Why come to Christ? On Grace To You last week, John MacArthur gave us half a dozen ways to know that we're not really saved. I wanted to review a quote and give my thoughts on it. It was phrased in the form a of a question after all.

"Secondly, there needed to be a recognition of divine wrath. John at the end of verse 7 preached the wrath to come. And that is absolutely critical. Any faithful preacher preaches on hell. He preaches on fiery, eternal judgment because why bother to come to Christ for the forgiveness of sin if you're not going to by that coming escape eternal wrath? There must be a recognition of divine wrath to elicit a true repentance."

I have to ask why? Why must someone be afraid of Hell to convert honestly? To me, it sounds as though MacArthur is selling God short. Is God's holiness greater than Hell's terror? If so, why shouldn't that be our focus? If people can most effectively come to Christ through fear of Hell, then Hell's must be the more prominent point. I don't think so.

I have to wonder about the authenticity of conversion to Christ if we're only doing it as fire insurance. Don't get me wrong. I think we can come to Christ in all sorts of ways--I think we can be scared, romanced, loved, awed, convinced, maybe even tricked into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, but if we're honest with ourselves, and if we're going to grow as Christians, we'll move away from those superficial reasons (scared, romanced, convinced, and tricked) into the deeper reasons (love and awe).

Lest someone think I'm making this up, as I have been accused of, the whole text of the sermon can be found HERE.