Lon’s Blog

Last week one thing we talked about in our service was the tendency of modern preaching and witnessing to skip the issue of judgment, sin, and hell.  We noted that it was the hallmark of the prophets, the Apostles, of John the Baptist, and of Jesus.  I came across a quote in an email this week that I wanted to share with you all.  It reminds me that this is not so much an issue with “modern preaching,” because it was written over 100 years ago by Charles Spurgeon, who is considered the greatest preacher of our modern times.  He once wrote:

“It is absolutely necessary to the preaching of the gospel of Christ that men be warned as to what will happen if they continue in their sins…You are too delicate to tell the man that he is ill!  You hope to heal the sick without their knowing it.  You therefore flatter them;
and what happens?  They laugh at you; they dance upon their own graves.  At last they die!  Your delicacy is cruelty; your flatteries
are poisons; you are a murderer.  Shall we keep men in a fool’s paradise? Shall we lull them into soft slumbers from which they will awake in Hell?” - C.H. Spurgeon, bold mine

When the “gospel” is presented without a clear presentation of the law, sin, judgment, and hell, the requisite repentance necessary for true conversion is rarely present.  The result then, can be “false converts” who think they are saved, but are not. Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but [only]the one who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  I don’t want to be any part of someone facing Jesus and hearing these words!

Sorry this is heavy, but I am reminded this week that as a follower of Christ, it is not mine to pick and choose which parts of the Gospel that I like or think I should talk about. As a Jesus-disciple, I do what my Master did, and must model what I say on what He said.  That being the case, mentioning sin, judgment, and their solution: repentance and faith in Christ, are my only option.  It’s an issue of obedience to Christ, and also an issue of ethics.  If the dam of judgment is about to burst, I must warn the people in the valley below it!  And, as I said Sunday, we must all do this truth-telling in love, never in a judgmental way, because all of us are saved only by His grace!

In Him,

Lon