To Warn is to Love

“Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.  Have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire.”  Jude1:21-23a

            When my younger brother Nate was a little boy, he wandered over and pressed his hand onto our wood-burning stove.  Naturally, his skin broke out into a cluster of sizeable blisters resembling something like mozzarella (I wasn’t able to eat grilled cheese for months!). But just moments before he touched the stove, I seem to remember my mom yelling at him, warning him not to touch the stove. Her tone was shocking to me at first, but after seeing the damage done to his hand, I understood that her response was warranted and appropriate. 

            How do we respond to the reality that people without Christ are entering eternity (perhaps this very day!) without God and without hope... forever? How do we feel about them entering a land with no trace of goodness or light or pleasure?  Or are we too busy to feel, too busy protecting our personal comforts and padding our bank accounts? Are we so caught up in even our Christian activities that we've forgotten what it means to be a Christian, what it means to snatch people out of the fire?  My mom was loud and, frankly, rude when she shouted at Nate, but that was a function of her love for him.  Would it have been better if my mom had first researched the danger of burns, talked to my dad about the possibility of warning Nate, started a home group study about burns, and concluded in the end that she didn’t want to startle or offend Nate by confronting him? Love and warning are conjoined twins. “Keep yourselves in the love of God...save others by snatching them out of the fire.” You cannot separate these thoughts. If you refuse to warn, then you've failed to love.  "Have mercy on those who doubt." Yes, mercy should pervade every conversation we have, but let us not mistake mercy for weakness.  Mercy is proactively stepping out in order to bless someone - often at great personal risk.  Mercy takes many different forms, but one thing mercy does not do is sit quietly by and watch someone march to their own destruction. In this culture of endless diplomacy and unqualified tolerance (which is a logical contradiction), we must remember that warning people of destruction, when done gently, is a function of love for people, not rudeness or bigotry.  "An open rebuke is better than hidden love, and wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy." Proverbs 27:5-6