Guilt Gospel (3) Not Relevant

The forensic presentation of Jesus’ gospel that is preached by the evangelical church is no longer effective in reaching people’s hearts. I presume the reason is that modern people are not riddled with guilt like Martin Luther. Luther preached during a time when the church had become legalistic. Most of the teachings of the church focussed on demands for people to behave better. People were constantly urged to live better. The consequence was that people constantly felt guilty. It seemed to be impossible to comply with the standards required by the church.

People like Martin Luther urgently needed a solution for the guilt that crippled them. For him, the good news that he was forgiven by God was a huge relief. The truth that the cross provided freedom from guilt was a very welcome message. Following the reformation, preachers continued to set high demands for the people of God. However, they were not so effective in teaching people how to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Their failure to live according to Jesus’ standards left people feeling guilty. A gospel that absolved guilt continued to be well received.

Modern people are not wracked by guilt in the same way as previous generations. Instead, they see themselves as victims of circumstances that they can’t control. They have tried to live well, but life has not worked out as they expected. Many were let down by their parents. Others were let down by their teachers at school. Many have been hurt by people they trusted. They feel trapped in troubles that have been caused by other people. They don’t feel guilty, because they don’t believe that they are responsible for the situation they have found themselves in. They see them as victims.

I presume that the root of this feeling that they are harassed and victimised is spiritual, although people often don’t see it. However, if they are aware that their problems are spiritual, they feel like they have been entrapped in a bad spiritual place by events beyond their control and the actions of other people. They will acknowledge that they have made mistakes that harmed them, but they would also claim that they did not know what they were doing. This is probably true.

I am sure that many modern people would identify with Paul’s statement that he was in slavery to the elemental spiritual forces of the world. The people do not need a solution for guilt. A gospel that promises release from guilt does not stir their hearts. I sense that modern people need a gospel of deliverance/rescue from the forces of evil that have swamped them and transfer into the healing life of his body. In the gospels and Paul’s letters, this seems to be the good news that was proclaimed.

The book of Hebrews explains that the cross provides a solution for guilt and shame (Heb 9:16; 10:22). Some people feel guilty about their behaviour before they came to know Jesus. Some believe that they have offended God. The cross is the solution that these people need. Dealing with guilt is one aspect of what Jesus achieved, but we should be careful about making it the centre of the gospel. We don’t need to force people who don’t feel guilty to begin to feel guilty, as the first step to hearing the gospel. Jesus met people where they were. Our proclamation of the gospel should do the same.

Guilt Gospel (1)

Guilt is a central aspect of the modern evangelical gospel. The first stage of sharing the gospel is to persuade the hearers of their guilt before God. Some preachers are very good at doing this. They believe that repentance is not possible until the people listening to the gospel message feel guilty.

• Guilt is the feeling.
• Guilty is the verdict.

In the evangelical gospel, repentance is thinking about your sins and feeling guilty and remorseful. For repentance to be real, guilt must proceed to sorrow and regret and a choice to stop being bad.

The gospel message starts with guilt. Once the listeners to the gospel feel guilty, the consequences are reinforced by explaining that their guilt deserves death or punishment in hell. Once this is understood by the people listening, the preacher can introduce Jesus as the remedy for the problem of guilt and hell. He explains that Jesus died in the listeners’ place, taking the punishment they deserved. If the listeners accept the offer, they are freed from the threat of punishment, but their guilt remains. The evangelical gospel also ends with guilt.

Given that guilt is so central to the western evangelical gospel, I was surprised when I studied the New Testament and found that it is only rarely used in the New Testament. When I did a search for “guilt/guilty” in a bible tool, it threw up only five references in Mathew, one in Mark, and one in Luke and five in John. All the references in John and three of those in Matthew were incidents where Jesus was confronting the Jewish leaders. Jesus did not use the word guilt when challenging ordinary people.

Three of the five occurrences of the word guilt in the book of Acts were references to Paul not being guilty of breaking Roman law.

My search threw up five occurrences in Romans, but four of the references were to headings, and only one was in the actual text. This result shows the bias of the editors of the various English translations. They came to Romans expecting to find guilt, so they put guilt in the headings, even though the word guilt was not used in the text of their translation.

Most of the other half-dozen references in English versions of the epistles were translations of Greek words for debt or liability for making a payment, so “guilt” or “guilty” might not have been the best English word. Some translations used the word “liable”.

I was surprised by the results of my online search. Given that guilt plays such an important role in the western evangelical gospel, it is odd that the concept of guilt, as we understand it, is not mentioned much in the New Testament. The New Testament cannot be wrong, so the problem must be with our interpretation of Jesus’ gospel.

Resurrection is Good News

Reading through early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, I havebeen struck that the apostles tended to preach the “resurrection of Jesus” rather than his crucifixion. Their good news was that Jesus had been raised.

God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him (Acts 2:24).

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it (Acts 2:38).

God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this (Acts 3:15).

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead (Acts 4:10).

God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour to give... forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:35).

This emphasis is quite different from modern evangelistic preaching, which tends to focus on the cross.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this difference.

• His resurrection confirmed that Jesus really is the Messiah/Christ. He is the only genuine deliverer.

• The resurrection confirmed the defeat of the spiritual powers of evil. When they organised the death of Jesus on the cross, they assumed that they had foiled God’s plans by destroying his son. The resurrection totally surprised them. When Jesus came back to life, their evil plans were defeated. Their power over humans was totally destroyed.

• Paul explained in his letter to the Romans that Jesus,

  “raised to life for our justification/being put right” (Rom 4:25).

  The cross and the resurrection achieve our salvation and restoration. The cross alone was not sufficient.

The resurrection of Jesus was the heart of the good news for the first gospel preachers.

I wonder if there is more emphasis on the cross and less on the resurrection, because modern evangelists are less confident in the truth of the resurrection?

Luke's Gospel - Message

Jesus teaching was quite different from what is heard in a modern church.

His big message began with a warning that those with plenty and privilege would lose it and that outsiders and those in poverty would be raised up (Luke 6:20-26).

He followed this up with call for his people to love their enemies and be kind and generous to them, expecting nothing in return. This was accompanied with a warning about judging others (Luke 6:27-45).

Jesus warned that those who followed him would suffer (Luke 9:22-27). He did not promise a life of blessing.

Jesus told numerous parables about people being rescued and restored from disaster (but nothing about turning back God’s anger), eg lost sheep, lost coin, lost son (Luke 15:4-32).

Jesus taught frequently about money. He didn’t call for giving to the church. Rather he warned about the dangers of wealth (Luke 16:1-31; 18:9-30; 19:11-27; 20:20-26).

Jesus spent significant time confronting the people with power who were resisting God’s new intervention. He warned that they would eventually be swept away (Luke 9:11-18; 10:13-16, 30-37; 11:29-52; 12:35-13:9; 14:15-35; 20:1-47; 21:8-33). Modern preaching rarely challenges the people with power.

Luke’s Gospel Action

Reading through Luke’s gospel again, I have been struck by how different it is from the gospel and organisation of the modern church. The contrast is so huge that I can’t see one in the other.

Jesus never said, “You need to repent of your sins and trust in my blood so God can forgive you”. (That sounds more like John the Baptist’s pre-Jesus message).

Jesus just told people that they were forgiven (Luke 5:20; 7:48).

Jesus did not tell the blind man who asked to receive his sight that he would have to repent and get right with God before he could be healed.

He just restored his sight with a word (Luke 18:41-42).

Jesus never said, “Receive me into your heart, and find a good church.

He preached the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus never told his listeners that they should establish Sunday church meetings to attend for an hour each week. He told the people to love one another as he has loved us (Luke 6:27,10:27,37).

Jesus did not call people to be worship leaders (that seems to be an Old Testament model). He called people to make disciples.

Jesus never told his disciples to appoint senior pastors and submit to what they teach each week.

He sent out 120 disciples to preach the gospel of the Kingdom and heal the sick. Jesus ministry seemed to be a direct confrontation with evil (not a performance at a Sunday meeting).

• He announced deliverance for the oppressed (Luke 4:18).

• He rebuked evil spirits (Luke 4:35).

• When he preached, the spiritual powers of evil stirred up so much anger in his listeners that they wanted to kill him (Luke 4:28,29).

• Healing the sick and casting out demons was the heart of his ministry, not a Sunday sermon (Luke 4:40, 5:15, 5:18, 6:18,19, 7:21, 10:17, 13:32, 17:11).

The focus of Jesus ministry was rescuing people from the spiritual powers of evil not making peace between them and God. Jesus is a redeemer, rescuer and saviour (Luke 1:47,51,68,71,74; 2:11,30,38). We should remember that a “saviour” is a deliverer, not a sacrifice on an altar.

Condemnation and Guilt

A gospel message of condemnation and guilt will not work anymore. It still worked when I was young, but society was much more controlled by the religious establishment back then. My parents were really worried about doing the right thing. “What will people think?” was a powerful social motivator. There was huge societal pressure on people to comply with the accepted social standards. Because most humans couldn’t comply, most carried considerable guilt, so a message that guilt could be lifted was good news.

The sixties generation threw off social constraints. Later generations were freed to do their own thing. In this new world where no one has the right to tell other people what to do, social control was undermined. The consequence of this shift is that a message of condemnation no longer resounds with the current generations. An evangelist attempting to re-create that guilt makes people feel like they are trying to reestablish the social control that has been shaken off (especially if they go hard for salvation by law for the big four social sins).

Modern people do not feel guilty in the way that my parent’s generation did. That does not mean that everything in their lives is fine. The opposite is true. Most modern people know that their lives are a mess.

They don’t feel guilty about the mess, because much of the mess is the result of bad things that other people did to them. They realize that they have made many mistakes, but believe that most were unavoidable given the pressure that they were under. When they look back, they can’t see how they could have done things differently, given their circumstances.

So putting all the blame on them for the mess, by telling them that they are guilty of sin just does not resonate. On the other hand, explaining that they live in a spiritual world (most already know that) and that the spiritual powers of evil have messed them around will make sense to them. A gospel that Jesus defeated the spiritual powers of evil and sent the Holy Spirit to rescue us will resonate, but only if the church can demonstrate that it is true.

Widows Wealth - Meaning of the Parable

One of the enemy’s cleverest tricks is persuading humans that their problem is with God, rather than with them. The spiritual powers of evil have persuaded most people that God is angry with them, and needs to be appeased, when the truth is that it is they who are angry with us and want us to suffer. They needed to be appeased, because humans unwittingly placed ourselves under their authority and they refused to set us free. Jesus died to redeem us from their power, because that is the price that they demanded for setting us free (when they made that demand, they presumed Jesus would not be willing to do it, so they would not lose their slaves).

If our gospel requires God to whack a good son to relieve his anger towards a bad son, we have got something seriously wrong. (We certainly dont understand the parable of the Prodigal Son.

It can’t be God’s justice that requires the good son to be whacked on behalf of the bad son, because punishing one son for the sins of another is not justice.

Widows Wealth

A widow had two sons. She gave each son half of her wealth to manage on her behalf. The youngest son listened to his mother’s advice and made good investment decisions that gained a good return. Unfortunately, the eldest son did his own thing and made some bad decisions, which led to a massive loss of her wealth.

The widow was really upset by her elder son. He was embarrassed by his mistakes, so he tended to avoid her, while he attempted to recover the wealth that he had lost. Unfortunately, everything that he did made the situation worse, so his shame increased. Worse still, the debt collectors were after him and wanted to throw him in prison.

The widow loved her son and was sad that he did not come to see her. She was sadder about that than she was about the loss of money. She had some strategies that would have worked for the younger son, which would have helped her older son do better, but shame prevented him from receiving them from her.

A Christian friend of the widow who was concerned about the barrier that had come between the mother and her eldest son organised for some gang members to beat up the younger son. He said that the punishment inflicted on the younger son would cover the sins of the elder son and break down the barrier so they could be at peace.

Her other friends said that beating up her young son to deal with her anger with the oldest son was illogical. According to the scriptures, punishing one person for the sins of another is unjust, even if he is a brother.

The widow said she was not angry with either son, just frustrated with her friends. She told her oldest son that she had already forgiven him. Once he finally accepted that truth, their relationship was restored, although the wealth never was.

Widow’s Wealth – A Parable

A widow had two sons. She gave each son half of her wealth to manage on her behalf. The youngest son listened to his mother’s advice and made good investment decisions that gained a good return. Unfortunately, the eldest son did his own thing and made some bad decisions, which led to a massive loss of her wealth.

The widow was really upset by her elder son. He was embarrassed by his mistakes, so he tended to avoid her, while he attempted to recover the wealth that he had lost. Unfortunately, everything that he did made the situation worse, so his shame increased. Worse still, the debt collectors were after him and wanted to throw him in prison.

The widow loved her son and was sad that he did not come to see her. She was sadder about that than she was about the loss of money. She had some strategies that would have worked for the younger son, which would have helped her older son do better, but shame prevented him from receiving them from her.

A Christian friend of the widow who was concerned about the barrier that had come between the mother and her eldest son organised for some gang members to beat up the younger son. He said that the punishment inflicted on the younger son would cover the sins of the elder son and break down the barrier so they could be at peace.

Her other friends said that beating up her young son to deal with her anger with the oldest son was illogical. According to the scriptures, punishing one person for the sins of another is unjust, even if he is a brother.

The widow said she was not angry with either son, just frustrated with her friends. She told her oldest son that she had already forgiven him. Once he finally accepted that truth, their relationship was restored, although the wealth never was.

Epochal Events (10) Advance of the Gospel

The events that end of the Time of Distress release the Holy Spirit to carry the gospel to the world. The Advance of the Gospel marks the beginning of the next season. Several changes make a rapid advance of the gospel possible.

• With all constraints gone, the Holy Spirit will be free to do his stuff in a new way.

• The suffering of the Time of Distress will have purified the church. It will be radical and ready to proclaim the good news.

• The gospel will be preached in the power of the Spirit. He will accompany the gospel with signs and wonders that confirm the love and power of God (Mark 16:16-17).

• Christians will have been forced to build strong relationships with each other in order to survive through the Time of Distress. People will be able to see the new commandment being lived out in their neighbourhoods (John 13:34). They will be drawn to Christians loving each other as Jesus loves them.

• People who have experienced Christian generosity during tough times will have tested this love and proved it is real.

• Jewish Christians will preach the gospel of the Kingdom with zeal and fervour throughout the world.

• The nations of the world will have trusted human governments for peace and prosperity. When peace and prosperity are stripped away, and governments go down the gurgler, people will be desperate for a better saviour. Jesus will stand out from the pack.

• The truncated church will reach its fulness as the barrier between the Jews and Gentiles are broken down.

• The principalities and powers will be crippled by the collapse of human governments.

The book of Revelation describes the eternal gospel going into the world.

Sin and Gospel

I listened to the gospel call in a message preached by Billy Graham in the late 1950s. His focus was on sin and his promise was that all our sins can be forgiven. That message worked in his time, but it would not be so effective today, because the culture has changed.

The 1950s was a time when society was conservative and a rules-based culture dominated most people in the west. The church was part of the establishment and attempted to impose its moral standards on the people of the world. Most people had failed to comply with the social rules that were accepted. Many had rebelled at times against the accepted moral standards. So most people had a strong sense that they had missed the mark and failed to comply with the standards expected by society. Guilt was the prevailing mood. In this culture, a message about sin and failure to comply with moral standards resonated strongly.

Likewise, in Jesus’ time, the Pharisees had created a guilt culture by imposing impossible interpretations of the Torah as a burden on the people. Most felt that they could not live up to God’s standards, so Jesus had to deal with their shame by offering forgiveness of sins.<

The culture is different now. The rules that shaped society back them have mostly gone by the board. The church is no longer so influential and its standards are no longer seen as compelling. People have been taught to seek their own fulfilment instead of living by standards imposed by others. They do not see themselves as sinners who have failed to live according to the standards of the church, and they do not see God’s standards as relevant.

Modern people see themselves as victims of life. They need someone to rescue them from their struggles. They may have made mistakes that made their situation as worse, but they largely see themselves as victims of circumstances that they did not control. Many people have been battered and beaten by trials that were too great for them. They don’t see themselves as sinners needing forgiveness, so much as victims who someone to rescue. The prevailing mood is sickness and struggle.

In this situation, the gospel call will be more effective if it announces that Jesus has rescued those who will put their trust him from the attacks of the spiritual powers of evil and put them on a path that leads to victory from the world. Many people who are struggling with life want to be rescued.

We might need to stop using the word “saved”. The gospels are full of the word “sozo” which is usually translated as “save”. Unfortunately, we don’t use the word save much these days, apart from a religious context (or saving at a bank). Rescue is a valid translation for sozo, and it a word that has more resonance in the modern world. People who are drowning are rescued, not saved. Lifeguards rescue people who get into trouble at the beach, rather than save them. People who are lost in the bush are rescued, not saved.

We would get a better response if spoke of Jesus ability to rescue people from trouble and oppression. To modern ears, the word “saved” is less meaningful. The gospel promises,

Jesus came to seek and rescue the lost (Luke 19:10).

When dealing with people, Jesus mostly rescued them from their problems first. After they were delivered, he told them to stop sinning, if that was necessary.

The Gospel of Jesus

Bad News
When the spiritual powers of evil tricked humans into rejecting God, they set about making life miserable for them and wrecking the beautiful world that God had created.

Good News
God loved the world so much that he sent his son Jesus to live on earth and die to pay for us the ransom that the spiritual powers of evil demanded. He raised Jesus from the dead to destroy their power and returned him to a place of honour in the spiritual realms. From there, Jesus sent a living Spirit to empower those who follow him and teach them how to live in peace and harmony.

Gospel Challenge
Change sides and give your allegiance to Jesus and work with him and his Spirit to restore the good world that God created.

The Gospel of Jesus

Bad News
When the spiritual powers of evil tricked humans into rejecting God, they set about making life miserable for them and wrecking the beautiful world that God had created.

Good News
God loved the world so much that he sent his son Jesus to live on earth and die to pay for us the ransom that the spiritual powers of evil demanded. He raised Jesus from the dead to destroy their power and returned him to a place of honour in the spiritual realms. From there, Jesus sent a living Spirit to empower those who follow him and teach them how to live in peace and harmony.

Challenge
Change sides and give your allegiance to Jesus and work with him and his Spirit to restore the good world that God created.

Freedom and the Gospel

Our freedom is in Jesus. The only freedom that really counts is the deliverance from the spiritual powers of evil that he wrought for us on the cross.

War rarely establishes true freedom, because the tumult and violence of war allow the spiritual powers of evil to have a field day, so people on both sides are made worse off.

I don’t know of any situations where economic sanctions have produced freedom and advanced the gospel. The ordinary people suffer, and the powerful get rich on the black market.

The efforts of the United States to impose freedom and democracy by war have a pretty ugly record. An honest observer cannot pretend otherwise. Iraq is still a wreck. The Iraqi church has been dramatically weakened, because Christians have been forced to leave the country. Libya has gone from having the best health care and education in Africa to been a disaster. Yemen is currently being wrecked with US support and weapons. The twenty-year war in Afghanistan has produced terrible suffering and very little peace. The gospel has gone backwards. Bombing Vietnam produced a disaster in Cambodia.

Relying on governments to provide freedom is a mistake. Even in the United States, government surveillance and controls are reducing freedom.

The gospel can prosper in places where dictators rule. In the twentieth century, the gospel has been far more effective in China with limited political freedom, than in the United States with greater political freedom.

In the nations like Iraq, which the United States has invaded or imposed sanctions, the gospel has done badly, because the local people see their nations being attacked by a Christian nation and resent it. You can go with a gun and the gospel and expect to be taken seriously.

My confidence is in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of God cannot be established by political and military power.

I have written about these themes in more detail in my books Kingdom Authority and Government of God.

Gospel to the Streets and Marketplaces

A preacher told is listeners to take the gospel into the streets and marketplaces. He said that God would do greater miracles there than in the church. This is probably true, but the people do not know how to do it.

That is not how Jesus operated. He showed his disciples what to do. He took the twelve with him as he healed the sick, cast out demons and preached the good news. I presume that he sometimes got them to do the easy ones. When he sent them out, they know what to do, because they had helped Jesus do it.

The best way to learn a new and difficult task is the followings:

• Watch an expert do the task.
• Help the expert to do it.
• Do the task with the expert watching and checking.
• Do it on your own.

Telling people to do a tough new task without teaching them how to do it is unreasonable.

Here is a suggestion. Most pastors know how to pray for sick and how to cast out demons. They share the gospel at the end of their message most weeks. A couple of pastors should get together and go out into the streets and learn how to share the gospel there, while healing the sick and casting out demons.

When they have learned to do it, they should each take a person from their church into the streets and marketplaces and teach them how to do it. Once these two people have learned how to do it, they could each take another person and teach them what they have learned. This process would multiply the evangelist ministry to operate in the streets and marketplaces with signs and wonders following.

The best way to get people to do something that they don’t know how to do is to do it with them. Telling people to do something that you do not know how to do is dishonest.

Gospel Healing

In the New Testament, healing and the gospel go together. However, Jesus said something challenging to the seventy-two disciples.

When you enter a village, heal the sick who are there (Luke 10:8-9).

Jesus does not say to pick someone out by word of knowledge and pay for them to be healed. No. He says to heal all the sick people who are there.

That is a challenge for people of faith that few of us have even considered. I guess that is why Jesus told his disciples to wait until they had received power from on high.

But if all the sick people in a village were healed by a pair of disciples, the gospel of the kingdom would be hugely welcome there.

Healing and the Gospel

When Jesus sent out the seventy-two disciples, he told them what to do when they entered a house.

Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. (Luke 10:5-6).

We need to think about what Jesus was saying here. When the disciples declared “Peace to this House”, peace will rest on the person of peace in the house.

How does this happen?

The Holy Spirit is our peace. The fruit of the Spirit is peace. So when a pair of disciples made the declaration, the Holy Spirit passes from them to the people in the house. These people will have the Holy Spirit resting upon them for the entire time that the disciples are in the house, even if they not yet know Jesus.

With such a strong presence of the Holy Spirit, speaking faith, bringing conviction and offering peace, these people would soon to follow Jesus and trust in him.

If the owner of the house is not a person of peace, the peace will return to the disciple. The Holy Spirit will flow back to the disciples who are visiting. Matthew says that in this case, the disciples should shake the dust from their feet and leave the house (Matt 10:13). They should go to a house where they are welcome.

Jesus approach would only work if the disciples are aware of the Spirit of Peace flowing from them to the people in the house. They should also be aware of the Holy Spirit returning to them, if he is not welcome. That is a challenge.

If we are serious about sharing the gospel in the way that Jesus recommended, we need to learn how to declare peace to a house with faith, so that the Spirit of Peace flows out from us to the people in the house (John 7:38).

We also need to learn how to discern the Spirit of Peace returning to us, when he is rejected by a person who is hostile to him.

Gospel is Real

Many evangelical believers prefer Paul’s letters to the gospels. I can sort of understand why. Paul expects us to believes that Jesus died and has risen to God’s right hand. In the abstract, these truths are easy to accept.

I have just been reading Mark’s gospel. It is full of healing and deliverance from evil spirits for ordinary people in the midst of everyday of life. If these things are not part of our every day experience, this is quite confronting.

Good News

When Jesus died on the cross, the spiritual powers of evil thought that they had defeated him. But God had the last laugh. He raised Jesus from the dead. He appeared to many of the disciples.

The spiritual powers of evil were totally defeated, because they had used human sin to gain authority over the earth. Jesus’ death and resurrection dealt with the sin problem, so the basis of their authority was undermined.

Forty days after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus ascended into heaven. God seated him at his right hand, far above all spiritual power and authority.

He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet (Eph 1:20-22).

Those who give allegiance to Jesus, are seated there with him.

God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6).

Jesus was inaugurated as king of all creation. He must remain at God’s right hand until the Holy Spirit, working through his followers, has established Jesus rule on earth (Psalm 110:1). He does not do this with military force, like other kings. The Holy Spirit convicts people of their need for Jesus, he teaches them how to love him and how to obey him. Jesus kingdom comes, as people listen to the Holy Spirit and obey Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is wiser and stronger than the spiritual powers of evil. He will be victorious, and Jesus reign in the spiritual realm will becomes a reality on earth. We can choose to be part of that victory by giving our allegiance to him.

Good News

The world needs good news.

God created a beautiful world and gave it to humans to care for. They knew it would go best if they did things God’s way, but they had freedom, and they wanted to try it out.

They decided they would choose between doing thing God’s way and doing their own thing. The problem was that when they did their own thing, they were tricked by the spiritual powers of evil and surrendered the authority over the earth that God had given to them.

The powers of evil got control over the earth, so from that time on, the world has often been troubled and broken.

Although he had been rejected, God did not give up on humans, or his world. He wanted the world back, but the powers of evil demanded a high price.
The good news is that God became a man so he could come into the world. Jesus offered to die to buy back the stolen world.

The power of evil agreed, but they were being tricky of course, because they believed that once Jesus died, they would not need to hand the world back to God.

But God was too smart. He foiled their evil plan by raising Jesus from the dead. The spiritual powers of evil who controlled the world for so long were defeated.

Anyone who surrenders to Jesus has been delivered from the powers of evil. But they are still tricky. When people do their own thing, they lose God’s protection and their lives become troubled and broken.

The good news is that they can switch allegiance to Jesus at any time.

Gospel and Healing

Jesus had a great gospel and was a splendid communicator, but it was unlikely that he would have been so popular, if he had not healed the sick and cast out demons.

The church has too often tried to preach the good news, without healings and deliverance following. This is always going to be hard going. A gospel of redemption and restoration needs real confirmation.