This article at Apprising Ministries really got me thinking. Much of today’s evangelism methods involve what I call the “John 3:16 Approach”, telling sinners that “God loves you, Jesus loves you, accept Him into the ‘hole in your heart’ and you shall be saved!”.
Ugh!
Yet, if we look closer at how the Apostles went about preaching the Gospel, we find that (while we acknowledge that God is love and concur with what John wrote in John 3:16 not a single mention of the “feel-good” message of “God loves you, Jesus loves you” is found, but what they preached was how lost people were, bound as slaves to sin, emphasizing on forgiveness of sin by Jesus Christ the Messiah.
Reading the article also reminds me of a great quote by A.W. Pink on present-day evangelism which I very much agree with:
The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day “evangelist”.
He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin.
And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire, who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness!
The very first thing said of Christ in the New Testament is — “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” (not from the wrath to come)
Christ is a Savior for those realizing something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who feel the awful burden of it on their conscience, who loathe themselves for it, who long to be freed from its terrible dominion. And He is a Savior for no others.
Were He to “save from hell” those still in love with sin, He would be a minister of sin, condoning their wickedness and siding with them against God.
What an unspeakably horrible and blasphemous thing with which to charge the Holy One!
A.W. Pink
To read the full article, visit Apprising Ministries.
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- God Hates The Sin But Loves The Sinner? No.
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- Evangelistic Malpractice
- The Magnificence Of Christ’s Love
- Are You Sharing The False Gospel?
Tags: A.W. Pink, Apostles, Book of Acts, Forgiveness, Gospel, Love, Sin
7 Comments
maybe they didn’t use “God loves you” evangelism, but God’s love for mankind was a fundamental motivation for even offering salvation to us in the first place.
i think there’s still a place for love in the evangelistic message, especially in today’s society where the whole concept of God’s love is missing, and the concept of love is often misconstrued.
Brian:
While I agree with you on God’s love, what I am driving at is the fact that many do not understand how vile their sins are if you simply go with the “God is love” message.
If you tell someone “God loves you” and asks them if they want to go to heaven, they will of course say “yes”! Any heathen will want to go to heaven. In fact, nobody thinks they’ll be in hell for their sins and they are good enough on the whole (give or take a gazillion lies and other sins) to go to heaven.
Without conviction of sin there’s no true repentance, but production of “carnal Christians” who don’t get transformed to see sin as God does, nor to hate it.
I know this well because I was a false convert who thought he had the best of both worlds.
On a related note, I agree with you that the definition of love has today been warped into some mushy lovey-dovey feeling devoid of all things “bad” including chastisement, correction, etc. This has extended itself into Christianity so much that anyone pointing out falsehoods and errant teachings is usually called “unloving”, while it is my opinion that it is more unloving to allow falsehoods and lies to lead many astray!
Hi,
Thanks for posting this.
There was a “missionary” staying at the resort while waiting to catch a boat to wherever his team was going to and he was wearing a tee shirt that said “Jesus is my homeboy”….I asked the guy if he realized that his “homeboy” was going to one day be his judge…..he said I was wrong because Jesus never judges anyone. I just walked away shaking my head
Phil
That kind of a message is dangerous, because it pre-supposes that man seeks after God which he doesn’t. If anything, God seeks after his elect through the preaching of the Gospel and regeneration
Phil:
That man is so going to have a shock one day, really!
I cringe when people say that Jesus is their homeboy and all, and always point them to Colossians 1:15-20 — telling them to read and meditate upon that to truly know who Christ Jesus is.
Douglas:
That’s quite so. No one seeks after God. The Bible says that and we believe the Bible to be true. We were all haters of God, each seeking his own pleasure, having no thought for God and suppressing our God-given conscience that we might do evil.
The whole of Romans is a sermon, and look at how Paul begins it: (Rom 1:18) For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
You have to tell a patient what his disease is before you can offer him a cure. And he’s got to believe that his disease will kill him before he swallows your medicine.