Transcript for the DVD Tract

Part one (from C.S.Lewis' book Mere Christianity)
Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Part 2
(from the youtube video "The True Gospel")

What is the gospel. exactly? a lot of people claim to preach it, share it and study it, some think it is a rather simple thing. and while in one sense I agree that it is, I suggest that the true gospel is also a profound spiritual truth that a person could spend an entire lifetime exploring its perfect beauty.

literally speaking the gospel means
"good message".Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion (eu- "good", -angelion "message") The Gospel is the heart of the Christian message which is basically that Christ died for us, and that through him we can be reconciled to God .

In 1 Corinthians 15:3,4 also give a basic Idea of what the Gospel message is, which is that:
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,

Jesus' words in Mark 1:15 come in the form of an urgent command, He says: "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." After His resurrection from the dead, He tells His disciples:

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46-47)

Notice that following repentance is the remission of sins (Romans 6:1-12). This is why on Pentecost, AD 31, Peter instructs the assembled crowd, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).

Likewise, Paul teaches the men of Athens:

Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31;

(Acts 3:19) says: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out ..."

The problem is "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom.3:23). Man, in his lost, sinful, condemned state, has failed to glorify God. Until a person becomes personally exceedingly sinful in his own eyes, he will never see his need for repentance. Eph.2:1 says: Man is spiritually dead; Rom.3:10 and Isa.64:6 tells us no one is righteous before a holy God; Rom.3:19 says all stand guilty and condemned before God; Eph.4:18 declares all sinners are separated from God whose hearts and minds are blinded so that they cannot understand God or the things of God.

Repentance basically involves two facts: the fact of sin and the fact of God's grace. If a person is not a sinner, he would not need to repent, and if God was not going to do anything if you repented it would do no good to repent but he said he would...that's the fact of grace.

. Repentance is not merely feeling sorry or remorseful, its being stricken in one's heart with remorse, but Remorse without a corresponding change in conduct is not biblical repentance!

That's where the Holy Spirit comes in. If you repent, and believe, you will receive His Holy Spirit which will make you a new creature who will be free from the power of sin and that's Gods promise, and that's the good news and it will cause you to begin to love the things of God and hate the former bonds of sin. This is the essence of being a Christian, having Jesus Christ live in you will change you. It's true peace. and unfortunately its rarer that you might think. Many who attend church every week have not done this, and they simply try to act good rather than want to be good because they have Jesus, the reason that has happened is because nowadays many people teach if you simply ask Jesus to come in to your heart he will..but it requires a genuine repentance and also belief...if you become a Christian you wont have to ask anyone if you became a Christian you will know it with all your heart.

And the evidence that you have become a Christian will be a changed life, and a desire, not to be like the world but to be like Jesus Christ.

It should also be stressed that repentance itself is not a human act, but comes only from God (Rom.2:4) -- it is a divine gift of God (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25).
But if you feel the conviction of sins and the desire to repent then you have been given that gift.

(John 3:17-18) Says: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God"

Contrary to popular belief Jesus Did not come to condemn sinners, He came to save them, He gave invitations he said:
" Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11

God became a man to teach us, and to set the bar for how to live our lives, but most importantly for us he came because he is holy, and because He is a holy God he must punish sin, all the evil people in the world will be judged, but it says in 2 Peter 3, "God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance." so God came to earth to figuratively push us out from the path of a bus and take the hit for us.. his wrath against our sin had to be taken by someone because he is holy and he is a good judge...and so way before we men allowed sin the legal right into this world God had made provisions to buy us back and to sign over our title deed to him

But its all about our human free will. All of heaven is watching what we will do..the bible says there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth...they are all watching hoping we freely chose life, choose truth, and freedom, who is Jesus Christ The Way the truth and the life

The following 3 scriptures are good summaries of the gospel message in my opinion:

Rom 5:8 says: But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God's wrath. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? 11 Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5: 14For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
16Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.
17Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
20Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Titus 2:11-15 11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
15These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

Part 3
(from the youtube video "The Lost Doctrine" Paul Washer)

Bear with me for just a second longer--I'll close my Bible in good faith that I am leaving. Bear with me a second longer. If there is a lost doctrine in the church today that has destroyed evangelism [sic], it is the doctrine of regeneration. Regeneration is not merely a human decision. You do not get saved simply because you decided to jump out of the line going to Hell in order to jump into the line going to Heaven. Salvation is a supernatural work of God whereby the power of God is manifest to such a degree that it parallels or exceeds the very power of God manifested in the creation of the universe. The universe was created ex nihilo, out of nothing, but when God saves a man, He recreates him out of a corrupt mass.

When people have truly repentend, when people have truly believed, there is a work of regeneration going on in which that person becomes a new creature, and as a new creature with a new nature, they will live a different life. The evidence of regeneration is not that you made a decision one time at an evangelistic campaign. The evidence of regeneration is that your life is being transformed. Do you think that God just transforms some of His children? The doctrine of a Christian living in a continuous state of carnality is absolute heresy. Do Christians sin? Yes. Can Christians fall into carnality? Yes. Can Christians walk in immaturity for a while? Yes. But can Christians live a godless, worldly life all the days of their life? Absolutely not. Why? Because salvation is a supernatural work of God whereby if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, and new creatures live a different way.

That's why when people tell me today that there's just as much sin in the church as outside of the church, there's just as much divorce, and pornography, and lying, and hating, and bickering in the church as outside of the church, that is a lie! The church of Jesus Christ in America today is beautiful; she is broken, she is confessional, she is walking with her God, and when she sins, it breaks her heart, and she returns to Him. Your problem is, what you're calling 'the church' is not the church! If the church is as most people say, then every New Covenant promise in the Bible has failed. But God says in the New Covenant, He will make a people, and He will be their God, and they will be His people, and the Law of God will be written on their heart, and they will walk in it.

The evidence of conversion is not a decision card filled out. It's a life being lived out.

A dear friend of mine called a very important Christian scholar in history, Dr. Dallimore, and said, 'Dr. Dallimore, I have a question. The Puritans really didn't give invitations and things like we do today. How did they know when someone got saved?' And Dallimore said this, 'Well, that was easy. Their life changed, and they kept coming to church.' How do we know they got saved? They don't come to church, their life doesn't change, but they got saved, because they raised their hand. Look at what we've done! Just look! Look.

If you're here tonight, and you're troubled about your soul, I will not ask you to raise your hand, and I will not ask you to fill out a card. But I will stay here until six o'clock in the morning when my plane leaves to counsel you. You see, that's the problem, isn't it: the great assumption. People come forward, they sign a card, we talk to them five minutes about salvation, we declare them saved, and then we wonder why we have to pour so much discipleship in them, and they still won't grow.

We've made the great assumption. We've passed them through an evangelical rite, and because they said all the right answers, we declare them saved, and we never worry about it again. That's wrong. I'll tell you this: if you repent and believe in Christ tonight--if you have done that, He's saved you. But I'll tell you this: if you've made a decision for Christ, you see Christ as Lord tonight, and you profess Him as faith [sic], He's saved you. But if you walk out of here, and your life doesn't change, and you do not begin to grow, and He who began a good work in you doesn't complete it, what happened here tonight wasn't genuine conversion, because the evidence of genuine conversion is an on-going work of God in the soul of a man. That's the old way. That's historical Christianity.

How many of you, and how many people do you know-- is it not true? Maybe you have a child, and they made a profession of faith when they were six, because someone asked them if they wanted to go to Heaven or if they loved Jesus. Of course they raised their hand. Then when they got fourteen, fifteen, they started living in the world, hating the things of God, and you go to them, and you go, 'But you're a Christian, and you need to act differently,' you are wrong in the way you are approaching them. You need to approach them this way: 'You made a profession of faith in Christ, but every bit of evidence in your life at this moment dictates that maybe your profession of faith in Jesus Christ was false, and you are still in your sin, and if you died, you would go to Hell. Now make your calling and election sure. Repent, return to Christ.'

You see how superficial our Chrisianity has become? Oh, my dear friend, these things should not be so, but they are. Awaken to the gospel, the real gospel, not the reduced kind. It is a gospel of grace, and a gospel of power that He who began a good work in you will finish it.

The evidence of conversion is not a decision card filled out. It's a life being lived out.