The Gospel Offensive but Effectual
The desire for immediate results and numerical success has brought many preachers to preach a gospel that is what Paul called “ another gospel.” It is less offensive to man because it is a man’s gospel. God’s gospel comes from God as He is to man as he is. Thus, it has an immediate offensiveness to the sinner because it declares salvation entirely the work of God alone. This offends sinful, powerless man who wants a part in saving himself. He wants a part because he wants the glory of it which God will not share! When men leave out the essential doctrines of God’s free and sovereign grace in Christ, they have a less offensive message but they also have an ineffectual message. They preach a god that cannot save. In the true gospel man meets the God of the Bible who has predestinated all things after the counsel of His own will, the God who has chosen a people unto Himself before the world began, the God who is just in all He does in salvation, and a God come in h