I want to respond to a comment to my previous post titled “when is it ok to yell fire in a crowded theater”. I do this with all due respect to the person who made the comment and to make clear what I am trying to say.

The comment was:

It's been my observation that the resistance these people have to the Truth as commonly spoken is a result of bad experiences as a child, particularly with people who tried to convince them they were evil and were going to be horribly punished if they didn't repent of all their sins and be baptized. And then even when they were baptized, they were still told they were evil and would be horribly punished if they didn't keep repenting of all their sins. To a kid, that is frightening, quite apart from the fact that it doesn't make sense.

My response to this statement is:

1. The Truth is that they really are evil and they really will be horribly punished if they don’t repent of their sins.

2. It really does make sense because it is Truth.

3. Stated that way is frightening not only to children, but to adults as well.

4. There is a better way to state it.

I will concede that there are some churches that use our human sin nature as a club to beat people into the kingdom. This is wrong; it is not Biblical and does not honor God. However we should not overreact by only preaching Gods love and grace. God is love, but God will also judge us in the end.

The problem with telling someone that they need God because they are evil is that we do the convicting. We should teach the law of God (the Ten Commandments), so that the unsaved can be convicted by Gods Truth by the Holy Spirit working through their own conscience. Let them convict themselves.

We don’t need to tell a person that they are evil. We only need to ask them if they have ever told a lie. Everyone will have to answer yes. Have you ever stolen anything, no matter how small? Yes again. Have you ever lusted in your heart for someone to whom you are not married? Yes again. What does that make you? A sinner. And that’s only three of the Ten Commandments. By your own admission you are a thieving, lying adulterer. What does that make you? The only honest answer is: guilty.

Galatians 3:24 says: Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

It is not our job to tell a person that they are evil. It is our job to teach people the truth of Gods law and let the Holy Spirit convict them that they are sinners in need of a Savior. THEN we can tell them that God is a loving God who wants to restore the broken relationship and that he sent His Son to take the punishment that a fair and just judgment requires. Because God loves us so much He sent His only Son, who deserves no punishment, to suffer the punishment that we deserve so that we can go free: free from guilt, shame and punishment.

You see we should not preach God’s grace without first preaching God’s judgment because God’s grace apart from God’s judgment makes no sense. A person who is not aware that they are a sinner, is not aware that they need a Savior. You can tell them that God has a wonderful plan for their life, but they already have their own plan and they think it is a pretty good one thank you very much.

We should not preach God’s judgment apart from God’s grace because that would leave us without hope, believing in an unjust God and God is a just God and a God of hope.

I suspect that the people referred to in the comments made two mistakes. They did the convicting themselves instead of teaching Truth and letting the Holy Spirit convict, and they taught God’s judgment apart from God’s grace. These are two grievous (and all too common) mistakes.

We should never preach sin and judgment apart from grace and we should never preach grace apart from sin and judgment. We should preach sin and judgment through tears of compassion and grace through tears of joy.