Up next, a unique episode of Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef. We know that many of you are not able to listen every day, so over time there's been some content that you might have missed. And when Dr. Yusef released his faith-inspiring book, Saving Christianity, he sat down and spoke very candidly about the state of the church and Christianity in our time. That content encouraged so many, and it's just as relevant today, so our team felt challenged to bring it back to encourage you today. Saving Christianity and all of Dr. Yusef's more than 50 books are available now from Leading the Way. You can find titles available, you can check out content, and you can order online at ltw.org.
You can also call us. Speak with a ministry representative in our call center, 866-626-4356. Right now, let's listen to Dr. Michael Yusef's passionate words about saving Christianity. Truth versus partial truth. I think it is more important how we feel about God and our personal experiences than exactly what the Bible says. I think it is close-minded to believe that there is only one way to God. My church believes that we should love people instead of offending them with difficult parts of the Bible. What causes that defection from the faith? What causes giving in to this false teaching?
Some think they're trying to save Christianity. So many preachers and so many theologians are teaching falsehood under the guise of truth. And now, Saving Christianity, featuring the president of Leading the Way, Dr. Michael Yusef. Welcome to this special edition of Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef. We are going to address that falsehood today.
You know, when Madison Avenue wants to market something to us, they label it as new or progressive or universal. And in the past few years, Dr. Michael Yusef has noticed an alarming trend of people within the church who are trying to market Christianity with some of that same branding, something that's universally accepted, a progressive faith that's tolerant, accepting of all things. But Michael says that watering down the gospel message and removing its power and trying to do that, some people are actually trying to save Christianity. But Michael, you say it doesn't need saving.
Absolutely not. Christianity doesn't need to be saved because Jesus Christ is the heart of Christianity, and he's never changed, never been modified. But we are trying to modify him.
We're trying to change him. We're trying to water his gospel down. The word of God is now, it's optional. You take it or leave it. And the whole gospel is in danger right now of being lost in the shuffle because of the false preaching and the false teaching.
My greatest burden as I look at the clock and I realize that I don't have as many years as I had, that I wanted to challenge people to begin to think biblically. Don't get persuaded by these emotional appeals that if you feel good or you make people feel good. And you and I were talking about this. You can go to a doctor and he says, well, I don't want you really to feel bad. So what I'm going to do, I'm not going to tell you that you have a tumor. And so you go home and he said, oh, I'm feeling great.
I'm on top of the world. But then in a short period of time, the tumor is going to kill you because he's so compassionate and he doesn't want you to go through the pain of the surgery. He doesn't want you to go through the pain of chemotherapy. And out of compassion, he kills you. And that is what is happening in the Church of Jesus Christ today under the guise of love. They are literally destroying the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I am absolutely burdened about this. And I felt the call of God in my life that whatever years he gave me, I want to lift up the truth of the word of God.
I want to say this is false and this is true. Even if I get hated by the non-believers, that's their problem. That's between them and God.
I love them. I have nothing against people. In fact, I love people enough to tell them the truth.
It is when you hate people, you don't tell them the truth. And you can call that love, call it anything you want, but it is hate because hate causes a person's destruction, but love causes them to be saved. And there is no greater salvation than to be eternally saved and be assured of heaven right now by coming to him, confessing sin and repenting. And the grace of God will come and cover you, but also is going to cover your sin, not wink at it or cleanse it and purifies it and then gives you true assurance and true contentment in life. Like the apostle Paul said, live or die, I'm at peace.
Nothing and no one can touch me because I am in the hand of God. And so that is the message that we need to really hammer away and I'm appealing to every faithful pastor and there are many faithful pastors. I'm not one of those people who say, well, I'm like Elijah Felty and I'm the only one.
No, no, no. I know that there are wonderful, wonderful faithful preachers of the gospel and I want to encourage them and I want to support them in every way I know how because we all need each other as a remnant. And the word remnant comes from the term remain. Those of us are remaining, holding, founded, preaching, teaching, proclaiming the truth of the word of God, that God's word is infallible. When there is a sin, the Bible calls it sin.
When there's forgiveness, it calls it forgiveness and therefore that is what infallibility means, being truthful and absolutely offered by the Holy Spirit himself. And so that is the message. I want to encourage the faithful believers and I want to call on those pastors who have been tempted to maybe if I water it down, I'll get more people. It's like my friend Jay Sekula said, thank God he did not run the Ten Commandments through a church committee to see how it's going to affect the attendance or run it through Gallipole because God is God and he's got to be obeyed, period. You talk about those faithful pastors but you also say that the people who are doing this are the doctors, to go back to that illusion. They may believe that they are the faithful pastors. How do we know who these progressive Christians who are watering down the Gospel are and who are the faithful preachers who are really teaching the Bible? I am absolutely convinced, having dealt with some, I'm convinced that those who water down the Gospel know that they're watering down the Gospel and they deliberately made the choice and they made the decision that because I don't want to offend people, because I want to pack the pews and because I want to be liked by the culture at large and I am going to make it palatable under the guise of relevance, so I'll make it palatable. For example, well, you don't like the story of Jonah, it doesn't make sense, three days in the belly of the fish.
Well, we take it out, it's okay. You don't like the Noah and the flood, you don't have to believe it, we take it out. And then you end up with a Bible like that of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson's Bible, I'm told, is that as he was reading it, every time he doesn't like something about the supernatural, with a razor he will cut it out. And then it's a fact, they said, you turn it, it's all holes in every bit of that Bible that Jefferson had. And he was a deist, we'll end up with a Bible like that. Now, I don't know what to do with those who know and they deliberately choose popularity over the authority of the word of God, over pleasing God.
Those deliberate decisions is between them and God, but I'm appealing to them, please turn back. There can be no greater testimony than to stand up and say, I'm wrong, I met a pastor from the West, Arizona, as a matter of fact, several years ago, and he got up, he had tens of thousands in his church, and he got up and said, I've been preaching positive thinking and I'm so sorry, from now on I'm going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, I came under conviction. Well, several thousand people walked out, but he was joyful because he knew his repentance had led others to repentance. And so, that's my prayer, that they will have the courage to say, look, I have been preaching this feel good Christianity, feel good gospel, and I'm sorry, but I'm repenting before God and before you, and from now on I'm going to open the word of God and open the scripture and I'm going to preach from it.
What a wonderful revival will be in our day. But also I am concerned for the faithful pastors in many small church all across the United States, England, Australia, Canada, all across in the West, who are really going through this temptation. Many years ago, I met a pastor in Texas and he was literally in tears after I spoke, and he said, I've been up all night because the temptation is, and yet he had a church of several thousand people, but the temptation of somebody near and dear to him was saying to him, but if you soften it a little bit, you'll get a whole lot more people.
If you soften it a little bit, and he knew in his heart that he shouldn't do this. And so he said, Lord, give me a sign. Well, he was up all night praying, and he almost did not make it to the pastor's lunch where I was speaking.
This is many years ago. And he said, I come here. I said, I'm sitting in tears the whole time you're speaking because God says this is the sign you wanted. He said, a man I brought from Atlanta, Georgia, to encourage you not to give in to the temptation, even though the person who's tempting you to do this is very dear to you and near to you. And that is the thing I am really praying and hoping that whatever time I've got left, I want to encourage those pastors to stay the course, just like Paul's last words before he was beheaded and died to his son in the faith, Timothy. He said, uphold the truth regardless of the cost, because even back then there was a cost.
Every generation knows that there is a cost associated with the preaching of the gospel, but don't count the cost, because God is going to bless you far more than whatever it is you're going to lose. As people who do believe the Bible as the infallible word of God, and they're looking to kind of shore up that faith day to day, you say that there is a document that the Church has created that was well thought out and it's lived many generations, and that's the Apostles' Creed. And it's a summary. It's a summary of the faith. And the reason they put it together is because even in those early days of the Church, there were some people who were modifying the gospel, believe it or not, there were the Arians and there were the Nestorians and all these heresies that were to do with the nature of the Trinity. And therefore, the early, early Church put together this summary called the Apostles' Creed. What do apostles believe? What's the core belief of the apostles? And so the Apostles' Creed is a summary of what God has accomplished in history, and what the apostles of Jesus Christ believed, and it's sort of the gospel in a capsule, if you like.
And remember, literacy was not something that is very common, even though the Hellenistic Greek culture was dominant in the Roman world, but nonetheless, there were a lot of illiteracies. So to put the gospel in a capsule, which we call the Apostles' Creed, later on, they expand on it in 325 in the town of Nicaea, which is in modern Turkey, called the Nicene Creed, which is much larger and longer creed. There was another creed called the Athanasius Creed. This is the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, who literally single-handedly fought all the heretics who trying to change the gospel, and this is in the first two centuries. So all these creeds were the earliest is the Apostles' Creed to say, this is the summary of the faith. If you don't have a Bible, if you can't read, here's your summary.
And you believe that, and you become a believer in Jesus Christ. So, some words that I've heard you say are some of the key words. Progressive Christians, rethinking, universalism, what are all of these? There's sort of a new language that's being marketed. There seems to be sort of a language around this new way of thinking, and that if you oppose them, you're a hater, you're a bigot. Nobody wants to be that.
No. That is exactly the tool that they have in their toolbox, and that is to make anyone who disagrees with them feel so small or backward thinking, not enlightened, basically non-thinking individuals, and that's why they begin to see themselves as the elite. We are the intellectuals. We are the thinkers. We are the progressive.
You're the backward person. We are progressive, and we're moving on. I remember one time I had a discussion with a very liberal pastor, and this was 30 years ago, and he said to me, he said, Michael, you don't understand. God has grown up since the days of the Bible. I said, really?
Yeah, he has moved on. You're stuck in the old god, but this other god that we are worshiping, this is a mainland denomination leader. Is that heresy? Well, it's beyond heresy. I mean, this is total falsehood.
Look, let's face it. There is truth, and there's falsehood. There is no semi-truth. There is Satan, and there's God. There is lie, and there is truth.
There's fiction, and there is fact. And anything that does not come out of the word of God, the truth of the word of God, without being reinterpreted for modern society, it's from Satan. You see, Satan is clever.
When the Bible said he basically masquerades as an angel of light, what does it mean? He's not going to come out and say, hey, I'm Satan. I'm out here to destroy you. I'm out here to destroy your family. I'm out here to destroy your business.
I'm out here to basically kill you. He won't do that. He's too clever for that. But he will come and say, just like he did with Eve. Did you understand that correctly?
Is your own interpretation of the Bible really the only interpretation? Well, look at Dr. Smelfungus. He is interpreting it differently, and look how successful he is. Look at so-and-so. She is very popular or he is very popular, and they have different interpretation. There is more than one way to skin a cat.
There is more than one way to interpret the Bible, and that's how Satan basically appealed. You know, and why? Why risk being called names and being hated and despised by so-called progressive and calling you backward and they're calling you this and they're calling you that? Who wants to be called?
Nobody wants to be called any of these names, but that's a method of intimidation. But I am telling myself on a daily basis, because look, I am flesh and blood. And if I'm sitting here saying, man, I'm strong. I know how to do this.
No, no, no, no, no. I know the struggles. I know the temptation to slightly modify or change or just accommodate a little bit because this person is really a nice person and has happened to be in the church and he just wants me to change things a little bit because he really otherwise is going to leave the church. Well, I have to ask myself the question, am I pleasing God? Am I accountable to God? Am I ultimately going to be giving an account for every idle word and every action to God?
And at that moment I said, hey, I'd rather please God than man anytime. And this comes from the Holy Spirit. That doesn't come from the flesh. It doesn't come from me. I'm as weak as the next person.
As a matter of fact, I remember kind of a pompous guy. He came to me and said, brother, tell me about your weaknesses. I said, I'm weak in every area.
He said, really? I said, yeah, every area. I am weak everywhere. And that is why I'm daily dependent on the Holy Spirit to strengthen my weaknesses. But you know, if I say, well, I've got this thing licked, I've got this thing, I know in my heart that's where the enemy is going to go after me for that area, whatever it is. So I found the best way is to say, Lord, I am weak, but you're strong.
That's like the little song. Jesus loves me with this I know. They are weak, but he is strong. And in that simplicity, I say, Lord, I'm weak in every area.
I desperately need you. And you know what? God loves not only to hear that prayer, but he loves to answer.
And I have seen his answers over and over and over and over again to even begin to doubt it. And so that is the burden of my heart. Live to please God in what I call the audience of one, which every one of us are going to have.
Every one of us. We're going to have an audience of one. And when I say I sought to please you with all my heart, or I tried to make the culture happy, and the non-believers listen to me, because in the end, Jesus said, those whom the Father draws, you got to understand that in the final analysis, we cannot convert anybody. I don't care how relevant you're trying to be, you cannot convert it.
Only the Father is going to draw his own. We are there to be the instrument, to be the hands and the voice of Jesus, to help them come and be discipled. But in the end, God is the one who's going to do the conversion. But once you get that, you know, straight in your head, you're going to be at peace. You're not going to be banging your head against the wall, or how I'm going to do this, how I'm going to fill the pews, how I'm going to... No, you don't. He does. And so that is a very, very comforting thought.
Let's address some of those things that, I guess these have been questions that have been around forever, but that have re-emerged. Everyone goes to heaven. It's a hateful thought that God sits on his throne and sends some people to a place called hell. It doesn't sound like a very loving God who would do that.
No, that's right. Well, the thing is, God is not going to send anybody to hell. They're going to send themselves to hell. In the Scripture, and particularly the Gospel of John, Jesus makes it clear, I did not come to Jesus, but they've already been judged by either accepting me or rejecting me. So they judge themselves by their decision. And I personally believe that in the final day, there is nobody who is separated from God in that Christless eternity which the Bible calls hell, is going to be saying, oh, I got a raw deal. God, you're not fair.
I think as we transfer all of us onto the other side, we're going to see things and say, yep, I brought myself here. I rejected Jesus. I heard my mother. I heard my father. I heard the preacher. I heard my husband. I heard my wife. But I rejected.
I would not accept it. I thought I can be good enough for God. And yes, I deserve to be here.
I really believe that with all my heart. You know, when Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the rich man, it's not because one is poor and one is rich, but it just happened to be one was totally living for self and the other one was not. And so at the end, now remember, Jesus created the world. He was there from the very beginning. This is not a parable.
This is a fact. He saw this take place. And so the rich man goes into the torment of hell and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. That's kind of the way the Old Testament describes paradise. This is the bosom of Abraham.
And so the conversation all across this huge gap, which we don't know, it's a space, time and space, they're able to communicate with each other. And so the rich man says, he never says, that is not fair. Why am I here? I shouldn't be here.
This guy was at my door having the dogs lick his wounds and I'm living on the crumbs. And why should he go there? Why should I be here?
I've done good things. No, no, you don't hear any of that. Not one of them. He just began to immediately have some sober thinking and said, oh boy, I have brothers who are still living.
I don't want them to come here. It's like I often say, a few seconds in hell and he become an evangelist. And he said, could you have Lazarus rise from the dead, go back to them and tell them to repent so they don't come here.
That's what's going to happen in eternity. I don't care how many people are deceived of thinking they will make it to hell because God is just a loving God. He is a loving God and that is why he did the most loving thing anybody can do.
He sent his son to die on the cross, bleed on that cross and bleed to death, buried and then rose again. That is the most loving thing too. If you reject that love, then that's your decision. It is the consequences of your decision, of your choices of rejecting him or accepting him. And so I am absolutely convinced that in the final day, nobody's going to say when they end up in that place of torment, I shouldn't have been here.
They will say, God, you gave me a fair deal. What you've heard today is just scratching the surface of what can be found in Dr. Yusuf's book, Saving Christianity. Since the release, it has reached into churches and communities, changing lives of readers around the world. This book, along with his more than 50 others, have encouraged and challenged people to walk closer with Christ. Whatever the topic you want to dive into, Dr. Yusuf has a resource for you. Learn more when you call a ministry representative today, 866-626-4356.
And of course you can check out the titles and get details on content in the resource library at ltw.org, ltw.org. The greatest threat to America is the wrath of God on a wayward nation. Is there still hope for America?
Change can happen, but only when our nation repents and turns back to the God of our founding fathers. The price of liberty. Dr. Michael Yusuf sounds the warning bell to call God's people to wake up, repent and return to reliance on Him. Contact us today to get your own copy of The Price of Liberty at ltw.org. That's ltw.org. This program is furnished by leading the way with Dr. Michael Yusuf. Connect with us via television, YouTube, Facebook, Axe, and all of our social networks. Learn more at ltw.org.
