Gone Are the Dark Clouds

My dad left his girlfriend’s apartment, confused by the sudden breakup. She had a newfound faith. He thought Christians were deluded. Their Bible reading baffled him. A world-wide flood and Noah’s Ark? he scoffed. Yet when alone on a Halloween night in 1973, he ventured into the light of a church service and took a seat.

The following morning, my dad heard the Johnny Nash song, “I Can See Clearly Now.” He hummed along to the line, “Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind,” and credited God for lifting the cloud of unbelief—for setting his gaze on Christ.

Had the preacher spoken without highlighting the actual message of the gospel, my dad would not have this story to tell, as he often does.

I thought of his experience as I read through J.I. Packer’s Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Packer writes, “There is no evangelism when this specific message is not declared” (45). To explain the “specific message”—the gospel in its entirety—courage must overcome timidity (Rom. 1:16; 2 Tim. 1:7).

In what sense? “The world is full of people who are unaware they stand under the wrath of God,” Packer writes (97). God, our Creator, is fully good, as is his creation, but our condition was altered after the fall. We are born rebels—condemned and separated from God. Yet in hopeless depravity we are met with good news (John 3:17). Good news for everyone—news too good not to share.

Jesus told his disciples to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to prepare people for the good news (Luke 24:47). Perhaps it seemed too large a task as they pondered the risen Jesus and the hostile people who recently crucified him. Could they do what Jesus asked? They did. The book of Acts shows the Christian faith flourishing as disciples related the message Jesus commissioned.

The word “evangelism” in its Greek form derives from the term “to publish the good news.” Thus evangelism must entail the full story—creation, fall, redemption through Jesus’s life, death, resurrection—and the beautiful grace that allows us to respond to God who loves his creation.

If communicating the gospel appears daunting, remember that Christ commissions and accompanies us. Through Jesus’s work on the cross we are reconciled to God, not abandoned. We can talk about this with genuine care and love for people.

Soon after my dad’s conversion, he convinced his girlfriend that he’d been “saved.” They married, and I was born five years later. I grew up in the 1980s and 90s knowing that God drew people to be saved and that my parents participated in evangelism by inviting people they cared about to come to church.

I remember once helping corral my little brothers as my mom loaded groceries in the car. Parked beside us was an elderly man named Joe whose car failed to start. My mom gathered up his cold food items and helped him get home. Joe became a friend who later came to church with us and next invited along his brother, Fred. Over the years, my parents invited many of their friends to come to church—a place where the specific message about Jesus and the gospel in its entirety was preached.

I saw this occur often but realize it’s just one of the ways God draws people to be saved. In some instances, friends may be more willing to hear the gospel in ordinary conversation than stepping inside a church building.

Recently, some friends with curiosity about the Bible agreed to read a portion of the New Testament with me. A small group of us devoted seven weeks to reading John and discussing—via text thread—three chapters at a time. As we did, the truth of the gospel blazed on pages and screens.

One of these women had recently stopped attending church because she disagreed with doctrine, but I sensed she instead misunderstood Jesus. We began by reading that Jesus made the world and “yet the world did not know him” (John 1: 9–10). A few chapters in, this friend dropped off the text thread, saying she didn’t have time to read.

Another friend continued through John, then wanted to read Mark, and later both epistles of Peter.

“Gone are the dark clouds,” says the Johnny Nash song. For those who’ve repented and been forgiven of sins through Jesus’s death on the cross, we “can see clearly now”—not because we are clever or wise—because God loves his creation and offers Jesus as the only good news. So, we share in earnest.

And sometimes that means sharing our stories. When I was in college, I thought my testimony was boring. I never shared it. I could accurately explain Jesus, the atonement, and the doctrine of saved-by-grace-through-faith, but when the concreteness of my rebellion against God pressed upon me, I questioned everything. Does he save? And who is Jesus?

Jesus drew me to know him. I became certain of God’s love and Jesus’s saving grace as I searched the Scriptures. It was a few years of me doubting yet reaching for my Bible and encountering the good news. For it’s not that we loved God, but that he loved us first. This good news was further solidified as I reread stories of Saul-turned-Paul and self-absorbed Peter—both evangelists for Jesus.

When Jesus healed a demon-possessed man in Mark 5:19, he said, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” Mercy. Previously separated from God, now restored by Jesus. Evangelism declares this through the testimony we tell, the Scripture we read with friends, the church invitations we offer.

I want friends to know that Jesus is for them but maybe not in the way they supposed, for the message of the gospel proves Jesus is more than a good teacher or an example to copy. Instead, the gospel allows us to know the God of the universe because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection—but it takes courage to explain. Specifically, courage to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. The gospel must include the larger story of why we rebels need good news granted solely through Christ Jesus. Are we willing to “publish the good news” by sharing it fully?