Understanding How to Reach Addicts With the Gospel

Since the “liberation” of the 1960s, the United States has battled an epidemic of drug abuse. In recent years, we have been losing that war because of just one powerful drug that has radically changed the dynamic. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Back in 2022, 73,654 people died directly from a fentanyl overdose. Of course, like other opioids, fentanyl has an overwhelming addiction. Here is an important truth when it comes to reaching out to the drug addicted. Make sure they come through the straight gate.

Many years ago, I was the director of a drug prevention center (which was unfortunately located on High Street in our city). I would do lectures and counsel parents who were trying to cope with the pain of having an addicted child. In my lectures, I emphasized the importance of understanding the power of an addiction. I would say that we all have addictions. When we are in a dentist’s chair with foreign fingers in our mouths, we often get an impulse to swallow. If we don’t swallow, the urge becomes all-consuming. That’s what a drug addiction is like. Nothing else matters except satisfying the urge. And so, a drug addict will lie through his teeth and even steal from his grandmother to satisfy it. If addicts don’t pass through the straight gate—where they turn from sin rather than turning from their drug problem—in time you will begin to have problems in your church.

“When we understand the power of the gospel, we know that no one is beyond reach—no matter how addicted they are.”

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Many years ago, I swept a large spiderweb off the front of our house. The next morning, it was back. I couldn’t find the spider, so once again I swept it off. Of course, it was back the next morning. So, I took a small stick and tapped the web, making it vibrate as though a fly was struggling in its sticky grip. At the same time, I very skillfully made the sound of a distressed fly. It worked! Out came the spider from its hiding place, licking its ghastly lips, and I killed it with bug spray.

The spiderweb is the drug addiction. The web’s creator is sin. The problem is that sin is hiding in the human heart, and if it isn’t killed through the power of the gospel, your new “convert” will create havoc in your church.

This is why each of us must utilize the stick of the moral Law to reveal the concealed spider of sin. The apostle Paul said, “I would not have known sin except through the law” (Romans 7:7). He wasn’t even aware that sin existed until the Law revealed it, and it was the Law that showed him its ugly nature. Through the commandment, sin became “exceedingly sinful” (Romans 7:13). When sin is exposed, the power of the gospel can free us from its web once and for all. Your drug addict then becomes a new person in Christ. “Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). When we understand the power of the gospel, we know that no one is beyond reach—no matter how addicted they are. He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by the Savior. And He is able to keep them from falling and present them faultless before His glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24).

If we don’t utilize our weapons—which are “mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4)—then our churches will become hospitals full of sick patients rather than barracks full of fighting soldiers. That is the result of focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause—on the web rather than the spider.

Empathize with drug addicts, but make sure you open up the Law to bring the knowledge of sin and then preach the glorious gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation.