Transcription
There is a concept that I hear all the time from preachers that I never find in scripture. And it is this concept. The unconditional love of God. Where did this idea come from? That God's love is unconditional. And what does this concept communicate?
Suppose I'm preaching to non-believers and I'm saying to those people, "God loves you unconditionally." You know, they tell us in seminary that when you preach, you don't preach one sermon. You preach three sermons. There's the sermon that the people hear. There's the sermon you thought you preached. And then there's the sermon that was actually preached and they're not the same. And so, we have to understand that.
And I ask myself, what does that impenitent, unconverted person hear when they listen to a sermon and they hear this announcement, "God loves you unconditionally." Let me tell you what he hears. He hears this, "Well, God loves me just as I am. I don't have to repent of my sins. I don't need a savior. I don't have to worry about going to hell because a God who loves everybody unconditionally won't ever send anybody to hell. So, I can keep on living a hellish life just as I am and never worry again about offending God because he cannot be offended. So unconditional is his love."
I can't think of a more perilous message to communicate to people than to stand there and announce the unconditional love of God. Now, the motive for it, obviously, is that the preacher who has experienced the grace of God, who has experienced the redeeming love of God, is so overwhelmed by that amazing God, he wants to he wants to express it in the strongest terms. He says, "God's love is so wonderful, it's so powerful, it's so transcendent, we could even say it's unconditional." Don't do it. Because you give the wrong message.
God has placed an absolute condition upon the salvation of any person. That person must embrace Christ by faith and trust in him and him alone. Or that person will know only the divine wrath forever.