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Gospel Pollution

Mankind's pollution doesn't stop with his environment — he has polluted his mind, morals and spirit also.
Even the Gospel has not escaped man's polluting touch.
The Good News of God's Plan for man was no sooner proclaimed by Jesus Christ of Nazareth
than men determinedly set themselves to pervert, twist, malign, deny and distort His message.
Let's remove the pollution and restore the true Gospel in all its original beauty.
Let's get back to the FAITH once delivered to the saints.

 

A CRASH anti-pollution program is needed now — for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel has been trapped in the thick, oozy-goo of a spiritual oil spill. Gasping! Wheezing! Desperately wiping its red-rimmed and burning eyes from spiritually blinding "black fog," it staggers along, poisoned and polluted beyond recognition.

But there is hope — if we wash and filter it through the cleansing purifying, healing truth of the Bible. This is the only way to restore its purity, maintain its sweetness, and unleash its life-giving power.

 

Good Government

The Gospel is the GOOD NEWS - the GLAD TIDINGS — of man's association with God in a KINGDOM — the good Government of God.

The word "gospel," in your Bible, is translated from the Greek word, euaggelion. It means the "good news" or "glad tidings" that a good and fruitful government — the Kingdom of God —will one day be established.

 

Polluted Gospel

The Gospel has been swept into the oppressive confines of the world's cathedrals. These funereal, cavernous structures — their walls and floors punctured with crypts holding the moldering bones of the long dead — have tainted the living Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Any gospel which escapes these musty traps all too easily finds itself captured and made part of an outrageous carnival show. Sweaty preachers bark raucously, many of them jabbering incoherently in their affected "tongues," as they try to outcry one another in tent revivals and healing sideshows. They make a farce of the real Gospel.

Between these two extremes lies the broad expanse of everyday, run-of-the-mill, common Christianity. Churchianity has embraced what it thought to be the Gospel tightly to itself — and has been disappointed! Their "gospel" did not cause anything better to happen. Everything stayed the same or even worsened. The world didn't become any better in spite of their huge missionary efforts. All things continued as they were from the beginning. It looked like God needed a hand; so they decided to give Him one. They invented the "social gospel" to make up for the perfidy of God. How presumptuous!

History proves man is a wretch. There was little hope that any good could be done about his situation until Christ laid down the principles of Christianity. All the converts thought, "Here is the solution." But no matter how industriously they applied their "Christian" principles, failure continued to plague mankind. Most "Christians" thought the promised, perfect Kingdom was going to be set up in the church itself or would be "found in their own hearts."

When neither of these ideas proved to be correct, they began to look to a social interpretation of the Christian faith. Their own interpretation of the TRUE Gospel caused them to look within society itself for improvement of its evils.

Recognizing that competition was vicious, and being concerned for fair play and justice for the little man, aggressive churchmen began to press for their own solution. Idealistically and optimistically, THEY expected to be able to set up their "Kingdom of God" on this earth out of their own efforts. They were inclined to "understand" Jesus' Kingdom teachings in the light of their own revolutionary thinking. It was their confident hope that their application of "Christian principles" to the ordering of society would undo the serious social evils rampant in the world. They would see to it, since God wasn't on the job, that the Kingdom of God would be set up.

They failed utterly to keep the Bible in true perspective. They failed to realize that neither Christ nor Paul started a trade union, lobbied for legislative changes, ran for offices, circulated petitions, rebelled against legal machinery. No, the true teachers of Christianity NEVER DID try to change the social order. Their religion had no man-devised political overtones (Gal. 1:11; II Cor. 10:3-5). They were only concerned with the socio-political changes which would take place AFTER Christ returned to set up HIS Kingdom. Christ knew His Kingdom would NOT be established until a couple of thousand years after His death. It still is not yet quite time for it to start.

POLLUTED Gospel concepts continue to contaminate the issue.

As pollutants besmirch, foul, change ecological balances and set in motion degenerative forces that unstoppably march toward the macabre stillness of death, just so do the pollutants of the Gospel sap, strangle and finally completely stifle it.

If the Gospel lies befouled under a layer of spiritual scum, is made indistinct by spiritual smog, and becomes repugnant because of spiritual poisons, it should not be thought unusual. We have had warning after warning that the attempt would be made. The true Gospel is lost sight of and repudiated because Satan easily blinds the minds of disbelievers so they don't really see the glory in the Gospel which' was brought by Jesus Christ (II Cor. 4:3-4).

 

Christ's Warning

Christ's ministry began with His ". . . preaching the GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD" (Mark 1:14). The first four books of the New Testament speak literally dozens and dozens of times about that KINGDOM OF GOD.

Christ's message — His GOSPEL — was about the establishment of God's Kingdom and He realized that very few would really "get the message." He knew people would distort and wrest it. He knew MANY people, while accepting His divinity, understanding His death, admitting to His resurrection, would miss the mark entirely insofar as understanding just what He was preaching: how to gain entry into the Kingdom. He lamented this lack of perception in "religious" folk when He said, "Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 7:21). He said this near the beginning of His ministry.

Just before His death He was still making it plain that religious-sounding people would admit to His being the Christ, but use this very religiosity to DECEIVE MANY — to preach another gospel (Matt. 24:5).

 

Apostolic Warning

Paul, too, knew there would be those who would PERVERT the Gospel of Christ and he thundered against them — saying they were "ACCURSED" (Gal. 1:7-9).

Paul believed what Christ had said. He expected the perversion, corruption, POLLUTION of the Gospel (II Cor. 11:3-4). It came early, marred deeply. Paul, James, Peter, John, Jude all wrote powerfully because of the pollution which continuously contaminated the truth of the Gospel. Jude 3-4 pleads that it is necessary to vigorously fight against the corrupting influence of a false gospel and ministry. Jude knew that ungodly, licentious, lascivious men had already defiled the truth. We, too, have only to make the most casual examination to note the debasement and desecration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ — the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. It's been going on for a long, long time. The muck is deeper than ever today.

 

We're Used to Pollution

The city dweller today has almost forgotten what it's like to live in a clean world. He's used to the peculiar odor of his drinking water and expects it to taste like dilute laundry bleach. He expects not to be able to see more than a few blocks because the smog is "always" there. He has learned not to rub his burning eyes. He knows that only makes them more irritated. He breathes shallowly and hopes he won't become an emphysema statistic.

So it is with the polluted Gospel. It's been corrupt for so long that it just seems it should be the way it is. NOT SO!

 

The Cause

Pollution is almost entirely due to greed — seeking self-satisfaction the quick and easy way. Profits must be had no matter what the cost to environment.

Our system is a suicidal one. Collectively we accept, almost with eagerness, an early, torturous death if only the system will continue to circulate dollars, provide things, leisure, comforts, "progress" for the time being. "They" — the experts — whoever "they" are — promise that it will all turn out just fine. "They" will one day come up with all of the answers. "Our Utopia is assured" — just trust them. Not knowing what else to do, we trust these self-styled experts. We place our lives in their hands — and our waterways become ever more contaminated by the disgorged, loathsome sewage of man and his industry. The earth continues to have millions of tons of poisons of an affluent society dumped on it. The air thickens with the effluvial pall of deadly gases manufactured and eructated by our mechano-chemical way of life. Nonetheless, the experts are in control.

Man usually trusts the experts. He sees a doctor when he's sick, a lawyer when there's a legal problem, an insurance broker when he needs an estate, a teacher when he's ignorant, a preacher when he's in spiritual trouble. Between the man and his expert advisor he usually muddles through even when the advice is wrong and costly. In most such problems bad advice will only result in material loss to some degree. But bad advice from a preacher can be of eternal concern; so each of us ought to become thoroughly conversant with the facts involved. That demands looking into the Bible for yourself! No one can be trusted with YOUR SALVATION — YOUR IMMORTALITY — YOUR UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has real, solid, purposeful, practical attraction. It speaks forcibly about a way, a system, which — if a man will but subscribe to and live by — will bring him into a more perfect way, system, manner of living, kind of discipline, type of government in which all of his good and proper desires will find complete expression.

 

The Effect

The "gospel" of churchianity is hollow, watery, meaningless.

Their "gospel" says certain goody-good individuals will one day find themselves wafted off to "heaven." Each will be issued a white toga, a sparkling halo and a fluffy cloud. Each of these A-1 harpists will sit benignly strumming while enjoying his "beatific vision." Look the Bible through and you won't find any such thing.