Don’t Preach a D- Gospel
When you were in school, an “F” meant that you flunked the class, but a “D” meant that you “met minimum requirements.” A “D-” was as close as you could get to the precipice of flunking without actually flunking. Many people today preach a “D-” gospel that gives people enough to “meet minimum requirements” to enter heaven – the knowledge that they must receive Jesus as Lord. Sadly, some preachers who know about the power of God have gone “seeker-friendly” in an effort to lure more hearers, reasoning that it is better to preach almost nothing to a large crowd than to preach everything to a small crowd. Why would anyone who knows the power of God do such a thing? Let us consider the case of evangelist Dennis Myness of Safer County for some insights.
He heard a man say that the key to power was getting all the churches together in unity. To his knowledge, such a thing had never happened in Safer County, and he was excited about putting on a county-wide evangelistic crusade with at least the vast majority most of the real churches participating. (He realized that fake churches like the local Unitarian Universalist house of deception didn’t count.) He found a field he could use free of charge thanks to a local farmer’s generosity and he tentatively scheduled a 3-day crusade for Labor Day weekend.
His first contact was the pastor of First Denominational Church in his town. The FDC pastor, himself a born-again believer, was delighted at the prospect of a county-wide revival meeting. He did have one concern, though. “You aren’t going to preach anything peculiar to one denomination, are you?” he asked. Rev. Myness thought a minute. That seemed like a good point. If he preached anything peculiar to one denomination, he would alienate all the other churches and lose their support. “No,” said Rev. Myness, “I promise we will not preach any denomination-specific doctrine. We will only preach the plan of salvation and exalt Jesus.” “Sign me up!” said the pastor.
His next stop was Central Community Church, which was non-denominational, though it was basically a “hip” version of First Denominational that featured loud music with live rock musicians to appeal to a younger crowd while preaching the same doctrine using language preferred by twentysomethings. Rev. Myness explained his intentions again. “Sounds great,” said the CCC pastor. “One thing, though, you know we aren’t good with that tongues stuff, right? You won’t be having people speak in tongues, will you?” Rev. Myness thought again. Most churches in the county thought that tongues had been done away with, or worse, were of the devil. He would lose the support of almost everyone if he had people speaking in tongues. But, he reasoned, you don’t need to speak in tongues to get people saved, and people don’t need to speak in tongues to be saved. These meetings were all about getting people saved. The “advanced” stuff could wait until later. So Rev. Myness conceded, “OK, I will make sure that we don’t allow speaking in tongues in this crusade.”
On he went to Contemporary Gospel Mission, a charismatic church where tongues were welcome. The CGM pastor was actually disappointed that tongues would not be allowed at the meetings, but he understood the argument that the concession was necessary to promote unity in the Body of Christ. “I’m OK with what you’re doing,” he said, “but just one thing. You know we aren’t good with this faith and healing stuff that we see on TV. You aren’t intending to have those prayer lines with people waiting to catch people who fall over, are you?” Rev. Myness swallowed hard. He knew that Jesus had given believers authority to heal the sick. He had actually looked forward to signs and wonders as the sick were ministered to, and after all, wasn’t that the whole point of unity – that it would produce powerful signs and wonders? But now he knew he’d lose the supporter closest to his theology if he had healing lines. Then he had a thought. If unity produces signs and wonders, God should perform those signs and wonders without human intervention, right? So there would not actually be a need for healing lines or the preaching of faith and healing. God would just supernaturally inhabit the united worship, heal people, and no one could complain because it wouldn’t be the preacher’s preaching or laying hands on anyone that caused the miracles. “OK,” he said, “I promise we won’t have any healing lines, and I won’t preach faith or healing – only the new birth.” “I’m in!” said the CGM pastor.
The pastor of Old Rugged Cross Tabernacle had an interesting question. “Where will you send the new believers?” Rev. Myness thought for a minute that the best place would be a Spirit-filled church like Contemporary Gospel Mission, but he couldn’t send everyone there because the other pastors wouldn’t support him if he did. “We’ll just send people to whatever church is closest to them,” he said, “so ALL the churches can get new members.” This pleased the ORCT pastor, who signed up to participate. Rev. Myness thought to himself, “Well, at least SOME people will go to a church that believes in miracles, and if the price of that is putting some live chicks under dead hens, so be it.”
Rev. Myness then emailed the pastor of the recently-popular Kingdom Xpress Speed Church to tell him about his plans for Spirit-less county-wide evangelistic services. Kingdom Xpress had exploded with its popular model of rushing through a once-a-week quick rock concert followed by a life-changing sermonette, ensuring that people were out the door quickly so that they could do what they REALLY wanted to do on Sunday, which apparently was not worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. People enjoyed the low expectations; members were told that they could just watch the worship, live or online, as opposed to participating. The pastor wrote back and promised to mention the services on social media. (Time was too precious during the accelerated services to announce the meetings live.) It was not a problem that Rev. Myness’s meetings would be without a single Holy Spirit manifestation, as there was a 0% chance of ever seeing one at Kingdom Xpress anyway.
Rev. Myness continued covering the county and got similar reactions. He ended up with 35 churches supporting his meeting. To his knowledge, that was many times the number of churches that had ever gotten together for anything in Safer County. (That was mainly due to the fact that the majority of new churches in Safer County were founded by disgruntled members of other churches in Safer County who had split off to form their own new “church plants” and no longer associated with the churches that they were responsible for splitting.)
So out went the flyers, “Find out how to have new life in Christ! Come hear the preaching of Rev. D. Myness under the big tent at the Jones Farm this Labor Day Weekend.” Of course, the flyers could not refer to miracles or other such controversial topics.
Labor Day Weekend came and the meetings went on. Rev. Myness carefully laid out the plan of escaping hell (though not any other aspects of what the Bible calls salvation) in a direct, yet witty manner, complete with a fast-moving multimedia presentation that enthralled the video game generation attendees. And a few people even answered the altar call for salvation and rededication (both of which were counted as people saved in the stats they publicized after the meetings, as there was no way to tell the difference). However, most unbelievers who were there shrugged off the message and refused to take Rev. Myness seriously.
There were no signs and wonders. No one was expecting them. Of course, nothing was preached that would have encouraged faith for miracles, because such preaching was taboo. But at least there was unity for a change! Rev. Myness did have to conclude that he was wrong about the idea that unity among the churches would cause miracles to happen spontaneously without man’s involvement and without the preaching of anything that would build people’s faith for miracles. Faith still has to come by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17).
Some of the new converts fell away after a while. Some actually bought into concepts from eastern religions. You see, healing was not preached in the churches nearest them where they were sent, so if the people wanted to be healed and they were “prayed for” without result (or people “thought” their prayer requests at God during the Unspoken Prayer Request Time), they sought out the services of the new Yogareiki Total Holistic Wellness Healing Center downtown, one of many such places that had sprung up like weeds in the area because the supernatural was mostly unknown in church services. They even encouraged fellow church members to go and experience “real” results at this place. Down at First Denominational, where they actually knew better than to go to the eastern demonic healers, some new converts just got disillusioned with God as the preacher assured them that all the people dying did so because “the Lord took them” as part of His “perfect plan” for their lives. Deciding they didn’t want to serve a God who was “taking” some of their relatives in mid-life, and fearing being “taken” themselves, they just lost interest in attending after a while.
Now here’s a question. Was Rev. Myness wrong to do what he did? The biblical answer: ABSOLUTELY!
Jesus never told anyone to preach without signs and wonders. When He sent people out, He commanded them to heal the sick (Matthew 10:8, Luke 9:2, Luke 10:9). In fact, He ordered His followers NOT to go out until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49)! If the Holy Spirit weren’t important, Jesus would have told everyone to leave Jerusalem immediately and start preaching. Jesus preached with signs and wonders. The Twelve preached with signs and wonders. The Seventy preached with signs and wonders. The apostles preached with signs and wonders. Stephen and Philip, who weren’t apostles, preached with signs and wonders. Believers were ordered: “Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19) and “Forbid not to speak with tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39). Signs, including the healing of the sick, were to follow the preaching of the gospel to everyone (Mark 16:15-18). Anyone shutting out the Holy Spirit or forbidding tongues is disobeying direct New Testament commands! Anyone who preaches without first being baptized with the Holy Spirit is also out of line with the New Testament. Yes, this means that most preachers (in some countries at least) are out of touch with God’s real plan for their ministries. God has not told His church to preach a D- gospel for the sake of unity. Real unity – the “unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3) is not obtained by locking out the Spirit! How can you have unity of the Spirit without the Spirit?
Obviously, the Lord did not think that the masses would be reached without signs and wonders. Do we think the unsaved masses are any different today than they were back then? Why would He expect us to preach a powerless gospel today where we depend on the wisdom of men and their slick presentations? Do people not need to see the supernatural demonstrated through the church anymore? Why would we be expected to use the inferior methods of man’s imperfect medicine instead of a superior method? Are we so slick that our persuasive speech will accomplish what only signs and wonders used to accomplish? Are we wiser than Paul, who preached “not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4)? Is it worth squelching the supernatural for the sake of unity? Are we now to reverse the biblical pattern by preaching only slick multimedia-enhanced messages by man’s wisdom and NOT demonstrating the Spirit and power? Are we better at convicting people of sin than the Holy Spirit when He is allowed to move?
Rev. Myness got a decent crowd, but he got poor results. He blamed the unbelief of the people who attended, but there was another reason people didn’t believe his message. Jesus said in John 10:37, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.” In his efforts to please men, Rev. Myness did not do the works of the Father, and the people believed him not!
Granted, preaching with signs following can and will lose you the support of most churches. I believe that the Lord wants us to be bold and preach the gospel His way regardless of what men (even churched men) think. How can we change how preaching is done in our area when our preaching is powerless and blends in with everyone else’s powerless preaching? Those of us who know better have an obligation to be able to say with Paul, “I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27) and “I kept back nothing that was profitable” (Acts 20:20). Those of us who have more revelation along the lines of faith and healing are responsible to share what we know with others. We are not to preach a partial gospel or hold back anything that could be profitable to the hearers.
Some side issues are nonessential for divine healing, and it is unnecessary to raise a ruckus about them at meetings supported by multiple churches.
We must also realize that faith comes by hearing the gospel. The man in Acts 14:7-10 got faith to be healed listening to what Paul called “the gospel.” This could not have been a modern D- gospel because it produced in the man “faith to be healed.” The gospel must be more than the plan to avoid hell because Paul told the saints at Rome, whose faith was already world-famous and who were not headed for hell, that he wanted to preach the gospel to them!
Romans 1:8:
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
Romans 1:15:
So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
If we preach the full gospel, we’ll get full results. If we preach something watered-down, we’ll see watered-down results or no results. It’s not enough to just hope for a sprinkling of manifestations of the Spirit in a collective worship setting. Now that can and does happen and I’ve been around it, but you can also have such a setting with no miracles. You can see a LOT more people healed when you preach the Word about healing than you will if you just base your ministry on manifestations of the Spirit. We should preach healing AND expect the Spirit to manifest Himself. That is the New Testament pattern, per Mark 16:20.
Now if you pastor a church and a non-Spirit-filled preacher wants to organize a crusade in your town, I’m not telling you that it’s wrong to support such a meeting along with other non-Spirit-filled churches. The preacher may be a good exhorter and manage to lead some people to Christ, and that is better than having no one come to Christ. I would rather that someone hear a watered-down gospel and go to heaven rather than hear no gospel and go to hell. If that other man is reaching people you aren’t reaching, that’s a positive thing for your town. I have supported ministries that take the gospel overseas that don’t preach healing as I do because these ministries are reaching unreached people groups, and I have no issue if you do so. I would rather than someone be saved hearing part of the gospel than have him go to hell because no one preached the full gospel to him.
But if YOU are the preacher for a crusade, and you hold back what you know is profitable about healing, you’re in effect robbing the people of part of what Christ said to preach. That doesn’t mean that every message has to be about healing, but I would want to give the sick a chance to be healed by having hands laid on them in the name of Jesus. Such a meeting should ultimately produce far more results, including new births, than meetings where natural advertising is all there is, as opposed to God’s supernatural advertising.
Of course, if you’re a guest speaker, you have to honor the host pastor’s rules. If he says no tongues, prophecy or healing, then you don’t do them. I’ve been in that situation and usually people remark about how lively the preaching is, but I prefer a place where there is freedom to flow in my giftings freely over one where I feel like the Holy Spirit and I are in jail together. The easiest way to deal with restrictive opportunities is to turn them down.
You can preach to please men or you can preach to please God. I would rather please God if I have to choose between the two.