We can be the same. Maybe if we are not saved, we throw up barricades and objections. The Bible says, ‘You need Christ, you need to trust in him, and ask him for forgiveness, and repent of your sin. Trust in what he has done on Calvary, ask him for new life and heaven’, and we react by making all kinds of objections. Well how do you explain wickedness in the world? How do you explain tragedy if there is a good God?
Or consider the people who want a new kind of church. Take away two services on a Sunday, take away the weeknight Bible study, take away this idea that I have got to leave my sin and live for the Lord and give up worldly things. Take away this idea that I need to make Christ my priority and serve him. Take away all that. Loosen up, relax. Dilute it all. Let us have our, even, sinful, worldly pleasures and the forgiveness of God as well. If any should question this approach, they say, ‘Oh you more traditional Christians, you are just being legalistic. Those things that you think are not biblical and not right, well they are grey areas. Salvation does not depend on this or that: whether I smoke, drink, go constantly to movies, spend my time in front of the television, go to dances, do worldly things. Salvation does not depend upon these things, so forget them. Forget what is in the grey area.’ That is legalistic, they say. There are lots of excuses, if we want to dilute the faith and loosen it up. It is easy to make excuses; it was the same in those days with Christ.