The Weakness of the "Modern" Gospel

I recently read a statistic that between 80 and 90% of all those who make a profession of faith will be out of church by the end of the first year. In one mainline denomination, 240,000 people made professions of faith last year but only 14,000 could be accounted for a year later. It has been said that 200 years ago, just the opposite was true. Back then, even though not as many people were told the Gospel, only 10-20% backslid within the first year. So my question Is, what has happened in the past 200 years to the Gospel that makes it too weak to hold converts.

It appears that the styles of evangelism have drastically changed since then. Today the gospel message is primarily as follows, "We are all created with a "god-shaped" hole or vacuum in us that when filled with Jesus will make our lives finally make sense and we will begin to have better marriages, finances and health. To be really comfortable and happy in this life you have to "put on" Jesus."

The problem I see with this message is that it promises "comfort" instead of salvation! If I come to Jesus because I have been sold on the fact that my life will be better if I do...then the second my life doesn't become better I will begin to doubt the message. I might hang in there for a little while just in case it will still work, but after being disappointed a few times I will discard this new faith since it "didn't work for me." However, if I am presented the gospel in the way George Whitfield, Charles Spurgeon, or John Wesley presented it, I would not be discouraged when my life turned negative and things got hard. You see, they never told anybody that God would make their life better. They pointed people back to the law of God. They "awakened" sin in people's life first through the law, and then offered the cure for it through the gospel. No one will appreciate God's gift of salvation until they are convinced they needed saving in the first place.

An illustration from a book I'm reading right now helps make the point here:If two people were on a plane and they were each given a parachute and told to put it on, but each of them was given a different reason for wearing it, you would probably see two different attitudes towards it. When the first passenger arrives he is told that there is a parachute under his seat and he needs to put it on because it will improve his flight. So he thinks to himself, "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but hey if it will make my life better I'll give it a shot." So he puts the parachute on and immediately discovers that it is heavy, and it makes sitting down very uncomfortable. He sticks with it a little longer just in case...and that's when he notices that other people around him without parachutes are laughing at him and making fun of him. In a moment of disgust he rips the parachute off and doesn't want anything to do with it from then on. In fact, he is mad at the person who told him to put it on, because it most definitely did not improve his flight, so that person lied to him!On the other hand, the second passenger is told when he arrives that there is a parachute under your seat and you need to put it on because you will have to jump out of the plane at some moment during the flight. This guy quickly puts it on and because his mind is focused on the fact that he has to jump in the near future...he doesn't even notice the weight or that he can't sit comfortably. The more uncomfortable he becomes and the more the people heckle him, the tighter he grips the parachute and hangs on. He doesn't throw away the parachute when uncomfortable because he didn't put it on in the first place for comfort; he put it on so he wouldn't die!

When we tell people that they need to put on Jesus so there life can be better, they discard Him as soon as they realize that that promise was a lie. However, if we correctly tell them that based upon the holy law of God (ten commandments) they are guilty just like the rest of us, and that the penalty for that guilt is eternal punishment unless they put on Jesus, (who is the only way to salvation) they will put Him on and keep Him on even when trouble comes in this life.

What do you think?