One of my recent phone calls was answered by a recording that closed with,“God loves you.”This got me thinking. After some consideration I came to believe that this comment, as it is most often used, is destructive and is NOT the message of Christianity.In fact, this phrase is actually heretical if not qualified and made clear by the message of the Gospel. Worse yet, “God loves you,” is the message of the false prophets from Genesis to Revelation.
Now, if we search the New Testament, nowhere so we find the apostles preaching “God loves you” to the crowds. It simply isn’t there. Peter preaches the Jewish church’s first sermon and says, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Later he also preaches the first sermon to the Gentiles and states, “He ordered us to preach to the people and to solemnly testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead.” Paul speaks the same message in Athens, “God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” The message preached was that God was coming to judge a world full of wicked sinners. If these sinners continued in their sin, they would be destroyed, utterly swallowed up by the wrath of God – but God did provide a way of escape.
God’s love and mercy are manifested to the entire world in that the Creator sends rain upon their crops and gives food to all sinners. Even while humanity refuses to obey His commands and follow His wishes, God steadfastly feeds them and provides for their needs: the worst sinners don’t starve and the nicest people don’t become rich. This is not because God finds wicked sinners “loveable;” it is because from the very beginning God has provided a way for sinners to escape their rebellion and the impending punishment. God even provided an escape from death itself and those sinners who embrace it will live forever. God’s expression of love is only fully understood in considering the escape path that He made for a doomed world. Anybody who finds comfort and love ONLY in God tolerating and feeding “sinners doing their best” has actually missed the love of God. These people end in death and destruction. God’s “toleration” exists for a limited time, until we die or until He returns; ultimately toleration no escape from the coming judgment.All who fail to repent and embrace the salvation offered in the blood of Jesus Christ will find God, but only in His wrath.
False prophets provide false assurance to wicked sinners. They always have. Instead of clarifying the sinner’s need to escape from the wrath of God that is certainly coming in the death and resurrection of Jesus, they offer sinners comfort saying, “God loves you.” They point to health, prosperity, wealth, and happiness as evidence of God’s love and approval, and they proclaim a message of fictional peace. Those who believe their message “feel” God’s love for them – satisfied and content with God’s approval. These sinners agree with the false prophets, “Yes, God does indeed love me.” Then they die and are damned to torment for all eternity by a just God who pours out His wrath upon sinners.
The point is this: simply saying, “God loves you,” and not completing the statement is preaching the message of false prophets.Instead we should state, “God loves you therefore:
-He sent His Son into the world so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
-escape the coming judgment and repent and believe in Jesus, who died for you and now lives to prove His sacrifice is true.
-do not continue on in unbelief but repent and embrace the love of God that is manifest in the death of His Son on your behalf.
Listen carefully to those who shout their message that “God loves you” in posters, commercials, cards and sermons. If they fail to present the problem of sin and the path of escape that God provided then they are just another false prophet like those that have plagued the world since Genesis. They offer false assurance to a rebellious world doomed to wrath and punishment. Repent and escape the coming judgment and find eternal life in God who became a man and died on your behalf and who now lives to offer you eternal life.
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Good article, but, I do have one question. Where is it that Peter preaches the Jewish church’s first sermon? I have not read in the bible anywhere that this statement is made. I can't remember anywhere it states there was an exclusive "Jewish Church". Maybe I have over looked it, if so, would you please post the book(s) and chapter(s). Thank you. Click here to reply to this post
God loves me, July 23, 1978.
Posted On: 01/08/08 06:03:41 AM
Age 57, AR
There wasn't allot of affection in our home growing up. No one in my family attended church, so we didn't get any teaching from the bible. I started going to church with a friend at the age of 12. My parents started to go as well. It didn't last for me, though. Like allot of teens, I got into drinking, drugs, and sex. Growing up in the 60's was something you don't get over. I never will forget those days. Free love everywhere, or should I say, free sex. We were all searching for the real thing, though, and didn't know it. We were yearning for the touch of God. We tried the spiritual realm in which we took mind stimulating drugs. We got drunk to ease the pain of reality. ONE DAY while at work, a small, meek, common looking woman who worked on my floor, said to me, "God loves you". It was as if my whole being opened up to that and said YES. I said, "He does"? She said "yes, he does". That started the drawing of the Holy Spirit in my heart and life, to bring me to repentance of my sins, and to become a child of the one who loves me. I will never forget that as long as I live. Click here to reply to this post
GOD LOVES YOU
Posted On: 01/08/08 02:24:34 PM
Age 64, OH
Dear friend; I am thankful for these words this woman spoke to you. The Holy Spirit always knows the exact words that will touch your heart and this proves that it was Him who spoke to you. I agree with the author that these words alone are not the whole gospel. The gospel is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But sometimes these three words can touch the heart of a person and then they will seek Christ. May God bless you. Lou Click here to reply to this post
GODS FIRST PROPHECY WAS WAR , FAMINE, AND PLAGUE
Posted On: 01/04/08 12:36:15 PM
Age 64, OH
Dear brother Jentoft this article is from the Holy Spirit. Read the statement by Jeremiah in chapter 28:8 TLB - "The ancient prophets who preceded you and me spoke against many nations, ALWAYS WARNING OF WAR, FAMINE, and PLAGUE. So a prophet who foretells peace has the burden of proof on him to prove that God has really sent him. Only when his message comes true can it be known that he really is from God." - the first time I noticed this scripture years ago it made my jaw drop for it is not what I heard in the church. I asked the Lord about it and he spoke to me and told me to look at the 1st prophecy that I knew of. I turned to Genesis 3:14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly-( DISEASE)
and you will eat dust- ( FAMINE )
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring [a] and hers;
he will crush [b] your head,
and you will strike his heel."- ( WAR )
16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.- ( DISEASE )
Your desire will be for your husband, ( FAMINE )
and he will rule over you." ( WAR )
17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life. ( WAR )
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, ( FAMINE )
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return." ( THE FINAL DISEASE DEATH ) Lou Click here to reply to this post
God Loves You
Posted On: 01/03/08 03:26:04 PM
Age 61, MO
The phrase "God loves us" is always conditional upon our surrender to or belief in Jesus Christ. Otherwise, God IS tolerant or long suffering of us. Even one of the most quoted verses in the Bible, John 3:16, is conditional to belief or surrender to Christ. God loves Christ, will eventually have all things in Christ, and those who perservere to the end in Christ. George Cancilla Click here to reply to this post
One of the many falsehoods.
Posted On: 01/03/08 06:35:57 AM
Age 45, PA
Very good, one of the many falsehoods that church people bandy about. How about, Come to Jesus, the sinners prayer, the head pastor, seminary, heathens welcome in the fellowship, pews, tithing, debating with unbelievers, celebrity preachers, silent pew potato? The traditions of men crush the Spirit and your very good article is just one of the many! Click here to reply to this post
