Preachers Who Are in Hell For Other People's Sins: The Real Cost of Remaining Silent in the Face of Sin & Heresy
/Evangelicals today tolerate every false teacher and impenitent sinner (especially if he or she is a celebrity pastor). But, they will NOT and do NOT tolerate anyone who identifies false teachers or obstinate sinners who refuse to repent of their sins & be forgiven.
This Evangelical attitude does not honor Christ and is manifested in those who are ignorant of what the scriptures teach and demand of Christians. Evangelicals today demand unity at all costs, even at the cost of truth and their own souls and as the Luther quote below shows, they demand that pastors be silent regarding sin and false teaching. However, what these parishioners do no realize is that their demand for silence and unity is also a demand that pastors burn in hell for their congregations' sins.
If you are in the ministry and see that you have rascals and knaves, fornicators, adulterers, and robbers in your parish, you must say: “Since this is my duty, I will point out sins to peasants, burghers, and noblemen, and rebuke them for these without paying attention to their complaints when they say: ‘Look here, you are defaming me!’ ” For if I held back, I would make myself guilty of your sin. And why should I go to hell for you? They might retort: “Well, I am not asking you to do this; I am not forcing you.” Yes, this may be true. Still you do not want me to reprove you, and you refuse to let me upbraid you for your vices. You expect me to hold my peace, although I occupy an office which requires me to reprove sin, as the prophet Ezekiel does in chapters three and thirty-three, when he declares: “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. If I say to the wicked to turn from his way, and you give him no warning or speak to warn him, to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand” (Ezek. 3:17 ff.; 33:7 ff.). Do you suppose it is a small matter to burden a ruler with such a responsibility? This burden has been imposed on the poor preachers, as it has on all who hold other offices, such as burgomasters, princes, and government officials. They should not keep silence in the presence of sin; nor should they themselves sin. For if I see adultery or other sins in people and neglect to take the sinners to task, God will visit their sins on me. We members of the secular and of the ecclesiastical realm have been ordered to punish wrongdoing. But no one does so. What is going to become of you, great kings and teachers in the church, who hear and see so much crime and sin but hush it up and do not punish it? Thus many people go to hell for the sins of others.
— Martin Luther
Luther, M. (1999). Luther’s works, vol. 22: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 1-4. (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 22, pp. 372–373). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.