It's a nice human interest story, and it also serves as a pungent reminder of the powerlessness of man alone to effect real heart change. It's the Gospel that young man needed, as well as the shopkeeper. But when the blind lead the blind they both end up in a ditch.
The best the world has to offer is a sort of emotional appeal to what others might think, drawing upon fear of man and sinful pride to manipulate, and try to elicit some form of desired behavior modification.
But a reformed neo-Nazi will land in hell as surely as an unreformed neo-Nazi, unless he's been made a new creature in Christ - as will nice, moral, religious, praying Jewish shopkeepers.
Well did the Lord say: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves."
And it's not just Pharisees who are guilty of this charge. Even in the broader professing church you have liberalism, emergent-ism, and many other social gospel peddlers making people comfortable on their way to hell.
Again, it's a touching story, and it makes me yearn for the time when the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth. Until then, maranatha Lord Jesus.
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ReplyDeleteIt's a nice human interest story, and it also serves as a pungent reminder of the powerlessness of man alone to effect real heart change. It's the Gospel that young man needed, as well as the shopkeeper. But when the blind lead the blind they both end up in a ditch.
ReplyDeleteThe best the world has to offer is a sort of emotional appeal to what others might think, drawing upon fear of man and sinful pride to manipulate, and try to elicit some form of desired behavior modification.
But a reformed neo-Nazi will land in hell as surely as an unreformed neo-Nazi, unless he's been made a new creature in Christ - as will nice, moral, religious, praying Jewish shopkeepers.
Well did the Lord say: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves."
And it's not just Pharisees who are guilty of this charge. Even in the broader professing church you have liberalism, emergent-ism, and many other social gospel peddlers making people comfortable on their way to hell.
Again, it's a touching story, and it makes me yearn for the time when the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth. Until then, maranatha Lord Jesus.