What would we say is our gospel message? It’s certainly different from the mainstream. Because we strive to understand the biblical Hebrew outlook on things, we don’t see the fundamental human need the same. For us, it’s not about sins, guilt and penalties, but a mortal nature that enslaves you to our Enemy. We typically say something like this: “Embrace feudal submission to Christ as Lord. You must grasp the necessity of vanquishing your fallen nature to enslave it to a higher purpose. This higher purpose is that you love His people the way He does; that’s the whole Covenant.”
Those three items are difficult to separate. It won’t sound like what anyone else says. I realize that this calls for a bit of explanation that might not easily fit in a tract like the “Four Spiritual Laws” or something similar. The beginning point is simply assuming that most people can understand the notion of kneeling before Christ and declaring Him Lord. That’s the foundation of redemption in terms of the individual experience.
Whether or not that can really take hold in the hearer’s life is a matter for the Lord to handle. We can help explain what’s entailed, but we cannot make it happen, nor can the person trying it. Only the Lord can enable that kind of faith. It’s a free gift from Him to His Elect.
We should never get the idea that we can talk someone into this. It’s not conversion; it’s the birth of a whole new existence.
When the Apostles spread out across their world, virtually everyone shared certain common assumptions about reality. The early believers knew that their message was commonly accepted in form, if not in the specifics. Everyone understood a universe populated with spirit beings as the ultimate powers over human fate. Thus, the terms of their message was already well understood. It was just a matter of announcing a fresh offer from yet another deity. Any miracles were an acceptable proof for their contention that Christ was the ultimate ruler in Heaven.
But the greatest miracle, of course, was that people would respond. It was not always compelling against the testimony of other deities and their alleged miracles. Everyone believed in at least one deity already. The only question was whether they would shift their loyalty to Christ. That such a shift in feudal loyalty was also viewed as a threat by some governments was taken for granted.
That common public understanding is long gone. We aren’t dealing with a world where everyone can grasp the deep background of Hebrew cosmology. There are no common elements. Worse, that background is now foreign to just about everyone who claims to follow Christ, as well. Somewhere along the path, the philosophical assumptions shifted dramatically. If you quote English language Scriptures as your gospel message today, it’s guaranteed it won’t mean what the Apostles were sharing in their day, neither to the speaker nor the hearers.
We are compelled to distinguish our message from the mistaken one already standing everywhere you go now. I would suggest that the starting place is your life under the Covenant, demonstrating the power of your message before you even open your mouth. People need to see that we are different from the rest. They need to see the fire of commitment, AKA faith, to Christ’s law of love. Our sense of purpose and aplomb in the midst of any chaos is the strongest testimony we can have.
Should anyone ask, you should be ready to start with the simple message of feudal submission to Christ as Lord. That in itself would probably take some explaining. The primary issue is that you avoid the westernized worries about sin and guilt, and lean more toward the issue of overcoming a fleshly nature that will not play along with genuinely following Christ. It requires conceptually distinguishing oneself from the mortal fleshly nature.
You need to address the issues that hinder the individual to whom you are talking. There’s no way we can make this a memorized spiel. Submission to Christ is not democratic; everyone has different struggles with the Devil.
Submission to Christ means you’ll pay any price, go anywhere, and do anything He demands — sight unseen. Serving Christ is a black box before you get inside. The entrance is nailing your fleshly nature to the Cross. There is no peace otherwise, because the whole world is Satan’s turf. You aren’t entering an institution with rules, but the personal submission to someone who loves you and knows you better than you know yourself. Faith defies human logic. People come to faith because they can’t ignore the calling that burns in their souls.
I can’t give you a snappy little pamphlet. You need to be able to keep it simple. Let them ask questions and be ready to answer them. Your best answers will always be how you have handled things so far. You can always talk about the Unseen Realm and Three Rebellions later. Not to hide it, but to prevent overwhelming them. Don’t be afraid to address those things if anyone asks. They aren’t joining an institution for personal growth, but an eternal covenant family to reclaim stolen lives. There are no shortcuts.
