Preach Magazine Issue 5 - Preaching to the unconverted | Page 33

FEATURE 33 THE DECISION BEFORE THE DECISION THE PREACHER PREPARING THE PEOPLE PREACHING FOR OTHER DECISIONS The mechanics of inviting people to make a decision are not nearly as important as the decision of the preacher to dare to call people in the first place. This requires courage. It begins in the presence of God with the preacher’s call from God. Isaiah was called, and said, ‘Here I am, send me’. He was then told that people would be ever hearing but not understanding: it was to be a costly call. Jeremiah was to have a forehead harder than flint. He was told: ‘Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks’. This is good advice to the one who preaches for a decision as the congregation’s ‘look’ may indeed dismay her or him at times. I remember having the privilege of being in a small seminar once with Billy Graham in which he explained that the few minutes of ‘invitation’ was ten times more draining in terms of emotional and spiritual cost than all the previous thirty minutes of preaching, and it left him completely depleted. It helps to let people listening know at the start of the talk that you will be calling for a decision, and how that will be presented. If they will be asked to come forward or to raise a hand or to pray a prayer or to meet a ministry team member, it will help people to know at some point early in the message that that is where you are headed. Then do what you have said you will do and see what happens. There is no escaping the preacher’s need to lean on God and to expect God to be at work. It is said that a preacher once asked CH Spurgeon for help because not many people were coming to Christ in his preaching. Spurgeon asked: ‘But you don’t expect people to come to Christ every time you preach, do you?’ ‘Well, I guess no’, came the reply. ‘There you are then’, said Spurgeon ‘that is exactly the reason you see little fruit: you have little expectation’. Surrender is needed when it comes to preaching and calling people forward for other radical decisions. The Bible is a record of the choice to follow God being followed by several decisions to stick at it despite difficulty. We can think of God’s word to Abraham: he was called to move his whole family and leave his comfort zone and follow God’s call. Later, he is called to move his flocks to the oaks of Mamre; he is called to ‘consider the stars’ and then ‘believe God’ concerning his descendants. Sometimes these decisions were excruciatingly difficult, such as when he was called to decide to be willing to sacrifice his only son. To invite people to make a decision we need to know that we have the word of the Lord. We need to have heard him and be a man or woman with a message that is burning in our hearts. We need the love of God to be constraining us. We need compassion for people and the conviction that to take a decision will really help them. Rather like exhorting someone to go to the doctor for treatment of a terminal disease, we need compassion and conviction. Rather like a fireman calling people to leave a house that may burn down we need authority. Rather like a platoon leader asking people to enlist and make a decision to join up, we need to be practical and explain what is involved. Preaching for a decision involves the preacher’s surrender: his or her life of prayer and life with God is exposed as the decision is called for. EM Bounds describes the reason for much fruitless preaching: ‘The great hindrance is the preacher himself. There may be no discount on their orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or earnestness; but somehow the man, the inner man, in the secret places has never broken down and surrendered to God, his inner life