action and him really being big on, you know, it's it's not a massive divorce between um loving Jesus and loving people. Maybe maybe that's kind of what the whole of life is, and um and reaching out to the world, keeping the gospel of Jesus central, but of course that overflows into uh all sorts of care for for the people who are around us. He was he was great and spoke a lot of sense, but um yeah, I mean obviously the interview's the best because you know it's not us. So that's but a hundred. That's yeah. That's that's an achievement, isn't it? Kind of? Yeah, yeah, isn't it? Yeah. I remember when I when I hit one thousand tweets, and I I remember thinking, that's some kind of modern achievement, isn't it? Yes, collated together my little uh hundred and forty character thoughts a thousand times.
SPEAKER_03That's yeah, I think for me it's something like I've only had two unfollows.
SPEAKER_05Oh, don't go to just unfollow.com, that'll ruin your life. I lose my own body weight and followers every week. It's uh never mind.
SPEAKER_03Okay, Glenn, before we go into the top five favourite podcasts. Yeah. Um tell us a bit about Sunday, because last Sunday you had you sort of invited down a a chap um to do some evangelism on the streets.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03And um tell us how it went.
SPEAKER_05It was brilliant. So Jeffrey Hilda is from Sydney and he's been doing it for years and years, and I actually learnt to do street evangelism from people that he had taught. Um so indirectly he's um been influencing me for the last sort of fifteen years. And uh as I look over the last fifteen years, you know, I've I've just had scores and scores, hundreds probably, of of conversations on the streets that have kind of been inspired by him in in in a roundabout way. Um and you know, pretty much every time I've gone out in order to have such a conversation, I've been able to have some kind of gospel conversation with people out on the streets. And uh so he is in the country and we got him down to Eastbourne in order to run some training here at our offices here. And um so we got I think thirty-two people coming from Eastbourne, which was which was great. 32, right? Yes. And um he gave us some training that was so deceptively simple, it actually left a number of us, you know, uh in the group feeling, well, that's not even training, like we are in no sense equipped for this, and people were petrified. There was one guy just before so the the the the setup was he was gonna give an hour of training, an hour we go out and do it, and then an hour of let's feed back what happened. And so after his hour of training, he was like, Right, get into pairs and off you go. And um one guy actually turned to me and said, We're not ready at all. Glenn, can you can you come to our church and give us some some training that will really equip us? I'm like, no, seriously, that's all you need. Yeah. Honestly.
SPEAKER_03It's it's funny how that that happens because you know you can do I mean, you know, I've done weeks before of of that, and then you go out on the streets and you think, No, hang on, I'm not quite ready. Uh I've got to go and uh I'm not wearing the quite the right thing. Exactly. Exactly is my hair alright? You kind of all these silly things.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if you want to wait till you're ready, you'll you'll wait forever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've never really felt ready.
SPEAKER_05So all he said in his training was, okay, um don't talk to people while they're moving along the streets. That's what the you know the the charity um people try and target. Stop you. Go for people by themselves, people who are stationary. Build rapport, get into a conversation, at some stage say, I'm from such and such a church, we're asking people if they have a faith. Do you have a faith? And literally that was pretty much the entire training. And then people were like, But what if they uh ask questions about suffering? And he was like, Well, I don't know, just talk about Jesus. But what if they ask this question? Just talk about Jesus. And um and so literally with that that kind of you know preparation, we were sent out onto the streets. So sixteen pairs went out and we just had dozens and dozens and dozens of conversations on the streets. Um nobody didn't have at least one decent conversation in the hour. Um some had three, four, or five conversations in the hour. Um one uh pair actually encountered a woman who it seems either came back to the Lord or came to the Lord for the first time. They prayed with her on the streets, she was in tears, she hugged them both, they put them in touch with the chur put her in touch with the church. Uh another pair um prayed again with another woman um who was very opened um by the Spirit to what they were saying. So it was incredible. And and you just think there are dozens of people in Eastbourne who wouldn't have heard anything. And now they've heard at least something of the Lord Jesus, and in some senses it it might have been an eternity shaping afternoon. Um and again you just think back to just how simple it was. Jeffrey just came and he says, you know, just don't pick on someone who's moving or in groups. And his his thinking behind that is if you're by yourself you'll share your heart. If you're with other people, you'll be a bit more cagey. Um but if you're by yourself he he he says he's often talking to uh husbands who are outside clothes shops, right? You know, waiting, and you can you can spot them from from miles away, they're sort of way down with their shopping bags, and you'll get into great conversations. And he said he's often been in the situation where the wife will come back and um and will hear the husband speaking about you know deep issues of the heart and spirituality, and uh and very often the wife will say, I had no idea you thought about such things. I had no idea you were thinking about this, that, or the other. Um so there yeah, there does seem to be a lot of wisdom in in um talking to people by themselves, they share more of themselves. But yeah, literally that was kind of it. You know, get them by themselves, start talking, build rapport, ask, do you have a faith? Keep asking questions, see what happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sometimes you just gotta jump in.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And so, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna um restart a uh a sort of a little team that'll go out uh here in Eastbourne. And if people are inspired um by this, then yeah, let me encourage you to try and do what you're uh Yeah, try and do something where you are. Um Jeffrey Hilder is in the country for a few more weeks, so you could you could get him or um you could ask me if you want me to come and and give some training. I've I've done quite a bit of it myself. Uh but really just get out there and give it a go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well, we're getting to the top ten uh top five then. Uh yeah, we don't have ten.
SPEAKER_05We don't have ten good episodes. Come on, Angie.
SPEAKER_03Top five episodes.
SPEAKER_05Yes. In no particular order? Uh in chronological order, but not in not in download order. But um these these have all been very popular um episodes in their own right. In fact, the the first one we're going to think about is um one of the most downloaded of all time. Of our podcast. Of our podcast. In the history of downloads. We're very proud. So, yes, this one is called The Six Things That Atheists Get Right. Or no, it's called What Atheists Get Right. And there happen to be six things. Yeah, I I guess this has showed up in a lot of search engines and got quite a quite a few downloads from people who uh I guess are intrigued to find out what Christians think atheists have got right. And I'm I'm hoping that that's a lot of atheists listening in. And uh I guess that that proved a very good way of engaging them by saying you get six things right. Here's what they are. And the six things were uh we are all atheists with regards to the vast number of deities that the world has ever proposed. A world with God uh is very different to a world without God. That's something that Richard Dawkins is always saying, and that's absolutely true. Third thing is being good in order to get to heaven is perverse, and you're right to reject anything that you know is let's be good in order to get into heaven. Uh the fourth thing is suffering is real and it's horrible and it's evil and it's wrong. Um that's right. And uh the fifth thing, religion is a terrible slavery. It really is, really it really can be, and it really does enslave loads of people. Uh and then the sixth thing that we'll heal hear a little clip from uh God, as imagined by a lot of atheists, is indeed a monster.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05So we'll we'll we'll listen to that.
SPEAKER_03So we'll we'll jump in at that point then and listen to that. So Glenn, and the last thing that we've got which uh where atheists have have got it right, is God as commonly understood is a monster.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The god against which so many of these guys rail is a monster and is rightly condemned. So um so we've we've got lined up a a clip from uh Chris Hitchens. Let's just let's just listen because I mean his his rhetoric is just stunning and it's just a a joy to behold. Um here is the god that Christopher Hitchens does not want.
SPEAKER_08Some people I know who are atheists will say they wish they could believe it. Some people I know who are former believers say they wish they could have their old faith back. They miss it. I don't understand this at all. I think it's a it's it's an excellent thing that there's no reason to believe in the absurd propositions I just uh admittedly rather briefly rehearsed to you. Um the main reason for this, I think, is that it is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave, it is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can can who can subject you, who must indeed subject you, to a total surveillance around the clock, every waking and sleeping minute of your life, I'd say, of your life before you're born, and even worse than where the real fun begins after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave designs such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, who? Who could possibly who could possibly want that? And to that, what do we say? No way. Not me. No thanks. No thanks. And and absolutely, it's the CCTV camera in the sky, the North Korea. Which obviously Christi Christians uh have a very different doctrine of God, you know, be because we believe in Jesus, the Son of the Father, full of the joy of the Spirit, you know, our understanding of God's interest in our life is that his interest is entirely shaped by love. You know, here is a father pouring love and life onto his son by the Spirit, who gives his son into the world that we might know him, that we might be drawn into the life of this God. Um this God does want to know you, and he and he and he does he does know our thoughts. He does hem us in before and behind, as the psalmist says in Psalm hundred and thirty-nine. But that knowledge is very different to the the the North Korean, you know, Starzi's, you know, knowledge of you. That knowledge is is the knowledge of someone who loves you more than his own life. Um you know, my my wife is there when I wake up in the morning. And she's there when I go to sleep at night, and she knows my thoughts, and she wants to ask about my day, and she interrogates me about you know, but because it's my wife, it's wonderful, you know. When somebody loves you, the fact they've got their eyes on you is a is a wonderful thing. You know. There's the the the the little girl who um explained to her her mother, who wasn't a believer, her she explained to her mother what she'd been learning in Sunday school, and she said, you know, God God sees everything that we do. And the mother mother said, That sounds horrible. And the little girl said, No, he just can't take his eyes off me. It's that. It's that. And you know, and but if God is the celestial North Korea, then absolutely reject him the way that that Christopher Hitchens does. But if we're talking about the the God of Jesus, then suddenly this this God is different.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so that was uh the first clip from uh that that was uh episode uh eighteen of the Evangelist Podcast. T E P eighteen. So if you want to go and listen to the whole thing of that, uh just go to speaklife.org.uk slash TEP18, and that will take you directly to that podcast.
SPEAKER_05The whole six things uh get right. Yeah. Okay, uh so the next one then, Glenn. The next one is uh episode 33 was a great little interview with Gavin Tite, uh who is the beatboxing pastor who uh won uh the 2011 uh ITV's Nativity Factor with his beatbox uh Luke's uh Luke's gospel. And um what I really loved uh about Gavin, he's um uh a self-supporting pastor to the beatboxing community, and um he just loves what he does and he loves people and he loves Jesus, and when you get the intersection of those three things, mission just kinda happens. And he was just refreshingly, I don't know, organic, natural, in the kind of evangelism that he wanted to do. I love beatboxing, I love people, I love Jesus. Mix those three things together, and what have you got? You got mission. So I just thought he was really refreshing in the way that he spoke about it. And uh, and I think this little clip will just highlight um the organic nature of doing what you love and taking Jesus with you. And we'll jump in halfway uh into what Gavin is talking about, how it is he reaches out to the beatbox community.
SPEAKER_02It's not that you're going out there again, do you know? I'm gonna really evangelize the beatboxing community and and it's the conversations start out of that authentic kind of Yeah, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_05With um uh for the last couple of weeks we've been talking to Graham Miller from uh London City Mission, and he was sort of talking about, you know, Christians can get so hung up with, well, should I on the one hand preach the gospel or on the other hand be a nice person? And he was sort of saying, Well, you know, actually the you know, our call is just to be a hundred percent Christian. Just just be just be who you are uh amidst others.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like it's it's partly why I haven't got a blog. Um because I'd be it's very tempting because I did a lot of writing and I do a lot of blogging, I suppose. But uh but rather than having it on a blog, I would rather just put it out on Facebook and and I don't because I don't want to separate my Christianity or out from the rest of my life. And as soon as you do that, it it I think it somehow gets down or gets compartmentalized, and and that's what people expect in some ways. Yes, keep your spirituality out of. But that doesn't mean and but on the flip side, you don't go on Facebook and just start kind of telling everybody that they're sinners and need to repent. And because I've got I know guys that do that, and boy, do they put people off? Uh and it and it pains me, it pains me when people do that. So but it's having that authentic Christianity in you know, so that it is part of your life and it's part of your expression of who you are, and it's great, and the conversations flow.
SPEAKER_03Gavin, how do you think uh Christians could be generally better at witnessing online?
SPEAKER_02How could Christians be better at witnessing online? Again, being open and honest about their faith in a real way, uh, not compartmentalizing, not trivializing, uh not super spiritualizing either, and and and being honest, uh and about their failures too, about things they struggle with. And I think on on a on any social media or any online forum or wherever it is, it's it's so important to see that their life is is imbued with Christ throughout their life. So not not be afraid to say it, you know. I was praying this morning and uh about this situation that that that's going on, or um you know, I you know I really felt God telling me that this is this is the direction I should go in this year, or or whatever it is in in in yeah, so rather than just posting out pictures of fairy cats playing with each other, whatever it is they do on Facebook. But not try, but don't try and don't don't try too hard then, don't try and evangelize. I'm sorry, that sounds really awful, doesn't it? But I mean those letters now, people say, what do you mean don't try and evangelist? This is the evangelist podcast. Don't try and evangelist, don't evangelist. You heard it first. What I mean by that is don't don't try too hard because people smell a rat. People know when you're not being authentic. And and and if you try if you if you if you try and use your relationships to reach people for God, if you try and use that as a tool uh and and you make that your focus, then then people get turned off. They get turned off, they run away and they go, Do you know Gab's just trying to hit me over the head with the Bible again? What I want them to do is see that actually my life is Christ is there in my life every day. Jesus is the most important thing to me above my wife, above my children, above my job, above myself. I've put God first, and that and so hopefully that that and and the conversations will happen. People say, Do you know, Gev, that yeah, I really respect that. I mean, I don't believe maybe, uh, but I respect that. Why do you do that? And why and so that's the longest conversations with people about Jesus, about God, all the time. And I don't have to try at all. I don't I don't I don't think I've ever tried to witness to anybody. And it just yeah, but it happens, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I I often do, and in uh often when I'm when I'm teaching about evangelism, I I I often say like the worst thing you can try and do is try to gain converts, like as though you know God's this gigantic cosmic hoover trying to suck people up, and you've got to suck them out of the things that they love and up into heaven. But you know, what we you know do we do what we love and we take Jesus with us and we offer Christ and the direction of travel is very much outwardly. Um just just be who you are, take Jesus with you, um rather than try and suck people into the the the Christian thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It it's it's it's the proclamation happens. If Jesus is really number one in your life, and he's at the centre of everything, then when you speak It's gonna be infused with God and references to God and references to Jesus and reverence references to your Lord because it's who you are and what you do. Does that matter? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And if that doesn't come out authentically, then it's not really gonna convince anyone anyway.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so that was uh the interview with Gavin Tight that we had on uh episode thirty-three of the Evangelist Podcast. Uh to go to that, you go to speaklife.org.uk slash TEP33. I'm getting the hang of it.
SPEAKER_05Even I even I understand this.
SPEAKER_03Okay, uh the next one then, Glenn.
SPEAKER_05Uh well this is part of the hot topics uh series that um Andy you spoke about as as a favourite sort of series of yours. We've actually done a couple of different answering big questions um series. We've done answering objections specifically. We've also done stuff on how you think about answering questions. We've also done things on apologetics and how to think about answering questions and that kind of stuff. So we're always we're always engaging with the big issues and or engaging with how we're meant to engage with the big issues. Uh but this one, I guess, engaging with homosexuality, it is kind of the issue that just is gonna get raised in evangelism. It gets raised uh whether you want it to or not. And uh and I just think, you know, if we're going to follow 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 15, which says, always be prepared. I think we do need to be prepared with the sorts of things we want to say when it comes to homosexuality. So here are just a few of the things um that I think through that hopefully are a little bit subversive, so that it's not the knee-jerk reaction of, you know, somebody asks you, Is homosexuality wrong? That actually you want to deconstruct that question, what is homosexuality? And is that just like a hugely twentieth and twenty-first century notion that, you know, that has no bearing on what the Bible is talking about, and and what are we actually talking about when we're talking about sexuality? So I I think it's really important as evangelists to get behind questions into the deeper issues, to deconstruct questions and to to shift debates from the old kind of train tracks that it it quite often runs on, and and to think in in more gospel terms about things. So this is kind of um the introduction. This is this is some of the first things that I'm talking about uh in this episode, episode 52, engaging with homosexuality.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05I I remember I was uh having lunch with somebody a couple of years ago now, and um she didn't know I was a Christian. As soon as it as it came up that I was a Christian, she put down her fork and she spat across the dinner table. She said, I will spit on anyone who says homosexuality is a sin. And uh we ended up having quite a nice lunch, you know, eventually. Eventually. But that just goes to show the the heat that 'cause it gets generated about this topic. You know, I I hadn't mentioned anything about the topic, and yet it it got mentioned to me, you know, instantly. And I think what was in her thinking is I think she she sort of looked on from the outside at what Christians are saying, and and she thought Christians are saying basically sexually righteous people like us will go to heaven. And sexual sinners like the rest will go to hell. Um but but you know, here here's the sort of the truth that I tried to get across. You know, only sinners go to heaven. Only sexual sinners go to heaven. You know, Mark Mark Mark chapter two verse seventeen applies as much to to sex in the bedroom as as as it applies to anywhere. Jesus in Mark chapter two, verse seventeen says, I've not come to call the righteous but sinners. I'm a doctor for the sick. I've not come to call the righteous but sinners. And therefore, you know, I I think that applies sexually as as well as everywhere else, that that actually we need to be a sinner if we want to come to Christ. We don't we don't need to come to Christ as straight or gay or bi or queer or anything else. We need to come to Christ as a sinner, uh which means all of us need to come to Christ as as as people who get things wrong in every department of life, including the bedroom. Those are the sorts of things I was trying to say.
SPEAKER_03We did sort of discuss sexuality in the previous podcast episode, and we were one of the things that uh we talked about was that you know being known as Christ as our identity. Yes. Rather than our sexuality being our identity. And that's basically what you're saying is that, you know, our identity is in Christ, regardless. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that that can really happen. You know, I I got into some great conversations uh about some of these issues on on Twitter recently with with a guy who I I really like his his tweets. I've really liked interacting with him, but just very, very sort of prominently, you know, the first descriptor in the bio, gay. So so sometimes th those sorts of primary identity issues are there. And it it's okay to have an identity. I'm an Australian, I'm a male, I'm married, you know, I'm a cricket fan. There's lots of there's lots of things that are particular about me, and I might bore people to to death talking about cricket, for instance, and that's okay. But but you know, when things do get to the level of I am straight or I am gay, or you know, I am born this way, and that's who I am, baby. You know, when when it gets to that level, I think, yeah, there there are definitely sort of identity issues going on.
SPEAKER_03Is the Bible anti-gay, though?
SPEAKER_05Uh I think the Bible has very little interest in our sexual orientation. In fact, I'd say it has zero interest in our sexual orientation. And to define our identity in terms of our sexual preferences is an incredibly modern Western fascination that's known only to us, really. It's not known to the rest of the world even today, and it wasn't known in the West prior to 150 years ago or even a hundred years ago. People were not talking in these terms about gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. We didn't have these sort of categories. And so to read the Bible through our modern lenses, trying to figure out, you know, what does it what does what does Jesus think about the LGBT community? And you're like, well, there are things that you can say, but it's it's a bit like claiming that Jesus was Labour or Liberal Democrat or Conservative. Like, is is Jesus conservative or Labour or Liberal Democrat? You're like, well, um that's a bit of an anachronism, isn't it? Those categories don't make sense in first century Israel. But Jesus has things to say to the Tories, and he has things to say to Labour, and he has things to say to the Liberal Democrats. But to to kind of read the Bible through these lenses that are so novel, that are so new, I I don't think we really realize how modern these labels of LGBT and straight and queer and all these sorts of things are. Even like I was just reading online uh last week um an LGBT anthropologist called uh Dr. Esther Newton, and she was you know doing work trying to find are there any other cultures in history that have ever divided up humanity the way that we do into straight, gay, bi, you know, and and the rest. We like labels, don't we? We love the labels. But she says, you know, different cultures have so many different understandings of sex and gender and desire that are so specific to their old own worldviews. And she says she knows of no non-Western cultural system that divides people into the categories of men who like women, men who like men, women who like men, women who like women, the way that we do. There's just no no other culture in the history of humanity. That should give us pause for thought, shouldn't it? Um So is the Bible anti-gay? Well, I don't think it I don't think it's particularly pro-straight, that's for sure. You know, you cannot imagine Jesus in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount turning to his disciples and s and and saying, Let your sexual desire be unto the multitude of women. Not to the un to the multitude of men. He doesn't want our sexual desire to be unto the multitude of anything. It's inconceivable that he would want heterosexuality to be the point. Um heterosexuality is not the point, which is you know, I I don't consider myself straight, for instance. So you know, I I hate the term straight. Lusting after you know the opposite sex en masse is not a particularly righteous thing. Like being being oriented sexually towards female kind is wicked. It's wicked. And yeah, well, I'm I'm meant to be straight because I'm a Christian. No, no, no, no, no. These categories of straight and gay are are so modern and they they do not help us to read the Bible. The Bible's not interested in my orientation at all. It is interested in my behaviour, but that's that's a different thing. And we do need to differentiate between behaviour and orientation because orientation and desire and my inner life have become the be all and end all of everything. Whereas the Bible's just interested in, okay, what do you do with your sexual desires? It doesn't really care about the orientation.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so that was uh uh engaging with homosexuality on our hot topics series of the Evangelist Podcast. And if you want to hear the whole of that episode, you can go to speaking.uk slash slash TEP fifty-two.
SPEAKER_05Come on.
SPEAKER_03Easy. Okay, then uh the next one you've got the Mike Reeves.
SPEAKER_05Mike Reeves. Now, obviously he had to make the top five, uh, because Mike Reeves is uh a phenomenal uh theologian and pastor and preacher, and um so we spoke to him. It was it was a great episode, that one. We um uh we spoke to him about his journey to faith, about the ways in which he's ministered to people in the student world and now in in terms of theological education. And um what we did to finish the episode was to ask him about four different characters in church history and how they can help us to be better evangelists. So we thought about Athanasius in the fourth century, we thought about Luther in the sixteenth century, we thought about uh Richard Sibbs in the seventeenth century, we thought about Charles Spurgeon in the nineteenth century. Um all of these theologians Mike spend a lot of time thinking about and writing about. And uh and so he was able to give us some some very uh profound and deep as well as pithy um uh helps and encouragements on how these particular theologians can shape our evangelism. So the clip we're gonna listen to here is uh Mike talking about Charles Haddon Spurgeon and how Spurgeon can help us in evangelism.
SPEAKER_04Okay, here we go. Finally, Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_05Would how would C. H. Spurgeon help us? Obviously, he he kind of is uh a great evangelist and preacher. Yeah. What have you learnt from spending some time with Spurgeon?
SPEAKER_07Um, I think the the standout thing I was given a while back, I was given a complete uh set of Spurgeon sermons. And what's struck me, I just started avidly reading through his sermons, and what's really struck me is how extraordinarily, I mean really extraordinarily Jesus-centered he is. He's always holding out Jesus.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_07Um, and so his very first sermon when he gets into the pulpit, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the first words that comes out in the first paragraph of his sermon are, I propose the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, as long as this house is frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. And and that's a message that he stuck true to right the way through 40 years of preaching there in South London. And if you can find the last couple of paragraphs of his last ever sermon in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, actually I've just found, I've just found in um Christ Our Life, I've just repeated it. Can I read it to you? Um he finishes with, It is heaven to serve Jesus. I'm a recruiting servant, and I would fain find a few recruits at this moment. Every man must serve someone with no choice as to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves. Depend upon it. You will either serve Satan or Christ, either self or the Saviour. You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters. But if you wear the livery of Christ, you will find him so meek, so lowly of heart, you will find rest to your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains. There was never his like among the choicest of princes. He's always to be found in the thickest part of the battle, and when the wind blows cold he always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his shoulders. If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, tender, lavish and super abundant in love, you'll always find it in him. These forty years and more I've served him, blessed be his name, and I've had nothing but love from him. I'd be glad to continue yet another forty years in the same dear service here below if it so pleased him. His service is life, peace, joy. Oh that you would enter on it at once. God help you enlist under the banner of Jesus even this day. Amen.
SPEAKER_05Amen. Wow.
SPEAKER_07And that that's what I want my life to be about. I'd love those were his last words in the pulpit. I'd love those to be my last words in the pulpit. Spurgeon, just read his sermons, they're easy to read. And so he shows you uh how Jesus is at the centre, and he shows you why Jesus should be at the centre. He shows you Jesus is attractive, glorious, our only solution. Um, if I'm to recommend one thing of his, I think I'd recommend Christ's Glorious Achievements, which is a little series that I think it's seven sermons on Christ. Christ is the defeater of death, Christ as the overcomer of the world, Christ the end of the law, and things like that. Absolutely super reading.
SPEAKER_05We don't really have sermon series like that anymore, do we? I mean, you know, you go online to various churches and you download the sermon series. If there is ever a sermon series on Christology, it will be about his you know full and perfect manhood and his full and perfect divinity and and things like that. What's what's wrong with us?
SPEAKER_07I I I think it's that tragically, for all the many good things that have happened in the church in the last generation, we are pushing Christ to one side, I fear. And so we we talk about being Bible-based and the importance of that, we talk about uh being uh gracious people and so on. And th those are good things, but they even such good things, talk about being gospel-centered, even that can push Jesus aside, and so that Jesus becomes just one brick in the wall of the system. And when you do that, it it just proves something very different to yeah, what you see there in Spurgeon, where he'll regularly, routinely be wanting to say, look to Jesus, this isn't an academic game, one more doctor interview to fill in to take off. No, Jesus is at the centre, and you must come to know him as the only solution, the only life, uh, the center, what it's all about. He's the father's joy, and the point of your existence is that he might become your joy.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so that was uh Mike Reeves on episode sixty-nine of the Evangelist Podcast. And if you want to hear the whole of that episode, you just need to go to speaklife.org.uk slash TEP69.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05Hey.
SPEAKER_03Last one then, Andrew Wilson.
SPEAKER_05Andrew Wilson uh came into the studios here in Eastbourne. He's obviously a pastor here in Eastbourne. He was just fresh from having written uh Unbreakable, which is uh a great book from uh ten of those about uh the Bible. And uh he was in the process of writing a book with his wife that's gonna come out this summer with IVP. And uh and I think we kind of got one of the first sneak previews about what the what the book uh was gonna be about. And it's gonna be a cracker. So listen to uh TEP uh seventy-five, that episode. You'll you'll hear more about uh Andrew and Rachel's book that's coming out soon. Uh but just towards the end of the episode, um I don't think I even thought I was gonna ask him this question, but I just asked him, you know, what keeps you fresh spiritually? And uh and as it turned out, he'd just been having a a pretty rough, you know, few days with sleeplessness and and um all sorts of issues, and I thought what he answered in that context was just so helpful and fresh and and would be of a a great benefit to us. So we'll we'll listen to Andrew Wilson's top tips on how to stay fresh spiritually. Okay. What keeps you fresh and alive and full of the joys of the Lord? What what keeps you close to the book?
SPEAKER_01For me, uh so uh one one thing I one thing I do that I would make the make the goal and one thing which I realise is the biggest inhibitor, right? Um and which I need to work on. So the thing which I do, I I uh it's not quite at the level of mantra, but it's nearly there. Um a George Mueller line that he talks about my f that my first duty in the morning is to have my soul happy in the Lord. And Pipe John Piper has our kind of riffs off it a bit and expands it to my first duty every day is to get happy in God, because until I am, I'm no use to anybody. And that phrase has been probably the most formative sentence in my Christian life, really, because I think it just made me so aware that I need to make a discipline out of the things that make me happy in God, and to see my goal when I come before God in the morning or whatever it might be, as to get my soul happy in God rather than to discharge a religious duty or such and such. It's made such a difference because actually you do uh do that by studying scripture and praying. But just today I was thinking I was a very difficult morning, and I thought what I really need to do before going to work is I need to get I actually use that language all the time in a family, church, get happy in God. And in my case, that is actually pretty the standard way. I have a you know a journal and a Bible and I pray and I go for walks and I do the things you do to get your soul happy and God. But thinking about it that way is the inhibitor for me is at the moment anyway, is lack of sleep. So I think that's where I go. I think the the warfare for me is actually making sure that I my soul is happy in God, and one of the big things there is to make sure I've slept enough. John Stott, I think, was asked once, and he was reasonably old, what's the secret of your Christian life? And he said knowing how much sleep I need and getting it. And that I and I think that's just a wonderfully unspiritual and yet actually very spiritual response.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_01So that's probably that's the the when I'm doing well is getting happy in God. When I'm not, it's often because I'm just not getting enough sleep, and that's a challenge.
SPEAKER_05That's interesting. I I wonder whether the Lord sort of in a one in one sense is giving sleeplessness to you. Thank you so much to the church, because I'm just thinking, if if I'm hearing you say, get myself happy in the Lord, get myself happy in the Lord, and I'm thinking, well, Andrew doesn't know. He doesn't know what I'm going through. You know, he can't tell me that. It must be it must be easy for him. Actually, you you saying that there are there are these inhibitors.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, it's a real fight for us, but just with and that's actually I think what this uh next book is g is about, really, is how you uh do like our kids are both severely autistic, and it's really how you do the Christian life when you uh uh have a spectacular curveball thrown your way and you just have to realign everything, which is what's happened to us in the last few years. Um I hope in this I hope it could be really, in some ways, I hope it does for quiet times what I'm saying just saying Duncan has done for evangelism, which is in normal life. I'm not a super freak, I don't walk on air just for the fun of it. Um and I feel so and today is a weird day to have this because I just have had a shocking three days of sleep, and and it was and really my godliness was running out by basically this morning. Um and I just had a I just had a real freak out first thing this morning. I was just like, I cannot do this, I just don't know how to do this without sleeping. Um but actually even then, you know, having a good wife and having a bit of time with your Bible and it's amazing how refreshing being with God is. Um what I should have done is done that before I had my freak out, but that's a whole other story and won't go into it on air.
SPEAKER_05Um But that is what li that is what's liberating as people hear, you know, both the freak out and the happy time. Yeah. Yeah. Coming together.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so that was Andrew Wilson on the Evangelist Podcast, episode seventy-five.
SPEAKER_05And to go to listen to the whole of that episode, go to All Together now speaklife.org.uk slash TEP75.
SPEAKER_03Great.
SPEAKER_05So You forgot to say WWW.
SPEAKER_03There is no WW. W.
SPEAKER_05Double W. Full stop.
SPEAKER_03Um if you can't remember all the episodes, then we'll have a link in the show notes for this episode. And you should be able to remember what number of episode this is. Speaklife.org.uk slash tep100. One hundred.
SPEAKER_05Brilliant. Good.
SPEAKER_03Well, we've better leave it there, Glenn.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03Happy birthday, finally.
SPEAKER_05Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. And look, if you if you guys like the podcast, would you share it with your friends? Why why don't you share it on social media, Facebook, Twitter, whatever whatever you're on. Google Plus. Are people on Google ⁇ anymore? Could people sometimes do that? They claim they've got like a billion users of Google ⁇ , but nobody's on Google Plus. They're all on Gmail, aren't they? But they claim they've got a billion users on Google Plus. LinkedIn? Does that I mean I mean LinkedIn are always emailing me, but like whatever whatever happens.
SPEAKER_03I never see I never see people post podcasts on LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_05No, but you could be the first. Yes. Go on. Link us on podcast on uh on LinkedIn and then send us a screenshot and um and you'll win absolutely nothing. But um yeah, if you like the podcast, please do share it with your friends and um and hopefully some of those clips will give people a a a taste of for what they've been missing for the last hundred episodes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and give us a rating and review on iTunes. Um we'll read read out your rating and review.
SPEAKER_05Yes. No matter how dreadful it is.
SPEAKER_03On on the air.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, are we done, Glenn?
SPEAKER_05I think we're done. Uh yes. Looking forward to uh the next couple of episodes thinking about stop giving your life to Jesus. Uh so uh that was a little talk that I gave on Saturday at a youth conference. And um yeah, and people are really resonating with that message. People have had a history of being told as a teenager to give their lives to Jesus every day, and people having done it and done it and done it and done it and done it, and never having any sense of the Lord accepting them or giving his life to them. Um so what does that mean for us as evangelists? Don't we believe in conversion? Yes, we believe in conversion. Don't we believe in preaching and people meeting Christ? Yes, we do. So shouldn't we just keep on asking people to give their lives to Jesus? Maybe there's a better way. And uh over a couple of episodes we'll uh think about what that better way might be.
SPEAKER_03Okay, thanks very much. See you next time.
SPEAKER_05See you later.