There has been a welcome resurgence of expository preaching in the Reformed church over the last few decades, and especially of “consecutive expository preaching” – preaching through books of the Bible, verse-by-verse and chapter-by-chapter. But with that resurgence of consecutive expository preaching has also come a decline in what I would call “converting evangelistic preaching.”

Negatively⤒🔗

What do I mean by “converting evangelistic preaching”? I don’t mean teaching sermons with an evangelistic P.S. or brief concluding appeal or call to the unconverted to seek Christ, believe in Christ, look to Christ, etc.

Neither, at the other extreme, do I mean contentless sermons made up simply of repeated evangelistic impera­tives, commands, invitations, and exhortations – sermons that have nothing for the head but are all addressed to the heart or will.

Positively←⤒🔗

Evangelistic preaching expounds God’s Word (it is exposi­tory) with the primary aim of the salvation of lost souls (rather than the instruction of God’s people). Stuart Olyott says it is to “preach from the Bible with the immediate aim of the immediate conversion of every soul in front of us.”

What really distinguishes evangelistic preaching from all other kinds of preaching is its obvious and unmistak­able aim: conversion. Its target is unconverted hearers, and its conscious and deliberate aim is to call, invite, and command needy souls to repent and believe the gospel. It is this kind of preaching that has become increasingly rare in many Reformed churches.

I’d like to look at this subject from four angles. First, I’d like to examine the rarity of evangelistic preaching as defined above: Why is it so rare? Then I will propose rea­sons in favor of it: Why should we engage in evangelistic preaching? Next I will survey the range of evangelistic preaching: the different kinds of sermons that come under this heading. And, finally, I will look at the results: What does evangelistic preaching look like and sound like? This article will focus on the first of these four angles.

The Rarity of Evangelistic Preaching←⤒🔗

The great expository preacher, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, made sure that at least one sermon every Sunday was directed primarily to the unsaved in his congregation. That was also the practice in the Scottish Presbyterian churches I grew up in and pastored for twelve years. But most Reformed churches have no such distinction today. Both morning and evening sermons tend to be primarily teaching sermons for God’s people. Why is this so?

The Preacher←↰⤒🔗

We start by pointing a finger at ourselves. Many of us have to admit that we much prefer to be teachers than pleaders. It is easier to engage in explanation than application. It is more socially acceptable and more dignified and respect­able to be engaged in calm reasoning and deduction, rather than in anxious weeping and beseeching. We would prob­ably all admit that it is easier emotionally and socially. And that prejudice, that bias, influences our choice of text and the way we preach our texts.

In addition to our prejudice, there is our pragmatism. Let’s get people in first. Get them used to our church, and then we will become more “evangelistic.” After all, we don’t want to put them off by telling them they are sinners who need a Savior; or that they must abandon their own works and trust in Christ’s grace alone; or that without faith in Christ they will be punished forever in hell. Surely it’s much wiser to begin more slowly, more carefully, more diplomati­cally; and then once they are with us a while, we can begin to be a bit more confrontational and demanding. But then more new faces appear, and so the pragmatic cycle begins again.

Presumption also lurks in the background of many preachers’ minds. Some pastors dangerously presume that their hearers are already saved. Assuming that all is well with their souls, they teach, instruct, and give guidance on how to live the Christian life but rarely preach for conversion.

The Congregation←↰⤒🔗

When we preach evangelistic sermons, some mature Chris­tians in our congregations on whom we often lean for our encouragement and strength might feel (or even say), “There wasn’t much for me in that sermon; that’s more like milk for babies than meat for the mature.” Of course, many mature Christians love to hear evangelistic sermons. They enjoy being evangelized all over again, and they especially love to hear sermons addressed to their unconverted family and friends. However, others may not respond so appreciatively as they do to our epic sermons on Romans. That lack of response can impact how and what we preach.

Also, we might not have many unconverted people in front of us. My first congregation had only twenty or thirty people. Sometimes only three or four unconverted hearers were in attendance at an evening service. It’s a lot harder to preach an evangelistic sermon in these circumstances, because everyone knows to whom you are directing your warning, wooing, and pleading words. Teaching messages are much more comfortable than convicting messages­ both to preach and to hear. That’s especially true if our few unconverted hearers are very moral or “churchy” people.

Some in our congregation might view evangelis­tic preaching with a suspicious eye and ear, especially if they come from a hyper-Calvinistic Christian upbringing. Maybe others have come out of Arminian easy-believism, hyper-emotionalism, and decisionism, and they react against any kind of emotional appeal to the unsaved. We don’t want to offend these people and we want to keep them on our side, so we hold back from regular, full-throated evangelistic preaching.

The World←↰⤒🔗

We are not pluralistic. We believe, surely, in the exclu­sive claims of Christ. That’s what we swear to at our ordinations. But avoiding any influence of our pluralis­tic, many-ways-to-God world is extremely difficult, even subconsciously.

Maybe, in the back of many pastors’ minds, the sharp edge of gospel exclusivity has been blunted by worldly influence. They may not deny that Christ is the only way to heaven, and they may not preach many ways to God. But they do not keep the believer/unbeliever distinction or the heaven/hell contrast constantly and vividly before their minds. And that will affect their preaching – both content and tone.

The real test of incipient pluralism is, “How do we really view the unconverted?” Is our first thought when we see them, “These precious souls are hell-bound, without Christ, lost, under the wrath of God, however religious they may be?” I’m deeply afraid that a kind of incipient, subtle, often unnoticed pluralism has blunted the sharp edge of evangelistic preaching.

The Devil←↰⤒🔗

Then, of course, there is our great enemy, the devil. If there’s any kind of preaching that has been more successful in stealing captives from him and claiming them for the Lord, it is passionate, evangelistic preaching. No weapon in the gospel armory has been so effective in rescuing souls. Of course, he’s going to fight it, and he’s going to supply every excuse not to preach in an evangelistic way.

The Reasons for Evangelistic Preaching←⤒🔗

The most obvious reason is biblical warrant. The Old Testament prophets were passionate pleaders for the souls of their fellow men and women. Deuteronomy reads like an Old Testament evangelistic tract, as Moses expostulates with Israel and beseeches them to embrace the God of Genesis to Numbers. Study the weeping reasonings of Jeremiah and the powerful pictorial pleas of Hosea. Even apocalyptic and enigmatic Ezekiel contains the most beautiful calls to Israel to turn from their evil ways and live. In encounter after encounter, public and private, Jesus exhorted souls to seek salvation. The Acts of the Apostles shows us Peter and Paul pleading with individuals, groups, congregations, and public gatherings. “Teacher” Paul cannot resist tearful expressions of angst and desire in Romans (see especially chapters 9#11), that most doctrinal of letters.

Then we could turn from the Bible to church history and consider the regular evangelistic sermons of Bunyan, Whitefield, Edwards, Spurgeon, Marten Lloyd-Jones, etc. But I’d especially like to argue for evangelistic preaching by considering the effect of its absence.

Preaching becomes an Academic Lecture←↰⤒🔗

When sermons are almost exclusively aimed at teaching Christians and rarely aimed at the unconverted, preaching begins to sound more like cold, objective, academic lecturing. But when a preacher has caught a glimpse of hell, when he really grasps the terrible spiritual predicament of the lost in his congregation, and when he is gripped by the urgency of the gospel in the looming shadow of judgment and eternity, his preaching is transformed into present tense, personal, passionate preaching of the truth. The lecture hall is left behind as we enter the presence of Cod, The lectern becomes a pulpit, The ‘professor’ becomes a preacher.

Christians become Forgetful, Proud, Introspective, and Prayerless←↰⤒🔗

Not only are the unconverted damaged by the lack of evangelistic preaching, Christians are, too. Why? Well, in the absence of it Christians forget. We forget the pit we were dug out of, we forget the debt we were in, and we forget the remarkable work of God in our lives. In the absence of evangelistic preaching, the memory of saving grace fades, weakens, and disappears. In its Our comes proud self-confidence and self-focus, which quickly drains prayerful concern for the souls of others. As the gospel no longer grips our own soul, we have little motivation or desire to tell others.

But if the gospel is regularly preached to Christians, then they are re-humbled, re-convicted, and reminded of what they have been saved from. They re-repent, re-believe, and re-kindle their first love. The contagious gospel passion in the preacher infects the hearers, and the hearers become enthusiastic carriers as they go out into the world with a renewed and prayerful vision and mission for the lost and the perishing all around them.

Christians do not bring Friends to Church←↰⤒🔗

One of the reasons why Christians seem to have stopped bringing friends to church is that most preaching is directed largely towards already well-taught Christians. Many Chris­tians feel that if they take a friend to church, the mes­sage will go “way over their heads.” Many of us have taken someone to church and, to our disappointment and embar­rassment, there was little or nothing that our guest could understand or relate to.

But, if Christians know that, say, every Sunday morn­ing, or most Sunday nights, their pastor will preach “sim­ple” evangelistic sermons suited to the special needs of the unsaved or un-churched, then they will be much more moti­vated to invite their friends, family, and neighbors.

Children in the Church assume they are Saved←↰⤒🔗

The absence of regular evangelistic preaching often means that children grow up in churches hearing teaching and doctrine addressed to Christians. Without being continu­ally reminded that they must be born again, they presume they are “just like the other Christians” and do not seek regeneration or saving faith.

But if they often hear of their vile natural condition; their perilous spiritual state; their need for personal regen­eration and conversion; the insufficiency of their own worth, words, and works; then they will much more earnestly seek the Savior. In the church of my childhood, I was reminded every Sunday night, in no uncertain terms, that I was not a Christian and that I needed to seek the Savior. It was not comfortable or pleasant. It ruined many a Sunday night sleep. But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I went to judgment in the same condition I was born in, I was going to hell ... forever. I also knew, although I wished I didn’t, that Christ was calling me to “turn, turn, why will you die!”

Lost Souls go to Hell←↰⤒🔗

I’m not saying that lost souls can’t be converted through teaching sermons. Of course they can, and of course they are. But evangelistic preaching is especially blessed to the conver­sion of souls. If you were to take a survey of the whole world, I’m sure that the vast majority of true Christians will say that it was an evangelistic sermon directed to lost, perishing sin­ners that God used to turn them from their idols to Himself.

Who knows what a revival of preaching, evangelism, mission, and worship might result from a widespread return to evangelistic preaching in the Reformed church!

The Range of Evangelistic Preaching←⤒🔗

Every sermon text can be preached with an evangelistic application. But this isn’t “evangelistic preaching.” Remember our previous definition: “Evangelistic preaching is preaching that expounds God’s Word (it is expository) with the primary aim of the conversion of lost souls (rather than the instruction of God’s people).” So, though an evangelistic application can be found from every text, certain texts and topics are especially suitable for such evangelistic preaching. Let me propose four categories of evangelistic sermon.

“Warm-up” sermons←↰⤒🔗

These are sermons we preach to clear and prepare the ground for the gospel. They address some of the common objections to Christianity the caricatures of and preju­dices. Such ‘apologetic sermons’ will set out to prove the truth and relevance of Christianity, and demonstrate its doctrinal and practical superiority. Examples:

• Proofs of the resurrection
• Evidence for creation versus evolution
• One way or many ways to God
• Do only good people go to heaven?
• The Bible’s analysis of current economic, social, moral problems

These sermons are aiming at conversion, especially the early stages of conversion. They are clearing away all the rubbish that has accumulated in a signer’s mind in order to make room for the gospel. They deal with issues that will open the pathway for Christ and His grace. That’s why I call them “warm-up” sermons. We are addressing sinners who are cold, prejudiced, and opposed to Chris­tianity, and using Cod’s Word to break up the soil, warm the heart, and provide an opening for the core message of Christ and His grace.

Warning Sermons←↰⤒🔗

Some warning sermons are characterized by a focus on the more threatening aspects of God’s character, espe­cially His attributes of holiness, justice, sovereignty, and power. Other warning sermons may focus on human sin­fulness, inability, frailty, and mortality, We may expound and apply the law, showing what God defines as sin and wickedness. We might deal with the speed of time, the uncertainty of life, the imminence of death, the certainty of judgment, the length of eternity, or the reality of hell. These are all warning sermons. They are designed to alarm the complacent, the comfortable, and the thoughtless to make them anxious, and fearful, and even terrified. Examples:

• Remember Lot’s wife and Saul and Judas
• God’s law.
• The end-of-time parables.
• Revelation’s great white throne, bottomless pit, etc.
• Ecclesiastic’s view of the best this world can offer, etc.
• The Psalmist’s view of our frailty and mortality, etc,

The great aim of these sermons is to convict and to bring our hearers to an awareness of their perilous state before God and their need of repentance.

Wooing Sermons←↰⤒🔗

Having prepared the way for the gospel with “warm-up” sermons, and having shown the need for the gospel with warning sermons, we then come with a wooing word. We explain the wonders of the Father’s willingness to send His Son to sinners and to save them by His suffering, death, and resurrection. We also focus on the Lord Jesus: His willing­ness to come, suffer, and die for sinners, and His tender, wise and winning ways with sinners. We explain the pow­erful work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating and renewing the hardest of hearts. We explain that God saves by grace through faith, not by merit through works. We are trying to address people who are trembling, who are fearful, who are scared, and are seeking to draw them in to the love and the mercy and the grace of God. No pastor can pluck the chord of grace enough. Examples:

• The prodigal son
• Christ’s tender dealings with sinners during His ministry
• The sufferings of Christ on the cross
• The atonement
• Free justification
• The gospel invitations and commands
• The sufficiency and suitability of Christ
• Adoption

If the aim of the warm-up sermon is to demonstrate rel­evance, and if the aim of the warning sermon is to bring people to repentance, the aim of the wooing sermon is to bring people to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Will Sermons←↰⤒🔗

Every sermon is ultimately addressed to the will. Yes, we address the head; and through the head, we address the heart. But we don’t just want to give people facts and feel­ings. We want changed lives. That’s surely the aim of our preaching. Ultimately, then, every sermon is addressed to the will. But evangelistic sermons, and especially this fourth kind of evangelistic sermon, are addressed especially and repeatedly to the will.

These are sermons that bring people to the signpost at the junction with two choices. They bring people to that point where they are faced with the two great and ultimate options: faith or unbelief, life or death, heaven or hell. These are sermons that are full of persuasion, pleading, arguing, and beseeching. Examples:

• Paul and Agrippa
• Jesus and the woman of Samaria
• Parable of the wedding invitation
• Paul on Mars Hill
• Peter at Pentecost
• “Choose you this day whom you will serve”
• Narrow/broad way
• Revelation 22:17
• Elijah on Mt Carmel
• “Stretch out your hand”
• “Lazarus, come forth”

But is man not totally depraved? Are we not “dead in tres­passes and sins”? Are we not spiritually disabled? Is the will not in bondage? Yes. There is no question the Bible teaches such. However, as the examples above show, the Bible also describes the depraved, dead, disabled, and enslaved will being addressed. It may seem illogical to us, but God has chosen to free the will, enable the disabled, and give life to the dead by the persuasive preaching of the gospel.

These sermons have content for head and heart, but are especially focused on pressurizing the will. The truth is pressed home so closely that every hearer is “forced” to make a choice. The Puritans used to speak of the gospel vise that squeezes hearers so tightly that they cannot but say “yes” or “no.”

From this range of sample evangelistic sermons, I hope you can see that this isn’t the kind of preaching that will sound repetitive. There is a great range and variety of evan­gelistic sermons. There is no need for us to sound the same every time we do this; the Word of God has provided us with so many models and so much material that we can preach evangelistically and freshly every time.

The Results of Evangelistic Preaching←⤒🔗

Let’s conclude by asking: “What does evangelistic preaching sound/look/feel like?”

Present←↰⤒🔗

Evangelistic preaching majors in the present tense. Yes, it deals with biblical data, which is usually in the past tense. But it moves rapidly from the past to the present. These are not sermons that are taken up with large amounts of history, geography, and chronology. They may begin there, but move swiftly to the here and the now.

Hearers realize the sermon is about here, about now. It’s connected to the present, it’s relevant, it has impact on them, in this day and in this age. Marten Lloyd Jones used to speak of such sermons being in the “urgent tense,” and that really is what should be communicated, We must show that the ancient Word connects with today’s world, and is relevant both to the present and the future.

Personal←↰⤒🔗

These sermons should also be personal. Yes, again, we begin with explaining the Word as originally given to the Israelites, the disciples, etc. It starts with ‘they” and “them.” However, in evangelistic preaching, we move rap­idly to “you.”

I’m sure we’ve all at in congregations, heard sermons about the Philistines, the Israelites, the Corinthians, and the Philippians, and wondered, But what about me? Does this have anything to say to Americans, Scots, Africans, etc.?’ When teaching God’s people we can spend more time explaining the teaching as it applied to the original hearers. But when we are going after lost souls, we have to move more swiftly, we have to engage more rapidly, we must show relevance much earlier on.

Also, when we are addressing the unconverted in front of us, we should work especially hard at moving away from reading our notes. When we are appealing, beseech­ing, arguing, and reasoning in a very personal way with unbelievers let it be eyeball to eyeball, “we beseech you.” Don’t let paper get in the way, distracting, and break­ing the eye contact. Let’s really make it personal so that people really feel “he is speaking to me.”

We can also make it personal by getting inside the minds of our hearers and saying things like this: ‘Well, you’re sitting there, you are thinking this … aren’t you? But this is what God’s Word says.” Or, “You’re here today and you’re hearing this and you are feeling so and so...” And the person sitting there says, “He is thinking about me. He knows how I think, he knows how I tick; he is concerned to address what is going on in my mind.” Again, it just makes it a very personal intimate transaction.

Persuasive←↰⤒🔗

In evangelistic preaching the great aim is persuasion. Much of such sermons will be taken up with Acts 2:38-42 type beseeching, pleading, arguing, and reasoning, It’s not just, “Here are some facts; take them or leave them,” as if we are just dispassionate conveyors of information. We are here to persuade. People must see our anxiety that they respond to the gospel in faith and repentance. We plead that the Holy Spirit may attend with the Word to raise the spiritually dead to life (Eph. 2:1). We urge them to ask for Him (Luke 11:13).

Passionate←↰⤒🔗

To be really persuasive, we must also be passionate. Let peo­ple see that we feel this deeply, that we fear for their eternal state, that we are anxious over them, and that we love them deeply. Let that be communicated in our words, but also in our facial expressions, our body language, and our tone.

I’m not arguing for acting here; this should come natu­rally. Sometimes, before preaching an evangelistic sermon, I spend some time trying to think of lost unbelieving souls in my congregation, and even of particular individuals. I may try to see their faces (often lovely characters by nature – helpful, kind, loving people – but lost). I try to see them dying, going to judgment, and then their faces as they hear the verdict. Then I envision them sinking into the bottom­less pit, being burned in eternal fire, going to the company of the devil and his angels. I try to see them there, try to hear them there. Sometimes I might even think of one of my own unsaved family members, just to try and bring home the reality and the enormity of the unsaved’s predicament. If we can really feel it ourselves, we will be passionate in our pleading, in our loving, and in our reasoning.

Plain←↰⤒🔗

Evangelistic preaching will be plain. If we love sinners and we are anxious for them to be saved, we will be clear and plain in our structure, content, and choice of words. If we can use a smaller word, we use it. If we can shorten our sentences, we do so. If we can find an illustration, we tell it. Everything is aimed at simplicity and clarity, so that, as it was said of Martin Luther, it may be said of us, “It’s impos­sible to misunderstand him.”

This is exhausting work. People may think at times that doctrinal sermons are harder to prepare and preach than evangelistic sermons. Not if you are really going to edit and trim and modify until your message communicates the profoundest truth in the simplest way possible. That involves real labor, sweat, toil, and tears. In Preaching and Preachers Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote:

If I am asked which sermons I wrote, I have already said that I used to divide my ministry, as I still do, into edification of the saints in the morning and a more evangelistic sermon in the evening. Well, my practice was to write my evangelistic sermon. I did so because I felt that in speaking to the saints, to the believers, one could feel more relaxed. There, one was speaking in the realm of the family. In other words, I believe that one should be unusually careful in evangelistic sermons. That is why the idea that a fellow who is merely gifted with a certain amount of glibness of speech and self-confidence, not to say cheek, can make an evangelist is all wrong. The greatest men should always be the evangelists, and generally have been; and the idea that Tom, Dick, and Harry can be put up to speak on a street corner, but you must have a great preacher in a pulpit in a church is, to me, the reversing of the right order. It is when addressing the unbelieving world that we need to be most careful; and therefore I used to write my evangelistic sermon and not the other.pp. 215-16

Powerful←↰⤒🔗

When we go into the pulpit with an evangelistic sermon, let’s not go in defensively and apologetically. Yes, it may be an “apologetic” sermon, but we are not apologizing for the truth. When we go in front of sinners with the gospel, let’s not come across as if we have something to hide or be afraid of. Let’s not hedge and qualify. Let’s not “discuss” or “share.” Let’s preach with powerful, bold, divine authority. People need to hear, “Thus says the Lord.” This isn’t an option, this isn’t just another idea; this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Persevering←↰⤒🔗

And let our evangelistic sermons also be characterized by perseverance. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again, and again, and again.

How often should you preach an evangelistic sermon? That will largely depend on context. In Scotland, I was expected to preach one evangelistic sermon and one teach­ing sermon every Sunday. Once a week is probably too much if you and your church are not used to this. But how about once a month? You can tell your congregation that on such a morning/evening this is going to be a sermon largely for the unconverted, so that Christians will think, “I can take my friends to this. This is something I know my boss could listen to with some understanding.” Make it regular, and make it known that this is what you are going to be doing.

Prayerful←⤒🔗

Above all, of course, evangelistic preaching is to be prayer­ful – before, during, and after. Pray to be delivered from the fear of man. Pray that God would give you a passion for souls. Pray that you would be able to communicate naturally and easily and freely. Pray that you’d get a hearing for the gospel and that you’d be able to present Christ so that you “disappear.” Pray that the Holy Spirit will bring Scripture to your mind which He will use to bring life to the spiritu­ally dead (Eph. 2:1). And pray afterward that the seed sown would bring forth a harvest of saved souls, and that the church will be revived and built up.

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. Daniel 12:3