If I could ask 1000 of the world’s most famous preachers the question that forms the title to this series I am positive that not one of them would have the Biblical answer. And if any of them could provide it, I am equally certain that they would refuse to do so, for it would result in their immediate fall from church grace. Another pertinent question would concern the subject of the Lord’s one and only gospel– the Kingdom of God. First, those 1000 false prophets would inform me that the gospel preached by Jesus Christ and His apostles was the “good news” (gospel) about Jesus Himself. This would not only be wrong, but deadly wrong as the following will prove.

In Matthew 4:23; 9:35 and Mark 1:14 we are told that Jesus went about “preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.” In Matthew 24:14 Jesus prophesied that “… THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM will be preached in all the world as a witness to the nations, and then the end will come.” “THIS GOSPEL” referred to the gospel He and His apostles had been preaching over the past 3 1/2 years–the gospel of the coming Kingdom.  In several Scriptural passages His message is called “the gospel of Christ,” meaning His gospel–the gospel He preached. In other places it is called “the gospel of God,” meaning the gospel that God commanded Jesus and the apostles to preach. Recall that the man Jesus stated that the Words He spoke were not His own Words, but were Words given to Him by the One Who sent Him (Jn. 14:24).  In John 7:16 He had said that God’s Word (gospel) was His (God’s) doctrine (expressed will).

One will notice that the gospel is always presented as a SINGULAR entity. Never does one read about “gospels.” There is only one gospel, not hundreds as Satan has led salvation seekers to believe. And that one gospel concerns the Kingdom of God–the only gospel mentioned in His Word. We find in Acts 1:3 that, following His ascension to heaven, Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives where for 40 days He taught His disciples “the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” His gospel was not about Himself. Nor did He present a group of gospels from which man could choose. Denying this Truth, religious man has concocted hundreds of gospels designed to justify the existence of the hundreds of denominations, faiths, etc. he has created under the leadership of Satan.

This is one of the many areas where the church has left God’s “track,” and in so doing, left Him. The Counterfeit Church has made the mistake of focusing on Jesus the man and not on His message–His Words. In John 12:44-50 He warns against this error, stating that it is His Words that will judge every human being. He states that, though God has given all judgment to Him (Jesus), He Himself will not judge mankind. The Words which He received from the Father and spoke to His prophets and apostles will be His instrument of judgment. Students of the Holy Bible (Truth/Word–Jn. 17:17) know that a vital Truth is woven throughout the Scriptures. That Truth concerns the fact that God does not judge without first telling those whom He will judge what He will use to judge them. In every case His standard of judgment has been His Word. In First Corinthians 10:11 Jesus states that the Words God arranged to be written and preserved would be used to instruct those in His church until the end of the world. Those in His church who learn, believe and obey those Words will join Him and the Father in their earthly Kingdom that will be located in the Promised Land.

The existence of two main religious bodies and hundreds of mini-bodies, each calling itself “the church,” proves that God-seeking man has found that for which he seeks–a god. The problem is that he is the same god that had his way with Adam and Eve by convincing them that the true God ‘s Words were not to be taken at face value. That same god is alive, well and thriving today in what is called “Christianity.” The devil’s message has not changed. He is still convincing religious people that they cannot take God at His Word. Having established his first false church in Eden, he now has hundreds of churches and hundreds of thousands of mini-churches scattered throughout most of the world. The first question one is asked when meeting someone in a religious context is: “what’s your denomination?” Or as one cigar-sucking churchite asked me: “What faith are you from?” He was asking what God-rejected abomination did I belong to? Indeed, Satan has deceived the whole world (Rev. 12:9). L.J.