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“She came to church tonight and when an altar call was made she refused to accept Christ in her life. After leaving the service she was in a car accident and died. This might be your last chance to repent to God, you might leave the service and die without Christ, and you never know it might be your last day on earth.”
These types of statement were a part of sermons for many years.
Folks rushed to the alter fearing it would be their last opportunity to repent to God for their sins. Those that were quarreling with one another repented to each other and to the church because they feared death and hell.
Was that the reason why she lost her life? Or, was this said as a scare tactics to place the fear of God in the hearts of the congregants?
Modern day congregants reject these types of sermons, and believe this teaching is dogmatic and cruel. Their question, how could a loving God be so mean? They believe God’s love tolerates their sins.
Congregants that oppose this teaching are leaving the churches by the thousands and turning to the “New Thought or Universalism” movements. These movements look down on these types of sermons and redirect folks to humanism. They teach a doctrine that indicates a divine presence exist within all mankind which give them powers to rejuvenate their body, soul and spirit. An individual’s positive or negative thoughts determine positive or negative experiences.
Has this ethical theory and reasoning shifted human interest away from God’s plan for mankind?
I heard a well known leader explain the reason he shifted from “old school bible teaching,” as believed to be in the story above, to universalism. He indicated that his transformation of doctrine started when a relative, who was an evangelist, attended church regularly and was strictly dedicated to God, died while animal gambling. The church condemned her to hell because she gambled. That is when he questioned, why would a loving God condemned people to hell?
Based on this experience his opinion of God changed. He believes that God is brutal. He stated that, “Church folks are the meanest folks on this planet and they are mean because they are mad and their God has anger management issues…” Hmm is this generalization?
He attributed this scripture to God’s anger, Genesis 6:6, 7, “The Lord regretted that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was deeply grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy mankind whom I have created from the surface of the earth not only man but the animals and crawling things and the birds of the air because it grieves Me (to see mankind’s sin) and I regret that I have made them.”
Are verses of the bible only creditable when they fit a person’s reasoning or philosophical learning’s?
Noah, who was not included in the destruction of mankind, made a sacrifice to God and, “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intent of man’s heart is wicked from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done,” (Genesis 8:21).
“The house of the wicked will be overthrown, but the tent of the upright will thrive. There is a way which seems right to a man and appears straight before him, But its end is the way of death,” (Proverbs 14:11, 12).
Life and death, hmm… are in the hand of God not man. The sins of this world cause premature death, “For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit eternal life,” (Galatians 6:8).
Hmm!
~SAR~
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