Much has been spoken and written about the gospel of Jesus Christ–its subject and its message. Throughout 70 decades of hearing and reading messages of a religious nature, I have found only two ministers who preach and teach the gospel as God commands it to be preached and taught. I am the third. In that He commands all God-seekers to “prove all things” relative to things of the spirit (1 Thes. 5:21), it behooves us to study this extremely important subject in order to eliminate error and to “show ourselves approved of God” (2 Tim. 2:15). Refusal to study God’s Word in order to please Him has resulted in numerous errors within the professing church. As a result of her laziness and her total faith in her leaders, the church has passed many deadly doctrines and customs from one generation to the next for hundreds of years. As a result, each generation, knowing only what they have been told, believe that what they have been taught is the “gospel truth.” Due to their refusal to “test the spirits” of those who minister to them and to study God’s Word for themselves, many deadly errors are embraced without question. Anyone who questions the church’s “truths” is quickly dismissed as a heretic. Because of this church doctrine is in a constant state of flux. As religious correctness infects more and more churches, more and more errors will come to be accepted as God’s Truth. This website is dedicated to exposing them. Let us now return to the error that is the subject of this posting–Christ’s gospel.

First, let us eliminate an error relative to time–the belief that the gospel is strictly a New Testament message. In that God is the Lord, He changes not (Mat. 3:6). In Him is no variableness, neither is there a shadow of turning (Jam. 1:17). By statements such as these we know that His goal has remained steady. Jesus declared that He had come to finish THE work (not works) assigned Him by the Father (Jn. 4:34). By this we know that what He began in the Garden of Eden He will bring to completion in these end times before He returns. In Galatians 3:8 God tells us through Paul that “the Scripture” (the Word/Jesus Christ-Jn. 1:1-4) preached THE (not a) gospel to Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation. Generations later we find Paul warning the descendants of those Israelites not to reject THE gospel as had their ancestors after the Lord had delivered them out of Egypt. He then made certain that they, and we, understood what gospel he was referring to, noting that the same gospel that had been preached to “them” (Old Testament Israel) had been preached to “us” (the New Testament Church). This proves beyond argument that THE gospel–God’s Word to mankind–has been the subject of His ministry to man throughout all ages and will remain so until the end of this age when He will return to gather to Himself those who believed and obeyed that gospel.

Not long after the establishment of the New Covenant Church some 2000 years ago, there arose a contention over what should be the subject of the gospel–Jesus Himself or the Kingdom of God. The contention became so sharp that it caused a rift in the church. Some chose to preach and teach about the person of Jesus; others chose to emphasize the coming Kingdom of God. One group obeyed God. The other group won in terms of numbers. As I noted above, I have heard only three men preach even one sermon on the subject God commands all of His ministers to have as the center of their ministries. I have heard dozens of men preach and have read many books, pamphlets, etc. spoken and written as gospel messages. God’s men speak God’s Words that, if believed and obeyed, will enable the believer to enter the Kingdom of God upon His return. Satan’s ministers preach and teach what pleases their handlers. Three ministers out of all I have heard or read gives us a pretty accurate count as to how many men who have “answered the call” have actually been called by God. I will be generous and say that possibly 3% have received God’s call to His ministry. However, most of them, lacking spiritual spine, have chosen to answer Satan’s call to his ministry. See Bait and Switch. Question: the gospel about the person of Christ, or the gospel about the Kingdom of God–which is THE GOSPEL God commands His ministers to preach? Let Him tell us.

To reveal the importance of identifying the content of the gospel modern ministers are to put forth, we must determine the subject of the gospel that Jesus Christ Himself preached and commanded His apostles to preach until His return. So what was that gospel? We find the answer first recorded in Matthew 4:23 where we are told that Jesus “went about … preaching THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM.” Jesus Himself preached the kingdom gospel to Abraham, then preached it to His chosen Israelite people through His prophets, then preached it Himself to the Jews of the Holy Land. Before His death he commanded His apostles to preach that same gospel to the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel scattered throughout the known world. They in turn were to teach THE gospel to their disciples who were to preach and teach it to both Israelites and Gentiles until the end of the age. To be continued. L.J.