Romans 7:24,25 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
A caricature of modern Western evangelistic preaching is this: come to Jesus and he will bless you. He will satisfy your needs. He’s got a wonderful plan for your life. He’ll take away your problems. He’ll give you life to the full.
There’s some truth in that, but is it a timeless message across cultures and contexts? Does it ring true to our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church? Are they blessed, satisfied, enjoying life to the full? Hmm…
What is the gospel? Is it that God has a wonderful plan for your life, or that we sinners can be made righteous in Christ and escape the just punishment for our sins, which is God’s wrath and eternal separation from him, hell? I fear we have opted for a different gospel which reflects our self-centred, soft-sell consumer culture. Yet what makes it great news is dealing first with the bad news.
Spurgeon wrote: “Ho, ho sir surgeon, 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? Are we to become helpers of their damnation by our smooth speeches? In the name of God we will not!”
What is the relationship between Law and grace? I’d strongly recommend Ray Comfort’s ‘The Way of the Master’ to delve deeper. It’s worth wrestling with. The stakes are high.
Thank you, Jesus, that although the wages of sin are death, the gift of God is eternal life in you. Amen! (Romans 6:23)
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