Genesis provides us with our first view of Satan. He is described as the one who deceives. Throughout the OT and into the NT, Satan’s primary character trait of deception manifests itself. He is not morally good, but he is functionally excellent at deceiving people. His deceptive plans for the church over the last thirty years have nearly reached his goal.
All of us could note ways in which Satan deceives believers. I believe one of the most devastating deceptions of Satan continues to cripple churches today from fulfilling basic obedience to Christ. One such deception is the thought that evangelism can be accomplished merely through an invitation to church. I am not sure a date can be pinpointed but somewhere around the early 1970’s sermons began to spring up, emphasizing our responsibility to bring a friend to church. As only Southern Baptists can do, we turned that increasingly popular idea into a marketing strategy with Bring a Friend Day and Be a Friend by Bringing a Friend campaigns.
As we continued to emphasize to our people their responsibility to get their friends to the assembly, we also assured them that the preacher would present the gospel. “You get’em here and I’ll get’em saved” served as the mantra of many Baptist preachers. By the scores, Baptists brought friends, saw them walk the aisles at the invitation, applauded at their baptism and rejoiced as they joined a Sunday School class. God did use our feeble efforts and our misguided encouragement to practice evangelism that really was not evangelism at all. Even as we strayed from our faithfulness to the Great Commission, God was faithful to save souls.
However, the slithering infiltration of Satan is now revealing itself after three decades of emphasis on bringing a friend. What has Satan accomplished? He has deceived the church in several ways. One deception is by causing believers to gain a sense of evangelistic obedience just by inviting a friend. Two, he has deceived the church by placing the responsibility solely on the pastor to “get the gospel” into the hearts of our friends. Three, he has deceived the church into believing that we are fulfilling the Great Commission by inviting friends to church, VBS, concerts, and class functions. Satan’s mission of getting the gospel out of as many mouths and ears as possible has nearly silenced several generations.
By deceiving at least two generations of Baptists to believe their responsibility in the Great Commission was to invite a friend to an event, Satan has eradicated nearly all the as you go, lifestyle soul winners from fields white unto harvest. He really does not need to be concerned anymore with the believer as long as that believer only invites a friend to church. Now, all of Satan’s attention can be focused on the one man in the pulpit who has promised to get the gospel to friends if we just bring them to church. If he can cause that one man to stumble, the gospel will go silent in the city, dormant in suburbs, and concealed in the farmlands. It was an incredible strategy this deceiver planned. He narrowed down his enemy to one man, in one place, for one hour each week.
Now we have the mission to put the Great Commission back in its God assigned place, namely the hearts and mouths of every believer. Jacksonville will not come to Christ through invitations to church, but rather through each believer confronting each unbeliever with their sin and the grace of God in Christ Jesus. We must re-write the standard of evangelistic success by erasing the ideology that an invitation to church is a baby step to the gospel and embracing the theology that every believer must be a voice for the gospel. Satan can deceive, but he cannot contain a Spirit empowered believer who consumes his day with the mission of making disciples of all the nations.
