Today's evangelical gospel is a fake

I’ve been attending evangelical churches all my life, and have been trained in various methods of personal witnessing. The most popular one I've used is the 'Four spiritual laws'. I've also used tracts from different writers. I've listened to evangelistic sermons and attended crusades and evangelistic meetings.  I've read books on how to witness and do personal evangelism.

But one day it dawned on me that the gospel message I've heard, and used to share with others is actually not the gospel of the New Testament. I certainly could not see Jesus nor any of the apostles using such methods.

Basically, today's gospel message can be summed up in these points:

• God is love and love everybody
• All men are sinners
• Jesus Christ paid for your sins
• You must ask Jesus into your heart to be saved.
• Follow this suggested prayer  'Dear God, I'm a sinner, I confess I've sinned, I ask for your forgiveness, Please come into my heart' 

And then the evangelist pronounces 'welcome brother, you have been born again'.

It may not be exactly these words, but that's basically what most evangelist does.  (There are a minority who do not preach this superficial mechanical gospel but they are rare and far between).  

So what's wrong with this method?

Well, a few things.

• The bible never taught that sinners must ask Jesus into their heart. The often used verse in Rev 3:20 was written to a disobedient church, not to the unconverted. There is not a single verse or teaching in the bible that a person has to receive Jesus into his heart to become a Christian.  Yet this has been the core teaching of today's evangelical churches.  When did we depart from the gospel?  I think sometime in the 19th century when numbers of converts became more important than how genuine is the conversion. Then the 20th century saw the mass market American style crusades and evangelistic meetings springing up, Are there people converted through these? Yes definitely. But for every genuine conversion, there are scores and scores of people walking away from the decision thinking they are Christians when they have not been converted. These 'converts' then fill the churches, bringing with them their worldliness and pagan ideas.  This is the modern day equivalent of the conversion of Constantine during the Byzantine Empire - masses of pagans joining the church.  We don't need revival meeting in the churches, we need evangelistic meetings.
• If you ask a Baha’i person to ask Jesus into his heart, he will do so sincerely. Then he will go back to his religion. The reason is that he has been taught that all paths to God are right. Christianity is one path, Islam is another. Hinduism is another, etc.  This is the major flaw in this method. The evangelist do not bother to find out what the seeker's background is, and whether he truly understands what he has heard. Does he even understand the Christian concept of God? Of holiness. What sin really is? It's more than just putting yourself on the throne of your life as some have put it. 
• Confessing "I'm a sinner" is not repentance.  Every sane person will agree that he is not perfect, and have done little wrongs in his life. Repentance requires conviction of sin first -a person must realise that he is a vile rebellious sinner before God. This conviction of sin is the work of the Holy Spirit and doesn't come from a person's logic. Without this work of the Holy Spirit, confession is just a head knowledge of sin. When convicted of sin, the sinner realised that he, personally, has wilfully disobeyed God his whole life and he deserves God's punishment. Agreement that people are not perfect and have sinned is not conviction of sin.
• God is love. This is true. God loves the world. Yes.  God loves the sinner. Careful here as this conveys a message that can be easily misunderstood.   The sinner, in his state of rebellion, is under God's wrath.   Psalm 5:4-6  For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.   The sinner who dies without Christ, is going to be thrown into the lake of fire. So telling a person that God loves him, can be misrepresenting the truth because you have not told him the 'unpleasant' news - hell is waiting for him also.  Many evangelist avoid this altogether in an attempt to be 'win-some'.  If this is true, then Jesus was not win-some as he often warns people about hell.   The wisdom of this world is certainly not God's wisdom. If you tell someone that God loves him, he can walk away with the message in his head that God loves him even though he has just rejected God's Son. A half truth is no better than a lie.
• Pronouncing a person a Christian after saying the sinner's prayer is presumption. You do not have a right to make such a pronouncement until you see the fruits of conversion. Has his life changed?  Are there new principles evident in this life? Don't mistake the new birth for zeal. An unconverted person can be zealous in church activities, maybe even wanting to go into full time ministry. 

So with today's gospel, once a person has said the prayer, he is a Christian. Easy as ABC. But what does the bible say?  Put aside everything you have been taught by people and go back to the bible.  What did Jesus and the Apostles teach? 

Let me summarize them into three key points.

"From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. (Matt 4:17).  This is the core of Jesus's message. Repentance from sins and ...

Faith towards God Acts 16:31 "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved"

However Jesus also said "If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also"  John 12:26 (emphasis 'must' added)

So we have 1. Repentance  2. Believe  3. Follow Jesus

The order is not important, they come as a package. It's all or nothing. 
You cannot say you have believed, if you refuse to follow the Lord. Nor can you say you have faith if you refuse to repent.

We need to understand what each means within the context of what and when they were said. Believing in the context of Acts is more than just intellectual agreement. That belief has a cost attached to it - you can be thrown to the lions for your belief. Biblical 'belief' or faith involves the whole person, it affects your whole view of life and how you live it.

Receiving Him means personally acknowledging Him in all His offices - Prophet, Priest, and King as the reformers put it. What this means is that the sinner must receive Jesus in all His fullness - as his Saviour, as his Teacher, as his Master, as his King. 

Many are taught to receive Jesus as Saviour but ignores the rest of what scripture says. You can't accept part of Jesus and reject the rest. No such salvation is offered in the gospel. You cannot just want the free gift from Jesus without wanting him to be your Master also.  
Imagine a prisoner who wants to receive a pardon from the king but refuses to acknowledge his kingship and continues to rebel against the king. Or imagine yourself living in John the Baptist's day, and going to him and telling him you want to enter the kingdom,  but refuse to repent. John will tell you where to go in no uncertain terms.  
Jesus came to save us from our sinful ways also and not just from our guilt of sin. Jesus must be received as He is - that includes all that He represents.

Following Jesus means following Him as a disciple - doing what He did, teaching what He taught, behaving like how He behaved, loving the things that He loved, and hating the things that He hated.  It is a life of devoted obedience, and obedience to God almost always lead to suffering for Him.  None of that easy say-a-prayer-and-you-are-a-Christian nonsense. Salvation is given free to you, but it is also costly because you have to submit to God and lose yourself and all worldly things that you hold dear.  Matt 10:37 "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me"

So the questions to ask a person are: 

• Have you repented (turned away) from your personal sins?
• Do you believe in Jesus Christ and all that he represents - Saviour, Lord, and King
• Are you following or going to follow Jesus in all aspects of your life i.e. are you a disciple?

If these have been explained to him in detail, and he has said yes to all these, then it is an indication of the work of the Holy Spirit in his life. Once he realises the glory of God, and the state he is currently in, he will not hesitate to bow before God for forgiveness. If his response is "I'll think about it", he has not been convicted by the Holy Spirit. The work in his heart may have started, but he is certainly not ready.   You can never tell if any of these is genuine, until sometime later when the fruits start to show.  The real heart of the person will eventually reveal itself.  The Christian life is a life of continuous repentance, continuous faith, and continuous walking with Jesus. Conversion is the start of the journey, not the end.

Remember if he goes through a bible class, and read books, and hear sermons,  he can start talking 'Christian talk' without having been converted. He can be involved in all of the church activities including leading bible studies and even preaching without having experienced the new birth. Their fruits will tell, especially how he behaves away from Christian company or in private. But God has not given us the gift to see into a person's heart, so only time will tell if the conversion is real.  Don't assume a person who knows a lot about the bible or who has got his degree from a bible college is saved. I've come across pastors who do not know the Lord although they preach each week.

Am I teaching a gospel of works here? No, never. We are saved by grace though faith. Where many have gone wrong is to assume that the free gift of eternal life has no pre-requisites. It is a free gift, you can't do anything to earn it. However, you need to approach God in the right manner to receive this gift.  A simple illustration is the two thief on the cross. The gift of eternal life was available to both, but only one received it when he approached Christ in the right manner - in humility and acknowledging who Jesus was. Notice that the other thief did ask Jesus to save him too, but it was done in unbelief, and he went to hell. 

Why are today's churches so worldly and no different from the world? 

Here is the root cause. The unconverted have flooded the churches -  fake shepherds and fake sheep inside all our churches. Thanks to modern day mass market methods of evangelism and the false gospel. And no thanks to unsaved pastors preaching a gospel they have not experienced themselves.

This cartoon from 'The Far Side Gallery' says it all.

I hope God has been gracious to leave a remnant in some of these churches - they usually stand out as non-conformists, rocking the boat, and a threat to the leadership of the institutional church. These tend to be pushed out of the establishment as trouble makers. 

You'll find that many who have left the church are not three eyed monsters but sincere believers wanting to do the right thing. The world has no place for these believers - the world is the institutional church.

Recommended book to read -

'Today's Gospel - authentic or synthetic' by Walter Chantry, Banner of Truth.