Dr. Ron Sumners
January 9, 2005
There is a dominant myth in the church today that the success of Christianity depends on how popular it is, and the Kingdom of God and the glory of Christ advance on the back of public favor. This is an age-old fantasy.
Christians have worked hard to position themselves in places of power within the culture. They seek influence academically, politically, economically, athletically, socially, theatrically, religiously, and every other way, in hopes of gaining mass media exposure. They present a reinvented, designer pop gospel that subtly removes all of the offense of the Gospel and beckons people into the Kingdom along an easy path. They do away with the hard-to-believe stuff about self-sacrificing, service and so forth.
The illusion is that we can preach our message more effectively from lofty perches of cultural power and influence, and once we have gotten everyone's attention, we can lead more people to Christ by taking out the sting of the Gospel and nurturing a user-friendly message. But to get to those lofty perches, "Christian" public figures often water down and compromise the truth; then to stay up there, they cave in to pressure to perpetuate false teachings so their audience will stay loyal. Telling the truth in today's culture is an unwise career move!
Local church pastors are among the first to be seduced into using this designer gospel, crafted to fit the sinner's desire, and carefully tweaked to overcome consumer resistance. They stylize church meetings to look, sound, feel, and smell like the world, in order to remove the sinner's resistance and lure him into the kingdom down an easy and familiar path.
The idea is to make Christianity easy to believe. But the unvarnished, untweaked, unmodified, unavoidable truth is that the Gospel is actually hard to believe. In fact, if the sinner is left to himself, it is absolutely impossible.
This is the pop philosophy: "If they like us, they will like Jesus." The whole scheme does work, superficially, but only if we compromise the truth. The main focus is to be as inoffensive as possible. They want the unconverted to be happy in church and have replaced the truth with something soothing and inoffensive.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am committed to the reaching of lost people. I want righteousness to prevail over sin. I want to expose sin for what it is, in all its destructiveness. I long to see the glory of God extend to the ends of the earth. I desire to see the light overcome the darkness. No loyal child of God is ever content with sin, immorality, unrighteousness, error, or unbelief.
I am disgusted with churches of the world that have become havens for heretics. I resent a TV church that, in many cases, has become a den of thieves. My condemning nature would like to see the Lord take the whip again and have at it in our generation. Although I might be in for a few lashes myself!
I cannot make a truce with the world as it is. I resent those things that dishonor the Lord. I am against everything that He is against and for everything that He is for. I desire to see people brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ. I hate the fact that sinners die without hope. I am committed to the proclamation of the Gospel. I want to be a part of the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
It is not that I am not interested in the lost of the world, but I cannot make an easy truce with a wretched, sinful world that dishonors God. The only question for me is: How do I do my part? What is my responsibility? It certainly can't be to compromise the message. The message is not mine, it is from God, and that is the message by which he saves.
Not only can I not compromise the message, I can't compromise the cost. I can't change the terms. Jesus said, "If you want to come with me, deny yourself." (Luke 9:23) Jesus said that we have to take up our crosses all the way to death, if that is what He asks. I can't help it if the Gospel offends a society bathed in self-love. And I know this: the preaching of the truth truly influences the world and genuinely changes one soul at a time. And that happens only in the life-giving, lightsending, soul-transforming power of the Holy Spirit, in perfect fulfillment of the eternal plan of God. Your opinion, or my opinion, is not part of the equation.
We proclaim a scandalous message. From the world's perspective, the message of the cross is shameful. In fact, it is so shameful, so antagonizing, and so offensive that even faithful Christians struggle to proclaim it, because they know it will bring resentment and ridicule.
In the wake of the terrorists' attacks on September 11, 2001, many Americans instinctively sought courage and solace in Christ. But even then, in a service at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., broadcast live around the world, a Christian clergyman offered a prayer in the name of Jesus, but "respecting all religions." All religions? Druids? Cat worshippers? Witches? A Christian minister in a Christian Church should not feel compelled to qualify or apologize for praying to the One, True Savior!
Paul made a remarkable statement in Romans 1:16-17: "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jews first and also for the Greeks. For in the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith."'
Why would Paul say, "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel?" Who would ever be ashamed of such news? Would someone who had found the cure for AIDS have to overcome immense shame to proclaim it? Would a person who discovered a cure for cancer get over terrible shame to be able to open his mouth? Why is the cross so hard to mention?
Even though Paul's message was the greatest and most important message in history, audiences and authorities had treated him shamefully for preaching it. By this point in his ministry, they had imprisoned him in Philippi (Acts 16:23-24), chased him out of Thessalonica (Acts 17:10}, smuggled him out of Berea (Acts 17:14), laughed at him in Athens (Acts 17:32), branded him a fool in Corinth (1 Cor.1: 18, 23), and stoned him in Galatia (Acts 14:19). He had every reason to feel ashamed, yet his enthusiasm for the Gospel was undiminished. And he never, for a moment, considered watering it down to make it more appealing to his audience.
At some point in our Christian lives, we have all been ashamed and kept our mouths shut when we should have opened them. Or, given the chance, we've hidden behind some sort of innocuous "Jesus loves you and wants to make you happy" message.
Paul said, "I am not ashamed." It's a striking example for us because he knew the price of fidelity to the truth: public rejection, imprisonment, and ultimately, execution.
We preach a shameful message when we preach of Jesus on the cross. Being crucified was a degrading insult, and the idea of worshipping someone who had been crucified was absolutely unimaginable. Paul said, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing" (1 Cor. 1: 18). "The Jews request a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ was crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness" (vv. 22-23). The message of the cross is foolishness, “moria” in Greek, from which we get the word "moron."
The Jews wanted a sign, a supernatural wonder that would identify and attract them to the Messiah. They wanted something flashy. They wanted proof that this was the Messiah at last!
The Greeks were not so interested in the miraculous. They were looking for wisdom. They wanted to validate a true religion through some elevated idea, some special knowledge, some sort of spiritual experience.
The Jews sought a sign; the Greeks sought wisdom. God gave them exactly the opposite. The Jews received a scandalous, blasphemous, bizarre, offensive, unbelievable, crucified Messiah. To the Greek a crucified Savior was idiotic.
From both the Greek and Roman points of view, the stigma of crucifixion made the whole notion of the Gospel claiming Jesus as the Messiah an absolute absurdity.
Crucifixion was a repugnant, demeaning form of execution for the rabble of society. The idea that anyone who died on a cross was in any sense an exceptional, elevated, noble, important person was absurd. Roman citizens were generally exempt from crucifixion unless they committed treason. The cross was for rebellious slaves, conquered people, and robbers and assassins. The Romans used the cross for the scum, the most humiliated, the lowest of the low.
In the face of all this, Paul came, and all he talked about was the cross! You think we have problems getting the Gospel across today? Imagine the early Christians. They faced a massive obstacle: their claims were insane, scandalous, blasphemous, and unbelievable to Jew and Greek. Paul did not preach an easy-believism. The Gentiles and Jews alike hated Paul's message. It was a message that was beyond human belief. No seeker-friendly message, it was an absurdity to the Greeks and an obscenity to the Jews!
1 Corinthians 2:14 reads, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." This is the problem. An unconverted person may have great intellect and reasoning power, but when it comes to spiritual reality and the life of God and eternity, he makes no contribution.
Whether it is in Athens, Rome, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Wall Street or Madison Avenue, all the collected wisdom that is outside the scripture adds up to nothing but foolishness in the eyes of God. So, why do we seek worldly wisdom and methods to proclaim the Gospel?
God wisely established that no one could know Him by worldly wisdom. The only way that anyone will come to know God is by divine revelation through the Holy Spirit. The final word on human wisdom is that it cannot help us know God.
How can man know God? "Through the foolishness of the message preached." Do we want people to know God? Then we simply need to preach the message. Jeremiah 8:9 says, "The wise men are ashamed. They are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so, what wisdom do they have?" If you reject the word of God, you don't have any wisdom. If you change the message of Scripture, you can't preach the wisdom of God.
We have no artistic license in delivering the gospel. Paul was given only one message: the power of God through the word of the cross is what saves people. Men are the tools for delivering the message, but the message doesn't come from them, it comes from God! And the message from God is absolutely the only message we have!
We can preach no other Gospel and be true to our calling.
You can't be faithful and popular, so take your pick. Any other message is false and absolutely unacceptable. Paul said in Galatians 1 :8-9 that if anyone preached anything other than the real Gospel that he should be accursed! But the "Christianity Late" that is so popular today has substituted another message that tries to eliminate the offense of the cross.
Almost no one tolerates the exclusivity and supremacy of Christ these days, even some who profess to be Christians. The message of the cross is not politically correct. It is the exclusiveness of Christianity that bothers people.
Can you imagine what might happen if a political leader just said, "I am a Christian and if you are not, you are going to hell, but I care about you so much, I want to share with you about Jesus Christ. He is far more important than wars in the Middle East, terrorism, or domestic policy."
What do you think would be his chances of re-election? Again, you can't be faithful and popular. Paul was telling us in 1 Corinthians that the Gospel collides with our emotions; it collides with our minds; it collides with our relationships. It smashes into our sensibilities, our rational thinking, and our tolerances. It is hard to believe. And unfortunately, this is why people compromise; and when they do that, they become useless because God saves through the truth.
The message of the cross is not about felt needs. It is not about Jesus just wanting you to be happy. It is about rescuing you from damnation, because that is the sentence that rests on the head of every human being. There is nothing about the cross that fits in comfortably with how man views himself.
The Gospel confronts man and exposes him for what he really is. It ignores the disappointment that he feels. It offers him no relief from the struggles of being human. Rather it goes to the profound and eternal issue of the fact that the lost need to be rescued.
That is the only central message that we have. If I or this church preaches another message, may we be accursed. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation for every man. If I do not preach the Gospel - fire me! It would be of no consequence to me, for if I do not preach the Gospel the mantle of God will have already been removed.
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