Despite the man’s external evangelistic methods which some would find disconcerting (or illegal, as in my personal cross-cultural context), Ray Comfort has one of the most fiery hearts for evangelism of just about any other Christian leader I have ever seen or read. The man is truly gifted with outreach, with conversation, and with evangelistic ardor, and I am certain that his mansion will one day be a considerably larger than my own.

I first learned of Comfort when I was a teenager and I listened to a cassette of one of his sermon’s on Hell (I believe it was titled “Hell Is No Joke”). With that sermon on cassette, he also gave 100 pressed pennies engraved with the words of the Ten Commandments. He had used these pennies as just one of many evangelistic tools either beforehand to get a conversation about Christ started or later to remind the undecided of the conversation they had about the Truth. I’m sad to say, I gave away a total of ZERO to strangers I met along life’s path.

In this book, Hell’s Best Kept Secret, Comfort focuses on the fact that Christians today tend to try evangelism without any mention of sin or the Law. In fact (spoiler alert), the Law itself is “Hell’s Best Kept Secret”!

Comfort writes that when we share the Good News of Christ and fail to mention the bad news of sin, the Law or Hell, we only gain in our converts individuals who are destined to eventually doubt their salvation and quite possibly leave the faith altogether once the struggles of life set in.

He also candidly attacks the “social gospels” of today, those attempts by believers to “love people into the kingdom.” Such weak efforts, he suggests, scrape against everything Christ ever taught and dilute the true nature of the Gospel. As my pastor is prone to teach, in sharing the Good News without the bad (or in not sharing the Good News at all), we only end up “loving people right into Hell.” It is at this realization of the truth that we believers need to ask ourselves, “What in the world are we doing!?”

Comfort’s book is replete with basic and clear illustrations of his points, though his book does tend to drag on in the negative. Not until Chapter 13 (aptly titled “Time to Talk about Jesus”) does he begin to discuss the Christ of the Gospel. While his reasoning is clear, some earlier mention of planned layout would have been welcomed.

My Bible Study Group and I used this book for one segment of the year, and I am glad we did. It definitely refocused our eyes on the need for evangelism, and it surely focused us more on the need for proper evangelism. I would suggest this book for either personal or group study.

© 2011 E.T.

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Read More from Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron:

• Hell’s Best Kept Secret (1989)
• How to Battle Depression and Suicidal Thoughts (2017)
• Saving Christmas (2014) Movie starring Kirk Cameron