Don't Preach On Hell If You Don't Preach The Law of God.
A little brief backround info to the passage...
Festus opens his matter to king Agrippa concerning Paul, Paul is brought forth, and Festus clears Paul of having done anything worthy of death.
"But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and that he himself hath appealed to Augustus, I have determined to send him. Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat to write. For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him." [Act 25:25-27]
It seemed to Festus an unreasonable thing to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him. Festus was an ungodly man, yet in his statement, he has better theology concerning reasonable justice than many modern preachers of our day.
Can you imagine if Jesus came on the scene at the sermon on the mount and said only half-truths of the scriptures from the Sermon on the Mount.
Imagine...
He gets up and says,
You're all "...in danger of the judgment." (see Mt 5:21)
You're all "... in danger of hell fire." (see Mt 5:22)
You're all going to be "... be cast into prison." (see Mt 5:25)
Take heed! "...it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (see 5:29,30)
I've heard a number of evangelist do this, I have friends that do this, and I myself have made this mistake before when I preached the gospel...
The preacher gets up and describes hell and it's horrors, and ends the sermon with a short mention of sin and "care bear" description of the cross. However a very vital truth has been omitted from his message. The Law of God was not preached. Nor was their grief in the preacher's heart over the sinner's crimes. Natural man lacks the knowledge of sin.
Without this knowledge... when you preach judgment to come and wrath to come, you can only scare souls into making a superficial decision to ask Jesus into their hearts. Law preaching and Wrath to come preaching with Christ Crucified preaching will cut off every false hope of the sinner and point them to the mercy of God.
If you preach the gospel, you must preach on judgment to come. You can not preach Jesus Christ crucified without mentioning the wrath to come that came on Jesus. And you cannot preach Wrath without preaching the Law. "...the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression." (Rom 4:15) And if there is no transgressions that are being signified to the sinner, it won't make any sense when you say, "...he was wounded for our transgressions..." (Isa 53:5) Most understand the seriousness of preaching hell and wrath. However, it seems that few understand the seriousness of preaching the Law of God.
In the verses that I qouted above from Matthew 5, you'll notice something is missing...
I COMPLETELY OMITTED THE SIGNIFICANT CRIMES LAID AGAINST SINNERS.
Therefore if you don't preach the law as Jesus did , you are going to get sinners who will say in their hearts, "...it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him."
Most men will admit, "Yah, I know I'm a sinner. I enjoy it also." Try asking the devil that question, "Are you a sinner?" He'll say, "Why... Yes I am! Thank you very much!"
Hell fire preaching alone will not bring sinners to a knowledge of their need for mercy.
Preach the Law. Preach on Sin. Preach the Wrath to come. Preach both sides of the Cross of Christ. (God poured out wrath on Jesus for our transgressions and Jesus drank the cup of the wine of the wrath of God to save His people from their sins.)
Read the Prophets, study Acts, study Romans, study the Gospels... Study the Puritans. They preached the Law with preaching judgment to come.
If you're going to preach a sermon on hell... first preach the law of God. Hell-Fire Preaching can only scare snakes into the church, if it is void of Law preaching.
"The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable." -Isa 42:21
J. C. Ryle said this,
"People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven, and live like pilgrims, until they really feel that they are in danger of hell ... Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments, and show the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of their requirements. This is the way of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. We cannot do better than follow His plan. We may depend on it, men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those who the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world."
Dr. Martin Loyd-Jones said this,
"A gospel which merely says, 'Come to Jesus,' and offers Him as a friend, and offers a marvelous new life, without convincing of sin, is not New Testament evangelism. (The essence of evangelism is to start by preaching the Law; and it is because the Law has not been preached that we have had so much superficial evangelism.) True evangelism... must always start by preaching the law."
Dr. Martin Loyd-Jones also said this,
"The trouble with people who are not seeking for a Savior, and for salvation, is that they do not understand the nature of sin. It is the peculiar function of the Law to bring such an understanding to a man's mind and conscience. That is why great evangelical preachers 300 years ago in the time of the puritans, and 200 years ago in the time of Whiitefield and others, always engaged in what they called a preliminary law work."
George Whitefield said this,
"First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the Law of God."
Charles Spurgeon said this,
"They must be slain by the law before they can be made alive by the gospel."
Ernest C. Reisinger said this,
"The law is the first message of the cross. There are three truths of the Bible that stand or fall together. They are the law of God summarized in the Ten Commandments, the cross, and the righteous judgment of almighty God. Why do I say that these truths stand or fall together? Because you cannot touch one without touching the others.
1. If you do away with the Ten Commandments, there is no such thing as sin ("...sin is the transgression of the Law" -1Jn 3:4). If there is no sin, the cross is not necessary.
2. If you do away with the cross, you have no answer to the sin question, and there is no hope for sinners.
3. If you do away with the righteous judgment of almighty God, who cares about sin, the cross, or Christ? The law is the first message of the cross."
-Abraham
