The False Gospel of Moralism

Let's say that you meet someone who is not a Christian. After talking with them for a while you learn that they like to get drunk on the weekends and have sex with their girlfriend. How do you respond? Is your first response to tell them to clean-up their life--stop getting drunk and having sex outside of marriage? If so, you're preaching the false gospel of moralism. Granted, drunkenness and sexual immorality are both sins. But a non-Christian doesn't need moral improvement--they need the good news that Jesus saves sinners. Albert Mohler recently put it this way:

In our own context, one of the most seductive false gospels is moralism. This false gospel can take many forms and can emerge from any number of political and cultural impulses. Nevertheless, the basic structure of moralism comes down to this -- the belief that the Gospel can be reduced to improvements in behavior.

Sadly, this false gospel is particularly attractive to those who believe themselves to be evangelicals motivated by a biblical impulse. Far too many believers and their churches succumb to the logic of moralism and reduce the Gospel to a message of moral improvement. In other words, we communicate to lost persons the message that what God desires for them and demands of them is to get their lives straight.

Continue read Dr. Mohler's blog post here.

Why So Skeptical?

If I were to announce today that my church (or any other church for that matter) baptized 300 people yesterday, I'm sure that people would react in many different ways. Some would rejoice. They would praise the Lord that so many people had come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. Yet, others would doubt. Some would doubt that the gospel had really been preached in its fullness. Others would assume that we must have toyed with peoples' emotions. Others would doubt that people had really come to faith in Jesus. I'll be the first to admit that there are times when pastors have preached false gospels, people's emotions have been twisted and faith was only temporary. These are sad realities.

But let me ask a question: why have we become such skeptics? Why do we act as though it is unbelievable or impossible that 300 people truly came to faith in Jesus? In Acts 2:41 Luke tells us that after Peter's sermon "those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls."

So, I ask you once again: Why so skeptical?

"Help!"

God, in his grace, has used addiction to shatter my moralistic understanding of the Christian faith and force me to accept the gospel. I am not a faithful man. That's why I need a Savior. I cannot live victoriously on my own. That's why I need a Helper and brothers. I cannot keep my promises to God--the very act of making them is delusional--but God will keep his promises to me.

As a Christian, I am perpetually reduced to the role of a supplicant. No more can I offer God a bargain, his favor in exchange for my faithfulness, or go toe-to-toe with him, demanding payment for years of service. But when I approach him humbly, as a restored prodigal son, he responds with overwhelming generosity to my requests for aid.

No fancy prayers are required. In fact, God finds fancy prayers repugnant. He loves it, however, when I acknowledge my need and my belief in his benevolence with a simple one-word prayer:

"Help!"

-Nate Larkin, Samson and the Pirate Monks, p. 132

I am second.

I am second.