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Transcript 339C — Serving God Out of Fear?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Hello. I wanted to ask you if you would comment on a person serving God out of fear.
HC: You ask me to comment on the question of a person serving God out of fear. And you're thinking of fear in the sense that I'm going to serve God because if I don't serve Him, He's going to send me to hell.
CALLER: Right.
HC: That's an interesting question, and I don't know what the implication in your mind of this question is, but I do know this, that many have told me, "Well, I'd like to become a Christian, and I'm interested in the Christian faith, but don't talk to me about hell. You're not going to scare me into salvation. You're not going to make me fear hell and therefore I'll want to be saved. Don't you dare do that."
Actually, we have to let the Bible show us what salvation is. The Bible talks again and again and again and again about the wrath of God. It talks about the terrible situation of Judgment Day, that there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, that their torment goes on forever and ever. Chapter after chapter of Jeremiah, chapter after chapter of Isaiah, of Ezekiel, of Revelation, talks about Judgment Day. You can depend upon it, that Judgment Day and hell are a very integral and important part of the Gospel message.
Now we immediately sense the reason that God talks about Judgment Day. How can we know what we're being saved from? Or how can we really desire salvation if we don't know what we have to be saved from? If you go to a person and don't describe hell to him, and don't say anything about judgment and the wrath of God, and you say, "You ought to believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, God loves you, and He has a wonderful plan for your life, and now you ought to believe in Him," and you don't talk about Judgment Day and hell, he may decide to get on the bandwagon with Christ, he may decide to become affiliated with the church and be identified with the body of believers, but he hasn't the slightest notion of why he's being saved or what he's being saved from, has he?
It's only when he realizes that he's a sinner, and that he's under the wrath of God, and he trembles and he's scared to death, yes, scared to death, that he's going to come broken before God, "Oh God, have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. I don't want to go to hell. I don't want to come under your judgment." That's the way the Bible presents the Gospel.
When Jonah came to Nineveh long ago, he didn't come to them with the statement, "God loves you." He came to them and said, "You better repent, because in forty days God is going to destroy you." And the whole city repented in sackcloth and ashes. They were scared to death that God would do exactly as He said He would. That is the way God presents salvation.
Then we know why we're being saved. Now once we are saved, once we have placed our trust in Christ, that is, once we have become born again, we don't serve Him with that fear any longer. That fear has been translated into a reverence, into a high regard for God as our Father. We know that we're no longer under judgment. We know that we're no longer under condemnation in any sense. We'll never have to stand for judgment in any way whatsoever. We know that we have eternal life, and we've become a child of God. We love Him with all our heart.
And so in our service for Him as Lord and Savior it is never from the vantage point of abject fear, if I disobey God He's going to throw me in hell. We know our sins have been altogether paid for by Christ, and all fear of that kind is removed. Do you see the difference?
CALLER: If there's a problem where you're not really certain of salvation, that mean that you're still serving Him out of fear?
HC: Well, if we are serving God and believe we are saved, and we're walking like on a tightrope, or on the edge of a precipice, worrying that "my, if I ever sin too much God is going to cast me into hell," and so we have that kind of fear, that "I'd better be a good person, I'd better do it God's way because He's going to punish me, He's going to throw me into hell," that is not true salvation. That has nothing to do with salvation. That is a salvation of good works. That is a salvation whereby we are believing that by our good works we are being worthy before God, and therefore we deserve salvation. That's not the salvation of the Bible.
The salvation of the Bible teaches us that our sins have all been paid for. We don't obey God because we fear His punishment. We don't obey God because we fear that He's going to throw us into hell. That's not possible. We obey God because we love Him with all our hearts. We obey God because this is the new natural desire of our born again, resurrected soul. We have been given our resurrected souls, and now in that part of our being there is an ongoing desire to serve Him.
That is the reason that we constantly want to be more and more obedient to Him.
CALLER: Thank you very much.
HC: You're welcome. Good night.