“But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them” (A. W. Tozer). The burden that Tozer is speaking of here is the burden of man’s “obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him acceptably.” When “man’s laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heavens, the inner pressure may become too heavy to bear.”
The Gospel is the most precious message in the world. There is nothing more important than the message of the God of all glory loving and reconciling sinners to Himself through Christ moved by nothing within the sinner but all according to His own self-existent love and grace. With that in mind, the Gospel is far different than it is commonly thought of and presented in the modern day. The Gospel presented today for the most part is nothing but a truncated message that leaves men in their humanism of self-love and self-centeredness. But it is thought of as normal because we live in an age where the concept of God has been lowered almost beyond belief.
“Evangelical humiliation is a sense that a Christian has of his own utter insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousnesss, with an answerable frame of heart” (Jonathan Edwards). Where the concept of God has been lowered, man’s view of himself has risen to the point of self-exaltation. Man loves himself as he is told to do and that love is according to his fallen nature. Man thinks of himself as the measure of all things, even God. The worst thing that a person can do in modern America is to offend someone or wound his or her self-esteem. What is that but an exalted view of self? What is that but man loving himself more than God and others? Instead, a Christian must arrive at the point where he cannot be insulted concerning himself. The worst insult that one human can give to another is actually a compliment compared to what man really is in the sight of God. Instead of telling people of how sufficient and wonderful they are, we must be telling them how insufficient and despicable they really are in the sight of God in order that they may understand the Gospel of grace. The Gospel does not save sinners who are worthy, it saves sinners who are completely unworthy. Not only that, it saves sinners who are worthy of nothing but hell in and of themselves. Even their righteous actions are as menstrual cloths (Isa 64:6). God only justifies those who are ungodly and recognize that about themselves (Rom 4:3-5).
No one comes to the view of how vile he is in the sight of a thrice holy God without seeing something of the glory of that God. The Gospel does not come to people and tell them how worthy they are to be saved and so God will save them because He thinks so highly of them. No, no and a thousand times no. The Gospel is all about the grace of God and not how worthy man is. The Gospel tells man that God is worthy to save man and that He saves to the glory of His own name. How humbled man has to be to hear such teaching, but that is exactly why the Gospel has been virtually lost in our day.
“In accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (I Tim 1:11). In reality, this text is better translated as “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” God will not share His glory with another and so any glory that the Gospel has it is reflecting the glory of God. When we combine this text with John 1:14-18 which tells us that Christ was and is the tabernacle of the glory of God and Hebrews 1:3 which tells us that Christ is the very outshining of the glory of God, we can see that the Gospel is all about Christ who is the glory of God. But what is preached today? In reality, to cut to the heart of it, the gospel preached today is about the glory of man. In other words, that is a different Gospel. If someone tells others of a message called the Gospel and it is nothing but what Christ did for man and how man needs to make a decision, that is a truncated gospel that has nothing to do with the glory of God. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (II Cor 4:4). It is hard to see the glory of the true Gospel when man’s glory is so willingly held out to people. It is a message that goes down smooth and tastes good at first, but it is sheer and utter poison to the soul that drinks it. May God deliver us all from such travesties of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when the true Gospel is all about the glory of God in Jesus Christ.
God Loves... Himself 
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