Over the years of ministry I have observed an endless succession of evangelistic programs and techniques, and church growth programs. There have been endless discussions about focussed and relevant preaching so that the Word of God is brought to bear in an applicable way for the time in which we live. There is no end to the inventiveness of the human heart. God it seems, created in us a desire for bigger and better, and so we embark on all kinds of things in order to secure greatness. What doesn't seem to get much attention however is how these schemes come and go only to be followed by another which also goes.
Philip Jensen in a recent article in "The Briefing" (July-Aug 2008) under the title "The Strategy of God" helpfully points out that God's strategy is unchanging, and our response to His strategy is faithfulness in which we seek to work it out. "God's strategy - including our part in it - is a given. It's not for us to figure out what Christian ministry is all about; the big plan and the strategy for getting there is revealed to us by God, and as with all revelation, our response must be to believe it and act on it." The methods and ways in which we do that form the tactics we employ, and these are by their very nature "provisional and change constantly".
This is an excellent article, but I got to thinking about some tactics which it appears to me get very little attention or reflection, and which never change. These are the tactics every soul uses when the call of God goes out to repent of sin, and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
In the formation of faithful obedience to the strategy of God, we would do well to seriously consider the rebellion and obstinacy of the human heart.
Charles Spurgeon had a wonderful gift of describing and expressing things in clear and unambiguous ways. In "C.H.. Spurgeon, The Early Years", he describes how he was brought to faith in Jesus and saved, and confesses that he would never have been saved if he could have helped it. As long as he could, he rebelled and revolted, and struggled against God. When God wanted him to pray, "I would not". When God wanted him to sit under the preaching of the Word, "I would not". When he did hear, and a tear rolled down his cheek, he wiped it away and "defied God to melt my heart."
When he heard a sermon on election he was not pleased. When the sermon was on the law of God and showed him powerless, he refused to believe it. In fact he rejected it as old fashioned and out of touch with the real world. A sermon on death and sin was also rejected because he simply refused to believe he was dead. Was he not alive? He could therefore repent at his leisure and make himself right. Then there came another type of sermon which was a strong exhortation to come to Christ, but he felt that he could set things to right anytime he pleased.
Are these not the same complaints we hear time and time again? We think in our hearts that we can bring all our tactics to bear against God's sovereign strategy and have it our own way, but, God will not be denied no matter how self sufficient we believe ourselves to be.
Spurgeon writes, "When my heart was a little touched, I tried to divert it with sinful pleasures, and would not have been saved, until God gave me the effectual blow, and I was obliged to submit to that irresistible grace. It conquered my depraved will.when the Lord really brought me to myself, He sent one great shot which shivered me to pieces, and, lo, I found myself utterly defenceless. I found myself less than nothing."
In the midst of every plan we create to implement faithfulness to God's great plan and sovereign purpose, we must never lose sight of the reality of the blinding and disabling power of sin upon and over the human heart. This is a mighty and terrible power which deceives so thoroughly as to make those we seek to bring to Christ, believe as we once did, that they can choose their own means and moment of salvation. This is critical to any consideration of how we reach out with the Word of God. It will do no one any good to reach out to a man who believes he can save himself with a message which only reinforces his belief, and in which we demonstrate a belief that our efforts are the decisive factors in growing the church.
God says "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ" (Romans 10: 17). In fact Isaiah tells us plainly how rebellious the heart is, and how salvation requires the singular and specific power of the Word by the Spirit of God alone (Romans 15:16; 2 Thess 2:13) when he records for us how "I (God) was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me" (Romans 10:20; Isaiah 65:1).