Today’s Synthetic Gospel
by Greg Gordon
A DETHRONED CHRIST
Where
is the power of Edwards or Whitefield? Where is a modern day Wesley or
Spurgeon? To put it another way, where is the message that these men
preached with divine authority? The gospel message that they preached
was full of God, throbbing with God, God was the gospel. They preached
the character of God, the law of God, repentance towards God,
acceptance with God, and dependence on God. Everything in their
preaching was Christ Exalting and God honoring. Spurgeon said: “The
sermon which does not lead to Christ, or of which Jesus Christ is not
the top and the bottom, is a sort of sermon that will make the devils
in hell laugh, but might make the angels of God weep.” If a gospel
message does not begin with the lifting up of God, it then is the
lowering of heaven to earth and making what is Holy mundane. George
Whitefield said: “The Christian world is in a deep sleep; nothing but a
loud shout can awaken them out of it!” We are preaching a man-centered
gospel that denies a Holy God. The gospel begins with God and ends with
God, if we miss this we miss the gospel. We are living in a age of
synthetic gospel preaching, hence the Church has little power in modern
day evangelism. Satan has been successfully employing men in preaching
a dethroned Christ and a powerless Gospel.
Walter Chantry
said: “On the shallow ground of men’s logic, large numbers have been
led to assume they have a right to everlasting life and have been given
an assurance which does not belong to them.” again he states, “To
please God you must labour as Christ labored. To reach them you must
say what our Lord said.” Surely in this day we need true gospel
preaching that is the same as the employ of our Lord and the Apostles.
William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army prophesied of a false
gospel that would be preached in the twentieth century. He warned of a
generation that would accept a gospel that preached a faith without
repentance, religion without the Holy Spirit, a salvation without
Lordship and a Christianity without Christ. Are you preaching a
synthetic gospel? Are you believing a synthetic gospel? Paul the
apostle speaks plainly of “another gospel” this “other” gospel damns
people to eternal suffering apart from Christ and God. May we shudder
under the gravity of the thought that a synthetic gospel is so widely
preached and believed upon.
OFFENDING A HOLY GOD
Reverence,
respect and solemnity for the character of God must begin and accompany
true gospel preaching. The glorifying of God in preaching extols His
character, holiness, attributes and draws a large conception of God.
The problem with this modern day synthetic gospel is that we preach
man’s need and not God’s character with utmost urgency. True gospel
preaching tells men that they have offended a holy God who will by no
means wink at sin. Walter Chantry said: “Christ’s gospel sends men to
beg pardon of the Holy One!” We have to realize that the holiness of
God is what we have offended and sinned against and are in active
rebellion to this infinitely pure God. A modern day fallacy is to say
that all people know of God and His true character, nothing is farther
from the truth. People are ready to talk about God in a religious sense
but are utterly ignorant of God and His holiness. We are making an
awful mistake in taking for granted that sinners know who God is! We
lack severely in these two areas: Preaching the holiness of God and the
sinfulness of man both of these truths need to be addressed to the
hearers conscience directly, not argued but proclaimed.
J.C Ryle
gives a forceful picture of our sin against a Holy God: “nevertheless
settle it firmly in our minds that sin is ‘the abominable thing that
God hateth’ that God ‘is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and
cannot look upon that which is evil.’ That the least transgression of
God’s law makes us ‘guilty of all’ that ‘the soul that sinneth shall
surely die’ that ‘the wages of sin is death’ that God shall ‘judge the
secrets of men’ that there is a worm that never dies, and a fire that
is not quenched. That ‘the wicked shall be turned into hell’ and ‘shall
go away into everlasting punishment’ and that ‘nothing that defiles
shall in any wise enter heaven.’ These are indeed tremendous words when
we consider that they are written in the Book of a most merciful God!”
MONSTERS OF INIQUITY!
Walter
Chantry said: “The truth is that God is holy. Thus, He is angry with
the sinner at this moment. His sword of wrath already hangs over the
head of the guilty and will forever torment him unless he repents and
trusts Christ.” We are sinners in the sight of such a Holy God and not
only sinners but guilty sinners. We are a criminal before God. Holy
Scripture tells us that we are “by nature children of wrath,” and that
“the carnal mind is enmity to God.” In light of this we need a
repentant heart before God, spurgeon said: “He that never mourned over
sin has never rejoiced in the Lord. If I can look back on my past life
and say, ‘I have no grief over it,’ then I should do the same again if
I had the opportunity. And this shows that my heart is as perverse as
ever it was, and I am still unregenerate.” Again spurgeon states: “If
you can look on sin without sorrow, then you have never looked on
Christ. Try yourself by this test.” Walter Chantry said: “Where are
there pulpits clearly showing that God’s pure law makes strict demands
upon the soul? The twentieth century church has tried to see how little
it can say and still get converts.” Unless true God-exalted preaching
ensues there can be no true genuine repentance from sin towards God.
Paris
Reidhead in his famous sermon ‘ten shekels and a shirt’ talks about the
crimes of humanity against the law of God and the character of God:
“What about you? Why did you repent? I'd like to see some people repent
on Biblical terms again. George Whitefield knew it. He stood on Boston
Commons speaking to twenty thousand people and he said, ‘Listen
sinners, you're monsters, monsters of iniquity! You deserve Hell! And
the worst of your crimes is that criminals though you've been, you
haven't had the good grace to see it!’ He said, ‘If you will not weep
for your sins and your crimes against a Holy God, George Whitefield
will weep for you!’ That man would put his head back and he would sob
like a baby. Why? Because they were in danger of Hell? No! But because
they were monsters of iniquity, that didn't even see their sin or care
about their crimes. You see the difference? You see the difference? The
difference is, here's somebody trembling because he is going to be hurt
in Hell. And he has no sense of the enormity of his guilt! and no sense
of the enormity of his crime! and no sense of his insult against deity!”
Reidhead
continues in his sermon: “This is the difference between twentieth
century preaching and the preaching of John Wesley. Wesley was a
preacher of righteousness that exalted the holiness of God. When he
would stand there with the two to three hour sermons that he was
accustomed to deliver in the open air and he would exalt the holiness
of God, and the law of God, and the righteousness of God, and the
justice of God, and the wisdom of His requirements! and the justice of
his wrath and his anger! Then he would turn to sinners and tell them of
the enormity of their crimes and their open rebellion and their
treason, and their anarchy, and the power of God would so descend upon
the company, that on one occasion it is reliably reported that when the
people dispersed there were 1800 people lying on the ground, utterly
unconscious! Because they had a revelation of the holiness of God and
in the light of that they'd seen the enormity of their sins and God had
so penetrated their minds and hearts that they had fallen to the
ground! But there was a difference! It wasn't trying to convince a good
man that he was in trouble with a bad God! But that it was to convince
bad men that they had deserved the wrath and anger of a good God! And
the consequences were repentance, that lead to faith, and lead to life.
Dear friends, there's only one reason, one reason for a sinner to
repent and that's because Jesus Christ deserves the worship and
adoration and the love and the obedience of his heart. Not because
he'll go to heaven.”
RECOVERY OF THE GOSPEL
The most
urgent task facing the evangelical Church in our day is the recovering
of the gospel. J.I. Packer speaking of the synthetic gospel compared to
the old true gospel said: “It fails to make men God-centered in their
thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily
what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it
and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned with
being 'helpful' to man - to bring peace, comfort, happiness,
satisfaction - and too little concerned to glorify God.” This new
gospel comes at a bargain price only costing the sinner a hour an week
to be secured forever in heaven. While the old gospel requires the life
of the sinner and this life to be transformed into a life that worships
and glorifies God. The Bible is against us when we preach in such a
manner. Let us aim at nothing less then to preach the full counsel of
God. We are in dire need in our day of preaching that speaks of God as
He is and men as they are, unholy! Let us not grow weary in exalting
the great holy God in our preaching or else we find ourselves
distributing a false, spurious, synthetic gospel that is of no power.
Hear the admonition of Richard Baxter: “Screw the truth into men's
minds.” Let us at all cost hold onto and proclaim this true gospel and
leave alone any substitute. Without a clear proclamation of the majesty
of God and the Law of God there cannot be a true receiving of the
gospel of grace. Preach Christ and Him Crucified. Notice the order,
first preach “Christ” then the “Cross” of Christ, this is the divine
order of preaching the message of the gospel. I leave you dear reader
with some quotes from the mighty Whitefield: “Various are the pleas and
arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against yielding
obedience to the just and holy commands of God.” And another quote:
“Although believers by nature, are far from God, and children of wrath,
even as others, yet it is amazing to think how nigh they are brought to
him again by the blood of Jesus Christ.” As Leonard Ravenhill pleaded
so we agree: “God of Whitefield, give us today men like Whitefield who
can stand as giants in the pulpit, men with burdened hearts, burning
lips, and brimming eyes, and Lord, please do it soon!”
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