The Great Commission?

This morning Emily-Kate and I read a page on the preaching of the Gospel in Ron Hanko's "Doctrine According to Godliness". It discussed the Great Commission, and it was very sad to realise how the Great Commission is badly neglected today in the Church.

Most para-church mission groups, and most churches even, openly contradict the Great Commission, (of course para-church missionary organisations are the invention of man, nowhere to be found in Scriptures). They say, "we only teach people the basics of Christianity", "we don't teach any of the controversial stuff", etc. Mission work that is carried out by an alliance of churches with different beliefs also by definition does not carry out the Great Commission, because in order to ally they agree not to teach the things they disagree on.

Over against this, Christ in the Great Commission commands the churches (and not para-church missionary organisations):

"[Teach] them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you", Mat 28:20.

These "all things" include the Bible's teaching on the end-times (Mat 24), predestination (John 6:37, 10:29, Rom 9, Eph 1), the literacy of Gen 1-3 (1Ti 2:14), warning by name against false teachings and teachers (Mat 23:13; 2Ti 1:15, 2:17, 4:10,14), etc.

The words of the prophet Amos are true today:

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD," Amos 8:1

It makes me want to weep, when I think of how many of God's children are withheld from growing in the knowledge of God and are forced to drink watered-down milk all their lives, because most church leaders either are ignorant themselves of the Scripture, or would have their flock to be ignorant of them.

They ignore the plain testimony of God, for He says that "all Scripture... is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness". In refusing to teach theology, they are keeping the children of God away from eternal life, for Christ declared that "to know God is eternal life" (Jn 17:3) and theology is the study of God, without which there can be no knowledge of God.

How many beloved children of God hear boring sermons every Sunday, teaching them the same basic truths over and over again, so that they never mature into the full stature of the knowledge of Christ (Eph 4:13)? Even worse, many of these "basics" are horrible lies, for example, that God would throw people He loves into hell, or that physical sickness and poverty is a sign of God's displeasure.

"I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Acts 20:26-27.

May the Lord be pleased to bring the Church back into obedience to the Great Commission, for the sake of His great Name and for the sake of the elect. May He be pleased to raise up preachers who, like Paul, will proclaim the whole counsel of God unashamedly, to as many as possible.

Though I am very saddened and concerned, I am not worried. For Christ promised:

"I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," Mat 16:18.