Mark McCulley
Judge by the Gospel

Dear Pastor:

Last night I went to see Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames for myself. What I saw and heard was a false gospel and a false Christ.

1. The cross was presented as something that the devil did to Jesus. There was no presentation of "sin" as that which demands the justice of God so that God gives the Son to satisfy justice for the sins of His people.
2. The cross was presented in the fist five minutes as something that MADE NO DIFFERENCE at the end. Since it was clearly said several times that Jesus died for every person, then nobody in the audience could conclude that the difference between heaven and hell was what Jesus did on the cross. (big deal! he died for those in hell too) The difference was said to be what the listeners did. So there was no good news at all last night, but only commands to believe in a false Christ and a false gospel.
3. In the end Satan gets people for whom Jesus died. That ideas brings dishonor and reproach to Jesus and His work. Care you more for the approval of men then do you do for the honor of Christ?
4. The entire presentation was one long appeal to the flesh, to the natural mind. Sample statements:

   You all got a "knower".
   You got to humble yourself.
   You got to have the courage to say the prayer.
   It's up to you in the next 60 seconds.
   He's the path, but you are the chooser.
   You got to really mean it.
   If you will stand up, you will be a "special person".
   God will not throw it in your lap.
   It's God's gift, but your accepting the gift is the difference.
   If you say this after me, your name will be written in the book.
   
   And most infamously: "just do it!"
   
   And then people clapped when they did it.

5. And I cried. Before, when I was a proud Calvinist, convinced that I was more theologically sophisticated than other folks, I would have simply been outraged. But i cried, helpless, not knowing what to do or to say. "God, do you want me to stand up and interrupt when they say that Jesus died for those who go to hell?" Maybe I should have. I don't want to be a fatalist; I don't want to shirk my responsibility. But then again, I want people to be offended at the gospel, not at me.
6. The trouble is that you don't preach the gospel because you don't preach particular redemption. Thus you avoid the offense of saying that the difference between saved and lost is the death of Jesus (and that all those for whom Jesus died will be brought to faith in the true gospel and saved from the sin of idolatry involved in believing the false gospel.) You may occasionally talk in code language that reassures some people that you believe what the WCF says about particular redemption, but you avoid the antithesis. Thus you avoid the truth. You agree that you only have another interpretation but speak peace to those who say that God is neither wise nor holy nor just in saving all for whom Jesus died.
7. How did I get from 1-5 to 6? I think you tolerate and sponsor what you really believe. If you think of Heaven's Gates as the gospel, or even as "pre-evangelism", then you do not really believe the gospel. "Unconditional grace" without preaching the imputed righteousness of the effective death of Christ is not the gospel, but merely lawlessness. Romans 1:17--"in the gospel a righteousness is revealed"...
8. What was "sin" in the presentation? Doing drugs, social drinking, not going to church, and, ultimately, not accepting Jesus. But Romans 10:3 teaches us that it is sin to try to establish our own righteousness instead of submitting to the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God is not out there to be taken at people's discretion. The righteousness of God demands that those for whom Christ died will not only stop hating God and His righteousness but also that all of the elect be forgiven for their sin of hating God and His righteousness. When you abridge the gospel, you substitute your own wisdom for that of God.
9. What am I to do when 19 pastors say to the town in which I live that this is the gospel. I am not a pessimist: I do not believe that Satan rules the world. But I know that Satan is behind the presentation I saw last night. Satan does not wear a red cape. He substitutes a false gospel for the real one and calls it grace.