“Pride, we may be sure will keep us out of God’s presence, because it would not suffer angels themselves to stay in it” (Edward Pelling, 1692).
For some reason the modern day is caught up with evangelism but only in the sense of telling people the news about what Christ has done in the past. While that approach is fraught with many, many problems, perhaps the most ignored one is the nature of the soul being evangelized. If people were equally good and bad (more or less), then perhaps they would be able to simply make a choice for God (good). But people are not equally good and bad, but instead they are children of the devil and full of pride and self as the devil is.
Scripture tells us that sinners are born dead in sins and trespasses and by nature are children of wrath (Eph 2:1-3), yet people doing evangelism (as they call it) either ignore that or only give it lip-service. Even when Jesus (God in human flesh and Lord of lords) tells us something about what must happen for a person to be converted, that is also ignored. The words of the Lord Jesus Christ are ignored or perhaps twisted so that our evangelism can fit our own ways and methods of doing evangelism that have only been developed since the 1800’s.
Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
If we would take this passage as seriously as we take John 3:16, perhaps our evangelism would take on a more biblical pattern. People just love John 3:16 and yet tend to forget its context, not to mention take one or perhaps two words and use them to force a whole theology of evangelism from them. However, back to the words of Christ in Matthew 18. The point of verse 4 (the main point for evangelism and the point of this Musing) is on what must happen to the sinner in conversion, yet the context is very instructive for what Jesus meant. The disciples asked Him who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Again, take note of the question and the pride that was expressed in the question. But more importantly we can see the response of Christ.
He took a very small child (perhaps an infant) and set the child before the proud disciples. He told them in contrast to what they were thinking of greatness, it was the most humble (v. 5) who was the greatest in the esteem and sight of God. But even more, unless a person was converted (turned) and became like small children, that person would not even enter the kingdom of heaven. We might also note that “are converted” is passive and points to the need for men to be helpless before God and for Him to do the work. But the point that we are trying to press home at the moment is that a person must be converted from being proud to being humble as a small child to even enter the kingdom of heaven.
For true evangelism to happen, therefore, a person must at the very least be instructed about being humbled from a proud heart. If God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, then as long as a person remains proud in heart that person will not receive grace. As long as a person is proud, that person is opposed to God and can do nothing but seek self and the things of self. As long as a person is proud, that person will not seek the will of God but will instead seek the will of self. As long as a person is proud, that person will not truly want to be converted to God which requires coming to Him with a broken and humbled heart. As long as a person is proud, God will oppose that person rather than give that person what is truly good.
According to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, as long as a man remains proud that man will never enter the kingdom. That man can believe something and believe in some way, but the faith of a proud man is not the faith that comes from a new heart. It is nothing more and nothing less than the faith of pride and faith in pride which is the brat of hell. Jesus said that a man must believe, but He also said that a man must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. In our day we focus on the believe part and forget the born again part. Jesus also said that a man must be converted from being a proud man to being like a child in order to enter the kingdom. From the context this is set forth as humility. We ignore that one as well. But to put it bluntly, as long as we ignore the words of Jesus about the necessity of being turned from pride, we are ignoring the true Gospel and true repentance. Evangelism, apart from a stress on the necessity of being turned from pride, is nothing but a stress on the pride of man with an effort to get proud men to please God in their pride. It is a strong denial of the words of Christ and, therefore, a monstrous pride itself.
God Loves... Himself 
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