Why Tone Matters in Delivering the Gospel

I am forever fascinated by well-balanced harmony. God has put unseen and rarely spoken-about laws in place so that music will be music to our ears. But when we violate these laws, the so-called music becomes an irritation. When someone can’t sing in tune, people consider them to be “tone deaf.” 

The Bible speaks of “skilled” musicians (see 1 Chronicles 25:7), and those who aren’t skilled should sing on a hill far away. They shouldn’t be singing publicly. I consider myself to be in that category. I find it difficult to hold a tune, and if someone next to me breaks into harmony, I can’t help but follow them—like a lost and confused sheep. It embarrasses me to admit it, but I can hardly clap in time. 

The fact that I can’t sing doesn’t matter. I simply tone down publicly. The only one who ever hears me sing is my wife. I’m not embarrassed for her to hear me because I know she loves me, and love covers a multitude of sins and shortcomings. 

However, when it comes to proclaiming the gospel, we must never tone it down—not even if the whole world is offended. If our talk of sin irritates them, we must continue to lift our voices like trumpets and show this people their transgressions (see Isaiah 58:1). 

If, however, we can achieve the right tone, there is a way to speak about the difficult issues without undue offense. And that’s what we want. While it may be easy to talk about the love of God with a loving tone, it’s not so easy to speak about sin and its frightening consequences. I’m talking about talking about Hell. And that’s our dilemma as pastors. 

The world is asleep in their sins. People are not conscious of their moral condition. But they’re not merely asleep. They’re asleep, and their house is on fire! Our responsibility (with the help of God) is to awaken them and hopefully alarm them. We want them to be concerned to the point where they will run out of the house. So, what tone should we use to make this happen? It should be one of love mingled with fear:

“And the Lord’s servant^[a must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

We will never awaken them from their sleep if our tone isn’t shaped by love and directed by a sense of urgency.  Watch how an Angel of the Lord awakened sleeping Peter: 

“And when Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers; and the guards before the door were keeping the prison.  Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, ‘Arise quickly!’” (Acts 12:7-8).

Notice that it wasn’t the light that awakened him. He wasn’t even aware of it until the Angel struck him.  Like sleeping Peter, the world doesn’t see the light of the gospel. They’re not even aware of its glorious truth.  The gospel doesn’t awaken them because that’s not its function. The good news doesn’t “alarm.” Rather, the sleeping world needs to be struck by the Law because its function is to awaken. Paul said, “I had not known sin but by the law” (Romans 7:7). He wasn’t conscious of his state before God (and his consequential danger) until the Law did its work and awakened him. 

The key to having the right tone as we speak to dying sinners about these life-and-death issues is to manifest the love of Jesus—“For the love of Christ controls and compels us…” (2 Corinthians 5:14, Amplified Bible). It’s not something we conjure up. The mouth merely speaks the abundance of a loving heart. 

©2024 Ray Comfort. Used with permission.