To accept the principles which Martin Luther vindicates in The Bondage of the Will would certainly involve a mental and spiritual revolution for many Christians at the present time. It would involve a radically different approach to preaching and the practice of evangelism, and to most other departments of theology and pastoral work as well. God centered thinking is out of fashion to-day, and it recovery will involve something of a Copernican revolution in our outlook on many matters. But ought we to shrink from this? Do we not stand in urgent need of such teaching as Luther here gives us—teaching which humbles man, strengthens faith, and glorifies God—and is not the contemporary Church weak for the lack of it? The issue is clear. We are compelled to ask ourselves: If the Almighty God of the Bible is to be our God, if the New Testament gospel is to be our message, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever—is any other position than Luther’s possible? Are we not in all honesty bound to stand with him in ascribing all might, and majesty, and dominion, and power, and all the glory of our salvation to God alone? Surely no more important or far-reaching question confronts the Church to-day (Johnson and Packer’s introduction to Luther’s Bondage of the Will).
The teaching in Luther’s Bondage of the Will demands an evangelism that is totally different because the Gospel it teaches is different. If human souls are indeed in bondage to the devil and to sin, then the evangelism that treats sinners in such a bondage will be different than those that don’t. Those who profess to be Reformed and yet their evangelism is no different than semi-Pelagians need to wake up and see that if their evangelism is the same then down deep their theology is the same as well. If a professing Reformed person evangelizes the same as the semi-Pelagian then the Gospel is going to be the same as well. That means that the professing Reformed person is a practical semi-Pelagian if not just a Pelagian in Reformed dress after all.
How can we believe that grace is sovereign from beginning to end and not tell people that in evangelism? After all, the Gospel is by grace alone and any work makes grace to be no longer grace (Romans 11:6). The justification by faith alone that is not built and based on sovereign grace is not the justification by faith alone taught by the Reformers and the Puritans who came after. It is so hard for the sinner to be broken from his pride and free-will in order to be able to rest in grace alone. Interestingly enough Luther said that until a person was broken from their free-will then s/he was not ready to be saved. Yet professing Reformed people today will not teach people about sin and sovereign grace in order to teach them the truth about justification by faith alone. In their evangelism, then, despite their creeds, in effect they are denying the truth of the Gospel of grace alone.
The helplessness of man—the omnipotence of God, were the two truths that Luther desired to re-establish. That is but a sad religion and a wretched philosophy by which man is directed to his own natural strength. Ages have tried in vain this so much boasted strength; and while man has, by his own natural powers, arrived at great excellence in all that concerns his earthly existence, he has never been able to scatter the darkness that conceals from his soul the knowledge of the true God, or to change a single inclination of his heart (D’aubigne, The Life and Times of Martin Luther).
In order to proclaim a true Gospel of grace alone the helplessness of man and the sovereignty of grace (omnipotence of grace included) must be proclaimed to sinners. When evangelism is done in such a way that teaches people (whether in actual words or implied) that God has done all He can do and now it is up to them, that is not the Gospel of grace alone. It is also not teaching truth about who the true God really is. When we do not tell men the true state of their own souls and how they are helpless before God, we leave them in the bonds of a sad religion and a wretched philosophy because we have left them with their own natural power to do what needs to be done. Yet the natural power of man cannot arrive at one single spiritual thought and cannot have a single desire or action of the soul that is spiritual. It is true; however, that when we don’t teach the utter helplessness of man in his sin and of the sovereignty and power of grace we will be relieved of many trials from unbelievers and professing believers alike. The natural soul hates the teaching that it is helpless before God and in bondage to sin and the devil. It hates the teaching that God has no obligation to save it and it will not impugn His glory one bit to pass that soul by and leave it to its bondage in sin for eternity. Yet it is not until it arrives at these truths that it will understand grace alone. So when people flee from these teachings they are fleeing from the truth of the Gospel of grace alone as well as what is truly good for the souls of others which is what true love really does.
God Loves... Himself 
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