How today’s Popular Gospel Dishonors God

[Dave L]

What we say: God has given every person a choice to accept him or reject him. Those who reject him will suffer in hell forever. Those who accept him will enjoy heaven forever. The choice is yours.

What sinners hear: God is a bully who will torture me forever if I don’t say “uncle”. But if I say “uncle”, I can really make out forever if it's really true. I guess it’s worth the risk. Better to be insured than not.

The true gospel however is an announcement about salvation for all who can believe in Christ. Followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit through repentance and baptism.

 

[Episkopos]

What we say: God has given every person a choice to accept him or reject him. Those who reject him will suffer in hell forever. Those who accept him will enjoy heaven forever. The choice is yours.

This kind of statement indeed dishonours God. The accepting and rejecting of Jesus happens every moment of every day. There is no empirical moment whereby an eternity rests on a verbal honouring of God. We will be judged by our works....not a religious decision or posturing.

What sinners hear: God is a bully who will torture me forever if I don’t say “uncle”. But if I say “uncle”, I can really make out forever if it's really true. I guess it’s worth the risk. Better to be insured than not.

That is indeed what you are saying. It is a fear based message...or propaganda...that seeks to force adherence to a religion. It is a platitude.

The true gospel however is an announcement about salvation for all who can believe in Christ. Followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit through repentance and baptism.

The true gospel is disseminated by a demonstration of salvation among they who have turned to God. It is a message of love....not fear. The Holy Spirit will convict a person...for their own good. But we are to be loving people who put into practice what we have received from the Lord. That is our witness. See the love we have in our fellowship. Others will want to join in that fellowship. So then people come to know the Lord though the way we live our lives.....which is unlike the world.

It is false to make God out to be cruel and unjust...so that a sinner must be tormented forever for ignorance. There is no justice in that. God repays up to 7 times....not billions of times.

 

[Dave L]

Thanks for considering this.

 

[CoreIssue]

What we say: God has given every person a choice to accept him or reject him. Those who reject him will suffer in hell forever. Those who accept him will enjoy heaven forever. The choice is yours.

What sinners hear: God is a bully who will torture me forever if I don’t say “uncle”. But if I say “uncle”, I can really make out forever if it's really true. I guess it’s worth the risk. Better to be insured than not.

The true gospel however is an announcement about salvation for all who can believe in Christ. Followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit through repentance and baptism.

God created the universe and everything in it. It is his property.

He created the Angels amd gave them a choice.

He created man and gives mankind a choice.

Accepting God's offer gives eternal peace and security. Rejecting it is eternal chaos and conflict.

How is that true? All good things come from God, so to accept God is to accept all the good things he offers.

To reject God is to say you don't want the good things he offers, so you don't get them.

Heaven is where good things are. Hell is where they are not.

Why should God give good things to people who reject him?

Some argue God could create a place for those who reject him to make their own choices. How has that thinking worked out here?

Some say put everybody in heaven and just not give them as much as he does us. That would introduce crime, war and all kinds of conflict. People would fight for power over others and possessions. They would back Satan and others as god.

To truly love one has to have free will.

God created life to share in his abundance. To avoid problems completely would require never having created anything.

 

[CoreIssue]

Atheists cannot tell anyone where at the ultimate beginning everything came from. They just demand it was not any God.

 

[Helen]

....

 

[Episkopos]

Sinners are not bad people needing punishment, they are slaves in need of an exodus.

 

[Dave L]

God created the universe and everything in it. It is his property.

He created the Angels amd gave them a choice.

He created man and gives mankind a choice.

Accepting God's offer gives eternal peace and security. Rejecting it is eternal chaos and conflict.

How is that true? All good things come from God, so to accept God is to accept all the good things he offers.

To reject God is to say you don't want the good things he offers, so you don't get them.

Heaven is where good things are. Hell is where they are not.

Why should God give good things to people who reject him?

Some argue God could create a place for those who reject him to make their own choices. How has that thinking worked out here?

Some say put everybody in heaven and just not give them as much as he does us. That would introduce crime, war and all kinds of conflict. People would fight for power over others and possessions. They would back Satan and others as god.

To truly love one has to have free will.

God created life to share in his abundance. To avoid problems completely would require never having created anything.

But this depicts God as a celestial bully. And ignores salvation by grace.

 

[CoreIssue]

Sinners are not bad people needing punishment, they are slaves in need of an exodus.

While on this earth we must try to convert every sinner.

Once in the lake of fire they will be under eternal condemnation from God.

 

[CoreIssue]

But this depicts God as a celestial bully. And ignores salvation by grace.

It's the truth. Your political correctness will not save anyone.

 

[Dave L]

It's the truth. Your political correctness will not save anyone.

It is not the truth. You dishonor God and present a false image of him.

 

[Enoch111]

The true gospel however is an announcement about salvation for all who can believe in Christ. Followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit through repentance and baptism.

The true Gospel does not avoid the issue of sin, judgment for sin, and repentance (turning away from sins and idols, and turning to God and Christ). Unless sinners understand that they face eternal separation from God (and the wrath of God), they will not fully appreciate why Christ died for their sins.

What were the first words uttered by John the Baptist and by Christ?

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand... But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: (Mt 3:1,2,7,8).

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Mt 4:17)

And this is also what Jonah preached in Nineveh:

JONAH 3
1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

So your contention that preaching "Those who reject him will suffer in hell forever" dishonors God is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.

 

[Dave L]

The true Gospel does not avoid the issue of sin, judgment for sin, and repentance (turning away from sins and idols, and turning to God and Christ). Unless sinners understand that they face eternal separation from God (and the wrath of God), they will not fully appreciate why Christ died for their sins.

What were the first words uttered by John the Baptist and by Christ?

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand... But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: (Mt 3:1,2,7,8).

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Mt 4:17)

And this is also what Jonah preached in Nineveh:

JONAH 3
1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

So your contention that preaching "Those who reject him will suffer in hell forever" dishonors God is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.

What I'm saying is that "salvation" assumes sin. And we preach it too. But the gist of this post is to show the gross misrepresentation of God when we present him as a bully. And then coax people into saving themselves by selling themselves. Not a good self image by any means.

God, on the other hand, saves sinners who cannot save themselves, in his mercy. Announcing whoever believes has eternal life.

 

[farouk]

What I'm saying is that "salvation" assumes sin. And we preach it too. But the gist of this post is to show the gross misrepresentation of God when we present him as a bully. And then coax people into saving themselves by selling themselves. Not a good self image by any means.

God, on the other hand, saves sinners who cannot save themselves, in his mercy. Announcing whoever believes has eternal life.

Salvation - SOTERIA - does indeed involve the perspective of salvation from...what?

This is where the essential work of Christ comes in.

 

[farouk]

... salvation by grace.

The heart of the Gospel...

 

[Enoch111]

But the gist of this post is to show the gross misrepresentation of God when we present him as a bully.

Presenting God as a *bully* is the false idea of those who do not know the Gospel or Scripture, and are theological liberals. You would have to cite actual cases by true Gospel preachers who speak thus.

C.H. Spurgeon is known throughout Christendom for his sermons. He preached a sermon titled Flee from the Coming Wrath!
Flee from the Coming Wrath! -- C. H. Spurgeon

Here's how he started off: I have no doubt that the Pharisees and Sadducees were very surprised to hear John addressing them in that way; for men who wish to win disciples, ordinarily adopt milder language than that, and choose more attractive themes, for they fear that they will drive their listeners away if they are too personal, and speak too harshly.

There is not much danger of that nowadays, for the current thinking today is that gospel ministers instead of piercing men and women with the sword of the Spirit, only show them only its handle; they let them see the bright diamonds on the scabbard, but never let them feel the sharpness of the two-edged blade. They always comfort, and console, and cheer, but never allude to the terrors of the Lord.

So was Spurgeon presenting God as a *bully*?

 

[farouk]

Presenting God as a *bully* is the false idea of those who do not know the Gospel or Scripture, and are theological liberals. You would have to cite actual cases by true Gospel preachers who speak thus.

C.H. Spurgeon is known throughout Christendom for his sermons. He preached a sermon titled Flee from the Coming Wrath!
Flee from the Coming Wrath! -- C. H. Spurgeon

Here's how he started off: I have no doubt that the Pharisees and Sadducees were very surprised to hear John addressing them in that way; for men who wish to win disciples, ordinarily adopt milder language than that, and choose more attractive themes, for they fear that they will drive their listeners away if they are too personal, and speak too harshly.

There is not much danger of that nowadays, for the current thinking today is that gospel ministers instead of piercing men and women with the sword of the Spirit, only show them only its handle; they let them see the bright diamonds on the scabbard, but never let them feel the sharpness of the two-edged blade. They always comfort, and console, and cheer, but never allude to the terrors of the Lord.

So was Spurgeon presenting God as a *bully*?

We need more Spurgeon and less soap...

 

[Dave L]

Presenting God as a *bully* is the false idea of those who do not know the Gospel or Scripture, and are theological liberals. You would have to cite actual cases by true Gospel preachers who speak thus.

C.H. Spurgeon is known throughout Christendom for his sermons. He preached a sermon titled Flee from the Coming Wrath!
Flee from the Coming Wrath! -- C. H. Spurgeon

Here's how he started off: I have no doubt that the Pharisees and Sadducees were very surprised to hear John addressing them in that way; for men who wish to win disciples, ordinarily adopt milder language than that, and choose more attractive themes, for they fear that they will drive their listeners away if they are too personal, and speak too harshly.

There is not much danger of that nowadays, for the current thinking today is that gospel ministers instead of piercing men and women with the sword of the Spirit, only show them only its handle; they let them see the bright diamonds on the scabbard, but never let them feel the sharpness of the two-edged blade. They always comfort, and console, and cheer, but never allude to the terrors of the Lord.

So was Spurgeon presenting God as a *bully*?

Spurgeon was a Calvinist and knew how to keep free will in balance.

 

[farouk]

Spurgeon was a Calvinist and knew how to keep free will in balance.

I do appreciate how John 6 stresses both Divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

 

[Dave L]

I do appreciate how John 6 stresses both Divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

But unless first born again, people will not (cannot) respond.