What’s Your “Morning Cry?”

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. – 2Co 5:11

There’s a marked distinction between the Old Testament and the New. And most definitely between Old Testament preaching and New Testament witnessing. 2Cor 3:6 says God has made us “able ministers of the New Testament.” Yet many still engage in what I call “Jonah Evangelism”. 

In Jonah 3 the LORD told Jonah to go and “preach” to the great city of Nineveh. Nevertheless, when Jonah entered the city, all he cried out was “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” We know from the book’s back-story that Jonah took this approach because he didn’t really want them to repent; he just proclaimed those words around the city in order to impose culpability on them when God’s judgment came.

Unfortunately, this “Jonah: style evangelism is still being practiced today. A good example of it is the classic “Morning Cry” we engage in. In my experience, nine out of every ten Morning Crier isn’t preaching the Gospel. All that they’re doing is just proclaiming judgement. With megaphone in hand and a well-worn cliché in their mouths, what they call evangelism is effectively a Jonah-style ‘culpability’ act.

Compare this style with the very first act of evangelism in the New Testament. In Acts chapter 2, just after the Holy Ghost came on the Disciples, Peter rose up and spoke to all the people who were gathered to see the strange sight.

It was not Jonah’s eight-word mantra that he spoke, but an exhaustive homily on the meaning of what the people had just seen. Peter’s sermon was 25 verses long; and that was not even all that he said because Act 2:40  says And with MANY OTHER WORDS he testified and STRONGLY URGED them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!” (HCSB-r)

It’s very commendable for a Christian to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to cry out the Gospel message. But shouting exclusively “GIVE YOUR LIFE TO JESUS; JESUS IS COMING SOON” is patently an Old Testament pattern of preaching and isn’t honestly giving sinners a fair chance.

If we really, really want those sinners saved, then we need to adjust our “Morning Cries”. We need to make sure whatever we’re saying is free of ‘church’ lingo and clear enough for the sinner to see his or her way out.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN