The above account, albeit exaggerated, captures the instinct of some professing Christians today when they come across the imperatives and the warnings of Scripture. With that, before another word could be spoken, several windows might shut, otherwise their snores would soon become audible from the street. I wish you a speedy return to Heretics Highway.” All these warnings, threats, exhortations, admonishments come to my ears as the fearmongerings of a legal religion. What is this talk of wrath and judgment? We are Christians. “Oh, sir,” adds the second, “now I know you to be trouble. I have failed, will fail - and often fail - but Christ, sir, Christ lived such a life in my place. Listen here, Christ lived a perfect life for me and died in my place. “More emphasis on our works than Christ’s. We have heard of your kind before,” remarks the first. Strive for the holiness without which we cannot see the Lord.
Walk the narrow way, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I meant rise with your new nature, new affections, new allegiances, new Spirit, and new commandments, live and stay alert with holy urgency. “I did not mean to have you rise and live and work to earn salvation - it cannot be done and cursed are all who try. “Forgive me,” the preacher says, taken aback. Our faith justifies, we will not quiver as though our doings made us right with God.” ‘By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight’ (Romans 3:20). “Why, good sir, do not tell me you are Roman. You must have meant to stir up the next town of Never-Heard or perhaps Secular City down the way.” These already live looking out the window - trusting, praying, fellowshipping, killing sin, living awake - ready for their Master to return.īut to his amazement, some voices would shoot back from dimmed rooms:
To his delight, a good number would trim (or would have already trimmed) their lamps. “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! Make way for the King! Repent and believe! Stay awake! Keep the faith! Only those who endure to the end will be saved! Put the flesh to death by the Spirit! Obey him! Finish the race! Look to Jesus! Trust him for his grace! He is coming to judge the world in righteousness!” Sounding the alarm as Paul Revere, this watchman might gallop down our paved roads yelling, If an old-time preacher, one who believed in uncomfortable realities like the wrath of God, human depravity, and divine judgment, rode his horse through some of the streets of American Christianity, what might he experience?
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