1. Why should we not tell sinners that God has a wonderful plan for their lives?
“Scratching people where they itch and addressing their ‘felt needs’ is a stratagem of the poor steward of the oracles of God. This was the recipe for success for the false prophets of the Old Testament.”
-R.C. SPROUL
The "wonderful plan" message is not the biblical way to draw sinners to Christ. It gives sinners a false-motive. They should not consider whether or not they WANT Jesus to give them purpose or life-enhancement, rather they should be fleeing to the cross because they realize their NEED of the Savior in order to enter the presence of a holy and righteous God.
Consider...
Our idea of “wonderful” and the world’s may be a little different. Take a sinner through the pages of the Book of Acts and show him the terrifying scene of rocks breaking the bones of Stephen. Then smile and whisper, “Wonderful...” Listen together to the sound of a cat-o’-nine-tails as it rips the flesh off the back of the apostle Paul. Follow together the word “suffering” through the Epistles, and see if you can get the world to whisper, “Wonderful!” Tell them that “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). After such a ride down Honesty Road, they may think the pleasures of sin are a little more attractive than the call to “suffer affliction with the people of God” (Hebrews 11:25).
2. Give an example where Jesus used the Ten Commandments to show sinners God’s righteous standard.
The answer to our dilemma is to make the issue one of righteousness, rather than happiness. This is what Jesus did. He used the Ten Commandments to show sinners the righteous standard of God (Luke 10:25,26; 18:18–20). Once the world sees the perfect standard by which they will be judged, they will begin to fear God, and it is through the fear of the Lord that men depart from sin (Proverbs 16:6). They will begin to hunger and thirst after the righteousness that is in Jesus Christ alone.
PS - Who in the world is going to listen to our message if we are so blatantly honest about the Christian life? Perhaps not as many as are attracted by the talk of a wonderful plan. We must choose to do what Jesus did - HOW He did it - and then leave the results up to God. If not, we are not doing what is most biblical and the results are based more on a pragmatic approach, which is based on 'number of decisions' versus truly regenerated souls. We have all known back-sliders in the faith, who usually never slid-forward in the first place. When the "wonderful plan" wasn't so wonderful, they walked away disillusioned.
3. If we mention God’s love to a lost person, in what context should it be?
If you study the New Testament, you will see that God’s love is almost always given in direct correlation to the cross: herein is love, for God so loved, God commended His love, etc. (See John 3:16; Romans 5:5,6,8; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 2:4,5; 5:2,25; 1 John 3:16; 4:10; and Revelation 1:5, among others.) The cross is the focal point of God’s love for the world. How can we point to the cross without making reference to sin? How can we refer to sin without using the Law (Romans 7:7)? The biblical way to express God’s love to a sinner is to show him how great his sin is (using the Law—see Romans 7:13; Galatians 3:24), and then give him the incredible grace of God in Christ.
4. How did David come to realize his sin? (See 2 Samuel 12:1–13.)
For a biblical illustration of how to confront sinners using the issue of righteousness, let’s look to the life of King David. When David sinned with Bathsheba, he broke all of the Ten Commandments. He coveted his neighbor’s wife, lived a lie, stole her, committed adultery, murdered her husband, dishonored his parents, and thus broke the remaining four Commandments by dishonoring God. Therefore, the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to reprove him (2 Samuel 12:1–14).
There is great significance in the order in which the reproof came. Nathan gave David, the shepherd of Israel, a parable about something he could understand—sheep. He began with the natural realm, rather than immediately exposing the king’s sin. He told a story about a rich man who, instead of taking a sheep from his own flock, killed a poor man’s pet lamb to feed a stranger.
David was indignant, and sat up on his high throne of self-righteous-ness. He revealed his knowledge of the Law by declaring that the guilty party must restore fourfold and must die for his crime. Nathan then exposed the king’s sin of taking another man’s “lamb,” saying, “You are the man . . . Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil
in his sight?” When David cried, “I have sinned against the Lord,” the prophet then gave him grace and said, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”
5. Why is citing Romans 3:23 to a sinner not sufficient for bringing about repentance?
Imagine if Nathan had glossed over the personal nature of David’s sin, with a general reference to all men having sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). David’s reaction might have been, “What sin are you talking about?” rather than to admit his terrible transgression. Imagine if Nathan, fearful of rejection, changed things around a little, and instead told David, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. However, there is something that is keeping you from enjoying this wonderful plan; it is called ‘sin.’”
Think of it—why should he cry, “I have sinned against the Lord” at the sound of that message? Instead, he may have, in a sincere desire to experience this “wonderful plan,” admitted that he, like all men, had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If David had not been made to tremble under the wrath of the Law, the prophet would have removed the very means of producing godly sorrow, which is necessary for repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10).
It was the weight of David’s guilt that caused him to cry out, “I have sinned against the Lord.” The Law caused him to labor and become heavy laden; it made him hunger and thirst for righteousness. It enlightened him as to the serious nature of sin as far as God was concerned.
Memory Verse
“For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world works death.”
2 CORINTHIANS 7:10
No comments:
Post a Comment