The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his075/gospel1.lzh/GOSPEL1.TXT

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CUL:What is the true GOSPEL?

   INTRODUCTION

   What is the true Gospel? There is no question that is of greater
importance facing the world today. This is so because only the true
Gospel will provide the answer that can save us from spending eternity
under the wrath of God. Therefore, as we seek to identify the true
Gospel, we will endeavor to discover answers to the following
questions: What is the authority that structures and determines the
true Gospel? What is the message of the true Gospel? What is the
mandate of the true Gospel?

   We hear sermons of various kinds; we read the Bible here and there;
we generally hear a lot of good things about the Gospel. We hear about
how we are to walk as Christians; we see rules in the Bible that God
has given to us for the good of mankind. But, we begin to wonder, what
is the essential structure of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? Can
we strip away the peripherals and get right down to the very substance,
the inner core of the Gospel?

   Chapter 1 In order to know what the Gospel actually is, we must
first of all determine the authority that structures and determines
what it is. This is necessary because the nature of the true Gospel is
defined and established by its divine authority. In fact, the nature of
every religion, gospel, and ideological system is defined and
established by its recognized authority.

   A Mohammedan, for example, may wish to know how to live as a good
Mohammedan. So he carefully consults the Koran, a book in which
Mohammedans believe God has spoken. The Koran, therefore, is the
written authority that establishes the Mohammedan gospel, that is, the
Mohammedan religion. An orthodox Jew has a different authority. It
includes what we call our Old Testament, along with the writing of the
church fathers that are considered to be divinely inspired. That is the
authority that establishes the nature and character of the Jewish
religion. On the other hand, a Mormon has as his divine authority the
Bible, plus the Book of Mormon, which is believed to be divinely
inspired. Because the Book of Mormon came later than the Bible, it has
become a shadow that lies over the Bible. That is, someone who follows
the Mormon gospel examines everything he reads in the Bible in the
light of what is found in the Book of Mormon.

   Similarly, the Roman Catholics follow still another gospel. The
authority that structures and determines their gospel begins with the
Bible. But the Apocrypha books are also a part of that authority, as
are the visions of Joan of Arc, the visions of Fatima, and the
infallible utterances of the Pope. All of these are looked upon as
divine, and together they make up the authority that establishes the
character of the Roman Catholic gospel.

   Likewise, the charismatic gospel has its authority. It believes that
the Bible is the Word of God, but it also believes in divine revelation
through visions, voices, or tongues, which expands their authority
beyond the Bible. Therefore, it has as its authority the Bible, plus
the messages presumably received from God through dreams, visions, and
tongues. This widened authority structures and determines the character
of the charismatic gospel.

   Bear in mind that every time we have a different authority, we also
have a different kind of gospel. In other words, every gospel is
structured and determined by its authority. So when the authorities
differ, the gospels themselves differ.

   But what is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, who alone can save men
and women from their sins? What is the Divine Authority by which it is
structured and determined? These are some of the most insistent
questions facing the church today, because we are living in a day when
gospels are proliferating. Every place we turn we find different kinds
of gospels. Indeed, we wonder, how can I really know I am following the
true Gospel?

   One definition sometimes offered to describe the true Gospel is set
forth in I John 4:2. There we read that if we confess that Christ has
come in the flesh, then we are of God. Yet as we read in Luke 4:34, the
demons also admit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and they are
still under God's wrath. So that particular definition standing alone
may not be adequate in every case. We have to know more about what
defines and establishes the Gospel. We must, therefore, discover the
divine authority that structures and determines the character and
nature of the true Gospel.

   The Bible indicates that it alone and in its entirety is the
authority that establishes the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Revelation 22:18-19 says it best.

   For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy
of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add
unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man
shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall
take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city,
and from the things which are written in this book.

   By that statement God established the parameters of the true Gospel.
It is circumscribed by the Bible alone.

   The Bible, therefore, is the true divine authority. It is the only
complete authority that established the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Because it is the divine authority, because it is from God, it
is to be entirely authoritative in our lives. We must eagerly read it;
we must eagerly study it with a view to being obedient to it. And if we
discover in our lives any kind of practice, or any kind of doctrine
that is contrary to the Word of God, then as children of God, there
will be within us an earnest desire to change that practice or that
doctrine so that we will become more faithful to the Word of God.

   If we follow an authority that is narrower or wider than the Bible
alone and in its entirety, we are not following the Gospel of the
Bible. Regardless of how holy it may appear to be, such a gospel will
not lead to salvation.

   Chapter 2 But now that we know that the Bible is the authority that
establishes the true Gospel, we wonder what the central message of the
true Gospel is. We could say that the Gospel is God's love letter to
mankind whereby we can become righteous, know the love of God, come
into the more abundant life, or learn to live to God's glory. We can
think of a lot of verses in the Bible that describe and perhaps even
crystallize the essential nature of the Gospel.

   Actually, however, I think we can find summed up in John 3:16 the
core meaning of the Gospel. This verse strips away everything else and
gets right down to the essential message. There we read: "For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

   Ordinarily theologians focus on the first part of the verse: "For
God so loved the world..." And that is a glorious phrase that
introduces us to the amazing truth that God in His magnificent love has
provided salvation to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the
love of God and the salvation He has so generously provided cannot be
fully understood unless we also understand the meaning of the word
"perish" found later on in the verse. Only too seldom do we hear a
sermon on that statement, "...shall not perish..." But the phrase,
"shall not perish, " is also an integral part of the Gospel.

   When we search the Scriptures, we find that the word "perish," as it
is used in John 3:16, does not mean "annihilation." In our English
language when we say, "I will perish," we think of dying, of ceasing to
exist. But in the Bible the word "perish" has another definition. The
Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death (cf. Romans 6:23). And
the living death that God has in view is to exist throughout eternity
in hell. That is the predicament of rebellious mankind. That is what it
means to perish.

   The terrible problem of mankind is that we are sinners. Remember
Romans 3:10-11: "There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none
that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." The heart of
man by nature is desperately wicked, as we read in Jeremiah 17:9.

   Because we sin - even a single sin - we will perish. Because we have
been created in His image, God holds each one of us completely
accountable to Himself for the conduct of our lives. God has appointed
a day at the end of the world when we are to be judged. The Bible says
in Hebrews 9:27, "...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after
this the judgment..." And because all of us are sinners without the
Gospel, we are all on our way to hell.

   This terrible truth cannot be seen with our physical eyes because we
cannot look into the future. But what we see with our physical eyes is
not the whole story. In fact, it is a very shallow and incidental part
of the whole story. For example, we may have had a friend who died. We
have seen him as a man who lived out his life well regarded by his
fellow man. But then he died. He was eulogized at his funeral as one of
the greatest, and then we all went about our business and forgot about
Brother Jones. But if Brother Jones died without the Gospel, that is,
without being saved, the next thing he will be aware of is that he is
standing before the Judgment Throne of God, where he must answer for
every sin he ever committed; and these will be multitudinous. Any one
of these sins could condemn him to eternal damnation. For him there is
no escape; there is no reprieve, no parole. There is no way out.

   Every day approximately 200, 000 people die all over this earth.
When we realize that most of these 200, 000 people die unsaved and that
the next conscious thing they will know is that they are standing
before the Judgment Throne of God, subject to eternal damnation, then
we become aware of a horror story of magnificent proportions.

   We sometimes hear about an earthquake in which 50, 000 people are
killed. We hear about wars in which 700, 000 or 800,000 people are
killed. We hear about man's inhumanity to man. We hear about famines
that kill many thousands. But none of these hold a candle to the most
dreadful tragedy of all, the dreadful, daily trauma that faces mankind.

   The horrors of man's inhumanity to man, the horrors of famine, of
war, or of whatever the trauma, result only in physical death. But
physical death in itself is not the horror story. The horror story is
that after death there is the judgment. God's perfect justice demands
eternal damnation as payment for sins.

   Unfortunately we do not hear this part of the Gospel preached too
frequently. It is so reprehensible, so sorry, so serious. It is so
terrible that we want to forget about it. We would rather just talk
about the love of God. We would rather talk about moral living. We
would prefer to talk about all kinds of things rather than this very
important teaching of the Gospel.

   Wonderfully, the truth that hell is waiting for the human race is
not the whole story. If God had written the Bible simply to tell us
that we are going to hell, we could still praise God that at least He
warned us. But that knowledge would not do us much good, because we are
all sinners. Because of our sins, we would still end up in hell. But
woven into the fabric of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, like a
golden thread running through the entire Bible, is the message of hope.
It is the message that we can know the love of God by trusting in the
Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. That is the other side of the Gospel
coin, the central part of the Gospel presentation: "For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

   Now why is it that if we believe in Him we will not go to hell? The
Bible tells us that it is because Christ became sin for us! We read in
II Corinthians 5:21: "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Or, as
Isaiah 53:6 puts it, "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all"
(that is, all who will hang their lives on Him).

   That is the central message of the Gospel. There is no other news
that can compare to this. It begins with the terrible truth that
mankind is sinful and heading for hell. But additionally it is the
wonderful news that all of us who cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ for
mercy and hang our lives on Him can know freedom from hell because He
became sin for us. Laden with our sins, as our substitute, He stood
before the Judgment Throne of God when He stood before Pontius Pilate.
He was found guilty for our sins, and God poured out His condemnation
upon Him to the degree that is was the equivalent of every one of us
who would believe on Him spending an eternity in Hell. In this way He
paid for all of our sins. He satisfied God's perfect justice that
demands eternal damnation as punishment for sin. Since our sins have
been paid for, hell no longer threatens us. We are no longer under the
law that decrees that we are to go to hell. We are now under grace. By
God's grace we have become children of God. We have left the dominion
of Satan (which we were in before we were saved), and we have become
citizens of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

   The pathetic fact, however, is that to a high degree, the church of
today is no longer aware of this message. This has been true to some
degree throughout history, but it is particularly true today.
Obviously, there are exceptions. Praise God for the exceptions! But to
a high degree, the church has lost its sensitivity to the central
nature of the Gospel. Too many preachers no longer talk about hell. In
fact, I once heard a theologian from a reputable seminary publicly say
the hell is "like being in an airplane and just going round and round
and round." In other words, he was ridiculing hell. He had better read
Deuteronomy 28 again. He had better read Revelation 14 again, where it
says "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever" (verse
11). He had better read Matthew 13, Mark 9, and Matthew 25 again where
Jesus says things like, " there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth"
(Matthew 13:42), and "their worm dieth not" (Mark 9:44), and where He
speaks of eternal damnation (cf. Matthew 25:46). The only reason that
we do not often read those passages is because they are so frightening.
But we had better be frightened if we are not saved, because hell is
real.

   But you see, if someone does not want to face the central message of
the Bible because he does not want to talk about hell, then what is he
going to do with the Gospel? Unfortunately, we find that theologians
begin to change the message of the Gospel to satisfy their own desires.
They begin to make the Gospel political. They say, for example,
"Christianity has to do with being free from political oppression." Or,
they begin to teach an economic gospel by saying that Christianity has
to do with having enough food to eat and having economic security. Or,
they make it a physical well-being gospel by saying that the goal of
the gospel is good health and happy lives here on this earth.

   These three aspirations - political freedom, economic security, and
good health - are sought by every man. All mankind seeks for these in
one way or another. We do not have to call ourselves Christians to have
these kinds of goals. But the fact is that none of these aspirations
has any direct relationship to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that is, to the true, spiritual Gospel. Let us see why this is so. In
Luke 16 God gives us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Perhaps
you are familiar with that parable. The Bible reveals that the rich man
had all that money could buy. Certainly we would assume that, because
he had all that money, he must have had a lot of political freedom.
Also, he had at his command the finest doctors and the finest
nutritionists so that he could enjoy maximum good health. Without a
doubt, he had economic security and everything that goes along with it.
If anyone appeared to have no need for the message of the Gospel, it
was this rich man. He apparently had everything going for him.

   On the other hand, God talks about Lazarus. Lazarus had nothing; he
was a beggar. He had no economic security. He could not afford a
doctor, even though he greatly needed one. Perhaps he slept out on the
streets and was getting insufficient food or the wrong kind of food. In
any case, his body was laden with sores. He had very poor bodily
health. Certainly, as a beggar who would be kicked by everyone who
walked by, he had no political security. He was considered to be
riffraff. He was nothing. If anyone had a need for an earthly gospel,
it would have been Lazarus. As the story continues, we learn that both
Lazarus and the rich man died.

   Suddenly God strips away the curtain and gives the true picture of
these two men as they are to live throughout eternity. What do we find?
We find that Lazarus, who had none of the essential desires of mankind,
is resting forever in Abraham's bosom. This figure of speech indicates
that he is in the place of the highest good, the highest blessing. It
is a picture of being saved and being forever in the Kingdom of the
Lord Jesus Christ.

   On the other hand, where do we find this rich man who on earth had
everything a man could want? In this parable, we see him in hell,
piteously crying out to Father Abraham to "send Lazarus, that he may
dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am
tormented in this flame" (verse 24). It is a picture of the utterly
terrible nature of hell, and this rich man is to be there forever.

   Which of these two men really needed the Gospel? Which of these men
was really in need?

   If you had come to Lazarus with a political gospel or a social
gospel, trying to give him medicine and offering him economic security,
would that have changed his position in Heaven? The answer is no. He
had no need insofar as the true, eternal Gospel is concerned. Surely,
as a human being, he could have stood a little food. As a human being,
he could have stood a little compassion. But insofar as his
relationship to God was concerned - that is the real need of mankind -
he himself had no need.

   Identifying the Gospel message with political, economic, or cultural
aspirations has caused the "Christian Gospel" to be especially
reprehensible to the leaders of many nations. When we send a message
forth, tailored after the desires of mankind, which has nothing to do
with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we enter into areas of
activity that threaten political rulers. I am sorry to say that in the
past (and it is still happening today), missionaries often went to
China and to many other countries spreading a gospel heavily flavored
by their Western culture. Thus the gospel message they brought became
identified to a great extent with physical prosperity or some kind of
political freedom. But that is not the Gospel of the Bible. These
missionaries, unfortunately, were giving the wrong signals altogether.
They had begun meddling in the affairs of the nations to which they
were sent, affairs in which they had no business and which had nothing
to do with the true Gospel message.

   The fact is that the Gospel is unconcerned with the kind of rulers
that a nation has. It is unconcerned with the political system under
which a people lives. It does declare, however, that it is God who puts
up and puts down rulers. It does warn that the citizens of any country
are expected to be obedient in all things to those who rule over them.
But it does not indicate that one kind of government is to be obeyed
more than another.

   The Bible is not concerned about the economic situation of those who
hear the Gospel. In the day that Jesus ministered, and as the disciples
went out, did man's inhumanity to man exist? Indeed, it did. There were
slaves who were piteously beaten and mistreated. Was there economic
uncertainty? Indeed, there was. It was a day when there were no mercy
ships. Certainly there were people dying of starvation. Were there
people who desperately needed a healing who did not receive it? Indeed,
there were.

   Some people misunderstood Jesus' mission when He healed the sick.
Christ did not come with a gospel that promises good health. He simply
did those miracles of healing as proofs that He was God and in order to
give us historical parables through which we can see the spiritual
nature of the Gospel. They were earthly stories with a heavenly
meaning. Once Christ went to the cross and the apostles died, we do not
find any further statements in the Bible regarding physical healing.
The Gospel is concerned with spiritual healing: "...by whose stripes ye
were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray..." (I Peter 2:24-25).
The Gospel has to do with the healing of our sin-sick souls.

   So the message of the Gospel is that mankind is on its way to hell,
but that anyone can know God's love by trusting in Christ.

   When we become saved, we are transferred out of the dominion of
Satan, which encompasses all the unsaved people of the world, wherever
they are found, in whatever political system they are found. We are
translated into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is a
spiritual nation made up of those who are born-again believers,
regardless of political ideology, or cultural differences, or whatever.
Salvation has nothing to do with political nations.

   Many theologians fracture the truths of the Bible concerning the
nature of the Gospel when they attempt to understand the meaning of
Christian unity. Ephesians 4:4-5 teaches us that: "There is one body,
and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One
Lord, one faith, one baptism..." What kind of unity does God have in
view? Well-meaning but misguided theologians, in attempting to explain
this unity, have tried to introduce concepts into the Gospel that are
foreign to it. They effectively believe we are one in faith and one
baptism when we have equal political freedom, or equal economic
prosperity.

   But the true Gospel has nothing to do with political activity. It
has nothing to do with economic desires or desires for good health. It
looks far beyond all of this. When we have the true Gospel, whether we
live in Russia, China, Germany, South America, the United States, or
any other country, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. It is
spiritual unity. It is a faith wherein we understand that our sins are
washed away. Spiritually we have become right with God. Spiritually we
know that we are not sentenced to hell and that we have eternal life.
Spiritually we have become one body, even though politically or
economically or culturally we have no relationship at all to each other.

   We must not fall into the snare that many fall into. In the Old
Testament they read about all the gold and the silver of Solomon, and
they read about the riches of Abraham, as well as many other statements
about great physical prosperity. They conclude, "You see, that is what
happens when we become saved. We are to have similar physical
expectations when we become saved." But they fail to realize that God
has set up types and figures in the Bible. Old Testament Israel was
part of an earthly story, an historical picture pointing to the
spiritual meaning of what the New Testament church was to be, that is,
what it means to be a child of God. The physical prosperity of Old
Testament Israel was an earthly story pointing to the heavenly meaning
that believers in Christ become spiritually prosperous, copiously
feeding their souls on the Bread of Life, which is Jesus Himself. The
wine vats that were filled to overflowing in the Old Testament were a
dramatic earthly story pointing to the plenteous flowing of the blood
of Christ, for the complete payment for all of our sins. Whatever
historical freedoms ancient Israel had represented the fact that in
Christ we are free from the bondage to sin and Satan.

   The problem is, however, that our sin-tainted minds prefer to go to
these historical antecedents (which are meant by God to be just figures
and types) and make them the very essence of the Gospel. That caters to
our sensual nature. That caters to what all men want: political
freedom, economic freedom, and good health.

   But that is not the Gospel! If we try to make the Gospel fit the
physical characteristics of the Old Testament figures, then we must
also offer the sacrifices that were to be offered by the Old Testament
believers. In other words, we are effectively denying the fact that
Christ has come! In the New Testament we do not find any references
teaching political freedom, economic security, or good health. The
whole essence of the Gospel is spiritual freedom in Christ. Freedom
from what? It is freedom from the wrath of God! It has nothing to do
with the politics of this world! Simply stated, we have been translated
out of the dominion of Satan. The law no longer can send us to hell. We
are free in Christ. We have eternal life. That is the nature of the
Gospel. That is the only message that we are to proclaim.

   Chapter 3 Now we have come to the third point that needs to be
examined. We have already looked at the authority that structures and
determines the Gospel, and we have looked at the message of the Gospel.
Now we should examine the mandate of the Gospel.

   In the most lucid fashion, God has decreed that we are mandated to
bring the Gospel message to all the world: "Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15). Jesus commanded
this; it is not an option. It is not something we can do if it is
convenient, or if we feel like it. It is an imperative command of the
Bible that we are to go out into the world and preach the Gospel. We
are Christ's ambassadors to this sin-sick world - Christ, as it were,
making His appeal through us.

   Remember, Jesus said that He came to seek and to save that which was
lost (cf. Luke 19:10). He has people in China whom He has come to seek
and to save. He has people in America who He has come to seek and to
save. He has people in Germany and in Russia and in every nation of the
world. We do not know who they are, but we know from the Bible that
they are people who were already named in the Lamb's Book of Life from
the very foundation of the world. So we know that God has obligated
Himself to save these people.

   The true ambassadors for Christ are the born-again believers. They
are the only ones who understand the real nature of the Gospel. They
have come face-to-face with the reality of hell, because they have
learned to trust the Bible implicitly. They are the ones who have been
given the marvelous task (which is a mandate as well as a fantastic
privilege) to send the Gospel into the world. There are to be no
alibis. We must do it by whatever means the Lord has made available to
us.

   But let us be very certain that we are bringing the Gospel of the
Bible, and not the gospel of Europe or the gospel of the United States
or the gospel of Mexico or any other perverted gospel. As long as we
focus on the basic fundamentals, the true Gospel is absolutely common
to every nation. It makes no difference what nation we are in. We all
have the exact same spiritual need for the exact same spiritual
antidote. We need to be set free from sin through the blood of Christ.
Once we are free from sin, knowing that Christ has endured hell for us,
then, even if we must live out the rest of our lives in a concentration
camp, dying of beatings and starvation, we still have everything.
Whether we are to merely exist like Lazarus as a beggar with only the
dogs to lick our sores, or whether we live in a palace with all the
blessings of this world, it makes no difference. If we are saved, we
know that we have the greatest good that we could ever have.

   The Bible also says that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves
(Luke 10:27). But what does it mean to love our neighbor as ourselves?
In John 13:34 Jesus said, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye
love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."
That establishes the nature of the love we are to have for others. We
are to love our fellow man as Christ has loved us.

   What was the nature of Christ's love for you and me? Did He come to
bring us economic security or political freedom or good health? Did He
do any of those things for Lazarus (cf. Luke 16)? The answer is no.
Absolutely no. In His love for us, He laid down His life. He endured
the wrath of God, the equivalent of spending an eternity in hell, in
order that we might have eternal life and not go to hell ourselves.

   Jesus exhorted, "...love one another; as I have loved you..." (John
13:34). If Christ has desired eternal life for me to the extent that He
went to the cross and endured the wrath of God that I might be saved,
if that desire was the focal point of His love, then that desire must
be the focal point of my love for others as well.

   As we look at the world, the one thing we should see, the one
terrible specter that should grip our souls, is hell grasping out for
the lives of the unsaved of the world. Because most people die unsaved,
at a rate of almost 200,000 a day, hell is getting its due. That is the
truth that we should see. That is the truth that Christ saw when He
went to the cross. In our love for our fellow man, we want to warn
them: "Don't you see it? Because of your sins, hell is coming and hell
is real. But there is a wonderful way of escape through the Lord Jesus
Christ. In my love for you, I want the very best for you. Sure, I could
spend some money to help you in many ways. But if you die unsaved, even
though your life may have been extended because you were given some
antibiotics, or whatever, what difference does it make? You are still
going to die, and after death comes the judgment. Can't you see it? If
you will only become a believer in Christ, then your physical
situation, your political situation, your health situation, is
altogether unimportant. You are like Lazarus. You can still have the
very highest good. You, too, can have salvation." To desire this for
others is true love.

   Notice that Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." But how do
I love myself? What is the highest good that I could possibly desire
for myself? Is it that I might have more physical prosperity? Is that
the highest good for me? Not in any sense at all. In fact, it may even
tempt me away from serving the Lord the way I ought. Well then, is it
to be famous? Is it to have a name? Is it any of the things to which
the world aspires? The answer is no. None of those things are the
highest good. The highest good for me is what I should desire for
others. So what is it? the one thing I need to be sure of is that I
have been saved. That is, I must be sure that my sins have been paid
for, so there is no possibility of going to hell when I die.

   Can anyone living on the face of the earth possibly think that they
are going to escape death? This world has been around for 13, 000 years
and, with only two exceptions (Enoch and Elijah), every human being
that has ever walked the face of the earth has died - everyone. No one
has escaped. This is in accordance with the Biblical rule that it is
appointed unto men once to die and then comes the judgment (Hebrews
9:27). So this means that that is going to happen to me - unless, of
course, the Lord comes first. Therefore, if I truly love myself, I am
not going to aspire for more of this world's goods. I am not going to
aspire to have a little better place in this world. Because, in the
measure that I desire those things, I am going away from the path that
is the very best for me. My first and all-important concern must be
that I am absolutely certain that I am a child of God, that I am saved.
Only then will I realize that all these other things are unimportant.
It really does not make any difference how many clothes I have, what
kind of car I drive, whether I even own a car, or what kind of
situation I live in. These things really do not have any kind of
lasting value at all.

   As a matter of fact, God declares in Romans 12:l, "I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service." In the Old Testament the Israelites were commanded to tithe,
that is, give 10 percent of all their income. That is the way the
priestly offices were supported. But in the New Testament God wants
everything. The Old Testament tithe was just an example to us pointing
to the fact that God wants everything. God is simply saying, "I want
all of you, all of your possessions, all of your money, all of your
energy, in order that your task as ambassadors of Christ may be done."
That task is to present this precious Gospel of salvation to a world
that is headed for hell.

   Can we begin to see the truth more clearly? The golden thread that
runs through the Bible is the message of salvation. Any time we get off
that thread, or focus, we can be sure we no longer have the Gospel of
the Bible. We will have a gospel that has been designed in the minds of
men, and we are going to get into trouble as we try to bring it to
other nations of the world. A gospel that wrongly talks about economics
or politics is going to be resisted, particularly by political
authorities who rightly feel their rule is being threatened by
political or social gospels.

   Obviously, the true Gospel will also be resisted. It is
reprehensible to man. Mankind does not like to be told that he is going
to hell. No one wants to hear that. It is reprehensible to the mind of
natural man to hear that there is nothing he can do to save himself.
Such resistance can only be changed in the heart of those who become
saved by crying out to God: "O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" It
involves having a child-like trust in Jesus Christ, who walked the face
of the earth a couple of thousand years ago. It means my ego must be
shattered. It shatters my self-respect. It shatters everything that I
am.

   But that is the only reason the Gospel should be reprehensible. May
it never be that the gospel we present is resisted by the political
authorities because we are preaching the culture and politics of a
political nation. Such a gospel cannot be the Gospel of the Bible.

   When we have become children of God, we have come to know that the
highest good in our lives is that we are saved from the wrath of God;
hell can no longer clutch at us. We are never going to have to stand
before the Judgment Throne of God and answer for our sins. Christ has
paid it all. We are covered by Him. We read in John 5:24 that those who
believe on Him do not come into judgment, but have passed from death
into life. And, in our love for others, that is the good we should
earnestly desire for them. That is the message God has mandated us to
faithfully bring to the whole world.

   As we live out our lives as believers, faithfully obeying the
command to bring the Gospel to the world, the Bible insists that we are
to walk very humbly. Our example is the Lord Jesus Christ; we read of
Him that He was meek and lowly. So it is that nobody should be ready to
be reviled without reviling back again, be ready to take whatever is
brought against us patiently, and be ready to give credit to anybody
who wants it. Let someone else have the worldly honor. The child of
God, who has become a citizen of Christ's Kingdom, is to walk humbly.

   But why? Why are we to walk so humbly? First of all, because God has
so commanded. Jesus, who came not only as our example, but also as our
King, was meek and lowly. He emptied Himself of all His heavenly glory
and took on the form of man, sinful, rebellious man. then He became
laden with our sins. Nobody has ever humiliated himself like the Lord
Jesus Christ, as He established His Kingdom by going to the cross. We,
who believe in Him, are in His Kingdom, and He is our King, ruling over
us and commanding us to walk honestly and humbly. We also are to be
ready to be humiliated. We are to be ready to walk as the most humble
people on earth.

   Besides that, we walk very humbly because we cannot take any credit
for our own salvation. It is nothing we can boast about. We cannot say,
"Well, you know, the real story is that God saw me and saw that I was a
little bit better than somebody else, and therefore, He decided to save
me." No way! As Ephesians 2:1-3 indicates, we were dead in our sins. We
were followers after Satan and after the lusts of the flesh like the
rest of mankind. It is only God's mercy, it is only by God's grace that
He saved us. So we live out our Christian life saying, "O my, how is it
possible that I can be a child of God, that I can have eternal life, so
that I fear no man? No matter what happens to me, I know that the
moment I die, I am going into the heavenly palaces, into glory with the
Lord Jesus Christ, and I have got everything going for me. All I want
to do is live out my life in service to Him. I really want to sacrifice
my life, to lay it down on the altar of sacrifice. I am consumed with
passion that others might hear the Gospel so that they, too, can know
the wonderful salvation which God has so richly provided."

   Don't we have a wonderful Savior? Don't we have a wonderful Gospel,
when we really see what the Gospel is? We can just stand amazed before
the glory of God as He glorifies Himself through this kind of Gospel.
So let's be sure that we keep this Gospel message in the forefront of
our thinking and in our hearts. If we find that at any time the gospel
we bring begins to differ from the true Gospel, let us cry out to God,
"O God, forgive me that I might have had something else in my head when
I was trying to bring the Gospel, that I was trying to tailor it to my
own lustful desires." The true Gospel is this: I want this wonderful
salvation for everybody else, and because I know I have become saved,
there is nothing else in this world I need for myself.

   For more information:

   Southern Maryland Christian Information Service BBS (SMCIS) P.O. Box
463 California, MD 20619