A God of Wrath?
Modern Christianity downplays or even ignores the wrath of God, probably because we dislike the stereotype of the "hellfire preacher" who portrays God as a mean, angry, spiteful bully. But there's a difference between wild "hellfire preaching" and true, biblical preaching about hell. The key is to make hell seem reasonable.
By humbly and lovingly talking about sin and our many violations of God's holy law, Hell suddenly makes sense. Not only that, but the cross suddently makes sense. When people understand that Jesus died to save us from the wrath to come, his incredible love and mercy suddenly come into focus. His grace truly becomes "Amazing".
The New Testament is full of passages about hell and judgment. Read this list of verses. Ponder them. Let them sink into your heart. Then ask God to enlarge your compassion for the multitudes of lost sinners headed for judgment without a Savior.
posted by Cedricstudio at 11:33 AM
1 Comments:
I actually don't think hell is the best motivator for evangelism. I think it paints far too simplistic a notion of salvation for people and I can't imagine how you could ever make it 'reasonable' in human terms. The notion of salvation in scripture is not just an eschatological reality, but a present reality as well. I have found this much more effective in witnessing than beating people over the head with notions of sin. At least in the post-modern contexts I often find myself. And it isn't a payment for sin (as in a distant act) but a transformative encounter with the person of Jesus Christ that saves.
Consider the narrative of the woman at the well. One of my favourites. It isn't the woman's words (she goes out as an evangelist) that change the people, she only draw them to the place where they can have encounter. "Come and meet the man who told me everything about myself." That is such a profound statement and example. They come because they see a lecherous woman who has been transformed (she shied away before, even sneaking to the well at noon when no one else would be there) by the encounter with Jesus. They bid Jesus to stay and after two days they announced that it wasn't her words, but the time them spent with Jesus that did it.
You can focus on anything else you want: law, sin, hell, death, etc. But if you aren't getting them to Jesus to meet Him and be changed by Him then it really just isn't the same thing. So instead of reasoning on something so abstract and theologically complex as eternal damnation - I prefer to simply tell them about the one who changed everything in my life.
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