“Negative and Down-bringing” v. “Positive and Uplifting”
There is a time to be “negative” just as there is a time to be “positive.” We encourage and praise the speaking of truth and the doing of good and we discourage and excoriate the doing of evil and the utterance of heresy. The emphasis of most hortatory messages from Christian speakers – radio or pulpit – is generally “positive and encouraging” as if this summarizes the message from God in the Scriptures and from the church and its creeds. The moral code given us by God as declared in the Big Ten, and the message of the Gospel, summarized in, perhaps, the Nicene Creed says:
“He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end” and “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”
There is a judgment to come. There are sins which will be dealt with. And the only reason we can be “positive” and “encouraging” about this judgment WHICH WILL COME is by the proposition that Jesus – by His death and resurrection – has secured an escape for sinners from that just doom.
Apart from this escape scheme, our message is anything but positive and encouraging. It is, on the contrary, negative and terrorizing.
Repent, then, and follow Savior and King Jesus or burn really hot.
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