The Challenge and Duty of Evangelism

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

—1 Corinthians 1:18

Overcoming Consumer Resistance

In the Christian world today, especially in light of the Gospel and evangelism, as the years progress by more and more is Christian religion being influenced by the secular world. We see these influences in how worship has changed from one generation to the other. Not merely in musical preference of genre, but in its content and goal.

We also see a change in the minister’s duty. They have gone from being an appointed shepherd and watchman of a flock, a person that nurtures and cares for every spiritual need of his sheep, a speaker and prophet of God Himself to a CEO or marketing expert that seeks a good rate of return for his investments.

So then it has been in church life as well.

People have assumed that preaching is analogous to a marketing exercise, and what you have in the preaching event, we’re told, is a product, namely the Gospel; consumers, namely the congregation; salesmen, the preacher. And the job of the preacher is to overcome consumer resistance and persuade people to buy his product.

It is a recipe for the worst kind of disappointment, eventually. Because what do we discover when we turn to the Bible? We discover that according to Paul there is one overwhelming reason why the analogy is no good. And that is because the preacher doesn’t overcome consumer resistance. The preacher cannot overcome consumer resistance.

2 Corinthians 4:3 says that the Gospel is veiled to those who do not believe.

When Jesus told the parable of the sower, there was one sower and four soils. If it was told today in marketing terms it would be completely the reverse, wouldn’t it? Namely, you would have one soil and four sowers.

Sower number one goes up and does quite a good job, but not a very good job and nothing happens.

Sower number two, he goes up and he’s a little more skillful in the way he does it, and he has a bit of a better response.

Sower number three goes up, and he’s been doing some church growth reading and some marketing analysis and his thing is really beginning to take off.

But number four, he has got all of the technology and all the marketing strategy down, and he knows how to overcome consumer resistance and, hey, presto, look at his field!

Do we really believe that Christian conversion is the result of human persuasion? Absolutely not. God said let light shine out of darkness. See, much of the trouble with our contemporary preaching is that it is built on the fallacious assumption that anybody can and will respond to the Gospel if it’s only presented to them in a proper fashion….





Preaching will be effective because it is God’s chosen method by which he opens people’s eyes and brings them to an awareness of his grace. And that is why it will demand from us 110 percent committed devotion.

—Alistair Begg, The Gospel in Contemporary Culture

Why then is that the case? Why is it that we cannot overcome consumer resistance, really? Why is the Gospel foolishness to the world? Why is the Gospel so hard to believe? Why is repentance and faith in Christ so much an impossible task for men? (Luke 18:27)

Rick Holland used this illustration which I think is very fitting. It’s like a man trying to listen to the radio. The man is trying to listen to an FM station, but his radio has no FM function, only AM. That’s his first problem. His second problem is that his radio has no antenna. His third problem is that his radio has no battery. His fourth problem is that he is deaf. His fifth problem is that he has no arms and legs to operate the radio in any way, shape or form. His sixth problem is that his radio is on the moon. And finally, his last problem is that he is dead.

So no, brethren, we cannot overcome consumer resistance because, frankly, the consumer in this case, is dead.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

—Ephesians 2:1-3

All that is called for us to do is preach the Gospel and preach it faithfully. Make known to men their need of the Savior by showing them the sinfulness of sin through the law and revealing the character of God in His holiness and justice.

By the Holy Spirit, a person is brought from death to life when he sees his only hope in Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone.

Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection.

—G. S. Bishop

Ashamed of the Gospel

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

—Romans 1:16-17

“Ashamed of the Gospel”? If there’s anything in Scripture that is hard and difficult to understand, more than complex doctrines and systems of theology, surely it is this! Ashamed of the Gospel? Why would anyone be ashamed of the Gospel? The Gospel, the greatest message given among men for all time and in all of Scripture, people are ashamed of?

Paul had every reason to be ashamed of the Gospel. He had fame, glory, and prestige. He had every desirable thing a pious person would want in his era. He got his righteous clothing line on, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the 8th day, sat at the foot of Gamaliel, Hebrew of the Hebrews, to the law blameless. Then this, a message of a crucified Savior?

“Oh no”, says Paul, what a shameful and humiliating message that is!

I am sure you’ve seen yourself in a similar situation before. You’ve studied your Scriptures, stocked up on memory verses, rehearsed at home on what to say to certain objections coming from unbelievers. “How did Noah fit the dinosaurs in the ark?” So you’ve prepared yourself, mentally, emotionally, and I hope spiritually as well. Then a friend comes by to your home and asks, “Well, what’s the big deal?” Startled and surprised, you replied, “Big deal about what?” And you find out that this friend of yours, having been bothered by your friendship, of having a “Christian” friend in you, is genuinely asking “What is the big deal about Christianity”.

How many of us have gone through a similar experience and instead of declaring boldly what “the big deal is”, we find ourselves doing our best to make the message palatable. We discover after reflecting over such experiences, that we have actually done anything and everything except to make the message clear as it is.

We think to ourselves, “Oh no, he might be offended by that point there”, so we add a piece of candy on the side. “Oops, that was too straightforward”, so we add some chocolate on top. Then we find ourselves making all these excuses and when we’re done we discover that somehow our message has been sunk deep in a gallon full of ice-cream.

In other words, we have removed the offense of the Gospel. From being Good News that saves us from desperately Bad News, we turned it into amusing and entertaining news that serves as a past time for people. From being heralds of God, we have become marketers, salesmen, and quite tragically, there are those who have become “gospel entertainers”. Indeed, from being messengers of the King, we disguise ourselves as ice-cream truck operators.

But no, it must not be so. We must not cower in fear of what people should react, but we must remember, “What exactly are we afraid of?” Are we afraid of what dead men will say to us after we’re done if indeed we would seek to be faithful to preach the clear message of the Bible? What is there to fear in the empty threats of a man bound in sin? Especially in our day and age, the worst thing a man can tell us is “No, I don’t want to believe that.” And if we do lose our life, wouldn’t it be nothing less than to graduate us into glory? So what are we afraid of? Or is it because we are not afraid enough? At least we are not afraid of the right Object, God, Himself?

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

—Jesus, Matthew 10:28

So then, when people ask “What’s the big deal”, we should not turn it into an exercise of apology where we say sorry every two sentences. But we should cry out, “Men, women everywhere, hear this!” We should imitate the boldness of Christ, where He set His face as flint on His way to Jerusalem to be crucified. We must emulate the confidence the apostles had and their passion and desire for this so great a message. We must look at the blood of the martyrs and find encouragement in their shed blood, and see that the Gospel, that Christ indeed is worth dying for.

Power of God unto Salvation

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

—1 Corinthians 1:18

Yes, to the sinful, unregenerate, God-hating man, the Gospel may be foolishness, but nevertheless to those whom God pleases to save it is in fact the power of God unto salvation. Such is the confidence we have in the preaching of the Gospel. As it is God's message drawn from Scripture itself, in its very essence are God's words, it is just as much God's work to accomplish.

I'm convinced that the very reason why we are so ashamed of the Gospel is because we are not convinced of this fact, that God actually saves through His Gospel and that His Gospel does actually save even the most wretched of sinners. How many of us today are convinced that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation? How many of us are compelled to great confidence and boldness in that fact? In that it is not by eloquence or fancy speech, but only by the preached Word that men are saved?

In the words of the apostle Paul:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

—1 Corinthians 2:1-5

So we see many ministers today employing all sorts of gimmickry to make the Gospel appealing to men. They stylize the Sunday meeting to fit the needs and wants of men. Make it more attractive, more enjoyable, more entertaining. They labor to make the Gospel as inoffensive as possible.

But at the end of the day the question is not how much the unregenerate was entertained; the question is “are they being convicted of their sin?” The question is not are they amused with your message; the question is “are they seeing their grave need of a Savior?”

It is simply not true that faithful Gospel preaching is not enough to save people. In fact, it is because of unfaithful preaching which is why many of our churches are filled with false converts.

Brethren, the word of the Cross is in fact, not fiction, the power of God to salvation. Jesus saves.

Gospel preaching is in fact an endeavor wherein God is pleased to raise people from the dead. Where God is pleased to use cracked clay pots, weak, stuttering, frail, feeble, frightened and trembling vessels, as vessels of mercy that the power of His sovereign grace may be magnified as it cannot be done in any place else.

Through the message faithfully preached, the power of God unto salvation, as I hope is the experience of each one reading this text, He picks up the dead and rotting corpse of a sinner, breathes His own breathe into him to spiritual life and clothes Him with righteousness in Christ, life everlasting.

Heralds not Negotiators, not Salesmen

Our duty as men and women of the Gospel, Christian men and women saved by free and sovereign grace, is not to argue people towards salvation, neither is our duty to simply suggest that people should repent from their sins and believe in Christ.

Dear beloved, the Gospel is not a suggestion, it is a command.

We are not selling a product. We are not marketers or advertisers. Brethren, we are not professionals. We are prophets or we're nothing. We are not to negotiate the terms of the King. We are heralds not negotiators.

Are you willing to be a herald of God today?

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

—Isaiah 6:8

Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

People have often asked me, "What is the secret of your success?" I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel,—not about the gospel, but the gospel,—the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news.

Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon.

You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, "If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon."

"No," answered the young man, "because I did not see that Christ was in the text."

"Oh!" said the old minister, "but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, 'There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.'"

"Well," said the young man, "but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?"

"Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him."

So must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them.

There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul.

Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon.

—C.H. Spurgeon, The Soul Winner: Sermons Likely to Win Souls