The Dangers of the Gospel of Accommodation
A
sermon given by David Wilkerson at an Assemblies of God headquarters chapel
service.
By David Wilkerson
I am not coming to you as a pastor but with a
prophetic word. God so shook me recently with this message that I should bring it somewhere, sometime in
Springfield. This morning the Lord, by His Spirit, spoke to my heart that this is the time. He has called me to be
one of His watchmen, and I have wept over this and prayed that He will help me deliver the message in a spirit of
love. This is not a chastisement but a warning for the Assemblies of God.
A New Gospel
Accommodate means to adapt, to make suitable
and acceptable, to make convenient. A gospel of accommodation is creeping into the United States. It’s an American
cultural invention to appease the lifestyle of luxury and pleasure. Primarily a Caucasian, suburban gospel, it’s
also in our major cities and is sweeping the nation, influencing ministers of every denomination, and giving birth
to megachurches with thousands who come to hear a no- confronting message. It’s an adaptable gospel that is
spoon-fed through humorous skits, drama, and short, nonabrasive sermonettes on how to cope—called a seeker-friendly
or sinner-friendly gospel.
To begin with, those terms are unscriptural.
The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been confronting—there is no such thing as a friendly gospel but a friendly
grace.
This new gospel is being propagated by
bright, young, talented ministers. They have come upon a formula which states you can go into any town or city; and
if you have the right formula, within a short time you can raise a mega church.
If you are a young man and have certain
skills, you find those skills and a part of the city that would best suit you. You move into that area, poll it,
and find out what the no churchgoers want:
“You don’t like choirs. Well, would you go to
a church that didn’t have a choir?” Yes.
“You don’t like to wear suits. Would you go
where it’s informal?” Yes.
Then you go to your computer and design a
gospel that will not confront but will shoot out the desires and the needs of the people. After you have gathered a
handful of people, you keep interviewing them to find out what they want; then you design your message to help
people cope with their needs. The program you design is intended to make the church comfortable and friendly for
all sinners who wish to attend.
This gospel is fast becoming the most
prosperous and flourishing of all religious movements. Thousands attend these churches. The pastor is the CEO, and
it becomes a business. They make no bones about it: They are following Madison Avenue tactics and can make a
success of it. Their formula for quick church growth is cleverly packaged and is being sold especially to young
ministers—those who want to be a part of the big boys and what’s happening on a fast track. They want it to happen
quickly.
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Paul’s Warning
Paul warned of the coming of another gospel
and another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4). He warned the church that it’s really not another gospel but a perversion
of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. If you hear any other gospel, he said, let that preacher be accursed. In other
words, no matter how pleasant, how pious, or how sincere, if the message is not the death of sin through the cross
of Jesus Christ, let it be accursed.
I tremble when I read in the Scriptures that
in the last days Satan is going to come right into the church posing as an angel of light. He’s going to take
ministers who, at one time, had the touch of God, and he’s going to transform them into angels of light to become
his tool of deception. That’s frightening. It causes me to fall on my face before God for such false, deceitful
workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. Therefore, it’s no great thing if ministers also are transformed as the ministers of righteousness
whose end shall be according to their works.
Paul said they are going to glory in the
flesh, in their bigness, their numbers, their influence, and their contemporariness. They will boast they are
contemporary, that there is a gospel that is out of style that doesn’t reach human need anymore. They will glory in
the world’s acceptance. Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but
inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15). The context of that warning was: “Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth to life, and few there be
that find it” (verse 14).
His warning was to beware of the wolves who
are going to say it’s really not that narrow and straight—they are going to come posing as submissive sheep. Jesus
put His finger on the cause: ambition—ambitious ravening wolves. In the Greek it means “starved for recognition and
quick gratification, quick growth.”
Jesus left no doubt about His meaning. For
example, He was addressing a struggling pastor who has worked for years and hasn’t seen the kind of growth he wants
to see. A young man with an accommodating gospel moves into town and and within a very short time has a megachurch.
People are flocking there because there is entertainment; it’s a gospel of fun. I’ve been in some of them. It’s the
gospel of entertainment that has no conviction whatsoever. There is very little in their gospel that speaks to
sinners of repentance, brokenness, and cross-bearing. A Christ is preached, Jesus’ name is mentioned, but Paul said
theirs is another gospel, another Jesus.
Paul warned that if you are caught in this
trap, if you want that hook of entertainment, that hook of sudden growth, this is the hook: The enemy will put in
your path a teaching.
I have two preacher sons. One of them
confessed to me, “Dad, I was that close to being sucked in because I fasted and prayed and didn’t see the growth I
wanted to see, and I saw these others grow. That hook was there, and I almost bought it.”
That is something this Movement and every
movement is going to have to look at and deal with: It is possible, through unholy ambition, to be transformed from
a man of God, who has been seeking God and getting a word from heaven, to an unholy ambition and a tool of Satan.
Let every pastor heed this warning: The moment you begin to consider the “competition,” seeds of accommodation will
be planted in your heart. Suddenly, Satan will put in your path a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a man who will try to
seduce you into ungodly ambition and achieving church growth at any cost. Yet the truth is, it could cost you your
soul.
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The Right Formula
If you find the right formula, according to
the accommodation gospel, you can succeed in any field of endeavour.
An editorial in the New York Times (March 1,
1998) was entitled, How To Manufacture a Best-Seller. It told the story of John Baldwin, a 53-year-old carpenter
and a would-be writer, who had struggled for years to make a living from writing. He determined to become famous
and rich overnight by writing a best-selling medical thriller. He studied five or six best thrillers. After 7
years’ research he found 10 steps to producing a best-selling medical novel. He honed it with some Hollywood
writers and agents, and here is the 10-step formula he used:
The hero is an expert.
The villain is an expert.
You must watch all the villain’s activities
over his shoulder.
The hero has a team of experts behind him,
working in various fields.
Two or more on the team must fall in
love.
Two or more on the team must
die.
The villain must turn his attention from his
initial goal to the team.
The villain and the hero must live to do
battle again in the sequel.
All deaths must proceed from the individual
to the group.
If the story bogs down, just kill
somebody.
John Baldwin had the formula but no story, so
he read of research by John Marr who was studying the epidemiological causes of the 10 plagues, hoping to explain
their causes scientifically. The two men formed a partnership, and using Baldwin’s 10–step formula, together wrote
a 640 page manuscript called The Eleventh Plague. Harper Collins bought it for almost $2 million.
Baldwin, who has no passion for writing,
said, “If I get the formula, I’m going to be a multimillionaire and famous.” Well, he’s going to make another $3
million on the movie rights, and he’s laughing all the way to the bank. His philosophy: “If you have the right
formula, you can be a success at anything.”
You see, this is the gospel of
accommodation—the formula. You get the formula, you get what people want, and you can be a success. I am here to
tell you that a formula-based, accommodating gospel is contrary to everything in the Scriptures.
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God’s Method
Certain men of God met at Antioch to send out
men to preach the gospel and establish churches (Acts 13). Here is God’s method:
1. They ministered to the Lord and fasted.
This was their planning session—worshiping, fasting, waiting on the Lord, and calling for direction from the Holy
Ghost. They did not move until the Holy Ghost spoke. There were no formulas, no surveys, no door-to-door asking
people what they wanted and then serving it to them.
2. They prayed—no strategizing, no network,
and not one step until the Holy Ghost spoke His mind. Then and only then did they lay hands upon them, anoint them,
and send them out in the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost.
Paul lived his whole religious life on
religious formulas, and he said they didn’t work. He gave up on formulas and said, “I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul boasted unashamedly, “We preach
Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). He was
saying, “Gentlemen (he was talking to his peers), they want us to accommodate. The Jews are looking for signs in
our gospel. The Greeks want the wisdom. They want to know how to cope, but I’m not compromising. There’s only one
message. Our gospel has been and will be the Cross and its demands as well as its victories. As for me, I’m
determined to preach nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified.”
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What the Gospel of Accommodation
Does
I see three things in the gospel of
accommodation:
1. It is the accommodation of man’s love for
pleasure.
“This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers…of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1–4). The
Greek for pleasure is “sensuous, lustful, voluptuous, exciting, gratifying, sensual pleasure.” If you move toward
this gospel of accommodation, you are going to have to accommodate the people’s lust because they are not going to
give up their love for excitement. They’ve made gods of sports, pleasure, and lust. Unless that is confronted by
the gospel of Jesus Christ, unless there is a truth that comes forth, you have to accommodate this lust that is in
the American lifestyle.
I was shocked by an article in the New York
Times.1 Philip Wogaman, President Clinton’s pastor, said, “Sexual misconduct does not automatically render a leader
immoral. Morality should also be judged by indicators like courage, concern for the poor, fostering world peace,
running the economy responsibly, and furthering racial equality. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are merely
cultural expressions.” In other words, Mr Clinton has been told that he has enough good indicators to overrule
another that would be immoral in his life.
God said that men who preach doctrines like
these resist the truth; they are men of corrupt minds counterfeiting the faith.
In disbelief I watched a televised Sunday
night service of a seeker-friendly church—seeker-friendly by its own admission. To a packed church where thousands
attend, the pastor said, “This is fun night, a David Letterman night.” The youth pastor came out and did his
monologue as David Letterman. Then they showed 10 of the most boring things teenagers do during preaching. Three of
the 10 were throwing spitballs, yawning, and picking their noses. The crowd went crazy. After the service, the
pastor brazenly announced, “We’re not here to offend people, but to make church comfortable for everyone.” I
wept.
I ask you, how long do you think that
audience would stay in church if the pastor was gripped by the Holy Ghost, convicted for “entertaining” people
toward hell, and suddenly preached a message entitled, “Be sure your sins will find you out”? How long would people
keep coming back if a gospel of holy living and separation from the world was preached? Two things would happen:
(1) Those who are misguided, hungry, and didn’t know any better would weep and run to the altar. (2) Those who are
judiciously blinded by their pleasures in madness would flee from the church and never come again. The church doors
would close.
I keep this foremost in my mind and before my
eyes, because every minister of the gospel one day has to face it when he stands before the Lord. He will say, “Son
of man, I made thee a watchman. You were to hear the words of My mouth and give them warnings from Me. You were to
tell the wicked, ‘Thou shalt surely die.’ And you gave them no warning nor spoke to warn the wicked to turn from
their wicked ways to save their lives. These same wicked men died in their sins, but their blood I’ll require at
your hands.”
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2. This gospel of accommodation accommodates all man’s
aversion to self-denial.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of
self-denial. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”
(Matthew 16:24). Self-denial is not something you give. It’s someone you give up—the giving up of yourself, giving
up everything you are. It’s a living sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ to present your body a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. God has every right to say to His church, “If you expect
to give Me your body, your resurrected body, all through eternity, I have every right—it’s only reasonable of Me
and your reasonable service—to ask your body why you’re here on earth. I want every part of you. I want you to be
spiritually minded. I want to possess you.”
The gospel we preach must bring people under
the total possession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it’s a gospel of accommodation.
The seeker-friendly gospel accommodates the
body. The human body belongs to Him. What we see in America is a neognosticism where you take your physical body on
one side and do as you please as long as your spirit is right with God. This is coming even out of the White House,
this dividing of personality. No, we are one personality, and it all belongs to Jesus Christ. This neognosticism is
destroying the faith of many throughout the nation.
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3. There is an
accommodation of man’s offense to the Gospel.
The Scriptures state, “Behold, I lay in Zion
a stumbling stone and rock of offense.” Paul spoke of the offense of the Cross. This is the heart of God’s anger.
We’re not called to the Cross but to go through the Cross—to experience the same thing Jesus did, not only coming
to the Cross but dying and going into the grave with Jesus Christ and then being raised from the dead to a newness
of life.
It’s cruel, pastor, to lead sinners to the
Cross, tell them they are forgiven by faith, and then allow them to go back to their habits and lusts of the flesh,
unchanged and still in the devil’s shackles. If the preaching of grace doesn’t have as its goal the producing of a
walk of righteousness, then it’s another gospel, another Jesus.
I listened in horror to a man, who attended
one of the largest seeker-friendly churches, being interviewed by CBS. He said, “I come to this church because I’m
comfortable. I’m never made to feel uneasy. I bring my Jewish friends and my business friends, and I know nothing
will ever be said that will offend them. The best part of it is, the whole thing only lasts an
hour.”
Take it from me: You can get your big church
and be one of the big boys, but it’s going to cost you your soul if you preach with a focus only on earthly things,
rather than on the things of God.
I’ve lived in New York City 35 years. We have
103 nationalities from all walks of life—from the poorest to the richest. Probably 300 or more from the United
Nations live there. But I look over a congregation (so does my dear friend, Jim Cymbala, in Brooklyn) and see men
who have just walked in from the porno shops and are wild animals. I see a businessman friend who was CEO of a
multimillion–dollar company, but he started snorting coke, lost everything, and is now a bum on the street. He sits
in the congregation. A little 14-year-old girl with AIDS is up on 8th Avenue performing lewd acts before dirty old
men. She comes to church and keeps saying, “Pastor Dave, I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to get
help.”
I’m not about to put up a silly skit and
preach a 15-minute message on how to cope to a multitude of people who are dying and going to hell. I tremble at
the thought.
People don’t like to hear this, but we’re
headed for perilous times—just a few years away from a collapse like the world has never known. When that happens,
all who preached prosperity are going to disappear because the people will say, “Your gospel has failed me.” When
that time comes, I want to grasp onto Jesus, and I want everyone I’ve preached to to have faith in the keeping
power of Jesus Christ. I want them to know Him in His fullness. I want to know that I’ve done it in love, in grace,
that they would know the difference between the holy and the profane.
May God, in Jesus’ name, spare the Assemblies
of God forever. If I have ever given a prophetic message in my lifetime that God intended for a purpose, it is
now.
Many are being deceived. If they are not
awakened, what I warn you about will happen.
I pray that God will keep the Assemblies of
God in its original purposes. In New York City, He has proved that the people come to hear a straight gospel, and
thousands will come where the Word of God is being preached without compromise and yet with grace. May the young
men who are discouraged in the Movement not try for a shortcut but be broken and on their faces before the
Lord.
May we get our eyes off growth and onto a new
revelation of who Jesus is.
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