Graham Associate Preaches Humanistic Gospel
© Way of Life Literature
This article is posted with permission, from Way Of Life Literature . This article
is from the O' Timothy Computer Library by David Cloud. It is an excellent resource for
Christians who are taking a faithful stand and contending for the faith. I have found the O' Timothy Computer Library
and the Way of Life Encyclopedia
of the Bible and Christianity, based upon the King James Version and written from an
uncompromising, Bible believing position, to be invaluable tools for study, apologetics
and helping others in these confusing times. The following material is from O Timothy
magazine, Volume 11, Issue 6, 1994. David W. Cloud, Editor. All rights are reserved by the
author. O Timothy is a monthly magazine. Annual subscription is US$20 FOR THE UNITED
STATES. Send to Way of Life Literature, Bible Baptist Church, 170 Harns Road, Oak Harbor,
Washington 98277, Telephone: (360) 675-8311.
Some friends in British Columbia sent us a packet of material exposing the
ecumenical compromise of the Ralph Bell Crusade which was held in Victoria, B.C., November
1993. Bell is an affiliate of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Typical Ecumenical Evangelism
There was the typical uniting of evangelical, charismatic, modernistic,
and Roman Catholic churches. The United Church of Canada (UCC) participated. This is one
of the most liberal of all denominations. The UCC has formally voted to ordain homosexuals
and has apologized to native American Indians for bringing the gospel to them, believing
that missionary work unnecessarily disrupted their heathen "spirituality."
Catholics were also involved in the Bell crusade. They served in the
choir, and those who came forward at the invitations were guided back to "the church
of their choice," including Catholic churches.
Bell delivered a sermon at Christ the King Catholic Church in Courtenay,
B.C., Oct. 24, 1993. "Priest John Laszczyk presided over this event, assisted by the
pastor of St. Peter's Anglican Church ... Two members of a local Mennonite Brethren church
were also present on the `altar,' one of whom conducted the choir, the other providing her
testimony'" (Nigel Parton, "An Open Letter to Pastor Ron Michalski, Glad Tiding
Pentecostal Church").
An announcement in the St. Joseph's Parish bulletin said: "CATCH THE
VISION" with Billy Graham Associate Evangelist Ralph Bell today at 3:30 p.m. in
Memorial Arena. Catholics are involved in the Crusade. Bring a friend or neighbour who
does not know Jesus in their lives, or just come on your own to experience the `Good News'
message again and wonderful singing.'"
This is typical Catholic jargon. The Catholic does not receive Jesus
Christ once-for-all in the new birth; he receives "Jesus" many times--in
baptism, in the mass, in confession, in all sorts of religious contexts. Thus the
announcement encourages Catholics to "experience the `Good News' again." The
problem is that a person has either experienced the Gospel once for all, or he has never
experienced it at all!
Priest Laszczyk, in announcing "the blessing" over the Bell
meeting in his congregation, said, "I pray, Father, that you would open each and
every heart here to once again accept ... Christ as Lord and Savior." This is what
the Catholic Church means when it talks about receiving Christ--a repeated, but never
completed, sacramental acceptance of Christ.
An Ecumenical, Humanistic Gospel
The thing that especially caught my eye in this report was the gospel
message Bell preached. It was not the Bible gospel of repentance and faith in blood of
Jesus Christ. It should not surprise us, of course, that the true Gospel was not preached
in this context. If Bell was preaching a sound Gospel and getting people soundly
converted, the Romanists and Modernists would avoid him like the plague!
Though Bell mentioned such Bible terms as faith and sin and the blood of
Christ, such references are meaningless in an ecumenical context if not clearly explained
AND contrasted with the false gospels held by apostate denominations.
To communicate the gospel clearly in such a situation the evangelist must
say something to this effect: "The Bible demands faith in the blood of Jesus
Christ--not faith in a re-sacrifice of Christ on a Roman altar, but faith in the
once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on Calvary; not faith in a helpless Christ of the
crucifix, but faith in the all-powerful Christ of the resurrection; not faith in baptism
or a church or a priest or a sacrament, but faith in the risen Christ and in His
all-sufficient Atonement; not faith which believes a man is saved partly by Christ and
partly by his own religious endeavors, but faith exclusively and entirely in Christ."
The evangelist who refuses to define the Gospel plainly in the hour in
which we live is a compromiser and a traitor to the Truth. He knows that the false
teachers will follow along behind him and redefine every word he says. (If he doesn't know
this he is too ignorant to be in the ministry.) If he therefore does not make himself
unquestionably plain in these matters of eternal consequence, it is obvious that he fears
man more than God and is more concerned for the feelings of the "clergy" than
the eternal destiny of the souls before him.
When Bell preached on sin, he came woefully short of any biblical
definition. He said: "You see, the problem is not that we are bad people. The problem
is that we are living our lives independent of God. Now that's what sin is." A half
truth is often a lie. While it is true that sin is living independently of God (Isaiah
53:6), that fact alone is not a proper definition of sin. It is a lie to say that we are
not bad people! The sinner is a bad person. That is our problem. We are bad. We are evil.
Jesus said the sinner is evil (Lk. 11:13). The Bible describes the sinner in awful terms
(Rom. 3:9-18; Eph. 2:1-4; Ps. 51:5; 58:3; Jer. 17:9; Is. 59:1-8; 64:6). To pamper the
sinner by telling him he is not truly bad comforts him in his self-delusion and is
wickedness. The sinner in his natural state does not think he is truly bad; he knows he
has problems and knows he needs some help; but he does not think he is an evil person. A
proper, biblical self-understanding can only come through the proper preaching of the
Gospel and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It will never come through the kind of
preaching we find at ecumenical rallies.
Bell also defined sin as a hunger for God. "We also have a spiritual
hunger deep down inside for God that food and water and sex can never satisfy." Bell
said, "The pain of our sin manifests itself in loneliness, in guilt, in emptiness and
boredom and a lack of fulfillment and a lack of direction and a lack of meaning to our
lives and these are all warnings that you and I need a physician who can meet the basic
needs of our heart, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ."
Why does the Bible never present the Gospel in this manner? It is because
this is not the Gospel. The Bible never invites the sinner to come to Christ as a
felt-need fulfiller. The Bible demands that the sinner repent of his sin and bow before
Christ as Lord. Study the sermons in the Bible and you will see what I am saying. In his
sermon on Mars Hill, Paul did not mention the felt needs of the Athenians. He pointed out
their idolatry and their sin and proclaimed: "And the times of this ignorance God
winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a
day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath
ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from
the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).
In "drawing the net," Bell invited the sinner in this manner:
"If God is speaking to you, the only thing that matters is to settle that feeling
once and for all--to nail it down and open your heart to Him." What does this mean?
What does it mean "to settle that feeling"? "The feeling" could be
every sort of emotion apart from true Holy Spirit-wrought repentance. Where in the Bible
did the Apostles invite sinners to "To open your heart to Him"? Who is
"Him"? In an ecumenical context, "Him" could mean the Jesus wafer of
the Catholic mass, the humanistic god of modernism, or the false Jesus of a cult.
his is not "nit-picking." We live in a horribly confused hour.
The Lord Jesus Christ warned that error in the last hours would be so convincing that even
the elect would be in danger of being deceived (Matt. 24:24). For a preacher today to
refuse to be particular about the details of the gospel is to invite deception.
Bell and company are preaching a false, humanistic gospel, my friends.
Their converts are coming to an unbiblical Christ, a Christ that does not demand
repentance from sin. No wonder their preaching is acceptable to modernists and Romanists.
No wonder their converts are comfortable in apostate denominations. No wonder they can all
use the same "plan of salvation." No wonder they don't care about polluted Bible
versions. It is NOT the Bible plan of salvation.
Fundamental Baptists Preaching Humanistic Gospel
Many fundamental Baptists are using a gospel plan which is all too similar
to this ecumenical gospel. If a man fails to preach repentance and intimates that sinners
merely need to "receive Jesus," if he fails clearly to define the Gospel in
contradiction to the error which abounds on every side, he is preaching a false gospel no
matter how sincere he is and no matter what he calls himself. Ecclesiastical
labels--whether Evangelical, Independent Baptist, Fundamentalist, or whatever--do not
approve us to God; it is our commitment to the Word of God which approves us to Him.
email