If we look objectively at the preaching situation in Singapore, about 40-50 people receive baptism every year. The number of people who come to seek the truth in a year adds up to about 100. Even though there’re people who come to hear and believe, objectively, our preaching levels are not up to standard.

Even though this is the case, we thank God we still have the time to put in this effort. We must quickly go out and preach the gospel.

Acts 1:6
This passage records the words Jesus spoke before He ascended to heaven. At this time, the disciples asked Jesus a very important question, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

What exactly does this mean? It should be a conclusion to the work the Lord Jesus had done in the last 3 years - restoring the Kingdom of Israel.

What was the Lord Jesus’ reply?

v7-8
And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

“It is not for you to know times or seasons.” This means God has His own time.

And we are to be witnesses to God to the end of the earth.

This is what happened before the church was established. The disciples had a lot of fervour to quickly preach the gospel.

Today, will any believers ask the Lord this question? Have we ever considered the question of when the Lord will restore the Kingdom of Israel/God?

Even though this happened 2000 years ago, the work is not completed yet. We are still at v8 at the part which says to preach to the end of the earth.

Will any of us ask the Lord, “Will You at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?”

If we do ask, how will the Lord respond to us? Perhaps He may answer us like He answered the disciples. “It’s not for you to know the times or seasons. You have to preach the gospel now.”

Consider the situation of the pandemic now. 2000 years ago, the Lord Jesus already prophesied such a situation would happen. After seeing this situation, do we think about the work we must do? What must we think of?

Matt 24:14
The Last Days are here. Among us some brothers and sisters have asked what part of the Last Days we are in now. We must come back to v14. Since we know it is the Last Days, have we put in our effort to preach to the world? Didn’t the Lord Jesus say we need to preach to all the world and be witnesses of the gospel?

If we truly feel we are in the Last Days and are becoming anxious, why are we not becoming witnesses? Let us use this opportunity to reflect on our own preaching efforts.

When preaching, there’re a few things we must know. The Lord Jesus can just preach by Himself. Some people are personally moved/led/called by God to come to church. But this isn’t the case for the majority. Often it’s through the invitation of friends that they come to church. And so Paul says this.

Rom 10:15-17
We must have people go out to preach. People have to personally bring the gospel to others. We may say that in the past, transport wasn’t as good as today, that’s why they had to send people out to preach. But today, we can paste posters outside. The point is, we still need people to go out to preach. This is a method by which God has used since time past.

In the Old Testament, everything God wanted to say was said through the prophets who in turn said to the people. Why didn’t He tell the people directly instead of going through the prophets? This doesn’t seem to be a very efficient method. But we find this is what God does, and man accepts this method. Bearing witness is a method the Lord accepts; bearing witness is a method God used in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Today, what we must do is to bear witness.

Acts 1:8 says we must best witness to the ends of the earth. We must go out to preach the gospel. If we don’t, how will the gospel be brought to other people? We may say, “People can go online to download the Bible. They can read the Bible and understand it themselves.” If it were so easy, many other churches would come to believe in our church. Why are there still so many denominations that don’t believe baptism washes away sins? It is our responsibility to use the Bible and tell them of it. We are witnesses. We cannot push this responsibility to others. And don’t be too worried about doing this work because God will be with us.

Mark 16:20
As long as we go out and preach the gospel, the Lord will work with us and confirm the word through accompanying signs just as He did in this verse. When we best witness, the Lord is accompanying us. When we go out to preach, even if very few listen to us, we know the Lord is working with us.

It’s our job to preach the gospel. Where’re these people? This is the place we have to sow the seed. We must labour to bring the gospel to each household.

When the speaker first became a preacher, he was in Sembawang church. He thought that the church was few in numbers and so he wanted to preach the gospel. He and another brother went out every Tuesday to preach the gospel. They did this for about half a year and preached in the neighbourhood near Sembawang. They went door to door. After a while, they felt this wasn’t very convenient as they were holding services in the Girls’ Brigade. It was difficult explaining what transport to take to get there. So they changed to preaching in the neighbourhoods behind the Girls’ Brigade compound. Every week they preached to each household. As they were about to complete the whole neighbourhood, they met an aunty. She was staying with one of her children. They invited her to the Girls’ Brigade compound to attend services. She came once, but only once. They continued to go door to door to preach. After that aunty’s house, they went 2 or 3 more blocks. That was 2 streets away from finishing the whole neighbourhood. At this time, they met a man who was from Dalian, China. Because his children were working in Singapore, after he and his wife retired, they came to Singapore to stay. They invited him for service. They talked to him on a Tuesday and they invited him to come on Saturday. He politely accepted but the speaker was doubtful that he would really come. He really appeared on Saturday morning, and also for Saturday afternoon service. He continued to come and ultimately became a member. 1 month after he came to church, he received the Holy Spirit. He bore testimony as to why he came to church to believe. At that point in time, he was searching for a church. Thank God it was at this time the speaker spoke to him. There’re many such people out there waiting for us to bring the gospel to them. As long as we personally come out to bring the gospel to them, we can bring them to church.

2 years ago, NUS students went out to give tracts. In that one time they went out, a man accepted their invitation. He came to church and is planning to get baptised this year.

If we go out to preach, we will be able to find people. If we don’t, we will not be able to.

Consider the Orange Valley nursing home. It was a special opportunity that the speaker managed to talk to a manager there. He asked whether the church was able to conduct some activities there. At first it seemed like they were only able to do volunteer work without much opportunity to preach the gospel. Some people questioned whether the large amounts of time spent on seemingly just volunteer work was worth it. However they persisted and continued the work of preaching the gospel. 2 elderly have received baptism.

We must go out to preach to people. Just as Rom 10 tells us that we must go out personally to preach the gospel. It is our responsibility.

We also have the benefit of technology now where we’re able to utilise it to preach the gospel. In Bangladesh, some people have found the True Jesus Church. But we still need people to go in to preach to them. Technology brings convenience and is important but it can only be the starting point; we must not neglect the fact we still have to personally go in and preach.

This is a responsibility we have to take on today. This is something we are likely all aware of but are not putting in the utmost effort to do.

At any point in time, we must preach the gospel.
2 Tim 4:2
Whether in season or out of season, we must preach the word. We must have the attitude that we must always see the opportunity to preach. When we’re friends with someone, we must think how we can ultimately preach the gospel to them. Are there any of us who have preached to all of friends? If there is, thank God. Make new friends and preach to them as well! If not, we have to think how we are going to bring the gospel to our friends in season and out of season.

The speaker has been in Myanmar for 2 years. He’s been in 2 regions - Yangon and Kale. The preaching effort in Yangon is not as good. When he’s in Yangon, he spends more time speaking sermons and leading Bible studies with the families there. But in Kale, it’s different. His co-worker there is fervent in preaching. Although his life is more mundane there as there’re less places to go to and eat at, it’s there he truly feels he’s living as a preacher. They go out to find anyone to preach to. If they meet any friends or relatives, they’d invite them for sermons. If a member says their relative is interested, they’d visit their house. When there, the speaker would spend the morning and evening preaching. This was truly in season and out of season; as long as there was the opportunity, they’d preach. We too should preach whenever there’s the opportunity. And we must take time to pray for this matter.

Col 4:3-4
We must pray that God opens the door for the word. That is to pray to God to give us the opportunity to preach. As long as we have this heart to preach, God will open the door for us.

This is an important point for us to remember when preaching. Actually we know all this, but we don’t do it.

Why don’t we? There’re a few reasons. Perhaps one reason is that we don’t know how to preach. It could be that we don’t know how to open our mouths to preach or we don’t know how to explain the verses in the Bible. Something can be done about this. If we find difficulty in opening our mouths, try to find some conversation starters. If we find it difficult to explain the verses in the Bible, we can read the Bible more so we can preach to people. These are things we can learn from those already currently preaching. Every Saturday there’re people who are giving Bible studies to truthseekers. All we have to do is ask if we can join in the Bible studies and ask how they lead the Bible study. It requires effort, we can’t preach without putting in effort. But it’s up to us whether we think about doing such things. Let’s not say we don’t know how to because we can learn from others.

Another reason we might give is that we don’t have anymore friends to preach to. If that’s the case, then thank God, you have exhausted your efforts in preaching to your friends. But if this is the case, you would find a way to find more people to preach to. It’s not that you don’t have anymore friends to preach to, it’s that we have not put in our utmost effort to preach to the friends we have. “Oh he’s fervent in another church.” “He’s a Buddhist.” These are valid reasons but it doesn’t mean we can’t preach to him/her. We must find ways to preach to them; we shouldn’t find excuses to not preach to them.

These are all things we know. In sermons and classes, we have already heard of this things. What is the main reason we do not preach? We do not understand how important it is for our souls to be saved.

In every baptism, how many come to observe? We may say: It’s not even my friend or someone I know getting baptised. Why should I go?

Do we only go when we know the person? Wouldn’t we be joyful to see a sinner become a son of God? How many of us truly feel joyful when someone gets baptised; when we see the baptism numbers?

Many of us don’t esteem being saved. How much do we care about our souls being saved?

How much do we care about saving other souls? If we truly care, would we live like this? We live as if we are lazy to come to church. We do things as if we always have a limit. “Huh…attend one more service?”

When people ask us to make changes to our lives, we scold them. Do we truly care about our own souls being saved? If we don’t even care about our souls being saved, how can we care about the souls of others being saved?

We attend services online. Everyday, we’re locked at home. 210 people attend Tuesday night service. 240 people attend Wednesday night service. 350 people attend Friday night service. 350 people attend Saturday morning service. Almost 500 people attend Saturday afternoon service. We’re all at home now. We don’t even have to travel. But we’re lazy even to click a button to attend service. How can we preach if we don’t even care about the saving of our own souls?

This is why our preaching efforts are so meagre. We don’t even care about the saving of our own souls. This is something we must repent before God and make a change. We must be willing to sacrifice for our Lord Jesus. If not how can we feel worthy to receive the blood of Christ? When we receive Holy Communion, we thank God He made this sacrifice for us but we aren’t even willing to sacrifice for Him. How can we have face to partake of it? We aren’t even willing to go online for service. This is why we’re lacking in our preaching. We must make a change. If we do not change, our preaching will just remain at this level.

The speaker thanks God there are those who are very fervent to preach to gospel. May God continue to move them to preach the gospel.

When we think about preaching, we have to reflect upon ourselves. We know the principles. It’s whether we’re willing to go do it.