We should now like to examine some of the most common ways that the gospel is preached, ways in which the natural man is not offended by the message being preached.
One way to preach a gospel that will not offend the natural man is to preach our Lord as a hero, a wonderful example, and people really like that! We must say here that nominal, false, or simply bad Christians will most often refer to our Lord simply as Jesus. It is folly and irreverent to do so, but these types of professing Christians can generally be identified by this obvious lack of reverence in their manner of speaking about the Lord. To these people, ‘Jesus’ becomes something that they can aspire to, they can follow Him and be like Him; it’s a challenge, something they feel they can do; something to keep one busy and occupy ones mind. They have a sense of great accomplishment and it’s a great compliment to them. We’ve even come across some who might be wearing a graphic t-shirt that says “Jesus is my Homeboy”, this is an example of what would be a typical attitude of some of these types who believe a gospel that does not offend. But, as soon as you tell them that they cannot imitate the Lord Christ, and that they are condemned as sinners to face the judgment of God, and that they will face the torments of everlasting punishment; then their teeth will show, they will rend their clothes and gnash you with their teeth. They will hate you for the truth.
Another way in which the gospel of Christ is falsely preached is that it is presented as something beautiful! The ‘Sermon on the Mount’, “how marvellous this teaching is”, they say, “if only the whole world would live by this most wonderful teaching, then there would be peace on earth.” But, when the sermon on the mount is truly preached, and the natural man is shown what it truly means to be poor in spirit, and to mourn, and to hunger, and to thirst after righteousness, then he hates it. The Lord condemns him as a sinner, as someone who is wretched, despicable and unworthy. The natural man does not want to feel this way, it wounds his pride, so he hates the gospel.
And then, yet another way that the gospel can be preached that has no offence to the natural man is to present the Lord as someone who can help us with our problems. He’ll take all your worries away, have you heard this kind of preaching? Or how about a message that adds healing, both spiritual and physical? “I’m so much more happy and healthier than I used to be”, someone will say. Then someone else says to this happy and healthy person, “Oh that’s marvellous, I’ve also heard that the Christian Scientist’s have great testimonies of health and healing as well, perhaps I’ll attend one of their meetings this week and see if I can find health and happiness as well.” You see dear reader, a gospel that sounds like psychology, philosophy or a ‘self help book’, is no different than what the cults offer. The cults and worldly wisdom are never too far separated, they both work on the pride and the emotions of fallen man; they offer solutions to problems that on the outset seem to make good sense; yet they do have this in common, they always fail in providing a solution that lasts. You see, there is nothing offensive about telling someone that all they need is to feel proud about themselves, to be told that they have great value and are cherished and loved for being exactly who they are; no need to change, only to improve upon what tremendous good that God has created in you. Well, when these same cult members and psychological case studies are faced with the grim truth about their utter worthlessness before a holy and righteous God, and that there is no possible way that they can change that on their own, then these too will hate the one true and living God, His truth, and His gospel.
Or how about preaching the gospel as a moral ethic, is this something that you have ever heard? The ‘Golden Rule’ or the ‘Ten Commandments’. It is very common that unbelievers will site these two biblical concepts and place themselves within the perceived morality of them, by which it allows them to boast of a piety that is not unlike that of the Pharisees, who were quick to say things like like the rich young man said when our Lord said to him concerning keeping the ten commandments, “Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” this mans response to our Lord was thus, “All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?”(Mat 19:18-20) Of course, it is impossible to keep the ten commandments, and God never put them forth as a means by which man might save himself, but rather, as “our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”(Gal 3:24)
The gospel is also preached as a great philosophy, a life poetic, an uplifting elixir as it were. How romantic is this story of Jesus of Nazareth! So misunderstood, wrongfully persecuted, crucified, a real underdog; someone we can all relate to in one way or another. We tell you dear reader that this does not offend, nor annoy the natural man.
There is also an antinomian method of preaching the gospel. A way that has been designed by the sophists, using their clever fallacies and the twisting of the scriptures. And, these most injurious nominal preachers behave very much as the cults do. (and we would not entirely separate these teachers, nor their denominations from the cults.) They even send their members on door to door campaigns as a normal matter of what they call church life; in fact, for most of the sophist churches the door to door ‘soul winning’ campaigns are required, lest there be ridicule and guilt pressed upon their members! And, in like fashion to all the cults, they are selling a gospel that has no offence to the natural man. In fact, they are selling a free pass for already fallen men and women to engage in sin of all sorts whilst being under the guise of calling themselves “saved”, and not just saved, but “saved with the free gift of eternal life”. This false gospel comes from the ‘Romans Road’ groups; also known as ‘easy believism’. What they sell is a ten minute gospel that any natural man might want to entertain in their minds, and we say minds because that is the extent of where this gospel and salvation dwells, in mind only. This is, of course, nothing new! It’s a modern version of what in the past was called ‘Sandemanianism’, circa 1730’s.
They will show up at someones door on a Saturday afternoon, always in twos, they ring the bell or knock on the door, introduce themselves as ‘Independent Fundamental Baptists’, and then they will usually open with this line, “If you died today, are you one hundred percent certain that you would go to heaven?” If the person that they are accosting chooses to engage with the Sophist on their steps, then they have a carefully crafted sales pitch that they use; they call it ‘The Romans Road’. And, it goes something like this: “You’ve sinned, right? Of course, everyone has sinned, even a bad thought is enough to put you on the outside of God’s righteousness, everyone has told a lie, even a small one, right? Right, well then God offers forgiveness of all your sins and as a huge bonus, eternal life; it is the gift of God. All you have to do is put your trust in Jesus and believe that He was crucified for your sins, that He was buried, and that He rose from the dead on the third day, and eternal life is yours. It’s like getting a present under the Christmas tree, it has your name on it, all you have to do is open the present and it’s yours. And, by the way, if you do sin, don’t worry about it. Like if you murder someone or commit adultery, you will have to pay for it in this life by going to jail or getting a divorce, but, you have eternal life, and that means that you cannot lose it. How does this sound, good? Alright then, all you need to do is say this prayer, so repeat after me…”. And, these people truly believe that they are getting people saved. They aren’t even really as concerned with recruiting new members as they are in glorying in their own pride of being able to ‘get someone saved’ as it were. Of course, they would like new members to expand their cult and this is a large part of why they do it, but it is not their primary reason; they honestly and truly believe that they are fulfilling the commandment of God to go “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”(Mark 15:16) All they are really doing is mocking God and storing up wrath against themselves in the Day of Judgment. They are truly some of the most despicable of people, and, by saying this, we judge their teachers; those who are duped and blindly follow these heretics, we believe that if they are Christians that at some point their conscience and by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, they will be drug out and away from amongst these wolves.
This teaching of these sophists, who are otherwise known as Fundamentalists, is completely antinomian in its nature. Not to mention that these sophists place themselves above God’s salvation by taking credit, not only for the conversion of those people with whom they repeat their ‘salvation prayer’ on peoples doorsteps or where ever they may be, they also take credit for their own salvation, in that they believe that it is only the will of man that is needed to make a decision to believe; and, that “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” These believe that this is a magic formula and that they themselves are able to believe in their hearts. Despite all the contrary verses that affirm that the natural man is “dead in trespasses and sin”(Eph 2:1), and that the natural man has a “heart (that) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:”(Jer 17:9) and that “the carnal (natural) mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”(Rom 8:7-8) Or what our Lord said in John 8:34 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” ’Servant‘ meaning, of course ‘slave‘, and slaves do not have rights or freedoms. Apparently these sophists have selective stops along the Romans Road that they have cleverly devised, and they skip past all the mentions of God’s salvation and replace that with man’s agreement to God’s salvation. We have even on one occasion heard this from the mouth of one of these sophist Fundamentalist preachers: “(That) getting saved is the easiest thing in the world, I can’t believe that everybody doesn’t just get saved!”.
Dear reader, we realize that we might have devoted just as many words to any of the non offensive false gospels, but this particular one is very egregious, and we find that many even accept these nominal Christian teachers as being authentic simply because they affirm the Trinity, and the life, death and resurrection of our Lord (even the Papists do that!) . We say that this is not the gospel that the apostles preached! This is a man made gospel, a philosophical gospel, that borrows bits and truths from the biblical gospel, and then wraps those bits and truths up in something that is palatable to the natural mans appetite and then feeds it to him; thus poisoning that man and they then make “(that man) twofold more the child of hell than (themselves).(Mat 23:15). So, as the apostle Paul says about the Judaizers in the first chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”. And, as the apostle also tells us in the book of Romans, let us “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.”
We have one more method of preaching the gospel to mention before we go forth, the cross of our Lord preached for applaud. Have you ever heard this dear reader? ”How beautiful, how wonderful, how sentimental”, they say. The cross is preached like this, “what a shame, too bad, they didn’t recognize Him, but, He even forgave them there upon that cross as HE died, and smiled upon them! How wonderful, He was too good for this world!”. Yet the apostle Paul says, if I do certain things “then is the offence of the cross ceased.” True preaching of the cross is a stumbling block, it is foolishness, they hate it, it’s an offence.
This is the offence of the cross. That I am so damned, so lost, so hopeless, that if He didn’t die for me I’d never know God and I’d never be forgiven. And that hurts, that annoys, it tells me that I’m vile, I’m hopeless, there’s nothing good in me, I deserve everlasting flames and unspeakable torments, we don’t like it as a natural men. We hate it, and, so as man in his natural state, we ridicule it without impunity.
The gospel is hated, the apostle knew that, “who is this babbler, who is this fellow?” They made fun of him in the great intellectual city of Athens, and now he would go to the mighty Rome, the seat of the empire and all that was great of mans achievement in the ancient world. Rome the proud, Rome the mighty, The eternal city, the capital of the world, the seat of Caesar and all the Senate, how would they ridicule him once he arrived there? He knows that the real Gospel will produce this ridicule and opposition. And yet he says that he is ready to preach it!
The gospel brings ridicule, it has throughout the centuries, take George Whitfield, John and Charles Wesley, nearly 300 years ago, ridiculed, insults hurled at them, the contempt the scorn the sarcasm. Whitfield, one of the greatest orators that the world has ever known, in high London society because of a weakness in the muscles of one of his eyes, he had a squint. He was known in the great circles as ‘doctor squinton’; ridiculed, he and his gospel. John and Charles Wesley’s very own relatives, including their mother, used to tell them “why do you have to make fools of yourselves, why can’t you preach like other people are preaching? Your preaching appeals to common people, the ordinary, the ignorant of society.”, that’s what they were charged with. All these men, including the apostle were more than capable of pitting their minds and intellects against anyone, they were learned and capable men of intellect. But as the apostle often put the matter “We are fools for Christ’s sake”(1Cor 4:10), because, “…God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.” (1Cor 1:27-29) The “foolish thing” the apostle speaks of is the gospel of Christ. So, all great men of intellect who are called of God to preach must put their intellectual pride aside and truly become a fool in order to be wise.
As we survey the preachers today there are those that specifically preach against these very same men; in fact, all of God’s great saints of the past are ridiculed by these natural nominal Christian teachers, not just the Wesley’s, but Augustine, Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, Edwards, Spurgeon; hundreds of years after the fact, their gospels are still hated. If you hear someone preaching against God’s very own saints then you must ask yourself, why do they hate this gospel? What gospel are they preaching?
If you say to us that you are not ashamed of the gospel, then we have a right to ask you, why are you not ashamed of it? What reason would you give? The only true answer is the one the apostle gives, but how often to people give other answers? Nothing is more important than the reasons people are not ashamed of the gospel.
When a man giving his testimony says “I took my decision for Christ 20 years ago and I’ve never regretted it.” He is saying that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. But his reason is that he never regretted it, that it made him happy; his reason is something that is purely subjective. Our reason must always be special and unique, so of necessity it must not end with us. The apostles reason is this “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith:” That’s unique!
This other person, what can he say? “I’ve never regretted it, I sleep much better, I’m happier, I’m not ashamed, it made me a better person, it can do the same for you, for anybody really. I don’t do things I used to, people tell me I’m brighter etc etc…” that’s the reason. “I’m not ashamed of the gospel,”, he says, “it’s done all that for me.” Well, as unbelievers we listen and can say, “How is this different than the cults, or modern psychology, or the message from motivational ‘speaker such and such’, or ‘this or that’ self help book?”. You see dear reader, there is nothing unique about saying that you have made a decision for Christ and now you are happier, healthier, and more full of life. Any man or woman can make a decision to exercise five days a week, eat healthy, and refrain from alcohol, and thus, after a years time, give the exact same answer as this man who says he has never regretted making a decision for Christ.
It all comes down to this, if you say you are not ashamed, why aren’t you? It’s important that you have the right reason. God willing we will go on to discover the answer which is given by this mighty man of God, the apostle Paul.
Scripture Alone 