Based on the description, they may have been closer to the Truth than you think. Though they may not have been as emphatic about the salutory effects of intense grace as I.
The only purpose of warning of the bad is so that it can be overcome for the sake of grasping the good again. Not so you can make those dirty rotten sinners squirm in an amusing spectacle before you.
I think it is YOU who have the overweening attitude, frankly. You’re the know it all grown up. I came into the Kingdom learning to be a child in spirit again.
“The only purpose of warning of the bad is so that it can be overcome for the sake of grasping the good again. Not so you can make those dirty rotten sinners squirm in an amusing spectacle before you.”
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When did I call them “dirty rotten sinners”? And when did I say I wanted them to squirm “in an amusing spectacle before [me]”? Are you serious? You must also have problems with the Apostles, namely Paul.
Sorry, but when pastors refuse to call sin what it is, and begin to water their message down in the name of tolerance and political correctness, they are indeed becoming “lukewarm.” No sermons on the evil of abortion; no sermons on the evil of homosexual marriage...I could go on. They had a duty to call these current abominations out for what they are; they refused. We left...simple.
You can’t describe the function of light only by what is lit but by shadow as well. Hebrews, for example displays the full light of Christ by describing not only his grace but his judgment of those who reject that grace.
By all means, rejoice in the great grace of Christ, by which men are forgiven and cleansed from their sins...but warn those who persist in error of the consequences. We say we follow the example of Christ who meekly gave himself up to be sacrificed for us. Yet this same Christ took whips to the thieves who profaned his Father’s house...( in his great love he only hit them he didn’t kill them) Should we not at times speak boldly with anguished righteous anger against those who corrupt our children, would profane marriage and the notion of Godly families, and would demand that we worship what is created and not the Creator? Are there not times that we should “sell our cloaks and buy a sword”...even if such a sword is no more than civil disobedience, like the Hebrew midwives who, fearing God, refused to obey Pharoah’s edict to kill the first born Hebrew males at birth?