This may be one chapter in which you will find disagreement with C. S. Lewis (sacramental view of baptism and communion). Please don't throw the rest of the chapter out, however. He roars back like a fiery, Calvinistic evangelist and says this: "[The Christian] does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it." Notice the warning Lewis gives at the end of the chapter: "When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you're on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream..." The question for discussion: When, in our desire to win a person to Christ, does it become necessary to warn them about hell?
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Nice Bosch
Jessica from Facebook wrote: I struggled with that a little bit in sharing biblical things with my two daycare boys. They're both 4, which is how old Jesse (my husband) was when he accepted Christ. They both have shared their fears of dying, on more than one occasion, usually somewhat out of the blue. I've shared the Gospel with them numerous times, and included the part about hell (with slight trepidation, wondering if/how it would come out of their mouths to their mothers!) But I decided you can't tell them what will happen if they trust Christ as their Savior and NOT tell them what will happen if they don't. It's important to keep it true and in perspective. Using hell to scare someone to Christ is not exactly the best way, but avoiding the topic altogether is deceitful.
I agree. I was just reviewing that chapter with an unbelieving counselee and pointed out the "take or leave it" statement at the end of the chapter. I want to be relational, but am not being a friend if I do not love him enough to tell him the whole truth.
Caleb from Facebook wrote: Better to scare them than to leave them ignorant of the certainty of God's return. I was incredibly struck by the last page, how Lewis talks about how men may blindly pray for God's intervention in the world without realizing exactly what that would mean. True, He is beauty and glory and holiness, but I think that we often forget about His power. We try to tame Him and make Him a god that fits our conceptions. We try to bring Him down to our level instead of striving for His. We adore the Lamb while neglecting the Lion. I think that we are often lacking the awe and the fear that is due to a God so powerful. We take for granted the fact that we are saved from our due punishment, we forget that we have so narrowly escaped the wrath of an angry God. His justice is complete, and we have not a thread of righteousness to hold us back from tumbling into the pits of hell...only a Hand of Mercy that reached out and grabbed us as we fell. We cannot deliver the gospel without the message of hell, because without the penalty, there is nothing to be saved from. There is no purpose in the cross. No sinner will delight in knowing he can be eternally accepted into God's presence unless he knows the chilling alternative. The terror of knowing what our sins deserve is not petrifying, rather it is uplifting. We fall at the feet of our Great Savior because we know that but for His grace, we are all lost.
The biggest problem I find is that people today are so earthbound. They see nothing beyond "this whole natural universe" which is "melting away like a dream." Even if they have some kind of 'belief' about the supernatural they are so conditioned by 'science' and movies and all the titillating phenomena that they are truly living as if this physical universe is all there was.
I think what needs to be done is what Caleb, Lewis, and Edwards all have done - give a powerful image, something quite fantastic - which might break the bond of the hereandnow in the mind of the unbeliever.
Caleb said: "We adore the Lamb while neglecting the Lion. I think that we are often lacking the awe and the fear that is due to a God so powerful."
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a fantasy story about a Lion who invokes fear and awe, perhaps because he is not a tame lion, by which an unbelieving world might be given an image of God?
Here's a good sermon:
http://www.centralseminary.edu/mp3/
Bauder_ImaginingGod_cc110707.mp3
(Link is all one line)
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