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Chosen for his discourse.
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Do you have the evangelizing spirit?
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If someone uses the term evangelizer or.
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Evangelist, what feature normally comes into the.
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Minds of people in the community?
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Well, they may think of someone who.
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Has a tent in a park that is stirring up persons and one wanting.
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Them to give themselves to the Lord Jesus.
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Or perhaps they might envision TV evangelist.
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Someone who is trying to reach their.
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Heart and asking them to dig deep into their pockets.
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Well, of course, for most of us here this morning, we realize that the.
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Word evangelizer has nothing to do with those concepts because an evangelizer
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is simply, according to the Bible, someone who tells good news.
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And of course, as Jehovah's people, we have the greatest news to tell others
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that soon all this horrible system that we're living in will be removed
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and replaced with a beautiful new system of things or a new world.
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It's interesting to note that in the.
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Scriptures, if you look at the large.
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Reference Bible, you'll notice a footnote to.
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Ephesians, chapter four, verse eleven,
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where it says that an evangelizer is also a missionary.
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So if we think of evangelizer, we think of missionary, a very similar term.
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But now let's think about the question.
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That we raised at the beginning.
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Do you have the evangelizing spirit?
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Now what do we mean by evangelizing spirit?
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You see, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Perhaps you have used the term quite often.
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We have the pioneer spirit of the evangelizing spirit.
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But if you are new to the.
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Congregation, perhaps you're not familiar with Jehovah's Witnesses.
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You might wonder, what on earth is the evangelizing spirit?
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Well, to answer that question in a.
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Very simple way, we could ask someone who was a very good
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evangelizer, and that was the Apostle Paul.
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So if you like to take your Bibles and turn with me to One Corinthians
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chapter nine and verse 23, one Corinthians nine and verse 23.
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And here the Apostle Paul describes what
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really is involved with having the evangelizing spirit.
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But I do all things for the sake
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of the good news, that I may become a sharer of it with others.
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That's the evangelizing spirit your whole life is involved with using
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whatever opportunity you have to tell others about the good news.
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Now that's very encouraging because some of.
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Us are able to do that every day.
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Others cannot do it every day,
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perhaps due to family responsibilities or maybe health restrictions.
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But the thing is,
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if you use whatever opportunity comes your way to tell others,
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whether it's once a week or whether it's once a month or whether.
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It'S every day, you can truly say you have the evangelizing spirit because you want
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to help others and tell them about the good news.
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Now, what is the good news or this evangel that we need to tell others about?
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Well, again, I'm sure there's not one
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of us in the audience, even including our little ones
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that doesn't know what Matthew 24, verse 14 says.
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This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited
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earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
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Now, we know that scripture very well.
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But that is what the good news is all about.
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The fact that Jesus is ruling his King in heaven in the midst of his enemies.
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Soon we're in the period of the.
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Last days and soon all these wicked.
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Things will be taken away.
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Now that is good news, isn't it?
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And if we truly believe that good news, then we want to tell others about it.
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Jehovah's Witnesses as a group,
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as a religion, as an organization are well known.
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For preaching the good news.
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You know that.
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Even the world knows that.
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You've probably seen many cartoons or funny little jokes that have been made
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about Jehovah's Witnesses when discussing this.
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I remember an experience I had while.
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My wife and I were witnessing in Tasmania.
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That's where she comes from, in Australia.
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And one day I was going from.
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Door to door, I knocked on the door.
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And the door opened, it was a Catholic priest.
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Now, of course, that was a little surprise for me and this priest,
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as soon as I started speaking, he said, Stop, don't say another word.
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He said, I'm going to ask you a question.
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Tell me in one sentence why you've come here this morning.
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Now, if someone challenged you that way, how would you answer?
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Tell me in one sentence why you're here.
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Well, I basically paraphrased Matthew 24
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49 and said, I'm here to tell you the good news of God's kingdom.
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He goes, he wasn't impressed with the answer.
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Then he explained to me that he was from Holland originally
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in the Netherlands, and he became a priest there.
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Then he went to France and then he listed
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a whole number of African countries where he served as a missionary priest.
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And then eventually he was near retirement
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and they sent him to Australia and he ended up in Tasmania.
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So he'd served in all these different
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countries and he said to me, you know, in every country I've been,
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I have met Jehovah's Witnesses and I have asked them the same question
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and you are all so stupid that you gave me the same answer.
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Well, we found that very encouraging.
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If that's stupid, I'm happy to be stupid.
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Then his next question was,
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can you show me anything from the Bible that relates the kingdom to the earth?
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And I said, well, what about the Lord's Prayer where Jesus
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said, let your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as in heaven?
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And he said, Wishful thinking on Jesus part.
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And that was the end of the conversation.
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Well, the point is that just like that priest acknowledged begrudgingly,
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jehovah's Witnesses are well known for their preaching activity.
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How many times have you had people say
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to you, you know, you people are doing what my church should be doing?
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I think you're totally wrong.
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You're apostate, you're antichrist,
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but you are doing the work that we should be doing.
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Have you had people say that to you?
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It is quite common for that to happen.
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And in our first assignment in Tasmania, my wife and I were witnessing
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to a Socalled bornagain Christian and he made that comment.
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He said, you know, I think you people are
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totally wrong, but you're doing the work that should be done and we can do it.
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So I said, well, that's interesting.
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Are you planning to do it?
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Yes, we are planning to do it.
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Well, a few weeks later,
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I met him again and I said, how's your preaching work going?
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So we gave up on that idea and I said, Why?
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Said, well, every house we went to, people ask us, Are you Jehovah's Witnesses?
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And we couldn't stand it anymore, it was so discouraging.
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Well, of course my answer was tough, but you see the point, a well known point,
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that Jehovah's Witnesses, when you think of them, you think of the preaching work.
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Yes, as an organization, we are evangelizers.
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But remember, the question we posed was, are Jehovah's witnesses evangelizers?
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No. Do you have the evangelizing spirit?
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So even though as an organization, we are well known for having
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the evangelizing spirit, what about us as individuals?
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Do we still have that evangelizing spirit?
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Well, let's turn to the words of the apostle Paul.
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In fact, his last letter that he wrote under inspiration to Timothy.
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It's the second book of Timothy, chapter four and verse five.
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Second Timothy, chapter four and verse five.
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Now, here Paul was near the end of his earthly life,
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writing to this dear son of his and trying to give him some admonition.
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Now, by this point at this point,
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Timothy had been an elder, a missionary, traveling overseer.
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He had appointed other men as elders.
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And yet notice what Paul said to him.
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You, though, keep your senses in all things,
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suffer evil, do the work of an evangelizer fully accomplish your.ministry