Faithfulness over Compromise

As Christians, we should never compromise the message of the gospel for the sake of pleasing people. Today, R.C. Sproul emphatically urges us to boldly defend the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was involved in a heated controversy about the nature of the gospel several years ago, and when the fire was the hottest and I was losing friends by the bazillions, I walked into the church one morning by myself and I sat in the pew and I said, “I’ve got to read this thing in Galatians 1 again.” And so I read the emphatic warning that Paul gives about another gospel. And I never realized the immediate connection between verse 9 and the next paragraph, verse 10. I had never experienced this existentially or experientially until that day where I read, Paul says, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Do I seek to please men?”

Beloved, the single most frequent reason why people compromise and negotiate the gospel of Christ is to please men. Paul says, “Do I seek to please men?” And I’ve got a problem with that. I’d like to please men. I like people to like me. I don’t want to be anathema here to all of them, but he says, “If I still please men, I wouldn’t be a servant of Jesus Christ.”

Woe unto you if you ever negotiate the gospel. Anathema be upon you if you ever play with the gospel. Don’t ever turn the good news into bad news, because it’s God’s gospel, and we’re not allowed to tamper with that.