How often the message is one of warning!
Is it even possible to preach good news apart from bad news?
In this current age, the time from the fall into sin, the good news is that the bad news has been dealt with according to God’s grace. But this good news always follows the bad news. The bad news is all around. The evidence is everywhere.
Yet it seems that we sinful humans turn a blind eye and a deaf ear until we experience the impact of the news in our own lives. Then we want to hear the good news and we cry out for the good news.
But the good news is that the bad news has been dealt with and conquered. The good news is that everything in the world is bad, but that God has provided a house of refuge. Before anyone can come to the house of refuge, that person must first be converted to the belief that the house of refuge is truly necessary. That person must be warned that refuge can be found only in this house.
Sadly, most people refuse to hear this warning. They do not want to hear that all other places and all other houses are really places of destruction. And so the preachers of warning become weary.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. (Jeremiah 20:9)
Ezekiel was told that as a priest of the Lord,
When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. (Ezekiel 3:18-19)
Thus the warning must be told. Life and salvation depend upon it. The warning precedes the good news.
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