You're Special - The Modern Gospel in a Nutshell

Saints,

My wife was handed a tract today in an elevator. She took it home, read it, smiled, and then handed it to me. I read it and decided to post it here. Those that read it and scratch their head as to why I posted it are encouraged to listen to "Ten Shekels and a Shirt". We got into a little disagreement over this tract. She thought it was "sweet"; I thought it grossly misrepresents God and produces two-fold children of hell. When you read this, imagine you're an unbeliever, an atheist, a person living a good life, and making good money. Take particular notice at the one sentence that mentions "sin" and see if you can make heads or tails of it.

[b]You're Special[/b]

Believe it nor not - no one else is just like you. Your physical appearance, your voice and personality traits, your habits, intelligence, personal traits - all these make you one of a kind. You are not the product of some cosmic assembly line; you are unique.

But the most important part of your identity is that God created you in His own image. The Bible reveals God's total interest in you as an individual. God knew you even before you were born. He has plans just for you, plans conceived in love.

As we appreciate God's constant concern for us, we really begin to grasp the awfulness of sin. He loves you and me so much; yet how often we go our own way, turning our backs on Him. God's designs for our lives are blocked; His mercies do not come to the unwilling.

But even here we are precious to God, for He continues to love us even when we pay Him no mind. He still sees us as individuals with great value. God is not an unfeeling, cold-hearted monarch of the heavens. He feels our pains; He shares our sorrows. He cares, and He considers each one of us important enough to love.

In fact, He loves us so much that He gave His only Son to die for our sins. Because you and I are special to God, He wants to forgive us and give us a full, meaningful life. When we trust in Jesus Christ and let Him put our lives together, the Bible says that we become "God's masterpieces created in Christ Jesus." Can anyone be more special than that?

You are valuable to God! If you have never trusted Jesus Christ for your salvation, you can pray something like this today:

* generic sinner's prayer, ending with: "Right now I ask You to be my Saviour so that I can live as the special creation that You intended me to be".

Any thoughts? ;-)

Brother Paul

Sounds like something pastor Rick Warren wrote. :-?

Blessings Greg

Sounds like something pastor Rick Warren wrote.

I think fundamental tracts like these are just as dangerous as evolutionary, JW and Mormon literature. Maybe even more so (though that is debatable). Once I began explaining the contention I found in it, my wife finally saw it. I told her, "Honey, you're saved, you [i]know[/i] the true gospel of holiness; tracts like these are targeting unbelievers." Then she saw the humanitarian gospel.

Most churches nowaday preach a man-centered message, so their tracts will be the same.

We have to wonder how God views all of this, of us toying with His message, as though it is a toy.

Yet another reason why we have no revival.

God bless.

Yes, this is a classic example of the 'man-centred' goespel.

I recently made the mistake of allowing a Christian drama group to come to my youth group and take the meeting. They did several dramas representing or rather misrepresenting the gospel and i was just sat there cringing in my seat, thinking 'what have i done?'.

The focus of their message waws on our valuable we are. The trail of thought goes a bit like this:

-Your Great- And God loves you - And He sent His Son to die for you -And He has a great plan for your life- now who wants to become a Christian?

The modern man centred gospel focuses on the worth and value of man- the proper old gospel focuses on the worth and value of God.

I was thinking about this last night as i read something i had printed out from SI. In this article the writer called himself a 'worm', as old Christians often did. That set my thinking, 'i wonder how many 'Christians' today who are a result of this modern gospel would say of themselves 'I am a worm'?. Then i thought about the old hymn, 'Amazing Grace' and i wondered how many of today's Christians- the products of the 'Your special' gospel could really sing 'Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved A WRETCH like me'?

The old and proper gospel is so much more wonderful than this suger coated version. The truth is:

'you are worse than you thought yourself to be, much worse. You are an offense to God, you have lived your whole life despising His goodness, not valuing His Greatness, and not matching up to His holiness. Your sin is against God, so Great a God, so good a God, your sin is infinetly great because "The God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified" (Dan 5:23). You must one day stand before this God and give an account of your life. Standing before the perfect and holy God who dwells in unaproachable light He will search you life and soul and everything you have done will be brought to light. Compared to such a God you and I are filthy, wretches, lost sinners, and God would be right to throw us into hell forever. But as bad as we are, as unworthy as we are, God has made a way of salvation, a way for us to be clean, a way for us to be made right, and that was at the cost of the blood of His dear and holy Son Jesus, See the love and grace of God when while we were still sinners Christ died for us, the just for the unjust. God now offers a full and complete pardon to sinners on the grounds of the death of His Son who died for sinners. He promises that anyone who turns from their sins and comes to Him through His Son will be saved. So come to Christ, as bad as you are, call upon His Name, throw youself at His mercy, He is willing and mighty to save and He will not cast you out. He is wanting to save you not only from hell but from all your sins, to come and live inside you,to be your God, and to make you a new person. So repent and believe in Jesus Christ'

'you are worse than you thought yourself to be, much worse. You are an offense to God, you have lived your whole life despising His goodness, not valuing His Greatness, and not matching up to His holiness. Your sin is against God, so Great a God, so good a God, your sin is infinetly great because "The God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified" (Dan 5:23). You must one day stand before this God and give an account of your life. Standing before the perfect and holy God who dwells in unaproachable light He will search you life and soul and everything you have done will be brought to light. Compared to such a God you and I are filthy, wretches, lost sinners, and God would be right to throw us into hell forever. But as bad as we are, as unworthy as we are, God has made a way of salvation, a way for us to be clean, a way for us to be made right, and that was at the cost of the blood of His dear and holy Son Jesus, See the love and grace of God when while we were still sinners Christ died for us, the just for the unjust. God now offers a full and complete pardon to sinners on the grounds of the death of His Son who died for sinners. He promises that anyone who turns from their sins and comes to Him through His Son will be saved. So come to Christ, as bad as you are, call upon His Name, throw youself at His mercy, He is willing and mighty to save and He will not cast you out. He is wanting to save you not only from hell but from all your sins, to come and live inside you,to be your God, and to make you a new person. So repent and believe in Jesus Christ'

Hey! I want that on a tract! :-D
I have never ever found one in public...

The modern gospel ignores the utter falleness of man, something the great evangelists of the past did not ignore.

Modern theology has man being "good" and "able" to come to Christ based on a physcological manipulation and agreeing with certain doctrines which appeal to men. The heart is not the goal of the modern gospel, and thus preachers do not strive with God first for Him to change hearts.

Let us be found faithful brethren.

You start handing tracts out like that, and you'll walk alone. You start preaching like that and you'll preach alone. I remember last year inviting some Chi Alpha college kids to go downtown with me on a Friday night to do some ministry and tell people about God. They were all gung-ho and ready to hand out their tracts...until I stood up on a stone monument and began preaching true, old-fashioned repentanace, using Hebrews 9:27 as my springboard. Man, you should have seen their faces! Totally mortified. It was as though they were hearing the true gospel for the first time. That was the first and last time we've gone out together.

You put a [i]true[/i] gospel message on a bumper sticker and your car can get vandalized, firebombed. You wear a [i]true[/i] gospel message on a shirt and you can get assaulted. No one objects to the harmless shirts that say: 1 cross + 3 nails = 4-given.

Brother Paul

PaulWest wrote:
Man, you should have seen their faces! Totally mortified. It was as though they were hearing the true gospel for the first time. That was the first and last time we've gone out together.

forgive me brother but i couldn't help myself, i just started laughing so hard, just imagined the scene.

i recently was at an older brothers house, his son is a drug addict just came out from prison. He has been raised in a Christian home , hes heard the true gospel, we where talking and his sister said the classic God loves the sinner but hates the sin,

and i said no, God hates sinners. Every face in the room turned and looked at me, i said to him, God absolutely hates sinners, he hates you to, in fact i believe you as being raised in a Christian home and heard the gospel for 25 years, you are going to be much much worse of them many other 'greater' sinners because you knew the truth and rejected it.

He never comes around anymore.

edit: but i go to him still :-)

i was just sat there cringing in my seat, thinking 'what have i done?'.

Yes, brother. I know what you mean. I've been there, done that. I remember once we took the youth from our church to another church that was hosting a "Power Evangelism" team of body-builders that rip-up phone books and bend frying pans on their foreheads to prep kids for the "me" centered gospel. Then they had a pyrotechnique show with great explosions and smoke. I was young in the faith when I agreed to chaperone the youth for this event. Half-way through the show, it finally dawned on me:. It was all such a joke. I imagined Peter and Andrew coming from the upper room after Pentecost and smashing clay jugs on their head to attract the Jews to hear the gospel. I imagined Bartholomew tearing huge scrolls in half. It all seemed so asinine, so lame, so man-contrived.

When the altar call was given, the kids flocked to the front, chewing gum, grinning, looking around. After they prayed, they walked back, still grinning, chewing gum, punching each other in the arm, etc. Mind you, this was [i]after[/i] they had been told by these muscle-bound buffoons that they were now [i]saved[/i]!

Do you remember those weird pictures with multicolored patterns, that if you stared at them long enough - zone your eyes just right - a 3-D image was supposed to suddenly appear? Well, that's what it was like when I discovered the modern gospel - it suddenly jumped out at me in 3-D intensity! On all the Chrstian TV stations, radio stations, tracts, etc. It was ubiquitous like bacteria. How shocking it is to view a supposedly harmless tract under the God-given microscope of gospel discernment. Unhygienic doctrine sudddenly appeared on laboratory slides once thought to be spiritually aseptic.

Brother Paul

Every face in the room turned and looked at me

This is the dear price we pay, brother. By and large we will be ostracized like every faithful and obedient servant of God has been throughout the ages. Everything about gospel is diametrically opposed to how unregenerate man thinks. This is why I always cringe the moment before I open my mouth to field preach. Some preachers will lie to you and tell you it is a pleasure to street preach, but I agree with John Wesley - to me it is a cross. But, unfortunately, there is no other way. I know that as soon as I open my mouth, the "modern gospel" delusion will rise up in the minds of my hearers and stir up great anger and disdain for what I am doing. I really don't like this feeling; I would much rather be accepted and praised and find unity and and peace. Any preacher who tells you they actually [i]enjoy[/i] and look forward to open air repentance preaching is not right and is probably doing it for the wrong reason.

But, like you already know, this is counting the cost of coming to (and obeying) Christ's call on our lives. Not everyone is called to street preach like this, but everyone is called to serve in some self-denying, uncomfortable capacity.

We sail a bloody sea to heaven's shore. The modern gospel is like the wind that instead of filling our sails, incites the waves.

Brother Paul

i posted this for itself in the articles section, but ill "slide" it in here to, it is short but so true

Where, O where?

(J. R. Anderson, "A Warning to Ministers" 1851)

At the end of the seven days, the Lord gave me a message.
He said, "Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman
for Israel. Whenever you receive a message from Me, pass
it on to the people immediately. If I warn the wicked, saying,
'You will surely die,' but you fail to deliver the warning, they
will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible, demanding
your blood for theirs." Ezekiel 3:16-18

Where are the ministers who will rouse this sleeping generation to . . .
the solemn realities of the eternal world,
the shortness of time, and
the certainties of judgment?

Where are the preachers who are weighed down with . . .
the interests of immortal souls,
the difficulties of dealing faithfully with them, and
the solemn account that is to be rendered for them?

Where, O where?

At the risk of being labeled "modern" and "man-centered", I must disagree with much of what is being said here.

First off, I think most everyone can agree with this statement:

The modern gospel ignores the utter falleness of man, something the great evangelists of the past did not ignore.

Compared to such a God you and I are filthy, wretches, lost sinners, and God would be right to throw us into hell forever. But as bad as we are, as unworthy as we are, God has made a way of salvation, a way for us to be clean, a way for us to be made right, and that was at the cost of the blood of His dear and holy Son Jesus,

"God hates you, you evil, worthless, stupid, lost, filthy, sinning, dirty, worm dog. In fact, He will take great delight in punishing you endlessly for your vileness."

"However, since He is so loving and gracious, God sacrificed His own son so you can escape the torture He would love to lay on you and, instead, continue to worship Him forever as a worthless servant redeemed by grace. Don’t forget, though, you killed God’s son!"

Exaggerated? Perhaps, but I suspect this hard-nosed, “turn or burn” approach is usually more fleshly than godly. Yes, people need to hear that their sins have plunged them into darkness, are contrary to a holy God and have aligned them with God’s enemies. Yes, all will be judged and the enemies of God punished. This fact needs to be established. What makes me furious is that many only seem to know how to preach condemnation. Many pastors harp year after year on their converted congregations about their worthlessness and sinfulness. Does anyone else see the deception in this!? Believers are holy sons and daughters of God meant to walk in kingdom authority and victory! Pastors who continue to flog believers about their unworthiness have set aside grace for works, don’t understand the authority of believers and are a mouthpiece of condemnation. Furthermore, those who always resort to verbally beating believers and unbelievers most certainly lack discernment and probably love. Many unbelievers already know they are guilty, their conscience condemns them.

God wishes that none should perish.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only son.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but to save it.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

They were all gung-ho and ready to hand out their tracts...until I stood up on a stone monument and began preaching true, old-fashioned repentanace, using Hebrews 9:27 as my springboard. Man, you should have seen their faces! Totally mortified. It was as though they were hearing the true gospel for the first time. That was the first and last time we've gone out together.

But... sniff... I am special.

I will not be quick to despise unbelievers and will attempt to preach love and grace, using a hard word only when it is needed to clarify God’s holiness or man’s transgression.

I'd wager your greatest achievements that evening were: hardening unbelievers; creating division in the Body; discouraging nervous believers who were taking a step of courage/faith; swelling your pride; and "earning" some holiness/acceptance with God.

This is out of line, friend. You don't know me, or how I preached, or the tears that were in my eyes that evening. How can you leap to such judgmental and pessimistic conclusions from reading one post? The "pride" you accuse me of is actually reflected back on you; commenting in such a way to a brother whom you've never met displays a [i]mountian[/i] of pride and an overall immaturity in the faith.

I'll ask you (and everyone else in these gracious forums) to please [i]pray[/i] before repsonding in anger or frustration. Let's get to know each other before bringing the hatchet down.

Brother Paul :-)

'you are worse than you thought yourself to be, much worse. You are an offense to God, you have lived your whole life despising His goodness, not valuing His Greatness, and not matching up to His holiness. Your sin is against God, so Great a God, so good a God, your sin is infinetly great because "The God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified" (Dan 5:23). You must one day stand before this God and give an account of your life. Standing before the perfect and holy God who dwells in unaproachable light He will search you life and soul and everything you have done will be brought to light. Compared to such a God you and I are filthy, wretches, lost sinners, and God would be right to throw us into hell forever. But as bad as we are, as unworthy as we are, God has made a way of salvation, a way for us to be clean, a way for us to be made right, and that was at the cost of the blood of His dear and holy Son Jesus, See the love and grace of God when while we were still sinners Christ died for us, the just for the unjust. God now offers a full and complete pardon to sinners on the grounds of the death of His Son who died for sinners. He promises that anyone who turns from their sins and comes to Him through His Son will be saved. So come to Christ, as bad as you are, call upon His Name, throw youself at His mercy, He is willing and mighty to save and He will not cast you out. He is wanting to save you not only from hell but from all your sins, to come and live inside you,to be your God, and to make you a new person. So repent and believe in Jesus Christ'

GLORY!!!

Get it in print!!
:-) :-D ;-) 8-)

That's the kind of preaching that shook the nations during Wesley's day... Do it again Lord!

Blessings,
-nathan

My apologies for being judgmental, you are correct, such assumptions were not fair and I honestly ask for your forgiveness.

That said, the intention of the post wasn't to slam you guys or defend a tract, but to point out the peril of constantly preaching a harsh, condemning word.

If some of the criticisms seemed personal and are not true, please translate them to general trends in certain realms of the church - not yourselves. I stand by my points and warn against street preaching driven by competition, works or ego.

Was the entire post out of line? Does anyone see any validity to my concerns?