Different People Come To Christ Under Different Circumstances
Different people come to Christ in different ways, but always with faith (trust) in Jesus. Aside from someone recognizing that he or she is a sinner who is in desperate need of a Savior and placing their faith in the one and only Savior Jesus Christ, not everyone comes to Christ in exactly the same way, meaning with or in the same personal circumstances, with the same background or preconceived notions about what they might think Christianity may or may not be about.
So the popular idea of a one-size-fits-all approach to evangelism is utter nonsense. But in the fast paced microwave convenience-centric society that we live in, I understand why so many so-called evangelists are trying to process people through a machine as quickly as possible and why they don't want to spend sufficient time with people to get to know them and answer their questions: greed for numbers to take credit for and impatience.
Let's consider some of the facts about people we might want to reach with the Gospel:
Some people are involved in a very sinful lifestyle. Others barely sin outwardly at all. Some people are trusting in a false religion to save them. Others feel that they are good enough on their own to merit heaven. Some people want a change in life and a whole new social culture to be part of. Others do not. Some people are seeking help with a personal problem such as an addiction. Some people are lonely or grieving and are looking for friends and comfort. Others are not. And on and on the list goes. So as we can see there is a huge variety of people out there, but the good news is the simple unaltered unadulterated Gospel of faith alone in Christ alone accommodates ALL of them. It is only when false teachers get involved and start changing the requirements of salvation that things go haywire where, depending on the severity of the heresy, either all people are prevented from placing trust in Christ or certain groups of people are eliminated and not accommodated at all. The fact that anyone is able to get saved at all in such a scenario is amazing, but the reason is partly because the false portion of the message does not happen to affect some people in their particular situations, so it is overlooked and they place their trust in Jesus anyway, despite the bad preaching. Thank God.
The Curious Case of "Rock-N-Roll" Preachers
There are many preachers today who act as if everyone is the same and insist that everyone come to Christ in exactly the same way, namely in whatever way that they did. For example, there are quite a few pastors who have come to faith in Christ after a "rock-n-roll" lifestyle of drugs and debauchery. These are typically men who hit rock bottom, paid a huge price, became tired of their sins and wanted to change, and so they assume and insist that everyone else must essentially be in a situation similar to or the same as them and so must also come to Christ in exactly the same way that they did. But not everyone who comes to Christ comes from a position of serious sin, hitting rock bottom or wanting to give up their sins. Nevertheless, these now-reformed "rock-n-roll" pastors staunchly preach a salvation message based in no small part on their own personal experience and history, which really only applies to a relatively limited sector of their audience. (The teaching is nevertheless usually still erroneous and heretical because it is often based on personal works/merit rather than on Christ's merit.) Everyone is therefore forced into a very narrow and incorrect approach to evangelism, like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work.
I understand and agree that even prior to salvation, repenting of one's various personal sins is God-honoring, wonderful and highly recommended, and can even be critically important for some people. In fact, there are some who have lived a lifestyle of such utter depravity that they would not remotely be in a position in their own hearts and minds to be willing to place their trust in Jesus Christ without first repenting of their various depravities, being very sorry before God and asking His forgiveness. And that is fine for THAT person and anyone else in a similar situation. But not everyone has the same background or history and so not everyone comes to faith in Christ through exactly the same set of circumstances.
What About The "Squeaky Clean" Moralist?
Consider this - we have moralists out there who pretty much live squeaky clean lives of nearly no major or readily visible outward sins and it wouldn't be until they first become a Christian and begin to recognize things like the utter sinfulness of their inner thought life (selfishness, greed, covetousness, lust, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, impatience, lack of empathy, lack of love, etc.) that they would be sorry for anything or be ready to change anything. And it really make no sense for an evangelist to ask a moralist to be sorry for sins that they are not even aware of yet or to be sorry for their original sin, meaning the sin nature that they inherited from Adam. Both situations are outside of their control.
So we have a problem. We have this very popular idea floating around that everyone must first repent of their assorted personal sins and then place their faith (trust) in Jesus. But not only is this belief heretical and an assault upon the Gospel, these two concepts conflict especially for certain groups of people. Maybe this is part of why we do not see repentance of sin as requirement of the "whosoever" of John 3:16 and nine other related salvation verses that use the same word whosoever.
What people need to repent of at first is their major monumental sin of idolatrous trust in anything or anyone except Jesus Christ, namely repenting of self-reliance, performance-reliance, church-reliance, Pope-reliance, priest-reliance, pastor-reliance, teacher-reliance, philosophy-reliance, Atheism-reliance (trusting there is no God and no heaven), etc. The popular yet incorrect ROSS (Repent of Sin Salvation) gospel is similar and related to the dangerous LS (Lordship Salvation) gospel. It not only conflicts with, but ironically even emphasizes self-reliance, even to the placing of a huge personal cost on the totally free gift of salvation, which in itself is an enormous heresy as well.
ChristiansFree.com
Different people come to Christ in different ways, but always with faith (trust) in Jesus. Aside from someone recognizing that he or she is a sinner who is in desperate need of a Savior and placing their faith in the one and only Savior Jesus Christ, not everyone comes to Christ in exactly the same way, meaning with or in the same personal circumstances, with the same background or preconceived notions about what they might think Christianity may or may not be about.
So the popular idea of a one-size-fits-all approach to evangelism is utter nonsense. But in the fast paced microwave convenience-centric society that we live in, I understand why so many so-called evangelists are trying to process people through a machine as quickly as possible and why they don't want to spend sufficient time with people to get to know them and answer their questions: greed for numbers to take credit for and impatience.
Let's consider some of the facts about people we might want to reach with the Gospel:
Some people are involved in a very sinful lifestyle. Others barely sin outwardly at all. Some people are trusting in a false religion to save them. Others feel that they are good enough on their own to merit heaven. Some people want a change in life and a whole new social culture to be part of. Others do not. Some people are seeking help with a personal problem such as an addiction. Some people are lonely or grieving and are looking for friends and comfort. Others are not. And on and on the list goes. So as we can see there is a huge variety of people out there, but the good news is the simple unaltered unadulterated Gospel of faith alone in Christ alone accommodates ALL of them. It is only when false teachers get involved and start changing the requirements of salvation that things go haywire where, depending on the severity of the heresy, either all people are prevented from placing trust in Christ or certain groups of people are eliminated and not accommodated at all. The fact that anyone is able to get saved at all in such a scenario is amazing, but the reason is partly because the false portion of the message does not happen to affect some people in their particular situations, so it is overlooked and they place their trust in Jesus anyway, despite the bad preaching. Thank God.
The Curious Case of "Rock-N-Roll" Preachers
There are many preachers today who act as if everyone is the same and insist that everyone come to Christ in exactly the same way, namely in whatever way that they did. For example, there are quite a few pastors who have come to faith in Christ after a "rock-n-roll" lifestyle of drugs and debauchery. These are typically men who hit rock bottom, paid a huge price, became tired of their sins and wanted to change, and so they assume and insist that everyone else must essentially be in a situation similar to or the same as them and so must also come to Christ in exactly the same way that they did. But not everyone who comes to Christ comes from a position of serious sin, hitting rock bottom or wanting to give up their sins. Nevertheless, these now-reformed "rock-n-roll" pastors staunchly preach a salvation message based in no small part on their own personal experience and history, which really only applies to a relatively limited sector of their audience. (The teaching is nevertheless usually still erroneous and heretical because it is often based on personal works/merit rather than on Christ's merit.) Everyone is therefore forced into a very narrow and incorrect approach to evangelism, like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work.
I understand and agree that even prior to salvation, repenting of one's various personal sins is God-honoring, wonderful and highly recommended, and can even be critically important for some people. In fact, there are some who have lived a lifestyle of such utter depravity that they would not remotely be in a position in their own hearts and minds to be willing to place their trust in Jesus Christ without first repenting of their various depravities, being very sorry before God and asking His forgiveness. And that is fine for THAT person and anyone else in a similar situation. But not everyone has the same background or history and so not everyone comes to faith in Christ through exactly the same set of circumstances.
What About The "Squeaky Clean" Moralist?
Consider this - we have moralists out there who pretty much live squeaky clean lives of nearly no major or readily visible outward sins and it wouldn't be until they first become a Christian and begin to recognize things like the utter sinfulness of their inner thought life (selfishness, greed, covetousness, lust, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, impatience, lack of empathy, lack of love, etc.) that they would be sorry for anything or be ready to change anything. And it really make no sense for an evangelist to ask a moralist to be sorry for sins that they are not even aware of yet or to be sorry for their original sin, meaning the sin nature that they inherited from Adam. Both situations are outside of their control.
So we have a problem. We have this very popular idea floating around that everyone must first repent of their assorted personal sins and then place their faith (trust) in Jesus. But not only is this belief heretical and an assault upon the Gospel, these two concepts conflict especially for certain groups of people. Maybe this is part of why we do not see repentance of sin as requirement of the "whosoever" of John 3:16 and nine other related salvation verses that use the same word whosoever.
What people need to repent of at first is their major monumental sin of idolatrous trust in anything or anyone except Jesus Christ, namely repenting of self-reliance, performance-reliance, church-reliance, Pope-reliance, priest-reliance, pastor-reliance, teacher-reliance, philosophy-reliance, Atheism-reliance (trusting there is no God and no heaven), etc. The popular yet incorrect ROSS (Repent of Sin Salvation) gospel is similar and related to the dangerous LS (Lordship Salvation) gospel. It not only conflicts with, but ironically even emphasizes self-reliance, even to the placing of a huge personal cost on the totally free gift of salvation, which in itself is an enormous heresy as well.
ChristiansFree.com