The Gospel Series
Gospel Media Tracts From Worldwide Mission Fellowship
1. What is the Gospel
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
What is the gospel? Do we know what the word means? Can we be 100% sure? Is there a source of objective truth to confirm the nature of the gospel? How important is the Gospel today? All these questions can and will be answered definitively in today's presentation so hold onto your seat as we go on the journey of a lifetime to find "The Gospel".
2. Can the Bible be Trusted
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
The Bible is the source of objective truth against which we can measure all beliefs, ideas and opinions to test their validity. How can we make such a bold statement. Well we have 5 clear proofs that the Bible IS God's verified Word. 1. Bibliographical or Documentary evidence 2. Scientific evidence 3. Archaeological evidence 4. Fulfilled Prophecy 5. Empirical evidence
3. Bibliographical / Documentary Evidence
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
The Old Testament The original Bible manuscripts (called autographs) were written on material such as papyrus, which deteriorated quickly. Consequently, scribes were needed to copy and recopy the Old Testament books letter by letter. These copyists knew they were duplicating God’s Word, so they went to incredible lengths to prevent error from creeping into their work. The whole process of recopying the Bible was controlled by strict religious rituals, and the scribes carefully counted every line, word, syllable, and letter to ensure accuracy. As a result of their diligence, the Old Testament in our Bible today is virtually identical to the autographs. Bible scholars have demonstrated this by comparing ancient copies of the Bible with more recent copies. For example, prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts in 1947, the oldest existing (extant) Old Testament manuscript was the Massoretic Text, dated around a.d. 900. But with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament were found, many of them dating back to around 150 b.c., a thousand years earlier. One of the most important manuscript discoveries was two copies of Isaiah. So far they are the oldest known copies of any complete book of the Bible. What did textual critics discover when they compared the Dead Sea manuscripts of Isaiah with the Isaiah preserved in the Massoretic Text dated a thousand years later? Old Testament scholar Gleason Archer provides the answer: “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave number one near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (a.d. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.” From manuscript discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls, Christians have undeniable evidence that today’s Old Testament Scripture, for all practical purposes, is exactly the same as it was when originally inspired by God and recorded in the Bible. The New Testament We do not posses any of the autographs of the New Testament. Like the Old Testament, the New Testament books were originally written on materials that quickly wore out and therefore had to be copied and recopied by hand for centuries before the invention of the printing press. So we need to determine how closely the existing copies represent the autographs. That is, how do we know that the New Testament we have today is close enough to the original writings as to be equally reliable? One of the areas of evidence has to do with the available number of New Testament manuscripts. What we discover is that there are more extant New Testament manuscripts than any other document from antiquity. More than 24,000 partial and complete copies of the New Testament are in existence today. By comparison, the ancient document second in number of available copies is the Iliad, which has only 643 surviving manuscripts. And this number is extremely high compared to other ancient documents. In fact, there are enough quotations from the early church fathers that even if we did not have a single copy of the Bible, scholars could still reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material written within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ.
4. Archeological Evidence
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
Archaeology has proven that Israel derives its ancestry from-Mesopotamia, as the Bible teaches (Gen. 11:27–12:4). Archaeology suggests that the world’s languages likely arose from a common origin, as Genesis 11 implies. Jericho, and several other cities mentioned in the Old Testament, previously thought to be legendary by skeptics, have now been discovered by archaeologists. This is just a very small sample from a large list of discoveries made in this field which corroborate the veracity of the Bible
5. Fulfilled Prophecy
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
Fulfilled prophecies give clear attestation to the hand of God in human history and are some of the most important evidences for the historical reliability and truthfulness of the Old Testament. The Bible is the only religious document in existence that provides more than two thousand prophecies that validate its historical claims. These prophecies deal with Jesus Christ, the nation of Israel, other nations (e.g., Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome), cities (e.g., Tyre and Babylon), and even people (e.g., Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus). Of course, some other religions make prophetic claims, however, in no other religion in the world has prophecy been fulfilled so completely and so accurately as that recorded in the Bible.
6. Scientific Evidence
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
Contrary to the propaganda heard through the popular media, Science when used honestly always points to the truth of the bible... here is just one example Historically, the most convincing evidence for evolution is the fossil record. Evolutionists claim that the fossil record displays a gradual evolution of animal and plant life from primitive forms to complex forms with transitional phases between major classes (e.g., between fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and birds, and so on). But this scenario has no support. There is no evidence that complex life forms evolve from primitive life forms because no such transitional species between any of these groups of animals have ever been found in the tons of fossil-bearing rock recovered over the past one hundred thirty years. We will cover science and the bible in a later production, in the mean time we suggest Answers In Genesis as a trustworthy resource on this subject.
7. Empirical Evidence
WWMF Media
The greatest external evidence of the truth of God word is the testimony and experience of those who have been impacted by it's message. With all this in view it is clear the the Bible is proven as the only source of objective truth and will be used as our source of absolute authority as we continue on our quest to find the Gospel as defined by the scriptures and consider it's implications for our lives today.
9. What is the Gospel
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
"And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people." (Matthew 4:23, ESV) "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." (Mark 1:1, ESV) "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed," (Luke 4:18, ESV) "But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." (Acts 8:12, ESV) "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God," (Romans 1:1, ESV) "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."" (Romans 1:16-17, ESV) As we can see from the verses we have just seen and heard, the word Gospel is used often in the New Testament. In fact this is just a small sample of over 90 occurrences of the word. It was the first imperative of the ministry of John the Baptist, The Lord Jesus Christ, The Apostle Peter and The apostle Paul. To understand the meaning of this word we need to ensure we are interpreting the use of the word in context to the passages where the word is found or as Pastor Dennis Greenidge warns "When we take a scripture out of context all we are left with is a pretext" Lets focus on just the last verse from Romans chapter one verses 16-17. Paul says he is not ashamed of the Gospel which means the gospel is something tangible or that has substance and is definitive rather than a loosely defined idea, to the point that a person might feel shame over it. He goes on to say it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. What is the object of belief here? The Bible is clear, the object of belief is the message to be found in the Gospel (or the Goods News).
10. The Content Of The Gospel
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
Now we have looked at the Meaning of the word we need to explore the content of the gospel, lets hear from Pastor Dennis Greenidge and Pastor Rosemary Taylor. Dennis Greenidge is the Senior Pastor and Rosemary Taylor the Pastor at Worldwide Mission Fellowship in London England and have over 60 years experience of preaching the Gospel around the world.
12. A Summary Of The Gospel
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
In summary we have established that the core of the Gospel that brings salvation is the message of what God has done to save those who will put their trust in Him through the finished work of His Son Jesus Christ's death, burial and resurrection. Saving them from the bondage of sin in this life and the penalty of sin which is hell in the afterlife. Instead giving them the beautiful reward of relationship with God, communion and eternal life to enjoy fellowship with God in heaven forever. “The supreme demonstration of God’s love was the sending of his Son to die for our sins and to rise again so that sinners might have the right to approach God and might have the pleasure of his presence forever” God is the Gospel by John Piper(p. 14).
14. The Other Gospels
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:6-8, ESV) We have heard about the great story of Gods love for the world which was demonstrated through the death, burial and resurrection of His son Jesus Christ. However the sad truth is that we live in a world where there are many other Gospels to choose from, each of them deceptive and dangerous... these include the false gospels from world religions, philosophies, cults and even the church... at the turn of the century in the downgrade controversy Charles Spurgeon mentioned the type of twisting of the Gospel he saw in his day The idea of a progressive gospel seems to have fascinated many. To us that notion is a sort of cross-breed between nonsense and blasphemy. After the gospel has been found effectual in the eternal salvation of untold multitudes, it seems rather late in the day to alter it; and, since it is the revelation of the all-wise and unchanging God, it appears somewhat audacious to attempt its improvement. When we call up before our mind's eye the gentlemen who have set themselves this presumptuous task, we feel half inclined to laugh; the case is so much like the proposal of moles to improve the light of the sun.... Do men really believe that there is a gospel for each century? Or a religion for each fifty years? We are charged in scripture to defend the faith and expose the schemes of the http://enemy.jude Verse 3 states "Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 3, ESV) and Paul reminds us in Ephesians to.. "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." (Ephesians 5:11, ESV) there are so many false Gospels in the world today that it would be impossible to look at all of them so we have summarized them into four categorizes 1. Good People (Moralist + False Religion) 2. Complicated People (Twisted Christianity or Cults) 3. Foolish People (Naturalism + Atheism) 4. Bad People (Greedy, Rebellious, Gnostic, Hedonistic)
15. Good People
March 26, 2015 • WWMF Media
False world religions include Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and even Judaism. Each of these have something in common, they all teach a set of principles to their followers, which if obeyed more or less will help them get to heaven or Nirvana.... this is a false Gospel, because Jesus said he alone is the way, the truth and the life and no one can come to the father but through him. The people deceived by this type of false gospel often feel they are good people and do good deeds. Whereas some follow their religions nominally but all are deceived because only God is good and there is only one Gospel and one way.