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The love of
God or the fear of God?
My question last week was more asking how you
think that putting up something like, "be thou not among wine bibbers" will ever
make a person with alcohol problems think that Jesus even wants to help them. I
never see things on your sign that say anything about the healing they can find in Christ.
I don't doubt that you want to call people to repentance, as do many churches in
this area. I do, however, think that your signs will keep people from ever wanting
to set foot in your doors. How can you reach them if they never talk to you?
Proverbs 14:12 says, There is a way which seemeth
right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. If what you say
is true, then what Noah did was wrong, because he did not preach the love of God first,
but Gods command for righteous living (repentance). II Peter 2:5 says, And
spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of
righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. He preached
repentance to those wicked sinners first not the love of God. Hebrews 11:6,7 says,
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, MOVED WITH FEAR,
prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and
became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Noah did not first preach the
love of God, but the fear of God. There can be no true faith and repentance, until there
is the FEAR OF GOD. Proverbs 1:7 says, The FEAR OF THE LORD is THE BEGINNING
of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
If what you say
is true, then what Jesus did was wrong, because He did not first say, I love all of
you people. Please come to me for healing. This is the first thing that Jesus did
when He began His public ministry: From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say,
REPENT: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17). He preached that people
needed to fear Him and turn from their sins to Him (repentance).
If what you say
is true, then John the Baptist also had it all wrong, because he did not come on the scene
preaching the love of God, but repentance and the fear of God. Matthew 3:1, 2 says,
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And
saying, REPENT ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And things only got hotter
in his message. Matthew 3:7-12 says, But when he saw many of the Pharisees and
Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned
you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And
think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto
you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the
ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good
fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to
bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in
his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner;
but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
The message of repentance does
not offend the wicked, so much, as it does the self-righteous people that are comfortable
in their lives, and do not want to admit that they need repenting (i.e., like the
Pharisees). Our church has seen this first hand. We were wondering if people even read our
sign out front, because of the lack of comment about it. In the last few months we began
to put messages geared toward repentance on it. And it has stirred up a flurry of
criticism all from people who claim to be religious. Not one lost sinner has
complained to us about being unloving, because lost sinners often have a higher standard
for how Christians are supposed to live, than Christians do for themselves. Quite to the
contrary of what you think, it often does not offend lost sinners when you tell them that
alcohol is evil. On more than one occasion going door-to-door with the gospel, lost people
have brought up to me that their liquor is standing between them and God. I did not have
to bring it up they already knew it. It is the religious crowd that tries to defend
their use of alcohol not the lost sinners. The lost sinners know that Christians
should not drink. We are living in a deeply compromised day when professing Christians are
following Robert Schulers (the positive only message) and Rick Warrens methods
(the taking of polls to give people what they want in music, dress, etc.), instead of what
God wants. We have chosen to follow what the Bible says, not what these men are teaching.
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