TRUE or FALSE GOSPEL?? - Keith Green
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
by Keith Green
I believe with all my heart that Jesus would be ashamed of most
of the "gospel" messages and sermons that are being preached
today, mainly because they lack almost every major point He
Himself preached on. (Mark 8:38; Rom. 1:16; II Tim. 1:8) How
dare we try to change the Gospel. We remove most of its vital
parts, and replace them with artificial limbs of our own. (Gal. 1:6-7)
Isn't Jesus the master evangelist? Shouldn't we judge our
evangelism by His example?3 Was His message anything like
what we're hearing today? It is my intention to try to briefly cover
in Section 1 each of the major parts of the Gospel that have been
"surgically" removed in most of today's preaching...
The Removed Parts Of The Gospel
The Blood of Jesus. It's a fact that the very word blood scares
people. It's also a fact that the blood of Christ scares the devil,
because it is the only cleansing agent for a sin-sick soul.4 Can
you imagine what the preaching and writings of Paul would have
been like, if he had been as squeamish in proclaiming the
magnificent power and beauty of the blood of Jesus as our
generation of preachers are? What we have now is a bloodless gospel!
Today, people are afraid to think and preachers are afraid to
make them. The whole concept of Jesus being the Passover
Lamb of the Old Testament5 has been lost - "It takes too much
time and thought to explain," you will hear some say. (Heb.
5:11-14) "We need to simplify the Gospel so that we can reach
the masses." Oh, what logic! Remove the blood from the
preaching of the Gospel, and you remove the power to conquer
the devil for the souls of men!
The Cross of Jesus. Paul said, "I determined to know nothing
among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." (I Cor. 2:2)
Nowadays it's "Jesus Christ and what He can do for you!" You
cannot have more exact opposites than the Bible's Christ-
centered Gospel,6 and our modern, cross-less, me-centered gospel.
Today, if anyone preaches self-denial as a condition of discipleship,
you can hear the comments afterwards: "old-fashioned," "harsh,"
"legalistic." I dare say that our Lord would have as much trouble
finding acceptance among our preachers as He had among the
religious leaders of His own day.
Here's what A.W. Tozer says about the cross...
"The cross is the most revolutionary thing ever to appear among
men. The cross of Roman times knew no compromise, it never
made concessions. It won all its arguments by killing its opponent
and silencing him for good. It spared not Christ, but slew Him the
same as the rest. He was alive when they hung Him on that cross.
and completely dead when they took Him off of it. That was the
cross the first time it appeared in Christian history.
"With perfect knowledge of all this, Christ said, 'If any man will
come after Me, let him deny himself take up his cross and follow
Me.' So the cross not only brought Christ's life to an end, it also
ends the first life, the old life of every one of His true followers...
this and nothing less is true Christianity. We must do something
about the cross, and there's only one of two things we can do -
flee it or die upon it!"
The Threat and Terrors of Hell, and the Guilt of Sinners. We often
hear people say, "I'm tired of hell-fire and brimstone preaching!"
"Well," I often reply, "when was the last time you heard any?" It
is true, very few people preach on hell anymore - it is no longer
in vogue. We shouldn't scare the poor sinners, no, that wouldn't
do. They're just unfortunate, misguided souls, right? Wrong! The
Bible clearly shows that they are rebels who have robbed and
dishonored the living God, infinitely offending Him.7 They have
no right to look at themselves in any other light.
But we, smart as we are, have decided to help God along. He
doesn't understand our generation as well as we do. The things
Jesus emphasized in His preaching were all right for the Jews,
but our generation needs a more gentle, loving tone. "Tell 'em
about heaven!" We talk about heaven, about the "rewards of
being born-again," but we completely neglect the other side
of the "two-edged sword." (Heb. 4:12) What right do we have
to remove things from the Gospel that Jesus Himself gave
great place to in His own preaching?...
~Source-