“If you are properly preaching the Gospel, it will be scandalous. And if you try to make it less scandalous then you no longer preach the Gospel.”
Paul Washer
To the unsaved world, the Gospel is foolishness. A Christian lifestyle of self-denial is completely contrary to the natural man’s lifestyle of self-indulgence.
Therefore, without the direct interference of the Holy Spirit moving within the hearts of the hearers of the Gospel, the natural world’s tendency will be to ridicule and scorn the messenger.
The irony of modern “relevant” evangelism methods is that the evangelist’s efforts to ease the message to the hearer will also ease the effects that a true preaching of the Gospel will bring.
Author Ray Comfort stated in his book, Hell’s Best Kept Secret:
“… if I approach an impenitent sinner and say, “Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins,” it will be foolishness and offensive to him. Foolishness because it won’t make sense. The Bible says that: “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness” (1 Cor 1:18. And offensive because I’m insinuating he’s a sinner when he doesn’t think he is. As far as he’s concerned, there are a lot of people far worse than him.”
Even has a seasoned evangelist, I find the temptation to “lead somebody to Christ” is always present. It is tempting to “seal the deal” or to “get the profession”. Once you’ve given in to this temptation, you’ll likely find that you have strayed from the law and Gospel to some other device that seems to be more palatable to the ears.
Christ has given us the example of evangelism; law to the proud and grace to the humble. Staying within biblical bound relieves the evangelist from the burden of “getting a decision” and will ensure a biblical presentation of repentance and faith and the Gospel.