Section 01 - Signs of the Evangelistic Calling

Luke 4:18 and 19 says,

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are bruised,
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Romans 10:13 to 15 says,

For whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach, unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those that preach the gospel of peace, and bring good news of good things.

The ministry of the evangelist is perhaps one of the best known of the Fivefold Ministry.

I suppose you might think it is unnecessary for us to have a teaching on the signs of the evangelist, because I think most people think that they can spot an evangelist from a mile and identify him immediately.

I am hoping in this section that perhaps I will change that opinion slightly. By the end I hope that you will have a better understanding of what an evangelist really is, and what he should look like.

What an Evangelist is

What is an evangelist? According to the Greek word for the gospel which is euangelion, the evangelist is a gospel preacher or a bringer of good news.

Unfortunately in many circles the evangelist has come to be a bringer of bad news instead of good news. We have missed the original importance of what is meant by the gospel, and by what the good news really is.

You know there are those jokes that go around that say,

"I have good news for you and I have bad news for you."

Depending on the joke most of the time people say,

"Well give me the bad news first, then give me the good news afterwards."

I am afraid the same habit pattern has come into the church and has crept into the Evangelistic Ministry.

These days however the evangelist has changed the story and he is saying,

"I've got bad news for you, and I have bad news for you."

The good news seems to have disappeared in many circles, and the preaching of the gospel has become the bad news.

I want to tell you something. People already know the bad news. You do not need to tell them that. They hear it all the time. It is time we started to preach the good news; the true gospel.

What is the true gospel? That is what the evangelist is meant to be preaching. What is the good news?

I want to consider a bit of that here, but it is not the main structure of what I want to share because I am going to try and show you what an evangelist is.

The Evangelistic Anointing

I want to start by looking at the evangelistic anointing. Jesus described it very clearly in the first passage where He said,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel.

To preach what? The good news. What good news was Jesus preaching? What was the anointing given for, and what was it going to lead Him to preach? What kind of gospel was it?

Jesus described it clearly here. I am going to look at each point very quickly and you will understand what the evangelistic anointing is meant to accomplish.

Good News to the Poor

The evangelist is meant to preach the good news to the poor. What is the good news that the poor need to hear? You might say,

"God wants you to be poor and suffer. You shouldn't want anything."

That sounds like bad news to me but that is what is being preached as gospel. The good news to the poor is,

"You don't need to be poor anymore."

Jesus was not only referring to those who are poor in the temporal things of this world. A poor person is a person who lacks the basic necessities of life. Those necessities can be temporal, they can be psychological, mental, physical or spiritual.

The good news to the poor, those who are lacking the good things that God intends us to have is,

"You don't have to be poor anymore."

That is what we should be preaching as the gospel.

Healing the Brokenhearted

Jesus said,

The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me... to heal the brokenhearted.

Who are the brokenhearted? These are the people who have lost their goals. These are people who once had plenty of spirit and fire in them, and it all went wrong and was broken.

Their goals and their dreams have been broken and taken away. Their lives have become destroyed. They have nothing to live for anymore. These people need the gospel. They need the good news which says,

"Jesus has made the way for you to break free. He has come to give you a new goal and a new reason for living."

That sounds like good news to me.

Sets the Captives Free

Jesus said,

The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me... to preach deliverance to the captives

This speaks about those who are bound and those who are prisoners. They are in bondage. What are they in bondage to? They are in bondage to sin and in bondage to sickness. They are in bondage to bad habits, to drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

They are in bondage to demons; to anything that controls them and prevents them from being free to do what they want to do and what God wants them to do.

The good news is you do not have to be in bondage. The good news is Jesus came to set the captives free and you can be free right now.

Preaching to the Blind

Jesus came to preach the gospel to the blind. Who are the blind? They are not only the people that cannot physically see. They are those who have become blinded by false religion, by the psychology and teachings of this world.

They are blinded by the archetypes, by the psychological propaganda and by the programming that has been built into people by the World System. It is designed to prevent them from seeing the truth of what they have available in Christ.

The good news is the truth has arrived. The good news is God wants to reveal Himself to you and He wants to show you the truth.

Preaching to the Bruised

Jesus said, "I have come to preach the gospel to the bruised."

You know a bruise is a kind of internal bleeding. It is one thing to have a cut, the blood comes out and it is open and you can heal the wound. But a bruise is a wound; a sore that is inside that is festering and is painful. It cannot be touched.

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

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

That is the gospel. Is that the kind of gospel you have heard evangelists preach? Come on, be honest. If it wasn't then they were not operating under the anointing that Jesus declared was given for the preaching of the gospel.

The anointing that was given to preach the gospel was this kind of good news that I have mentioned here. If you are called to be an evangelist, God has called and anointed you to preach the good news that I just spoke about.

You say, "What about heaven and hell? What about sin and righteousness and judgment? Aren't we meant to be preaching those things?"

Yes, but you do not need an anointing to preach those things; not according to this. The world is preaching judgment all the time and condemning one another. You do not have to look very far to find people condemning one another.

You do not have to look very far for people to find out the faults in one another and point out each other's sins. You do not need an anointing to do that. You do not need an anointing to preach on sin. It is all around you. Anybody can preach on sin.

But the anointing that God has placed upon His good news preacher, the evangelist, is to set the captives free. It is to give the poor good news, to heal the brokenhearted, to open the eyes of the blind, and to heal those who are bruised. That is the good news of the gospel.