THE CONDITION OF THE CHURCH TODAY
When I first started to preach I really just had one or two sermons that I used when traveling to different churches to speak. As a young man and a passion to preach the gospel to the lost, my main subject was on the great commission and how to reach unbelievers with the gospel. I saw God do great miracles and many was touched and encouraged to reach others with the gospel, but something was missing. In my journey with God I’ve come to realize that I, a long with my audience, didn’t know the gospel as much as we thought. I preached and tried to inspire people to reach out with the gospel, but in a way failed to present what the gospel really was. We all knew that we had to reach out, but reach out with what? A gospel that we didn’t know much about?
THE CHURCH DOESN'T VALUE THE GOSPEL
When I came to America and attended church services and conferences I noticed that the gospel seemed to be chopped liver to many, a message that we all were familiar with, but that was of less value than the “deeper things” of the bible. The preachers that I heard always strived to preach a deeper sermon with bigger vocabulary, and it seemed like preaching had become an art. Churches sought after a talented preacher instead of an anointed preacher that knew the word of God. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:4 “my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”. Why was it that the churches had so little power? Why was it that not many got saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, healed from various diseases? I realized that many church goers really didn’t know the gospel, so what good would it do for them to reach out with something they didn’t know much about? I came to realize that a big reason why churches had stopped reaching out, was because the unbelievers didn’t buy the concept. The gospel didn’t make sense to the unbeliever, and I saw how religious interpretations of the gospel had watered down what the original gospel really is, and God can not confirm a man-made gospel. The bible says that the Lord confirms His word with signs and wonder, but could it be that we don’t preach His word? Could it be that we have changed the Word of God and come up with our own interpretations of it?
THE CHURCH NEEDS A GOSPEL REVOLUTION
As I traveled around and preached in different churches I often preached on healing and testified about people that had been healed, and saw God do great miracles, but now I don’t preach as much on healing anymore - I preach on the Healer. As I preach on the Healer - people’s eyes are opened to who Jesus really is, and they want to reach out to people and talk about Jesus without anyone trying to inspire them to do it. A sermon on healing will help you grow in faith, but a sermon on the Healer is a whole other level of faith. A sermon on the Healer will point you straight to Jesus and what He has done, instead of some sort of religious methods and keys how to receive your healing. I realized that preachers really didn’t know the gospel and neither did the church. Preachers focused so much on telling the church to deal with their sins, instead of preaching about the One who once and for all dealt with our sin by taking our sin upon Himself. I heard a lot of sermons on steps to live righteous, instead of sermons on the righteousness we can receive from God through Jesus. I heard sermons on how to break curses, instead of sermons on the One that redeemed us from the curse, being made a curse for us. I heard so called prophets warn the church over and over again about the judgement that is going to hit nations with earthquakes, tornadoes, famines etc, but not often did I hear prophecies on the One who was the propitiation for our sins, the One whom the judgement was laid upon. I understood that the church had to have a gospel revolution, the church needed to learn what the gospel is really about, because it had been so misinformed by un-biblical teaching. The sermons seemed to be man-focused instead of Jesus-focused, what we need to do, instead of what Jesus has done.
