Another sNOw storm on the way?

I couldn't (or perhaps better said, "wouldn't") believe my eyes this morning when I first glanced at the morning's paper. "Forecaster says 6-12 inches possible early in the week."  Yea! Just what most of us want - more of the white stuff! (I can't help but think even the snow lovers among us might just be getting a bit "snow weary" by now?). In regards to this upcoming storm, I recall one of WGAL's (the NBC affiliate here in Lancaster) weathermen looking ahead to this storm and saying, "Early next week this little clipper system will be passing to our south ... not much to worry about with that."  I am convinced that he probably thought that might be the case ... but I am also convinced that he knew he could not be sure. All he was doing was telling us sick-of-snow viewers what we wanted to hear!

As a pastor who has the opportunity to teach the Word of God to the people of God most Sundays, there exists the temptation when handling a "hard" passage of Scripture to try to soften it. To give the people what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. The Bible makes reference to this temptation in 2 Timothy 4:3 where we read, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."  I believe that time has come. In far too many churches the hard teachings of Scripture (such as the doctrines of hell, judgment, sexual purity, etc.) have been replaced with a "You can be a better YOU" gospel that is more about prosperity in this life rather than a reconciliation with a Holy God. God brings this reconciliation about via the substitutionary death of His Son. Christ died to satisfy God's wrath toward me and my sin, thus removing the grounds for my alienation from God and therefore allowing me to be reconciled to Him. This is the gospel of the New Testament. And a glorious, life-giving gospel it is! May we NEVER stop proclaiming it - no matter what people would rather hear!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj