After yesterday’s quoted passage, J. Mack Stiles goes on to give us the rest of the bad news:
We are treasonous rebels who, without constraints, would murder and destroy God himself to establish ourselves in his place (John 19:15). … What awaits us—what we’ve all earned—is hell.
Does that offend you? Are you angry at these comments? Do you say, “It’s not true. I’ve never been in rebellion with God! It can’t be that bad. I’m a good person. What about Ghandi? I love God; we’re friends; I’m spiritual; ‘my God’ would never say such things.”
But I contend that if this news, this bad news, offends rather than humbles, you are the one most in danger. For it’s not said to offend but to instruct and to warn about a reality—the same warning my doctor might bring of a grave illness, but with far, far greater consequences.
…I am well aware of the umbrage people take at such news, Christians included. But why? Doesn’t our offense only point to our self-centeredness and self-righteousness? Those very sins we most hate in others?
Actually, our offense convinces me of its truth. The older I get, the less I feel compelled to avoid the subject by hemming, hawing and tiptoeing around, and the more I want people to open their eyes.
From Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living and Speaking the Gospel