“The Terror of the LORD” by John H. Gerstner

“The Terror of the LORD” by John H. Gerstner: "John H. Gerstner

Paul preached: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men.” (2 Cor. 5:11) I am constantly impressed that we hear little or nothing of the terror of the Lord except in some fundamentalistic groups. By contrast, in Jonathan Edwards’ Northampton congregation (1726-1750), where there was little or no open or gross vice, the people heard of it, constantly being warned that all were in danger of hell unless they were born again. In one sermon preached in May 1741, for example, he said: “I don’t desire to go about to terrify you needlessly or represent your case worse than it is, but I do verily think that there are a number of people belonging to this congregation in imminent danger of being damned to all eternity.”
I have been reading in “Dear Abby,” as well as her sister and many other pop counselors, of the numerous reports of promiscuous sex in many college dormitories today. The parents who wrote protested the veritable brothel conditions not befitting disreputable hotels. That such behavior guaranteed eternal damnation is never reported by the counsellors. The “terror of the Lord” does not exist for our culture generally, in spite of the wide-spread profession of belief in God. Yet someone has written that if God does not judge us, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah
Very recently a Gallup poll listed the percentage of students who engaged in promiscuous sex: the percentage of Roman Catholics, the percentage of Protestants, and the percentage of evangelical students. Even approximately twenty percent of evangelicals think they can be evangelical and live in disobedience to Christ. The terror of the Lord doesn’t even frighten them. America’s bes"