The gospel involves words.
It is the glorious message of the redemption God has provided for us through the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. We should try to share this message whenever we can.
But the gospel is more than words – it is the power of God.
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
The power of the gospel isn’t in the speaker. The good news of Jesus is powerful because it is the very word of God and the Holy Spirit infuses God’s word with power.
It is the Holy Spirit who causes someone to be born again, not our persuasiveness.
God saved Charles Spurgeon through a simple gospel message given by a humble speaker:
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. I turned a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Church. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved….
The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now it is well that preachers be instructed, but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was—“LOOK UNTO ME, AND BE YE SAVED, ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH” (Isa. 45:22)
He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimmer of hope for me in that text.
The preacher began thus: “This is a very simple text indeed. It says ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It aint liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.
“But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!” he said in broad Essex, “many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some say look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some on ye say ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ “
Then the good man followed up his text in this way: “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me, I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me!”
When he had . . . . managed to spin out about ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger.
Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “And you will always be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!
I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said—I did not take much notice of it—I was so possessed with that one thought . . . . I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away.
There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.”
I love this. The poor shoe maker or tailor wasn’t eloquent. He probably had never heard the word “eschatology.” To Charles Spurgeon he seemed “stupid”. He didn’t pronounce all his words correctly. But he shared the good news. He shared the simple core of the gospel – Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead. And God attended his simple message with life-transforming power and raised Charles Spurgeon from death to life.
This is liberating when we share the gospel with our children, friends and relatives. It’s not our brilliant articulation that saves anyone – it’s the power of the word of God and the Holy Spirit. Of course we want to express God’s truth as clearly as we can, but even if we stumble and share the gospel imperfectly, it is the power of God that saves.
We must do all we can to teach our children about Jesus and bring them up in the fear and instruction of the Lord. We should read the Word to them and teach them. We should encourage them to turn to Jesus. But we can’t cause them to be born again. We must diligently share God’s word then pray and trust that the Holy Spirit to give them life.
Let this encourage us to share the gospel, even if we do it poorly. I don’t encourage you to be stupid. But our feeble words plus God’s mighty power is all God needs.
