The Apostle Paul followed in the steps of Jesus by using the moral Law to bring the knowledge of sin (see Romans 3:19,20). When a rich young man ran to Jesus and asked how he could find everlasting life, Jesus didn’t speak of a wonderful plan, or even of God’s love or the cross. He firstly reproved the man’s understanding of the word "good," then He gave the man five of the Ten Commandments (see Mark 10:17-21) so that He would know how the nature of God’s goodness. He had to be confronted with his crimes against His Creator.
So if you want to be faithful to the Word of God and to the Great commission to “preach the gospel to every creature,” don’t change the message. Don’t adjust it because you want to make it more palatable to the sinner or because you are afraid of rejection. Don’t change it because you want to follow in the footsteps of modern preachers, because they are not going in the right direction. Modern methods have wreaked havoc within the Church—filling it with tares among the wheat, resulting in a Church that looks little like the God-fearing, fiery, fearless, evangelistic Church of the Book of Acts, who faced death rather than compromise the message.
So, if you profess to be a follower of Christ, do what Jesus did. Take courage and open up the divine Law before you preach the mercy of the cross. It is the Law that makes the cross make sense. Who is going to want mercy if they aren’t shown their sin? There are some, however, who are of the belief that sinners are well-aware of their sin and don’t need the Law. But such a belief is diametrically opposed to Scripture, which says that there are “none” who understand (see Romans 3:11).
Opening up the Commandments as Jesus did on the Sermon on the Mount was the way of Wesley, Spurgeon, Whitefield and all the faithful men of God, who knew the great biblical truth that we must diagnose the disease of sin before we prescribe the cure of the gospel.
I'd like to suggest taking the message "further back".
ReplyDeleteWhen we tell people that they are sinners and that they need Jesus, people are less likely than ever to know what we're talking about. Peter's example in Acts of boldly preaching the gospel and having thousands converted is great and inspiring, but we forget that he was preaching to theistic Jews who knew exactly what he was saying.
Our audience is not theistic, it is pretty much a pagan culture now. Instead, we need to remember Paul's example in Acts 17 when he preached to pagan Greeks who believed in evolutionism.
Yes, I believe we should start at the very beginning so we are speaking the same language as our hearers and our message will make more sense.