Recent events have left a great many people filled with disgust, fear, anxiety and a host of other emotions. I could be writing this on any given number of dates due to recent actions taken by a group of people. I could be writing on December 8, 1941 or I could be writing on September 12, 2001. I could be writing after the first atomic bomb was detonated over a city filled with people. I cold be writing after the sinking of the Titanic. In other words, history is filled with instances of vile deeds that leave us wondering what is going on. One of the local pastors has mentioned that the Gospel is not being preached in our area or in our land or for that matter, not in the world. Oh, we go to church and we have rituals that we follow, but there seems to be a lack of the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are left with a feeling that things need to be changed and everyone has their own idea of how to do it. There probably are about 7 billion different solutions, perhaps an exaggeration of the number, but everyone seems to have their own idea as to how to fix the problem. First Corinthians 15:1-2 says, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”
The Apostle Paul had the answer back 2,000 years ago as we see here in the letter to the church at Corinth. The Pastor was right when he said that the Gospel is not being preached. This means that a large part of the problem exists because of what is going on in the pulpits of churches around the world. Rituals, traditions, robes, gold, silver, music, incense and repetitive mantras aren't going to change the world but the Gospel will. Even if you are liberal in your counting of Christians around the world, there as still only one third of all the people are believers today That leaves about two thirds of 7.6 billion people who are not believers. Now how on earth are we going to convert that many people in order to eradicate the problems of society. The Apostle did it by speaking to one person at at time for the most part. The church at Thessalonica was begun with the conversion of a woman praying down by the riverside and next a young girl that had been possessed with a demon, and then the jailer at the broken down prison. When I came to this city, there were 144 Baptist churches, around 80 Methodist churches and about 40 Presbyterian churches. There are also about 300,000 people in this valley, many of which go to church but do not hear the gospel message. If there is any doubt as to what that message is, Paul went on to further define the “Gospel” in verses three and four. No one can wave a magic wand and instantly change the lives of 7.6 billion people but you can begin by changing the life on one. That one might be next door or around the corner from where you live. It might be the person who waited on you at a restaurant or the person who took your money at the cleaners or the grocery store. We may want to ask ourselves if we are part of the problem or are we part of the solution. Once a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, then comes the time of growth. When will any one of us master Philippians 4:8? When will we be able to love God with all of our hearts and all of our minds? While we may be feeling so inadequate to do the job, we can still begin with our own hearts from where every you and I are in our spiritual walk with God. Then, we can go out with instruction of 1 Peter 3:15, being ready to give an answer for the faith that we have in God and we can share the Gospel as did the Apostles in the primitive church that turned the world upside down in their day. The answer seems too simple but it is still the answer. Only God can change hearts and believe it or not, He has chosen you and me to help do the job of spreading the message of the Gospel to others.
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