WATCH CAREFULLY: Demonic Doctrines are Being Taught in Churches

The Gospel Versus a Man-Centered Message

You have to get a new mindset, start believing bigger, dreaming bigger, expecting bigger. You're not limited by your circumstances, by the pandemic, by your boss, by how you were raised. One touch of God's favor will catapult you ahead.

The devil doesn't waste bullets.

If he's leaving you alone, he knows you aren't anything worth fighting against.

The Bible is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ. How God orchestrates history to save his people from their sin and the punishment they deserve for their sin. We can spend eternity studying the gospel and never learn just how incredible it is.

But you will spend an eternity of eternities in heaven and you still will not begin to comprehend the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not a message among many. It is the message of scripture and the message of Christianity.

However, many so-called pastors and churches today do not teach the gospel, but rather a substitute message that centers around people, what people want, and how people can get what they want from God.

But the sad thing is, it is no longer the message of the church in America. And I can prove it to you. Go to all those bookstores of yours. If we were to think back only 200 years ago, 300 years ago, we would see that the talk of Christianity was about the gospel.

The books that were written by the Spurgeons and the Puritans and the Edwards, it was about what is the gospel? How can we comprehend the gospel? How do we preach the gospel? What is true conversion? How can we know when someone has truly been born again?

Go into those bookstores of yours today and try to find a volume written on such themes. You'll find nothing. It's all filled with how-to and 10 steps.

Another major problem today is that instead of teaching people what it truly means to be saved, there is an extremely superficial understanding of what it means to be saved and it is simply assumed that anyone who simply went through the motions or prayed a prayer is saved regardless of how that person is currently living.

There is this idea that essentially everyone who attends the church simply needs to be discipled since they are already Christian rather than saved because they are not yet Christians.

There's a big to-do today about discipleship and I believe we ought to do discipleship, but I often hear people saying today, we have so many people coming in through the front door of the church, but the moment they come in, they're leaving through the back door of the church and the reason why they're not staying is because we're not discipling them.

That is not true. The reason why they're not saying is because they were never born again. We got them to make a decision. We got them to raise their hand, but their life never changed.

Instead of teaching the full gospel and making sure people who profess Christ are actually born again, there is an emphasis on creating a service that makes people feel comfortable and encouraged.

I say most people are beaten down enough by life. They already feel guilty enough. They're not doing what they should do, raising their kids or that, you know, we can all find reasons. I want them to come to Lakewood or our meetings and be lifted up to say, you know what?

I may not be perfect, but I'm moving forward. I'm doing better and I think that motivates you to do better.

You don't have to remind people they're sinners. They know. You don't have to remind people they fall short not only of God, but of who they would want to be themselves.

You don't have to beat people up. And in order to attract larger numbers of people, these kinds of churches replace or dilute the gospel in favor of entertainment that people enjoy and feel good about.

And most of them have gone to church growth schemes and turn their church into six flags over Jesus. And they no more are preaching the gospel than a man on the moon.

Of course, this kind of a service will draw far larger numbers of people. But the problem is that oftentimes what people need to hear isn't what makes them comfortable and encouraged. They need to hear about their true, depraved, hopeless state of sin before an infinitely holy and righteous God.

Do we need to do personal discipleship? Of course we do. But if God saves a man, he who began a good work in him will finish it. Why is there so little power today? Because we don't know the gospel. Because we don't concern ourselves with true conversion.

Because we don't make the important things important. But we replace it with the proper use of media in the service. With the right kind of singing to alter the mood. With flashy speakers who tell us everything we want to hear so that we can have our best life now because that is indeed what we want.

More than God. Hey, this is Michael.

Yeah, the real Michael. If you like these videos, would you consider subscribing? It helps YouTube spread this message to more people. I'm giving away a beautiful handcrafted leather Bible every week and I'm trying to pass Kenneth Copeland in subscribers to show that truth wins over false teaching.

Thank you so much for your eyeballs and support.

Assurance of Salvation and the New Birth

Rather than simply seeing praying the sinner's prayer one time as evidence of a person's salvation, we should work to help that person gain assurance of salvation through identifying signs that the person has been born again by God and has a new desire to obey and live for God.

If they just walk up front and they pray that prayer, we declare them saved and start discipling them. We should maybe be working with this person for months that they come to a biblical assurance. And so our churches are filled with lost people and it's by and large because the superficiality of pastors.

The True God of Scripture Versus a False God of Love Only

Instead of teaching about the true God of the Bible who is both loving and wrathful against sin, many pastors teach about a false God who is only love, who only wants to give people what they want.

That what we're offering to people is what everybody's looking for.

They teach a God who doesn't call people to repentance, to faith alone in Christ alone, and to persecution for proclaiming truths that the world hates.

In all this getting that we're getting, in all this knowledge, in all these books, in all these bookstores, in all these tapes, in all these conferences, is anybody simply talking about God? Who is He?

That is the reason why Sunday morning in America is the greatest hour of idolatry in the whole week. Why? Because most people who are even worshipping God are worshipping a God they don't know. They're worshipping a God that looks more like Santa Claus than the God of Scripture.

They're worshipping a God that is a figment of their own imagination. They created a God in their own likeness and they worship the God they've made. And why is that? Again, it goes back to the pulpit.

In the pulpit, we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing. And what is that? Teaching men about God so that they might know in the light of His revelation where they stand and what they need. All have sin.

Compromise, Respectability, and the Power of the Gospel

So many pastors today want to be respected by the world. So they compromise on or avoid clear biblical truths so they can be approved of by people like Oprah, the women of The View, or The New York Times.

And because of this, they become life coaches rather than pastors. And the power of the gospel vanishes.

That we preach Christ crucified in such a way as to exalt God Almighty and to humble men so that in learning to despise themselves, they esteem the gospel and are saved. The worst thing that could ever happen to a preacher and the worst thing that could ever happen to a church is to become civilized and respectable.

For in that lies no power. We are pilgrims. We are strangers. We are awkward. We are dislocated. We find no home here. No place where we properly fit because we have a city whose builder and maker is God.

And our job is to take a gospel so covered up by the designs of men that it no longer has any power. It is our job to strip away all that faulty dress and to preach the bare bones of a gospel that's nothing more than a scandal.

But in that, we will see the power of God.

The Deception of a False Gospel That Makes People Feel Fine

The disastrous results of preaching a false gospel that the world approves of is that it deceives millions into thinking that their lives are perfectly fine before God. That they are right before God.

When the reality is that they have not yet acknowledged the depth of their sinfulness before God. A gospel that just makes people feel good and is accepted by popular culture and the world is not at all the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Make you happy.

One of the reasons why men see very little need of Christ is because they say very little need of their predicament and they say very little terror in their predicament because they know not how sinful they are and they know not how sinful they are because we're not telling them.

Because we found a new way to evangelize that protects us from the scandal and causes all men to speak well of us. You can go on any secular program in America and say, smile, God loves you and no one's going to have a problem with that.

You can go into Hollywood and say, God has a wonderful plan for your life and no one's going to have a problem.

But what people truly need to hear is their hopelessness before a holy God because it's only in that hopelessness that we see our need for a savior. And it's only when we recognize our need for a savior that we can trust in Jesus and be saved.

It's when you begin to point to man and say, you are guilty. Before the bar of God, you are guilty. Now we do so with love. We do so with compassion. We do so with grace and mercy knowing that we ourselves were guilty, possibly more guilty than any other man.

But at the same time, we do say guilty and we work to prove that guilt. But a young preacher one time, he said, well, I don't have a ministry of condemnation. And I said, well, I do. I do. To move men to that with all my might, pray and study until the dawn's early hours just to gain enough biblical ammunition to convince men of their lostness.

Now, it doesn't stay there, but it does begin there. It doesn't stay with condemnation. It goes on to salvation. But in order to get to salvation, you cannot pass over the truth of condemnation.