In Psalm 110.3 we read, Thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy
power.
Today's modern gospel has taken salvation out of
the hands of God and placed it in
the hands of men.
Like in the days of the prophet Amos,
the following is true.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God,
that I will send a famine in the
land, not a famine of bread, nor a
thirst for water, but of hearing the words
of the Lord.
If men attend church where the gospel is
not preached, they will remain in a senseless
condition, Sunday after Sunday, although they attend faithfully,
they will never be better for it.
They will live with a false assurance and
rest upon a rotten foundation of an empty
religious profession.
Hell fills by the hour with baptized church
members who were never awakened to their lost
condition, never came under Holy Spirit conviction, and
who were never united savingly to Christ through
heartfelt repentance and faith.
These who believe modern gospel has been diluted
of all its power to make it more
palatable to sinful man.
Multitudes have fallen under its sway and rest
upon rotten plank boards that creak and split
every time they move because of their false
assurance their hope of heaven is nothing more
than a hole in the wall.
In a day of great spiritual declension in
the church, we must be honest with ourselves
in regard to biblical salvation and answer the
following questions.
Is God the agent of salvation or is
man?
Are men saved as a result of a
decision they make or as the result of
the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit?
How we answer will determine if Christianity in
America can recover from the great decline it
has been in since the end of the
Second Great Awakening.
If this nation wants to avert disaster, it
must experience reformation in the people to keep
God's judgments from the land.
It's time to break away from the popular
man-centered gospel and return to the old
paths of a God-centered gospel.
The old gospel is God-centered.
It's the gospel of Edwards, Whitefield, Nettleton, Spurgeon,
men who knew that the proclamation of the
doctrines of grace, wielded properly, could hew men
down like a double-edged claymore because the
Word of God is the sword of the
Spirit.
But salvation is in the hands of God.
It is his voice that raises dead souls.
The old gospel thunders the terrors of the
law about sinners' ears until they tremble with
conviction of sin.
Then it shuts men up to God until
the receiver revealed Christ for forgiveness of sin.
The full counsel of God in the proclamation
of the gospel should clearly state the following.
His future judgment awaits all mankind where he
will be held accountable before the judge of
all the earth.
Number five, the miseries and unending torments of
hell.
Number six, God's demand for repentance.
Number seven, the necessity of regeneration.
Number eight, the preciousness of Christ who, like
the pearl of great price, is worth selling
all for so he may be gained.
Number nine, the sufficiency of Christ's blood and
redemption.
And number ten, Jesus Christ is Lord.
He must be one's prince as well as
a savior.
If there is any hope for us as
a people of God, we must repent and
return to the Lord before it's too late.