Apathy over the Gospel

Apathy over the Gospel

What do we boast in? What drives the zeal in our blogs, ministries, sermons? Is it the Gospel or is it our cause? The Cross centered life requires we be aware of apathy in our hearts toward the Gospel. If we come away from this quotation in self-righteous pride, we’ve missed the point altogether.

“ … as sad as it always is to read of someone abandoning the gospel for the false pretenses of Rome, it really does not surprise me when it happens. Why? Because we live in a day when the faithful are being tested as they were in Elijah’s day. If you do not passionately love the truth, God is under no obligation to continue to allow you to possess it. And how many do we see in the post-evangelical world who are truly passionate about the truth of the gospel? Oh, folks may be very passionate about their particular cause, but there is a vast difference between being cause-passionate and being gospel-passionate. There is little difference between the zeal that consumes basketball fans this time of year and that which is created by a particular cultural ‘cause.’ But the gospel is different. It speaks of attributes of God’s character that the natural man does not have the capacity to truly love. It strikes at the heart of man’s arrogance, it removes, by its emphasis upon powerful, effective, sovereign grace, any ground of boasting in the man. But over time, if one is apathetic about the truth of the gospel, God may well bring judgment to bear in causing one to love a lie. And surely, anyone who has gazed in awe at the grandeur of the finished work of Christ in the light of the eternal decree of a holy and just God, who can then ‘trade that in’ for the endless treadmill of Rome’s sacramental system, the unfinished work of the Mass, and the specter of satispassio in purgatory, is one far beyond my comprehension and understanding. I truly pray for Dr. B…’s restoration, but more so, I pray God will once again cause His people to recognize the centrality of the truths of the gospel so that others may not fall into the same temptations to trade in the reality of peace with God for the empty facade of Roman piety.”