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Should We Reach Out to the Wicked?

In my reading this morning, I ran across an interesting verse in Psalms 7:11-  11 God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day.  As I am prone to do, I immediately had concern that the verse was talking about me (there is more to say on my narcissistic approach to the Bible but I will save that for another post).  But, after a little more research I realized that this is a Psalm where the person walking after God was contrasting the Lord’s relationship with the righteous verses His relationship with the wicked and in this case the indignation (anger) of the Lord is directed toward the wicked.

Matthew Henry comments on the passage in this way : That they are children of wrath. They are not to be envied, for God is angry with them, is angry with the wicked every day. They are every day doing that which is provoking to him, and he resents it, and treasures it up against the day of wrath.  As his mercies are new every morning towards his people, so his anger is new every morning against the wicked, upon the fresh occasions given for it by their renewed transgressions. God is angry with the wicked even in the merriest and most prosperous of their days, even in the days of their devotion; for, if they be suffered to prosper, it is in wrath; if they pray, their very prayers are an abomination. The wrath of God abides upon them (Jn. 3:36) and continual additions are made to it. -Matthew Henry’s commentary

 That got me to thinking about what a terrible plight the ungodly have and wondering, if God is displeased with them everyday should I be reaching out to them everyday?  Isn’t that the goal of evangelism to reach out to the wicked so that they might repent and not have to live under the constant displeasure of the Lord?

One comment on “Should We Reach Out to the Wicked?

  1. REB says:

    And yet, God is long-suffering, not wishing that any should perish. The book that has helped me the most on this is J.I. Packer’s “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God”. He would say that our two primary motivations in evangelism are to (1) Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, which is demonstrated in our obedience to His commands (including the proclamation of the Gospel) and (2) to love our neighbor as ourselves. Obedience to God and love for others prevents us from judging whether someone is worthy or not worthy of our evangelistic efforts. Though God is sovereign, His sovereignty should never prevent us from freely extending the offer of salvation to all.

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