What Do You Think of the Gospel?

Everyone has a standard by which they judge every thought or idea that they are confronted with. People who claim to be "Bible Believers" are no exception - in fact they are the world's worst. It is hard to avoid doing this, but it is a very dangerous practice for a Christian. The fact is that many are taught to do this very thing. You judge new thoughts or ideas by what you already hold to be true, and there is no allowance for the possibility that you might be wrong on some of your "basics." All that call themselves "Christians" basically agree on the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, but on the subject of salvation and what it means, there are many "opinions" these days. Your opinion depends on what kind of background, experiences, and pre-determined ideas you use as a filter to process new thoughts or ideas that are presented to you. "But I judge everything according to the Bible!" you say. If that is true you should have no trouble when what you believe is called into question, because you are on a firm foundation. So the question is: What do YOU think of the Gospel?

It basically boils down to two opinions. Either you believe that salvation is simply practicing religion or you believe that it is real deliverance from sin and it's dominion. It is really that simple. What is the message you give to other people as you try to witness or preach? Do you tell them of a Christ that overcame sin, death, and the world, and expects us to do the same in his name and by his power? Or do you tell them about a religion that leaves a person fighting a daily battle with sin that he ALWAYS loses? You can't have it both ways. You can't say Christ delivers us and then turn around and tell people who are saved that "if they say they have no sin, they are a liar." You can't tell them that "sin shall no longer have dominion over you," and then tell them that they MUST, and WILL sin every day in thought, word, and deed. You can't tell people there is hope and then turn around and tell them that there is none. The very same text that is being used to justify and comfort sinners in the church who call themselves Christians says this in the very next verse: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) Now, either He DOES or He DOESN'T. You must make up your mind and take a stand! When you do, we'll know exactly what you think of the Gospel?

Is what you believe based on the Word of God? Or is it based on what you have experienced since your "conversion?" There's a good chance that it is based on what you have seen in the lives of others who claim to be Christians. If you are hard pressed, you cannot defend your conception of salvation and what it does for a man with the Bible, because what you believe is based on experience rather than the Word of God.

When a person gets saved, is he cleansed from all his sins? Is he made a new creature? Is he no longer under the dominion of sin? Does he practice sin or holiness as his normal lifestyle? Of course, all who are the least familiar with the Bible will recognize that all these things are laid out clearly in the Bible. But if you'll go to just about any Baptist Church (or any other kind, for that matter) you'll hear another message being presented. The life of the believer is clearly presented as one of struggling against sin, with the battle inevitably being lost daily. You'll hear that anyone who claims to have victory over sin, even for a day, or an hour, is a liar and a hypocrite based on 1 John 1:8. Instead of preaching a Gospel that might give some hope to a poor lost sinner seeking for help and refuge in God, it completely takes away any hope he might have for anything better than his wretched, miserable life of sin. He is in bondage to his sin and knows it, but what is being offered is just continued bondage. Do you honestly think that is the Gospel? Can you imagine Jesus meeting the maniac of Gadera and saying to him, "I'm going to save you, but you must realize that tomorrow you'll likely be back here in the tombs again. Don't expect anything better than what you have right now for this life, because all men are sinners, you know, whether they're saved or lost. Just rejoice in the fact that one day you will go to heaven, and until then you will not be able to please God, or obey his commandments, and if you try the best of it will be stinking rags in God's sight." Thank the Lord, that is not the way it happened, but many are claiming just such an experience as salvation, and staking their eternity on it. That is nothing but vain religion. No wonder they don't ever have victory in their lives, and no wonder almost none of them stick with it very long. No wonder when they hear from the pulpit such nonsense as, "You can't tell a saved man and lost man apart most of the time," or "The only difference between the saved and the lost is that the saved are forgiven and the lost are not." How does this one strike you? "I'm still a sinner, just a saved sinner." Your answer shows what you really think of the Gospel.

How awful to be a lost sinner in our day! If I were lost and seeking for the Truth I would be very hard pressed to find it in the churches. Few and far between are the churches that preach the old fashioned Gospel that has the power to bring new life and deliverance from a sinful life. The modern message is very simple: "O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" "I am carnal, sold under sin." That is the normal, expected, and respectable Christian life in the minds of most of today's so-called Christians. Funny how Charles Wesley had such a different idea of what salvation meant. In the hymn "And Can It Be?" he wrote:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

It is very hard to see how someone can read the Bible and then think of the Gospel as a message of continued despair and hopelessness against sin in this life. It is hard to understand how a person can read the Bible and experience salvation from sin and condemnation, being born again of the Spirit of God, and then have for his life's motto: "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." (Romans 7:19) How can a person cling to that as the normal Christian walk and expect no more than to be overcome daily by temptation and sin, when the same Bible tells us that: "...God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Cor 10:13) How can a person who claims to believe the Bible read the commands of God and then say he CAN'T obey them. That is accusing God of being unjust, for He commands us to do something that we are not able to do. How about this Scripture? He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:4) You can't get much plainer than that. The person who lives a habitual life of disobedience to God does not know God or love God.

On the other hand, if a person were to look at those around him and judge the Truth from that standpoint, it would be easy to understand how they could come to such a conclusion. People look at the hypocrites in the church and decide that if the majority in the church live such a life, then that must be the way it really is, because the majority couldn't be wrong. It doesn't matter that the Bible tells us something different. What they do is simply come up with a different interpretation of the Scripture that accommodates this type of people in God's fold - 1 John 1:8, for example.

As always, let us state for the record that we are not preaching the 'sinless perfection" doctrine that many like to use as a spear to throw in defense of their "sinful permissiveness" doctrines. We are not saying that it is impossible for a Christian to sin, but we are saying that a true Christian cannot live in habitual sin. A sinner practices sin, and occasionally does some good work. A Christian practices good works and holiness and sin is the exception - not the rule of his life. We are saying that the Gospel is not the loose, permissive, watered down, soft-pedaled mess that is being proclaimed by the mainstream today. The Gospel still delivers wretched maniacs their miserable bondage.. They can then go home to their friends and tell them what "great things the Lord hath done" for them, because salvation really does do something for a man. It most certainly does not give aid and comfort to people who are still under the bondage of sin to continue therein. Yet that is what most of our modern "Gospel" preachers are doing.

The question to you is: What DO you think of the Gospel? Answer yourself in your heart.

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