by J. I. Packer
The truth is that the work of evangelizing demands more patience and sheer “stickability,” more reserves of persevering love and care, than most of us twenty-first-century Christians have at command. It is a work in which quick results are not promised; it is a work, therefore, in which the non-
appearance of quick results is no sign of failure; but it is a work in which we cannot hope for success unless we are prepared to persevere with people. The idea that a single evangelistic sermon, or a single serious conversation, ought to suffice for the conversion of anyone who is ever going to be converted is really silly. If you see someone whom you meet come to faith through a single such sermon or talk, you will normally find that his heart was already well prepared by a good deal of Christian teaching and exercise of spirit prior to your meeting with him. The law that operates in such cases is “one sows and another reaps” (Jn 4:37). If, on the other hand, you meet a person who is not thus prepared, a person who as yet has no conviction of the truth of the gospel and perhaps no idea, or even a false idea, of what the gospel actually is, it is worse than useless to try and stampede him into a snap “decision.” You may be able to bully him into a psychological crisis of some sort, but that will not be saving faith and will do him no good. What you have to do is to take time with him, to make friends with him, to get alongside him, to find out where he is in terms of spiritual understanding, and to start dealing with him at that point. You have to explain the gospel to him, and be sure that he understands it and is convinced of its truth, before you start pressing him to an active response. You have to be ready to help him, if need be, through a spell of seeking to repent and believe before he knows within himself that he has received Christ, and Christ has received him. At each stage you have to be willing to go along with him at God’s speed, which may seem to you a strangely slow speed. But that is God’s business, not yours. Your business is simply to keep pace with what God is doing in his life. Your willingness to be patient with him in this way is the proof of your love of him no less than of your faith in God. If you are not willing thus to be patient, you need not expect that God will favor you by enabling you to win souls.
Where does the patience come from that is so indispensable for evangelistic work? From dwelling on the fact that God is sovereign in grace and that his word does not return to him void; that it is he who gives us such opportunities as we find for sharing our knowledge of Christ with others, and that he is able in his own good time to enlighten them and bring them to faith. God often exercises our patience in this, as in other matters. As he kept Abraham waiting twenty-five years for the birth of his son, so he often keeps Christians waiting for things that they long to see, such as the conversion of their friends. We need patience, then, if we are to do our part in helping others toward faith. And the way for us to develop that patience is to learn to live in terms of our knowledge of the free and gracious sovereignty of God.
(3) Finally, this confidence should make us prayerful. Prayer, as we said at the beginning, is a confessing of impotence and need, an acknowledging of help, lessness and dependence, and an invoking of the mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. In evangelism, as we saw, we are impotent; we depend wholly on God to make our witness effective; only because he is able to give men new hearts can we hope that through our preaching of the gospel sinners will be born again. These facts ought to drive us to prayer. It is God’s intention that they should drive us to prayer. God means us, in this as in other things, to recognize and confess our impotence, and to tell him that we rely on him alone, and to plead with him to glorify his name. It is his way regularly to withhold his blessings until his people start to pray. “You do not have, because you do not ask” (Jas 4:2). “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). But if you and I are too proud or lazy to ask, we need not expect to receive. This is the universal rule, in evangelism as elsewhere. God will make us pray before he blesses our labors in order that we may constantly learn afresh that we depend on God for everything. And then, when God permits us to see conversions, we shall not be tempted to ascribe them to our own gifts, or skill, or wisdom, or persuasiveness, but to his work alone, and so we shall know whom we ought to thank for them.
The knowledge, then, that God is sovereign in grace, and that we are impotent to win souls, should make us pray and keep us praying. What should be the burden of our prayers? We should pray for those whom we seek to win, that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts; and we should pray for ourselves in our own witness, and for all who preach the gospel, that the power and authority of the Holy Spirit may rest on them. “Pray for us,” writes Paul to the Thessalonians, “that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored” (2 Thess 3:1). Paul was a great evangelist who had seen much fruit, but Paul knew that every particle of it had come from God, and that unless God continued to work both in him and in those to whom he preached he would never convert another soul. So he pleads for prayer, that his evangelism might still prove fruitful. Pray, he pleads, that the word of the gospel may be glorified through my preaching of it, and through its effect in human lives. Pray that it may be used constantly to the conversion of sinners. This, to Paul, is an urgent request, just because Paul sees so clearly that his preaching can save nobody unless God in sovereign mercy is pleased to bless it and use it to this end. Paul, you see, does not hold that, because God is sovereign in saving sinners, therefore prayer is needless, any more than he holds that, because God is sovereign in saving sinners, evangelistic preaching is needless. Rather, he holds that, just because the salvation of sinners depends wholly on God, prayer for the fruitfulness of evangelistic preaching is all the more necessary. And those today who, with Paul, believe most strongly that it is the sovereign agency of God—and that alone—that leads sinners to Christ should bear witness to their faith by showing themselves most constant and faithful and earnest and persistent in prayer that God’s blessing may rest on the preaching of his Word, and that under it sinners may be born again. This is the final bearing of belief in the sovereignty of God’s grace on evangelism.
We said earlier in this chapter that this doctrine does not in any way reduce or narrow the terms of our evangelistic commission. Now we see that, so far from contracting them, it actually expands them. For it faces us with the fact that there are two sides to the evangelistic commission. It is a commission not only to preach but also to pray; not only to talk to men about God, but also to talk to God about men. Preaching and prayer must go together; our evangelism will not be according to knowledge, nor will it be blessed, unless they do. We are to preach, because without knowledge of the gospel no man can be saved. We are to pray, because only the sovereign Holy Spirit in us and in men’s hearts can make our preaching effective to men’s salvation, and God will not send his Spirit where there is no prayer. Evangelicals are at present busy reforming their methods of evangelistic preaching, and that is good. But it will not lead to evangelistic fruitfulness unless God also reforms our praying, and pours out on us a new spirit of supplication for evangelistic work. The way ahead for us in evangelism is that we should be taught afresh to testify to our Lord and to his gospel, in public and in private, in preaching and in personal dealing, with boldness, patience, power, authority and love; and that with this we should also be taught afresh to pray for God’s blessing on our witness with humility and importunity. It is as simple—and as difficult—as that. When all has been said that has to be said about the reformation of evangelistic methods, it still remains that there is no way ahead but this, and if we do not find this way, we will not advance.
Thus the wheel of our argument comes full circle. We began by appealing to our practice of prayer as proof of our faith in divine sovereignty. We end by applying our faith in divine sovereignty as a motive to the practice of prayer.
What, then, are we to say about the suggestion that a hearty faith in the absolute sovereignty of God is inimical to evangelism? W
e are bound to say that anyone who makes this suggestion thereby shows that he has simply failed to understand what the doctrine of divine sovereignty means. Not only does it undergird evangelism, and uphold the evangelist, by creating a hope of success that could not otherwise be entertained; it also teaches us to bind together preaching and prayer; and as it makes us bold and confident before men, so it makes us humble and importunate before God. Isn’t this as it should be? We would not wish to say that man cannot evangelize at all without coming to terms with this doctrine; but we venture to think that, other things being equal, he will be able to evangelize better for believing it.
Notes
1. Divine Sovereignty
1Horae Homileticae, Preface: i.xvii-xviii.
2. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
2E.g., Lk 22:22: “For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined (to his death), but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” Cf. Acts 2:23.
3As D. M. Lloyd-Jones argues in Conversions: Psychological and Spiritual (I.V.F., 1959), against the thesis of Dr. William Sargant.
4Uzzah transgressed the prohibition of Num 4:5.
3. Evangelism
5Instructions for a Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences, 3rd. ed. (1640), p. 185.
6In my introduction to the 1959 reprint of The Death of Death in the Death of Christ by John Owen. Owen’s book is a classical discussion of the complex questions that the controversy about “limited atonement” involves. The central issue does not concern the value of the atonement, considered in itself, nor the availability of Christ to those who would trust him as their Savior. All agree that no limit can be set to the intrinsic worth of Christ’s death, and that Christ never casts out those who come to him. The cleavage is over the question, whether the intention of the Father and the Son in the great transaction of Calvary was to save any more than actually are saved. There is no room here to open up this elaborate question; and in any case, nothing in the text depends one way or the other on the answer that one gives to it.
7The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation, p. 287; my italics.
4. Divine Sovereignty and Evangelism
8See, e.g., Gen 1:20; 14:3ff. God’s thele4ma is spoken of in this sense in Rom 1:10; 15:32; Rev 4:11, etc.
9From Joseph Hart’s “Come, Ye Sinners,” Hymns II (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 169. The whole hymn is a magnificent statement of the gospel invitation.
10Title of a book by John Bunyan.
11John Owen, The Glory of Christ, in The Works of John Owen, ed. William Goold (1850), 1:422.
12J. C. Ryle, Old Paths, p. 468.
13Whether the gift of God in this text is the act of believing, or the fact of being-saved-through-believing (commentators divide), does not affect our point.
14Westminster Confession, 10:1; cf. Ezek 36:26-27; Jn 6:44-45; 1 Cor 2:10ff.; 2 Cor 4:6; Phil 2:13.
15The Acts of the Apostles, p. 327; cf. Acts 13:48.
16From “And Can It Be,” Hymns II (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 88.
About the Author
J. I. Packer
J. I. Packer is Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also serves as contributing editor to Christianity Today. Packer's writings include books such as Knowing God (IVP Books), A Quest for Godliness (Crossway), Growing in Christ (Crossway) and Rediscovering Holiness (Servant), and numerous articles published in journals such as Churchman, SouthWestern Journal, Christianity Today, Reformation & Revival Journal and Touchstone.
Other books by J. I. Packer
Knowing God
In 2006, Christianity Today voted this title to be one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals!
During the past 20 years, J. I. Packer's classic has revealed to over one million Christians around the world the wonder, the glory and the joy of knowing God. This anniversary edition is completely retypeset, with Americanized language and spelling, and a new preface by the author.
Meeting God
His majesty will fill your thoughts.
His love will soften your heart.
His holiness will purify your life.
When you meet God, you will be changed.
Meet him now as J. I. Packer, author of the best selling Christian classic, Knowing God, leads you through twelve key passages from the Old and New Testaments. These inductive Bible studies will engage your heart and mind. And enlarge your vision of the God you worship and serve.
Now available in IVP's revised LifeGuide Bible Study format, Meeting God features questions for starting group discussions and for personal reflection, as well as a new "Now or Later" section following each session.
Abiding in Christ
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love." John 15:9
Before Jesus left this world he gave specific encouragement and instructions to his disciples on what to expect and how to live after he had gone. These words still apply to his disciples today.
In Abiding in Christ, trusted guides J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom lead you through a study of Jesus' farewell to his disciples in John 14--17 to help you discover what it means to abide in Christ during the time between Christ's departure and his second coming.
This LifeGuide Bible Study in IVP Connect's revised format features questions for starting group discussions and for meeting God in personal reflection, as well as a "Now or Later" section following each session to help you act on what you learn.
Hope: Never Beyond Hope
Ever feel like a hopeless sinner?
Look at the lives of Samson, Peter and Martha.
God used their imperfections, and he can certainly use yours--no matter how bad you think they are.
The Bible offers hope and encouragement through the testimonies of those that have gone before you. In this Christian Basics Bible Study, based on relevant stories from the Bible and on Never Beyond Hope by J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom, you'll discover that just as these men and women of Scripture failed, they were also redeemed by God.
And God wants to do the same for you.
Decisions: Finding God's Will
Are you facing a big decision?
From job changes to marriage to buying a house, the big decisions you make in life often cause confusion and stress. What does God want you to do? How can you avoid making a decision you'll later regret?
Six studies based on J. I. Packer's Finding God's Will provide you the biblical grounding you need to discover God's will and make decisions that honor him. The principles you learn here will guide you through a lifetime of decision making.
