Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Luke chapter 3, verses 17 and 18. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor,

and to gather the wheat into his barn. But the chaff, he will burn with unquenchable fire.

So with many other exhortations, he preached good news to the people.

So these two verses are talking about John the Baptist,

and the first verse that I read is what John is saying.

He's going around preaching about how Jesus is the Christ, and he describes

Jesus this way. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor, to gather the wheat

into his barn, but the chaff, he will burn with unquenchable fire.

This is one of many places that we see in the New Testament, in John the Baptist, and Jesus himself, and Paul and other people talking about the judgment that comes for all of those who don't receive salvation in Jesus.

And the language here is potent.

They will burn with unquenchable fire.

This verse is talking about eternal suffering in hell for all who do not experience salvation

in Jesus, do not receive His grace cover over their sin.

And then you get to the very next verse, verse 18, and it says, so with many other exhortations,

he preached good news to the people. So burning with unquenchable fire doesn't sound like good

news. So how does John, talking about unquenchable fire, translate to being good news that he's

preaching to people? And this is where we realize,

and we see it all over the Bible, that the good news only makes sense when we understand the bad

news, and we understand how serious sin is, how holy God is, how just God is, how in His holiness

God possesses wrath towards sin. And the reality is, as sinners, we deserve his holy judgment, his holy wrath.

And until we realize that bad news, we won't realize how great the good news is.

...