John Piper once said, “The Gospel does not offer to the sinner what the sinner wants naturally.”
John MacArthur quoted John Piper and then asked, “What does a natural sinner want?” This was his answer: the natural sinner wants “good feelings, blessings, healing, happiness, riches, money, success, for the angel to work for him,” and so on and so forth.
And the Gospel does not offer these things.
The Gospel offers Christ; the Gospel offers the cross to carry, to believe in Christ and to suffer for Him:
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,” Philippians 1:29
Then isn’t it sad to see preachers today claiming that the Gospel offers what the sinners want? To get healed, get rich, and feel good?
No wonder many churches today are full of pagans who have absolutely no clue whatsoever what the Gospel says, but are always eager to receive miracles!
No wonder that it is famous and cool sometimes to be a Christian! I mean, people of this dark world love visiting these huge churches today, just to have fun. They love to watch YouTube videos where one individual runs the show, claiming that he/she hears/sees from God.
I was watching a video where one guy was accusing people who do such things and asked everybody to ban their channels. One person’s comment reads, “What’s wrong with you? They are our only entertainment. We want them to stay on YouTube. We don’t ban them.”
How sad!
Jesus said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” John 15:18-20
In a way, Jesus is saying, “If the world loves you, you belong to the world, not to Me.”
The Gospel does not offer what the pagan world runs after. The Gospel is this:
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
And,
“And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” 2 Corinthians 5:15
If we preach this pure Gospel, but a sinner doesn’t turn to Jesus, we won’t manipulate the Gospel — we won’t change the message! We just continue preaching because drawing a sinner close to God is not our role but God’s. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:44
Our call is to preach the pure Gospel in and out of season to all creation:
“He[Jesus] said to them[to His disciples], Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:15 ///