A different "Jesus"

The Scripture speaks again and again of the fear of God : "Fear not the Lord, and turn away from evil" (Proverbs 3: 7). "The fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil" (Proverbs 8:13). "In the atonement of mercy and truth is foreseen for iniquity; And by the fear of the one Lord turn away from evil" (Proverbs 16: 6).

When there is no fear of God, people must invent a gospel of convenience.

The world has concocted a gospel where there is no God, and therefore not heaven or hell. There is no life after death, nothing and no one to answer.

Where does the figure of Jesus come from in this gospel of complaisance ? It is very much a part of it - but it is quite another Jesus ! This "other Jesus" is presented as the essence of human love, a very tolerant person indeed. It embraces all religions, welcomes homosexual marriage, and declares that there is no such thing as good or bad. There are no sinners to this Jesus - and therefore there is no mention of sin, not even deviant behavior. His message is that you do not need to change because there is nothing wrong with you. There is simply no judgment or anger in it.

Paul called this "another gospel" (Galatians 1: 6). And he warned that those who preached would "pervert the gospel of Christ" (Galatians 1: 7). As you can imagine, it is a seductive gospel, attractive to many. And crowds, especially young people, are caught up in it. This explains why a growing number of young Christians accept immoral behavior and same-sex marriage. Even many evangelical churches adopt this seductive gospel. It happens just as Paul warned : "God sends them a power of error, that they may believe a lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

David Wilkerson