Speaking of the Gospel....
In between Newsboys and Tenth Avenue North set they had a massive set change. While that was taking place, Tony Nolan came out to give his evangelistic message geared up especially for lost teenagers. Somewhere from his walk from backstage to center stage he must have forgotten something. What did he forget? The Gospel. Because what he preached wasn't the Gospel - at least not the kind that Jesus and Paul taught.
He came out with a $50 bill. He asked if anyone had a penny. Some kid came up on stage and traded him the penny for the "fity." "That's a great deal, right?" he asked. "Well God has a great deal for you too!" The rest went something like this (my paraphrase): Do you guys want to go to hell??? "Noooo!" everyone answered. Well Jesus came so you don't have to! What a deal! Wanna go to heaven??? "Yeaaaaah!!!" everyone answered. Well, pray this prayer, ask Jesus into your heart and you're in!
Then I threw up a little and probably said somethings in my mind that I need to repent of. Heck, I might need to repent of this post. If I do, someone call me out on it.
So what's wrong with what he said? Well, for starters he never talked about sin, repentance, and barely mentioned Jesus. It was a numbers driven, easy believeism, cheap grace gospel. Then he had everyone in the building "pray the prayer." He prefaced his sinner's prayer with, "there's nothing magical about this prayer." Great. Glad you mentioned that. However, everything that followed said otherwise. "If you prayed that prayer then you're in!" "Yeaaaaah!!!" everyone answered. Now, "If you deny Jesus before men, he'll deny you before the Father. So if you said that prayer, don't deny Jesus, and stand up to make it public!"
More regurgitation and more repentance.
What's worse, three of the students that were with me were/are lost. They all prayed and stood on command. Later I asked them about it and they couldn't tell me the first thing about what he said or why they stood. They just did because everyone else did. I was semi-glad that the didn't get it because I didn't want to have to tell them what they did wasn't the real thing. Well, who knows. I guess someone could have gotten saved. God has worked in spite of my stupidity many times. I suppose the same could be true of Sunday night.
Why is this such a big deal? Getting a bunch of sugar-hyped, emotionally high, concert-going teenagers to pray a prayer about not going to hell is not the gospel that leads to salvation. This is the type of message that has given false hope to thousands of teenagers over the past decades and is the reason we have so many dying, apathetic, and lost churches in this country with "members" who don't need church, or Jesus for that matter, because they prayed a prayer. "I prayed a prayer, stood up, and walked an aisle when I was 13. I'm saved right?" Have you turned from your sin and trusted Christ? "I guess, but I just want to go to heaven." That's the problem. We've made heaven the goal of salvation and not Jesus. Heaven has become our American Idol. Just get me to heaven. What about surrendering to and following Jesus as Lord and Savior? What about repenting of your sin? SALVATION IS NOT ABOUT GOING TO HEAVEN!!! Heaven is a perk. Right standing and a restored relationship with the Creator of the universe is the goal. I don't mean to make little of heaven. It will surely be great. But heaven without God on the throne isn't any kind of paradise that I want to be a part of. Heaven without God is just a place. A boring noun. If I want a God-less paradise I'll head to Key West. Besides, who wants to go to hell? No one. Then why isn't everyone saved? Because being saved isn't about not going to hell. It's not about praying a prayer that's not magical. Its not about being guilted into standing up so some ministry can say that 20,000 kids got saved on our tour.
My prayer after leaving there was that those kids that are truly seeking after God have some good youth ministers or parents that can lead them to Jesus not simply away from the flames of hell.
5 comments:
No need for you to repent of this post. It has awesomesauce all over it.
"Right standing and a restored relationship with the Creator of the universe is the goal." -Amen!
When Bobby Bowden spoke at our church I was disappointed because his message was "if you don't want to go to hell, pray this simple prayer." Scary.
Awesome! We are currently in the middle of restoring healthy church membership at our church. So many of our "inactive" members have false assurance bc of situations like what you wrote about.
Amen! Beholding the face of Jesus Christ in perfect righteousness is heaven, not just the absence of flame and torment and some subjective notion of bliss. That's righteous anger you've got, no need to repent from this passion, brother.
i totally agree with others on the fact that the anger you are feeling is godly and i'm glad that the teenagers that were there with you have someone in their life who can lead them to truth.
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