Need to Know

One of the fallacies of the contemporary church is that its mode of operation is based on the assumption that everyone present when the doors are opened is a card carrying believer in Jesus Christ.  There was a time when sermons were preached with a hope that they might be persuasive enough to bring the non-believer to faith in Christ.  In most places those sermons are no longer preached.  Issues other than the life and death issue of faith in Jesus Christ take top billing and consume too much sermon time.

 

There are a lot of personal problems which could be resolved by a good dose of honest repentance, but the church has become hesitant in its preaching about sin because it might be offensive and affect both the numbers in the pew and heaviness of the offering plate.  Wanting to be popular and liked has been the downfall of many a preacher.  Old Jeremiah battled with this issue of preaching a word no one wanted to hear.  It surely broke his heart to speak faithfully the Word God had placed upon his heart.  He did not want to speak, but faithfulness would give him no other choice. (Jeremiah 20:19)

 

As the song says, "People need the Lord" and what is also needed is someone to preach about the reason why people need the Lord.  We may not all be able to look back and put our finger on the calendar and the clock and say, "This is the moment I asked Jesus into my life," but it is imperative that we can look at the whole of our life and declare with confidence that such a decision has been made.  We, as well as the people around us, are lost, overloaded with unmanageable guilt, and living with unresolved regret when we try to manage our own life.  There is one thing we cannot do for ourselves and that is to bring ourselves back into a relationship with God once we have broken that relationship with our sin.  This is the work of God though Christ.  People need to know.