What's Up with the Invitation System? Part 1

Having grown up in the fundamental/evangelical camp, a goodly number of the sermons I heard concluded with an invitation. In fact, many looked askance upon any service for NOT having one! I no longer practice the system. Now, it cannot be disputed that inviting people to turn to Christ is biblical and important! The contention is rather with the system of doing so. (See Iain Murray's wonderful pamphlet-The Invitation System) It is not Murray's but Lloyd-Jones' presentation with which I am concerned today. In his wonderful book, Preaching and Preachers, Lloyd-Jones includes a chapter entitled: "Calling for Decisions." After presenting the history of the invitation system's origin (which is really rather recent), he provides ten reasons why he himself did not practice it, and in no particular order. I include only a few, but use his numbers:

1. It is wrong to put direct pressure on the will. "The will should always be approached primarily through the mind, the intellect, and then through the affections." After citing Romans 6:17, he adds, "As the mind grasps it [viz., the truth], and understands it, the affections are kindled and moved, and so in turn the will is persuaded and obedience is the outcome. In other words the obedience is not the result of direct pressure on the will, it is the result of an enlightened mind and a softened heart. To me this is a crucial point."

3. There should be no separation between the preaching of the Word and the call for decision. He cites an occasion when at a meeting, the invitation to come forward was given, but to Lloyd-Jones, the gospel "had not been really preached." Still, many flocked to the front, to which one man remarked that their coming was not related to the preaching. Lloyd-Jones writes, "My contention is that there should be no such disjunction between the 'appeal' and the preaching . . ."

4. The invitation system implies "that sinners have an inherent power of decision and of self-conversion. But that cannot be reconciled with scriptural teaching such as 1 Corinthians 2:14, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

5. Another implication is that "the evangelist somehow is in a position to manipulate the Holy Spirit and His work. The evangelist has but to appear and to make his appeal and the results follow inevitably."  

6. This method tends to produce a superficial conviction of sin, if any at all. "People often respond because they have the impression that by doing so they will receive certain benefits." Lloyd-Jones goes on to explain, "I remember hearing of a man who was regarded as on e of the 'star converts' of a campaign. He was interviewed and asked why he had gone forward in the campaign the previous year. His answer was that the evangelist had said, 'If you do not want to "miss the boat" you had better come forward.' He said that he did not want to 'miss the boat' so he had gone forward; and all the interviewer could get out of him was that he somehow felt that he was now 'on the boat'. He was not clear about what this meant, nor what it was, and nothing had seemed to happen to him during the subsequent year. But there it was: it can be as superficial as that."

(Part 2 Tomorrow)