HOW TO EMPTY A CHURCH AT CHRISTMAS TIME.

Friends, as we enter into this season of celebration of a savior we face an opportunity and a responsibility that I think is unique to the season and that is to be ready to speak the gospel to the folks that are around us who don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ. 

We talk about that, being saved.

What are we talking about? What is it we want people saved from? That is the compelling question. The answer to that question, as far as Scripture is concerned, is a simple answer. We want to see people saved from eternal punishment, punishment that never ends. Conscious existence, conscious life in a body resurrected and suited for everlasting punishment. 

The Bible speaks of that as occurring in a place that we know as hell. In the Old Testament, the word Sheol makes reference to that in a general way. In the New Testament, the word Hades is sometimes with reference to that. But always the word hell coming from the Greek word Gehenna speaks of what the book of Revelation calls this Lake of Fire where people are punished and tormented forever.

There are those who claim to be preachers who don’t ever talk about hell, wouldn’t talk about hell, avoid it at all costs, when the truth of the matter is, it ought to be the first thing that we talk about when we talk about the gospel. This is about salvation from hell.

Yes, Jesus was a hell-fire preacher. When we talk about salvation, the word has to be used…the word has to be used because we’re talking about rescue.

 Salvation is a word that means deliverance or rescue and the question is…from what? Contemporary kind of corrupted Christianity would offer many psychological and even material substitutes for hell. 

We would say, “Well, Jesus wants to save me from loneliness or He wants to save you from purposelessness, or He wants to save you from anxiety, or He wants to save you from poverty, or He wants to save you from failure, or He wants to save you from sickness, or He wants to save you from disappointment. 

No, no, He desires to save you from hell, from the fiery hell, the lake of fire that is eternal. The true message of the celebration of a savior Scripture is that salvation is a rescue, a rescue from a real place called hell.

“ The angel of the Lord told Mary, You shall call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.   Matthew 1:21