The Whole Gospel
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. - (Galatians 1:6–7)
I remember visiting a city and seeing a man standing on a corner with a sign that said, “The wages of sin are death.” He was literally yelling at people, “God hates you! God will judge you!”
But he was wrong. He was misrepresenting God. So I walked up to him and said, “Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?”
“WHAT?”
I said, “You know, on your sign it says ‘the wages of sin are death.’ That’s true. That’s what the Bible says. But do you know what the rest of that verse says?”
“WHAT?”
The rest of the verse says, ‘But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Why don’t you put that on the back of your sign so you can say, ‘The wages of sin are death, . . . but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’?”
Then he told me I was going to hell. It was wrong for him to present God in that inaccurate way. But it is also wrong to share the gospel and not tell people about the consequences of rejecting Christ.
The whole gospel is that we were sinners separated from God, with no hope of ever being right with Him. But God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die in our place and atone for our sins and absorb the wrath of God. And He rose again from the dead. When we put our faith in Him, we pass from death to life and know that when we die, we will go to heaven. But if we don’t believe in Jesus, we will face God at the Great White Throne Judgment and will spend eternity separated from Him in hell.
People need the whole gospel.
Copyright © 2013 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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