Lasting Foundations

July 9, 2009

What is the Gospel?

The unsinkable Paul, in his first letter to the church at Corinth, stated with relish that the Gospel, and only the Gospel, was the power of God unto salvation.

Most of us have heard that the word Gospel means “good news”; and that is exactly correct. The Gospel is good news! But how can the simple hearing of “good news” possibly be the road to salvation? To find that you have just inherited a fortune is good news indeed; but as we all know money cannot even buy happiness much less salvation. To hear from your doctor that you have a clean bill of health is a good bit of news to receive; but even this will tarnish with time, for it is appointed unto every man once to live and once to die and then, there will come the judgment. Present health is hardly an evidence of salvation or proof that you possess eternal life.

One day our health will finally fail us. And on that day we will each stand before our maker to answer for the deeds done in our bodies. Without Christ, every fleeting fragment of temporal good news that we so gleefully grasped and clung to as a means of happiness and contentment, will pale and whither in comparison to the enormity of our sins against God, our crimes against our neighbor, and our impending punishment in an eternal hell.

In light of this, I must ask not only, what kind of news leads to salvation, but what kind of salvation is it that we actually we need?

At the end of your days, when all has been said and done, and your life on this Earth expires for lack of ability to draw another breath, what kind of salvation do you want to have? When the books are opened and your life, actions, thoughts, and secrets are all laid bare to the judgment of a holy God what is it in that moment that you want to be saved from? Poverty? Sickness? Inconvenience? No! No! No! A thousand times no! Every man and women on that day will pine for only one thing - salvation from their sins! Salvation from that ignoble record of deeds and thoughts so carefully hidden and covered in life that exposes the truth about who we really are! “What was I thinking? What was I doing?” will be the cry of every heart. The things that each of us would be willing to give or do in order to have the record purged will know no limit, but we will stand at our own judgment penniless as paupers with nothing to offer an offended God but tears. In His presence, our best works will appear as dung, and our feigned righteousness as worthless, filthy rags. How could we have ever believed that a few good deeds could ever outweigh the bulk of our sin, erase years of rebellion, or atone for a life of treason? Oh, to return to life. Oh, for a chance to retrace our steps and to live very differently.

Live Differently? Hasn’t that already been tried?

Every New Years Eve people all over this planet make resolutions to “live differently” and year after year they fail. “I’m going to eat less.” “I’ll drink less.” “I want to love more.” “I will to be faithful to my wife this year.” “I’ll be less selfish and spend more time with my kids instead of my hobbies” “I’m going to forgive.” “I am finally going to get my life together.” The list goes on and on. Why do we make these resolutions? Because in spite of our denial that there is any such thing as right or wrong, deep down inside, humans have a God-given conscience and our conscience, whether we want to hear it or not, speaks the truth. It speaks to us at night when our friends are gone, when the music has died, when the drugs and alcohol have worn off. Or for the church going, after the thrill and fervor of religion has faded away. It speaks and with that voice comes an ache that all the religion, good works, money, alcohol, and sex in the world cannot quench! It is an ache that innately knows that we were created for more than this: more than the life of an animal, eating, drinking and trying to make merry until the day death comes and sweeps us all away! It’s an ache that knows New Years resolutions are a joke the world over, and that the new year will be exactly like the old because we’ve promised change before and have found that change lies well beyond our reach.

Live differently? History, both yours, mine and the worlds’ has proven that men and women are born separated from God and that we go lying, cursing, stealing, hating, and killing from the womb. Our race cannot change, or save itself from this endless circle of misery and destruction because we have become slaves to our bodies, our lusts and our passions and have lost the ability to do right and shun evil.

But listen.

Listen to the greatest news the world has ever heard!

Listen to the happiest news that has ever fallen upon mortal ears and the most joyous ever proclaimed by angelic tongue!

Listen to what Mathew recorded in the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament. You know, the gospel of Mathew? The “good news” of Mathew?

Mathew’s good news was that there is hope for the sin-enslaved Human race! For an angel appeared to a man named Joseph and told him that his soon-to-be-wife, Mary, would bring forth a son and that he was to name the child Jesus, “For he shall save his people from their sins.”

Jesus will save us from our sins. What a thought! Not just from the effects of our sins like guilt, depression, anxiety, fear, and shame but from the source of all these things, the sins themselves! Glory to God!

He came to save us from our sins! Not just from hell and punishment but from the very sins that make us deserving of such punishment and unfit for a holy heaven.

Jesus came to actually save us from our sins not to just forgive us in our sins! The popular Christian bumper sticker reads, “Christians Aren’t Perfect We’re Just Forgiven”. Now, I’m fine saying that Christians aren’t perfect but, “Just forgiven”? Just forgiven? The angel did not say that Joseph was to name the child Jesus, “For he shall just forgive his people from their sins.” The angel said, and I imagine with a smile on his face, “He shall save his people from their sins.” Praise God!

This is just what Luke said in the fourth chapter of the third book of the New Testament. You know, the gospel of Luke? The “good news” of Luke?

Luke’s good news was that there was hope for the sin-enslaved Human race! For that very same child that Joseph named Jesus; who was born of the virgin Mary, one day stood as a full grown man in a synagogue in the little town of Nazareth. And as all eyes were on Him, and I imagine with a smile on his face, in a loud voice He proclaimed, to every man, woman, boy and girl, and to every trembling demon of hell, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel (The good news!) to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised”.

Did you hear that? Did you hear it? The angel told Joseph that God was sending Jesus to save us from our sins and here from Jesus’ own lips He says that the Father had anointed Him to preach the very same “good news” that the angel had delivered to Joseph so many years ago.

Take note, Jesus did not say that He was anointed to preach the good news of how He will give you wealth, health, fame, and an easy prosperous life. No! Nor was He sent to preach the so called good news of lukewarm, modern Christianity that you can now go to heaven while being “just forgiven” while in your day to day life you are still just as vile as you ever were, languishing in sin’s dungeon of debauchery and filth!

No, Jesus came, and He was anointed with the power of almighty God to preach in the ears of every sin enslaved captive the Gospel, the “good news” of deliverance and to set at liberty those that are bound!

He came to not just bring forgiveness to the drunkard who hates his very existence and the fact that he beats the wife he once loved, but to save that drunkard from his drunkenness and the power of sin over his life and to make him into a new creature where old things, the drunkenness, the depression and the rage pass away and all things become new as a wife finds love and tenderness in a man who had for so long been a continual source of terror and pain.

Paul, the apostle of grace, wrote to the Corinthians and warned them saying:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul says don’t be deceived by anyone who tells you otherwise. The drunkard doesn’t need to be “just forgiven” of drunkenness. He needs to be saved from the sin of drunkenness or he will not enter into the kingdom of God.

Then he says in the next verse:
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

“Such were some of you.” “Were,” as in past tense. Some of you “were” adulterers, some of you “were” drunkards, some of you “were” thieves, but now you are those things no longer! Praise God!

You have been washed, but not “just washed”; you have been sanctified, but not “just sanctified”; you have been justified, but not “just justified”; you’ve been forgiven, but not “just forgiven”. And on top of all these things you’ve also been adopted, delivered, altered, translated from darkness to light, changed, set free, and brought from death to life. You’ve been born again! You are not what you were!

That is the Gospel! And that is good news!

It’s not just “good news about anything and everything; it is the good news about Jesus!

It’s not just good news about how Jesus lived a sinless life, or about how He could teach, or about how he could multiply loaves and fishes; it is the good news about how Jesus came to save us, not simply from poverty or suffering but from our sins.

Paul calls this the Gospel of Jesus Christ unto salvation for all who believe.

That’s fantastic!

I want to shout it from the rooftops, tell it in the streets, and sing about it till the Kingdom comes! Jesus has come to save us from our sins.

The sound of that joyous message has rung across this planet for centuries as men and women who have experienced the saving power of Jesus Christ have hazarded their lives, their fame, and their fortunes to bring this glorious gospel of Jesus to the ends of the Earth. And there to declare to all who have never heard the good news that 2000 years ago on a bloody cross a heavenly emancipation declaration was issued the moment that the Son of God died to set men free!

I don’t have to be a slave! You don’t have to be a slave! The thief has come for nothing else but to kill to steal and to destroy; but I have good news, Jesus has come that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly!
What kind of news leads to salvation? The good news about Jesus.

What kind of salvation will every one of us need and want on Judgment day? The kind that Jesus came to bring; the kind that saves us from our sins both in this life and the next; the kind that breaks the New Year’s resolution curse and enables us to live differently today so that when the record books are opened tomorrow we need not be ashamed. A salvation that actually changes us.

So, how does hearing this “good news” about Jesus lead to practical salvation from real world sin? Well, The Bible says that this salvation comes through faith and that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Merely hearing or memorizing or reciting or even agreeing with the Word will help you not one bit. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.

You must believe.

That’s it.

You must believe that what the Word of God says Jesus Christ came to do for you can actual be done. You must believe that it can be done today, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, by faith, and without any works lest any man should boast.

I did not say you must simply believe that Jesus existed, or that he was born of the virgin Mary, or that He died on the cross, or that He rose again on the third day. There are millions upon millions who believe these things and attend church every Sunday and are yet dead in trespasses and sins. They do not believe that Jesus can do for them what he said He was anointed to do, what the angel announced He was coming to do, or what Jesus claimed to have done when on the cross He cried, “It is finished”! And though orthodox and conservative in doctrine they may be, they do not believe or expect that Jesus will save them from their sins, nor that He will radically invade and alter their existence.

They do not believe the “good news” Jesus was anointed to preach.

They do not believe the Gospel.

You must believe.

You must believe the Gospel.

Believing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto your salvation. We have God’s word on it. Jesus can and will save you from everything that damns you; He even now stands at the ready to pull you not only from the fires of an eternal hell but from the hell that your own sins are forging for you right now, here on earth.

Only Jesus can extinguish the ache within your soul. Nothing else will do. You must be born again. A new life is available to you at this very moment. If you look to Him you will be saved.

Do you believe?

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Ben at  ben@lastingfoundations.com.

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Truth is Not the Gospel

"Preach the truth.” That’s what they said to me. “Stand for the truth” sounded like pretty good advice at the time. “Know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” That one’s from the Bible. But will the truth set everyone free from everything? No, it will not.

1+1=2 is truth, and to learn this truth will indeed set an individual free from mathematical ignorance, but will it free a heroin addict from her love affair with death? No. Truth indeed will set the captive free, but in reality, people are held captive by different things.

The first intrepid souls who crossed the Atlantic to forge a new life in a new world found themselves instead facing extinction. The pilgrims were perishing for lack of knowledge. They were starving. They knew nothing of North American agriculture and simply could not grow enough food to feed their families. What did they need to survive? Truth? Yes, truth, but not just any truth, they needed native American agricultural truth. They needed knowledge of how to work the soil of this strange and foreign land. Nothing else would do. For a man to come along and see the pilgrims starving in ignorance and then begin to teach them that 1+1=2 imagining that he was liberating them from their predicament because he was teaching them the truth and that the truth would set them free would be ludicrous!

The pilgrims would have gone to their graves with mathematical truth rattling around in their heads but without the truth that they so desperately needed, the truth that would have put food in their children’s bellies, life in their bodies, and would have kept them upright and breathing.

The man who would help such pilgrims must bring the truth that meets their most urgent need, not the truth that is most conveniently at hand.

The same applies to the message of the Bible. Remember this: The gospel is truth, but all truth is not the gospel. Everything in the Bible is truth, but everything in the Bible is not the gospel. And it is the gospel that Paul said is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.

1+1=2 is a truth that cannot free the souls of men. We know this. But we often miss that, “Blessed are the peacemakers” is also a truth that cannot purchase one moment of reprieve from the shackles of slavery. Why? Because the particular truth that sets men and women free from bondage is the gospel of Jesus Christ and no other!

You’ve probably heard that the word “gospel” means “good news.” So is just any ”good news” the power of God unto salvation? No. It is the good news of Jesus Christ! The good news that He has come and conquered and now offers to us not only His pardon, but the opportunity to be partakers with Him in His victory; to tread upon the serpents and scorpions within our souls and upon all the powers of the enemy that should beset us.

“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” is truth, but it was truth before Christ came to this earth and died. “Thou shalt not kill” is truth but it was truth before Jesus ever rose from the grave. That it is good for men to pray and to study God’s word is truth but it was truth before the sacrifice of Calvary; and if these truths had the power to set the captive free then Christ died in vain!

The loftiest truths in the Bible can be read, studied, preached, and memorized and will never be lived out unless the glorious truth of the gospel has dawned, bringing salvation to those who behold it.

The man or woman who would help the wandering pilgrims of the human race must bring them the scripture truth that meets their most immediate, urgent and dire need, not the biblical truth that is least controversial, most convenient, socially acceptable, comfortable, or culturally relevant.

What most men and women desperately need, is something that most, especially in the church, think they already have . . . salvation.

The truth that man is hopelessly lost and dead in trespasses and sins is part of the Christian message and must be presented clearly and with love but without apology. It is a truthful and accurate description of the condition of mankind but this truth is not God’s solution to man’s condition and can hardly be called “good news”.

The truth is not the gospel; and it is the gospel of Jesus Christ and nothing else that is the power of God unto salvation.

This is why Paul said, not that he would “preach the truth,” or that he would, “stand for the truth,” But that he determined to preach nothing but Christ, and Christ crucified, glorying in nothing but the cross.

The mere preaching of truth, even biblical truth, apart from the gospel will never save a single soul from the clutches of death.

Christ condemned the Pharisees saying, “You search the scriptures for in them you think you have life; but the scriptures all testify of Me; and you will not come to Me that I may give you life.”

Scripture truth is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. It is the cross of Christ, not the canon of scripture that makes men into new creatures, that speaks to dead men’s bones and causes dust to come to life.

How many professing Christians, both liberal and conservative, have gone to their graves with orthodox, theological truth rattling around in their heads but without the truth that they so desperately needed, the truth that would have put Christ, the Bread and Water of Life into their parched, starving souls, and would have kept them from ever having to hear those chilling words, “I never knew you”.

There are many truths one can learn that will inform, but only one that transforms.

The only transforming truth is the gospel.

The only saving truth is the good news of Jesus.

He has come to be the Savior and Redeemer of all men; of both the atheist filled with facts and fiction as well as the Pharisee filled with Divine doctrine. The Gospel, the good news, to both the Hypocrite and the heroine addict is the same, “He came to save his people from their sins”. And He is now present and ready to save all those who will look to Him and believe.

He is the way. He is the truth. And it is He who is salvation.

Preach Christ.

Stand for Christ.

Know Christ.

The truth is not the gospel. Jesus is.

Never forget it.

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Ben at  ben@lastingfoundations.com.

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

God Speaks

I was thinking about nothing the other day. About how in the beginning there was nothing. And about how the problem with having nothing is that nothing isn’t there. When you have nothing you have nothing to work with, nothing to mold, nothing to bless or damn or love.  This is how everything began.  In the beginning . . .God . . .and nothing.  Unfortunately, when it comes to the human soul and the human race, this is still how everything begins. God  . . .and nothing . . .and then He speaks . . . and His words are Life!

The problems start when we face the fact that, unlike the rest of creation, men and women are not simply autonomous pieces of matter and antimatter to be whipped around like mindless, soulless ingredients in some cosmic stew.  No, when God made man, he made him free.  Free to love or hate, create or destroy, yield or rebel.  So God speaks. He speaks to man. And the question is: will anyone listen? 

The Bible says that Jesus stands at the door; he stands at the door that bars the entrance to the souls of men and He knocks. Then it says a most curious thing. It says, “If any man will hear His voice,” and will respond and open the door, He will come in. I don’t know about you but my mind staggers at this. “If?” “If any man will hear His voice?”  He is the King of all kings and the Lord of every lord, the master and commander of all that is. His voice spoke and galaxies sprung into being and stars stood at attention. How could any man not “hear His voice” when He speaks?

The Bible is filled with other oddities that bear on this question.  It speaks of men and women who have ears but cannot hear and who have eyes but cannot see. This would certainly be a sad state of existence for anyone to live in. When we meet someone, a child perhaps, who is blind or deaf, we tend to feel pity for their unfortunate circumstance.  Why?  We have no pity on flowers that cannot hear or for trees that live out the whole of their existence without sight.  So why do we pity this child?  The answer is quite simple. Flowers have no ears that were meant to hear and the trees have no eyes with which to see and therefore their inability to hear or see is of no consequence. They were never intended to see or hear. But the child, ah, the child has both eyes and ears and that very fact alone testifies that in her deafness and in her blindness, she is being deprived of that which her very constitution proclaims should be hers! 

It is one of the gravest travesties that today God speaks with the same voice that once spoke worlds into existence, and yet men who have the faculties to hear continue to wither away, perishing in the silence of their own souls as if He had never spoken at all.

It is a thing to be lamented and mourned that God, the Light of all worlds, appears in radiant sin-shrinking glory at the doors to the souls of sin benighted men who have the faculties to see and who yet continue to stumble and grope in the blinding noonday sun as if surrounded only by darkness. 

This describes the damnable condition of the greater portion of mankind.  It is called sin.  It is our inability to hit the mark that our very constitution proclaims to be our design and destiny.  This is our doom.  Created to bear the image of God and to have fallen so low in our refusal to serve our Maker that we have become servants and slaves to our flesh to the point that we often bear more the image of beasts than of men, much less God!

This is the universal malady of our kind.  It is not that God has not spoken or that His life giving voice is not speaking.  He is speaking!  The scripture says that the eyes of the Lord search to and fro throughout all the earth.  He is seeking after those who have an ear that can hear what the Spirit is saying to the church and to fallen humanity.  He seeks for worshippers who will worship Him not out of duty or pretence or ritual, or even for their own eternal gain, but for those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth.  He is looking for men, but listen . . .He is looking one man at a time.  He is looking for women, but He stands at the door of each individual heart and knocks. 

Oh yes, God is still speaking.  He is still wrestling with the abyss of nothingness that is the empty wilderness of the human soul.  Our trouble is not that God does not speak but that we do not hear.  Or is it that we choose not to hear?  The scripture says, “If any man will hear His voice.”  Here is the key.  The word, “will” implies exactly that.  Will we hear Him or will we turn a deaf ear to His commands? God told Ezekiel in the third chapter of the book that bears his name, “Israel will not hear you for Israel will not hear me.”  The word “will” implies choice. Will we “will” to hear the voice of God? Adam and Eve answered that question with a resounding no.  They chose instead to listen to the voice of a talking snake (go figure).  God spoke and they willed not to listen, they chose to believe neither Him nor His word.  They chose as individuals but they lost corporately.  When God confronted them, each tried to blame their sin on the community.  Adam pointed to his wife, Eve pointed to the serpent, but God held them each individually responsible even though their individual actions would affect the human community for millennia to come.

We can try and blame whatever we want on our community, the culture, the sinful age in which we live, or on the sorry state of the church in general; but ultimately God is going to hold us each individually responsible for the state of our own souls and for what we did with our life.

There is nothing that we see around us today, whether good or evil, whether revival or revolution, that cannot be traced back ultimately to the choices and actions individuals. 

In the beginning there was God…an individual.  And in the beginning of our race there was Adam and there was Eve… two individuals. God spoke to these two and He did not stutter. But with the voice of God resounding in their ears they each chose not hear, and the whole of the human community was plunged into darkness.  The world was lost one person at a time. Think about it. The world was lost one person and one choice at a time. The world will be saved the same way . . . person by person, choice by choice. And it is no different when it comes to the church.

What do you do when God speaks?

God is speaking.  God is calling, but He is not calling to races, or nations, or cities, or denominations, or churches.  He is not calling groups or communities or committees to be saved. He does not fill institutions with His Spirit, nor does He call non-profit organizations to be His ambassadors. He is calling to people, to men and to women.  He is calling to them.  He is calling to us.  He is calling to you.  He is asking us if we are willing to reverse what Eve began.  He is asking us to hear Him and His Word instead of shutting Him out while the deafening roar of our lusts drown out our senses. He is asking us to believe Him instead of the lies that bombard us from every corridor. He is asking us to have faith in Him amidst a faithless generation; to open the door, to shut out the poisonous doubt of the serpent, and to make the exact opposite decision of our mother, Eve.  Here we rise or fall. The human community was damned by individuals who lost their faith in God and respect for His Word. The community will be redeemed by individuals who look to Christ and to Christ alone for a life that truly works.

The church of today has followed the well-worn path of our ancestors and has arrived at its low present state not corporately but individually. The church has lost its faith in God and respect for His Word because it is filled with people who have lost their faith in God and respect for His Word. The church as a whole is nothing more than a sum of it’s parts and it will only be redeemed corporately when the people who comprise it return to their first love, or truly find that love for the first time, as they look to Christ and to Christ alone for life and life more abundantly.

For years I have listened as people have prayed for their city or church or family to be brought to spiritual life. But hear me, there is no such thing as corporate salvation, and there is no bulk discount on revival.  The cost of the resurrection of one single human soul is the yielding of that soul to its Savior, and none can yield that soul but its possessor.  No one can yield my soul but me.  You cannot do it for me, nor can I yield yours for you, and God will not make us do it. 

A marriage forced and carried out at gunpoint is one that is ultimately devoid of love. We all know that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, but so often we do not remember that He is looking for genuine, freely given, love in return. God will not force us into a heartless relationship with Him and He is even less interested in detached, passionless, ritualistic, dead, cold, dry-as-dust religion, no matter how conservative and orthodox it may be.

So, the ball appears to be in our court. And I do mean our court as individuals. Quit waiting for a revival to come to your city. Quit waiting for a restoration of your culture. Quit waiting for an awakening in the church. God is speaking now! He is speaking to us . . .and His words are life. What will we choose? Who will we "will" to hear? The tree is still in the garden. He has set before us the narrow and living path, but just to the right of that path is still the glittering and enticingly broad road to destruction. Hear His words, "Choose life that you and your children may live."

If you have questions or comments regarding this blog please email Ben at  ben@lastingfoundations.com.

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