There are certain things that are worth considering.  Deeply.  But despite the importance and almost overwhelming impact of the conclusions such ponderings should produce, few actually take the time and make the effort to do so.  There are things in life that take careful consideration; things that if not considered properly can have detrimental, if not devastating, results.  Take, for example, marriage and the radical, long lasting impact such a decision can have.  Or kids.  Or taking a particular job, or moving to a new town, state, or even country.  Considering such things make many other decisions mundane and of no lasting consequence.  The phrase “Don’t sweat the small stuff” comes to mind.  But these are not the things I’m addressing.

What I’m addressing are things even larger; things beyond the here and now.  Questions that many philosophers, sages, and wise men of old have pondered.  Questions such as ‘Why are we here?’ ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘What is my purpose?’ ‘Does something happen to me when I die and if so what?’ ‘Do I really have something we call a ‘soul’, is it tied to my flesh, does it persist after the body is no longer living, and if so, what happens to it?’.  The questions are many and deep.  Many have spent hours trying to find the answers to these questions.  Which I find odd, since they are all answered in the Bible.

The logical argument then arises – what authority does the Bible have?  What makes it trustworthy?  What makes what it says true when other books don’t agree with it?  More on this below, but let’s assume for the moment that it is what it says it is – the Word of God – literally, God speaking to you, me, and all of mankind.  With that assumption, the Bible then becomes VERY important, since it has information that can affect not just our life, but our after-life.  What more important thing is there to find out than the answers to these questions since they potentially affect us for all eternity – forever!

If you have not found out, do so!  Read the Bible.  “It fits a man for life – it prepares him for death.” -Daniel Webster

Others have done much research in answering the question ‘Is the Bible true?’.  To read some, simply Google “Is the Bible true” and read to your heart’s content.  Once source I particularly enjoyed is http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissar22.htm.  Put simply, the prophetic, historical, archaeological, and testimonial facts put the Bible as nothing short of Divine and Supernatural.  To say it is true is an understatement.

The following is taken from Campus Crusade For Christ’s Website (http://www.campuscrusade.com/fourlawseng.htm) and I ask you….is this the Gospel?

-God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
-Man is sinful and separated from God.  Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.
-Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin.  Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.
-We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.

Formulas or methods abound when it comes to sharing the Gospel, otherwise known as evangelism.  Are they all correct?  Are they all accurate?  How does one discern between “good” presentations and “bad”, and when does a “bad” presentation turn into a false gospel?

I would suggest that any Gospel presentation meet the following requirements.  First, it MUST be Biblical.  Exactly what “Biblical” means could vary from person to person, ranging anywhere from being supported by scripture references to the way evangelism is modeled for us by someone in the Bible.  Second, it MUST exalt God, raising Him up and in doing so, (third) expose the lowness of man in our depravity and show our need of salvation.  And fourth, it MUST be Christ centered.

Looking at the above “Plan of Salvation” as presented by Campus Crusade for Christ, does it meet these qualifications?  Is it Biblical?  In so much as scripture references are provided, yes, it is Biblical.  Do the scriptures given, however, actually support the statement?  This requires discernment and a proper hermeneutic.  Does John 3:16 (God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.) support the statement that God has a wonderful plan for my life?  Or how about John 10:10 (I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.)  At best, these are twistings of the true meaning of these scriptures.  For those that are born again with a new spirit and nature, the Holy Spirit allows us to understand the spiritual meaning of “wonderful plan for my life”.  The unregenerate, however, those to whom this is directed, do not have such insight and easily misinterpret what is intended.  Such statements are sloppy, unclear, misleading, dangerous and smack of heretical word-faith and prosperity preaching.

In addition, do we see this method of evangelism modeled for us in the Bible?  For that matter, prior to 1950, is such a method seen as an accepted evangelical model?  To both of these I would say ‘No.’  What, then, is a Biblically supported method of evangelism?  In Romans 2, we see Paul using a very Socratic method, questioning, probing into the conscience using God’s law (the Ten Commandments) and asking questions about the audience’s morality.  Later, after first calling the reader to examine himself against the mirror of God’s law, Paul provides the solution of Grace through the Savior to the deserved condemnation that is then visible in the mirror.

What method or model did Jesus himself use?  We have two very clear examples of Jesus engaging in personal one-on-one evangelism.  In the Gospel of John (4:7-26), we encounter Jesus speaking to a woman by a well.  As they conversed initially about natural things (water), Jesus swung the conversation to spiritual matters by mentioning “living water”.  Once on the topic, He spoke to her conscience and brought her under conviction through the use of the law (the Ten Commandments).  He used the law to bring the knowledge of sin (Romans 3).  He then revealed that He is the Messiah, the ‘solution’ to her ‘problem’.

When speaking to the rich young ruler in Luke 18, Jesus follows the same pattern.  Upon being greeted “Good Teacher,” Jesus initially ignores his question and offers him a gentle rebuke by answering “Why do you call me good?  No one is good except God alone.”  Since such a remark is not related to the question asked, this seemingly offhand comment can be easily overlooked and with it its spiritual significance.  It is this idea that ‘I am a good person’ which must be overcome since most men will proclaim their own goodness (Proverbs 20).  Jesus then goes on to address this issue as well as the direct question of “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” by answering with the law.  He said “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”  The man answered “All these I have kept from my youth.”  Seeing the man’s obvious pride and self-righteousness, Jesus then uses the first and second commandments to bring him low.  Jesus said to him, “One thing you still lack.  Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  Jesus exposed to him that his belongings, riches, and worldly things were his god, his idol.  Jesus caused him to see that, although being outwardly righteous, inwardly he did not love God and esteem Him.  Did Jesus then tell the young man how he might overcome this misdirected adoration toward his things?  Did Jesus tell him where true treasure is?  Did Jesus show him that He was more worthy that anything he might possess?  No.  Why?  Because the man’s heart was hard.  He did not truly desire the things of God and “he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.”

From these two examples, we see the same pattern:  law to the proud, grace to the humble (James 4).  Once the law brings a person low before the Almighty God, they are then able to receive grace through Jesus Christ.  If, however, they are stiff necked and hard of heart, the salvation offered through Jesus is meaningless and to offer it to them would be throwing pearls to pigs (Matthew 7).  Only the sick need a doctor and only those who will admit that they have the disease of sin will truly embrace the cure of the Gospel.  From these two examples given to us by our Lord Jesus and by examining the probing, questioning method of Paul, we have a Biblical model or method to follow.

Looking at the second and third requirements “Does it exalt God and bring man low”, it fails miserably.  Below are the details provided for the statement “Man is sinful and separated from God.  Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.”:

Man is Sinful
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Man was created to have fellowship with God; but, because of his own stubborn self-will, he chose to go his own independent way and fellowship with God was broken.  This self-will, characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference, is an evidence of what the Bible calls sin.

Man Is Separated
“The wages of sin is death” [spiritual separation from God] (Romans 6:23).
This diagram [see source] illustrates that God is holy and man is sinful. A great gulf separates the two. The arrows illustrate that man is continually trying to reach God and the abundant life through his own efforts, such as a good life, philosophy, or religion – but he inevitably fails.

As an unregenerate sinner, none of this makes sense.  What proof is there that any of these statements are true?  What is sin, anyway? Is self-will = sin?  Really?  By what authority does this definition come?  The Bible says that sin is transgression of the law.  Does self-will then equate to transgression of the law?  Maybe, but why be coy about it?  All of this is just off-center, a total hash.  Other than telling me straight-out that I’m a sinner, there is nothing in this that shows man’s true nature.  How am I a sinner?  Why am I a sinner?  It tries to answer by using terms like “independent way” and “self-will”, but these aren’t even close to the depraved, wretched, foul, ugly truth of what I really am without God.  Also, there is nothing that explains the righteousness of God, the pure, perfect standard He requires, His holiness, His majesty, or how repulsive sin is to Him, even our “little” sins.  The last statement is actually completely false.  It states “man is continually trying to reach God…”  Scripture says the exact opposite: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.  Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.  The poison of vipers is on their lips.  Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.  Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.  There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” (Romans 3, quoting various Psalms).

Lastly, a Gospel presentation should be Christ centered.  The details of the latter portion of this presentation do focus on Jesus, but only as a tool to obtain what was initially promised, a better life.  The problem with this comes from the way it’s set up at the beginning.  Who doesn’t want a better life?  We all experience problems, heartache, failures, disappointments, etc.  Nobody would not be interested in making these things better.  With this as the goal, the unregenerate get the message “Come to Jesus, he’ll make everything better.”  Jesus is presented as the fix-it-man, not the Savior.  Then what happens?  Problems continue or get worse, they see they’ve been told a lie, they fall away from their false-convert pseudo-faith and their end is worse than their start, becoming twice the child of Hell.  This presentation sells a false Jesus.  It ends in the right place, but it gets there with the wrong motive.  That’s not to say believers have not come to true salvation with such a message.  God can, has, and will use anything to save those He has called. But it produces many tares among the wheat and goats among the sheep.

There is much unraveling attempted in the details of the latter portion of this presentation but unfortunately, it’s too late.  Repentance and faith, the hinge upon which salvation swings, are only mentioned briefly.  Repentance is defined here as “turning to God from self.”  This is woefully inadequate; there is so much more to repentance than turning to God.  Repentance requires that one stop sinning, to the extent that is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit, fighting the flesh every moment of every day.  Repentance requires that one apologize for the rebellion and the sins of one’s past.  And not a ‘I’m sorry that I did wrong’ kind of apology, but rather one that comes from the heart, knowing that with every breath and every thought up till this point you have been spitting in the face of the one that gave you life.  Repentance requires a turn to God, a 180 degree turn from the direction one had been following away from God.  Repentance requires a pursuit of God, a lifelong seeking of His will instead of one’s own, a placing of Jesus as Lord in one’s life and a complete and total surrender to His will and purpose, be that ‘wonderful’ by a worldly definition or not.

This presentation of the Gospel is misguided, off-center and dangerous, and it produces many false converts.

So if this is so poor, what is a good Gospel presentation?  Glad you asked.  Just see the ‘Good News!‘ page.  You will find it is Biblical, following the examples of Jesus and using the probing, questioning way of Paul, using the law to bring about the knowledge of sin and showing the true reason we need the Savior.  It exalts God, showing how high and holy He is.  It reveals the lowness of man, our true condition, and our need of salvation.  And Christ is throughout, the focus and reason, not man.

Any business, school, or organization that relies on a computer network for its day to day functionality will have some sort of monitoring system for the network.  It’s just one of the things that is needed to ensure a smooth operational environment and to help locate and diagnose problems when they occur.  Our system where I work sent a message this past weekend notifying the IT department of just such a problem.  It provided the information you would expect it to provide, such as problem type, what system was experiencing the problem, the system’s state, its address on the network, and a brief description of what triggered the notice.  It read something like this:

Notification Type: PROBLEM
Host: computer1
State: DOWN
Address: 10.1.2.3
Info: CRITICAL – Time to live exceeded (10.1.2.3)

A coworker commented to me “If God used a system to monitor our condition/status – how often would He receive a similar “TTL” message?  ;-)  ”  I found his question insightful.  The question is answerable, however, and not just rhetorical.  On average, 150,000 people die every 24 hours.  That’s 150,000 time-to-live-exceeded “messages” God would receive every 24 hours.  But lucky for us, there is no such system and it is not up to chance, random happenstance, or some other outside force that determines when we die.  Rather, it is God Himself that has that power.  We are His.  We are created in His image by Him and He owns us.  He can do with us as He wills, and He does.  For those that know Him as father, this is very reassuring.  For those that don’t, it is fearful; so much so that most push the thought out of their minds and it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that anyone is able to contemplate such things.

Looking at this from a personal angle, God’s inbox would be subject to a denial of service attack from the number of notices I alone would generate on a daily basis.  I fail Him every moment of every day.  Even in my prayer, thanksgiving, and worship, I fail, not to mention the innumerable sins I commit.  Every moment I would generate a flood of messages to my Lord that I am not worthy of continued existence, that my time to live has been exceeded over and over again.  But oh, the grace!  The grace shown to me in everything I do.  It flows over me every moment, washing me clean, through the redemptive power of Christ’s blood!

We WILL die.  All of us.  I will die.  And you will die.  This is inescapable.  When we do, we have God’s own promise that we will stand before Him and we will give an account of ourselves – everything we’ve done, every thought we’ve had, every word we’ve ever spoken.  Are you ready to meet your Maker?  Your time to live WILL be exceeded at some point.  It may be sooner than you think.  If you are not ready for this day, I would encourage you to read the ‘Good News!‘ page.

The tomb is empty.  Whatever your opinion may be, it does not change that fact.  If your woldview does not account for it, you would do good to re-think it.

With the prevalence of text messages, chat rooms, and social networking, the meaning of this acronym should be obvious to almost anyone.  But just to make sure everyone is on the same page, Wikipedia and the urban dictionary define this as representing the expression “Oh my God!”  While you may or may not have seen the text version, you only need to watch a few minutes of television to hear it spoken.  The phrase has become part of the vernacular and is as common as “cool”, “man”, or “awesome” ever were.  In fact, performing a Google search of these three letters yields 57,000,000 web page results and 26,100,000 image results.  Searching YouTube returns 404,000 videos and Yahoo! even has an entertainment site bearing the name.  I have seen it as a product name in retail stores and in advertising campaigns.  There are numerous applications for the iPhone and for Facebook all bearing these three letters in their titles.  Assuredly, it is so common very few even notice it anymore.

For some, however, each time the phrase is heard or the symbolism of the three letters is seen, it’s like a raw nerve being touched.  It sets the teeth on edge.  Why?  Because you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord your God will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. (Exodus 20:7)  The Bible calls such casual use of His name blasphemy, and it is a violation of the third commandment.  For those that understand this and love the Lord with all their heart, this phrase is one of the most insulting and disrespectful things we could hear.  And we are bombarded with it daily.  How you would feel if someone demonstrated enough disrespect for your mother to use her name as a curse word?  How much more respect does Almighty God deserve from us, to whom He has given life?

Don’t believe that there is anything wrong with such a phrase?  Do you believe that since you don’t intend any disrespect that it’s OK?  If you believe this, in essence, you believe God’s name isn’t anything special and isn’t worthy of any respect.  And I would agree with you – you are correct.  You are correct because your god doesn’t exist.  You have created a god in your own mind; an idol.  The God of the Bible, the one true God, the God you will face upon your death, has told us clearly how He feels about it, however, and in your attempt to justify your actions, you merely add to your sin.

You say the ‘G’ is not for God, but rather ‘goodness’ or ‘gosh’?  I say, what is your ‘goodness’ if not your God?  And ‘gosh’ is nothing more than another way of saying “God”, the very definition of a minced oath.  These arguments don’t fly and show that you know that you should not be using this phrase and feel the need to justify yourself.  Please read the ‘Good News!‘ page and understand that you not only are an idolator and a blasphemer, you are also forgiven if you will repent of these sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ.

We have been warned; we will be held accountable….not only for this, but for every idle word.  Just as Sodom and Gomorrah were annihilated for their indulgence in homosexuality, we too, as a nation, risk facing the wrath and fury of God.  It is only by His grace that it has not yet come.  But now that I state that, perhaps it has.  Blasphemy is encouraged, as shown above, abortion has now killed over 50,000,000 babies here in the U.S., and active homosexuals are now allowed as priests in the Lutheran church.  Perhaps God HAS judged us, and turned from us, as evidenced by our increased indulgence in wickedness, perversion, and depravity.

I’ll leave you with this thought from Martyn Lloyd-Jones:  “Does it grieve you my friends, that the name of God is being taken in vain and desecrated? Does it grieve you that we are living in a godless age?… But, we are living in such an age and the main reason we should be praying about revival is that we are anxious to see God’s name vindicated and His glory manifested. We should be anxious to see something happening that will arrest the nations, all the peoples, and cause them to stop and to think again.”