When everyone is talking about
the love of God and God loves me just as I am, how would you
respond? The kingdom of God is not Mr.
Rogers' neighborhood. I think there are few things
more dangerous than preachers out there preaching that God
loves everybody unconditionally. Because the message that is heard
by the people who hear that is There are no conditions. I can
continue to live just as I'm living in full rebellion against
God. And I have nothing to worry about
because there aren't any conditions that I have to meet. God loves
me unconditionally. I don't have to repent. I don't
have to come to Jesus. I don't have to leave my life
of sin. No conditions, no strings attached. God loves me just the way I am.
He's glad that I turned out so nicely. and so on. But there is a sense, I've written
a book on the love of God where I talk about the three ways in
which theologians speak about the love of God, God's love of
benevolence, where God has a good will towards everybody, believers
and non-believers. beneficent love of God. God gives
benefits to people whether they're believers or not believers. The
rain falls on the just as well as on the unjust. But the most
important consideration is the love of complacency, not the
love of smugness. But what is meant by the love
of complacency is the filial love that God has for the redeemed. And that love is directed first
to Christ and then to all who are in Christ, our elder brother. And that salvific love is not
something that God has for everybody unconditionally. And sometimes
we close our eyes to what the Bible says frequently about God's
posture towards the impenitent. God, the Bible tells us, abhors
the wicked. That's strong language. God abhors
the tests. the wicked who are impenitent. And then people say, well, God
loves the sinner. He just hates the sin. But He
doesn't send the sin to hell. He sends the sinner there. And so this is very dangerous
stuff when we tell people God loves you unconditionally. We have to do it from a biblical
perspective rather than trying to change the biblical character
of God. God is angry every day against
the wicked, and justly so. and every impenitent sinner is
exposed every second to the rage, the fury of God's wrath, as Paul
tells us in Romans 1.18 and following. But again, like you said earlier,
there is no understanding of the good news apart from the
bad news. Christ came into the world. that
was already under the universal indictment for rejecting God
the Father, for living in a sense where the clear revelation of
God, as you pointed out, Steve, was so made manifest to every
human being, but our nature is so fallen that we don't want
God in our thinking, we don't want God in our minds, and we
want so much to win people to Christ. that will do everything
we can to hide from them the reality of the wrath of God.
We don't tell them that every moment that they refuse to repent
that they are heaping up wrath against the day of wrath. But people aren't afraid of the
wrath of God. And it's because we're out there
telling them you don't have to be afraid of God. because God
is so nice, and it's Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. It takes the terror out of it.
Knowing the terror of the Lord, Paul says, we persuade men. It's
a fearful thing, a terrifying thing to fall into the hands
of a living God. Preaching that God loves you
unconditionally is the wrong message. The sinner needs to
be terrified about his condition. He doesn't need to feel comfortable
in the fact that he's turned out so well, as R.C. put it.
You know, just in the last year, John, I've had two guys come
into membership in our church as adults, baptized as adults,
by the way, who in their testimony, their
testimony is that what drove them to the gospel was they realized
that they were on their way to hell. And that's scared them,
literally scared them the hell out of them. Right? And rightly
so. Yeah. That's part of what Steve was
saying. Excuse me, Chris. That's part of what Steve was
saying. If we're going to ever call a nation to righteousness,
the preaching has to dramatically change. It has to dramatically
change.