The Role Of Evangelism

Dr. Leighton Flowers, Director of Evangelism and Apologetics for Texas Baptists, explains why evangelism is important from a Provisionist perspective.

View the full video here:

[dhgrainger]

Hey Leighton,

I’m a 22 year old Southern Baptist that is about to move to France shortly to pursue bi-vocational missions. I became a follower of Jesus in 2017 and became increasingly Calvinistic in my theology (all 5 points) from 2019-2020.

I just wanted you to say thank you for your dedication to the heart of Jesus and for your content. It has helped lead me out of Calvinism and given me the ability to disciple guys without second-guessing whether or not God really desires for them to be saved.

God bless

[armandodeking]

Flowers we need a book tour of your resources 🙏

[mrdandrea]

I'm not disputing that God will judge us for neglecting to warn the lost that He urges us to warn, but I doubt that God would neglect to prompt them Himself.

"Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."
1 Timothy 2:4

[JohnQPublic]

On Calvinism, the Calvinist God decrees man to sin and then barbecues him in Hell for sinning.

[a.k.]

E.D.D. is the Golden Chain of Exemption

[n.holt]

Great answer. Our source of truth must be the Bible, not our philosophy of God's sovereignty, and not our feelings about our own responsibility.

What a motivation? If we don't evangelize we will be guilty of their blood.

[JohnQPublic]

On Calvinism, the Calvinist God is so puny he can’t love and make provision for everybody.

[wpdaffue]

If Calvinism is true (which it is not), then there would be no reason whatsoever to evangelize. The "elect" do not need to know how the process works, because they have, in any event, been unconditionally elected to salvation from before the foundation of the world, according to their own theological theories. (Remember the "Unconditional Election" part of TULIP?).

The "non-elect" cannot, in anyway, benefit from the hearing of the Gospel, because knowing how the process works would in no way affect their lost, reprobate condition.

Therefore, it is abundantly clear that despite claiming that: "Calvinism is the Gospel", there is in fact no Gospel ("Good News") in Calvinism.

[Rightlydividing-wxxb]

Paul was chosen by Jesus personally to go to the Gentiles to turn them. Ezekiel was God's prophet that was to speak by God's Spirit to Israel that were God's own people and God would sometimes use a prophet to speak to non Jews. Ezekiel was a watchman over Israel though.

Paul was specifically commissioned to preach the Gospel, going to the Jews first. The ordinary believer is not chosen to give the Gospel the way Paul was. Ezekiel wasn't giving the Gospel, he was to warn the Jews who were at that time under the Law of Moses for their righteousness. They constantly turned from the law thereby "wounding" themselves and are the only people referred to as "lost sheep", whether wandering away by neglect of the shepherds as Ezekiel 34, Jeremiah 50, or 23 explains or by the being led away by those shepherds. Jesus finally comes as the Good Shepherd.

Evangelical work in Ephesians 4 is by a specific type of man listed by Paul that is given to the body of Christ. Every believer though should desire to give the Gospel to the unsaved soul, but every believer is not called or appointed to be a "watchman".

Please watch the non context, 2 entirely different covenants are being mixed together: 1) national Israel under law for their righteousness from EXODUS until the Anointed one came and fulfilled the law of Moses 2) after Jesus' ascension having sent the Holy Spirit under Grace- not law, an entirely different covenant. I'm no Calvinist either, nor Arminian. Thanks for the work on this channel!

[rtgray]

"God may slap me around a little..." Bid supporter of Sot. 101 and, I'm NOT a Calvinist but, you're conflating Old Covenant and New Covenant. "There is therefore, NO condemnation to those who are i Christ Jesus". God lives IN us. We may feel unfulfilled and not have the joy in our relationship if we fail to obey God's desires but, He won't be "slapping around" or condemning His children.

[JohnQPublic]

The pseudo-Christian denomination of Reformed Theology is nothing more than a collection of platitudes.

[jimyost]

Some of you may find this to be interesting, which are two replies I wrote a few days ago to two different people, the first being a false prophet whose YouTube name is "Prophet Bradley" who said in his defensive and argumentative reply: "I AM CHOSEN AND ANOINTED BY GOD ALMIGHTY." The second is a reply I made about an hour later to a lady named Kelly Powell who said she believes that the spirit of Elijah has been poured out. Here's my (edited) reply to "Prophet Bradley": Prophet Bradley ~ So, you're "CHOSEN AND ANOINTED BY GOD ALMIGHTY" eh? That doesn't equate seeing as how you're posting religious videos on YouTube, which is a Satanic medium like TV that has been set up by the kingdom of darkness overlords (aka fallen angels/principalities per Ephesians 6:12 in the King James Version) for the purpose of deceiving and controlling millions of Christians who are devoid of spiritual discernment (people like yourself for example).
About four years ago a Christian prophet ( a real one) posted a comment in reply to a YouTube video that was posted by a so-called 'prophet' saying that the Lord had just recently said to him:

"No Christian prophet will post a video on YouTube, or will allow himself to be interviewed in any YouTube video, or will go on TV for any reason."

In case you may have some difficulty figuring it out, what this means is that all of the so-called 'prophets' who are posting videos on YouTube are false prophets (people like yourself for example).

The reason Christian prophets (real ones) are so often ignored, opposed, ridiculed, vilified, rejected, and sometimes killed, is because their messages are so opposite of the sweetsie-sweet and nicie-nice 'prophecies' so many Christians have been being weaned on for years and years and have become addicted to. You can tell the truth of that by reading the comments to the false prophets' worthless videos.

Sometimes when I look through the comments people post throwing roses at the false teachers and false prophets and lauding them to the skies, it almost makes me wonder if most Christians in Western Culture have lost their minds (besides having lost their spiritual discernment long ago, or never had it to begin with).

You're obviously totally convinced that you're anointed by the Holy Spirit. You're delusional. The spirit you're dealing with, who you think is the Holy Spirit, is in fact a religious spirit who has been carefully groomed by the kingdom of darkness overlords to know how to mimic the Holy Spirit, and you have swallowed the deception hook, line, and sinker.

The worst thing about it is that the religious spirit controlling you has rights to blind you spiritually so that you can't be told about your spiritual condition. In other words, you're permanently stuck in one hell of a mess spiritually. I'd hate to be in your shoes. End of my reply to him.


Here's my (edited) reply to Kelly Powell:

Kelly Powell ~ Dear Kelly, I assume you meant to say "Spirit of Elijah move poured out..." If you think that then you've obviously never seen an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

You might find this to be interesting (probably not, but oh well):

One night back in the fall of 2017 at around 11:00 in the evening right as I was getting ready to turn off the light and lie down to go to sleep, I prayed and asked the Lord to please send the end-time outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and he immediately replied to me speaking to me in my spirit and he said:

"Many of my people are praying and asking me to send renewal, but when the outpouring comes they aren't going to like it."

That was all he said. I waited to hear if he would say more but he didn't. But he did open my understanding to understand that the reason they aren't going to like it is because it is going to be so totally different than the milquetoast spiritual atmosphere they've been being acclimated to for most of their lives (and which they love) that they won't be able to relate to it and will be afraid of it and will reject it. Also because with much Holy Spirit power comes much spiritual responsibility, and even though hardly any of them would admit it, most Christians want nothing to do with serious spiritual responsibility.

With their ears itching profusely (per 2 Timothy 4:3-4 in the King James Version) they opt to run to 'professionals' (i.e. so-called 'prophets') to do for them what they should be doing for themselves spiritually which leaves them totally powerless spiritually. Plus the outpouring will expose where everyone is at spiritually, and most Christians want none of that.

The end-time outpouring of the Holy Spirit (that is foretold in scripture) is going to be so radically powerful that most Christians won't be able to relate to it and will be afraid of it and will reject it. That is exactly what happened to millions of American and Canadian Christians during the mid-90's outpouring of the Holy Spirit (what became known as "The Toronto Outpouring of the Holy Spirit"). It was so much more powerful than anything they had ever seen before that it frightened them and they rejected it (and many of them vilified it saying it was "Of the Devil" thus blaspheming the Holy Spirit and possibly sealing their fate).

Then after they rejected it they went on with no anointing of the Holy Spirit on their lives to engage in all sorts of religious soul power do-gooder agendas to try to compensate for the feeling of spiritual powerlessness they were feeling (on a subconscious level mostly). But what they inadvertently succeeded in doing was to create the spiritual atmosphere (vacuum) that made it easy for the religious spirits to walk into and to prop up this battalion of false teachers and false prophets on YouTube. It's all very sad. End of my reply to Kelly.

One last thing, having to do with the prophecy the Christian prophet posted denigrating and exposing YouTube:

About seven years ago on a hot summer day at around 2:00 in the afternoon I came in the house and started digging around in my desk drawers looking for a piece of paper with someone's phone number on it (I think maybe it was my auto mechanic's phone number), and as I was digging around in one of the drawers, out of the blue the Lord spoke to me in my spirit and he said:

"Prophecy isn't for everyone. Most Christians say they believe in prophecy, and they think they do, but they don't really."

That blew my mind because at that moment I wasn't thinking about anything having anything to do with spiritual things.

[a.k.]

On Calvinism, God wants all mankind to want to sin. This is 100% antithetical to Biblical Christianity.

[robertmcvicar]

From a Calvinist. Election is God's business winning souls is mine. God uses men.

[SunnytheWeim]

Total depravity. That is where Arminians fall way short. Total, not sort of. You guys seem to be sideways about God's sovereignty but conveniently silent on the dead spiritual state of people who have not been born again.