Years ago the church influenced the world and had power to make a difference on it's members and the world around them. Now the world pushes the church around and the world is influencing the church with it's philosophies and filth and it's growing love of whatever God hates. David Cloud said, "A weak gospel produces weak converts." The church used to be so in love with Jesus Christ and so full of the power of God that the shadow cast by the church and it's members blessed the area it touched, and it acted as a moral restraint at the same time. Today the world does that in a perverted sense. The shadow of the church used to restrain the heathen around them. Now the shadow of Hollywood pushes the envelope on the lost and saved alike. You used to be able to swim upstream against the current but now the world is a current of Niagara Falls barreling up anyone in it's path.
Today's gospel message is filling the church with false converts, selfish converts, and converts with no zeal for souls unless it is to give them a false gospel. Ray Comfort said correctly the problem with today's gospel is around the turn of the century the church forsook the law in leading men to Christ and instead choose a different method, a gospel of life enhancement. He illustrated this with a plane analogy, giving 2 men each parachutes on a plane. The one is told to put it on to improve his flight, and the second is told to put it on because at any moment he is going to have to jump out of the plane. The parachute actually made the flight uncomfortable and other passengers mocked him. The first felt lied to and threw off the parachute. The second man actually had an improved flight, but it was because he had the peace that he was safe. He wasn't swayed by the negative effects of the flight or passengers because his motive was different.
I have said the main problem is we are pushing a cure on a world unconvinced of the disease. I would now say we are PROCLAIMING a cure on an unconvinced world. Let me illustrate this with my area of expertise, pharmacy. The world's response is "I am glad Jesus works for you! Michelob works for me." The gospel is merely now a battle of "My God can beat up your God" but we are using the fruits as draw cards, and we have to exaggerate them to try and compete. The world does not have the enemies of the world, flesh and the devil targeting them and trying to destroy their families and testimonies and jobs and witness. The world is free to do what it wants and obey the lusts of their flesh, and the world sees nothing wrong with it. They don't need something that works better than beer to try. They need something to open their eyes to the destruction sin is causing in their lives. The law, the holiness of God, direct preaching on their sin, exposing on their sin so they see it as sin, seeing the consequences of their sin, and convincing of the disease are what they need. They don't need to be told to try Jesus to improve their lives. They need to have the Holy Ghost reveal their sin disease and convince them they are lost. Then and only then will they turn from their sinful lifestyle and turn TO CHRIST and they will never be the same.
Take someone with terminal incurable cancer. He finds a round of chemotherapy that is very toxic and nearly kills him, but it ends up saving his life. The cancer is gone, and the chemotherapy side effects gradually go away and he is now telling other people his experience. The people are excited for him and not offended he used chemotherapy over other therapies they might have tried. Then he says to them, "Hey, you know what? I ordered 2 years of therapy, but I was cured after 6 months. I feel so alive now! I have such joy now! I already paid for it. Who wants to try some?"
What is the response? Just like how sinners respond today--" I am glad the chemotherapy worked for you, but I am all set." They don't want what he has no matter how wonderful his cure was!
Why was he joyful? The chemotherapy made him sick to death and his hair fell off and he threw up non stop. He was joyful for what it did. He will not convince anyone to commit to chemotherapy just by the wonderful effects of the cure. His love for chemotherapy is for what it did for him, but the healthy will only experience the side effects. If someone does not have cancer, the cure is only going to cause problems. And worse, they might abandon the cure before they get cancer.
Jesus is wonderful. But to the lost, Jesus is not for them until they know they are lost. They are all set. He is offensive to them because in their mind there are people much worse then them. It takes the Holy Ghost to bring conviction, and reveal their sin AND it takes the LAW to bring knowledge of Sin.
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