Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
We've heard the story of the town that was located on a cliff. People would often fall off the cliff and get hurt. So the good townspeople, who were "caring" people, built a hospital and sent an ambulance to pick up these poor people who fell off the cliff. This went on for a long time until somebody thought of a better idea: why not build a fence at the top of the cliff to keep people from falling off?
During a prayer meeting the faithful "caring" church members prayed for young people who used to attend church and Sabbath School, but have given up church and are out in the world. They used to attend Sabbath School, and the church school and academy. Some estimates are that nearly three-fourths of such youth turn away from the church by the time they are 18. Parents weep, and every effort is made to send a spiritual "ambulance" to bring in these casualties.
But why not build a fence at the top of the cliff? Why not give these youth the pure gospel, the genuine Good News? The apostle Paul guarantees that it will work! It's "the power of God to salvation," he says (Rom 1:16).
And what is the Good News? Most of the time the root cause for youth leaving the church is legalism. And what is legalism in contrast with the gospel? Wherever you find the teaching that salvation is due to man's initiative and man's works, you are in an atmosphere of legalism. And when you find the teaching that our salvation is initiated by God, and is His work, you are in an atmosphere of the gospel.
The first teaching leaves the human heart cold, discouraged, in spiritual despair; the second captures the heart, holds its affections, and motivates to faithfulness to God, because it is the essence of the "atonement," reconciliation to God through the blood of the Lamb. Let's give somebody the gospel today!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 16, 1998.
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