We Preach Christ

In these perilous days, the Lord Jesus Christ is separating the sheep from the goats; the wheat from the tare. While these are days of unprecedented opportunity for Gospel ministry and harvest for the Kingdom of God, it is also a time of great attack on the church both from within and without.

Compromise and dilution of the pure Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ has always been a tool of the enemy. The Apostle Paul addressed heresies in his early ministry, reminding early Christians that he was their servant who did not preach himself but Christ Jesus as Lord. (see 2 Corinthians 4:5)

Early church heresies are not unlike the heresies of our day. Most of the heresies focus on one thing, denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God before He became the Son of God in the flesh.

In the third and fourth century there was Arias in Alexandria. He taught that Jesus was such a good man that God adopted Him as His Son at the time of His baptism - it's called the "adoption theory" or "Arian's theory". Athanasius, the faithful bishop of Alexandria, fought the Arian heresy tooth and nail. He affirmed that they preached Christ, who is God of very God, who existed before all eternity.

Then, in the fifth century, there came Nestorius. He proclaimed that Jesus was perfect, but a man, nonetheless - He was not God. This heresy is directly linked to the rise of Islam that denies the divinity of Christ. The faithful fifth century Christians rejected Nestorius saying that they preached God in the flesh, our only Savior.

In modern times, we have been inundated in the church by universalism, humanism, secularism, and legalism. But we preach Christ, who alone can save us from dying in our sins.

Today's mainline church is filled with liberals who insist on the Universalist position. It says that God is so loving that no one will ever be eternally punished in hell - whether they believe in Jesus or not. We say, "No. We preach Christ who one day will judge every human being on one basis: Did you believe in Jesus or did you reject Him?" Whether you are going to heaven or hell is based on how you answer that question. Which way will you answer?

You would be amazed at how many people in the church today are marching animals down the aisles of their churches to be blessed at the communion table. There are churches who are blessing rocks and dirt. There are those in the church who say God is in everything and everything is God. Some in the mainline churches today are worshipping Gaia, the goddess of the earth. We have people in the church today telling us it is OK to kill a baby in the mother's womb, but it is a sin to kill a fly. In some mainline denominations, a top qualification for ordination is whether or not you support the ordination of homosexuals. That's what's happening in Christendom today in this nation.

But in the midst of this wholesale departure from biblical Christianity, we preach Christ who left the glories of heaven to pay the penalty of sin for everyone who believes. We preach Christ who rose victoriously - literally - from the dead to assure us of our own resurrection. We preach Christ who is returning, sooner than we think, and He will judge the living and the dead.

We preach Christ - not ourselves, not our ideas, not our philosophies, not what we think is good, popular, or politically correct - but Christ and ourselves as servants for Jesus' sake. We preach Christ - passionately, truthfully, and without compromise.