THE HOUSE OF GOD - part 7

 

 

The terms used to distinguish those who are of God, and those who are not of God, as used in our two verses from Peter’s first Letter are quite helpful in understanding what qualifies a person as saved, or lost. Everyone has their various ideas and opinions of what makes a Christian, what a Christian should be like, how they should conduct themselves, and what exactly that discernible, quintessential element is which indisputably qualifies a person as a true Christian. Basically, that which is viewed as the defining sign of a true Christian invariably comes down to character and conduct. But while all Christians generally conduct themselves in a godly manner, not all who live moral and religious lives should rightly be considered Christian. To the novice’s way of thinking, such people appear to be Christian, they act like Christians, and profess a ‘love for God’ so they must, therefore, be Christians. The problem with this is that true Christianity is not primarily, nor is it confined to, a mere lifestyle. A true Christian is not to be primarily judged so simply because they are softly spoken, wear pastel-colored clothing and conduct themselves in a socially acceptable manner. The principle indentifying characteristic of a true Christian is that he believes only God’s Gospel. A true Christian, described in Scripture as a lively stone in God’s Building, believes in no other gospel, for he believes no other gospel can save, but God’s Gospel. To truly believe in Jesus, is to believe only in Jesus; to truly believe in the Gospel of Christ, is to believe only in the Gospel of Christ. The essence of lostness, of spiritual blindness, is manifestly present in those who believe, that any gospel other than, or as well as, God’s Gospel, also has the power to save. A Biblical belief in the Gospel of God rules out any need for any other gospel. Belief in the Gospel of God is to automatically reject, and repent of, ever believing that one was saved, or could ever be saved, whilst believing anything else. God commands “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3). This first of God’s Commandments warned of the polytheism of the Gentiles whose fictitious gods may find some appeal among the Jews. God says that He is God, and there is no other: “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me…” (Isa. 45:5), so too, there is no other gospel that is to believed for salvation. As well as being a command, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods’, is also a statement, for the saved have no need for fictitious gods. Likewise, thou shalt have no other gospels, for the saved have no need of fictitious gospels.

 

A true Christian believes that faith in any other gospel, but God’s Gospel, like faith in any other god, but the true God, reveals a state of accursedness despite any accompanying moral lifestyle. Occasionally, Christians can lose their tempers, they say things that are hurtful to others, they do things that are harmful to others. Christians are not perfect people. They are not always moral, and they are not always considerate of others. A true Christian looks like anyone else, just one of the crowd. The only thing which distinguishes a true Christian from all non-Christians is the fact that they believe—their faith is only and exclusively in—the Gospel of God which alone saves. The verses in 1 Peter 4 show this clearly, for the only thing mentioned which places a divide between a Christian and the ungodly is the Christian’s belief of God’s Gospel of grace. You might see a true Christian one day losing their temper, and even using foul language, and think to yourself ‘That person couldn’t possibly be a true Christian’. Then again, you may see a person who is not a Christian act in such a loving, caring and selfless way toward another, that you will find yourself thinking ‘That person must be a true Christian’. The reality is that you would be wrong in both instances. A man is not rightly judged a Christian solely, or primarily, by his character and conduct, or conviction of belief, but by his exclusive God-given belief of God’s Gospel. Only those who believe God’s Gospel as His only power unto salvation are Christians. So many people have a natural aversion to absolute statements, none more so than when an absolute statement is made concerning who is saved, and who is not. Regardless of man’s opinions of, and reactions to, truth, truth remains truth, and, like the weather, there is nothing anyone can do about it. Those who do not believe God’s Gospel as God’s only power to save are not Christians regardless of how they live their lives, who they are, or what they claim to believe. This is the Word of God on the matter. Only the Gospel of God has the power to save (see Rom. 1:16,17).

 

There are very few people, even so-called pastors and leaders of ‘great’ denominations, along with revered authors, past and present, who judge a professing Christian by what they actually believe about Who Christ is, what He has done, and for whom He has done it. Most judge a man saved according to a person’s acknowledgement of some general truths of Christianity such as the Virgin birth, and the Triune God. This, coupled with how nice a person is, and how loving they are, etc., is all the evidence necessary to convince most that a person is a Christian. The Word of God does not deal in such subjectiveness, but always judges saved and lost by the presence, or absence of justifying faith, a person’s belief of the Gospel, or disobedience toward the Gospel. Jesus said that His people were not to judge according to appearance, but to judge only righteous judgement (see Jn. 7:24 cf. 1 Sam. 16:7). The Word of God speaks with particular clarity in proclaiming that those who do not obey God’s Gospel, who do not abide in the doctrines which make up that special and unique Message of God, are not saved, they are not of the House of God, but are of the ungodly. Despite the scholarliness of a man, his tremendous ability to quote Scripture verbatim as well as a flawless knowledge of the history of Christianity, no man is saved who does not believe in the exclusive, and exhaustive, power of the Gospel of God to save His people from their sins. The apostle Paul pronounced a man accursed if he brought/believed in a gospel which was not the Gospel of God. Those whose beliefs lie in a different gospel have placed their trust in a different way to salvation from that specified in God’s Gospel. Their faith is literally in another god, though they may refer to their god as God, or Jesus (see 2 Cor. 11:4). That is why such people are in a lost, and hopeless, state, for there is no other way to be saved apart from that way which is only rightly defined in God’s Gospel. So many people are blind-sided to the reality of a person’s lostness, by their calling Jesus ‘Lord’, etc. By their zeal for the things of God, and their devotedness to things religious. However, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 Jn. 1:6). "…in the darkness of sin, ignorance, and unbelief, or are in a state of unregeneracy and blindness; whose understandings are darkened, and they know not God in Christ, nor have any true sight and sense of themselves, their sin and danger; and are ignorant of Christ and His Righteousness, and the way of salvation by Him; and are strangers to the Spirit of God, and the work of His grace; and are unacquainted with the truths of the Gospel…” To be saved one must trust in the only God, and in the only way a person can be saved. No amount of trust, faith, and dedicated belief will ever get the wrong key to open the door for you. Only if you have the right key will you be able to enter. Now, to say that one had the right key long before one ever obtained it, is sheer folly. Only after one has been given the right key will a person enter through the door. Only after you trust and believe God’s Gospel of salvation will a person evidence a state of being saved. Never before that point in time, never during faith in a false way to salvation can a person rightly, Scripturally, be pronounced saved. False gospels are only trusted in by cursed people.

 

Only those who obey God’s Gospel, His only power unto salvation wherein Christ His Son is revealed, are part of the House of God. Those who are of God, elected by God, are of His House. Those who are of God obey the Gospel of God, and no other. All Christians believe in one God, and in that one God’s Gospel (see 1 Cor. 8:6). Those who are of God are the righteous, for they believe only His Gospel thus evidencing the Scriptural proof that they are saved (see 1 Cor. 15:1,2). Those who believe in another gospel, or who claim to believe in God’s Gospel, yet insist that they were, or can, be saved prior to, or without faith in it, essentially believe in another god irrespective of the fact that they call such gods ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’. The true God does not save anyone through their trusting in a means to salvation which is not His means. Appealing to the god of a fictitious gospel is appealing to someone who just isn’t there. “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto He called you by our Gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:13,14). The world’s pseudo-Christianity has it all in reverse. It is not man who chooses God to save him, but it is God Who chooses a man to be saved. The only choosing is done by God, and what’s more, it is done in eternity, and not in time. “...by an eternal appointment of persons to grace and glory: and this is an act of God the Father, in Christ, from eternity; and which arises from His Sovereign good will and pleasure, and is an instance of His free grace and favour, for the glorifying of Himself; and is irrespective of the faith, holiness, and good works of men; all which are the fruits and effects, and not the motives, conditions, or causes of electing grace.” 

 

God saves through sanctification of His Spirit and belief of His truth. The Lord Jesus prayed that His Father would: “Sanctify them through Thy Truth: Thy Word is Truth” (Jn. 17:17). So we see the unmistakeable emphasis placed on the fact that there can be no Scriptural sanctification without truth. God does not save anyone based on their ignorance, and belief in a gospel which is not His. A man cannot be sanctified through error, but only through truth, the truth that is the Gospel of God. God cannot, because He does not—He will not—save anyone whose trust is not in Him, so how could God ever save anyone whose belief is not in His Gospel? God does not save anyone because of their love of a lie, but only by grace through their trusting in, and love of, His truth, for THIS is what God gives His faith to His chosen ones to believe. TRUTH IS THE PROOF! No god is like the true God, and no gospel is like the true Gospel, and no faith is like the true faith which God gives to all His chosen, for that unique faith always and only believes God’s Gospel. Man’s works, his efforts at obedience, and his drive for a high moral lifestyle, coupled with the faith which is common to man, are not indicative of sanctification, nor is any of this commensurate with belief of the truth. God’s people are called by His Gospel, and they are all saved through sanctification of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the gift of faith by grace which is given so that God’s people will all believe His Gospel, and no other. There is no other way outlined in the Word of God by which a man is saved. Trusting in this way, trusting only in God’s method of salvation, is the primary evidence of a saved man, and there can be absolutely no salvation without it. Morality and religion have never saved anyone. Being loved by God, being chosen by God through grace, and being sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God to believe His Gospel alone is the only basis upon which a man can know he is truly saved. Believe the true Gospel, and you will be saved.

 

God is unique and His Gospel is unique. God does not share, or delegate His power to save to any other god, and neither does His Gospel share its intrinsic power to save with any other gospel. God has only endowed His Gospel of grace alone with the power to save His people from their sins. God does not endorse any other gospel as having any power to save anyone. Importantly, God does not devise excuses for those who believe they believe in Him, but whose hearts are filled with a love for the god of a false gospel, and a faith that is a product of man’s sinful, corrupted and fallen nature. There are not several ways of being saved. There are not multiple true Gospels, but only one, and Paul the apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, no less, said that if any brought with them a gospel which is not THE Gospel which God revealed to him, they were, not merely wrong, but under a curse. This, despite any prevailing morality and obedience to the religious traditions which may, or may not, have existed in them. According to the Word of God, all are accursed if they do not abide in His Gospel. All of man’s rantings, ravings and howls of protest can never change the Word of God. A man either believes it, or will suffer the consequences of abiding in unbelief. It is interesting to note that as those who seek salvation by personal obedience are under the curse of the law (see Gal. 2:16), so too, those whom Paul stated brought not with them the Gospel of the grace of God are under the same curse. Not believing the Gospel of grace, is the surest sign one is depending on one’s own righteousness, and, therefore, under the curse of God. Any gospel which is not God’s Gospel allows room for a man to boast in the things which that false gospel insists he must do to ensure his salvation. To believe in God’s Gospel of grace is to believe that salvation comes only through what God does, and not by anything a man can do. This is why Paul was so positive in saying that if one did not bring with them his Gospel, they were lost, for any gospel which is not God’s Gospel cannot be promoting salvation by grace alone through faith alone. There is one Lord, one Faith, one Gospel and one means to salvation (see 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:4-6).

 

Believing the Gospel is tantamount to knowing God and loving the Lord Jesus Christ, and any failure to believe the only Gospel which speaks of Him, is cause for damnation (see Gal. 1:8,9 & 1 Cor. 16:22). It is not Christ you are loving, and it is not God Whom you know, if you believe in a gospel which is not Their Gospel. Every false gospel contains teaching which insists that one’s personal obedience and devoutness can get one saved, or at least can keep one ‘saved’. Even those who claim to believe in salvation by grace alone, yet with equal vigor, stubbornly assert that they, or others were, are, or can be saved, when, or whilst, believing in another gospel, a gospel which is not God’s Gospel, believe that a gospel which promotes works can save just as equally as does God’s Gospel of salvation by grace alone. As far as such people are concerned, if salvation is by grace then it can also be by works. The Word of God is profoundly clear on the matter: one can only trust in the true Saviour AFTER hearing the Gospel of salvation by grace alone. One cannot trust/believe in the true God without first hearing the Gospel of God (see Eph. 1:12,13). Faith comes AFTER hearing, and NEVER BEFORE!! “…faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). This declares the uniqueness of the Gospel of God, for there is no other gospel which one must hear prior to salvation. Only one Gospel promotes salvation by grace alone through faith alone. No salvation before grace, means no salvation by works. A man is not, cannot be, and never was saved believing in a gospel which does not clearly define that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and nothing else. GRACE IS THE ONLY THING WHICH CAUSES A MAN TO LOOK TO GOD ALONE FOR SALVATION. Anything else, or any combination of grace and anything else, will, at the very least, cause a man to look also to himself, for assuredness of salvation.

 

Salvation is by God, and no one else. “…Salvation is of the Lord” (Jon. 2:9), therefore, salvation can only be by grace—by God doing—and not by any effort at obedience on the part of man. God’s grace does not require man’s assistance, for it is by God’s grace, what God does, that a man is saved. Religion’s figurehead, Mother Teresa, real name Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, the queen of good deeds, never knew the true God, or believed in the Gospel of Christ. She believed everyone was a child of God, and that salvation is through any religion, and, therefore, any gospel, and any god. She did not believe that a man can only come to God by Christ, nor did she believe that Christ’s name is the only name under Heaven whereby a man is saved (see Jn. 14:6; Acts 4:12). In her biography, Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work, she said “If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we...become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are...What God is in your mind you must accept.” Alcoholics Anonymous, and other such groups, also talk about God ‘as you conceive Him to be’. You just could not get any further away from true Christian teaching than this unholy and blasphemous nonsense. How can two people have faith in the same god, let alone the true God, when their conception of Him is contradictory? “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). God reveals Himself only through His Gospel, and it is an undeniable fact that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God does not change, nor does His truth change. The only thing that changes, and differs, is lost man’s perception of Him. God does not reveal Himself to one person as this, and to another person as that. Satan, the deceiver of the world, however, reveals himself in many guises, such as Buddha, Allah, the Mormon god, the JW god, the Roman Catholic god, the Arminian god, the hundreds of millions of gods of Hinduism, and a host of others, thereby exposing himself as the god of all false gospels. God says in His Word that “…I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me” (Isa. 46:9 cf. Isa. 45:5-7,21). The image of God formed in the minds of lost men, and which is systematically propagandized by false gospels, is never the Biblical image of Him, for mankind does not seek the true God, but only false gods. All false gods are revealed by the doctrines of false gospels which perpetuate lies and human tradition. It is only the true Gospel of God which reveals the true God. The spiritual, sinful, madness of man reveals his beliefs of who God is, rather than the God-given faith-inspired belief of what the true God says about Himself in His Holy Word. Not surprisingly, Mother Teresa was often quoted relating her concerns about the “…terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead…” and “…she continually referred to her spiritual condition as ‘my darkness’ and to Jesus as ‘the Absent One’”. There is no saving faith in anyone who thinks like this. With all the self-sacrificing good deeds she did. Mother Teresa never knew the true God, for she never believed the true God’s Gospel. The only God does not share the glory for salvation with any man, therefore, salvation is wholly by grace, and not by any effort on man’s part. NO religion holds the key to salvation. No one is saved by their faith in whatever they believe, but only through the gift of Faith given by God so that only HIS Gospel is trusted and believed in. The true Christian rejects all of religion’s gospels, and, by grace, is created a new creature in Christ, thus ensuring he will only accept God’s Gospel. The new creature created in Christ Jesus, and born again from that Seed which is the Holy Gospel of God, believes only the Gospel of God. If you believe in the true Gospel, then you are born again and have the true God. If you believe a false gospel you are not born again, you have not been made a new creature in Christ, you are not His workmanship, you do not have the true God, but rather a false one that cannot save you, and you are yet in your sins.

 

Believing is all about placing your hope in something, or someone, and if your hopes are based on a false message of salvation, then you have no substantive hope, but only wishful thinking. You only have that which exists in your mind, and not in reality. The hope which billions have in false gospels can never make any of them true, or endow them with the power to save. The faith with which a man believes, is nothing unless it is the faith which God gives. You have a meaningless, empty hope if you believe in a way to salvation which is not the only way God has specified in His Gospel. False gospels provide false hope for hopeless people. As there are not several ways to salvation, but only one Way, the Lord Jesus Christ (see Jn. 14:6), so too, there is only one Gospel which teaches that one Way, for what need would there be for several Gospels when there is only one Way to salvation. What need would there be for even one additional Gospel? What would this second Gospel contain that would not have been included in the ‘first’ Gospel of the grace of God in the salvation of His people? A second Gospel would necessarily, in order to warrant its very existence, have to contain something which differed from the Gospel that teaches all of salvation is by all of God's grace. Seeing that nothing exists outside of God's grace except a man's works, a second Gospel would stand in contradiction to the first. The only way it could not is if there were several ways to salvation—one by grace, and the others either by works, or by grace and works—which would clearly contradict the Words of Jesus Who declared He is the ONLY Way to salvation. If Christ, then, is the only way to salvation, then grace is the only way to salvation, for salvation is by what Christ has done, and no other. Therefore, if there is only ONE Way to salvation there must of necessity be only ONE Gospel that proclaims that Way. God has no alternate plan of salvation for those who believe the errors about Christ contained only in false gospels, for any alternate plan could only be in opposition to God’s only Gospel. Consequently, there is no likelihood whatsoever that any of God's chosen will not believe God's Gospel in its entirety. God does not have a market stall where He has laid out several plans for salvation, and, significantly, God has not prepared any contingency plans of salvation for those who would not believe His ‘A’ plan. No plan ‘B’ for those who would not believe His Son died exclusively for the elect of God; no plan ‘C’ for those who would not believe in the impossibility of a man coming to God, in and of his own accord, and no plan ‘D’ for those who believe that salvation is not by grace alone, but that grace is merely something which enables a man to do that which is necessary for him to get saved. God did not send out an A team of doctrines to be believed, and subsequent modified versions, the belief of which could save just as well. As with God Himself, God’s plan of salvation is not something which is subject to a man’s sincerest opinion of what it is. God does not conform Himself, or adjust His Gospel, to suit sinful man’s way of thinking. Conversely, Satan is the prostitute god who makes himself available in whatever guise a person prefers, who caters to what the people want, for the purposes of deception and destruction, and never gives them what they need. What an unsaved man wants, is what his flesh, carnal reasoning, or Satan has convinced him he needs. It is man’s thinking that must be conformed to God’s way of salvation, for only when a man believes the Gospel of God, how God says He saves, is a man truly saved.

 

God says there are no other gods, but Himself “…I am He: before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Saviour” (Isa. 43:10,11 cf. Deut. 4:35,39). “…I, even I, am He, and there is no god with Me…” (Deut. 32:39). “…there is but one God, and Christ the Word, with the Father and the Spirit, are that one God, (1 Jn. 5:7); and there is no other with Him; He is the true God, in opposition to all factitious and fictitious gods; He is not a made god, nor a god by office, nor by name and title only, but by nature the one, true, only, and living God…” God says, “…I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there is no God” (Isa. 44:6 cf. Rev. 1:11). There are many religions which believe in Polytheism, the worship of many gods. Believing in different gospels, and yet insisting that they are all portraying the same God, is nothing but an offshoot of Polytheism. Instead of many gods, christianized religion says there are many Gospels, but all lead to belief in the same God. Believe in whoever you conceive God to be, what He is like and how He saves, and you will be saved! That is the madness which has engulfed the world, and no wonder, for the whole world is deceived by the multiple personalities of Satan. Believing in a plan of salvation which is not God’s plan of salvation is to disbelieve in the only way designated by God by which He saves His people from their sins. Only a fool believes that God will make excuses for people who disobey His Gospel, in order to get as many as He can into Heaven. God saves ONE way, and that way is by His grace through the gift of Faith which He gives to those He has chosen before the foundation of the world. One God, one Gospel, and only one Way to salvation.

 

God will not, under any circumstances, make concessions regarding His Gospel in order to cater to man’s unbelief. GOD RATHER EVICTS UNBELIEF FROM HIS CHOSEN, AND REPLACES IT WITH FAITH IN HIS GOSPEL ALONE!! God is not so desperate to save people that He will compromise His Gospel, or overlook the sin of unbelief toward it, or change the Gospel in any way, in order to save those who do not believe it. 1 Peter 4:17 shows clearly that those who do not obey God’s Gospel do not form part of His House. They are not of God’s Household of Faith, for their faith is that which is common to man, and not that which God gives to His people by grace so that they will only obey His Gospel. God saves, not by molding His Gospel to fit with what man believes it to be, but by granting His Faith, by His grace, to His people so that they will all believe HIS Gospel HIS way. Only the atoning blood of Jesus Christ poured forth in substitutionary sacrifice can, and does, rid a man of the sin of unbelief toward His Gospel. Salvation is being brought out of doctrinal darkness into the Light of God’s glorious Gospel. The fatal mistake that so many make is that simply because a person claims to be a Christian, but has views which are inconsistent with what the Scriptures say God’s Gospel is, they nevertheless attach value to what they believe the Scriptures are saying. They do not judge according to the rule, or cannon, of the Gospel (see Gal. 6:16), but, curiously, take to heart the person’s claim of being a Christian despite what they believe! And, if there seems to be an impasse between their differing beliefs then they are encouraged to try and find some middle ground. So we have the extraordinary situation where what the truth is, is nowhere near as important as reaching a compromise as to what it could be. This is the factitious spirit of Ecumenicalism. A movement which is built on the promotion of false doctrines, and a false unity at the expense of truth. Like all its signatory denominations and religions, the Ecumenical spirit suppresses, rather than expresses the truth of God.

 

In this current religious climate which advocates the mutual acceptance of one another’s differing, and often contradictory, beliefs, how can one be certain that the contrary beliefs of another are not a sure and unequivocal sign that they are not true Christians at all, but in fact false brethren. Moreover, what need is there for ‘middle ground’ for one who has the truth, the true Gospel? Searching for middle ground is a pursuit undertaken by those who do not know the truth, have no respect for the truth, and who are driven by personal agendas rather than finding out what the genuine truth really is. Unity without truth is a rejection of God. The only true unity is a unity without compromise. Truth always comes before unity: “…for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14). What possible communion, or fellowship, can there be between truth and falsehood? The fact is, Truth has no bedfellows. Only Gospel believers make up the House of God, and no true Christian has any spiritual fellowship with unbelievers: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?....And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate…” (2 Cor. 6:14,16,17). How can the House of God have even one person in it who does not obey the Gospel of God. The people of the House of God are not unequally yoked with unbelievers. There is no unity between Gospel believers, and Gospel deniers. “There is no true unity without unity in the truth.” Nothing justifies compromise when one has the truth. People who always look for compromise rather than the truth are people who are not led by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth. “Most people give in to others as a way to manage their own anxiety and their discomfort with conflict.” The first casualty of compromise is truth. To love the truth of the Gospel is to reject all compromise, and every false gospel. To compromise the Gospel of God so as to appease all parties, is to disobey the Gospel of God, thus leading all involved to another gospel. To compromise the Gospel of God for the sake of unity with those who disobey the Gospel, is to compromise between truth and fiction. It is to serve man, rather than God. Those who tolerate error, and settle for compromise are seen as the wise ones by this world, rather than those who actually know and believe the truth, and settle for nothing less. The world sees compromise as far more important than truth. Compromise is seen as the unifier, even the only hope for mankind. The end goal of religious compromise is a union not based on reality, but on ‘new truth’, a truth which does not come from God, but is fabricated by man, and only serves to shut out the real truth from a man’s life. Due to the fact that billions of people all have their different ideas of what the truth is, man has given up on trying to come together over truth, for in their ignorance and darkness they see truth as only a divider of men. People cannot achieve the unity they seek, and an end to all religious argument, whilst holding to what little truth they have, and so they compromise. Generation after generation has come to know less and less truth because of compromise. Ultimately, compromise is all about turning a blind eye to what the truth is, and ‘moving forward’ with one’s life, hand in hand with one’s fellow man regardless of what he believes. The reality of the situation is, there is no freedom in compromise, therefore, compromise will always be servile to that which stands opposed to the truth of God, for only His truth can make a man free (see Jn. 8:32).

 

“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist…who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” In seeking a compromise between truth and error, one always legitimizes error by associating, or blending, it with truth. Error needs truth, but truth needs nothing. Error needs to compromise, but truth does not. Error gains much by compromise, but truth loses its very identity! The Gospel of God is the only Gospel of truth. To seek to compromise truth is an exercise in the reformation of that which needs no reforming, no change whatsoever. This is one reason why God, and His Gospel, is the same yesterday, today and forever. Truth is perfect and requires no change and no compromise, nothing to make it more palatable, for then it would cease to be truth. This is why anything added to the grace of God in the salvation of His people, will always leave one without the truth. The religions of the world seek compromise with each other, rather than the truth of God. In this humanistic world, man is first and foremost, he is above all else, even truth, even God! The world’s version of Christianity also seeks to appease by compromise rather than have the courage to preach the uncompromising Gospel of God. “Time after time, issue after issue, decade after decade, so-called Christian theologians have been the ones who ‘changed’ their positions to placate open hostility to God's Holy Word!” The world sees compromise as the wise thing to do. God sees compromise as a great weakness in men who care more about pleasing each other than knowing and obeying the True God by believing the only Gospel that saves. Man seeks to unify himself in the bonds of unholy compromise, preferring an unholy unity between themselves over whom they believe God to be, rather than being unified by truth into believing the one, true, God. The apostle Paul spoke with crystal clarity about the Gospel of God: “…if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:9,10). There is no room for compromise here. Paul states that the Gospel of God is the only Gospel of God, and any who believe anything which differs with it are accursed. Any time you have a gospel of grace which has compromised with the works of man, you have a gospel which is not God’s Gospel.

 

You cannot compromise truth! For the moment one compromises the truth, one no longer has truth! You can either believe it, or disbelieve it. You either welcome truth, or you reject truth. Nothing else can be done with it. If you add anything to it, or take away anything from it, you no longer have the truth. You have done away with truth, and all that remains is a lie. Watered down versions of the Gospel, or lukewarm versions of it, can never save anyone. The Christian is a servant of God who maintains the truth by preaching the Gospel to every creature. The false Christian has tempered the truth with false doctrine, and stands as an enemy of God. The minute you tamper with truth is the moment you no longer have truth. You cannot compromise God’s Gospel as long as you stay within the parameter of truth. One can only compromise the Gospel of God by overstepping the boundary of its truth. Once you do this you are no longer dealing purely with truth, but have stepped into the realm of fiction and fantasy. The only thing one can compromise God’s Gospel with is that which is not of God’s Gospel. Anytime one attempts to combine lies with truth all that remains is one big lie. “Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Prov. 30:6). Try adding to, or taking away from, any correct answer to a mathematical equation, and you will see what I mean. Adding anything to truth is much like color-change chemistry. When a certain chemical is added to another the whole is changed into another color. Anything added to the Gospel of God changes it into another gospel. The same occurs when you try to add a man’s works to God’s grace (see Rom. 11:6). To compromise the truth is to temper, to neutralize, or counterbalance, it with something that is totally foreign to it. To compromise the Gospel is to believe something other than the Gospel, something other than God’s truth. What the Gospel of God is, is not a matter of give and take by two opposing parties. God’s Gospel is not defined by compromise, by establishing a middle path that will satisfy all, but is simply what God says it is. Those who believe the Gospel will be saved, and those who do not believe it will be damned. That is the reality that people need to meet head on, and stop trying to create hybrid gospels in an effort to satisfy the desires of all. People can be deceived into thinking they are Christian. The proof of this pudding is seen in what they believe. True Christians only believe God’s Gospel. Those who believe a different gospel are false Christians. The Gospel is not what man believes it to be, but only what God says it is.

 

Any who oppose even one doctrine of God’s Gospel, opposes the grace of God in salvation. The Gospel of God does not change, for, like its Author, the doctrines of the Gospel are the same yesterday, today and forever, for they are truth. “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace…” (Heb. 13:7-9). The Gospel is not something which changes with the times, requiring regular make-over’s in order to become  as appealing as possible, or something which adapts to the evolving views and opinions of every new generation. God’s Gospel is His Truth, His unchangeable truth about Himself and about salvation, and it must be believed, for it is the only plan of salvation that can be safely trusted in. Those who did not obey God’s Gospel, but believed false gospels, cannot, on Judgement Day, negotiate their way out of failure to believe God’s Good News. God does not send a modified, and thus a more palatable version of, His Gospel to different groups of people because He knew they would not all believe His original plan of salvation. God is not interested in popularity. He is not seeking to win any popularity contest, or gaining the people’s approval. God does not have one gospel for Roman Catholics, and another gospel for Arminians, and another gospel for Buddhists and still another gospel for Muslims. GOD HAS ONLY ONE GOSPEL, AND HE SAVES BY ONLY ONE GOSPEL, AND ALL HIS PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT ONE GOSPEL, AND NO OTHER. Just as God sent His ONLY Son into this world, He sent only ONE GOSPEL to be believed in. God has only one plan, one conception of salvation, only ONE, and that plan is revealed in His Gospel ALONE. Man has conceived of numerous plans, numerous contrived ways to ‘get saved’, but God has only ever conceived of one plan, and so only THAT genuine plan will work, for salvation is only of God. Only THAT plan has God’s blessing. Only One God – Only One Saviour – Only One Spirit – Only One Gospel!!