WHAT IS THE BELIEVER’S MANDATE: TO CONFRONT THE CULTURE WITH THE GOSPEL, OR TO EMBRACE THE CULTURE?

The believers’ mandate originally given by our risen Lord in Matthew is very evident in Romans 10:14, 15, “How then shall they call upon Him whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” This lays out the gospel mandate. In order to be saved, people have to believe. In order to believe, they have to know what to believe. In order to know what to believe, there has to be somebody who tells them. And in order for there to be somebody who tells them, somebody has to be sent. That’s really our mandate.

That sums it all up. There is no salvation apart from the gospel. No gospel, no salvation. You must know the truth and believe the truth. And to know the truth and believe the truth, you have to hear the truth and therefore somebody has to bring it to you.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation. No one has ever been saved apart from the gospel since the coming of Christ and since His death and resurrection. No one can be saved unless they hear. No one can hear unless somebody preaches. And there’s no one to preach unless someone is sent.

And when you take the gospel, it is necessary that a clear explanation of the gospel be made. That’s why study is so important. There are so many inadequate representations of the gospel such as, in Greece where there’s a fast growing movement among so-called evangelicals that denies that Jesus actually came in the flesh.

It is necessary that we get the right message and that we get it accurately. And that’s why study is absolutely critical. You can’t have a caricature of the gospel, you can’t have bits and pieces of the gospel that have been floating around and amalgamated themselves into some syncratistic kind of understanding that is inadequate. It must be the gospel, it must be the true gospel and it can be nothing but the gospel.

The world is full of religion. There are religious people all over the planet. They are passionately religious. You see it all the time. You see religious Hindus in the media all the time. You see religious Buddhists. You see religious Muslims all the time escalating in their exposure to the world. You see religious Roman Catholics. You see religious New Agers, religious spiritualists, religious Protestants, even religious so-called evangelicals who have some kind of longing to gain heaven and no God. But unless they know the truth, it’s all useless.

Nobody ever sought for the truth more zealously than the Jews did. And, in fact, they had the Old Testament, to begin with, it was to them that God gave the covenants and the adoption as sons and the promises, gave them the scriptures. They had rabbis, scribes, Pharisees, experts in the study of Scripture, self-appointed, self-styled, self-confessed experts. In fact, they substituted the traditions of man for the Word of God. That was Jesus’ own indictment.

Not everybody’s going to believe, verse 16 says, they didn’t all heed the glad tidings. Even Isaiah said, “Lord, who has believed our report?” first verse of chapter 53. Not everybody’s going to believe. That doesn’t change our responsibility. So you go back to your responsibility in verse 17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.”

So as a true believer, you start with the word of Christ, you study the word and confront the culture and preach so the people can hear and believe and call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. This is Christ’s mandate. This is our mandate. This is our responsibility and joy.