Uninvited

³⁷Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."
     - Acts 2:37-39

³⁶And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?" ³⁸And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
     - Acts 8:36-38

²⁷When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸But Paul cried with a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." ²⁹And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. ³⁰Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" ³¹And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."
     - Acts 16:27-31

When you read through the book of Acts, one of the things you will notice is that the apostles never employed the use of altar calls. They never, as far as I can tell, issued an "invitation" or asked their hearers if they were ready to "make a decision." Some heard their message and wanted to kill them, and no amount of coaxing or inviting would have had any impact on them. Others were "cut to the heart" and would not rest until they had received a satisfactory response to the burning question in their hearts… What must we do to be saved?

We do a great disservice to the gospel of Jesus Christ when we reduce it to an illustration or a formulaic process wherein we present a certain set of propositional truths and then solicit a response from our unconverted target. The gospel isn't a how-to for salvation. It is nothing less than a proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died to take away the sin of the world. People will certainly respond to this message, but not because we've asked them to. If your "gospel presentation" requires you to ask for a response, you're probably presenting something other than the gospel.