The Evangelist

"I also saw that he looked this way and that way, as if he would
run; yet he stood still because, as I perceived, he could not tell
which way to go. I then looked and saw a man named Evangelist
coming to him who asked, “For what reason are you crying?” He
answered, “Sir, I understand by the book in my hand that I am
condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment; and I find
that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second.”
Then said Evangelist, “Why are you not willing to die since this
life is accompanied with so many evils?” The man answered,
“Because I fear that this burden that is upon my back will sink me
lower than the grave; and I shall fall into Tophet [a place of
burning]. And sir, if I am not fit to go to prison, I am quite sure I
am not fit to go to judgment, and as a consequence to execution;
and the thoughts of these things make me cry.”
Then said Evangelist, “If this is your condition, then why are
you standing still?” He answered, “Because I do not know which
way to go.” Then Evangelist gave him a parchment scroll on
which was written within, “Fly from the wrath to come.”
Therefore the man read the scroll, and looking upon Evangelist
very carefully, said, “Which way must I go to escape?” Then said
Evangelist, pointing with his finger beyond a very large field, “Do
you see a Wicket-gate [small gate] over there?” The man replied,
“No.” Then he was asked, “Do you see a shining light not quite
so far away?” He said, “I think I do.” Then said Evangelist, “Keep
that light before your eye, and go directly toward it, and then you
shall see the gate, at which, when you knock, you will be told
what you are to do.”

I want to make note of the evangelist. He is notably genuine. He is not described as what might come to mind when we think of our modern day evangelists. He is not a slick dressed, flamboyant, charlatan like we have prancing on our televisions, today. He is a non-judgmental, soft spoken, empathetic shepherd.

When Evangelist tried to point out the way of escape and the man couldn't see it, he  asked another question? He didn't give up. He didn't chastise.

He also did something extremely important. He sent the man on a journey. He didn't give him all the answers. He gave the man one answer, and sent him on his pilgrimage.

Before Charles Finney in the mid 1800s there was hardly anything resembling an alter call. Man is unable to give up sin with any act of self will, let a lone a one-time act of coming forward. God may use an alter call to start a work in a person's life or it is a culmination of what God has been doing in a person's life, but too often we proclaim someone who comes forward a Christian, by that act.

Alter calls, with a soft hymn playing and the begging of the preacher to the sinner to come forward, was foreign to congregations before Finney and John Wesley. Shepherds knew that the conversion process was just that, a process and allowed Holy Spirit to do the effectual calling of the sinner. as Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draw him” John 6:44.

We now follow the man on his journey.