Watered-Down Gospel

A footnote to my last post: The evening before this Muslim event (Thursday evening), the National Day of Prayer Task Force (NDP), along with Lou Engle, Tony Perkins and other Christian leaders, will hold a national conference call to pray for America. The call is scheduled for 7:30 to 9 p.m. ET.

In that earlier post about the Muslim prayer rally on Capitol Hill, I wrote that apathy is the biggest enemy of Christianity, not Islam or atheists. I want to expand upon that thought in this post. Apathy is our biggest problem by far, but another problem is a watered-down Gospel. Let me briefly explore each one.

Apathy

As I mentioned in my earlier post, apathy has resulted in lower church attendance, people not bringing up their children in the faith, and a widespread ignorance of the Bible. When the people don’t have a solid moral foundation and believe that this life is all there is, then you end up with a society that is self-centered and ultimately without hope. What we need is a Third Great Awakening – in other words, REVIVAL! I think that’s our only hope in the long run, and we should be praying every day for it to come.

In addition, we as Christians must follow biblical directives when it comes to practicing our faith and doing evangelism. Every Christian has a role to play in building up he Kingdom of God on earth. It’s not a matter of when you have time, when you feel like it, or if there’s nothing else going on. That’s the wrong attitude. God comes first, then everything else. Any other attitude is wrong and insults God.

Watered-Down Gospel

Too many churches and preachers water down the Gospel to make it more attractive to modern politically correct ears. Do you want to be politically correct or theologically correct? You don’t get to heaven because of your theology, but you do get to heaven based on your faith in Jesus as your Savior. If that isn’t being preached in your church, run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit and don’t look back.

Because of the politically correct liberal theology being taught in seminaries, graduates come out more confused than when they went in. Jesus is downplayed, and good works (especially in the area of “social justice”) are emphasized. When I was in seminary, I had to take a course on missions. The whole emphasis was on helping the less fortunate and nothing was said about telling them about salvation through Jesus. When I brought up the subject, the professor said something like “Of, we should do that too” and that was it. So much for Jesus.

A good example of watered-down Gospel is the very popular Joel Osteen. He is more like Doctor Phil than Billy Graham, but people love him. Why? I guess it’s because he gives helpful advice and maybe that’s all people want. But there’s much more to life than good advice. We need to learn biblical principles, not pop psychology. We need to hear about Jesus, not that all paths lead to God. We need to know that Jesus loves us and wants us for his own, not that we must earn our way into God’s good graces. We need to learn that we are saved by faith, not by works.
I encourage you to not be apathetic about your faith, and to seek out solid biblical teachings. You may have to visit quite a few churches, but it’s worth the effort. You’ll be blessed and the eternal rewards are fantastic!