Since the gospel must be proclaimed boldly, it’s as equally imperative to declare the gospel in its entirety. The entire gospel message must always contain two parts, a positive and negative side (humanly speaking), and it’s absolutely indispensable that both sides are equally promulgated. The Bible warns not to add or omit any portion of Scripture. (Deut. 12:32, Prov.30:6, Rev. 22:18-19). Therefore, the negative side of the gospel, the side which is the most compromised, perverted, or omitted altogether, must be purely broadcasted.
In actuality, the gospel in totality is good news. The word “gospel”, in the original Greek language; euaggelian, is defined; good tidings; good news. The positive side of the gospel contains: God’s love, grace, comfort, forgiveness, patience, long-suffering, mercy, peace, blessings, etc. This is what all people desire the characteristics of God to be, and are comfortable hearing these attributes stated. In fact, some people only believe the positive attributes of God, and will not entertain the biblical characteristics of God which reveal the contrary. The seemingly negative side of the gospel is: sin, sinners; Law, submission, obedience, sanctification, discipline, chastisement, ramification, wrath, judgment, condemnation, hell, etc; and is what makes the positive side of the gospel make sense. Pastor Steve Lawson stated; “You cannot give people the good news, unless you give them the bad news first.” I compare performing evangelism similar to a question that many people have posed at one time or another; “I’ve got good news and bad news; what do you want to hear first?” Typically, people want to hear the bad news first, so that the good news has a mollifying effect when the bad news is presented to them. In this case that is true, tell people the bad (negative) side of the gospel first, so the good (positive) side, our Savior Jesus Christ, offers the hearer eternal hope and a powerful reason to avoid the negative eternal consequences. “Charles Spurgeon wrote; “We rob the gospel of its power if we leave out its threatening and punishment”.
In many of today’s churches, preaching the entire gospel with boldness and conviction is considered unpopular or unacceptable to the ears of many congregates. And sadly, many pastors are acquiescing to the ear-tickling desires of their congregations by compromising the completeness and gravity of its message. In fact, they are preaching the opposite, by aiming to appease the people (John 12:43), by molly-coddling them; only teaching ambiguously and quixotically, glee-filled messages. According to Dr. Al Mohler, “this is a seismic shift in the culture”. And tragically, it leads to generations of pastors who do not faithfully proclaim the gospel, because many do not read church history, and there are only a few modern-day paradigms of powerful biblical expository preaching available to emulate. Tragically, by eradicating God’s admonishment and commands, robs the gospel of its transforming power. Too many pastors fear declaring the gospel boldly, fervently, and in its entirety and think to do so is archaic, offensive, divisive, and ultimately unloving. Not wanting to appear unloving or desiring to be popular, they water-down, compromise, or omit certain parts of the gospel message, thus deviating from God’s clear commands in the Bible (Matt. 28:19-20). Incidentally, a church pulpit is the very place for strong, accurate and forceful preaching of the entire Bible. Tergiversation and omission of the truth will have a devastating effect on sinners, because they will fail to receive the necessary knowledge about sin and its eternal consequences.
Messengers must realize that the uncompromised gospel will indeed offend people; it’s ineluctable. Theologian George Grant appropriately stated; “If you preach the uncompromised gospel, you will offend people. If you desire not to offend people, you must remove the offense from the gospel. If you remove the offense from the gospel, you no longer are preaching the gospel.” Unfortunately, he’s right! However, to be faithful and accurate representatives of God’s truth, one must proclaim the uncompromised gospel to convict people, which will most likely offend them, but will provide sanctification, unto eternal life. It is pertinent that all of God’s Word is heralded, for not one book, chapter or word can be withheld. Read how God instructed the prophet Ezekiel; “You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are rebellious. “But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.” (Ezekiel 2:7-8). Many of today’s pastors eviscerate the heart of the gospel message and fail to obey God’s direct commands. And horrifically, because the very essence of the saving gospel is being omitted, people are left floundering, blindly accepting what is taught to them and incapable of validating “sermons” by sacred Scripture (Matt. 15:14, Acts 17:11). They are ill-equipped and handicapped, thus it is apparent that the flesh, the devil and the world will have even more devastating influence on the “church” because they are not receiving the full gospel. The ripple effect will continue, causing inconceivable massive carnage, sending “religious” attendee’s to hell. We are witnessing the effects now, with our so-called Christian culture accepting and engaging in overt sin.
An example of blatant defiance to the commands of God and Scriptural omission is from the so-called Pastor Joel Osteen. Osteen is one of today’s most popular evangelical preachers, proclaiming to a filled to capacity Houston Astrodome, every time he preaches. He is the quintessence of the modern day ear-tickling false preacher, who, incidentally, does more harm than good to people. Like most of the Word of Faith preachers, he is motivated by money, and amazingly, has never preached the saving gospel. In his sermons, or motivational talks, more appropriately put, Osteen openly admits jettisoning any negative words. He claims; “I don’t need to tell them about sin…people generally know that they are doing wrong…” or, “I don’t want to beat people up…” Unfortunately, there are myriads of preachers just like Osteen, who coddle their congregants, by feeding them what they want to hear to “feel” good, rather than providing them what they need to hear for salvation. (1 Tim 4:16). The natural man will always choose what is biblically wrong, because he loves darkness rather than light. (John 3:19). And delivering a message that feeds the lusts of the flesh, is easy to sell, and is guaranteed to lead the false teacher to “prosperity”. Pastor John MacArthur states “…if you give people what they already desire, they will remain in sin…” thus they are never confronted and remain unconverted. Ironically, Osteen will get prosperous, not his followers. In essence, Osteen’s refusal to preach the gospel, illustrates he does not care for the lost who will be damned to hell. {Part 3 “Spread the Gospel Boldly not Reticently”-will be posted next week}