Earlier this week I placed a quote from Dr. Adrian Rogers who said, "What you do with Jesus will determine what Jesus does with you." At first glace, it seems to be a little harsh. After all, that's not the Jesus that our culture knows for the most part. Instead, we have embraced a wimpy feminized Jesus. We are rarely, if ever, introduced to the Jesus who had rough and calloused carpenters hands and who went into the temple with righteous fire in his eyes, started pitching tables, and accused them of being a bunch of thieves.
I believe this is partly the result of the modern church's attempt to placate a self-proclaimed "tolerant" culture that no longer wants to be faced with absolute truth. They don't want to be told anything emphatically. Thus, an over-emphasizes on the grace of God, and a virtual dismissal of the justice of God. They teach on heaven all day long, but never touch the subject of hell lest they appear to be coming on too strongly or someone gets offended.
Make no mistake about it, it is always easier to deliver good news to people rather than bad. In my current position at the university, I speak with students everyday about their academic successes and failures. Oh, it's easy and uplifting to all to let a student know how well they are doing in their studies. On the other hand, it can be quite difficult to lay out the bad and the ugly in that same conversation, but it must be done. For me not to do so would be totally unfair to the student. If I know where the road that he or she is on is headed, I have an obligation to tell them them the truth.
However, when it comes to spiritual things, why is that Christians and the the church as a whole shy away from speaking truth? Could it be that we are afraid of being accused of being intolerant and judgmental. I believe so. The left is using this tactic to elbow the church away from the table. They want us to shut up and will do everything in their power to make us look like intolerant bigots, and hatemongers if we refuse to do so (e.g., Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty). Ravi Zacharias said it best the other day when he said, "This is the new America of tolerance, another vacuous word defined by relativists whose only absolutes are the denial of any other reality except their own."
I think that we need to be reminded that it was our Lord who said in Matthew 7:13-14 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. He was merely stating fact. The words "many" and "few" in those verses meant then exactly what they mean today.
Make no mistake about it, it is always easier to deliver good news to people rather than bad. In my current position at the university, I speak with students everyday about their academic successes and failures. Oh, it's easy and uplifting to all to let a student know how well they are doing in their studies. On the other hand, it can be quite difficult to lay out the bad and the ugly in that same conversation, but it must be done. For me not to do so would be totally unfair to the student. If I know where the road that he or she is on is headed, I have an obligation to tell them them the truth.
However, when it comes to spiritual things, why is that Christians and the the church as a whole shy away from speaking truth? Could it be that we are afraid of being accused of being intolerant and judgmental. I believe so. The left is using this tactic to elbow the church away from the table. They want us to shut up and will do everything in their power to make us look like intolerant bigots, and hatemongers if we refuse to do so (e.g., Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty). Ravi Zacharias said it best the other day when he said, "This is the new America of tolerance, another vacuous word defined by relativists whose only absolutes are the denial of any other reality except their own."
I think that we need to be reminded that it was our Lord who said in Matthew 7:13-14 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. He was merely stating fact. The words "many" and "few" in those verses meant then exactly what they mean today.
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