Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church
You’ve seen it and heard people respond to the street preacher standing on the corner of a busy intersection with a Bible in his hand loudly heralding the faithful gospel of Jesus Christ and calling sinners to repent of sin and trust in Christ alone! People yell as they walk by. Some remain apathetic. Others mock, sneer, make faces and some even grow angrily hostile. Someone says: “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” You wonder: is this really working? Or, is this really effective? Some well-intended person may think: isn’t the preacher’s boldness and urgency and forthrightness just driving people away from Jesus? Just love and befriend them, right? How should we respond to such statements?
- Dead sinners can never be pushed further away from their already existing state of being enemies of God and under the wrath of God. — The fact that someone would think that an evangelist could push a sinner further away from Jesus assumes that the sinner isn’t in the worst possible situation. But the Bible would state otherwise. Anyone outside of Christ lives in darkness, is an enemy of God, and remains under God’s wrath. No one can be pushed further from Jesus Christ -- no one.
- No one can push someone away from Christ by being bold with gospel proclamation. — Bold evangelism does not push people away. What keeps people (who are already far away from Christ!) from coming to Christ is not a bold-hearted evangelist but their own inability to believe and their own unwillingness to humble themselves and come to Christ for salvation.
- The assumption behind such a claim is that man has control of or the ability to choose God. — Such statements assume that the rebellious sinner who is dead in his sin somehow is able to draw closer to God in his own strength. No one seeks after God (Rom 3:11).
- This claim presupposes that the evangelist can do something by his method or technique or manners or presentation to win and woo people to Jesus Christ for salvation. — The power to save is not in a method or step-by-step process, but the power of God is the message of truth.
- To follow the example of Christ, believers must be compassionately urgent in evangelism. — Jesus came to earth & His mission -- his purpose! -- was to preach to the cities and call men to repent and turn to God to be saved! This is why He came (Luke 4:42-44)!
- No one is more urgent and passionate in evangelism than God Himself. — All through the Old Testament, God repeatedly calls Israel, Judah and sinners to return to Him for salvation (just start in Isaiah 1 and keep reading from there!).
- No evangelist can ever do something to make someone more receptive to the gospel. The fundamental issue remains the same: the heart is dead & only God can give life. — There’s no magic trick that makes people more ‘saveable’. Souls are dead till God sovereignly awakens and gives life -- all by grace through the proclamation of the Word & call of the Spirit!
- That which saves a soul is the almighty power of God that brings regeneration as the Word of God goes forth faithfully. — Evangelism is never (ever!) a failure when the truth of the gospel is faithfully presented. Conversion is God’s work. He saves. We must preach & trust Him to do the saving, heart-changing, converting work that only He can do. Speak truth & trust God!
