Evangelism & Sin

'Man is more lost than he understands and the older evangelicalism believed that the first objective in gospel preaching was to bring men to despair of themselves. To tell men the worst about themselves is not to hinder conversion. On the contrary, the real impediment to conversion is the absence of conviction of sin. The preacher's first duty is to address that fact by awakening the conscience to the meaning of sin, and to sin understood not simply as wrong action requiring forgiveness, but as an evil principle governing man's very heart.'

(Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 370)