Jesus Was No Joel Osteen
Can you imagine actually beholding the Incarnate Word actually preaching the Word?
I would be willing to give up my left testicle just to have had the opportunity to have heard Jesus preach while He was kickin’ up dust on the mean streets of the Middle East two-thousand years ago.
Can you imagine actually beholding the Incarnate Word actually preaching the Word?
I don’t know about you, but I hope they have videos of Him preaching that I can watch once I get to heaven because I guarantee that was some epic … holy … stuff.
One thing is for certain: His sermons weren’t muddy and murky, cheeky and cutesy, platitudes and maxims, built to make people feel good about being an impenitent sinner; deluding them into thinking that ‘they’re fine and heaven waits for them’ all the while they’re tooling down AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ at ninety miles per hour.
The message that Jesus preached wasn’t some lame, half- baked, seeker-friendly, ‘what does he mean’, indefinable horse-scat that terrified pastors craft to keep in the good graces of the politically correct Thought Police who now threaten churches with lawsuits if they preach against their particular penchants.
Oh, heck no, Dinky.
Jesus’ message was repentance. It was, turn or burn.
It was, do a 180.
It was, leave everything and follow me.
It was, if you love anything more than me, then you’re not worthy of me.
Jesus’ message was, you’re wrong … I’m right.
His message was, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one gets to the Father except through me.
It wasn’t, ‘there are many ways to God.’
Jesus’ message wasn’t the byproduct of a focus group of feckless friars trying to appeal to the carnal appetites of the damned.
Jesus knew hell awaited the unrepentant, therefore, His message was … repent.
Speaking of hell, as Dr. R.C. Sproul said,
But the Church doesn’t.
Why?
Well, it’s because the Church has become effeminized and has lost the holy and masculine fortitude to say the tough things that must be said in order to truly rescue dunderheads like me from their impending and eternal doom, if … they … don’t … repent.
True men of God, like Jesus, will not dull their sword because their crowds can’t handle the plain-dealing.
Effeminate, Nancy Boy pastors, however, will.
All the biblical greats, from the prophets, lawgivers, judges, psalmists, righteous kings, priests and the Chief Dragon-slayer himself, Jesus, preached repentance, hell-fire, ye must be born again, to whomever, whenever they opened their righteous mouth on behalf of their Holy God.
And they didn’t apologize for making people feel bad. As in, real bad.
The apostle Paul put it this way …
True men of God, like Jesus, preach the hard truths of the scripture that’ll ruin your day but will, if believed and received, make your life an homage to your Creator, a true gospel benefit to mankind, while sparing you from an eternal deep-fry in outer darkness.