Big Idea - What is the great danger in changing the message of the Gospel into a different message and how can it get corrupted, distorted and changed so easily? The true Gospel itself can never change, but often the message that claims to be the Gospel is a very different message from the true Good News. It was a problem in Paul's day, and it is no less a problem today as the Gospel is getting diluted and distorted in various ways. Paul writes in Galatians that those who turn to a false Gospel turn away from God, abandon His saving grace, and disqualify themselves from serving Him. Those who are guilty of proclaiming a false Gospel come under the most severe curse of God's wrath. Those who follow their teaching at best do not experience all of the amazing benefits of salvation, and at worst are eternally lost in their sin. Sometimes the problem is not so much teaching a false Gospel as it is failing to hold up the Gospel as of first importance and the message of the Gospel gets lost in a sea of Church traditions and other “priorities.” When people discover that these secondary issues that are not critical they abandon the faith because the Gospel has been lumped together with everything else. Therefore, it is of vital importance to hold up the true Gospel as the unchanging message of salvation and we must guard it against every false Gospel and wrong focus that would trump or crowd out its life-giving truth.
