A pastor from the USA came to China and shared the following message in a church: many churches talk less and less about the message of sin, gospel and the return of the Lord. Many preacher's sermons are either about morals or comforting chicken soup.
According to the pastor, the reason why many churches have lost its impact on the world and even been impacted by the world is that the church is increasingly unwilling to criticize the "sin."
There are three reasons why the church avoids more and more teaching about sin?
1, Fear of offending people
Every word of God is powerful but if we teach human's knowledge, our teachings will lose power. Many preachers love teaching about their own convictions, morals and testimony stories. They prepare sermons according to their listeners' taste and dare not to teach harsh lessons, not mention to criticize sin because they fear offending people.
Preaching the Word of God, performing the sacraments, practicing justice in the church are considered the three markers of a true church of God. However many churches have abandoned the last one because they fear men rather than God. They fear that the people of the church decrease in number, that the glory of the church might suffer loss, that the donation of the church might decrease, that they may cause people to hate them and that the rich and the powerful in the church might lose face.
There was a saying among the older generation in Chinese church that, "Fear of offending people" is a very abominable concept for it has harmed numerous believers. Because the Christ we serve is fearless to confront sinners with their sins, we as His followers should be brave too. Wherever we are, whatever we do, whatever we need to speak, if it is what we should do, let us do it with boldness and if it is improper for us to do, let us not do it whatsoever. Let us speak out the word we should boldly and the word we should not utter, let us control ourselves. Anyway, let us not be afraid of offending people.
2, For we do not understand the faith entirely
Many "spiritual people" believe that we should not teach sin, expose and reprimand it because they indicate a lack of love. They think sin is just a mistake, imperfection and a regret and what people need is a positive, healthy and bright attitude.
One-sided understanding of faith may not only cause us to error in faith but also lead us astray to destruction.
3, The church may have deviated from the truth and go astray
There is a century-old church established by foreign missionaries in a city in Sichuan but the truth-seeking Christians passionate for preaching the gospel have stopped attending the gathering there, having set up a new gathering spot to worship and praise God. The remaining people in the church are the young people without faith and the seniors who are not thirsty for the truth. In the eyes of the local brothers and sisters, the century-old church has completely deviated from the Bible, improper to be called "church." Prior to gathering, people sing a song they sung to Chairman Mao in the past; Female preachers wear mini-short when preaching; At Christmas day, they invite worldly dancers and singers to perform in the church; The topics pastors teach most are about donation, love and morals, but they never teach the biblical truth about sin, judgment and the gospel. The church looks like an organization, instead of being God's house.
Some heresies around us claim that once saved, Christians do not need to repent of their sins again, stating that anyone in God does not sin, anyone born of God does not sin and Jesus has taken away all our sins. Their teachings are a great deviation from the truth of the Bible.
God's salvation is not an excuse for our committing sins. Both Martin Luther and Calvin believe that Christians will continue to sin and repentance is lifetime work so Christians should strive for holiness. Sin is not scary, because we can overcome it by the Lord Jesus; What is scary is that sin may put us to death as plague and virus kill people so we need to be alert, not committing sins because it is a small matter in our eyes.
The author is a preacher of a church in Xinjiang.
Translated by Alvin Zhou
