Devotional thoughts for Friday

Friday 3. October 2014

Trinity 15 

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. (Matthew 7,15) 

This teaching by Jesus is as true today as it was 2000 years ago. Few are the faithful preachers of the gospel, and many are the false preachers. 

The American Christian culture seems to be an especially fertile breeding ground for false preachers. The advent of the internet, blogs and Facebook all make it easy for false preachers to set up shop, peddle their snake oil message and deceive thousands, if not millions of people. 

We also live in a culture that celebrates diversity and tolerance. Live and let live, we often say. And so, little is said in critique of false prophets. 

The apostles walked a different path. It is the narrow path that leads to eternal life. The Apostle Paul chastised the Galatian Christians: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, then let him be damned. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, the gospel of Christ crucified, then let him be damned to hell. (Galatians 1,6-9; 1. Corinthians 2,2) 

Who are the false preachers today? They are the ones who promise wealth and prosperity, who preach morality and virtues, who only give lip service to Jesus Christ and Him crucified. O they may believe that Jesus died for us and our sins and they may indeed be Christians, but if they fail to consistently and faithfully preach the gospel of Christ crucified for us, then they are false preachers. We have famous examples of false preachers in our society: Joel Osteen, anyone who appears on Trinity Broadcasting Network, T D Jakes and many others. Their message is more about financial prosperity, virtuous living or a host of other things. Rarely do they speak about sin and Christ's deliverance from that sin. 

There is nothing wrong with speaking about financial prosperity or virtuous living, but those messages are not the gospel that the Holy Spirit has given us in the Holy Scriptures. Financial prosperity and virtuous living are great topics for self-help guidance but they are not topics that treat the heart of the issue: our sin and how do we get relief from a burdened conscience and an angry God. 

Only the gospel of Christ crucified does that, and it does it perfectly. That's why Paul preached it until his dying day. Paul was martyred for this gospel, and yet he preached it to the very end. You see, Jesus wants us to know just how merciful and loving God truly is. That mercy and love is personified in Jesus who suffered all, hung on the cross and died for our sins so that we would be free of our burdensome sinful debt. Our account is clean and we are right before God; yes, we are righteous on account of Christ Jesus. This is true prosperity, this is true blessings and this is true virtue. All the rest, that temporal stuff that false preachers like to hawk as the main message, those things flow from the gospel by the will of the Holy Spirit. He may bless us with wealth, or he may not. He may fashion us into models of virtue, or we may struggle daily to be moderately decent people. All of that is superfluous compared to the promise given by Christ: you are God's child, you are righteous and nothing you do can change that. When we are on death's doorstep, it won't matter if we live our best life now, how much we accumulated for ourselves or how good a person we are. All that will matter when we stand before God the Father is that Jesus died for us and we believe in Him. That's the gospel, and that's the strength of a message of Christ crucified. It is His work, not ours.

Prayer: O Lord of all power and might, Author and Giver of all good things, instill in our hearts the love of Your Name, impress on our minds the teachings of Your Word and increase in our lives all that is holy and just; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen. (A62, Treasury of Daily Prayer)