Our Lord Christ said in Luke 7:23: “…blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”
JC Ryle wrote, “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough; a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice, which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.” JC Ryle died in 1900. I can imagine what he would write about the state of Christianity today. Christianity and morality in today’s America has become so perverted, distorted and watered down to the point where God is appallingly portrayed as a servant to human beings and not the other way around. He is seen as a distant force in some way off galaxy. He is not revered, He is not appreciated; He is not feared. The terror of the immense power of God has been lost and the fault lies at the feet of the church of the true believers of Christ.
Galatians 5:11: “If I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.” John Stott gave a statement about the offensiveness of the Gospel; he said “We must deal with the fact: The Gospel is offensive to human pride. If what we preach as “Gospel” is not offensive, we’re doing it wrong. An inoffensive Gospel is a false Gospel, a damning Gospel—because the only Gospel that saves is the Gospel that offends.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-19: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
The Gospel declares how awful our condition is apart from Jesus is. It announces how deep the sin goes, how profound the rebellion is, how impossible our predicament is apart from Christ. There’s nothing we can do, no effort we can exert, no law we can follow to be saved. The message of Christ crucified says you’re an absolute failure in relation to what’s most important. The cross exemplifies some of the most offensive things possible you could say about someone in relation to God and eternity. This gruesome death Jesus died, you earned it. The hell Jesus endured, you deserved it. The shame he underwent, the scorn, the disrespect, the hurt — all these are as suitable to us but not to Him, but He was killed in our place for us to be saved.
As we celebrated Patriot Day, I hypothetically wondered if 9/11 could have been avoided. How you might ask? I know God is Sovereign and everything happens according to His blueprint, but I wonder if we had not turned our back on God, if we had not lost the fear of God, would He still have His firm Hand of protection on us. Every day it seems as though His Hand is lifting more and more away from this once great, God fearing nation.
Romans 3:10-18: “As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” 13 “Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 and the way of peace they have not known.”18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
America has allowed greed, adultery, abortion, drunkenness and drug addiction, pornography, idolatry, fornication, homosexuality, blasphemers, and more to go unchecked for too long…we are a sin soaked society and it is taking its toll. God is slow to anger, but His anger must be kindled nonetheless. Psalm 7:11: “God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” 9/11 was a wakeup call America. The devil is in our midst. Christian, we need to defend the faith (to be apologetic) without apology! 1 Peter 3:15: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;” Do not be afraid to offend or hurt someone's feelings because, A) you are telling the truth and B) the Holy Spirit backs you up. We cannot base the Gospel and its message on the feelings of others or our own. We are to preach truth no matter how much it stings. People’s souls are at stake here!
People have to know that there is mercy, salvation and glory only in the Cross that offends them; many people who are lost read the Bible quite often, mostly trying to slander and find any contradiction that may deem the Gospel to be false; but they do so in vain and to no avail. What they do not comprehend is that they will never understand the Bible and its context until they give their hearts to Christ. Only then will the Holy Spirit illuminate their minds so that the Gospel can be understood in the inspiration of God.
Then their so called worldly wisdom can be replaced with the wisdom of God Almighty and the common sense that lost people truly lack. Philippians 3:18-19: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things.” No matter the amount of self-discipline involved, Paul would go out of his way to make sure that the way he acted and what he did helped people to understand the Gospel and not push them further away from it. We must do what we have to do by all means necessary as long as it doesn’t compromise the Gospel in any way. This is why Paul said and was all things for all people.
1 Corinthians 9: 22-23: “22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.” We can present the Gospel in its true meaning to people in a way they can understand; that is why Christ used parables, so the people that He was addressing would understand.
We as Christians also have to hold ourselves accountable to the Holy Spirit and to other believers; we have to check ourselves, because if the Gospel that we’re preaching isn’t offending anybody, it’s a huge indication that what we’re preaching isn’t the true, biblical Gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord. Galatians 6:14: “14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” We must never water down, disarm and contaminate the pure truths of the Word of God in order to make it more acceptable to the unsaved! We have to be content that they may hate us for the truth, instead of having them love us for lying to them about the Gospel, no matter how much they mean to us.
Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” We are not preaching the true Gospel of God today! In the American church today there is an overemphasis of prosperity. 1 Timothy 6:5: “…they who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.” In the American church today there is hyper-grace. Some hyper-grace preachers live in sin and teach their congregations that anything goes. To ease their consciences they preach about a God who is all love and who never condemns, a God who doesn’t judge us by our conduct. Many churches have fallen into this trap!
Jude 4 says, “…they are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality…” In the American church today man is deified. Man is gospel-centered, not Christ. Instead of the Gospel being about what we do and are for Christ, it has become what can Christ do and be for me. This is an easy setup for the Antichrist; as we become so adapted to worshipping man (or ourselves), it will be a simple scheme for the Antichrist to move into position. What flows out of the deification of man is the challenge to the authority of God’s Word.
Steve Hill says this, “The challenging of God’s authority goes back to the Garden of Eden, starting with the serpent’s challenge to Eve: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). This satanic challenge was twofold: First, did God really say that? And second, God didn’t really mean what He said. After all, you won’t die if you eat from the tree (vv. 1-5). That twofold challenge continues to assault us today. Best-selling authors tell us the biblical text isn’t reliable, that the biblical manuscripts we have in our possession are hopelessly contradictory, and that we can know little or nothing about the real, historical Jesus. Other authors tell us that the Bible is no more than a collection of religious traditions and that God Himself is nothing more than a religious myth. For the most part, though, the challenge to the authority of the Scriptures is more subtle, which says, “The Bible must live up to my standards. I will judge the God of the Bible based on my morality rather than the God of the Bible judging me based on His morality.” In short, when the Scriptures contradict our feelings and preferences, rather than crucify our feelings and preferences and (cause us to) bow down before God and His Word, we question God’s Word.”
The American church today rejects the doctrine of Hell and punishment that Jesus clearly taught, they also teach that everyone will eventually go to heaven through different roads that lead to God. Even though Jesus said that no one comes to the Father except through Him! We are worried about offending or hurting someone’s feelings instead of giving them the truth. If I stood up here and gave you a message and you did not walk away wanting to go to God to help you in some area in your life that is condemning you, then I am not presenting the Gospel of our Savior in the way He wanted me to do it. I am not showing the true love of Christ that saves and I am not letting the Holy Spirit speak and work through me. How does tickling anyone’s ears truly profit them? It makes them feel good? Only for a temporary moment and then real life shows back up and slams them to the dust of the earth. Many people in America today have a false sense of truly being saved by Christ!
The church in America has failed them, the so called pastor failed them, and the weak-minded so called follower of Christ failed them. How can they ever know that they are a sinner if you do not tell them that they are one? How can they ever come to Christ if they do not know what He is saving them from? If you have a church that does not preach sin, repentance, Hell, the cross, the blood atonement of Christ, the resurrection and the end-times, then I would say that most in that church are false converts because they do not know the true meaning of salvation in Christ Jesus. American Christians must stand up and change this. The Gospel is not a Band-Aid; the Gospel of Christ is the remedy and cure for the certain death of sin that seeps through the veins of every person born on this earth. Christ has called us to give people truth with no regard to the disdain, hate and persecution that could come back at us as a response from them. 9/11 was a wakeup call America. The devil is in our midst.
Galatians 1: 6-10: “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”
When we do not present the true Gospel, we are doing nothing but helping the lost person board their belongings on the rail car that is shuttling them straight to the pit of Hell; and all because we are petrified to tell them the actuality and representation of the Word of God in its intended form. Why are we worried about offending someone!? Why? Do we want people that we love to go to Hell? If we are not telling them the truth of God, then we are pointing them straight in the direction of the wide path to destruction and not to the narrow path that leads to life. Mark 8:38: “Whoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Adulterous and sinful generation – America is still the most powerful country in the world, but morally, we are bankrupt. I want to take a few minutes and read some facts about the morality of America today: Every single year, there are 20 million new STD cases in America. 750,000 registered sex offenders in the United States; 600,000 Americans who are trading child pornography material online. 89 percent of all pornography is produced in the United States. One out of every three children in the United States lives in a home without a father. 60 million American babies have been slaughtered in this country since Roe v. Wade. Approximately 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Every single day, more than 3,000 American babies are killed by abortion. 86 percent of all abortions are done for the sake of convenience. Abortion clinics have been caught selling aborted baby parts to medical researchers. Planned Parenthood performs more than 300,000 abortions every single year and receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government every single year. 9/11 was a wakeup call America. The devil is in our midst.
60 percent of all Americans believe that the traditional definition of marriage needs to be changed. Sexual assaults in the U.S. military is at an all-time high, and the majority of them are male on male. America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world. 80 million people abuse alcohol and 30 million people use illegal drugs. 75 million Americans are on mind-altering drugs of one form or another. Prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined. America leads the world in money given to fake charities. There are 1.5 million gang members involved in the 33,000 active criminal gangs in the United States. There are more than 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States every single year. Nearly 25% of all U.S. adults have no religious affiliation whatsoever. One survey conducted found that 60 percent of all American Christians believe that “at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life”. 46 percent of all Americans never even think about whether they will go to heaven or not. Listen. If we as a church of true believers in Christ do not stand up now, then we will soon lose our chance to stand up at all.
We are not supposed to cater to people if it goes against our beliefs in God. We are now catering to everyone in this society. Those who attacked us on 9/11 are now catered and bowed down to by the “politically correct and tolerant”. They do not want anyone to be offended. Well, Christians don’t count in their way of thinking. We are offensive to them! In America, we appease and pamper people and nations who want to kill us. Are society has been flipped upside down. Fred DeRuvo states, “For too long, the world has catered to Islam; and we have reaped what we have sown for our trouble. Based on the erroneous concept that Islam is a “religion of peace,” various leaders of nations worldwide have succumbed to the oft-touted “victimhood” of Muslims and Islam and have endeavored to give Islam an affirmative action-type leg up…We can only wonder why this is the case (it is supernatural and of Satan that is why). While it’s true that not all Muslims are terrorists, it seems clear enough that nearly all terrorists are Muslim. Nearly 100% of terrorist acts (just shy of 21,000 events) since the original 9/11 were perpetrated by Muslims or people connected with Islamic groups.”
Joel Rosenberg says, “…there is a dramatic shift underway in the Muslim world. The most serious threat we face is no longer radical Islam but apocalyptic Islam. They are…by apocalyptic, genocidal eschatology, or End Times theology. The first is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The second is the Islamic State, or ISIS. The leaders of the former are Shia. The latter are Sunni. Both believe that we are living in the End of Days as predicted in their ancient prophecies. Both believe that any moment now their messiah, the Mahdi, will be revealed on Earth as he establishes his global Islamic kingdom and impose sharia law. Both believe that Jesus will return not as the Savior or Son of God but as a lieutenant to the Mahdi, and that he will force non-Muslims to convert or die. What’s more, both believe that the Mahdi will come only when the world is engulfed in chaos and carnage. They openly vow not simply to attack but to annihilate the United States and Israel.”
Perry Stone said this on the eve of 9/11: “America has become a mirror image of the ancient Roman Empire, prior to the internal collapse of the Imperial Roman government. Taxes became so high people sold farms and moved to other areas of the world. Rome began an open border type policy in which Germanic tribes began pouring in, taking over the land, what jobs that there were, and eventually bankrupting the system…In (ancient) Rome, there was widespread immorality, including wide acceptance of any kind of sexual relations, and the acceptance of all "gods," with the exception of Christianity; the Christian faith - which had been accepted for years, came under harsh persecution under Nero and continued under ten different Roman Emperors. The present administration is doing strange things…such as arresting anyone speaking out against "alternative lifestyles...” Christians are ignorant of the Bible and many no longer attend a local church. Deception is high as some preachers simply tickle ears for 20 minutes with a feel good gospel that changes no one. We are REALLY in the days of Lot and Noah! Pray up and speak up or our leaders will pass laws to make Christians shut up. Biblically, when the leaders attempt to stop the voices of truth in a nation, and leaders promote abominations, God Himself will pick up the fight!” 9/11 was a wakeup call. The devil is in our midst. Jeremiah 51:17-18: “All mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his molten images are deceitful, and there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of mockery; in the time of their punishment they will perish.”
As this nation blatantly waves their finger in the face of God and disobeys His Word and rejects the Person and Work of Jesus Christ we should not be surprised by the tragedies that will come. I certainly want and pray for revival in America, but people who serve the devil want this country to fall and if we as Christians do not use our prayer and our voices, then we will fall with it. People openly mock Jesus, make fun of Jesus and pervert who He is. Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. Proverbs 14:9: “Fools mock at sin…”
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive to people because it tells them that they are sinners and that they will die and go to hell if they do not repent. We as the hands and feet (and mouthpieces) for Christ have to do this in the most kind, sincere and gentle way in love, cutting them to the bone and pierce their heart so that they can see what they truly are. Recall if you can what you saw and how you felt when you were pierced for the first time and realized that you were a lost sinner. That you were going to die and perish because you had sinned against God.
Do not be afraid. Plant your seeds every time you get the opportunity. Time is short! The Rapture can happen at any moment and we are to be working diligently to proclaim Christ to the world, to be ready when He appears, to have our lamps trimmed and full of oil so that we go with Him to the marriage of the Lamb. We have to work hard for Jesus to give invitations to as many as we can while we are still here so they can go with us! We need our eyes to look to the clouds for Christ while our mouths proclaim Him here on earth – everyday!
Preach to them the Gospel because you might be someone’s last line of defense. Preach the Gospel with no remorse or sympathy toward being tolerant. You can do all of this in love! Do you not know that we serve an intolerant God who did everything to save us and love us by sacrificing His Son on the cross, but will stop at nothing to cast us to the depths of Hell if we do not turn from the sin that God could never dwell with? A Holy God whose perfectness and pure goodness and love would destroy any sinful being within His presence because His excellence cannot be in the midst of imperfection. Our God who has told us time after time that sin will plague us for eternity and that Jesus Christ is the only redemption to remove the curse of iniquity from us?
Stand up for Christ! Where are the true men and women of God in America?
We are called to turn the world upside down but we have replaced God fearing men and women in this country with soft, tolerant, bible ignorant, politically correct, lukewarm Christians and false converts; these are the representatives of Christ in America today. How sad and discouraging is that? That the true Christians have shied away and hid in a broom closet because of fear of confrontation or rejection or persecution to certain degrees. Unbelievably, their fear of men is greater than their fear of God. Unbelievable. Have they quickly forgotten the Gospel and what the fear of God entails and what the fear of God can do?
Matthew 10:27-28: “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Why is the cross taken down in many places and nowhere to be found in many so-called churches today? Not because of tolerance, no. Because the cross of Christ is an offense! The cross is an outrage because the lost cannot stand the sight of it as it cuts them straight to the core of their being when they see it. They know what it stands for. They know one day they will answer to the One who died upon it in their place. You cannot play the “out of sight, out of mind” game with God. Your sins will find you out. If not in this life, they will when you stand and present your case before the King of Kings and the eternal Judge, Jesus Christ.
Proverbs 8:13: “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech God hates.” What example did Jesus lay down for us to follow? Did He take out important truths from the Gospel, truths that people didn’t like to hear, in order to please men and make more disciples for Himself? Of course not! To the contrary, His preaching cut through all the false deceptions and impure motives of those who seemed to be seeking God, and He would expose the hearts of the people and proclaim the very truths that they didn’t like to hear! We are to be polar opposites of the world.
John 12:25-26: “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” That is why those that are lost think that we as true believers are delusional, brainwashed, stupid, ignorant, weak, etc…but we know as those who are saved and secure in the power of God, it is they who are delusional, weak, ignorant and stupid of the true meaning of life; which is to serve God for His purpose and His pleasure. This is why the Gospel is called an offense. No one wants to hear that they are a charity case, but all fallen human beings are nothing but charity cases; every single one of us because of sin.
Ephesians 2:1-5: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…”
The Gospel hurts, because it goes against everything that our sinful flesh and pride stand for and want. The Gospel is everything that the world is not. They repel each other and just like magnets repel one another, we have to change our polarity from a worldly one to a heavenly one and that only happens when we give our lives totally and fully - submitted to Jesus. The love of God is contrary to love of the world and to the love of self. Americans are very good at being about themselves and loving themselves and their selfish desires. Open your mouth and tell people about Christ.
You being a Christian in itself is not offensive to them. God’s Word that we follow is what offends them because it crushes their conscience and severely convicts them. That is why the world does everything that it can to shut Christians up. Show them with love that we would rather be hated by them, than to see them choose to descend the steps of Hell for eternity. The Gospel of Christ is exclusive. The true followers of Christ belong to a very special group. This is why the world and the lost hate it. If everyone were allowed to find their own way to God, no one would care how we did. The offense comes because Jesus Christ is the only way.
Romans 9:33 and Isaiah 8:14: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” Jesus promised His message, the one we were told to preach to all creation would be offensive and it is. You cannot take out the offense of the gospel, for if you do, you also remove the power of the gospel to save those lost. We can proclaim a message that makes people feel good and one that gives them hope, but the Gospel will bring people face to face with their sin and they can never find any good or hope in their life until they know the cure for that sin. That they stay in their shame unless they are broken on the Rock of Salvation, which is Jesus Christ.
Acts 4:11-12: “This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” John 15:18: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.” Here was God in the flesh, the Messiah, the promised Savior standing before them to see and touch and hear. He offended them and they rejected Him. Our Gospel is offensive, our Cross is offensive and we are to present to the lost as such. To not do so is to forsake what Christ did for us at Calvary. We would be denying God’s Word. Do not sugarcoat the Gospel of Jesus; you are not hurting anyone and could quite possibly be saving their life. We as a nation are headed in the wrong direction. 9/11 was a wakeup call.
Can we keep the next 9/11 from happening? We will not know if we do not come together as Christ’s church and try with a true reverence and great fear of God and His power. 2 Corinthians 5:9-11: “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.” True Christians are not meant to be tolerant and passive. That is why American society is the way it is today. Jesus and the Apostles were not passive and tolerant, God is not tolerant, so why would we be?
