Non-evangelistic Sermons But ...

... leading to conversions . Do any of you preachers or non-preachers ( that would include everyone ) know of sermons that were not geared toward an evangelistic thrust -- yet the Lord used the message to turn one to Himself ?

I know many here think that all sermons must be overtly evangelistic , however a number of messages should be delivered with the intent of nurturing believers primarily . Yet even in those sermons the Lord can use it for His saving purpose .

In Iain Murray's Life of Arthur W. Pink , he quotes AW recounting such an experience back in 1925 during a tent meeting . A man asked Pink if he could give a testimony and Pink said he didn't believe in testimonies . But the man persisted by saying that he was saved by God . AW said that was different -- go ahead . The man went through a story I will not tell here , but Pink asked him what night he was saved .

" Will you just mention again , brother , the night ?' He said, ' It was two weeks ago last Thursday .' And I thought to myself , well , the man has got that wrong . I said , ' Are you sure ? ' He said, ' Yes , of course I am !' And after the meeting was over ( it only showed my scepticism and how man wants to limit God ) I said to him, ' Why , that particular night was a thanksgiving service and I preached for a whole hour on praising God and there wasn't a word about hell in it , there wasn't anything about sin in it , there wasn't anything about the cross in it . What was there in that sermon to save you ? ' You see I was silly enough to think that God could not save a man who had never heard the gospel , except by a gospel sermon , and I was preaching from Hebrews 13:15 , ' By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually , that is ,the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name', and all through I was exhorting Christians to be praising God . ' Why,' he said , ' Dr.Pink, I will tell you . As I listened to that sermon , the Spirit of God just struck conviction into my heart by reminding me that I had never praised God and what a terrible sinner I must be ! ' Ah , there is the sovereignty of God ! God is sovereign in the very texts that he uses .

 

From Spurgeon's Autobio The Full Harvest : Volume 2 , chapter 14 .

My experience goes to show that there have been persons converted to God by doctrines that some might have thought altogether unlikely to produce that result . I have known the doctrine of the resurrection to bring sinners to Christ ; I have heard of scores brought to the Saviour by a discourse upon election -- the very sort of people who , as far as I can see , would never have been reached if that truth had not happened to be an angular doctrine that just struck their heart in the right place , and fitted into the crevices of their nature . I have often preached a terrible sermon upon the law , and afterwards found that sinners had been comforted by it . God frequently blesses the Word in the very opposite manner to that in which I thought it would be blessed , and He brings very , very many , to know their state by nature by doctrines which I should have thought would have comforted believers than awakened the unconverted . I am constantly driven back to the great foundation truth of Divine Sovereignty , and am made to realize that , in grace as well as in providence ,

God moves in a mysterious way ,
His wonders to perform (Cowper)