[BBC List] evangel trine

[Mike Abendroth]

Should We Preach Doctrine in Evangelism? 

C.H.Spurgeon 

And, do not believe, dear friends, that when you go into revival meetings,
or special evangelistic services, you are to leave out the doctrines of the
gospel; for you ought then to proclaim the doctrines of grace rather more
than less. Teach gospel doctrines clearly, affectionately, simply, and
plainly, and especially those truths which have a present and practical
bearing upon man's condition and God's grace. Dome enthusiasts would seem
have imbibed the notion that, as soon as a minister addresses the
unconverted, he should deliberately contradict his usual doctrinal
discourses, because it is supposed that there will be no conversions if he
preaches the whole counsel of God. It just comes to this, brethren, it is
supposed that we are to conceal truth, and utter a half-falsehood, in order
to save souls. We are to speak the truth to God's people, because they will
not hear anything else; but we are to wheedle sinners into faith by
exaggerating one part of the truth, and hiding the rest until a more
convenient season. This is a strange theory, and many endorse it. According
to them, we may preach the redemption of a chosen number to God's people,
but universal redemption must be our doctrine when we preach to the outside
world; We are to tell believers that salvation is all by grace, but sinners
are to spoken with as if they were to save themselves; we are to inform
Christians that God the Holy Spirit alone can convert, but when we talk with
the unsaved, the Holy Ghost is scarcely to be named. We have not so learned
Christ. Thus others have done; let them be our beacons, and not our
examples. He who sent us to win souls neither permits us to invent
falsehoods, nor to suppress truth. His work can be done without such
suspicious methods. 

Perhaps some of you will reply, "But, still, God has blessed half-statements
and wild assertions." Be not quite so sure. I venture to assert that God
does not bless falsehood; He may bless the truth which is mixed with error;
but much more blessing would have come if the preaching had been more in
accordance with His Word. I cannot admit that the Lord blesses evangelistic
Jesuitism, and the suppression of truth is not too harshly named when I so
describe it. The withholding of the doctrine of the total depravity has
wrought serious mischief to many who listened to a certain kind of
preaching. These people do not get a true healing because they do not know
the disease under they are suffering; they are never truly clothed because
nothing is done towards stripping them. In many ministries there is not
enough of probing the heart and arousing the conscience by the revelation of
man's alienation from God, and by the declaration of the selfishness and the
wickedness of such a state. Men need to be told that, except divine grace
shall bring them out of their enmity to God, they must eternally perish; and
they must be reminded of the sovereignty of God, that He is not obliged to
bring them out of this state, that He would be right and just if He left
them in such a condition, that they have no merit to plead before Him, but
that if they are to be saved, it must be by grace, and by grace alone. The
preacher's work is throw sinners down in utter helplessness, that they may
be compelled to look up to Him who alone can help them. 

To try to win a soul to Christ by keeping that soul in ignorance of any
truth, is contrary to the mind of the Spirit; and to endeavor to save men by
mere claptrap, or excitement, or oratorical display, is as foolish as to
hope to hold an angel with bird-line, or lure a star with music. The best
attraction is the gospel in its purity. The weapon with which the Lord
conquers men is the truth as it is in Jesus. The gospel will be found equal
to every emergency; an arrow can pierce the hardest heart, a balm which will
heal the deadliest wound. Preach it, and preach nothing else. Rely
implicitly upon the old, old gospel. You need no other nets when you fish
for men; those your Master has given you are strong enough for the great
fishes, and have meshes fine enough to hold the little ones. Spread those
nets and no others, and you need not fear the fulfilment of His Word, "I
will make you fishers of men." 

From: The Soul Winner, by C.H. Spurgeon

 

 

Charis, 
  
Mike Abendroth 
  

'God rides forth conquering in the chariot of His Gospel. . . He conquers
the pride of the heart, and makes the will which stood out as a Fort Royal
against Him, to yield and stoop to His grace; He makes the stony heart
bleed. Oh! it is a mighty call! Why then do some men seem to speak of a
moral persuasion? That God in the conversion of a sinner only morally
persuades and no more? If God in conversion should only morally persuade and
no more, then He does not put forth so much power in saving men as the Devil
does in destroying them.'   Thomas Watson

www.bbcchurch.org 
  

 

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