The fishing’s good here since there are a lot of weary people pulling up beside the strategically positioned group. The volunteers hear short bits about how this person’s spouse just left them or that one’s on their way to an A.A. meeting. They often hear, “Yeah, I could use some good news right about now!”
“Well, why don’t you stop by our church this Sunday? We’d love to have you there! Did I hear you say you’re having financial troubles? Come to Jesus, He’s the answer to all of your problems!” Big smiles radiate from behind the tracts.
The changing of streetlights is like the movement of an assembly line. “Come to Jesus, He’ll solve all of your relationship issues, He’ll take away all of your suffering, He promises! Heck, look at me, I met this beautiful girl right here six months ago in church and we’re planning on getting married. We were both so lonely before coming to Jesus. Come to our church this Sunday and you, too, will be blessed!”
The message is the same for the two hours the group spends introducing themselves to folks waiting at the stop light. “Come to Jesus,” they say, and they make promises on behalf of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The going is good because most people nowadays are depressed or anxious about something, if not everything.
What’s the problem with this scene?
Well, for starters, it’s incredibly damaging to pitch a person the blessings only a believer in Christ has been promised (sadly, even those blessings have been misrepresented, but I’ll leave that for another day). However, Christianity is big business (hundreds of billions of dollars at stake) and “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10). Growing a modern church takes finances, so there’s a real temptation to compromise integrity to the truth, assuming the end justifies the means.
For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
- 2 Corinthians 2:17
Let’s take a step back...
What’s the central theme of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: salvation from earthly struggles or salvation from sin? Holy Scripture states the answer is the latter. Then why do so many churches and so-called “evangelists” peddle a gospel that focuses on deliverance from other things (e.g., emotional, financial, relationship stress)? The answer is simple – it fills seats and satisfies a fleshly desire to be “successful,” or even “getting people saved” before it’s too late. These are perversions of the Gospel that Jesus Christ presented when He was on Earth. For example, Jesus spoke of Hell seven times more often than He spoke of Heaven. His was a message of all being born under the wrath of God. He said, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). Paul, His star disciple, taught the same Gospel.
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
We are all born depraved, “by nature children of wrath.” We are all born in sin and the only remedy is to have the sin blotted out, to be redeemed from it. Jesus Christ died for sin in order to bring some to eternal life. He never once said He went to the Cross to die for someone’s emotional, financial, or relationship woes. He never once promised that, even after being saved, a believer’s life would magically be void of suffering, pressure, or pain – in fact, He said just the opposite, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). Paul echoed this sentiment.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
- 2 Timothy 3:12-13
Why aren’t these so-called street evangelists leading with v12? I mean, if they’re going to focus on emotional aspects of being a believer, shouldn’t they include the good and the bad (I’m speaking as they do, adopting integrity to their own argument to make a point)? Is it because it doesn’t sell? Why aren’t people spreading the Gospel that Jesus did, you know, the one about Himself???
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
-2 Timothy 4:3-4
The human flesh doesn’t actually want to accept the truth about itself, so it looks for another gospel from another spirit (the antichrist’s spirit). “For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough” (2 Corinthians 11:4).
A gospel that leads with temporal blessings as the reason for believing isn’t the Gospel of Jesus Christ – not even close. It’s a disaster.
I saw a statistic recently that said about ninety percent of newly “saved” people leave the faith after six to twelve months. A true convert never leaves Christ, yet the vast majority of most evangelistic “success” turns out to be bad fruit that dies on the vine. The apostle John made mention of this same phenomenon.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
- 1 John 2:19
I’d argue that a person who has been falsely “evangelized” this way is in a worse position than when they started. They are typically the ones who, when approached by a Biblically sound evangelist, hold up their hand and say, “No thanks! I’ve already ‘tried’ Jesus and He didn’t work. Not interested.” There are a lot of people bitter towards Jesus because ill-equipped evangelists sold them on a pipe dream; and, when it doesn’t work out – when they’re still depressed, broke, and lonely after six months – who do they blame? Yup – Jesus! It’s a tragedy.
I highly recommend you read the July 26, 2019 blog I wrote titled Emotional Salvation Isn't Enough which contains the following excerpts:
No matter how emotionally relieved a person is to know that God will bear their burdens, His promises of deliverance are the result of being saved, judicially, not the cause.
…
Emotional relief may come with sanctification, but sanctification must begin where it begins with every other human being who’s ever been saved, with repentance. “God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent” (Acts 17:30b).
Sadly, today’s popular gospel is more like telling a stage four cancer patient to go to group therapy instead of getting the surgical operation that can save them, promising them that immediate emotional relief is of utmost importance, as opposed to delivering them from certain death.
The challenge is for you, personally, to examine your own evangelistic behavior. Are you on the “Come to Jesus” bandwagon? Do you tell an unbeliever that the reason they ought to believe in Jesus is that He loves them so much He just wants to take away all of their temporal woes? Do you tell them that’s what He’s done for you, all while hiding your own persistent suffering?
What’s the message you’re sending unbelievers? Are you afraid if you preach the Gospel the way Jesus did you won’t be able to compete with the false evangelists who consistently fill seats in their churches? Your success as an evangelist has nothing to do with you – remember that. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). You’re successful when you present the Gospel of Jesus Christ accurately. God saves.
Coming to Jesus is a grace gift for the contrite hearted, not something to be construed as a competitive option to self-help books and myriad emotional crutches.
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins
