You are looking out the window of your third story office building and you notice a couple of firetrucks pull up as you then mention this to your colleague sitting at a nearby desk. He responds with: “Hmmm...that’s news”, just as your boss enters the room in a hurried manner. He adds to the conversation and says: “No, that is good news...we have a small fire that broke out in the lobby!”

Without being fully informed of the bad news first, then hearing about firetrucks parked out front was simply ‘news’. What made it ‘good news’ was being informed of the bad news. Does that make sense? This is why the gospel that Jesus came preaching really was ‘good news’, which is what that word (gospel) literally means- ‘good news or message’.

Friends, I don’t think we can fully appreciate just how good of news this message is without fully understanding the ‘bad news’ first; and I would submit to you in all humility that many of us were simply not taught just how dire and serious the ‘bad news’ of our situation was.

I have used on more than one occasion the illustration of a new home being built and on the day of closing, the new owners are informed that the foundation was laid and poured with absolutely no steel rebar in the slab. This would not be a ‘small thing’ by any stretch of the imagination. There would be no quick and easy ‘fix’ for this, like throwing extra dirt around the slab. And yet, in some ways, that is the gospel that many have been introduced to and brought up on when it comes to hearing the so called ‘good news’. It goes something like this: “We were all sinners – God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die as payment for our sins – If we ‘accept Him as savior’ we can go to heaven after we die and live forever. If not, we go to hell. “Accepting Christ’ sounds like such an ‘easy fix’, does it not?

There’s just one problem with that version- It’s not the gospel Jesus came preaching, nor the gospel the early church fathers proclaimed. And the serious tragedy unfolding here is that many people think that just ‘praying that prayer of acceptance’ will ‘fix everything’, just like a person who thinks piling extra dirt around a deficient slab will solve their foundation problem. There’s a reason we are warned repeatedly throughout scripture: Be Not Deceived!

Fortunately, we are living in a time where God is starting to wake up a sleeping ‘church’, similar to what we read about in the parable of the Ten Virgins in Matt. 25. And when God sends out a warning cry, it is not to incite panic and dread, rather it is to move us into action, or dare I use the word ‘obedience’? I would also submit to you for prayerful study and consideration (Acts 17:11) that the reason we don’t see ‘our gospels’ being ‘confirmed with signs following’ today...like they did in the book of Acts and Mark 16:15-20 is because we’ve been preaching ‘another gospel’; and God is not going to confirm a false gospel!

May I leave you with a sobering warning to consider before we continue on tomorrow, Lord willing? The gospel Jesus came preaching came with a command for us to ‘repent’. (Matt. 4:17; Acts 17:30). And what did Jesus say would happen if we failed to truly repent? (Luke 13:1-5). And what did Peter say would happen if we failed to hear (and do) what this Prophet (Jesus) had to say, in all things? (Acts 3:19-23). Join me tomorrow?