“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.”
Man is born into sin and a state of spiritual death. The meaning of that is far beyond the scope of a blog, but we can note that part of that state is that man is born in a state of hostility and enmity toward God. Man thinks that he is the center of all things and so wants God to serve him. While it is true that man will be religious and act like he likes God, in reality man does for God only to get God to do things for him. The Gospel must always be understood in contrast to what man really is as opposed to what man thinks of himself. Fallen man wants things to be focused on him and to leave him at the center of it all in control of the situation.
The Gospel, on the other hand, is all about the glory of God. It declares the glory of God and how man must repent of his self-centeredness and self-love and turn to love God and His glory with all of his being. The essence of true repentance is that man must turn in his heart from his self-love and self-will. Man must repent from seeking his own honor to seeking the honor and glory of God. Man must repent of being centered upon himself and having no higher motives than himself to seeking God as the ultimate reason for all that he does.
The gospel that is proclaimed today does not demand man to repent from the heart of his self-love and self-centeredness. As presented it tells men that God loves them and simply wants them to pray a prayer. Or perhaps they are told that they need to stop some outward action and say a prayer and then start coming to church. Men are told that they have so much worth that God sent His Son to die for them. They are told that God could not stand to live in heaven without them so He sent Christ to the cross for them. There are many variations of these false teachings and all packaged in such a way that a person does not really hear the true Gospel of the glory of God and of what true repentance is. What is presented today sounds more like the glory of man instead of being about the glory of God. As long as man hears how good he is, he has not heard about God and the Gospel of the glory of God. It is that simple.
Man must see that his sin is really pride and selfishness and be turned from that to be centered on God in all things. The Gospel of glory does not leave men loving themselves in idolatry, but reconciles man to God in such a way that man becomes the temple of the glory of God. As the temple of God, man must love the glory of God rather than himself or he is still an idolater. The Gospel of the glory of God should ravish the hearts of men in such a way that they see their own vileness and cry out to God for grace. But if the glory of God is not presented or talked about and man is the focus, then the Gospel of God has not been presented and the Gospel of the glory of God has been lost.
In the United States the focus has been on church growth and so the Gospel is seen as a product that needs to be sold. This is utterly idolatrous in conception. The Gospel is not a product, it is a proclamation from the God of glory that all men must repent of sin and love Him with all of their beings. The Gospel is all about how God enables men to do that through Christ. The Gospel declares the wondrous love and grace of God which is quite opposite of the self-centered message that men want to hear now. Man wants to hear that he is good and that he can remain in control of his life. But the Gospel of glory does not leave that as an option. It tells of the Lord Jesus Christ who is Lord in reality in the hearts and minds of those that He delivers. Man cannot remain in control but he must bow to the reign of the glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Christ came to vindicate the name of God and save sinners to the glory of God the Father. The Gospel is all about how God glorifies Himself in saving sinners and brings sinners who are dead in their sins of self-love and self-centeredness to a place where they now love and live for the glory of God and not themselves. That is a Gospel that has been lost in self-centered America and it is because man has turned from the true God to a low view of God.
God Loves... Himself 
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