Fire and Brimstone Preaching: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

We’re defining “fire and brimstone” as, preaching against a sin, or reminding people of Satan or hell.  Let’s look at Peter.  In his very first sermon, in Acts 2:19-21, he began with a quote from Joel 2:

I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. ²⁰ The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. ²¹ And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.’

So he begins his preaching by giving graphic images of the devastation of the Day of the Lord. Such a negative start.This was book-ended with hopeful statements, too; that God would give prophecies, dreams, and images; and He would respond if they call on His name.  Then Peter wasted no time in reproaching everyone (Acts 2:22-24a) for a recent incident that was still raw on their nerves—he accused them (not Pilate) of crucifying their Messiah.  He didn’t shy away from blunt language:

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles… ²³ Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;²⁴ whom God raised up…

Note how confrontational Peter is, YOU have crucified, you have put Him to death.  Note particularly his calling them “lawless.”  The Jews thought they knew the law, and had abundant scribes and lawyers to tell them exactly how to be lawful to the finest degree possible; so being accused of lawlessness was a gigantic slap in the face, was it not?

He points more emphatically at their mistake in verse 36:

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

This directness about their sin makes this “fire and brimstone” preaching.  What was the reaction? A good one, from Acts 2:37-41:

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” ³⁸ Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized…saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” ⁴¹ Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.

Three thousand people saved!  An astonishing result from one “fire and brimstone” sermon.  These people turned completely around; as later verses show, they were on fire for Christ. 

If something works, you do it again, right?  Peter, after healing a lame man, is equally forceful in his reproach of the Jews, in Acts 3:13-15:

…God…glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. ¹⁴ But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses

Peter won’t let them escape blame by saying “Pilate did it.”  They knew the truth; Pilate was very willing to opt out of crucifixion, but the Jews wouldn’t let him.  He is again forceful with his language; “you killed the Prince of life,” you delivered Him up, you traded Him for a murderer.  He also accused them of denying Christ.  To do that was a serious charge; if unrepentant, it is a ticket to hell, as Jesus points out in Matthew 10:33:

But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven

Then Peter seems to open the door for them to escape blame, in verse 17:

“Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

But how acceptable is it, to say, “Yes, we killed Him, but we did it out of ignorance.”  But that was only a temporary respite, as his censorious language reaches its peak in verse 23:

And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet (Jesus) shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. 

You just never hear this confrontational preaching anymore, do you?  In any event, except for the priests, the response was amazing, as Acts 4:4 says:

However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. 

Considering that households generally took on a faith together, this suggests at least 10,000 people, including wives and older children, either were saved in this sermon, or have been saved altogether.  When compared to 3000 souls added in his previous sermon, shortly before, this sermon, definitely classed as fire and brimstone, might’ve saved 7000-10,000 people!  This is shocking, is it not?  Because of fire and brimstone preaching in two sermons, their saved souls had grown from 120 to at least 10,000.  

Now of course, you might beg off from the obvious conclusion, saying that the Holy Spirit did something special here just to “kick off” Christianity’s start.  Well, “doing something special” is my point.  Preachers need to understand that the results are not theirs—the results belong to God.  The Holy Spirit can knock a person down with conviction far better than the preacher can.  Suppose that a pastor is never blunt about sin, and fears a negative response to such preaching so much that he never delivers a fire and brimstone message.  Given favorable results that we've seen, and if he wants to save souls more than worry about how some of the people feel about him, he should be willing to give it a try, right?  So if he rejects it:  that fear is of the world, is it not? Is he assuming that the negative style doesn’t get results?  We are proving the opposite. Is it possible that the opposite of his "rational" expectation occurs; perhaps the Holy Spirit will not bless his messages, because of his “fear of man,” and few people are genuinely saved in that church as a result?  It could even be that with bland preaching, he attracts more “worldly Christians” to his membership (that’s an oxymoron—being worldly and a Christian shouldn’t exist).  These people are often trouble.  They actually get angry and fearful if the Holy Spirit gets some people emotionally saved and starts to shake up the place.  If pastors then listen to their complaints, and get worried himself, he might suppress anything considered "radical" today--and kill a revival.

My conclusion is, the Holy Spirit liked Peter’s sermons, and blessed them by convicting people and bringing more souls to heaven.  May God be praised.  When you see these results, why not copy it, pastors? Are you bold enough? 

Peter preaches like that again, this time before the religious rulers, after a miraculous healing.  If Peter had used worldly logic, it would suggest that he “back off” from a fire and brimstone style with them, knowing that they had the power to imprison him, and then no one would hear the gospel from him again. Better to "go softer" than to be forced to go silent, right?   But the Holy Spirit gave him the fire and brimstone words, as we’re told in Acts 4:8, and you can see his forthrightness in the sermon in verses 10-12:

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel… ¹⁰ let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead… ¹¹ This is the

‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’

¹² Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

I would just like to note, for present day readers, the “bigoted intolerance” of Peter’s—or really God’s —statement in verse 12—there is no salvation in any other faith, including the Jews trying to obey the law.

Now you may argue that, yeah, when accompanied by miraculous healings, as he had, you’ll get more people saved.  My answer is twofold:  First, the Jewish rulers were not worried about the recent miracle; their concern was that Peter was preaching that Jesus was raised from the dead.  We all know that miracles can be conjured up in fakery; but it’s hard to fake someone rising from the dead.  Acts 4:1-2:

…the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, ² being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

Secondly, Jesus knew that salvation by miracles was temporary; that was mostly to pull more people around to hear His great words.  The words were the key; they were calculated to convict of sin, which is essential in being saved.  As you can see in John 2:23-25:

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.²⁴ But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,²⁵ and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man

Let’s turn to the deacon, Stephen, a fire and brimstone preacher in the “worst” way.  Now it’s true that when Stephen used that style on the religious rulers, the results were what you might expect--disastrous. He was stoned to death. But God wanted them to hear just those words, as Acts 6:15 will clearly imply, He was behind it:

And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.

And his sermon, in chapter 7?  As we said:  fire and brimstone. He tells them that they were God’s chosen people, and God blessed their ancestors abundantly.  But they rejected God, and God’s prophets, at every turn; they would rather have idols than God.  In their wilderness wandering, they would rather go back to Egypt than have faith in God.  As Acts 7:35, 39, and 42 point out:

“This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush….³⁹ whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt… ⁴² Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets

As the next several verses point out, they would rather worship Moloch, the stars, images, things of Babylon…but not the God Who loved them.

Now Stephen uses language guaranteed to touch their “hot buttons” more than Peter, in Acts 7:51 and 52:

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. ⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers

Stiff-necked!  Uncircumcised! (That must’ve hurt—circumcision was a badge of honor to them).  You always resist the Holy Spirit. He told them that they were persecutors, betrayers, and murderers.  This kind of language, calling people names, is guaranteed NOT to save anyone, except a masochist.  So why did God want him to do it?  Well, consider the audience:  the religious leaders, who had a long history of rejecting prophets and Jesus before, and rejecting the disciples now.  So they get the harshest language.  No longer just facts, like Peter did with the Jewish public:  You killed the Son of God.  Now, with the leaders, it’s: You’re stiff-necked! And so on. What do we learn from this? God might ask us to preach in a style that will get us killed, or hated. But you do it, you use your forthright and blunt language.  So, if we want to go to the mouth of the beast, as it were, like a “Reason Rally,” or an Atheist rally, you might need to get prayed up and get stark about their future destination in hell--if that’s what the Lord gives you. It’s what He wants, whether it seems to make sense or not. Maybe you won’t see anyone saved. It didn’t happen to Stephen here, and it didn’t happen to Noah for many years. Well, you say, why even do it? Because when they stand in judgment, God will remind them of the words you said to help convict them.  And because we all should be “watchmen.”  Ezekiel 33:2-6 explains the idea: 

…let the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, ³ when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, ⁴ then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. ⁶ But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’   

The definition of “warn” is to “inform someone of an impending danger…give someone forceful advice about their actions.”  If you are the watchman, it is your obligation to use forceful (i.e, fire and brimstone) language to steer them clear of danger.  If you don’t, judgment is on you.

Now, you may argue that you are not appointed to be a watchman, so you have no responsibility for warning, nor punishment if you don’t. But to feel that way suggests that you don’t want to warn him of danger coming his way (hell)--so you don't really love the brethren.  But that’s a dangerously complacent path, as I John 4:7-8 points out:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

To use a blunt example:  Say, someone is walking unknowingly toward a fire.  You will run up and warn them, forcefully if necessary.  If they aren’t changing course, and they are your friend or your brother, you will even attack them, as a final measure to keep them from walking into it. You’re not going to stand back and say, “Not my responsibility.”  God, the real writer of Acts, sets in Paul a noble example for all of us to follow. Watch and warn people, he’s saying, is a responsibility for all of us.  Acts 20:30-31:

 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. ³¹ Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.

Yes, we do have a responsibility to preach fire and brimstone on occasion.

When Peter preached to Gentiles, beginning with Cornelius in Acts 10, his approach was completely different.  No more fire and brimstone.  Why?  Well, he saw the Gentiles as a foreign mission.  Jews had minimal relations with Gentiles, particularly about religion.  The Gentiles knew little about this Jesus of Nazareth.  The Jews had the Old Testament Scriptures, with prophecies, so they should have worshipped Jesus. But they crucified Him. So the word for them was a word of reprimand.  But the words to the Gentiles were those of instruction and education about Jesus.

So, we see that fire and brimstone preaching was highly successful with the Jews, who needed to be aware of their sin, and who had Scripture that they allegedly knew and believed in.  Well, the same is true of the U.S. today.  We have lots of Bibles, lots of Christian tradition. But, you say, we have no great sins among churchgoers.  Are you sure of that?  Could it be that it’s easily hidden these days?  Let’s not kid ourselves.  We have sin among churchgoers.  We definitely need fire and brimstone to wake us up—we could lose the salvation we think we have.

But…most pastors don’t use fire and brimstone methods anymore, which we’ve seen are successful…why? 

Is it because pastors love to assume that everyone in their church is saved, and not “walking toward a fire,” so aggressively warning them is not necessary?  There might be a few problem areas, pastor would say, or problems caused by only a few people, but “they would straighten out if we just warn them in a kind way, if possible.”  Pastors are diplomats.  They tend to suppress prophetic voices among their leaders that seem to them negative, full of admonishment.  Pastors consider the prophets, the sources for those utterances, speculative, emotionally driven, only believed with a large grain of salt, and pastors don’t like to deal with problems that seem to always result when someone gets their feelings hurt when these guys talk. So…church discipline, commanded in Scripture, is effectively ignored (I have a blog on that subject).  But take a look at Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 10:11-12.  This was after his listing past sins of lusting after evil things, sexual immorality, etc, all of which are pointed out explicitly in Scripture.  Gee, you might ask, do you really want to mention these terrible things that people are capable of doing?  Here is his answer:

Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.:

Some Scriptures are for our admonition, to shake a finger at us, to warn us, “lest (we) fall.”  Fall might mean going to hell, or taking steps in that direction.  Such admonishment is needed to remind ourselves that we are sinful people and need God every day.  So when was the last time you heard a pastor preach on one of the fallen people in Scriptures, preaching deeply about the sin, and concluding the sermon with “so as far as we know, he is in hell even today. You could go there yourself, taking the path he took.”  Not going to happen, right?  Pastors are trained in seminary to begin a sermon lighthearted, and end on a positive note, to send everyone home happy. Keeps everyone coming back, tithing, paying the bills. But God’s goal is sometimes not to make us happy—but to call us up short, to make us sober and vigilant, sometimes to make us introspective.  To make us take a good hard look at ourselves, trying to strip away the self-deception that we fall prey to if we are not bathed in Scripture, which gives us a realistic look at ourselves.

Since pastors are not encouraging us, may we desire to be closer to God, and warn ourselves to put an end to our own sins and self-deception.  And pray for pastors to become leaders, with more spine.  Willing to warn us away from falling.