Ray Comfort’s article entitled Hell’s Best Kept Secret is pertinent to the recent discussion on this site as to what it really means to love and accept someone as Jesus did.

God is not some wishy-washy, doting grandfather that winks at sin. Yes, He is infinite love. But’s He’s also a God of perfect justice and terrifying wrath. We misunderstand what happened on the cross if we see it only as a magnificent, unmatched demonstration of the love of God. The cross is also a frightening exhibition of God’s holy wrath and judgement.

Jesus loves all sinners. But Jesus also calls all sinners to repentance. And Jesus warns us of the consequences of rejecting Him. Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Theology presents Jesus as speaking of hell more than any other biblical figure. That’s an interesting fact that we often seem to gloss over.

Those of you that know me know that I’m not a fire-and-brimstone-breathing Christian. I don’t beat people over the head with the impending judgement of God. I have many unbelieving friends. Some I have cultivated relationships with for years. I reach out to them with the love and grace of Christ. And ultimately that means - sooner or later - calling them to repentant faith. To do less is to make a mockery of what Christ did on the cross.

But this almost never happens in 5 minutes with the 4 Spiritual Laws. It takes time and is most often born out of a meaningful relationship. “Because if I wanted to awaken you from a deep sleep, I wouldn’t use a flashlight in your eyes. That will offend you. I’d turn on the light dimmer very gently.” That’s what is means to be missional.

Read the article. Rethink Life. Rethink Church.

Bob
Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Extract:

” …. the tragedy of modern evangelism is because around the turn of the century when it forsook the law in its capacity to convert the soul, to drive sinners to Christ, modern evangelism had to, therefore, find another reason for sinners to respond to the gospel. And the issue that modern evangelism chose to attract sinners was the issue of “life enhancement”. The gospel degenerated into “Jesus Christ will give you peace, joy, love, fulfillment, and lasting happiness.” Now to illustrate the unscriptural nature of this very popular teaching, I’d like you to listen very carefully to this following anecdote, because the essence of what I’m saying pivots on this particular illustration; so please listen carefully.

Two men are seated in a plane. The first is given a parachute and told to put is on as it would improve his flight. He’s a little skeptical at first because he can’t see how wearing a parachute in a plane could possibly improve the flight. After a time he decides to experiment and see if the claim is true. As he puts it on he notices the weight of it upon his shoulders and he finds that he has difficulty in sitting upright. However, he consoles himself with the fact that he was told the parachute would improve the flight. So, he decides to give the thing a little time. As he waits he notices that some of the other passengers are laughing at him, because he’s wearing a parachute in a plane. He begins to feel somewhat humiliated. As they begin to point and laugh at him and he can stand it no longer, he slinks in his seat, unstraps the parachute, and throws it to the floor. Disillusionment and bitterness fill his heart, because, as far as he was concerned, he was told an outright lie.

The second man is given a parachute, but listen to what he’s told. He’s told to put it on because at any moment he’d be jumping 25,000 feet out of the plane. He gratefully puts the parachute on; he doesn’t notice the weight of it upon his shoulders, nor that he can’t sit upright. His mind is consumed with the thought of what would happen to him if he jumped without that parachute.

Let’s analyze the motive and the result of each passenger’s experience. The first man’s motive for putting the parachute on was solely to improve his flight. The result of his experience was that he was humiliated by the passengers; he was disillusioned and somewhat embittered against those who gave him the parachute. As far as he’s concerned it’ll be a long time before anyone gets one of those things on his back again. The second man put the parachute on solely to escape the jump to come, and because of his knowledge of what would happen to him without it, he has a deep-rooted joy and peace in his heart knowing that he’s saved from sure death. This knowledge gives him the ability to withstand the mockery of the other passengers. His attitude towards those who gave him the parachute is one of heart-felt gratitude.

Now listen to what the modern gospel says. It says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He’ll give you love, joy, peace, fulfillment, and lasting happiness.” In other words, “Jesus will improve your flight.” So the sinner responds, and in an experimental fashion, puts on the Savior to see if the claims are true. And what does he get? The promised temptation, tribulation, and persecution. The other passengers mock him. So what does he do? He takes off the Lord Jesus Christ, he’s offended for the word’s sake (Mark 4:17), he’s disillusioned and somewhat embittered, and quite rightly so. He was promised peace, joy, love, fulfillment, and lasting happiness, and all he got were trials and humiliation. His bitterness is directed toward those who gave him the so-called “good news”. His latter end becomes worse than the first: another inoculated and bitter backslider.

…. instead of preaching that Jesus improves the flight, we should be warning the passengers they’re going have to jump out of the plane.

… with that thought in mind, let’s take a close look at an incident on board the plane. We have a brand new stewardess. She’s carrying a tray of boiling hot coffee. It’s her first day; she wants to leave an impression on the passengers, and she certainly does. Because as she’s walking down the aisle, she trips over someone’s foot and slops that boiling hot coffee all over the lap of our second passenger. Now what’s his reaction as that boiling liquid hits his tender flesh? Does he go, “Ssssfffff! Man that hurt”? Mmm-hhh. He feels the pain. But then does he rip the parachute from his shoulders, throw it to the floor and say, “The stupid parachute!”? No. Why should he? He didn’t put the parachute on for a better flight. He put it on to save him from the jump to come. If anything, the hot coffee incident causes him to cling tighter to the parachute and even look forward to the jump.

Now if you and I have put on the Lord Jesus Christ for the right motive, to flee from the wrath that’s to come, when tribulation strikes, when the flight gets bumpy, we won’t get angry at God; we won’t lose our joy and peace. Why should we? We didn’t come to Jesus for a happy lifestyle: we came to flee from the wrath that’s to come. And if anything, tribulation drives the true believer closer to the Savior. And sadly we have literally multitudes of professing Christians who lose their joy and peace when the flight gets bumpy. Why? They’re the product of a man-centered gospel. They came lacking repentance, without which you can’t be saved.

… you try and save a man from drowning when the man doesn’t believe he’s drowning, he’ll not be too happy with you. You see him swimming out in the lake; you think, “I think he’s drowning. Yes, I believe he is.” You dive in, pull him to the shore, without telling him anything. He’s not going to be very happy with you. He won’t want to get saved until he sees that he’s in danger. They’ll not escape danger until they see it.

… sadly, what’s happened in the U.S. and the Western world as follow is that we have preached the cure without first convincing of the disease. We have preached a gospel of grace without first convincing men of the law, that they’re transgressors; and, consequently, almost everyone I try and witness to in southern California or around the Bible belt has been born-again six or seven times. You say, “You need to give your life to Jesus Christ.” “Uh, I did that when I was seven, eleven, seventeen, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-eight, thirty-two…” You know the guy’s not a Christian.

Think of the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1–11). Violation of the seventh commandment. The law called for her blood (Lev. 20:10). She found herself in between a rock and a hard place. She had no avenue but to fling herself at the feet of the Son of God for mercy; and that is the function of God’s law.

Your table needs dusting in your living room. So you dust it clean; all the dust is gone. Then you draw back the curtains and let in the early morning sunlight. What do you see on the table? Dust. What do you see in the air? Dust. Did the light create the dust? No, the light merely exposed the dust. And when you and I take the time to draw back the curtains of the holy of holies and let the light of God’s law shine upon the sinner’s heart, all that happens, is that he sees himself in truth.

Neither would I go up to someone and say, “I’d like to talk to you about Jesus Christ.” Why? Because if I wanted to awaken you from a deep sleep, I wouldn’t use a flashlight in your eyes. That will offend you. I’d turn on the light dimmer very gently. First, the natural, then the spiritual. Why? Because “the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God; neither can he know them. They are foolishness to him because they are spiritually understood” (1Cor. 2:14).

Charles Spurgeon said, “They will never accept grace until they tremble before a just and holy law.” D.L. Moody, John Bunyan, John Newton, who wrote “Amazing Grace” (and if anyone had a grip on grace it was Newton), he said that “the correct understanding of the harmony between law and grace is to preserve oneself from being entangled by errors on the right hand and on the left.” And Charles Finney said, “Evermore the law must prepare the way for the gospel.” He said, “To overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the church with false converts.”
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Bob Pratico
Fides Quaerens Intellectum
(my Sojourn blog)