Thursday, October 6, 2022
The Results Are in God’s Hands
“Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’” (Acts 2:37 NLT)
Sometimes, I hear people say they are not into “mass” evangelism or into numbers. Well, God is interested in both one-on-one evangelism and mass evangelism.
We find an example of mass evangelism in Acts 2, where Peter spoke to a crowd of thousands. As a result, about 3,000 people wanted to follow Jesus Christ (see verse 41). The Bible says, “Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’” (verse 37 NLT).
Peter told them, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God” (verses 38–39 NLT).
In the book of Acts, we find instances of both mass evangelism and one-on-one evangelism. When Philip spoke with the dignitary from Ethiopia in the desert, he engaged in one-on-one evangelism (see Acts 8:26-39). When Peter addressed the masses on the Day of Pentecost, that was mass evangelism or what I like to call proclamation evangelism. It’s the evangelism we have been doing for more than 30 years now through the Harvest Crusades, and we’ve seen more than 500,000 people make professions of faith in Jesus and commit to following Him.
Do we know for certain that all the people Peter addressed became Christians? No, we don’t. Do we believe that many of them did? Yes, we do.
Our job is to proclaim the gospel and sow the seeds. It’s the Holy Spirit who determines where the seeds end up and what happens in people’s lives.
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