Not too long ago, a pharmacist in Nashville was arrested for diluting cancer drugs while still charging full price for the prescription. Local doctors would phone in their patient's prescriptions and this pharmacy would mix the required drugs. Patients would drop by the pharmacy, pick up their drugs and take them as prescribed. If the cancer had been caught in time, the medicine, mixed with a lot of prayer, would do its work. The pharmacist had developed a very successful practice. Both doctors and patients had learned to trust him.

Sometime in the past few years, the pharmacist had gotten into money trouble. So, he started diluting the medicine. That is, he wouldn't put as much of the chemicals into the solution that attacked the cancer cells and still charged the full price for the prescription. His scheme was working pretty well until the doctors noticed a consistent downturn in their outcomes. People with similar illnesses were no longer responding to the medicine. A routine investigation discovered the problem. The medicine wasn’t strong enough to do the work.

Some days, I wonder if we've done the same thing with the gospel. For years, experts, whoever they were, told us as preachers that we should with go easy on the guilt and condemnation in our sermons. On one hand, I can see their point. I grew up in a church where we were held over hell like marshmallows. We were afraid all the time, never knowing when one sin would be the final straw, forcing God to give up and throw us into hell.

So, we did. We laid off the guilt and preached grace upon grace. That didn't work either.

For one reason, it's not honest. Unless you're dealing with a psychopath, people know when they're doing wrong. Most ...

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