Bearers of Good News or Bad News?

This week's message is entitled, "Hark the Herald Jesus Sings."  It is a play on the Christmas Carol title, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  The main point of the message deals with the word herald and what it means.

It basically has two meanings. 1. First, "The bearer of news."  Not just good news, but any news including bad news.  We Christians are bearers of both good news and bad news; although for the most part, unless you are a pessimist, we concentrate mostly on the Good News of the gospel. 

We are bearers of bad news as well.  We may not like being the negative side of the message of the gospel, but it is a reality about the Christlike lifestyle that we have to live with.  We don't even have to be drastic as some like to be by getting up on a soapbox and preaching a doomsday message to be bearers of bad news.  Our presence alone can be bad news to the lost and dying world in sin.

The apostle Paul certainly realized this when he said, "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."  The implication here is that for those who are perishing (and maybe for some who are saved as well) the aroma of Christ is bad news on at least a few accounts.  It is kind of good news and bad news all in the same breath.  For example, when we live righteously in the presence of the unsaved, or the backsliden Christian, it can be comparable to rubbing sandpaper together.  There is a lot of spiritual friction that takes place.  When holiness and evil co-exist there can't help but be tension.  Holiness is bad news to evil.

2. This brings me to the second meaning of herald: "signs of what will happen."  Sometimes just the presence of righteousness and holiness because of the presence of Christ within us can be a sign to an unsaved person about the reality of their own lives.  I stated to someone lately that God is like a mirror.  When we look into His spiritual reflection we see not the face of God but ourselves; and we may not like what we see.  Bad news in this sense however is not a bad thing if you respond to it in a righteous manner.  God wants to turn the bad news about your own life into the Good News of the gospel.  Praise God.

Why not listen in to Sunday's message, again entitled, "Hark the Herald Jesus Sings," which will be posted on our church website after the service Sunday morning, and find out more about what it means to be a herald for Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

-Leo