Don’t Get Comfortable in the Devil’s World

[bdavidc]

It’s a lie, a dangerous lie, and a lot of preachers are preaching it. This false gospel is sweet-talk and happy-talk. It tells you about God’s love but never His wrath. It preaches blessings but never judgment or repentance. Well, friend, that’s not the whole Gospel. It can’t be. Take away wrath, and you take away the need for the cross. Take away judgment, and you take away the meaning of grace. Listen, the Bible tells us “Jesus… delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). In other words, wrath is coming. The wrath of God is coming—and the love of God sent a Savior to rescue you from it.

But that’s not what the devil wants. The devil doesn’t need you to kneel down and bow to him, he just needs you to sit back and relax. He wants you entertained and distracted and lukewarm and hearing nothing about hell while the world goes up in flames around you. Jesus called the devil “the ruler of this world” (John 12: 31), and the evidence is all around us. We live in a culture that mocks holiness, excuses sin, and calls evil good (Isaiah 5:20). And some pulpits have raised their voice to that culture’s song. It was written in The Church’s Hidden Cancer “We have people in pulpits today that no longer preach repentance but only comfort… They preach a Jesus that saves but doesn’t rule, a gospel without a cross.”

But the apostle Paul says the true gospel did not come “in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). It transformed lives. Look at what it did in Thessalonica. It produced faith and love, and “steadfastness of mind in tribulation and persecution” (1 Thessalonians 1:3). It “turned them to God from idols, to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). That’s the hallmark of real salvation, it’s a turning, not just a talking. It’s a following, not just a feeling.

We see too many today who have exchanged that gospel for something much easier. The gospel of salvation without the cross. The gospel of God with no call to holiness. Paul called that a denial of the gospel, and he was right. Some in pulpits have turned a profession of faith into a pay check. “Too many pulpits are now filled by men who are more concerned with profit than with the truth.” They make the gospel sound good so people will show up. But Paul said plainly, “Our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive… but to please God who tests our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

If Satan can’t crush the church with persecution, he’ll corrupt it through money. He will get false teachers inside the church to corrupt it from within. He will take grace and turn it into license. That’s why the Bible says, “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Don’t be a fool. Don’t be taken in by every slick guy who quotes a Bible verse and flashes a fake smile. Satan quoted Scripture too.

So, what do we do? We stand. We live holy in an unholy world. We preach truth in a world doped up on deceit. We love people enough to tell them that God’s wrath is real, and God’s mercy is real in Jesus Christ. And like Paul, we must be willing to go through “much conflict” (1 Thessalonians 2: 2) for the sake of the true Gospel.

Let us be that generation who refuses to bow down to the idols of comfort and compromise. The same Jesus who saves us from the wrath to come is coming again to reign. Until then, friends, we don’t coast, we contend. Because the love of God is not soft, it is saving. And it saves us from something, His righteous wrath, through His righteous Son.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)