PASTOR ALEXANDRE PORTELA SAO PAULO - BRAZIL

INTRODUCTION Objective: Spread the message of the cross How? In order to lead the heart of the unbeliever to be pricked with the message. Why? Because if he does not truly understand the message of the cross, he will never know the Lord Jesus Christ. How is it possible? With a powerful and prophetic revelation of the Holy Spirit.

What happens nowadays? The evangelism strategies are saturated. People have been fed up with the same things and they do not listen to the message anymore. Evangelists often are unprepared, without an objective and anointed MESSAGE. This anointing is only possible when we understand and believe the message of the cross. The Primitive Church had rather few resources, but had the Holy Spirit in abundance and efficient evangelism strategies. Its preaching was full of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the preachers always succeeded, mainly because they understood very well the MESSAGE OF THE CROSS and believed it unconditionally. The effective evangelism is the only way to lead many captive souls to Christ. Every day, the devil plans strategies to divert man from God's presence. It is our duty to seek God's GOOD strategies to reach these souls.

CHAPTER 1 Why is it our obligation? Every single Christian, Who is really Born again, has a common mission: to preach the gospel to every creature, beginning with your neighbor. Regardless of the ministry that each one will exercise, everyone has this obligation, in order to be obedient, to lead souls to Christ. This is possible through EVANGELISM. In other words, it is necessary to speak the message. With the help of the Holy Spirit of God and a message simply and effectively enough, we will be able to lead many lives to Salvation, through Christ. What happens when we obey? God wraps us with His anointing by the presence of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). The more we obey Him, the more we receive of His anointing. With His anointing in our lives and an objective message of the Lord, many hearts will be pricked, and thus, many precious souls Will be able to meet Jesus. When we are preaching under this anointing, which is provided by the presence of the Holy Spirit, what happens is very peculiar: the listeners feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and will be very close to surrender to the Lord Jesus. Although they might not believe the message immediately, there will be a factor that cannot be denied: what they will feel is something unique, which is simply the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is going to be fulfilled what was said by Jesus: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matthew18:20). The presence of the Lord that the listeners will be able to feel will be the actual proof of the existence of God. Many of them might think: I do not believe Jesus, but what Ive just felt was very real. This reference is such important in evangelism. In the course of some time, these people will feel a need for more of that presence that they had felt before, like one who is thirsty. They will not find anywhere else, unless in the presence of God, when assembled in the name of Jesus. They will feel

the desire to seek God simply because of what they were able to experience.

CHAPTER 2 What is necessary to evangelism? First, one must understand the purpose of evangelism. The Church nowadays has responsibilities as never before. This is a fact. The population has never been larger, the harvest has never been so ripe and wickedness never operated so much as today. Just look at the streets, parks, buses, subways, schools, and an endless list of other places and we can have no doubt about it. As representatives of God, our MISSION is to evangelize. When we are well AWARE and hungry for evangelism, then we can take another step forward, which is to understand the message we are supposed to PREACH. At this point, we are faced with the revelation of this project: WHICH MESSAGE must be preached? This choice is more important, given that we are relying on the presence of the Holy Spirit. Many evangelists around the world, even many ones who work tirelessly, unfortunately do not have an efficient message, then, getting little satisfactory results and they often get frustrated. When we get the right message, we have the fullness of the Holy Spirit's presence. It should be noted here the main goal of the descent of the Holy Spirit: to help us to become effective witnesses of Jesus (Acts 1:8). The Holy Spirit, in evangelism, works with us as long as we are doing the RIGHT job. He will not work with us if we have anything other than the genuine goal of glorifying Jesus. When we work properly, He works with us. Many Christians receive the seal of promise and are full of God's presence, but do not know what to do next. For this reason, they often are not able to bear fruit. If everyone who is filled with the fullness of the Spirit knew what to do after

receiving the Lord's presence, we would reach the whole world in a few days, taking into account the resources we have AVAILABLE nowadays. In short, we must be aware of the great need for evangelism, have the message which is capable to prick the hearts of unbelievers and have the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is possible only when we obey Him.

CHAPTER 3 Becoming aware of the need for evangelism In order to get hungry for evangelization, we must begin to observe with the eyes of Christ, the current situation of our world. We can start watching the closest to us. We will find a kind of a great wilderness around us: a large number of people without God. They are precious lives that are perishing every day. Sometimes we want to evangelize these people, but most of them do not listen to us. Why? Simply because the enemy of God has blinded the minds of these people and thus, put them in chains. They are captive and need immediate release. Jesus taught us how they can be delivered: by knowing the truth (John 8:32). We reached the apex of this project: what is this TRUTH? This fact is EXACTLY the effective message, which is capable of pricking hearts of unbelievers and providing them with such deliverance of all malignant chains.

CHAPTER 4 Which message is able to provide deliverance? The only message that can destroy the chains that are imprisoning thousands of souls today is quite simple and straightforward: Jesus. Right now I can imagine the thoughts of some of you reading these lines: "How can this be possible? Preaching "Jesus"? But this is exactly what Ive been doing and..." Beloved reader, Jesus guarantees that every branch shall bear fruit in HIM (John 15:4). If we observe that this message is not being fulfilled in us, we must recognize that we need some kind of change. I, like many ones, I've often got frustrated for not living this reality in my life. I thought about quitting evangelism sometimes for not feeling myself able enough to bear fruit. This is a mistake. Actually, this is the will of the enemy, that we no longer evangelize. Remember that we will only bear fruit when we obey Jesus and we all know that His command is to evangelize (Mark 16:15). From this perspective, what we should do is to acknowledge our failures and pick up work immediately, but this time, so much more aware. Remember that you will never be ALONE when you are ready to evangelize souls, because God's Holy Spirit will come upon you the moment you are available to obey Jesus in this undertaking. You will NEVER be alone! Regarding the message, the main objective of this book is to show a genuine revelation of God for our days. I would like to emphasize that this book has reached YOU because of the positive results that this revelation has provided. Countless people are touched every day by the Holy Spirit, and this very moment you are reading these lines, the Holy Spirit is touching precious lives i many places around. I firmly believe that as you read these words, you can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. Before you get this message that is capable of pricking the heart of the

unbeliever, it is necessary that you understand something about the reality of preaching today. First, the enemy of God fights tirelessly to deceive mankind. He plans to overshadow two daily realities of today's world: the SIN and eternal DEATH. A man without God cannot neither think about sin nor think of eternal death. They simply ignore these real things. The devil strives to hide the reality of sin, because if a man does not think of the consequences of sin, repentance and forgiveness will never reach him. The result of sin is eternal death (Romans 6:23). On the other hand, if a man thinks of the consequences of sin, repentance can achieve him. Repentance is what we need to achieve forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can convince the sinner of his sins. This is only possible when we preach the right message! Remember, when you preach the right message, the Holy Spirit will be present. When you preach on a testimony of healing or prosperity, your message can bring joy to someone and may even arouse curiosity of the listeners, but soon that joy is stolen on the occasion of the situations of life. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is NOT supposed to glorify our personal experiences. HE only glorifies Jesus! Nowadays, the church is focused on preaching more about personal experiences than on repentance. We preach about Elijah, Elisha, David, Abraham, Jacob and many other ones, but do not preach enough about Jesus. Remember: Jesus is the only one capable of destroying the fetters of the enemy. Only when man understands this reality, he can be delivered. Only through Jesus! Our preachers, mostly, do not bring Jesus into the center of the preaching. They begin preaching about Jesus and end up in David, for example, or even start talking about Jesus and end up talking about promises of prosperity. It is shameful to say, many of them do not even know who Jesus Christ truly is. If they do not know, how can they preach Him properly to an unbeliever? Secondly, I would like to illustrate how this works in the Scriptures. The Early Church focused on evangelism, with all his strength. As we know, the result was amazing. Why? Simply because they knew very well

what they were preaching. Obviously, Jesus was the center of the churchs preaching. Some examples: Acts 2, Peter's speech, he starts up at Joel and ends up in Jesus as the only resource for man. In Acts 8, Philip begins in Isaiah and ends up in Jesus. The sermons and teachings of Paul are remarkable examples that Jesus must always be the center of the message. His messages, in general, were always FULL of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The apostles did not glorify their own experiences, but always glorified Jesus. As a result, they obtained the presence of the Holy Spirit with power, healing and miracles. Consequently, these signs follow us when we are obeying Jesus. I could describe here hundreds of personal testimonies of miracles that God has performed in our lives, but without any doubt, this is not the purpose of this book. I believe that a greater work JESUS CHRIST will perform in your life, but only when you fully understand what He wants from you and so, do His will. Finally, we must understand that we need to correctly pass the information about Jesus, since we are sure that we have Jesus as the center of our message. Under this assumption, we will analyze in detail in subsequent chapters, the four aspects of the Lord Jesus Christ in Evangelism.

CHAPTER 5 First aspect of evangelization Do you know who Jesus is? This is the first question to be asked for one person during evangelism. You certainly will hear various types of responses such as, "He is my everything." Or, "He is God." The list is quite large: "He is the King of kings." "He is the Alpha and the Omega." Other less confident might say: "He was an important person to many

ones." "He was a good man." "He was a prophet." "He was a representative of God." "He was a spirit of light." Etc. People usually say much about the nature of Jesus and what he represents, but hardly respond with certainty and clarity about who he really is. Moreover, many say what they believe He was not who He actually is. Right now, you will be fighting against the lie of the enemy, making use of the truth that provides deliverance. Often during the evangelism, I said, "Excuse me, but this was not exactly my question. I would like you to answer what He IS for you, not what someone else say about Him". Sometimes we hear things like: "He is nothing to me," or, "I have no opinion about Him." Remember: people need to know who Jesus IS. Only when they find out who He is indeed, they are able to reach deliverance through the TRUTH. Jesus said that they need to know the truth to attain freedom and the truth is He Himself (John 8:32). Therefore, we must say who Jesus is: He is the SAVIOUR. Right now, you should ask rhetorically: But why He is the Savior? And then, provide the correct answer: Because of the existence of sin and death (man can deny the existence of sin, as even many religions do, but they can never deny the existence of death). We know that, since they cannot deny the existence of death, we can affirm what the Bible says about it: death is the result of sin (Romans 6:23). Denying the sin is one of the major strategies of Satan, especially in these last days. When we open the eyes of sinners, they automatically feel something changing. In 1 John 1:8, the Bible affirms that we all have sins. This is the main reason why Jesus is the Savior, for He alone can forgive, justify and save US. He alone paid the price for our salvation. Jesus is the Savior and not only was the Savior. He continues up being the Savior! If someone receives Him, this one will find life. Everyone must admit that alone, they cannot overcome death. Nobody has ever succeeded without the help of Jesus. Man without Jesus sinks into sin and, as a result, ends up in death. The believer cannot, by himself, overcome the nature of sin. Only when he is with Jesus, and firmly believes that He saves us from sin and cleanses us. When

we believe that, through His blood, we are justified and cry out for His help, when we use this truth by faith in our prayers, we are delivered and purified. With the sinful unbelievers, this is not different. When they start thinking about that, they get close to achieve true deliverance. If we preach about Elisha or Elijah or about someone else and do not teach about Jesus as the only Savior, our preaching is inefficient. The sinners do not need Elisha, David, but only Jesus! They do not necessarily need to know about our personal experiences to be delivered. What they really need to find in order to achieve salvation is only Jesus Christ. Jesus assured we would receive power to be true witnesses of these things. When we preach this truth about Him, the Holy Spirit is certainly with us, anointing our preaching. The hearts of many unbelievers will be pricked because the chains of lies that are trapping them will be broken. Jesus told the Jews: ye shall die in your sins: for except ye believe that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins (John 8:24). In verse 30 of this chapter in question, the Bible declares, uttered these words, many Jewish BELIEVED HIM. After that, Jesus teaches those who had believed: "If you abide in My word, you are truly my disciples, and know the truth and the truth shall make you free." But they replied: "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves of anyone how sayest thou, Ye shall be free?" Therefore Jesus answered: "Verily, verily I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant (slave) of sin. Beloved, every human being needs to know that Jesus is the one and only Savior from sin that exists in the world. Sin is the saddest reality of our world. As I said, the enemy of God strives constantly to hide this reality from man. The enemy has invaded his lies with the whole world and in recent days, he has sought to invade the Christian Churches as well. This explains the lack of revival we can behold in the Church at present. However, this is not the will of God! Through putting the enemy down, preaching the truth to the world, thousands and thousands of precious souls will be reached.

CHAPTER 6 Second aspect of evangelization WHAT DID JESUS DO? This question must also be made during evangelism. Dozens of people answer promptly: "He did a lot to me." Generally, people go straight to their personal experiences, such as, He gave me a job, He healed me, etc. Others say that He made the heavens and the earth. The list is endless: He performed miracles, for example, when He turned water into wine. I've heard even that He made a revolution of thoughts. At this time, from the response that you get, you should go straight to the main point: show everyone what Jesus did in relation to REDEMPTION. Indeed, He accomplished many things: He created heavens and the earth and the stars, and animals, and humanity. He performed miracles during and after His first coming here. In fact, He continues up performing great miracles TODAY and many of us are witnesses. But what the sinner needs to know is: HE, JESUS CHRIST, died on the cross to save US. This, no doubt, was his greatest work here on earth at His first coming. We must remember that He rose again the third day, but we must make clear the purpose of His atoning death. When Jesus expired on the cross, HE provided us with PERFECT SALVATION. Its already done. In fact, we dont need to do anything else to add to our salvation besides believing and following JESUS alone. Beloved, many people can deny the effectiveness of miracles and deny the work of creation by Jesus. They may even deny that He is risen, as contemporary Jews did. But a fact they can NEVER deny is: Jesus died on that Cross! It is a historical fact. From this statement, it is simple to clarify the truth: that He died on the cross. He died to provide us with salvation, delivering us from sin and eternal death. His death was inevitable. It was with this primary purpose He came and fulfilled his mission perfectly. He has defeated sin and death on Calvary. Whoever remains in Him, believing His sacrifice, has eternal life. Whoever denies the efficacy of His sacrifice remains in sin and death.

Precious Christians around the world are still unaware of this reality. Because of this, living in a slavery life, being discouraged for not misunderstanding the fact that Jesus has already defeated the devil on the cross. We need to remember this fact every single day and mention in our prayers. We should make constant use, by faith, of these words, that His blood cleanses us and saves us from sin. Actually, His blood paid the price for our salvation. This will give us strength to enter with joy and gratitude in His presence, and so our prayers will come to life. Even if nothing else in life happens to us, what He did already is enough for us to praise Him and worship Him deeply. The early Christians understood this message so well that many even gave their lives away for the sole purpose of the gospel. They had full confidence and the result was amazing. Nowadays, this situation is still very effective. Remember that, what you are reading now is biblical and also was only possible because of positive results, but in prayer you will find out much more than that. This book is only to wake you up for a revival that the Lord Jesus wants to provide you with, through the Holy Spirit.

CHAPTER 7 Third aspect of evangelism WHAT DID JESUS SAY? When we get to this point, you may notice that the conversation has been totally dominated by the Holy Spirit. Generally, people are already so touched and thoughtful that they prefer not to answer. At this point, almost always, you can feel the genuine presence of the Holy Spirit pricking the heart of the listener. It is unspeakable. Sometimes I even cry when I arrive at this point during the conversation. It is impossible not to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit when you are preaching the truth about Jesus. It immediately happens what He said that where two or three (or more) were gathered in His name, He would be present in the middle (Matthew 18:20). Jesus said many things: that n the world we

would have tribulation: but we must be of cheerful and confident, for He has overcome the world. In fact, Jesus said many edifying words we can talk about at this point, but we can never stop talking about the reality of sin and death and that Jesus said that He is the only way to overcome both sin and death. The sinner must know it, that there is the reality of sin and death. Remember that it is not you who will convince the sinner, because even if you try, surely you will not be able to.These things are not by might nor by power but by the Spirit (Zechariah 4:6). Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is the One who convinces man of his sin (John 16:8). What should you do during preaching is to trust in this truth and preach it. The Holy Spirit will do the rest. Furthermore, if they dont believe the message, they wont be able to deny that the Holy Spirit's presence that they will surely feel is very real.

CHAPTER 8 Fourth aspect of evangelism WHAT DID JESUS PROMISE? He promised eternal life to all who trust in His sacrifice and follow Him. THIS MESSAGE is what every sinner needs to hear. We must unmask the enemy of God, making use of the truth. Do not forget to reinforce the listener that the enemy has fought tirelessly to hide these things from men. Only when men happen to find the Truth, the shackles of sin and death fall down. The sinners only reach forgiveness and renewal when they repent, which only occurs when they are convinced of sin through the preaching and through the Holy Spirit, too. If there is no preaching, no repentance or forgiveness will ever happen.

CHAPTER 9 General considerations of this project As we have been observing, this project will bear fruit only if we take very seriously the purpose of evangelism, which is to bring lives to Christ. We must be aware of it each day, and seek the face of our God through prayer. Prayer brings us closer to our God and prepares us for the ministry that the Lord has made for each one of us. We must constantly ask the Lord to touch us with His anointing and cover us with His blood through faith. Remember that He has overcome all for us and all we have to do is to believe it. By doing so, the enemy cannot touch us. In fact, our opponent is walking around, seeking whom he may devour, but the Christian faith-filled, covered with the blood of Jesus Christ, overcomes any battle against evil. As a reward for our obedience, we have the Holy Spirit's presence in all the fullness of God, always with us, and soon see many precious souls surrender to Christ. Beloved, these are not mere promises, but a great reality of God for our days. God wants and will use your life to this purpose. This is only possible if you listen to Him and obey Him. Be sure that your life will become much more meaningful. You will be filled with the fullness of God, and as you get the things pertaining to God, He will add to you the other things you need in life (Matthew 6:33). Let me end up my remarks reminding you that, certainly, we are going to have an eternity in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ to rejoice for all that He is, for all He has and does and, undoubtedly, we will enjoy all His faithful promises. Amen.