I had a Facebook conversation with a guy the other day who thought that it was torture to tell a kid about Hell. I had to concede that it isn’t fun to tell a person about Hell, neither is it fun hearing that you are going there. I know something how it feels when people make you feel just awful, but is it that always bad?
The day that I was told that I had cancer was a TERRIBLE day, you could almost say that I had been tortured. But now imagine that the doctor had “loved” me too much to tell me that I had cancer, what would have happened. Cancer would have killed me by now, a very slow and PAINFUL death! As much as the emotional pain, and the physical pain that I received with the diagnosis, I doubt the pain comes anywhere close to the pain that my family and I would have endured if my doctor just kept his mouth shut and let me die a slow painful death.
Sin is like cancer. You often don’t see the toll that it is taking on your body till it is too late. But the damage is there. Sin has many consequences and many of those don’t wait until you face literal Hell before they kick in. The earthly consequences of stealing a cookie are not that bad, but how many of us stop at stealing a cookie? Drugs addle the brain that God gives us, sometimes causing them to steal or to do unspeakable things to get more drugs, breaks up families, ends jobs, some strip you of all of your good looks. Sex-related sins cause disease, have incited murder, broken up families, led to abortion, infertility, not to mention the damage that broken homes have done to our children! It rots your soul, sometimes slowly and sometimes lighting fast.
Convincing someone they need grace may hurt them for the time being but in the end, it is saving them a world of hurt!
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