proclaim the gospel

I'm often asked why, as a Calvinist, would I proclaim (and demonstrate) the Gospel. Here are three great reasons from Mark Dever.

1. A Desire to Be Obedient to God's Commands

Jesus commanded his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. That is exactly what the early disciples did. Paul spoke of a compulsion to share the gospel. To evangelize is to obey.

In Acts 8:4, we see that those who had been scattered preached the gospel wherever they went. One of the clearest examples of evangelism being commanded is in 1 Peter 3, where Peter commands believers to "always be…prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."

Our silence is not a matter of neutrality. You need to tell yourself that. Our silence is a matter of guilt and sin. Obedience is definitely a biblical reason to evangelize.

2. A Love for the Lost

Preachers, we have got to stop avoiding the topic of lostness—hell. Jesus spoke of God's wrath remaining on those who don't believe on him. God will cause terror in us if we appear before him apart from Christ.

Apart from God's grace, the sinner will never stop sinning. God's judgment will never end. Their rejection of God never ends. God will inflict extreme and unnatural pain on them forever.

As preachers of the gospel, we have no business making God seem more humane to sinners who are in rebellion against him. Think about if hell were unleashed on you forever and tell unbelievers how horrible it is.

Christians are motivated by a love to others. Hudson Taylor said he would have never thought of going to China if he didn't know that they were lost. It's people who are this lost, who have this fate awaiting them, that we are aiming to convert.

We can confidently tell people the basic message of the gospel and trust that God's Spirit will faithfully pick up our message and use it to save people.

3. A Love for God.

We want to see God glorified. We want to see the truth about him told in creation. The desire to see God glorified was the motivation for all Jesus' actions.

Everything exists for God's glory (Romans 11:36). Our salvation is "to the praise of his glorious grace" (Ephesians 1:6). God does everything he does for his own glory, and we should do all we do for the glory of God.

To tell the truth about some people is not to honor them, but to tell the truth about God is to honor him. God is glorified in the gospel.

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