The Non-gospel of Nothingness

Good News?
Too many false teachers within today's modern professing church are heaping itching ears followers unto themselves by preaching a sinless, painless, unrepentant, and hell-free doctrine which measures solely on God's mercy and forgiveness. One might call it "100% Good News".

But what is the "bad news"? Certainly men must be made aware of the bad news first in order to gain any conception of the glorious Good News; otherwise they're left with a feel good, man-centered, non-gospel of nothingness.

By failing to preach the whole counsel of God and by measuring strictly on His forgiveness without any mention of His absolute righteousness and His holy justice and wrath - which sin demands! - these false pastors are guilty of enabling sinful men to avoid confronting their need for a Savior!

"A Savior? A Savior from what?"
The truth in love is a subject on which I've spent not inconsiderable amounts of time, and I've come to the conclusion that when the subject matter is God's Holy Word truth and love are inseparable. The telling of God's truth as revealed in the Holy Bible is love and anything less is hate.

This is not to say that false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, and their itching ears adherents cannot use God's Word as an occasion for the flesh, but rather to say that truly regenerate Christian exhortation will be starkly truthful.

It will be direct and uncompromising.

It will frankly and unapologetically point sinful men toward inerrant, infallible, and plenary scripture.

And thus it will be perceived as offensive and hateful to the unregenerate.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).

Quite honestly, and on a personal note, I believe the hour is late and there's little room for tip-toeing around Christ's commands. I believe there's a sense of spiritual urgency at hand.

Please understand this is not to suggest that other truly regenerate born-again believers are not - or can not - be gifted to reach out to the lost in a manner that's more gentle, or that my strident approach is holier or more correct than other approaches, but rather it's my firm conviction in the Lord that the truth ought to be laid bare and in as clear terms as possible. Men must be made aware of their guilt before God, the certain and eternal doom that awaits sinners in the afterlife, and the utter hopelessness of their condition apart from Christ crucified, dead, buried and resurrected.

I came across a couple of powerful articles just today which clearly point to the lateness of the hour and raise the alarm far better than I'm able in this short blog post:

It's time to go

A sobering call to pastors, preachers, and teachers

My encouragement to God’s watchmen on the wall, His foot soldiers in the Truth War which is even now raging across the barren, desolate, landscape of modern church-ianity is to keep fighting the good fight of faith, and to continue standing boldly on God’s Holy Word.