Are You Trapped by the Deadly Deception of the Half Gospel?
Deep in my heart there is a stirring—not just a stirring that resembles a late-night craving for ice cream or the feelings of boyish infatuation with a high school crush, but a true “depths of my soul” type of stirring. This stirring is for the church of the living God to rise up and take her rightful place.
This stirring is nothing new in the hearts of those focused on the bidding of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Jeremiah felt that stirring when he said: “I never joined the people in their merry feasts. I sat alone because your hand was upon me. I was filled with indignation at their sins” (Jer. 15:17, emphasis added). The prophets of old looked at the state of Israel (picture of the modern church) and grieved over the glory that could have been if only they had embraced their God with the same passion they embraced the idolatry of their day.
I look at the state of the church and feel the same stirring in my heart for the return of God’s glory to His bride, the church. When will we see our nation shaken by a fresh move of God’s precious Spirit? When will the culture around us be forced to recognize a holiness that is truly “otherworldly”? When will we come to a place of desperation for God’s outpouring that makes us willing to abandon our own plans and dreams to fall prostrate before an awesome God and cry out for His divine intervention?
As I meditated on these questions, the Holy Spirit quickened within my heart something so simple that it literally shocked me. He said, “If the true Gospel were preached and lived with boldness, then My power would be seen as tangibly as it was seen in the book of Acts.” Wow! I was then taken to Acts 4:29–30, where the apostles and early church prayed, “And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word” (v. 29). Through this passage, the Holy Spirit revealed several important things to me that would become the basis for this book.
The first thing that is obvious from this passage is that threats against the real Gospel are inevitable. In the New Testament, Jesus clearly warned that because He was hated, His followers inevitably would be hated too. Persecution and resistance have been the hallmark of Christianity from the beginning, going all the way back to Herod’s attempt to kill the newborn Jesus, to the cross of Calvary, to the terrible persecutions of the Roman Empire, and all the way forward to modern-day martyrdom that continues at unprecedented rates all over the globe. It was in response to such threats and persecution that the early church prayed for boldness. Perhaps if we began to preach the real Gospel in all its fullness, we too would be forced to cry out for boldness. Perhaps if we weren’t so comfortable with our walled bastions of seclusion or “pitter-patter” messages that placate the spiritually complacent, we would be forced to cry out for a fresh outpouring of God’s Spirit.
Second, boldness is a function of the unction. What I mean by that is simply that boldness is not a conjuring up of some sort of fleshly hype but a release of something within. It is an internal combustion in the spirit man that releases unusual courage and clarity. This can be seen clearly when Stephen stood before the Sanhedrin in Acts 7 and preached the Gospel with great boldness, even while sealing his imminent doom. He had such clarity of purpose that he physically saw the Lord Jesus giving him a standing ovation from the throne room.
When we lack boldness, it is because we lack intimacy with the Holy Spirit. As we go about our duties and maintain our busy lives and ministries, there is often a deep neglect in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Peter, however, was not too busy to go on the rooftop to pray at lunchtime and thus had a vision that changed the course of the church. Thank God for that time of prayer and rest! Without it, the Gentile church would not exist. We need to get back to the place of true fellowship with the Holy Spirit and His daily revelation of the Word so that we can walk in this supernatural boldness to preach the Gospel in all its fullness.
Finally, notice that in verse 30 of Acts 4, we see the mention of healing power and miraculous signs and wonders. The convincing proof that we are not preaching the Gospel fully is the lack of healing power and miraculous signs that follow the preaching of our modern gospel. If this gospel were the real Gospel, then it would be followed by evidence of God’s power by way of healings and miracles. Because of our thirst for influence and lack of hunger for true righteousness, we have handicapped the church from its greatest evangelism weapon—the supernatural.
