January 20, 2009

Know the True Gospel

“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:3-4 NKJV)

The Gospel shows us how unsparingly God deals with sin. It reveals to us the terrible sword of His justice smiting His beloved Son in order that atonement might be made for the transgressions of His people. So far from the Gospel setting aside the Law, it exhibits the Saviour [sic] enduring the curse of it. Calvary supplied the most solemn and awe inspiring display of God’s hatred of sin that time or eternity will ever furnish. And do you imagine that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to worldlings [sic] and telling them that they "may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their personal Saviour" [sic] while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts still in love with sin? If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness—Arthur Pink, Saving Faith.

We need to know the true Gospel in order to teach the true Gospel. The message of God sending His Son is indeed good news. What makes it good news is that without Him all would die in their sins. That sin would then in turn be punished by the everlasting torment of hell.

I hope when you go to church you go with a thankful heart knowing you have escaped the wrath of God by His grace through faith. We needed to be saved because we were children of wrath. Ephesians describes that as being dead in sins.

“And you [He made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” (Ephesians 2:1-3 NKJV)

What message are you teaching your family, friends, and acquaintances? Is it the true Gospel or a counterfeit? What Gospel have you believed?
Do not be guilty of turning the grace of God into lewdness. You cannot hold on to idols and embrace the Lord at the same time. Salvation demands that you repent of sin and cling to Christ and His righteousness. The true Gospel makes this clear. Amen.