Me-centered evangelism is not radical enough in its opposition to sinful human nature. Tozer again helps us see this calling it "the new cross."
The new cross does not slay the sinner; it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill-seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of the abundant Christian life." The idea behind this kind of thing may be sincere, but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross. The cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a person. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him to newness of life. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die. God then bestows life, but not an improved old life. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him. How can this theology be translated in life? Simply, the non-Christian must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die...
...I point out that the universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom 1:17)...
...There is no love without wrath. I answer people who say, "What kind of loving God is filled with such wrath as to send people to hell to suffer eternally?" by pointing out that a wrathless God cannot be a loving God. In Hope Has Its Reasons, Becky Pippert writes, "Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it...Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference."
Pippert then quotes E.H. Gifford: "Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor."
She concludes: "God's wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being."
Ultimately, it is only because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamation of grace and love is so brilliant and astounding.