This thread reminds me of a true story...
A guy got saved and turned from drugs and a life of sin...He hadn't been going to church but for a couple of weeks, and the preacher sees him out in public smoking. The preacher really let him have it. Telling him how he was committing sin and that he couldn't have truly gotten saved if he even thought about committing sin. Smoking was going to send him strait to hell and he had better quit.
Well, the guy tried to quit and apparently it wasn't that easy because he just couldn't quit smoking. So he thought he was damned and never had gotten saved and quit going to church and went back to his old lifestyle.
Now, it is evident that someone committed sin in that situation...and I'm pretty sure that real sin was judging and putting a stumbling block in a brothers way.
The old preacher man had cleaned up his outside, but on the inside he was full of dead men's bones.
That's why I think it would pay people to be very careful before judging others and adding to the word of God.
A guy got saved and turned from drugs and a life of sin...He hadn't been going to church but for a couple of weeks, and the preacher sees him out in public smoking. The preacher really let him have it. Telling him how he was committing sin and that he couldn't have truly gotten saved if he even thought about committing sin. Smoking was going to send him strait to hell and he had better quit.
Well, the guy tried to quit and apparently it wasn't that easy because he just couldn't quit smoking. So he thought he was damned and never had gotten saved and quit going to church and went back to his old lifestyle.
Now, it is evident that someone committed sin in that situation...and I'm pretty sure that real sin was judging and putting a stumbling block in a brothers way.
The old preacher man had cleaned up his outside, but on the inside he was full of dead men's bones.
That's why I think it would pay people to be very careful before judging others and adding to the word of God.
No wonder people don't want to come to church.
I had the pleasure of baptising a guy a couple of months back who suffers with bipolar (quite severe) and has to take meds.
Would we say to him "Your taking meds and therefore don't have faith God will heal you therefore not saved"
I help in the Alpha Course, when there is a break some will go out for a smoke. I go out with them and just talk to them.
I sit with a guy at the back of church who is an alcoholic and has to go out and top up and smoke. He then comes back in and sits with me and we talk.
A lady got baptised last month. When the service was finished she was outside having a smoke. I went up to her and said "It's so amazing to see you baptised this morning.
Why on earth do believers act like your preacher man?
The purifying work of the Lord tskes a life time. It's not instant.
He knows how to purify and he does it correctly and knowing what needs dealing with in us and in his timing.
No wonder people don't come to church and no wonder people leave the church.
Mark my words such people like the preacher man will give an account for their words.
We all will.
Lets all make sure we be like Jesus to others