What Is The Gospel: Part. 1 Man

In order to truly understand the Good News (Gospel) of CHRIST JESUS coming to be the Saviour of men, You must first have some grasp of man’s need of Salvation. For if you, like most Americans, think that you’re basically good; then you will not see your need for salvation. It’s like a person that has been infected with H.I.V., but does not know it. He develops a cough, but seeks after cough drops or some type of cough syrup. He would be offend if someone told him; “I have good news. I can stop your cough, but you must come with me quickly before you die of A.I.D.S.” This is one reason most people are offend by the Gospel, and many who ”accept JESUS” do so so flippantly. Because they fail to recognise that they are infected with an incurable deadly virus; and lying, lust, hatred, discontentment, depression, and etc. are only symptoms of its destruction. As JESUS said in Mat. 9:12 (KJV): “ They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” The truth is all born on their death beds.

Firstly we will (prayerfully) discover our sickness by comparing what we are with what we were created to be. In the book of Genesis, we read of man being created in the image of GOD (Gen. 1:27 we will elaborate on this in a later post). This word image could be translated as representation or figuren). Meaning GOD’s desired outcome of creating man was for man to be a mini Him. We were made to be just like GOD. GOD is holy and He expects us to be same (Isa 6:3 and 1 Pet 1:16). He is love and demands us do likewise on the same scale as He does (Mat 5:43-45). In short GOD commands us to walk upright, because He made us upright (Psa 25:8 & Ecc 7:29). Therefore if you are not doing what JESUS would do, then you are sinning and have fallen short of the glory of GOD. (Rom 3:23 ) Sin in that verse means to miss the mark. The mark is the sinless Son of GOD the express image of GOD, CHRIST JESUS. He lived how we were created to live, and one deviation equals death.

Next lets take a quick journey through the Bible to gain an understanding of the current state of man. Genesis 6:5 says: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And chapter 8 verse 21 says that ” the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Also take in the words of JESUS in Matthew 15:18-20: the” things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20These are the things which defile a man…” The reason men murder is because murder is in their heart, they steal because theft is in their, so on and so forth. Couple this with the two passages from Genesis and we get: Men hearts are always thinking wickedness. What ever is in the heart flows out and defiles them, therefore men from their youth are continually doing and being defiled by wickedness. Which is why the SPIRIT tells us that we are “by nature the children of wrath” (Eph 2:3 emphasis mine). In short we do wrong because we are wrong (Read Rom 7;13-25 notice that sin is inside of him, not what he did).

We are inherently prone to evil and wickedness. And this is made worse by the fact that heart is not only wicked, but it is also extremely deceptive. Proverbs 16:25 says “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. ” We all think that the way we feel or believe things should be done is the best way, but GOD says those things that seem right to use leads to death. Which means that we are like the man in the opening paragraph. We think we are O.K., but we are daily drawing nigh unto destruction. We can’t see that GOD view our best deeds as “filthy rags” (Isa 64:6). You think you are close to GOD but you are unaware of the fact that ” iniquities have separated between you and your God” (Isa 59:2). You just know that GOD ain’t completely pleased, but it He ain’t mad either. Because you’ve been deceived and can’t realize that GOD ”hatest all workers of iniquity.” And the reason we don’t recognise that we are terminally ill is because “the heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer 17:9). Our heart will lead us to sin, death, and destruction under the guise of life and righteousness. It is the reason we cannot be what GOD created us to be. We must completely rid ourselves of this if we are to have any hope of truly being the image of GOD. But the problem is this is who we are. We are flesh (Gen 6:3). And “the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8), for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (v.7). We were created to please GOD (Rev 4:11),but because of who we are we cannot. Therefore, like the fruitless tree (Luke 13:6-9), we are fit to be hewn down and cast into the flames. But think about that analogy. A fruitless branch is a dead branch. We are worse than sick we are ”dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1 & Col 2:13). These are truthzifolllow.

SOLI DEO GLORIA