As John the Baptist preached, his hearers would have gritted their teeth and flinched! They would have been squirming! Why?
Firstly, it’s hard to hear about sin and repentance. It’s hard to be told that we might not be walking on the right path, or that we might not be as good as we like to think we are. John’s audience was originally the religious leaders - Sadducees and Pharisees. These were men who prided themselves on their righteousness. But John cries out that they must produce fruit in keeping with repentance. The axe is at the root of the tree. Judgement is about to be served on those who don’t repent.
Secondly, pride stops us from wanting to hear about sin. As we look at the state of the world and the sinful and awful things that have occurred we can easily conclude, ‘Hey, I’m not that bad. I’m ok!’ But this is a false notion. God never calls us to be comparing ourselves to other people. He never wants us to measure up to mankind’s standards. The bench mark for us is God’s own Word. God has set a standard and that standard is absolute perfection. In the depths of my heart, I yearn to look at others so I can at least pretend to be better than I am. But looking at God’s own standard forces us to the cross to find forgiveness. As we come to the cross daily for forgiveness we grow in grace. We grow in love. We grow in humility and we grow in Christ-likeness.
Thirdly, we have swallowed the lie that people will not come to Christ if we talk about sin. But people need to know what they have been saved from. People need to understand their real condition before God. If we preach a half gospel message of God loves you, we will see an Exodus from the church as soon the sun rises and it gets a bit hot for Jesus’ sake. Half hearted gospel messages produce fickle followers that run off as soon as they don’t get what they want.
Prayer:-
- Pray that the preachers across this land will not hesitate to preach the full gospel this Christmas. Pray that we’d see many of the once-a-year Christians come to Christ in repentance and faith. Pray that God would use our churches powerfully this season to communicate the love of Christ.
- Pray for the Student Life members who’ll be ministering and serving on Christmas missions. Pray that God would use these men and women to bring hope and light and life to the schoolies. Pray for those going to Turkey. Ask God to use them to bring many to Christ in repentance and faith. Pray that all the finances required for each person will be raised and that all resources will be provided.
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