The Real Deal — E.A. Johnston

I was out walking one morning with my teenage daughter, and we were talking about how food companies have shrunken their products. Things like Twinkies are smaller than they used to be, and they don't taste as good as they once did because they're full of chemicals.

My daughter commented that many things just aren't the real deal anymore. And as we talked, how we noticed this shrinking of food products, how everything is smaller than it used to be, and not as good, my daughter said, you know, that's kind of like the gospel.

The Gospel Reduced to “God Loves You”

It's been shortened to, God loves you, just accept Jesus and you will go to heaven. And it's not the real deal either. There's more to the gospel than that. And as I thought about her words, I realized the truth in them.

The Diluted Gospel and False Conversion

And we live in a day, friends, where we are given the artificial rather than the real. And this is true in many of our churches today who present a shrunken God and a diluted gospel. They just don't give you the real deal anymore.

They don't preach the real truth so you can be really saved. That's why we have so many persons in our churches who claim to be Christians, but their lives were never changed. They were never awakened to their lost condition, never convicted of sin by the spirit, and never born again through the supernatural act of regeneration upon the heart.

All they ever heard was a easy belief gospel that never showed them their duty of repentance and the absolute necessity of regeneration. They just took this Jesus that was offered to them. They casually took him and they just swapped their chewing gum from one side of their jaw to another, and they chew on this Jesus that was offered to them.

They chew on him for a little while until the flavor goes out, and they eventually spit him out and go back into the world because they never saw any need for him in the first place. They never once heard the full counsel of God preached in their ears.

They just heard the short and modern gospel, which is God loves you. Just accept Jesus and you will go to heaven. But they never heard the real deal, nor were they really saved from their sins. And that's the title of my message this afternoon, friends, The Real Deal.

Paul’s Gospel in 2 Corinthians 5

And my text is found in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And in this passage, we find the Apostle Paul declaring what the real gospel is. You can turn in your Bibles there now. This passage is rich with truth, and it is the real deal, friends, because it speaks of a real Savior in the person of Jesus Christ.

We will be in verses 10 through 21, and I want us to listen carefully to what the real gospel is as found in this passage of scripture. Here now is the word of God. May the Spirit of God attend the reading of his holy word.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.

For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we disjudge that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth, now we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold, all things are new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God, for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

God’s Judgment and the Need for Reconciliation

Now friends, there are several aspects to this striking passage that I wish to bring before us this afternoon. In this passage, we see how the Apostle Paul declares the full counsel of God by warning his hearers of a coming judgment for all mankind, because God must punish sin.

He says, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade man. Paul preached that God was an offended sovereign, and man was a guilty rebel because of sin, that man needed to be reconciled back to God, because man and God had become separated through sin.

God was holy, and there had to be a means of reconciliation back to this offended God, and that means was the sin bearer in the person of Jesus Christ, who died for sin. Justice must be satisfied. The sentence of the law must be carried out.

Imperfect man cannot stand up against the perfect law of God and pass that test. God demands perfection to get into his heaven, and no man is perfect. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Man desperately needs a sin substitute in the person of Jesus Christ, because a sinful man cannot stand in his own merits against God's strict and severe law. A man is a lawbreaker, a guilty rebel who has sinned against a sovereign king, and he must appear before the judgment seat of Christ and have his life reviewed, whether it be good or bad.

But even man's best act is still not good enough to pass the acid test of God's requirement of upholding His holy law. A sinner must stand in the merits of Jesus Christ, who is the blood sacrifice for sin.

My sins are washed in His blood. If they are not, and I die in my sins, I will surely go to hell. And so will you, friend. So will you. Now that's the real gospel, and there are three aspects of this passage I would like to share with us today in how it relates to our modern gospel, which is not the real deal, friends.

The First Shortening: Shrinking God to Human Size

The first shortening of our gospel occurred when we shrunk God down to our size and placed Him on our level. We have placed God on a human level of understanding today. Our God would never punish sin.

Our God is just a friendly, kind God of love. He would never send anyone to hell. Our gospel has removed all the teeth out of the gospel, removed all its terrors and threatenings and warnings. There's no need for repentance to have salvation.

It's only a only-believed gospel. And if you swallow that watered-down version of the modern gospel and do not repent, you will surely go to hell, Jesus declared. Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

The first sermon Jesus ever preached, friends, was repent, and His last words to the churches in the book of Revelation was to repent. But sadly, you won't get the real deal in our churches today, friends, because most pastors will not preach a hard message that would risk offending someone.

So they give you a shortened version of the gospel. I call it a perverted version of the gospel, and it's diluted of all its saving power. The modern gospel today couldn't save a flea, much less an in-for-hell church member who refuses to repent and turn from his sins.

Preaching the Law to Awaken Conviction

But preachers of old used to preach differently. They used to break up the fallow ground of the heart by preaching the law so the Holy Spirit could work and bring conviction to sin. Let me share with you how Charles Finney described it.

Charles Finney used to use the example of the old grist mill that operated by the force of water upon two millstones. There was the top stone and the bottom stone, and these two millstones are laid one atop the other, and as they turn, they grind the wheat into flour.

Finney said that the bottom stone was the law of God written on the heart of man, which is his conscience. Roman 2 .15 declares, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.

So picture in your mind, friends, these two millstones. The bottom stone is the law of God written on the witch, which is man's conscience, and the top stone is the preached law of God thundered about the ears of the hearer.

And when this occurs, then the Holy Spirit can operate by grinding upon the heart in conviction of sin. How many today have you heard of saying, what must I do to be saved? No one's tugging on our coat sleeves anymore, asking us how to find the way to Christ.

Awakening the Sinner Before Offering the Remedy

They're just not convicted of sin. You see, friends, the real gospel will bring you to the place where you realize you were lost. You will be awakened to your lost condition apart from God. You will be convicted of sin by the Spirit of God.

You will feel your need for God, your need of a remedy for sin in the person of Jesus Christ. The main problem with our shortened version of the gospel presentation in Your Day and Mine is the fact that people are offered a remedy for sin before they even realize they are sick and in need of a remedy.

So they casually accept this Jesus through a decision of the intellect, but their heart is still unchanged, unregenerate, because they never had the fallow ground of their heart broken up with the law of God and the Spirit of God so they could see their sins and realize how lost they really are.

The Real Gospel Warns of Judgment and Proclaims Christ

See what great danger they stand in and what a false foundation they rest upon. But the real gospel will warn men of their great danger of dying in their sins and make room for the Holy Spirit to operate upon the heart through conviction of sin.

Now friends, how are you going to achieve that great work of divine operation by just saying, God loves you, just accept Jesus and you will go to heaven? All that does is harden a person's heart to receive the real Jesus who is the remedy for sin.

But the real gospel will show you your lost and ruined condition and warn you of your great danger of dying in your sins and being cast into a place of eternal misery called hell. And the real gospel will show you what a law-breaking rebel you really are and how your sins are against a sovereign who must punish sin because the sentencing of the law must be carried out, divine justice must be satisfied.

The real gospel will speak of the pearl of great price, our substitute for sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered and died on an ignoble and scandalous cross and who rose again and ascended to heaven and who now sits at the right hand of the Father and he earned that right by way of a bloody cross because of sin.

But the artificial gospel won't tell you any of that. You see the difference, don't you? I hope you do. The real deal is Jesus Christ and he has this to say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.