Pastor John, my name is Chase and I'm a senior in high school, I'm wondering if you could

shed some light on an issue I've been wrestling with past few months.

The best way I can phrase my question is this, does turning to Christ motivated by a fear

of avoiding hell qualify as a legitimate form of saving faith?

In other words, can someone be scared into heaven versus like Acts 8, 24 and my experiences

in the church and in evangelism make me think the answer is no.

But I just read Jonathan Edwards' sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God and he

seems to think the answer is yes and beyond him, Christ warns about hell a lot.

That makes me think the answer is yes, that fear of hell can save a sinner.

I don't want the comfortable answer here, Pastor John, I want the truth, please help

me, what would you say?

Well I am really glad that this question comes right now because it lets me perhaps kill

two birds with one stone.

A while back I spoke in Vancouver at a look at the book conference and a man named Andrew

and I'm saying his name so that he'll know I'm talking to him because I just wrote him

a letter today to say I recorded my answer to your letter.

Very smooth.

So we got chase and we got Andrew and we're talking to both of them and what Andrew asked

me was a similar kind of question.

He said, I have no qualms when you say a person comes to saving faith by seeing the beauty

of Christ's crucifixion and how it displays Christ's glory.

But where I get confused, this isn't because that quote now, where I get confused is when

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