If you really long to save men's souls, you must tell them a great deal of disagreeable truth.
The
preaching of the wrath of God has come to be sneered at nowadays, and
even good people are half ashamed of it; a maudlin sentimentality about
love and goodness has hushed, in a great measure, plain gospel
expostulations and warnings.
But, my brethren, if we expect souls to be saved, we must declare unflinchingly with all affectionate fidelity, the terrors of the Lord.
"Well," said the Scotch lad
when he listened to the minister who told his congregation that there
was no hell, or at any rate only a temporary punishment, "Well," said
he, "I need not come and hear this man any longer, for if it be as he
says, it is all right, and religion is of no consequence, and if it be
not as he says, then I must not hear him again, because he will deceive
me."
"Therefore," says the apostle, "Knowing the terrors of the
Lord we persuade men." Let not modern squeamishness prevent plain
speaking concerning everlasting torment. Are we to be more gentle than
the apostles? Shall we be wiser than the inspired preachers of the word?
Until we feel our minds overshadowed with the dread thought of the
sinner's doom we are not in a fit frame for preaching to the
unconverted. We shall never persuade men if we are afraid to speak of
the judgment and the condemnation of the unrighteous. Keep Reading...
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