Aedan's going through a Spiderman stage right now. He was sitting with me at the computer one day and I showed him the intro theme song to the old 1960's Spiderman cartoons on you-tube and since then it's been all Spiderman all the time. “Daddy, do you like Spiderman?” Yes. “Do you want to be a Spiderman when you grow up?” I'm already grown up. You can be a preacher like daddy when you grow up. “No, I want to be a Spiderman.” One day during one of these conversations I made the mistake of asking him, “so Aedan, do you like Jesus too?” “Does Jesus spin webs?” “Well, I guess he could spin webs.” Oh. “What does Jesus do?” Well he rose from the dead and he walked on water. “Oh…I like Spiderman. Daddy likes Jesus. I like Spiderman.” As I was thinking about this exchange later on I realized that this is what often happens when you try to tell someone about Jesus. They think Jesus is fine but not quite Spiderman. People often don't think they need what Jesus offers.

 

Our text from Acts today addresses this problem.

 

Peter has delivered his sermon. 3000 people were cut to the heart by the Holy Spirit. They're willing to surrender to Christ, and be baptized in his name. But in verse 40, Luke tells us that Peter had more to say. “With many other words he warned them.” This could mean that Peter added more to what he had already said or it could mean that the sermon we looked at last week was only Luke's outline and that the original was much longer. It's not clear. What is clear is that Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, thought it important to add another direct quote from Peter in verse 40.

 

Peter, Luke says, “warned the crowd and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'” Often when the gospel is preached from the pulpit or shared personally, the temptation is to discuss only the benefits and blessings that come from being bound to Christ and they are innumerable. If you're dissatisfied with life, Christ alone can satisfy. If you're lonely, Jesus alone can fill that lonely place in your heart. If you're addicted to drugs or alcohol, Christ can break the chains of addiction and give you freedom. Are you plagued by guilt? Christ offers forgiveness and peace. All these are true and glorious promises and blessings and if you're in Christ, they're yours forever. They must be proclaimed and preached and shared.

 

But alongside those things, if we desire, and I hope we do, to uphold the whole of the Word of God, must come warnings. While there's grace and mercy and forgiveness and love and eternal life for all who bend the knee and surrender and come to Jesus Christ, there's judgment and justice and eternal retribution for those who do not. God is a just God and he will deal with sin justly and to the full extent of the law.

 

I made the mistake of watching the discovery channel the other day again and, as usual, they found the most radical, sensational, and least respected biblical scholars to line up and assure the television audience that that the biblical concept of hell is man's invention, not God's revelation. But even they admit and they must, that out of all the references to the existence of hell, the person who warns most about it in all of scripture is not some Old Testament prophet or priest in some Old Testament book, but Jesus Christ himself in Gospels. And he does so in sections of the gospels that even the most skeptical secular critic of the New Testament would admit as historically accurate.

 

In Matthew 5, during the sermon on the mount, Jesus says that whoever looks at a woman lustfully, this is not just thinking she's pretty, but going beyond that, has committed adultery in his heart. And he goes on to warn, if your right eye causes you to sin cut it out. “It's better,” he says, “to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

 

In Matthew 10, Jesus warns: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but do not kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

 

Elsewhere Jesus describes hell as a “fiery furnace” (Matt 13:42 , 49-50) and a place where there is “the gnashing of teeth,” intense unrest and anger. In Mark 9:48 he describes it as the place where the “worm never dies” and by that he means, as he says explicitly Matthew 25:45, that hell is a place of “eternal punishment.”

 

The only way to avoid the reality of hell is to deny the divinity and perfection of Jesus Christ. And many are so anxious to hide from the reality of the justice of God that they do that as well. The church cannot do that. Hell is real, God's justice perfect, and Judgment comes to everyone.

 

That's the warning Jesus gave. That's the warning we see throughout the New Testament; that's almost certainly the warning Peter gives here when he pleads with his listeners to escape from “this corrupt generation.” Some say that Peter is warning about the coming destruction of Jerusalem that took place in 70 AD. The problem with that suggestion is that during that time believers suffered alongside their non-believing neighbors. Christians didn't escape. The only thing from which we know that those who surrendered to Christ in that generation escaped is the eternal punishment due that generation because that generation, like every generation, was found wanting or corrupt before the throne of God.

 

Ours is no different. And so Peter's warning, Christ's warning, stands not only for those of that generation but for our own as well.

 

In seminary we were told not to speak of these things from the pulpit, not to follow Peter's example. Because doing so would turn people off and turn people away, and those are valid fears, I understand them and feel them, but it means first that we depart from the pattern of preaching found in the New Testament and second that the church is reduced to proclaiming the gospel in the same way that companies sell products. “Buy Jesus, he'll make your life better.” It's true, Jesus does and will make your life better eternally, but it's only half the truth. The other half is that those don't “buy” Jesus will be eternally and infinitely worse. That part of the message cannot be lost because if it is and when it is, those who do not yet believe don't and will not see the personal danger of unbelief.

 

If you see cars speeding toward a cliff and the bridge is out, it's your duty to warn them about the cliff, to give them the opportunity to turn away even if they seem to be enjoying the ride. And in such a case, you wouldn't, I hope, just set up a sign saying, “Scenic overlook turn here.” Or, “Pleasant path next exit” because without the knowledge that the road they're on will end suddenly and unexpectedly at the cliff, they may just see your signs and say “No thank you. I really like this road” And so a warning must be given along with the offer of the good road.

 

Have you ever met people who seem to have everything? You speak to them about Christ and they say, “Well that sounds really nice for you but frankly, my life is going fine right now.” “Why do I need Jesus I have a Porsche and a Swiss bank account?” “Why do I need Jesus? I'm first string on the football team, all the girls love me, and I have no troubles.” These are the people that need to be told that the bridge is out. You need Jesus because the Porsche and the money and the popularity and success are meaningless before the throne of God. The only thing that will be of any benefit to you there is the blood of Jesus Christ, through which and by which, God bore the punishment your sins deserve. Turn around.

 

And who will warn them if not the church? If not you?

 

Do you see the importance of evangelism? It's not about growing this parish. It's not just about giving people hope, letting people know that Jesus loves them. He does but some will hear that and say I think he's nice too but he's not Spiderman. Evangelism is a rescue mission and a desperate, urgent one. There's a cliff and if the people you love are not in Christ, they're heading straight for it and time is short. You don't know if today or tomorrow will be your last day or their last day. Why are we wasting time?

 

Peter not only warns his listeners, he pleads with them. He wasn't just standing back disinterested, with no emotion, no heart, no feeling. He wasn't cold, relishing in his own salvation and the demise of others. I've heard Christians do that before: speak in tones and with a voice that seems to communicate a kind of disinterested superiority, a kind of “well, I'm going to heaven who cares about anyone else.” Peter didn't do that. Christ's deep, deep love for his people working in Peter through the Spirit, wouldn't let him speak that way. There's affection and desperation and sorrow in his warning. We know this feeling. I know it when I talk with people I love who do not, who will not, repent and believe. We plead with them and plead with God to turn their heart.

 

That desperate pleading urgency for the salvation of other people does not arise from Peter's own goodness, or if you know the feeling, from your own goodness, it's the Spirit of Christ working pleading through you. It's what Jesus did while on earth and now that he is at the right hand of the father, God holds out his hand in Jesus Christ and pleads for generation after generation to take it and he does his pleading now through the pleading of his people, you.

 

This is why it's such a tragedy when Christian people turn inward. When they become consumed with their own lives and their own wellbeing and their own spiritual growth and Christianity becomes a sort of self-help therapy session. Inward focused Christians produce inward focused churches. You get a whole bunch of people together navel gazing and the church becomes a sort of club with competing interests where huge fights arise over carpet color or what sort of music we're going to have or where to put the furniture because at that point Christianity has become about making the church members the most comfortable.

 

This grieves the heart of Christ. The moment you came to Christ, you were given, we were given a mission, and no matter what callings Christ gives you, this mission stands as your primary one: go out and bring others to me. Will you, in the end be able to say to your Lord, I bore witness to you? I told my friends, my family, my neighbors. I warned them I pleaded with them?