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The price for preaching the gospel.

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Let’s try to figure out such a notion as the price for preaching of the Gospel. Should it be paid, who must pay it, what is the price, and how exactly we have to pay it, etc.? The modern christians have created a formula, according to which Jesus has paid for everything. The blood of Jesus Christ is the perfect price for the Gospel, is it so? Is it true? Let’s try to make it out. If we accept that this suggestion is true, then one third of the Gospel loses its real sense. If we accept, that Christ has paid the price for our preaching the Gospel, and we only enter His work with faith and gratitude; if we accept that spreading the Gospel is the work of Jesus Christ, then I will express my personal opinion: why does Christ need such a church? If the church consists only of the weeds, who are just thankful to God for their salvation, then the Gospel will never come true and will never be spread. When I tried to set Christ as an example — He had no place to live, He had no wife, His relatives rejected Him, the reverent believers prepared for Him stones instead of bread etc, people were trying to prove to me that it was the will of God for Jesus only. When I set as an example the sermon of the Apostle Paul, I was told that not all believers should be like apostle Paul. When I set as an example the christians who are giving their lives for the Gospel nowadays, I got the answer, exceptionally according to the Word of God, that it wasn’t God’s will. That’s why I firmly decided to write a message, which you are reading right now.

The first thing, Mark 8:35, where Jesus says we must lose our soul for Him and for the Gospel. I will not take much time to explain what it means, but I know it firmly, that it’s we who must pay the price for the Gospel, because Jesus has paid only for our salvation by His sacrifice on the Cross. Now a question is — how to pay the price? And what does it mean — to lose your soul? Maybe we should become masochists? Of course not! The speech is about sufferings of soul, losses of soul, threats for the soul, the loss of your close people. Through division. Including your wife, children, parents etc. (I had come through all that). It means humiliation, rejection, misunderstanding. It means persecution, insults. It means physical injury. It’s a part of the price for preaching the Gospel. And there are also losses for your flesh, hunger, cold, illnesses, — but it’s the subject of another sermon. In Western theology there is no such a notion, as sufferings for preaching the Gospel. People are afraid of death, and they want to live a good life. And they are preaching that God is Love (in spite of the fact, that He sacrificed His own Son). And they have the result. If nowadays a couple of homosexuals will «fly into the church», not in search of salvation, but in order to be amused, and let’s try to imagine that at this time the sermon will be about Sodom and Gomorrah, — we can guess they can go to police, in order to complain that in the church they are hearing a call for discrimination of sexual minorities. And a kind christian, a congressman (who attends the church on Sundays with his whole family), and who trusts that God is love (that he loves all people) will protect the rights of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he will ban the part of the Bible, which condemns homosexuals. By the way, in times of Stalin (the leader of the former USSR), when millions of honest believers had been sentenced to death, we considered ourselves orthodox christian people, and were wearing the centuries-old authoritative epaulettes of inheritance of the grace from the first apostles. So, the result of theology «God is Love», «Jesus paid for everything», «if God lets it happen, then who am I to intrude? etc.» is the fact that people with perverted thinking are going to edit the Bible. Already nowadays Sodom and Gomorrah is opening the church door with a knock of a leg and put to jail normal believing pastors. So, let’s get back to the price to pay. Apostle Paul says: I am going through labour pains for you again…until Christ is fully developed in your lives». Firstly, it’s we, ministers, who pay for the new birth and growing of the newly-born christians in faith. It’s not Christ, who should do it instead of us. This is what Paul is speaking about. Secondly, the word «again» means a repeated action, about payment of the price for the Gospel, and strengthening of newly-born believers in faith. Let’s come back to our times. The son of my friend, pastor, who was a missionary, broke his hand, so that it was splitted into pieces in three places. In this distant village there was only one doctor, who could just apply a bondage to the boy’s hand. And he demanded money for his coming. And then he advised to take the boy to the city (as usual, there was no money for that). He had to go there only the next day, on passing cars. In the result, the boy had to undergo three operations so that his hand could function more or less. The same pastor went abroad according to God’s will, in order to put God’s calling for him into action. At this time his wife was beaten by her neighbors, the alcohol-addicts. Ok, you may tell that from time to time such things happen to all people.

Here is another example from the life of my brother baptist (in his phone I was marked as a charismatic believer). He is 20 years in faith. He was in position of a curator of his district. He built a huge church building in the regional center called Makarov in Kiev region. He had a very big gathering of believers and an evident success in his ministry. But all of a sudden his wife got crazy and plunged into adultery. But in order to come safe out of the water, she accused her husband of committing adultery, before the higher authorities. What did the superior brothers-christians do? They put him aside from ministry, he found himself in debts, he sold his car and property just for nothing. His grown-up children suddenly declared to him: «father, please don’t live with us». In the result, he is living in a store, suffering from constant threats of his creditors who are eager to revenge on him. Do you think it’s by accident? His mother tells me that americans (who supported the church construction) were surprised by the fact, that a Kievan church, to which they had given the same amount of money, didn’t even build a toilet. And this very pastor reported to them for each spent penny for construction of the church building. And the surprised americans bought him a house in this region, as a sign of gratitude for his honesty. A reasonable question arises: what is happening with these ministers? All their misfortunes are the punishment from God, or it it the price they are paying for preaching the Gospel? There are even more «advanced» believers (charismatic), who claim that the first apostles had suffered instead of us. And we are just sharing in their labour. I’d like to ask you a question — aren’t christians exploded today, aren’t they violated and driven out of their own houses, etc.? But where is the God who is love? A good question you ask today. And the answer will be very simple — you have to read the Gospel. So what’s the price for preaching the Gospel? It’s your losses (Mark 10:29). It’s Jesus’ promises: «A servant is not greater, than the master. Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you, since I the master of the household, have been called the prince of demons, how much more will it happen to you. This is because they have never known the Father, or Me». And those of you, who want to live a good life with brothers here on earth, may cut these verses out of the Gospel.

 

P.S. If the words told by Paul in 1Cor. 4:11-13, or 2 Cor. 6:4-10 is not the price for the Gospel Jesus spoke about, then what is it? Maybe, it’s just a bad luck? Amen!

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