Father Abraham and the Seeker-Sensitive Church

All churches should be seeker-sensitive. Every Sunday, every preacher in the pulpit should be praying that there are unregenerate souls sitting before him, and he should preach the glorious gospel with all the passion and intensity he can muster.

I was reading this morning the story Jesus tells called "The Rich Man and Lazarus". And I was struck again by the non-seeker-sensitive emphasis of Abraham. The rich man, in hell, sees Abraham and Lazarus in heaven and asks him to send Lazarus to warn his still-living brothers:

But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’

And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

If a non-Christian won't believe the testimony of Scripture, they won't believe even if a corpse springs up from the coffin and warns them to repent! How much less than will they believe Gospel-Lite which tells them little more than that Jesus loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life?!

Oh, may we tell all that we can about hell, about the Law, about sin, and wrath, and judgment! May we tell them about grace, and forgiveness, and reconciliation, and imputation of our sin and Christ's righteousness! And may we tell them about ten thousand thousand years of infinite joy in the presence of God!