Comforting the Unrepentant

Imagine parents seeing their child playing on a busy street, saying, “Everything is OK.”
Or a doctor finding cancer in a patient, saying, “That’s fine.”
Or people watching a blind man walk toward the edge of a cliff, saying, “He will be safe.”
 
That, in essence, is what God accused the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day of saying. These prophets “say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you’” (Jer. 23:17).  They comforted the unrepentant. They affirmed evil. Instead of preaching the law and calling sinners to repentance, they said, “Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re good.”  Claiming to speak for heaven, they preached for hell.
 
None of us likes correction. But we need it. We need to hear the stern and clear Word of God that shows us our sins, points out God’s threat to punish evildoers, and calls us to repent. This is neither an easy thing to preach nor an easy thing to hear, but the truth must be spoken. God save us from churches that do not preach the law, and do not call us to repent!
 
God also save us from churches that do not follow this preaching of the law with the proclamation of the Good News of forgiveness and life in Jesus. It ultimately does no good to realize we are sinners and we have done wrong if that is the end of the proclamation. Telling us, “Do better!” will not help. Telling us, “Improve your life!” will not help.  What we need is the sweet, consoling, life-giving Gospel preached into our ears. That Gospel will generate repentance. That Gospel will enliven us. That Gospel will pour Jesus into us so that we stand forgiven, righteous, and holy in him.  Preach the law? Yes. Preach the Gospel? A thousand times, Yes! That Good News is our hope because it gives us Jesus, who forgives, renews, and leads us to a life pleasing to him.
 
(Devotion from author Chad Bird, 6.11.24)
 
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
 
"A man who wants to help people tell them the truth, and a man who wants to help himself tells people what they want to hear." (unknown)