Evangelism
Posted by: forthrightmag <forthrightmag@...>
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Straight to the Cross
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COLUMN: REALITY CHECK
Evangelism
by Stan Mitchell
tinyurl.com/7yb76s8
I have always been fascinated with David's state of
mind when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and
tried to hide his actions by murdering her husband,
Uriah the Hittite. It's not as if David, brought up in
Jesse's godly household, the man "after God's own
heart" (1 Samuel 13:14), was unaware that adultery and
murder were wrong.
Yet right up to the day of Nathan the prophet's
message, and that memorable ending to the sermon: "Thou
art the man!" (2 Samuel 12:7), David seems to have
maintained the fiction that he had been living
uprightly.
How cold he do that? What mental trick had he been
playing on himself to hide the obvious, that he had
done things that were profoundly wrong in God's sight?
There was some pretty stunning self-deception going on
here! If only this self-deception were all that
unusual.
Yet when he writes Psalm 51, his attitude seems to have
turned around completely. The man once in denial now
expresses remorse in a confession as beautiful as it is
unusual in human history. It's hard, after all, for
humans to admit fault.
The broken and contrite David, in the midst of his
profoundly heartfelt outpouring of grief over his sin
says something extraordinary:
"Then [that is, after God forgives him], I will teach
transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to
you" (Psalm 51:13).
Which raises a great question: Is it a really good idea
to have a sinner like David be an evangelist, the one
to proclaim God's message to others?
And this question leads naturally to another: What
other kind of evangelist is there?
The only gospel proclaimers I know of are ones who have
made mistakes. This is, by the way, not a bad thing. An
evangelist who knows he too has made mistakes will be
patient and compassionate, not judgmental and harsh to
those he seeks to save.
"Evangelism," D.T. Niles once said, "is just one beggar
telling another beggar where to get food."
David was not a perfect evangelist. No one is. But he
would from now on be humble and contrite in his
proclamation, as he was in his living. Men who have
sinned, preach to men who have sinned. You don't have
to be perfect to preach a perfect savior; you have a
perfect savior so you can preach!
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