Pastoral Musings

God did not ordain the cross of Christ or create the lake of fire3 in order to communicate the insignificance of belittling his glory. The death of the Son of God and the damnation of unrepentant human beings are the loudest shouts under heaven that God is infinitely holy, and sin is infinitely offensive, and wrath is infinitely just, and grace is infinitely precious, and our brief life — and the life of every person in your church and in your community — leads to everlasting joy or everlasting suffering. If our preaching does not carry the weight of these things to our people, what will? Veggie Tales? Radio? Television? Discussion groups? Emergent conversations?

God planned for his Son to be crucified (Revelation 13:8; 2 Timothy 1:9) and for hell to be terrible (Matthew 25:41) so that we would have the clearest witnesses possible to what is at stake when we preach. What gives preaching its seriousness is that the mantle of the preacher is soaked with the blood of Jesus and singed with fire of hell. That’s the mantle that turns mere talkers into preachers.

via Soaked with the Blood of Jesus, Singed with the Fire of Hell – Desiring God.

Image via Wikipedia

Via the Fundamentals.

First, Sin—its universality, nature and consequences…

If unrepenting and unbelieving, the future has for him, First, inexorable and awful judgment. (See Matthew 25:30-46; Hebrews 9:27; Jude 14,15; Revelation 20:11-13; 22:11-15). Second, the wrath of God. (See Ezra 8:22; Psalm 21:9; John 3:36; Romans 1:18; 2:5; 4:15; 5:9; 12:19; 13:4; Ephesians 2:3; 5:6; Colossians 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Revelation 6:16,17; 14:10; 16:19; 19:15, etc.). And third, eternal torments. (See Psalm 11:6; Isaiah 33:14; Daniel 12:2; Matthew 3:12; 22:11-13; 23:33; 25:41, 46; Mark 9:43,48; Luke 12:5; 16:22-31; John 5:28,29; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Hebrews 10:28,29; 2 Peter 3:5-12; Revelation 19:20; 20:14,15; 21:8, etc.)

The preacher who ignores these three awful and inexorable truths preaches an emasculated gospel, be he never so faithful in proclaiming other truth…

Justification. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might he just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:24,25,26). “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight” (Colossians 1:21,22). “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth” (Romans 8:33), for “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus; for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1,2). Believers are “not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14) and can rejoicingly say, judicially, of course, “As He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

By Evangelist L. W. Munhall, M. A., D. D., Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania