Having agreed to this beautiful truth, some good believers somehow still believe that someone can call themselves Christian, even identify as a Gospel minister, while still preaching something different from the true Gospel that has been passed down to us for 2 millenniums. A result of this is the kind of a mess we see in the African church; where everyone has a free pass to preach anything no matter how heretical, to practice anything, no matter how unbiblical, while still regarded as a servant of God. When you dare challenge such practices, the answer you will get is “Just stick to your lane, we are called differently.” So according to them, false doctrine is okay. We just have to accept that each of us has different callings.
One good brother quickly scolded me for criticizing other servants of God. His argument was that “each generation has its own message; God gave the likes of John and Peter a particular message which was needed at that time, now He has called today’s ministers with a different message just for this generation.” Of course, I will go down to the grave in full disagreement with that kind of a belief system. Because logically, it means if God calls 50 different ministers, He will give them 50 different messages each; tailor-made just for them. That would also mean 50 different gospels from the same God. Can you imagine how many years and how many people the Lord is currently using; all running with different messages for their ministries? Such a mess!
It is my responsibility to remind you, brethren, that there is one faith, and one Gospel, as per our cited verse above. That means as much the good Lord calls different men from different backgrounds, and with different personalities, the message they are called to proclaim, however, is the same. It’s the Gospel of our salvation!
It’s a false idea that some preachers are called to preach about salvation and call men to repentance, while others are called away from that message to only preach about success and blessings. You will not find that in Scripture. Instead, you will find two good examples to support my point: Paul and Peter. One is defined as an Apostle to the Gentiles, while the other is the Apostle to the circumcision (Gal 2:7-8). Yet there is zero evidence of them claiming to preach different messages. Here is the proof.
Galatians 2:2 - And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.
Notice that our Apostle admits that he received the Gospel through a private revelation. However, he saw it necessary to make the long journey to Jerusalem, just to confirm that he had indeed received, and was preaching the same message as the other servants of the Gospel. The fact that he was concerned about the content of his message on its own should be exemplary to us. It means my message has to align with other Gospel ministers or else something is wrong. Therefore, either somebody is a minister of that same Gospel of Peter and Paul, or he is an imposter. It’s either you are a part of this faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints or you are just an intruder claiming to belong. The reason why people comfort themselves in this kind of a crooked idea is that they do realize that what they preach is not the Gospel at all. The word salvation or repentance is far from their lips as Jerusalem is from Babylon. Hence their only defense is, “Don’t worry, I have not been called to preach that message. My calling is different.”
Again I warn you, God would never call someone to ignore this great Gospel and run with something different. That’s more like what Satan would do. In fact, still on the same context in the book of Galatians, Paul pronounces a damming curse to anyone – even an angel himself – who preaches any other gospel apart from the Gospel of our salvation (Gal 1:8-9). It's men who have looked at this message of our salvation and found no pleasure in it because it doesn’t align with their agendas, hence they concocted clever ways to twist the truth of God’s word until false doctrines like the prosperity gospel became the face of Christianity. Do we ever consider the seriousness of these things, my dear Christian friends?
These are my last words: If what you are preaching is not the one and only Gospel of Jesus, it’s not a different message you have been called for but it's heresy. I repeat, if you are not building your ministry on the Gospel of our salvation, don’t comfort yourself that you have a different calling but fear that you are guilty of growing your ministry on a false gospel. Therefore, let of us all watch our lives, even more, let each of us watch our doctrine closely. Salute.
Sinothi Ncube
Related Content...
Comments
Post a Comment